He had risen and stepped onto the edge of the porch. In the failing light his face was all angular shadows and with the skin drawn tight seemed composed solely of the skull beneath it and out the wells of dark the yellowflecked eyes as compassionless as a cat’s.
Let’s go in, he said. He would grasp her arm but she jerked away and whirled as if she’d slap him then thought better of it. She went through the door fast and tried to slam it on him, but he kicked it hard with her shoulder against it and she fetched up on the front room floor with her head against a toppled end table and a ringing in her ears. She wiped her forehead with a hand and the hand came away bloody.
It would save time, Sutter said, if we just cut through the front part and go right to the end. The front part is where I ask for the pictures and you tell me you don’t know what I’m talkin about. None of that is in question. I know you got em. You tried to blackmail Fenton Breece with em, and he sent me to get em back. Now come up with em before you do somethin to put me in a bad mood.
She was on her hands and knees. The pattern on the linoleum floor went in and out of focus. Geometric white tilesA single drop of blood dropped off her nose and splattered into a crimson star.
You can kiss my ass, she said.
Temptin as that offer is, I’m goin to have to let it slide. Maybe later. I hardly ever mix business with pleasure.
She looked up at him. His face was stony and remote.
Let’s have em, he said. Where are they?
Where you’ll never find them.
Well, we’ll see. But then I got a ace in the hole. I got you to show me.
He leant over her and grasped her hair and pulled her to her feet. He twisted his fist in her hair and pulled her head back. His face was very close to her own. He was detached, and there was nothing at all of life in the emptylooking eyes. They might have been shards of agate flecked with iron ore.
He slapped her. She had begun to cry. He’ll kill you, she said.
It’s been tried before, he said. By better men than he is. I figured you for a harder case than this. Folks into blackmailin and extortion need a harder shell than what you’ve showed.
You ought to know.
He released her hair. She settled back to the floor. Her head drooped. She sat with her legs folded beneath her.
Get over on that couch and set, Sutter said. I’m goin to look around a bit. Don’t get up. Don’t even think about slippin out that door. If you do, I’ll hear you and I’ll drop you in the front yard like I was killin hogs. Do you believe me?
She didn’t reply, but she believed him anyway.
He began in the front room. He emptied out drawers, checked their bottomsides, pored over their contents. He took the backs off picture frames and looked behind them. Fromtime to time he glanced sharply at her. She wondered where Tyler was, she’d wish he’d come and then she’d hope he didn’t. She sat trying to think. She didn’t know what to do. She’d been holding something of an intricate design, and it had collapsed in her hands, and she didn’t know where the pieces went. It was dark outside. The windows had gone opaque and all they showed her was the reflection of the room.
Be putting this shit up, he told her. I don’t want this place lookin like it was turned wrong side out. He wandered into the kitchen.
She got up listlessly and began to store away papers in the drawers. She could hear him in the kitchen opening and closing doors. When she had the room tidied up, she looked toward the kitchen door and he was standing there watching her speculatively.
What’s them pictures show, anyway? he asked.
Just dead folks.
Dead folks? Why’s he wantin pictures of dead people so bad?
She shook her head mutely. There was no way to explain even if she had wanted to.
Is he screwin dead women or what?
She didn’t reply. She wondered idly if it had been the money Breece was paying him or just a perverse desire to see the pictures that had set him in motion.
He crossed the room toward her. Maybe you got em on you.
I ain’t, though. I’m not that stupid.
It might be fun to look.
How much is he paying you, anyway? Sutter considered a moment. A thousand dollars, he said.
They’re worth a lot more than that. Me and Kenneth’ll give you five thousand and all you got to do is leave us alone.
He just looked at her.
Half, then.
It’s a hard fact that half of nothin is nothin, too. That’s what you’ve got and what you’re goin to wind up with.
He grasped her shirt, a hand to each side of her collar. When he yanked buttons spun off and she stood with the shirt hanging open. When she made to hold it together, he slapped her. He unpocketed the knife and pressed a button on its mother-of-pearl side, and the blade snicked out. He slid the blade between her breasts, dull side in. Let’s see what’s under here, he said. When he pulled the knife outward, the narrow edge of cold steel sliced the strap between the brassiere cups. He uncovered her breasts, studied them clinically. No pictures here, he said. Nothin here but titties.
She was crying. You’re going to pay for this, you son of a bitch.
She could hear the truck laboring up the hill. He heard it too, stood in an attitude of listening, the knife still clenched in his fist. A moment later and the walls moved with the shadows of treebranches, the fence, sliding along the wall like illusory images propelled by some enormous wind.
He got a gun in that truck?
I don’t know what he’s got.
You holler and I swear I’ll kill you. I’ll cut your throat, then hide behind the door and cut his.
Crazy, she said, so softly she might have been talking about herself.
Footsteps crossed the porch, and the door opened. Tylerstood for a moment framed darkly against the paler dark outside. He held a thermos bottle in one hand; a toolbelt dangled from the other. His eyes grew wide and seemed to take in the whole room at once. His mouth opened but he didn’t say anything.
Everything looked harsh and surreal: What he saw was Sutter standing slightly behind her holding her left arm twisted between her shoulder blades. The blade of the knife lay across her throat. She was attempting to hold the shirt closed but her right breast was exposed. She had her eyes clenched shut, and her face was twisted in pain.
I don’t believe you thought I was serious, Sutter said.
He released the girl and stepped away from her. He closed and pocketed the knife. Fix them clothes, he told the girl. He grinned at Tyler. She can’t keep her clothes on. Somethin about me affects women that way. She’d’a had mine off, you hadn’t of showed up when you did.
Sooner or later I am fixing to kill you, Tyler said. If you don’t kill me first. You had no business going after my sister any such chickenshit way as this. You already told me. I thought you’d be man enough to come after me.
Sutter shrugged. Whatever works, he said.
He watched intent form in Tyler’s eyes, and when Tyler threw the thermos he sidestepped and heard it smash against the wall somewhere behind him. When Tyler came for him he just feinted left and slammed Tyler in the side of the head with his fist. Tyler staggered and swung the toolbelt hard but Sutter caught it onehanded and jerked and when Tyler came stumbling into range Sutter drove a fist into Tyler’s abdomen and the boy’s breath exploded outward in a harsh whoosh and he sat down hard and rolled over. By the time he got upSutter was sitting on the couch with the rifle across his lap. Now get out the memory box and let’s look at them old family pictures, he said.
I don’t have them, Tyler said. Someone’s keeping them for me.
Sure they are. You just handed them over for somebody to keep a few days. You think I just fell off the
