What You Don't Know(106)

But no one meets him at the door, except for the smell, it’s bad enough that he has to press the back of his hand over his nose to keep from being sick. He’s trying to keep his gag reflex under control so he doesn’t hear it at first, he doesn’t hear her, it’s Sammie. She’s crying, and she’s very close, just in the next room, and he runs down the hall and is so surprised by what’s going on in the living room that he’s frozen for a moment, there’s a man kneeling over Sammie, busy and not paying attention, and Dean’s not sure what to do, there’s so much blood and he’s not a violent man, he’s not prone to action, he’s a cubicle jockey who sits at a desk and types ninety words a minute. Not a man who knows how to deal with this.

But it turns out he doesn’t have to know how to deal with a situation like this, because instinct takes over and he grabs the floor lamp sitting by the door—it’s the kind of lamp old women seem to prefer, tarnished gold with a thick glass bubble halfway up, twinkling crystal droplets hanging from the shade—and he hefts it up like a baseball bat, the heavy bottom propped up on his shoulder. Dean went to college on a baseball scholarship, they called him Big D back then, and he swings the lamp easily enough, it’s much lighter than the old maple bats he used to practice with, practically flies through the air of its own accord. His muscles remember the familiar movement and slide easily against one another, even though it’s been years since he hit a ball. He swings that metal lamp hard enough that he feels something tear painfully inside his shoulder, and there’s a moment Dean will always remember, when time seems to slow down, to nearly stop, when the crystals that’ve come loose from the lampshade are turning end-over-end through the air, sparkling as they catch the light, and the base hits the man in the temple, right in the sweet spot. And then everything speeds up again, like a rubber band snapping into place, and the man is facedown on the floor, not moving.

The medical examiner’s verdict: Ethan Hobbs was dead before he hit the ground.

Dean’s old baseball coach would’ve been proud of that swing, he would’ve shouted and hollered if he saw it, he would’ve ripped his hat off his head and thrown it up in the air in celebration. Swing, batter-batter, swing, Dean thinks vaguely as he crumples to the ground, not far from his wife—it’s not only the pain that’s bringing him down but also the realization of what he’s done. Dean has kept his word to Sammie, that he would kill for her, if he had to.





HOSKINS

The car is registered to Glen and Ruby Wachowski. The vehicle hasn’t been reported stolen, but they’re an older couple, retired, no immediate family—exactly the type of people a criminal would target. Hoskins thinks of the pale, blurry face talking to Weber across the pumps at the gas station. That face could belong to the Secondhand Killer.

Hoskins and Loren ride together to the Wachowski place, in Loren’s car, just like old times. There are a few close calls, when Hoskins grabs the door handle and curses because Loren drives like a bat out of hell, he’s going to kill them both, but Loren throws back his head and laughs, calls him an old lady.

“Reminds you you’re alive, doesn’t it?” he says gleefully.

There’s a car in the driveway—Sammie’s, the one Hoskins always called the Mitsubi-shit, and they don’t bother knocking, Hoskins kicks in the door and they rush in, guns drawn and ready to pump someone full of lead, but they’re too late, the exciting part is already over. There’s no chance for them to play hero. There’s a man on the floor, dead; Sammie, her eyes dull and her lips pale, is clutching her hand to her chest and Hoskins thinks she must be going into shock but there’s an ambulance behind them and the paramedics sweep in and take her away, and her husband too, who is weeping softly and has to be led from the house like a child.

The dead man is on his belly—ignored by the paramedics since there’s nothing they can do for him, their business is with the living—so Hoskins and Loren flip him over—it’s harder than it looks even though the guy isn’t that big—and they take a good look at his face. It’s surreal for Hoskins, to see Seever standing above this kid, looking down at the guy who tried to pick up where he left off.

“You piece of shit,” Seever says, and Hoskins’s eyes clear, and he sees it’s not Seever at all, but Loren, and the guy on the floor is the Secondhand Killer, and he’s finally dead.

It’s over.





WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW





If this were a movie, the end credits would be rolling and the lights in the theater would be coming up and you’d be trying to decide whether you should wait until the massive herd of people creeping down the stairs is gone or if you should fight your way through, because the line for the bathroom is going to be long and the drive home is bumpy and you had a big Coke during the movie—not even the large but the extra-large, the size that makes other countries laugh and point and make fat-American jokes. But you wait, despite your throbbing bladder, because sometimes there’s something cool on after the credits—like the time all those superheroes were sitting around eating lunch after they’d saved the entire planet, no one saw that coming, did they? And honestly, you want to know what happened to these people after everything was said and done, you want to know it all, so you stay, you almost piss your pants but you stay, and you are not disappointed.