Afterward he lay next to her in the moonlight. They might have been lovers. His whole chest heaved. He was sweaty, sticky, exhausted. Blood-covered. The stench of her was terrible. He closed his eyes, felt the breeze dry his sweat. In the distance cows stirred and mooed. Then pigs. Dead corn stalks rattled in the wind. Skeleton bones.
Fucking bitch.
From the trunk he took the tarpaulin. He spread it out and wrapped her up in it tight. It was awkward carrying her back to the car. He sort of staggered. At least she wasn't leaking. The whole idea of the tarpaulin was that there wouldn't be any blood.
In the car he turned up the radio good and loud. God, did he need a drink. He was careful to drive the speed limit, but still, on those rutted county roads he could hear her bounce and bang.
God, did he need a drink.
1
The way Brolan figured it, probably not more than three or four couples would get a divorce because of the party tonight. For an advertising shindig that wasn't so bad.
The place was the Hyatt Regency in Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, the time was 8:37 p.m., and the occasion was the Brolan-Foster Agency's winning the Down Home Bakery account, which had annual billings of slightly more than ten million dollars. In the Twin Cities it was one of three accounts agency presidents would hand over their teenage daughters to win.
Dinner for sixty had been in The Willows, with its mirrored pillars and ceilings, with its seemingly endless amounts of smorgasbord, pates, seafood and vegetable marinades, mousses and salads. The agency people took up about a third of the place, and it was easy to spot them. They were the ones giving drunken champagne toasts every five minutes and then breaking into applause. Some of the restaurant's other guests found this amusing. Some wanted to go over and punch in a few faces. Hovering waiters asked again and again if there could be, uh, just a little more quiet. Chuck you, Farley, and the horse you rode in on.