And Angie was back there for a moment, sitting in the shade with her husband. He leaned over, blocking the sunlight with his head, and lightly kissed her. They weren’t worried about the other people around them. It felt like they were alone, it felt like they were the center of a romance novel. Other people were just there for decoration. They moved the plot forward.
And, for once, his lips were warm. She tasted the tart wine on his tongue.
“I saw his corpse,” the man said, interrupting.
“Whose corpse?” Angie asked. She wasn’t impressed the man interrupted her.
“My brother’s,” he said, staring hard out the window.
Angie wanted to ask what happened, but she knew. It’d be silly to ask. Her husband tore out his throat or peeled off his face or chopped off his fingertips, anything for him to suck on while still leaving the corpse unidentifiable. She understood that. It was part of his job.
“You could barely even tell it was him,” he said. “His simple was completely torn off his face. And his neck, my God, his neck looked like a wolf gorged on him. And do you know what my brother did? Do you know what my brother did to tick off your husband?”
Angie shrugged. He could have simply crossed Pepin on a bad day. She didn’t keep track of all the things that pissed him off. She just knew to be extra cautious if his eyes were particularly narrowed or if he walked particularly straight.
“My brother started a competing bootleg beer gambling house,” the man said. “Hell, he would have handed over half his profits just to stay in business. The man liked to drink, and he knew a lot of people that did, so they started their own access to it. It was a hard enough job as it was without having to worry about your husband on their scent.”
“Guys went missing first, the guys that were supposed to be bringing it from Canada. We never found any of them,” he explained. “Hell, if they looked like my brother, we wouldn’t have been able to recognize them. The only way I recognized my brother is by the tattoo on his stomach.”
The man turned and lifted his shirt. She saw a Knotwork Triquetra.
“There were three of us,” he said, putting down his shirt. “My other brother died during a bar fight. There were five years of just the two of us. Then this horror happens to my brother.” He turned back to the window. “And now there’s just me. Three acting as one, unending love, it’s all bullshit now. When love ends, that’s when hate comes. Hate only needs one.”
Angie swallowed. She was scared for this man, and she had to admit she was a little scared for herself. If this man was so full of hate, what would stop him from hurting her to get to Pepin? She could fight back, surely, but she was bound to a chair. There wasn’t much she could do to put up a fight.
She let the courage build up in her, and then she asked, “What are you going to do with me?”
He laughed. “You’re going to sit in that chair and draw him out,” he replied. “I don’t have any intention of hurting you. I don’t hurt women, or children for that matter. I’m not a monster.”
He didn’t have to say ‘like Pepin,’ she understood what he was getting at. Angie had seen him attack women before. She saw him send away his own daughter.
“Besides, I don’t want to fill him full of rage,” the man continued. “He may act stupid then, but he’d be hard to drag down. I’ve seen men take bullets and keep running when they’re full of that kind of hate.”
Angie wondered if that was the man’s plan. What he going to go down full of rage, being too angry to feel any pain. She imagined he’d be pretty numb by now.
“Do you have a family?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’m rather close to a prostitute though. She works for me at the club, well before your husband burnt it down, but now she works exclusively for me, if you get my drift.”
Angie couldn’t hold back the smile. “Yeah, I understand,” she said.
“I’ll miss her,” he said. “But at least I didn’t have any children. I’d hate for my son to want to avenge me. There’s no point in living a life like that.”
She nodded in response, checking out her shoes. Her ankles were looking a little raw, but her shoes still looked fantastic. She was rather fond of them. It was hard sometimes, thinking of her great shoes, and realizing where the money came from. It came from the death of men like these. She was just glad her own children wouldn’t have to worry about vengeance. Her and Pepin could take care of themselves. Or, at least, Pepin could take care of her before her children would need to.
She tried to go back to the park memory, but it wasn’t there anymore. She could only see the memories of the beginning of their relationship, when he hadn’t managed to suppress his temper in front of her. Her mind was flooded with her first-hand experiences of his temper, the temper this man knew too well.
No comments:
Post a Comment