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I shrug and turn to the others, pointing up the steps. Bert is unloading the
luggage from the back.
Come on, I say, I ll show you to your rooms and you can change before lunch
if you d like. Bert will take care of the bags.
I ll get mine, Allen says. He hurries back, pulls his bag out of Bert s
hands, and takes Dani s too.
I apologize for being old-fashioned, but tell them since I didn t know how
they normally do things that I ve prepared separate rooms for Dani and Allen.
I show them to their rooms and ask them to make themselves at home. Lunch will
be at one and until then they can either head out on the lake with me for some
fishing or relax down on the dock or on the back porch.
I have a woman, Verna, who ll be down in the boathouse giving massages for
anyone who d like one, I say. She s the best there is. Hands like an
ironworker.
Allen asks if he can do anything to help. I tell him just have a beer down on
the dock and that I ll meet him there to go fishing in a few minutes. On my
way downstairs, I pass Bert coming up.
Still there? I ask.
He looks back and grunts. When I walk out onto the porch, Villay and his wife
are shouting at each other. When they see me, they stop and stare. Villay runs
a hand through his curly hair and forces a smile.
Your room is the first one on the left when you go upstairs, I say with a
smile that suggests it s perfectly normal for them to be acting this way.
I ll be down at the dock. We ll hold the boat for you, Dean. I think you
should join us and throw a line in the water. Christina, just ask one of the
girls if you need anything. And I ve got a masseuse down at the boathouse if
you d like a massage.
Thank you, Dean Villay says. I m sorry. Christina s feeling better. We ll
be there soon.
I nod, then go back into the house. My bedroom suite takes up the entire south
end of the house, and from the sitting room, I peer out behind the curtains at
the two of them, watching their hands stab the air as they bare their teeth.
Finally, ten minutes later, they embrace and then Villay helps his wife down
out of the truck.
BOOK FOUR
REVENGE
You re a noble and honorable woman and you disarmed me for a moment with your
sorrow, but behind me, invisible, unknown and wrathful, there was God, of whom
I was only the agent and who did not choose to prevent my blows from reaching
their mark.
THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO
49
WHEN PEOPLE THINK of upstate New York, they think of winter. Brutal cold and
storms that dump four or five feet of snow. But the most vicious weather comes
in the summer when a warm placid day is suddenly transformed by violent
thunder, lightning, and wind that makes children whimper and smells like the
end of the world.
Bert has the TV in the living room on without the sound. He points to the
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screen as I walk past.
See that? he says.
I stop and look at the radar map. A dark green wall with a belly of red,
yellow, and orange oozes slowly from west to east across the backside of Ohio
toward western New York.
Looks bad, I say, peering outside at the sun-drenched back lawn.
It will be, Bert says.
Turn that off, okay? I say.
Down on the expansive teak dock, Rangle s wife and daughter are lounging on
deck chairs, oiled up, with their faces tilted toward the sun. Allen and
Rangle are already on board the twenty-eight-foot party boat. Bert gets behind
the wheel and the motor puffs blue smoke into the clean air. Villay hurries
down the path, across the dock, and hops on board the boat with another
apology for holding things up. Bert casts off and we ease out toward the
middle of the lake.
Allen digs into the cooler and passes out bottles of Heineken. We talk about
the color of the water and the smattering of new homes that mar the crest of
the far hills. When we get to where the fish are, Bert drops the anchor and
begins handing out fully rigged poles. I scoop up a shiner out of the bait
bucket and hold up the wriggling minnow for everyone to see.
I look at Villay as I speak.
What you want to do is run your hook through the mouth, like this, I say,
punching the hook up through the bottom side of the fish s jaw and out through
its tiny snout. Some people hook them through the back, but it kills them too
quickly. If you want to get a big one, something worth having, you have to
hook it like this.
What s the difference? Rangle asks.
Panic and agony, I say, then smile. The minnow thrashes longer and harder
when you hook it through the face. The big ones get excited. It s like an
IPO.
Rangle smiles with me. Villay is the last one to get a minnow and he
hesitates. I put my hand on his arm.
Bert will do it, I say, looking down at him.
He looks at me and smiles.
We sit quietly around the edge of the boat on padded benches, our poles
dangling in the air. Waves lap against the aluminum pontoons. I close my eyes
behind their sunglasses and listen, enjoying the bath of sunlight, the taste
of a cold bottle of beer, and the pressure I can actually feel building up
behind Dean Villay s face. Rangle and Allen talk football among themselves and
Bert keeps glancing to the west while I wait.
Villay stands up and his reel clicks as he brings in his line. I open my eyes
to see him inching this way. He sits down beside me and says, I understand
you re interested in my ideas on some constitutional issues.
The president has asked me to give him a name or two, I say, slowly bringing
in my own line. Your career interests me.
I like to think I m as conservative as Clarence Thomas, he says.
I ve read several of your more important decisions, I say, popping my minnow
out of the water and letting it writhe in the air. But I m not completely
clear on where you sit with the death penalty.
I cast my line out again.
The lines on his face ease. He squints at a boat going by before he says,
It s not a deterrent. We know that. But I think in some cases, it s morally
justified.
What about the innocent ones? I ask. Everyone is listening now. Doesn t the
state become the criminal when one innocent man, even one in a thousand, is
executed, when in fact he is innocent?
If a man is found guilty in a jury trial of his peers, Villay says with a
small smile, by definition, he cannot be innocent. Are we talking [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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