It was a small market, the kind that delivers phone orders. There were four aisles. Jesse could see the edge of the back door at the left corner. A sign that said CUSTOMER SERVICE hung from the ceiling in the right back corner. An arrow pointed straight down. The two-counter checkout was to the right of the door. The store was dead quiet.
"Snyder," Jesse said.
"Stop right there."
"I'm stopped," Jesse said.
Snyder appeared at the end of the cereal aisle. His wife was in front of him. In his right hand he held what looked like a nine-millimeter handgun. Semiautomatic, maybe a Colt. At least seven rounds, maybe twice that. Not cocked. The gun was pressed to his wife's neck. In his other hand he had an open bottle of Chivas Regal.
"Take off your coat," Snyder said. "I wanna see you gotta gun."
Mrs. Snyder's face was chalk white with deep lines. Her body was rigid. Her eyes were bulging.
"Sure I've got a gun," Jesse said. "I'm a cop."
He slid the blue linen jacket off and let it fall to the floor. His short-barreled.38 was on his left side, butt forward.
"Take it out and throw it on the floor," Snyder said. "Way over."
Jesse tossed the.38 on the floor near the bread rack. Then he waited.
Snyder took a pull on the Chivas Regal.
"My life ain't worth shit to me," Snyder said.
Jesse nodded.
"I got nothing to lose," he said.
Jesse waited. Snyder was being dramatic, but self-dramatization was what this kind of situation was often about.
"So don't fuck with me," Snyder said.
"That what you wanted to tell me?" Jesse said.
"I wanted to tell you that you fucked my life. I wanted to tell you I was married and we was happy until you."
"Un-huh."
"I wanted to fucking tell you that I'm going to kill her and then you and then maybe everybody else in this fucking store," Snyder said.
"Un-huh."
Snyder began to cry.
"I fucking loved her all my fucking life. Now she goes, I got fucking nothing."
Mrs. Snyder's voice was barely a squeak.
"I won't go," she said.
"Shut up. You already went, bitch."
"You need help with this," Jesse said. "We can get you some help."
"Help," Snyder said. "Fucking help. I'm her and she's me and you broke us up, you lousy fuck. You think you can get me help when my fucking life is completely fucking fucked?"
"It's not fucked yet," Jesse said. "Don't do something that will permanently fuck it."
"I got no life without her," Snyder said. "She ain't leaving me. And I ain't leaving her. Ya unnerstan? Not fucking ever."
He drank too big a drink from the bottle, and spilled some on his shirtfront. He was crying.
"We can help you with the booze," Jesse said. "We can still fix this."
"Fix fuck," Snyder said. "All I got now is booze."
He took another drink. Then he dropped the bottle and put his left arm around his wife's neck. He waved the handgun at Jesse.
"I'm going to shoot her," he said.
Snyder started to thumb back the hammer. Only his face showed over his wife's shoulder. Jesse took the long-barreled.22 from the small of his back, leaned toward Snyder as he pulled it, and with his gun arm fully extended and steady, shot Snyder once through the middle of the forehead. It made a small, neat, dark hole. Mrs. Snyder stood still and screamed, as Snyder's arm went limp and slid off her neck and he fell over and lay still.