"It's something wild," he said. "It feels like, I don't know, like this animal side of me that's always been there, only I'd kept it locked away. And once I realized it I felt like, for the first time in my life, I knew who I really was.

"The problem is, I'd starved it so long that when I did finally let it out, it tore my whole life apart." He paused, as a chill rush pa.s.sed through him. "And I'm afraid of it now."

Syd stopped, tears welling up in his eyes. "I mean, I feel like now that I know what it is, I'll die without it, or be as good as dead.

"But if I let it out again, it'll kill me," he said. "Or else it'll hurt the people I love."

Like Jules, he meant to say. Like you . . .

Jane sat up then, turned toward him. The setting sun was just kissing the mountain's ridge: throwing long shadows across the valley, bathing her features in red and gold. She studied him skeptically, shook her head emphatically.

"Bulls.h.i.t," she said.

Syd looked at her, shocked.

"Being an animal isn't your problem, Syd." Her tone was matter-of-fact, unwavering. "Being an animal has nothing to do with it. Everyone's an animal. It's the natural order of things.

"But it's not a license to be a jerk."

Syd opened his mouth, closed it again. Her gaze was hot upon him. He was about to tell her no, you don't understand, but she stopped him before he could speak.

"Your problem is that you think too much," Jane said, "and you get way too bent out of shape about s.h.i.t that shouldn't even matter. Some things you just know, like you know them in your gut. Nora was nothing but trouble, Syd, you'd have to be blind not to see that. And as for Karen, Jesus . . ."

Jane stopped, caught herself. Syd read her look, sensed some secret knowledge hidden there. "What about Karen?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said. "It doesn't matter."

"No, tell me," Syd insisted, suddenly annoyed. "What about Karen?"

The question hung in the air like a threat. Jane looked around as if there might be some way to deflect his attention. Syd followed her gaze, offering no escape. "It's nothing," she reiterated. "I just saw things, okay?"

"What kinds of things?"

"Things I didn't like very much."

"Like what?"

Jane paused, not liking the interrogatory shift the conversation had taken. "She came into the bar a lot," she said finally, the last word pregnant with meaning.

"What, like with Vaughn?"

"Yes . . ." she said, then, ". . . and with other people."

"Like who?" Syd stared at her disbelievingly. The tension level skyrocketed, as Syd's expression changed from I can't believe I'm hearing this to I can't believe I'm hearing this NOW!

"Who'd she come into the bar with?"

"I don't know," Jane replied, annoyed herself now. "Other guys. Some guy named Doug. Another guy, an artist . . ." She thought about it. "Philip something or another. He was from New York, I think. . . ."

Syd flipped back through his internal Rolodex, searching for all the Dougs and Philips that might fit the bill. The only Doug he knew was this dweeby guy that hung on the periphery of their acquaintance pool, a harmless would-be hipster who got s.h.i.t-faced at parties and wore T-shirts emblazoned with catchy slogans like ten reasons why beer is better than women. And as for the other guy. . . .

"What about this Phil?"

"What about him?" Jane said.

"Tell me about him!" Syd demanded.

"I don't know anything about him!" she cried. "What does it matter?"

"IT MATTERS!!" he roared. Jane backed away instantly, recoiling from his explosion. Syd pinned back his rage, beat it down, tried again. "I'm sorry," he said. "I just have to know, okay?"

Jane shook her head. "Some of them I knew, most I'd never seen before." Syd winced at the word most; Jane sighed and continued, her gaze painfully intense. "She did it a lot, Syd. She did it all the time."

"Jesus, Jane!" he said. "Why the h.e.l.l didn't you tell me this?"

"I didn't know you!" she shot back. "I didn't know what your rules were. You work in bars long enough, you see some pretty strange s.h.i.t. Maybe you knew. Maybe you got off on it. How was I supposed to know?"

"You could have asked me!" he said bitterly. "You could have said something."

"Yeah?" she replied sarcastically. "What the h.e.l.l did you want me to say: hey, Syd, how's it hangin'? By the way, did you know your wife is a s.l.u.t?"

Syd stood then, started pacing and shaking his head. There was one final question, burning in the center of his brain. Syd took a deep breath, faced her.

"Did Jules know about this?" he asked. His voice cracked, as dry as dead leaves. The look in Jane's eyes telegraphed the answer before she even opened her mouth.

"Everybody knew, Syd," she replied softly. "It was happening right out in the open. There was no way for us not to know.

"The only reason you didn't see it," she said flatly, "was because you didn't want to."

Jane stopped then, regret implicit in her tone, as though she wished there were some way to take it back, or at least soften the impact of the knowledge. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to . . ."

. . . but Syd was no longer hearing anything she said, so busy was he listening to the sound of his own blood roaring through his veins. His breathing was quick and shallow; when he next looked at her he saw a red that had nothing to do with the setting sun.

And then he was moving, he was moving, away from Jane and up the path, into the darkening woods. She called out to him, but Syd ignored her. One thought alone held sway in his mind, a single snarling impulse behind it.

She lied, he thought. She f.u.c.king lied to me.

Syd gave himself over to the impulse, under the setting sun, as the night descended upon them.

And the luminous moon rose high.

32.

Meanwhile, some four hundred miles away, the beat of business-as-usual was wearing very thin.

In fact, Vic thought, if she doesn't shut up pretty soon, I'm gonna rip her f.u.c.king head off and p.i.s.s down the stump.

Not that Nora wasn't being just as nice as pie. Of course she was. Now that she had what she wanted. The fact that Nora's nicey-nice had been totally purchased at his expense just served to expand the already-yawning emotional abyss between them.

Vic glanced at the neon clock on the wall. Eleven thirty-five, on a dead Wednesday night. They were sitting on the patio of a tacky little tourist trap called Viper's, just off Atlantic Avenue in beautiful scenic Virginia Beach, Va. It was the second week of their little oceanside vacation together: Vic's latest attempt to make her happy, salvage what was left of their hopelessly f.u.c.ked-up relationship.

The trip had been bankrolled by one P. Clinton Melhorn: a resourceful, fun-loving Baltimore businessman with thousands of dollars' worth of available credit on his battery of credit cards, not to mention a b.i.t.c.hin' Mercedes with a truly breathtaking Blaupunkt sound system. Clint had recently relocated-rather abruptly, in fact-to a celestial condo in the great Hereafter, but his legacy of quality spending lived on. Their suite at the Seaside Hideaway Resort Inn-complete with Jacuzzi, jumbo king-size bed, oceanfront balcony, wet bar, the works-was a tribute of sorts to the man's spectacular earning power and upscale tastes.

It should have been a world-cla.s.s vacation. And had Vic done it by himself, he would have had the time of his life. But no, he had to bring her along; and d.a.m.ned if she hadn't done everything in her power to make sure that this was not the best, but the absolute worst time of his life.

All because of one little indiscretion.

One little potentially life-changing indiscretion.

Oh, you b.i.t.c.h, he silently fumed. How could you do it? How could you make ME do it?

But of course he couldn't say anything, because it would just tip Nora over into another psychotic episode, and G.o.d knows he didn't need another one of those. After everything she'd already put him through, this little pocket of peace was almost worth the sound of her voice. It brought him a couple of seconds to think.

And, perchance, to plot and scheme . . .

"Baby?" It was her I'm talking to you voice, modulated for easy listening. He could pretend not to hear her for another second at the most. It wasn't worth the bother.

"Yeah," he said, carefully diffident.

"I was just thinking," she said, "about how we first met."

Oh, great! he thought bitterly. And just in time, too! It was all he could do to keep from smashing his gla.s.s into her face. He resisted the impulse, went for a noncommittal nod of the head.

She sighed. "It was a night like this, remember? Moon almost full, shining over the mountains . . ." She paused to look out past the boardwalk to the ocean beyond, the bright slick of light that washed across its infinite rippling surface. "I took one look at you and thought I would die.

I just couldn't believe how beautiful you were, like some sort of pagan G.o.d. . . ."

She paused to chew softly on her ripe lower lip, an automatic gesture he had always found maddeningly erotic. Now it merely repulsed him. In the dim light, she looked suddenly very much as she had twenty years earlier, or twenty years before that, before the terminal toxicity had set in. Vic looked past her to the ocean and the moon, did his d.a.m.nedest to resist nostalgia's tidal pull.

''. . . you turned my whole life around." She was still speaking. "G.o.d, I was so in love with you then." She bowed her head, eyes closed, as if mourning the loss. "Of course, that was before you started to hate me. . . ."

"Jesus." Vic groaned wearily. "I don't hate you, Nora."

She looked up, shook her head, and sadly smiled. "You lie, you lie. But, hey, why am I surprised? Everybody knows you can't tell the truth to ol' crazy Nora. She'll just flip out." She paused, took a swig off her drink.

And he wanted to say that's exactly right, Nora. You'd be great if you were deaf dumb, and blind, and then maybe we did something with your G.o.ddam sense of smell. Then maybe you wouldn't have to FLIP THE f.u.c.k OUT every time I just happen to casually notice that you aren't the ONLY WOMAN IN THE WORLD . . . !!! He felt the anger mount in him, enjoyed the sick thrillrush of savagery it inspired. I mean, it's just a thought, baby-and I wouldn't want to knock the planet out of orbit or anything-but has it ever occurred to you that I might not even LOOK at another woman if you weren't such a psychotic f.u.c.king manipulative b.i.t.c.h.

He wanted to say it, but instead he turned his head. His whiskey beckoned. He drained it in a gulp, spotted his waitress, held the empty gla.s.s up for her to see. When she nodded her bovine head, Vic went back to looking at the clock. Eleven forty-one. And way too slowly counting.

Nora just sat there, deep in Noraland. Evidently, she was waiting for him to refute her claim. When he could stand the silence no longer, he said, "Listen. If I really hated you that much, I wouldn't still be sticking around now, would I?"

She got a rich, automatic little chuckle out of that. It really p.i.s.sed Vic off. This time, it showed very clearly in his eyes.

"What?" he hissed, showing teeth.

Nora's eyes went wide. "I'm sorry," she said. All at once, she was Ms. Contrition. "Vic, I understand. You're very upset. And I know how hard it was to do . . . to do what you did." He tensed; she sensed it, and her little speech grew even more saccharine and heartfelt. "I just want you to know that . . . oh, G.o.d. Just that it meant a lot to me."

It was Vic's turn to chuckle: an ugly little bark that felt good coming out, like dislodging a psychic hairball. It should have been enough to warn anyone away. But when she reached out and took his hand, he felt himself go cold and still.

Her emerald eyes had lit upon him. Reluctantly, he brought his gaze up to meet hers.

And in so doing, found himself pulled back through the year and a half that had brought them to this place . . .

Practically from the moment they'd left Pennsylvania, the h.e.l.l had begun in earnest. Nora may have been back in the fold, but she'd made it painfully clear that she was not there of her own volition. And while she never tried to run away again-some fundamental aspect of her spirit had been broken, evidently for good-Nora was living proof that there was always more than one way to escape.

She began to drink; and Vic wasn't talking normal drinking here. He wasn't even talking normal Nora drinking, which would be enough to put most light infantry divisions under a very large table. No, her jacked-up metabolism required alcohol in superhuman doses to achieve the oblivion she craved.

Vic understood. She'd somehow gotten it into her head that it was his fault that she couldn't have pups, and it was hard to let go of the fantasy. The only conceivable antidote was a customized blend of patience, persistence, and just the right amount of iron-handed discipline: three qualities that, in those days, he had in seemingly infinite supply. It didn't matter how many times she descended to her lowest, most venomous liquored-down state. He loved her, and that was what mattered. Everything else was irrelevant, would burn away with time and the heat of his unlimited devotion.

Still, it was hard, keeping up the good fight in the face of her unmitigated rage and despair. The months dragged on, spring turning to summer, fall to winter, and their predatory lifestyle saw them drifting from state to state to state without any real change in their dynamic. Except for maybe a change for the worse . . .

Nora was getting increasingly sloppy on him, for one thing: when they would go to tag-team some poor dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.d she would play along just fine through the stalking and the pickup and the setup, only to blow the sting a split second before Vic made his entrance. Vic could recall six occasions when he had found himself staring down a gun barrel at the critical moment of truth, mostly as a result of her newfound bad timing and her big f.u.c.king mouth.

Sure, he could take care of himself. And sure, it would take more than a stray round from some redneck p.e.c.k.e.rwood's Sat.u.r.day Night Special to put him down. But that was hardly the point.

The point was, it was just her little way of rubbing his previous f.u.c.kup in his face. She would never let him forget how the ox snuck up on him that night, the cold steel kiss against the back of his skull. Like she wanted to remind him that he was slipping, or losing his touch. Or maybe it was a genuine death wish. It was hard to tell.

At any rate, as time wore on he found himself growing increasingly frustrated with her carelessness, and her intransigence. What was the f.u.c.king deal here he wondered. What had he done that was so wrong?

You really don't know, do you? She'd practically spat it in his face. And he'd said well, no, I don't. To which she'd replied, you didn't have to kill him.

Kill who? he wanted to know. He knew d.a.m.ned well she didn't know about whatsisname back in Pee-aye. She clammed up again. And again, he pressed: so who the f.u.c.k did I kill that was so important he could get between you and me?

Michael, she said.

Michael who? he asked, genuinely perplexed.

Mississippi, she replied, and would say no more. Tears were in her eyes. Tears that had nothing to do with Vic.

Then, and only then, did he realize the extent of her betrayal.

At that point, it required a superhuman effort on his part to keep from Changing on the spot, going absolutely berserk. The scar on his face was burning. He suddenly remembered all too well. From his perspective, it had always been just another dumbs.h.i.t f.u.c.king pick, albeit slightly further along than the rest. Now he realized that it had run deeper than that.

He demanded to know if she'd been in love with him. She looked him dead in the eye and said yes. She might as well have just stabbed him in the heart, for all the compa.s.sion implicit in the gesture. He asked her how dare you, how f.u.c.king dare you give your heart to someone other than me?

And this was what she said: Because he loved me. He genuinely loved me. Not like a toy, or a possession. Not like you. Michael cared about me.

Oh, said Vic. And I don't.

No, she told him. No, you don't. You don't even know how. He was good to me, Vic. I never would have left him if you hadn't come along. But even if I did, he wouldn't have tried to force it. He wouldn't have chased me down like a dog. He would have taken the f.u.c.king hint.