Peril

“Nothing,” Caruso said quickly. “If it’s her, it’s over.”

“Providing she don’t get hurt,” Mortimer reminded him.

“Right,” Caruso said dryly, and on that word, hung up.

ABE

As he strolled the aisle at Macy’s, hoping to find just the right shirt and tie, he suddenly felt a terrible jeopardy. Something else, too, the inevitable approach of failure, loss, ruin. But what else could he expect, suddenly getting a thing for some woman he didn’t know, a married woman, a woman on the run? How could he expect a happy ending to a story that began with so many things already lined up against it? But then, he’d always chosen badly, and gotten worse, a history that had continually repeated itself, and which no doubt explained the downward pull of his mind, its assumption of unhappy ends.

For years he’d believed that his doomed take on things had begun when Mavis left him, and not just left him for anyone but for another piano player, though this time she’d chosen a guy who was really good.

But he was no longer sure his downward cast of mind had begun with Mavis. After all, by the time she’d skipped, he’d already figured out she wasn’t much of a woman.

No, it wasn’t Mavis, he decided now. It was just the way life had settled over him. The words of “But Beautiful” declared that love was a heartache either way, and it seemed to Abe that he’d come to apply that notion to every aspect of life. He was like Lucille when The Weight fell upon her, only he didn’t have the excuse of bad chemistry. He had created The Weight, especially when it came to women. So much so that if the woman didn’t go for it right away, he just took a hike, washed his hands of the whole thing. If she had a boyfriend . . . sayonara. Who needs the competition. If she had a few issues, good-bye, toots. Back to the bills in the back room. The slightest problem, and he headed for the hills. How many chances for happiness had he lost by giving up so quickly? he wondered. Too many, that much was sure. Too many to sing that song again. And so this time, he decided, issues or no issues, he would put up a fight.

Suddenly he thought of the gun Mortimer had given him, and the gift, along with the idea behind it, struck him as curiously admirable. Here was a guy, Mortimer, who unquestioningly assumed that if you loved someone, and someone else tried to take her from you against her will or tried to hurt her in some way you . . . well . . . you blew that worthless fucker’s head off is what you did. Because you had this love, and nothing was going to stop you from defending it. Not the law, not good sense, not even your fear of the consequences. If someone came for the woman you loved, you did something about it. Never mind what happened later, all the hand-wringing and second-guessing, and maybe even regret. At that moment, in that situation, you threw away the rules, because the only rule was love, and the rule of love was that no one took the one you loved from you if she didn’t want to go.

But would he really do that? he wondered. If Samantha’s father-in-law showed up, backed him into a corner, gave him no other option, would he really go that far, reach for a gun? He didn’t know, and that uncertainty struck him as an accusation. He didn’t know because he was civilized, and because he was civilized he would calculate the odds, try to reason through the consequences, a process that would turn him into some lousy broker, gauging profits and losses, the opposite of a passionate man, which was, he realized, the kind of man he most despised, but also the kind of man he was, and hated being.

So that was it, he decided, that was what he wanted, that was what would make him happy, just to know for sure that if things really came to a head over Samantha, he would risk it all for her.

STARK

The man in the chair didn’t move or speak, so different from Lockridge, who’d broken immediately. After only one application of the towel, he’d sputtered Henderson’s name, the Paseo del Prado hotel where he was staying, then told how Henderson had taunted Marisol as he’d beaten her, humiliated and degraded and repeatedly strangled her to unconsciousness then revived her for more, until Henderson had finally said, “This bitch won’t die” and cut her throat.

This bitch won’t die.

The last words Marisol had heard on earth.

Stark’s gaze settled on the man in the chair. “Who do you work for?” he asked.

The man remained silent, motionless.

“Who do you work for?”

The man sat rigidly in place.

“Who do you work for?”

The man’s head lowered slightly, as if considering the question, then lifted again in what Stark saw as a gesture of defiance.

It was late in the afternoon now, and Stark knew that the night that lay before him would be grim. The man in the chair was weakening in every way but in his spirit. His body was racked by hunger and exhaustion, and Stark knew that a sense of doom was surely settling in, the certainty that he was going to die.

Death.

His own death beckoned him softly, just as it had several days before, promising an end, but also, as he began to imagine it, a beginning, a return, as he let himself envision it, to the arms of Marisol.

He knew that every religion proclaimed the possibility of such miraculous reunions. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps it could be true. Perhaps only a veil separated one world from another, life’s longing and inadequacy from the ecstatic fulfillment that waited on the other side. If it were true, Stark reasoned, then why had he gone on, since nothing but the slender line of his tiny throbbing pulse kept him from Marisol.

The man groaned slightly, drawing Stark back to earth. He hardened his voice and prepared to reapply the towel.

“Who do you work for?” he said.

EDDIE

Tony.

That was the name the silver-haired man wanted. But he couldn’t say it. He couldn’t give Tony up. Because Tony was his friend and had always been nice to him, helped him out from time to time, told him that he was going to give him a raise so he could buy a new car. Eddie concentrated on these things while the man asked him over and over to give him a name.

He moved his naked toes because they were the only parts of his body that didn’t hurt, or didn’t feel some aching need for relief. His stomach cried for food, and his mouth sought water, and his whole body, except for his toes, recoiled at the slightest touch or sound. He remembered once opening a clamshell on the beach and touching the tender, pulpy inside with the tip of his finger. The clam had drawn in at that slight touch, and that was how he felt now, like a clam taken out of its shell, utterly vulnerable to everything.

And yet, at the same time, something very deep seemed whole and protected and beyond anything that could be done to harm it or cause it to collapse. He knew that Father Mike would call that part his soul, but he wasn’t sure that this was really what it was. Maybe it was just stubbornness or pride. No, he thought, it wasn’t that. It was just that he didn’t want to fly apart.

Years before, Father Mike had told him that a man was like a dandelion. Delicate. A breath of wind could tear it apart. But a man who knew himself was like that same plant, only made of steel. It still looked frail. It still looked as though it couldn’t stand up to much. But it had a coating around it. The coating was invisible, but it sealed all the small fibers in a case that nothing could break. And this invisible case that surrounded you was your soul, and when it was pure, nothing could get to all the little fibers that were inside it.

“Who do you work for?”

He closed his eyes and imagined himself as a dandelion blowing in the wind, all the ones around him tearing and shredding, but himself standing firm and whole and not ever giving in.

MORTIMER

He’d wanted to go home after talking with Caruso, but something in their conversation continued to gnaw at him, a little sharp-toothed beast that wouldn’t stop nipping at his mind. It was Caruso’s tone, so oddly distant, like a man under anesthetic, some part of him gone numb. Why was that? Mortimer wondered now. What the fuck was