counterfeit as the credit cards on which it appears. He has no family,
no friends, no home. He cannot recall who gave him this assignment–or
any of the jobs before it–and he doesn’t know why his targets must die.
Incredibly, he has no idea who pays him, does not remember where he got
the money in his wallet or where he bought the clothes he wears.
On a more profound level, he does not know who he is. He has no memory
of a time when his profession was anything other than murder. He has no
politics, no religion, no personal philosophy whatsoever. Whenever he
tries to take an interest in current affairs, he finds himself unable to
retain what he reads in the newspapers, he can’t even focus his
attention on television news. He is intelligent, yet he permits
himself–or is permitted–only satisfactions of a physical nature, food,
sex, the savage exhilaration of homicide. Vast regions of his mind
remain uncharted.
A few minutes pass in green and red neon.
His tears dry. Gradually he stops trembling.
He will be all right. Back on the rails. Steady, controlled.
In fact he ascends with remarkable speed from the depths of despair.
Surprising, how readily he is willing to continue with his latest
assignment–and with the mere shadow of a life that he leads.
Sometimes it seems to him that he operates as if programmed in the
manner of a dumb and obedient machine.
On the other hand, if he were not to continue, what else would he do?
This shadow of a life is the only life he has.
While the girls were upstairs, brushing their teeth and preparing for
bed, Marty methodically went from room to room on the first floor,
making sure all of the doors and windows were locked.
He had circled half the downstairs–and was testing the latch on the
window above the kitchen sink–before he realized what a peculiar task
he had set for himself. Prior to turning in every night, he checked the
front and back doors, of course, plus the sliding doors between the
family room and patio, but he did not ordinarily verify that any
particular window was secure unless he knew that it had been open for
ventilation during the day. Nevertheless, he was confirming the
integrity of the house perimeter as conscientiously as a sentry might
certify the outer defenses of a fortress besieged by enemies.
As he was finishing in the kitchen, he heard Paige enter, and a moment
later she slid both arms around his waist, embracing him from behind.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, well . ..”
“Bad day?”
“Not really. Just one bad moment.”
Marty turned in her arms to embrace her. She felt wonderful, so warm
and strong, so alive.
That he loved her more now than when they had met in college was no
surprise. The triumphs and failures they had shared, the years of daily
struggle to make a place in the world and to seek the meaning of it, was
rich soil in which love could grow.
However, in an age when ideal beauty was supposedly embodied in
nineteen-year-old professional cheerleaders for major-league football
teams, Marty knew a lot of guys who would be surprised to hear he’d
found his wife increasingly attractive as she had aged from nineteen to
thirty-three. Her eyes were no bluer than they had been when he’d first
met her, her hair was not a richer shade of gold, and her skin was
neither smoother nor more supple. Nevertheless, experience had given
her character, depth. Corny as it sounded in this era of knee-jerk
cynicism, she sometimes seemed to shine with an inner light, as radiant
as the venerated subject of a painting by Raphael.
So, yeah, maybe he had a heart as soft as butter, maybe he was a sucker
for romance, but he found her smile and the challenge of her eyes
infinitely more exciting than a six-pack of naked cheerleaders.
He kissed her brow.
She said, “One bad moment? What happened?”
He hadn’t decided how much he should tell her about those seven lost
minutes. For now it might be best to minimize the deep weirdness of the