Jack took a swallow of his beer. “I’d guess today’s not pretty straightforward, am I right?” And Jack grinned, like he knew exactly what Clay was thinking.
Clay smiled back. The day was definitely improving. And to show his appreciation, he’d boost the final bill another ten percent.
“Yeah, I must admit, seeing a Christmas tree set up in June gave me a start there for a second.”
Another wide smile. “That’s Chrissy for you. She’s a good girl, a guy couldn’t ask for anything better. But when she gets her mind set on something, watch out. She really wanted a Christmas card this year to stand out, and I figure to go along. Why the hell not? Makes her happy and keeps her quiet. Jesus, it sure is hot, isn’t it? Air conditioning on this floor isn’t worth shit.”
Then, maybe a bit loopy on the beer and easy conversation, Clay made a mistake, and knew it the minute he did. It was hot, damn it, and he rolled up the sleeves on his black turtleneck shirt.
Jack spotted it instantly. “Man, those are interesting tattoos.”
Idiot, he fumed quietly. Why the hell did you go and do that?
Clay kept his voice neutral. “One of these days I’ll save up enough and have them burned off. They use lasers nowadays.”
“Hmmm,” Jack said, eyeing his forearms. “Bleeding skulls, daggers, and a rattlesnake. Pretty interesting.”
Clay said nothing.
“Friend of mine, he’s a cop down in Manchester,” Jack said, his voice now inquisitive. “Said tattoos like that, ones that are blue-black and blurry around the edges, you can only get them in one place. Prison.”
Clay took a small swig of the beer. “Really?”
Jack nodded. “Unh-hunh. So tell me, did you get those while you were in jail?”
Clay stared at the man’s eyes, seeing a flinty hardness, the inquisition coming right at him. So, Jack was no doubt thinking, who are you and why are you in my house?
Clay tried to smile. “Yeah, long time ago. When I was young and dumb.”
There, he thought. That was an easy lie.
Jack now looked fascinated. “Really? What for?”
Quick, it was now time for lie number two. “Stupid stuff. I got drunk in a bar and some guy was coming on to my girlfriend. I didn’t like it and we started fighting. Problem was, I got pretty rough with him and I had a juvenile record for stealing a couple of cars, so I got extra time tagged on. But I did my sentence and I’ve been clean ever since.”
Sure, the voice inside him said. Clean and uncaught.
“That’s wild,” Jack said. “Prison. Man, that must have been something.”
“Yeah,” Clay agreed. “It was something.”
A voice from the living room. “Fellas, come on back, I’ve got the stuff.”
He followed Jack out into the room, where Chrissy had spread a white sheet over the couch. A tube of red food coloring and two toy guns were on the coffee table. The guns were black plastic and did look real. Jack spoke up as he stepped over to his wife. “You want to hear something, something interesting?”
“Sure,” his wife said.
Jack gestured to Clay, and Clay wished he had never come here. “Our photographer here. He’s actually done prison time. Can you believe that? An ex-con, in our house. Wait till I tell the people at the club tonight who we had in our house.”
Chrissy looked at Clay, straight on, and just smiled. It didn’t look like the thought bothered her at all. “Was it hard, being in prison?”
He looked away, picked up the food-coloring tube. “Yeah, it was hard. Look, I don’t want to waste any more of your time. Let’s get this going.”
Jack and Chrissy pulled the white sheet taut against the couch and sat down. The room was darker, as the storm clouds from the other end of the lake had headed in the direction of the house. There was another low rumble of thunder. Clay handed over the toy revolvers, conscious of the bare feeling of having his turtleneck sleeves rolled up.
“Hold the guns in your hand, but limp-like,” he said. “Remember, you’re dead. Okay, now lean back, let your bodies rest. Lean your heads back, as well.”
Chrissy spoke up, her eyes closed. “So, what’s it going to look like? Something like the two of us shooting each other at the same time?”
Jack laughed sharply. “Yeah, you wish,” and Clay noticed that his voice was now slightly slurred. That beer back in the kitchen certainly hadn’t been his first drink of the day.
“Sure, something like that,” Clay said. “I’m going to use the food coloring now.”
He picked up the food-coloring tube and just looked at the scene for a moment, running possibilities through his mind. Chrissy on the left, Jack on the right. Bodies look okay, toy revolvers are visible. Only thing left to do is to make them look dead. The room lit up as a flash of lightning struck somewhere out on the lake. The low rumble of the thunder made a couple of the knickknacks on the shelves tremble.
Go on, he thought. Another half-hour and we’ll be done, and this bill will be so high, it’ll make their eyes pop out.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” he said. “Jack, I’ll put some food coloring on your forehead, to make it look like you got shot there. I’ll also spray some on the sheet behind you, so that it’s more realistic, like the bullet went out the back of your head. Chrissy, I’ll try the front of your dress, but it’s so dark I’m not sure—”
“My chest,” she said, interrupting. “Just below my throat, put some on my skin. I don’t mind. I’m not shy.”
Another slurred comment from Jack. “Yeah, she sure as hell ain’t shy. The Fourth of July pool party, where you took off—”
“Shut up,” she said sharply, and Clay noticed how Jack swallowed and his face turned red.
“Okay,” he said. “Head and chest wounds.”
He did Jack first, dribbling some of the red food coloring on his forehead. With his head leaning back, it looked impressive, though the color was all wrong. Not ruddy enough. Clay then squeezed some of the food coloring onto his fingers and snapped it on the sheet, making a spray pattern. Idiots, he thought. You’d think they’d wonder how and why he knew so much about wounds.
Now, Chrissy’s turn. He noticed the slight smile on her face, the way her neck was quivering. Just below her throat and above the swell of her exposed cleavage, he made two dribbles of the red food coloring on her skin. She seemed startled for a moment at the sensation, and then eased back and smiled wider.
“Guess I’ll be ready for a nice long shower when this is over,” she murmured.
Clay didn’t say anything in reply.
Back at his camera gear, he picked up the Polaroid again for some test shots. Again, the reassuring click-flash-whir. “How’s it going?” she asked.
“In just a minute, I’ll show you. But don’t get up from the couch. If you decide that they’re good enough, I’ll switch right over to the thirty-five millimeter.”
He held the pieces of developing paper in his hand, and after they had focused into sharpness, he went over to the couch. “Here you go,” he said, handing them to Jack and Chrissy.
Then it went wrong, very quickly.
Jack sat up and exploded, tossing the photos across the floor. “Are you kidding me? Showing us those pieces of crap? They look worse than the other ones! It looks like we’re dressed up for Halloween, never goddamn mind Christmas! It doesn’t look real at all!”
“Jack, listen to—” his wife started, her eyes wide and open, but he wouldn’t let her speak.
“No, you listen, you stupid witch! You’ve made us waste half a day sitting around for this stupid idea of yours, and for what? So this nitwit you found in the phone book, some guy fresh out of prison, can cheat us with a bill when we’re through?”