“We’re gonna kill him.” A man’s voice, low.

  “I’m scared.” A woman’s voice, frightened, in answer.

  “I’m not gonna let the old bastard walk off with that money.”

  The woman murmured.

  “Tomorrow. Or the day after. We see what he does, and. . .” and a door closed and the voices went silent.

  Derry lay in the darkness. We’re gonna kill him.

  He grabbed an empty beer glass from the side table, pressed it against the wall, feeling silly; listening with glasses was a game for kids. But he heard nothing else, only the distant burr of a snore.

  Derry took the glass down from the wall. Picked up the phone to call the police then set it back down into its cradle. He didn’t know the neighbors but he had seen them, a melon-bellied guy with thick arms, a thin woman who reminded Derry of a substitute teacher facing a class of delinquents. She was pretty but nervous. The man strutted like he was descended from kings. Lots of jewelry on both of them, more on the man, though, and they drove a new Cadillac, a way-too-nice car for the apartment complex.

  Derry lay on the bed and the sweat from his back left a damp oval on the sheets. He wondered who the couple wanted to kill and how much money they would steal from the dead man. He turned the television back on, thumbed the volume low on the remote. Another ad suggested if you wanted a bright new life, seize your future and enroll at the Coastal Bend Advanced Institute of Careers. He didn’t write down the phone number. He had a whole new idea on how to seize his future.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Derry sat by the window and watched the couple go down the stairs to their Cadillac. Most of the other residents of the Sea Shell had departed for their jobs: shrimping in Port Leo, working retail at the tourist traps in Rockport or Port Aransas, or cleaning the hotels in Corpus Christi. Derry didn’t have a job as of two weeks ago and his landlord, retired military, considered rent extensions a symptom of poor discipline. He had a week to come up with the rent money. Lisa—probably in California by now, thanks to hocking the wedding ring—had cleaned him out as neatly as a redfish, gutted from tail to jaw. The classifieds lay folded in front of him, unread. He watched the Cadillac and its bejeweled occupants pull out of the lot.

  Even if he got a job today, he wouldn’t get paid for two weeks. No rent money in time.

  Some people would pay for silence.

  He felt his conscience begin to drift away from him, almost like a mist he could see, fading in the morning heat. Maybe just going for a little while, he thought. Just enough to get by.

  Derry got in his car and followed them at a discreet distance, easy enough to do in Port Leo. The Cadillac pulled into a diner, the Sailor’s Spoon, and Derry followed. They took a back booth and Derry sat at the counter. He bought a doughnut, crusted with glaze, and a cup of black coffee; it was all he could afford. He watched the couple order a pot of decaf, orange juice, a fat omelet studded with pink ham for her, steak and eggs for him, biscuits as thick as a child’s fist. The woman called the man Jack. Then Jack laughed loud, ordering mimosas, trying to be funny with the waitress, knowing she’d have to laugh at his joke to keep her tip.

  Derry wondered what he would say to them after the fact of the killing: I know what you did. I can stay quiet. I just need some money. And he wondered who they would kill, who was the old bastard. He would follow them, try to identify their target, wait and see what happened. Then ask for the money once the deed was done. Enough to run away from this crappy life. The simplicity of the plan pleased him, like a shelf well made, wood cut at neat angles.

  Cadillac Jack and Mousy (the names he’d coined for them) walked past him. Derry stared at the coffee smear at the bottom of his cup. He glanced over to see Cadillac Jack snapping out two twenties to cover breakfast, from a wad of bills that would have fed Derry for six months. Making a show of his good fortune, trying to impress the teenage girl at the register. Mousy ignored Cadillac Jack as he cracked a joke older than fossils. She stared at Derry, three stools down from the register, and he saw unexpected heat light her eyes, a sudden awareness of him. Her tongue touched the edge of her front lip. She turned away and walked out into the morning brightness, glancing back at him once.

  When they drove off, Derry followed them. But they went back to the apartment complex. He thought they might go case the victim’s house, go buy a gun, run the necessary errands of murderers. He hurried back into his own room and put the beer glass to the wall, listening for their voices. Muffled. Then he heard the small, hard shot of a slap. Mumbles, more sobs. Her crying she was sorry. Then the booming voice of the announcer telling Cecilia to come on down, you’re the next contestant on The Price is Right. No voices talking.

  Derry sat near his window, waiting for them to go kill someone.

  THE AFTERNOON WAS a cookie-sheet-hot haze. Derry dozed on the couch, fitful, waking with a start at a knock on his door. He looked through the window. The Caddy was gone from its parking slot. Oh, damn. The knock sounded again. He opened the door.

  Mousy stood on his doorstep. She’d pulled her brown hair back into a ponytail, changed into a pink T-shirt and khaki shorts. She wasn’t wearing the morning jewelry. Again her little tongue dabbed along the lips. Her cheek was still a shade red from the slap.

  He stared at her in surprise; he thought she was off committing a felony.

  “Excuse me, I’m your next door neighbor?” Her voice rose at the end, like she wasn’t sure. “My name’s Gina. I saw you this morning at the Sailor’s Spoon.”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Would it be okay if I came inside and we talked?”

  “Sure.” He stepped back, his heart pounding. She came in, glancing at the sparse furnishings, keeping her smile fixed in place.

  “Your place is nice.”

  “It’s a dump, but you’re nice to lie,” Derry said. “You want a Coke?” He nearly laughed at the idea of offering her a drink; he wanted to blackmail her. He decided to say nothing to her; the deal would have to be struck with Cadillac Jack.

  “No, thank you,” she said. “I met your wife. Lisa?”

  “Yeah. She’s gone. For like good.” He leaned down, pulled a cigarette from the pack, lighted it. “You mind if I smoke?”

  “It’s your apartment.”

  “That’s not what I asked,” Derry said. “I asked if you minded. If you do, I won’t.”

  “I’m just a little bit allergic.”

  He stubbed out the smoke.

  “You can still smoke that later, right? I don’t want you. . .to go without.” She sat on the couch, on its edge, her shorts gripping her supple thighs.

  “Don’t worry about it.” He sat in the chair.

  “Lisa told me she was leaving you. We were in the laundry room last week,” she said. “It’s terrible.”

  “You’re late breaking the news,” Derry said.

  Gina tapped her finger against her leg. “She said it was over money.”

  “She wanted to live better than I could afford. I don’t blame her.” He hated himself as soon as he said it, because, damn it, for richer, for poorer meant just that and she’d not lived up to her side of the vow.

  “I wondered if you still needed money, Derry.”

  “You in the door-to-door loan business?”

  Gina shook her head. “I need quiet help. And I could pay you well.” She nibbled on her bottom lip, knees crunched together, painted toes tipped against the carpet.

  “Define quiet.”

  “Like you don’t tell anyone.”

  “I don’t do illegal.” He thought it the safest reply.

  She shrugged, tenting her cheek with her tongue.

  “Why would you trust me?” Derry said. “You don’t know me.”

  “I don’t know anybody here,” she said. “And you’re a big, tough guy, you look like you could handle yourself.” She cocked her head. “You need the money. I know you do.”

  “Not really.”

  “I’ll pay you fifty thousand dollars,” she said.

  It was ten times what he had thought to ask for his silence. He barely kept his poker face in place. He wished he could relight the cigarette, look cool for her, stare at her through the screen of smoke. He folded his hands in his lap. “If you’re so rich, why do you live in this hole?”

  “Not by choice,” she said. “And I won’t stay here when we’re done. You won’t have to, either.”

  “Won’t have to or won’t be able to?” he asked.

  “That’s up to you.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “My boyfriend Jack has a business deal going with an old guy who’s got a place out on Castaway Key.” It was a sumptuous development on the edge of St. Leo Bay, a spit of island covered with grand homes and a fancy marina. “A man named Potter. Potter keeps his fingers in a lot of shady deals. Real estate in Houston, Beaumont, up and down the coast, pouring money into crappy housing developments, hiding cash for not-so-nice people. Jack helps him find the properties, get the bids for improvements that never happen, doctors the invoices. So the money they clean together looks legit.”

  “That’s why y’all are staying here,” Derry said. “Potter’s pretending to pour money into this dump.”

  “I knew you were smart, Derry.” She rubbed her thighs with her hands as though chilled. “I could drink a beer if you got one.”

  He had one precious Bud left and he got it for her. She sipped at it, touched the cold can to the skin above her breasts for a moment, put it back on a dried ring on the coffee table. “The people Potter works for—they are extremely not-nice. I’m thinking three-letter word, starts with M, ends with B, has O in the middle, but you never heard it from me.”

  He said nothing, waiting.

  “They like Jack better than they like Potter. And they want Jack to get rid of Potter, take over that side of the business.”

  “Get rid of,” Derry said.

  “Don’t get dense all of a sudden.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “They want Jack to kill Potter.”

  “I can tell you I’m pretty not-interested in your business proposition.”

  “Hear me out. Potter’s got tons of cash on hand. Usually keeps it in a safety deposit box, but Jack knows where he’s got a stash, about a hundred thousand, in the house. So he’s gonna get rid of Potter, make it look like an accident, a fall down the stairs. Potter broke a hip last winter; he’s old, getting trail. Then Jack pockets all the cash because Potter’s bosses don’t know it’s there.”

  “Potter’s been skimming the till and Jack hasn’t ratted on him.”

  “Exactly,” Gina said. “Potter’s not the kind of guy his mother would shed tears for. Rotten to the core. He likes girls. Young girls. Way too young girls.” She shivered.

  “So what do you want me to do, Gina?”

  “Jack wants to make Potter’s death look like an accident. So there won’t be many questions. But I’m worried once he’s committed murder, he’s going to get very nervous about me. About what I know. I’d rather be in charge of my own future.”

  Her words reminded him of the trade school ads and he almost smiled. “So you want to break free from Jack and you want to take Potter’s money.”

  She nodded.

  “How free you want to be?”

  “Forever free.” She cleared her throat. “It would be easy to make it look like Jack and Potter killed each other.”

  “You want me to help you kill them.”

  “Not Potter. Just Jack.”

  He had gone, in ten minutes, from potential blackmailer to potential hitman and a trickle of fear and excitement coursed along his spine. Blackmailers were cowards, in a way, but a hitman? That would be cool. If it wasn’t crazy. “You must be nuts to confide in me when you don’t know me very well. How do you know I won’t go to the police and spill my guts?”

  “Because then you’ll be the one exposing Potter and Jack, and in turn, their bosses. The people Potter works for are not the people you want to testify against in a trial.” She left the silence in the air, watching him. “You don’t have two cents to rub together, Derry. We do this right, you and I are both tree from our sucky lives and out of here. With a lot of money.”

  He stared at his stubbed-out cigarette.

  “What do you do, Derry?” But she asked like she already knew.

  “I work shrimp boats.”

  “But not today, or any other day I’ve seen you.”

  Now he looked at her.

  “You got fired for stealing?” Again, the rise at the end of the sentence, she knew but acting like she didn’t know. “Any captains around here eager to take you on?”

  Lisa and her laundry-room mouth.

  “I’m not desperate enough to become your personal hitman,” he said. “I won’t fink you out but I don’t want any part of it.”

  “Please. I can’t do this alone.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “You ever going to see fifty thousand in cash in your life, Derry?”

  He wasn’t going to see five dollars in cash anytime soon, and he knew it. Soon he’d lose the apartment, the car, the TV. He wouldn’t even have the trade school ads to keep him company, to dangle a life just out of his reach. Seize your future. Embrace your potential. Be your destiny.

  “You can do better than Lisa and this dump,” Gina said. “It’s a fresh start.”

  It was a sweet deal. Maybe this was his future, grabbing him by the throat, shaking him into action. It was an opportunity he’d never had before, would never get again. Money. A second chance. Maybe, as well, a new career. If he could do one hit, he could surely do another. He thought of Jack—loud, self-absorbed, a man who hit his woman—yeah. He could kill a loser like that for money. The realization was a shock to him, then the surprise faded. It might be. . .cool. Like in the movies.

  “Have fun living off the mold in your fridge.” She got up to leave.

  Derry reached out and grabbed her arm. He felt a smile break across his face for the first time in a week. “Let’s do it. Seize the future, Gina. Let’s take the money.”

  POTTER’S HOUSE WAS new-money grand, fronted by two thick-trunked palms, a brick driveway, mushroom clouds of bougainvillea. The sun had set into the land behind St. Leo Bay but twilight offered no relief from the damp heat that fogged the air like devil’s breath. The stars twinkled in the indigo sky. It was close to nine.

  Derry wiped sweat from his forehead. Hitmen, he told himself, shouldn’t sweat. The cries of cicadas and crickets blanketed the night. He sat parked two blocks away from Potter’s, in front of a house owned by weekenders, empty on a Tuesday night. She said both houses on each side of Potter’s were empty at the moment, owned by winter Texans, sure to avoid July swelter. She lay huddled in the back seat so that Jack would not see her as he drove past. Jack thought Gina had gone to Rockport to see a movie. She was supposed to buy two tickets to give Jack an alibi if there were any difficulties later with the police.

  “Any sign of Jack?” she asked for the tenth time.

  “No,” he said.

  Her plan was simple. They would wait for Jack to go inside Potter’s house, kill the old man, and retrieve the money. Jack would then come out with a duffel bag of cash. Gina and Derry would surprise him, hurry Jack back into the house, shoot him dead, leave him tangled with Potter’s body so it looked like a fight gone fatal. Take the cash, split it, run their separate ways.

  Derry’s resolve to kill Jack rose and fell with his heartbeat and his fear. It’s not murder, he told himself, it’s a job. The thought—equaling this task to cleaning shrimp or sweeping a floor or hosing down a boat deck—calmed him. The gun felt firm in his hands and he studied its architecture, the curve of the trigger, the texture of the grip, the near-perfect roundness of the eye. Not a gun; a tool to do the job. Just pull the trigger once. Just do it and be done with it and get to the airport in Corpus Christi, pay cash for a ticket anywhere in the world, just go.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Gina said.

  “My thoughts are about to get much more expensive.”

  She laughed but he could hear her nervousness in the giggle. “I went to Catholic school. Whole pleated plaid skirt gig. I was the spelling champion four years straight. The nuns would die if they saw me now.”

  “I’m glad your parents didn’t waste the tuition.”

  “It’s kind of a shame we need to part ways. I like you way better than Jack.”

  “You’re a nice girl, Gina.” He meant it. “I appreciate what you’re doing for me.”

  “You meet cool people in the funniest circumstances sometimes.”

  He saw Jack pull up in front of Potter’s house, hurry to the door, ring the bell. The door opened. “Jack just went in,” he said in a low voice. He pulled his car within two houses of Potter’s.

  “Give him at least ten minutes,” she said. “Maybe longer. He has to get Potter to tell him where the money is. And to shove him down the stairs.”

  They waited, Derry’s throat thickening into concrete.

  Fifteen minutes later the front door of the big house opened, Cadillac Jack stepped out onto the darkened porch. He carried a duffel bag, the fabric bubbled with weight.

  “Let’s go,” Derry said. She opened her car door. The gun weighed like an anchor in his, but as they hurried across the yards and up toward Potter’s porch the gun seemed to lighten with each step. He kept the gun tucked behind his back.

  Cadillac Jack stared at them as they approached. He didn’t reach for a gun, his gaze flicking between Derry and Gina.

  “Baby, what the hell. . .” he started.

  “Don’t move.” Derry brought the gun around to aim at Jack; its weight evaporated. He nearly laughed at the oh Jesus look on Jack’s face. He felt like a god, like he’d finally stepped into the shoes he’d always been meant to wear.

  “Jack,” Gina said. “We need to talk.”