The Thanatos Syndrome

will!”
    â€œDon’t worry, Dr. More!” cries Mrs. Cheney, taking hold of the towel.
    â€œMeanwhile, drink this, Coach,” I tell him, holding the towel against his head. “Vergil, fix him a glass of additive.”
    â€œMolar strength?” asks Vergil, still looking into his eyebrows.
    â€œRight. Mrs. Cheney, twist the towel as hard as you can and he’ll be fine. The bleeding has about stopped.”
    â€œI will!” cries Mrs. Cheney, twisting.
    â€œDrink this, Coach.” I hand him the glass with my free hand.
    â€œYou’re sure?” asks the Coach, pressing the knot while Mrs. Cheney twists the towel. She is also pulling. Now his head is against her breast.
    â€œI’m sure.”
    â€œI’ll drink it if you say so.”
    â€œI say so. Vergil?”
    â€œYes, Doc?”
    â€œGive a glass to Mr. Brunette.”
    â€œNo problem.” He fills a glass and sets it on the table in front of Mr. Brunette.
    Mr. Brunette looks at it. “Let me just say this,” he says, pushing up the bridge of his Harold Lloyd specs.
    â€œAll right.”
    â€œFirst, you’re right about these people,” nodding toward Van Dorn. “Accordingly, let me make sure the photos are safe. I’ll just put them back in the file where they belong and where the proper authorities can find them.” He scoops up the photos in a businesslike way and starts for the staircase.
    â€œI think you’d better bring those back, Mr. Brunette. How’re you doing, Coach?”
    â€œI’m going to be fine, Doctor, since you said I would.”
    â€œKeep twisting, Mrs. Cheney.”
    â€œI am, Doctor!”
    â€œThere’s a balcony up there and an outside staircase,” says Vergil, taking notice for the first time.
    â€œI really think you’d better come down, Mr. Brunette.” But he’s halfway up and gaining speed. He’s as nimble and youthful in his specs as Harold Lloyd and—do I imagine it?—grinning a wolfish little grin.
    The uncle looks at me. I shrug and nod, but do not touch myself. Before I can think what has happened, the uncle has picked up the shotgun and shot him. I find that I am saying it to myself: The uncle has shot Mr. Brunette with a 12-gauge shotgun held at the hip. The room roars and whitens, percussion seeming to pass beyond the bounds of noise into white, the white-out silent and deafening until it comes back not as a loud noise but like thunder racketing around and dying away after a thunderclap.
    My ears are ringing. Mrs. Brunette opens her mouth. I think I hear her say, no doubt shout, to everyone as if calling them to witness, “He’s killed my husband!”
    Everyone is gazing at Mr. Brunette. The ringing seems to be in the room itself. Mr. Brunette, blown against the far rail, comes spinning down the staircase, as swiftly and silently as a message in a tube, hands still on the rails, specs knocked awry but not off.
    â€œUncle Hugh,” I say, but cannot hear my voice. Uncle Hugh has shot Mr. Brunette with a 12-gauge shotgun from the hip.
    The room is filled with a familiar cordite Super-X smell I haven’t smelled for years.
    Mrs. Brunette covers her ears and says something again. Mrs. Cheney does not let go of the towel but pulls Coach’s head close to hers, twisting the towel harder than ever.
    â€œDon’t worry about a thing,” says the uncle beside me, and slaps at the seat of his pants. “I brushed him off right here is all. With number eight.” He turns to show me, again slapping at his pants.
    Mr. Brunette is struggling to get up. He gets up. It is true. The seat of Mr. Brunette’s Italian drape suit, which is slack around the hips, has been shot out. There is no blood.
    â€œBut I mean, Uncle Hugh, even so, number-eight birdshot.”
    â€œWasn’t birdshot!” says the uncle triumphantly, lunging past me back to his post at the door, right shoulder leading. “Not even number ten. What that was what they call a granular load, little bitty specks of rubber like pepper, like if you wanted to run off some old hound dogs without hurting them. You remember, I told you I don’t like to hurt a good dog.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHere, I’ll show you the shell.”
    â€œThat’s all right.”
    â€œPlease help us, Doctor,” says Mrs. Brunette, who has got Mr. Brunette to the couch, where he is kneeling, head in her