Okay, maybe that was a bit improbable, but only because of Wes. He wouldn’t let either of the others touch her, since he considered that his right and his alone. So instead Carrie put on a bathrobe, wincing as the worn and scratchy fabric rubbed against her freshest bruises, and went into the kitchen to get the coffee ready to brew. Wes had said the job would be simple, probably not even an hour and a half long, and once they came back Wes would want a fresh cup ready for him. Donny and Fish would go for the beers in the fridge, but never Wes. Just caffeine. Carrie wished she could blame the way he was on the caffeine, but she knew better.

There weren’t any coffee filters left. Carrie looked at the clock to see if she had time to run to the store, but she didn’t. She must have passed out after Wes had finished with her, because over an hour had already passed. If she went to the store they would be back before her and they would think she was trying to run or something. The end result would probably be the same as if she had locked the door.

The last filter had been sitting in the coffee maker long enough to dry, though, so she just threw out the old grounds and used the same filter. That would have altered the taste enough for others to notice, but not Wes. He may have claimed to be a coffee connoisseur, but in reality he wouldn’t know French Roast from ground rat turd. Once, just to see if he’d notice, she’d used the day old grounds instead of fresh ones. Wes had declared it to be the best cup of coffee he’d ever had.

She double-checked the fridge before going back to her bedroom one last time just to make sure that she had beers ready for Donny and Fish. None of the three, not even Wes, knew what they were going to find at the Carlyle place, but Carrie had a pretty good idea and had to be ready for them all to come back ranting and raving about wasting their time. If she wanted it all to work out she would have to be ready to appease them.

She looked at the clock again. Depending on how messy they’d decided to be today, they could be back any time now. She thought for a moment about going to her closet to kill a few minutes, but she didn’t want them to walk in on her. Wes knew about her comic book collection in the closet, but not the other two. If they found out there would probably be no end to the ribbing she would take. They’d also probably steal it and sell it for drugs.

She had about two hundred, which couldn’t really even be called a collection, but once upon a time she’d had more. Much, much, more. As a teenager cheap plastic shelves had covered up every wall of her bedroom, and every shelf had held two short boxes. Over a hundred comics in each box, over twenty-five boxes. That had been all she’d had in the way of entertainment as a kid. Her father had always said that it was a waste of money, never mind that it was her money she’d earned herself. One day she’d come home from school to find every single comic gone and her father stoned out on some drug or another in the living room. He certainly had realized their monetary value once he’d needed a fix. She’d cried and cried, and the only comfort had come from her brother hugging her and promising her that one day he’d replace them all. He never had been good with promises.

So thumbing through her pride and joy was out unless she wanted these to end up like the ones she’d had as a kid. Instead she sat on the stained couch in the living room and thought about comics and Carlyle and coffee.

About twenty minutes later Donny and Fish come back dripping blood on the carpet.

Carrie stayed on the couch smoking a cigarette as they shouted obscenities at each other. Neither of them gave her much attention, which she appreciated under any circumstances but especially at moments like this. The blood didn’t seem to belong to either of them, unfortunately. It had mostly dried on the fronts of their greasy shirts, but in a few cloth crevasses the blood had pooled too thick to dry immediately, and tiny speckles of dark red flew off them to dot the carpet as they waved their arms at each other.

“Fuck you,” Fish said as he entered the apartment. He was loud enough that the neighbors at the other end of the building could probably hear him, a fact that never ceased to amaze Carrie since the vocal cords of most other people probably weighed a few ounces more than Fish’s entire body. “He was trying to run.”

“He wasn’t running, he was tripping because you pushed him,” Donny said. He was the one waving his arms the most, sometimes to emphasize some point he wanted to make but usually for no apparent reason. He made one particularly violent gesture, seemingly to emphasize the word was, and sent a stray dot of blood to land unnoticed on the tip of Fish’s nose.

“I didn’t push him,” Fish said. “I prodded him.”

“Pushed him,” Donny said, more to himself than to Fish. “You pushed him.”

Neither of them had noticed that Carrie had left the room until she reappeared next to them with a pair of open beer bottles.

“So…you killed him?” Carrie asked. There was a tremor in her voice, but she didn’t think either of them was perceptive enough to notice. Instead they both took a bottle and drank. Donny closed his eyes and took a moment to savor it, but Fish kept his eyes on her the whole time, tracing a slow path from her face downward. It was only then that Carrie realized she was still wearing nothing but her bathrobe. She pulled it a little tighter over her breasts. “You actually killed that Carlyle guy?”

Donny took a moment for another gulp of beer before he spoke. “Yeah, we did. And it’s your fault.”

Carrie took a breath and thought through her answer carefully. “I thought you said Fish was the one who…”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Fish said. “But you’re the fucking bitch that said he was loaded.”

“But I thought… I mean, there was a safe, wasn’t there?”

Donny grabbed her by an arm and shook her. “There was nothing fucking in it.” The front of her robe fell open, and Donny stopped shaking her as he got a clear view of her breasts. It distracted him long enough that she was able to pull away and cover herself up again.

“It’s not my fault,” Carrie said. “I just told you what I heard.”

For a moment Donny looked like he was ready to come after her again, then he took deep breath and another swig of his beer, which seemed to calm him down. “Well, what you heard was wrong, and now the dude is dead. If the police figure out it was us I will fucking choke you to death before they take me. Do you fucking understand?”

“Donny.” The word was soft, but nowhere near a whisper. Wes never had to raise his voice with Donny or Fish, but neither did he need to be overly dramatic. The three had been working together long enough for that single word to tell Donny everything Wes needed to say. Donny held up a hand as though to say, “Okay, backing off,” then sat down on the couch. Fish joined him and started searching for the TV remote.

Wes stood in the doorway, surveying things and making sure everything was more or less in control, then shut the door and walked towards the bedroom without even giving Carrie a second look. That was Wes-speak, roughly translating as “You better fucking follow me, bitch.”

Carrie got him a cup of coffee and followed him into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. Wes had already thrown his leather jacket on the floor. Unlike Donny or Fish’s clothes it didn’t have a speck of blood on it, even though Wes was always the one who carried the gun. He said he didn’t trust them with one. Today must have been their chance to prove otherwise. That certainly wouldn’t happen again anytime soon.

Wes, with his gun in one hand, took the cup of coffee from her and gestured for her to look at the bed. “You better not lie to me here, Carrie. Did you know about this?”

She looked at the items on the bed and almost screamed with joy, but she had to fight it. She couldn’t react. Even though her eyes wouldn’t leave the bed she was still pretty sure that Wes’s gun would be aimed at the general vicinity of her back. Any sign that she had known could kill her.

“Where did these come from?” she asked. Calm. Eyes focused but not too interested. Normal breaths. She didn’t dare look at Wes. His eyes would search hers in hopes of seeing a tell.

Wes hesitated before he talked again. “So you’re saying you really don’t know?”

“No.” Okay. Doing good. Now that the initial shock was out of her system it was easier to pretend.

“They were in the safe,” Wes said.

“But Donny and Fish said…”

“They were too busy with that Carlyle shit while I opened the safe. I didn’t want them to know what I’d found until I’d talked to you first.” He turned her to face him and pressed the barrel of the gun just below her breast. “Do you swear you didn’t know about this?”

I was impossible not to look nervous when a gun was being pressed against her heart, but at least it didn’t look suspicious anymore. It would have looked more suspicious if she stayed calm.

“I swear, Wes. I didn’t know.”

“Because it looks awfully suspicious. You’re the one who suggested this Carlyle guy as our next job, and when I open the safe I find this instead of money. This looks a lot like you’re trying to manipulate me or something.”

Carrie took a deep breath. Maybe it was time to play the defiance card. “Don’t fucking try to accuse me of playing you. I wouldn’t be that stupid.”

Wes stared at her for a moment longer, then uncocked the gun and set it on the nightstand next to the bed. “Then maybe you can at least give me some idea about why some shithead would want to lock a bunch of comic books in a several thousand dollar safe?”

Carrie leaned over the bed and took a closer look at the comics spread over the tangled bedspread. It should be okay to express some interest now. It might even seem suspicious if she didn’t. What it would probably be a mistake to show, however, was her barely controlled glee. She’d known this Carlyle guy was supposed to have a few good comics. The safe had simply been a guess on her part based on his reputation. All she had expected was a few small treasures, though, a tiny reward for all the shit she let Wes do to her. What she hadn’t expected was the most valuable comic book in existence.

“Look pretty old,” Carrie said. There was no way to control the way her heart was beating out of control, so she had to just hope she didn’t let it show too much. Any other sign, though, and she would be dead. “Not familiar with them, though.”

“Are you sure?” Wes asked. “‘Cuz this one looks familiar for some reason.” Wes picked one of the comics up, and it took every part of Carrie’s soul to keep from wincing at the careless way he held it. It was in a mylar bag with a backing board to protect it’s spine, but is still should have been handled with care.

“Couldn’t see why,” Carrie said, but she did. The two of them had both seen Superman for the first time together, and this cover had been one of the opening shots of the movie. A man in a bright blue suit with a red cape was raising a car over his head and smashing it into a building as people all around screamed and ran for cover. Over the scene was the title Action Comics.

“Huh,” Wes said. “Well, it has to be worth something or else that asshole wouldn’t have had them locked up.” He tossed the comic book on the bed with the others and took a sip of his coffee. Carrie wasn’t as familiar with the covers of the other comics, but each one had the same logo at the top. She couldn’t tell without a closer look, but they seemed to be the first ten issues, and each one looked like it was in pretty good condition. The first one might even have been in near-mint condition, from what she could see. She’d heard once that someone had offered a million dollars for such a copy.

Wes brushed the comics off the bed to topple to the floor. Again, Carrie suppressed a wince. “Think you can find a place to sell them?” Wes asked. He sat down on the bed and took another sip of coffee before setting the cup on the nightstand next to his gun.

Carrie’s initial excitement had cooled, and she was able to smile without feeling self-conscious. “Probably. Might have to wait awhile, though. If they’re actually valuable and someone knew Carlyle had them it might look suspicious.”

Wes looked at her with unfocused eyes for a moment, then blinked and responded. “Yeah. Good thinking.” He stood up and pressed himself close to her. One of his hands toyed with the tie on her bathrobe while the other brushed her cheek. “Maybe we should leave Donny and Fish out of this one. Keep it just for us.”

This time Carrie’s smile was genuine despite Wes’s hand moving towards her breasts. “Don’t worry. They won’t find out.” Wes stopped groping and stared at her, his eyes trying to focus on hers. For a moment Carrie thought she’d blown it, that she’d revealed too much too soon. Something in her voice must have alerted him. Then he smiled, eyes still far away, and squeezed her breast. It was supposed to have been hard. He always did it hard enough to hurt as sort of a prelude to what he would be doing to her once they were in bed. But his grip was weak. Perhaps just weak enough.

Carrie pushed him away. He fell back on the edge of the bed and bounced to the floor. “…the hell?” he muttered. Carrie tightened her bathrobe around her again and backed away.

“Come ‘ere,” he said. He gestured for her to help him up, but Carrie just stood there looking down at him.

“You bitch, don’ you disob… disub… uh…” He couldn’t quite get the words out. She smiled and stepped towards the comics, picking up Action Comics #1 and gently hugging it to her chest. There was a clutter from the nightstand as Wes tried to grab his gun, but all he managed before collapsing to the floor was to knock over his coffee. Apparently she could give him more than just ground rat turd without his noticing.

“You plan this all?” Wes asked. He was so quiet that Carrie wouldn’t have even known what he was trying to say if she wasn’t watching the feeble movement of his lips.

“Not all of it,” Carrie said. A large part of her didn’t want to watch this part, but after everything he’d done to her since they were children she thought maybe she owed it to herself. She held up the copy of Action Comics #1 for him to see, even though she didn’t think he could see much of anything anymore. “Some of it was a pleasant surprise.”

“How could you?” At least that was what she thought he was trying to say. To her it sounded like little more than a wheeze. “I promised I take care’ve you, righ’?”

“You never were one for keeping promises,” she said, then looked closer at him. He’d probably been gone before she’d finished saying it. She pulled a bed sheet off the bed and covered him so she wouldn’t have to look. She checked the living room to make sure that Donny and Fish were no longer a problem either, and then sat on the bedroom floor for a closer look at her new comics.

Congratulations to the other nominees as well, with special shout outs to Shred alums Patricia Abbott, Beverle Graves Myers, and Herschel Cozine.

THERE BUT FOR is sort of dedicated to him, even though it is not his story. The man you are about to read about is not my father, despite the many surface similarities. His killer, she is not my mother.

This is after all a novel. THERE BUT FOR is not a memoir or a true crime book. It is fiction, spun like cotton candy from colored crystals of truth, tasting good as it goes down, yet managing in the end to stick.

My father’s death was ruled a suicide. The same can be said of my character’s. In the latter case, we know that his wife killed him because we will be flies on the wall when it happens. We will watch the police fumble the investigation after assuming the suicide note is legitimate, screaming at them from our omniscient perspective, “Don’t you see? He was writing a different kind of farewell when she shot him!”

That is the magic of fiction. We can be where we can’t. We can know the unbelievable.

Many months ago, and many more by the time you read this, my agent asked what I was writing. She did not quite see how this particular novel would advance my career, but she supported whatever decision I made, knowing I couldn’t be swayed in any case. Perhaps my readers would buy the book out of habit, biding their time until I returned to my best-selling series.

Even before we hung up the telephone, damage control was already underway.

From my position of omniscience, I screamed at the broken connection, “Don’t you see?”

People ask me many questions. Where do I get my ideas? Do I outline? Do I write longhand or on the computer? People ask when I first decide to follow one certain story wherever it takes me, forsaking all others.

Why did I write the book you’re about to read? Instead of, say, the next book in the series? Or a standalone calculated to extend my brand? Or a screenplay?

Why did I set this novel in the neighborhood where I was raised? Why did I house the characters in my childhood home? Why did I name the child Ed?

Did Oedipus blind himself when he saw what he’d done or, conversely, to keep himself from seeing that truth?

There will be readers who dislike the ending. Perhaps you will be one of them. My agent is just glad it’s been reached so I can return to what she believes I should be writing.

That happens. Human nature favors brushing unpleasantness under the rug, even if the rug itself is just as unpleasant.

While it may be difficult to say which is the worse crime, suicide or murder, there is no denying that suicide compresses the perpetrator and the victim into one. Negates the need for a trial. Reduces the inconvenience.

I still remember the police coming to the house.

Since we live in an age that glorifies so-called reality, you may read scenes in THERE BUT FOR and wonder how honestly I’ve captured what actually happened, but this is not a piece of reportage. The dialogue is not a faithful rendition of what was said to and around me. The descriptions of sights, sounds, and smells are not merely documented memories.

Remember, this is a work of fiction.

Do I write every day? I only wish I could, but like everybody else I have all manner of demands on my time. I do set aside scheduled writing sessions and vary from that commitment only when no other option exists, in which case I reschedule that four-hour block.

Morning? Afternoon? Night? I’m not all that particular about when I write, just so long as I do. Of course I’m more awake at certain times and more fresh at others, but I’m not sure I could go through this book and select which passages were written during what period.

Likewise, this novel was written over a year at least, a year that saw the usual highs and lows that aren’t necessarily evident in the writing.

Try to guess, if you wish, when during the process I was sued to block publication of THERE BUT FOR, and then when that suit was thrown out of court.

I’ve discussed characters, plot, and setting. I’ve set the scene for the opening and mentioned the ending. What else might tickle your fancy?

Research. Even fiction should be meticulously researched to ensure a sense of authenticity. While writing this novel, I spent an inordinate amount of time studying the science of gunshot residue, the art of splatter patterns, and the history of staged suicides.

I interviewed hundred of law enforcement officers and forensic experts. I waded through a volume of trial transcripts and decisions regarding the rules of evidence. I talked with family and friends of my parents.

While research may be necessary to write, it should not be mistaken for the actual writing. Notes do not constitute a novel, no matter how many manuscripts pages they may fill.

Stories are driven by conflict, and THERE BUT FOR is no exception. Conflict alone, however, is not enough. Conflict must be shaped, and that shape should taper to a point that aligns with the spine of the story.

If a character begins the novel with thirty choices, he or she must end with only one.

My character reached that point and made his decision. His killer reached that point and made her decision. I reached that point and wrote this book.

What will you do once you finish?

AUTHOR’S AFTERWORD

I owe a debt of thanks to the many people who helped me write this book, people too numerous to mention by name.

A heartfelt thanks also goes to the person who must remain nameless after helping me acquire an untraceable poison.

Ed and I both appreciate the closure.

Harlan watches her lurch away, wondering if her clumsiness is more from the pitcher of Long Island Ice Tea or the handful of vikes she dry-swallowed on the drive over. Or some magical synergy of both. Taylor’s two buddies, Mandy and Tate, start laughing as soon as she’s out of earshot. They point at the pitcher and gulp down imaginary drinks with both hands. Mandy pretends to fall out of her chair.

They wouldn’t have been that bold a year ago.

Harlan considers telling the two to shut the fuck up, but since the whole world’s laughing at Taylor Chaste and her disintegrating career, he sees little point.

He’s sipping a beer when the cell in his pocket chimes.

The text reads: MEETME IN BATTH ROOM NOW. She forgets to add ‘please.’ Harlan stands and Tate gives him a collagen-fattened smirk. “Get your booty-call, lover?” she says.

He starts walking. Mandy adds: “Good doggy.”

He finds the restroom sign and a hallway daubed in faux Etruscan plaster, lined with tall ferns cut to look like cypress trees. There’s a door marked ‘Donne‘ and another marked ‘Uomini.’ He knocks on ‘Donne.’ Taylor opens it and pulls him inside.

She locks the door. The bathroom’s nice; smells like violets and there’s crushed dried flowers in a porcelain bowl. Mandolins tinkle over the speakers. Taylor looks at him long enough to smile. She tilts her honey-blond head and flashes some teeth just like on the cover of Booty-Full Dreamer, then wriggles up onto the counter and spreads her flawless legs. Yanks the thong underwear down. Exposed, she grabs the back of his head and starts grinding against him, almost smothering him between her thighs.

He does what he knows how to do. It doesn’t take much. It never does with Taylor, which he supposes is a good thing. In a minute or so she moans and pushes him away. He wipes his mouth.

There was a time when a hundred-million teenage boys would’ve killed to be where he’d just been. Maybe twice that number of fat, middle-aged men. He’d found it kind of novel himself, in the beginning. Hey! I’m blowing a pop-star here! But the sweaty taste of Taylor—combined with the lobster and gruyere pizza he’s just eaten, plus a warm Heineken—is making his stomach hitch.

She sways past him without comment, unlocks the door and leaves.

Less than five minutes later, the restaurant’s alarm system shrieks as he kicks open the fire-exit door and drags Taylor out by the wrist, into sunlight and pristine City of Angels smog. They hoof it down an alley stacked with lettuce crates. Mandy and Tate giggle somewhere behind.

What had happened, he’d overheard a waiter on the way back from the bathroom. The shit-head was calling the paparazzi.

They reach the back parking lot. Harlan’s fellow handler Coleman is waiting there, muscular arms folded, leaning up against a black Lexus SUV. Harlan yells “Media” and Coleman throws his cigarette down with a curse. Break-time’s over. Coleman gets the SUV doors open and Harlan pushes Mandy’s skinny ass inside, followed by Tate’s, her fuchsia dress snagging. He hears fabric rip and Tate scream, but the sound is muffled as Coleman slams the door shut.

Harlan pulls Taylor to their other vehicle. A rented Honda mini-van with no window tinting. When she’s sober, she bitches about having to ride in it.

“Back seat, honey,” he tells her. “Head down ’til I say it’s clear.”

She complies, a miracle in itself. He gets the Honda started and guides it into the stream of downtown Burbank traffic, not peeling out, which would be a giveaway for any spotters. He stays in the right lane. The black SUV comes roaring up behind them, rockets past, and makes a left on a stale yellow, skidding through the intersection. Probably heading for Rodeo Drive.

Decoy.

“I want to get drunk,” Taylor says, from the floor behind him.

One A.M. and they’re back in the safety of the hotel suite, Taylor wearing a bathrobe and curled around an ice-bucket on the edge of the bed. The bucket’s full of green vomit—she’d been doing Midori shots at the Viper Room.

Just getting out of there was an epic, an odyssey. The band playing had recognized Taylor and flipped her off between sets. She hadn’t noticed.

His eyelids droop and the phone next to the bed rings.

He answers it. The voice on the other end takes a deep breath and says: “Harlan?”

Oh Christ.

“Harlan, this is Marv. Okay, so I heard the talent kept you busy today. You’re doing a man’s job, I want you to know that. And now a change of plans. Taylor’s not going to the recording session tomorrow. I’ve got a plane chartered at John Wayne International, a puddle-jumper because you’re not flying far. The tough part, the piece you might find challenging, I need you on that plane in an hour. Got that? Are you up for this, Harlan-man?”

His fingers are digging into the receiver, turning white. Marv Meyer, the head of Phantom Records. Calling him personally and taking the time to schmooze, which can’t be good.

“Harlan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I hear someone throwing up in the background. That wouldn’t happen to be our little nightingale, would it?”

“Uh, yes, sir. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. She’s the lush, not you. Which is why I’m sending her to rehab. Shasta Ranch. They work with horses there. You believe that, giving drunks a horse? In my day they just shipped your ass to Betty Ford.”

“Sir—”

“What we’ve got to do, Harlan, we’ve got to make her finish this third album. Prove to the world Taylor Chaste isn’t tanking. I mean, I know she’s really tanking, but after the third album her contract with Phantom is up. Charter’s waiting. I’ll give you a call tomorrow and square the rest.”

He hangs up.

Taylor stirs and opens a single red-rimmed eye. A strand of bile thin as a spider’s web connects from her mouth to the corner of the bucket.

“That was your boss, honey,” Harlan says. “He told me you’ve been working so hard, the album’s sounding so good, he wants you take a little break. We’ve got to check out now.”

The “puddle-jumper” turns out to be a Lear, and the passenger’s cabin is furnished in teakwood with a thirty-six inch plasma and a mini-bar, the last of which Taylor is too comatose to notice. He gets her tucked in by the window. She’s snoring as the engines whine and the little jet pushes its way up into black California sky.

He leans his head on her shoulder but it feels alien, like he dares too much.

They’d met at a club in West Hollywood called the Stuyvesant. He’d been working the door. Taylor and about a dozen hangers-on came through. She’d given him a single, bored glance, but later one of her drunk friends came up and told him Taylor thought he was cute. She’d hired him at the end of his shift.

After that everything churned into long days and marathon nights, crowds, alcohol, interviews, car-trips. He became aware of her slow descent. She had a well-publicized affair with an older producer. Then a director. Then she started coming on to him, wanting cunnilingus at strange times and places. They seldom kissed. She did not allow him to penetrate her.

Her ’slow descent’ became a crash.

Cold night air vibrates against the window, and he thinks: how can you take care of someone and not feel anything for them?

They land in some Podunk airport, the sky still dark. Harlan slides in and out of sleep during a long, jostling cab ride over unlit roads. The cab smells like cigarettes and country music turned low keens from the front seat. He opens his eyes at one point and sees dawn breaking over a clump of saguaros. The cab stops. He pushes money into the driver’s weathered hand and then he and Taylor are plodding through a parking lot, the straps from her four bags digging into his shoulders. An adobe, Santa Fe-looking building with a lot of plate glass windows seems to rise out of the desert.

She asks him what the fuck this place is and he tells her it’s a spa. It looks like a spa, anyways.

But then they’re through the door and there’s a white-coated doctor wanting to take her blood pressure. She starts spitting like a cat. The word ‘valium’ is mentioned. She calms and is whisked away to an examining room, leaving him with the bags.

He wanders through what looks like a giant hotel lobby and finds a leather chair next to a window. Slumps down.

“Are you that girl’s boyfriend? Or just another tired handler?”

There’s a woman sitting across from him. The sunlight fades from his retinas and he sees a bob of dark hair framing a narrow, intelligent face. She’s in her early thirties. His first impression: Pocahontas. She’s wearing a white suede blouse with fringe and a butt-load of turquoise jewelry. White feathers dipped in red hang from each ear.

“I’m both,” he says.

“Yeah, I recognized your charge back there. Ms. Chaste. You look familiar, too, like I’ve seen you in tabloid photos. In the background.”

He doesn’t really want to talk, but he’s trapped. “Are you a handler, too?”

“Oh, no. I’m a licensed therapist. I’m also a shaman. I trained in Ecuador for three years under a master. My English name is Ellen, but that’s not my True Name.”

“Okay.”

“You can call me Ellen, though.”

He does, and it develops Ellen really is a handler, despite protests, her sole client being a sitcom actor Harlan remembers from the eighties. She talked him into coming here. He has “serious issues.” Harlan hears that and pictures IV heroin laced with absinthe, late-night trips to Singapore and strange fetishes indulged with Asian boys. He says as much.

“No,” she says. “Worse.”

“What’s worse than that?”

“He suffers from a truncated ego.” She tugs a necklace up out of her blouse and fingers a crude, stick-like figure suspended there. “I’ve got my spirit helper working on it right now.”

Taylor’s examining physician tells him she’ll need to undergo detox the next forty-eight hours. After that she’ll be assigned a horse and a counselor, and the Healing Journey can begin.

He wanders the grounds. Native American decorations hang everywhere. Painted drums, shields, and bundles of rubber-tipped arrows. The only dark-skinned people he sees, though, are outside doing the landscaping.

He finds a cafeteria and after a breakfast of buckwheat pancakes washed down with weak coffee, runs into a concierge who shows him to his room. It’s in an adjoining building screened with mesquite trees. No TV. No phone.

There is a bed, however, and he collapses as soon as the concierge leaves.

His cell wakes him up twenty minutes later.

“Harlan? Marv again. Listen, I need you to call me back on a land-line. Here’s the number.” He rattles off some digits without waiting for Harlan to find a pen.

There’s a phone in the front lobby. “You’re back. Good. Took you awhile. Okay, so Taylor’s there and everything’s humming. Nice place, huh? What I need you to do, I need you to connect with an old cowboy there named Bobby Rhoades. He’s going to be her counselor. I want you two to bond. Help him out, whatever he needs. Because Taylor has to finish this thing, okay? No quitting. You keep her in line. You’re good at that. Also, when Bobby does his horsey-thing with her I want you right there. Alongside. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bobby Rhoades. He’ll be expecting you.” Click.

Back in his room, he finds it impossible to fall asleep again. So he takes out the bottle of Southern Comfort he swiped from the Lear’s mini-bar. At least he understands his place in this whole thing. Old Harlan, Mr. Step-and-Fetch, is the only person who can make Taylor stay put.

And gives killer head.

He goes through half the bottle. With all the puke he’s been seeing lately, he keeps expecting to throw it up. But the whiskey stays down like bitter truth.

“I don’t see how taking care of a horse is supposed to make you sober,” Harlan says. “My uncle Dwight had two horses and all he did was sit around and guzzle Lone Star all day.”

Bobby Rhoades cracks a smile. He’s a cowboy alright, the gen-u-ine article with snaggled teeth and a slouch-belly drooping over tight Wranglers. It’s the next day. They’re both squinting under noon sunlight, leaning against a fence made out of old railroad ties and barbed wire. Bobby’s just finished rubbing down a horse. His hands reek of liniment.

“Way you said that,” he says, “you sound kind of like a country boy. Is that true, Harlan? You got a little country in you?”

“I grew up in Montana.”

“No shit? You ever hear of a town called Meriwether? They got a lot of bars there.” His eyes narrow, and Harlan gets the feeling of being sighted at down the barrel of a rifle. “Speaking of bars, son, you look hung over.”

“I might be.”

“Drinking in rehab, huh?”

“You didn’t answer my question. About how horses make people sober.”

“Oh, that. You want the truth or some line of yuppie bullshit? Alright. Truth is, most people get all emotional when they see a horse. They’re beautiful animals, and kind of scary. So when people ride one, brush ‘em down, they have what’s called a catharsis—I know, that’s a big word.”

“I went to college,” Harlan says.

“Good for you. It means a purifying experience. Emotions come out. You talk some twelve-step crap while that’s going on and people think they’re finally seeing the light. Get it?”

“You make it sound like a racket.”

“Son, everything’s a racket. Take the music industry, for example. Take Marv Meyer. He’s practically a mobster, ‘cept he’s a Jew with a pony-tail.”

“You know Marv?”

“Oh, hell yes.” He opens his mouth and then shuts it, like maybe that’s something Harlan isn’t supposed to know. “Look, don’t get all depressed because I told you Shasta Ranch is a scam. We might be able to help your girlfriend yet. Now, what do you say we find that booze I know you got stashed?”

Taylor emerges from detox with only a slight tremor in her hands. She doesn’t talk to Harlan. Not at first.

After breakfast, she checks into her private room and comes out an hour later wearing a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt and a white Stetson with matching boots. She prances around in front of Harlan and then seems to remember she’s still pissed off. Her face settles into a mask. The mask says: You’re in big trouble for talking me into this. Punishment to follow.

But she lightens when she meets Bobby at the stables. He’s all redneck charm, saying “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am” and deprecating himself until she melts. He shows her the horse he’s picked out; a spirited, black-maned mare named Flossie. Harlan knows a little about horses, and wonders if this is such a good choice for a beginner.

“I love her,” Taylor says, wrapping her arms around Flossie’s neck.

That settles that.

About two hours in the practice corral, then another hour on the “kiddie trail” that winds around Shasta Ranch, and Taylor announces she’s ready for the real thing. The catharsis bullshit Bobby was talking about seems to be working. It’s at least a hundred degrees and Taylor hasn’t made a single complaint about the heat.

She’s the only one riding, of course.

Bobby leads them up the side of a rust-colored hill. The ‘trail’ becomes a narrow shelf of rock, just barely wide enough for Flossie’s muscular flanks. There’s no room to turn her around. Harlan starts getting a flutter in his gut, and the occasional glance over the steep hillside doesn’t help. They’re at least forty feet up. Sharp boulders and clumps of cholla cactus line the desert floor below.

He wants to say something. He’s walking behind Flossie’s rump, with Bobby in front leading the horse by the bridle. Bobby’s doing his counselor-thing, talking in a gentle voice about how life’s a mountain and you have to face your fears by gripping the reins tight. Taylor, her head cocked, seems to be absorbing every word.

“Uh, Bobby—” Harlan says.

Ahead of him, Bobby cusses. The horse comes to a stop. “Shit, Harlan. I think she threw a shoe.”

“Just now?”

“Now or a couple seconds ago. She’s limping on her right foreleg. You see anything?”

Harlan scans the ground. “Nope.”

“How about behind you?”

He re-traces his steps, wondering how he could miss something like a thrown horseshoe. There’s only rock and clusters of foot- and hoof-prints on the trail.

Taylor screams.

He turns to see her Stetson go flying, blond hair unfurling in the sun as Flossie bolts erect on two feet and the saddle rips free. Taylor slides off with sickening ease. She goes right over the trail’s side and disappears. But just for a moment because he leaps after her, the shock of his feet digging into the hillside and he scrambles to stay upright, to avoid pitching forward and rolling, and somehow he slows and his shoes dig twin furrows as he reaches bottom.

He sees Taylor, lying in a heap about ten feet away.

She’s come to rest against a boulder, one arm draped over it. The arm hangs limp in a way he doesn’t like. Also, she’s not making any noise. He bounds towards her. Her other arm has a forest of cactus spines jutting out.

She should be crying, screaming; anything with all those spines stuck in her.

He crouches and sees the place where the side of her head struck the boulder. Some kind of clear, sticky fluid drips down the rock. He reaches to brush the hair from her face and stops, afraid to touch her, wondering if her neck’s been broken.

Bobby’s voice echoes from the trail above him. He can’t make out what he’s saying.

He sees her eyelids flutter, behind the veil of hair.

She’s still breathing.

The aftermath tumbles by in the non-time of shock, all meaning gone, starting with Bobby’s ashen face telling him he’s going to get help, and ending with a Medivac chopper whipping dust as it makes a straight ascent from the gorge. The middle part, the waiting in the desert with Taylor, takes forever.

She spends a week in the Mayo Clinic’s ICU, just outside Phoenix. Harlan stays bedside when the doctors allow him, and eats greasy burritos and drinks coffee in the hospital cafeteria. He forgets about sleep.

After surgery she can walk—with assistance, but she’s not going to be singing or dancing anymore. Talking has become sort of optional, too. She stares at him with vague recognition before the physical therapist comes and wheels her away for exercise.

The media hovers, of course, and for once Harlan doesn’t have to do anything about them. He learns the fate of Taylor’s recording contract and her now-doomed third album watching Entertainment Tonight. Marv Meyer looks furious on camera. He threatens to sue Shasta Ranch into bankruptcy for “depriving him of his greatest talent,” but the lawsuit shrivels over the next few weeks, becomes a modest settlement that Meyer accepts without comment.

Bobby Rhoades disappears.

The police speak to Harlan eventually, but he sees little point in telling them his suspicions. It’s not going to help Taylor. He doesn’t even tell them about her saddle, how he’d checked the straps and buckles himself before Flossie left the stables.

What’s left of Taylor’s estate goes into a trust. All her property and cars are sold, with the exception of a small beach house in Malibu, which Harlan fixes up with ramps and safety bars before they move in. He buys food from an open-air market a couple blocks away. A nurse comes by every week to check vitals.

He’s her caregiver now. Taylor’s family is content to fight over residual income, leaving the details of her day to day existence to him.

He’s not going to fail her this time.

And it’s strange, but caring for her has become so much easier in this child-like state, the little bubble of him and her. She’s not restless anymore. They spend their mornings and evenings on the back patio, listening to the throb of the Pacific like a retired couple, and she doesn’t mind to take his hand. The other day he bought her a little turtle made from blown glass, blue and green swirled together, and she actually smiled, where months before she’d only shrugged and glanced stone-eyed when the dealership left a new Aston-Martin running in the drive.

She’s not restless anymore.

And neither is he.

I thought he’d kill me; those black eyes boiling over in his face. I fought then ran for cover, frantic, unthinking.

Under the house.

I dragged myself down, scrabbling and tunneling, digging my own grave.

A low oblong of light is all I have left. I see the toes of his boots rusted with my blood. My throat’s a fist, fighting dry dirt. I’m trapped, my shirt snagged on tacks, my skin hostage to a hundred splinters. He’s got a hammer, and boards, is shutting out the light.

I’m alive, oh god, I’m alive.

You can expect to see a new design in the nearish future. But not tonight.

The best dreams were of houses—the interiors—with many intricate rooms which she explored with delight, and rarely the same house twice. She especially liked the bathrooms, so different from her real, utilitarian one. Her dream bathrooms were big enough for tubs on platforms in the center of the carpeted floor, with brick or tapestried walls, soaring skylights, stockade-fenced courtyards, flowers in Oriental vases, mirrors reflecting mirrors into infinity, and candelabras, all in glowing color.

But this morning— She shuddered and turned a page in her four-by-six wirebound notebook. The bathroom had been chrome and white. She ran a finger down the handwritten list, not really reading. It had a gray stone floor.

Shifting in the ladder-back chair, she admired her real floor, a paisley vinyl in blues and greens, gleaming like ice. The sun, just up, reflected off the row of appliances along the counter, breadmaker through toaster.

She heard Martin stirring in the bedroom, the closing bathroom door, thunk. An involuntary vision of that other, unreal bathroom arced across her mind—the stark white and glinting metal and then the uneasy recognition that a residue of red spoiled the over-all. Someone hadn’t cleaned completely. It wasn’t as pristine as it first appeared.

She fast-tapped the pen against the table’s edge, not sure why she should be upset by a little imaginary blood. It certainly wasn’t hers, she laughed to and at herself.

The toilet flushed and immediately the bathroom door opened. Doesn’t wash his hands, she wrote at the top of the next blank page.

He shuffled into the kitchen in his black terry robe, squinting against the sunlight and the smoke leaking from his first cigarette of the day. That was one of the first things she’d written into her notebook: Smokes. And, in a related entry—Coughs.

“You’re up bright and early,” he said, holding away the cigarette and leaning down to kiss the top of her springy hair. “Ahhh, couldn’t sleep?”

“Bad dream,” she answered, casually covering the notebook with flexed fingers. “So I got up and washed and waxed the floor out here.”

He patted her shoulder as he turned aside. “Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

She watched him unwrap the bread and insert two slices in the toaster. He coughed his ugly, wet cough. His hands shook some. He needed a shave and a trim around the ears. One thing, though—he’d never deteriorated into flabby. He still had the broad shoulders and skinny hips she’d lusted after forty years ago.

She flipped several pages to a different list, one she’d headed Pros, and jotted that down: Still sexy.

“If that’s your grocery list, ahhh, we need tea bags,” Martin said, making himself a cup, and she smiled and nodded.

He brought in the newspaper from the driveway and browsed the comics while he ate his dry toast. Fine crumbs sprayed the oak table as he bit and chewed. She narrowed her eyes, but she didn’t write anything down.

Yesterday, she’d found the little blank notebook in a desk drawer. This morning, after making the list in her head while she mopped and waxed, she’d filled two pages with her grievances against her husband, and a half page with her reasons not to leave him.

He laughed out loud and swayed his head. “Marmaduke,” he said.

She laid down her pen. Incompatibility in comics preferences was probably not grounds for divorce.

“What are you going to do today?” she asked, chin on hand, elbow propped on the table. She toyed with the stack of unopened bills from yesterday’s mail.

“Heard it’s supposed to frost tonight, so, ahhh, I’ll put the garden to bed.” He sipped tea, folding his lips inside as he swallowed. “Put away the hoses. Rake the last of the leaves. How about you?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She sighed, disappointed that her written list hadn’t freed her yet, hadn’t brought epiphany.

“You’d better go back to bed.” He winked at her, his gray eyes intelligent and absolutely innocent of his wrongdoings. He scooted back his chair and sauntered off to dress.

She’d been raised in the thirties, when a man was a man and a woman was a sidekick. Back then, whatever chores her father chose to do, her mother would have helped him and done her own woman’s work later, alone.

At least Martin didn’t expect that of her. Though set in his ways, he was a reasonable man. If, instead of keeping it all bottled in, she told him what was bothering her, he’d listen.

But that’s all he would do. He wouldn’t change. He wouldn’t remember to pick up his clothes strewn all over the bedroom or his toiletries littering the bathroom or any of the other messes she usually cleaned up. He’d never fight his addiction to cigarettes. He couldn’t possibly break himself of constantly saying, “Ahhh.”

Or give up dirt.

She fingered the notebook. Maybe she should leave the list where he could find it. Maybe if she mentioned some of the smaller annoyances to him—one a week for the next few weeks—it might make a difference.

“And I’m not perfect,” she admitted.

“What?” He emerged from the hallway, buttoning his red flannel shirt.

“I’m not perfect. I know I must do things that set your teeth on edge.” Her voice came out shrill and breathy. “Tell me something that annoys you.” She sat sideways in the chair, clutching the back as if it were about to buck her.

He laughed, though his eyes didn’t. “Ahhh, you get up too early in the morning?”

“I’m serious, Martin. I want to tell you something I don’t like about you, but it’s only fair that you do the same to me.”

He widened his eyes, narrowed them, frowned. “Ahhh, well, you—” He took a deep breath. “You first.”

“You never bring me flowers,” she said promptly, instinctively selecting the easiest item on her list.

“I never bring you….”

She shook her head and blinked hard. “Never.”

“I….” He coughed briefly. “What kind do you want?”

“Doesn’t matter. Any kind.”

“I, ahhh, okay.”

“Now you.”

He rolled his eyes like a panicky horse. “Sometimes you, ahhh, smell.”

“I what?”

“Like your deodorant quit, or maybe you, ahhh, forgot.”

The rush of hot blood rolled up her neck, across her cheeks, into her hairline, and stung her scalp. She stumbled up to carry his cup and soggy tea bag to the sink. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”

“If you want me, I’m out back,” he said, escaping into the garage.

She dipped her face furiously toward each armpit and didn’t smell a thing.

Next she emptied the dishwasher, slamming cupboard doors and drawers, muttering that he could eat filth but she couldn’t sweat.

When her embarrassment had abated, she sat down at the table again and began gouging open the bills with her letter knife. The very first grievance on her list, the transgression she most wanted Martin to renounce, the one he was probably engaging in at this very moment, was his penchant for eating dirt.

He’d been doing it since he was a child, but secretly, until the last ten years. She clearly recalled the first time she saw him rub something dark between his fingers and onto the nice seafood salad she’d prepared for their lunch.

“What’s that—pepper?” she’d asked, smiling, expecting him to offer her some.

He’d sat back and squared his shoulders. “I’ve found out I’m not the only one, so now I’m going to come clean with you.” He’d laughed a little then. “Not clean, exactly. It’s, ahhh, dirt.”

“Dirt? What do you mean, dirt?”

“Soil. Humus. Loam. A bit of real estate. I’ve always enjoyed the taste of it—earthy and rich. But I didn’t think other people would understand or, ahhh, approve. Last week I read an article in the newspaper. Lots of people do it. Nothing wrong with it at all.”

“Dirt? Like what you’d dig out of the ground? Did you wash it?”

“Well, ahhh, no. That would be mud, wouldn’t it?”

And after that, several times a week, she’d see him sprinkle something brown and—dirty looking—on his salad or his sandwich or his slice of pizza. She’d frown, and he’d pretend not to see. Sometimes, on their walks for exercise, he’d stoop to take a pinch of someone’s flower bed and stick it in his cheek like tobacco. She’d growl about possible herbicides, and he’d pretend not to hear.

She imagined him out there in his own organic garden right now, pulling up the last of the bean plants, munching on a handful of loose dirt. At her funeral, he would stand by the open grave, bend to heft a clod of turned topsoil, and before dropping it on the casket, give it one good lick.

Her face felt screwed as tight as a wound-up swing. Deliberately, she relaxed it, hearing his shoe scrape on the other side of the back door.

He came in, a looming shape silhouetted by the low sun, and she didn’t look closer, absorbing herself in the sorting out of bills.

“Ahhh,” he said. “I brought you flowers.”

She raised her head. His face, above the profusion of cosmos blooms, mirrored their golden glow. His eyes sparkled, as young as the first time he’d come to take her to a movie. His windblown white hair might have been the old sun-bleached blond.

For a moment she stared at him across the years.

A whisper of sound drew her gaze to the floor. The flowers he held had been pulled up by the roots, and crumbs of soil rained on the polished floor. Seeing her expression, he looked down and hastily cupped a hand under the bouquet. For a moment, he studied the dirt that accumulated on his palm, and then he began to raise that arm.

She flew across the room as if blown from a cannon, the letter knife in her hand. She hit her husband with all the accumulated weight of his petty provocations. A fountain—an explosion—of cosmos, dirt, and man pelted the room.

She staggered back empty-handed, -minded, -hearted.

Somewhere in the debris, Martin said, “Ahhh,” coughed, and generated one final, spectacular mess.

Darren tried not to think about the class divide between them, but it was all he’d thought about since yesterday, when their cousin called. The Wendy’s in Little Ferry, New Jersey, in which Darren was primary investor, hadn’t made a profit in two years. Their cousin, who convinced Darren to invest in the first place, now recommended his Wendy’s be folded into a larger, more successful corporation, in which David was primary investor.

Through the entire call, Darren was agreeable, saying he knew failure was possible. The particular Wendy’s was a reclamation project from the beginning. If we can turn it around, you stand to make the most money.

He’d always been careful with money. The $400 he made in a good month teaching was an allowance compared to David’s salary. Then, when his job was cut, he became even more careful. Still the Wendy’s seemed like a good investment. Now, though, it didn’t matter that the news came from family. He’d lost his shirt just the same.

Darren felt trapped in his room. He’d never been able to drive, and hated relying on others to get around. On his own he could read, write, surf the web, and breathe—which netted exactly nothing. Few past acquaintances saw him anymore.

His father’s gun hung in its holster on one wall. Inspiration. From childhood he knew how to load, unload, and clean it. A cop’s way of bonding. Though Darren knew what guns could do, they were never a threat to him.

He took the gun down, cleaned it, and loaded it, conscious of every step. Holding it inches from his face, he looked down the barrel. Nothing.

In another life, maybe he’d be able to drive, go on job interviews, travel as he pleased. In another life, he might be a doctor or scientist, someone who made a difference. These were his thoughts as he fingered the trigger, why it was so very easy to pull.