you. I’ll work hard, I’ll make you proud of me. We’ll be the best, Bill. The two of us.”
Bitter Man starts to whisper furiously, incomprehensibly, to himself. Tears stream down his face. I look over at Judy, who looks terrified. The judge is a madman, and he’s falling apart like a demented Humpty Dumpty. “Bill, give me the gun. I want to be the best. I can’t do it without you. I need you!”
“Mary,” he says, crying. “Mary.” It’s the only understandable word he utters; the rest are whispered ravings. His eyes are so tear-filled he can’t see. He moves to wipe them on his sleeve and the gun drops away slightly from my temple.
It’s my only chance. And Judy’s.
I reach for the barrel and yank the gun away from him with all my might. It comes free in my hand.
Bitter Man looks at me in shock, then in fury. “Mary, what are you doing!” His eyes are like glittering slits.
“Get back! Get away from me!” I scream. I point the heavy gun at him and rise to my feet, weak-kneed. I hold the gun with two hands, like Marv said.
“I’ll get help!” Judy shouts. She opens the door and runs out. As fast as she is, two stairs at a time, it’ll take her just minutes to get to Avarice and back to Gluttony.
“Back up, Judge!”
“You can’t be serious,” he says, in a voice suddenly dark with malevolence. His tears have stopped completely, as have his mutterings.
“Get back!” I aim the gun higher, right at his eyes. “Now!”
He backs up against the bookcase, sneering at me.
“Stay there! I mean it!” I lock my arms out straight. The gun wobbles slightly as I grip its grooved wooden handle.
“You would never hurt me.”
“Stay back!” I try to hold the gun still. There’s engraving on its steel barrel.S amp;W.357MAGNUM. Jesus, it’s terrifying to have something like that in your hand. To hold something that packs so much power. It can kill in the blink of an eye.I could kill in the blink of an eye. The realization hits me with as much impact as any bullet. There are no witnesses. I could get away with murder.
“You couldn’t hurt me. You love me.”
“No. I love Mike.”
Bitter Man flinches. “The teacher? Forget him, he was dog shit. That’s why I killed him. He died like a dog, too. Road kill.” He laughs softly.
I can’t hear this. I look down the barrel of the gun. At the end is an orange sight. I line it up with the small American flag that is Bitter Man’s tie tack. My hand shakes slightly, but it’s easier to aim the gun than I thought.
“He was nothing. Insignificant. Weak. If you had seen his face-”
“Stop it!” I use the flag like a bull’s-eye. I focus on it and breathe deeply. Once, then again. An absolute calm comes over me. Bitter Man is three feet away, a large target. I have the weapon, I can use it. He killed two innocent men, men I loved. They didn’t deserve to die. He does, and I can kill him. All I have to do is pull the trigger. The ultimate in fucking back.
“He whimpered like-”
“Shut up!” I spit at him, in a voice I’ve never heard before. I have a split second before Judy gets back.
“Mary-”
“Shut up, I said! Shut up!” I look down the barrel at his expression of contempt and disgust. I ease the trigger just a fraction. The hammer, with its corrugated pad, falls back ever so slightly. There’s the loud, metallic click I heard before as the chamber rotates a millimeter. It’s all very mechanical. A very handsome killing machine, precision engineered in the United States of America. If I pull the trigger a fraction of an inch more, Messrs. Smith and Wesson will kill Bitter Man for me. I don’t even have to do it myself.
I raise the gun and get the flag in my sight. And then my hand isn’t shaking anymore.
“Give me one good reason,” I say to him.
33
That’s when I hear the voice. I recognize it suddenly. I know now who it is.
I thought it was Mike’s voice, but it’s not him at all. And it’s not the devil’s voice, or an angel’s either. It’s my soul’s own voice, gamely trying to climb out of the hole I’ve been digging for it steadily, daily, since the hour of my birth.
It’s me, trying to save my own soul.
Thou shalt not kill.
But I have killed. And I want to now. So much.
Spare him. Redeem yourself.
Redeem yourself. It resonates inside me, at the core.
Redemption.
I can’t change the past, but I can make the future. I know what it cost me to kill before. This time I have a choice. I choose no.
I release the trigger. The hammer snaps forward with a final click.
At the same moment, a terrified Judy appears at the doorway, followed by Berkowitz, Einstein, Golden Rod, and a crowd of appalled judges. In the instant that I look back, Bitter Man hurls himself into my arms. “Give me that gun!” he roars.
His weight sends me crashing back onto my desk. I feel his hands scrambling at my breast for the weapon. Suddenly, the gun goes off, with an earsplitting report. I hear myself scream. The force of the explosion reverberates in my ears and vibrates up my arm. For a minute I’m not sure who’s been hit.
One look at Bitter Man tells me the answer. His face is twisted in pain and surprise. He falls slowly backward, then slumps heavily to the floor. His shirt, in tatters, is black with smoke; his tie is shorn into two ragged halves. A crimson bud appears over his heart, then bursts into full vermillion bloom as he lies, contorted, on the carpet. The air stinks of fire and smoke.
Berkowitz rushes over to Bitter Man, stretched out on the floor, his blood staining the carpet. “Jesus,” Berkowitz says, looking up at me. “He’s dead.”
The judges, all of them assembled, look at me in disbelief. In shock. In revulsion.
I freeze at the judgment in their eyes. I’m stunned, shaking, in shock. I want to explain, but I can’t. All I can do is look back at them. It’s Judgment Day. I knew it was coming. It was just a question of time.
“Jesus, Mary!” Berkowitz cries out. He takes the revolver from me and gathers me up in his arms. I feel an enormous weight in my chest, the wrench of my heart breaking. I start to cry, first in great hiccups, then out of control. I’m not crying for Bitter Man. I’m crying for Mike and for Brent.
That night, after a chastened Lombardo has come and gone, Berkowitz drives me home himself. I feel utterly drained as I sit in the gleaming Mercedes-Benz, with its odor of fine leather and stale cigarettes. Berkowitz opens the car door for me and offers to walk me upstairs, but I turn him down. There’s no need. I’m safe now. No more telephone calls, no more notes. My empty apartment is my own again.
The door closes behind me, and I lean against it in the dark. I stand there for the longest time, thinking of Mike, who brought me from fear into love, using only his patience and his heart. I can’t believe he’s gone; it’s so awful that he died, and in so much pain. I feel newly grief-stricken; it makes me wonder if I ever let myself truly mourn him. Maybe I did the Next Thing too soon.
My thoughts run to Brent, who was so innocent. A wonderful friend, a loving man. His voice coach was right; he was full of joy. He’s gone now, cut down by the same man, mistakenly. Somehow that makes it much worse.
Bitter Man. He was bitter and evil for a reason no one can ever fathom. The devil, truly. Their deaths were his doing. It was his fault, not mine. Now he’s gone too. That much is my doing, that much I’m responsible for. No more.
