Bob lunges.
Nico jerks his hand back just in time. Bob’s teeth snap at the empty air where Nico’s fingers were a second ago.
“Bob.”
Bob comes scurrying back toward me.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Nico, pressing Bob against my leg. “He’s never done that before.”
Nico’s face is completely blank. Not angry. Or hurt. Just nothing.
He stands, his chair scraping against the floor.
“You okay?” DJ asks, leaning forward.
Nico nods and carries his plate to the sink. He rinses it with precise movements, then slots it into the dishwasher.
“Thanks for dinner,” he tells Griffin, and leaves without looking at any of us.
The silence that follows feels like someone sucked all the air out of the room. I stare at the empty doorway, a nervous feeling gnawing at the lining of my stomach. DJ and Griffin exchange a look that makes it clear they’re having an entire conversation without words. Donny sighs into his water glass.
“I’m so sorry about Bob,” I say, glancing between all of them.
Donny waves a hand but says nothing.
“Did something happen to Nico on your trip?” DJ asks Donny, her voice low.
Donny sets down his glass, his shoulders sagging in a way that makes him look every one of his years. “He hasn’t been sleeping well the past few days.”
“But he was doing fine before,” DJ says. “He was fine until William Caine.”
Benji slowly turns his head in my direction.
CHAPTER 11
A SCIENTIST… OF SORTS
I heave Greg over the rim of the dumpster. His head slams backward against a garbage bag with a crunch, his mouth gaping, revealing bloodied gaps where his teeth used to live.
It was pathetic to watch. Each one he pulled whilesobbingandpleadingandbargainingwith a god he couldn’t have believed in. The last few came out so slowly I was sure he’d fall unconscious before finishing, which would have been a real disappointment, but he kept going, kept pulling, so desperate to beat his lover’s count, so desperate tolive. And he lost anyway. As pretty as his little lie must have sounded to him, it disintegrated the second he had to suffer for it, the weak-willed piece of garbage.
The lid slams down with a hollow boom that echoes across the empty loading dock. I close my eyes, letting the sound wash through this body like the period at the end of a sentence. Proof, once again, that I was right.
I turn toward the car, wiping my gloved hands on my pants. I’m deciding whether to remove the gloves now or wait until I’m in the vehicle when a door swings open.
Some shriveled prune of a woman steps out, a stained apron tied around her waist. A garbage bag swings from one hand, and a portabletelephone is clutched in the other. Ridiculous contraptions the self-important carry at all times these days, lest they be unreachable for five goddamn minutes.
Her eyes rest on me. I press a hand to my stomach and hunch, scowling.
“Bad Chinese food.” I mime heaving into the receptacle, making a practiced groan. “Wasn’t meaning to use your dumpster, but when you need to go…” I retch into the receptacle again.
She tosses her garbage bag in the direction of the dumpster. It hits the side with a soft thump and splits when it hits the ground, but her attention is firmly reattached to her portable telephone, and she goes back inside without another glance. Portable telephones may be ridiculous, but they sure do help in instances like this.
I shake my head at the woman’s utter incompetence. People are so willing to look away, so eager to avoid anything unpleasant. I doubt the idiot will even remember my face by the time she gets home tonight.
Idiots. Idiots. Idiots.
The word plays over and over in my head, like a mantra, like apoem, as I strip off the gloves and toss them into a storm drain, then drive to the parking lot of an abandoned furniture store, its windows covered inFOR LEASEsigns that have been there so long the ink has bleached. Everybody is an idiot. There is no smart person left in the world. I trudge through the trees until I find a vantage point overlooking theloading dock. The woods here are thin enough to see through, but thick enough to disappear into, so I lower myself onto a fallen log, the bark rough against my palms, and settle in to wait. Hours pass. The sky shifts from black to charcoal to the sickly gray of predawn.
