“Stop calling me! Who are you? Why are you doing this?” Then Hawthorne caught Krueger’s eye and hung up the receiver. He stood beside his desk, rubbing his forehead.

Before Krueger could speak, Hilda knocked quickly, then opened the door wide enough to stick her head through. “Is everything all right? I heard shouting.”

“Yes, yes, everything’s fine. Did you put that call through to me?”

“I was out of the office. It must have gone through automatically.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Of course, of course.” She looked at Hawthorne with motherly concern, then withdrew, quietly shutting the door.

“What in the world was that?” asked Krueger.

Hawthorne stood by the desk, half-turned from his friend. “Nothing important.”

Krueger hesitated, reluctant to push too deeply. But he had to push. “It frightened you. What was it?”

The expression on Hawthorne’s face shifted between anger and relief. “A woman keeps calling me; it’s happened five times. She tells me how much she loves me, how much she misses me. She says how she wants me to join her. She says it’s Meg, that it’s Meg calling me.”

“Good grief.”

“But it’s not Meg, it’s not her voice. The woman’s called twice in the middle of the night. Every time the phone rings I’m afraid it might be her.”

—

Frank LeBrun leaned back on the pumpkin-colored broken-down couch that, other than his bed, was the only half-comfortable place to sit in his studio apartment above the garage. In his left hand he held a small glass of tequila. He held it toward Jessica Weaver and she clinked her glass against his. They both drank. LeBrun swirled the tequila around in his mouth and smiled.

“We could cut his balls off,” he said conversationally, sticking his legs out in front of him and crossing his black cowboy boots. “Just cut them off and shove them in his mouth. I’ve read books where guys did that.”

Jessica coughed as the tequila burned her throat. “Wouldn’t he still be alive?”

“Bleeding pretty bad would be my guess. I don’t know if it’d kill him or not.”

“We wouldn’t have a lot of time.” Jessica took a little sip, then set her glass on the arm of the couch, where tufts of white stuffing pushed through the frayed fabric. She didn’t particularly like tequila but she didn’t want to offend LeBrun.

“Hey, he just about ate you up. Fucking babies—you don’t fuck babies. You hear what I’m saying? He deserves something with a lot of pain. It’d be a waste to kill him too quick.” For a moment LeBrun’s face grew still, then he wrinkled his brow and said. “Did I tell you what kind of sheep make virgin wool?”

“Yeah, ugly sheep. I didn’t like it.”

“Picky, picky, picky.”

LeBrun reached for the bottle of tequila and poured them both another shot. It was lunchtime, but he and his cousin Larry alternated lunch duty, and Jessica hadn’t felt like going to the dining room. She wanted to sort out some stuff with LeBrun—her business deal, she called it. His studio apartment had windows on three sides, but the shades were drawn and the overhead light made everything look yellow. LeBrun’s bed was unmade and dirty dishes were stacked on the table. There was a sweaty smell and a whiff of oranges gone bad.

“And we’ve got to work out when we do it. I mean, I can’t just take off anytime. It wouldn’t be responsible. I got friends here. Like, I got talents people want. I can’t just let them down.” LeBrun chuckled contentedly. “Besides, the money’s too good.”

“I don’t know about killing Tremblay,” said Jessica. “I just want to grab Jason and get out of there. If he gets killed and Jason is missing, the cops will be right after me.”

“Hey, two thousand bucks, basically you’re paying me to ice a guy whether you want an ice job or not. Maybe you could take your brother, then I could come back and finish up. Or maybe I could do Tremblay someplace else. Like a golf course, I never did a guy on a golf course.”

“It’ll be December,” said Jessica. Her eyes were running from the tequila and she wiped them with the back of her hand. “Guys don’t play golf in December.”

“They do in Florida.”

“Yeah, smarty, but this is Exeter, New Hampshire. There’ll be snow.”

LeBrun dropped his glass, spilling tequila on the sofa. His hand shot out and he grabbed the girl’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing it. “Don’t make fun of me, Misty. You just don’t know how mean I can get.” He held her briefly, then let go.

Jessica rubbed her jaw. “I was only joking . . .”

“Don’t talk to me about it.”

LeBrun picked up his glass from the cushion and poured himself more tequila. He stared straight ahead at the opposite wall. A thirteen-year-old calendar hung above his bed. It had a photograph of a covered bridge with snow on the roof and birch trees in the foreground and a blue sky. He had hung it there himself. He liked the picture; it looked like the sort of place he wanted to visit. He didn’t care about the year. What the fuck did he care what year it was?

“Then I’ll just pop him,” said LeBrun perfectly calmly, as if he had never gotten angry. “I’ll just come back the next day and put a nail in his head. Did I tell you why women have legs?”

Jessica had moved to the other end of the couch. She leaned forward, holding her tequila in both hands. Her glass was a jelly jar decorated with two purple dinosaurs. “Yes, you did. I didn’t like that one, either.”

“Come on, tell me. What’s the answer?”

Jessica didn’t look at him. “So they won’t leave snail tracks on the linoleum floor.”

LeBrun threw himself back and laughed. “Jesus, I love it. Can’t you just see it?” His laughter had a grating sound. “I could hear that joke again and again.”

Jessica watched him laughing. “I don’t think we should kill Tremblay,” she said, raising her voice to get LeBrun’s attention.

He turned to face her, surprised. “Why the fuck not? Doesn’t he deserve it?”

“I want to get away. I want to get Jason and disappear. I don’t want cops after me.”

LeBrun lit a cigarette. He offered one to Jessica but she shook her head. “Well, fuck, then the job’s not worth two grand. Maybe one, sure, but not two. You don’t want to pay me that much. You’ll be just throwing your money away.”

Jessica was uncertain whether he was serious. Sometimes she couldn’t tell with LeBrun. It was one of the things that had come to frighten her about him. You wouldn’t know whether he was serious or joking until it was too late. “That would be a help. I’d need money to live for a while.”

“That doesn’t mean there isn’t some other kind of payment I want.” LeBrun leaned forward and poured her more tequila. She looked up at him quickly and a few drops of the tequila spilled on the couch. “Hey, watch it,” he said, “that’s valuable stuff.”

“What kind of payment?” Jessica told herself this always happened sooner or later.

“How come you wear those baggy sweatshirts all the time? They make you look like a rag doll. You don’t look like a girl, you don’t look like nothing.”

“Maybe I like wearing them. What kind of payment are you talking about?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s not worth the trouble.” He stubbed his cigarette out in a saucer. “It’s another job I’m doing for a guy. One of my buddies.” He laughed again.

“What kind of payment?”

“Stand up and turn around.”

Jessica set her glass on the floor and stood up. She wasn’t sure whether to make a joke of it or to be serious. She turned slowly, trying to imagine all the things she would do to get LeBrun to help her. She wondered who the other person was and what he wanted.

“Jesus, you’re a klutz. I can’t see a thing. Don’t you have a body? Take off the sweatshirt.”

Jessica removed the sweatshirt. She wore nothing underneath. It was cool in the room and her white flesh got goose pimples.

“Keep turning, Misty. Hold your arms out. Not much to you, is there?”