What she did to hang on and not panic or come apart was think of Wayne in a different way, Wayne here, close to her, so that she wasn’t alone. Wayne in her mind but real, because she knew him so well. She asks him if he’s scared and he says, for Christ sake of course he’s scared, you’d have to have brain damage not to be scared of these ass-holes. Don’t let their chitchat, that casual bullshit, fool you, these guys are fucking maniacs. Stay low, don’t make a lot of noise, don’t piss them off, and if they give you any more than thirty seconds’ leeway take it, run like hell for a door. Don’t try a window, you’ll never get the goddamn storm open. She says, Thanks a lot. Wayne shrugs. What else can I tell you? You run if you see the chance. You get your hands on a gun, use it. None of this put-your-hands-up-while-I-call-the-cops, use it. She asked him where he’d put the Remington. He wouldn’t tell her. She clenched her jaw. Wayne, goddamn it ...He still wouldn’t tell her.
Armand, wearing his suit coat and the tie with tiny fish on it, sat across from her eating Swedish meatballs and noodles. The opening to the foyer and the stairway was directly behind him. Richie, to Armand’s left at the end of the table, would stare at her tank top chewing his food, sucking his teeth. He looked at her the way Ferris did; but Ferris was an actor, Richie was real. Ferris was nothing. Armand would glance at her as he looked up from his food to gaze at the row of windows behind her, rattling in the wind. She had been right when she told Wayne, a long, long time ago, Richie was scarier than Armand.
They’d had drinks now, Richie a Southern Comfort and 7-Up, one, Armand four whiskeys with a splash of water, and were talking to each other more than they did earlier.
Carmen listened to them, waiting for the phone to ring, Mom calling, Where are you? It’s almost one o’clock. They began talking about the shotgun, Wayne’s Remington, as if she wasn’t sitting at the table with them. It gave her a strange feeling, till she began to concentrate on the gun that was somewhere in the house.
Richie saying, “He might have it, but he’s not gonna walk in here with it.”
Armand saying, “Oh, you know that?”
Richie saying, “Why would he? He thinks his little wife’s in here fixing supper. Comes runing in, ‘Hi, honey, I’m home.’ ”
Armand saying, “How do you know he won’t have the gun?”
Carmen thinking, Because he doesn’t. Because it’s here.
Armand saying, “What did she say to him on the telephone? Something funny is going on here and he told her to call the cops.”
Richie saying, “To tell them she’s home, that’s all.” Looking at her then and saying, “Isn’t that right?” Carmen nodded and he said, “I guess you figured out we was listening in upstairs.”
Carmen thinking that’s where it would have to be. But if it was there, why didn’t they see it? If Wayne took it upstairs he wouldn’t have hidden it.
She looked at the glasses and plates and food containers on the table—extra ones in the middle Armand would pick from, macaroni and cheese, lasagna, sweet potatoes with sliced apple and brown sugar—looked at the stains on the plastic tablecloth she had put on to protect the wood finish. It reminded her of looking in the refrigerator yesterday at 950 Hillglade, worrying about food spoiling when she was dying to get out of there. Instinctively the good little housewife. Now sitting in her underwear with two guys who were going to shoot her husband when he walked in the door and then shoot her or shoot them both at the same time. . . . She had never thought about dying or even getting old or what she had heard on television called the terrifying middle-age crisis. . . . They might use the shotguns leaning against the table next to where they sat. They might take them down to the cellar. She thought, Well, if we’re together. And thought, Bullshit.
Mad. The way she was on the porch the time Armand came and she fired twice. Mad because he was so goddamn sure of himself. Fired when he was close and fired again, when he was out by the chickenhouse. After that she went inside.
Now think.
She had laid the gun on the counter.
Wayne came home from the store where the girl had been shot and killed. Probably by the nickel-plated gun lying on the table to the right of Richie’s plate, the stubby barrel pointing at Armand. The police arrived. No, they got here before Wayne, because he was questioned at the store for about an hour, came home and a different bunch of cops started on him and they didn’t like his attitude. They never liked it. Wayne saying if they weren’t going to handle it, he would. Wayne furious, in his way, showing contempt, cold anger. Wayne reloading the shotgun in front of them. Carmen remembered it now, yes, and the police didn’t like it at all, Wayne’s Charles Bronson gesture. And the next night—or was it the night after that?—the front windows were shot out as they sat in the living room and threw themselves on the floor and the duck prints were blown off the wall, yes, and that night Wayne took the shotgun upstairs. He said, They could walk right in the goddamn house if they want. He said, We’ll clean that up in the morning. He took the shotgun upstairs with them saying, We’ll hear this step squeak if they try it. She remembered she didn’t say anything. He stood the gun against his night table but didn’t like it there. He said, I get up to go to the bathroom. ...He knelt down—she could see him doing it—and put the gun under the bed.
That’s where it was.
These two would have been standing by the bed or sitting on it listening as she talked to Wayne and then her mother, seven-thirty this morning. They didn’t notice it because the phone was on the night table on her side of the bed and the gun was under Wayne’s side. She wondered if he might have brought it downstairs later. But she didn’t remember seeing it downstairs before they left and if he did they would have found it.
No, the shotgun was still under the bed, loaded.
Richie said, “What’s wrong with our little bunny?”
Armand didn’t say anything.
Richie said, “Hey, what’s wrong with you? You scared or what?”
Carmen raised her eyes from the table. “Of course, I’m scared.”
Richie acted surprised. “There’s no reason to be. Old Wayne gets home, all we’re gonna do is have a talk with him. Isn’t that right, Bird?”
Armand, hunched over his plate, looked up at her with dull eyes, indifferent. He said, “That’s right.”
Carmen didn’t speak. There was nothing to say that would mean anything. Richie seemed dumb enough to think she might believe him and Armand was telling her he didn’t care if she believed it or not or care what Richie said. Richie could do whatever he wanted. Armand would watch. What she had to do, soon, was think of a way to get around the table past them, run upstairs to the bedroom, lock the door and pray to God the shotgun was under the bed and she’d have time to pick it up before they came busting in.
***
When the phone rang Richie said, “That must be old Mom, huh? Let’s tell her you can’t make it today, you’re sick.” He took Carmen by the arm into the kitchen, giving her instructions on the way. If it was Wayne, tell him to hurry. If it was anybody else, tell them she couldn’t talk now, she had to get to her mom’s. She reached for the phone and he said, “Wait now,” and felt her jump as he slipped cold metal into the rear end of her panties, nosing the barrel of the nickelplate down to rest against her tailbone. He said, “Don’t be dumb now and get your bummie shot off. I want it in one piece for after. Okay, make it quick.”