The Assistants(25)

Robert laughed. “He told me he used to paint houses, so I hired him. I paid him well, and I gave him a bottle of vodka. It was a three-hundred-dollar bottle of vodka, and he drank half the bottle before he left. That boy got drunk as a skunk, couldn’t see straight.”

Wiles forked at what was left of Carolena’s steak, which was all of it. “If that kid had any clue how much that vodka cost, he probably would have sold it.”

Yeah, to pay his rent, I thought, but everyone was having such a good time, I kept my mouth shut.

Robert refilled my glass again. “Tina, I have to say, I’m impressed by your tolerance. You can drink just like one of the boys.”

Wiles reached across the table and lifted the side of my empty plate, bloody with the memory of a buttery steak. “She eats like one of the boys, too.”

“I’m sorry, Glen,” I shot back without thinking. “Were you hoping to finish my leftovers?”

The table roared. Maybe the bourbon was having an effect after all.

Wiles was stunned to momentary silence, but Robert was clapping his hands. “Thatta girl,” he said. “You tell him!”

Robert’s overjoyed reaction kept Wiles quiet, but you could see in his eyes that he was seething. He didn’t have the self-confidence to take a joke.

I didn’t either, obviously, but whatever.

“All right now. That’s enough fraternizing.” Robert stood up. “We’ve got to get shooting while the light’s still good. Tina, Jason, you ready? Glen, you coming?”

I’d forgotten about the forthcoming guns-and-ammo element to this visit.

“Nah.” Wiles lumbered toward the pool. “I might be too tempted to teach Tina a lesson for mouthing off to me that way.”

Okay. Was that his way of, like, saying he wanted to shoot me?

“Leave her alone, Glen,” Robert said. “You had it coming.” He turned to Dillinger and me. “It’s just the three of us then. The truck’s already loaded up; come on.”

I admired that it didn’t even cross Robert’s mind to invite Dillinger’s wife along as we made our way across the property to the truck. Probably because she didn’t eat or drink or insult Glen Wiles like one of the boys. And because as far as I could tell she was mute.

I so wanted Robert’s truck to be a dusty old pickup, but it was just a regular shiny SUV, the kind that may have had bulletproof glass. Which could surely come in handy considering my deftness at sharpshooting.

Dillinger sat up front with Robert, who was driving. Driving. Robert. It was so insane seeing him perform such a normal, mundane activity. And he didn’t even drive like a grandpa. He drove like he gave orders, with precision, and not so much patience.

We sped around the side of the house, along a path to another field that wasn’t visible from the driveway. It, too, was ringed in forest. Robert and Dillinger conversed about work, while I silently tried to gauge on a scale of one to ten just how drunk I was. One being too drunk to hold a gun straight, ten being way too drunk to hold a gun straight.

We arrived in the middle of nowhere, stepped out onto the grass, and Robert opened the tailgate. Inside it looked like something out of the movie Goodfellas.

Robert tossed a rifle to Dillinger but strapped the one intended for me over his own shoulder. Then we walked a good distance away from the truck.

“Now, Jason, you just hang back,” Robert said. “Because I know you know what you’re doing, but Tina here needs a lesson.”

Dillinger sulked off to the side and kicked a rock, jealous that I was the recipient of all of Robert’s attention.

“Now.” Robert got organized. He demonstrated how to load the rifle, how to hold it. He showed me how to aim it, toward the forest. Then he held it out to me like an offering. “Go ahead now, give it a try, I’m right here, don’t be scared.”

I took the gun into my hands and tried to mimic his exact position, gripping it just as he’d gripped it, holding my body just as he’d held his.

“Good.” He arranged my arms and shoulders, reminded me to keep my feet planted. “Now, when you pull the trigger, you’ve got to be strong. Not weak, you understand? You’re like a sturdy oak tree.”

I swallowed hard. I could hear my own heartbeat.

“Firing a gun is all about power. You’ve got to acknowledge the power and harness it. You control it. You’re in charge. You can’t be a chickenshit with a gun in your hand,” he said. “Can you feel it, Tina? Can you feel the power?”

I did. And in that moment I wanted to turn it on myself.

“Now go on,” Robert said. “Fire.”





10




THE WEEK FOLLOWING the trip to Robert’s ranch, I felt like I was being wrung out and twisted dry every time Robert’s eyes met mine, every time he pointed at me with his fingers shaped like a pistol and called me shooter. If only he hadn’t been so welcoming and so protective of me during that visit. It made delivering this week’s envelope of cash to Margie Fischer worse than ever, not because of the cameras—I decided there weren’t enough security guards in the world to actually watch all the footage those Titan cameras recorded—but because all I could see when I looked at that envelope of money was Robert with his hand on my back, pouring me another bourbon and saying thatta girl in his unguarded twang when I swallowed it down in a single gulp.