One cigarette led to another. She had a relationship with the things that had power over her; there was a give and a take. Things like Reynaldo, who was always pushing the envelope, always asking-begging-for a little bit more. She said, “Don’t, goddammit,” and he only laughed. But if she ever let him have what he wanted, he’d disappear. She intuited this the same way she intuited he was lying when he said he wasn’t a virgin. He talked about the girls he’d had in Spain, and she wondered if they were real or not, or if he was only making them up. He was terrified of the world waiting between her legs, and the power that gave her over him gave her an almost sexual thrill that was far more exciting than his anxious, inept fumbling. And that thrill in turn, that feeling that he didn’t even know he was giving her and wouldn’t understand if he did, it held sway over her.
She took all responsibility. She had to handle him with kid gloves. And if she ever let him have his way, she’d ruin it. He’d never look at her again.
The world was a matrix of power relationships. Love and pity, tolerance and kindness-sometimes she wondered if those entered into the equation at all. In her estimation, God was a bleak thing, a cold, clear eye watching with dispassion.
The bus rolled to a stop with a hissing of air brakes, the door opened, and the woman got on, giving Jaime a look over her shoulder. She sat a while longer before she started back down the hill, and it occurred to her as she passed the Parsons’ place that she’d seen the beige Pontiac across the street the night before. She thought it had been sitting there the night before that, too. And that might not have struck her as out of the ordinary, if not for the fact someone was sitting in the car, a shape massed behind the wheel, under the galaxy of reflected light. She walked quickly, not wanting to sprint for the front door but having to fight to keep from doing just that, all her cool thrown off for the moment, fumbling with her keys for what seemed an eternity, hands trembling, the hackles rising on the back of her neck. She could feel him watching her.
“Jaime? Is that you?”
“Yes, Mom.” She slammed the door and fell against it. She twisted the deadbolt and peered around the curtain. There was no movement outside.
“Don’t slam the door, Jaime.”
“Mom, I think there’s something going on. There’s a guy sitting in a car across the street. It’s kind of creepy.”
The pause before her mother answered alerted the girl to her mother’s complicity, to a web of knowledge and causality that stretched far past where she was standing now.
“Stop it. Jaime, you stop it right this minute. You’re scaring me half to death. You know how I am.”
“Yeah, Mom. I do.” It occurred to her then that she ought to leave well enough alone, that she was going to become as crazy as her mother if she wasn’t careful.
The kitchen was a wreck. Pots and pans were climbing out of the sink, and the gray, stagnant water smelled like roadkill. A week’s worth of plates and dishes were stacked on the counter. And her father hadn’t been home in three days. He’d called her a slut, which was so far from the truth, she wanted to laugh. If her father only knew how hard she’d worked to curb her desire, to preserve the upper hand.
She managed to clear off a corner of the counter, enough room to make herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and she poured herself a glass of the chocolate soymilk they bought just for her before she carried her sandwich upstairs on a paper towel.
6
He’d finally decided he was going to have to take matters into his own hands. That had been his only mistake. Trusting anyone else to do his dirty work, to take care of his business.
After three days, he’d sobered a little. Enough. The idea came with sudden, vicious clarity. He hadn’t wanted to get blood on his hands, but life was like that. Sometimes you had to do things you didn’t want to do. He thought of Clint Eastwood; he thought of Sean Connery; he thought again of Pacino in Scarface. They were cowards, weak men. Then he thought about Smilin’ Jack in The Shining. Now there was a man who could take care of business.
He left his dirty socks in the sink. He didn’t bother to check out. He wasn’t coming back, but he guessed they’d figure that out soon enough. Walking through the lobby, he saw the implements arrayed beside the fireplace, which was nonfunctional, strictly ornamental. There was the shovel; there, the broom. There were the giant tongs, and yes, the poker. The kid behind the desk was staring at his computer like he’d been shot up with Thorazine-eyes glassy, jaw slack. Probably stoned, Marsh thought. It was impossible to find reliable help anymore.
He swooped through the lobby like a bird of prey, catching hold of the poker as he passed the hearth and whisking it from the rack, carrying it out the door like a cane. The kid didn’t look up. Marsh started laughing. His breath came in whinnies and grunts, hurting his side. He swung the poker once, twice, listening to the whistling sound it made on the chilly air. The elderly couple coming in the door steered clear, giving him wide berth. He made a beeline for the car, stopping only once, to vomit.
7
He scarfed a cold cheeseburger from the glove box. He had three more; he could make it another night. They weren’t so bad once you got used to them. He washed it down with some flat Pepsi and belched, tasting pickle.
The girl started up toward the corner at a quarter of ten. She did it every night. Up to the bus stop before ten, and she’d sit there and have two, maybe three cigarettes, then she’d walk back.
The car stunk. It smelled like French fries and animal fat, like dirty sweat socks and musty sneakers, like unwashed, unshaven Irish ex-cop. After three days of sleeping behind the wheel and waking in his clothes, three days of waiting for the answer, he was through. Nothing had come to him, and nothing, so far as he could tell, had happened. And nothing, he’d decided, was going to happen, either. He considered ringing the doorbell, but dismissed the idea as soon as it occurred to him. He didn’t know which was worse-stalking the woman, staking out her house and scaring her children half to death, or ringing her doorbell and announcing himself: I know you don’t know me, Mrs. Marsh, but my name is Mickey Walsh, and your husband hired me to kill you.
If he thought his life was in the shitter a week ago, he could just imagine. He’d go from metro section to the front page.
He realized he’d been expecting something to happen, that he’d been keeping his vigil half hoping and half fearing Marsh would turn up and try to do the deed himself. If it came down to his word against Marsh’s, he knew where he stood. Even with twenty years on the force, he’d be on the losing end, and that seemed to him the story of his whole sad and shoddy existence on the earth, all forty-three years of it. What would he do if Marsh came home? Was he protecting the woman? Did he need to? He didn’t know. Should he have gone to the departmental psychiatrist years ago like everyone had told him to? Probably.