The Husband

eyes. "Where did you get it-the Taser?"
    "Vosky and Creed," Mitch lied.
    "You just took it away from them, huh?"
    "Like I told you—I took everything away from them. Now I'm giving you a few hours to think about things."
    "You can have the money."
    "That's not what I want you to think about."
    "You can have it, but I've got some conditions."
    "You don't get to make the rules," Mitch said.
    "It's my two million."
    "No. It's mine now. I've earned it."
    "Cool down, all right?"
    "If you were them, you'd screw her first."
    "Hey, you know, that's just a thing I said."
    "If you were them, you'd kill her but screw her first."
    "It was just something to say. Anyway, I'm not them."
    "No, you're not them. You're the cause of them."
    "Wrong. Things happen. They just happen."
    "Without you, they wouldn't be happening to me."
    "If you want to look at it that way, you will."
    "Here's what you need to think about—who I am now."
    "You want me to think about who you are?"
    "No more fratello piccolo. Huh? You understand?"
    "But you are my little brother."
    "If you think of me that way, you'll pull some dumb move I would have fallen for then, but I won't fall for it now."
    "If we can make a deal, I'm not pulling any moves."
    "We've already made the deal."
    "You've got to cut me some slack, man."
    "So you can hang me with it?"
    "How can any deal work without at least a little trust?"
    "You just sit here and think about how fast you could be dead."
    Mitch switched off the lights and stepped across the threshold.
    In the dark, windowless laundry room, Anson said, "What're you doing?"
    "Providing the best learning environment," Mitch said, and pulled the door shut.
    "Mickey?" Anson called.
    Mickey. After all this, Mickey.
    "Mickey, don't do this."
    At the kitchen sink, Mitch scrubbed his hands, using a lot of soap and hot water, trying to wash away the tactile memory of John Knox's body, which felt as if it had been imprinted on his skin.
    From the refrigerator, he got a package of cheddar-cheese slices and a squeeze bottle of mustard. He found a loaf of bread and made a cold cheese sandwich.
    "I hear you out there," Anson called from the laundry room. "What are you doing, Mickey?"
    Mitch put the sandwich on a plate. He added a dill pickle. From the refrigerator he got a bottle of beer.
    "What's the point of this, Mickey? We've already got a deal. There's no point to this."
    Mitch tilted another kitchen chair under the knob of the laundry-room door, bracing it.
    "What's that?" Anson asked. "What's happening?"
    Mitch switched off the kitchen lights. He went upstairs to Anson's bedroom.
    After putting the pistol and the Taser on the nightstand, he sat on the bed, his back against the padded headboard.
    He didn't turn down the quilted silk bedspread. He didn't take off his shoes.
    After eating the sandwich and the pickle, and drinking the beer, he set the clock radio for 8:30 a.m.
    He wanted Anson to have time to think, but he was taking this four-hour break primarily because his own thinking had been slowed by exhaustion. He needed a clear head for what was coming.
    Raging across the roof, beating on the windows, speaking in the wild voice of a mob, the wind seemed to mock him, to promise that his every plan would end in chaos.
    This was a Santa Ana, the dry wind that harried moisture from the vegetation in the canyons around which many southern California communities had been built, turning that dense growth into tinder. An arsonist would toss a burning rag, another would use a cigarette lighter, another would strike a match—and for days the news would be filled with fire.
    The drapes were shut, and when he switched off the lamp, a coverlet of darkness fell over him. He didn't use either of Anson's small night-lights.
    Holly's lovely face rose into his mind, and he said aloud, "God, please give me the strength and the wisdom to help her."
    This was the first time in his life that he had spoken to God.
    He made no promises of piety and charity. He didn't think it worked that way. You could not make deals with God.
    With the most important day of his life soon to dawn, he didn't think that he could sleep, but he slept.

Chapter 45

     
    The nail waits. Holly sits in the dark, listening to the wind, fingering the Saint Christopher medal.
    She sets aside the can of Pepsi without drinking the last half of it. She does not want to have to use the bedpan again, at least not when the sonofabitch on duty is the sonofabitch with the white