The small hours of the morning found them naked on the kitchen floor after Travis had played a rampaging Godzilla to Jennifer’s unsuspecting Tokyo. They were crouched over a cooking toaster oven, each with a table knife loaded with butter, poised like executioners waiting for the signal to drop their blades. They polished off a loaf of toast, a half-pound of butter, a quart of tofu ice cream, a box of whole wheat cream-sandwich cookies, a bag of unsalted blue corn chips, and an organically grown watermelon that gushed pink juice down their chins while they laughed.

Stuffed, satisfied, and sticky-sweet they returned to bed and fell asleep in a warm tangle.

Perhaps it wasn’t love that they had in common; perhaps it was only a need for escape and forgetting. But they found it.

Three hours later the alarm clock sounded and Jenny left to go wait tables at H.P.’s Cafe. Travis slept dreamless, groaning and smiling when she kissed him good-bye on the forehead.

When the explosions started, Travis woke up screaming.

Part 4

MONDAY

The many men, so beautiful!

And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand slimy things

Lived on; and so did I.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Marnier

23

RIVERA

Rivera came through the trailer door followed by two uniformed officers. Robert sat up on the couch and was immediately rolled over and handcuffed. Rivera read him his Miranda rights before he was completely awake. When Robert’s vision cleared, Rivera was sitting in a chair in front of him, holding a piece of paper in his face.

“Robert, I am Detective Sergeant Alphonse Rivera.” A badge wallet flipped open in Rivera’s other hand. “This is a warrant for your and The Breeze’s arrest. There’s one here to search this trailer as well, which is what I and deputies Deforest and Perez will be doing in just a moment.”

A uniformed officer appeared from the far end of the trailer. “He’s not here, Sergeant.”

“Thanks,” Rivera said to the uniform. To Robert he said: “Things will go easier for you if you tell me right now where I can find The Breeze.”

Robert was starting to get a foggy idea of what was going on.

“So you’re not a dealer?” he asked sleepily.

“You’re quick, Masterson. Where’s The Breeze?”

“The Breeze didn’t have anything to do with it. He’s been gone for two days. I took the suitcase because I wanted to know who the guy was that was with my wife.”

“What suitcase?”

Robert nodded toward the living-room floor. The Haliburton case lay there unopened. Rivera picked it up and tried the latches.

“It’s got a combination lock,” Robert said. “I couldn’t get it open.”

Sheriff’s deputies were riffling through the trailer. From the back bedroom one shouted. “Rivera, we’ve got it.”

“Stay here, Robert. I’ll be right back.”