‘I said, “My husband doesn’t use drugs.”’
‘Who said anything about “using” drugs? Your husband is
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want any of those things.’
‘So what do you want?’
She swallowed hard. ‘For this to be made right.’
Dempsey patted her bare leg, then let his hand linger there a couple of seconds too long. ‘Maybe you aren’t so dumb after all.’
He looked at his watch.
‘Phone your husband. Find out where he is.’
Mrs. Napier shook her head. ‘You’re going to hurt him.’
‘No, we’re not. We’re just here to slap his wrist.’
‘Then why do you have a gun?’
‘Jesus, you as well. You married the wrong guy.’ Dempsey jerked a thumb at Ryan. ‘You and him should get together. I have a gun because often people are excitable, and it’s my experience that seeing a gun helps to calm them down. On the other hand, sometimes people don’t recognize the gravity of a situation, in which case the gun tends to focus their minds wonderfully. Do as I tell you: Call your husband, and soon all of this will be over.’
Mrs. Napier stood, wiping at her tears. Dempsey stayed close behind her as she went to her purse and retrieved her cell phone from it.
‘What are you going to say?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. What do you want me to say?’
Dempsey smiled. ‘Now you have the right idea. You ask him when he’s coming home. Tell him-’ Dempsey’s smile widened. ‘Tell him his new TV is on the fritz. You turned it on and smoke started coming out of the back, so you turned it off again, and now you’re worried. You got that?’
‘Yes, I understand.’
Just to make sure that she did understand, Dempsey showed her the knife again, letting her see her reflection in it. She already knew what the knife could do, and what he was prepared to do to her with it. In her case, it was more effective than the threat of a gun. A gun was a weapon of last resort, but a blade had the capacity to be incremental in the damage that it could inflict.
Mrs. Napier pressed the Redial button and her husband’s name came up on the screen. Dempsey held his head close to hers so that he could hear both ends of the conversation, but the phone went straight to voice mail. He nudged Mrs. Napier and, somewhat haltingly, she passed on the lie about the TV and asked her husband to call her and let her know when she could expect him home. After that, she returned to her chair.
Ryan went back to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, and the three of them sat in uncompanionable silence waiting for the arrival of the elusive Harry Napier. After half an hour had gone by, Dempsey began to get fidgety. He walked around the room, looking at framed photographs, leafing through papers in drawers and in closets, and all the time Mrs. Napier’s eyes followed him, furious and humiliated. Dempsey found a photo album and began turning the pages. He stopped when he came to a photograph of Mrs. Napier in a bathing suit. It had probably been taken four or five years earlier, and it showed off her figure to good effect.
‘You don’t have children, right?’ said Dempsey.
Something gaped darkly in Mrs. Napier’s eyes before she answered, like a wound briefly exposed, but Ryan saw it.
‘No, we don’t have children.’
Dempsey removed the photo from its page and held it up for Mrs. Napier to see. ‘Means you still look like this, then, doesn’t it?’
‘Jesus,’ said Ryan. ‘Do you-?’
‘Shut up,’ said Dempsey, not even glancing at Ryan. His eyes held Mrs. Napier’s. ‘I asked you a question. You still look like this?’
‘I don’t know. That was taken so long ago.’
‘How long?’
‘A decade?’
‘That a question, or a statement?’
‘A statement.’
‘You’re lying. This picture isn’t ten years old. Five maybe, but not ten.’
‘I don’t remember. I don’t look at old pictures very often.’
Dempsey laid the album on a chair but kept the photo. Once more, he squatted before Mrs. Napier, looking from the photo to her, and then back again.
‘Do you recall why we came here, Mrs. Napier. Or Helen? Can I call you Helen?’
Mrs. Napier didn’t answer the second question, only the first.
‘You said you were here to give my husband a slap on the wrist.’ Ryan saw her scratching anxiously at her left leg, just above the knee. There was a deep redness there, and he wondered if she had some skin condition, or if the scratching was a nervous tic.
‘That’s right,’ said Dempsey. ‘We’re here to give him a message about how bad it is to steal, to make him understand the consequences of his actions. I know you think we want to kill him, but we don’t. Killing is bad for business. It attracts attention. If we kill him, then we also have to kill you, and suddenly we’re looking for sheets and sacks, and we’re taking night drives to marshes and woods, and, frankly, we don’t have that kind of time on our hands. Similarly, I’m getting bored waiting around your lovely but dull home. We do have to get that message to your husband, but maybe you can pass it on to him for us. Or, more precisely, for me.’
Dempsey looked at Ryan. Ryan shook his head.
‘No.’
‘I wasn’t asking your permission. I’m indicating that you should leave and wait for me outside.’
‘Come on, man, this isn’t right. She’s frightened enough. Napier will make amends. He’s got no choice.’
‘Wait in the car, Frankie,’ and Ryan heard the warning in his voice, and knew that if he pushed it further Dempsey would be on him, and a confrontation would occur that might require serious action, and it wasn’t time for that, not yet.
Mrs. Napier’s mouth folded down, and she began to tremble.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘I’ve done all that you’ve asked.’
She looked to Ryan for help, but Ryan wasn’t going to help her. He wanted to, he really did, but he couldn’t.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.
‘No,’ said Mrs. Napier. ‘No, no, no…’
Dempsey stood. He reached down and stroked Mrs. Napier’s hair.
‘Close the door behind you, Frankie,’ he said, and the last thing that Ryan saw was Dempsey taking Mrs. Napier by the hand and leading her to the couch, her feet dragging behind her as she tried to resist, her face turned away from him, her eyes still pleading with Ryan for help that would never come.
Ryan closed the door and walked to the car, his hands in his pockets and his head low.
It couldn’t last. Everything was falling apart.
Soon, he believed that he might have to kill Martin Dempsey.
8
It was not yet nine. I sat in my office at home, listening to the rain fall on the roof, a strangely comforting
