Gus took two quick steps toward Jack and swung. No subtlety, not even a feint.
Jack ducked and let it whistle over his head. He could have put a wicked chop in Gus's exposed flank then, but he wasn't ready yet.
"Hey, man! Be cool! We can talk about this!"
"No, we can't," Gus said as he swung the poker back the other way, lower this time.
Jack jumped back and resisted planting a foot in the big man's reddening face.
"Whatta you tryin' t' do? Kill me?"
"Yes!"
Gus's third swing was vertical, from ceiling to floor. Jack was long gone when it arrived.
Gus's teeth were bared now; his breath hissed through them. His eyes were mad with rage and frustration. Time to goose that rage a little.
Jack grinned beneath the nylon. "You swing like a pussy, man."
With a guttural scream, Gus charged, wielding the poker like a scythe.
Jack ducked the first swing, then grabbed the poker and rammed his forearm into Gus's face with a satisfying crunch. Gus cried out and released his hold on the poker. He staggered back, eyes squeezed shut in agony, holding his nose. Blood began to leak between his fingers.
Never failed. No matter how big they were, a smashed nose tended to be a great equalizer.
Ceil hobbled back to the threshold. Her voice skirted the edge of hysteria.
"The phone's dead!"
"Don't worry, lady," Jack said. "I didn't come here to hurt nobody, and I won't hurt you. But this guy—he's a different story. He just tried to kill me."
As Jack dropped the poker and stepped toward him, Gus's eyes bulged with terror. He put out a bloody hand to fend him off. Jack grabbed the wrist and twisted. Gus wailed as he was turned and forced into an arm lock. Jack shoved him against the wall and began a bare-knuckled workout against his kidneys, wondering if the big man's brain would make a connection between what he'd been dishing out in the kitchen and what he was receiving in the living room.
Jack didn't hold back. He put plenty of body behind the punches, and Gus shouted in pain with each one.
How's it feel, tough guy? Like it?
Jack pounded him until he felt some of his own anger dissipate. He was about to let him go and move into the next stage of his plan when he sensed motion behind him.
As he turned his head he caught a glimpse of Ceil. She had the poker, and she was swinging it toward his head. He started to duck but too late. The room exploded into bright lights, then went dark gray.
An instant of blackness and then Jack found himself on the floor, pain exploding in his gut. He focused above him and saw Gus readying another kick at his midsection. He rolled away toward the corner. Something heavy thunked on the carpet as he moved.
"Christ, he's got a gun!" Gus shouted.
Jack had risen to a crouch by then. He made a move for the fallen .45 but Gus was ahead of him, snatching it from the floor before Jack could reach it.
Gus stepped back and worked the slide to chamber a round. He pointed the pistol at Jack's face.
"Stay right where you are, you bastard! Don't you move a muscle!"
Jack sat back on the floor in the corner and stared up at the big man.
"All right!" Gus said with a bloody grin. "All right!"
"I got him for you, didn't I, Gus?" Ceil said, still holding the poker. She was bent forward in pain. That swing had cost her. "I got him off you. I saved you, didn't I?
"Shut up, Ceil."
"But he was hurting you. I made him stop. I—"
"I said shut up!"
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."