Killshot

Action.”

“I haven’t read it yet.”

The woman contestant on Jeopardy was running the Kings Named Ed category, answering one, “Where is the Tower of London?” in the form of a question, as you were supposed to. The woman was the smartest Jeopardy contestant Carmen had ever seen.

She said, “Mom called this afternoon.”

Wayne looked up from Matthew’s letter. “To brighten your day. Asked what you were fixing for dinner, you told her meat loaf and she said leave the Tabasco out, we’re ruining our stomachs.”

“She said to be sure to add milk.”

“I bet she asked about your dad, what’s new with him.”

“She hinted around.”

“Hoping to hear his liver had finally got him. Guy’s down in Tampa happier’n a pig in shit. She’s up here drinking her vodka and grapefruit juice, thinking of ways to be miserable. How’s her back?”

“The same. She bends over, it’s like somebody sticks a redhot poker in her.”

“I better not say anything,” Wayne said and returned to the letter. After a moment he said, “I like this part. Matthew says, ‘The steam pressure it takes to catapult a thirty-ton aircraft off the flight deck would send a pickup truck five miles out over the ocean.’ Now something like that I can picture. Then he talks about steam building up in the ‘below-deck accumulators.’ How’s a kid like Matthew know that? He’s nineteen years old.”

“He’s grown up,” Carmen said. “You were working when you were his age.”

“He says, ‘Hoping your days are CAVU and all is well.’ You think he’s overdoing it a little? What’s CAVU?”

“Ceiling and visibility unlimited.”

“You know what it is? Being on a new job. You use all the words, like you know what you’re talking about. Matthew’s out there on his CVN with that JBD and the FODs on a CAVU kind of day.”

“Somebody was in the woods,” Carmen said, “this afternoon. I looked out, it was when I was talking to Mom.”

Wayne said, “Well, that could be,” and paused. “You didn’t see who it was.”

Carmen shook her head. “There might even’ve been two, I’m not sure.”

“You say while you were talking to your mom.”

“I didn’t mention it to her.”

“No, I don’t imagine you would. But how come you wait till now to tell me?”

“I was going to right away, but then ...I don’t know, it didn’t seem that important anymore. They might’ve been hunters.”

“It’s the duck season, honey. There aren’t any ducks in the woods. Were they just, maybe walking through?”

“It was more like they were trying to stay hidden, watching the house. That was the feeling I had.”

“I don’t see how it could be those two guys, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“No, I don’t either.”

“They might like to run into me sometime, but they’re not gonna hang around on the off chance, with the police looking for them. Or so they say.”

Carmen said, “How could they know where we live?”

“They couldn’t, there’s no way they could find out.”

She saw Wayne thinking about it as he finished his dinner. On Jeopardy the contestants were getting ready for the hardest part, Final Jeopardy.

“Unless,” Wayne said, “that one, the Indian, remembers me talking to Lionel and goes to see him. Hey, but Lionel’s away someplace. I don’t know where, but he sure as hell isn’t home.”

“It probably wasn’t anybody,” Carmen said. “Just some guy. I’m not gonna worry about it.”

“No, they’d be pretty dumb to hang around.”

Carmen didn’t say anything. They were showing the Final Jeopardy question now. She looked at it, then at Wayne as he slid off the kitchen stool and went over to the closet where he kept his hunting gear, his shotguns, boxes of ammunition, coats, boots, lures, old copies of hunting magazines. She could see him in there with the light on.

“Hon, what are two adjacent states, one’s a Spanish word, the other’s Indian and they both mean red, the color?”

She was pretty sure the states were Colorado and Utah.

Wayne came out of the closet holding his Remington 870 fitted with the shorter slug barrel. He said, “Colorado and Oklahoma,” crossing to the door. He stood the shotgun next to it, against the wall.

Carmen said, “I think it’s Colorado and Utah.”

That was what the smartest woman she had ever seen on Jeopardy also thought, and they were both wrong. The states were Colorado and Oklahoma.

It surprised Carmen. Still, she felt good about it, smiling as she said, “How’d you know that?”

“I went bird shooting down there one time,” Wayne said. “Remember?”

“Knowing my love of corrections,” Donna had said to Richie Nix more than once and in different ways, “for them to treat me the way they did, I have lost all respect for our prison system.”

He told the Bird she was always going on about it. It convinced Richie they could trust Donna. At least tell her where they got the van. The Bird said no.

“She’s confused,” Richie said. “We drive off Saturday in a Cadillac, come back that night in a Dodge van wearing hunting outfits.” Camouflaged coats and caps, all green and brown with a little black.

The Bird said, “Let her be confused.”

“Yeah, but we don’t want her pissed off at us.”

The Bird said, “You don’t tell a woman use to wear a state uniform your business.”

He didn’t get it.

“That’s the whole point of what I’m saying,” Richie said, “she knows my business. She knows I got felony warrants out on me. It don’t matter to her, she spent her life with guys like me. Man, she’s a fucking convict groupie. We stay friendly with her, we have a nice little place to hide out. But we hurt her feelings, that’ll piss her off. Bird? You understand?”

The Bird said, “Don’t call me Bird no more.”

That stopped Richie, confused him. “You said they call you the Blackbird.”

“Not anymore.”

“Well, what am I suppose to call you?”

“My name, Armand.”

“Armand? You serious?”

They had been having their differences the past couple of days. It had taken that long to locate the ironworker’s house, the address in the phone book listed as a rural route number. They had to scout the place then. The Bird’s idea, leave the van on a back road and cut through the woods like a couple of hunters, sneak up on the house from behind. Okay, they had done that. Stood in wet weeds and bushes in their camie outfits—there was the house, there was a Cutlass and a boat with an outboard on a trailer in the garage, but no pickup truck. Which meant the ironworker wasn’t home and the Bird would not go up to the house till he knew both the guy and his wife were in there. Richie liked the idea of walking into the house, take care of the woman and wait for the guy to get home. Surprise him, we’re sitting there. The Bird had said, “Take care of the woman, ’ey? You think you can do it?” Still bringing it up. The Bird didn’t like the idea of walking in, he said, because somebody they didn’t expect could come along while they were in the house. Maybe cops. These people would have talked to the cops, no? What if the cops stopped by to ask them some more questions? Anything Richie wanted to do, the Bird was against it. Now he had a faggy name he wanted to be called, Armand.

They were in Donna’s living room under the pictures of guards, cons and prison officials: Richie and Armand sitting with their drinks among the stuffed animals, Armand fooling with Mr. Froggy’s button eyes; while Donna prepared her gourmet frozen chow, banging pans out in the kitchen so they’d know she was there.

Richie said, “Armand?” Jesus Christ, he felt weird saying it. “You notice she’s not talking to us? When she makes all that fucking noise like that it means she’s getting pissed off. I don’t want her to do nothing dumb.”

The Bird, Armand, said, “Pimpslap a woman, you want to keep her in line.”

“Now that would really set her off.”

“If she don’t know better,” Armand said, “she’s in trouble.”

Man, this guy was from some other fucking world. “Armand,” Richie said, “you’re not married, are you?”

“No way.”

“You ever live with a woman? I mean outside of your family?”

“What’s the point?”

“Armand, lemme tell you something. You’re always telling me something, now it’s my turn. Okay, Armand.” If he kept saying the name it would get easier. “You might’ve shot a woman or

two in your line of work. ... Have you?”

“Go on what you’re gonna tell me.”

“Let’s say you have. But shooting a woman and understanding a woman are two entirely different things, man. I’ve lived with women in foster homes and women since then.” Richie dropped his voice to add, “I might even still be married, I’m not sure, she got scared and took off on me. That’s okay, a woman being scared. But don’t ever let ’em get pissed off at you if you can help it. First thing, they’ll stop talking to you. Like her out there. You give them any more cause, then look out. A woman won’t ever come at you, they got other ways. Put ground-up glass in your chow. Pour gasoline on you while you’re sleeping and set you afire. I know guys it’s happened to. The least thing they can do is tell on you, that’s too fucking easy. Donna knows I got a sheet six feet long besides warrants from here to Kentucky. She can make a case anytime she wants. But, see, that don’t worry me. What does is the sneaky shit she’s liable to pull, say her feelings get hurt. What I’m telling you, Armand, you have to keep a woman thinking you give a shit what she thinks.”

Armand said, “So you don’t trust her.”

“Man, I just got done explaining it to you. I don’t have to worry do I trust her, long as she trusts me.”

The Indian took time to finish his whiskey before saying, “What do you want to tell her?” Not sounding so goddamn sure of himself now.

Richie felt he had him. He said, “Watch,” and called, “Hey, Donna? Fix us up here, will you?”

There she was, looking like a cartoon spider with her skinny legs and arms and that big butt sticking out. She took their glasses out to the kitchen and returned with fresh drinks filled with ice, checking them now to tell which was which, handing the darker one to Richie, the Southern and Seven, their eyes meeting but he didn’t say anything to her, not yet. He knew the Indian was watching all this, watching Donna now coming to him on the sofa, giving him his whiskey, but not even a glance, serious in her hairdo and ornamental glasses. Richie waited until she turned to leave.

“Donna?”

She stopped and said, “What?” but didn’t turn around.

“I want to tell you something. You know the van?”

Donna said, “Yeah?”

“I swiped it.”

Donna came around about halfway.

“Over in Windsor, at the airport,” Richie said. “This blonde was sitting in the van waiting on somebody? After while out come this colored guy must’ve been seven feet tall, from the terminal. The blonde gets out, she has this real short skirt on, runs up and jumps in his arms and they give each other a big kiss, his hands holding her butt. Then this other seven-foot jig appears, she runs up to him. They stand talking a minute and the three of them go in the airport, I figured to get the two jigs’s bags. Soon as they went inside I hopped in the van and took off.” Richie frowned a little, staring at Donna. “I couldn’t help it, seeing this cute little girl waiting on those seven-foot jigs.”

Donna said, “What happened to your chin?”

“I got in a fight.”

“With the colored boys?”

“No, was way before. Guy got smart with me.”

“Well, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Donna said, “What happened to his car?” Meaning the Indian’s, but not looking at him.

“It broke down. We had to leave it for repairs.”

“So you decided it was all right to take that van?”

“I’m not gonna hurt it,” Richie said. “We’ll use it, do a little hunting, then I’ll leave it someplace.”

Donna said, “Did you want the Weight Watchers chicken patty or the regular?”

Richie grinned. “Who, me? Come on.”

“What about him?”

“Give the Bird a double Weight Watchers.”

He waited till Donna left them and was in the kitchen before looking over at his partner. “I did see that happen one time, not over in Windsor, it was out at Detroit Metro. Yeah, this cute girl picks up these two giant colored guys. I guess basketball players. You wonder how those people got so tall.” Richie noticed the Indian looking toward the kitchen.

“She believe that story?”

“Who, Donna? She knows it’s close to the truth if it ain’t right on. She’ll ask me some more questions later. Like sneak up and try and catch me. Hey, but what you do now, Bird, I mean Armand, go in there and give her a little pat on the ass. Show her we’re all friends here.”

8

RICHIE HAD STOLEN THE VAN so he was the driver now. It gave Armand the feeling he was along for the ride, that he was losing his hold on this punk who drove too fast and didn’t keep his eyes on the road. They were dressed as hunters, on their way to see the ironworker and his wife. Four days had passed since their visit to the real estate office. And there it was, Richie slowing down as they approached the big house on the river road, crept past, Richie hunched over the wheel to look at the upstairs window.

“You think he’s in there?”

Armand didn’t answer.

“If I knew for sure he was I’d walk in, go right up to his office. That’d be a kick, wouldn’t it? See his face?”

Armand still didn’t answer. He was thinking that either one of his brothers would look Richie over and say, “What are you doing with this guy? He’s a punk.” His dead brother would say, “Guy tries to steal your car, you don’t do nothing to him?” His brother in prison would say, “You don’t leave him out on the road, keep going?” Try to explain it to them. Well, the deal looked pretty good. His brothers, either one, would say, “Yeah? It did, ’ey? With this guy?” It would be the same as if they saw him in the Silver Dollar with his arm around an ugly woman, buying her drinks. It wouldn’t matter how drunk he was.

That place, the Silver Dollar, was changing, full of punks; he couldn’t go back there. So he was in this business and it was like waking up with the ugly woman and not knowing where he was, only that he had to find his way out.

His brothers would have something to say about Donna.

Last night Richie kept saying, “Go on, go in there and say something to her. Make her feel good. Give her a little pat on the ass.” Okay, so he went in there. She seemed nervous with him watching her getting dinner ready and he could see she was trying to act natural. She had perfume on that smelled pretty good. He liked her body, the way it showed in tight pants and sweater. She asked him if he wanted anything and he said, “If you could be any kind of bird there is, what kind would you be?” She looked at him funny. He told her how his grandmother was going to turn him into an owl one time and what she could make seagulls do. He watched Donna relax and become interested, Donna saying, “No way,” her glasses shining in the overhead light when he told her about the seagulls. Armand believed there was a certain type of woman who wore glasses you could tell liked sex a lot. He saw Donna as one of them. He didn’t pat her on the butt; he asked her again what kind of bird she’d want to be. Donna looked at him and said she would have to give that some thought. He was getting along pretty good with her until Richie came into the kitchen saying, “Hey, what’s going on here?”

Richie a problem since becoming the driver. Richie breaking the silence now.

“We’re almost there, Bird.”

Armand, alert as they passed fields and woods on both sides of the road, said, “Slow down. Watch for where you turn in.”

Yesterday they had followed a pair of ruts that tracked from the blacktop to a deserted, falling-down farmhouse, a patch of woods separating it from the Colson property.

Richie drove past it.

Armand straightened on the seat. “Where you going?”

“I want to look at the house.”

There it was, a barn-type roof and dormers coming into view, a big comfortable-looking house sitting among shrubs and old trees. The ironworker’s truck was in the drive, by the back porch.

The door to the house stood open.

“Jesus Christ, Bird, the guy’s home.”

“Tell me where you’re going.”

“I’m gonna turn around and come back, pull up right in front. Bang in there, man.”

“You want to do it a different way now,” Armand said. “Give them a chance to see us coming.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Richie said, U-turning, creeping the van back toward the house. “I want the guy, okay? I’m gonna use a shotgun on him. I never did anybody with a shotgun before. You?”

Armand didn’t answer. He was looking past Richie at the house, counting eight columns on the high front porch, thinking that was a lot of columns to hold up the roof, thinking that after this was done he was going to have to shoot Richie in the head, though he would rather do it before, right now.

Dump him out on the front lawn. They were parked off the road now by the trees. Richie, close to him, turned to reach behind the seats for one of the loaded shotguns.

“You ready?”

Armand opened the door and stepped out of the van. Yes, he was ready. He closed the door and put his right hand in the pocket of the hunting coat to grip his pistol. No, he had never killed anyone with a shotgun. What would be the purpose of using one? This guy thought he was in the movies. Armand started around the front of the van.

In the same moment, looking up, he saw the pickup truck through the shrubs backing out of the drive, fast, the rear end turning this way, brake lights popping on and now the truck was taking off in the direction they had come. Armand stepped back, opened the door. Richie was hunched over, starting the van. He glanced at Armand saying, “I got him. You get the woman.”

Armand was shaking his head no, reaching up to pull himself in, and the van jumped away from him. He heard Richie saying it again, “I got him,” taking off after the ironworker’s pickup.

Carmen told her mom she was getting ready to fix kielbasa and cabbage for dinner, one of Wayne’s favorites. Her mom said, “Oh, is he home for a change? Let me say hello to the big guy.” Carmen told her they’d run out of beer and she’d forgotten to pick some up at the A & P, so Wayne had run out to get some. Her mom said, “Uh-huh,” and told Carmen that kielbasa and cabbage was a good last-minute kind of dinner, wasn’t it, you could throw together whenever the man of the house decided to come home. Carmen, looking out the window over the sink, said, “Mom?” Her mom was saying she fried her kielbasa first, then put it in with the cabbage to steam for about twenty minutes and served it with mustard pickles. Carmen said, “Mom, I’ll call you right back,” and hung up.

The heavyset man Wayne thought was an Indian had come up the drive and was standing opposite the porch. Carmen knew him, even in that hunting outfit, the man facing the door to the kitchen, now gazing up at the house.

Wayne had come home and run out again, leaving the door open. The shotgun he’d loaded and placed next to the door last night was still there, leaning against the wall. But the door was on the other side of the counter from where Carmen stood at the sink.

She was thinking that if she had remembered to pick up the beer, or if Wayne had come home earlier—but he wasn’t home and that’s why he’d placed the gun by the door, for a time like this, just in case, the Remington she’d fired at least a dozen times in the past five years, though never at anything living. Wayne had said she was pretty good with it. He’d throw cans in the air . . .

The heavyset man was approaching the steps, his hands in the side pockets of his hunting coat. It was too small for him. So was the cap, sitting on his forehead, the peak down close to his eyes.

She didn’t want him to come up on the porch. If he did—she didn’t think closing the door and locking it would keep him out of the house.

So Carmen walked around the counter and watched his head raise, the man seeing her now in the doorway. She picked up the Remington, pushed the safety off and let him see the shotgun too, held in her right hand pointed down, as she stepped out on the porch.

He touched the brim of his cap and seemed to smile. “You going hunting, Miss?”

Carmen didn’t answer.

“I was looking for your husband, have a talk with him.”

“He’s not home.”

“I know that. But see, I can come in and wait for him.” He shrugged, looking toward the road, then at Carmen again, his face raised with the peaked cap in his eyes. He said, “Okay?” and started to mount the steps.

Carmen half-turned, raising the shotgun in both hands, the stock under her arm.

It stopped him. He frowned and seemed surprised. “Why you pointing that at me?”

“What do you want?”

“I told you, I want to talk to your husband. Why don’t you and I go in the house, wait for him?”

“You’d better leave,” Carmen said. “I mean it. Right now.”

“Or what? You gonna shoot me? That what you do, you shoot people?”

It made her mad, the way he said it, and she didn’t answer.

She was holding a shotgun loaded with Magnum slugs, finger curled around the trigger. But the gun was only a threat if she was willing to use it. The man seemed at ease, not believing she would, and that made her mad. She was scared to death of him. She didn’t want him to move, come up the steps. But if he did she would have to shoot. He looked out at the road again and up at the house and then at her, in no hurry. It was as though he was saying, This is nothing, I’ll come up the steps if I want, do anything I want . . .

He moved to come up the steps and Carmen pulled the trigger and saw his face change, his eyes pop open, in that shattering sound of the gun firing, the shot going past his head. She pumped the gun and held it on him, the man bringing both hands up as he backed away saying, “Okay, take it easy, ’ey? Youwant me to leave? Okay, Miss, I’m going.”

He kept looking back as he moved off, not out to the road but across the drive and the side yard toward the chickenhouse, taking his time and looking back as if to see what she thought of it. Carmen didn’t like it at all. She wanted him to leave, not lurk around out there. That’s what he was doing now, leaning against the front corner of the chickenhouse, watching her from about fifty yards away.

Carmen raised the stock to her shoulder and put the slug-barrel sights on the slat boards of the low structure, close to the man’s head. He didn’t move, telling her again he didn’t believe she would shoot him, and for a moment she felt an awful urge to slide the barrel over, center it on him. Carmen let the moment pass. She fired, pumped the gun in that sound splitting the air, raised it to fire again and he was gone.

What Richie had in mind was to come up on the guy’s truck all of a sudden, pull out like he was going to pass, holding the shotgun with the tip of the barrel resting on the passenger-side windowsill, the window open, and as he came even with the guy squeeze one off, blow him right out of his truck. Except once he thought of it they were getting near Algonac and cars were coming the other way, so he couldn’t pull out. By the time there was a chance to, the guy put his left blinker on and turned into a 7-Eleven.

Comes home and the little woman sends him to the store.

Richie liked the idea, the guy thinking he was mean but actually was pussy-whipped. Yes, dear. Whatever you say, dear. Donna asked him to go to the store one time. He’d said to her, “Hey, you start on me with that kinda shit, I’m gone.” They didn’t respect you if you did too much for them. He’d have to remember to tell Bird that, the Bird not knowing shit about women. Which was weird, a man his age. But then the Bird was Indian and they were a weird bunch anyway, believing you could get turned into a fucking owl. Donna didn’t know what kind of bird she’d be. Richie believed he’d be an eagle. Shit, be the best.

He had turned into the empty parking area in front of the store, pulled up right next to the guy’s truck facing the plateglass windows covered with bargain signs and watched him go in, the guy wearing a jacket that said ironworkers on the back. Like he was proud of it. Look at me, I’m a fucking ironworker, man. Richie’s idea was to give the ironworker something to look at when he came out, the muzzle of a pump gun. Then began to think if he needed anything. Yeah, sunglasses; he’d misplaced his shades somewhere. He wondered if he’d have time to run in and get a pair, come back out . . .

Or do the job in there, Richie thought. What’s the difference? It even gave him another idea. Do more than the job. Make it a double feature.

He walked into the store carrying the shotgun down at his side. He didn’t see the ironworker. The two checkout counters were right in front of him, a girl in there between them, chewing gum as she looked up at him and then down again, not seeming too interested. She was reading a magazine. Richie noticed her hair looked oily. He didn’t see the ironworker anywhere.

Then did see him, way down at the end of an aisle, two six-packs under his arm, picking up a bag of potato chips.

The trick now was to do both almost at once. Richie raised the shotgun high enough to aim it at the girl and saw her drop the magazine as he said, “This’s your big day, honey. Empty out that cash drawer for me in a paper bag and set it on the counter. And some gum. Gimme a few packs of that bubble gum, too.” The girl was about eighteen, not too good-looking, dark, maybe an Indian. When she didn’t move he said, “Do it,” and she jumped and got busy. He swung the shotgun at the aisle then, yelled out, “Hey!” and saw the ironworker look this way at him, which was the idea, get him looking. But shit, as he fired and pumped and fired, the buckshot blowing hell out of the potato-chip rack and the soda pop on the far wall, the ironworker disappeared. Richie stepped to the next aisle, saw him moving and fired and pumped and fired again; man, raking the shelves, cans flying, bottles busting, but no ironworker lying there. Shit, missed again. Saw him going for a door, the six-packs still under his arm, the ironworker in the doorway as Richie fired his last round and shot out the glass part of the door as it swung closed. Shit.

The guy could be out the back by now. Richie was pretty sure the ironworker had seen enough of him to know who he was. That was better than nothing. Keep the guy jumpy, looking over his shoulder, and get him some other time. There was too much to stand here and think about right now. Richie turned to the girl. He laid the shotgun on the counter and picked up the paper bag sitting there.

“This everything?”

She nodded, holding her hands in front of her, sort of hunched in with her head bent, looking down at the floor.

“Are you Indian?”

The girl shook her head.

“You look Indian. You ought to use something on your hair. You know what I mean? A shampoo with a conditioner in it. Give it some body.”

Man, she sure looked Indian. Thinking it made him think of the Bird. Which got him thinking along another line, staring at this girl. He said to her, “Look at me.”

She raised her head but couldn’t seem to fix her eyes on him, they kept jumping around.

“You sure you’re not Indian?”

She was biting on her lip as she shook her head, not chewing her gum now.

Richie said, “Well, it don’t matter.” He reached behind him, brought out his nickel-plate .38 and shot the girl square in the forehead.

***

Now, that was exciting, when it happened spur of the moment. The way the Bird worked it, that’s what it seemed like, work, like a job. And thought, Jesus Christ, the Bird. Richie turned the van around in Algonac and headed back out into the country. All the excitement, he forgot he had to pick up the Indian.

What it did was settle his mind, made him realize he’d get another crack at the ironworker. If the Bird was at the guy’s house and the guy’s truck was still at the 7-Eleven ...Tell the Bird it was a kick, man, using a shotgun. The Bird would say yeah, but you missed. And he’d tell the Bird not to sweat it, the guy would be coming home soon. Tell the Bird no, there aren’t any witnesses, I done what you told me. Hand him the take from the holdup. Oh, here, I almost forgot. You proud of me? See, I went in there to get some sunglasses, account of I misplaced the ones I had. I been trying to remember . . .

It was quiet out here, starting to get dark. Richie slowed down, aware that he was coming up on the ironworker’s house, but still in his mind thinking about those goddamn sunglasses, the last time he’d worn them—and was startled, Jesus Christ, to see the Bird appear at the side of the road, coming out of the brush with his arm raised. Richie was past him by the time he braked to a hard stop. The Bird came up to the van in a hurry. He got in saying, “Let’s go. Get out of here.”

Richie didn’t say anything quite yet. He waited till they were up the road, in sight of the highway they’d take to Marine City. All the things he was going to tell the Bird were forgotten. What he finally said was, “Shit, I remember where I lost my fucking sunglasses.”

The Bird sat there in his own mind for a while. Finally, all he said was, “This ought to be good.”

9

A STATE POLICE INVESTIGATOR told the Colsons they would be hearing from the FBI. With suspicion of criminal activity across a border it had become a federal case.

Wayne said, “You mean you suspect these two guys are criminals? We’re moving right along, aren’t we?”

After two more days of police from various jurisdictions marching in and out, police cars in the drive, in the yard, police cars creeping by at night flashing high-beam spots on the house, lighting up their bedroom, Wayne stood on the side porch to deliver a speech. He said:

“I got a speeding ticket out at Detroit Metro one time, forty in a twenty-five zone, over there to pick up my wife coming back from visiting her dad, in Florida. It made me think, if you can get stopped for driving too fast at an airport, if the traffic is that light, it doesn’t say much for our economy, does it? But that’s not the point I want to make.

The point is, it’s the only time I’ve ever been stopped in Michigan for a moving violation. Ohio’s a different story. That drive down I–Seventy-five is so goddamn boring you can’t get through it fast enough. But soon as you try, they nail you, there’s Smokey with his goddamn hat on, every bit as serious as you guys. What I’m leading up to, I want you to understand I’ve never been arrested or had any trouble with police. I’ve never swung at a cop, I’ve never talked back to one, even in Ohio, till the other day, over at the real estate office. I said why don’t you go over to Walpole and find out who’s driving an ’86 Cadillac. If you did, you’d have caught the two guys and Lionel Adam would be alive. But what you guys’d rather do is sit around and drink our coffee and ask the same goddamn questions over and over. How many times you gonna ask me if I saw both guys at the Seven-Eleven? How could I if one of them was here? How many times you gonna ask me what the guy was driving after I told you I didn’t see his car? Or did I actually see him shoot the girl? Why is there any question who did it? Who else could have? How many times you gonna go look at that bullet-hole in the chickenhouse? My wife told you she fired the shot and has a sore shoulder to prove it. She told you she wasn’t trying to hit him and you act like you don’t believe it. Not one of you has said nice going or it was a brave thing my wife did.

Had she shot the son of a bitch would you arrest her for it? I don’t see where you guys are doing a goddamn thing besides drink coffee and bump into each other. You sure as hell don’t communicate among your different groups or we wouldn’t be getting the same goddamn questions over and over.”

The State Police investigator told Wayne to take it easy, to look at facts. There was no apparent connection between the Cadillac and Lionel Adam’s murder. Investigating one did not lead to the other. Lionel’s body hadn’t been found in the marsh till three days later.

Wayne had been told that much. Duck hunters had come across the body, shot three times in the chest. “But what day was he killed? Haven’t you found that out yet?”

“When we do we’ll let you know,” the investigator said. “How’s that?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Wayne said. “You might also let me know, when you get around to it, why they want to kill us. My wife didn’t do nothing to them. Is it they want to shoot her on account of me? Who are these guys? They’ve been around here a week almost and you can’t find them? Where the hell are you looking?”

Local police and county deputies walked off as Wayne spoke, got in their cars. The State Police investigator waited till he was through, then went out to the woods where evidence technicians were still looking around.

Carmen said, “That was some speech,” and took Wayne in the house. “But what good is yelling at them? It just gets them mad at you.”

“That’s the whole point of what I’m saying. They act like it’s our fault. Did I antagonize the two guys? Did you aim at the one when you shot at him? I would’ve, I know that, and if I hit him I’d be in jail up in Port Huron awaiting trial.”

“They’ve been nice to me,” Carmen said, “but you rub them the wrong way. Why did you go into all that about getting the speeding ticket and driving through Ohio?”

“Because those are times I got pissed off at cops and didn’t say anything, when maybe if I had I would’ve felt better.”

“You feel better now?”

“Not much. Let’s have a beer.”

Carmen said, “That sounds like a good idea.” She said, “You know how when you cross your t you put the bar above the stem?”

“You said it meant I was witty.”

“It does, but sometimes—I’ve never told you— there’s sort of a downward slant to your t bar and that shows a quick temper.”

“I’ll work on crossing it straighter,” Wayne said, “see if I can improve my personality.”

“You might just try to lighten up,” Carmen said.

Later on, when the FBI special agent called and asked if it would be convenient for them to stop by, Carmen said yes, of course. When she told Wayne they were coming he didn’t say a word and Carmen wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. She had never seen her husband in a fight or a situation where he ever hit anyone, but believed it could happen almost anytime now.

Two of them, both wearing dark suits, got out of the Ford sedan. The one on the other side of the car walked off toward the woods. Carmen saw the State Police detective out by the tree line looking this way. The one that got out from behind the wheel had thick dark hair, beginning to show gray, and was nice-looking. He nodded to them on the porch saying, “Mr. and Mrs. Colson, I’m Paul Scallen, I called you earlier. May I come up?”

Carmen said, “Please.” Wayne didn’t say a word.

The man was taller than she’d thought, growing as he came up the steps, taller than Wayne and older, probably in his late forties, showing them his credentials now in a case with a gold shield pinned to it. Carmen saw FBI in big light-blue letters and his name printed over it in black, much smaller. Paul Scallen. It said he was a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Department of Justice. On the bottom part was his picture and more writing too small to read. Carmen wondered if there was a difference between a special agent and just a plain agent. She liked his rust-colored tie with the blue shirt and dark-gray suit. No hanky in the pocket. He looked like a businessman.

Wayne was staring at the credentials. Carmen wondered if he was reading the small print until he said, “That’s the same color as the guy’s car”— meaning the light-blue FBI letters—“a big god-damn Cadillac nobody can seem to find.”

Swell, Carmen thought. Here we go.

She was surprised when the FBI man said, “You noticed that too,” sounding a little surprised himself. “It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the car. The Windsor Police found it at the airport, the one over there.”

“So they’re gone,” Wayne said.

Carmen thought he sounded disappointed. It seemed to perk up the FBI man, who said, “Well, not necessarily. They found it the same day Mrs. Colson chased one of them off, I understand with a shotgun.” Giving Carmen a nod as he said it. “And the other one killed the girl in the store. So they didn’t fly out and they haven’t come back for the car. The Windsor Police have it under surveillance, but we think the two guys dumped it.”

Wayne said, “But you don’t know if they’re still around.”

“We think they are.”

“You’re not sure though.”

“Let me say we have reason to believe they are.”

“You check the car registration?”

“It belongs to a company in Toronto. We contacted the police there, they followed up and were told the car was stolen. But we don’t believe it. We think they gave the car to one of the guys to use. For another matter first, something that happened in Detroit the day before they came to the real estate office.” The FBI man looked at Carmen. “I understand you work for Nelson Davies.”

“I did; not anymore.”

“Well, I can understand, after what happened.”

“That wasn’t why I quit.”

“Wait a minute,” Wayne said. “What kind of company loans a car to a guy that kills people?”

“A company that hires him to do it,” the FBI man said. “A company that’s operated by the organized crime people in Toronto. Mafioso, just like the ones we have here.”

“You say they gave the car to one of the guys,” Wayne said. “Which one, the Indian?”

“Part Indian, Ojibway, part French-Canadian. His name’s Armand Degas, at least that’s who we think we have here. We know he was seen on Walpole Island last week and we assume, if it’s the same guy, both you and Mrs. Colson got a good look at him.” The FBI man paused, staring at Wayne. “You had to have been pretty close to hit him with that iron-working tool. What do you call it, a sleever bar?”

Wayne nodded and seemed to think about it a moment, Carmen wondering what he was going to say next.

“What I should’ve done was broke a few bones, put those guys in the hospital, in traction.”

Now the FBI man was nodding. “That’s not a bad place to question suspects, when they’re in pain and can’t move.”

Carmen watched. Neither one of them smiled but it didn’t matter. She could sense that all at once they had tuned in to each other’s attitude and were going to get along fine from here on. Now Wayne was asking Scallen if he wanted a beer. Another good sign. Or he could have instant coffee; they were temporarily out of the real stuff. Scallen said no thanks, he didn’t care for anything, but went into the kitchen with them and took a place at the counter. Carmen turned on the overhead light. She watched Scallen take a white envelope from his inside coat pocket. Wayne asked her if she wanted a beer and she hesitated because a federal special agent was sitting there and then said, okay, why not? Wayne said, “We’re not working, he is.” Scallen smiled. He said to Carmen, “That slug barrel gives a kick, doesn’t it?” Carmen touched her shoulder and rolled her eyes just enough. He said,

“It took an awful lot of nerve, what you did, to stand up to a man like that.” Carmen said she hoped she’d never have to do it again. She saw Scallen taking two black-and-white photos out of the envelope, laying them on the counter. Wayne popped open the cans of beer and handed one to her saying, “My wife’s a winner, that’s why I married her.” She saw Scallen half-turned on the stool, waiting.

He said, “Are these the two men?”

She felt Wayne’s arm slip around her shoulders, his hand creeping down her arm, moving with her to the counter. They looked down at the photos, posed, front-view mug shots: the photo of the Indian, Armand Degas, dark; the photo of the other one much lighter, pale skin, a drugged expression.

“There’s no doubt in my mind,” Wayne said. “They look different there, but those are the guys.”

After a few moments Carmen nodded and looked up at Scallen. “If you get them, you want us to identify them in court, is that it?”

“There’s nothing we’d like more,” Scallen said. “But I should tell you something about them first, before you agree to do it. These guys are both pretty bad.”

Carmen pointed to the one with long hair. “What’s this one’s name?”

Scallen glanced at the photo. “Richie Nix. He’s a convicted felon with a number of federal and state detainers out on him. That means he’s a wanted criminal.”

Carmen said, “Richie?”

“That’s the name on his birth certificate.”

She was looking at the photos again. “Both of them have killed people?”

Scallen nodded. “That’s right.”

Wayne said, “You know they’re the ones killed Lionel?”

Scallen nodded again. “Bullets taken from his body match the three that were found in Nelson Davies’s office, they dug out of the wall. And, the same gun was used to kill the girl in the Seven-Eleven, when Richie Nix was trying for you.”

Carmen looked up. “Is that what you want to tell us?”

“There’s more,” Scallen said.

Six p.m., nine miles north in Marine City, Armand found a gas station where it looked like only one man was on duty, a run-down place that offered discount prices. Armand drove Donna’s red Honda up to the row of pumps, got out and told the man to fill it up and check the oil and the tires. The gas-station man looked at Armand but didn’t say yes sir or okay or you bet or anything, just looked at him and walked over to the car. He wore a hunting cap cocked to one side and was older and bigger around in his dark-brown uniform than Armand, but seemed worn out, not much life in him.

Armand went inside the station, picked up the phone on the desk and dialed a number in Toronto. Standing away from the plate-glass window he watched the gas-station man take the hose from a pump and stick the nozzle into the Honda’s filler opening. A voice came on the phone saying this was L and M Distributing and Armand said, “This is the Chief. Let me talk to him.” He waited, watching the gas-station man move to the front of the Honda and raise the hood while gasoline continued to pump into the tank.

The son-in-law’s voice came on saying, “The fuck’re you doing? Where are you?”

Armand said, “You don’t want to hear about the old man, ’ey?”

There was a pause before the son-in-law said, his voice lower, “It was in the papers, pictures of both of them.”

Armand said, “Both?” And said, “Oh. Yeah, I forgot. Listen—what he said, don’t tell me it was in the papers. I’m the only one heard it.”

“Where’re you at?”

“He told me you’re a punk, you not gonna last six months. He told me to tell you that. Listen— but the main thing, I need a car, a clean one with papers. I want you to arrange it.”

“You call me up,” the son-in-law said, “you give me some shit—I don’t give a fuck what you need.”

“Yes, you do,” Armand said. “You don’t want me to get picked up for some reason and they start asking me who I work for, who sent me, was I in Detroit last Friday with your car, things like that. Pretty soon they mention, well, if I give them something maybe they let me go home. That’s not what you want. What you want to do is call that guy in Detroit, you know who I mean, guy with the cars, and arrange for me to get one tonight.”

Armand watched the gas-station man close the hood of Donna’s car as the son-in-law was saying he wanted to know what was going on. He wanted to know what happened to the Cadillac, why it was left in Windsor. Armand said, “What difference does it make? It’s a blue car, that’s all. There’s nothing in it can hurt you.” Through the window he watched the gas-station man return the hose to the pump and hook the nozzle in the slot. Armand said, “Hold it a minute. Don’t go away.” He placed the receiver on the desk and stepped to the open doorway.

“You forgot to check the tires.”

The gas-station man, coming toward the station now, stopped in the drive. “What?”

“I want the tires checked.”

“You do that yourself.” Glancing off he said, “Over there,” and started toward Armand again. “That’s nine-forty for the gas.”

Armand moved to the desk, picked up the phone and said, “Listen to me. Tell the guy ten o’clock somebody will pick up the car.” The son-in-law started to speak and Armand said, “Listen to me. Ten or maybe later. This is for your good as much as for mine.”

The gas-station man entered as Armand was hanging up the receiver.

“You just use the phone?”

“It was a local call,” Armand said. “How much you want?”

“Local to where, across the river? You people, I swear. You come over here, you expect we’re suppose to give you everything. Well, I’m not one of them sees you as poor souls. Gimme nine-forty and go on get out of here.”

Listen to him. Armand had to take a moment to stare at this fat, worn-out guy talking to him like that. He said, “What you trying to tell me, I shouldn’t come here, ’ey? Is that it?”

“You start anything,” the gas-station man said, “I can have the police here in one minute. They’re just up the street.”

Maybe it was funny. Look at it that way. Armand shook his head. “Whatever you say.” He took a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and placed it on the desk. “How about if you keep the change for the phone call? Okay?”

The gas-station guy didn’t answer. That was all right. Armand edged past him through the doorway, smelling grease and tobacco, and was crossing the drive almost to the Honda, when he heard the guy call out to him. Something about was he trying to cheat him.

Armand turned.

The guy was coming out, holding up the ten. “This here’s Canadian. You owe me another two bucks.”

When Armand got back to Donna’s house he told Richie about it, in the kitchen while he poured himself a drink. Donna was in the bathroom, taking a shower. Richie said, “Yeah? So what’d you do?”

“I gave him the two bucks. What would you do?”

Richie said, “Jesus Christ,” shaking his head. “You didn’t teach him a lesson?”

“I want to know what you’d do,” Armand said.

“If I had my piece on me? Shit. If I didn’t, I’d get it and go back there. No, I’d use the shotgun, blow the place to hell.”

“What about the guy?”

“Him too. I know that gas station you’re talking about. You go in there the guy doesn’t say a fuck

ing word to you.”

“He did to me.”

“That’s what I mean,” Richie said. “He ever talked to me like that and I was a Indian? I’d scalp the son of a bitch.” Richie paused and thought about it a moment. “I don’t know, that shotgun’s a lot of fun. Maybe what I’d do, shoot the place up and then scalp him.” Richie paused again and frowned, squinting at Armand, then opened a drawer and took out a paring knife, still frowning. “How do you scalp somebody ...?”

“You do all that with the police up the street or maybe driving by, ’ey? Or somebody else that sees you?” Armand said. “You know why I told you about it? To see what you’d do. Now I’m gonna tell you not to think like that, not anymore till we get this business done.”

“You want me to think like you, huh?”

“I want you to take it easy, how you think.”

“I know you’re a cool fucker, Bird, but if that guy didn’t get you pissed there’s something wrong with you.”

“Sure he did,” Armand said. “The same as every time it ever happened in my life. But wait a minute, what do we have to think about right now? This guy at a gas station or two people can send us to prison?”

“I’d have still done something.”

“Listen to me. That guy at the gas station,” Armand said, tapping the side of his head with a finger, “I have him in here, I can go see him sometime if I want. Pay myself to do it. You understand? But we got this other thing to do first.” Armand touched his forehead now, tapping it with the tip of his finger. “We have to keep it here, in the front of our heads.”

Richie was stabbing the knife at the kitchen counter, trying to hit a crack in the vinyl surface. Like a kid, Armand thought. Don’t want to be told anything.

“Donna mentioned it was on the radio,” Richie said, stabbing away. “She listens to WSMA, this program called Tradio where you phone in and trade shit you don’t want no more. It’s where she got that pink robe. I go, ‘I thought you got it off the Salvation Army.’ She gets pissed you kid with her like that.”

“You through?” Armand said.

Richie looked up, the knife poised. “Am I through what?”

“Donna mention something was on the radio.”

“Oh, yeah, about the Seven-Eleven was robbed, suppose to be they said a couple hundred was taken. Bullshit, it was forty-two bucks, worst score I ever made. No, shit, I take that back. I only got twenty-eight bucks once, place down in Mississippi.”

“You told Donna it was you?”

“No, she kept talking about the girl being shot, did I hear about it, hinting around.” Richie was stabbing at the counter again. I just go, ‘Oh, uh-huh, an armed robbery, imagine that.’ See, Donna, she might suspect it was me, but it’s talking about it I think turns her on. The idea of a hardcase going in there with a gun. In her life, I bet she’s known more guys that packed one time or another than didn’t.”

“Guys in prison,” Armand said.

“Yeah, in the joint.”

“Dumb guys that got caught.”

“Hey, it can happen to anybody.”

“Not to me,” Armand said. “Listen, you gonna pick up a car tonight.”

“We got a car.”

“This is a clean one, with papers. You take the van, leave it someplace in Detroit to get stolen, like you said, and pick up this one we don’t have to worry about cops looking for.” Armand could tell from Richie’s stupid grin he liked the idea, showing some respect for a change.

“You’re a slick guy, Bird, you know it? How’d you work that?”

“How do I do something like this, I make a phone call,” Armand said. “It’s what I don’t do is the difference, what you have to learn. I don’t leave my sunglasses someplace, I don’t leave my fingerprints, I don’t do nothing ’less I work it out first and I’m sure.” He saw Donna in the hall, a glimpse of her in the pink robe going from the bathroom to the bedroom. “Then all you have to do,” Armand said, “is walk in, walk out.”

It was half-past nine. Carmen and Wayne were sitting in the living room with lamps turned on talking about a thirty-four-year-old wanted criminal named Richie Nix, referring to a “detainer list” the FBI man had shown them: the detainers indicating crimes he was wanted for in several different states, armed robbery and capital murder.

“What I can’t figure out,” Wayne said, “he’s been doing this for, what, about twenty years. He was in the Wayne County Youth Home when he was fifteen, a few years later he robs a package store in Florida, does something else in Georgia, goes to prison . . .”

Wayne stopped as a spotlight hit both windows from outside and flashed again in the foyer, on the oval glass panel in the front door. There was a silence. Wayne got up from the sofa, walked to a window and looked out.

“They’re about five minutes late.”

Carmen sat in a rocking chair they’d bought unfinished in Kentucky one winter, coming back from Florida. She had stained the chair with a clear varnish and made an olive green pad for it.

“Why get worked up? They’re doing their job.”

“What? Shining spots on the windows?”

She watched him walk back to the sofa, fall into it and stick out his blue-jean legs, the heels of his work shoes resting in the rag carpeting. They had furnished the place without much thought, farmhouse traditional; Carmen was tired of it.

“You realize we’re actually sitting here talking without the TV on? We haven’t done this since you watched me strip the woodwork.”

It reminded her again, she wanted to do something with the living room, liven it up. Keep the rocker, paint it a bright color, but get rid of that old green plaid sofa, and the duck prints her mom had given them as a combined present, housewarming and Wayne’s birthday, a month late. Her gaze moved to Wayne. She liked to look at him and wait for him to become aware of it. Their eyes would meet and they’d see how long they could stare at each other without smiling—until Carmen would do something like running the tip of her tongue over her lips or she might stick a finger in her nose.

“You want to go to bed?”

He looked over. “It’s early.”

They stared for a moment. He said, “We haven’t done much making out lately, have we?”

“It’s been days. Not even hugs and kisses,” Carmen said. The way he shook his head she could tell he was thinking of something else. “What is it you can’t figure out? You started to say something about Richie Nix, his record, he went to prison . . .”

“That’s right—three times and they let him out,” Wayne said, getting back into it. “He’s in a federal prison, he sees a guy stabbed to death, he testifies at the guy’s trial that did it and they put him in the Witness Protection Program.”

“It was his cellmate,” Carmen said, “the one that was murdered. I meant to ask Scallen about that—you notice he called it the Witness Security Program.” She saw Wayne anxious for her to finish. “But that’s beside the point.”

“I don’t know,” Wayne said. “The thing I don’t understand, here he’s supposed to be in prison for something like twenty years, am I right?”

“He was already there a few years when it happened.”

“Yeah, a few. Now they say they have to protect him, in case the guy’s buddies he testified against tried to get him. So they put him in the witness program and let him out. How can they do that?”

Carmen paused, seeing the FBI man in the kitchen talking quietly to them about a man who robbed and killed and another who was paid to kill. “I don’t think he said Richie got out, not right away. No, that’s when he was transferred to Huron Valley. He was in the witness program while he was in prison, I think three more years, and then for a little while after, till he committed a crime.” She had to add, “And that disqualified him. So all these detainers Scallen showed us, the crimes Richie Nix is wanted for now, are things he did in the last couple of years.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Wayne said. “They let him out and he starts killing people. He gets a job through a friend, what does he do? He shoots the guy and takes off.”

“There was one before his friend,” Carmen said, “another one he shot, in Detroit.”

“Yeah, he gets out—he’s pulling robberies and all of a sudden he’s killing people, too. You go down the detainer list, robbed a package store in Dayton, Ohio, shot and killed the store employee. All those others, in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, shot and killed store employee, every one of them. He finds out from Lionel where we live—that must’ve been what happened—and shoots him three times. He didn’t have to kill him. The girl in the store, she didn’t have a gun or anything, she’s a seventeenyear-old girl. He takes the money and shoots her in the head. Why does a guy like that all of a sudden start killing people?”

“Why is he after us?” Carmen said. “If we knew that ...I mean what does he stand to gain?”

“I think getting thrown out a second-story window has something to do with it,” Wayne said, “though he doesn’t seem to need a reason to shoot people. I guess it’s just the way he is. Or right now he’s working for the Indian and does whatever he’s told. From what Scallen said, the Indian’s the one to look out for. I’ve thought that all along. When I was sitting at Nelson’s desk watching him, I think about it now, he didn’t touch a thing. They found Richie Nix’s fingerprints all over the place, but not the Indian’s. We think Richie’s bad but, Jesus, what about Armand, the things he’s done?”

“There sure isn’t much privacy around here,” Donna said, “having two men in the house.” She was sitting on the side of her bed in her pink chenille robe, rolling up a pair of sheer black panty hose to stick her toes in, the nails painted an orange-red.

Armand stood in the bedroom doorway watching her.

There were furry stuffed animals on Donna’s bed, on the purple-red-and-yellow chenille spread done in a big peacock design, and a picture on the wall, over the head of the bed, a color portrait painted on black velvet that Armand believed was supposed to be Elvis Presley. He was pretty sure that’s who it was because Donna had a rack of Elvis Presley records, that Elvis Presley doll dressed in the white jumpsuit and Elvis Presley plates out in the kitchen. Eat down through Donna’s TV Salisbury steak and there was Elvis Presley looking at you.

“You want privacy,” Armand said to her, “you close the door. But I don’t think it’s what you want.” He could see her thighs where the pink robe was open, pure white thighs. “You know what else I think? You don’t have nothing on under your robe.”

“That’s why I happen to be getting dressed,” Donna said, “if you don’t mind. What’re you, still hungry?”

“Not now. Maybe I will be later.”

“I like to see a man enjoy his food. Richie hardly picks at his.”

She raised her foot to the edge of the bed, ready to slip her toes into the panty hose she held rolled up. Now he could see the underneath part of her thigh and a dark place that could be only darkness or a dark place that was part of her. He said, “You’ve been getting dressed for two hours, parading around here. I think you been waiting for Richie to leave.”

Donna worked her foot into the panty hose before looking up at him. “Dick comes back, like he might’ve forgot something? You’re in big trouble.”

Calling him Dick. Armand almost smiled.

“What do you think he’d do, shoot me?” Armand moved into the room toward the bed and Donna raised her face, stretching her skinny white neck, her eyes unfocused and naked-looking without the glasses, eyebrows darker than her hair, that pile of deep gold, all of it sprayed hard as a rock, shining in the light.

Armand said, “I think you like guys that shoot people, guys that pack a gun. I got one. You like to see my gun?”

“What choice do I have,” Donna said. Next thing, Armand heard her sigh and saw her shoulders go slack for a moment as she said, “Well, there’s nothing I can do, you’re way bigger than I am.” Next thing, she was taking off the robe, pulling the panty hose from her foot and letting them fall on the floor. Lying back on the peacock spread, looking up at him with those cockeyed naked eyes, Donna said, “I guess you’re gonna do whatever you want and there’s no way on earth I can stop you.” She paused a moment, still looking at him, and said, “You want to turn the light out or leave it on?”

Earlier in the day Carmen had said, “I’ve probably done things that made you mad. Maybe once or twice in the past twenty years? But you never once have raised your voice to me, ever. I think about it, I say to myself, well, if he can walk a ten-inch beam way up on a structure, he has control of his feelings, he’s not the type to get emotional. But then out on the porch yelling at the police you’re a completely different person.”

Wayne said, “On the porch? The porch is only five feet off the ground. I’ll tap-dance on the porch if I feel like it. I’ll do any goddamn thing I want on the porch.”

Carmen tried to picture that, Wayne taking out his anger on those old gray-painted boards, stomping on them, yelling—that’s what it was, his anger and frustration coming out, but it still surprised her. Now every few minutes he’d get up from the sofa and go to the window, keeping track of the police surveillance.

“That was the township cops. They’re the ones light up the whole goddamn house.” He stood with his back to Carmen, looking out at the night.

She wished he’d sit down.

“You going to work tomorrow?”

“Not till they get those guys.”

“We could go away.”

“Where?”

“Stay with Mom, she’s got plenty of room.”

That turned him around.

“I’m kidding,” Carmen said, “relax.” She watched him, for a moment there on the edge of panic, move to the sofa and slump into it. “Don’t you know when I’m kidding?”

“I’d become alcoholic in about two days,” Wayne said, “living with her. Maybe one day.”

“She loves you too.” Carmen rocked back and forth in the Kentucky rocking chair. “You want to turn on the news?”

Wayne glanced at his watch. “It’s not on yet.”

“You want to know what I don’t understand?”

“When you kid,” Wayne said, “it’s supposed to be funny. That’s the whole idea.”

Carmen rocked some more, thinking about what she wanted to say. After about a minute she said, “There’s a lot I don’t understand. But you know what bothers me?”

This time Wayne said, “What?”

“The FBI thinks the Mafia’s behind the extortion. Or might be, ’cause it’s the kind of thing they do. Or they’d like to believe the Mafia’s behind it. I said to the FBI man, ‘But Armand’s from Toronto. Are we talking about their Mafia or ours?’ ”

“He thought you were being funny,” Wayne said, “calling them ours.”

Carmen paused, looking at him, but let it go.

“Anyway, he said it could be either one. What they have for sure is a suspect known to work for the Toronto Mafia driving a car that’s registered to a company they know is a front for organized crime. Armand was here last Friday, the same day a man, also known to be a member of the Toronto Mafia, was shot and killed in a Detroit hotel, with a young girl. They don’t know who she is but they think Armand did it because ...I guess because he was here and it’s what he does. Or they want to believe he did it. And they want us to realize that if it’s the Mafia, then we have more to worry about than just the two guys finding us. Is that the way you see it?”

Wayne nodded. “I guess.”

Carmen rocked some more, thinking, then stopped.

“Okay, I asked if it seemed likely the Mafia would come to Algonac to pick on a real estate company. Scallen said it wasn’t unlikely. They could come here duck hunting, see a company that’s making a lot of money, not much police protection in the area . . . Okay, then he said it was possible Armand worked it out on his own, since he no doubt has the experience. I said, ‘But he didn’t arrive till last Friday. Someone called Nelson Davies before that, to demand the money.’ Scallen says yes, and it was probably Richie Nix. But extortion isn’t his kind of crime, so they think he was hired to do it, by Armand. Just as they think Richie was told by Armand to kill Lionel. They found Richie’s fingerprints on Lionel’s boat, but not Armand’s. But killing the girl in the store, they think Richie must’ve done on his own. Scallen said something about his pattern, he robs, he kills. But Armand—he said the fact that Armand wasn’t seen before last Friday doesn’t mean he wasn’t here.”

Carmen paused and Wayne said, “Yeah ...?”

“That’s the part that bothers me.”

“What part?”

“They talked to people on Walpole Island who said Armand came to visit his grandmother. That seems pretty weird, a man who kills for a living comes all the way from Toronto to visit his grandmother?”

“It’s not that far.”

“That’s not what I mean”—Carmen shaking her head—“I’m thinking if he was in Detroit anyway, last Friday ...He didn’t even know the grandmother had died, he stopped by.” Carmen made a face, frowning. “I just have a feeling he wasn’t around here before Friday, or someone would’ve seen him, his car. But Richie Nix was here, he’s the one who called Nelson. Ten thousand dollars or I’ll kill you—and that’s who I think started the whole thing. Richie. Why not?”

Wayne shrugged, not appearing to give it much thought. “What difference does it make who started it? We’re deep in it either way.”

“Well, you think Armand’s the one to look out for,” Carmen said. “I think Richie’s a lot scarier than Armand.” After a moment she said, “I can just see his handwriting. I’ll bet it’s a mess, full of things that show poor mental health.”

Richie had crept up on the gas station, let the van coast into the drive with the passenger-side window down, shotgun ready, and found the place closed for the night. Dark except for a low-watt light in the front part. Shit. He was going to do this one for the Bird. Hack off some of the gas-station guy’s hair, if he had any under that hunting cap, and bring it back. See, Bird? This’s how you do it. He could still mess the place up, blow out the plate-glass window. Or do it on the way back, with the new car. He could see the Bird shaking his head as he told him, recalled the Bird tapping the side of his head with a finger and then his forehead and Richie thought, Hey, shit. All of a sudden having a better idea than shooting up a gas station.

It took him ten minutes to run down the river road almost to Algonac before cutting inland through a residential part, slowed down coming to the 7-Eleven, open and doing business, braked—it was an idea—and took off again grinning. The Bird’d have a shit fit. “You went back there?” The Bird not appreciating spur-of-the-moment moves. No sense of humor, never smiled or nothing.

The road the Colsons lived on was becoming familiar, even in the dark of night with only a halfassed moon, he’d run it enough times. Headlights were coming at him and he slowed to fifty; getting close anyway. It was a cop car. Richie didn’t see what kind, either county or township; it wasn’t state, all dark blue. And there coming up was the house. There was the ironworker’s pickup in the drive, no other cars around, least that he could see. Lights on in a couple of downstairs front windows, probably the living room. Richie drove past, followed a bend in the road, went up about a hundred yards and took his time U-turning, thinking it didn’t look like any cops were around. Thinking yeah, but they could be hiding. Thinking, Hey, are you pussy or what? Went back around the bend and stopped in the road in front of the house.

Richie aimed the shotgun out his side of the van, fired at one of the lit-up windows and heard glass shatter as he pumped, aimed, fired at the other one, blew it out, threw the shotgun behind him inside the van and took off, tires screaming. He might not’ve hit anybody, but at least they’d know the truth of that old saying, shit happens. When you least expect, too.

10

THE WALKING BOSS on the One-Fifty Jefferson project was reading blueprints in the front part of the steel-company trailer. He didn’t move or look up when the raising-gang foreman came in and said, “We got a man froze-up.”

The walking boss, still bent over the print board, said, “Shit. Who is it?”

“Colson.”

Now the walking boss straightened in a hurry, turned to the raising-gang foreman standing there in his tan coveralls and hard hat on backward, said, “You’re kidding me,” and went over to the big window facing the job.

“Where is he?”

“Up on top. That far section toward the river. See?”

They both gazed up at the structure, at the network of columns and beams and girders, a tower crane rising out of the center, the building skeleton exposed, no outside curtain walls up yet, but dark in there with every other level floored to ten, open

iron above that.

“I see him,” the walking boss said.

A figure on the crossbar of a goalpost, that’s what it looked like. Way up on the highest section, standing on a girder between two columns that stuck up against the sky.

“He’s not moving.”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” the raising-gang foreman said. “He’s froze-up.”

“Wayne never froze in his life.”

“Well, he’s been sitting there, I don’t know how long.”

“He’s standing now.”

“He was sitting before, like he was paralyzed.”

“You yell at him?”

“Sure, I yelled at him. He heard me.”

“He look down?”

“Yeah, he looked down. Maybe he’s trying to move is why he stood up.”

“Shit,” the walking boss said. “There’s something wrong with him. He was off a few days, he come back—Wayne ordinarily connects, you know that.”

“I know it.”

“He come back I had to put him on bolting up.”

“I know it, but he didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t say nothing.”

“No, that’s what I mean, there’s something wrong with him.”

“Maybe it’s that girl was shot he’s having some trouble with.”

“I heard guys talking about it,” the walking boss said. “I didn’t see it in the paper.”

“Yeah, it was in, but way in the back. It didn’t mention Wayne. I guess it was in the paper up where he lives one of the guys saw, had more about it.”

“You think he’s eating his lunch?”

“You can see he isn’t doing nothing but standing there,” the raising-gang foreman said. “He’s froze-up. He wouldn’t stand there like that if he wasn’t froze-up. Would he?”

“I don’t know, it never happened to me.”

“It never happened to me either, but I’ve seen it enough. We got to talk him down.”

“Who was he working with?”

“I think Kenny. Yeah, Wayne had the yo-yo, so Kenny was holding the roll for him. I saw Kenny come down. I think he went someplace to eat.”

The raising-gang foreman followed the walking boss through a doorway to the back half of the trailer where some of the crew were eating their lunch at a wooden table. The walking boss was a young guy about thirty-five. His hard hat was cleaner than most, but he wore it backward like everybody else. He said to the guys at the table, “Anybody talk to Kenny?” They were all looking up at him, but didn’t know what he meant.

“Wayne hasn’t come down. He’s up there like he might’ve froze.” The walking boss raised both hands. “Wait a minute now, sit still. Did Kenny mention to anybody Wayne was acting strange?”

“He didn’t say nothing ’cause he wouldn’t, not to anybody else,” one of the ironworkers said, “but he almost got pitched off. Kenny did.”

“You saw it?”

“I was below. I saw him and Wayne moving positions. I think Wayne had just put another fifty feet of hose on his yo-yo. What must’ve happened, he throws it out to get some slack, not looking what he’s doing, and the rubber trips Kenny coming along behind him. I heard Kenny yell—that’s when I looked up, I see him grab hold of the beam, he’s okay, but he lets go of the beater he’s carrying. I’m looking up, shit, I see this ten-pound sledge coming at me. It hits the deck plate, bang, missed me by only about a foot. I see Kenny, he’s down flat on the beam now, the rubber hanging over it right there—you could see it must’ve tripped him. And here’s Wayne looking at him like, the hell are you doing hugging that beam? He doesn’t even know he almost killed his partner. I wasn’t gonna say nothing,” the ironworker said to the walking boss, “but you asked.”

***

Last summer when they came downtown to one of the P’Jazz concerts at the Pontchartrain Hotel, it was to see Lonnie Liston Smith, this whole block was a parking lot. They drove past a month ago, it was excavated and the piers laid, the foundation. A big sign said it would become One-Fifty Jefferson West.

Now here he was sitting a hundred and something feet above it on a ten-inch girder. Sitting again, straddling it, feet resting on the girder’s lower flange. Get tired of sitting he’d stand up, still looking out at the Detroit River, feeling the sun and a breeze that would become wind as the job rose higher. If he looked at the city skyline he’d think of work. The same if he looked down, he’d see the iron they’d shaken out, ready to hook on to the crane, and he’d be distracted by the job, all the equipment down there, the stacks of floor deck, the compressors, kegs of bolts on pallets, the steel-company trailer, knowing the guys were in there eating their lunch . . .

This was what he needed, to be by himself high up on the iron, after two days of cops everywhere he looked, different police groups coming and going, their presence bringing people out from Algonac to creep their cars past the house. He’d watched cops digging buckshot out of the livingroom wall, cops poking around in the bushes along the road and in the woods. Their neighbor across the street, the sod farmer, called to ask if there was some kind of problem. Wayne said, “If I find out what they’re looking for I’ll let you know.” He hung up and Carmen said, “Evidence,” gritting her teeth, irritated because he made remarks loud enough to be overheard.

Like when he said, “A glass eye in a duck’s ass can see they don’t know what they’re doing,” and a couple of cops gave him their deadpan don’tfuck-with-me cop look.

One thing led to another. Carmen mentioned the framed duck prints that had been shot off the living-room wall and wrecked, saying that was one way to get rid of them.

“If you didn’t like the duck prints,” Wayne asked her, “what’d you put them up for?”

“If I didn’t, who would? Think about it. What do you do around here?”

“I brush-hog the field.”

“So you can watch for deer. That’s like saying you clean your shotgun.”

“I thought you liked those duck prints. They been hanging there for five years.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“You should’ve said something.”

“Who swept up the broken glass?”

Getting picky. He should’ve told her he didn’t give a shit about the duck prints. The only reason they were up, her mom had given them as a present. He was more irritated than ever by then, though not at Carmen. This had nothing to do with the goddamn duck prints. Carmen knew it too.

She said, “This is dumb.”

So he eased back saying, “Okay, I won’t make any more observations or remarks.”

She said, “How much you want to bet?”

He tried, he kept quiet, made coffee for the cops and referred to them as Deputy or Officer when they came up on the side porch for a cup. He even tried to be cordial to the tight-assed county deputy who had asked him in the real estate office if he had an attitude problem. Wayne said to him on the porch, “Well, at least we know those two guys are still around.”

“How do we know that?” the deputy said.

“They shot our windows out, didn’t they?”

“We don’t know it was the same guys,” the deputy said.

“If you don’t, then I was right,” Wayne said, “you don’t know shit.”

Carmen got him upstairs, faced him with her arms folded and said, “You having fun? Why do you like to antagonize them?”

He shook his head and frowned, wanting her to believe he couldn’t help it. “I don’t know what it is. There’s just something about those guys that irritates me. Cops and insurance salesmen.”

Now he saw Carmen join him in a frown, sympathetic, he was pretty sure. If she didn’t understand him it would be the first time in their married life. She said, “Why don’t you get away from here for a while? Go somewhere. Go back to work tomorrow.”

He said, “I don’t know if I should leave you alone.”

Carmen said, “If you call four different police departments hanging around here being alone.”

Having your windows shot out by gunfire was a hair-raising experience. Carmen yelled his name as it happened, but she didn’t scream or lose control. After, when he said, “They’re just trying to scare us,” she said, well, they were doing a pretty good job, in that dry tone of hers. She said if they were that dumb, to drive by and shoot at the house, the police shouldn’t have any trouble finding them. Wayne didn’t comment on that.

The State Police investigator arrived as he was leaving this morning in the pickup. Wayne had to wait while the guy thought about it, saying he wasn’t sure he liked the idea; he’d have to send a man along. Wayne said, “Up on the iron with me?”

***

He stared out at the river and Canada from the top of the structure thinking:

Okay, after a while nothing happens, the cops get tired and clear out. Now it’s between him and them. He knows they’re coming, but doesn’t let on to Carmen. Except he’d have to stay home and she’d ask him what was wrong.

“Nothing.”

“Then how come you aren’t going to work?”

She would know, yeah, but that was all right, it wouldn’t change anything, except she’d be scared and want to call the cops again. Anyway . . .

Okay, it’s early morning, first light, Carmen reaches over and touches him. “Wayne ...?”

And he says, “I heard it, honey. Lie still, okay? Stay right here.”

“They’re in the house.”

“I know they are.”

He picks up the Remington from the side of the bed and slips into Matthew’s room so that when they come up out of the stairwell he’s behind them. The stairs squeak, here they come. Their head and shoulders appear. They’re careful, not making a sound as they reach the top, and then stop dead as they hear him rack a slug into the breach. “Morning, fellas.” Wham ...wham. Fires and pumps fast as they’re turning with their guns.

The cops accuse him of shooting them in the back. No, that would get too complicated. He’d think of another situation. Okay . . .

The two guys are still outside when he hears them. That’s it—he slips downstairs to the kitchen door, opens it a little. Pretty soon two shapes appear out of the woods. As they get behind the chickenhouse he walks out on the porch . . .

Wayne stopped it there. He liked the idea of getting behind them and saying something, taking them by surprise.

Okay, he sees them in the woods and runs out to the chickenhouse, yeah, and is waiting for them inside as they come past it, heading for the house. All the first part would be the same, telling Carmen to stay in bed. Or now he tells her to stay in the house. They go by, he lets them get about ten yards and then steps out of the chickenhouse behind them, that’s it, and goes, “You boys looking for somebody?”

“You boys looking for me?”

“You guys looking for me?”

“Can I help you?”

Something like that. They come around with their guns and he’s got the Remington on them hip high, wham, hits one, the Indian, pumps and fires, wham, knocks the other one on his ass, those mag slugs blowing them right off their feet. Or he waits till they get the ten yards, steps out, all he says is ...

“Looking for somebody?”

He’s inside having bacon and eggs as the squad cars arrive flashing their lights. They come because Carmen calls 911 while he’s in the chickenhouse. That would work. He steps out on the porch . . .

“You’re a little late, fellas.”

The cops are looking around. “Where are they?”

“Right over there, where I shot them.”

The star asshole sheriff’s deputy is standing there. Say to him, “You gonna take me in?”

Or maybe something about doing their work for them, without sounding too much like a smartass.

From his perch Wayne looked east along the riverfront to the glass towers of the Renaissance Center, a job that took them seven hundred feet up when he was an apprentice. Get through that one you could work anywhere. The worst winter of his life, scraping ice off the iron before you dared walk upright. He began to think:

Okay, it’s winter, time has passed, the cops are long gone, but you’re still hanging around the house, making excuses there’s work you want to do, well, or you don’t feel good, something. Anyway time passes, Carmen wants to know what’s going on. Nothing. Oh, yeah? You’re up to something. No, I’m not. Yes, you are, what is it?

And you say, “I’m gonna find them.”

She can’t believe it. “But they’re gone.”

“No, they aren’t.”

The idea is it’s dead of winter, the ship channels are frozen over, the coast guard’s breaking ice for the Harsens Island ferry and the one to Walpole and he’s been going over there on a hunch they’re hiding out on one of the islands, in a boarded-up summer cottage or a trapper’s cabin, he can feel it, the people on Walpole are acting strange, they know something but won’t talk and he senses the two guys have scared the shit out of everybody and are making them bring food, maybe holding a kid hostage. Lionel’s wife finally tells him they’re hiding out in an old trailer on Squirrel Island where Lionel used to keep muskrat traps, on the edge of a cornfield right across the South Channel from Sans Souci, the bar where the Indians go. For weeks he watched the trailer from a duck blind near the bar until finally one day he sees two figures coming across the channel, shoving muskrat poles in the snow, poking their way along so as not to go through the ice. He raises his binoculars. It’s them. They’re a mess, filthy dirty fugitives, a couple of human muskrats that have been hiding out on the edge of the marsh, wild looks in their eyes. They don’t see him till they’re almost to the bank. He’s out of the blind, standing with the Remington across his arm, patient, relaxed, wearing his heavy black wool parka with the hood. And he’s got a beard now. They stop dead in their tracks. They don’t know him from Sergeant Preston of the fuck

ing Mounties till he says, very calmly:

“I’ve been waiting for you, gentlemen.”

Wayne listened to it in his mind. He thought calling them gentlemen because of the way they looked, being sarcastic, would sound good but it didn’t, it was dumb. No, leave it off, just say . . . And said out loud:

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

Behind him, the walking boss said, “We’re right here, Wayne. What’s the trouble?”

The raising-gang foreman was behind the walking boss, both of them standing on the open-iron girder. They watched Wayne look up over his shoulder, welding goggles on his hard hat turned backward, maybe a little surprised to see them, that was all. They watched him get to his feet.

“No trouble,” Wayne said. “I’ll move out of your way.”

The walking boss and the raising-gang foreman watched him walk the girder to the column at the south end of the structure, on the corner, swing out around it, gripping the outer flange with his gloves and the instep of his work shoes, and slide down two levels to the decked-in tenth floor. They watched him pause. From where he was now he could take ladders down to each floored level.

Maybe he was going to and changed his mind, favoring the express route. They watched him slide down the column the entire hundred feet or more, all the way to the ground where the guys were standing around watching, and head for the steel-company trailer.

The walking boss looked at the raising-gang foreman. Neither of them said anything.

11

CARMEN HAD TO WAIT to tell Wayne about the FBI man calling.

Wayne came home talkative, now with another reason to be on the muscle. The squad car parked in the yard wasn’t enough. Now they didn’t want him at work because they said he almost caused an accident that could have killed a man. “Almost,” Wayne said. “The whole goddamn job, anything you do on a structure can almost kill you, it’s the way it is.” Having their beers he told her this guy Kenny never looked where he was going was the trouble, it wasn’t the first time he dropped a beater, everybody knew Kenny worked in the morning hungover, it was why he went out at noon. Didn’t matter. “The walking boss, guy I went to apprentice school with, says take some time off till I get my head on straight. Says nobody’ll work with me. You believe it?” Wayne turned to the range, asked what they were having for supper.

Carmen told him Oriental stir-fried chicken and said, “Wayne? Scallen called.” There, she had his attention and could take her time now and watch his reactions to what she was going to tell him.

“He wants us to come down to the Federal Court Building tomorrow.”

“Detroit?”

Carmen nodded. “And see a man named John McAllen, with the U.S. Marshals Service.”

“What for?”

“I thought maybe they had the two guys. Scallen said no, this was something else.”

“What?”

“I asked him, he said it would be better to wait and let John McAllen tell us.”

She watched Wayne take a drink of beer. He didn’t seem worried. He said, “Tomorrow, huh?” He didn’t seem the least concerned, or even curious.

“They’re gonna pick us up.”

“That’s all right, long as it isn’t a squad car.”

Carmen hesitated. “What do you think it’s about?”

“I don’t know—what do marshals do? Guard prisoners, take them to court ...I don’t know. What do you think it’s about?”

She said she couldn’t imagine and after that was quiet, because she couldn’t tell him what she was thinking, the awful feeling that the “something else” was about Matthew. Wayne would act amazed and say, “Matthew? Why would you think it’s about him?” Because she was thinking it, that’s why. Because she couldn’t help it. Because if it wasn’t about the two guys but had something to do with the government, someone in the government wanting to talk to them... She could see them walking into an office with a flag on a stand where the government official is waiting to tell them, is sorry to inform them, there was an accident on the flight deck of the Carl Vinson, CVN 70, their son got between an aircraft and the JBD, or their son had been swept overboard and was missing, not drowned, they’d never say that, they’d say he was out somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean missing, as if to say, well, he could turn up, you never know.

Or Wayne might give her his bored but patient look and ask was this her instinct as a mother coming out or the other one, what was known as women’s intuition? And she’d get mad and say, “Well, you don’t understand,” and he wouldn’t. So she didn’t say anything at all.

Not until the next day, riding downtown in the security of the gray interior of a gray sedan, two men in front wearing gray suits, Carmen and Wayne in back dressed for business, an official occasion, she made sure of her tone and finally said to Wayne in a low voice but an offhand manner, “You don’t suppose it’s about Matthew.”

He looked at her right next to him and said, “So that’s it. I’ve been wondering.” He put his hand on hers, holding her purse in her lap. “No, they come to your house. They send an officer, a serious young guy in his dress uniform, to tell you. U.S. marshals don’t do that. I’ve been thinking about it, a marshal’s like what Matt Dillon was in Gun-smoke. They wear a big cowboy hat. Remember Matt and Miss Kitty?”

The marshal on the passenger side of the front seat turned his head toward the one that was driving.

Carmen nudged Wayne with her elbow. He gave her hand a squeeze.

This U.S. marshal, John McAllen, seemed as big as the one in Gunsmoke and was about the same age, around fifty, Carmen judged, and looked familiar in that he fit the role of law officer, appeared to have rough edges and kept his personality to himself, or tried to. She had seen enough law officers recently to recognize the type. McAllen, in his dark suit, was not as neat and polished as Scallen, the FBI special agent, who looked more like a lawyer or business executive and sat off to one side. Carmen and Wayne had chairs facing the marshal at his desk, a big one. On the wall behind him were pictures of three past presidents of the United States and a fourth who was about to leave office.

Greeting them, McAllen had said it was a pleasure and that he appreciated the courage it took for them to come forward, willing to testify at the appropriate time. He said now, with a little smile, “I imagine what you’d appreciate is somebody taking better care of you. Well, that’s why you’re here.”

Carmen thought he even sounded like the one in Gunsmoke only more authentically western. She said they would appreciate it a lot, and glanced at Wayne. He was sitting forward, his elbows on the chair arms, not yet moved by the marshal’s concern.

“This situation, from our standpoint, is an unusual one,” McAllen said. “However since your lives are apparently in danger we feel you qualify for federal protection under the Witness Security Program of the United States Marshals Service.”

Wayne said, “You mean our lives appear to be in danger but maybe they aren’t?”

As McAllen looked up from a notebook he was opening Carmen said, “I thought it was only for criminals. Wasn’t Richie Nix in the program?”

“He was for a time,” McAllen said, maybe surprised by the way both of them had come at him, glancing over at Scallen now.

“Everything I’ve read about it,” Wayne said, “it’s for people who testify in court to stay out of prison.”

McAllen, trying to smile, said, “Whoa now, you people have a misconception about the program we better clear up.”

Carmen turned to Scallen as he got into it saying, yes, the program was originally created by the attorney general for the protection of witnesses under Title V—or he might’ve said Title B, Carmen was still having trouble with McAllen referring to them as “you people.” Scallen’s tone helped, giving her the feeling he was actually concerned for their safety. He said the program must work, there were about fifteen thousand people in it counting witnesses and their families. He said, “Let’s let John McAllen go through some of the boilerplate, basic things about the program. How’s that sound? Then we’ll see how a modified version might work for you.”

It sounded okay to Carmen. She said, fine. Wayne didn’t say anything.

So then McAllen recited from his notebook, beginning with the conditions required for eligibility. There had to be evidence in possession that the life of the witness and/or a member of his or her family was in immediate jeopardy. There also had to be evidence in possession that it would be advantageous to the federal interest for the Department of Justice to protect the witness and/or family or household members.

Carmen began to wonder when Wayne would jump in.

With this evidence in possession the attorney general could, by regulation, provide suitable documents to enable the person to establish a new identity . . .

Right there.

“What you’re saying,” Wayne said, “you want us to change our names ’cause you can’t find these assholes? Is that it?”

McAllen said, “Whoa now,” and Scallen got into it again saying, “Wayne, you have to let John finish. The regulation states it’s to establish a new identity or ‘otherwise protect the person,’ so we’re flexible in that area.”

McAllen said he would appreciate their waiting till he was finished before expressing their views. Staring at Wayne.

Good luck, Carmen thought.

The program would provide housing, McAllen said. It would provide for the transportation of household furniture and other personal property to a new residence of the person. It would provide a payment to meet basic living expenses and assist the person in obtaining employment . . .

Wayne said, “Can I ask a question?”

“I imagine,” McAllen said, looking up from the notebook, “you want to know what comes under ‘basic living expenses.’ ”

“I want to know, first, if you’re saying we have to sell our house.”

Carmen was wondering that too, among other things. But most of all she was wondering, if they did move, what she’d tell her mother. While Scallen was saying, yes, it would involve relocation, for their safety, but he didn’t think it would be necessary to sell the house. Carmen thinking that if she told her mother they were going on a vacation her mom would get sick, as she usually did, sometimes putting herself in the hospital. Scallen saying he believed he could make a deal with Nelson Davies, have his company appear to be offering the house for sale and take care of the maintenance.

Wayne said, “Relocate where?”

Scallen looked at John McAllen who said, “Where we have marshals that supervise the program, experienced Witness Security inspectors. Right now we can offer you Lima, Findlay, Ohio . . .”

Wayne said, “Jesus Christ, those’re both on I–Seventy-five.”

McAllen paused, frowning. “What’s wrong with that?”

Carmen said, “Wayne?” with a look that meant, Don’t give your speech about driving through Ohio. She said to McAllen, “What else do you have?”

He was still frowning, maybe confused. “Well, a couple places in Missouri, one especially we recommend. But what I’d like is to finish with the regulations first, if that’s agreeable with you.”

He didn’t say “you people” and his tone seemed okay. Otherwise, Carmen was fairly sure Wayne would have jumped on him. At the moment he was holding on to the chair arms.

Before providing the aforementioned assistance, McAllen said, the attorney general would enter into what was called a Memorandum of Understanding with the person, which sets forth the responsibilities of that person and would include:

The agreement of the person to testify and provide information to all appropriate law-enforcement officials concerning all appropriate proceedings.

The agreement of the person to avoid detection by others of the facts concerning the protection provided.

Carmen was going to say, What? But didn’t.

The agreement to comply with legal obligations and any judgments against that person.

Carmen felt Wayne looking at her. She glanced over. He was giving her a look, mouth open, that meant, You believe it?

The agreement to cooperate with all reasonable requests of officers and employees of the government.

The agreement of the person not to commit any crime.

Carmen thought that one should cut Wayne loose, bring him up out of his chair. But he surprised her.

“Now, that’s a tough one,” Wayne said. “You understand, we could possibly go along with all that other bullshit, but to promise we won’t commit any crimes . . .” Wayne shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Mr. Colson,” McAllen said, “these regulations applied originally to federal offenders. I thought we explained that and I’m sorry if we didn’t make it clear. They still apply to ninety-seven percent of the people we take into the program, not counting their dependents and so on. The other three percent are honest citizens, such as you and the wife, who’re willing to avail yourselves of the program and its resources . . .”

The wife, Carmen thought.

“. . . which I must tell you is truly inspiring to us in law enforcement and the administration of criminal justice.” McAllen turned to the FBI special agent. “Paul, am I right about that or not?”

Scallen straightened, all of a sudden brought into it. He nodded saying, “That’s a fact, yes.”

Carmen saw him agreeing but with not much conviction now, shifting around in his chair as though he might have doubts and wanted to say something. But then McAllen was speaking again, reciting words Carmen believed were from a text.

Something about “in the judgment of the United States government that by reciprocating, protecting you to the fullest extent once you have agreed to testify, we can effect a major action against these elements of organized crime.”

After that for a few minutes there was silence, Carmen watching the U.S. marshal line up papers on his desk, getting ready for the next part, while those three ex-presidents and the one about to be looked down from the wall behind him.

“I have a question,” Wayne said to the FBI special agent.

Carmen looked over at Scallen, who seemed relieved now, even smiling a little as he said, “I imagine you’re gonna have all kinds of questions.”

“Just one,” Wayne said. “Do we get a ride home?”

A uniformed sheriff’s deputy sat in the living room watching television and another one was outside somewhere. State Police would drive by every once in a while.

Wayne and Carmen were in the kitchen having a beer, trying to decide whether to cook or go out.

Wayne said if they went out the cops would come along and he’d rather not be seen in public with them.

They would talk about the witness program, make comments and then not say anything, Wayne with his thoughts and Carmen with hers, taking their time getting into it. Carmen said she had a feeling the FBI agent didn’t think too highly of the program, or had some doubts about it. McAllen, she believed, was sincere but used to dealing with criminals. Wayne said he was getting used to being treated as one so what was the difference?

He said, “Can you see leaving here to live in Findlay, Ohio? Jesus. What was the other place, Lima?”

“Lima,” Carmen said, “like the beans.”

“Yeah, I imagine there’s all kinds of structural work down in Lima, Ohio. Can you see moving out and not telling anybody? Not even your mom? ...Wait a minute, maybe it isn’t such a bad idea.”

Carmen didn’t say anything.

Wayne sipped his beer, watching her. “What’re you thinking about?”

“If we did have to change our names,” Carmen said, “I was thinking it might be fun, huh? Pick whatever name you want.”

“The only one I’d ever think of using,” Wayne said, “you know what it is? Mats.”

“After your great-grandfather.”

“My dad’s.”

Carmen had seen pictures of him: Wayne with a bushy mustache, Mats the lumberjack, who’d come from Sweden to northern Michigan. Wayne’s mother and dad were still up there, near Alpena, growing Christmas trees on three hundred and twenty acres.

“My dad wanted to name me Mats.”

“But your mom won,” Carmen said, “and named you after a movie star. Moms get away with murder. Mine, you probably think, named me after the girl in the opera.”