'You think you can take me, motherfucker?'
His stomach dropped nearly out of him. It had been doing that since She threw him out. Now they were together and he was here. Probably fucking right now, and he was here. And the black guy is still there.
Jesus, he was bigger than the fucking boyfriend. He looked at the gym bag, picked it up, and looked in at the coiled clothesline and the roll of duct tape. He put the gun on the nightstand and undressed and taped his own mouth and tied himself as best he could and lay on the bed and thought of the shrink, with the rope cutting into her thighs.
'I'll get you, you bitch, sooner or later.' He said it as loud as he could, and inside the tape it sounded only like muffled groans. Like she'd sound. Lying on the bed, he squirmed one hand loose from the clothesline and masturbated, thinking of how she would sound groaning through the tape.
'I'll get you, bitch, I'll get you.'
It was a long, exploratory, surprising, flung-open afternoon, and when we were through Susan fell asleep on the bed, in her sweater. I got up, took my gun, and went into the kitchen and examined the chicken breasts.
They had not suffered from marinating and might even have benefited. I let them sit and went to Susan's bathroom, put my gun on the toilet tank, moved three pairs of pantyhose, and took a shower. I shampooed with French Walnut Oil, which I found on the tub, and when I was through I put on the green terry cloth robe I keep there and took a bottle of club soda out from under the bathroom sink, where Susan kept it, picked up the gun, and went back to the kitchen. I made a light Scotch and soda and stood in her front window and looked out. The gun was on the coffee table behind me. Trees along Linnaean Street were beginning to bud. They were mostly maples, a few oak, and at least one horse chestnut. Across the street in front of the brick apartment building a Hispanic woman wearing a down vest over a print dress was rocking a baby in its carriage. She rolled the carriage back toward her and pushed it away as she leaned against the building. There was no sound in the apartment. I felt the sense of peace and disconnection that I felt after Susan and I made love. A Federal Express truck pulled up next door and a young woman in the FedEx uniform got out and headed up to the front door with one of those urgent- looking envelopes. Directly opposite me on the ledge outside the second story of the apartment building, four pigeons sat and craned their necks about and teetered like they do. I looked back down in the street. No one came along with a gun and a coil of rope.
'Goddamn,' I said aloud in the quiet room.
If he'd make a move at us, I could kill him and it would be over. I didn't think Hawk would lose him and I didn't think Quirk would either.
But it happens. It's very hard to stick with someone who knows you're there and who wants to lose you and doesn't care if you know he wants to lose you. If the guy you're tailing is resourceful, it is in fact impossible. I knew that and Quirk knew and Belson knew it. Hawk knew it, though Hawk never really believed that he could be thwarted.
It was why I wouldn't leave her.
I went back to the kitchen and made another light Scotch and soda, and walked back to the window and looked down some more.
What if he killed me?
I shook my head sharply. Thinking about that was too painful. It wasn't too productive either. To be who I was and do what I did had to assume I'd win.
'Just because he could jump a fence better,' I said. There was no other sound in the apartment.
It was like a lot of things: you felt fear not when it was most likely but when it was most awful. If he got past me to Susan… I shook my head again. He had to shake Hawk, and he had to be able to get past me.
And he had to get Susan before she got the gun. Could she shoot? Yes.
She could. If she had to. And if she had to, she'd be calm and steady and the gun wouldn't waver.
I looked down in the street again.
'Come on,' I said. 'Come on and do it.'
I heard my own voice in the room and felt foolish, but my teeth were still clenched hard and the trapezius muscles were bunched up near my neck.
From the bed I heard Susan's voice.
'Hello,' she said. It was a very small sound.
I walked down the hallway and into the bedroom. She lay on her back on top of the covers, wearing only her sweater.
I said, 'It is wanton and shameless to make love while wearing a sweater.' She said, 'Tell me there is a Diet Coke somewhere in this house.'
'I saw one under the sink in the bathroom,' I said. 'I assume you want it warm.'
'Yes, and at once,' she said.
I went and got the Diet Coke and poured it into a large glass and got a lemon from the refrigerator and cut her a wedge and put it in the Coke.
Actually I got a third of a lemon that had dried out slightly, which Susan had left in one of the egg-keeper pockets inside the door. I brought it to the bedroom and put it on the night table beside her bed.
She was still flat on her back. I collected some of the pillows I had cast aside earlier and plumped them around her and put my hand behind her back between her shoulder blades and sat her up and slid the pillows behind her.
'Jesus Christ,' she said.
