Forty Words for Sorrow

"A gray Pinto," Cardinal said into the phone. "You can't miss it."

"I saw you on TV," the woman repeated, swaying slightly in her seat as if she were drunk, though Cardinal had not smelled alcohol on her. Behind her, the figure on the television screen had sat down beside Todd Curry, a woman. The hard light glittered on her damaged skin.

Now the woman before him reached up and touched her face gently, fingers fluttering over the cracked, pebbly surface of her cheek.

Cardinal tried to keep his face neutral. She doesn't know I know, he told himself. She's got herself drunk so she can come out here and threaten me. But at this point she doesn't know I know.

"Who are you calling now?" the woman said sharply.

"Headquarters. I want to get some people over here to take your statement. Don't worry, we have a rape specialist. A woman." Can she hear it in my voice? Can she hear that I know?

Cardinal started to dial, but the woman pulled a gun from the folds of her coat, aimed it at his face, and said, "I don't think you want to do that."

Cardinal put the phone down, holding his hands up. "Okay, look. I'm not armed, all right? Just take it easy, now."

On the TV, Fraser entered the scene and yanked the woman away. Todd Curry raised his hands in pretended surprise.

"Did you follow a script?" Cardinal asked her. "Work out the moves ahead of time?"

The woman turned to follow his gaze. "That's Eric," she said in a small voice. "That's my Eric."

Cardinal inched ever so slightly toward the closet, the half-open door where the Beretta hung in its holster.

"Don't move."

"Just relax. I'm not moving. I'm not going anywhere." Cardinal used the gentlest, least threatening voice he could summon. On the TV, Fraser gripped a hammer. It must have been resting on the back of the couch, ready for use. He raised the hammer and was shouting something at Todd Curry.

He brought the hammer down. The boy's mouth gaped, all the facial muscles went slack. Fraser hit him again and again. The woman had moved behind the couch, behind the boy, and was pulling back on his bloodied hair. She pulled back on his hair the better to expose him, while Fraser kicked the life out of him.

"He was nothing," the woman told Cardinal. "He was just some scum off the street." She pulled the remote out from under her and pressed the rewind button.

On the screen the action reversed. Fraser pulled his boot repeatedly from Todd Curry's ribs, and the boy slid back up onto the couch. Strength flowed back into the slack, battered limbs. The woman let go of his hair and backed around the end of the couch to sit once more beside him.

Now the hammer was taking back its blows, sucking murder back into itself. Blood flowed upward into the boy's nose; scarlet tears shot backward into his eyes. He lowered his arms, and they healed. Terror gave way to astonishment, and with one last comical jerk, the hammer yanked all pain and shock from Todd Curry's face. The boy sat back and laughed.

Cardinal was backing closer to the closet. "Why don't you tell me how it happened? Did Eric force you to help? Was that it?"

The woman stood up. "Eric never made me do anything I didn't want to do. Eric happened to love me. Can you understand that? Eric loved me. We had a special love. Better than anything you read about in books. And it was real. It transcended space and time, if you can understand that. No, I don't think you can."

"Tell me about it, then. Help me understand."

She was in the proper stance, slightly crouched, left hand cradling the right. She sighted down the barrel at him.

Cardinal was moving ever so slightly back toward the closet. He began to raise his hands, to show her they were still empty.

The woman pointed the gun lower. Her expression was distracted, as if she were seeing not Cardinal, not the scene before her eyes, but some distant, remembered scene. Then her eyes cleared, and she shot him.

The bullet entered Cardinal's abdomen just below the navel. He fell to one knee as if genuflecting. A moment's grace, and then it was as if his entrails had burst into flame. He curled over and fell on his side.

The woman took two quick steps and stood over him. She neither grimaced nor smiled. "How does it feel?" she asked quietly.

The closet door was maybe three feet away. It might as well have been twenty. The woman stood over Cardinal, still gripping her revolver, keeping out of range of his hands and feet. Cardinal's only thought was for the closet, but he could not get back on his knees.

"How does it feel?" she asked again. "Does it feel good? Tell me how you like it."

Cardinal heard himself crying. You didn't often hear a grown man cry like that. He remembered a car wreck on the overpass, a man with a piece of aluminum trim clean through his belly, impaling him to the seat. He had wept like this.

Blood spilled hotly over his hand. He was trying to hold his stomach together as he struggled to his knees. The woman backed away.