Wilderness

"Want something?" Newman said.

"Perrier with a twist of whatever," Janet said. Hood motioned to the bartender.

No vices, Newman thought. Won't get drunk, won't get fat, won't get out of control. Some fun, a glass of soda water. "Better be careful on the Perrier," Newman said. "You know how you get after three. Just climb all over me." She smiled, "Dream on, Aaron," she said. "Have a rich fantasy life."

Hood was looking at her. "You okay?" "Sure," Janet said. "Why shouldn't I be okay?"

"Aaron told me about last night," Hood said.

Janet frowned. She looked at Aaron. "Was that smart?"

Newman shrugged. "I thought Chris could help me make sense out of it?

Why not tell him?" Newman drank beer.

"It's not Chris," Janet said. "But I don't think it's wise to talk about it to anyone. If it stops here that's one thing, but who else will you tell? Have a few beers and…" She spread her hands, palms up.

Hood said, "We were quiet about it. I won't say a word. Who the hell else do I talk to but you?"

"And just what was Chris going to help you make sense out of," Janet said.

"The whole thing. The shooting, the way they treated you, the way I had to go and tell the cops I was mistaken. The lieutenant called me yellow." Newman drank more beer. "But I can't let them harm you.

Christ, you're my whole life." Janet said, "They threatened to harm you too."

Newman shrugged and looked at the bar top and shook his head as if to clear it.

"Or the girls," he said. "You know what I'm like. I'm a husband and a father before I'm anything else. It's what makes life purposeful."

"How about the books," Hood said.

"They help, but they're not family. That's what I do, not what I am."

"You write good books, Aaron," Hood said.

"Yeah, about courage and the matter of honor and how things heal stronger at the break."

"Best since Hemingway," Hood said. Janet sipped her Perrier.

"And then two bums come around and humiliate my wife and I roll over and make gestures of submission."

"Oh, Aaron, don't be so goddamned melodramatic," Janet said. "What else are you expected to do?"

The bartender brought more beer. Newman finished his glass and poured more.

"I could kill them," he said.

Something stirred in the back of Chris Hood's eyes and tugged briefly at the corners of his mouth.

Janet said, "Oh, Aaron, grow up. You don't even know who they are."

Newman still stared at the bar top, his head lowered between his shoulders. "I know who he is," he said.

"Aaron," Janet said, "you know how you are when you're drinking."

"I'm not drunk," Newman said.

"That's one of the things you always say when you're drinking."

"You think I'd be scared to?"

"Kill someone?"

"Yeah."

"Aaron, it is a little unusual to sit about in a restaurant and discuss killing someone."

"You think I'd be scared?"

"I don't know. Would you?"

"You wouldn't, would you?"

"Be scared to kill someone?"

"Yeah."

"No."

"You feel like killing anyone when they were tying you up and maybe copping a little feel while they were doing it?"

Janet shivered. Hood looked at her and then at Newman. The muscles at his jaw-hinge moved slightly.

"You feel like killing anybody then?" Newman said.

"Yes." Janet's voice was very soft and it hissed out between her teeth.

"So why don't we?"

Janet looked at Hood.

"He's serious, Janet," Hood said.

She poked at the slice of lime in her glass of Perrier water. "And you?" Hood said, "Whenever you need help, I'll help you. Whatever it is.

You know that."

"You're willing to kill someone?" Hood shrugged. "Whatever," he said.

"I'd do it for him," Newman said. He finished his beer. "They did cop a little feel, didn't they?" There was sweat on his forehead. He felt that odd mixture of lust and horror he'd felt before when he'd found her on the bed.

Janet looked at him without speaking. She ran the ball of her index finger around the rim of her glass.

"Didn't they?"

She shook her head.

"Like hell," Newman said. "They touched you. Didn't they?" He felt desperation. He had to know.

Hood said, "Aaron, for cris sake Newman said, "Didn't they?" Very softly Janet said, "No. They made me touch them."

Newman slammed his open palm on the bar top. Hood said, as softly as Janet had spoken, "Jesus."

Newman said, "How…" and stopped. Hood looked at him once and shook his head.

Janet said, very softly and with no apparent emotion, "Yes. I want to kill them. This morning when I woke up I was afraid and didn't remember why. You know that feeling. You wake up and you think Oh something is awful but I forgot what and then you remember, and I remember how they made me touch them. And I remember how helpless I was first when they made me touch them and then when they tied me up and I couldn't move and they gagged me and I couldn't talk or even spit. I remember that feeling of nakedness and helplessness and every morning when I wake up I will be afraid. And all the time I walk around with that feeling in my stomach of sinking ness and afraid. All the time I think What if they come back and I feel helpless. It's not a good feeling for me. I need to control things. I need to feel that I am in control. You know that, Aaron. I've always needed to manage things, otherwise they frighten me. They get out of control. I can't function like this. I say "I'll not let it happen." I say I'll put it aside and go on and do my business and my work and not think about it," but it's always there and every morning I'll wake up frightened."

Hood put his hand lightly on her forearm. Newman was silent. Both men were leaning forward toward her to listen as she spoke very softly.

"I've got to get back in control," she said. "It will destroy me and destroy us. I can't be anything you'd want to live with unless I have control." "We'll get it back," Newman said. He spoke very carefully so as not to slur his words.

"I want to shoot him," Janet said. "I want to shoot him and the two men who came and tied me up. I want them to die. I want to be free of this."

"Could it be done, Chris?" Newman said.

"Sure. Sure it could."

"Would you do it with me?" "Sure," Hood said. "Sure I would."

CHAPTER 6.

They had moved to a booth and a waitress had brought them a platter of sandwiches.

"If we shot him," Hood said, "it would solve a lot of problems. You'd bring him, in a sense, to justice."

Newman had been drinking beer for two hours and it had begun to show in his speech. "And we'd see to it that he hurt no one else." He had trouble separating the to and the it. "That would make me feel better.

It bothers me, he walks around loose."

"And we'd be out from under," Janet said. "The son of a bitch." "Is it just revenge?" Newman said. He ate a triangular sandwich and gestured with his empty beer bottle toward the waitress. She brought him another.

Janet said, "I want revenge and I want to be sure that what happened to me never happens again. I don't mind killing somebody. I don't give a damn about that." "Course you never have," Hood said softly.

"Killed somebody? No. But the thought doesn't bother me." Newman said, "For cris sake Janet, keep it down."

She cocked her head at him and the flint edge came into her voice. It always scared him when the edge came. "Oh, you find me loud? Am I embarrassing you?"

"No, it's just that if we do it, we wouldn't want people to say they heard us talking about it." He felt as if he'd been bad. His stomach ached slightly with apprehension. Her disapproval is devastating. She just looks hard at me and I get scared. Talk about pussy-whipped. "We are talking about murder." Hood said, "He's right, Janet."