Bald Bill didn't make a sound. Just blinked once dreamily, smiled, then stood up. After a moment, swaying, he began to walk in small airless circles at the edge of the deck until Curly noticed his odd behavior.
"Bubba?" he said as he stepped over to his brother.
Benbow leapt out of the water; one hand grabbed an ankle and the other dove up the leg of Curly's trunks to grab his nut sack and jerk the giant toward the pool. Curly's grunt and the soft clunk of his head against the concrete pool edge was lost as Mona Sue delivered the child with a deep sigh, and the old man shouted boldly, "Goddamn, it's a girl! A black-headed girl!"
Benbow had slithered out of the pool and limped halfway to the old man's back as he watched the doctor lay the baby on Mona Sue's heaving chest. "Shit fire and save the matches," the old man said, panting deeply as if the labor had been his.
Little R.L. turned and jerked his father toward him by the front of his coat, hissing, "Shut the fuck up, old man." Then he shoved him violently away, smashing the old man's frail body into Benbow's shoulder. Something cracked inside the old man's body, and he sank to his knees, snapping at the cold air with his bloody beak like a gut-shot turtle. Benbow grabbed the pistol's thong off his neck before the old man tumbled dead into the water.
Benbow cocked the huge pistol with a soft metallic click, then his sharp bark of laughter cut through the snowy air like a gunshot. Everything slowed to a stop. The doctor finished cutting the cord. The wrangler's hands held a folded towel under Mona Sue's head. Little R.L. held his gristled body halfway into a mad charge. Bald Bill stopped his aimless circling long enough to fall into the pool. Even Mona Sue's cooing sighs died. Only the cold wind moved, whipping the steamy fog across the pool as the snowfall thickened.
Then Mona Sue screamed, "No!" and broke the frozen moment.
The bad knee gave Benbow time to get off a round. The heavy slug took Little R.L. in the top of his shoulder, tumbled through his chest, and exited just above his kidney in a shower of blood, bone splinters, and lung tissue, and dropped him like a side of beef on the deck. But the round had already gone on its merry way through the sternum of the doctor as if he weren't there. Which, in moments, he wasn't.
Benbow threw the pistol joyfully behind him, heard it splash in the pool, and hurried to Mona Sue's side. As he kissed her blood-spattered face, she moaned softly. He leaned closer, but only mistook her moans for passion until he understood what she was saying. Over and over. The way she once called his name. And Little R.L.'s. Maybe even the old man's. "Cowboy, Cowboy, Cowboy," she whispered.
Benbow wasn't even mildly surprised when he felt the arm at his throat or the blade tickle his short ribs. "I took you for a backstabber," he said, "the first time I laid eyes on your sorry ass."
"Just tell me where the money is, old man," the wrangler whispered, "and you can die easy."
"You can have the money," Benbow sobbed, trying for one final break, "just leave me the woman." But the flash of scorn in Mona Sue's eyes was the only answer he needed. "Fuck it," Benbow said, almost laughing, "let's do it the hard way."
Then he fell backward onto the hunting knife, driving the blade to the hilt above his short ribs before the wrangler could release the handle. He stepped back in horror as Benbow stumbled toward the hot waters of the pool.
At first, the blade felt cold in Benbow's flesh, but the flowing blood quickly warmed it. Then he eased himself into the hot water and lay back against its compassionate weight like the old man the wrangler had called him. The wrangler stood over Ben-bow, his eyes like coals glowing through the fog and thick snow. Mona Sue stepped up beside the wrangler, Benbow's baby whimpering at her chest, snow melting on her shoulders.
"Fuck it," Benbow whispered, drifting now, "it's in the air conditioner."
"Thanks, old man," Mona Sue said, smiling.
"Take care," Benbow whispered, thinking, This is the easy part, then leaned farther back into the water, sailing on the pool's wind-riffled, snow-shot surface, eyes closed, happy in the hot, heavy water, moving his hands slightly to stay afloat, his fingers tangled in dark, bloody streams, the wind pushing him toward the cool water at the far end of the pool, blinking against the soft cold snow, until his tired body slipped, unwatched, beneath the hot water to rest.
The Loving You Get by JOHN GARDNER
Early in the last decade of the Cold War, Godfrey Benyon returned to London unexpectedly from Berlin to find his wife of fifteen years in bed with a senior colleague. For policemen and spies there often can be a high turnover in marriages. Both professions place dreadful strains on the contract between man and woman. The jobs are dangerous and consume a person's time and passion, leaving little space for any normal relationships. Some grains of love and respect can grow into stout and unshakable unions. Others just do not hold up.
Benyon and his wife Susan had married relatively young, and Godfrey had no reason to believe that Susan was anything else but happy and still in love with him. Certainly he still loved her and believed that she had come to terms with the lengthy periods when he was away from home, sometimes not even able to remain in touch.
There used to be a fallacy, commonly believed, that the family of an Intelligence or Security Service officer did not know what the husband or wife did in the way of government work. This, of course, is nonsense. Families always know, just as they know that they are quietly vetted from time to time in order to make sure they have not been suborned by some foreign espionage organization. This regular checking covers all branches of the Foreign Service and those in sensitive situations at the Home Office, not just members of the Secret Intelligence Service.
Ironically, the man with whom Susan Benyon had been committing adultery on a regular basis was the officer detailed to carry out the biannual in-depth examinations of her way of life.
His name was Saunders, commonly known to friends and enemies alike as "Soapy." To begin with, the seduction of Susan Benyon had been a ploy on Soapy's part to ascertain whether she put it about-as the jargon had it-thereby becoming a security risk.
However, after the first time, Saunders had enjoyed the delights of Susan Benyon's body so much that he made certain adjustments in his report and the pair became regular and consistent lovers.
Within a few months, Susan brought up the question of divorce from Godfrey and marriage to Saunders-something old Soapy did not want to happen. He had a decent and loving wife of his own and these extracurricular bouts of sex had livened up his own marriage. Susan had unwittingly assisted in turning Soapy's wilder fantasies into reality, and the result was that he eventually discovered hidden wonders in the sexual behavior of his own wife.
On the afternoon that Godfrey walked in on the lovers, he had naturally been tempted to violence and could easily have killed Saunders with one hand, for he was a born field officer and knew all there was to know about the black arts of death by finger or hand. Happily, he was well disciplined, leaving the room and waiting downstairs for Soapy to leave.
There was no row; no soaring accusations. Godfrey Benyon, being a man with an unforgiving nature, simply told his wife that he would leave that night. She admitted to loving Saunders, yet offered to put him aside and try to make their marriage work. Susan was not a fool and had long realized that, to Saunders, she was merely a bit on the side, to use the common expression of the time.
Even her pleading tears could not move her husband. He was in the business of treachery and knew the price that men and women paid for it within his own sphere of activity. He packed some clothes and a couple of sentimental items, then left the house they had shared for one and a half decades. His last act was to hand her the keys.