The staked Goat

pleasing them.
    ”You are wonderful man,” she said, stroking my eyelids and brow with the tips of her nails. It gave me goosebumps. ”Now, what did Lieutenant Sachs tell you when you talk with him?”
    I reported my conversation with Al as carefully as I could. I wasn’t getting it quite right, and I apologized to her.
    ”That’s O.K.,” she said, soothingly, ”that’s O.K. Keep telling me.”
    I finished with Al. I told them all about the visit to the morgue, and I started to cry. She dried my tears with a handkerchief and gave me a little kiss on the cheek. Right away, I felt much better.
    She asked me what I told the police. I filled them in on my talks with Murphy and my return visit to Al’s hotel. I tried to tell them the names of the clerks, but I couldn’t remember and she said that was O.K., they didn’t need them. I started to tell them about the Coopers and started to cry again, but she used her hankie and brushed her lips over mine and said to forget about the Coopers, so I did.
    We never reached Nancy Meagher or Marco or any of that. She asked about Al’s family, and I told them all about my visit to Pittsburgh, Martha and Al Junior, and Kenny and Dale and Larry and Carol. Then she asked me what I told them about Al’s death. I related the concerns in my talk with Carol and my promise to Martha to get the insurance payment.
    Jacquie praised me for my efforts on my friend’s behalf. She emphasized how much loyalty like mine meant to her. She slid her hand inside my shirt again. It gave me bigger goosebumps.
    ”You talk with Colonel Kivens, too?”
    ”Oh, yes,” I said.
    ”Tell me.”
    I told her.
    ”How you make the list?”
    ”The list?”
    ”The names. On the list in your pocket. How you choose the names?”
    ”Oh,” I said, ”from the records that J.T. gave me. Excuse me, that he let me look at. The records from Vietnam, when Al was there. The list are people he knew, or arrested, or whatever. He...” I stopped for a minute. Thinking.
    ”Go on.”
    I was silent.
    ”Why you stop?”
    A photograph materialized in my mind’s eye. ”I just remembered. That’s where I saw your husband. That’s why he looked so familiar. He was in one of the photographs. Smiling.”
    She seemed to turn away for a moment, then came back to me. ”Oh,” she said, nuzzling her face against my cheek. ”That very good. Very good. You make me very happy now.” She kissed my eyelid, licked my ear lobe with the tip of her tongue.
    I was happy that she was happy. I was gloriously happy.
    ”Where is the list?” I asked.
    ”Don’t worry about list,” she said. ”List gone.”
    I stopped worrying about the list. About everything.
    ”Did you call anyone about list?” she said.
    ”Call? No, no, I didn’t.”
    Ricker said something. She hushed him.
    She asked, ”Did you tell anyone about list?”
    ”No one. No one but you.”
    ”Ahh,” she moaned into my ear. ”That is perfec’. Just right.”
    Her nails pinched my right nipple, hard but exquisitely pleasurably. Her fingers trembled a little. She withdrew her hand and left my side.
    I heard some noise but nobody talked with me anymore. I fell asleep.
     

Eighteen
     
     
     
    M Y EYES OPENED. I WAS SHIVERING, MY TEETH CHATTERING inside the tape over my mouth. I clamped down on my jaws, but that just made my whole head shake, and it hurt enough as it was. My mouth was desert dry, like from a wine hangover. It was dark in the basement. Whether still dark or again dark, I didn’t know.
    I tried to shift around and remembered too late the motion sensor Jacquie had mentioned in her first visit. I heard her heels above me and then the cellar door. My mouth grew drier, but not from anticipation. The lights came on, and she came down the stairs. She walked up behind me.
    I looked up at her. Her face was upside down and a bit haggard. Her right hand held the knife. No leather sap or other non-lethal weapon this time. A bad sign.
    ”You alia time so... active?” she said softly.
    I shook my head.
    ”My husband go to call man in Boston. Not Curly, different noncom. Ricker no want phone bill to fuck up old Curl.” She stroked my brow with her empty hand. ”We all alone now.”
    The only noise I could hear was the faint scratching her nails made on my eyebrows.
    ”If I take off tape, you promise no yell, no scream?”
    I nodded.
    She peeled off the tape, gently. She ran her index fingernail around the outline of my lips. I kissed it. She moved