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  “I’m sorry,” T said. He’d heard Jenny ask a question, but the words hadn’t registered. “What was that?”

  “Did you say he pointed the gun at us?” Jenny asked. She looked up at him, her head still resting on his thigh. “Before? Is that what you said?”

  “He was in here while we were sleeping,” T said. “I woke up and he was pointing it at my head.”

  “But not me?”

  “No,” T said. “He pointed it at me. At least that’s all I saw.”

  Jenny put her arms around T’s waist and snuggled up comfortably, as if she were ready to go back to sleep. “He probably popped some shit and got himself totally fucked up,” she said. “He’ll be all right in the morning.”

  “I’ve got a bad feeling. I’m nervous about all this.”

  Jenny put a hand on his knee and kissed his thigh. “Guy just pointed a loaded gun at your head,” she said. “Only natural you’d have a bad feeling.”

  “You think that’s it?”

  “Sure it is,” she said, and the instant she said it, Lester kicked the bedroom door open and then stood there in the hallway.

  Jenny grabbed T around the chest, as if trying to jump into him. “What the fuck are you doing?” she yelled at Lester. “You scared the shit out of me!”

  Lester grinned. His hair was pushed back roughly off his forehead and tucked behind his ears, as if he’d been trying to keep it off his face. The pistol was tucked down into the elastic band of his underwear, which showed through the half-open zipper of his jeans. He folded his hands over his chest, and the muscles in his shoulders and arms stood out dramatically in the moonlight. His eyes were dark and wild. His face was tight: the rectangle of it, the squarish chin and flattened plane of mouth, eyes, and nose, looked as though it might have been carved out of weathered stone. “I sneaked up,” he said softly. “I was hoping to hear you two getting down.”

  “Lester,” Jenny said.

  Lester said, “How many times you doing this guy, Jenny? Till it kills you? What up with that?”

  Jenny said, “You’re spun. Look at you.”

  Lester’s grin changed into a mischievous smile.

  “You’re going to blow this whole thing,” she said, her tone of voice shifting unmistakably into intimacy with him.

  Lester said, “You a piece of work, Jenny Cross.” He stared at her a long moment, the smile disappearing along with the mischievousness, and then he walked away, his footsteps traveling down the hall and out the front door.

  T said, “What ‘whole thing’? What was that about?”

  Jenny climbed over T, out of the bed, and put on the sundress Lester had bought for her. She wrapped it around her, tying the belt savagely with a knot. “Fuck,” she said. “He’s spun. He’s out of control. I don’t know what the hell he’s doing.”

  “But what was that about?” T said, standing in front of her. “What ‘whole thing’ were you talking about?”

  “Look,” Jenny said. She put her hands on T’s waist. “Far as Lester knows, we’re scamming you. We get the cash, and then we take off.”

  “And not come back for me?” T said. “You’re conning me out of the money?”

  “Far as Lester knows, that’s the story. I’m just playing you so I can get him the money.”

  “But it’s not really—”

  “No. Jesus,” she said. She pressed her body into his, wrapping her arms around him tightly. “Can’t you tell?” she said. “Don’t you know?”

  T didn’t answer for a moment. Then he wrapped his arms around her and held the back of her head in his hand. “Okay,” he said. “All right.”

  When she pulled away from him, her eyes were wet, and he wiped them gently with the back of his hand. “The story you’ve told me,” he asked, “is that true, about this Willie character and the drugs?”

  “It’s all true,” she said. “I swear to God.”

  “So what is this about with Lester?” he asked. “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s crazy like this,” she said, and covered her eyes with her hands for a moment, as if trying to think. “He’s just— There’s no dealing with him.” Then she looked to T as if hoping he might know what to do.

  T took a second to think, then went out to the hall bathroom with Jenny following behind. He found his pants on the back of the john. The pockets were empty, front and back.

  Jenny said, “He’s got your keys?”

  “And wallet,” T said. As he said it, the front door of the cabin banged open, and then Lester was standing in the bathroom doorway.

  “What the fuck you guys doing in here?” Lester put his hand over his heart, as if shocked to find Jenny and T together in the bathroom.

  T held up his pants. “Lookin’ for my wallet,” he said.

  “What you need your wallet for, Tom?” When T didn’t answer, Lester took a step into the bathroom as he pulled out the pistol and then let it dangle at his side. “I said what you need your wallet for?” His breathing was suddenly slower and deeper.

  The bathroom was small and dark, with only the faintest moonlight glowing through a window over the tub. Jenny leaned against the wall with her feet spread and her fingers looped through the belt of her sundress. T turned to her, and it occurred to him that she looked like a cowgirl with her wild head of blond hair and her fingers in her belt. It was an odd thought, given the situation—but he knew he wasn’t about to come up with a response for Lester. Whatever words he might have ever had were jammed down in his belly somewhere at the sight of the gun in Lester’s hand and even more at the tone of Lester’s voice and the look about him as he took that step into the bathroom.

  Jenny said, as if amused, “Lester? Isn’t this like some kind of bad dream, the three of us cramped up in a dark little room like this?”

  Lester said, “Why you doing me this way, Jenny?”

  Jenny said, “What are you talking about? Lester? What are you thinking?”

  Lester didn’t answer. He appeared disappointed in Jenny. He appeared saddened by her.

  “Can we go outside?” she said. “Can you and I talk a minute?”

  “No,” he said. “Ain’t no fuckin’ reason for that anymore.”

  She leaned toward him and crossed her arms over her chest in a gesture of mock bravado, as if she wanted to be aggressive but was obviously scared. “What’s going on?” she said. “What’s that mean, no reason?”

  “Mean ain’t no reason.”

  “Why not?” she asked, as if straining to understand him. “Why not?” she repeated. “What’s changed?”

  “You changed,” he said. “You think I don’t know you, Jenny? You think I don’t know you inside out?”

  “For God’s sake,” she said, exasperated. “How high’d you get, Les? How fuckin’ cranked are you?”

  “Cranked,” he said, and he looked behind him, at a plastic wastebasket in the corner. He turned it over and sat down on it. “Don’t mean I ain’t got you nailed down. You think I don’t know what the fuck you doing, Jenny?”

  “Just crank?” Jenny said. “That all? ’Cause you really—”

  “I don’t know,” Lester said. “I’m got a bunch of shit going on.”

  “You got a bunch of shit going on,” Jenny echoed. “What’s that mean? Did you cook—”

  “Oh, shut the fuck up, will you, Jen?” Lester looked to T. “You even think you know what you trying to get yourself into here, T? You even think you got a clue who this girl is?”

  “All I know—” T said, finding his voice, surprised at how solid it sounded, “all I know is that I thought we had a deal.”

  “Yeah, we had a deal,” Lester said. “But you want to know?” he added, as if about to reveal something important. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “It’s all where you stand. It’s all where you stand at any moment. You see? You see what I’m saying?”

  Jenny said, “You’re wrecked, Lester. You’re not making sense.”

  “I’m making sense,” Lester said
. “You just ain’t gettin’ it.” He pointed the gun at T. “You gettin’ it?” he asked.

  T said, “I wish you wouldn’t point that thing at me.”

  Lester ignored him. “Deal was Jenny for sixty grand,” he said. “Bottom line. Right?” When T didn’t answer, he repeated himself: “I said, right?”

  T shook his head. He didn’t seem to be fully in control of his actions. “No,” he said, and could hardly believe the word had come out of his mouth. It was clearly not what Lester wanted to hear.

  “What’d you think the deal?” he asked.

  “I give you the money,” T said, “to get your lives straightened out. After that Jenny’d be free to make whatever choice she wanted.”

  “You a fool, you really think that,” Lester said. “You’ll pay sixty so Jenny can choose? I don’t think so. I think you making a buy and you know it.”

  “I don’t think I’m a fool,” T said.

  “Lester,” Jenny said. “Is it registering, what he just told you?” She spoke loudly and articulated each word, as if desperate to get through to him. “He’s going to give us sixty thousand dollars. We can pay off Willie—and we’ll still have twenty left. Do you get that? Do you hear what he’s saying?”

  Lester smiled broadly. “I’m spun,” he said. “I ain’t deaf, and I ain’t dumb.”

  “Then what are you doing? What are you doing, Les?”

  Lester held the butt of the gun against his forehead, as if the cool metal were helping relieve a headache. “What I’m doing is fuck the money,” he said. He looked up at Jenny sadly. “I’m a dead man, Jen. You know that. It ain’t like you don’t know it. Willie kills me and you take the extra twenty and come back to your sugar daddy. You know that how it plays out we go back there. All I’m doing going back is getting you off the hook—and only reason he won’t kill you is because Chuck. He killin’ me, why should I give his money back first? You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

  Jenny said, “I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re out of it.”

  “I’m not out of it,” he said. “I’m deep into it. I’m inside it, Jenny. I see it perfect clear.” He stood up, pointed the gun at T’s heart, and pulled the trigger.

  T jumped as the gun went off, the explosion resounding like a car backfiring. The bullet hit him just under the collarbone. It felt like being punched hard in the shoulder, and was followed by a surprisingly minimal amount of pain. It felt like what he’d imagine being stabbed would feel like: heat, intense heat on the surface of the wound, rawness, instant radical soreness, and burning—but inside only a dull sickness and not that much pain. The bullet knocked him into the tub and he fell over the porcelain lip, landing comically with his feet sticking up. Falling, he had struck the back of his head on something, and his neck hurt more than the bullet wound. His neck felt like it was broken, and the first thing he did, lying in the bathtub with a bullet in his chest, was wiggle his toes to make sure he wasn’t paralyzed.

  Jenny appeared at the edge of the tub, followed by Lester. She looked down blankly at T and then turned to Lester. “I played him,” she said. “I played him perfectly. We could have had sixty thousand dollars.”

  “Nah,” Lester said, staring at T. He watched the bullet wound where blood welled up and spilled out. A rough black circle of blood spread across T’s chest, saturating much of the shirt. “That’s what you said, but that ain’t it. You playing me, not him.”

  “That’s not right.”

  “Yes, it is.” He nudged T’s foot. “How you doing there, bud?”

  Weirdly, surreally, T heard himself answer, “I’m okay. You shot me.”

  “Sure did,” Lester said. “Meant to put it through your heart. You should rightly be dead.”

  Jenny sat on the lip of the tub and rested her head on her fists. She looked like a little girl pouting. “If you were afraid Willie’d kill you anyway,” she said, “we didn’t have to go back. We could have taken the money and gone on ahead to Canada.”

  “Really?” Lester said. “Didn’t you say no to that this afternoon? Didn’t you say no way?”

  “You didn’t tell me what you were thinking,” she said. “All you said was—”

  “Shut up, Jenny.” Lester raised the gun and pointed it at her temple.

  Jenny backed away from the gun, into the wall. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “You’re planning on killing us both? Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “I knew this afternoon,” Lester said. “When you were all we got to go back and pay off Willie. I knew right then, but I didn’t want to believe it.”

  Jenny said, “You’re wrong, honey.”

  Lester said, “I ain’t wrong. And don’t be calling me honey. It too late for that now.”

  Jenny clasped her hands over the back of her neck. “This is all just you’re high,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

  “It ain’t all just I’m high.” Lester climbed up on the john and sat on the tank with his feet on the bowl. “You make me tired,” he said to Jenny. “You know that? All these years. You make me tired.”

  “You’re a sad case,” Jenny said. “You’re tragic.” She looked back to T, her eyes moving from his face to the blood-soaked shirt and the bullet wound. “We had all that money,” she said. “We had it in the palm of our hands.”

  Lester rested the gun on his knee. “Nah,” he said. “That ain’t it.”

  In the bathtub, with his feet sticking up ridiculously, T had the urge to pull himself into a more respectable position. He was acutely aware of his breathing, which went in and out, in and out, tossing his head back with each inhale and forward with each exhale—or at least it felt that way. Little movements seemed amplified. The burning under his collarbone had spread through the left half of his chest, spread and dulled so that now it was more like a throbbing heat. He lowered his eyes to look at the wound and saw that blood was still welling up out of it, and then he saw that it was spilling off him somewhere around his waist and collecting under him in the tub. He considered that the bloodstain on the back of his pants would be embarrassing once he stood up. He hated messes. He’d always hated messes. He was a neat man by instinct. He was a neat man by history. Even when he was a scruffy hippie, he was a neat scruffy hippie. Even when a child, when he was only a boy, he cleaned up after his parents. They were messy. They were bad. His father hadn’t loved him. His father hadn’t loved anyone. His mother left the dishes out overnight and hardly ever cleaned the house. They embarrassed him. The blood embarrassed him, the blood on the back of his pants. “Think someone might help me up?” he said. His voice was both harsh and whispery. He coughed.

  “Where you want to go?” Lester said. He smiled. He had the look of a man amused by the innocent questions of a child.

  “I’d like to get out of this bathtub,” T said. He lifted his right arm and was pleased that he was able to do so without much pain. He knew for certain that lifting his left arm was going to be excruciating. He took a breath and the movement and the breath together seemed to clear his head a little, to wake him up some, as if he’d been sleeping.

  “Look at you,” Lester said. “You whiter than the bathtub. You scared?” he asked. “You that scared?”

  “The guy’s probably in shock,” Jenny said. She turned to look at T and touched his calf gently. To Lester she said, “Do you want to sit here and watch him bleed to death?”

  Lester tapped his knee with the gun. “I don’t think so,” he said. “That ain’t the plan.”

  “There’s a plan? You have a plan?”

  “Uh-huh.” He slid down from the john, grabbed the blue towel off the tank, and tossed it to Jenny. “Bandage that for him.”

  Jenny spread the towel open over her knees. “Want to get me something to cut this with,” she said, “so I can make some strips?”

  “Why would you want her to bandage me up?” T heard himself say, loud, almost shouting. “Don’t you mean to kill me?
”

  “We going fishing,” Lester said. He disappeared a moment into the hallway and then returned with a penknife, which he tossed to Jenny. “You ever been night fishing, T?”

  During the few seconds Lester was out of the bathroom, Jenny had turned to T and gestured with a vertical finger over her lips. Beyond telling him to keep quiet, he wasn’t sure what the gesture meant, and he wanted to ask her. He thought there had been a look of resolve and collusion in her eyes, as if to suggest that she was with him, that he should trust her, that she would do what she could to get him out of this—but he thought that might have been wishful thinking on his part, and he wanted to hear her say it.

  “Can you hear me all right?” Lester said. He leaned over the tub. “T?”

  “I can hear you fine,” T said.

  “You soundin’ a little better,” Lester said, as if pleased.

  “Help him out of there.” Jenny had ripped the towel into several strips, which she laid out over the sink before she opened the medicine cabinet and rummaged through it, apparently looking for anything that might be useful.

  Lester tucked the gun into his underwear and got into the tub to stand alongside T. He looked down at the blood that was now following a wide path to the drain. He positioned his feet on either side of the blood and started to crouch toward T, as if meaning to lift him up, but stopped suddenly and then flew into the tiled wall beneath the shower head as if a force had thrown him back. He gasped and stepped out of the tub, sliding against the wall, then backed out of the bathroom and into the hallway.