by Layla Wolfe
“Exactly. What do you read? You seem very well-read.”
I had to grin. “I read a lot as a teenager, but I really hit the books in prison, speaking of wanting to escape reality. I read horror books ‘cause I knew they weren’t real. In prison my dad would bring me six books a week, and by the next week I’d have read them all.”
Her grin only lifted one corner of her mouth. It was, frankly, adorable. With those diamond studs accentuating her dimples and her brown-lensed Oakleys shading her eyes, she was a glamorous, different animal. “Real dad? As opposed to the one I was stuck with?”
“Right. Hard to tell sometimes which ones are worse, no?”
“Exactly. My ‘real’ dad vanished when I was six months old, so Beverly tells me. Christmas Day, he went out to get a pack of cigs and never came back. She heard through the grapevine he wound up in Ft. Lauderdale teaching high school ceramics, married with three kids.”
That was a strange coincidence. “Mine vanished when I was six months old, too. Must be a thing. Only he came back and tried to make up for it when I was a teen. Didn’t work very well.”
“But you said he brought you books, right? That’s something.”
“I suppose.”
“Do you still read horror?”
I chuckled at the thought. “I’ve advanced a little beyond that. I like to read about human behavior, the brain, medical things, psychology, and of course dogs. A chimp’s genome is 98.6 percent similar to a human’s. It’s leading us to redefine the nature of humanity. I like biology. They keep discovering old genetic similarities linking different species, whether it’s a mammal, bird, or reptile. Almost identical batches of genes have been handed down for billions of years. So a common genetic ‘blueprint’ formed the fetuses of a dolphin, deer, eagle, and Kim Kardashian. The same blueprint tells them to grow flippers, hooves, beak, and, ah . . . “
Unity helped me out. “Big butt.”
I was going to say that, but since Unity herself packed a lot of junk in the trunk, I refrained. “Right. So we share these genetic seeds with almost all animals. It’s fascinating. It proves that all organisms alive today are long-lost relations.”
“Even plants?”
“Even plants. Hey, come inside. Let me buy you some corny romances.”
“Well, I usually get ebook versions for my Kindle so I don’t clutter up my tiny apartment. But I can tell you’re dying to buy yourself something in there.”
“How’d you guess?”
I took all responsibility for it. It wouldn’t do to seem too generous or soft for a girl as hardened by a gritty life as she was. I wondered who her boyfriends were. If making out with her was like wrestling a tornado, how would she ever embrace a fuck without flashing back to unsavory memories? Then thinking about fucking her caused my cock to enlarge, so I looked at some diagrams of brains.
I’d just emerged from a painful affair. The woman Joy—although she didn’t bring me any—ran a dog rescue op in West Memphis, my old stomping ground, the site of so much agony. It was a four-hour drive or what amounted to a four-hour flight, what with getting the weather briefing, pre-flight checks, and making sure chains and chocks were off, so I’d term it a long-distance affair. It wasn’t that hard for me to take my Piper to Memphis. I just couldn’t get enough of her. Passionate, wild, blindly devoted to her dog cause, she expressed everything my crusty soul couldn’t. She loved blowjobs. On her knees, on my knees, edge of bed, edge of playground slide—edge of co-pilot’s seat. She gulped with gusto, and what man didn’t crave endless blowjobs?
I was ignorant of her past. All I knew was she was single, available, childless, free of commitments, and I fell for her, hard. By the time I was ready to spit out the dreaded L word, she had turned off her passion like a loudspeaker. All business one day, she informed me she was going back to her ex, a live-in guy I thought was long gone. I guess he had been out of the picture for a couple months, but who knew how long he was sniffing around her again? I shuddered to think of infidelity. It had broken up my parents, not once but twice, after Dad returned to bring me books in prison. Cheating brought ruin to at least two more of my stepfathers. It was all I saw around me. I knew it was wrong.
But there’s no arguing with something like that, so I had to embrace the suck. I even had to say no to helping rehab a beautiful golden retriever who had been chained in a backyard for two years. I did help facilitate another party to do it, but I just couldn’t stand the sight of Joy one more minute.
I knew I should become a player to erase Joy’s memory from my cells. A strange report just said that women carry the DNA of every man they’ve ever fucked. Well, I needed to wipe out Joy’s DNA from my genes. Only by doing that could I go with love and a clean slate to a more appropriate woman. More and more, I was doubting one existed.
So we were standing in the checkout line at the bookstore when Wolf’s Roman nose appeared at the glass door. When Beetle saw me, he went wild, jumping with giant paws like plates on the glass. “He’s gonna break the door!” someone cried, so I sent Unity out to see what the fuck.
She stuck her head back in. “Poo bags. He’s out of poo bags.”
Paying with cash, I chuckled. I could see Wolf panicking about some steaming pile left smack out front of The Bum Steer. Actually, the truth wasn’t too far off. The pile sat between two Fat Boys and time was of the essence. Just as I was going to leap up the stairs to Unity’s apartment where Diesel was the keeper of the poo bags, Tutti Morgan literally popped out from under the stairs. I sent Wolf to get the bag.
Tutti said, “I heard the Bare Bones has officially tasked you with finding Lavinia. Them being a do-gooding sort of op.”
Unity stuck her chin forward. “They are. They just saved my little sister in Cottonwood from being molested by our father.”
“Well. Well. I’m all for that.” Tutti actually had a toothpick between his teeth. “I just want to tell you, Tanner, Lavinia wasn’t in the honeymoon phase. Not at all.”
Unity frowned. “She wanted to settle down and have kids.”
“I’m a hundred percent convinced she went off with this Jose guy. He owed her money. She fixed his car for him.”
I asked, “He the guy with California plates?”
“Could be. I heard he was from Paso Robles, or one of those Spanish-sounding names they have out there. I want to tell you, this afternoon I found her cell in our garage.”
Unity gasped. “She’d never go anywhere without her phone.”
“Do you have it?” Both Unity and I asked at the same time.
With a passionless shrug, Tutti delivered the phone. “Nothing on there.”
Whatever he’d wiped, Wolf Glaser seemed capable of reinstating.
“It’s not the first time she’s taken off all night. She liked to go to sideshows while I hung in my lab. She drove 130 miles per hour. She could be in Vegas already. Raced hardcore.”
I slapped Tutti on the shoulder as though we were butt buddies. “All right, Tutti. You’ll be the first to know when we find something.”
By encouraging him we were on his side, we were able to get rid of him. Unity took her side stairs two at a time, bashing into Wolf who was on his way down with a pink bag fluttering from his fingers.
“Tutti found Lavinia’s phone,” I told the numbers cruncher.
“Oh good,” said Wolf. “We’ll find out what she did last.”
Inside her little apartment, Lavinia rushed right to a chair with wheels in front of an open laptop, logging into Facebook.
“She’s a mechanic?” I asked. “Like Bellamy?”
“Yes, but Bellamy only repairs bikes inside the hangar for the club. Lavinia goes to sideshows, like a pit mechanic. Repairs stuff right on the spot.”
Lavinia’s profile showed a sunny yet tough gal. A little on the plain and dumpy side, I was tempted to approve of Tutti for taking such a one under his illustrious, rich wing. But Lavinia was pregnant. Maybe there wasn’t much choice in the matter.
<
br /> “You said Lavinia’s religious. She’d never entertain the idea of an abortion.”
Unity’s certainty removed all doubt. “Oh, noooo. Like me. If by some miracle I ever got pregnant, the last thing I’d do is abort. There’s a Jose in her Friends. He’s got a tricked-out ’71 Chevelle but it definitely has Arizona plates.” She whipped out her phone and voice-texted, I assumed to Bellamy. “Look at Lavinia’s FB friends. Find that one José. Do you know him?”
Putting her phone down, Unity leaned back in her chair and swiveled to face me. She wore a long-sleeved black Nirvana shirt that was cropped so high there was considerable under-boob. They looked to be all real, all hers. “Our only clue.”
I took a step closer to her, still not looking her in the eye. “I’m not leaving Pure and Easy until we find your friend. We discuss everything like partners, and we get together whenever there’s a new clue. If you have the urge to cut, call me first. I’ll give you twenty times more reasons why not to cut.” Touch, massage therapy with lots of physical contact released the urge to cut, but I wasn’t about to do that. I had to be mindful of this skittish doe.
Unity grinned, dimples, diamond studs and all. “All right, partner. Shake on it.”
Cornily, I did. A Bible phrase from my prison reading years even popped into my head. Be not forgetful of hospitality. Some have entertained angels unawares.
Unity stood. “That’s good, ‘cause I was going to recommend going downstairs to eat dinner first.”
CHAPTER SIX
Unity
“How do you know so much about cutting?” I asked Tanner as I took off my “dome of obedience.” “Prison?”
We’d reached José Cepeda’s house in Flagstaff’s suburbs. It was a fifties burg that had fallen on hard times. Where kids had jumped rope, they now plotted to steal their dad’s handguns. Where kids had roller skated without kneepads, they now sold fentanyl for dealers. You could tell all the homes were rentals. That or Section 8, the “low-cost” subsidized housing. People barbecued in their front yards. Even in my Cottonwood hood, people would do that in their backyard. Here, no one parked in their garage. They played pool in there and parked haphazardly on the dead lawns. Everyone was at home at noon on a weekday.
“Animals.”
I grinned. “And do animals cut themselves?”
Today Tanner didn’t wear the threadbare Paws-n-Gauze T-shirt. He was clad in a short-sleeved blue button-down and 501s so worn they must’ve kept the shape of his body when he took them off. Yes, I had ogled his ass when picking him up at the Days Inn in P and E. That butt was so firm you could bounce a quarter off it.
“Stallions and octopuses will self-mutilate in ways that look like our ‘cutting.’ Wild chimps get depressed and die.”
I remembered something. “Lavinia has a parrot that picks its own feathers.”
Tanner pointed at me. “Right. Like the horses that obsessively bite themselves. Yeah, no shit. It appears to be related to grief. Animals stop eating, refuse food and water.” Then he grinned, too, and it was a sight to see. Under the dusk of his permanent five o’clock shadow, he may have even had dimples, or at least smile crinkles, like his eye crinkles. I felt I was getting to know Tanner Principato, and for once it didn’t scare me. “Or the inmates in prison who burn themselves with cigarettes.”
“See?” I crowed, following him to the peeling lime green house. Now I could look at his ass again. Was I a shallow ogler? Dear God. “You never talk about prison, yet you spent ten years there. Slushy helped get you out. You must’ve really been innocent, or the Innocence Project wouldn’t have helped you. So, what was the charge?”
Tanner strode right ahead, kicking aside battered kid’s toys, never looking back. “I don’t see any car with California plates.”
I snorted hot air. This man was frustrating as hell. I almost slipped on a used condom because I was paying too much attention to his body. What was wrong with me? Like the animals, maybe I was coming into heat. Maybe Tanner prefers animals because he can’t relate to people. Just like me.
José Cepeda was already at the door by the time I jogged up the front walkway. It was agreed Tanner would take point on this, being a hell of a lot scarier than me. But from the first split second the door opened, I could tell from Tanner’s back he was already a little uncertain. There were two toddlers in the front room, one of them bawling like I hadn’t bawled since that age.
Tanner introduced himself and shook the guy’s hand, explaining I was a friend of Lavinia, who hadn’t been seen in a few days.
“She repairs your cars?” Tanner inquired.
José shrugged. “Yeah, sometimes.” He had a very thick accent—straight from Sinaloa. I was surprised he’d even answered the door if he was illegal.
“When’s the last time you saw her?” Tanner asked. “When did she last repair one of your cars?”
José shrugged again. He was shirtless, and I could smell baby puke on him. “Maybe two months ago. She replaced the thermostat on my Mustang. Hey, what do they think happened to her? I heard there was some bad news at the sideshow the other night.”
“That’s for sure,” I said heatedly. “Three people went into comas and died, muerte, after taking some of Tutti Morgan’s fentanyl.”
José frowned. “Who da fuck is Tutti Morgan? Listen, ah, I gotta go.”
He was looking back at the sobbing toddler, but Tanner was ruthless. “Do you own any cars with California plates?”
“No! I have two cars, that Mustang and that Camaro you see, and the Camaro hasn’t been on the road in six months. I wasn’t even at the sideshow the other night. Tuesday my wife was in the hospital having another baby. I got shit to do, man.”
I reached out my hands. “Wait, José. One more question, please? Do you know anyone named José with a dark car with California plates? We’ve asked all her friends at the sideshow and no one knows anyone like that.”
“No. I am not hiding anything, Tanner and lady with tattoos. I was in the maternity ward with my wife Carla at Flagstaff Medical Center. That is where she is now, and where I have to go with these two little niñas. Please. If you want, go check at Flagstaff Medical. You will see that Carla Cepeda is checked in. Please. Mi mujer parió el jueves en la noche.” As though we’d understand it in Spanish better.
The poor guy was begging by now, and some bedraggled woman who definitely had spit-up on her shirt came to console the wailing baby, so we waved a thank you to José and walked back to my bike. I even felt rather bad at having taken up so much of his valuable time when he was so clearly stressed—about his kids and wife, that is. Not about covering up a murder.
At my bike, I held up a finger for Tanner to wait. I called Maddy, Ford’s wife. She was at work at her cardiology office in P and E. I asked her to see if there was a patient at Flagstaff Medical named Carla Cepeda. It was as easy as that. Maddy had been our contact who’d told us about the three deaths at P and E General. It still wasn’t in the papers while the pigs hustled around, confused as to who to charge, if anyone. The girl and two men had taken drugs voluntarily. Usually, it was their own fault, although a batch this venal should be investigated. Pigs were milling about in their usual bewilderment getting nothing done. I hated pigs, if you couldn’t tell. They were always arresting the wrong person. Or in the process of investigating a complaint, they saw an ounce of weed on the complainer’s coffee table, that person would be arrested. They always did the laziest possible thing, which included not taking fingerprints and not charging their friends. Like Gary Gregario. And yeah. I’d been arrested once while trying to charge Gary with molestation because I’d forgotten about an ounce of Young Man Blue sitting on my bureau.
When I hung up on Maddy, Tanner was on a new call. “Uh-huh. Sounds good. Well, we’re in Flagstaff right now, so it’ll be an hour before we can get down there. You live at the Leaves of Grass plantation, don’t you? That’s up on Mormon Mountain. Okay. Good. Sounds like a plan.”
Tanner explained w
hile he strapped on his dome of obedience. “Wolf found some interesting items on Lavinia’s phone. Says he wants to discuss them in person.”
I had a plan. “I think we can discuss them much better on a full stomach. You didn’t eat breakfast. Neither did I. I know a great place for ribs. It doesn’t say St. Louis style, but there’s plenty of sauce.”
Some might think it just another plan for me to get Tanner’s broad hands around my waist again, riding farther on my bike. Oh, sure, that was one of my current thrills. That, and if I sat up straight enough, I could kind of wriggle my ample ass against the inside of his thighs.
Why was I doing this? Was I a prick tease? In the past I had enjoyed using my body to tease men, knowing I’d never put out for them. I was quite inexperienced, really, in the true ways of men. If it hadn’t been for Evan the photographer two or three times, I’d still be a virgin, technically, Gary’s violence notwithstanding. So, when trying to imagine doing it with Tanner, I had to rely on things I’d seen the actors do at Triple Exposure studios while I fetched them coffee as a side hustle. Thank God I had that, or I’d have no idea at all!
And yes, thinking of sitting on a bed while unbuttoning Tanner’s 501s and sliding my fingers through his tight, smoky curls and over the mound of his pubic bone made me wet. I was so wet that when I dismounted at the BBQ place, I’d soaked through my thong and jeans and there was a definite wet spot on my leather saddle.
“Wow.” I tugged my jeans down and walked like I had to pee.
The BBQ restaurant was in a windowless basement room in a mall. I told Tanner I wanted sweet potato fries with a pulled pork sandwich and went into the Ladies. After drying myself off—I had a sopping handful of toilet paper to fling into the bowl—I had to face the fact that Tanner really did it for me. He was a fucking carved, control freak beast. Apparently after all I’d been molested and groped, that was the type I craved. Big time, according to my pussy.
Could we maybe just play around a little? There was no need or even desire to have a big dramatic fling, since he lived in St. Louis and would be gone soon. Could we perhaps just toy with each other? I could get more lessons in sex. And that built hunk seemed like a good choice of teacher.