CHAPTER 34
FOR THE FIRST TIME in his life, Bobby Spangler’s world seemed perfectly balanced, as if he were dancing on the edge of a cleaver.
There had always been a disparity between his hopes and his realities, between his vision of himself and the way she viewed him. But the fire had cleansed him, burning off not just his eyebrows, or the lank hair he combed over his skull, but also his most puerile fantasies. Through the healing power of fire, he could, for the first time, see himself and his place in the world clear. The sulfurous landscape of his inner life now matched perfectly the burned and smoking wasteland he had trudged through all his days.
And somehow, magically, this balance made him incredibly happy.
Gone were the burdens of his expectations, of the high place he saw for himself among the men who made things happen in the world. Gone was the daily humiliation as he scraped and bowed for her blessings. Gone was the incessant striving. They all belonged to Robert, and Robert had been roasted to death in the fire as surely as those poor dead bastards in the basement of the Byrne house. For the first time since he was an innocent young child in his father’s meager home, he felt free of the shackles of possibility. He was no longer in the process of becoming, he simply was.
Bobby Spangler. Hunter. Fire starter. Murderer. A dangerous man and quite a nimble dancer, maintaining his balance on the cleaver’s edge.
“What have you done?” she said over the phone. He was sitting in his apartment, on the easy chair, naked except for the phone covering his ear, singed and still stinking of smoke, feeling waves of burning heat flush his ravaged skin as her bitter voice surged through him. The Super 8 projector was whirling away behind him as a blackand-white female figure flickered on the makeshift screen set up behind the television. The figure was dressed only in glossy high heels, dark stockings, long white gloves. Her pale limbs writhed, her torso twisted and breasts heaved, her mouth opened with feigned passion.
“I put on a show,” he said coolly. Like Clint Eastwood, like Cool Hand Luke. For the first time in their brutally unequal relationship, Bobby felt in control, and the feeling was as stimulating as a cattle prod.
“Don’t be a garish fool,” she spit out. “The fire was a terrible mistake, coming on the heels of what happened to Laszlo. It was such a clear sign to dig deeper that even one of those imbecile police detectives might have picked it up.”
“I told you that was a possibility. But as always,” he said, his voice turning singsong, “you ignored what I had to say and ordered me to go forward.”
“Not with fireworks. What kind of cretin would use fireworks?”
“Once I started the fire, if they had managed to come out of the basement, there was going to be shooting. The fireworks gave me a cover.”
“But it brought out the helicopters, you idiot. It made not only the local but the national news. Yet again you’ve shown your incompetence, your unworthiness. Spangler to the core.”
He paused for a moment, recognized the line in the sand he had never before crossed, and then, with a certain swagger, and while gazing at the gyrations on the screen, he stepped over. “As are you,” he said.
“What’s that you say?”
“I’m just pointing out the obvious. Pointing out the single most important fact that has underlain all that has gone on between us over the years.”
“What has gotten into you, Bobby? You sound different. Are you drunk?”
“No,” he said. “It’s just that some truths have been burned into my skin.”
“You must be quite a sight, but you are still as ignorant as ever. I was always different.”
“Not so different. I know about all the nasty little things you did in the desert before latching onto the Truscotts.”
“I did what I had to do, dear.”
“And with much enthusiasm,” he said, as the figure on the screen shifted her position until she was facing away from him, on knees and elbows, turning her head and staring now over her shoulder and into his eyes.
“But I was always meant for better things,” she said. “I once thought you were, too. Obviously, I was mistaken.”
“Of course you were. That is your fate, to be mistaken about me.” He glanced down at his lap. My God, it was as if he’d swallowed a bottle of those damn blue pills. Talking back to her was better than the movie. “Tell me you love me.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
“Say it.”
“You sound different, Bobby.”
“I am different.” He put his hand around himself, watched as the movie figure reached a white-gloved hand between her legs. As she licked her lips, he growled softly.
“You sound like the young boy I felt had so much promise,” she said, her voice almost girlish.
“Say you love me.”
“Maybe, yes. Maybe I do. As one loves a dog.”
“I need to see you. There are issues we need to deal with.”
“There is only one issue that concerns me.” Pause, and then an intake of breath. “You said ‘they.’ What did you mean? Was there more than one at the house?”
“The boy had an accomplice.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Someone older. When can I see you? I have something for you.”
“And you took care of them both?”
“Neither came out.”
“Out of where? I don’t understand.”
“What is so confusing? Has your brain turned to mush in your senescence? They both went into the house. They both were in the basement when I burned the place down. Neither of them came out.”
There was a moment of silence, but not in satisfied remembrance of two lives crushed by their common will, no. This silence was filled with the coldness of a bitter rebuke. Somehow the tide had turned; he could feel himself shrink as if he were being swallowed by the silence. The figure on the screen lowered her head and twisted her lips into a taunt. “What’s wrong?” he said.
“The most recent news reports stated that no bodies were found in the debris.”
“That’s impossible.”
“The disappointment I feel in you at this moment is incalculable.”
“They didn’t come out.”
“What is it like to be so wrong so often?” she said.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“See that you do. Find them. Find them both and kill them.”