Three days later, Pea disappears.
She takes the car that morning into Hudson for gardening supplies, but the sun sets behind the river without a sign of her. In the swinging chair in the garden, alone among the greenflies and her watermelon, I contemplate my letter from the president.
It instructs me to report in ten days. I would rather kill myself than kill anyone else again.
Dev, I will haunt you—
The air is thick with the smells of things alive and dead. Fruiting plants redolent and desperate grow upon the casings and nutrient ash of last year’s life. It isn’t so unusual to feel the attraction of life’s impossible struggle from its end. It could even be the root of all sexual desire. And yet I know I am a freak to feel it so particularly. It sickens me, the thought of what war might make of that.
There are ways of dealing with things like my letter. There are people I know, hiding secrets I can use. Not Walter, not after all we sacrificed to get out. He would expect an exchange of services. And if Pea learned what I’d done, she’d go back just to save me. Maybe Finn, my former reporting officer. It’s been years, but we have history. He might help.
It starts to rain. Fat drops splash the page. The noise of tiny drums. I’m tempted to let them destroy it, but my hands re-fold the damp sheet and tuck it in my vest pocket. I worry about Pea, driving alone, at night, in the rain. But she might not be alone.
Rain beats on the water at the bottom of the hill. And then, the fainter sound of distant thunder. I look toward the house: dark windows, closed doors, gutters choked and overrun. I am good at solitude. I have made myself develop the talent. But it feels different now. Closer. A cold kiss of a gun against my ribs, a soft suggestion. I never deserved her. She never knew me. And she leaves another hollow space, another windy tunnel that howls to me in Victor’s voice—I’ll haunt you—every time, every time she goes.
I am alone. And then I’m not. Curiosity dances down my arms like a chill. Someone else’s intense, focused curiosity. Not Pea. Whatever else I sense from her presence, the love is always unmistakable. This person wants to use me. A familiar sensation, but one I haven’t felt for months. That old sense of danger pricks me, and I come awake.
The rain feels fresher, colder.
I forget about Pea.
The boy from Craver’s store watches me from the unlatched kitchen window. I walk back quickly because of the rain, as if I have no awareness of him. In the vestibule I take my time with my coat and shoes, focusing on his attention and what I can learn from it. When I’m ready, I flip the light. He doesn’t have time to hide, only crouches behind a chair as if it might provide protection. From me, I suppose it does. But I’m not the one he’s afraid of.
“Pea’s not here,” I say. “Which makes you lucky.”
Alvin stands slowly. He’s wearing overalls like he had in the store, but they’re stained dark across the chest. He drips greasy water onto the kitchen tiles. His hands are bruised. A lump squats below his right temple. I wonder what happened to Craver’s protection.
“I won’t touch you, I promise,” he says. “You tell her that.”
“Then why are you spying on me from the kitchen?”
“Because I want to talk to you.”
I take a careful seat across from him. I’m still damp, uncomfortable, real because of it. “Then talk,” I say.
“Bobby Junior wants to kill me.”
He looks perfectly serious. In the sunroom, the grandfather clock marks the half to an unknown hour.
“Why you looking at me like that?”
“I don’t believe you.”
He spreads his hands wide. “God’s honest truth. And you know I got good reason to know. The shit—I mean, the stuff I saw about that lady killer of yours—”
“You will kindly leave Phyllis out of this.”
“Phyllis. That’s not what you call her.”
“And you’ll call her Miss Green.”
“Miss LeBlanc. Miss angel. Some kind of angel.”
I wonder if I hear a car turning up the drive, but it passes without stopping. “I can believe a lot of things of Bobby Junior, but murder…”
“He’d kill. He and his mayor daddy. You know it.”
At that I smile faintly. “I know it. But they’d never do it with their own hands. Never if they could be caught. They’d hire someone—no, and don’t tell me they could hire Pea, they would never and she would never.”
He had opened his mouth to say just that, I guessed, but now he nods. “All right, I won’t. But he’s going to kill me. And men like that never get in trouble for killing people like us.”
I acknowledge the point. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Help me. You know that family, they respect you a little. They fear you a little, so even better.”
“Don’t you already have Craver’s protection?”
He snorts. “That old man? He can’t do nothing. Doesn’t even want to. He’d do anything to save that old graveyard of his. He’d sell me.”
“So why does Bobby Junior want to kill you? Did you touch him?”
“My mom cleans their place and I’ve touched her all my life. Touched them a few times too, before they decided they believed. Mayor Bell is willing to leave me be, I think, but the Junior wants me dead.”
“You want to tell me what you know that makes him so eager to bump you off?”
Alvin gives me a long look, then shrugs. Looks out the window like he’s waiting for her, too. “No, I don’t think I do.”
“But you want my help. Why? My hands? You want me to touch the threat?”
At this Alvin takes a hasty step back. “Don’t think so, Davey. Not unless you want me to return the favor.”
I shrug, but at least
