The Lonely Polygamist Part 31

"I need to go." She stood up, was overtaken by a swirl of vertigo, sat back down. "I'm worried about Faye. I need to go now."

With a calming word here and there, June helped her down the rock-littered slope, and though she could see nothing, not the sky, not a tree, not even the man whose hand she held in a bone-cracking and unladylike grip, he led her unerringly, without so much as a misstep or stubbed toe, to her Rabbit. She had to touch it with both hands, smell it, put her arms around it to make certain that it was, in fact, a car, and that it belonged to her.

She thanked him, and he told her he was sorry for the inconvenience of the broken generator, and even though her heart was still stuck in her throat and she was still sick with vertigo, she groped in the darkness for June and, with more than a little difficulty, found his mouth with hers. She hadn't really noticed his mouth before, partially hidden behind his beard as it was, but now she discovered that it was a little lopsided, his lips firm and full, and not at all unpleasant to kiss. There was something both numb and wild in her, and she might have dragged him into his HOME SWEET HOME HOME SWEET HOME and forced him to make love to her if they had not stumbled in their awkward embrace, their lips disengaging with a rather loud and unromantic and forced him to make love to her if they had not stumbled in their awkward embrace, their lips disengaging with a rather loud and unromantic pop pop. June gasped and Trish cried, "Okay then!" and jumped into her car, her heart a loosening fist, and drove home through the bright corridor of her headlights.

HER GOLDEN BOY When she got home, Golden was sitting at the table, staring into s.p.a.ce. He had a gla.s.s of water and the note she'd left him on the table in front of him. His hair was mashed against the side of his head and his eyes were so puffy and bloodshot they appeared bruised. He looked, if it was possible, even worse than when he'd shown up a few hours earlier.

She didn't speak or acknowledge him in any way. She went to check on Faye and when she came back to the kitchen he was out of his chair and putting on his jacket. He wouldn't look at her.

He said, finally, "You have every right to be mad at me."

"I was sure you were going to tell me you're sorry," she said. "Thanks for sparing me that, at least."

"I'm sor-" he began, and shook his head. "I can't stay, as much as I wish I could."

"Of course not," she said, with an emptiness in her voice that sounded alien-it was the voice of someone who no longer had the heart to make an effort. "You have so much to do."

He picked his way toward the door and opened it. Outside, a solid bank of fog had lifted halfway and stopped, like a faulty curtain in an elementary school play. He looked back at her, and over his shoulder and around his ribs she could see the brightness of stars. He paused there, her man, her Golden Boy, looking so sad and bewildered she could barely restrain herself from going to him.

"I love you," he said, and she realized, once he was gone, how much it sounded like a farewell.

35.

DOLL HOUSE

In this house there is a smattering of just about everything: confusion, weariness, panic, exhilaration, doubt, and, of course, plain old gut-curdling fear. This house is, in fact, much too small to contain the Father or his wild, zigzag emotions, which he experiences in relentless succession and then in unprecedented and startling combinations that leave him hunched over and breathing hard, clutching the front of his shirt. For the last few days he has done his fatherly best to be strong, vigilant, and resourceful, to do the right thing by the Other Woman, to visit and comfort Mother #3, to a.s.sure Mother #4 he is not avoiding her, to convince wives #1 and #2 that the family will not end up broke because of the mismanagement of his latest project, to somehow a.s.suage the Other Woman's irate husband, and, more than anything else, to keep his family safe. But it has become too much: the insomnia, the wracking worry, the paranoia that takes him by the throat and squeezes like a cold and steady hand. This unraveling he feels is a distinctly physical sensation, the cords and fibers that hold him together splitting under the pressure, occasionally breaking with a tw.a.n.g like the brittle strings on an old guitar.

And so he has made his final retreat. Look at him: crouching on a milk crate in this decrepit children's playhouse, scratching the flea bites in his armpit, and peering balefully out the small octagonal window, a jelly jar of homemade liquor tucked between his feet.

"Woe is me," the father says to himself, and for some reason finds this terrifically funny, but has only enough energy to squeeze out a small laugh.

Of all his houses, this is the Father's favorite, the only one that can truly be said to belong to him. Much like the children, the houses belong in body and spirit to the wives; the father has no say in how they are managed or appointed, does not have in a single one a bed or a chair or an out-of-the-way corner of his own. He wanders among the houses like a vagrant or a ghost, easily forgotten and leaving no trace, his only companion a threadbare canvas overnight bag full of toiletries and a selection of underwear.

For so long he has sensed that nothing in his life belongs to him, not even his wives or his children, any of whom can be s.n.a.t.c.hed away in an instant, but this pathetic little shack, unfinished and being further dismantled by weather and pack rats and the vines of morning glory, is his true inheritance, the only place in the world he can rightfully claim as his own.

Outside, the day is overcast with the remnants of last night's fog, and the river runs swift and silent, swollen over its banks with mountain snowmelt and distant rains. From here he can see the neighbors' corrals, the feed bins, the ever-present ostrich. To the north of the corrals, just out of sight, is the neighbors' house, not three hundred yards from where he sits. Which is not relevant in any way except for the fact that tonight sometime the Other Woman will be delivered to that very house, where she will stay for three days and nights.

The thought of this, and the possibilities it creates in his mind, both terrifying and alluring, make him pick up the jar and take the tiniest sip. And then, why not, one more. He groans, purses his lips, and lets the fumes leak out through his nostrils. It is nine o'clock in the morning. (Not being a drinker-or ever having been around drinkers except for construction workers who tend to drink like fish, but only during their off hours-the Father has no idea drinking so early in the morning is a violation of the codes of respectable behavior. To him, this seems a perfectly good time.) At first, the idea of temporarily stashing the Other Woman in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the neighbors' empty house presented itself as a reasonable solution; the neighbors were in Tucson and would be none the wiser; the Father would not have to risk detection by driving back and forth to check on her. But now the Father is beset with second thoughts; he knows he is playing a dangerous game whose rules are beyond him, that bringing the Other Woman to within shouting distance of his family and Wife #1's fine-tuned radar is the plainest evidence yet of his willingness to tempt fate, to court oblivion, to pay his debts all at once and in the hardest way possible.

The Father is thinking about the Other Woman because thinking about her, despite everything that has happened, is the only thing-besides, maybe, this horrible Mexican liquor-keeping him from cracking at the seams. He went to visit her last night clinging to the idea that with some rigorous thinking and a well-defined plan (neither of which the Father has any real experience with) they could rescue themselves from this situation without anyone getting hurt. But when he saw her sitting at that old formica kitchen table, her hair tied up and her face glowing softly with fever, he forgot all about plans and the rational thinking. He wanted nothing but to go to her, to take refuge in the warmth of the simple affection she offered. And when she stood, smiling, apparently glad to see him, that's exactly what he did.

They talked about her health-she was fine, nothing more than a mild fever-and about her efforts to bring her son up from Guatemala, which made her eyes grow soft, her voice hushed. She asked if he had heard anything more from her husband, and he shook his head, though in these past two days he has seen much to indicate her husband has not forgotten about either of them. Twice more the Father has come across the sleazeball who trespa.s.sed on his property and plied his daughter with a lollipop: once at the IGA in town, buying beer and Swisher Sweets and Vienna sausages as if stocking up for a bachelors-only camping trip, and once more the following afternoon in the wide turnout just south of Big House, sitting in a white Buick Electra, looking up and waving happily at the Father as he drove by. The Father hopes it is nothing more than unchecked paranoia, but he has begun to notice all sorts of peculiar phenomena: cars he'd never seen before driving past his houses, suspicious tire tracks in the gravel driveway of Big House, a strange man in a fringed suede jacket watching him from across the street while he took care of business at the bank. On his way to visit the Other Woman that very night he had been overcome with an icy certainty: someone was following him. The same pair of headlights had trailed him from the railroad crossing all the way onto the freeway, where he sped up-pushing the old engine on his GMC as far as it would go-and with a particularly graceless manipulation of the steering wheel nearly killed himself as he swerved off onto an exit ramp and down a dirt access road, where he stopped and turned off his lights, panting and light-headed with fright.

Telling her any of this, he realized, would do her no good. It would probably do her no good at all to know that he went out to his truck that very morning and found on the driver's-side seat a battered old Gideon's Bible left open to Psalms, with a single pa.s.sage carefully underlined in blue ink: Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

He inquired off-handedly if she wouldn't be more comfortable staying in a motel for the next few days instead of in the bas.e.m.e.nt of an empty house and she said she wanted to be able to see him, that she didn't want to be alone, and that was the end of it, because no matter how foolhardy a plan it may have been, there was this: he wanted to see her, to be near her, too. It was this feeling of swaddling contentment in her presence, and the prospect of living inside it forever, that had gotten him to seriously consider running away with her, disappearing into the misty and indistinct possibilities of a new existence. Of course, he had been entertaining fantasies of escape for a long time now, but they had always been just that: entertainments (simply thinking about escape had always been escape enough for him). But now that his world has been turned on its head he has begun, in his desperation, to force his imagination into unfamiliar territory: what would happen to his family if one day he disappeared, never to return? Most importantly, they would be protected, both from the Other Woman's husband and from their own b.u.mbling father and husband who, despite his sporadically honorable intentions, did not seem to know how to keep them safe.

Each time he turns it over in his mind he finds his way to the conclusion-with considerably less resistance and more self-pity than he might like-that they would be better off without him.

Last night, in the overwarm kitchen that smelled of fried onions and marijuana smoke, he was entertaining out loud the notion of running away with the Other Woman-she was the one who had brought it up first, after all-when she asked him the question he'd been dreading. Was it true what she'd been told? Was he really married to more than one wife?

She wore an oddly noncommittal look, a look that said she was preparing herself to be amused or angry by his answer, she hadn't yet decided. He told her it was true, and that he was sorry for lying to her-he only did it because he was afraid of what she might think of him-and that yes, he had more than one wife. Four, in fact. Four wives who would be very angry if they knew where he was right now.

She did not laugh or hold up her hand to her mouth in abject horror, which he took as an encouraging sign. She simply continued staring at him expectantly, her face betraying nothing more than curiosity, and asked him if it was true that this was a normal thing for this part of the world, that the more wives a man had the more rich and important he was.

The Father blushed, said that it was normal for some, but not for others. Was he rich and important? Not, he said, in the way she might think.

When she asked how many children he had, and he answered her in a small, half-swallowed voice, the gasp she made in the back of her throat told him all he needed to know. He was simply confirming for her what she had already begun to suspect: that the bucktoothed lout sitting across from her was not anything close to the ordinary man of conventional tastes she thought she had taken up with, but a stranger of such odd and possibly dishonorable circ.u.mstances he had been lying to her about them all along.

Now, stuffed into the ground floor of this miniature house, sweating through his clothes at the armpits and with so little head room his neck is beginning to cramp, the Father tips his nose into the jelly jar and concedes that he has allowed himself, somewhere along the way, to be taken in by his own lies; playing the role of an average American breadwinner with the standard number of spouses and offspring has not only been strangely thrilling, but has made it easier, somehow, to betray his real family, to willfully discard their trust and faith in him. But of course he is not average in any way, he is the Father, everything in his life is magnified tenfold, including his sins, the worst of which just might be his willingness to give a moment's thought to the abandonment of his wives and children.

As long as he is being honest with himself, he might as well admit that hiding here is simply another form of desertion, one he has been practicing for a good long time.

From his pocket he extracts two pink antacid tablets, fumbles them into his mouth, and gnashes them into a gritty paste, which he washes down with a sip from his jar. He doesn't know whether it's the incessant worry or this battery acid he's been drinking, but for the past three days the flame in his stomach has only grown hotter. (Paranoia, the Father heard once, is having all the facts. He is sure he is in possession of only a very limited number of the facts, and can only guess at the gastrointestinal distress he will be experiencing once he has them all.) The Father takes another greedy little sip-why not?-and slumps against the splintery plywood wall, sighing: he surrenders, he gives up completely and absolutely. G.o.d only knows what perils his family may be exposed to while he sits here, tucked out of sight. Though it's the last thing he wants to do, he begins to picture the possibilities, sees visions of bad men creeping in the bushes, peering into windows, testing the hone on their knives. His imagination gets away from him, as it so often does when he's alone like this, and eventually he is watching in the dark movie theater of his mind a detailed and brightly colored panorama of domestic destruction: houses set on fire and family pets hung from mailboxes with piano wire and wives a.s.saulted and children stolen and stuffed into the trunks of cars.

Though it's absolutely the last thing he wants to do, he can't help it, he looks out the window, beyond the clumps of tamarisk and willow, and sees an empty wheelchair at the river's edge, the deep water moving swiftly past.

He puts his face into his hands and distracts himself with the filaments of pulsing red electricity behind his eyelids. After a while he hears a car coming at an even pace over the hill and then the whine of brakes, the rasp of tires turning off the hardtop, and it is as if all his immediate fears have brought themselves to bear in this single una.s.suming sound, the pop-and-crackle of a vehicle coming slowly up the gravel drive. The Father, who has spent many an hour in this spot with one ear to the wall, alert to the approach of those who would interrupt his seclusion, is versed in the distinctive rattles and creaks of his wives' cars, the well-oiled throb of farm trucks and old-fashioned sedans driven by neighbors and fellow church members. This vehicle, he is certain, belongs to n.o.body he knows. It emits a coughing, watery gurgle as it drags its broken tailpipe over the polished river rock with the faintest, almost imagined screech of fingernails on a blackboard.

The engine idles for a moment, then hiccups into silence. A car door opens, shuts. There are voices, but another vehicle coming along the road-Gilbert Handrick's flatbed, by the sound of it-drowns them out. Straining, he hears nothing but the conspiratorial rustle of the dry gra.s.s under his window. At this moment his wife and children may be in mortal danger, subject to all the dire possibilities he has just imagined, but does he rush out to defend them, does he so much as steal a peek through a crack in the wall to see who has come calling? No, sir. He draws his knees and elbows in close, as if to will himself smaller, and concedes this simple truth: he is not capable of protecting them, he never has been.

Now there are footsteps on the gravel at the side of the house and then along the path of shattered lava rock edging the driveway. They come deliberately and ever so faintly, like footsteps echoing through an empty corridor in a bad dream. Amazingly, instead of following the path around the house to the backyard, they seem to be making their way across the muddy field toward him. He hears nothing for a few moments, and then there is the snapping of dead weeds not twenty feet away and he is clutched with such a spasm of anxiety he nearly tips over his jelly jar and, in the scramble to keep it from spilling, rears up, ramming his head into the five-foot ceiling.

In the silence that follows, he holds his head and counts his heartbeats, unable to breathe. There is a rustling and then boom...boom...boom someone is knocking on the door with all the casual malice of the big bad wolf. The Father waits, clinging to the child's hope that to be blind to danger is to be safe from it, believing that if he can wait long enough without moving or breathing, whoever is out there will disappear, that all of this will go away, forever.

The knocking comes again, and he can't stand it anymore, he takes a great, lung-rattling breath and pushes open the door.

36.

A LITTLE HARMLESS COURTSHIP

HE FOUND HIMSELF STARING INTO CLEAVAGE. AT FIRST, IN HIS CONFUSION, he could not make sense of what he was seeing, and so continued to stare, like a lizard in a trance, until the person to whom the cleavage belonged called out, "Brother Richards?"

"Yes?" He did not duck his head under the lintel of the child-sized doorway to find out who was speaking-he was too busy trying to come to terms with the curious display in front of him: generously freckled cleavage, polka-dot rayon shirt, and a plate of yellow cupcakes, all framed in the doorway like an art-student collage.

"h.e.l.lo?" said the woman. "Everything okay out here?"

It took a moment for his addled mind to identify the distinctively shrill voice of Maureen Sinkfoyle. For a year and a half he'd managed to sneak out here more or less undetected and now Maureen and her cleavage, on the premises for the first time that he knew of, had tracked him down in less than two minutes.

"One of your little girls said you might be back here somewhere," Maureen said. "I heard a noise and, well, I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Not at all, not at all," Golden said, finally mobilized sufficiently to bend himself at the waist so he could get a look at her face. "You just startled me a little."

Maureen sported a beauty mark, which appeared to be natural, and a great thundercloud of unconvincing auburn hair, which did not. Golden couldn't be sure, but he thought he could detect on her upper lip the faint shadow of a mustache. She smiled at him with such expectancy, holding out the cupcakes, that he had to resist the urge to invite her in. With great care he set the jar of mescal behind the milk crate and proceeded to maneuver his bulk through the doorway, a complicated process that ended with him losing his balance and stumbling out onto the muddy ground. He gathered himself, suddenly dizzy, and stiffened his spine in an effort to keep from teetering.

"What's this?" Maureen said, nodding at the Doll House. "Some kind of project?"

Golden regarded the old playhouse as if he were laying eyes on it for the first time. With its half-shingled walls, its spidery, spray-painted X X's, its buckled plywood gone silver with age, it looked like a prop from a B-movie horror picture about homicidal dwarves.

"Yeah, a project," Golden said. "I've been working on it for a while now."

Maureen held up the plate of cupcakes. "Just a little token of my appreciation."

"For what?"

"For taking a look at my water heater."

Golden stared at her, not following, and suddenly he was teetering. In order to stay upright he had to take a quick step back, dipping at the waist like a flamenco dancer, and in an inspired move pretended he was doing so to swat away a particularly aggressive mosquito.

"My water heater?" Maureen said. "I know you haven't been able to make it out yet, but this is just to say thank you. In advance."

Golden remembered now: she had cornered him at church two weeks ago to complain about her failed water heater, which conveniently led to a rehearsal of complaints, both specific and general, about how difficult her life had become since her husband left her. In an effort to distance himself from the piercing feedback-whine of her voice, he had promised to swing by when he had a moment. He knew her pursuit of him was sanctioned by Uncle Chick, most likely with Beverly's blessing (she'd been mentioning Maureen in conversation with some regularity now, and even Trish had gotten word that something was afoot), but Golden was too distracted by his life sliding completely off the rails to give a d.a.m.n. So he had made a promise out of cowardly convenience and, just like most of his promises these days, forgot it not ten seconds after it was made.

She turned her face toward the river. "Tried to get my boys to help, but their dad never taught them a thing, and anyway I can't control them anymore, now that I'm alone..." Her voice broke-a sound like a small rodent having its neck wrung-and when she looked back at him her eyes were moist. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't come here to do this."

Golden could hardly make himself look at her: in her thrift-store dress and muddy sling-back shoes, she was a textbook ill.u.s.tration of a cast-off, someone tossed aside in favor of the new, the fresh, the less complicated. She stood in his faint shadow, running on her last fumes of hope, nothing left to offer but cleavage and cupcakes.

In an attempt at comfort Golden put his hand on her forearm and with enterprising speed she stepped right up to him, nearly into his arms, squashing the cupcakes into his belly and pressing her cheek against his sternum to have herself a little cry. Lightly patting her back with both palms as if playing the bongos, he looked out over the swell of her hair and saw Naomi and Josephine watching from the back porch, Alvin spectating from behind the dusty gla.s.s of a bedroom window. Golden shrugged at them and wagged his head as if to say, I have no idea what's going on here I have no idea what's going on here, but they did not respond, just continued watching with looks of worry and fascination as he did his best to disengage himself from Maureen Sinkfoyle's soft but insistent grasp.

THE VILLAIN, THE VICTIM For the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon, he drove around in a state of mild shock which eventually transformed into a pleasant numbness as he stole a series of tiny sips from the jelly jar under his seat. He stopped in at the office and the bank, pretending to work, pretending his life and its steady routines would carry forward on their fixed and predictable trajectories. He had lunch at the Rhino's Horn, spent twenty minutes talking gas prices and high school football with DeLayne Woosley in front of the post office, and in all that time did not notice anything out of the ordinary: no smiling Todd Freebone, no strange men in strange cars trailing him or keeping watch from safe distances. As the day wore on he began to tease himself with the hope that maybe Ted Leo had given up, that he had made his point and had grown bored with this game, that instead of spending his considerable time and resources looking for a disaffected common-law wife he'd never cared much about anyway, he was moving on to more profitable interests.

This feeble hope, like the doomed baby sparrow kept temporarily alive on drops of sugar water, met its swift and brutal demise when Golden pulled up into Old House's drive and found his way blocked by Ted Leo's champagne Lincoln Continental with the spare tire built into its trunk. Golden surprised himself by barking out a bitter, cathartic laugh as he stared in wonder at the car's severely elongated brake lights, the Nevada license plate, the b.u.mper sticker that said THE p.u.s.s.yCAT MANOR THE p.u.s.s.yCAT MANOR * * WE'LL MAKE YOU PRRRRRRRRR. WE'LL MAKE YOU PRRRRRRRRR. Ted Leo was sitting on Beverly's rocker, pushing himself back and forth, happy and unmolested, on the shiny silver tips of his boots, smoking a cigar. Ted Leo was sitting on Beverly's rocker, pushing himself back and forth, happy and unmolested, on the shiny silver tips of his boots, smoking a cigar.

Golden's existential crisis in the Doll House must have purged all the fear and anxiety right out of him, because other than a mild surprise, he felt almost nothing at the sight of Ted Leo grinning expectantly on his front porch, no panic or anger or high alarm, only the wearied resignation of a man at the end of his rope, ready to be done with it all, and the sooner the better.

He walked past the driver's side of the Continental, where Todd Freebone sat behind the wheel, having himself a nap. As he climbed the porch steps Golden noted that, beyond all reason, Ted Leo was in one of his good moods. In what appeared to be a misguided attempt to fit in with the local yokels, he wore, along with his high-buff cowboy boots, a brown western-style blazer with wide whip-st.i.tched lapels, and a bolo tie made out of a polished hunk of petrified wood. He got to his feet, giving Golden a wide-eyed look of ersatz astonishment, and fairly shouted, "Well I'll be darned darned!"

Golden swallowed. "What can I do for you, Mr. Leo?"

Ted Leo practically gaped at Golden, sporting the self-satisfied cat-and-mouse grin of someone who had a secret but wasn't quite ready to let it out of the bag. "What can you-? What can you do for me? Ha! Now that's a good one."

Golden tried to make sense of what was happening here. Beverly's van was in the driveway, which meant she was home. There was no way Ted Leo could have come up the drive undetected-n.o.body approached Old House without being noticed by approached Old House without being noticed by somebody somebody-and yet there was a hush over everything, no noise or activity, as if the whole place were poised for something, holding its breath.

Golden peered through the screen door at the empty hallway and the fear that had failed to show moments before now roused itself, reaching from somewhere deep inside to give his heart a quick little squeeze.

Ted Leo seemed pleased by the change of expression on Golden's face. "Don't worry, Brother Richards! Everybody's safe and sound, for now. I was on my way up to Salt Lake to look at some flooring for the new place, and thought I'd stop by so we could bring an end to this nonsense once and for all-talk about it man to man-and what do you know? Knock on your door here and who, to my surprise, answers but sweet Jeannie with the light brown hair."

"Jeannie?"

"Your wife. One of 'em, I mean."

"You mean Beverly."

"So that's what she's calling herself these days. Back when I knew her, when she was working at Madam Pearl's, she was Jeannie. Oh but you shoulda seen her in her trick outfit! Little Shirley Temple chemise and bows on her shoes. All dimples and innocence until she got you into one of the back rooms, and then, look out look out! Mmm. We were all disappointed when she disappeared, me and half the male population of Las Vegas, but I should've known it was your dad who stole her away. Always took what he wanted, didn't he? Everybody else be d.a.m.ned. He brought her out here and before he died, I'm guessing, pa.s.sed her right along to you, which is how you people do things, apparently."

Ted continued to study Golden's face as he spoke, growing more pleased with himself by the second. "Didn't know about any of this, did you? Oh this is rich rich. Who wouldn't keep such a secret if they could? Came out here to repent, wash away her sins, start a new life, probably said she was a virgin, right?-lots of wh.o.r.es-turned-virgins running around, I can tell you that-and who can blame her, we all have secrets, am I right, Brother Richards? I mean, your whole existence existence is a secret. But as for Jeannie-with-the-light-brown-hair, I'm getting it now. From working girl to polygamist wife, it kind of makes sense, don't it? f.u.c.king for money, f.u.c.king for salvation, not a whole lot of difference." is a secret. But as for Jeannie-with-the-light-brown-hair, I'm getting it now. From working girl to polygamist wife, it kind of makes sense, don't it? f.u.c.king for money, f.u.c.king for salvation, not a whole lot of difference."

Golden said, "You don't know what you're talking about."

Ted Leo got up on his tippy-toes, put his face as close to Golden's as he could manage. Through the haze of cigar smoke, Golden got a sharp whiff of alcohol, but he wasn't sure if it was coming from himself or Ted Leo.

Ted Leo wrinkled his nose, frowned. "Are you drunk drunk?"

"No," Golden said. "Are you?"

For a moment they sniffed each other like two mutts, much too close for comfort, and Golden could see something like shame or uncertainty creased into the corners of the old man's eyes.

"Don't I wish!" roared Ted Leo, backing away, stubbing out his cigar on the arm of Beverly's chair with a distinct air of self-reproach. "And don't you wish that I had no idea what I'm talking about! If I'm an expert on anything, I guess it'd be wh.o.r.es, right? My wife's one, right? Right? And I can tell you, that wife of yours-and I'm not trying to flatter anybody here-she was the best I ever f.u.c.ked." He waited a beat, jabbed a thumb toward the door and said, "Oh, sorry for the bawdy talk, I know there must be children there, hundreds of 'em, I'm guessing."

Suddenly Golden's mind was awash in red light and he saw himself taking Ted Leo firmly about the neck and shaking him like a doll. He looked away from the man's leering face and said, "You need to leave."

"Not before I get what I came for." The playful manner Ted Leo had arrived with was long gone. "I've given you a chance. The bozos I sent out here to do a simple job turned out to be useless"-he pointed out Todd Freebone, who was now awake and dazedly working his way through a large apple-"which has given you a window of opportunity, and you haven't taken advantage of it. I'm a busy man, and because of that I've been easy on you, but now it's time for you to tell me what I want to hear."

"I already told you. I don't know anything. You had your men creeping around here, hara.s.sing my family, and they haven't found anything. There's nothing to find. So you need to go."

"Or what? You going to get violent, Brother Richards? You going to stand up for yourself? Nah, didn't think so. Your little wife in there, you know, she seemed so surprised surprised that you were working for me, I guess she was under the impression you've been spending all your time out in Nevada doing something that you were working for me, I guess she was under the impression you've been spending all your time out in Nevada doing something respectable respectable. Well, hasn't it been a day of surprises in the Richards family! She ran off before I could tell her about your extracurricular activities with my own wife; I thought maybe we could commiserate on the subject of unfaithful spouses..." His nostrils flared and his jaw tensed. He jabbed a finger into Golden's chest. "You tell me where she is. Now Now."

"I don't know."

"You do."

"Get off my porch or I'm calling the police."

Ted Leo didn't seem to hear this last remark. Something like doubt darkened his face and he looked away. "You really don't know where she is, do you? Is that it? A piece of s.h.i.t like you, I'm wasting my time, right? She wouldn't really run out on me with somebody like you, is that what you're trying to sell me here?" He seemed to be arguing with himself now, and Golden took the opportunity to try to steer him down the steps, get him as far away as possible from his children, his house. Just as Golden grabbed hold of him, Ted Leo reared back and slapped Golden across the face. It was not the stinging slap one rival gives to another, but a blow heavy with weariness and disappointment, like a father might give a wayward son. The two faced each other, both red-faced and staggered, both a little drunk, and, feeling the give of the old man's flesh under his fingers, the soft fat and hardened tendons of his upper arm, Golden had to wonder: Who was the villain here, and who the victim? Who was wronging whom?

Unable to look into Ted Leo's watery, bloodshot eyes for one more second, Golden hung his head. "Please leave."

"I don't want to hurt anybody," Ted Leo said, jerking his arm away. "But I will if I have to."

"Please."

Ted Leo clapped down the porch steps in his ridiculous boots. He called over his shoulder, "You're only making this harder, you dumb son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h!"