Victor turned abruptly away and stalked out of my field of vision.
“Hang him, you bloody Indian.”
Something sparked behind Red Man’s eyes. Colder than rage. So tightly controlled it made Victor’s outburst seem like a child’s. I wondered, for the first time, who really had the power in that relationship.
Red Man set the man on the floor and tied a rope around his chest and shoulders. It formed a harness, which then held his weight when he dangled from the meat hook. His legs jerked and sent him tracing an oblong star in the air. He gasped and coughed, but though his eyes fluttered, they did not open.
Victor returned to the center of the room. He held a small pair of pliers and a handsaw. His eyes were glassy and blazing. The handsaw he put beneath the swinging man’s feet. The pliers he handed to Red Man.
“Do it,” he said. “I have the rest.”
Red Man, whose name was Walter Finch, though I did not know it at the time, glanced again at the hanging man. He nodded.
“Upper right bicuspid,” Victor said.
I was trying to parse the code—or was it slang?—when Red Man pressed Victor against the pentagram wall behind the straw-and-cotton man. Pressed him with one large hand over the chest. Victor gazed up at him like a lover, sick with anticipation. He opened his mouth. Red Man kissed him with the pliers. Grabbed the tooth and yanked. Victor trembled and jerked. He would have fallen down if not for the one hand pinning him like a butterfly. When it was done, Red Man pressed the bloody thing into Victor’s palm.
“I’ll be upstairs,” he said. His gaze slid over the far wall, where I was hiding behind the lone window. My breath stopped. But he just turned his head and left. Victor, alone, shook and cursed and spit blood onto the concrete floor. Then he lit a menthol cigarette, and started to work.
The man woke in the middle of it. He screamed so loudly I thought my skin would peel. There were incantations, which Victor hurled like curses around the hole in his mouth. There were signs burned into skin and an invocation of the devil and his unholy helpmeets. The man screamed until Victor broke his jaw. Then he just cried.
I stayed. That was the job. Victor stumbled up the stairs, blood-soaked and delirious. I stayed. I could no longer feel my own hands. Victor could have walked up on me with a gun and I’d never have noticed. Victor ran the water. He whistled. I stayed.
Red Man, silent, came downstairs again. He stood in front of the hanging man. The only sound was a high whine through a constricted throat. Red Man bowed his head. He might have said a prayer. And then he raised his gun and shot the man between the eyes.
He turned around when it was done. Stared straight at my window, and I stared straight back. I was nearly invisible there. He should never have seen me. I never knew if he did.
He nodded once. He lifted the dead man down.
11
We sleep together and it is relief inexpressible. It is Pea’s head on my shoulder and my arm draped over her torso. It is easy.
I smell smoke. Cloying, like burning trash. My fingers twitch: a warning.
Wreathed in a happier dream, I don’t heed it until my palms are burning. By which time Bobby Junior is walking with killer purpose across our living room. He releases the safety of his father’s heirloom 5mm Bergmann.
Pea is half-asleep. I drag her upright and she follows me behind the couch. Not enough protection, but thankfully Junior’s first shot goes wide. The bullet ricochets against the marble mantlepiece and buries itself in the wall just behind his head.
The shock of that widens his puffy eyes. “Bitch,” he mutters.
Pea stares at me. She heard that vicious echo. A shiver of a ghost passing through. And we might just join him in a few moments—she’s left her knives out of reach. We’re both half-naked. The nearest potentially deadly object is the fireplace poker. Bobby Junior shoots again. The bullet tunnels through the couch and buries itself in the wood beneath.
“It’s you,” I whisper. I point to the French windows.
She blinks slowly. Bobby Junior is muttering something, approaching us again. We’re only still alive because of his shaky aim, but he was raised hunting. He’ll steady if we give him the opportunity.
Pea takes both my hands, kisses me hard, and pushes me away. I stand with her momentum and run.
I scream Walter’s name as I hurtle for the French windows. They open outward. There’s a chance I can jump through and take cover outside. I plan for it, even though I fully expect one of Junior’s bullets to rip through my back.
The next three seconds pass like pebbles through water. One, I’m halfway to the windows. Two, Bobby Junior says, “Murdering bastard.” I am terrified he means Pea. Three, he shoots. I drop to the floor.
Four, five, six: the vase of colored glass falls from the mantlepiece and fractures. The poker clatters to the floor. A moment later, Junior’s head thuds softly against the rug.
“He didn’t hit you,” Pea says. She kneels, two fingers pressed against his neck.
“No,” I say, rolling onto my back. I had felt her movement behind me and known it would be safer to drop in place than go for the window. “You’d had enough time.”
She gives me a brilliant smile. “Oh, baby, imagine what we’d have been together.”
I could tell her that I’d never have killed the people she did. But that isn’t what she means. And besides—I might have.
“Bastard’s still alive,” she says. And then, “Turn around, Walter, let me get my robe.”
Tamara freezes behind him. “Fucking hell, Phyllis, what’s that white boy doing on the floor?”
“Tried to shoot us,” I tell Tamara. I climb wearily to my feet. I need to sleep for weeks. To not be on the wrong end of
