Bloody River Blues

with more energy than he thought necessary.
    “Are you all right?” Pellam had whispered this same question at other moments like this. The query did not have its literal meaning, of course, but was intended as an emergency exit that allowed other words—whatever she wanted or needed to say—to escape.
    Nina whispered, “I have to tell you something.”
    “Hormones,” Pellam said, to be light about it. “It’s all right. I understand.” He kissed her hair. She moved away from him. “You want me to leave?” he asked, already offended.
    “Well, yes, I do. Not this minute, though.”
    “You’re beautiful,” he said, trying to recapture some romance.
    “Stop saying that.” The curtness in her voice seemed not so much irritation as distraction, as if she was considering how to express a complicated thought and was running through variations before she spoke. When she did speak, finally, sitting up and pulling the sheet around her, the message was not as tricky as he had anticipated. She said, “Your friend, Donnie. The cop? I just wanted you to know that I slept with him the other night.”
    WHEN STEVIE FLOM heard the sticky sound of the camper’s slowing tires on damp asphalt he stood up fast and notched the back of his hand on a bolt.
    “Damn,” he whispered, and sucked the small wound. He tasted blood and rust and he wondered if he ought to get a tetanus shot. But then he figured that if the cops looked around this building after they found the body, they might see some blood on the bolt and search all the hospitals for people who’d gotten shots. He was proud that he’d thought of this.
    For the third time that night he checked the Beretta. He pulled the slide back slightly; there was one round in the chamber and the clip was full. They were small bullets. Just .22 longs, not even the full-size long rifles. But they had advantages. For one thing, you needed no silencer. Another advantage—the gun was so small and the recoil so slight that you could group rapid-fire shots real close.
    Tricks of the trade.
    Stevie watched the Winnebago rock to a stop in the trailer park. The man stepped outside and hooked up the hose and plugged a large electrical cord into a junction box. He returned to the camper.
    Stevie then made his way out of the structurally sound basement that contained evidence of water damage. He cocked the gun and slipped the safety off. He started across River Road.

Chapter 21
    HE WAS THINKING he had done it wrong.
    Forget what she had said and what she had not. Pellam should have stayed.
    This was one of those rules about relationships that no one ever teaches you. Sometimes you were supposed to leave and sometimes you were supposed to stay and you had to read a lot of data fast to figure out which.
    Now, locking the camper door, Pellam debated the matter with himself. It was complicated because he doubted he, or any man, would have done what she did. A confession like that? At some time, sure. (Well, maybe.) But lying in a bed with three scratch marks from her pink nails on his biceps?
    Never.
    “We played cards for a couple of hours,” she had explained. “I wasn’t supposed to be there. It was after visiting hours. I sat on his bed. He’s very sensitive. You wouldn’t think he would be, being a cop. But he is. His hands were the giveaway. They’re very soft.”
    Spare me no details.
    “His wife’s a fruitcake and he’s been very depressed. He said people are afraid to come see himbecause he can’t walk. They’re afraid of him. I think he’s a very funny man.”
    “Is,” Pellam had agreed.
    “One thing led to another. Finally he started to cry. I’m a sucker for men who cry. He said he didn’t think he’d be able to, you know, perform anymore. It’s the one thing that’s eating him up. Even more than not walking. I asked him if I could hold him. And I sat on the bed. And, I guess . . .” She had shrugged her shoulders, and the beautiful breasts that had been pulled and prodded by two men in as many days slipped out from under the sheet. She covered herself again.
    “And he was able to, uhn, perform?” Pellam had asked. He shouldn’t have. He had forgotten he was talking to the Queen of Detail.
    “Oh, yeah,” she had said enthusiastically. “Twice. We were both pretty surprised.”
    Twice?
    Pellam thought, But you slapped my hand when I wanted to do it twice. This, however, would have sounded very juvenile, and he had contented himself with picking