Tires ground on gravel outside.
He rose, twitched aside the curtain, and saw Mary, pulling into the drive in a banana-colored RAV4 that he didn’t recognize. Coils of smoke unwound from the tops of the palms, turned to golden froth in the early light.
Kellaway left the Webley on the couch. He opened the door as she drew to a stop and shut off the RAV.
“What’chu doing here?” she asked.
“Could say the same to you.”
She stood at the front end of the RAV, scrawny and sinewy in a pair of cutoff jeans and a man’s flannel shirt. She held one hand over her eyes as if to shield them from the sun, although there was no particular glare.
“Get a couple of my things,” she said. “He told you?”
“I know about it,” Kellaway said. “You took it easy living off his insurance money till it was all used up, then figured you’d jump ship, huh?”
She said, “You think changing his diapers and pumping up his cock every night is taking it easy, you do it for a while.”
Kellaway shook his head and said, “I don’t know about changing his diapers, but can you come in here and show me where the urine bags are? The one he’s got on now burst, and there’s piss all over the place.”
“Oh, Jesus,” she said. “Jesus Christ. How much did you let him drink last night?”
“Too much, I guess.”
“Hire the fucking handicapped. I’ll fix it.”
“Thanks,” he said, stepping back into the house. “I’ll meet you in the bedroom.”
9:38 A.M.
After it was done and she was on the floor with a hole where her right eye had been, Kellaway put Jim’s .44 in Mary’s own hand. He sat for a while on the edge of the bed, his wrists resting on his knees. The ringing echo of the shot seemed to throb inside him, to reverberate long after it should’ve faded. He felt switched off inside. Blank. She’d been crying as she stared into the barrel. She had offered to suck his cock, snot bubbling out of her nose. Some tears and snot were good. It would look like she’d been weeping when she shot herself.
How would the cops take it? Maybe they’d figure that after discovering the body of her former lover, she decided to join him in the after life, a shabby, scrawny Juliet racing after her disabled, diabetic Romeo. Then again, maybe her boyfriend couldn’t swear she’d been in bed with him all night. Maybe they’d hang Jim’s murder on her. It wasn’t like they were going to find Jim’s suicide note. Kellaway would take it with him and get rid of it somewhere.
Or maybe the police would smell a put-up job, but who gave a fuck if they did? Try to prove something. Let ’em come fishing. He had wriggled off the hook at the mall, he could wriggle out of this.
He needed some fresh air and went outside to find some. Only there wasn’t any. The day stank like an ashtray. It had almost been better inside.
Kellaway’s thoughts spun like sparks rising from a collapsing fire. He was waiting for them to settle when he heard—almost felt—a faint throb in the air. Fine-grained particles of smoke shivered all around him. The morning was full of strange vibrations and tremors. He tilted his head and listened, heard the distant ringtone of his cell.
He tramped to his car, plucked the phone out of the passenger seat. He had missed seven calls, most of them from Jay Rickles. It was Jay now.
He answered. “Yeah?”
“Where the hell have you been all morning?” Rickles sounded bent.
“I went for a walk. Needed to clear my head.”
“Is it clear now?”
“I guess.”
“Good, because you got a goddamn mess to figure out. In the next hour every news channel in this state is going to be running with the story that you pointed a gun at your toddler and threatened to shoot him if your wife ever left you. Do you know how that looks?”
“Where’d you get that story?”
“Where do you think I got the story? I read the fucking transcript from your fucking court proceedings, two hours ago. I got to it before anyone else did so I could find out what I’m up against. You didn’t feel like mentioning any of this to me at any time?”
“Why would I mention something like that? Something humiliating like that?”
“Because it was going to come out anyway. Because you sat next to me on TV to tell the world what a big hero you were, taking out a shooter with a gun you had no right to possess.”
“Think how lucky it is I didn’t follow the injunction. Becki Kolbert was just getting started when I walked in.”
Rickles took a long, unsteady breath.
“I came back from Iraq with PTSD. I didn’t take antidepressants because I didn’t want to solve my problems with medication. I never pointed a loaded gun at my son, but I did do things I regret. Things I wish I could take back. If I hadn’t done them, my child would still be living with me.” A lot of it was true. He had pointed a gun at George once, to make a point to Holly, but it wasn’t loaded at the time. And for all he knew he might have PTSD. More came back from Iraq with it than not. He wasn’t lying when he said he’d never gotten on antidepressants. He’d never been offered any.
For a long time, Rickles didn’t reply. When he did, his voice was still husky with emotion, but Kellaway could hear he had calmed down. “And that’s what you’re going to tell the press today at the candle-lighting. You say it just like that.”
“You know it’s that reporter trying to stir shit,” Kellaway said. “The black one. Same one who tried to make your department look bad. People don’t believe the blacks can be racist, too, but they can. I could see the way she looked at me. I’m a white man with a gun, and to them we’re all Nazis. To the blacks. She looks at you the same way.”
Rickles laughed. “Isn’t that the truth. Doesn’t matter how many toys for tots I’ve handed out to little pickaninnies with food-stamp mamas and daddies in jail. Black people feel bad about all the things they don’t have, and they resent everyone who’s made out better. It’s never your hard work that got you where you are—it’s always the racist system.”
“You sure you even still want me to go to the candle-lighting?” Kellaway said. “Maybe it might be better for you to put distance between the two of us.”
“Fuck that,” Rickles said, and he laughed again, and Kellaway knew it was all right. “Too late anyway. We’ve been on cable news together every night all week. You don’t know this yet, but I got an e-mail from a top man at the NRA, and they want us both to deliver a joint key note speech in Las Vegas next year. Hotel rooms, tickets all paid, ten-thousand-dollar speaking fee. I spoke to them about the restraining order, and it don’t bother them at all. Far as they’re concerned, it just proves the state puts people at risk when they step in to deprive them of their rights.” He sighed and then said, “We’ll get through it. You’re still the good guy in this. Just . . . no more surprises, Kellaway. All right?”