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Fred pulled out a chair and sat down right next to his mother. She gave him her “you’re revolting” look, showing him the disdain that had made him hate her for his entire life.
“I didn’t finish what I was telling you that day in court,” he said.
“That day when you lied, you mean?” she said, twisting her head toward the ticking dishwasher, shooting a look to the bolted kitchen door.
Fred removed the guard’s Beretta from his jacket pocket. Took off the safety.
“I want to talk to you, Mama.”
“That’s not loaded.”
Fred smiled, then put a shot through the floor. His mother’s face went gray.
“Put your arms on the table. Do it, Mom. You want those pictures back, right?”
Fred wrenched one of his mother’s arms away from her side, put it on the table, put the head of the nail gun to her sleeve, and pulled the trigger.
Tha-wack. Nailed the other side of the cuff. Tha-wack, tha-wack.
“See? What did you think, Mama? That I was going to hurt you? I’m not a madman, you know.”
After he secured the first sleeve, he nailed down the second one, his mother flinching with each thwack, looking like she was going to cry.
The knob on the dishwasher timer advanced a notch as a minute went by.
Tick, tick, tick.
“Give me my pictures, Fred. They’re all I have . . .”
Fred put his mouth near his mother’s ear. Spoke in a loud stage whisper. “I did lie in court, Mom, because I wanted to hurt you. Let you know how I feel all the time.”
“I don’t have time to listen to you,” Elena Brinkley said, pulling her arms against the nails, fabric straining.
“But you do have time. Today is all about me. See?” he said, shooting the three-quarter-inch framing nails up the sides of her sleeves to her elbows.
Tha-wack, tha-wack, tha-wack.
“And the truth is that I wanted to do the dirty with Lily, and that was your fault, Mom. Because you made Lily into a little fuck-doll, with her tiny skirts and painted nails and high heels — on a twelve-year-old! What were you thinking? That she could look like that and no one would want to do her?”
The telephone rang, and Elena Brinkley turned her head longingly toward it. Fred got up from his seat and pulled the cord out of the wall. Then he lifted the knife block from the counter and put it down hard on the table. BLAM.
“Forget the phone. There’s no one you need to talk to. I’m the most important person in your world.”
“What are you doing, Alfred?”
“What do you think?” he said, taking out one of the long knives. “You think I’m going to cut your tongue out? What kind of psycho do you think I am?”
He laughed at the horror on his mother’s face.
“So the thing is, Mommy, I saw Lily going down on this guy, Peter Ballantine, who worked at the marina.”
“She did no such thing.”
Brinkley began to swipe the eight-inch-long blade against the sharpener — a long Carborundum rod. It made a satisfying whicking sound.
“You should leave now. The police are looking —”
“I’m not finished yet. You’re going to listen to me for the first time in your spiteful, miserable . . .”
