More Twisted

heat—those rolling brownouts or blackouts, whatever.”
    He didn’t move out of the doorway.
    But the woman said quickly, “No, please come in,” with curious eagerness. “Our phone just rang a bit ago. I’m sure it’s working fine.”
    “Please,” echoed the older man, who was holding her hand.
    The tattooed man looked Sloan over cautiously, as people often did. Unsmiling by nature, Sloan was a big man, and muscular—he’d worked out every day for the past three years—and at the moment he was a mess; tonight he’d trekked through the brush to take a shortcut to the lights of this house. And like anyone walking around on this overwhelmingly humid and hot night, every inch of his skin was slick with sweat.
    Finally the tattooed man gestured him inside. Sloan noticed a bad scar across the back of his hand. It looked like a knife wound and it was recent.
    The house was overly bright and painfully hot. A tiny air conditioner moaned but did nothing to cool the stillair. He glanced at the walls, taking in fast vignettes of lives spent in a small bubble of the world. He deduced careers with Allstate Insurance and a high school library and nebulous involvement in the Rotary Club, church groups and parent-teacher organizations. Busmen’s holidays of fishing trips to Saginaw or Minnesota. A vacation to Chicago memorialized in framed, yellowing snapshots.
    Introductions were made. “I’m Dave Sloan.”
    Agnes and Bill Willis were the couple. Sloan observed immediately that they shared an ambiguous similarity of manner that characterized people long married. The tattooed man said nothing about himself. He tinkered with the air conditioner, turning the compressor knob up and down.
    “I’m not interrupting supper, I hope.”
    There was a moment of silence. It was eight p.m. and Sloan could see no dirty dishes from the night’s meal.
    “No” was Agnes’s soft reply.
    “Nope, no food here,” the tattooed man said with a cryptic edge to the comment. He looked angrily at the air conditioner as if he were going to kick it out the window but he controlled himself and walked back to the place he’d staked out for himself—an overstuffed Naugahyde armchair that still glistened with the sweat that’d leached from his skin before he stood to answer the door.
    “Phone’s in there,” Bill pointed.
    Sloan thanked him and went into the kitchen. He made his call. As soon as he stepped back into the living room, Bill and the younger man, who’d been talking, fell silent fast.
    Sloan looked at Bill and said, “They’ll tow it to Hatfield.The truck should be here in twenty minutes. I can wait outside.”
    “No,” Agnes said. Then seemed to decide she’d been too forceful and glanced at the tattooed man with a squint, almost as if she was afraid of being hit.
    “Too hot outside,” Bill said.
    “No hotter’n in here,” the tattooed man replied caustically, with that grin back. His lips were bulbous and the top one was beaded with sweat—an image that made Sloan itch.
    “Set yourself down,” Bill said cautiously. Sloan looked around and found the only unoccupied piece of furniture, an uncomfortable couch, covered in pink and green chintz, flowers everywhere. The gaudy pattern, combined with the still heat in the room and the nervous fidgeting of the large tattooed man, set him on edge.
    “Can I get you anything?” the woman asked.
    “Maybe some water if it’s not too much trouble.” Sloan wiped his face with his hand.
    The woman rose.
    “Notice,” the tattooed man said coolly, “they didn’t introduce me.”
    “Well, I didn’t mean—” Bill began.
    The man waved him silent.
    “My name’s Greg.” Another hesitation. “I’m their nephew. Just stopped by for a visit. Right, Bill? Aren’t we having a high old time?”
    Bill nodded, looking down at the frayed carpet. “High old time.”
    Sloan was suddenly aware of something—a curious noise. A scraping. A faint bang. No one else seemed tohear it. He looked up as Agnes returned. She handed Sloan the glass and he drank half of it down immediately.
    She said, “I was thinking, maybe you could look at Mr. Sloan’s car, Bill. Why don’t you and Greg go take a look at it?”
    “Dave,” Sloan said, “Please. Call me Dave.”
    “Maybe save Dave some money.”
    “Sure—” Bill began.
    Greg said, “Naw, we don’t wanna do that. Too much work in this heat. ’Sides, Dave looks like he can afford a proper mechanic. He looks like he’s