The quality of the voice baffled her. It was male and mature, but it didn't seem to have as much… volume as most mature male voices.
The voice said, 'Turn around.'
She heard her teeth chattering, and she knew it wasn't from the cold. It was the idea of a gun. Within the past twenty-four hours one man had tried to strangle her to death-or something like that-and another man was pulling a gun on her. She was just a simple little Catholic farm girl. Why were so many people picking on her all of a sudden?
'Do you really have a gun?' Denise heard herself say.
'I really have a gun.'
'But I mean, you wouldn't shoot me, would you?'
'And why wouldn't I? I found you on my back porch. I assume you were about to break in.'
'But I'm a girl.'
'Girls can be dangerous, too.'
'I'm from a farm.'
'So?'
'Farm girls aren't like that.'
A hint of amusement played in the small voice. 'Oh, they're not, eh?'
'Huh-uh. Honest.'
She realized suddenly how weird this conversation was. She was standing on a stranger's back porch looking out on a backyard silver with ice and moonlight in a neighbourhood she'd never been in before, talking to a guy with a little voice, who (a) held a gun and her, and (b) seemed to find her funny in some strange way.
'If you're from a farm, what're you doing here?'
That was a good question. She wished she had a good answer. She panicked, thinking maybe she'd gotten the wrong address or something. 'I, uh, was looking for somebody.'
'Who?'
'Just a guy.'
'Oh, a guy, huh? You don't sound old enough to have a guy.'
That remark kind of irritated her. 'I'm sixteen.'
'That isn't old enough.'
She wanted to ask him what was he, a priest or something? But she kept thinking about the gun. 'Do you really have a gun?'
'Right in my hand.'
'Will you put it away?'
'Why would I do that?'
'Because guns scare me. My brother shot himself in the leg once, when he was messing around with one of my dad's pistols.'
'I'm sorry to hear that.'
'So, would you?'
'Would I what?'
'Put the gun down. I'm not dangerous. I promise.'
The amusement was back in his voice again. 'I guess you don't sound particularly dangerous.'
'Really I'm just a farm girl, like I said.'
'A farm girl who stands in front of people's houses and then sneaks up on their back porches, eh?'
'Well.'
'Maybe does a little B amp;E on the side.'
'What's B amp;E?'
'Breaking and entering.'
'No, huh-uh, honest.' She shivered. 'Also, I'm getting real cold.'
'You weren't cold standing across the street all that time?'
'I kept walking back and forth. I wasn't standing still like this.'
'How does some hot chocolate sound?'
'What?' She couldn't be sure she heard him right. One minute he was holding a gun on her and talking about B amp;E, and the next minute he was asking her how chocolate sounded. 'It sounds great.'
'Well, I'll make you a cup if you promise me.'
So, here it was; the old trade-off. You promise me you'll do all these nice moist things to my body, and I promise you I'll give you something. In this case a cup of hot chocolate. 'Promise you what?'
'Promise me that you're not dangerous.'
'That's all?'
'Of course. What else would I make you promise?'
'I guess I was just thinking of something else.' He paused. 'Why don't you put your hands above your head?'
'Like this?'
'Exactly.'
'Just like on TV,' Denise said.
'Just like on TV.'
'And then what?'
'And then turn around very slowly and face me.'
'Like this?'
'Like that.'
So, she turned all the way around and faced him.
And then-shocked-she saw why his voice was so small. Here was a man sitting in a wheelchair, holding a gun in his hand.
Then he said about the goofiest thing he could say, considering the gun. 'You like marshmallows in your hot chocolate?'
18
Culhane sometimes drank in a bar out by the airport. It was a place where the middle management level of advertising people went to sulk about how bad the top level of management was. A nautical motif lent the place the look of a fashionable steak house in the 1950s-a little long on cute, a little short on taste.
Brolan and Foster had come here many times back in the days when they'd been employees and not employers. But as soon as they departed Cummings and Associates, they were no longer viewed by the gang here as reliable. They'd sold out. They were bosses. It was never anything as formal as a dig or a punch in the mouth… but soon enough they detected the subtle but certain way the boys viewed them. And so they started hanging out where top-level management folks were supposed to go. It was a caste system rigid as India's, except nobody would admit it existed.
Brolan found Culhane's ten-year-old Mercedes sitting in the lot. Despite the recent cleansing snow, the car still needed a wash.
Brolan got out of his car and stood for a moment taking fresh night air into his lungs. Several times that night he'd thought of giving this all up and just calling the police and telling them what had happened. Maybe they'd believe him after all. The problem was that having a woman in his freezer did not increase his credibility as a witness.
Taking the fresh air deep, he thought again of Emma's portrait. He was beginning to wish he'd known the woman. Some intimate knowledge of her might help him as he tried to figure out who'd murdered her.
Feeling refreshed, even a little mean in the face of all the forces against him, Brolan went inside.
The nautical decor was covered up with holiday decor. An electric Santa Claus peered out from a buoy, and mistletoe hung from an anchor. This was from last year. The place smelled of cigarettes and whiskey.
