A Maidens Grave

thanks.
    “You let them go, didn’t you?” Brutus asked Bear. “Your plan all along.”
    Bear shook his head. Said something she didn’t catch.
    “I talked to . . .” Brutus snarled.
    “Who?” Bear seemed to ask.
    “The U.S. attorney you cut a deal with.”
    Bear’s face grew dark. “No way, man. No fucking way.”
    Wilcox came up behind him and said something. Bear stabbed a finger at Melanie. “She’s the one . . . .”
    Brutus turned toward her. She gazed back coldly at him then rose and walked slowly over the wet tiles, almost choking on the smell of gasoline. She stopped and stood directly over Donna Harstrawn. With her finger she gestured Brutus forward. Her eyes locked into Bear’s, Melanie lifted the woman’s skirt a foot or two, revealing bloody thighs. She nodded at Bear.
    “You little bitch!” Bear took a step toward her but Brutus caught his arm, pulled Bear’s gun from his belt, tossed it to Stoat.
    “You stupid asshole!”
    “So? I fucked her, so what?”
    Brutus lifted an eyebrow and then pulled a gun from his pocket. He pulled the slide and let it snap forward then pushed a button and took out the little metal tube that held the rest of the bullets. He put the pistol in Melanie’s hand. It was cold as a rock, it gave her power like raw electrical current and it terrified her.
    Bear was muttering something; in the corner of Melanie’s eye she saw his lips moving. But she couldn’t take her eyes from the gun. Brutus stood behind her and directed the barrel toward Bear’s chest. He wrapped her hands in his. She smelled him, a sour scent of unwashed skin.
    “Come on!” Bear’s face was grim. “Quit fooling . . .”
    Brutus was speaking to her; she felt the vibrations on the flesh of her face but she couldn’t understand him. She sensed he was excited, almost aroused, and she felt it too—like a fever. Bear raised his hands. He was muttering something. Shaking his head.
    The gun burned, radioactive. Bear eased away and Brutus adjusted the pistol to keep the muzzle pointed directly at his chest. Melanie pictured him lying atop Mrs. Harstrawn. She pictured him gazing at the twins’ thin legs, their flat chests. Pull the trigger, she thought. Pull it! Her hand started to shake.
    She again felt the vibrations of Brutus’s words. In her mind, she heard his voice, an oddly soothing voice, the phantom voice. “Go ahead,” he said.
    Why isn’t it firing? I’m ordering my finger to pull.
    Nothing.
    Bear was crying. Tears down his fat cheeks, running into his beard.
    Melanie’s hand was shaking badly. Brutus’s firm hand curled around hers.
    Then the gun silently bucked in her hand. Melanie gasped as the hot wind from the muzzle hit her face. A tiny dot appeared in Bear’s chest and he gripped the wound with both hands, looked into the air, and fell backwards.
    No, it fired by itself! I didn’t do it, I didn’t!
    I swear!
    She screamed those words to herself, over and over. And yet . . . yet she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure at all. For an instant—before the horror of what had happened hit home—she was enraged that she might not have been the one responsible for his death. That Brutus, not she, had applied the final ounce of pressure.
    Brutus stepped away and reloaded the gun, pulled a lever, and the slide snapped forward.
    Bear’s mouth moved, his eyes darkened. She watched his miserable face, which looked as if all the injustice of the earth were conspiring to cheat a good man out of his life. Melanie didn’t even try to figure out what he was saying.
    She thought: Every once in a while deafness is a blessing.
    Handy stepped past Melanie. He looked down at Bear. Muttered something to him. He fired one shot into the man’s leg, which kicked violently in reaction. Bear’s face contorted with pain. Then Handy fired again—into his other leg. Finally he aimed leisurely at the huge gut; the gun exploded once more. Bear shuddered once, stiffened, and went still.
    Melanie sank to the floor, put her arms around Emily and Beverly.
    Brutus bent down and pulled her close. His face was only inches away. “I didn’t do that ’cause he fucked that woman. I did it ’cause he didn’t do what I’d told him. He let those girls get away and was gonna snitch on us. Now you just sit on back there.”
    How can I understand his words if I can’t understand him?
    How? Melanie wonders. I hear him so perfectly, just like I hear my father.
    So you’ll be home