Book of the Dead

necklace he’s wearing?”

“Fuck you,” the man in the do-rag says to Marino. “Fuck your mother.”

Jess walks over to the bar, crosses her arms. She says to the man in the do-rag, “We talk polite in here. I think you better leave.”

“What?” he says loudly, cupping a hand behind his ear, mocking her.

Marino’s chair scrapes back and in three long strides he is between them. “You say you’re sorry, asshole,” Marino says to him.

The man’s eyes touch his like needles. He crumples the five-dollar bill he got out of the ATM, drops it on the floor, crushes it beneath his boot as if he’s putting out a cigarette. He smacks the dog’s butt, heads to the door as he says to Marino, “Why don’t you come out here like a man? I got something to say to you.”

Marino follows him and his dog across the dirt parking lot to an old chopper, probably put together in the seventies, a four-speed with a kick start, flame paint job, something funny-looking about the license tag.

“Cardboard,” Marino realizes out loud. “Homemade. Now, ain’t that sweet. Tell me what you got to say.”

“Reason I’m here tonight? Got a message for you,” the man in the dorag says. “Sit!” he yells at the dog, and it cowers, flattens on its belly.

“Next time send a letter.” Marino grabs him by the front of his dirty denim jacket. “It’s cheaper than a funeral.”

“You don’t let go of me, I’ll get you later in a way you won’t like. There’s a reason I’m here and you better listen.”

Marino takes his hands off him, aware that everyone in the saloon has moved out on the porch, watching. The dog remains flat on his belly, cowering.

“That bitch you work for ain’t welcome in these parts and would be smart to go back where she come from,” the man in the do-rag says. “Just passing along a word of advice from someone who can do something about it.”

“What’d you call her?”

“Say this much, that bitch’s got some set of tits.” He cups his hands and licks the air. “If she don’t leave town, I’ll find out just how nice.”

Marino kicks the chopper hard and it thuds to the dirt. He grabs his forty-caliber Glock out of the back of his jeans and points it between the man’s eyes.

“Don’t be stupid,” the man says, as bikers start yelling from the porch. “You shoot me, your worthless life’s over and you know it.”

“Hey! Hey! Hey!”

“Whoa, now!”

“Pete!”

Marino feels as if the top of his head is floating off as he stares at the spot between the man’s eyes. He racks back the slide, chambering a round.

“You kill me, you may as well be dead, too,” the man in the do-rag says, but he’s scared.

Bikers are on their feet, shouting. Marino is vaguely aware of people venturing into the parking lot.

“Pick up your piece-of-shit bike,” Marino says, lowering the gun. “Leave the dog.”

“I ain’t leaving my damn dog!”

“You’re leaving him. You treat him like shit. Now get out of here before I give you a third eye.”

As the chopper roars away, Marino clears the chamber, tucks the pistol back into his waistband, unsure what just came over him and terrified by it. He pets the dog and it stays flat on its belly and licks his hand.

“We’ll find someone nice to take care of you,” Marino says to him as fingers dig into his arm. He looks up at Jess.

“I think it’s time you deal with this,” she says.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what. That woman. I warned you. She’s beating you down, making you feel like a nothing, and look what’s happening. In one short week you’ve turned into a wild man.”

His hands are shaking badly. He looks at her so she can read his lips. “That was stupid, wasn’t it, Jess. Now what?” He pets the dog.

“He’ll be the saloon dog, and if that man comes back, it won’t be good for him. But you better be careful now. You’ve started something.”

“You ever seen him before?”

She shakes her head.

Marino notices Shandy on the porch, by the railing. He wonders why she hasn’t left the porch. He almost killed someone and she’s still on the porch.

Chapter 10

Somewhere a dog barks in the near dark, and the barking becomes more insistent.

Scarpetta detects the distant carbureted potato-potato-potato rhythm of Marino’s Roadmaster. She can hear the damn thing blocks away on Meeting Street, heading south. Moments later it roars through the narrow alleyway behind her house. He’s been drinking. She could hear it in his voice when she talked to him on the phone. He’s being obnoxious.

She needs him sober if they’re going to have a productive conversation — perhaps the most important one they’ve ever had. She begins making a pot of coffee as he turns left on King Street, then another left into the narrow driveway she shares with her unpleasant neighbor, Mrs. Grimball. Marino rolls the throttle a few times to announce himself and kills the engine.

“You got something to drink in there?” he says as Scarpetta opens the front door. “A little bourbon would be nice. Wouldn’t it, Mrs. Grimball!” he shouts up at the yellow frame house, and a curtain moves. He locks the bike’s front fork, slips the key in his pocket.

“Inside, now,” Scarpetta says, realizing he’s far more intoxicated than she thought. “For God’s sake, why did you find it necessary to ride down the alley and yell at my neighbor?” she says as he follows her to the kitchen, his booted footsteps loud, his head almost touching the top of each door frame they pass through.

“Security check. I like to make sure nothing’s going on back there, no lost hearses, no homeless people hanging out.”

He pulls out a chair, sits, slumped back. The odor of booze is powerful, his face bright red, his eyes bloodshot. He says, “I can’t stay long. Got to get back to my woman. She thinks I’m at the morgue.”

Scarpetta hands him a coffee, black. “You’re going to stay long enough to sober up, otherwise you’re not going anywhere near your motorcycle. I can’t believe you got on it in your condition. That’s not like you. What’s wrong with you?”

“So I had a few. Big deal. I’m fine.”

“It is a big deal, and you’re not fine. I don’t care how well you supposedly handle alcohol. Every drunk driver thinks he’s fine right before he ends up dead or maimed or in jail.”

“I didn’t come here to be lectured to.”

“I didn’t invite you over to have you show up drunk.”

“Why did you invite me? To rag on me? To find something else wrong with me? Something else not up to your high-horse standards?”

“It’s not like you to talk this way.”

“Maybe you’ve just never listened,” he says.

“I asked you to come over in hopes we could have an open and honest conversation, but it doesn’t appear this is a good time. I have a guest room. Maybe you should go to sleep and we’ll talk in the morning.”

“Seems as good a time as any.” He yawns and stretches, doesn’t touch his coffee. “Talk away. Either that or I’m out of here.”