2

Tyranny Jones didn't answer the door in a bikini. She wore jeans, sneakers, one of her husband's oversized T-shirts smeared with paint. She had another very picturesque smudge of bright red across the bridge of her nose. Conner took her face in his hands, drew a thumb down the length of her slightly too-pointed nose, and showed her the paint.

She pulled away, laughing gently. "I've been in the studio."

"Working again?"

"Trying."

"Show me."

She smiled, took him by the hand, and led him through the house and into the breakfast nook just off the kitchen. She called it her studio, and Conner indulged her by not pointing out it was really just a little patch of tile floor surrounded by big bay windows. She had a huge canvas on the easel, a palette of paints to the side.

Tyranny's current project was a black-red swirl of heavily textured paint with flecks of dark green. It looked more like a diaper load than art. Conner didn't tell her this.

What he said was "nice."

She snorted. "You're a terrible liar, but I love you."

It was the most natural thing in the world to say. I love you. Maybe that's why the room turned real quiet all of a sudden. Her hand was still on his. He squeezed, and she squeezed back. The afternoon sun drifted in through the bay windows, washed them in dusty warmth. She leaned into him, bodies touching at the hips. Conner's breath came quick and shallow, heart fluttering.

Tyranny and Conner had taken a long, strange ride together to get to this point. He'd met her during his four-semester attempt at college before he'd blown his baseball scholarship. They'd met in an introductory art class. She was the star pupil. He just wanted to kill an elective. They'd liked each other immediately, but she'd had a boyfriend, some long-haired kid who splashed artistic angst all over himself like it was cheap aftershave. By the time she'd ditched him, Conner was involved with an uncomplicated cover-girl blonde whose sole mission in life seemed to be climbing on top of him. Tyranny and he remained friends.

As a matter of fact, they were such good friends that they couldn't un-friend themselves when they were finally single at the same time. They looked at each other with a mysterious gleam in their eyes, but maybe nobody was brave enough to take that next step.

And maybe another reason they never got together was the fact that they were so obviously wrong for each other, at least that was the way it seemed on the surface. He was a jock. She hung with the art crowd. But it was that difference that kept Conner interested. Tyranny wasn't like the sorority bubbleheads that seemed to find their way so easily into Conner's bed. Tyranny could talk for hours without ever resorting to the subject of her hair or nails or shoes. She intrigued him, and maybe the feeling was mutual, and it wasn't anything he could quite put his finger on, but there was a strange and powerful chemistry whenever they were together. The fact that she was somehow attracted to him, and that it had nothing to do with his tan or his muscles or his straight white teeth, simultaneously excited and worried him.

Tyranny had been accepted to the grad program, and he'd long flunked out to pursue half-assed, get-rich-quick schemes full-time when Professor Dan proposed marriage. Conner hadn't even realized Tyranny was seeing anyone. I guess it isn't good policy to advertise you're humping one of your teachers. If it had been a movie, he'd have walked out.

Their friendship cooled after that. Conner got a wedding invitation in the mail and conveniently misplaced it. He supposed it was unreasonable to feel hurt. Being reasonable wasn't one of his hobbies.

Then one long bourbon night, Tyranny called and said it had been a long time, and how had he been, and what had he been doing with himself, and wasn't it silly that they hadn't stayed in touch, and Professor Dan was at a conference in Baltimore, and why didn't he drop in for a visit to catch up on old times?

So Conner had gunned the Plymouth through the pouring rain and three red lights to see her again. She let him in, offered a towel and a drink, and spilled her story. Professor Dan had been good to her, but she'd been getting the itchy, crowded, uncomfortable feeling that the whole thing had been a mistake. Her schoolgirl crush on the older, worldly teacher was perhaps a novelty that wasn't novel anymore.

And so she sat closer, played with Conner's hair. Their lips met, hands found one another. Shirt buttons somehow got themselves unbuttoned. And then suddenly Tyranny panicked or freaked out or God knows what. She said it was all wrong and that he was too important for such a stupid fling.

Conner had insisted he wasn't very important at all, and look, he already had his pants down. No no no no, it was all wrong and Tyranny insisted he leave and she was so sorry but he'd surely understand that this was the right thing to do in the long run.

He'd gone back the next day to talk it out. Something had changed. Of course she wanted Conner, but it just wasn't right. From there, things proceeded in the most frustrating manner. She found excuses to call or drop by his apartment. She insisted they could only be friends. Close and special friends, but no more. Conner was confused, sick at his stomach. Was this a love affair or not?

Now, in the warm glow of her breakfast nook, she melted into him. Her arms slipped around his waist. She tilted her head up, offered her lips. Conner bent and accepted. She undid two of his shirt buttons, her hands darting inside, roaming his chest and belly. He kissed her hard.

She unzipped his pants, pulled him out of his boxers, and pumped. Conner moaned and kissed. His hands found the curve of her butt. She pulled away, looked him in the eyes. A wicked smile.

She reached for the paint palette, scooped an oily handful of bright blue paint, and grabbed Conner's length with it. He started to object, but the gliding friction dissuaded him. Then he took a glob of paint in each hand, found passage beneath Tyranny's T-shirt. He ran oily hands over her small, pert breasts. The nipples hardened, the paint oozing between his fingers. Conner closed his eyes, leaned his head back as Tyranny's fist did its work.

"Oh, my God." She let go of him, grabbed a roll of paper towels.

"What's wrong?" Conner was shamefully aware of the urgency in his voice.

"We can't."

"Yes we can."

Tyranny glanced at the oversized wall clock. "I can't believe the time." She wiped her hands on the paper towels and offered Conner the roll. "Dan will be home any minute!"

And here it was, the bad sequel to the bad movie, but he still never walked out. It was goddamn frustrating.

He took the paper towels, did a sloppy job wiping the paint off his pecker, and zipped up.

"I'll call you. I promise," she said as she pushed him out the door.

Fat Otis wasn't parked in front of the apartment anymore, so Conner went inside and stripped off his clothes. He made the shower hot even though he needed it cold. Conner lathered his dick, wanting to wash off the paint. He couldn't get Tyranny out of his head, so he soaped up good and finished the job she'd started. Relief. Conner knew it was only temporary. He finished showering and walked into the bedroom, drying himself.

He thought he heard some movement in the kitchen and froze. What a burglar might want in his shithole apartment Conner couldn't guess. He'd pawned anything worth more than twenty bucks except for his pistol, unloaded, somewhere in the distant reaches of his closet.

It wasn't a burglar.

Fat Otis walked into Conner's bedroom, a can of Coors in each hand. "Hey, man, how come you always got this shitty, watered-down beer?" Otis's voice was high and Southern, a cross between Mike Tyson and Colonel Sanders. "You should once in a while treat yourself to- Hey, why's your dick blue?"

Conner pulled the towel around himself. "It's a long story. Can I get a minute here, please?"

"No problem, man." He handed Conner one of the beers and left the room.

Conner pulled on jeans and shrugged into a loose Hawaiian shirt with a gaudy palm tree pattern. He shuffled barefoot into the kitchen.

Fat Otis dwarfed the kitchen table. He was a giant, sitting hunched over a box of chicken tenders, dipping them in barbecue sauce and packing them into his mouth like a machine. Conner sat across from him and opened a beer. It went down good and wet.

Fat Otis paused in his systematic demolition of the chicken to lick the sauce off his fingers and consult a small spiral notepad he carried in his shirt pocket. "You owe Rocky Big two hundred fifty dollars."

"I thought it was five hundred."

He shook his head. "You got lucky. The Phillies."

It wasn't all bad news, then. Conner sighed, rose from the table, and went into the bedroom. When he returned, he dropped three Franklins in front of Otis, who made them disappear into his pocket and came back with two twenties and a ten. He shook his empty beer can at Conner, raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah, yeah." Conner fetched two more from the fridge and set one in front of the giant.

Conner never let his gambling get to the point where Otis would be forced to snap a few of his little white-boy bones. Conner vividly remembered being a week late paying off a hundred-dollar bet two years ago. It was the first time he didn't have the money to pay up after losing. And so it was also the first time one of Rocky Big's leg-breakers had shown up at Conner's door. But Conner was surprised to see his old buddy Fat Otis.

Conner and Otis had been on their high school baseball team together. Otis had been the starting catcher, and with his wide body, he did a good job of blocking home plate. But after graduation, they'd taken different paths. Conner's grades were average at best, but he'd managed to squeak out a baseball scholarship to the local university. Otis had been a decent catcher, but he was too big to run the bases very fast. His career as an athlete was over, and he'd ended up working as one of Rocky's trusted henchmen.

Conner and Otis had talked over old times, remembered other buddies from the team, and Otis had looked sheepish when he told Conner he'd have to pay up "or else." It was obvious Fat Otis wasn't eager to bust up his old teammate. So Otis had given Conner an extra week to pay. They'd maintained an odd friendship ever since.

Otis finished his nuggets and wiped his hands on his pants. "Give up the gambling, Conner-man. You're no good at it."

"If I quit everything I was no good at, I wouldn't exist."

"You should come work for Rocky." He looked around the apartment. "Man, you live like shit."

"It's the maid's year off." There were still dishes in the sink from the Reagan administration.

"You need a steady paycheck," Otis said. "Maybe I can get you in with Rocky."

"No thanks." Conner wasn't sure he needed those kinds of favors. "As a matter of fact, I got a job just this morning."

"Congratulations. Gonna steal a Rolls-Royce?"

"No. A boat."

He laughed. "This is the Gulf Coast, Conner-man. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a boat. Needle in a fucking haystack."

"This one's a thirty-six-footer. The Electric Jenny."

"If I see it, I'll call you."

This reminded Conner he needed something.

"Otis, do you have a pair of good binoculars in the store?"

"Let's take a look."

Conner stepped into his sandals, and they took their beers outside. The "store" was the trunk of Otis's Lincoln. Otis handled select surplus items for a small commission. He opened the trunk, revealing the big, illegal, portable Wal-Mart of hot stuff: cameras, CD players, cell phones, and even a laptop computer. Everything was neatly arranged in wooden dividers in order to maximize the trunk's space. Otis slid one of the trays back, exposing a selection of handguns.

"You need one of these." Otis picked out a formidable silver automatic and held it up for Conner's inspection. "Nine millimeter. Twelve in the clip plus one in the chamber. When you're up against the shit, this is the kind of heat that can get your ass out of the soup."

"I don't need a gun, and I've never heard such a clusterfuck of metaphors."

"I'm not kidding, man," Otis said. "Guy in your line of work needs to watch his back."

"I don't have a line of work, and I already have a gun."

"The antique? Hell."

Otis had a point. The Webley was vintage 1917. Conner's great-uncle Warren had given it to him before he died, claimed it had seen action in the Black Forest. Maybe. Who could say? Originally, it had fired great big.455 caliber shells, but the ammo was hard to get. Some clever monkey handy with tools had filed the gun so it could fire standard.45 dumdums. Conner had to use special metal clips to hold in the shells. It was bulky, awkward, ugly, and huge. Sort of like Uncle Warren himself. Still, it was a solid gun in good shape.

But that wasn't really the point. Conner had never carried a gun, and didn't plan to. Not even when doing a repo in a really rotten gang neighborhood.

It wasn't that he had an ethical problem with guns. If some guy starts shooting at me, I'm all for shooting back. No, not an ethical problem. It was the klutz factor that worried him. When Conner Samson held a firearm, the safest place to stand was stock-still right in front of him. He was a lot more likely to shoot himself in the ass.

"Or maybe this." Otis showed Conner a big silver belt buckle like a rodeo cowboy might wear. It was gaudy and enormous.

"I've seen smaller satellite dishes."

Otis said, "It's sneaky like. Ever see one of them canes that's got the sword inside? Same kind of deal." Otis thumbed a hidden latch, and the front of the belt buckle sprung open. Inside was a single-shot derringer. "Thirty-two caliber. Take some motherfucker by complete surprise."

"No guns," Conner said. "Let's see the binoculars."

"Didn't you used to have binoculars?"

"No." Pawned.

Otis slid the gun drawer back and picked out a new pair of binoculars, handed them to Conner. They were midsize. Conner looked through them, and they brought the streetlight at the far end of the complex up close and clear.

"How much?"

Otis scratched his belly. "They run one eighty in the store."

"How much do they run from the back of a Lincoln?"

"Man, you can see flies fuck on the moon with these."

"Otis."

"Fifty bucks."

"How about a discount for your old buddy Conner?"

Otis smiled. "I'll knock off ten bucks if you tell me why your dick is blue."