It was the wrong thing to say, he was losing his cool again. Even though it was the truth, she wouldn't buy it. Her eyes were whirling like numbers on a slot machine. He'd been pushing the wrong buttons on her. Yeah, the big money came in, but it went out just as fast. The life cost. The more you made the more it took.
She was falling back to type. He was worse for her than Jimmy Devlin or anybody else. He'd put the fear and the need back into her, and saw in the eagerness of her eyes that the coiled energy tamped down within her was going to break soon.
He should get out. He never should've come here in the first place, and now he had to go.
Before he could move she slid in close, the red hair burning in front of his eyes, and said, 'I'll do right by you, Crease. Better than your wife. I'll be good to you.' She licked her plump lips and raised her chin, turning her head, coming in for a kiss.
'You wouldn't know how, Reb,' he told her.
She snapped her head back as if he'd backhanded her. 'That's a damn crude thing to say!'
She was right, it was. He said, 'I'm sorry,' and was surprised that he actually meant it. 'I really am. I've got to go.'
'What? Go where?'
'I'm leaving, Reb. Thanks for everything.'
'Did you just tell me thanks? Thanks, that's all? Is that what you fucking said to me?'
'Goodbye, Reb.'
He stood and got his jacket on, reached for the pack and realized he was finally out of those menthols, thank Christ. He turned to ask her if she had a cigarette and caught a dark blur of motion in his peripheral vision.
Shit, he wasn't on his toes.
He started to wheel about faster. His hands were already moving before he fully realized what he was seeing, but it was already too late. Goddamn, you couldn't relax in the game for a minute. Reb was coming around with the candlestick. He would've laughed if he'd had the time, but he didn't. A candlestick. He'd seen people get their heads cracked a lot of ways, but this would be a first. It was a movie moment, something out of a drive-in. She connected and he felt a wide arc of his blood leaving him. He whirled and hit the wall. He let out a chuckle because he knew this was about the fifteen grand. He couldn't blame her. She was too small-minded to realize how short a stash that was, how few bills it paid, how it could hardly get your ass out of debt. He was mad he'd put the time into fixing the screen door, chopping up the tree. He felt a brief, sudden wash of pity for Reb, who in another life might've been his girl. He staggered two steps and didn't get anywhere near her. Then she hit him again and he didn't feel sorry for her at all anymore.
Chapter Thirteen
The hands were taken care of, felt like cuffs.
His arms were behind him, around a chair. A thin spike of agony rammed through the top of his skull down through the top of his jaw. The spike was made of voices and colors jacked up beyond understanding. Lightning blitzkrieged him with every beat of his pulse.
He'd been here before in this position. It wasn't something you expected to go through more than once in your life, but he figured this was around number three or four. You really had to be looking for it to have it happen so often.
There was somebody close to him but he couldn't focus his eyes. Dried blood on the side of his face pulled his skin taut. That strange sense of duality filled him again. The two versions of himself were drifting side by side. The cop and the crook. It filled him with a wave of joy and loathing.
He heard rain against the windows. Reb's voice came from somewhere across the room. 'He's awake.' She sounded slightly worried, knowing she was heading into new territory she'd never be able to return from, but excited about it. He'd made this happen.
He blinked but still couldn't distinguish who was right in front of him, the face right there, two inches away. The breath stank of beer, but everybody's in this town did, you couldn't narrow down the list that way. He tried to shake his head and the pain rushed through him again and he had to clench his teeth against it.
Then somebody rapped his head. The jolt rang bells but got his blood humming. He waited for another smack and when it came he started to feel a little better. The copper taste flooded his mouth. It got him thinking straight again.
Reb said, 'Don't hurt him anymore.'
'Shut up, let me handle this.'
'You can handle it, I just don't want you-'
'I said to shut up.'
'Don't talk to me that way.'
It was Edwards so up close, sitting in another dining room chair. Staring into Crease's face like he was trying to figure out the best way to break a nose in as many pieces as it would go. Ten years later, Crease was beginning to have some second thoughts about punching Edwards out back then.
But the sheriff didn't do anything else. Just sat there studying Crease, really looking at him hard. Hoping to find some answers of his own. Crease realized the guy was thinking about his own duality. Where he'd be if not for that shot in the nose ruining his looks. If only the old man hadn't disheartened him so badly. If only he'd busted the 'nappers all those years ago and bought his way into heroism.
Edwards' features were rigid and he was smiling just a touch and his eyes were eddying with the force of his own fantasies.
You've got a guy here climbing over the hill of middle age, too wide in the belt, a house filled with photos of women who didn't love him. Crease knew the expression well. It was pure, distilled disappointment.
Good, Crease could work with that. The ones who just wanted to chop you to pieces you couldn't out-talk, couldn't really wrangle with. But the ones who wanted the stash, the goods, the talk, those you could keep on the hook at least for a while.
Still, Crease wasn't thinking too clearly. He might have it all jumbled up.
The women around Edwards' house, he thought he remembered that Reb was one of them. Maybe they still had a thing going. That would explain the current situation.
'Where's the money?' Reb said. 'Ask about the money. Get him to tell you-'
'If I have to tell you to shut up one more time I'm gonna knock your front teeth out.'
'They're already fake,' she said.
Edwards turned back to Crease and once more examined him closely. He would see Crease's father in there, see some of the same weaknesses and a few similar strengths.
But the bigtime bend, Edwards wouldn't have any way to recognize that. It would keep him puzzled, a little off-balance.
'I ran your plates,' the sheriff said. 'You've got a whole new identity. There's a rap sheet on you. You're a pretty bad boy.'
'Undercover,' he said.
'That's what he told me,' Reb said. 'Like I was saying to you.'
Edwards ignored her, talking to Crease like they were the only two people in the world right now, which they were.
'Undercover narc? You guys are the dirtiest ones on the job.'
'Yeah,' Crease admitted.
'You were seen in a Bentley owned by a known felon yesterday.'
A known felon. Edwards was about forty years out of date with his rap. Tucco had never even been arrested, had never had a felony charge hung on him. Never spent a night in lock-up. Crease had done spurts from a weekend to four months. A known felon, oh yeah.
'You going to ask me a question?' Crease asked.
Edwards couldn't quite make the decision to get tough. He'd been shamed in his own home. Not just getting punched out, but not using the gun when he could've. Crease had seen him too scared to even make a move. That
