Cross - Ken Bruen [62]
I moved to his right, could smell the strong aroma of the weed. I'd expected him to be like a vagrant, in terrible shape.
Wrong.
He was the picture of health and prosperity, wearing a new heavy coat and new faded jeans. His hair had been cut and his eyes were alight. He offered the spliff.
'Not for me, thanks.'
This amused him and he looked at me. He was playing with the rosary beads that he wore as a bracelet.
He said, 'I went back to the house after my dad was gone and you know what, I found a wad of cash. So I searched some more in Gail's room, found a whole stash of it. They'd been holding out on me, can you believe it?'
I thought about that and then gradually it began to dawn on me, my whole reading of Gail's death was wrong.
'Must have pissed you off.'
He laughed, said, 'Taylor, they'd been pissing me off my whole life.'
His use of my surname was deliberate, letting me know the rules had changed.
Had they ever.
He flipped the end of the spliff into the water. It made a slight fizzle, like the end of the saddest, most worthless prayer, the one you say for your own self.
He said, 'They collected my mum's insurance money, never told me, and me, dumb fuck, thinking we were out of cash. What we were out of was time. At least, they were.'
I asked, 'So you were in the house and Gail came back?'
He stretched, as if this was oh so slightly boring, said, 'Yeah, I told her good old Dad was a goner and she'd killed him. She freaked, and then, the weirdest thing of all the fucking bizarre events in this mad trip, she retreated.'
I wasn't sure what he meant, so echoed, 'Retreated?'
He looked at me, asked, 'You deaf?' Then laughed, said, 'Oh, whoops, the hearing aid. Yeah, she went back to how she was just after Mum died – a vegetable. Went to wherever it was she'd been before, and I figured, this time she wasn't returning. A one-way ticket, you know?'
I could see it. The two dominant figures in his life were gone, and instead of going to pieces, he'd adopted the personalities of both.
'What did you do with her?'
He was quiet for a moment, as if he debated telling me, then said, 'I helped her go swimming.'
And then, the worst sound of all, he giggled. I told myself it was the dope, hoped it was.
He added, 'Thing was, get this, she forgot she couldn't swim. And you know, the crazy bitch, she kept asking me if I saw the flames. I doused them for her.'
I thought of the Glock, sitting snug and useless in the top drawer of my desk.
He said, 'So, Jack, what's your thinking, you going to let this slide? You can walk away, we'll forget we ever had this conversation.'
He was literally measuring me up, and, alas, I knew what he saw: a broken-down middle-aged man with a limp and a hearing aid. If I said I couldn't let it go, how hard was it going to be for him to . . . deal . . . with me? He was strong, young and had nothing to lose. He'd drowned his own sister, crucified a young man, burned a defenceless girl in her car. Was he going to worry about me?
I said, 'If – and it's a big if – I walk, what are your plans?'
He was surprised, and to my horror I recognized the expression in his eyes. It was like Gail's, and for one eerie moment I wondered if evil could be transmitted thus. He moved real close to me. Was it my imagination or had his shoulders become broader? What had happened to the Kurt Cobain harmless boy I'd met in the coffee shop?
A half smile curled on his lips and he said, 'Hmmm, good question, Jack-o. You know, I think I like it here, but what I wouldn't like is the thought of you shambling round, maybe getting a sudden burst of – what's it you Catholics call it? – conscience.'
And he lashed out with his right fist, knocking me on my back. He walked round so he was standing at my head. I noticed he was wearing Doc Marten's, well-scuffed ones, and I hoped to fuck they weren't the steel-toed variety. My jaw hurt like a son of a bitch and I understood he was going to kill me but was in no great hurry. He had discovered the greatest, most potent aphrodisiac on the planet