Reamde

“The more time I spent—the deeper I got into it—the more I didn’t want the client to have it,” Richard continued. “He wanted it so badly. I was down there covered in gore, fighting off yellow jackets, and he’d mosey down from camp and size it up, you know. I could see him visualizing it on the floor of his office or his den. Broker from New York. I just knew he would tell lies about it—use it to impress people. Claim he’d bagged it himself while his chickenshit guide climbed a tree. We got to arguing. Stupid of me because I was already deep into the illegality of it. I’d placed myself in a totally vulnerable position. He threatened to turn me in, get me fired, if I didn’t give him the trophy. So I said fuck you and just walked away with it. Left him with the keys to the truck so he could get home.”

Silence.

“I didn’t even really want it that badly,” Richard insisted. “I just couldn’t let him take it home and tell lies about it.”

“Did he get you fired?”

“Yes. Got me in trouble too. Got my license revoked.”

“What’d you do after you lost your job?”

Put my newfound skills to work carrying backloads of marijuana across the border.

“This and that.”

“Mmm. Well, I hope it was worth it.”

Oh Christ, yes.

They reached the farm. The driveway was full of SUVs, so Richard, pulling rank as one who had grown up on this property, parked the Grand Marquis on the dead grass of the side yard.

THE VEHICLE RODE so low that getting out of it was like climbing out of one’s own grave. As they did so, Richard caught Peter scanning the place, trying to identify where the fatal clothesline had stood.

Richard thought about becoming Peter’s Virgil, giving the poor kid a break by flatly explaining all the stuff he’d eventually have to piece together on his own, if he and Zula stayed together. He did not actually do it, but the words he’d speak had been loosed in his mind. If there was such a thing as a mind’s eye, then his mind’s mouth had started talking.