look at me. I was doing the same. We wanted this done so we could get the fuck away from each other.
Wolf said, “It’s not your fault what’s going on in my marriage.”
“Maybe it is, Wolf.”
His lips created a smile. “Whatever is going on was going on before you were around.”
I nodded.
“I love that woman, Driver. Love her beyond reason.”
“I know. She knows it too.”
We both took deep breaths.
He said, “Like I said, I wanted to apologize.”
“I want to apologize myself.”
He nodded.
I asked, “Want to meet at Back Biters tomorrow? We can talk it out. Man to man.”
He shook his head. “I’m taking the Cessna to Vegas tonight. My daughter has a part in a play at school. Plays the part of a tree in a forest. I have to be there. Have to keep my promise.”
“Thought you and the wife were taking off for a few days.”
“Can’t break a promise to a kid. They’re the ones who love you no matter what.”
“The wife’s not going with you?”
“No. It’s easier dealing with them separately. Easier and hard. It’s like I have two separate lives. Running this business is easier than managing a wife and ex-wife. Not to mention my parental obligations, which I have no problem with. My children are my heart.”
“I understand.”
We stood there, eyes on each other, motionless. Still dancing around the truth.
I told him, “Thanks for the chance. But I want to give you my two weeks notice.”
“I accept it.”
Nothing was said for a moment.
“You knew about me and Lisa.”
“I knew.”
“How? You have her followed ... what?”
“The way you two regard each other. I could tell. The office knows.”
“How long have you known?”
“A long while. Before the night you came here.”
I nodded.
I asked, “Why did you want me to work here?”
He paused, then said, “Friends close.”
The phrase was friends close, enemies closer.
I understood the method to this madness. I’d never been his friend. Friendship had a foundation made of honesty. Ours was built on laughter and lies. If he had me under his thumb he could monitor my comings and goings. Giving me work benefited me, but it also gave him comfort in knowing where I was most days, knew I couldn’t be with his wife during those hours.
He asked, “How long did it go on?”
“Few months. Not while I was working here. Ended the night I came here.”
He struggled. “Were you in my home?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
My simple word struck him like a meteor slamming into the dark side of the moon. I’d tried, but I’d never hit a man that hard with my fist. Words had more power than the hands.
His home. His car. His wife. I’d been in them all.
He shook his head. In angst on the surface, most of the damage on the inside.
I told him, “She paid me to kill you.”
With all the words I know, I couldn’t describe the look on his face. Maybe it was the pained expression a man had when denial was being scrubbed away with a Brillo pad of truth.
He asked me how much, a man wanting to know what dollar amount had been put on his life. I told him she had given me fifteen large, half of a thirty-large payday.
He repeated, “Thirty thousand.”
I nodded. “Gave me fifteen up front.”
A moment went by. He understood how deep this was.
Those meteors never stopped slamming down on him.
He asked, “Why didn’t you?”
I’d stolen. I’d beaten down more men that I could remember. I’d violated more than half of the laws some people believed Moses brought back down that hill and gave to the people.
I was born a sinner and had fallen from grace more times than I could remember.
My eyes went to the pictures of his children, to the images of his parents.
I answered, “I’m not a murderer.”
We all had our lines in the sand, even if they didn’t run deep.
I waited for him to go off, demand some explanation of the madness that had been going on around him. He was a rational man. Too rational for his own good. Looked like a million thoughts heated up his mind. Sweat popped up on his nose, could almost smell its acid.
He said, “You’re not a murderer.”
“No.”
“But you ... you took the money, came to kill me.”
“Yeah, I did.”
We stood there, his expression never changing for the better, the pain never lessening.
He said, “Before you walked in, I knew ... knew death was coming.”
“And you waited. You sat here and waited.”
“I waited. Then you came inside. Like you were struggling