Page 20 of So Lethal (Faith Bold #22)

Marcus Wolfe finished the last of his bourbon, tossed the empty bottle next to its companions on the couch, buried his head in his hands and wept.

That’s what Marcus did most days now. Woke up, got booze, and got drunk.

His banking app could deposit his disability checks over the phone, and there were cheap takeout places in this part of Campbell, so the only people he ever had to see were the Majumdars, the elderly Sikh couple who ran the liquor store.

They didn’t feel a need to sympathize with him for being deaf, and they didn’t feel a need to talk to him without giving a shit that he was deaf, so he didn’t mind it so much.

Plus, they sold him as much booze as he wanted, so there was that.

He hated this. His life was fucking awful now.

“Least those fucking cops are gone now.”

He sighed and wiped his tears away. He got to his feet, swaying a little, and walked to the kitchen to grab a bag of potato chips.

He made the journey relatively free of incident, only bumping his knee a little on the coffee table.

That would leave a bruise, but not much of one. He could handle a few more drinks.

He laughed. Who gave a shit? Why not drink until he passed out again? Who was gonna stop him?

Thirty years. Thirty years he worked for PG&E.

He never realized before now how much the job meant to him, but without it, he could barely stand to wake up in the morning.

Maybe he was nothing more than a gasman, but that meant something.

It was his job to make sure that buildings had heat, that residents could cook their food, that city buses could refuel.

All of that gone because some idiot in a budgeting office decided to gamble that a ninety-year-old gas main could handle a few more years of deterioration.

He grabbed the chips and a bottle of vodka and stumbled back to the living room. The Sharks were playing tonight. He could watch the game with subtitles. It was something to do.

He plopped on the couch, opened the vodka and drank a healthy swig.

His old buddy Angel told him that there was fine vodka out there that wouldn’t burn when you drank it, but this wasn’t that stuff.

This was rotgut, the cheap kind with a screw off cap that the Majumdars sold for five dollars a fifth.

It seared his throat and sent fire through his sinuses.

He coughed and twisted the cap back onto the vodka before setting it on the couch. Then he popped open the bag of chips.

He couldn’t hear a damned thing. Not a fucking thing. At one point, he could have given an eloquent explanation of all the ways that hurt him, but now his alcohol-soaked mind just kept fixating on the pertinent point. He couldn’t hear a single thing.

A lump formed in his throat, but he didn’t bother to cover his eyes this time. He just sat on his couch and watched the Sharks score the opening goal against the Ducks, sniffling, sobbing and shaking.

At some point, he’d have to figure this out.

He couldn’t drink himself to death. Well, he could , but even now at the darkest point in his life, he knew he would get through the pain.

If he came through it with a shot liver and thirty extra pounds around his gut, he would regret that, so he had to figure something out sooner or later.

Damn it, if only the insurance company had paid for his damned cochlear implants! He wouldn’t have collapsed like this. He wouldn’t have gotten into a fight with that prissy bitch at the support group.

That was why the FBI was here earlier. He knew that. He’d seen on the news that Sarah had died. He didn’t know who the other two were, but he figured the police would eventually want to talk to him. He wasn’t sure why the FBI was here, but he wasn’t surprised by it.

Whatever. If they came back with an interpreter, he’d talk. He knew ASL well enough now that he could get the general gist of things. Otherwise, they and that dead stuck-up bitch could go screw themselves.

That thought brought a flood of remorse. Sarah hadn’t done anything to deserve that anger. And she was dead now. Had he really fallen so far that he was going to delight in a woman’s death?

He looked at the bottle of vodka and made a choice.

No more. He figured he’d have a bad couple of days of withdrawals, but he’d get through it.

Then he’d find something else to do. His disability wasn’t much, but that with his pension and the social security checks he would start getting in seven months when he turned fifty-five would be enough to keep him alive.

Thank God he had finished paying his mortgage.

He could take walks, he could travel, he could see movies at the Regal downtown.

They had a screening of each movie reserved for the hearing impaired. He’d be okay.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. God, he was drunk.

A soft rumbling came to his ears. He stopped dead still. His ears. A rumbling came to his ears.

A cascade of emotions ran through him. You’re probably just so shitfaced that you’re hallucinating .

But he heard it again, and there was no mistake, that’s what it was. He heard it. He heard the sound of… what was it?

He got to his feet and followed the sound. It was coming from his backyard. A mountain lion, maybe?

He grabbed his shotgun by the door, just in case, and headed into his backyard. There was nothing there.

His heart dropped to his feet. It was a hallucination. There was no sound.

The grief was so sharp that his earlier resolve wavered. Maybe he’d just have one more drink and throw everything away tomorrow.

He turned around and saw a blur of motion. Something hit him hard on the jaw, and he dropped to the ground. Consciousness faded before alarm could reach the forefront of his mind. Darkness settled over him, and peace returned once more.

Then everything was gone.