Atropos - William L. DeAndrea Page 0,2

been too Catholic to fuck a married man. She hadn’t been too Catholic to suck his dick or ride his toes or do any of the other so-called sinful things they’d done together. She was just too Catholic to keep it from becoming a huge mess because she hadn’t been able to keep from getting pregnant. “Sorry, darling.”

What really infuriated him was that it was so trite, like a goddam outtake from Citizen Kane. If the press got hold of this, they wouldn’t print much of it—the Van Horn name was magic with them, too, and they were having too much fun at the moment with the Nixon impeachment hearings—but there would be a horse laugh in the halls of the Nation’s media that would kick up again every time Hank showed up.

And then Hank saw Pina’s face, and there it was. The smirk she’d never shown to Ella. The self-satisfied look of someone who thinks she’s getting away with something.

Hank could read the future in that face. Pina would make a big deal. She’d insist on marriage, at first. Then she’d settle for money. A lot of money. Or maybe she’d go for money right away, money to go away and have their baby (Hank remembered she hadn’t said “her baby”) and she’d raise it and love it, and she’d always be there for him.

Sure, Hank thought, until she decided she could use a million-dollar book-and-TV-movie deal.

“Give it up,” he said. “It’s not going to work.”

“Hank, what are you talking about?”

“No Van Horn has ever payed blackmail, or ever will.” He was quoting Gramps.

“Blackmail? Hank, I love you. Don’t be silly.”

There it was again, that smirk. The bitch was enjoying this.

“We’ll work something out,” she said.

“Work something out,” Hank said. Then he said, “Bitch,” and his hands jumped to her throat and started shaking her. He was not aware of wanting to do it. His hands did it, as though they were a pair of staffers who thought they knew more than the elected official they were supposed to serve.

Pina tried to talk, but her voice came out in a series of bubbling noises, like a sound effect in a cartoon. Then her eyes got wide, and her hands came up to try to pull his away. She started to scream. Hank’s hands shook her harder, to make her stop. She had a lot of nerve, screaming. She was the goddam blackmailer.

She stopped screaming. Her tongue came out, and her head flopped back and forth like the head of a teddy bear, as though it were held on only by stitching on the outside.

“Bitch,” Hank said again, and kept shaking for another half minute. When he let go, Pina flopped to the mattress.

“Now let’s talk about that abortion,” he said. He was panting and sweating. He wasn’t so angry anymore.

He nudged her. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t sulk.”

He pushed her hair off her face and rolled her over.

And she was dead. Her face was twisted and blue, and her tongue was out, and strands of her long black hair were clinging to the surface of one staring eye.

He’d strangled her. He hadn’t meant to, but he had. The bruises on her throat might have been a tattoo reading CHOKED. He’d been shaking, of course, but he didn’t remember squeezing. He had no intention of squeezing. Of course, he had no intention of shaking her, either—he’d just found himself doing it.

Well, he thought, at least she won’t be coming around with a brat making trouble for me. Then he realized what kind of trouble he was in already.

But he didn’t panic—he planned. He planned while he got dressed. He planned while he pushed Pina’s tongue back in and got the hair out of her eyes and placed her comfortably on her back. Five minutes later, the fire was beginning to crackle.

It was a shirt-sleeve night, but Hank started shivering as soon as he reached the sidewalk. It was simply, Hank was sure, the contrast between the heat of the fiery room and the relative coolness of normal weather. All he had to do now was reach his car (parked down two blocks and over one) and drive away. He’d call Ainley Masters, and together they’d decide what Hank should say when told of the tragedy.

He heard a sudden explosion and the sound of shattering glass. Hank hit the ground and started crawling for cover, the way the family security experts taught every Van Horn. There was a roaring and a