He began a lecture, frantic yet passionless. “Justice cures betrayal,” he said. “I killed someone. I admit it. It wasn’t a fashionable thing to do and I know now it wasn’t smart.” He squinted, as if trying to recall his text. “True, it was not what you think of as killing. But that doesn’t excuse me. It doesn’t excuse anybody. Anybody! ” He frowned and glanced at words written in red ink on his hand. They had bled, like old tattoos.

The monologue continued, his subject betrayal and revenge, and he paced the greenhouse floor, occasionally turning his back on Lis. At one point she almost leapt forward and plunged the blade into his back. But he turned quickly, as if suspicious of her, and continued to speak.

With its faint blue-green lights the room seemed far removed from this time and place. It reminded her of a scene from a book she’d read years ago, perhaps the first novel of her childhood. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It seemed, in her own numb dementia, that they stood not in a rural greenhouse but in a Victorian submarine and that she was an innocent harpooner, watching the mad captain rant while the dark ocean passed over and around them.

Michael talked about cows and Christian Scientists and women who hid behind unfashionable hats. He mourned the loss of a beloved black car. Several times he mentioned a Dr. Anne and, scowling, a Dr. Richard. Was that, she wondered, Kohler?

Then he wheeled toward her. “I wrote you a letter. And you never answered it.”

“But you didn’t put a return address on it. And you didn’t sign it. How would I know who it was from?”

“Nice try,” he snapped. “But you knew I sent it.”

His eyes were so piercing she said at once, “I knew, yes. I’m sorry.”

“They kept you from writing, didn’t they?”

“Well-”

“The spirits. The con-spirat-ors.”

She nodded and he rambled on. He seemed to think her given name had seven letters in it. This pleased him enormously and she was terrified that he’d find some correspondence or a bill that would reveal the extra letter and he’d kill her for this deceit.

“And now it’s time,” he said solemnly, and Lis shivered again.

He pulled his backpack off and set it beside him. Then he undid his overalls, pulling them down over his massive thighs. The fly of his boxer shorts parted and, stunned, she saw a dark stubby penis, semi-erect.

Oh, God…

Lis gripped the knife, waiting for him to put down the pistol and pull his engorged prick free. She’d leap the instant he did.

But Michael never let go of the gun. His left hand, the damaged one, was deep within his stained and filthy underwear, as if exciting himself further. But after a moment, when he removed his fingers, she saw he was holding a small plastic bag. The opening had been tied shut with a piece of string and he squinted like an absorbed child as he carefully untied it with his good hand. He paused to pull his overalls up once more and with some frustration reclipped the straps.

He pulled from the bag a piece of newspaper. It was damp and tattered. He held it out like a tray and on it he reverently placed a tiny perfect animal skull, which he’d taken from his backpack. When she didn’t touch either of these, he smiled knowingly at her caution and laid them on the table beside her. He opened and smoothed the newspaper clipping then pushed it halfway to her, stepping back like a retriever that had just deposited a shot quail at a hunter’s foot.

His hands were at his side, the gun muzzle down. Lis planned her assault. She would slip closer and aim for his eyes. What a horrible thought! But she had to act. Now was the time. She tightened her grip and glanced at the clipping. It was a local newspaper’s account of the murder trial, the margins filled with the minute scrawl of his handwriting. Bits of words, pictures, stars, arrows-a good freehand drawing of what seemed to be the presidential seal. A silhouette of Abraham Lincoln. American flags. These all surrounded a photograph Lis recognized: her own grainy black-and-white image, taken as she walked down the courthouse steps toward the car after the verdict.

She and Michael were now six feet apart. She casually stepped closer, lifting the clipping, tilting her head toward it as she pretended to read. Her eyes were on the gun in his hand. She smelled his foul odor, she heard his labored breathing.

“There’s so much betrayal,” he whispered.

She gripped the knife. His eyes! Aim for the eyes. Do it. Do it! Left eye, then right. Then roll beneath a table. Do it! Don’t hesitate. She eased her weight forward, ready to leap.

“So much betrayal,” he said, and flecks of his spittle pelted her face. She didn’t back away. He looked down at the gun and transferred it to his good hand. Lis’s grip tightened on the knife. She was incapable of praying but many thoughts filled her mind: Of her father. And mother. Oh, and please, Owen, I hope you’re alive. Our love was perhaps damaged but at least, at times, it was love. And Portia I love you too-even if we’ll never become what I hoped we might.

“All right,” Michael Hrubek said. He turned the gun over in his palm and offered it to her, grip first. “All right,” he repeated gently. She was too afraid to take her eyes from the pistol for more than an instant but in that brief glance at his face she saw the abundant tears that streamed down his cheeks. “Do it now,” he said with a choked voice, “do it quickly.”

Lis did not move.

“Here,” he insisted, and thrust the gun into her hand. She dropped the clipping. It spun to the floor like a leaf. Michael knelt at her feet and lowered his head in a primitive signal of supplication. He pointed to the back of his head and said, “Here. Do it here.”

It’s a trick! she thought madly. It must be.

“Do it quickly.”

She set the knife on the table and held the gun loosely. “Michael…” His first name was cold in her mouth. It was like tasting sand. “Michael, what do you want?”

“I’ll pay for the betrayal with my life. Do it now, do it quickly.”

She whispered, “You didn’t come here to kill me?”

“Why, I’d no more kill you than hurt that dog in there.” He laughed, nodding toward the supply closet.

Lis spoke without thinking. “But you set traps for dogs!”

He twisted his mouth up wryly. “I put the traps down to slow up the conspirators, sure. That was just a smart thing to do. But they weren’t set. They were sprung already. I’d never hurt a dog. Dogs are God’s creatures and live in pure innocence.”

She was shocked. Why, his whole journey this evening meant nothing. A man who’d kill people and revere dogs. Michael had traveled all these miles to play out some macabre, pointless fantasy.

“You see,” he offered, “what people say about Eve isn’t true. She was a victim. Just like me. A victim of the devil, in her case. Government conspirators, in mine. How can you blame someone who’s been betrayed? You can’t! It wouldn’t be fair! Eve was persecuted, and so am I. Aren’t we alike, you and me? Isn’t it just amazing, Lis-bone?” He laughed.

“Michael,” she said, her voice quivering, “will you do something for me?”

He looked up, his face as sad as the hound’s.

“I’m going to ask you to come upstairs with me.”

“No, no, no… We can’t wait. You have to do it. You have to! That’s what I’ve come for.” He was weeping. “It was so terrible and hard. I’ve come so far… Please, it’s time for me to go to sleep.” He nodded at the gun. “I’m so tired.”

“A favor for me. Just for a little while.”

“No, no… They’re all around us. You don’t understand how dangerous it is. I’m so tired of being awake.”

“For me?” she begged.

“I don’t think I can.”

“You’ll be safe there. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”