“Let me repeat myself,” Satin said. “Bullshit. Stop holding back with me. It’s an insult. I’m a big girl, Crockett. Don’t lie to me, don’t patronize me, and don’t protect me. Just tell me the truth, goddammit.”
He did. A slightly abridged version of the past three days, but everything essential to bringing her up to date. Her assessment of the information was short and sweet.
“Holy shit,” she said.
The mushrooms arrived.
“So that is why,” Crockett went on after their server departed, “I have sent for reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements?”
“Yeah. Cletus Marshal. Ex-Army Ranger, ex Secret Service. Texican. Kinda remind you of Eastwood when he was in his forties. You’ll like him.”
Satin grinned and snagged a mushroom. “If he’s gonna remind me of Clint Eastwood,” she said, “I probably will. Oh my. When’s he get here?”
“Settle down. We’re in a public place. Don’t get your panties all wet, Mary.”
Satin made a face. “Hell, you don’t put out anymore,” she said. “What’s a girl to do?”
“Me? Now if you will search your tiny mind, girlfriend, you might remember things a little more clearly.”
“All these lonely nights,” Satin said. “Alone in my room. Just the four gray walls. It’s awful Crockett. You don’t know what I go through. All by myself. Nothing to turn to that doesn’t require batteries.”
Crockett fought to keep from firing a bite of mushroom across the room. Satin’s eyes twinkled and she grinned.
“Feeling better now, honey?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Crockett said. “I am.”
“Good. If that didn’t work, I was going to have to try a budding relationship between me and Carson. I don’t know if I could have pulled that off. Too much of a stretch.”
“Every man’s fantasy.”
“Nearly,” Satin said, “but not yours, huh, Crockett.”
“Nope. The exception that proves the rule.”
“You’re exceptional, no doubt about that.”
Crockett smiled. “Spread the word, willya? I need the publicity.”
“Don’t have to. Carson already thinks so.”
“Aw, jeeze.”
“Aw jeeze? What’s next? You gonna stob your toe in the dirt and go milk a cow or something? Aw jeeze, my ass.”
Crockett laughed. “Okay,” he said. “Aw, shucks?”
“You phony fuckhead. All this shy crap. You damn sure weren’t shy with me.”
“What was I?”
“Fucking charming, and you know it. You give great charm, Crockett. You play at other stuff, but you know exactly what you’re doing. Your problem is, as much as you love women, you’re still stupid enough to be carrying a torch for that Ruby chick. You don’t wanna believe that you are, but you are. That’s why you couldn’t commit to that little gal you told me about from down at the lake, it’s why you and I are just buds, and it’s why Carson will be a fool to expect too much when she gets involved with you.”
“What?”
“You are a warm and considerate man, Crockett. There’s a deep kindness about you that butts heads with your deliberate brutality. You are the sweetest man I have ever known, and the meanest sonofabitch I have ever met. That, my violent softy, is a very attractive combination. And loving a woman scares you to death, because love is what won’t let you get rid of Ruby, and that didn’t work out worth a shit.”
“What’s next,” Crockett said, “my fear of commitment?”
“You’re not afraid of commitment. You love to commit. As long as that commitment has an end in sight. You committed to that woman down at the lake. What’s her name?”
“Mazy.”
“Yeah. You committed to her, at great personal risk, until you got her out of trouble, but that was safe. You knew from the start that you couldn’t stay there and she wouldn’t leave. You committed to me because, somehow, you knew I was sharp enough and not so goddam needy, that I’d figure you out. You’ve committed to Carson in a situation that could cost you your life. And that, pal, is just gravy on your biscuits. You love it. And when that commitment takes a romantic turn, and if Carson has her way it damn sure will, ol’ Crockett’ll be there with his gentle dangerous eyes, with his flawed body and his flawed spirit, providing a place of safety, and not asking for one damn thing in return. Then, sooner or later, Carson will have to make a new life, a life that, for whatever reason is convenient, you won’t be able to be a part of. Then you’ll be alone again, just the way you like it, and it won’t be your fault. And the Ruby fantasy will still be out there, like the fuckin’ Holy Grail or somethin’, making damn sure you can make more temporary commitments if you want to, without the awful burden of having to follow through on any of them.”
Their steaks arrived, and both of them busied themselves with preparing baked potatoes. When Crockett could stall no longer, he looked up from his sour cream. Satin held his eyes.
“Got me all figured out, huh?”
Satin smiled. “Pretty much,” she said. “And keep in mind that none of that stops me from loving you.”
“I love you, too.”
“I know you do,” she said. “That ain’t the problem. The problem is, you don’t think you deserve me.”
The rest of the meal was not quite comfortable. They made small talk and joked with each other, sharing innuendo and giggles. Both of them were agreeable and socially acceptable, but it was a lot of work. Crockett was relieved when the meal was over, and reasonably sure Satin was, too. Her words hung over the table like clouds, and both of them were overshadowed by the possibility of a storm.
When they went outside, it seemed as if Satin’s revelations had reached the heavens. It was almost completely dark an hour earlier than usual, the sky thick with scudding clouds, the wind brisk and ripe with the scent of eminent rain. They hustled to the parked Jeep, and Satin headed for Crockett’s place.
The downpour began less than five miles from their destination and slowed their progress to under thirty miles an hour.
“Jesus,” Satin said, peering out her windshield through sheets of water and madly thumping wipers. “This is a horrible!”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, but I’d hate like hell to have a hundred miles to go in this mess.”
The wind was out of the southwest, shaking the Jeep in its fury. Less that a quarter-mile from Crockett’s drive, Satin began to fight the wheel even more than she had been.
“Aw shit,” she said, slowing down to about ten miles an hour. “Something’s wrong. The steering is pulling to the left.”
“Want me to take it?” Crockett asked.
“Naw. We’re almost there. Betcha a buck I got a flat tire.”
Moments later they arrived at Crockett’s place. Satin pulled around in front of the Neon and nosed up nearly against the screen room. They each bailed out of their respective doors and darted under cover. The electric eye clicked the light on and Crockett eyeballed the Jeep.
“Yep,” he said, shaking his head and wiping water from his face. “Right front.”
“Damn it,” Satin said.
“C’mon inside. I’ll make some coffee and grab some towels so we can dry off a little.”
Ten minutes later they were at the dinette, sipping coffee and looking out the window at a storm that had subsided to little more than a steady downpour.
“You can spend the night, you know,” Crockett said. “No strings attached. I’ll change that tire for you in the morning and off you go. Or, you can take the Neon tonight, I’ll change the tire in the morning and drive in and swap vehicles. Up to you.”
“I spend the night and one of us will find a way to attach some strings,” Satin said. “You know it and so do I. If it was me, I’d have nobody else to blame. That’d be too tough after my big speech tonight. I was really hard on you at dinner, Crockett. I’m not sure you deserved all that. Some of it was my own bullshit, I think. You wer
e just handy and I’d already started in on you. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. I’m flattered you care enough about me to bother with tearing me a new asshole. Usually that kind of thing requires therapy or a proctologist. They’re expensive. I got it for nothing with a free dinner thrown in.”
“I’m surprised you had an appetite,” Satin said.
“I recover quickly where steak is concerned.”
“If it’s okay with you, I’ll take the Neon. I’ve gotta get up at five for work. That’s my excuse. I’ll take any I can find to get out of here with my dignity intact.”
Crockett smiled. “Not to mention your underwear.”
“Not to mention my underwear.”
“Okay,” Crockett said, slipping the Neon’s key off his ring. “I’ll be in for breakfast with the Jeep.”
“Thanks, Crockett,” Satin said. “You’re being real understanding about all this.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m wonderful. And we all know how painful that can be.”
Satin looked at him steadily. “You a little bitter?” she said.
“Yeah. A little. That much truth doesn’t go down real easy.”
“I’m sorry,” Satin said.
“But not too much. You needed to get rid of a lot of stuff. Keep this in mind, though. I still love every woman I have ever loved. That’s the tough part of relationships for a man. Even if I don’t like ‘em, if I’ve ever loved ‘em, I still do. Women are spared that, for the most part. That’s probably why you guys live longer.” He opened the door. “See ya in the morning. Drive careful.”
Satin hesitated. “No hug?” she asked.
“Don’t think so. Maybe in the morning.”
Satin shrugged, looked away, and went out the door.
Crockett heard the Neon’s door slam, the car start, and noted the reflection of the headlights through the kitchen window. When he heard the door slam again he looked outside to see Satin running around the Jeep toward the screen room. He opened the door and she scooted inside.
“Sorry to disturb you,” she said, her posture erect and stiff in spite of her rain-wet clothes. “Carson says she thinks she left her reading glasses out here when she came into town. She wanted me to pick them up for her.”
“Yeah, she did,” Crockett said, moving toward a kitchen cabinet. “I found them right after she left. Just forgot about ‘em.” He removed the glasses from the cabinet and handed them to Satin.
The explosion shook the whole bus. Crockett and Satin gaped out the window to see the Neon on fire, the driver’s side door blown away and the roof peeled back over what was left of the driver’s area. It didn’t last long. The rain did its work and within only moments the fire was out and the Neon was left smoldering in the downpour. Satin began to tremble.
“I should have been in it,” she said. “If I hadn’t come back in for those glasses, I would have been. I would have been in it. I would have been in that car.”
Crockett put his arm around her and guided the shaking woman to the couch. He sat her down, returned to the kitchen area, reassured a frightened Dundee, poured four fingers of scotch in a water glass, added several ice cubes, and returned to Satin’s side. When he handed her the Scotch, she peered numbly at him.
“Drink,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He left her again, went into the bedroom, and came back with his heavy terry bathrobe. Half the drink was gone and Satin was visibly shaking. He stood her up, removed her blouse, put the robe on her, pulled the hood up over her head, and sat her down.
“Undo your slacks,” he said.
Without protest, she did as she was told. Crockett grabbed them by the cuffs and pulled them from her legs, then wrapped the robe securely around her. Bundled and hooded, she finished her drink and looked at Crockett where he still knelt before her.
“That was meant for you,” she said.
“Yeah. With a delay on the bomb’s igniter so I’d be sure to be in the car and driving when it went off.”
“They wanted to kill you,” Satin said.
“Yep. But they didn’t. And they didn’t kill you either.”
“Crockett, these people tried to blow you up!”
Crockett smiled. “Firm grasp on the obvious, sweetheart,” he said.
Satin gave a start and began to laugh. He took the glass from her hands, put it on an end table, and sat on the couch beside her. When Satin’s laughter turned to tears, she buried her face in his shoulder, and Crockett slipped an arm around her back. He held her like that for some time before she settled down. Gradually she collected herself, leaned away, and peered at him through swollen eyes.
“You gonna call Chief Smoot?”
“In the morning,” Crockett said. “Crime scene won’t change much.”
“Looks like I’m gonna spend the night.”
“Looks like it.”
“I don’t wanna sleep alone,” Satin said.
Crockett kissed her on the cheek and smiled. “Gotta give you an A-plus for creativity,” he said. “An ordinary woman would have just tried to get me drunk.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Confession
Chief Smoot and Crockett stood in the drive and watched Satin motor away on a freshly changed tire. The rear of her Jeep was blackened and the window was cracked.
“You’re damn lucky,” Smoot said.
“Yeah.”
Smoot peered at him. “If that bomb had killed Satin,” he said, “you’d a never got over it. You’d a carried that to your grave.”
“Probably.”
“An’ you’d a most likely hauled off an’ done somethin’ even dumber than what I figure you’re fixin’ to do anyway.”
Crockett shrugged.
“Sorry about your car,” he said. “I’ll replace it.”
“Where the hell you think you’re gonna find another hundred-year-old Neon? I got my truck, and I got a car from the city. That Plymouth was just in the way.”
They both looked at the remains of the vehicle for a moment before Smoot spoke again.
“This here is way over my head,” he said. “Reckon I oughta call the state boys.”
“Wish you wouldn’t.”
“Oh?”
“No point in it. They’ll just get in the way and slow everything down. Is there any way we can forget this happened? I’m not asking you to falsify anything. Just to ignore it all.”
Smoot looked at him and sighed. “I’ll get Merle Baker an’ his wrecker out here in a day or two an’ have it hauled off. Why in the hell do I make up different rules for you, Crockett?”
“Because I shine with the light of truth and goodness.”
Smoot chuckled. “That must be it,” he said.
Crockett’s satellite phone rang.
“Clete.”
“Crockett. What’s new?”
“They blew up a car I was using last night. Damn near killed a friend of mine.”
“No shit? Your friend okay?”
“She’s fine. Can’t wait to meet you.”
“She?”
“Yep.”
“Always a goddammed woman, huh, Crockett?”
“Now, don’t be judgmental, honey. You’re still the only one for me.”
“Oh, Christ. I think I got you dialed in on the GPS. I should be there in a half hour or so.”
“Why don’t you meet me in town at Wagers Café on Division Street. Buy you breakfast.”
“Okay with me. What’s the name of that town again?”
Crockett grinned. “Hartrick,” he said. “Don’t you know anything?”
“I know that my west Texas ass is probably gonna be hangin’ out in the breeze before all this is over. Why the hell do I do this shit for you?”
“Chief Smoot and I were just discussing that very thing. He and I decided it was because I shine with the light of truth and goodness.”
“As opposed to bullshit and bullshit?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll call if I git lost,” Clete said. “Hangin’ up, now.”
Chief Smoot declined breakfast and dropped Crockett off at the café. He took a booth in the rear. Satin showed up with the usual bad coffee in ten seconds or less. She looked a little harried.
“How ya doin’?” Crockett asked.
She pushed a strand of hair from over an eye to behind an ear and looked at him. “I’m holdin’ up. You okay?”
“Fine as frog hair, m’am,” Crockett answered.
Satin’s nose wrinkled. “You don’t give nothin’ away, do ya?”
“What?”
“Blow a goddammed car up in your drive last night, you spend hours dealin’ with a freaked out woman who damn near got killed by whoever the hell it is that’s tryin’ to murder you, an’ you set down in here like the most important goddammed thing you have to worry about is how you want your goddammed eggs.”
Crockett was the picture of innocence. “I’m not sure I want eggs this morning.”
“Oh, hell!” Satin said, and stomped off.
Crockett gave her a few minutes before he initiated contact. “Waitress! Oh, waitress!”
Satin clomped up to his booth. “What?”
“For what it’s worth,” Crockett said, “I was scared shitless, and I still am. I don’t know how to make the fact that you missed being blown all over hell and gone by the slim margin of a pair of reading glasses something that I can live with. Every time I think about how close it was, I get weak. The fact that I don’t appear to be affected by all this is just part of the way I deal with it. If I don’t disconnect and stay tough, I won’t be able to take it.”
Satin looked at him for a moment, then her rigid posture softened and she smiled.
“Aw hell,” she said. “Truth be told, if you’d a been blown up, I would have been upset for hours. Probably would have even had to miss bowling league tonight.”
Crocket grinned. “We okay, then?”
Satin rubbed his shoulder. “We’re more than okay. We always have been. Thanks for all the, uh, assistance last night.”
“My pleasure.”
Witness Rejection Page 17