the windows as she goes for signs of entry. She does not look at the bodies, but moves around them to avoid the slowly spreading stains on the carpeted floor. The dog looks up at her and trots over to join the new game, which looks like much more fun than the one I was playing.
Upstairs, I find my son Fred, holding hard to the bars of his crib. He is just ten months old and teething a little as he sobs. I pick him up and he is calmed by my smell and tries to reach the gun in my hand. Instead, I give him a rattle shaped like a black and white Christmas tree and he is satisfied and quiets down. Back downstairs, the boy on the floor hasn’t moved much and I go over to watch while he dies.
“You should have taken the blow job.”
I feel kind of sorrowful and kind of relieved, and Fred reaches out with a chubby hand and touches my cheek, and so I kiss his fingers, which makes him happy. I revel in that touch but I can hear sirens in the distance and my vision narrows until all I can see is the lame mask concealing the dead boy’s face and the dog who’s come back to sniff at the outstretched hand.
2
“Monty? Sam?”
Claire had come back into the room with the bayonet lowered and a dark flush fading slowly across both breasts and on her neck. Fredrick had fallen asleep in my arms and drooled peacefully on my left shoulder, and the dog had finally settled down. Claire flipped on the overhead lights and I could see the taped boxes stacked against the walls, each with a black number and letter combination drawn with a marker on the sides. She glanced at the bodies and exhaled through her nose; she’d done this kind of stuff before and hadn’t liked it any more then.
“There’s no one else here. What happened?”
Claire can tell when I lie, most of the time, anyway, and she put a little rawhide and steel into her voice to remind me of that.
“Would you like the truth or what we’re going to tell the cops?”
My voice cracked with residual strain and I resented it, it was unprofessional. She nodded like I’d already told her something important.
“Both, I think.”
“Good choice.”
I handed Fredrick over and he complained a bit but fell asleep again after Claire put her knife down on the table. Right beside the knife was the dent made by the rebar club.
“These three assholes broke in to rob us. I heard them and came down with the pistol to chase them out. They tried to kill me and I shot them.”
Claire’s eyes narrowed when I mentioned the pistol.
“With the pistol? What pistol? Certainly not a pistol you kept? Right? Hmmm? Not after you promised.”
Busted. I held up both hands.
“I kept one piece, just one. Not for work, I promise and I mean it. It was for self-defense. I’ll crucify myself later.”
I waited and she looked at me. She was a hair’s breadth from leaving me, I could feel it. We were together on certain conditions and if she thought I was lying about this, then she was gone.
“No more, Monty. Nothing at all, ever again. Am I clear? I’ll crucify you myself. Okay?”
The cold rage coming off her was palpable. I waved it off and went on.
“Between us, I gave ’em a chance and they didn’t take it. I’m very sorry it happened.”
The sirens were closer and I walked to the front of the house so I could see the street. Claire followed. Her mind was already working on more practical matters, like how to get away clean.
“Shouldn’t you wipe the gun?”
“Hmmm?”
I glanced down at the snub-nosed gun and felt the cool, checkered walnut grips. The gun was a Smith and Wesson K Frame revolver, a Patrolman model built to handle .38 caliber special rounds, and it was pretty much untraceable. I’d done the work myself with acid and an emery wheel, grinding down the serial numbers on the outside and the set hidden inside until it was as clean as I could make it.
I hadn’t even stolen it in this province.
“No. Our story is that the bad guys brought the gun with them. I came down and we wrestled.”
I paced around and gestured with my hand.
“Wrestle, wrestle, wrestle. Then I took the piece away from them and had to shoot. You woke up. We don’t have a phone