The knock came on Ruth’s door at one in the morning. She was awake, of course—she had barely slept since the fire. Sunday’s sunrise had found her standing behind the police line tape in her bathrobe and slippers, staring in horror at what was left of Happy’s outlet store. She scanned the crowd for Kevin Russell, hoping to find him there, because if he was there, it might mean that he hadn’t done it.
But of course he had done it. She had all but told him to. What she had actually said was “Hit her back”—foolishly confident that they had been dealing in the realm of petty insults, minor vandalism, symbolic mischief. How stupid she’d been! “Hit her back,” she’d told him, and handed him a hundred bucks. “You’ll get the other fifty when you’re done.”
“The other hundred,” Kevin had corrected, tucking the bills into the pocket of his jeans.
“That’s not what we agreed on.”
“You’re asking me,” he drawled, “to cheat on my boss. She’s a killer, you know.”
She stared daggers at him, but he didn’t back down. What could she say? She was desperate. Her first hundred dollars was already in his pocket. She said okay.
All she’d wanted was for Happy’s grand capitalist scheme to fall on its face. All she’d wanted was a little humiliation, a little jab to the ribs to remind Happy Masters she wasn’t the only bitch in town. Instead she’d gotten arson by proxy. If Kevin blabbed, Ruth could go to prison. No more sitting by the fire, drinking wine. No more quoting Wittgenstein to teenage girls. No sex, though that might come as a welcome relief.
And now the knock. She jumped out of her chair and stood in the middle of the living room rug, its ragspun circles radiating out like shock waves. What if it was her? What if it was Happy Masters, a cop on each arm and a dimple on each smirking cheek?
But, “I know you’re in there,” Kevin taunted through the door. The knob turned—she never locked her door at night, having never had a reason to be afraid—and he entered, clad in black, like a thief, like a cinder. She tightened the belt of her robe. “Pony up,” he said, laughing.
Ruth flew to him, her fear dispelled by sudden anger. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” she hissed. “I didn’t tell you to do that.”
“‘Hit her back,’ you said.” His face was slick, his eyes dark. Her alarm appeared to amuse him.
“It isn’t funny. We could both go to jail. You knew what I meant!”
He laughed openly at that. “Gimme a break. You didn’t even know what you meant. For all I know you wanted her shot in the head.”
“If I’d wanted you to burn a building down,” she whispered, “I would have said so.”
“If you didn’t want me to burn it down, you would’ve said so.” When she couldn’t produce a response, he kept on. “You left me to do whatever I felt like doing, ‘cause you thought I’d do worse than you ever could. That’s why you hired me, Ruth.”
“That’s not true,” she mumbled.
He leaned in close. “You were right. I could’ve done way worse than that. I’m bad, remember? That’s how come everybody’s throwin’ money at me.” He stood straight, shaking his head. “Where would this great nation be if people did their own dirty work? Every punk would be out of a job. I think you owe me a hundred bucks.”
Ruth knew defeat when she saw it. She went to the bureau and took the crumpled bills out of the middle drawer. It didn’t matter if he knew where the money was, he could have it, for all she cared. She went to him and handed it over, and he took it with a smile. He turned to leave.
“Ruthie,” he said from the door. “Don’t worry about the cops. I used to have a death wish, y’know. I’ll take the heat. As far as I’m concerned I thought this whole thing up myself.”
“You’re fired,” she said.
“My other boss has bigger balls,” he replied, chuckling, and shut the door behind him.
* * *
Archie was already awake when his doorbell sounded sometime later. He’d had a dream, the edges of which were already blurred beyond recognition, the details runny. For years he’d had war dreams, so bad they’d burned themselves into memory more powerfully than the war itself. Eventually they grew dull, and his memory vague; maybe that’s what happened when you got old. Anyway, this dream was no nightmare, it was merely odd, erotic. The lake, his feet in slime, stones against his legs. And Happy Masters. He’d got up, went to the toilet, sat there five minutes waiting for his erection to go away. He pissed, returned to bed, lay awake. He had a sudden impulse to pack it all in and drive somewhere, Arizona maybe, someplace hot and dry all the time. Maybe he’d look into that.
Then the bell rang and he was up like a shot, hammer in his hand, heart in his throat.
He took a breath. Put down the hammer on the bedside table where it lived. Went to the door.
Ruth walked straight past him and sat down at the kitchen table, wrapped in a bathrobe and a pair of yellow rubber boots. She folded her arms and rested her head on top of them.
“Weren’t you cold? You should have put on a pair of pants.”
She didn’t reply to that, so he lit the lumpen candle on the counter and heated up a pan of milk. He made them cocoa—that’s what his mother had used to do when Archie couldn’t sleep. He remembered falling asleep there, in the kitchen, with his mother, the two of them finding themselves slumped on the table in the morning. Gone twenty years now, his parents. Soon he’d be as old as they were when they died.
Ruth sipped the cocoa and spoke her first word of the visit: “Thanks.”
Archie nodded. “So,” he said.
She turned a face toward him that was haggard and anguished, a face that didn’t want to explain. He put up a hand in acknowledgement. They drank their cocoa. Afterward they went to bed, undressed, exhausted themselves in sex, the only free pleasure in town. Archie still wasn’t used to it, sex as comfort, as an extension of friendship. Without particular passion or desperation. It was a different act entirely from what he had been accustomed to, the one he’d discovered at sixteen, the one he was surprised to find he maintained with his wife, until she grew ill. Maybe it would have turned into this, if she had lived. Maybe they would have grown apart. Not for the first time, he wished that if she’d had to die, she wouldn’t have died with their illusions intact.
He lay beside Ruth, willfully slowing his breathing. Their fingertips barely touched. Whatever had happened to her tonight that brought her here, he wasn’t going to find out. He realized that he didn’t want to find out. She said, “This world is made to be ruined.”
“Maybe so,” he had to reply, for he’d had the same thought before.
“I try not to participate. I really do, Archie.”
“Harder,” he said, “than it sounds.” He felt his hands beginning to sweat.
“Damn near impossible.”
She was crying, he could sense it. It was time to hold her, to offer some solace. But he didn’t. He shifted his body, clenched his jaw. He felt like he used to feel waiting in the heat and the wet for the enemy, waiting to jump or run or die. Moments slid by with agonizing slowness. A bead of sweat stung his eye. In time Ruth stopped crying, and she got out of bed. Archie let out breath. She put on her nightgown and her robe.
“What time is it?” he asked, slurring his words with counterfeit sleep.
“Not much later.”
“Stay.”
She shook her head. “I want to go home,” she said.
Blearily, they regarded one another. Always awkward, parting, when you don’t really love someone. For this first time since she got here, Archie felt tired. She gazed at him, sadly, then slipped on her boots and left.