Sylvie's Cowboy by Iris Chacon Page A

follow Sylvie and knocked Walt’s can of diet root beer
off the end table, into his lap, and onto the floor where it
puddled.
    Walt reacted to the sudden flood as might be
expected. “Oh my ever-lovin’—You stupid mutt! Criminy! What a
gol-danged mess!”
    The ragged end of the lamp cord, which was
still plugged into the wall, was now floating in the root beer
puddle. Without warning, the puddle became electrified, zapping
Walt’s posterior. “Ow!” He jumped clear of the puddle and squatted,
rubbing his zapped behind and eyeing the offending cord.
    Sylvie, emerging triumphantly from the
kitchen, asked, “Was that it?”
    Thunder boomed outside. Walt, fuming, rose
and hulked toward her brandishing his knife. He raised it as if he
would stab her. Instead, he took her hand and forcefully wrapped
the knife hilt in it.
    “I’ll be danged if I’ll take the death
penalty for somethin’ that was done by that furry raisin you call a
dog!”
    Terrified, Sylvie remembered Leslye’s
assertion that Walt had once committed murder. “What if you did it
yourself? Would you take the death penalty for something you did
yourself?”
    Walt’s strong hands pinned Sylvie’s arms to
her sides. He leaned his face close to hers. Thunder rolled. “If I
was a murderer; if I was strapped into the electric chair this very
minute,” his hands slid up to her shoulders, “what would you do?”
His hands slid from her shoulders to close around her neck.
    “I ... I ... “ she stammered.
    His hands slid up from her neck to frame her
face. He kissed her, hard, working his fingers in her hair. Thunder
rumbled. Then he lifted his lips only an inch from hers. “Could you
throw the switch even if you knew I was a murderer, Sylvie?”
    She blinked at him. “That’s not a fair
question. I ... “
    He kissed her again. Thunder growled and
echoed and echoed.
    When he backed away, her eyes stayed closed.
Lightning flashed outside the windows. Then whack! Something hit
her in the stomach. Her eyes flew open in shock. She looked down to
see herself holding a big, heavy
Handyman’s Guide to Home
Repairs.
    Walt grabbed her hand roughly and folded it
around the book. “You’re college educated. You can read.” He
pointed to the severed lamp cord. “Your dog ate it. You fix
it.”
    He stomped to the door, grabbed his slicker
and hat, and gave her one last piece of advice. “I suggest you turn
off the power and mop up the puddles first, if you don’t want your
hair permanently frizzed.”
    He exited the house, leaving thunder, rain,
and lightning in his wake—and in Sylvie’s face.
    …
     
    It was midnight and Les Larrimore was the
worse for booze and pills. She took up her car keys and stumbled
from her office. Outside her windows it was raining.
    In the office building’s parking garage,
Leslye got in her car, fumbled with the keys—proving she was too
drunk to drive, especially in the rain—but got the car started.
Thunder growled in the distance. Lightning flickered a long way
off.
    Not far away, an engine roared to life and
headlights bloomed white, exactly as they had the night Les picked
up Sylvie at the Italian restaurant. Maybe it was the red pickup
again, and maybe it wasn’t. Whatever it was, it followed Les’s car
out of the garage.
    …
    At the Pace Tower construction site,
everything glistened and dripped with water from a thunderstorm
that had passed. On top of the unfinished high rise, in the yellow
light of jury-rigged security lamps, Harry Pace sat on a bare
girder and looked out over the city lights. He saw cruise ships on
Government Cut, skyscrapers on Biscayne Boulevard bathed in pastel
lights, a silver MetroRail train clacking across the neon rainbow
bridge over the crooked mirror of the Miami River.
    Harry set his open can of diet root beer on
the girder beside him and leaned slightly to peer over the edge. It
was a long, long, long way down. And from the clanking of the
construction elevator, someone was making