By God and hell, Tronen thought, if he’s been
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fouling my nest… If she rang from his place, at his suggestion, to get me to keep on supporting her, while he stood in the background and snickered , ..
This might not be true. This might not be true. But if it is.
The rage mounting in Tronen was not like the day’s anger. That had been controlled, lawful, eager to find reasons for itself. This was a fire. He’d been tormented past endurance. And the start of everything was Quarters. Whether or not he’d ever laid Una, he’d blown her mind (yes, blown!), which in many ways was worse than seducing her body. It was a theft, an invasion, of every part of her husband’s life. And what was Tronen permitted to do in self-defense? A married woman could have friends, couldn’t she? Even when the friends were vampires. The law said she could. Centuries had passed since the law put stakes through the hearts of vampires and burned them.
Divorce? Ha! No matter what Una babbled whether or not she was sincere at this time Lover Boy Quarters would want a property settlement and alimony for his use. Failing that, he’d want her marriage continued, free ass for him and a monopoly of her mind. Tronen could look for no peace while Quarters lived. How lucky Quarters was that Tronen owned no firearm.
Fire is an arm.
Tronen drank little more. He sat for perhaps an hour, thinking. His justice must be untrace-able. But he was too wise to plan anything
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elaborate. The fire m him should cleanse his life, not destroy it.
He kept a gallon of white gas in the garage for miscellaneous uses. Quarters rented a house (why, since he was unwed?), small, old, built of wood long dried, full of books and other paper. An enthusiastic outdoorsman in his vacations, he owned a Coleman stoveUna had spoken of thisand therefore doubtless fuel. Let that stove be found near the burnt body; the natural supposition would be that Quarters came to grief tinkering with it.
Tronen roared his ardor.
He was careful, though. He left lights on, TV goingpause to jerk an upright middle finger at a tiny lump of meat and bones in a dead fireand backed his car out as softly as he could manage, headlamps darkened. Should someone by ill chance phone or come around and find him not at home, why, he’d gone for supplies; he would indeed stop at a supermarket on his way home and buy a few items. Nobody was apt to look closely at the timing, for nobody supposed he and Quarters were anything but friends. (Ah-ha, outsmarted yourself, did you, Harry boy?) And odds were his absence would not be noticed, h^ would never be questioned.
When he had gone a sufficient distance, his way illuminated by countless points of fire overhead, he switched on lights and drove most carefully, conventionally, till near his goal. In this less prosperous district houses stood fairly close together, but hedges and evergreen trees cast deep shadows, and elsewhere the street
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lamps revealed nobody abroad. Parking under a great spruce, he took his canister of gas and walked fast to the property he wanted. There he moved slantwise across the lawn. The chill he breathed was sharp as a flame. Snow squeaked underfoot like a kitten.
Windows glowed. If Una was there!
A peek showed Quarters alone, sprawled in a seedy armchair, lost in a book. Good. Tronen entered the garage by a rear door and drew a flashlight from his coat. The portable stove glimmered at him out of murk. He carried it in the same hand as the fuel, walked around to the front entrance of the house, and punched a button he could barely see. The doorbell mewed.
Warmth (not that he felt cold) flowed over him when the door opened. “Why, hello, Leo,” Quarters said. “What brings you here?” He glanced surprised at his visitor’s burden, perhaps not recognizing the Coleman right away. “Come in.”
Tronen kicked the door shut behind him. “We’ve got business, you and me,” he said.