way over to the right. The tire would give me a little cover—best I could do.
The tool I was carrying looked like a long, thin canvas bag with a loop on the end. It was filled with ball bearings, weighed about thirty pounds. I put my hand through the loop. Then I started hyper-tensing different muscle groups. Tense, hold, release. Tense, hold, release. Not as good as stretching, but it would keep me from getting stiff.
A wash of headlights. I heard a car door open and close.
Footsteps.
I snuck a peek. A man, walking straight toward the Lincoln. His hands were empty, but that didn’t mean anything—if you’re expected, you don’t walk up on a man with a gun in your hand.
Heavy shoes, but light-footed, not much noise. Little crunching sounds from the parking lot, louder as he got closer.
I could hear him breathing. Calm and relaxed. Probably did things like this a hundred times before.
One more and … yeah, it was Jessop, all right. He was reaching for the door handle as I came around the back of the Lincoln.
Damn, he was fast. But by the time he whipped around and reached for the gun in his belt, the lead-shot club was already on its way. Instead of the back of his head, I caught him full in the face.
The way he went down, I was pretty sure he was already finished—flat on his back, eyes wide open.
I took out a crowbar. Knelt down and held it across his throat with both hands. Then I rammed it down with everything I had.
I heard some kind of sound, but it wasn’t coming from his mouth; it was the little bones crackling in his neck. One of his eyeballs came way out of his head. I didn’t need the smell to tell me he was done.
I kicked the door shut and popped the trunk. Dragged Jessop’s body around to the back by his belt. Heaved him inside. Stuck the key to the Lincoln and the button for the garage in the outside pocket of his jacket. Closed the trunk.
I pulled the gloves off my hands as I walked over to the Caddy, moving easy.
“Jesus, I am rank,” Lynda said.
“You’re fine.”
“Sure. It wasn’t you who was back there. I could hardly even breathe.”
“You’re not back there now, okay? Just tell me where to turn.”
By the time we got to the highway, she was a little calmer. But she was rank, for real.
Then she started shaking. Real bad. I had to light the cigarette for her.
“I guess I’m just a fraud,” she said, an hour later.
“How are you a fraud?”
“I’m supposed to be … I’m supposed to be what Albie taught me to be. He said, he said over and over, ‘Rena, a man has to believe in something bigger than himself, or he can never truly be a man.’ I thought I understood that. I thought I was doing that. But … what was he telling me, that it’s only men who have to do that?”
“It’s just the way people talk.”
“I … I guess that’s true. I mean, the Israelis, they have women in their army. In combat, I mean. And I know they had a woman Prime Minister once. But all I could do was … hide. That’s all I could do. Like a little kid in a closet, afraid of the monsters in the house.”
“What the fuck did you want to do?”
“Why are you mad at me, Sugar?”
“Why? You’re saying I’m nothing, and I’m supposed to just—”
“How could you even think—?”
“You’re better at things than me, right?”
“I never said—”
“Yeah, you did. And you are. But you’re not better at everything. This … this work that had to be done; you did your part, then I did mine. That’s what happened. And what’s coming out of your mouth? Ah, you’re such a piece of crap because you didn’t handle the whole thing yourself, like you’re supposed to, right?”
“I … I see what you mean. I was just being a bitch, Sugar.”
“I don’t think so.”
“All right, I was scared. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“No.”
“You won’t even say my name, will you?”
“Which name do you want?”
“You bastard!” She tried to reach over and slap at me, but the seatbelt held her in place.
It was another hour before she spoke to me again.
“He’s … dead? You’re sure?”
“Which one?”
“Oh. Jessop, I guess.”
“You guess? Jesus.”
“Sugar, please, stop. You’re thinking, ‘That’s the one she cared about,’ aren’t you?”