smoke curling around her head.
“How does it feel?” she said. But she wasn’t talking to me. She had Whitley’s cell phone pressed to her ear. “You tried to kill him, and you failed. Again. Like always. And then he came right back down here to me, and you wanna know what I did to him, Charles? You wanna hear what I did? I took my clothes off in front of him and then I climbed onto his body, his whole, perfect, hard body, Charles, and I fucked him so hard, he won’t be able to walk straight for two days. Oh, pardon me, Charles. How insensitive of me, seeing as how you never get to walk anymore. You wanna hear how good it feels to be fucked by a real man who isn’t propped up in a wheelchair like some pathetic little worm? God, my nipples are so sore right now. And my legs are still trembling. I came so hard, Charles. Even when you were a whole person, Charles, even on the very best day of your life, you could have never fucked me half as good as Alex just did. How does that make you feel? How does it feel to know that you will never even touch a woman again, Charles? For the rest of your miserable little life, you’ll just be a broken little gimp stuck in a wheelchair and you will never, ever, ever feel a woman touching your body, because even if she did, Charles, even if she did, you wouldn’t even be able to feel it. I don’t know why you don’t just kill yourself. You’ve got nothing to live for. Nothing at all. Unless you think getting back at me is gonna somehow make you feel better. You’re welcome to try, Charles. Maybe I’ll send Alex back up there so you can try killing him again. And then when he makes you look like a pathetic little dog, I’ll fuck him all over again. Would you like that, Charles? Would you like that?
… Yeah, that’s right, go ahead and tell me what you’re gonna do to me, I’m really scared. Just keep talking, Charles. You know where to find me. Why don’t you come here yourself next time? Are you afraid to face me in person?… Yeah, that’s right. You’re all talk. You’ve got nothing. I’m gonna hang up now, you little worm. Have a nice night. Try not to dream about me.”
She hung up. She took another drag on her cigarette. Then she turned around.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Just talking to an old friend.”
I looked at her. If there was a single word I could have thought of saying, I would have said it.
“Who are you?” she finally said.
“You know who I am.”
“No, really,” she said. “Why did you come here? You were gonna help Wilkins put the touch on me, right? You were in on his little scam.”
“I thought he was looking for you,” I said. “For other reasons.”
“You wanna know something?” she said. “Randy Wilkins? I barely even remember him. You know how many men we were setting up back then?”
“What do you mean, setting up?”
“God, how dumb are you, Alex? I mean, really? That was our scam back then. My whole family. Wilkins was the pitcher, right? Came from a rich family?”
I stood there for a while, going over the whole thing from beginning to end. I watched her standing there, and she watched me back.
“Everything you told me,” I finally said, “since the moment I met you, was a lie.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” she said. “I was playing you. I wanted to see what your angle was.”
“I didn’t have an angle, Maria.”
“Everybody has an angle,” she said. “And if you really don’t, well”-she took a drag on her cigarette, blew smoke to the ceiling-”then I was right. You are too good.”
CHAPTER 21
My father never said much to me about women. He had opinions about baseball, and hockey, and every other sport he had ever seen. He had opinions about how to take care of an automobile, about how to fix a piece of furniture. God knows, he had opinions about how to build a log cabin. He had opinions about all these things because he believed that there are many wrong ways to do something, and only one right way. With women, there is no right way. At least that’s what he told me. “Just try to find the one woman who’ll always tell you the truth,” he once said, maybe the only time in his life he tried to give me some advice about the opposite sex. “It’s hard enough to figure out a woman, even if they’re straight with you. If they start lying, you don’t have a prayer.”
It seemed like some pretty outdated advice the first time I heard it. Now I’m not so sure.
Maria had lied to me about recognizing Randy, about remembering him after all these years. She had lied to me about her past, and about her family. It all made sense now. Her mother did “cold readings,” as they call them in the business. It’s not so hard. You create the right atmosphere, you suspend belief as much as you can, and then you start looking for weaknesses. Everybody has them. Your parents don’t understand you. You have big dreams, but something is holding you back. You’re afraid of something. If you don’t get a nibble, you quickly move on to something else. When you finally get a hit, it’s as obvious as a neon sign over the sucker’s head. Yes! That’s it! That’s my problem! How did you know?
And then you reel them in. If it’s a young man on the hook and you need to use your daughter to pull them into the net, so be it. That’s how the game works.
The Harwood business was still a little confusing. I didn’t know how much of that was a lie. Clearly, they hated each other. But now I didn’t know who the victim was, or even if there was a victim. Suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Not to me.
As I thought about it I was pretty sure I knew when the hook had been set, the exact moment when she must have decided I could be very useful to her. When I walked into that bar and sat down next to her, and spoke to her for the first time. Hello, I’m the guy who was with Randy Wilkins. Yeah, the con artist. Although I didn’t know it at the time. He asked me to help him find you just because he wanted to see you again after all these years. And I believed him.
She must have had me marked for the ultimate sucker right then. Was she right? Maybe she was. Although she didn’t get what she wanted, not in the end. Harwood was still alive. And I was backing my truck down her driveway.
When my truck was aimed in the right direction, I punched it. If I could have squealed my tires, I would have. All I did was kick up a little gravel. Good night, Maria. And good luck.
A half mile down the road, my night got even worse. Chief Rudiger’s squad car was parked at the boat launch, and the man himself was standing next to Whitley’s white Cadillac, looking in through what used to be the window on the passenger’s side. When he saw my truck coming, he stepped out into the middle of the road. Running him over would have felt pretty good right about then. I resisted the temptation. He stood motionless until I stopped in front of him, and then he came around to my window. I rolled it down.
“Evening, Mr. McKnight,” he said.
“What can I do for you, Chief?”
“Do you know anything about this car?” he said.
“Looks like he needs a new window,” I said.
“Do you happen to know where the owner is right now?”
“No,” I said. Technically, it was the truth.
“I think we need to discuss this matter,” he said.
“Chief,” I said. “Please. I have to tell you, I’m no longer working for Ms. Zambelli. I no longer have any interest in anything that ever happened in this town. Or anything that ever will happen. In fact, I’m on my way out of here right now. As soon as you let me go, I’m going to leave and never come back. Ever. I should think that would make your night.”
“I can’t let you leave here,” he said. He put both his hands on the top of my truck. “Not without buying you a drink.”
“Excuse me?”
“Follow me to Rocky’s,” he said. “I’m buying.”
“Chief, if you don’t mind, it’s been a long night…”
“You got two choices,” he said. “Either we go to my office and talk about what happened to that car over
