I listened.

– Go ahead.

– They want their container. Theyll give you a number to call when you have it. They want it by tomorrow night.

– OK, OK, I can…

My brain did a few doughnuts in the mud while I tried to figure out what words should come next. What exactly could I do? Could I call the cofsi Could I rescue her? Could I crawl under the wheels of a speeding vehicle and let myself be crushed if it meant having some peace?

And wait just a fucking second, my brain screeched to a halt and declaimed, are you totally being set up or is it just me?

I shook my head, almost laughed, was too pissed to actually do it.

– Youre totally setting me up, arent you, Soledad?

– I? Web?

– This whole deal has been one long setup. Like, that shit with your brother, all this. Even fucking me. Its all a setup. Im so being used here. You have been totally working me.

Silence on the line as she struggled to find something to say to squirm her way loose from my accusation.

Silence broken as she found the words.

– Web, you are such an asshole.

And she hung up.

Talbot poked me in the neck.

– Stop fucking around with her, shes not setting you up. Just listen to the bitch.

I looked up at him.

– She hung up on me.

He looked at the phone screen.

– Jesus.

He started to dial again.

– Man, you are one asshole. Girl calls and needs your help, been snatched, and you make like shes in on it. Way to trust people, man.

He put the phone to his ear.

– Fuck, going straight to voice mail. Bet hes calling me back now.

He looked at the cowboy.

– Should I hang up and let him call or keep dialing?

The cowboy rose from the couch.

– Put the phone away.

Talbot put the phone away.

The cowboy scratched the whiskers on his neck and walked over until his boot heels were inches from my face.

– She tell you what we want?

I looked up the length of his denim legs, past the scratched longhorn belt buckle to his leathered face.

– The can?

He tucked the gun into the belt at the small of his back.

– Yeah, thats it.

He squatted, held up a finger.

– She tell you what wed do?

– Something bad?

– Yeah. Something pretty bad.

He looked at Talbot.

– Go take a look out that window and see whats to be seen.

Talbot limped to the kitchen window and looked out.

– Nothing. Just the stairs and part of the parking lot and the street.

– Keep looking. Been here awful long without no one else coming home.

He rested a hand on the phone I clobbered Talbot with, and with which Talbot returned the favor.

– Old phone.

– Yeah.

– Must have hurt.

– A lot.

– Uh-huh.

He hefted the phone.

– Talbots been spoiling a bit to put a hurt on someone. Since he got himself cut.

Talbot turned from the window.

– That wasnt my fault.

– Just keep your eyes out there.

Talbot looked back out.

– Not my fault.

The cowboy rested the phone on his knee.

– Was his fault. Fella like your girls brother, he shouldnt be no trouble for no one. Talbot, he just isnt the kind who can admit he screwed up and let someone get the better of him.

He stood, took three steps, heels loud on the linoleum, and pounded the phone into Talbots face as he turned. And pounded it again as he went down. And again when he was on the floor. And again.

He hunkered next to the bloody rag-dolled man and stuck a gloved finger deep under his jaw alongside his throat. Apparently not liking what he detected, he raised the phone and brought it down once more.

For luck, I suppose.

This time, when he checked under Talbots jaw, he felt the stillness in the mans pulse that he was looking for, and he dropped the phone on Talbots dead body.

He stood and looked at me.

– You took that pretty well. Figured you for the screaming and crying type.

I shook my head.

– No, not me, Ive seen that kind of thing before.

He nodded his head, went to the sink, looked in the cupboard underneath, and came out with a plastic garbage bag.

– Yeah, guess you would have, with your job and all.

I rested my head on the carpet and watched as he shook out the bag and fitted it over Talbots crushed head.

He came over to me.

– And it looks like that trainings going to come in handy for you.

He grabbed one end of the knot that tied my hands and gave it a tug and it came apart.

– You best get cleaning.

He took the rope to the corpse and used it to tie the bag around its neck.

– And then go get our can, and call.

He tossed Talbots cellphone onto the carpet.

– Just call the last number he called on there.

He took the corpse under its arms, pushed up with his legs, let it flop over his shoulder and stood.

– Ill take care of this bit here.

He walked to the door, easy under the weight of the dead.

He opened the door.

– Go get my can. I want them damn almonds. Alright?

I stared at Talbots blood in my kitchen.

The cowboy tapped a heel on the floor.

– Said alright}

I looked away from the mess.

– Yeah. Alright.

He touched the brim of his hat.

– Good then. And, oh yeah, I got your bosss van. You can have that back too, when you bring the can. Case you need any other motivation.

And he went out the door, corpse on his shoulder, apparently prepared for any questions such a thing might raise.

That or just quick on the draw.

Almonds.

As I cleaned yet another crime scene, I thought about almonds.

Stripped to my underwear, a pair of sneakers, and rubber gloves I took down the white pillowcases I had hung over the kitchen windows to keep the morning sunlight from pouring in when I used to get up early and have my coffee before going off to teach kids how to read and write and add and subtract. And I thought about fucking nuts.

In all their guises.

Starting with myself.

Dropping the pillowcases into the bathtub after rinsing them out and dousing them in about a half gallon of bleach, I considered just how crazy I actually was. Not a question Id been apt to embrace for the last year, but one that seemed appropriate to the moment.

I brought my desk lamp and a clip light from Chevs bedroom into the kitchen and plugged them in. The improved lighting gave me a better idea of what I was dealing with. Studying the remains of a mans face spattered about the area where I prepared my meals, or opened my to-go containers anyway, and finding that I didnt really have any emotional reaction to speak of, gave me a better idea of just how out of normal mental alignment Id gotten.

I looked down at my nearly naked, blood-scrubbing self.

– Skewed.

I pulled a strip of paper towels off the roll Id gotten from under the sink and started wiping the little card table under the window.

– Your mentality, Webster Fillmore Goodhue, has become seriously fucking skewed.

I cleaned, wondering if the fact that it had taken witnessing a man deliberately murdered in front of me to shake this realization loose was a bad thing, or a really really really bad thing. There seeming to be no other options available.

The table clean, I carried it to the edge of the linoleum kitchen and set it safely across the carpet border of the livingroom. Along that edge, I spotted a rim of dark wet spots on the dirty carpet. I soaked a hand towel in cold water and blotted the spots before they could set. I worked some dish soap into the carpet fibers and left it to be finished later.

The worst of the mess was puddled below the window. Talbot had, quite fortunately it seemed, looked down after the first blow, sending most of the blood that had poured from his ruptured nose to the floor, rather than hosing the walls with it. Of course the cowboy had swung the phone in an uppercut on the second blow. Not so good. That meant the ceiling had a nice spray pattern on it. But the last three blows were all placed squarely once Talbot was on the floor on his back.