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“Is that what you’re shooting for with Vanessa Moore? A higher sexual state? The spirituality inherent in making love?”
“No,” I said, “we’re just fuck buddies.”
He chuckled. “You ever felt love, Pat? For a woman?”
“Sure.”
“Ever achieved that spiritual state you speak of?”
“Yup.”
He nodded. “So where is she now? Or were there more than one? Where are they now? I mean, if it was so great, so fucking spiritual, why aren’t you with one of them instead of talking to me and occasionally dipping your wick in Vanessa Moore?”
I didn’t have an answer. At least not one I felt like attempting to explain to Wesley.
It was a hell of a point, though. If love dies, if relationships deteriorate, if what was making love reverts back to having sex, then was it ever love to begin with? Or just something we sell ourselves on to distance ourselves from the beasts?
“When I came in my own stepsister,” Wesley said, “it purified her. It was voluntary, consensual sex, Pat, I assure you. And she loved it. And thereby found her essence, her true self.” He turned his back to me, looked out as the helicopter made a wide circle over the Broadway Bridge and headed back toward us. “By facing her true self, all the illusions she’d used to prop herself up shattered. And she shattered. It broke her. It could have built her, if she’d been strong enough, brave enough, but it broke her.” He turned back to me.
“Or you did,” I said. “Some would say Karen was destroyed by you, Wes.”
He shrugged. “We all have points we reach where either we break or we build. Karen found hers.”
“With your help.”
“Possibly. And if she’d built from there, who’s to say she wouldn’t be a happier person? What’s your breaking point, Pat? Have you ever wondered just which elements of your current version of happiness you could stand to lose before you were reduced to a glimmer of yourself? Which elements, eh? Your family? Your partner? Your car? Your friends? Your home? How soon before you’d be natal again? Stripped of embroidery? And then-then, Pat-who would you be? What would you do?”
“After I killed you, or before?”
“Why would you kill me?”
I held out my arms, stepped close to him. “Gee, I dunno, Wes. You take everything from some guys, they just figure they got nothing to lose.”
“Sure, Pat. Sure.” He placed a hand to his chest. “But don’t you think I’d have planned for contingencies like that?”
“You mean like hiring Stevie Zambuca to back me off?”
He dropped his eyes, looked at the bag in my hand.
“I presume Stevie’s services are no longer at my disposal.”
I tossed the bag between his feet. “That’s about the size of it. By the way, he took out a two-grand aggravation fee for himself. These mob guys, Wes, you know what I’m saying?”
He shook his head. “Patrick, Patrick, I hope you understand that I’ve been speaking hypothetically. I bear no animosity toward you.”
“Cool. Too bad I can’t say the same thing, Wes.”
He lowered his head until his chin touched his chest. “Patrick, trust me on this: You don’t want to play chess with me.”
I flicked the fingers of my right hand off his chin.
When he raised his head, the blithe cruelty in his eyes had been replaced by raw rage.
“Ah, yes, I do, Wes.”
“Tell you what-take that money, Pat.” His teeth were gritted, his face suddenly damp. “Take it and forget about me. I don’t feel like dealing with you now.”
“But I feel like dealing with you, Wes. A whole lot.”
He laughed. “Take the money, buddy.”
I met his laugh with my own. “I thought you could destroy me, pal. What’s up with that?”
The sleepy malevolence zapped the blue in his eyes again. “I can, Pat. It’s just a time issue at the moment.”
“A time issue? Wes, buddy, I got plenty of time. I’ve cleared my decks for you.”
Wesley’s jaw tightened and he pursed his lips and nodded several times to himself.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
I glanced to my left, spotted a Honda sitting on the expressway, fifty yards off and a few feet above us, the hood up. The hazards blinked and cars beeped and honked and a few people threw the finger as Angie kept her head under the hood, fiddled with some cables, and shot pictures of me and Wesley from the camera sitting atop the oil filter cover.
Wesley raised his head and stuck out his gloved hand. Bright green homicide shone in his eyes.
“War?” he asked.
I shook his gloved hand. “War,” I said. “You bet.”
25
“So where you parked, Wes?” I asked as we left the roof and descended the stairwell.
“Not in the garage, Pat. You’re on six, I believe.”
We reached the sixth-floor landing. Wesley stepped back from me a few feet. I leaned in the doorway.
“Your floor,” he said.
“Yup.”
“Thinking of trying to stick with me?”
“It crossed my mind, yeah, Wes.”
He nodded, rubbed his chin, and parts of him moved with a sudden, blurry explosion of speed. One of his loafers connected with my jaw and knocked me back into the garage.
I scrambled to my feet between two cars, reached for my gun, and had it out of the holster and swinging around toward him when he exploded all over me again. It seemed like I took about six punches and six kicks in roughly four seconds, and my gun clattered across the garage and disappeared under a car.
“You frisked me on the roof because I allowed you to, Pat.”
I hit my hands and knees and he booted me in the stomach.
“You’re alive right now because I’m allowing it. But, I don’t know-maybe I’m changing my mind.”
He telegraphed the next kick. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his ankle flex and his foot leave the ground, and I took the kick in the ribs and held on to the ankle.
I heard the sound of a car approaching from the fifth level, moving up one ramp toward the next, a torn muffler chugging loudly, and Wesley heard it, too.
He kicked me in the chest with his free foot, and I let go of his ankle.
Headlights arced against the wall at the bottom of the ramp.
“Be seeing you, Pat.”
His footsteps clanged down the metal staircase, and I tried to get back on my feet, but my body decided to roll over and lie on its back instead as the approaching car screeched to a halt.
