In his office waited a distinguished professor from the college and his youthful second wife, teetering on the brink of a new red D’Accord LX. Duff consulted his granddaddy’s pocket watch and sniffed again, admiring the smooth, ancestral sweep of the second hand, and savored the metallic drip at the back of his throat. He’d give them another five minutes. Enough time to call the wife. He would close this sale and knock off early, play the back nine at the public course, and maybe celebrate with happy hour at Maxi’s Lounge.
Duff called home from an empty office, and got his own voice on the answering machine. Annoyed, he hung up on himself. In the next office, the professor and his wife discussed options and finances in intimate whispers. Duff counted down, took a deep breath, and burst in beaming.
“Good news, folks,” he began. “I just talked to my boss, and he says I can knock two bills off the luxury package. This one time.” Duff paused significantly to let the full import sink in. “You can’t tell a soul,” he went on with a conspiratorial wink. “I’m taking a beating on this. Because I know you want to get into this car today. What do you say?”
They signed the papers, the tweedy intellectual and his young missus. Duff awarded them the keys and firmly shook their hands, a little extra squeeze for the little lady. What does she see in this stuffy old fart, he wondered, a typical pinhead up on his Dante and Shakespeare but unable to change a flat or sink a ten-foot putt. And they looked happy. Duff hustled them out the door, chalked his sale up on the big board, and headed for the links in his Interlude demo. En route, pumped up victorious, he called home again on the cellular, this time recording a message on the machine.
“Miranda, baby. Made a big sale, and hard working on yet another. I’ll be late, so don’t wait up. Oh yeah. Don’t forget my dry cleaning. Love ya.” A kissing noise.
~ * ~
Miranda, sufficiently satiated and repositioned by this time, heard Duffs distant disembodied voice in the other room, and paused in her ministrations, her head in Josh’s lap. The machine clicked off. Like in a dream she was. She had forgotten the dry cleaning. She had forgotten much of the past ten years in the recent throes of Josh’s tireless exuberance. Indeed, she had almost forgotten. How much fun. It had only seemed fair to reciprocate.
The erstwhile clown was now sprawled back on the yellow-blanketed sofa, limbs outstretched as if he’d been hit by a bread truck. They were nearing the moment of truth, the fork in the road that Miranda recalled from her brief honeymoon, dates with Duff, and a few other early intimate encounters with males of the species. She had never much liked this part of things, so was surprised to find an odd thrill in bringing this polite young man to apparently new heights of ecstasy. He did not touch her, as if he were afraid of breaking the spell, and she felt in complete control of him by virtue of simple manipulations of his proud appendage. The mixture of power and pleasing was an intoxicating one. But, the decision.
On the one hand, no pun, there was the imminent mess to consider — her hand, the sofa cover, her dress, perhaps even her hair. And further then, the evidence of guilt, feelings of foolishness, and deep regret intensified by the chore of cleanup. Her idly stroking hand stopped as she pondered, and Josh returned reluctantly to the world.
“Please,” he implored in a voice weak with want. “Miranda, oh, please.”
“Mmm,” said Miranda. “Okay . . .” And she, eyes closed, again hungrily, as if savoring the last fresh forbidden pastry in the box. He whispered endearments in quick, shallow breaths. Miranda persisted, and, and, and, oh, primly swallowed.
Josh, overwhelmed, hugged her, and kissed her, but Miranda only tucked in his shirt and pushed him gently toward the door.
“That was so, I mean, I think,” he stammered, “I think I love, and must see you again. Oh, Miranda.”
“Don’t be silly.” Miranda handed him his sample case, and opened the door. The breathtaking heat walloped them. “This should not have happened, and never did. I hope you sell some encyclopedias. And never give up on your dreams. Now go.”
Josh stepped back onto the stoop and attempted again to express his jumbled feelings.
“Miranda, I understand, but I must, you see ...”
“Good-bye, Josh. “
The door closed on him and he was left alone in the heat of the afternoon. The sweat began again on his brow, and down below this new ache. Josh got into his car, dazed, and drove home. He could no longer sell encyclopedias today. He needed to think. He had plans to return to State in the fall, to finish that degree in Marketing, again pursue the perpetually cheerful, perky coeds, and so on. But all that seemed dull now in the wake of this moment with Miranda, his first true taste of earth and heaven. A future without Miranda seemed no future at all.
~ * ~
Josh paced the floor of his efficiency down by the tracks, clutching the fateful lead he’d received with the others just that morning — Leach, Miranda and Duff, one child, address and phone. He authored great fantasies in which he rescued Miranda from her suburban limbo, from the boorish Duff who no doubt took for granted his inimitable wife, forcing her to cook and deliver dry cleaning for him, to live in a modest ranch house, its walls decorated with duck-hunting prints in gilt frames.
In Josh’s elaborate fantasies, a balding, pot-bellied Duff wore a dirty, sleeveless undershirt and needed a shave. Poor Miranda, distraught in a simple blue dress that accentuated her fine form, was torn between her vows to this ruffian and her true new love for Josh. Our hero appeared on the scene righteous and reassuring, sometimes here quoting scripture, and the greatest of these is love, and there dispatching Duff with an honest haymaker to his stubbly chin. Sometimes he, Duff, merely belched drunkenly from his La-Z-Boy, and dismissed them both without looking away from the Braves game.
From here the fantasies soared. Josh and Miranda living, scantily clad, in a beach hut on Dauphin Island or some equally exotic locale. Josh and Miranda with their own Chik-Fee-Lay franchise, working side-by-side in sanitary whites, pores slick with vegetable oil, returning home nightly for endless lovemaking in their high-rise condo. Josh and Miranda et cetera. Yet all the while, understandably, tragically, Josh overlooked one important character, young Duff Jr., who was at the moment engaged in electronic mayhem at Mamaw and Papaw’s in Jackson, unleashing an awful, vicarious firepower, joystick clutched in his innocent paw, the inevitable carnage piling up.
~ * ~
Duff ordered the chicken breast sandwich and grinned at the waitress in her faux French maid’s uniform. He tipped her a dollar for his next Coke and bourbon. He wondered how old she was, and idly wondered, if he were single again. Oh, but, he did love Miranda, he thought, mildly maudlin. The commission on the D’Accord would hold them to the end of the month, and keep the Frenchman off his back for a while. Though Duff would still be into him for almost a grand.
He had hoped to sell most of the last eight ball to cover his own, and maybe make a little on top. But it had been a tough week on the sales floor at Jeff Davis. And he’d traded one gram to a black guy in the service department for a snubnose .38 Special. He didn’t quite know why. Except perhaps that the Frenchman, a gap-toothed goon who’d played left wing one season for the Winnipeg Jets, gave him no respect. The revolver made Duff feel dangerous, like a body worthy of respect. He knew he would never use the piece, but the comfort of its weighty little bulk, its combat grips, in the Honda’s glove box put some resolve in his step.
~ * ~
Miranda brushed her teeth and gargled with minty-fresh mouthwash. She appraised herself in the mirror. A few gray hairs amongst the brown, crow’s-feet at the corner of her dark eyes. She missed Duff Jr. and Duff, who was never home, it seemed. She tried to smile, and only shook her head saying no, no, no, no, no, never again. I must put this out of my head, and never, never again. She wondered if perhaps she should have bought the encyclopedias for Duff Jr. Or the first volume anyway. Perhaps she could call Josh. But she knew that would not do. She needed to get away. A weeken
d on the Gulf. A real family vacation. She resolved to make her appeal to Duff and collect her son from the folks.
~ * ~
Josh tried to watch the television, but he could not concentrate. His mind runneth over with Miranda. He turned off the set. He tried to recall her words, but they were lost already, and she herself was fading with them. He could not see her face complete. Perhaps the eyes, her crinkled smile. He could see her dress, the vague shape of her, but only clearly the mole, and the sweet, woodsy smell of her. He had to see her again, if only to commit her forever to his memory. He sat at his little desk to write. He poured it all out onto page upon page. His great, illicit love. The sun sank, but the heat remained in the near dark, lingering like a villain. Josh, freshly showered, dressed in his best white tee and khaki chinos. He pulled on the orange wig for courage, and strode to his car.
~ * ~
Duff finished the tasty chicken breast sandwich, one last Coke and bourbon. He paid with a credit card, and halfheartedly invited the waitress aside for a blast, a snort, a pick-me-up. She politely declined, the way she always did. And Duff left alone. Some relieved, if truth be told. Savoring his lonesome liquored blues. In the parking lot, a quick line for the road. He dreaded to go home these days, and as often wondered why. How could this have come to pass? he wondered. And so, vintage Black Sabbath in the optional tape deck, Duff pounded the dashboard as he drove, the righteous beat of his yearned-for youth, and wailed along with the awful words.
~ * ~
Miranda showered and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. The yellow throw off the sofa and into the washer with an extra splash of cleansing Tide. She remembered Duff s dry cleaning, and rushed off in the old Chevy. The dry cleaner would close soon. The heat of the day, only slightly diminished, came in through the car’s open windows like a free sample of hell. A strange glow of sunset about the town. Otherworldly, Miranda thought. And as she maneuvered through the evening traffic, she willed them all together in a beachfront timeshare. Duff, herself, and spunky Duff Jr.
~ * ~
Josh drove a secondhand Mustang, ragtop, car of his dreams. Bought and paid for. In the back seat, his livelihood, a carton of Encyclopedia Americana, volume one. Aardvark to Aztec. Gold-em-bossed blue leatherette. Riding shotgun, his letter explaining himself to Miranda, handwritten on lined yellow paper, folded neatly in thirds. He would give it to her inside the complimentary copy of volume one that he’d neglected in all the excitement to leave this afternoon. Tucked arbitrarily into the page for Amaryllis. A flower and name from some forgotten studies. A pretty word, illustrated, for this thing between them. The rest would be up to her.
~ * ~
Miranda, Duff, and Josh, three residents of one town, on the road. Theirs was not a small town, but not big either. It is certainly conceivable that three cars leaving different places for the same destination could cross paths, perhaps even collide, given the poor driving skills of most on the road. But they did not. Duff arrived home first, parked in the drive, and noticed that the Chevy was gone. A late-model Mustang in fair condition pulled up across the street. A convertible with the V-8 option. Duff looked in the rearview mirror, but could not clearly see the wild-haired driver in the feeble light. That dent in the front left quarter panel would sure reduce the trade-in value. No one got out of the car, and Duff began to sweat. A henchman of the Frenchman, he wildly imagined. He tried to calm himself, but took the pistol from the glove box nonetheless, and slipped it into the waistband of his slacks.
~ * ~
Josh sat in his car, his heart pounding wildly. He watched a well-dressed man get out of a new Honda and walk toward Miranda’s door. The man stopped and turned to peer across the street. Josh was sitting motionless in the dark car praying when he was momentarily lit up in her headlights. Stricken, you might say. Like an armadillo on the centerline.
The old Chevy approached, pulled in the drive, and parked beside the Honda. Miranda emerged from the car with a load of dry cleaning. Duff walked out to meet her.
“The Gulf, Duff, this time of year,” she began.
Josh got out of his car and stepped into the street.
“I must,” he called out. “Just one moment, please. This cannot wait.” He used his firmest voice.
“You leave her out of this,” Duff yelled in reply, brushing past Miranda. “I told him Friday.”
Miranda looked at Duff, and Josh. She put a hand on Duffs arm, to steer him into the house.
“It’s some crazy kid. Let’s go inside.”
Josh stepped closer.
“You think I’m scared of you?” said Duff. “Think again, punk.” But Duff was scared — scared of losing, scared of pain, scared of growing older in a world devoid of meaning, a world inhabited by violent ex-hockey players and their psychotic, orange-haired thugs.
Miranda took Duff s arm. He shrugged her off a bit roughly. She dropped the dry cleaning. She felt suddenly very small, in the midst of big, big events spinning ever out of control around her.
“I have something for you,” Josh called to Miranda, continuing on.
“No,” said Miranda.
“I got something for you, too, you fuck,” replied Duff.
~ * ~
Miranda afterwards recalled being knocked to the parched lawn by the scuffle, the smell of the soil, and Duffs stiff, clean shirts blue-white in the dim streetlight. The clumsy sounds of struggle, and exhalations. And then a gunshot. How strange, she thought, that she knew immediately it was a gunshot, having never heard one before, except at the movies and on TV. And like on TV, the porch lights came on, up and down her street, and soon there were sirens in the distance. The world became new, her life important. Newsworthy
Miranda stood then, and gathered herself and the dry cleaning. She walked over to Duff and handed him his shirts, but one. He stood as if struck deaf and dumb.
“Go call an ambulance, honey.”
She knelt next to the young man who lay wide-eyed on their lawn with his hand wetly to his stomach. She cradled his head in her lap, gently straightened his wig, and pressed a clean white shirt to the dark wound.
“Go on, Duff.”
And Duff went dumbly. The front door closed behind him, and the sirens came louder.
“I’m dying, aren’t I?” said Josh.
“Yes,” said Miranda, who believed in being truthful at times like this.
“I had to see you again.”
“I wish that you hadn’t.”
“The first volume,” said Josh, “is yours to keep, and, I think, I love you.”
Miranda picked up the book from where it had sprawled on the lawn, and with it, the letter and all it contained.
“Thank you, Josh,” she said. She brushed gently the blue leatherette. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
But she knew that everything would not. Those were only words from a song she used to know. Miranda once more touched his face. She held him as she would Duff Jr. until an ambulance came and took the boy away. She went inside, carrying Aardvark to Aztec. On the empty front lawn, a blue-white shirt, darkly stained, forgotten.
Miranda made a pot of coffee for Duff, and for the cops when they arrived. In the living room they asked Duff the perfunctory questions, sympathetic of a man in defense of his wife and his home. One had played ball with Duff back at High. They talked. The old, good times. The wanton state of kids today. Firepower and home defense. A compliment on the elaborate martial pattern of the sofa.
Miranda, meanwhile, sat on the back steps, thinking about Australia, its climate, economy, quality of education. She smoked one of Duff s cigarettes, the first volume of the encyclopedia in her lap, heavy with facts and possibility. She thought and smoked, and carefully burned the handwritten letter in the barbecue grill, gently feeding it into the small blue flame one page at a time.
<
~ * ~
CHRISTOPHER COOK
The Pickpocket
from Measures of Poison
; My name is Christian Richelieu. A good name, all in all, and famous on both counts, though neither appreciably influenced my life.
That I don’t believe in a Messiah practically goes without saying. The notion that a Saviour will rescue us from loneliness and despair would amuse me if not for the misery. But the yearning I see etched on troubled faces in the street is sincere and I don’t laugh.
The cardinal at least was French, like me, and being a politician and a pragmatist, he did not wait but sought solace in this life. Perhaps he found it. Who knows? Still, he was first a great moralist, then a tireless sinner, and I am neither.
I am simply amoral.
So much for my name, which is more interesting than my appearance. In looks I am suitably ordinary, an advantage in my profession, and that’s all that needs saying.
The Best American Mystery Stories 2003 Page 5