Dear Wife(83)

“That one,” I say to Clyde, pointing to a compact Sig P320.

He picks it up, hands it to me like it’s not a deadly hunk of metal.

I look down the barrel, curl my finger around the trigger, check the slide. The weapon could use a thorough cleaning, but it feels good in my hands. Nice and light. Sturdy. “How much?”

Clyde shrugs. “Two hundred bucks.”

It’s way less than I’d pay in a gun store, not that I could do that with a fake ID. “Do you have another one?”

“Another gun?” He says it like duh, cutting his gaze to the ones spread across the back of his van.

“Another Sig P320.” I hold up the one in my hand. “I’m shopping for twins.”

“You want two Sigs.”

I nod. I want two Sigs.

With another shrug, Clyde leans across the merchandise, digging through a cardboard box by the wheel well. The Sig he pulls out is not identical to the one in my hand; one is black, the other black and silver, but they’re the same model. “Three fifty for both.”

I could bargain, but considering I’m buying two unregistered weapons out of the back of a van, from a guy who is for sure not named Clyde, I peel off three hundred and fifty from my stash and pass it over.

“Do you need some ammo?”

I nod. And then say, “Just one.”

“One box?”

“One bullet.”

Clyde’s eyes go big and wide, and he looks at me like I’m crazy. “You know those magazines hold fifteen rounds each, right?”

I smile at that, resist telling him that I know how to work the gun. “I only need one. A hollow tip.” The kind of bullet that will tear a man in two.

With a shrug, he pulls a box of nine-millimeter bullets from the van and hands one to me. “On the house,” he says, and I drop it in my pocket.

The thing is, after all those years of ridicule at the shooting range, I learned a few things. I learned that the Sig has a much smoother trigger than the .357 you made me practice on, and the compact model fits much better in my hand and the pocket of my bag. That if I focus on the target, not the din of the other shooters at the range or the feel of your hot breath on my neck, I have almost-perfect aim. That my hands don’t shake and my eyes don’t blink, not unless I want them to.

Do you get what I’m telling you?

I know how to shoot, Marcus.

You taught me.



BETH

I’m back in room 313 at the Atlanta Motel, listening to the drone of the police scanner when the phone rings. The sound is sharp, an old-school ring that practically levitates the ancient beige rotary phone on the nightstand. I lean across the bed and pick up the receiver, keeping one eye on the door. “Hello?”

“Yo, this is Terry, down at the front desk. The maroon Buick with Arkansas plates in the lot. Is that your ride?”

I scoot off the bed and scoop up the phone with two fingers, stretching the cord as far as it will go toward the window. The curtains are pulled wide, ugly paisley polyester shiny with age, but the sheers are still tucked tight. I can see out, but as long as I don’t turn on the lights, the only thing anybody outside can see is shadows. The Regal is exactly where I left it, squeezed between two sedans at the edge of the lot.

“Yes. Why?”

“’Cause somebody just busted in the window.”

It’s a trap, your voice whispers in my other ear, and I flinch. I don’t want to hear it, hate that it’s your voice in my head, especially because you’re right.

This is definitely a trap.

“Thanks,” I say into the phone, then drop the phone on the cradle.

I move to the dresser, where the guns lie side by side. The first gun I tuck into the front of my jeans. The barrel is not long, but it’s too obvious, and the metal digs into my hip bone. I slide it around until I find a semicomfortable spot, at the small of my back, and then pull my T-shirt over to conceal it. The other I drop into the pocket of my crossbody bag, which I strap across a shoulder. It hangs heavy and deadly at my hip.

“Never point a weapon at another person,” you once told me, “not unless you’re prepared to pull the trigger.”

I’ve thought about this a lot, Marcus, and I am not you. Anger wouldn’t make me shove my gun in another person’s mouth any more than it would drive me to wrap my hands around another person’s neck and squeeze until the bones break. I can’t so casually take another human’s life, but these past ten months of planning have been anything but casual. This is do-or-die time, you or me. I am more than prepared to pull the trigger.

“Okay,” I tell myself, stepping to the door. “Okay.”

Outside, the catwalk is quiet, nothing but a long, empty walkway littered with cigarette butts and trash. I peer over the railing onto the lot, and I see what I missed through the sheers—glass, glittering like a million diamonds tossed across the asphalt. I study the cars, a dozen at best, looking for one that’s out of place. A generic rental, or your unmarked sedan. Not that you would be reckless enough to park where I could see, but still. I look for it, and then I study the parked cars, searching for movement inside. A pedestrian wanders by on the sidewalk beyond, but otherwise the lot is still.

I move to the stairwell, leaning my head around the bend, half expecting you to jump out and shout boo. But you don’t, and the stairwell is empty. I hold my breath and rush down it, hugging the railing. The bums use the corners as a toilet, and no amount of soapy water can wash away the stink.