“I don’t think so.”
“I could get you a drink,” she said. “A real one.”
Hawley thought of the whiskey he’d seen in the kitchen. Then he shook it off and glanced at Talbot’s wife. She’d guessed this about him just by looking, five minutes with her one good eye.
“My husband made a pledge to give it up,” she said, “on our wedding day.”
“Then why do you keep a bottle around?” Hawley asked.
“I didn’t say he’d stopped.”
The belt Hawley had used to tie the woman was cutting into her wrists. He could see the marks. She leaned her head to the side and wiped her nose on her shoulder. Even with the blood on her face she was lovely. In her men’s clothes she looked tough and worn-out, but there was a softness, too.
“He wrote me a letter,” she said. “It was the most wonderful letter. When I read it, I was so happy I cried. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”
“But he broke his promise,” said Hawley.
She rolled her violet eye at him. “Love isn’t about keeping promises. It’s about knowing someone better than anyone else. I’m the only one who knows him. I’m the only one who ever will.”
The woman seemed convinced but Hawley knew a raw deal when he heard one. He thought of the whiskey in the cabinet, and all it represented—the weakness and the lies. He wondered what would happen if he left now and took Talbot’s wife with him, if they walked away from her husband and Jove and all the rest. There was at least twenty years and a world of differences between them, but Talbot’s wife held something deep inside of her that Hawley knew he could spend the rest of his life trying to uncover. He took a step toward the chair. He reached down and touched the belt, and that’s when the first rifle shot came through the window.
It hit Hawley in the shoulder, the pain searing like a hot poker driven through and turned, the bullet twisting and tearing and then continuing out the other side of him, through the air, and jamming into the frame of the skeleton photograph, hanging next to the closet. A second bullet went wide and hit the wall and then another shattered the glass and tagged Talbot’s wife in the neck.
Hawley’s left arm was useless, and he dropped the .45, spun away, then fell to a crouch on the floor. If he counted right, Talbot had two more bullets before he’d have to reload. Hawley waited until another windowpane broke and then he yanked a napkin from the kitchen table and pressed it against his shoulder. It hurt like hell but he’d had worse.
The gunshots stopped. The only sound was Talbot’s wife, still tied to the chair and wheezing. Hawley slid over and managed to untie the belt. As soon as she was free her fingers dug at her throat like she was trying to strangle herself. Hawley pulled her hand away—there was a lot of blood. He gathered the .45 and together they crawled into the kitchen. By the time they reached the linoleum, her face was pale, her shirt dark red. She pressed her back against the cupboards. Hawley pointed the gun.
“You give him some kind of signal?” he asked.
“No,” she managed.
Hawley pulled a pot holder from the counter and ran it under the sink and pressed it to the side of her throat. “You’re going to tell him to quit. You’re going to get him to come inside here and talk.”
“He’s not one for talking.”
“Well, then, you talk,” said Hawley.
They both heard someone outside the front door, shaking the handle against the lock, and then the old man’s voice came through. “Maureen?”
“She’s here,” Hawley called out. “She’s hit.”
“Fuck,” said Talbot.
“Don’t come through that door,” said Hawley.
“If you hurt my wife I’ll kill you,” said Talbot.
“You’re the one who shot her,” said Hawley.
“Maureen!” Talbot was shouting now.
“Doug,” Talbot’s wife said. “I’m all right. Stop yelling.”
“She’s bleeding, though,” said Hawley. “She’s bleeding a lot.” And she was. The pot holder was soaked through and turning the same rusted color as her shirt.
“We just want what we came for,” said Hawley. “We don’t want to hurt anybody. Just tell me where it is and you can take her to the hospital.”
They were all quiet. The only noise was the running toilet, still chiming through the door to the bathroom. Hawley started to worry that Talbot had left and was coming in another way. Then he heard a thud against the wood, like someone had punched it.
“It’s in the closet,” said Talbot.
“Fine,” said Hawley. “That’s just fine. She’s coming with me to check, so don’t try anything. Okay?”
Talbot didn’t answer.
“Doug,” the woman said.
“Okay,” said Talbot. “Okay.”
“Can you walk?” Hawley asked. Talbot’s wife nodded, then winced. Her cloudy eye was spinning up, down, left, while her violet eye stayed on Hawley. “We’re going to the hallway,” he called to Talbot, and then they did, moving slowly, her pressing the pot holder to her throat and Hawley right behind with the gun, leaving two trails of blood behind them.
When they reached the closet, Talbot’s wife slid down against the wall. The floor was still littered with all the junk that had collapsed on top of Hawley earlier, mountains of clothes and boxes and all the drawings.
“Where is it?” Hawley asked.
Talbot’s wife shook her head.
“Tell me where,” Hawley yelled. “Now.”
“The dress.” Talbot’s voice came from behind the door. “Her wedding dress.”
Hawley turned to the wife.
“It’s in the back.” She closed her eyes. “Behind everything else.”
Hawley moved the gun to his bad hand. The tendons in his arm burned with the weight of it. His palm was covered with blood and the metal was slippery. With his right he started throwing things out of the closet, a life’s worth of memories. Overcoats and photo albums and dishes, a set of old 78 records, silk flowers, a moth-eaten batting for a quilt, fire tongs and lightbulbs and stiff leather jackets. Hawley’s shoulder ached with hurt as he tossed everything, groping in the dark as he went deeper, dragging the boxes and kicking them behind, the smell of mothballs permeating it all, until at last his fingers grazed a soft shape covered in plastic, then the crush of crinoline against the back wall of the closet. Hawley felt for the hanger and pulled the garment bag out. It was awkward and heavy as a body, the plastic yellowed and torn at the seams.
He hung it on the hall light and pulled down the zipper. The dress looked like something out of the fifties, with lace sleeves and a tulle skirt. The shape was stuffed with tissue paper and cardboard, so that it held the form of a woman. A headless ghost bride.
“I was skinnier then,” Talbot’s wife said.
Hawley didn’t know the first place to start. He’d already bled on the dress, a streak of red across the bodice. “Where’d he put it?”
“Try the purse,” she said.