"Careful," she said, as if she still had any hold on him.
"Why should I be careful, Aunt Gloria? I'm sure we can speak freely. There are no secrets here. We're all family. Except for Byrne, who has secrets of his own—like the one waiting for him outside."
Bobby liked how Byrne's face froze. It was the way you looked when your deepest secrets spilled out onto the floor like steaming intestines from a split gut.
"What are you talking about?" she said.
"Call me Bobby, my one true love, and I'll slip you a treat when this is all over."
"Robert, did you kill Colleen?" said Francis.
"That little whore?" said Bobby.
Francis's face twisted into a politician's pretend look of righteous anger, and he took a step forward toward Bobby, as if the mama's boy had the wherewithal to do anything in support of his false emotions. Even so, just to freeze him in place, Bobby pulled the shotgun out of the bag. He dropped the bag and gave the gun a pump, loading a cartridge.
"Save your annoying Truscott self-righteousness for Meet the Press" he spit out. "It's amazing how ungrateful you can be when everything is handed to you on a silver serving dish. I did what I had to do to protect your career. I did what you would have wanted me to do if only you had the courage to see inside your blighted soul. And let me tell you something, Francis. Nothing cuts right to the core of your soul more than blood."
"So who are you going to kill today?" said Byrne, stepping into a conversation in which he had no business. "Me?"
"Yes, for starters, you foolish tool. But I won't stop there."
"Don't be ridiculous," she said.
"Oh, I was, sweet Gloria, but I'm not anymore. The blood has changed me. Before, I wouldn't have dared to walk into this house and take my rightful place by your side. But now I have the courage of a cougar, now I dance naked in the moonlight."
"Stop talking like a cretin," she said, her voice arrogant and dismissive even in its shaking. "And what happened to you? You look and smell like you rolled around in a garbage heap." She waved at the air in front of her nose. "I think I'm going to be nauseous."
"I would think you'd be proud of me, Auntie dear," he said, "finally standing up for what's mine, taking initiative, like you've always told me to do. But the truth is, right now I don't give a damn what you think," and he realized that, for the first time in his adulthood, he truly didn't. He didn't care about her or her disappointment or the favors she could grant. It was complete, the transformation, he was finally free of her power and his own failed expectations.
"Bobby dear—"
"Shut up," he shouted as he waved the gun and watched them all pull away in fear. "I'm in control now, and I like it." His head swam through the emotion that swelled over him in a glorious wave as he reached, he realized, the absolute pinnacle of his life. Everything before had been leading here, to this magnificent moment of freedom and retribution. "A Spangler is in control, and all of you, even you, sweet Aunt Gloria, will bow down in obeisance."
"Mr. Spangler?"
He spun his head quickly toward the sound, and the sight was so out of place that it took him a while to process it. Two characters of dubious race, standing on either side of the wide doorway to the room. One was the woman who had come for him earlier, the police woman, Ramirez, with her long neck and pretty face and something sticking out of her ear. He hadn't noticed before that she was deaf. The other was a much older black man. Another police officer? Yes, of course, Bobby had seen him at the Toth funeral. And both of them, shockingly, had guns in their hands, and the guns were pointing at him.
"Mr. Spangler," said Detective Ramirez, "we need you to put the shotgun down."
This was not in his plan. Everything had been going so well, but this was not in the plan. "Excuse me, Detective Ramirez," he said, trying to keep the edge of hysteria that was now slicing through him out of his voice, "but I'm talking here. Can you give me a moment? Or will I have to start shooting?"
"You can have your moment, Mr. Spangler—Bobby," said Ramirez. "You can take as long as you want to have your say. I guarantee it. But first you need to put down the gun."
"Don't worry, Detectives," said Francis. "He won't hurt me."
"Oh, yes I will, Francis, you little prick," said Bobby with a jerk of the gun that aimed it right at Francis's chest. "With relish. And mustard."
He turned his head to Ramirez and saw the fear crease her features, and that brought a calm. She hadn't been afraid for herself, or for Byrne, or for the Qing vase in the corner. No, all she cared about, like everyone else, was the smarmy politician standing before him. It was funny how training a gun on a U.S. senator brought a flush of power. Life would be grand if he could only pull a shotgun on a senator every day. The truth of it caused him to smile.
"You don't want to do this, Bobby," said Ramirez.
"But I do, Detective, trust me on that. And what about our date? Are we still on?"
"Of course, Bobby," she said with a false, nervous smile. Bobby liked that finally it was a woman who had the nervous smile instead of him. "Coffee, just as you said."
"And more?" said Bobby.
"And more. Yes. So much more. But please, first, you need to put down the gun."
"See, Aunt Gloria, and all this time you were worried that I didn't get out enough. I guess all I needed was a twelve-gauge."
"What is it that you want?" said Aunt Gloria.
"All I ever wanted was for you to honor me like you honored him."
"Well, dear," she said, her chin dropping, "he is my son. But you, Bobby, have come so much further."
"Then why is everything always him, him, him?"
"Because he is our shared enterprise, darling. Yours and mine, the entire family's. Everything he achieves, it's as if we've achieved it, too. And don't forget, dear, he's half Spangler."
"Bobby, listen to me," said Ramirez. "We want to help you, we really do. Talk to us."
Aunt Gloria turned to the police and spoke in a tight, angry voice. "If you detectives will . . . calm yourselves for a moment. I'll take care of this."
"Bobby, we can't help you until you put down the gun," said Ramirez. "I'm afraid of how things might turn out if you don't put down the gun."
"Threats won't be necessary," said Aunt Gloria. "Come here, dear, come by my side."
Bobby felt himself pulled in two directions, by Detective Ramirez with her lips and her tawny skin, with her promises of more, much more, even as her gun pointed at his chest. And Aunt Gloria, who had once been his guiding light. And who was finally acknowledging how far he had risen.
"Come, dear," she said. "I have something to tell you. A secret."
He hesitated, looked at the detective once more, and then, with the gun still pointing at Francis's atrophied heart, he took a step toward his aunt. He felt warmer suddenly, comforted, as if the twisted old woman in that chair were the hearth and home he had pined for over the years. He took another step, felt the heat of her as if she were a toasty fire of aromatic love.
"Come closer still," she said. "The secret I have is for you alone."
He couldn't help himself. No matter how far he had risen, she could always pull him to her with a sweet purr from her lovely throat. He went to her, squatted beside her, all the time keeping his gun steady on Francis and his gaze steady on the pretty detective.
His aunt leaned over to him and put her twitching lips close to his ear. With the palsy, she couldn't help but brush his flesh with her own.
"You're going to ruin everything," she whispered so softly that no one else could hear.
"That's the point," he said just as softly.
"No, dear. Don't forget all we owe each other."
He pulled back as he exclaimed loudly, "Each other?"
"Bobby," said Detective Ramirez, "Bobby. This isn't going to end well. Please, I'm asking, I'm begging. Please put down the gun."
"Listen to her, son," said the older, black detective. "She only wants to help you."
/> "Oh, why are you two bothering me?" he spit out. "Shouldn't you be outside arresting the man in the car? Do you know who it is? Do you have any idea?"
"The car in front?" said Ramirez.
"Yes, of course, the car Byrne came in," he said as he let the gun jerk toward the boy standing stock-still in his stupid gray suit before it rested again in the direction of Cousin Francis. "Do you know who is inside that car, listening to our conversation?"
"Listening?" said Aunt Gloria.
"Don't be dim-witted, any of you. Byrne is wearing a wire, and the accomplice in the car is listening to every word. And here's the joke of it all: It's his father. It's that lying Irish blackmailer Liam Byrne."
"Don't be ridiculous," said his aunt.
"Oh, it's him. Check it out. Back from the grave. He's the one you should be after. And the son there, who has caused nothing but trouble by following in his father's footsteps." Somehow strengthened by his outburst, Bobby turned back to his aunt. "And what the hell do I owe you?"
"You'd still be in Des Moines without me. You'd still be driving a milk truck."
"You made promises."
"I know, dear," she said, again in a soft whisper so that no one else could hear. There was a briefcase beside her chair. She tapped it. "And they are about to come to fruition."
"It was never about money," he whispered back.
"I know."
"Why can't it be me?"
"It can."
"Why him?"
"Why not both?"
"I'm tired of waiting."
"You won't be waiting anymore."
"All the promises."
"Yes, dear."
He dropped his head as he further dropped his voice. "It's hard to admit this."
"Go ahead, dear."
"I can barely say it."
"Try."
"I love you."
"I know you do."
"No, it's not just like . . ."
"I know, dear. I love you, too."
"No, I love you in the other way."
"You're my special boy. Remember I used to tell you that?"
"I watch your movie. I found a copy and watch it in my room. You, with your gloves, your special white gloves."
"Aren't you naughty, my special boy?"
"I watch it over and over."
"I was something when I was younger, wasn't I? I could turn men to slaves with just a look, a gesture. I was special in every way." She pulled his head closer and patted the front of his neck. "And you're my special boy. We are linked, Bobby dear. Forever. You and me. We're Spanglers."
"Yes."
"And with Spanglers the family always comes first."
"Yes."
He turned his face to hers, so that their eyes were staring directly each into the other's and their lips were a hairsbreadth apart.
"Do you love me?" she said in a voice below a whisper, in a voice more breath than anything else.
"More than you know," he replied in a voice just as soft.
"Then there is one more thing you need to do."
"I'm tired."
"I know, dear. But just one thing more, and then you can rest."
"I want to stay here, close to you."
"And you know what it is. To protect the Spangler line. You know what you need to do."
"I don't think I want to."
"And I don't want you to, but we have no choice."
"Must I?"
"Yes, dear."
"I love you."
"I know you do, Bobby. Do it for us. Do it for our love."
Bobby leaned forward and closed his eyes, saw a thin, nubile figure twisting in his mind's eye in Super 8 black-and-white, felt his lips brush hers and then press harder. The joy, the sweet joy, rose through him like a wave, flushing out everything before it, leaving just his raw emotions and her desire.
"I love you," he murmured into her mouth.
"Show it."
He kissed her again, felt her lips and something else, sweet and slippery. He sucked on it as if it were a lifeline, sucked on it until it pulled away.
"Now," she whispered.
"Yes."
"For our love."
"Yes," he said, pulling back and nodding, knowing exactly what he must do, how it would end, why it was necessary. Seeing the whole of his life unspool in that perfect kiss.
Slowly he stood, nodding all the while. Slowly he caressed her withered cheek with the back of his hand. Slowly he turned and aimed the shotgun straight at the Byrne boy standing there with his mouth agape. Slowly he squeezed the trigger.
CHAPTER 57
LATER DETECTIVE RAMIREZ would squat beside the bloodied body and feel the emotions rise to choke her throat. She'd seen scores of dead, it was the currency of her new post, but this one bit into her in a way that none had before. The sight of the blood, his blood, the sickly sweet smell of the iron and rot released by a body split open by the gunfire, the sick, dead eyes that were full of intense life just a moment before. She was dry-eyed, and her chest wasn't racked by sobs, but in the storm that raged beneath her brow, she was weeping nonetheless.
A hand fell onto her shoulder, solid and warm. She didn't need to look up to know to whom it belonged. "You okay?" said Henderson. "No."
"Good," he said. "When you ever get okay with any of this, then it's time to hang up your hat."
"Is that why you're retiring, old man?"
"Oh, I don't know," he said. "I been thinking about sticking around a little longer."
"I thought you wanted to get yourself a puppy."
"Maybe I already found myself one."
Ramirez shrugged his hand off her shoulder, took a final look at the corpse, her corpse, and then rubbed her face with her hands, hard, as if rubbing out her very features, before standing and turning away. Henderson was looking at her, not the dead body, but his eyes were staring at a casualty.
"They find him yet?" she said.
"Not yet," said Henderson.
"They won't."
"No," he said, "I don't expect they will."
The car outside the house was empty when they checked it right after the shooting, but someone had been there all right. There was a set of headphones, a receiver, and a tape deck, just as Spangler had said. But the tape was gone, and so was the person who had been listening in with the headphones. A host of uniforms were now going door-to-door, and four black-and-whites were cruising the neighborhood, trying to grab whoever had been in that car.
"You think it was him?" she said. "You think it was Liam Byrne?"
"Seems a bit far-fetched. But after what you learned about the guy who signed the death certificate, I'd certainly want to go up to Rah-way and ask him what he knows. And we'll see if this Liam Byrne had any fingerprints on file to match what they already peeled off the car."
She turned and gave the corpse a quick glance. "You want to know something that makes me believe it, Henderson? Spangler had a bizarre integrity about him. I don't think he would have lied about it."
"He was certifiable. Who the hell knows what he was thinking?"
"And we'll never know now."
"He had taken at least two lives already, and he would have taken two more if things worked out tonight the way he wanted. Maybe even three. You did the right thing."
"Okay."
"And even with all that he was, you tried to save him. I heard you trying."
"Yeah, well, I've tried and failed before," she said, "but never like this."
She had been trying, pleading with Bobby Spangler to put down his gun. She had made no threatening moves, beyond, of course, keeping her gun aimed at his heart, and had promised whatever she could think of promising to avoid having happen what actually happened. But whatever she was saying was obviously counteracted by the witch, who was whispering incessantly in his ear and who gave him that nauseating kiss of death.
"What did you say to him?" she screamed at the old lady when it was over. "What did you say?"
"I to
ld him to stop all this nonsense," said Mrs. Truscott with her hands suddenly becalmed and her lips tight. "I told him to put down the gun and surrender to the nice police officers. I told him that was the only way."
She was lying, Ramirez knew she was lying, but all she had to go on was what actually happened. Spangler slowly rising, Spangler gently caressing the old woman's cheek, Spangler slowly turning as the gun swiveled from the senator to Kyle Byrne, Spangler slowly squeezing the trigger.
Ramirez shot him three times in the chest. Henderson fired at the same time, hitting his shoulder and spinning him around, but it was Ramirez's shots that killed him. Spangler, already dead, fell back as his shotgun spurted upward along with the blood from his chest.
When the shotgun fired, finally, the blast took out not Kyle Byrne or Senator Truscott but the imposing portrait above the fireplace.
It played out as quickly as that, so quickly that Kyle and the senator didn't have time to throw themselves onto the floor until all the danger had passed. And when it was over, Lucia Ramirez, God forgive her, had her first kill.
"Why did you try so hard to help him?" said Henderson. "Most cops, seeing a killer with a weapon pointed at a politician, would have shot first chance they had. And there were chances, moments when his attention wandered, when the gun was pointed nowhere specific. Why didn't you take him out when you could?"
"I don't know, Henderson. What are you, my therapist? What do I get, forty-five minutes to pour out my soul before you tell me my time's up?"
"I'm just asking."
"I felt sorry for him, all right? I saw his apartment, I saw his desperation. He was living a twisted little life, and I know the witch who was doing the twisting. I had my choice, I'd have shot her."
"You'll be thinking about this man next year, and ten years from now, and ten years after that when you're in my position, standing on the lip of things, looking over the edge. And when you do, knowing that you cared, even a little bit, and did your best to save him . . . well, knowing that is the only thing that's going to keep you from tearing out your heart, or drowning it in alcohol. Trust me, I know."
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