Conspiracies

Her lower lip trembled. "I ... I thought you'd be glad."

"Why should I be glad? If you hadn't got me so mad tonight I might've noticed he was here when we came in. Then he wouldn't have took me by surprise." He pointed to his swelling nose. "This is your fault, Ceil."

Ceil's shoulders slumped; she stared dully at the floor.

Jack didn't know what to make of Ceil. He'd interrupted her brutal beating at the hands of her husband, yet she'd come to the creep's aid. And valiantly, at that. But the gutsy little scrapper who'd wielded that poker seemed miles away from the cowed, beaten creature now standing in the middle of the room.

I don't get it.

Which was why he'd made a policy of refusing home repairs in the first place. From now on, no more exceptions.

"I'll go over to the Ferrises'," Ceil said.

"What for?"

"To call the police."

"Hold on a minute."

"Why?"

Jack glanced at Gus and saw how his eyes were flicking back and forth between Ceil and him.

"Because I'm thinking, that's why."

"Yeah," Jack said. "I can smell the wood burning."

"Hey!" Gus stepped toward Jack and raised the pistol as if to club him. "Another word out of you and—"

"You don't really want to get that close to me, do you?" Jack said softly.

Gus stepped back.

"Gus, I've got to call the police!" Ceil said as she replaced the poker by the fireplace, far out of Jack's reach.

"You're not going anywhere," Gus said. "Get over here."

Ceil meekly moved to his side.

"Not here!" he said, grabbing her shoulder and shoving her toward Jack. "Over there!"

She cried out with the pain in her back as she stumbled forward.

"Gus! What are you doing?"

Jack decided to stay in character. He grabbed Ceil's shoulders and—as gently as he could—turned her around. She struggled weakly as he held her between Gus and himself.

Gus laughed. "You'd better think of something else, fella. That skinny little broad's not gonna protect you from a forty-five."

"Gus!"

"Shut up! God, I'm sick of your voice! I'm sick of your face, I'm sick of—shit, I'm so sick of everything about you!"

Under his hands, Jack could feel Ceil's thin shoulders jerk with the impact of the words as if they were blows from a fist. A fist probably would have hurt less.

"B-but Gus, I thought you loved me."

He sneered. "Are you kidding? I hate you, Ceil! It drives me up a wall just to be in the same room with you! Why the hell do you think I beat the shit out of you every chance I get? It's all I can do to keep myself from killing you!"

"But all those times you said—"

"How I loved you?" he said, his face shifting to a contrite, hangdog expression. "How I didn't know what came over me, but I really, truly loooove you with all my heart?" The snarl returned. "And you believed it! God, you're such a pathetic wimp you fell for it every time."

"But why?" She was sobbing now. "Why?"

"You mean, why play games? Why not dump you and find a real woman—one who's got tits and can have kids? The answer should be pretty clear: your brother. He got me into Gorland 'cause he's one of their biggest customers. And if you and me go kaput, he'll see to it I'm out of there before the ink's dry on our divorce papers. I've put too many years into that job to blow it because of a sack of shit like you."

Ceil almost seemed to shrivel under Jack's hands.

He glared at Gus. "Big man."

"Yeah. I'm the big man. I've got the gun. And I want to thank you for it, fella, whoever you are. Because it's going to solve all my problems."

"What? My gun?"

He wanted to tell Gus to hurry up and use it, but Gus wanted to talk. The words spewed out like maggots from a ripe corpse.

"Yep. I've got a shitload of insurance on my dear wife here. I bought loads of term on her years ago and kept praying she'd have an accident. I was never so stupid as to try and set her up for something fatal—I know what happened to that Marshall guy in Jersey—but I figured, what the hell, with all the road fatalities around here, the odds of collecting on old Ceil were better than Lotto."

"Oh, Gus," she sobbed. An utterly miserable sound.

Her head sank until her chin touched her chest. She would have fan-folded to the floor if Jack hadn't been holding her up. He knew this was killing her, but he wanted her to hear it. Maybe it was the alarm she needed to wake her up.

Gus mimicked her. "'Oh, Gus!' Do you have any idea how many rainy nights you got my hopes up when you were late coming home from your card group? How I prayed—actually prayed—that you'd skidded off the road and wrapped your car around a utility pole, or that a big semi had run a light and plowed you under? Do you have any idea? But no. You'd come bouncing in as carefree as you please, and I'd be so disappointed I'd almost cry. That was when I really wanted to wring your scrawny neck!"

"That's just about enough, don't you think?" Jack said.

Gus sighed. "Yeah. I guess it is. But at least all those premiums weren't wasted. Tonight I collect."

Ceil's head lifted.

"What?"

"That's right. An armed robber broke in. During the struggle, I managed to get the gun away from him but he pulled you between us as I fired. You took the first bullet—right in the heart. In a berserk rage, I emptied the rest of the clip into his head. Such a tragedy." He raised the pistol and sighted it on Ceil's chest. "Goodbye, my dear sweet wife."

The metallic click of the hammer was barely audible over Ceil's wail of terror.

Her voice cut off as both she and Gus stared at the pistol.

"That could have been a dud," Jack said. "Man, I hate when that happens." He pointed to the top of the pistol. "Pull that slide back to chamber a fresh round."

Gus stared at him a second, then worked the slide. An unspent round popped out.

"There you go," Jack said. "Now, give it another shot, if you'll pardon the expression."

Looking confused, he aimed at Ceil again, and Jack detected a definite tremor in the barrel now. Gus pulled the trigger but this time Ceil didn't scream. She merely flinched at the sound of the hammer falling on another dud.

"Aw, maaaan? Jack said, drawing out the word into a whine. "You think you're buying good ammo and someone rips you off! Can't trust nobody these days!"

Gus quickly worked the slide and pulled the trigger again. Jack allowed two more misfires, then he stepped around Ceil and approached Gus.

Frantically Gus worked the slide and pulled the trigger again, aiming for Jack's face. Another impotent click. He began backing away when he saw Jack's smile.

"That's my dummy pistol, Gus. Actually, a genuine government-issue Mark IV, but the bullets are dummies—just like the guys I let get hold of it."

Jack brought it along when he wanted to see what somebody was really made of. In the right situation, it tended to draw the worst to the surface.

He bent and picked up the ejected rounds. He held one up for Gus to see.

"The slug is real," Jack said, "but there's no powder in the shell. It's an old rule: Never let an asshole near a loaded gun."

Gus charged, swinging the .45 at Jack's head. Jack caught his wrist and twisted the weapon from his fingers. Then he slammed it hard against the side of Gus's face, opening a gash. Gus tried to turn and run but Jack still had his arm. He hit him again, on the back of the head this time. Gus sagged to his knees and Jack put a lot of upper body behind the pistol as he brought it down once more on the top of his head. Gus stiffened, then toppled face first onto the floor.

Only seconds had passed. Jack spun to check on Ceil's whereabouts. She wasn't going to catch him twice. But no worry. She was right where he'd left her, standing in the corner, eyes closed, tears leaking out between the lids. Poor woman.