“You’re a barracuda. I’m not lying. Little Anthony and the Imperials. ‘Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart; that ain’t you. The female Steven Seagal, I’m not lyin’. Where does he live? I’ll get him tonight. I got my ball point and paper ready and I’m in possession of untraceable firearms.”

“No, Bobby,” she said wearily. “It wasn’t nothin’ no more than an everyday two-timin’. I jes’ been down, I guess. Robert, it’s so good to hear your voice. It doesn’t seem like four years, it seems like yesterday.”

“They were troubles yesterday. We always got troubles. Walk around on this planet and you’re gonna have troubles. Only the mind does amazing things. It forgets the pain. You see pictures of people in the death camp—some guy points a camera at them and they smile, or somebody shows you a picture of Johnny and he’s smiling and somebody says, ‘Yeah, we took that photograph four days before he blew his head off with the twelve-gauge.’ Life is tricky that way. Fools you. I could do it, you know. I could blow my head off. Once you make your mind up to end it, they say you feel incredibly peaceful and infinitely wise.”

“When Johnny gets on the other side. What happens?”

“Nothing.”

“You say ‘nothing.’ Like before you were born?”

“Just like that.”

“What if Johnny gets over to the other side and finds himself in a pile of shit. A pile of shit he can’t get out of?”

“No, baby, this is it. What you see is what you get. You get this. So anyhow, Johnny with his twelve-gauge. Maybe somebody says a certain thing and he don’t take out the shotgun but three years later gets cancer of the pancreas. Don’t have the nerve to die now. Don’t got the balls for it anymore. Suffers excruciating pain. Termites eatin’ outcher insides. Ya know? Johnny should have shot himself then. The part of him that can see in the future told him then. I’m not saying you should always follow your heart, but these unconscious drives are probably more correct than we will ever know.”

She took the heavy receiver and shifted it to her other ear, cradling it against her shoulder. Poised on the edge of her bed, she reached over with her right hand and poured herself another glass of wine. She opened the drawer of her night table and pulled out the rest of her stash. She couldn’t believe what she was doing. The plan. Her grand inspiration was fast becoming a reality. She never thought she could pull it off but she was doing it, taking charge.

“I could never shoot myself,” she said.

“It’s the fastest way out,” he said.