The Husband

“What about Earl’s leg?” Mitch asked.

“Unreal, bro. One day his foot’s numb, he can’t walk right. Turns out he’s got almost no circulation down there ’cause of radical diabetes. They sawed his left leg off above the knee.”

“While he was eating shoofly pie.”

“No. He realized he had to give up sweets.”

“Good for him.”

“So the day before surgery, he had his last dessert, and he chose a whole shoofly pie with like a cow’s worth of whipped cream. Did you ever see that stylin’ Amish movie with Harrison Ford and the girl with the great knockers?”

By way of Hairball, Blue Balls, Intercourse, shoofly pie, and Harrison Ford, they arrived at Iggy’s apartment building.

Mitch stopped at the curb, and the black SUV went past without slowing. The side windows were tinted, so he couldn’t see the driver or any passengers.

Opening his door, before getting out of the truck, Iggy said, “You okay, boss?”

“I’m okay.”

“You look stomped.”

“I saw a guy shot to death,” Mitch reminded him.

“Yeah. Wasn’t that radical? I guess I know who’s gonna rule the bar at Rolling Thunder tonight. Maybe you should stop in.”

“Don’t save a stool for me.”

The Cadillac SUV dwindled westward. The afternoon sun wrapped the suspicious vehicle in glister and glare. It shimmered and seemed to vanish into the solar maw.

Iggy got out of the truck, looked back in at Mitch, and pulled a sad face. “Ball and chain.”

“Wind beneath my wings.”

“Whoa. That’s goob talk.”

“Go waste yourself.”

“I do intend to get mildly polluted,” Iggy assured him. “Dr. Ig prescribes at least a six-pack of cerveza for you. Tell Mrs. Mitch I think she’s an uber wahine.”

Iggy slammed the door and walked away, big and loyal and sweet and clueless.

With hands that were suddenly shaky on the wheel, Mitch piloted the truck into the street once more.

Coming north, he had been impatient to be rid of Iggy and to get home. Now his stomach turned when he considered what might wait for him there.

What he most feared was finding blood.

6 (#u59dfd530-e91d-5f2e-b5a8-9f6f571e2586)

Mitch drove with the truck windows open, wanting the sounds of the streets, proof of life.

The Cadillac SUV did not reappear. No other vehicle took up the pursuit. Evidently, he had imagined the tail.

His sense of being under surveillance passed. From time to time, his eyes were drawn to the rearview mirror, but no longer with the expectation of seeing anything suspicious.

He felt alone, and worse than alone. Isolated. He almost wished that the black SUV would reappear.

Their house was in an older neighborhood of Orange, one of the oldest cities in the county. When he turned onto their street, except for the vintage of the cars and trucks, a curtain in time might have parted, welcoming him to 1945.

The bungalow—pale-yellow clapboard, white trim, a cedar-shingle roof—stood behind a picket fence on which roses twined. Some larger and some nicer houses occupied the block, but none boasted better landscaping.

He parked in the driveway beside the house, under a massive old California pepper tree, and stepped out into a breathless afternoon.

Sidewalks and yards were deserted. In this neighborhood, most families relied on two incomes; everyone was at work. At 3:04, no latchkey kids were yet home from school.

No maids, no window washers, no gardening services busy with leaf blowers. These homeowners swept their own carpets, mowed their own yards.

The pepper tree braided the sunshine in its cascading tresses, and littered the shadowed pavement with elliptical slivers of light.

Mitch opened a side gate in the picket fence. He crossed the lawn to the front steps.

The porch was deep and cool. White wicker chairs with green cushions stood beside small wicker tables with glass tops.

On Sunday afternoons, he and Holly often sat here, talking, reading the newspaper, watching hummingbirds flit from one crimson bloom to another on the trumpet vines that flourished on the porch posts.

Sometimes they unfolded a card table between the wicker chairs. She crushed him at Scrabble. He dominated the trivia games.

They didn’t spend much on entertainment. No skiing vacations, no weekends in Baja. They seldom went out to a movie. Being together on the front porch offered as much pleasure as being together in Paris.

They were saving money for things that mattered. To allow her to risk a career change from secretary to real-estate agent. To enable him to do some advertising, buy a second truck, and expand the business.

Kids, too. They were going to have kids. Two or three. On certain holidays, when they were most sentimental, even four did not seem like too many.

They didn’t want the world, and didn’t want to change it. They wanted their little corner of the world, and the chance to fill it with family and laughter.

He tried the front door. Unlocked. He pushed it inward and hesitated on the threshold.

He glanced back at the street, half expecting to see the black SUV. It wasn’t there.

After he stepped inside, he stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust. The living room was illuminated only by what tree-filtered sunlight pierced the windows.

Everything appeared to be in order. He could not detect any signs of struggle.

Mitch closed the door behind him. For a moment he needed to lean against it.

If Holly had been at home, there would have been music. She liked big-band stuff. Miller, Goodman, Ellington, Shaw. She said the music of the ’40s was suitable to the house. It suited her, too. Classic.

An archway connected the living room to the small dining room. Nothing in this second room was out of place.