Part 3 (1/2)

Something was going on. He could feel it in his gut. The certainty of it uncoiled every night as she walked out the door, slithered through their daily silences, tightened round his throat as he watched her sleeping face. Finally, when he could stand it no longer, he asked her. And she turned that perfectly innocent face to him, looked him straight in the eye, and told him. Nothing was happening. She was out with friends. It was all in his head.

End of conversation.

Honesty was implicit in their relations.h.i.+p; Syd literally didn't know how not to trust her. He asked her a question; she gave him an answer. He had to believe her. He knew she was lying. It drove him mad.

Bit by bit, the mirror began to crack.

One day Karen stopped wearing her wedding rings. Vaughn had told her it made him uncomfortable to be seen in public with a married woman. He told her to take them off.

That night, in bed, Vaughn told her that he loved her. He told her that Syd was an uncaring b.a.s.t.a.r.d who could never make her happy. He fed her insecurities carefully, nurturing the hurts with hugs and smiles and his throbbing, burning love until at last they blossomed and ripened.

Until at last, it was harvest time.

It was a sticky-hot August night, and Syd had been up for hours: staring down the darkened street, waiting for the swell of headlights that would herald her homecoming. He felt time slow to a crawl, then stop altogether, the excruciating drag of one second into the next advancing nothing. Each tick was punctuated by the same nagging litany: where was she? Was she dead in a dumpster somewhere, was she wrecked and bleeding in a ditch? Was she okay? Why was she doing this?

It drove him crazy. He resented the inconsideration, dreaded the implications, felt hijacked by his own concern. Worry was not optional. She was a part of him. She was out there somewhere. She was lying.

Through the night, he paced: a caged animal, trapped within the boundaries of civility, suffering the crimes of the polite. It was an unwritten law of the domesticated: wreak whatever emotional havoc thou wilt, but never, ever make a scene. Any violation was acceptable, so long as you did it neatly. As long as you didn't make a mess.

He felt an urge rise up from somewhere deep within. It was a living thing: b.e.s.t.i.a.l in its simplicity, unfettered by caution or reason. It made him want to howl and scream and rip through the lies, feel them kick and squirm as he tore them to b.l.o.o.d.y shreds. Feel them hurt, like he hurt. Feel them shudder. Feel them die.

It was a good feeling. It was clean. Strong. Real. It gnawed clear through to the core of his being. Taunting. Torturing. Beckoning to him, over and over and over.

Release me.

Syd wrestled with it all night. And when Karen sauntered in sometime the next morning, he was waiting: sunken-eyed and unshaven in the darkened living room. Steeped in shadow, eyes ablaze, he looked up from his lair. His voice croaked one question. One word.

Why?

She looked at him, innocence incarnate. Whatever did he mean? Syd's reply came on a leash pulled tight. Was she genuinely stupid, or just incredibly cruel?

Still feigning that perfect blankness, she faced him. Are you saying you don't want me to go out? she asked.

No, he said quietly, looking across the miles-wide chasm between them. I want you to leave.

Karen couldn't believe her ears. Syd said it again. He told her, in that dreadful, constricted whisper, that this was no longer her home. He told her if she ever wanted to figure out what went wrong, to let him know. But until that day came, if ever, she was not welcome here.

And she had to leave. Now.

There was danger in his voice. She left, that very day.

Two days later, she returned. Her world had begun to crumble. She confessed her sins reluctantly. She was confused. There was someone else.

Syd felt his world come unglued. He needed the truth, in all its ugly grandeur. He needed to know it for what it was. Slowly, he pulled it out of her. Yes, she was involved. Yes, it was an affair. Yes, she had feelings for him.

The words punctured Syd. Breaking up he could deal with. A random f.u.c.k was not fatal, either. But this . . .

This was different. He knew by the tone of it, her euphemistic phraseology delicate as a dull knife to the windpipe. Involved. Feelings.

This was more than a sleazy little series of one-nighters. This was betrayal.

Syd reeled, his guts twisting into tiny inextricable knots. He asked her what his name was. She wouldn't tell him. He asked her again. She fought to hide it. He asked her again and again: doggedly pursuing, cornering her. Until she broke down and told him.

Syd heard the name.

And he went berserk.

He could feel his soul split, torn between the horror of it all and the animal writhing inside him, snapping at its chains. Something must pay. Not like this. Something must die. He told her Vaughn was sc.u.m. She said nothing, s.h.i.+elding him with her silence. Vaughn was good. Vaughn's heart was pure. The thing inside him howled. He told her that Vaughn was a legend in slime. She defended his honor. Vaughn loved her, she said. Syd told her she had to choose. She said she couldn't hurt him.

What about me, he asked.

She said nothing at all. Karen stood frozen: unable to turn back. Unable to go forward. Unable to move.

Syd turned, heading for the door. She watched, eyes glazed with fear.

Please don't kill him, she said.

Please don't kill him.

It was a hard request to honor. Killing him was a palpable option. To feel his flesh rend, to hold his bruised and bleeding face, drinking in his destruction as the light guttered, winked out. It would be perfection. It would be sublime.

But he looked at her s.h.i.+vering, terrified. And he still loved her.

And he said that he wouldn't.

On the way out a voice popped into his head, clear as you please. Take your gun, it said. Syd had to stop and think about that one for a moment, as the whole scenario sprang full-blown into his mind. He would bring the gun. He would pull the gun. Vaughn would feign toughness, say something stupid like what are you gonna do, shoot me? And then he would.

And that would be that.

No, he decided. Not like that. The act was too easy, the repercussions too messy. He called Jules, screaming for a reality check. Jules concurred: guns were a bad idea. He proceeded to trot out a host of sound, rational reasons why Syd didn't want to waste his life on behalf of these people. Syd heard them all, understood them implicitly. Yes, violence was not an answer. No, he didn't want to go to jail. None of it meant anything to the part of him that was in pain. The part that l.u.s.ted for blood, and death, and destruction.

Jules ended up urging Syd not to do anything stupid, held him on the line until he promised he wouldn't. Eventually, Syd relented.

Besides, he knew: if it came to that, he wanted to do it with his bare hands.

Vaughn was drunk by the time Syd got to the refurbished yuppie love nest he called home. For all of his great undying devotion, Vaughn was quick to deny everything. First he told Syd that nothing had happened. Syd called him a liar.

Then he said it was just a joke. Syd said it wasn't funny. He said that it was nothing personal. Syd told him he took it kind of personal when someone f.u.c.ked his wife. Vaughn said he didn't want to get physical. Syd told Vaughn he'd already gotten physical, the moment he'd f.u.c.ked his wife. Vaughn cracked, blurted out that it was all Syd's fault: if Syd had been doing his job, this never would have happened. . . .

And that was when Syd hit him.

And it was wonderful, it was bliss, the dull crunch of broken bone like sweet music as the thing inside him uncoiled and rose, l.u.s.ting for the clarity of chaos, begging for more. Syd felt alive, unbound: every cell awake, aware, as if he were smas.h.i.+ng through the lies while he pounded Vaughn's face into pulp, wanting nothing more than to keep right on going, to rip his smug and preening face off, to hack through flesh to bone and beyond, to tear him down to essence, to fundament, to miserable withered soul-shrieking bits. . . .

It was an epiphany rendered in blood; and like all epiphanies, it was fleeting. A police cruiser came and hovered on the periphery, restoring order by proximity. Syd's rational mind regained dominion, reining the other side in. Don't ruin your life. Don't go to jail for this. It's not worth it.

The police car sat, not moving, not reacting.