“Quit veering toward your sister!” the gray-haired man said, up ahead, his voice almost lost in the distance. But his words were real and Kevin imagined the dirty things he whispered to Erin. He could feel the rage building inside him. Then, all at once, the kids turned the corner and they were followed by Erin and the gray-haired man.
Kevin stopped, panting and feeling ill. As she’d rounded the corner, her profile had flashed in the bright light and he thought again that she was beautiful. She’d always reminded him of a delicate flower, so pretty and refined, and he remembered that he’d saved her from being raped by thugs after she left the casino and how she used to tell him that he made her feel safe but even that hadn’t been enough to keep her from leaving him.
Gradually, he began to hear the voices of people walking on either side of him as they passed by. Chattering about nothing, going nowhere, but it jolted him into action. He started to jog, trying to reach the spot where they’d turned, feeling like he was going to vomit with every footfall under the blazing sun. His palm felt slick and sweaty around the gun. He reached the corner and peered up the street.
No one in sight, but two blocks up, there were barricades blocking the road for the street fair. They must have turned on the street before it. No other choice. He figured they had turned right, the only way to leave the downtown area.
He had a choice. Chase them on foot and risk being spotted or run back to the car and try to follow them that way. He tried to think like Erin and figured they would go to the house where the gray-haired man lived. Erin’s house was too small, too hot for the four of them, and Erin would want to go to a pretty house with expensive furniture, because she believed she deserved a life like that, instead of appreciating the life she had.
Pick and choose. Follow on foot or in the car. He stood, blinking and trying to think, but it was hot and confusing and his head pounded and all he could think was that Erin was sleeping with a gray-haired man and the realization made him sick to his stomach.
She probably dressed in lace and danced for him, whispered words that made him hot. Begged him to let her please him, so she could live in his house with fancy things. She’d become a prostitute, selling her soul for luxuries. Selling herself for pearls and caviar. Probably slept in a mansion now, after the gray-haired man took her out for fancy dinners.
He felt sick, imagining it. Hurt and betrayed. The fury helped his thoughts clear and he realized that he was standing in place as they were getting farther and farther away. His car was blocks away, but he turned and started to run. At the carnival, he pushed through people wildly, ignoring their shouts and protests. “Move, move!” he shouted, and some people moved and others were shoved aside. He reached a spot clear of the throngs of people, but he was breathing hard and he had to stop to vomit near a fire hydrant. A couple of teenage boys laughed at him and he felt like shooting them right then and there, but after wiping his mouth, he simply pulled the gun and pointed it at them and they shut up fast enough.
He stumbled forward, feeling the ice pick chip away at his head. Stab and pain, stab and pain. Every damn step it was stab and pain and Erin was probably telling the gray-haired man about the sexy things they would do in bed. Telling the gray-haired man about Kevin and laughing, whispering, Kevin could never please me the way you do, even though it wasn’t true.
It took forever to get to his car. When he reached it, the sun was baking it like a loaf of bread. Heat spilled out in clouds, and the steering wheel was scalding to the touch. Hellhole. Erin had chosen to live in a hellhole. He started the car and opened the windows, making a U-turn back toward the carnival and honking at people in the street.
Detours again. Barricades. He wanted to blow through them, to blast them into pieces, but even here, there were cops and they would arrest him. Stupid cops, fat and lazy cops. Barney Fife cops. Idiots. None of them were good detectives but they had guns and badges. Kevin drove the side streets, trying to zero in on where Erin was heading. Erin and her lover. Both of them adulterers, and the Bible says Whoever gazes at a woman with lust has committed adultery in his heart.
People everywhere. Crossing the street haphazardly. Making him stop. He leaned over the steering wheel, straining to see through the windshield, and caught sight of them, tiny figures in the distance. They were just beyond another barricade, heading toward the road that led to her house. A cop was standing at the corner, another Barney Fife.
He surged forward, only to be stopped when a man suddenly appeared at the front of his car, banging on the hood. A redneck with a mullet, skulls on his shirt, tattoos. Fat wife and greasy-looking kids. Losers, all of them.