“It’s Mike, right? Is it good news? If it’s bad news you can tell me, Mom... Mom? What’s going on? What is going on?”
But Pat could only think to say, “It’s all right... it’s all right... Your father will tell you.”
Then Michael was driving them home, and Anna was sitting forward behind them, asking questions that Michael was answering evasively.
“We have no news about Mike,” the girl’s father said. “But we’ve had something serious come up, and we’ll sit and talk about it at home.”
“Did somebody die? Some relative or something? I didn’t know anybody was left!”
Mama and Papa Satariano had both passed away well over ten years ago (Papa first, Mama two weeks later); and Michael had no brothers or sisters. Well, of course Pat was aware of the one brother, who had died a long, long time ago...
“Daddy, I have a right to know what is going on in this family!”
“Yes, you do,” he said.
But that was all he said.
Their daughter was in full pout mode (“Fine!”) by the time Michael pulled into the driveway — slowly; he was looking all around again, less subtly now. A few neighboring homeowners were out in their yards, one filling the air with the army-of-bumble-bees buzz of a Lawn Boy.
Down the block a ways, two men in khaki jumpsuits were also doing yardwork — one trimming bushes, the other seeding. A panel truck, about the same shade of avocado as Pat’s pants suit, sat at the curb; bold white letters proclaimed green thumber’s lawn care with a cartoon thumb as an apostrophe and a Reno-exchange phone number.
Michael, his eyes on the jumpsuited men, said to Pat, “Aren’t Ron and Vicki off somewhere?”
“Yes. Fifteenth anniversary. Hawaii.”
“Do they usually have their yardwork done? I thought they did their own.”
“No, they get help, this time of year.”
“Do you recognize that service?”
“It sounds familiar. From Reno, I think.”
“That who Ron and Vicki regularly use?”
“I don’t really know.”
Michael grunted something noncommittal.
Anna said, “Is this the big news? The Parkers are getting their lawn looked after?”
Michael turned to her. “Do you remember what I talked to you and Mike about?”
Anna’s upper lip curled in a kind of contempt reserved only for parents of teenagers, by teenagers. “Sure, Dad — I remember the time you talked to Mike and me... Little more help, please?”
Michael’s expression had a terrible blankness. “I went over this subject more than once — I think the last time was right before Mike enlisted. About the kind of people I work for. And the problems that could lead to.”
Anna’s smart-ass tone vanished. “Oh, Daddy... Is that what this is...? Is something bad... about the people you... Daddy, don’t scare me.”
“Right now,” he said, “being scared is not such a bad idea.”
And he took the tube-snout silenced automatic out from under the black raincoat — folded between him and Pat in the front seat, on top of the briefcase — knowing Anna, leaning up in the backseat, could see it.
The girl sat back, hard and quick; then she covered her mouth with a pink-nailed hand.
“We’ll put the car in the garage,” he said.
Pat used the remote opener for him, and the Country Squire slid into place, Michael’s eyes everywhere; the door closed behind them. They sat in near darkness for a few moments.
“I’m going to check the house,” he said to Pat.
She nodded.
He looked back at his daughter. “Anna, I’m going to leave this with you...”
And he handed back the silver-snouted weapon.
But Anna was shaking her head, holding her hands up and shaking them. “No way, Daddy — no way.”
He half-crawled over the seat and pressed the gun in her hand and held her eyes with his. “Your mother doesn’t know how to use this. You do.”
“Daddy...”
Somehow Pat’s own protestations could not make the trip from her mind to her mouth. This was why Michael had insisted his two children become familiar with firearms, despite all her objections. And he’d been right, hadn’t he?
Just as now he was right to give the gun not to his wife, but to his seventeen-year-old daughter, who was after all trained to use the goddamned things...
“Nothing’s going to happen,” father was telling daughter. “This is... just in case.”
Anna swallowed; her dark eyes were huge and unblinking. “I’ve never shot at anything but a target, Daddy... You know that.”
With a nod, he said, “If someone tries to harm you or your mother, that’s your target. Do you understand?”
She swallowed again, and nodded; the pistol was in her two slim hands, its grip in her right, silver tube cradled in her left.
Michael turned to Pat. “I need you behind the wheel. If something happens in the house, you don’t think about it — you just get out of here.”
“Michael, I’m waiting for you...”
“No. If you hear gunfire, you get out — now. Drive to the end of the block — Country Club Road? You can still see the house from there. Wait three minutes. If anyone comes out of the house but me, go. Go.”
Mind whirling, shaking her head, Pat asked, “And what then?”
“Head to Reno.”
“Reno!”
“Yes — the church parking lot at St. Theresa’s. Wait there for two hours. If I don’t show, check into a motel somewhere.”
“Where somewhere?”
From the backseat, Anna was saying, “Daddy, please, please, you’re scaring me...”
Michael said, “Good... Pat, any motel anywhere, but drive at least two hundred miles first.”
“How will I know...?”
“Watch the papers, TV. If the news about me is... bad, then you take this briefcase and... Remember, Pat, what we talked about, at the bank. Okay? And you two... you two’ll be fine.”
Pat didn’t think she could cry, not as long as she was on this medication; but now she began to.
He did not comfort her, exactly — he just put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Time for that later. Right now, be strong. For yourself and for Anna... Anna, you be strong, too, for you and your mother. We may have many moments like this — when I walk into that house, it’s probably going to be empty.”
Pat got out a Kleenex from her purse and nodded and dried her eyes and her face.
Anna wasn’t crying. She’d found resolve somewhere, and just nodded once, curtly.
He smiled at them, one at a time — Pat first. “I love my girls.”
“I love you, Michael,” Pat said quietly.
“Daddy, I love you.”
“See you in a minute.”
And Michael, looking every bit the respectable resort manager in his gray suit and tie, got out of the station wagon, moved to the door that connected with the kitchen, and, just like always, stepped inside the Satariano home.
Just like always, except for the .45 automatic in his hand.
Five
Afternoon sun slanted through the glass patio doors as Michael paused, having just stepped from the garage into the yellow-and-white modern kitchen. Sun rays, floating with dust motes, were bright enough to make him squint, lending a surrealistic unreality to the mundane surroundings, the world within the Satariano home that seemed as normal as the loaf of Wonder Bread on the counter.
He toed one slip-on shoe off, then the other, and moved on in his socks, the silence broken only by such innocuous household sounds as refrigerator hum, dishwasher rumble, and various ticking clocks.