May We Be Forgiven

you are in the house. Come out with your hands over your head.”
    There’s a big thud, like something falling. “Shit,” someone says.
    “All right, then, I’m coming up. I’m drawing my gun, I don’t like having to pull out this enormously heavy, powerful weapon. Wallace, step back. …”
    I slam my foot down on the bottom of the stairs four times—as if to imitate the sound of feet climbing. Tessie looks at me like I’m nuts. “This is your last warning. Wallace, call the station and have them send the SWAT truck.” Tessie looks at me sideways, as if to say, “Who the hell is Wallace?” I take Nate’s baseball bat from the umbrella stand and head up the stairs.
    “Don’t shoot,” a woman’s voice says.
    “Where are you?”
    “In the bedroom.”
    I walk in with the bat up, ready to swing. Susan is there, arms filled with Jane’s clothing, clothing on hangers piled high. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
    “I didn’t realize you had a key.”
    “I used the one under the fake rock.”
    I look at the clothing in her arms. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
    “I wanted some of Jane’s things. Is that weird?”
    I shrug.
    “Can I take them?”
    “Take whatever you want. Take a TV—there’s one in every room. You want some silver, there’s a lot downstairs, in little velvet pouches.”
    “Should I look at it?”
    “Your call. She was your sister; at this point you’re stealing from your niece and nephew.” I stand aside so she can go down the stairs.
    “Where’s your gun?”
    “What gun?”
    “You said you had a big powerful gun; all I see is Nate’s bat.”
    “I lied.” I put the bat down and help Susan carry things to the car. “She sure had a lot of shoes,” I say.
    “She had good feet,” Susan says. “Easy to fit.”
    “Good feet and a mink coat,” I say.
    “Where do you think the coat is?” Susan asks.
    “Did you look in the front hall closet?”
    “The bastard killed my sister, I should at least get the coat.” Susan goes back into the house, opens the front hall closet, and rummages. Susan finds the coat, puts it on, and walks towards the door, pausing to look at me, as if to ask, “Are you going to stop me?”
    “Like I said, whatever you want, it’s yours.” I hand her the can of soda. “This yours too?”
    “You can have it,” she says.
    I take a sip. “Do you know anything about the mail? Someone keeps leaving me weird notes mixed in with the mail.”
    “Like what?”
    I show her one of the notes.
    “You’re screwed,” she says.
    “How so?”
    “It’s probably the family of the people George killed, looking for revenge.”
    “Should I show it to the police?”
    “I’m not the one to advise you,” she says, getting into her car. She backs out.

    I go to the hardware store to look at burglar alarms and to buy night-lights and timers for the upstairs lights. Between Susan coming in with no warning, the notes being dropped through the mail slot, and the fact that for the last twenty-two years I’ve lived in a one-bedroom apartment eighteen floors above ground, the stress of being alone in the house is getting to me.
    There’s a woman in the battery aisle with something hidden in a pillowcase that she’s desperately trying to work with. I don’t mean to stare, but I do. I watch, mesmerized, as she keeps dipping her hands into the pillowcase and trying to do something.
    “So what’s in the bag? Bunny need a battery?”
    She looks at me. “Is it that obvious?”
    I shrug. “No.”
    She hands me the pillowcase, and I peek inside. It’s an enormous pink dildo with a nut sack filled with ball bearings and oddly long rabbit ears.
    “It just ground to a halt,” she says. “Go ahead, push the button.”
    I do, and it spins a half-circle and sounds like a car that won’t turn over, like a starter not kicking in. “Maybe it got burned out,” I say.
    “Ha-ha,” she says.
    “Seriously, the problem may be more than the battery,” I say. I take the pillowcase from her, and discreetly working inside the bag, I get the battery compartment open, slide four cells in, and— voilà —the bunny is good to go. I turn it on and from the outside watch it spinning and dancing. “She’s a real disco bunny,” I say, handing the pillowcase back to the woman.
    “It bends too,” the woman says. “You can change the angle and also the vibration.”
    “Great,” I say. Inside the pillowcase the bunny is still dancing; from