Jim Shepard - Kiss of the Wolf

She knew she was flirting with him. She knew he was responding. She was trying to figure out how to get more information.

He was peering at his sandwich. “There’re like nuts and shit in here,” he said. “What’m I eating?”

She looked at her watch. They didn’t have anything at home for lunch. She turned over her unwrapped sandwich. Maybe she’d bring it back for Todd.

“So who’s the guy you were talking with after church? The guy with the hair?” Bruno asked.

“You jealous?” Joanie asked.

“’M I jealous. Acourse I’m jealous. You know me this long, you don’t know that? I see something I want, I don’t have it: knife in my side. Knife in my side. You know that.”

“I’m flattered,” she said.

“Miss Coy,” he said.

She nibbled her apricot cookie. He was pressing against her from her knee to her shoulder. The rain was letting up a little.

“Great sin, jealousy,” he said. “I run on jealousy.”

“Funny hearing you talk about sin,” she said.

“Why?” he said. “What am I? Jack the Ripper?”

She gave him a polite smile.

“He’s ascared, that’s why,” Sandro said from inside. “That’s why. He knows they’ll come after him.”

“I think about sin,” Bruno said. “What happened to Tommy Junior: that was a sin.”

She closed her eyes. Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee, she thought. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Bruno dropped his sandwich half on the step below him. He put his hand on the exposed arch of her foot, which was cold, and warmed it up. “It’s religion I got no use for,” he said. “You know? Religion? It’s like, ‘Repeat after me.’ You know what I say? I say, Why am I repeating after you? Who the fuck are you? ”

She was quiet.

“Sin, I believe in,” he said. “The rest of it … You hear people talking about be a good this and good that. You hear ’em talking but you don’t see it. You know? You want to see an example. Mother Teresa? Fine. Where’re the rest? I hear about saints. All I see are Irishmen with red noses passing collection plates.”

Joanie cleared her throat and rubbed her nose.

“Don’t get me going on religion,” he said.

She flexed her toes under his hand. The shoes weren’t good, and the rain was going to ruin them. Watch the blue come off on my feet, she thought. She was beginning to feel more depressed than scared, which was saying something.

A police car pulled up the neighbors’ driveway. The dog in the house started barking.

A young cop with longish sideburns sat in the car and wrote something on a pad for a minute before turning the ignition off. Joanie was too frightened and surprised to say anything.

The rain picked up again. The cop finished what he was doing and got out of the car. He smiled over at them. He was wearing an elasticized clear-plastic covering on his cap for the rain.

The dog was still barking inside the neighbors’ house. She remembered it was the dog from when Todd was out sitting under the tree.

The cop fumbled with the gate in the fence and then came through into the Monteleones’ yard.

“Joey. How are you,” Bruno said.

Joanie looked at him and then back at the cop.

The cop pointed at her. “You Joanie Muhlberg?” he said.

She was conscious that her mouth was open. She nodded.

“Sorry to bother you here,” the cop said. “I been trying to reach you at home. Nobody answers.”

“My son’s home,” Joanie said. “My son’s home now.”

The cop shrugged like he wasn’t going to explain why the world was so nuts. “Nobody answers,” he said.

“So what’s the problem?” she croaked. She cleared her throat.

The dog was still barking next door. The neighbors’ back door opened. An old woman in a bathrobe leaned out into the rain. “What’s the problem, Officer?” she called.

“No problem,” he called back. “Sorry to bother you. Just want to talk to this lady here.” He pointed at Joanie. The old woman leaned farther out to get a better look.

“Sorry to use your driveway,” the cop called. “With all the visitors they got, otherwise I was parking in Stratford Center.”

“That’s all right,” the woman said. She was still trying to get a good look at Joanie. Joanie leaned forward and waved. The woman went back into the house.

“What a dog that woman’s got,” the cop said.

“Tell me about it,” Bruno said.

The cop stood before them just outside of the overhang. Runoff was splashing his foot. “I don’t mean to intrude,” the cop said. “My name’s Officer Distefano. I just wanted to set up a time we could talk.”

“What’re we gonna talk about?” Joanie said. She clenched her fist at how she sounded.

“This last Thursday night you drove home the route Tommy Monteleone was killed, right about the time he was killed,” Officer Distefano said. “We wanted to go over whether you mighta seen anything.”

“I already told Bruno I didn’t see anything,” Joanie said.

“Yeah, well,” Officer Distefano said. “Sometimes you remember things you forgot. Sometimes you noticed something you don’t think nothing of, we think is helpful.”

She looked back at Bruno. He arched his eyebrows in a “get it over with” way.

“Okay, sure,” she said. “You want me to come down to the police station? You want me to come now?”

“You don’t have to do that,” Officer Distefano said. “We’ll come to the house. Tomorrow all right?”

She flashed on her car, and Todd. “Tomorrow’s bad,” she said. She cast around for when Todd might be out. “Tuesday night? Could you do Tuesday night?”

“No, we got that thing Tuesday night,” Bruno said.

Officer Distefano looked at him, puzzled.

“That thing? We got that thing,” Bruno said.

“Oh,” Officer Distefano said. He looked back at her. “Can’t do Tuesday night.”

She tried to remember: when was Todd’s Ad Altare Dei? “Wednesday night,” she said. “Can you do Wednesday night?”

He said he could. They settled on seven-thirty. Todd was supposed to be at his church thing at seven. The cop told Bruno he’d see him later and then left. He had trouble again with the gate but finally got it. The neighbors’ dog kept barking, even after the car had pulled back down the driveway.

They both sat there looking out into the yard. Low spots were beginning to fill with water. “This weather is something,” Bruno said.

“You told him I’d be here?” Joanie said.

Bruno shrugged.

“He’s a friend of yours?” she asked.

He nodded and kept nodding, like he’d gone on to thinking about something else.

She felt that everyone knew everything but her, and she was the one with the secret. “Is something going on that I should know about?” she said. She was interlocking her fingers and squeezing them together.

He shook his head and stood up. He picked up his half-finished sandwich and threw it over the fence into the neighbors’ yard. Chicken salad flew out of it on the way over. “No,” he said, and turned to go back into the house. “There’s absolutely nothing going on that you should know about.”

When Sandro dropped them back at the car, it turned out that hiding the damage from Bruno was no problem: Bruno seemed preoccupied, and the lot had lousy lighting.

All she wanted to do the next morning was get the car into a body shop. She called around to out-of-town places, garages in Orange, in New Haven, in Hamden, and told them what she needed. She didn’t have a ride, so she’d be stuck there. Could they get the parts and fix it today? Most of the places said they’d call her back.