to pose for nude photos can’t have helped, either.”
“That was a fucking evil thing to do.”
“Was that what happened? He saw the photos and lost it? Went on a rampage with a can of gas?”
“You’re insane.”
“But close enough to the mark.”
“You don’t have any proof at all that that’s what happened.”
“Do you really think I need any?”
“Get the fuck out of my house.”
“John, when I go to the police and tell them I believe Stan set fire to my warehouse they’ll take him in for questioning. Proof won’t come into it because two minutes after they sit him down he’ll have told them everything himself. You know he will, there’s no way he could stand up to being questioned.”
“What do you want?”
“To make the community a safer place. We can’t have people running around setting things on fire.”
“You mean prison? Are you fucking joking? We’re talking about Stan here. It would destroy him.”
“Do you think I care about that?”
“This is about you and me and Marla and Gareth and that fucking video. Don’t bring Stan into it.”
“Maybe you could persuade me not to.”
“I already asked you what you want.”
“Cancel your lease on Bill’s warehouse and move out. I want to buy the land.”
“But we won’t be able to run our business.”
“You’re hardly doing that now. And I want this land, as well.”
“What land?”
“This land, here.”
“Are you joking? Why?”
Jeremy Tripp shrugged. “Because you have it. You’ve got to understand, I’m honor bound to take everything you have. You and that Gareth twerp and your slut here.” He pointed his chin at Marla.
“The fire was just what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
“You made a mistake. You should have looked after your brother better.”
“How do I know you won’t go to the police even if I do what you want?”
“You don’t. But what choice do you have? I’m saying I won’t tell anyone. What are you going to do, fail your brother again by not even
Giving up the warehouse didn’t bother me much, Plantasaurus was on its last legs anyhow. But Empty Mile was a whole other matter.
“I’m waiting, John.”
“The warehouse lease I can cancel as soon as I get ahold of Bill. But the land will involve a lawyer. I’ll need a few days to arrange it.”
“Just as long as you don’t dilly-dally.” Jeremy Tripp stood up. “And now, to seal the bargain, I’d like your girlfriend to take care of me.”
“Take care of you?”
“Blowjob.”
“Fuck off. She doesn’t work for Gareth anymore and she’s not whoring herself to you.”
Jeremy Tripp looked at me like I was insane. “Your brother will go to prison. At the very least a psychiatric institution. Do you think he’ll ever be the same again? Do you think
I hated the idea of Marla going down on Jeremy Tripp, but it was the lesser of two evils. She would be a little more damaged because of it but she would still be Marla after it was over. Stan, though, most definitely would not be Stan if he was locked up for any length of time.
Of course she knew what I was thinking, or saw it in my face. She sighed and dropped to her knees in front of him and unzipped his fly. Over her head, Jeremy Tripp winked at me.
“Someone’s got some sense.”
I couldn’t watch and went to stand at the end of the room where the sink and the counter ran across the rear wall. When I got there I glanced over my shoulder. Jeremy Tripp’s back was toward me, buttocks clenching, hands wrapped in Marla’s hair. I turned away and braced myself against the counter, wishing the earth would open up.
When Jeremy Tripp started to make grunting noises my gaze wandered across the counter to the sink. To a large kitchen knife lying there waiting to be washed. I reached out and closed my hand around the brown wood of its handle. And then I turned and started quietly back across the floor.
Tripp had been taking his time but he wasn’t far away now and his hips were driving at Marla in hard thrusts, making her gag. I held the knife out in front of me. The distance between its blade and Tripp’s back was not great, maybe fifteen feet. I watched it narrow as I moved forward, this space that was all there was between the life and death of a man I hated.
Part of Marla’s face was visible past his right hip and she watched me with one eye.
I wanted to plunge the knife into his back and twist it. I wanted revenge for what he was doing to Marla, for what he had done to her in the past. I wanted revenge for the destruction of my brother’s hopes. I wanted this threat to our lives gone forever.
But I couldn’t do it. Halfway across the floor I stopped. For a moment I just stood there, pointing the knife at him. Then I turned around and walked back to the sink and stood looking blankly out of the window above it, listening to the sound of Jeremy Tripp ejaculating into Marla’s mouth.
Later, when he had gone, Marla brushed her teeth and stood at the sink and stared out the window with me.
She had done things like this before. She had been a hooker and had sex with men she didn’t know, she had been made to service Jeremy Tripp by Gareth, and she and I had performed in the forest for Bill Prentice. So going down on Jeremy Tripp that day wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever done. But it had happened in her home, and it had happened soon after Gareth had forced a similar experience on her.
I knew she didn’t want to talk about it but I felt I had to say something.
“Thank you.”
It was inadequate, I knew, but I thought anything else would sound self-serving.
Marla lit a cigarette and slowly pinched the flame of the match out between her thumb and forefinger. She didn’t flinch or make a sound. When she had smoked the cigarette she turned to me and said in an overly controlled voice, “Are you going to give him what he wants?”
“It won’t make any difference. He wants to destroy us, asking for the warehouse and the land is just another step along the way, but it’s not the end. All his attacks so far have been personal. He throws you out of your house, he fucks you in front of me, he poisons our plants, he sets up a competing firm, and for Gareth he’s wrecking the chances of a road to the lake. None of this is about getting anything material, it’s about revenge for Pat. And it’s not going to stop while any of us are still functioning. He’s going to tell the police about Stan whether I give him the land or not.”
“So?”
“Fuck, I don’t know…”
“You do, Johnny. I can see you thinking it.”
“You mean kill him? Do you think I’m that kind of person? Do you think I could actually kill someone?”
“What do you want me to tell you? That I’d be all right with it? Is that what you’re waiting for?”
“I’m not waiting for anything.”
“Because I am okay with it, Johnny. I am.”
“I couldn’t do it. I tried with the knife and I couldn’t.”
“I’m okay with it, but you have to know it’ll always be with you. You’ll never get rid of it.”
“I said I
“But you’ve thought of a way, haven’t you?”
Marla’s voice was worn through with sadness. She ran her fingers over the back of my neck and without feeling it my legs buckled and I hit the floor with my knees and stayed there, holding her to me, my face pressed
