Usuality

by Thomas Mueller

“I know.”

  She reached her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. She needed him to kiss her, needed to feel something besides the fear that pulsed through her. He didn’t resist, welcomed her eager lips with his own. Everything was spinning. They were in this together now. All three of them. Garrett knew that the baby she was carrying was his. He had taken the news well, reacting to it better than she could have hoped.

  She unbuttoned his dress shirt, pulled him out of his white cotton tee underneath. She nibbled down his smooth, etched chest, shifted and started to slip down to his waist but he stopped her.

  “Reagan, don’t,” he whispered.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I want you.”

  She straddled him. The tie on her dress came undone with a tug. He slipped her silk thong to the side and helped her lower herself down onto him. She tipped her head back, hair spilling down over his fingers where they curled into her lower back. He let her set the pace, the headboard slamming a steady rhythm against the wall. Her dress slipped down her arms, revealing her black satin push-up bra. She moaned.

  The door opened. Bill Silverman stood over the bed leering, holding out his cell phone toward her like a cruel benediction.

  “You should take this, it’s for you…”

  “It’s for you. Rea, wake up.”

  Garrett crouched on the floor, his hand on her shoulder. Startled, she sat up. The towel around her came undone and fell. She watched as Garrett struggled valiantly to look her in the eyes and not let his gaze wander.

  The moment stretched out, passed the threshold of what might be considered appropriate, and lingered for a while on the other side. Finally she clutched the towel back to her breasts, got up from the bed and fled to the bathroom.

  “But your phone...”

  The bathroom door shut firmly. A second later Garrett could hear the faucet running. He looked at Reagan’s cell, shrugged. He tapped the screen to accept the call and held it up to his ear.

  “I’m outside,” came Nick’s voice, grating on Garrett’s nerves like broken glass drenched with testosterone. “What room number are you in? That numbnuts at the front desk won’t give it to me and I can’t get Ju’an on his cell. Reagan? Hello?”

  Dressed again minus her pumps, Reagan emerged again from the bathroom. Her face was freshly washed and toweled, and the angry lines from her shoes had faded during her nap. She seemed almost relaxed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Garrett ended the call and moved the phone nonchalantly down to his side, but it was too late. Reagan had noticed.

  “Who was that?”

  “Wrong number.”

  “Liar.”

  Garrett remained stubbornly silent. They could deal with this, whatever was going on. He and Reagan. The two of them could get through it together. They didn’t need Nick to swoop in and save the day. He didn’t want Nick to swoop in and save the day, but he’d look like a douche if he didn’t fess up that Reagan’s fiancé had just called.

  “Nick’s here. I was stalling in case you were still—but you’re not.”

  “He’s here at the motel?” Reagan’s cheeks flushed. She quickly found her pumps and slipped into them. She avoided Garrett’s eyes and tried to smooth the spot on the bed where she’d fallen asleep. The rumpled blankets refused to neaten, but she kept stubbornly at it. Finally she made a frustrated noise, picked up a pillow, and threw it across the room.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What’s it look like I’m doing?”

  “It looks like you’re throwing pillows across the room.”

  “Well, that’s not what I’m doing!”

  She stomped across, retrieved the pillow and put it back, then went to the door, flung it open, and left.

  “Why do you even care what he thinks?” Garrett called after her. Then, to the empty room, “Nothing happened anyway.”

  Let him be jealous, Garrett thought. It served him right. It served her right for caring what somebody like Nick thought of her in the first place. Garrett fumed. He ought to just forget them both.

  He went to the bed and sat with his back to the door, positioning himself so that he covered the spot where Reagan had been napping. He put his elbows on his knees and rested his face in his hands, wondering why she still had the power to spin his head around in circles, and that was when he saw it. Reagan’s purse was on the ground, open.

  Inside was a revolver.

  Never would he have expected to find a gun in Reagan’s purse. Everything else under the sun, certainly, but never that. She was the one normal person in his life right now, and normal meant not having a gun in your handbag. Unable to stop himself, he reached down and picked up the weapon. The door opened. He turned around, revolver in hand, to see Reagan come in, followed by Nick and, on his heels, the last person Garrett expected to see.

  Marin.

  XIX: TWO MR. PIBBS AND A MARS BAR

  Noticing the firearm in Garrett’s hand, Nick yelled “Gun!”

  Startled, Garrett’s finger involuntarily squeezed the trigger. The pistol bucked like a carpenter’s hammer rebounding from a missed stroke and popped, sending a bullet smacking into the doorway directly beside Douchebag Nick Polito’s head.

  “Goddammitwhatthefuck!” said Nick.

  Pounding started up against the wall again, this time along with something that might have been, “Trying to sleep!”

  Reagan marched to the bed and grabbed the revolver out of Garrett’s grasp. He relinquished it without hesitation.

  “I didn’t—” began Garrett.

  “I leave for two minutes and you go through my purse? What are you, twelve?”

  Nick interrupted before Garrett could explain. “Everybody saw that. He just fucking tried to kill me!” Reagan’s fiancé had some kind of a splint on his left hand that made his pinky stick out along with his index finger as he pointed at Garrett.

  “You startled him is all,” said Reagan soothingly. “Nobody is trying to kill you.”

  Marin looked bored. She took a joint from her small clutch, lit a match to it, and sucked in with her cheeks. The smell of weed filled the room. With the brief excitement over, her disgust at their surroundings was apparent. “What a dump.” She gestured with her blunt toward the bullet hole in the door jam. “Why can’t you be more like this when we’re together?”

  “Homicidal?”

  “No, exciting.”

  “You can’t smoke in here,” Reagan told her.

  “I could burn this place to the ground and nobody would care except maybe the cockroaches.”

  “Goddammit,” repeated Nick. “Does nobody care that he just tried to kill me?”

  Marin yawned.

  A foot more to the left and Bill Silverman would have been the least of Garrett’s problems. He tried to be happy about the fact that he’d missed Nick’s big fat Douchebag head, but he couldn’t muster the necessary willpower.

  “What do you have a gun in your handbag for anyway?” Garrett asked Reagan. “You’re...you.”

  Reagan reached down between Garrett’s legs. She picked up her purse and shoved the revolver back into its depths.

  “Why are you such an ass?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “The gun’s mine,” said Nick. “I gave it to her to keep her safe. She works in a rough neighborhood. I keep telling her—” he broke off. “I can’t believe you shot me with my own goddamn gun!”

  “He didn’t shoot you. You’re being juvenile.”

  “I don’t like guns,” Marin announced. She toked up, held her breath, and then slowly exhaled.

  “I don’t either,” said Nick. “Not really.”

  Reagan knew for a fact that Nick prided himself on the handgun collection in his study. She stared at the other woman. Marin oozed sex like cheap perfume. It turned men into gibbering idiots. She was short. And boyish. A short, boyish little sex bomb, and Reagan was absolutely not jealous of her in the slightest. />
  “What are you doing here?” Reagan asked.

  Nick raised one eyebrow. “Are we spoiling your little getaway?”

  “What? No.”

  “Thought we wouldn’t notice that the bed was rumpled if you had Garrett sit on it just right?”

  The tips of Reagan’s ears turned red.

  “That’s not what happened.” She glanced at Garrett, seeing that he was indeed sitting on the exact spot she had tried unsuccessfully to smooth down earlier. Her eyes softened briefly. Then she rounded on Nick.

  “So why is she here?”

  “Don’t worry about it. She was concerned. Tell me what you know,” he instructed Reagan, his tone leaving no room for argument.

  Desperate to look anywhere but at Reagan’s asshole fiancé, Garrett’s eyes found Marin. The sense of familiarity that should have accompanied her arrival wasn’t there. She felt like a stranger to him. Most people felt like strangers to him next to Reagan, but this was different. Maybe it was the fact that he felt like a stranger himself whenever Marin was around. Marin’s shame-jobs milked just enough frustration from him to keep him coming back for more, but the sole time he and Reagan had been together had been something special. It had been intimacy, not just sex, and he knew Reagan had felt it too. Marin was intoxicating. She enjoyed sex, but she seemed more drunk on it than anything. He wondered if sex could ever really coexist with love for her, and part of him was envious of the easy distinction she was able to make between the two.

  Reagan finished recounting the highlights of their evening, but Nick seemed to be only half listening. With an overly familiar hand on her back, he encouraged Marin the rest of the way into the small motel room and then shut the door behind them.

  “Jesus, what a mess.” Nick grabbed the only chair from the table. Instead of offering it to either Marin or Reagan, he spun it around backwards and sat in it facing the bed like an interrogator. Then, suddenly, he was all smiles.

  Garrett hated it when he smiled.

  “I’m gonna straighten things out, just don’t shoot me again, alright?” Nick forced a laugh. “I reached out to some people.”

  “What people? How do you have people?” said Reagan.

  “Don’t worry about it. I reached out to some people and they’re willing to make all this go away.”

  “All of what?” Garrett said.

  “Pay attention, Short Bus. The murder rap, the people who want you dead, all of it.”

  Reagan paled. “Wait, what people who want him dead?

  “People,” said Nick.

  “We’re supposed to believe you can just snap your fingers and everything goes back to normal?”

  Nick snapped his fingers loudly into the silence that followed. “Exactamundo.”

  Garrett and Reagan exchanged a glance.

  “What do you get out of this?” asked Garrett.

  “My God, you’re so predictable,” Marin said. “Why do you always assume the worst of people?”

  “He’s right,” said Reagan, resolutely ignoring Marin. “You hate Garrett. Why are you helping him?”

  “I’m helping you, baby,” said Nick. He turned to Garrett. “Give me the phone. Bill Silverman was a fuckup and it got him killed, that’s all you need to know. You’re in so far over your head that your ass is scraping the bottom of the pool.”

  Garrett looked at Reagan.

  “What?” said Nick.

  “He doesn’t have the phone,” said Reagan.

  “What do you mean he doesn’t have the phone? Give me the fucking phone.”

  “I tossed it out of the car back on the Bay Bridge,” said Garrett, before Reagan could tell how it had really happened.

  “You what? Tell me you’re joking.”

  “They can track a cell phone, you know,” said Garrett. “It was the right thing to do. I backed up the photos to my email, first.”

  Marin, in her disinterest, had crossed to investigate the minibar. “Two Mr. Pibbs and a Mars bar?” she said, “I literally can’t even,” but she set about unwrapping the candy bar anyway. The chocolate coating was a stale, faded white-brown. “There’s a Starbucks down the street,” she told Garrett. “Go get me a coffee.”

  “Are you crazy? His face is all over the news,” said Reagan. “And it’s late. They probably aren’t even open.” She paused. “You keep saying that you reached out. Reached out to who?”

  Nick sniffed. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Was it to Sonny Sullivan?”

  “No. What’s wrong with Sonny? He’s a friend.”

  Reagan was exasperated and not bothering to hide it. “He’s a jerk. Why did you get Sonny involved?”

  “I didn’t get Sonny involved.”

  “I can tell when you’re lying. You always lie when it has to do with Sonny. I don’t know why you have anything to do with him, especially after—”

  Garrett interrupted, “Who’s Sonny Sullivan?”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Now that’s good timing,” said Nick. “I’ll let him introduce himself.”

  XX: A WORLD CLASS PRICK

  Federico ‘Sonny’ Sullivan was not only a prick, he was a World Class Prick. It said so right on the business cards he handed everybody as soon as Nick let him into the already crowded room. He was one, or had one, Garrett wasn’t sure which. He was a cocky sonofabitch regardless; the novelty card had his name and telephone number on it, the words World Class Prick, and nothing else.

  “Here’s what we know,” said Sonny. He had a flimsy goatee and too much styling gel for how short his hair was. He looked swollen in his suit as if he waged weekly war at the gym and always lost. “Based on the Russian connection I made some calls, talked to some people. It’s okay, thank me later.”

  “What Russian connection?” said Reagan. “There weren’t any Russians.”

  Nick shushed her.

  “The Russians want the phone,” continued Sonny. “They get it and they’ll fix it so tall, dark and ham-fisted over there winds up dead and the whole thing blows over with the cops.”

  “What?” Reagan all but yelled.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Nick.

  “Somebody with his same fingerprints, DNA, dental records,” explained Sonny. “They can do that nowadays, make it, ah, seem like he’s been bumped off too, just like whatshisname, Silverdick. Murder-suicide. All nice and neat with a bow on top. It’s okay, thank me—”

  “Exactly how stupid do you think we are? And how does he know about Silverman? He’s been here exactly two minutes.”

  Sonny looked at Reagan, letting his gaze drop to take a long, unabashed look at her chest. He scratched his cheek, fingernails scraping along the skin like dull razor blades. He adjusted his collar, the hang of his pants. He lifted a cuff off his Bostonians and let it fall again, straight. He pressed on his hair, reassuring himself that it was still rock-hard.

  Nick said to Reagan, “Baby, you’re being ridiculous. It’s all over the news. Anyway, you haven’t got the phone, so just stay out of this.” He looked at Garrett. “Give us the password to your email—”

  “In your dreams.”

  Nick held up his hands. “Okay, okay. But think it over. We’re all in danger until you do.”

  Garrett had gotten up to stand beside Reagan, but Marin pushed in between them.

  Sonny patted his pockets. “Anybody got a cigarette?”

  Marin took a mostly full pack and a lighter from her clutch. She held them out.

  “Light me up one,” said Sonny.

  Marin shook one of the smokes from the pack, wrapped her lips around it, sucked flame from her cheap plastic Bic until fire began to creep up the end. She offered it to Sonny.

  Sonny licked his lips. He held out his hand. “Bring it here.”

  Marin looked amused.

  “Let’s go. I said bring it here.”

  When she didn’t give in, Sonny crossed the floor and snatched it from her, drew on it, but then immediately tossed i
t away in disgust. It sat smoldering on the carpet, but nobody made a move to pick it up.

  “Menthols, what the hell?”

  “Ever had your dick sucked by a mouth full of toothpaste?”

  Sonny’s eyes widened.

  “It tingles,” said Marin. “Minty-fresh.”

  Marin smiled, and her smile was what finally put Reagan over the edge. “Who killed Bill Silverman?” she demanded. “Who was the guy in the glasses? Does your friend know anything useful at all?” She set her gaze on Sonny and he squirmed.

  “He just said the Russians want the phone,” said Nick.

  “Well of course they do,” said Reagan, “now that they know there’s something on it worth having! There were no Russians until now! What are you try prove, Nick? Why are you always trying to be a big shot?”

  “I am so bored right now,” Marin announced.

  Snapping her clutch closed, she moved lithely to the door. At the threshold she stopped, turned around and came back, grabbed Garrett by the wrist, and then dragged him out of the room after her, shutting the door behind them.

  XXI: TINY JOHNSON

  Pickle was still in the office when Marin pulled Garrett inside after her.

  “I need a coffee.”

  “Far out, man. Oh.” Pickle frowned. “Oh, okay. Right. There’s filters in the room.”

  “I said a coffee,” said Marin. “Do you speak English? What are you even doing here? Besides not helping me.”

  “What are you doing here, man?”

  “Go get me a coffee.”

  Pickle giggled. “Go get me a coffee.”

  Marin took a five dollar bill from her clutch and offered it seductively.

  Pickle pocketed the money. “Hey, thanks for the tip, man, but I’m not on the clock.”

  “You own the motel,” said Garrett.

  “I do? Hey man, I do!” Pickle giggled again. “Then I’m definitely not on the clock.”

  Marin was beside herself. “Congratulations,” she told Garrett, “you’ve ruined my evening.”

  Garrett took out his wallet automatically, handed her a five dollar bill to replace the one she’d just wasted on half a minute of infuriating conversation.