by Tim Green
Cody awoke first. There was a half-moon shining in through the heavy glass doors of the pool house that lit Jennys face. She was nestled in the crook of his arm, and she wore the innocent smile of a child.
It was cooler now. Cody shifted to pull the bedspread on top of them. Jenny groaned. Her arm briefly tightened like a soft cord around his waist. Cody's mind wandered back in time to when they were only kids, in high school, in love, with nothing in the world between them. It used to feel just like this.
It was a half hour before she awoke. Her smile made him happy, and he gently rubbed his palm along the side of her cheek, smiling back at her.
"You're beautiful," he said.
"You always say that," she replied with languid pleasure.
"Because you are."
She nuzzled her nose into his skin and sniffed deeply, as if he were a bot. Ie of subtle cologne.
"What do you want to do?" he said in a dreamy, husky voice, careful not to upset the moment.
"Put on a dress and some shoes," she began with another smile at his indulgence, "eat dinner and drink champagne at the Four Seasons, then go to Sixth Street to dance."
"That sounds great," Cody said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.
Besides a fancy party in the hills. Sixth Street was Jenny's favorite spot in Austin. There, between the government buildings and the river, was a vast collection of bars and clubs that generated some of the best music in the world.
"Really?" Jenny said, perking up at his pliancy. "Oh, good.1"
They returned to the house to change and get ready to go out. When Jenny stepped from her closet in a blood-red silk dress and matching heels, Cody tried to take her again. Jenny kissed him deeply, but then pushed him away with a school-girl giggle and the promise of more later, if he behaved. The way she said it wasn't unpleasant at all. Unlike one of her normal sexual rebuffs, this was more like a seductive promise that left Cody with none of the bad feelings he had grown accustomed to.
It was nearly midnight by the time they found their way into a small bar called Los Bravos. Jenny recognized the name of a band within on a chalkboard sign on the door. The band was nothing more than four college kids dressed in tom, faded jeans and T-shirts,- three boys and a girl with two guitars, a bass, and some drums, but their music spilled over the crowd inside like a tonic. People swayed and tapped to the fast-paced but somehow mellow sound and the rich voice of the lead guitarist. There was a small area in front of the band where the stools and tables were pushed back so a tight crowd could dance together on the floor.
They were half-drunk from champagne already, but Cody muscled his way to the bar and ordered a beer for himself and a vodka tonic for Jenny. He needed a drink. Crowded places were not his thing. Jenny pulled at his arm before the drinks even arrived, and she said what he knew she would say. It was what he wanted to hear less than anything he could think of at that moment in that place.
"Let's dance."
Her eyes were expectant and bright. She loved to dance. He hated to dance. He asked her in the pool house what she wanted to do, suggesting the night was hers, and this is what she wanted to do. For her, this was the perfect end to a perfect evening. His was their bedroom.
"Let me get a drink first," he said. He needed time to think about it still. He needed at least another beer. Dancing to him was ludicrous and stupid. He felt awkward and self-conscious doing it. He rarely did dance, and on the few occasions he gave in, he regretted it the minute he got on the floor.
"Are you sure you'll be okay?" Jenny asked him. She knew better than anyone that once Cody was drunk, he was a different and dangerous person.
"Yeah," he said with an assuring smile.
"Okay," she said cheerily, graciously doing her own part to keep the magic of the evening alive. If he needed to get totally lit, that was fine. As long as she got to move to the music out there, she'd be happy.
Cody staked out a little space at the bar so he and Jenny could watch the band and drink their drinks. He even found himself tapping his foot to the infectious beat and wondered what a sound like this was doing in a little dive on Sixth Street, then he remembered that this was where a lot of the big artists, like Stevie Ray Vaughn, had actually started. After his fourth drink in quick succession, Cody felt good and numb.
It happened the way it always seemed to happen to him. The more drunk he got, the meaner he got. Instead of getting more amicable, he got resentful. Why the hell should he make an ass out of himself out there? Why should they be here in this crowded, smoky dive in the first place?
Jenny patiently danced in place, waiting for him to be ready, waiting for things to be different, waiting for the night to end the way she wanted it to, and not in some fit of anger the way so many nights in the past had ended.
'You go ahead," he said to her through the noise.
Jenny looked like she'd been slapped. "Excuse me?" she said, as if she'd heard him wrong.
"Go. You dance. I'm not. I'll watch you."
Jenny's eyes narrowed in a scowl. 'Don't do this, Cody," she said. "Just relax and go out there with me. Don't do this."
"Go ahead," he said nonchalantly in a dull, drunken voice. Til watch."
"I will then," she said, her chin held high.
Cody watched her make her way to the floor. The crush of people parted for her. Jenny melted into the shaking group of dancers, but her red dms .*nd beautiful, flowing black hair made her clearly discernible from the rest ol 'he crowd. Her gyrating body matched the rhythmic swaying of the music ar though her movements had been choreographed before the music had even been written. Jenny could dance.
Cody signaled for another beer, and by the time he got it and turned back around, there was a big com-fed Texan stomping his pointed boots and shaking his ass right alongside his wife. The Texan wore faded jeans and a matching jean shirt. They were the kind of clothes that had seen some hard work. He stood at least six-foot-seven with the boots, and long, yellow hair hung to his shoulders. A drooping mustache and sky blue eyes adorned his rugged, tan face. Cody stared malignantly. After a few minutes, Jenny looked over at him and gave him a flat, emotionless stare that lasted thirty full seconds before she turned her gaze upward to the big Texan and smiled.
Cody felt a wave of violence rise up underneath his feet, and he smiled the smile of the heroin addict who no longer feels that great high but who still welcomes the comfortable release brought on by the presence of an old friend. Nausea turned to thrill as he stepped forward, pushing his way through the throng. He grabbed Jenny firmly, but not stf'arto hurt her, and started to pull her toward the door. She shook free and yelled above the music.
'You told me to dance!"
"Now I'm telling you to stop," Cody commanded, grabbing for her again.
The Texan reached over and put his hand on the back of Cody's arm, up high near his shoulder. Cody grinned with pleasure as he felt the big man's long thick fingers dig into the flesh under his arm like the tines on a back hoe.
The assault stripped away any guilt that Cody felt for his own violent outbursts. The Texan freed his mind. Cody zipped into the tunnel of his own private wave and became engulfed in its roaring power. He leaned away from the Texan and lowered his hand almost like he was reaching down to pull a piece of gum off the heel of his shoe. When the punch came, it came from the floor. When his fist hit, it hit the Texan on the point of his cleft chin. The impact rolled his eyes back in his head, and he teetered before dropping backward like a grand redwood in a forest of firs. He took three other people with him to the floor, he was so big. Then Cody was on top of him. He jackhammered three quick jabs into the Texan's face, breaking his nose with the first punch and scattering the pieces through his nasal cavity with the other two.
Cody saw or sensed a flash of light in his brain. He knew it meant that something was wrong, and he turned to his back. In the faces of the pushing, screaming mob, he couldn't decide what had happened, or who had done it if anyone had. His left arm f
elt warm and wet. Three bouncers tangled him up in a web of arms and dragged him to the door. He let them do it. He had no beef with anyone but the son-of-a-bitching Texan. He wondered while they made their way through the crowd if there was a connection between the tight grab the Texan had had on his arm and the wet warmth he now felt. It was only a coincidence.
The bouncers threw him out into the street as passersby stopped for just one more Sixth Street spectacle. Cody brushed off his shirt and pants in the most dignified manner that he could muster and then stared around, spinning in a three-hundred-sixty-degree circle to make sure there were no visible snickers from the onlookers. Cody felt the backside of his arm while he spun, and when he had assured himself that the coast was clear, he checked out the sore spot more thoroughly. His free hand came away dark and shiny with blood. When the shock subsided, Cody felt the pain and knew that in fact the blood on him was his own.
He looked around for Jenny. She was nowhere. He went back toward the door to the bar. The bouncers were there and would not let him in.
"My wife," he said.
They told him if he didn't leave, they would call the police. Cody began to argue, but when one of them pulled out a cellular phone and began to dial, he retreated to the street. He staggered around on the sidewalk like a sick alley cat, expecting Jenny to walk out any second. After ten minutes, Cody got into a cab and told the driver to take him to the emergency room. He stared fiercely at the cabbie in the rearview mirror so he wouldn't notice that Cody was bleeding all over his backseat. It worked.
Cody needed twenty stitches in his posterior deltoid muscle and another thirty to sew up the gash in his skin. The doctor was a young resident from the university who recognized him and understood why Cody didn't want to get involved with any kind of a police report. He told Cody that if the wound had been six inches closer to his spine, he'd be on a slab in the basement. For his part, Cody knew that if you were still breathing and you had no idea who had stabbed you in a fight that you started, you weren't likely to get a lot of sympathy or action from the police. With his volatile reputation, the cops would figure he got what he deserved.
Cody was almost out the door before the doctor warned him not to use hio shoulder for at least six weeks. Cody stopped short. In his pain and anxiety, he hadn't even considered what this injury would do to his training.
"I can't not use my shoulder for that long," Cody said, turning to face the young doctor.
"You don't really have a choice," the doctor said. "If you use that muscle for anything strenuous and tear those stitches, you'll have to start all over again. This isn't something you can just tough through. If you don't get this thing healed right, you won't even be able to pass a physical, let alone play a game of football."
Cody murmured thanks, to be polite, and walked out of the hospital into the early moments of dawn. He didn't feel thankful.
In a few minutes he found a cab and slumped into the backseat, giving his address in the hills. Cody was as close to tears as he could remember having been in a long time. He had come so far in life, only to find that at the top of his mountain were sharp, craggy stones jutting out from the precipice. He couldn't even enjoy his view from the top of the world. Maybe because his fall had been too imminent. Now, with no contract forthcoming and no other teams in the wings, he had squandered his most prized asset, his physical readiness to play a five-month season of bone-crunching football. He would be nowhere near as ready as he should be by the time training camp rolled around with a six-week recuperation imposed.
Cody eased back into the seat of his cab. The doctor had given him some Percoset. He'd already dropped three of them. He was comfortable with prescription drugs. Like most football players, he had been using them to reduce swelling and manage pain since his college days. As much as his shoulder hurt him, though, he was more tormented by the certainty that what he'd done would be impossible to undo. His mind twisted like a dying man on the end of his rope as he ran through the painful possibilities of what might have become of Jenny.
Mercifully, the narcotic began to soften the edges of his screaming wounds and the tormenting images in his mind. As the cab thumped across the bridge over the Colorado River, Cody gazed into the half-light of the retreating night. But he was still racing into the darkness, and he couldn't imagine how things could be any worse for him or for anyone. It was almost just as well that he had no idea how bad things were going to get.
Chapter Eight
The big Texan staggered to his feet. Jenny caught him under one arm, and another man caught him under his other arm. Together the two of them got him off the dance floor and over to a chair next to a round cocktail table whose surface was covered with a cluster of empty Bud Light bottles. The blood that ran down the big Texan's face was already beginning to darken and dry. His bloody face looked like the sloppy brown muzzle of a St. Bernard
"You okay, missy?" the big man mumbled.
Jenny almost smiled. The big guy had just gotten pummeled and he wanted to know if she was okay.
"I'm fine," she said.
"I'm Peter Royce," he said. "This is my brother Jamie."
Jamie looked at her with a stem face and nodded without a word. His eyes roamed frantically about the bar like a caged ferret, or like the eyes of a man who had just stabbed another in a crowded bar.
"Hello," she said.
"Jamie don't say too much," Peter explained. He reached out with his big, beefy hand and rested it gently on Jenny's bare back. She could feel the rough calluses against her skin. His hand was warm.
"I didn't catch your name, missy," Peter said.
"I didn't pitch it," she replied.
"Who was that guy?" Peter asked, taking a different tact. He worked his jaw around to test the damage as he spoke.
"My husband," Jenny replied without emotion.
"Can I buy you a drink?" he said.
He was very handsome and suave despite his bludgeoned face. In her mind she played out a little scene between her and the big man that wasn't too far from Cody's worst nightmare. A little smile danced on and then off of her face. Jenny enjoyed the power she had over men.
"No," she said, rising from the table and pulling their eyes like two kites on the same string, "I just wanted to make sure you were all right."
The two men rose from the table in deference to her. She tried to remember the last time anyone had shown her that kind of respect. She liked people who showed respect, but she'd already made up her mind where she would go. She needed to go somewhere, of that there was no doubt. But she also felt the need to feel safe and comfortable and not go through the tangled motions that would lead to her to fucking some guy she'd just met in some bar and who she'd never see again. At the same time, she had no intention of going home. Cody had pushed her too far. She would teach him a lesson in a way that would never allow him to forget.
Striker was awake. He sat in a large leather chair in front of the unlit fireplace under a reading lamp. He folded the newspaper he was reading and set it down on a side table next to a half-empty glass of scotch and ice before he rose to answer the door. He knew before he was halfway there that it was her. Striker had a sixth sense about things. He stopped b^ore unlatching the heavy wooden door, tucking his reading glasses into the4ront pocket of his shirt.
For all the death and beauty Striker had seen in his forty-plus years, he couldn't remember a sight stopping his heart with quite the abruptness as the sight of Jenny standing there alone in her red dress on the thick green carpet in the hallway.
"I needed someplace to go," she said in a quieter and less sure tone than he had yet heard her use. He stepped aside and she came in. She didn't continue into the living room but stood there, looking away from him.
Striker took her hair in his hands and pulled it aside, exposing her long white neck. He kissed her there lightly several times. She turned to him.
"I need you," she said.
Striker picked her up like a new bride and carried he
r into his bedroom without another word.
"I'm heading home, sir," the young lieutenant said, peeking his head in through the door. "Anything else I can do for you?"
The gray-haired general looked up from a pile of papers. "Co get yourself some pussy, son," he said with a twisted smile.
This suggestion would have been far more humorous to the lieutenant had he not been married.
Smoke from the ashtray spiraled through the glow of the desk lamp and curled about the general's face, accentuating his already hellish appearance. In contrast to his flushed and craggy features, the general's clear blue eyes were cold, completely devoid of compassion or pity. At home, the lieutenant referred to his superior as "General Scratch," but only to his wife, and then only when he was sure they were alone.
The general made his way through some paperwork for another forty-five minutes before he checked his watch and rose from the desk. He picked up the metallic case that seemed to always be with him. It was too small for a suitcase and really too fat for a briefcase. Since he began carrying it almost a year ago, no one had ever commented on the general's unorthodox c:we Normally at the end of the day there were papers to be extracted from ihe bulky case and more still to be stuffed inside. Today, however, nothing went in or came out.
The general left the office with his usual brisk stride, but instead of heading for the administrative parking lot, he set off down one of the concrete paths that ran through the complex maze of buildings. Almost everything above ground was administrative in nature. There were a few labs, but most of the real work with the heavy metals was done underground. The theory was that an underground facility, if bombed, wouldn't leave a pothole the size of Texas and a dust cloud blocking out the sun from the rest of the earth for ten thousand years, the way an aboveground facility certainly would.