Christopher Sorrentino - The Fugitives

“Monte, really? He’s close. Give him some time.”

“Put a prima donna like Mulligan in his place,” Monte was panting, “and all the midlist nobodies will keep in line. I’ve got to get out of the buggy whip business. I’m going to learn how to blow glass. I’m going to go to art school and learn how and I’m going to make all my own colorful vases.”

Dylan breathed in, held it. He exhaled slowly, counting. At ten, he breathed in again.

“I’m not unsympathetic,” said Monte. “I’ve told him. I know that woman’s suicide threw him—”

“Susannah,” said Dylan.

“Susannah. I’m truly sorry. But what can I say? I didn’t tell him to bail on her when she was six months pregnant. And it was how long ago? Life has to go on.”

“Not for her it doesn’t. Maybe not so much for him, either.”

“Not my problem.”

“So now what?”

“Lawsuit. You’ll be named as a codefendant, by the way. I wouldn’t worry about it, you’re probably indemnified. It’s mostly leverage to get you to nudge him to return the advance. Good, no?”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” said Fecker.

Outside, two police officers, a man and a woman, had approached the bum and were trying to persuade him to move to the sidewalk. The din from the horns grew louder.

TODAY

They’d been herded into the second bedroom at the back of the house, the boy and his mother, and killed there. She cradled him in her arms, his head was buried between her breasts. There were spatters, drips, stains, puddles. The room smelled like a sackful of old pennies. Kat knew, instantly, that somehow she had led the killer to Becky.

“I have to get out of here,” she said. She felt like she was going to vomit.

Mulligan felt calm, focused. Once, when he was about twenty years old, he’d been driving home when an overcast sky had suddenly grown greenish and dark. Rain had begun to fall, hard, abruptly changing force and direction, hammering the car and moving laterally against it like a wave, blinding him so that he could only feel the car being pushed sideways. It turned out that a tornado had touched down directly beside the road and skipped over and across the roadbed like a top. Throughout the twelve seconds that it had taken for the event to occur, he’d felt exactly the same as he did now in Becky Chasse’s blood-spattered bedroom: clearheaded, alert, almost relaxed, in control if not of the situation then of himself, and knowing even as it was happening that this was a kind of consolation in any event. He took Kat by the arm and led her out of the room.

“Let’s call the cops,” he said.

“It’s my fault,” she said. “It’s my fault.”

“Your fault?” He followed her out onto the porch. “You didn’t do anything. It’s not—”

She attacked him, hitting him as hard as she could, clawing and kicking, calling him names.

“You’re right, I didn’t — you did! You told him! You told him and he found them!”

She hit him again and then it was over and she was on the other side of the porch, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

“Salteau?” asked Mulligan. “You think Salteau did this?”

Kat ignored him and went back inside the house, leaving the front door open. She returned with the pack of cigarettes that had been on Becky Chasse’s breakfast bar and closed the door behind her.

“Let’s call the cops,” Mulligan suggested again.

“Call the police,” she said. “How fun. We can watch them screw it up.” She drew a cigarette out of the pack and lit it. She dragged on it and then suddenly ripped it out of her mouth and threw it as hard as she could onto the ground. She caught him staring at her.

“I don’t smoke,” she said.

Mulligan turned away and looked around at the lighted houses on their small lots. “Someone must have heard something, seen something,” he said.

“Don’t bet on it,” said Kat.

Mulligan came down off the porch and went around the house to have a look at the back. The driveway led to a detached garage with an old-fashioned up-and-over door that was two-thirds of the way down. Light came from inside. When he was halfway down the driveway a floodlight mounted on the side of the house snapped on and he jumped. He continued slowly, breathing hard. He crouched to look into the garage and was surprised to see a Mercedes sedan. He stood upright to call to Kat just as the garage door swung open the rest of the way and out strode a trim middle-aged man in his shirtsleeves, carrying a full garbage bag, looking like any householder strolling nonchalantly down the driveway to toss his trash. He appeared surprised to see Mulligan. He dropped the bag, which landed with a sodden thump, and pulled a gun out of his pocket.

“Jesus,” he said. “I knew I heard someone.” He peered past him. “Are you alone?”

“No,” Mulligan said, his eyes on the gun. The man was holding it at his side, almost casually, as if he just happened to have it.

“How many of you are there?”

“Just two of us.”

“Where?”

“On the porch.”

“Did you go inside?” Now he raised the gun and aimed it at Mulligan. “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Of course you did. Now why’d you have to go and do that?” The man threw up his hands as if in disbelief. “Terrific,” he said. “More thinking for me to do. Just what I needed.” He gestured with the gun for Mulligan to turn around. They walked down the driveway, the man grumbling behind him. Before they rounded the front of the house, Kat appeared. She stopped dead and stared past Mulligan’s shoulder.

“You.”

“Well, well. The crusading scribe. And Jimmy Olsen,” said Argenziano.

Mulligan started to turn his head to look back at Argenziano, but received a shove.

“You’re working with him?” asked Kat.

“Who? Who am I working with?”

“Saltino.”

“Enough already with Jackie Saltino. Keep going,” Argenziano said. “Stand together against the side of the house. Both of you. I have to think for a minute.”

“You fucking bastard.”

“Language, Kat. I haven’t heard you talk like that. It doesn’t suit you. Now, who’s this?” Argenziano looked at Mulligan. “I’m asking you, pussyface.”

“Sandy.”

“And you and Kat came out here for what, Sandy?”

“To look at Becky. I mean, to see Becky.”

“Same difference, right? You stumbled upon the scene of the crime. Just like the proverbial jogger. ‘The badly decomposed body was discovered by an early-morning jogger utilizing the park’s secluded paths.’ Not bad, huh, Kat? Think I missed my calling?” He laughed. “You a colleague, Sandy? Kat con you into sticking your nose in all this?”

“He writes books,” said Kat. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Oh, sure he does. Maybe he didn’t, but he does now. What are you going to do, unsee it? Come on.” He turned to Mulligan. His voice was cheery: “So you’re an author, huh? Impressive. I could write a very interesting book myself if there weren’t so many other things I needed to do. You must have a lot of free time on your hands.”

Even under these circumstances Mulligan was almost amused to find himself the recipient of the usual backhanded compliment. It emboldened him to ignore the gun for a moment and ask, “Who is this guy?”

“His name’s Robert Argenziano. He runs the casino at Manitou Sands.”

“I’m a consultant, actually.”

“Jackie Saltino worked for him.”

“Again with Saltino? Come on, Kat. Take the facts and apply them to the reality all around you.”

“The reality?”

“I’m getting tired of this game, Kat. We’ve been playing it since the first time you walked into my place. Aren’t you tired of it yet?”