A world away, Savy buried her face in Clay’s collar.
“Is love what you feel now?” The Hailmaker mocked. “Is it glorious, Rocco Boyle?”
“I don’t really have to kill Deidre, do I?” Karney/Rooster said.
The Hailmaker pressed his fingers to one of the candlewicks, leaving a thin jet of rising smoke. “It doesn’t seem like you’ve snuffed him yet, does it?”
Indeed Boyle was fighting strangulation with everything he had, lifting both hands over his head and tugging at the rope to bring the fixture down. When this failed, he managed to lift himself enough to breathe in short, choked gasps.
The Hailmaker applauded the effort. “See? He’s able to do that not out of love, but fury. If he gets loose now, he’ll tear you to tiny pieces.” The fingers doused a second candle, indifferent to the scorch of the flame. “Before that happens, you’ll want to help him along.”
“Can’t we let him get tired? He can’t resist forever.”
“You’re beginning to bore me,” The Hailmaker told him.
Karney lifted his hands. “I’ll torch the property, alright? They’ll both die and—”
“If you want his life, take it, you little fucking pussy. Kill for it! Make it yours!”
Karney’s face was whiter than ever, but he gathered his courage and moved to Boyle’s flailing body. And he seemed to hesitate forever. The figure went about his business, and for the briefest of moments before he—she, it—snuffed the third candle, Clay saw the face clearly. Savy was still burrowed in his shirt, but she felt the sharpness of Clay’s inhalation as he witnessed the impossibly wide mouth, the bulging forehead, the harsh bone structure. The Hailmaker had the features of an eight-foot giant, even if the body it was perched on was scarcely six feet tall. It took less than a second for the flame that revealed the face to be snuffed, but the sight left a permanent mark in the ever-softening pavement of Clay’s psyche.
“Don’t look anymore,” Savy whispered. “Whatever it is, don’t—”
“Rocco’s losing his grip,” Clay told her.
The desperation on Boyle’s face was fading toward a grim acceptance, even a desire, for death to do its work. One hand lost hold of the rope, then the other, finger by slow guitar-strong finger. Until he finally fell, and his gagging and writhing started again.
Davis Karney managed to capture the kicking legs, just as Boyle’s bladder released, showering him in urine. “Do it!” The Hailmaker boomed. “Do it or lose everything you’ve asked for!”
And Clay wanted to heed Savy’s advice, wanted to shut his eyes against what was coming, but he was as helpless to stare at the television as Savy was to stare at him, watching—he would later believe—Boyle’s final moments reflected in Clay’s own glassy eyes.
Karney jerked Boyle down with all his weight, just as the last candle went out.
And in the sudden darkness there was a sickeningly sharp crack.
Then, nothing, save for Karney/Rooster’s sobbing in the dark, and that overpowering voice one last time: “Good. Good boy. Now go and bash the girl’s brain in.”
15
SLEEP NOW IN THE FIRE
Karney killed the video and the television reverted to blue screen, lighting Clay and Savy in its stricken glow. “Not much else to see or hear,” he informed them, and coughed. “Huk! Just the creak of Rocco swinging back and forth, and me coming to collect the camera later on. You never hear The Man leave. Not a peep. I’ve listened. Huk!”
“The Man,” Clay repeated. Like Karney, his voice was scrubbed raw, little more than a croak. “How did you meet him?”
“Hard to say. One day he was just there with his offer.” Karney snorted and shifted in his chair, the leather squealing wetly with kerosene. “Let’s state the obvious though: He’s no man.”
“You killed them,” Savy grunted. And the hatred on her face worried Clay. He seized her wrist, afraid she would rush Karney where he sat. “Rocco, then Deidre.”
“The Man sent me into the house, yes. I had a hammer in my sweatshirt that could’ve smashed her skull like an egg. Huk-huk-huk! But I didn’t. Deidre was still alive when I got to her. With the drugs, she should’ve been comatose on the back lawn, but that girl had crawled inside, dumped out her pocketbook—looking for her cell, I guess—then she made it all the way upstairs. She was in the bedroom, lifting the landline when I took it from her hand. She asked me, ‘Is he alive?’ And I told her, ‘Yeah. Rocco decided to live. He sent me to kill you instead.’ And do you know what she said? Looked right up at me, Huk!,and said, ‘Thank God. Do it.’”
Karney shook his head, a genuine sadness seeming to pass through him. “She closed her eyes, waited for my deathblow. It never came. I let her OD and The Man didn’t call me on it. I never saw him again anyway. Just his… representatives.”
Clay’s eyes dropped to the gun lighter, Karney’s finger fiddling with the trigger. If he and Savy were going to get out alive, they would need to think of something fast.
“Like everyone, I wanted to know that feeling all the best songs talked about,” Karney went on. “And yet, when I witnessed genuine love between Rocco and Deidre, I knew I’d never have it. I’d ruined it for them—ruined it for myself. It was the price I had to pay.” Karney gave a self-pitying sigh and cast his bloodshot eyes at the ceiling. “Rocco was dead-on about one thing: The fate I doomed him to would one day be my own. It’s always haunted me. Even on stage. I’d stare at all those bobbing heads and wonder who out there would come to unseat me.” He leveled his stare on Savy. “If you were smarter, you’d have gotten me in my sleep.”
“The Man didn’t send us,” Clay pleaded. “We’re not here to hurt you.”
“You’re a lousy fucking liar,” Karney shot back. “You never once, huk!, questioned what was happening
