Killshot

life. He said, Bird, you know who Wade Boggs is? Armand had heard the name, they spoke of Wade Boggs in the Silver Dollar in Toronto, cursing him; but that was all he knew, the name, so he didn’t answer. Richie asked the ironworker’s wife, calling her Carmen, if she knew and she nodded. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. Richie said, Tell the Bird who he is. Carmen said, He plays third base for the Boston Red Sox. Richie said, And belts the shit right out of a baseball. He told Carmen he had wanted to be a major-league ballplayer, but his deprived youth as an orphan had fucked up his chances, so he became a bank robber instead. Chewing gum by this time, the punk would blow a bubble and pop it, showing off.

Next thing, Richie told Carmen to take her clothes off, he had an idea. She said no, shaking her head at him, determined not to do it. He said, Okay, not all your clothes. You got on undies, don’t you? You can leave on your brassiere if you wear one and your panties. You wear a brassiere? She turned away as he reached for her and Armand watched Richie rub his hand over her back, feeling it, and then his whole face smiled and he said, Hey, she don’t wear one, Bird. He told her, Okay, strip down to your panties if you got any on and you’ll be our little topless bunny, serve us drinks and dinner. How’s that sound, Bird? Armand didn’t say anything. The way this punk kept talking had him at the edge; still, he wouldn’t mind seeing the ironworker’s wife without her clothes on. She held her arms tight to her body when Richie tried to pull the sweater off. When she kneed Richie in the crotch, hard, and he doubled over with the pain, Armand thought Richie might pull his gun. He could hit her if he wanted, but shoot her, no. Her mother might phone worried sick, wondering where she was. Or the ironworker might call from the road and think something happened if she didn’t answer and then maybe he’d call the police too. But Richie didn’t pull his gun. He tried to slap her with one hand, holding his balls with the other, and she got away from him and went to the other side of the counter and picked up a knife. Richie thought that was funny. What he did, he opened the bottle of Hot Doe Buck Lure and threw deer piss on her clothes, doused her with it good and the smell was so bad it could make you sick. Richie made her go into the bathroom at the end of the hall, telling her to take off those clothes and wash herself. He closed the door and they stood in the foyer by the stairs waiting. The door opened. She came out wearing something that looked like an undershirt and white panties very low on her hips. Jesus Christ. Richie said, Hey, I want you topless. But looked at her some more and said it was a cute outfit, he liked it. Armand didn’t say it but agreed with Richie, the ironworker’s wife looked pretty nice. She stood up straight, not folding her arms or trying to cover herself, and looked right back at them. Though didn’t seem too happy about it, no.

They were in the dining room now, at the table Carmen and Wayne had bought at a farm auction.

Richie sat at the end toward the doorway to the

kitchen. He had Wayne’s jacket off, hooked to the back of his chair. The nickel-plated revolver she remembered lay on the table next to his low-cal gourmet chicken.

Carmen sat with the windows behind her, hands folded on the table edge in front of her; she felt less exposed here. The tank top smelled and she’d breathe through her mouth whenever she got a strong whiff of doe urine and would remember the night Wayne brought it home. She wasn’t shaking the way she did at first, chills running through her. Now she could sit without holding herself rigid, not exactly relaxed, but at least aware. The hardest part was trying not to think of Wayne coming home or Wayne in tender moments or Matthew; she didn’t dare think of Matthew, especially as a little boy. If she did an urge to cry would come over her and she was afraid if she started she wouldn’t be able to stop.

What she did to hang on and not panic or come apart was think of Wayne in a different way, Wayne here, close to her, so that she wasn’t alone. Wayne in her mind but real, because she knew him so well. She asks him if he’s scared and he says, for Christ sake of course he’s scared, you’d have to have brain damage not to be scared of these ass-holes. Don’t let their chitchat, that casual bullshit, fool you, these guys are fucking maniacs. Stay low, don’t make a lot of noise, don’t piss them off, and if they give you any more than thirty seconds’ leeway take it, run like hell for a door. Don’t try a window, you’ll never get the goddamn storm open. She says, Thanks a lot. Wayne shrugs. What else can I tell you? You run if you see the chance. You get your hands on a gun, use it. None of this put-your-hands-up-while-I-call-the-cops, use it. She asked him where he’d put the Remington. He wouldn’t tell her. She clenched her jaw. Wayne, goddamn it ...He still wouldn’t tell her.

Armand, wearing his suit coat and the tie with tiny fish on it, sat across from her eating Swedish meatballs and noodles. The opening to the foyer and the stairway was directly behind him. Richie, to Armand’s left at the end of the table, would stare at her tank top chewing his food, sucking his teeth. He looked at her the way Ferris did; but Ferris was an actor, Richie was real. Ferris was nothing. Armand would glance at her as he looked up from his food to gaze at the row of windows behind her, rattling in the wind. She had been right when she told Wayne, a long, long time ago, Richie was scarier than Armand.

They’d had drinks now, Richie a Southern Comfort and 7-Up, one, Armand four whiskeys with a splash of water, and were talking to each other more than they did earlier.

Carmen listened to them, waiting for the phone to ring, Mom calling, Where are you? It’s almost one o’clock. They began talking about the shotgun, Wayne’s Remington, as if she wasn’t sitting at the table with them. It gave her a strange feeling, till she began to concentrate on the gun that was somewhere in the house.

Richie saying, “He might have it, but he’s not gonna walk in here with it.”

Armand saying, “Oh, you know that?”

Richie saying, “Why would he? He thinks his little wife’s in here fixing supper. Comes runing in, ‘Hi, honey, I’m home.’ ”

Armand saying, “How do you know he won’t have the gun?”

Carmen thinking, Because he doesn’t. Because it’s here.

Armand saying, “What did she say to him on the telephone? Something funny is going on here and he told her to call the cops.”

Richie saying, “To tell them she’s home, that’s all.” Looking at her then and saying, “Isn’t that right?” Carmen nodded and he said, “I guess you figured out we was listening in upstairs.”

Carmen thinking that’s where it would have to be. But if it was there, why didn’t they see it? If Wayne took it upstairs he wouldn’t have hidden it.

She looked at the glasses and plates and food containers on the table—extra ones in the middle Armand would pick from, macaroni and cheese, lasagna, sweet potatoes with sliced apple and brown sugar—looked at the stains on the plastic tablecloth she had put on to protect the wood finish. It reminded her of looking in the refrigerator yesterday at 950 Hillglade, worrying about food spoiling when she was dying to get out of there. Instinctively the good little housewife. Now sitting in her underwear with two guys who were going to shoot her husband when he walked in the door and then shoot her or shoot them both at the same time. . . . She had never thought about dying or even getting old or what she had heard on television called the terrifying middle-age crisis. . . . They might use the shotguns leaning against the table next to where they sat. They might take them down to the cellar. She thought, Well, if we’re together. And thought, Bullshit.

Mad. The way she was on the porch the time Armand came and she fired twice. Mad because he was so goddamn sure of himself. Fired when he was close and fired again, when he was out by the chickenhouse. After that she went inside.

Now think.

She had laid the gun on the counter.

Wayne came home from the store where the girl had been shot and killed. Probably by the nickel-plated gun lying on the table to the right of Richie’s plate, the stubby barrel pointing at Armand. The police arrived. No, they got here before Wayne, because he was questioned at the store for about an hour, came home and a different bunch of cops started on him and they didn’t like his attitude. They never liked it. Wayne saying if they weren’t going to handle it, he would. Wayne furious, in his way, showing contempt, cold anger. Wayne reloading the shotgun in front of them. Carmen remembered it now, yes, and the police didn’t like it at all, Wayne’s Charles Bronson gesture. And the next night—or was it the night after that?—the front windows were shot out as they sat in the living room and threw themselves on the floor and the duck prints were blown off the wall, yes, and that night Wayne took the shotgun upstairs. He said, They could walk right in the goddamn house if they want. He said, We’ll clean that up in the morning. He took the shotgun upstairs with them saying, We’ll hear this step squeak if they try it. She remembered she didn’t say anything. He stood the gun against his night table but didn’t like it there. He said, I get up to go to the bathroom. ...He knelt down—she could see him doing it— and put the gun under the bed.