The Maze

play the maze game with me, and they couldn't wait. They both loved it. Until the end. Until I told them what I had to do. I think they forgot I was a good lover then."

    "Marlin, shut the fuck up!"

26

    SHE WONDERED WHAT WOULD happen if she threw up on the Formica table. Would anyone even know?

    "But not Belinda? She wouldn't sleep with you, would she, Marlin? She thought you were sick. She thought you were disgusting. She didn't want to have anything to do with you. She just wanted her husband, nobody else, just her husband."

    His hands were fists. "I don't know what you're talking about."

    The sergeant was away from the wall in an instant, his gun up.

    Lacey just shook her head. "You know what I'm talking about. God wouldn't want you to lie. Just tell the truth. Belinda didn't want you. She probably laughed at you, told you you were pathetic. That's why you ki-purified her, isn't it? She didn't want you, plain and simple. She didn't curse. She didn't bad-mouth her husband. She didn't fit the mold of all the other women. You know she didn't. Why, Marlin, why did you kill her?"

    "This is over," said Big John, rising slowly from his chair, one beefy hand on Martin's shoulder. "Don't say anything, Marlin, nothing more for these folks."

    "What makes you believe I didn't have Belinda?" Marlin said in a low whisper, leaning toward Lacey. "You really think a woman could laugh at me? Turn me down? No way, Marty. Yeah, I had Belinda. I don't want you, Marty. You're cynical. You probably hate men, you probably don't ever-"

    "Marlin, dammit, let it go. Listen, you moron. I told you to shut the fuck up."

    It took just an instant of time, just the barest instant, for the violence to erupt. Marlin raised his chained hands, clasped them together into fists and brought them down with all his strength on John Bullock's left temple. Big John groaned very softly in his throat and slumped back into his chair, his head falling forward to hit the Formica tabletop. He was out. A trickle of blood snaked out of his right nostril.

    The sergeant was all over Marlin. The door burst open again, and three cops surged in. She wondered why they didn't just shoot him. It would save the taxpayers millions of dollars. But they didn't shoot him. She wanted to yell at them that he was filth, that he'd probably go to an institution and maybe get out in twenty years and begin it all again. She managed to keep her rage to herself.

    "They'd send me to jail for sure if I did," Dillon said close to her ear. "Sorry but I can't, Sherlock." It was then she realized that she'd just whispered what she was thinking. Only Dillon had heard her, thank God. No one was paying any attention to her at all. They were all over Marlin, dragging him out of the room. She heard someone yell out, "Get a goddamn ambulance in here! The guy cracked his own lawyer's head!"

    Marlin turned very slightly and smiled back at her. "She was good, Marty, really good. That punk husband of hers was a monster, not me. I cared about them, cared about their souls. But he was real bad. She wanted me, Marty, not the other way around, I swear. You know something? I miss Belinda."

    And then he was gone, surrounded by cops, shuffling forward, the leg shackles clanking against the linoleum of the hallway.

    "What the hell is going on here?" Savich said, his hand tightly around her wrist.

    "Nothing makes any sense, nothing." They walked out of the station. She remained silent for three blocks, then stopped and said, "He was playing with me, Dillon. The minute I said Belinda's name, he began his game. You heard all those questions I asked. I was just trying to learn the truth, but now things are muddier than ever."

    "That's why Big John let you go on and on with Marlin with just a bit of his famous bluster. He wanted to muddy the waters."

    "He succeeded. Do you think Marlin was intimate with Belinda?"

    Savich frowned at her, then shook his head.

    That evening, on Newbury Street, coming out of Fien Nang Mandarin Restaurant with its red paper lanterns swinging in the evening breeze, Savich was speaking to Sherlock, his hand raised to flag down a taxi. He never saw the car that came around the corner, skidding loudly on two tires, heading right toward them, until it was too late.

    He threw her to the sidewalk just before the car struck him, flinging him onto the hood of an old Buick Riviera.

    "No doctor, Sherlock. No hospital, no paramedics. Forget it. We can't afford the time. No,