“Do I?”

“Stop it. Just stop it. This is going from bad to worse. Someone is playing us both, one against the other.”

“Oh, Victor. All the scheming and plotting, the whispered warnings and secret messages.”

“What whispered warnings?”

“When did love get so hard?”

“I had that very same thought.”

“It’s not supposed to be like this. Why can’t it just work out and everyone be happy until they die?”

“It can. We still have a chance to make it work.”

“No, I don’t think so anymore. I thought we did, truly, but I can see now any chance we had was murdered along with Wren.”

Another pause, and the soft whisperings of a voice not Julia’s.

“Is somebody there?” I said.

“Take care of yourself, Victor.”

“Who’s there? Julia? I’m coming over.”

“Don’t. We need to stay apart. They’re watching us both.”

“Are you okay?”

“No, no I’m not, Victor.”

“Let me come over.”

“Gwen will take care of me, she always does.”

“Is she there now, Julia? Is it Gwen who’s with you?”

“I’m sorry, Victor. For everything I’ve done. And everything I’m going to do. I’m sorry.”

“Julia?” I said. “Julia.”

But I was talking to the ether, because she was gone, leaving me with the peculiar sensation that I had just been involved in a three-way skirmish between a horny toad, a chameleon, and a snake.

And the horny toad had lost.

21

Something woke me up that very night. I couldn’t tell if it was a dream or a noise doing the waking, but I was already awake when I heard the refrigerator door open. You know the sound, the pull of the handle, the thwump of the door unsealing, the rattle of bottles, as prosaic a domestic sound as exists in this world.

Except I live alone.

I rolled out of bed and landed on my feet as quietly as I could manage. Light was slipping through the crack at the bottom of the bedroom door. I looked around for something to grab. My clock radio read 4:06 before I yanked the cord out of the wall and raised overhead the heavy rectangle with its sharp edges.

The hiss of a beer bottle being opened. A swallow. Some sort of soft conversation and then the television being turned on. There were at least two of them, and they weren’t trying not to be heard, which was troubling. Did they even know I was here?

I crept to the bedroom door, slowly turned the knob, gently pushed the door ajar, silently peeked through the crack, the clock radio held high and ready.

I guess I wasn’t as silent as I thought.

“Hey, bo,” said Derek Moats, sitting in my easy chair, feet propped on the coffee table, remote in one hand, beer in the other. He stared right at me with a not-so-bright smile. “You want to join us?”

I pushed the door fully open, the clock radio still hoisted, and took a step forward.

“What the hell are-” was all I got out before I saw the other man, standing by my dining table, tall and broad, with tattoos and dark glasses and a porkpie hat. It was the big guy from the Jamaican juke joint. And he wasn’t looking too pleased.

“You remember Antoine, hey, bo?” said Derek.

“Yes, of course.” And strangely, even though they had broken into my apartment, as I stood before the two of them in my boxers and T-shirt, I suddenly felt humiliatingly underdressed. “What’s going on?” I said, lowering the clock radio so it covered my crotch.

“Antoine just wanted to go for a ride,” said Derek. “Catch you up to date on the news.”

“News?”

“I guess you haven’t heard.”

“No,” I said. “I haven’t heard. But couldn’t we discuss this at a reasonable hour, and maybe at my office?”

“Antoine thought you’d want to hear it right away and see it in person.”

“That was kind of you, Antoine.”

“And without no delay.”

I looked at Derek, who was no longer smiling, and then at Antoine, who was just then scratching a thick bicep.

“You mind if I get something on?” I said.

“It’d do us all a favor if you did,” said Derek. “But don’t take too long, and don’t make any calls, all right? Antoine is feeling a little antsy right about now. Ain’t you, Antoine?”

Antoine didn’t respond.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said. “Make yourself at home.”

“We already done that,” said Derek, raising the beer. “You got that HBO?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Groovy. I think they got them strippers on this time of night.”

Back in my bedroom, I put down the clock radio, slipped on a shirt, a pair of jeans, the heavy black shoes with the steel toes. This was getting to be an unpleasant habit. I glanced at the phone beside the bed and debated using it, but then who would I call? The police? And say what? That a client and his pal, who had helped me find an alibi for an accused murderer, had broken into my apartment and now I wanted them arrested? No, I wouldn’t call. I’d play it cool. I could play it cool, sure. But first I had to check out the bathroom, because, frankly, having these two guys in my apartment in the middle of the night scared the piss out of me.

“All right, gentlemen,” I said, with as much confidence as I could muster as I walked to the refrigerator. I opened the refrigerator door, leaned in, took out a beer of my own. “Let’s hear it.”

“Turn off the set, mon,” said Antoine. “We going now.”

“Ah, Antoine, dude, look at the size of her mammaries. You could feed small countries with them beauties.”

“Turn it off,” said Antoine. Derek did as he was told. “You made me promises,” Antoine said to me.

“Did I?” I unscrewed the bottle top, took a swig, coughed embarrassingly when too much went down my throat. That’s the way it is when you’re racked with fear, even the most instinctive acts are no longer instinctual.

“You made promises.”

“Okay, yes. I did.”

“You said you keep them police out of it.”

“I said I would do that if I could. And I only told the bare bones of what I learned.”

“Old saying,” said Antoine. “If fish nevva open him mouth, him wouldn’t get ketch.”

“What the hell does that mean? What happened?”

“Let’s be going now, Derek,” said Antoine.

“I’m not sure if I really want to go for a-”

“Why this bwoy keep jabbering?” said Antoine. “Derek, why this bwoy, he still jabbering?”

“I don’t know, man. He’s an idiot, I guess. You mind if I turn the telly back on, see if that girl with the rack is still dancing?”

“Let’s be going,” said Antoine.

“Damn shame to miss all of that,” said Derek as he stood up from the chair and dropped the remote. “What about the beer? There’s some left in the fridge. Shame to waste it on Victor, isn’t it?”

“Take it,” said Antoine.

22

“I had enough of this urban blight,” said Derek, as he drove my car north, through the dark city streets. Antoine was sitting next to Derek in the front seat. I was alone with my anxiety in the back.

“I was thinking about moving out to the burbs,” said Derek, in a monologue without end. “I could kick up my heels, watch the big screen. Or maybe find some desperate housewife desperate for a bone. That’s what I hear about them burbs, full of women just looking for someone who knows how to treat them right while the husbands are toiling for the green.”

“And you’re just the one they’re looking for,” I said as I stared out the window, trying to figure where we were headed.

“Why not? Maybe a place in Jersey. That would cinch it, don’t you think? Jersey housewives, as ripe as them Jersey tomatoes. Just not as red. And without the stems.”

“Where are we going?”

“You be seeing soon enough,” said Antoine.

Derek turned left and then right again, past dark streets with collapsing houses and junked-up yards. And then we hit the railroad tracks, and I felt a sense of dread, which deepened when I smelled the smoke.