Killshot

number.” The phone rang again. “How much you want to bet?” He waited for another ring before turning and crossing the hall to the kitchen.

Carmen started after him and Molina said, “Don’t bother.” She hesitated and came around slowly.

“It’s my house.”

“Yeah, and he walks in, he answers the phone. He’ll look in the icebox, complain if you don’t have fresh orange juice . . .”

They heard the phone ring again, once.

Carmen stood still, listening, then needed to move, do something, and looked at Molina, at his perfect hair as he brought out his cigarettes. He seemed at ease lighting one, used to having a U.S. marshal in the house, blowing the smoke out in a slow stream.

“You don’t need this,” Molina said.

“I know that, for God’s sake.”

“Take it easy. You got to stay cool, but you got to watch him, too. What I mean by you don’t need this, you don’t need government protection. So you got two guys looking for you—go someplace else, wherever you want, you don’t have to stay here. Just don’t tell nobody.”

Carmen stepped around the coffee table and sat down thinking, Why not? Sell the pickup, get in the car and go. She said, “My husband has a job. He likes it here.”

“So what? You don’t. Tell him you’ve had enough of this shit, you want to leave. Go where you want, California, someplace out there. You know what the kid marshal wants, don’t you? What he’s gonna get around to before long,” Molina’s voice fading as he said, “if he hasn’t already.”

“Well, I was right,” Ferris said, coming in from the hall. “Wrong number. They called twice. The second time—you hear me? I go, ‘Hey, I just gone done telling you there’s nobody here by that name.’ ” He came over to the coffee table. “So what’re you talking about now?” Looking from Carmen to Molina. “Ernie, you telling stories about me? Man, I thought I was rid of you. Here you turn up again.”

“Mr. Molina’s wife left something,” Carmen said. “He came to get it.”

“Oh, that’s right, it’s Mr. Mo-leen-ah,” Ferris said, winking at Carmen. “I keep forgetting how important he is, big Mafia witness, and call him Ernie. Hey, Ernie? What’d Roseanne forget, her diaphragm?”

Carmen watched Molina. He didn’t bother to answer.

Ferris moved around the end of the coffee table to get closer and look down at him.

“You and her back together?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“Gee, I’m surprised,” Ferris said. “From the way she acted I thought, well, she either had enough of you or she wasn’t getting enough from you, one.” He looked at Carmen. “Roseanne liked company. Old Ernie’d go to work tending bar, Roseanne’d call me up. ‘Hi, watcha doing? Why don’t you come over and have a drink? Me and Bitsy are all alone here.’ Her and that goddarn dog. You still have Bits, Ernie? Nobody’s kicked her little teeth in?”

“We still have her, yeah.”

Molina drew on his cigarette, blew the smoke out in a sigh and Ferris began waving his hand at it.

“Ernie, what’re you doing?” Sounding disappointed, glancing at Carmen as he said, “I’ve been trying to get him to quit ever since I got assigned here. Ernie, you know what smoking does to you.”

Carmen watched him take hold of Molina’s hairpiece, grab a handful and lift it from his head. Molina didn’t move.

“It makes your hair fall out. This here,” Ferris said, inspecting the rug closely, feeling it now, a small animal in his hand, “is from a lifetime of smoking.”

Molina’s eyes raised to Ferris for a moment, Carmen watching him. He looked at her then and seemed to shrug. Carmen pushed up from the sofa.

She heard Ferris say, “Where you going?” as she walked out of the living room, crossed the hall to the kitchen and could feel him behind her by the time she reached the table and picked up the phone. “Who you calling?”

“The police.”

“Hey, come on. Who you think I am?”

“The biggest asshole I’ve ever met in my life,” Carmen said, dialing the operator.

He reached past her and took hold of the cord. “I’ll yank it right out of the wall.”

Carmen put the phone down. She stood against the end of the breakfast table, her back to Ferris. She could smell his after-shave, feel his hands slide up on her shoulders.

“That’s not nice, talking like that,” Ferris said, his voice low, close to her. “You want me to wash your little mouth out with soap? I will, I’ll wash your little ears, too, and your little neck. I’ll wash any parts you want. How’s that sound to you?”

“You’re sure,” Richie said, “you didn’t dial it wrong.”

“I was a telephone operator twenty-five years. I don’t dial wrong numbers.”

“And you’re positive when you wrote it down—”

“Listen to me, will you? I know numbers. I hear a seven-digit number it registers in my head till I jot it down. And there it is, right there.”

He looked past her shoulder where she was bent over the desk, hands flat on the surface, staring at the number.

She’d said they were in Missouri someplace. St. Louis? No, that wasn’t it. Richie said he’d never been to Missouri. He’d been to East St. Louis, but that was over in Illinois. East St. Louis, shit, you had to stand in line to commit a crime, but didn’t tell her that.

This woman was pretty smart. She knew something was wrong and even said it, though more to herself than to him. “There’s something wrong somewhere.”

“You mentioned you had trouble with your phone.”

“I had trouble with callers, not the instrument. I told you, I referred the matter to the Annoyance Call Bureau and they put a trap on my line.”

“They listen in?”

“No, a trap records what number is calling this number. That’s how you catch obscene callers.”

“You had any?”

“Yes, I did, I’m sorry to say.”

“What’d he do, talk dirty to you?”

“I would never ever in my life repeat one word of what that man said.”

“You have to wonder about people like that,” Richie said, “what gets in their head and makes them become perverts. Here, let me help you.” Lenore was groaning as she tried to straighten up from the desk. Richie got under one of her arms and lifted.

“I should never bend over that far from the waist,” Lenore said. “It’s like somebody stuck a knife in me.”

“That’s your sacroiliac. I mentioned I could give you a back rub. I learned how from a foster mom I had one time named Jackie. She was some kind of therapist before that, worked with cripples. Let’s get you on the couch. ... No, let’s get you down right here on the floor, over here on the carpet. I’ll get a pillow for your head, so you’ll be comfortable.”

Lenore eased down to her hands and knees on the living-room floor. Now she looked up at Richie

taking off his ironworker’s jacket. “You sure you know what you’re doing?” “Yes, ma’am.” “You aren’t gonna hurt me, are you?”

17

CARMEN OPENED HER EYES to see the lamp turned on, Wayne kneeling next to the bed looking at her, waiting.

“You awake?”

“I am now. What time is it?”

“Quarter after two.”

“You must’ve closed the bar.”

“We barely made last call. I’ve been working since I left here this morning till just a while ago. Had supper on