plenty of operating capital to work from.”
They crossed the alley, into the parking lot two buildings away. She keyed the trunk lid of Gunther’s white land yacht of a Cadillac, and he dumped the box inside.
“What happened in that bedroom?”
He looked down at the asphalt and gravel, hands in pockets, shrugging his broad shoulders. Gunther by moonlight, evasive and — could it be? — even a bit embarrassed.
“You were right on top of him, how could you screw it up?”
“It’s not like he was sitting still for it, you know. I pushed a pillow over his face, shoved the gun into the pillow. Cuts the sound, cuts the splatter. He was kicking around, I guess is how it happened. Got the angle wrong and blew out the side of his throat.” Gunther walked in a tight circle as she began to laugh, then halted, flailing his arms. “Well you do it next time, then, it’s not as easy as it sounds, hitting dead center. Like trying to thread a moving needle.”
She tossed him the keys and he unlocked his door, unlocked hers by remote. He started the car and boosted the cold air.
“The pillow bit, I got that one from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly . Lee Van Cleef squashes a pillow over this old Mexican’s face and unloads right into him. I saw that when I was a kid and thought it was just the toughest thing.”
Madeline watched his face as Gunther steered down the alley, toward a psychedelic blur of neon and flash. Saw in his eyes the rapture of adrenaline surge, and her heart ached to realize that their wild and reckless youth was gone, gone long before they’d ever met, and there was no one to go to for justice.
“ The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ?” he said. “Some great music in that movie. Now there’s something I could listen to for miles.”
She nodded, let him think she approved. Another cultural void between them, Gunther’s whole life patterned after some old movie where all they did was spit, swear, and shoot each other.
And when she checked her face in the visor mirror, tugging it back toward her ears to pull the lines out of it, she wondered if, as for vampires, the blood of the young might not renew them both somehow.
CHAPTER 6
As Allison hitchhiked her way out of Las Vegas that Friday night, she turned to see it receding behind her like a patch of glitter strewn across the desert. Lot’s wife, she remembered from hellfire Mississippi sermons, had looked at a burning Sodom and Gomorrah this way and been turned to salt. It made less sense to Allison now than ever. The sight of a disappearing Vegas filled her with such exhilaration that for now it did not matter she was just days from total financial destitution. She’d never felt more free — the fly that had chipped itself out of amber.
“You know what that place was like for me?” she said to the older woman who’d offered her the ride. The car hummed beneath them, southeast, over the Boulder Highway. To the west the rims of distant hills sawed into the blue-black night, spilling stars. “It was like trying to wear the wrong set of clothes. They fit my ex-boyfriend perfectly, but they didn’t fit me.”
“Then you have better taste in clothes than he does, dear,” the woman said. Her gray hair was smartly trimmed and layered, and in the dashboard’s glow looked the color of mercury. “It doesn’t matter how hard you try to pretend otherwise, it still feels wrong, doesn’t it?”
Allison nodded. “I guess I’m lucky, though. Sometimes things can feel wrong for so long you start thinking they’re what’s right after all.” Remembering the feel of her father’s hands, charged with new expectations that she had never dreamed were a daughter’s obligation to fulfill. Mothers thought they prepared you for everything, but they didn’t.
Where the tip of Nevada stabbed down like the point of a dagger, they crossed the river into Arizona, south of the curving wall of Hoover Dam. They drove southeast into
They crossed the alley, into the parking lot two buildings away. She keyed the trunk lid of Gunther’s white land yacht of a Cadillac, and he dumped the box inside.
“What happened in that bedroom?”
He looked down at the asphalt and gravel, hands in pockets, shrugging his broad shoulders. Gunther by moonlight, evasive and — could it be? — even a bit embarrassed.
“You were right on top of him, how could you screw it up?”
“It’s not like he was sitting still for it, you know. I pushed a pillow over his face, shoved the gun into the pillow. Cuts the sound, cuts the splatter. He was kicking around, I guess is how it happened. Got the angle wrong and blew out the side of his throat.” Gunther walked in a tight circle as she began to laugh, then halted, flailing his arms. “Well you do it next time, then, it’s not as easy as it sounds, hitting dead center. Like trying to thread a moving needle.”
She tossed him the keys and he unlocked his door, unlocked hers by remote. He started the car and boosted the cold air.
“The pillow bit, I got that one from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly . Lee Van Cleef squashes a pillow over this old Mexican’s face and unloads right into him. I saw that when I was a kid and thought it was just the toughest thing.”
Madeline watched his face as Gunther steered down the alley, toward a psychedelic blur of neon and flash. Saw in his eyes the rapture of adrenaline surge, and her heart ached to realize that their wild and reckless youth was gone, gone long before they’d ever met, and there was no one to go to for justice.
“ The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ?” he said. “Some great music in that movie. Now there’s something I could listen to for miles.”
She nodded, let him think she approved. Another cultural void between them, Gunther’s whole life patterned after some old movie where all they did was spit, swear, and shoot each other.
And when she checked her face in the visor mirror, tugging it back toward her ears to pull the lines out of it, she wondered if, as for vampires, the blood of the young might not renew them both somehow.
CHAPTER 6
As Allison hitchhiked her way out of Las Vegas that Friday night, she turned to see it receding behind her like a patch of glitter strewn across the desert. Lot’s wife, she remembered from hellfire Mississippi sermons, had looked at a burning Sodom and Gomorrah this way and been turned to salt. It made less sense to Allison now than ever. The sight of a disappearing Vegas filled her with such exhilaration that for now it did not matter she was just days from total financial destitution. She’d never felt more free — the fly that had chipped itself out of amber.
“You know what that place was like for me?” she said to the older woman who’d offered her the ride. The car hummed beneath them, southeast, over the Boulder Highway. To the west the rims of distant hills sawed into the blue-black night, spilling stars. “It was like trying to wear the wrong set of clothes. They fit my ex-boyfriend perfectly, but they didn’t fit me.”
“Then you have better taste in clothes than he does, dear,” the woman said. Her gray hair was smartly trimmed and layered, and in the dashboard’s glow looked the color of mercury. “It doesn’t matter how hard you try to pretend otherwise, it still feels wrong, doesn’t it?”
Allison nodded. “I guess I’m lucky, though. Sometimes things can feel wrong for so long you start thinking they’re what’s right after all.” Remembering the feel of her father’s hands, charged with new expectations that she had never dreamed were a daughter’s obligation to fulfill. Mothers thought they prepared you for everything, but they didn’t.
Where the tip of Nevada stabbed down like the point of a dagger, they crossed the river into Arizona, south of the curving wall of Hoover Dam. They drove southeast into
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