Cautious here. “Oh, I, uhm, I was supposed to see my mother.”

Stephen wrinkled his face in disappointment. “Too bad. See, I have this place in Cape May—”

“The Jersey shore!”

“Right. I’m going out there—”

“After you get Buddy?”

Who the fuck was Buddy?

Oh, the cat. “Right. If you weren’t doing anything, I thought you might like to come out.”

“You have . . . ?”

“My mom’s going to be there, some of her girlfriends.”

“Well, golly. I don’t know.”

“So, why don’t you call your mother and tell her she’ll have to live without you for the weekend?”

“Well . . . I don’t really have to call. If I don’t show up it’s, like, no big deal. It was like, maybe I’ll go, maybe I won’t.”

So she’d been lying. An empty weekend. Nobody’d miss her for the next few days.

A cat jumped up next to him, stuck her face into his. He pictured a thousand worms spraying over his body. He pictured the worms squirming through Sheila’s hair. Her wormy fingers. Stephen began to detest this woman. He wanted to scream.

“Ooo, say hello to our new friend, Andrea. She likes you, Sam.”

He stood up, looking around the apartment. Thinking:

Remember, boy, anything can kill.

Some things kill fast and some things kill slow. But anything can kill.

“Say,” he asked, “you have any packing tape?”

“Uhm, for . . . ?” Her mind raced. “For . . . ?”

“The instruments I have in the bag? I need to tape one of the drums back together.”

“Oh, sure, I’ve got some in here.” She walked into the hallway. “I send my aunties packages all the time. I always buy a new roll of tape. I can never remember if I’ve bought one before so I end up with a ton of them. Aren’t I a silly-billy?”

He didn’t answer because he was surveying the kitchen and decided that was the best kill zone in the apartment.

“Here you go.” She tossed him the roll of tape playfully. He instinctively caught it. He was angry because he hadn’t had the chance to put his gloves on. He knew he’d left prints on the roll. He shivered in rage and when he saw Sheila grinning, saying, “Hey, good catch, friend,” what he was really looking at was a huge worm moving closer and closer. He set the tape down and pulled on his gloves.

“Gloves? You cold? Say, friend, what’re you . . . ?”

He ignored her and opened the refrigerator door, began removing the food.

She stepped farther into the room. Her giddy smile started to fade. “Uhm, you hungry?”

He began removing the shelves.

A look passed between them and suddenly, from deep within her throat, came a faint “Eeeeeeee.”

Stephen got the fat worm before she made it halfway to the front door.

Fast or slow?

He dragged her back into the kitchen. Toward the refrigerator.