Loving Time

face.

“Go in there.” He marched her into the living room and sat her on her pretty couch. “What did you tell them?” he demanded.

Gunn’s mouth opened. “I didn’t tell them anything.”

“That’s not what they said.”

“Bobbie, I—did something bad.”

“You stupid bitch.” He kicked the couch.

She cringed at his anger. “Don’t be mad at me. I was afraid. I’m … still afraid.”

Bobbie’s eyes were cold. “That FBI guy you were so friendly with said you fingered me.”

Gunn’s eyes widened with shock. “I told them how good you were with the patients, how much they all liked you. That’s all I told them. Bobbie, that’s not how I was bad.”

“Oh, yeah, Gunn, how were you bad?”

Bobbie looked so mad. Gunn wrung her little hands, unsure how to say it. “I only wanted to help you. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. I just did it—to help.”

She had no time to scream. He grabbed her and squeezed her neck until the roar of asphyxiation filled her ears. Her lungs screamed for air. She reached for Bobbie with both hands, couldn’t reach him, ended up clawing at the pillows and peeing in her pants. The next thing she knew, Bobbie was sprinkling her all over with water from the antique brass watering can that she never used for anything but decoration.

Gunn gasped, coughed, couldn’t catch her breath. She was aware of being wet all over and stinking, tried to vomit. Nothing came up. Bobbie stood over her, his broad, freckled face and huge, bulky body a mountain. He held the watering can above her so that it continued to dribble all over her. His face was bloated, swollen with rage. She’d never seen anything like it. She looked around wildly for the cops. The cops had to be watching him, watching the building. She probed the throbbing bruises on her neck. She was terrified. Bobbie had described killing chickens like that, then cutting their heads off after they were dead. It occurred to her for the first time that he was crazy.

“Bobbie, don’t hurt me.… ” Her voice was a croak.

“I don’t hurt people.” His strange blue eyes pulsed with the death-rays of the voodoo people. He once told her people with eyes like that could kill.

“You don’t hurt people?” she whimpered.

He banged the watering can against the sofa arm.

“I’m a good person, loyal to a fault. I don’t hurt people.” He stuck his fingers in her face. “Do you hear me? I don’t hurt people.”

She wanted to throw up.

“I told you I don’t hurt people,” he insisted.

“You hurt me,” Gunn said softly. “You almost killed me, Bobbie.” Gunn hung her head.

“You hurt me, Gunn. Say you’re sorry.”

“You know I’m sorry.”

“Nobody says they’re sorry. They fuck you over. And then when they’re wrong they don’t say they’re sorry—You bitch! You set me up.”

“No, Bobbie, I was trying to save you.” Gunn started to cough and cry again.

“You set me up.”

“No.” He was wrong about that. She shook her head. She’d helped him. Tried so hard to help him. Her eyes jumped around, looking for something to save her from this.

“Loyal to a fault,” he spat at her. “I took care of you.”

The wrongness of this made Gunn shake her head. Bobbie was all mixed up. The truth was she, Gunn, had taken care of him, got him a job, brought his old mother up north, found her a place to stay, took care of her while she was sick. She’d given Bobbie money and seen that the old lady got buried right. It had been expensive, but she had done it for him. “Bobbie—” He was all wrong. She wanted this to stop now.

“Admit you set me up,” he said, his wrath erupting again.

“I’m sorry, Bobbie.… I feel real bad. I didn’t mean to kill Dr. Dickey. I just wanted him to get a little confused and forget about you. Please believe me, I didn’t know it would kill him.”

“You killed him?” Bobbie screamed. “You?”

“I was trying to help you, Bobbie—”

“You … bitch. You didn’t help me. You finished me!” He shook the watering can in her face. The water was all gone. Furiously, he slammed it down on the side of her face, splintering her nose and cheekbone. He hit her with it again, bashing her skull in with almost no effort. Then he dropped the watering can and without a backward glance returned to the bedroom, where Gunn never locked the leaded window because she was afraid of fire. He went down the fire escape and out through the garden.

seventy-one

April drove her own car up to Ninety-ninth Street. Mike sat in the passenger seat, unusually quiet until they hit the block. She had a feeling he was upset because she hadn’t said she loved him, too. But who knew, maybe he had other things on his mind.

“I’ll go up and get her,” he said.

“It’s my call,” she protested. “I’ll go up. You wait in the car.”

“I’m not waiting in the car.”

Good sign, they were fighting again.

“Fine. How do you want to do it?” April asked.

“I go up. You sit in the car.”

“She’ll respond better if it’s me,” April argued.

“You want to both go up?”

“If I have no choice.” April parked the car at a hydrant. She switched the lights off and killed the motor. The night sky was overcast. Not many people out on the street. She got out of the car and spotted Andy running toward them from the alley by the building. He had the hood of his parka up and a scarf wrapped around his neck.

“He got away—” he panted. “Daveys went after him.”

“Fine, let Daveys deal,” Mike said.

Then they went up to Gunn’s apartment. Another old lady was standing in the hall, banging on Gunn’s door. “I heard him screaming at her. I called the police,” the old woman cried. “Gunn, it’s all right now. Open the door.”

seventy-two

A light powder of snow filled the sky as Bobbie went over the wall into the garden of the house next door and disappeared. He didn’t think anybody had seen him come out onto the street six houses down, almost at the end of the block, and saw no shadow behind him. Somewhere behind him an asshole or two were huddled in the cold, watching the building he’d left. So he thought.

But he didn’t really care who was behind him. Like an animal seeking his lair, Bobbie was driven by a great urgency to get to the Centre, without any clear idea of what he would do when he got there. If only he got there, he knew he’d be all right. He was a survivor. He’d been trained in combat years ago and still knew how to fight and hide. If he got there he’d have some time to work things out. It would be many hours before anyone called Gunn. Maybe a whole day before anyone found her.

Bobbie hugged the side of the buildings on Riverside, keeping as far out of the lights as he could. He was still furious at Gunn for killing Dickey and then telling the Fed bastard he had done it. He was stunned by the magnitude of the betrayal. It was the worst betrayal ever, and now it seemed clear to him that Gunn had been at the bottom of all his troubles. Dickey hadn’t set him up a year ago. Dickey hadn’t gotten him fired from the job he liked. It was Gunn, all Gunn. She was the one they questioned about every case. She was the one who kept the files. She knew what was added and subtracted to every file and why. She had control of everyone through the things written in their files. She helped people get raises and get fired. She got him fired because it was