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I think he flinched. “Do you want me to lie?”

“No, I want to not know. I want to live in blessed ignorance.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Anita,” he said.

“I guess it doesn’t,” I said. I adjusted the lap strap so it didn’t press over my gun. Ah, comfort. If only everything else were that easy to fix. “What are we going to do about it?”

“About you knowing?” he asked. He glanced at me as he asked. I nodded.

“You aren’t going to rant and rave? Tell me what an evil bastard I am?”

“Doesn’t seem much point in it,” I said.

He looked at me a little longer this time. “Thanks.”

“I didn’t say it was alright, Manny. I’m just not going to yell at you. Not yet, anyway.”

He passed a large white car full of dark-skinned teenagers. Their car stereo was up so loud, my teeth rattled. The driver had one of those high-boned, flat faces, straight off an Aztec carving. Our eyes met as we moved by them. He made kissing motions with his mouth. The others laughed uproariously. I resisted the urge to flip them off. Mustn’t encourage the little tykes.

They turned right. We went straight. Relief.

Manny stopped two cars back from a light. Just beyond the light was the turnoff 40 West. We’d take 270 up to Olive and then a short jaunt to my apartment. We had forty-five minutes to an hour of travel time. Not a problem normally. Today I wanted away from Manny. I wanted some time to digest. To decide how to feel.

“Talk to me, Anita, please.”

“Honest to God, Manny, I don’t know what to say.” Truth, try to stick to the truth between friends. Yeah.

“I’ve known you for four years, Manny. You are a good man. You love your wife, your kids. You’ve saved my life. I’ve saved yours. I thought I knew you.”

“I haven’t changed.”

“Yes,” I looked at him as I said it, “you have. Manny Rodriguez would never under any circumstance take part in human sacrifice.”

“It’s been twenty years.”

“There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

“You going to the cops?” His voice was very quiet.

The light changed. We waited our turn and merged into the morning traffic. It was as heavy as it ever got in St. Louis. It’s not the gridlock of L.A., but stop and jerk is still pretty darn annoying. Especially this morning.

“I don’t have any proof. Just Dominga Salvador’s word. I wouldn’t exactly call her a reliable witness.”

“If you had proof?”

“Don’t push me on this, Manny.” I stared out the window. There was a silver Miada with the top down. The driver was white-haired, male, and wore a jaunty little cap, plus racing gloves. Middle-age crisis.

“Does Rosita know?” I asked.

“She suspects, but she doesn’t know for sure.”

“Doesn’t want to know,” I said.

“Probably not.” He turned and stared at me then.

A red Ford truck was nearly in front of us. I yelled, “Manny!”

He slammed on the brakes, and only the seat belt kept me from kissing the dashboard.

“Jesus, Manny, watch your driving!”

He concentrated on traffic for a few seconds, then without looking at me this time, “Are you going to tell Rosita?”

I thought about that for about a second. I shook my head, realized he couldn’t see it, and said, “I don’t think so. Ignorance is bliss on this one, Manny. I don’t think your wife could deal with it.”

“She’d leave me and take the kids.”

I believed she would. Rosita was a very religious person. She took all the commandments very seriously.

“She already thinks I’m risking my eternal soul by raising the dead,” Manny said.

“She didn’t have a problem until the pope threatened to excommunicate all animators unless they stopped raising the dead.”

“The Church is very important to Rosita.”

“Me, too, but I’m a happy little Episcopalian now. Switch churches.”

“It’s not that easy,” he said.

It wasn’t. I knew that. But, hey, you do what you can, or what you have to. “Can you explain why you would do human sacrifice? I mean, something that will make sense to me?”

“No,” he said. He pulled into the far lane. It seemed to be going a little faster. It slowed down as soon as we pulled in. Murphy’s law of traffic.