Death Notes

explode.
    ‘You’re my enemy,’ she whimpered. ‘Double cross... How... How could you?’
    I forced myself to keep murmuring soothing things -anything I could think of that might bring her back to earth.
    ‘Let’s just go in the other room, Sharon. We can sit down, have a cup of coffee, and talk things over, all right? You look exhausted, Sharon. Are you tired?’
    The hand holding the gun faltered. Sweat trickled down my forehead into my left eye and blurred my vision. I blinked and focused. Now the gun was pointed at my stomach. That was an improvement, but not by much. Sharon was talking again.
    ‘Of course I look exhausted. The Seconals... the phone... that damned phone.'
    I held out my hand. ‘Come on, Sharon. Let’s go in the living room and sit down and talk.’
    I was about five feet away from her when she bristled and brought the gun back up to chest level.
    ‘No,’ she barked. ‘I won’t talk to you anymore.’
    I held my ground.
    ‘All right, Sharon. We don’t have to sit down if you don’t want to. But we should talk.’
    She made some kind of snarling sound.
    ‘You don’t feel like it? That’s all right. You can listen to me talk, then. You owe me that much.’
    ‘Owe? I don’t owe...’
    She gripped the pistol with both hands and swayed. Her hands were trembling. My mouth felt dry and gritty, like I’d just swallowed a handful of sand.
    ‘I can... shoot you,’ Sharon said. ‘You’re a... a burglar. I’ll... say... you broke in.’
    ‘You don’t want to do that, Sharon. Think about it. It’s not a good idea.’
    The gun hand wavered.
    ‘Go away,’ she whimpered. ‘If you don’t leave, I’ll... I’m calling the police.’
    ‘Bad publicity, Sharon.’
    I took another step closer, hand outstretched.
    ‘Go away!’
    I took three more steps, shoved the gun aside and yanked it out of her hand. My own hands were shaking so hard, I turned my shoulder to her so she couldn’t see them. I emptied the bullets on the floor, then tossed the empty gun on a chair and looked at Sharon. Her eyes were like a zombie’s. I’d lost her again.
    ‘We can do this one of two ways, Sharon: the simple way, or the ugly way. The ugly way, all that confidential crap you fed me hits the papers tomorrow morning and what’s left of your deals go down the toilet. The simple way, we just sit down right now and talk like the two civilized people we know we are. What do you say?’
    She stumbled over to one of the folding chairs in the middle of the room, sat down on it, and promptly threw up.
     

43
     
    I ’m probably the only person in the world who ever broke into somebody’s house to clean up their vomit. I walked Sharon into the kitchen, wiped her face with a wet kitchen towel, then marched her into the living room.
    I dragged the armchair in close to the couch and leaned forward so she’d know I was there.
    ‘Why don’t we start at the beginning, Sharon?’
    Her eyelids drooped.
    ‘Sharon! Wake up!’
    ‘Uh... what?’
    She sat up and blinked at me. I shouldn’t have let her sit down.
    ‘How many pills did you take?’
    ‘Two... Five...’
    ‘How many?’
    She brushed the question away with a sloppy wave of her hand.
    ‘I don’t know, honey. Enough.’
    Under the harsh light, the skin of her neck looked like parchment.
    ‘The beginning,’ I prompted. ‘Do you know who broke in the other night?’
    ‘Huh?’
    By now my heart rate was almost back to normal, but her sluggish stupidity was making me lose my patience.
    ‘Sharon, do you know who stole Match’s things?’
    ‘Said I did... told the...’ she mumbled. ‘Told them I knew when I called.’
    ‘Who? Who did you call? Did you call the police?’
    I glanced toward the front of the house and prayed the cops wouldn’t come thundering through the front door.
    Sharon’s face was a blank. She stared straight ahead, lips slightly parted. Her breath was shallow and smelled of liquor and something sour. I was starting to think it was a miracle she hadn’t fired the gun.
    ‘The music... His...’
    ‘Help me get this right, Sharon. Do you know who killed Match or don’t you?’
    ‘Ugh...’ She was shaking her head.
    ‘You don’t know who killed him but you pretended to know? Is that what you said?’
    I felt like I was playing some macabre game of twenty questions. Sharon’s eyes blinked once, then she nodded.
    ‘I told them... yes.’
    ‘Who did you call? Sharon? Sharon? ’
    Her face looked just like the vicious