After what seemed a long time, the thought registered that somebody other than himself must have lifted the remote from his hand and shut off the television. He tried to force his eyes open, but they were enormously heavy, so he surrendered to the heaviness and went back into the grayness.
After a while the grayness lifted again, and again the thought registered that someone else must be in the living room with him. He hoped it was the pretty woman with capers and the juice of one lemon, but when he looked back at the grayness from just outside the edge of it, he saw that it was separating into rising wisps like fog over water. He did not want it to go, but it was quickly becoming too thin to take him in again, too thin to cover and hold him.
A while later he reasoned that Bowen had sent a trooper to wake him. He did not wonder how the trooper had gotten inside or which trooper it was. After all, he had left his back door open. Maybe he had left his cupboard open too. Maybe the refrigerator as well. None of that mattered. All that mattered was that the white pills were a wonderful thing and the gray nothing had been wonderful too and also the sweet indifference that came with it.
What finally intruded upon the indifference and spoiled it was the scent of cigarette smoke. It began distantly, like a memory that nagged but would not quite materialize. Had the scent been sweeter, as of leaf smoke on an autumn evening, he might have used it to deepen the indifference, a boost to the white pills’ sedation. But the stink of cigarette smoke was unmistakable. And as the scent increased in his consciousness, the wonderful indifference gave way to annoyance.
The scent buzzed and pricked at him. DeMarco wanted to return to the gray nothing, but the scent would not allow it, and before long, he was hearing his own thoughts again, and he knew he had to listen.
His instincts told him to remain still while his stumbling thoughts found their footing, and when they did his pulse began to hammer and his breath grew quick and shallow. The last time he had experienced that scent was in Bonnie’s house. But he had never seen Bonnie smoking nor had he smelled the scent on her. And he finally put a name to the scent and the prickling sensation that accompanied it.
He kept his eyes closed and wondered how close Carl Inman was to him, on which side of the recliner. He listened for Inman’s breathing and tried to sense the heat from Inman’s body and decided that the man was on his left and very close. Probably he was sitting on the sofa and watching DeMarco, had been there long enough for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Probably he was holding a knife, though maybe also the handgun he had used to threaten Huston. DeMarco wondered what fraction of a second would be needed for him to vault up out of the chair and dive for cover and, with luck, race into the bedroom where his service weapon in its holster hung from the chair.
Not time enough, he told himself. He was still groggy from the white pills. He was still struggling to piece his thoughts together, to fit them into a linearity. Whereas Inman was wide awake and alert.
You don’t stand a chance, he thought.
He opened his eyes and slowly turned his head toward the sofa. In the darkness, Inman was little more than a hulking shadow. The only light in the room came from the blue digital readout on the DVD player atop the television and from the dull glow of the streetlamp against the Persian blinds and drawn sheer curtains. He remembered the day he had hung those blinds. Remembered Laraine as his cheerful assistant, her hand on the small of his back as he drilled the pilot holes. You’re so sexy with a power tool in your hand, she had teased. She was young and beautiful and clear-eyed in his memory. The man drilling the holes was middle-aged and tired beyond his years, and he knew he was soon going to die.
To the silhouette, DeMarco said, “Nothing you do to me is going to change your fate, Carl. There’s already an alert out for you and Bonnie. You’ve got nowhere to go.”
“Then I guess this will just have to be for the fun of it.”
Yet Inman did not move. He was seated on the edge of the sofa seat but slouched back with his head and shoulders resting against the top of the cushion. He said, “You’re a sound sleeper for a cop.”
“You caught me on a good night.”
“So you think this is a good one, do you?”
DeMarco turned away from him. The digital readout on the DVD player said 3:27. DeMarco told him, “I’ve been asleep for almost nine hours. That’s more sleep than I’ve had all week.”
Inman’s laugh was a single grunt.
“So fuck you,” DeMarco said. He let his hand fall toward the wooden lever on the side of the recliner, then felt his pinkie finger graze something cool and smooth. He gripped the empty Corona bottle around the neck and lifted it off the floor. Now he moved his hand to the wooden lever on the recliner. He took in a slow, deep breath and held it.
Then he yanked the lever up. As the footrest banged down, he threw himself sideways over the armrest and landed on his knees with the recliner between him and Inman.