a hard breath, rubbed my eyes.
She asked, “Am I boring you?”
“Look, I’m ... I’m tired. Tired as hell.”
“Now you know how I’ve felt the last six months. You think I’ve slept at night?”
“You’re stalking me. Breaking in my place.”
“That’s how I feel every day you walk into Wolf’s business. In my business. Disrespected. Like you’re stalking me. Like I’m being bur glarized. Not a good feeling, huh?”
I opened and closed my hands. “Call your boys off.”
“You played me for a fool. Every man I’ve ever met, same thing. I’m tired of motherfuckers taking me for granted and walking over me. Both of those perpetrators I shot and killed, they did the same thing. They looked at me, took me for granted. I showed them.”
“Lisa. Call. Your. Boys. Off.”
In a soft voice she asked, “Why did you put your dick in me? Why did you make me feel like this then just throw me away? Be honest. I won’t hold it against you. I just want to know.”
Silence and love turned inside out, heated the air, made it hard to breathe.
She wanted a cut-and-dried answer when that kind of answer was out of season. An old sermon came to my mind, saw Reverend Daddy in the pulpit. His voice came out of my body, sudden and strong, said, “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
“From a non-believer. How sacrilegious.”
My answer didn’t matter. Nothing I said was going to make a difference, nothing I said would give her sanity. I was the poster child for every man who had done her any injustice.
“Lisa, I need your help on this. I’ll admit I was wrong from the start. Wrong for having an affair, wrong to think I could kill a man. Wrong to take your damn money. Wrong to spend it, no matter what happened to my family. Now back off and I’ll get you all of your money.”
“You’re not in charge.” She changed just like that, gave me that police officer’s tone, the eyes of a spoiled mayor’s kid. “I’m in charge, dammit. I back off when I’m ready to back off.”
She turned to walk away. I grabbed her, spun her around. Her hand lashed out, slapped my face three, maybe four times. Like I did fools in days gone by, I wanted to let my fist cannon my frustration into her face. But anger took over and my big hands attacked her little throat before I realized what I was doing. Too far gone to turn back now. Had crossed that line. Couldn’t let her go. I choked her. Just like in my daydreams and nightmares. I squeezed harder. Her eyes widened. Never seen anybody look that surprised. Wished we were closer to a concrete column, wanted to bang some sense into her head until blood ran like a river.
She tried to hit me again, her short and toned arms swung at me, fingers clawed at me, then her face filled with panic. Lisa struggled for her purse, wrestled with me and tried to get her hands inside her handbag. I knew what she was reaching for, saw the handle of that Glock as I shook her up, shook her hard enough to loosen her brain, choked her until she couldn’t breathe.
Her face turned shades of red. The disbelief in her eyes turned to fear, that fear broken down into small pieces of panic, panic that told her that sancho-jeva shit was a done deal, that I was going to kill her before she had a chance to kill me. Her strength faded, arms fell away, gave up trying to get her hand in her bag, gagged, scratched at my hands, weak scratching.
She was on the express train, heading to the other side of West Hell.
I glowered in Lisa’s eyes. She was slipping into the shadow of the valley of death. No goodness or mercy following her. I could taketh away. Could be free inside a minute.
She stopped fighting, stared me in my eyes, her eyes glazed over with death.
“Shoot him, Rufus. Be a man and shoot the bastard.”
I saw my brother pulling that trigger, heard that click. Rufus did it begrudgingly, but he did it. I let Lisa go all of a sudden, moved my hands like her neck was on fire and I’d been burned, let her go and stumbled away, grunting over and over, hands tingling, eyes wide.
She collapsed against a column, then doubled over, choking and spitting. She wheezed awhile before she could