by Chris Bauer
“—my flustered smock
“—a crowded jock—”
Oh no—nonono, I needed to choke it all back, not say any more—
“—rhymes with, sounds like…
“—rock-sock-block-knock…”
I held the waist of my jeans, didn’t let them fall, desperate for the attached keychain, my teeth clenched, gritted, worried my mouth would betray more of me.
“It’s okay, Counsel, it’s okay,” he said, his breath warm in my ear. He covered my hand with his. “If ever there were a time for you to talk dirty…”
It was never a good time to hear my head rattles verbalized, but my mind did calm, Andy’s touch keeping me from giving in to the crazy. We let my jeans drop. I helped him lose his nurse’s uniform, and we helped ourselves to each other’s writhing, dampened passion and tenderness and apprehension and trust, the sensitivity all so breathtakingly good for this bruised and battered and verbally nonsensical ex-cop. A wondrous relief, for the remainder of this afternoon and hopefully longer, if it still seemed right. Also my hope that this heaving, giving creature in my arms was seeing and feeling this the same way.
In bed, with the tender tempest ended, Andy whispered to me. “Three o’clock tea on the porch.” His lovely head of brown-gray hair was on my chest. A frilly bed pillow cradled my dark pixie cut, the two of us settled into a much-needed time out. “But my other guests, sad to say, will have to miss their host this afternoon. Unless they catch a glimpse of him in the upstairs hall, moving from room to room with a woman in a camo shirt and panties.” He unwound from my embrace, climbed out from under the covers, and stepped into his nurse uniform pants. He extended his hand.
“Care to join me in the next guest room, Miss Fungo?”
Room four, the Aunt Kitty, was also now in need of a second housekeeping visit today. We relaxed in steamy tub water. The empty Theodora and the Loretta Lynn B&B rooms—had this been Andy at eighteen they might have been a consideration—at his current age, he fessed up, were safe.
I leaned into Andy’s lazy embrace, the two of us fitting nicely into the slipper tub’s contour, my head against his shoulder. Our legs were entwined, the bubbled bathwater luxurious. His eyes were half-lid sexy.
“About my scars,” he said.
“About your scars,” I said.
The physical wounds from the childhood trauma that took his father were small purple craters on his dark shoulder, indents that pressed against his collarbone. He intertwined his fingers with mine, lifted my hand and placed it there, had me touch the wounded areas with my fingertips. I did this gently, for fear they somehow still hurt.
“Only on the inside,” he said, reading my mind.
We lay there in silence, watching the bubbles dissolve, a comfort, an oasis to each other, whatever troubling times percolating on the outside be damned.
“Why are you here, Counsel?” he asked, breaking the mood.
“In this tub? Because you seduced me,” I said, going for cute. “There I was, minding my own business ordering up some female body parts with my fast food lunch, and you showed up as part of my takeout, no extra charge. An incredible vision in your nurse tighty-whities—”
“Seriously, hot stuff, if you find your bounty, what do you get? Is the amount worth the danger?”
I gauged the question. It wasn’t gold digging. He was interested in understanding if there was any emotion attached to this business for me.
I went for cocky. “When, not if, I find and deliver him, Vonetta my bondsman will part with a thousand bucks in bounty money, and maybe pony up a nice dinner out with me and her family in celebration. A king’s ransom, the payout is not.” I swallowed, surprised at myself by the nerve the question hit. “The money means little when it comes to a sexual predator who’s into kids.”
“I see,” he said, and I believed he did.
Downshifting to a lower emotional gear, the names of three of the B&B rooms, the Charlotte, the Loretta Lynn and the Maurice Prudhomme, I said I understood. I asked about the Aunt Kitty and the Theodora.
“My Aunt Kitty was a little wild,” Andy said. “A principled free-thinker who took my mother and me under her wing. She married later in life, and often.” A pleasant sigh revealed these memories were precious to him. “Buried a few husbands, drank too much, and stayed wild into her sixties. We lost her soon after her sixty-sixth birthday.”
His cheeks flushed; he was missing his aunt right now. I squeezed his shoulder.
“Mom and I owe much of our closure over Dad’s death to Kitty. She was a force, was there for us, larger than life in so many ways. It’s only fitting she have a room here in tribute.”
“And the other room?”
“The Theodora is named after my adult daughter. She… I…” Andy caught himself. “Teddy and I are on different pages.”
“Is she an only child?”
“Yes. I married young, was divorced young. Teddy and I were the only good things to survive the marriage.”
Andy’s daughter was gone, something he was less than thrilled about, and a second tragic story about an estranged family member. Because I’m in the people-tracking business, I asked, “If there’s anything I can do—”
“Nothing. My daughter’s alive and well, and I know where she is. My ex isn’t. A victim of an unsolved murder in Philly. Nursing career wise, I’m picking up the pieces. Father-daughter-wise, Teddy is living her life now and it doesn’t include me. I keep the room for her in case she ever wants to come back. Thanks for the offer, but no thanks.”
“How about your ex? I can look into her homicide—”
“Counsel, please, no. My ex is where she should be. If she were still alive, and if you knew her, had she skipped town after her charging, she’s a bounty you would have taken down for free.”
23
“Fill it up,” Randall told the kid tending the gas pump.
Randall was feeling well fed. The meal cost him almost a hundred bucks, but the Karl Von Kugen filet had been worth it, misplaced creamed spinach notwithstanding. Plus he got to see the aftermath of an execution, coal-region style. Impressive. Similar to a mob hit in precision, but more like a gang hit considering the victims. Except for the hit men, two of them women. It sounded off, “women hit men,” these words together. Mob hits were all too frequently about hormones, except estrogen wasn’t typically one of them. “Good stuff,” he said to himself, an admission that he was having a blast.
He waited patiently for the pump to finish. The kid handling the gas jockey duties here at Jim’s Rancor Gas ’n’ Go reappeared in his rearview mirror. Short and chubby and in a tan uniform, he was a Boy Scout or a junior park ranger or some such shit, which made him extra cute, Randall decided. Sixteen at most, and he was by himself. Stores in quiet towns off the beaten path like this got away with teenagers managing them. The kid be-bopped his fat head to music Randall couldn’t hear, topped off the tank, and showed up next to the Buick window in the throes of a one-handed text messaging frenzy, waiting to be paid.
Randall felt the need. It might have been death-wish stupid on his part, but he didn’t give a shit, considering.
He held the two twenties chest-high inside the window, there for the distracted kid to retrieve. With the twenties out of the way, young Johnny-Boy here got a full view of Randall’s open-trousered lap and enormous, liberated hard-on. To Randall it was humorous and thrilling, and on impulse it ended abruptly with a hand around the kid’s chunky neck and one heavy-handed knockout punch to the kid’s face. With some effort Randall dragged his unconscious body into the passenger’s seat and tossed the kid’s phone back out. Time to find another cheap motel.
24
A clatter of crashing bowling pins in the background.
“Dody!” Andy called into the phone, too loud, a reflex because of the noise on the other end. He took his voice down a notch. “Dody. Hey.” The pin noise helped steer the call. Andy went for cavalier and upbeat. “Practice games? Really?”
“Yeah, well, rumor has it,” said Dody, “that tonight’s opponents are pretty goddamn good, and they’re gunning for us.”
Poor choice of words on Dody’s part, they both realized.
“Let me try that again,” she said. “My sixteen-year-old nephew’s pumping gas until late. Which means he left his babysitting aunt home to eat by herself. I decided on a few warm-up games and dinner at the alley instead.” More bowling pin racket blasted Andy’s ear. Dody continued. “You have your way of releasing tension, and I have mine.”
“Meaning?”
“You didn’t answer your cell earlier, so I called the B&B. Your housekeeper blabbed. Good for you, Andy. Not too shabby a lay.”
There were very few secrets in this town, Andy reminded himself. But was that all it was, a tension release? A lay? He asked, “And you called me why again?”
“Our sortie into Scranton today. Penny said you seemed… less than excited once we got there. Like you should have been guarding the door instead of, you know, what you and I did.”
The sortie had been Dody’s idea. So much of all this was her idea lately. Her show.
“It’s been a while, Dody. You did this for a living. The rest of us are still making it up as we go along.”
“All for the best of causes, my dear, I might remind you.”
Andy wasn’t in the mood to hear the end justified the means speech today, especially when he wasn’t the one delivering it. He could still see the punk’s terrified face before his handgun tore half of it off.
“Andy? Still there?”
In their car, speeding away down a back alley after the hit, the contented, quiet happy places Dody and Penny had retreated to were much different than where Andy’s mind had gone. His place was for sure quiet, but there was no happy, and no contentment.
Their retribution: Did it fit the crime?
“Andy? Hello?”
One of the two thugs had pistol-whipped the female pharmacist, a senior. This put her in a coma with significant head injuries and possible brain damage. Yes, the retribution did fit the crime. Why the remorse then?
Because the punk had begged him.
The sexual release with Counsel, the instant gratification… it was out of character for him. Maybe a mistake. A weak cry for intimacy, to be held, soothed by someone, after so unsettling an act today.
Initially, this was true. The attraction was there. Their kiss at the Arby’s was soft, gentle, wonderful, and after the surprise of it, he selfishly dived in. He knew how to love a woman, physically, yes, but there needed to be more. Could he be an all-in kind of guy again, able to go deep inside himself, turn himself inside out emotionally for a partner, and do it long-term? Could she? Because that’s what he needed. He needed help canceling out all this outstanding immoral debt and restore the capital he’d continued to plunder from morality’s coffers, or at least figure out a way to help him live the rest of his life in its wake.
Which brought up his own mortality. He wasn’t getting any younger. Would he live the next fifteen years like he’d lived the past—lonely? He didn’t want to die alone. And what about Counsel’s needs? One thing he knew for sure her needs wouldn’t include: the world of hurt she’d be in if she were attached to this violent avocation. If discovered, its repercussions would be life changing for her as well as him, if she were anywhere around him.
He already had feelings for her. But for her sake, he’d need to walk away.
The screen door to the B&B opened revealing Dody, still talking to him into her phone, being silly, the bowling alley that close by. “What, I talk, you ignore me?” Andy heard her say in stereo, in his ear and in person. “Besides, hugs are better in person. You need a hug, baby?”
They hugged, and Dody took the edge off the embrace by fessing up that she just bowled a 224. But she did have a serious pitch for her close friend.
“Sit the next one out, Andy. Might be tomorrow, might not be for another five years, but you need some distance. You’re burned out. Someone else will handle it.”
Andy’s extemporized version of the Aunt Kitty retribution model, where one person wasn’t a lone wolf, included clandestine, selective recruitment and multiple participants, all plug-and-play prepared. But there was still this: no matter the spin, they were killing people. It left a mark, on both sides of the gun.
Dody. A good friend. Sincere, but also a pragmatist. Indecision at a moment of truth like what almost happened with him today could have made a big difference in who got killed. Andy decided yes, he’d take that rest, so he wouldn’t be a liability to them the next time something like this needed to be done.
Dody left, to head back to the bowling alley for the food she’d ordered from the grill. Andy declined eating with her. He’d eat with Counsel, so he could make things right.
25
I opted for trading in the van and my puppy dogs for my Suzuki bike and a backpack. If I were a murdering sexual predator scumbag who stole cars, stuffed bodies into their trunks and drove them into ice-age potholes, where would I be now? I had no other particular leads, which was why I was following Andy’s suggestion to check out the small used car dealership of one “Nap” Napoli, recently deceased.
My time with Andy today had been a surprise. Daring and ballsy on his part. On my part, it had the freshness and intensity of a schoolgirl crush on the hot high school boy, the one you knew you never had a chance with. Except I had gotten the chance, and it was glorious and memorable. Forget the sex, although I wouldn’t. What made it a keeper was our shared afterglow. The communion. The intimacy.
Hadn’t used that term in a while: keeper. That moment. Him. It. Both.
I parked my bike outside the auto dealer’s office. At one time it was a Dairy Queen, a massive soft serve ice cream cone still taking up most of the flat, slanted roof. On the other side of the small building sat a parked Crown Vic cruiser in your basic black. The feds were here, talking with what looked like the dealership’s grease monkey. Young guy. Probably the only grease monkey, considering the size of Nap’s operation. I texted with Vonetta while waiting for the feds to finish with the mechanic.
Chevy with the body in the trunk is history netta. Bounty still out there
Where to next sarge?
Dead guy dealership. There now. Feds are here too
I decided to share. Not that Vonetta needed to hear any of it, but I was feeling good at the moment.
I met someone
Course you did counsel. You always do
Not what you think netta. Different
Then carry on, trooper. At ease and carry on, my friend ☺
I trailed the mechanic into the shop’s only repair bay and introduced myself. The kid was distraught but receptive.
“Nap gave me my first job right out of tech school two years ago,” Zach said, his name stitched above his pocket. “I do everything mechanical here, plus body work. I’m his only employee. Or was.”
Zach’s face twisted, his upper lip curling. He was still in shock. “Nap was like a father to me, ma’am. I lost my dad when I was ten…”
I listened, but I needed to stay away from the father doldrums angle, something I couldn’t stomach.
I mourned the father I never had. I loathed the father I did.
When he took a breath I showed him a picture of Mr. Linkletter. No recognition on his part. I asked a follow-up. “Any cars sold yesterday? Or stolen, or missing?”
He took me inside to Nap’s desk, showed me a picture of a white Buick Electra sedan, then pointed out the front and center empty space where it had been on the lot.
Same white car that was “out of gas” on Rancor Road last night, damn it.
A majo
r fail on my part here, but not a total loss. I was surer now that Mr. Linkletter’s scent was on both plastic bottles of water.
Confirmed, here and now, for me and apparently the feds both: Mr. Linkletter saw the Electra on the lot, acquired it, and ditched the Chevy. But why an old Buick? Another text to Vonetta.
Answer: Must be partial to them sarge. He left one just like it behind in Mrs. Spezak’s driveway in Allentown
Mr. Linkletter wasn’t doing much to hide himself. Not typical of a child molester. This bothered me.
I sent some good karma Zach’s way as I pulled away from Nap’s car lot. He’d lost his father, had found a surrogate in Nap, would grieve a second time in his young life for the similar loss. He wasn’t in a good place at the moment, and yet, narcissist that I was, I was envious, because what Zach had had twice, I hadn’t had once.
I was back on the bike cruising Rancor Boulevard, smoothing out the corners, stretching the curves, glad for the preoccupation they provided. The straightaways, I wasn’t so glad about. Thinking pleasant thoughts, like about my time with Andy today, but the longer the stretch, the more my mind wandered. Not enough distractions; no defense from the childhood memories.
My father’s lack of compassion. His shame about Judge, my older brother, and eventually me. His crooked politics. His grandiosity. His temper.
Contemplating all of this was whipping me into a frenzy, making me seethe.
His infidelities. His dirty secrets. Uncle Ernest’s sexual abuse of Judge. My PTSD from witnessing it at a young age.