Metcalf:That’s all you got? Nothing else? Scars? Markings?
Oh, right. I’m so rattled, I almost forgot the most important thing.
Me:A small snake tattoo wending its way up his neck.
CHAPTER 21
I’M STANDING HERE SHAKING. I should have known Ben would be rattled by the idea of someone coming to his house and asking for him. But I had no idea he would go totally ballistic.
“Why the [expletive] did you open the door?” he screams when I tell him about his visitor. He’s just walked in the house. I’m shocked that anyone could go from zero to sixty this quickly. And shocked that anyone could ever live with someone like this.
“I didn’t open it. I—”
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you tonever, everopen the door to strangers?” He takes off his jacket and slams it against a chair. The chair tips over. He doesn’t pick it up.
“I had the chain on the whole time,” I say, hoping that will calm him down. It doesn’t.
“What kind of [expletive, expletive] are you? Why would you—”
“The guy said he was a friend of yours,” I say, trying to defuse the situation.
“A friend?A friend?Did helooklike he would be a friend of mine? Did he?”
I try to picture the man’s face before I answer. Clearly, I’m not answering fast enough.
“I said, what the [expletive] did he look like?”
“I barely saw him. I—”
“Dark hair? Bald? Fat?”
“Dark bushy hair. Heavyset.”
“How did he sound?”
“Um, I think he had an accent.”
“You think? Youthink? You spoke to him! You can’t even answer a simple question? Are you dumb or just stupid?”
Direct confrontation. Dominance. Has Ben been studying FBI interrogation techniques or is he just deranged?
“Listen, Mr. Harrison, there’s no reason you should—”
“Don’t youdaretell me what I should or shouldn’t do!” he yells. “Who are you anyway?”
Amber, who’s been upstairs putting Lily down for a nap, walks into the room. Just in time for Ben to spew his venom in her direction.
“Where the hell did you find this idiot woman?” heasks. “Did you vet her at all?” Before Amber can answer, Ben turns back to me. “What did he look like?”
“I told you.”
“Tell me more. Height? Weight?”
If I guess right, do I win a Kewpie doll?(That’s what I want to say. But I don’t.) “Five eight,” I tell him. “One seventy-five.” I’m pulling those numbers out of thin air.
“What was he wearing?”
“Um, a T-shirt?”
