“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Then how did you mean it?”
The breeze picks up, sending the wind chimes into a sudden frenzy, clanging and clattering.
“Look, your old man?” Nova says. “He just … flipped.”
“I sometimes think I should have seen it coming.”
“How?” He takes a step forward, his eyes intense. “Just how could you have seen that coming? There were no warning signs. There was absolutely nothing you could have done about it.”
“Still …”
“Still what?”
“Still it never made sense. How he could do something like that. Why he would have in the first place.”
“Everyone has his price, Holly. Sometimes I think even God would bow out for the right amount.”
The breeze dies down and the wind chimes go quiet, still swaying but not making any noise.
“You can’t bring God into the equation,” I say.
“Why not? It’s a good cop-out answer.”
“That’s exactly the reason.”
Nova holds his hands out, the open palms lifted toward the sky. “Then what the fuck do you want me to say?”
I shake my head, wipe at my eyes. “I’m thinking about getting out.”
Nova doesn’t say anything.
I glare up at him. “This is the point in the conversation you’re supposed to tell me that’s a crazy idea.”
Nova looks down at his feet, looks back up. His voice suddenly soft, he says, “Holly, you have to be honest with yourself. Walter … he’s right. You have changed. That shit back in Vegas, you never would have done that before.”
“Another one of my fucking little crusades, right?”
“Holly—”
“Why do you do it, Nova?”
“Why do I do what?”
“The work you do.”
His gaze steady on mine, he says, “Work is work.”
“It’s that simple?”
“Why do people become accountants? Why do they become bank tellers? Why do they become CEOs of fucking oil companies? They have to do something. And me, well, I have to do something too.”
“But why killing?”
“Our work is more than just killing.”
“Answer the question.”
He stares at me, his eyes still intense. Finally he looks away, shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “It’s none of your goddamned business.”
“That’s what I thought. People like us, we’re driven to do this work. Something in our past makes us who we are.”
“What the fuck are you now, a shrink? Of course something in our past makes us who we are. It’s the same for everybody.”
“But we kill people.”
“We do more than that.”
“Do you want to know why I do it?”
“Why?”
“To save lives.”
Nova just smiles. He takes a swig of the Cuervo, tilts his head back and gargles it like mouthwash before swallowing.
“I’m serious, Nova.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“That’s how I’ve always rationalized it. We kill the bad guys so the good guys keep living.”
“And what’s changed now?”
“Apparently I’m on a gradual decline.” My voice seethes with sarcasm. “Have been on a gradual decline.”
Nova says, “What is this really about? Is this about Scooter? You feel guilty now and you’re having a fucking pity party for yourself?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you and Walter are talking about. I haven’t changed at all.”
Nova barks out a loud laugh. “That’s a good one. Got anymore?”
“Fuck you.”
“You want the truth, Holly?” He takes three quick strides until he’s standing in front of me, his face right in front of my own. “You’ve become reckless. You’ve become irresponsible. You don’t give a shit about anybody else except yourself. And the worst part about that? I don’t even think you like yourself very much.”
He hasn’t shaved in the past two days and his face is full of stubble. Normally he looks very good—hence his name, Casanova—but now his eyes are bloodshot, his face haggard.
My voice low and steady, I say, “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Yes, I do. I know more than I fucking want to.”
“You don’t know shit.”
“Oh, fuck you.” He turns away, takes another swig of the Cuervo. His back to me, he says, “Quit being a cunt, Holly,” and I’m moving before I even know it.
I come up behind him and kick at the back of his knees. He loses his balance and falls down, dropping the bottle, and with the heel of my hand I punch him in the ribs. He groans, tries to reach for me, and I grab his arm, twist it up behind his back.
“Call me a cunt one more time.”
“Cunt,” he spits.
I twist his arm even more, right to the point it’s ready to dislocate.
“Go ahead, Nova, say it again.”
But he doesn’t say it again. He’s drunk off his ass and he weighs one hundred pounds more than me, but he’s not stupid, not when he’s in this position.
“I’m in control of my own life,” I whisper into his ear. “Got it? And there’s nothing fucking wrong with me.”
In one quick motion I let go of his arm and stand back up, step out of his reach. It doesn’t matter. He just stays on the ground, his face against the stones, groaning softly as he moves his arm back in place. I stand there watching him for another moment, then turn and start toward the roof door we’d left propped open with a broken piece of brick. I only stop when Nova calls my name.
“You go ahead and tell yourself that,” he says. “But ask yourself this—had the Vegas mission taken place two years ago, would you have gone out to that ranch? Would Scooter still be alive?”
I continue walking, right to the door. I grab the brick and open the door and then toss the brick out on the rooftop, letting the door close loudly and lock in place.
Twenty-One
Total silence.
They say there’s no such thing except in space, but there are moments when I’m alone in my apartment with the windows closed that I sit or stand very still and it’s like the world doesn’t exist anymore, that such things as screams and gunfire and crying are just a distant dream.
It’s well past midnight and I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and think about total silence. It’s so quiet that if a
