“My mother’s maiden name is Spangler,” said the senator. “And the lawyer whose name you saw in the file is my cousin Robert, my mother’s nephew. But he’s hardly a murderer. If you could meet him, you’d know that. He’s a harmless old man, I’m sure.”
“Don’t be, because he’s now on the run and considered armed and dangerous.”
“Mother?”
“I don’t know what he is talking about,” said the old lady, her chin jerking spasmodically upward. And now, strangely, beneath the licorice scent floated a line of something fetid, as if the rot at the heart of this old woman’s ambitions for her son were finally being exposed.
“Mother?” said the senator.
“Look at me, dear. I am telling you the truth. I don’t know what he is talking about. But whatever Robert might have done under an excess of zeal, he did it without my knowledge. You must believe me, dear. You must.”
“Oh, yes, you must,” said a voice from the doorway to the room. Kyle turned quickly, and there, with a bulky black bag in his hand, was O’Malley. His clothes were streaked with stains, an obviously false hairpiece was comically out of place, his face was filthy, and he smelled god-awful.
“Robert?” said the senator.
“O’Malley?” said Kyle.
The man sneered and gave the bag a quick hoist as if it were quite heavy. The bag’s zipper was open, and something shifted so that the thick black barrel of a shotgun poked out of the end.
“I wondered when you’d show up,” said Mrs. Truscott, even as she curled into herself and away from the stench. “Unfortunately, Bobby, we have ourselves a problem.”
CHAPTER 56
THERE WAS A TIME, during his youth in Iowa, when Robert Spangler became intoxicated with Script ure. A s he followed along with the preachers in their crowded tents, the words glowed on the pages of his Bible and spoke to the deepest yearnings of his immature heart: faith, love, redemption, sacrifice. And even in this new incarnation that owed more to Nietzsche than to Luke, the old stories lived as counterpoint to the dreams he had finally found courage enough to summon into reality. Now, as Bobby stood in the dark hallway, staring in at the scene playing out before him, it was as if one of those stories had sprung fully to life.
“Look at me, dear,” said the wellspring of Robert’s love and his cursed ambition, her fierce attention pressed wholly and urgently on the son, Francis, passing entirely over Bobby’s presence in the doorway just as it had passed over Robert lo these many years. “I am telling you the truth. I don’t know what he is talking about. But whatever Robert might have done under an excess of zeal, he did it without my knowledge.”
And somewhere a cock crowed.
“You must believe me, dear,” she said, her voice trembling with her delicious insincerity. “You must.”
“Oh, yes, you must,” said Bobby as he stepped forward and took his rightful place in this elegant room, the very room of power where she had made her promises about Robert’s future over and again and where, in the next few moments, that future would finally come to its blood-spangled fruition. They all turned toward him with a start— the son who had stolen all her love and all his glory, the interloping Byrne boy, and she, too, the object of all their fantasies, fixing him with a blue-eyed stare both malevolent and full of desire. A stare that brought him instantly hard.
“Robert?” said Cousin Francis.
“O’Malley?” said the Byrne boy.
Bobby shifted the bag to cover his erection, and in his so doing,
the barrel of his shotgun slipped out of the bag’s open edge. He looked down at the gun and back up at the two men, who had become transfixed by the sight as an understanding dawned of exactly whom they now were facing. No longer would they see him as little Robert Spangler. He was new and newly powerful.
“I wondered when you’d show up,” she said, as if she were happy to see him, even as that magnificent tortured body involuntarily pulled away at the same time. “Unfortunately, Bobby, we have ourselves a problem.”
“You maybe,” said Bobby, “but I’ve never been better. Isn’t this cozy? A family reunion. But where was my invitation? Oh, that’s right, no Spanglers need apply. I haven’t seen you, Francis, in . . . oh, ages and ages. No time for your cousin?”
“What is going on, Robert?” said Francis. “What have you done?” “Only what I needed to do to protect the future you almost threw away on some Catholic-school skank. Isn’t that what family does? Though while I was out paving the way for your sparkling career, what was being done for me? Tell me, Francis, how have you shown your appreciation to the poor side of the family, you ungrateful snot?”
“Careful,” she said, as if she still had any hold on him. “Why should I be careful, Aunt Gloria? I’m sure we can speak freely. There are no secrets here. We’re all family. Except for Byrne, who has secrets of his own—like the one waiting for him outside.”
Bobby liked how Byrne’s face froze. It was the way you looked when your deepest secrets spilled out onto the floor like steaming intestines from a split gut.
“What are you talking about?” she said.
“Call me Bobby, my one true love, and I’ll slip you a treat when this is all over.”
“Robert, did you kill Colleen?” said Francis.
“That little whore?” said Bobby.
Francis’s face twisted into a politician’s pretend look of righteous anger, and he took a step forward toward Bobby, as if the mama’s boy had the wherewithal to do anything in support of his false emotions. Even so, just to freeze him in place, Bobby pulled the shotgun out of the bag. He dropped the bag and gave the gun a pump, loading a cartridge.
“Save your annoying Truscott self-righteousness for Meet the Press,” he spit out. “It’s amazing how ungrateful you can be when everything is handed to you on a silver serving dish. I did what I had to do to protect your career. I did what you would have wanted me to do if only you had the courage to see inside your blighted soul. And let me tell you something, Francis. Nothing cuts right to the core of your soul more than blood.”
“So who are you going to kill today?” said Byrne, stepping into a conversation in which he had no business. “Me?”
“Yes, for starters, you foolish tool. But I won’t stop there.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.
“Oh, I was, sweet Gloria, but I’m not anymore. The blood has changed me. Before, I wouldn’t have dared to walk into this house and take my rightful place by your side. But now I have the courage of a cougar, now I dance naked in the moonlight.”
“Stop talking like a cretin,” she said, her voice arrogant and dismissive even in its shaking. “And what happened to you? You look and smell like you rolled around in a garbage heap.” She waved at the air in front of her nose. “I think I’m going to be nauseous.”