Criminals (32 page)

“How old were you?”

“Second question. Let's see if you can just go right down the line with all the key questions and I'll answer and then you make the key statements. You, me, you, me.” He beckoned her. “How old was I? I was fourteen.”

“Why are you talking to me this way? I've never seen you this—”

“This unpleasant. Right. It's definitely the unpleasant side of me.”

“I thought—”

“You thought I was just a nice guy. A boyish kind of a guy. The nicest guy you could have run into, under the circumstances.” He had her hand back down on the ridged wood, hard enough to hurt. His forehead had popped out in sweat.

“Michael—”

“Wait a second. You haven't made the definitive statement.”

“What is that?”

“Come on,” he said, beckoning again.

“Michael, I'm tired and you're making me unhappy. I don't like this feeling you're giving me. I want to go home. I need to be there.” For the first time she felt vaguely ashamed that Michael knew her the way he did, already knew things about her, knew why she had to get to her house.

“‘It wasn't your fault.' You're supposed to say, ‘It wasn't your fault.'”

Suddenly, as she inspected his dark eyes—brighter than she had seen them before, and smaller, as Steve's had been when he realized he had said
firstborn
—her nervousness fell away. Her fingers curled. She shut them on his and pressed back, hard. “Why would I say that?” she said.

He squinted at her.

“Why would I say that?” She leaned forward, his head filled her vision, she began to speak, right to the eyes and the twisted mouth. “When you did kill him. Why would I say you didn't? Is that what people say to you? It isn't your fault?”

“They do.”

“They say that to me, too,” she said.

She tore off a piece of bread. As she chewed, she thought she might be smiling as she had before, when Steve said
firstborn
, or as Michael had been smiling when he beckoned her with his hands. She couldn't be sure just what she might look like. Michael didn't turn away. He kept looking, nodding in the rhythm of the owl balloons above them. Their hands were hurting each other. Their faces were close. She swallowed the bread. Before this she had never smelled sweat on him. Under the owls' eyes they began to kiss each other, their teeth scraped, they were two people who would kill, and not go crying for mercy, they were criminals, both of them were, they went on kissing, they were criminals.