day she would, likely as not,
find him out there in the pen with a Ka-Bar knife doing it. He was a
severe annoyance between jobs. He could not rest.
She knew that this afternoon he
would be out in the Angeles National Forest sighting in the new rifle
for the fourth time. It was a British Arctic Warfare suppressed
military sniper rifle with an olive-drab stainless-steel barrel and a
Schmidt & Bender 50-millimeter scope. Everything about it was
adjustable, from the pull and travel of the trigger to the recoil
absorption of the butt plate, so Earl would spend days and days
adjusting them. The plain A.W. military-issue model started at over
three thousand dollars, but the suppressed model with the silencer
was highly illegal and had probably set him back five times that,
because he had never told her what the Mexican cop had asked for it.
Earl always needed the latest and fanciest piece of equipment, and
then he had to take it completely apart and put it back together to
see exactly how it worked.
That combination of constant
self-improvement and morbid curiosity was what she would have
extracted as the most horrible part of Earl, but she could not even
hold that thought firmly, because it was also the best part of him.
And cutting things away from him wasn’t possible. Earl had no
surface, like other people: he was the same all the way through, like
a chunk of steel. All you could do was move your head to look at the
same qualities from different angles. That was how she had come to
love and hate him at the same time.
He looked at everything the same
– dismantling gadgets, testing the dogs to see how they worked,
or her. Every time he heard or read or saw something that could be
done to a woman’s body, he would do it to her, watching with an
expression between detached curiosity and, maybe she just hoped,
fascination, to see how it affected her: to see how she worked. The
result didn’t seem to matter to him in any emotional way. It
didn’t matter if he had her panting like a bitch in heat,
crawling to him and begging for more, or sent her whimpering into her
room to lock the door for three days. He didn’t take care to
repeat the good things to make her happy, or avoid things that would
remind her of something that had hurt her. He just wanted to see how
she worked.
She had let him put her in a
dark mood, and now she began to construct a fantasy about him. He
would come in from burying the bloodhound. He would go to the sink in
the kitchen to wash his hands. She would come in behind him while his
hands were engaged and wet. She would put her left hand on his
shoulder softly to show him she didn’t give the dog issue undue
importance, then use it to tousle his hair while she freed her right
to reach into her robe.
But he was Earl, so it would
take him a half second to realize from the feel of her fingers or the
sound of her breathing that something was up. She knew she would not
be able to say anything or he would hear the tension in her voice.
She would use that half second to tighten her fingers on his hair,
jerk his head back, and bring the fillet knife across his throat. She
had been composing these little plays about him since she was in high
school, when she first went to work filing and running errands at his
detective agency, and as she had known it would, this one began to
change.
He would sense her excitement
instantly and give that little snort of a laugh as his right hand
shot up like a striking snake to catch her left. The knife was still
hidden under her robe, held there by the tie-belt on the outside, and
she was afraid it would fall out, so she turned away and leaned her
hip against the edge of the green marble surface of the island in the
middle of the kitchen to keep it there.
The move gave him an idea, so he
reached around her and pulled the belt of the robe so it opened, and
put his big hand between her shoulder blades. He pushed her forward
and she felt the shock of the cold, hard marble,
find him out there in the pen with a Ka-Bar knife doing it. He was a
severe annoyance between jobs. He could not rest.
She knew that this afternoon he
would be out in the Angeles National Forest sighting in the new rifle
for the fourth time. It was a British Arctic Warfare suppressed
military sniper rifle with an olive-drab stainless-steel barrel and a
Schmidt & Bender 50-millimeter scope. Everything about it was
adjustable, from the pull and travel of the trigger to the recoil
absorption of the butt plate, so Earl would spend days and days
adjusting them. The plain A.W. military-issue model started at over
three thousand dollars, but the suppressed model with the silencer
was highly illegal and had probably set him back five times that,
because he had never told her what the Mexican cop had asked for it.
Earl always needed the latest and fanciest piece of equipment, and
then he had to take it completely apart and put it back together to
see exactly how it worked.
That combination of constant
self-improvement and morbid curiosity was what she would have
extracted as the most horrible part of Earl, but she could not even
hold that thought firmly, because it was also the best part of him.
And cutting things away from him wasn’t possible. Earl had no
surface, like other people: he was the same all the way through, like
a chunk of steel. All you could do was move your head to look at the
same qualities from different angles. That was how she had come to
love and hate him at the same time.
He looked at everything the same
– dismantling gadgets, testing the dogs to see how they worked,
or her. Every time he heard or read or saw something that could be
done to a woman’s body, he would do it to her, watching with an
expression between detached curiosity and, maybe she just hoped,
fascination, to see how it affected her: to see how she worked. The
result didn’t seem to matter to him in any emotional way. It
didn’t matter if he had her panting like a bitch in heat,
crawling to him and begging for more, or sent her whimpering into her
room to lock the door for three days. He didn’t take care to
repeat the good things to make her happy, or avoid things that would
remind her of something that had hurt her. He just wanted to see how
she worked.
She had let him put her in a
dark mood, and now she began to construct a fantasy about him. He
would come in from burying the bloodhound. He would go to the sink in
the kitchen to wash his hands. She would come in behind him while his
hands were engaged and wet. She would put her left hand on his
shoulder softly to show him she didn’t give the dog issue undue
importance, then use it to tousle his hair while she freed her right
to reach into her robe.
But he was Earl, so it would
take him a half second to realize from the feel of her fingers or the
sound of her breathing that something was up. She knew she would not
be able to say anything or he would hear the tension in her voice.
She would use that half second to tighten her fingers on his hair,
jerk his head back, and bring the fillet knife across his throat. She
had been composing these little plays about him since she was in high
school, when she first went to work filing and running errands at his
detective agency, and as she had known it would, this one began to
change.
He would sense her excitement
instantly and give that little snort of a laugh as his right hand
shot up like a striking snake to catch her left. The knife was still
hidden under her robe, held there by the tie-belt on the outside, and
she was afraid it would fall out, so she turned away and leaned her
hip against the edge of the green marble surface of the island in the
middle of the kitchen to keep it there.
The move gave him an idea, so he
reached around her and pulled the belt of the robe so it opened, and
put his big hand between her shoulder blades. He pushed her forward
and she felt the shock of the cold, hard marble,
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