The Husband

to eat," Anson pressed.
    Resisting, Mitch said, "What're we going to talk about over dinner? Sports? We don't want to be overheard talking about this."
    "So we'll eat in the car."
    Mitch parked in front of a Chinese restaurant. Painted on the windows, a dragon rampant tossed its mane of scaly flagella.
    While Anson waited in the SUV, Mitch went inside. The girl at the takeout counter promised to have his order in ten minutes.
    The animated conversation of the diners at the tables grated on him. He resented their carefree laughter.
    Aromas of coconut rice, sweet-chili rice, deep-fried corn balls, cilantro, garlic, sizzling cashews raised an appetite. But soon the fragrant air grew oppressive, oily; his mouth turned dry and sour.
    Holly remained in the hands of murderers.
    They had hit her.
    They had made her scream for him, and for Anson.
    Ordering Chinese takeout, eating dinner, attending to any tasks of ordinary life seemed like betrayals of Holly, seemed to diminish the desperation of her situation.
    If she had heard the threats made to Mitch on the phone—that her fingers would be sawn off, her tongue cut out—then her fear must be unbearable, desolating.
    When he imagined her unrelenting fear, thought of her bound in darkness, the humility arising from his helplessness began at last to make way for greater anger, for rage. His face was hot, his eyes stinging, his throat so swollen with fury he could not swallow.
    Irrationally, he envied the happy diners with an intensity that made him want to knock them out of their chairs, smash their faces.
    The orderly decor offended him. His life had fallen into chaos, and he burned with the desire to spend his misery in a violent spree.
    Some secret savage splinter of his nature, long festering, now flamed to full infection, filling him with the urge to tear down the colorful paper lanterns, shred the rice-paper screens, rip from the walls the red-enameled wooden letters of the Chinese language and spin them, as if they were martial-arts throwing stars, to slash and gouge everything in their path, to shatter windows.
    Presenting two white bags containing his order, the counter girl sensed the pending storm in him. Her eyes widened, and she tensed.
    Only a week ago, a deranged customer in a pizzeria had shot and killed a cashier and two waiters before another customer, an off-duty cop, had brought him down with two shots. This girl probably replayed in her mind the TV reports of that slaughter.
    The realization that he might be frightening her was a lifeline that reeled Mitch back from fury to anger, then to a passive misery that dropped his blood pressure and quieted his thundering heart.
    Leaving the restaurant, stepping into the mild spring night, he saw that his brother, in the Expedition, was on his cell phone.
    As Mitch got behind the steering wheel, Anson concluded the call, and Mitch said, "Was it them?"
    "No. There's this guy I think we should talk to."
    Giving Anson the larger bag of takeout, Mitch said, "What guy?"
    "We're in deep water with sharks. We're no match for them. We need advice from someone who can keep us from being eaten like chum."
    Although earlier he had given his brother the option of going to the authorities, Mitch said, "They'll kill her if we tell anyone."
    "They said no cops. We aren't going to the police."
    "It still makes me nervous."
    "Mickey, I see the risks. We're playing a trip wire with a violin bow. But if we don't try to make some music, we're screwed anyway."
    Tired of feeling powerless, convinced that docile obedience to the kidnappers would be repaid with contempt and cruelty, Mitch said, "Okay. But what if they're listening to us right now?"
    "They're not. To bug a car and listen in real time, wouldn't they have to plant more than a microphone? Wouldn't they have to package it with a microwave transmitter and a power source?"
    "Would they? I don't know. How would I know?"
    "I think so. It would be too much equipment, too bulky, too complicated to conceal easily or to set up quickly."
    With chopsticks, which he had requested, Anson ate Szechuan beef from one container, rice with mushrooms from another.
    "What about directional microphones?"
    "I've seen the same movies you have," Anson said. "Directional
    mikes work best when the air is still. Look at the trees. We have a breeze tonight."
    Mitch ate moo goo gai pan with a plastic fork. He resented the deliciousness of the food, as though he would be more faithful to Holly if he