It was half-past nine. Carmen and Wayne were sitting in the living room with lamps turned on talking about a thirty-four-year-old wanted criminal named Richie Nix, referring to a “detainer list” the FBI man had shown them: the detainers indicating crimes he was wanted for in several different states, armed robbery and capital murder.
“What I can’t figure out,” Wayne said, “he’s been doing this for, what, about twenty years. He was in the Wayne County Youth Home when he was fifteen, a few years later he robs a package store in Florida, does something else in Georgia, goes to prison . . .”
Wayne stopped as a spotlight hit both windows from outside and flashed again in the foyer, on the oval glass panel in the front door. There was a silence. Wayne got up from the sofa, walked to a window and looked out.
“They’re about five minutes late.”
Carmen sat in a rocking chair they’d bought unfinished in Kentucky one winter, coming back from Florida. She had stained the chair with a clear varnish and made an olive green pad for it.
“Why get worked up? They’re doing their job.”
“What? Shining spots on the windows?”
She watched him walk back to the sofa, fall into it and stick out his blue-jean legs, the heels of his work shoes resting in the rag carpeting. They had furnished the place without much thought, farmhouse traditional; Carmen was tired of it.
“You realize we’re actually sitting here talking without the TV on? We haven’t done this since you watched me strip the woodwork.”
It reminded her again, she wanted to do something with the living room, liven it up. Keep the rocker, paint it a bright color, but get rid of that old green plaid sofa, and the duck prints her mom had given them as a combined present, housewarming and Wayne’s birthday, a month late. Her gaze moved to Wayne. She liked to look at him and wait for him to become aware of it. Their eyes would meet and they’d see how long they could stare at each other without smiling—until Carmen would do something like running the tip of her tongue over her lips or she might stick a finger in her nose.
“You want to go to bed?”
He looked over. “It’s early.”
They stared for a moment. He said, “We haven’t done much making out lately, have we?”
“It’s been days. Not even hugs and kisses,” Carmen said. The way he shook his head she could tell he was thinking of something else. “What is it you can’t figure out? You started to say something about Richie Nix, his record, he went to prison . . .”
“That’s right—three times and they let him out,” Wayne said, getting back into it. “He’s in a federal prison, he sees a guy stabbed to death, he testifies at the guy’s trial that did it and they put him in the Witness Protection Program.”
“It was his cellmate,” Carmen said, “the one that was murdered. I meant to ask Scallen about that—you notice he called it the Witness
“I don’t know,” Wayne said. “The thing I don’t understand, here he’s supposed to be in prison for something like twenty years, am I right?”
“He was already there a few years when it happened.”
“Yeah, a few. Now they say they have to protect him, in case the guy’s buddies he testified against tried to get him. So they put him in the witness program and let him out. How can they do that?”
Carmen paused, seeing the FBI man in the kitchen talking quietly to them about a man who robbed and killed and another who was paid to kill. “I don’t think he said Richie got out, not right away. No, that’s when he was transferred to Huron Valley. He was in the witness program
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Wayne said. “They let him out and he starts killing people. He gets a job through a friend, what does he do? He shoots the guy and takes off.”
“There was one before his friend,” Carmen said, “another one he shot, in Detroit.”
“Yeah, he gets out—he’s pulling robberies and all of a sudden he’s killing people, too. You go down the detainer list, robbed a package store in Dayton, Ohio, shot and killed the store employee. All those others, in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, shot and killed store employee, every one of them. He finds out from Lionel where we live—that must’ve been what happened—and shoots him three times. He didn’t have to kill him. The girl in the store, she didn’t have a gun or anything, she’s a seventeenyear-old girl. He takes the money and shoots her in the head. Why does a guy like that all of a sudden start killing people?”
“Why is he after
“I think getting thrown out a second-story window has something to do with it,” Wayne said, “though he doesn’t seem to need a reason to shoot people. I guess it’s just the way he is. Or right now he’s working for the Indian and does whatever he’s told. From what Scallen said, the Indian’s the one to look out for. I’ve thought that all along. When I was sitting at Nelson’s desk watching him, I think about it now, he didn’t touch a thing. They found Richie Nix’s fingerprints all over the place, but not the Indian’s. We think Richie’s bad but, Jesus, what about Armand, the things he’s done?”
“There sure isn’t much privacy around here,” Donna said, “having two men in the house.” She was sitting on the side of her bed in her pink chenille robe, rolling up a pair of sheer black panty hose to stick her toes in, the nails painted an orange-red.
Armand stood in the bedroom doorway watching her.
There were furry stuffed animals on Donna’s bed, on the purple-red-and-yellow chenille spread done in a big peacock design, and a picture on the wall, over the head of the bed, a color portrait painted on black velvet that Armand believed was supposed to be Elvis Presley. He was pretty sure that’s who it was because Donna had a rack of Elvis Presley records, that Elvis Presley doll dressed in the white jumpsuit and Elvis Presley plates out in the kitchen. Eat down through Donna’s TV Salisbury steak and there was Elvis Presley looking at you.
“You want privacy,” Armand said to her, “you close the door. But I don’t think it’s what you want.” He could see her thighs where the pink robe was open, pure white thighs. “You know what else I think? You don’t have nothing on under your robe.”
“That’s why I happen to be getting dressed,” Donna said, “if you don’t mind. What’re you, still hungry?”
“Not now. Maybe I will be later.”
“I like to see a man enjoy his food. Richie hardly picks at his.”
She raised her foot to the edge of the bed, ready to slip her toes into the panty hose she held rolled up. Now he could see the underneath part of her thigh and a dark place that could be only darkness or a dark place that was part of her. He said, “You’ve been getting dressed for two hours, parading around here. I think you been waiting for Richie to leave.”
Donna worked her foot into the panty hose before looking up at him. “Dick comes back, like he might’ve forgot something? You’re in big trouble.”
Calling him Dick. Armand almost smiled.
“What do you think he’d do, shoot me?” Armand moved into the room toward the bed and Donna raised her face, stretching her skinny white neck, her eyes unfocused and naked-looking without the glasses, eyebrows darker than her hair, that pile of deep gold, all of it sprayed hard as a rock, shining in the light.
Armand said, “I think you like guys that shoot people, guys that pack a gun. I got one. You like to see my gun?”
“What choice do I have,” Donna said. Next thing, Armand heard her sigh and saw her shoulders go slack for a moment as she said, “Well, there’s nothing I can do, you’re way bigger than I am.” Next thing, she was taking off the robe, pulling the panty hose from her foot and letting them fall on the floor. Lying back on the peacock spread, looking up at him with those cockeyed naked eyes, Donna said, “I guess you’re gonna do whatever you want and there’s no way on earth I can stop you.” She paused a moment, still looking at him, and said, “You want to turn the light out or leave it on?”
Earlier in the day Carmen had said, “I’ve probably done things that made you mad. Maybe once or twice in
