“Listening?” said Aunt Gloria.
“Don’t be dim-witted, any of you. Byrne is wearing a wire, and the accomplice in the car is listening to every word. And here’s the joke of it alclass="underline" It’s his father. It’s that lying Irish blackmailer Liam Byrne.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said his aunt.
“Oh, it’s him. Check it out. Back from the grave. He’s the one you should be after. And the son there, who has caused nothing but trouble by following in his father’s footsteps.” Somehow strengthened by his outburst, Bobby turned back to his aunt. “And what the hell do I owe you?”
“You’d still be in Des Moines without me. You’d still be driving a milk truck.”
“You made promises.”
“I know, dear,” she said, again in a soft whisper so that no one else could hear. There was a briefcase beside her chair. She tapped it. “And they are about to come to fruition.”
“It was never about money,” he whispered back.
“I know.”
“Why can’t it be me?”
“It can.”
“Why him?”
“Why not both?”
“I’m tired of waiting.”
“You won’t be waiting anymore.”
“All the promises.”
“Yes, dear.”
He dropped his head as he further dropped his voice. “It’s hard to admit this.”
“Go ahead, dear.”
“I can barely say it.”
“Try.”
“I love you.”
“I know you do.”
“No, it’s not just like . . .”
“I know, dear. I love you, too.”
“No, I love you in the other way.”
“You’re my special boy. Remember I used to tell you that?”
“I watch your movie. I found a copy and watch it in my room. You, with your gloves, your special white gloves.”
“Aren’t you naughty, my special boy?”
“I watch it over and over.”
“I was something when I was younger, wasn’t I? I could turn men to slaves with just a look, a gesture. I was special in every way.” She pulled his head closer and patted the front of his neck. “And you’re my special boy. We are linked, Bobby dear. Forever. You and me. We’re Spanglers.”
“Yes.”
“And with Spanglers the family always comes first.”
“Yes.”
He turned his face to hers, so that their eyes were staring directly each into the other’s and their lips were a hairsbreadth apart.
“Do you love me?” she said in a voice below a whisper, in a voice more breath than anything else.
“More than you know,” he replied in a voice just as soft.
“Then there is one more thing you need to do.”
“I’m tired.”
“I know, dear. But just one thing more, and then you can rest.” “I want to stay here, close to you.”
“And you know what it is. To protect the Spangler line. You know what you need to do.”
“I don’t think I want to.”
“And I don’t want you to, but we have no choice.”
“Must I?”
“Yes, dear.”
“I love you.”
“I know you do, Bobby. Do it for us. Do it for our love.”
Bobby leaned forward and closed his eyes, saw a thin, nubile figure twisting in his mind’s eye in Super 8 black-and-white, felt his lips brush hers and then press harder. The joy, the sweet joy, rose through him like a wave, flushing out everything before it, leaving just his raw emotions and her desire.
“I love you,” he murmured into her mouth.
“Show it.”
He kissed her again, felt her lips and something else, sweet and slippery. He sucked on it as if it were a lifeline, sucked on it until it pulled away.
“Now,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“For our love.”
“Yes,” he said, pulling back and nodding, knowing exactly what he must do, how it would end, why it was necessary. Seeing the whole of his life unspool in that perfect kiss.
Slowly he stood, nodding all the while. Slowly he caressed her withered cheek with the back of his hand. Slowly he turned and aimed the shotgun straight at the Byrne boy standing there with his mouth agape. Slowly he squeezed the trigger.
CHAPTER 57
LATER DETECTIVE RAMIREZ would squat beside the bloodied body and feel the emotions rise to choke her throat. She’d seen scores of dead, it was the currency of her new post, but this one bit into her in a way that none had before. The sight of the blood, his blood, the sickly sweet smell of the iron and rot released by a body split open by the gunfire, the sick, dead eyes that were full of intense life just a moment before. She was dry-eyed, and her chest wasn’t racked by sobs, but in the storm that raged beneath her brow, she was weeping nonetheless.
A hand fell onto her shoulder, solid and warm. She didn’t need to look up to know to whom it belonged.
“You okay?” said Henderson.
“No.”
“Good,” he said. “When you ever get okay with any of this, then it’s time to hang up your hat.”
“Is that why you’re retiring, old man?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “I been thinking about sticking around a little longer.”
“I thought you wanted to get yourself a puppy.”
“Maybe I already found myself one.”
Ramirez shrugged his hand off her shoulder, took a final look at the corpse, her corpse, and then rubbed her face with her hands, hard, as if rubbing out her very features, before standing and turning away. Henderson was looking at her, not the dead body, but his eyes were staring at a casualty.
“They find him yet?” she said.
“Not yet,” said Henderson.
“They won’t.”
“No,” he said, “I don’t expect they will.”
The car outside the house was empty when they checked it right after the shooting, but someone had been there all right. There was a set of headphones, a receiver, and a tape deck, just as Spangler had said. But the tape was gone, and so was the person who had been listening in with the headphones. A host of uniforms were now going door-to-door, and four black-and-whites were cruising the neighborhood, trying to grab whoever had been in that car.