Hobbs had sat there and killed seven of those damned tree rats, and it hadn’t made him feel a bit better about anything. Stupid, stupid squirrels. Blindsided by an obvious trap. After the first couple, they should have gotten wise to the game. Didn’t they see the pile of bodies beneath the tree? They had to see them. They just weren’t smart enough to stay away. Hunger got the best of them. Dead for birdseed they didn’t even need. They just wanted it.
Sick of killing squirrels, he got up and hooked the .22 under his arm. In the boathouse he found an old sack. He filled the bottom with fist-size stones from the riprap. His hands looked like weathered claws seeking among the rocks.
He gathered the squirrel corpses in the sack and tied the top in a knot. Then he threw them off the end of the dock and watched them sink where he liked to drop a line. Little thieves could bring the catfish. Maybe later he’d catch the catfish. If he lasted that long.
He looked up toward the house. A fixed address, by God. He’d never thought he’d have that. That was Grace’s doing. She had wanted the house, said they needed it for a write-off. She was a good woman, but she hadn’t been when he’d met her. Beautiful, sure, but salty, and working her ass for all it was worth. He’d been through a string just like her. And even now, nearly thirty years later, he couldn’t figure out what was different about her.
He’d taken her from a weak-chinned finger who was already betraying his partners. He’d never fooled around on the job much, but the man’s lack of loyalty offended him. And, well, the obvious, low cleavage and long legs that she paraded around in front of him like it was on sale, made it easy to make an exception. Now, even at fifty, she was hot enough to melt the ice on the front walk. That joke had made her smile for the last fifteen years.
The lake house was the perfect backdrop for that joke. In the beginning they had come here only during the winter months, when the lake was abandoned. The rest of the time they’d lived in hotels and on room service. Once or twice a year, he’d pull a job. But here, Grace said, they could be themselves. And perhaps they were. Sometimes Hobbs had trouble remembering what his real name was, especially up here in the snow. And his self? He honestly had no idea.
He was the job. And when he wasn’t on the job, he was antsy. As he was now. He didn’t know how much longer he could hang around here. Nothing had come together in a while. Everything seemed harder now. As if the world had changed. But maybe he was just older.
Once Grace had teased him about retiring. It had started harmlessly enough. She was stroking her fingers through his closely cropped gray hair. She told him how the years looked good on him. And that this gray was a sign that it was time for Hobbs to retire so they could grow old together.
He had stiffened and turned, gotten up from in front of the fireplace, and fixed himself a drink. She had followed, missing the signal, still teasing. Telling the old man to pack it in. The times were moving too fast for him. It was one of the only times he had hit her, and he had immediately regretted it.
She had turned away and held her hand to her face for a long time. Then she had turned back, looking at the blood from her lip. She had reached down with her bloody hand and grabbed a few cubes of ice. She’d brought them to her lips, trying to be tough girl about it, but Hobbs could see the tears in her eyes.
He had shaken his head and almost apologized. She had thrown the ice in his face and kissed him, warm and salty and tasting of blood. They’d made love, right there, as they had the first time—when they had cheated death and the law and had made it out alive. When they were done, that’s when Hobbs had realized there was something wrong with him. A hole in the water of his soul that he just couldn’t fill.
They had gotten away with it. She once. He many times. They had escaped death and betrayal and jail. This was supposed to be it. This life with this beautiful woman, not rich, but beyond the cares of money, this was the prize. How many had he seen go down to the grave or up to the pen? And as they breathed their last or as the cellblock clanged shut behind them, this—this very moment that Hobbs had—wasn’t this what they had prayed for?
For Hobbs, it was not enough.
He rubbed his eyes. In the darkness behind his lids he saw the glassy-eyed squirrels in a pile below the tree, saw them disappearing into the sack. Saw the sack sinking into the blackness of the lake water.
From the house he heard the phone ring. Not a shitty electronic warble, but the honest sound that was made when one piece of metal slammed into another, bell-shaped piece of metal.
Grace waved him up to the house. The bell tolled for him.
As he walked to the house, he thought maybe the thing that drove him was the same thing that caused the squirrels to climb over a pile of dead bodies for a chance at the feeder.
In the kitchen he picked up the phone and said, “Hobbs.”
On the other end of the line was a gruff voice, the kind that sounded as if it ate cigars for lunch. The voice said, “I’m closing the place down. If you want to pay ya tab or ya respects, come ahead. If you don’t, then the hell wit’ cha.” Then the voice hung up.
“Who was it?” asked Grace.
Hobbs replaced the phone on its hanger and said, “I gotta go see a guy.”
“When?” she asked.
“Tomorrow.”
“But it’s your birthday!” she said.
Hobbs went back outside.