by Ed Gorman
"You're wearing short sleeves."
She held her arms out. "Feel them."
She wasn't kidding. Her slender arms were covered with coarse little bumps.
I sat there feeling my groin stir. Now I had a new item to add to my list of turn-ons. Goose bumps.
She withdrew her arms.
"You weren't kidding." I was wearing a windbreaker and a long-sleeved shirt. It was time for gallantry.
I stood up, took my jacket off, slid it around her shoulders. It covered up the small .38 she wore hooked to the side of her jeans. "That's very sweet. Thank you."
I sat down. "So tell me what you came here to tell me."
"I told you about him losing his license."
"Yeah, but you wouldn't drive over here for that."
She laughed. "I thought it was Tandy who read minds. But it's you." More coffee. "Boy, that feels good going down." Then, "The DA there was prepared twice to bring charges against him for extortion."
"Blackmail?"
"Exactly."
"And the charges were dropped?"
"At the last minute, both people asked that the matter be tabled."
"You learn why?"
"Nope. But presumably they decided it wasn't worth dragging their secrets through court."
"So now we have to figure out why he was here."
She nodded. "You don't have any ideas, I suppose?"
"No, afraid I don't."
"Your friends are from Chicago and he was from Chicago."
"Last time I looked, Chicago was only about four and a half hours right down the interstate. I drive in there at least once a month. So do a lot of people."
"True enough. But the river doesn't flow that often in the opposite direction. Not many Chicago people come here. I mean, we have some nice skyscrapers and a big new airport and a lot of Picasso statuary not too far away, but somehow we still don't get many Chicagoites out here."
"'ans.'"
"Pardon?"
"Chicagoans. Not Chicagoites."
"And there's a fifty-fifty that the Wests and Kibbe being out here at the same time was a coincidence."
She made a smirk of her lovely lips. "You really believe that?"
"Pretty much."
"That would be some coincidence."
"More coffee?"
"No, thanks. I need to get back and see how things are going."
"If there's anything I can do."
"I know. You'll be glad to help. Here's your jacket back, Robert." She stopped by a few tables before she left. In small towns, police chiefs are celebrities subject to election. They learn to work a room the way politicians do.
I finished my coffee slowly, staring out the window at the cars streaming past in the night. A kind of lonesomeness came over me then. It didn't tie to anyone or anywhere—no special person or place I missed—and it was certainly a familiar feeling so it didn't startle or scare me. It was a late-night train-whistle loneliness; a sad-barking-dog-at-midnight loneliness; a hobo loneliness that I had first found in the books of Jack London way back in grade school. I used to think this marked me as special, but the older I get I know it's something we all feel sometimes, that sense of melancholy and dislocation we can't explain but can only endure, that inexplicable ache that lets you know you really do have a soul after all, despite what the skeptics say, because the pain is spiritual and not merely mental. The closest approximations are the paintings of Edward Hopper, those lonesome faceless souls in those lonesome midnight cafes in those mysterious Midwestern midnight towns of his.
I walked back to the motel.
I was given another room—this time on the second floor. I didn't see Tandy or Laura or Noah Chandler. I went up and tried to watch some TV. The Cedar Rapids stations used Kibbe's death as the lead. Murder, as it should be, is still a big thing out here.
Letterman came on. There was a young actress I fell in love with before the first break. She reminded me of my wife was why. A quiet elegance, and yet a certain quiet smart-ass quality, too. Playful, in a kitten-soft sort of way.
I turned the lights off, stripped out of my clothes, and crawled into bed. The semis moved through the night like dinosaurs. I wondered where they were going. I'd always wanted to drive one of those big rigs. Places with names like Cheyenne and Red Rock and Yuma had sounded exciting as hell when I was in high school. I'd had a stepfather I didn't like much, and a girlfriend who couldn't or wouldn't love me, and an imagination that told me a town called Yuma was exactly what a kid like me was looking for.
I slept. Not a good sleep. A restless, tossing one. Not nightmares. But those lonesome dreams where a girl is rejecting you, or somebody you considered a friend has suddenly turned on you. An extension of that inexplicable lonesomeness, I suppose. The smart answer was probably that when my father died my twelfth year, I felt betrayed and abandoned and never quite recovered from that feeling. He'd been my best friend. But I'm too smart to believe in smart answers. The dreams of desertion were probably inspired by events far more complicated than my father dying. Anyway, I get tired of the modern tendency to blame everything on parents.
The knock woke me quickly. I sat up and reached for the gun I kept on the nightstand. Bureau training is hard to break. I grabbed my pants and tugged them on, managing to stub my toe against the bureau as I did so. I had to swear real, real quietly.
I tiptoed to the curtain and peeked out.
Tandy stood there hugging a bottle of wine. She looked cute and sweet and sexy and scared. The night was mauve and alive with the mercury vapor lights of the parking lot and the blowing dust and cosmic seeds the prairie winds were whipping across the open spaces. I couldn't smell the impending rain in here, but I could feel it.
I went and opened the door.
TWO
"You forget about me, Robert?"
"No. Huh-uh." Yawn.
"God, you did, didn't you? You were asleep, weren't you? I told you I'd sleep in your bed tonight and you forgot me?"
I'd forgotten how personally Tandy took everything. I plucked the bottle of wine from her hand. "I really appreciate you delivering the wine, though, young lady."
"Very funny. God."
"I'm sorry. I was tired. I fell asleep."
"It's barely eleven." And pushed past me, inside.
She pulled out the chair and sat down. "Your room doesn't smell as bad as ours."
"I'm sure the management will be glad to hear that."
"It's a good thing you're cute because otherwise I'd be pissed right now. I really would."
"I fell asleep. I'm sorry."
"You have so many women throwing themselves at you that you forget when somebody tries to be tender and affectionate toward you?"
"How about some wine?"
"You could at least say you were sorry."
"I did. Twice."
"Well, then, you could at least say it again."
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. How's that?"
"I even took a shower and put on special panties."
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."
Which is how it went for the first fifteen minutes, the banter and her hurt feelings.
By the time I went into the bathroom and came back with two plastic glasses, she'd calmed down. I poured us vino and we drank, sitting up in bed, MTV on real low on the tube.
"Noah was pretty drunk tonight."
"Good for him."
"He got into it with Laura again."
"About getting married?"
"Yeah. In a weird way, I feel sorry for him. He's a jerk but he loves her. He really does."
"I kind of got that impression."
"I wish you loved me that much."
"Well, I wish you loved me that much, too."
"Really?"
"Well, sort of."
"You dipshit."
"Thank you."
"Here I was all ready for some romantic talk. You know, loveydovey. It's still hard for me to sleep around. Without some sort of lovey-dovey, any
way. But you've probably slept around a lot more than I have and you're used to it."
"I haven't slept around that much."
"You faithful to your wife?"
"Absolutely."
"But you've been sleeping around since she died?"
"Not much. I've had two long relationships."
"That's all."
"God," I said, "you working on a new Kinsey report? And while we're at it, how many have you slept with?"
"I keep strict count."
"How many?"
"Should I count the one who was so drunk he fell asleep inside me?"
"That must've been a nice experience."
"And he was as big as a bear. It took me half an hour to get him off me."
"Don't count him. So how many?"
"Eight."
"Well, that's not bad."
"That's home runs only—"
"Ah. So just getting to first, second, or third—"
"That stuff's just sort of high school, don't you think? I mean, I don't think I should have to count that."
"Yeah, I guess you're right."
She laughed. And put her head on my shoulder. "Some kinds of wines make me really horny."
"Is this one of them?"
"I'll have to see."
That's how it went from roughly eleven-fifteen to eleven forty-five. I'd forgotten how easily she got drunk. Two modest glasses and she was well on her way.
"You want to see my underwear?"
"I thought you'd never ask," I said.
"I'm serious."
"Sure, I want to see your underwear. You want to see mine?"
"But that doesn't mean we'll, you know, do anything."
"Understood."
But it would be, I figured, a pretty good start.
So she stood up and dropped trou and showed me her underwear. They were microbikinis and almost totally transparent. The shape of everything could be seen. They had happy faces all over them. Except these happy faces were red and had tiny devil horns sticking out of them.
"Like 'em?"
"They're great."
"It was kind of embarrassing buying them. The clerk looked kind of superior when I handed them to her."
"She should've been embarrassed for selling them, then."
"That's what I thought."
She came over and got back on the bed. "I'm scared to try it."
"Try what?"
"Sex."
"How come?"
"Because I haven't enjoyed it for a long time. Not since I stopped getting those images in my head. I'm not too smart, Robert, as you know. I mean, Laura got the brains. Seeing those images—helping you and the police—that's the only thing I could ever do that mattered. And now I can't even do that anymore. And it's spoiled my whole life for me. Every part of my life. It's even screwed up my periods. Laura says that's impossible. But I know better."
"We'll just sleep if you want to."
"Won't you get horny?"
"Sure."
"Then what?"
"I'll resent you and then I'll probably make a vague pass at talking you into it and then I'll go to sleep."
"I could give you a hand job."
"Well, I could give you a hand job, too."
She laughed. "I guess I never thought of it that way. I guess you could, couldn't you?"
So we lay next to each other in the bed. It was still warm. We pushed the blanket to the end of the bed. "You mind if I turn that song up?"
"Huh-uh."
I actually hated the song. An unending string of love-song clichés sung by this sneering white kid with too much hair and too little talent. I seem to remember my parents saying something like that about Alice Cooper. But this kid didn't have mascara and a snake.
We lay like that for twenty minutes. Both of us in our underwear. Not quite touching.
"You have an erection?"
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry."
"You have an erection?"
A giggle. "No, but I am getting kind of horny, actually. Lying like this is kind of sexy. It's like when I was a freshman in college. I was still a virgin. There was this kid I really liked. But the AIDS scare was everywhere. So night after night we'd just lie on my dorm bed."
"Whatever happened to him?"
"I found out later he was gay. Or at least bi."
"See what you did to him? All those nights of bottled-up temptation."
Then her hand was on me. "Yeah, you've got an erection, all right." Then, "I guess we may as well do it, huh?"
"What changed your mind?"
"Hormones."
And she wasn't kidding.
We had two goes at it, one quick and frantic, the other, later, slow and tender. Afterward, she said, "I almost came."
"We can keep working on it."
"No, that's OK. I haven't even come close in a long time. That must mean I'm better. You know, sort of working my way back to it."
"You want to tell each other how good we were?"
"You were fabulous."
"You were fabulous, too."
Then she rolled over and clung to me. "We shouldn't make fun."
"I'm sorry."
"I really did enjoy it."
"So did I."
"And it really was good sex."
"Yes, it was."
"And I hope we do it again sometime."
"I hope so, too."
It felt ridiculously good holding her, just as good as the sex. I pulled the covers up on us and we snuggled. She was my wife and she was the last serious woman, too, the crazy and sweet woman who'd recently dumped me for her ex-husband, and she was this night's woman, Tandy West herself, and she was all potential women, one of whom I hoped would help give some shape and meaning to my future.
And she was a snoring woman.
She snored quietly, the way a kitten does. She didn't let go of me. She clung like a kid and I clung right back. I kept stroking her and putting little kisses on her head and forehead and shoulder and it was fucking wonderful.
Eventually, I slept, too.
Waking up so abruptly, I immediately thought of danger. But there was no danger, there was just prairie wind slanting hard prairie autumn rain against the window and the door and the roof, and the kitten mewls and tiny nervous fits of Tandy's nervous limbs, arms and legs thrashing, jerking in response to something terrible that was stalking the corridors of her mind. I had to pee and pee I did, closing the door against the steady noise of the yellow stream.
When I got back to the bed, the mewl had become nightmare cries. I rushed to her, held her, rocked her the way I would a child.
Then she was awake. Wide startled eyes. No recognition at first. Who was I? Bad guy or good guy? Then recognition, followed by her pushing away from me, heels of hands hurting my chest as they pushed. Then she was up, naked, pacing, screaming, "Don't say anything! Don't say anything!"
I had no idea what was going on. It was scary. All I could think of was a seizure of some kind. Or madness.
She just kept pacing, naked, arms flailing wildly as if she was being attacked, and then she'd abruptly put her hands to her head as if a headache were splitting her skull in half. And then she was sobbing. Fell to the floor. And sobbed. And sobbed.
I was scared to approach her. Scared not to approach her.
Two naked people in a shabby little prairie hotel room, her wailing louder than the wind, and me without a clue of what to do.
I approached her. Knelt next to her. She came to me instantly. Enveloped me, warm tear-wet face against mine, soft tender breasts to my chest, arms desperately tight around me.
"An image came to me, Robert. An image."
There was joy and fear in her voice, maybe even a real edge of lunacy.
"What kind of image?"
"An old railroad trestle bridge."
"Any idea where?"
"No."
"Any idea of what it means?"
"There's a body there. Buried. Long ago."
> "Are you all right?"
"I don't know." Then, "Can we get in bed and you just hold me?"
"Sure."
So we got in bed and I just held her. "What if I'm wrong?"
"We'll look for the bridge."
"But what if I'm wrong?"
"Then you're wrong. It's not a big deal."
"I don't want people laughing at me."
"This is how it happened before, right? In your sleep?"
"Yes."
"And they were just images. Disconnected."
"Yes."
"Then why wouldn't this one be right?"
"Because it's been so long. I thought I'd—lost my power. You remember our conversation."
"Yes."
"Cheated on it. Sold out. And it went away."
"We won't tell anybody about it. We'll work on it together." Then, after a time, "You think we could ever fall in love, Robert?"
"Maybe."
"You're as lonely as I am."
She needed me to say something strong. Even if it was only momentarily truthful.
"Yeah. I probably am."
"Then it could happen for us?"
"Sure. It could."
"God, things can get so fucked up, can't they?"
I thought back to the restaurant tonight, and that attack of the lonesomes. This was nice. Maybe it wasn't love—hell, it wasn't love—but it was two people who liked and trusted each other having a little fleshly fun and connecting, however briefly, however superficially, with each other's soul. That was a lot better than the lonesomes any day, and not fucked up at all.
When I woke up in the morning, we were totally entangled, so complicatedly, in fact, that my first act of the day was to smile. God only knew how we'd ever gotten pretzeled-up this way.
She said, "Oh, man, my breath is so bad. I eat so much garlic these days."
"Mine isn't any better."
"I didn't fart last night, did I?"
"Not that I noticed."
"I eat a lot of beans, too. I'm a vegetarian. I take stuff that's supposed to help vegetarians with flatulence but it doesn't always work."
"You're just fine, relax."
"I'm sure I look like shit, too."
"Bad breath. Farts. Looks like shit. You're just the girl I've been waiting for."
She laughed and jumped out of bed. "I'm doing it again, aren't I? Running myself down?"