The Husband

cool." Grimacing as if in pain, Anson said, "Please, man, let me go to the bathroom. I'm in a real bad way."
    "Now you are a pirate. Even got your own boat, gonna run your business from sea. Pirates don't put their money in banks.
    They like to touch it, look at it. They bury it in lots of places so they can get to it easy when their fortunes change."
    "Mitch, please, man, I'm having bladder spasms."
    "The money you make consulting—yeah, it goes in the bank. But the money from jobs that are—how did you put it?—'more directly criminal,' like whatever job you did with these guys and then cheated them on the split, that doesn't go in the bank. You don't pay taxes on it."
    Anson said nothing.
    "I'm not going to march you over to your office and watch while you use the computer to move funds around, arrange a wire transfer. You're bigger than me. You're desperate. I'm not giving you a chance to turn the tables. You're in that chair till this is done."
    Accusatorily, Anson said, "I was always there for you."
    "Not always."
    "As kids, I mean. I was always there for you when we were kids."
    "Actually," Mitch said, "we were there for each other."
    "We were. That's right. Real brothers. We can get back to that," Anson assured him.
    "Yeah? How do we get back to that?"
    "I'm not saying it'll be easy. Maybe we start with some honesty. I screwed up, Mitch. It was horrible what I did to you. I was doing some drugs, man, and they messed with my head."
    "You weren't doing any drugs. Don't blame it on that. Where's the cash?"
    "Bro, I swear to you, the dirty money gets laundered. It ends up in the bank, too."
    "I don't believe it."
    "You can grind me, but it doesn't change what's true."
    "Why don't you think about it some more?" Mitch advised.
    "There's nothing to think about. What is is." Mitch switched off the light. "Hey, no," Anson said plaintively.
    Stepping across the threshold, pulling the door shut behind him, Mitch closed his brother in the dark.

Chapter 47

     
    Mitch started in the attic. A trapdoor in the walk-in closet off the master bedroom gave access. A ladder folded down off the trap.
    Two bare lightbulbs inadequately illuminated the high space, revealing cobwebs in the angles of the rafters.
    Eager breathing, hissing, and hungry panting arose at every vent in the eaves, as though the attic were a canary cage and the wind a voracious cat.
    Such was the disquieting nature of a Santa Ana wind that even the spiders were agitated by it. They moved restlessly on their webs.
    Nothing was stored in the attic. He almost retreated, but was held by suspicion, by a hunch.
    This empty space was floored with plywood. Anson would probably not conceal a hoard of cash under a sheet of plywood held down by sixteen nails. He wouldn't be able to get at it fast in an emergency.
    Nevertheless, ducking to avoid the lower rafters, Mitch walked back and forth, listening to his hollow footsteps. An odd prophetic feeling seized him, a sense that he was on the brink of a discovery.
    His attention was drawn to a nail. The other nails in the floor were pounded flat, but one was raised about a quarter of an inch.
    He knelt in front of the nail to examine it. The head was wide and flat. Judging by the size of the head and the thickness of the quarter-inch of shank revealed, it was at least three inches long.
    When he pinched the nail between thumb and forefinger and tried to wiggle it, he found that it was firmly lodged.
    An extraordinary feeling overcame him, akin to—but different from—what he had experienced when he had first seen the field of squirreltail grass transformed into a silvery whirlpool by the eddying breeze and the moonlight.
    Suddenly he felt so close to Holly that he looked over his shoulder, half expecting her to be there. The feeling did not fade, but swelled, until a chill nubbed the flesh on the nape of his neck.
    He left the attic and went down to the kitchen. In the drawer where he had found the car keys was a small collection of the most commonly used tools. He selected a screwdriver and a claw hammer.
    From the laundry room, Anson said, "What's going on?"
    Mitch didn't reply.
    In the attic once more, he applied the claw end of the hammer and pulled up the nail. Using the screwdriver as a wedge, tapping the handle with the hammer, he levered the next nail a quarter-inch out of the plywood, and then used the claw to extract it, too.
    Agitated spiders plucked silent arpeggios from their silken harps, and the wind