I slurred the words into Lawlor’s shoulder, barely intelligible, but they goaded him into fury. He flung me back onto the SUV’s narrow backseat.
“Why did I kill Maggie, you fucking useless bitch? Because she had sex with that loser Link. Me. I was the one who loved her. I was who she loved best, she told me that, then I saw them, saw them by the lake. And that idiot retard Tommy saw them, too. Dancing. He said they were dancing, he didn’t know what he was looking at. They were screwing.”
He was leaning over me, covering me with spittle. Bad to spit on people, but he wouldn’t stop. “I ran off, but I came back later, came back when Link had gone to work and the retard was getting his rocks off at a fire. Maggie was sitting by the lake, smiling—smiling over Link, not me.
“ ‘How could you.’ I was crying, sobbing real tears, can you believe that, over a stupid bitch who lied to me. ‘Oh, Wade, I’m in love with him,’ ” Lawlor mimicked her in a savage falsetto.
“In love with him? She was in love with that stupid loser? And look what’s become of him, never held a job for more than six months, needed the Army just to get him out of bed in the morning. She could have had me. I’m the success, I make fifty million a year, she chose the wrong person to play games with.
“I choked her, my God, that felt good, and she made it easy, putting her hands on my arm, ‘Oh, Wade, don’t take it so hard, you’ll find the right girl for you, you’ll see.’
“ ‘But what about me? You always said, you and me against the world, I’ll always love you, Wade, but you were lying, you’re just the whore of Babylon.’ ”
He grabbed my shoulders and shook me in his rage. He could strangle me right now and I couldn’t lift my arms to save myself. I tried kicking but my feet moved clumsily. My slack hand bumped against my pocket. My phone. I had just enough strength to turn it on, but I couldn’t speak loudly enough for anyone who answered to hear a cry for help.
“Tommy,” I managed to croak.
“Don’t cry over him.” Lawlor let me go and dusted his hands. “He’s lucky they didn’t give him a lethal injection back then. I called the cops, I told them they’d find Tommy up to no good at Tampier Lake, and sure enough, there he was, crouched over Maggie’s body, looking at her the way he did, like some useless dreary spectator at the show of life.”
“Wuchik?” I slurred.
“Oh, him. You PIs, you think you’re so smart, you watch too many TV shows. Vern Mulliner knows the pain I feel over my sister’s death, the fact that the state lets that retard live on. He lets me know if anyone like a reporter or a fucking stupid lawyer goes talking to him, like the Ashford bitch did! We were already using Wuchnik to dig up crap on Salanter; when we learned that Ashford’s crazy sister was talking to Tommy, we sent Wuchnik out to put a stop to it. And then he saw the clipping and thought he could put the bite on me. Bite me! The vampire bit back. And you thought you could outsmart me! No one can, you socialist liberals, you’ve been after me for years but you can’t touch me.”
He gave a hyena laugh, the way Tommy had, then suddenly bent and picked me up. I still couldn’t fight, couldn’t move my arms except to pat him, a touch like love, not rage. My head spun, swooped, as he hoisted me, raindrops on my face, he staggered, cursed, wobbled along a path in the dark. Frogs, I could hear them, and crickets, night noises. Water lapping.
He shoved me and I fell hard. Metal across my chest and legs, rocking underneath me. Nothing in my stomach, dry heaves, and then a laugh, metal rocking harder, the world upside down, metal on top, water below.
Hold tight to the rail, Boom-Boom said, we go upside down here, cool, it’s the coolest thing ever.
I grabbed the rail, metal cutting into my hands, we were floating through space, so cool, don’t be mad, Mama, we floated like fish in the aquarium.
50.
GONE FISHING
STAN CHALMERS DROVE TO TAMPIER LAKE JUST AS THE SKY was turning pink. A morning on the lake with a rod and line usually cured most of the ills he’d ever suffered, and he badly needed a cure today. Too much unpaid overtime, too many unpaid bills. He’d call in sick at seven, when his shift started.
He walked down to the quay, but didn’t see his boat. When he realized the dock line had been cut, he tried to dial back the rage that swept through him; that was bad for his blood pressure, already high. A day at the lake was supposed to relax you, not give you a stroke.
He started the long hike around the shore, slapping at mosquitoes, swearing under his breath at the garbage-brained, meth-snorting, beer-guzzling jerk who’d done this on the one perfect fishing morning of the month. He caught a bit of luck: he spotted the boat a mere half hour after setting out. It had come aground upside down in a mesh of reeds and high grasses. Stan fought his way through the reeds and lifted the boat up. His plan to row quietly back to where he’d left his gear evaporated when he saw the body of a woman underneath.
51.
V.I.’S LAST CASE