'Yeah,' Marino said. 'Bonnie's found Clyde.'
15
We drove to my home on streets barely touched by traffic. The late night was perfectly still, snow covering the earth like cotton and absorbing sound. Bare trees were black against white, the moon an indistinct face behind fog. I wanted to go for a walk, but Wesley would not let me.
'It's late and you've had a traumatic day,' he said as we sat in his BMW, which was parked behind Marino's car in front of my house. 'You don't need to be walking around out here.'
'You could walk with me.' I felt vulnerable and very tired, and did not want him to leave.
'Neither of us needs to be walking around out here,' he said as Marino, Janet and Lucy disappeared inside my house. 'You need to go inside and get some sleep.'
'What will you do?'
'I have a room.'
'Where?' I asked as if I had a right to know.
'Linden Row. Downtown. Go to bed, Kay. Please.'
He paused, staring out the windshield. 'I wish I could do more, but I can't.'
'I know you can't and I'm not asking you to. Of course, you can't any more than I could if you needed comfort. If you needed someone. That's when I hate loving you. I hate it so much. I hate it so much when I need you. Like now.' I struggled. 'Oh damn.'
He put his arms around me and dried my tears. He touched my hair and held my hand as if he loved it with all his heart. 'I could take you downtown with me tonight if that's what you really want.'
He knew I did not want that because it was impossible. 'No,' I said with a deep breath. 'No, Benton.'
I got out of his car and scooped up a handful of snow. I scrubbed my face with it as I walked around to the front door. I did not want anyone to know I had been crying in the dark with Benton Wesley.
He did not drive off until I had barricaded myself inside my house with Marino, Janet and Lucy. Tucker had ordered an around-the-clock surveillance, and Marino was in charge. He would not entrust our safety to uniformed men parked somewhere in a cruiser or van. He rallied us like Green Berets or guerrillas.
'All right,' he said as we walked into my kitchen. 'I know Lucy can shoot. Janet, you sure as hell better be able to if you're ever gonna graduate from the Academy.'
'I could shoot before the Academy,' she said in her quiet, unflappable way.
'Doc?'
I was looking inside the refrigerator.
'I can make pasta with a little olive oil, Parmesan and onion. I've got cheese if anybody wants sandwiches. Or if you give me a chance to thaw it, I've got le piccagge col pesto di ricotta or tortellini verdi. I think there's enough for four if I warm up both.'
Nobody cared.
'
Nobody cared.
I wanted so much to do something normal.
'I'm sorry,' I said in despair. 'I haven't been to the store lately.'
'I need to get into your safe, Doc,' Marino said.
'I've got bagels.'
'Hey. Anybody hungry?' Marino asked.
No one was. I closed the freezer. The gun safe was in the garage.
'Come on,' I told him.
He followed me out and I opened it for him.
'Do you mind telling me what you're doing?' I asked.
'I'm arming us,' he said as he picked up one handgun after another and looked at my stash of ammunition. 'Damn, you must own stock in Green Top.'
Green Top was an area gun shop that catered not to felons, but to normal citizens who enjoyed sports and home security. I reminded Marino of this, although I could not deny that by normal standards I owned too many guns and too much ammunition.
'I didn't know you had all this,' Marino went on, half inside my large, heavy safe. 'When the hell did you get all this? I wasn't with you.'
'I do shop alone now and then,' I said sharply. 'Believe it or not, I am perfectly capable of buying groceries, clothing and guns all by myself. And I'm very tired, Marino. Let's wind this up.'
'Where are your shotguns?'
'What do you want?'
'What do you have?'
'Remingtons. A Marine Magnum. An 870 Express Security.'
'That'll do.'
'Would you like me to see if I can round up some plastic explosives?' I said. 'Maybe I can put my hands on a grenade launcher.'
He pulled out a Glock nine-millimeter. 'So you're into combat Tupperware, too.'
'I've used it in the indoor range for test fires,' I said. That's what I've used most of these guns for. I've got several papers to present at various meetings. This is making me crazy. Are you going into my dresser drawers next?'
Marino tucked the Glock in the back of his pants. 'Let's see. And I'm gonna swipe your stainless steel Smith and Wesson nine-mil and your Colt. Janet likes Colts.'
I closed the safe and angrily spun the dial. Marino and I returned to the house and I went upstairs because I did not want to see him pass out ammunition and guns. I could not cope with the thought of Lucy downstairs with a pump shotgun, and I wondered if anything would faze or frighten Gault. I was to the point of thinking he was the living dead and no weapon known to us could stop him. In my bedroom I turned out lights and stood before the window. My breath condensed on glass as I stared at a night lit up by snow. I remembered occasions when I had not been in Richmond long and woke up to a world quiet and white like this. Several times, the city was paralyzed and I could not go to work. I remembered walking my neighborhood, kicking snow up in the air and throwing snowballs at trees. I remembered watching children pull sleds along streets.