No need for Beatrice to burst out from the bookshelves to rescue anyone from malfeasance.
“Charla might have caught wind of my investigations,” Beatrice told Hannah and Gus after the event. “Maybe word is out, and she recognized Hannah as one of my plants.”
No that’s not what happened. They all knew that. They all witnessed the same thing when Charla McGregor wrapped up her session for the night.
The crowd ran out of questions. There was nobody left hoping for a meaningful prediction or a soul-stirring connection with the dead. Charla smiled beneficently. “You have been a great, great audience tonight,” she said. “Let me just ask you for a few minutes of silence, if you’ll indulge me. Throughout our session here I have been getting a palpable sense of unfinished business. It’s one of those things that will keep me up at night if I don’t figure it out. That’s what psychics lose sleep over.”
Her audience laughed sweetly.
And they gave her their silence.
In the meanwhile, Gus started to fidget and gave Beatrice a look. Can we go now?
She shook her head.
Then Gus’s ears tingled, burned.
“I know someone in this room is searching for a man who has done something wrong,” announced Charla McGregor. “This man is not dead. He’s very much alive and dangerous.”
Her audience responded with a muffled gasp and horrified looks.
“Any takers?” Charla asked.
People turned their heads anxiously. Gus’s ears were pulsating. Beatrice elbowed him in the ribs.
“I’m stuck on the letters ‘I’ and ‘L,’” Charla told the gathering. “Does this mean anything to anybody?”
Suddenly, Gus stood, pulled by some external force, and said, “It might mean something to me.”
“Are you a detective?” Charla asked him.
“No.”
“Hmm. I’m seeing a detective,” she said.
Gus shrugged and said, “I’ve been spending time with a detective.”
There was a nod of recognition. Something passed between Charla and Gus that only they could sense, like a seismic wave or the sonar of dolphins who often gathered around Gus while he surfed the ocean. Those dolphins communicated with him. They sensed his sixth sense; at least that’s what he told himself. And now, there was that same glassy but sentient look in Charla McGregor’s eyes and a distinct signal that she was talking to only him. The room hushed. The two psychics gazed at each other.
“You don’t need my help,” Charla said. “You will find this man. Your search may feel more like research. And I encourage that. Start digging. Read what you need to read.” Then, pointing to Beatrice, she added, “I’m sure that lovely lady to your side would be happy to help.”
Beatrice purred.
Not an eye blinked in that audience.
“I’m assuming the letters ‘I’ and ‘L’ are initials,” Charla said.
“I don’t know,” Gus told her.
“Keep them in mind,” she suggested. “Do not forget them.”
“Is this man still in the area?”
“He’s in Phoenix if that’s what you’re asking me,” she said. The crowd, for some reason, applauded. Even Charla seemed confused. Then she said, “He’s involved in something this weekend. Keep your detective close. There is something happening this weekend.”
“What do you see?”
“It’s vague. But a woman is crying. She’s desperately afraid.”
Gus sensed some fear among the audience, as well. “Maybe we should continue this privately.”
Charla shook her head. “No. I have nothing more. I’m sorry. Just remember. ‘I.’ ‘L.’ And, okay, two more letters. ‘M,’ ‘D.’ ILMD. Four letters. Perhaps not initials.”
“Perhaps not,” Gus agreed, entering the letters into a note page on his phone.
“Or,” she added with a gush, “he’s a doctor. Initials ‘I,’ ‘L,’ medical doctor.”
Again, the group applauded.
“A doctor?” Gus heard himself ask.
“Thank you all for coming. I’m so honored to be with you tonight,” Charla McGregor told her audience. “I’ll be happy to sign some books before I leave.”
The crowd scrambled toward her. “You should get her phone number,” Beatrice says to Gus now.
“No. I’m good. She said it herself. She has nothing more. You know how that is.”
Beatrice nods.
“But I think the research begins now. ‘Read what you need to read,’ she said. Before we leave I want to look and see if there are any books here on Native American art or folklore, or something like that.”
“Go ahead,” Beatrice says. “I have to pee.”
Hannah giggles. “Me, too.”
Gus moves trancelike to an information desk. He silently chants the letters “ILMD” like a mantra. He recognizes the pretentious aroma of coffee done seriously wafting from the café.
He approaches a clerk. “I’m looking for something on desert petroglyphs,” he says.
The clerk, a young, waifish woman with big eyes and dandruff, assesses him oddly. “Geography?”
“No, no,” he says. “Those Native American symbols in the desert.”
She smiles widely. “Oh, yes, of course. So sorry. Let’s look it up.”
He follows her to a kiosk and watches as her spindly fingers punch information onto a keyboard. She hums softly as she waits for results. Gus assumes she’s a student at U of A. Majors in music. “Well, here we go. I’m not getting a direct match with anything in stock. Something comes up in art. But that’s a special order. And there’s this . . . Hiding in the Desert: A Memoir from the Reservation.”
“No,” Gus tells her. “I don’t think so.”
“Then there are all these travel guides to Arizona,” she says. “They all seem to mention artifacts. Mostly in museums, though.”
Gus shakes his head.
“Here’s another art book,” she says. “And we do have it in stock. It’s a photo book of desert artifacts.”
“Now, that sounds like a good start. Can you write down the name?”
She smiles. “I can do better than that. I can take you to the book myself.”
Gus knows the women will be waiting but also knows he’s getting a flirtatious vibe from this musky-smelling coed. “Oh, that’s fine,” he says. “I’m heading back to Phoenix. If you could just write it down, I’ll look for it at one of your stores up there, or maybe online.”
The woman shrugs. “The only other thing that comes up is this: A History of Symbols. But it doesn’t say Native American symbols, and it’s been out of print since 1980. Looks like it was self-published.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Gus says. “I’ll take that info too.”
The woman scribbles a few lines on a scrap of paper and hands it to Gus. “The name of the photo book we have in stock,” she recites, “and the details about the symbol book. Anything else?”
“No, thanks. That was a great help.”
She twirls a finger into her hair. “My pleasure,” she says as an unfortunate sprinkle of dust falls from her head. “I’m here until closing if you need any more help.”
Gus nods politely and smiles.
Beatrice slept the whole way up I-10, snoring softly, wistfully, delightfully, as though a baby hummingbird had landed right below her nostrils. Hannah, however, chatted into Gus’s ear for the length of the ride, telling him her own stories of psychic revelations, like the time she and her first husband, Mitch, were in Los Cabos and it rained for three days straight. “I had a feeling it would,” she told Gus. “I know that doesn’t make me officially psychic, but it made me listen more to my intuition. If you know what I mean.” Gus wasn’t sure what she meant.
Back at Gus’s house now, Hannah wakes Beatrice and guides her to the car. The women offer him butterfly kisses, a squeezy hug, and depart. Once inside, Gus pours himself a glass of wine, takes two sips, turns on CNN, takes two gulps, and promptly fal
ls asleep on the couch.
He’s probably down for half an hour before a throaty growl from Ivy wakes him up. He opens his eyes, but she’s not there. “Where are you, girl?” he calls. “You need your walk. . . .”
The dog offers a distant yelp from the hallway, maybe the bedroom.
“Ivy?”
He looks at the clock. Midnight. In his stupor, the time makes no sense. He drags himself to the bedroom, his eyes half-closed. “Baby, you in here?”
He feels for the bed in the dark and hears a voice. “Gus Parker, Gus Parker, I hope you don’t mind the company.”
21
That yanks him from his stupor. Suddenly, he’s wide awake. He spins around for the light switch, but in the dark he’s disoriented and he has spun too far. “What the fuck? Beatrice?”
“No. It’s me.”
“Who?”
And then the room is flooded with light. The glare splinters his eyes for a moment, but he clearly sees Bridget Mulroney in his bed, her hand on the switch of the night table lamp. “Hi,” she says.
“Bridget?”
“I didn’t want to disturb you,” she tells him.
He scratches his head and looks at her uneasily. The room smells perfumed. “And this is your definition of not disturbing me?”
“You were asleep on the couch. I didn’t want to wake you up. So I figured I’d sleep in here.”
“How did you get in?”
“Your slider to the pool was open.”
“Oh.”
“Why don’t you come to bed?” she asks.
He shakes his head vigorously. “Come to bed? I don’t even know what you’re doing here.”
She taps the mattresses. “Come sit,” she says.
“Bridget, I think you should go.”
She throws the covers off. She’s in a bra and panties and in magnificent shape, like a gymnast but longer, like a dancer, a trapeze artist. “I said sit, Gus,” she orders.
Gus tries to stare her down, but her eyes are annihilating, like two grenades coming his way. Her lips are moist. He can’t look at her, but he stands his ground. “I’m not sitting anywhere,” he says, “until you tell me why you’re in my house.”
She groans. “Because someone is following me, Mr. Parker. Are you happy?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were right. I should have listened to your warning. All night I was distinctly aware of being followed.”
“All night?”
“Yes. Wherever I went I felt like I was being trailed.”
“On the road? By a car?”
“Yes!” she gushes.
“Do you have a description of the vehicle?”
She lifts a leg and stretches. “It looked like an SUV or a pickup.”
“Color?”
She reaches for her ankle, clasps it in her hand. “I don’t know. It was dark, and he was well enough behind me.”
“But the car had to be close enough for you to sense you were being followed.”
“I guess you’re right,” she says. “But all I can really remember were those headlights. I was just focused on the headlights. Every time I rounded a corner, those headlights would follow. It was kind of like a monster.”
“But Bridget Mulroney doesn’t scare easily. At least that’s not the impression you give.”
She releases her leg and dips it slowly to the mattress, her toes pointed. “Did I say I was scared?”
Gus gestures to the bed.
“Well, I didn’t want to go home,” she explains. “I didn’t want this freak to know where I live.”
“So, you came here, and now this freak knows where I live.”
“I parked two blocks away so he wouldn’t, Gus. I risked my life and ditched my car, and I shook him loose!”
Gus remembers: Beatrice had a vibe about his house. Someone might be casing, watching ; someone might be stalking. Was the vibe about Bridget breaking in? he wonders. Or was it even darker? Had Beatrice felt the presence of a killer coming for his prey?
“Did he follow you?” Gus asks.
“No. I hid behind a cactus until he left. I think I woke a neighbor.”
Gus shifts on his feet, puts his hands on his hips. “Did you call Mills?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“I thought you’d do your psychic thing first.”
“What psychic thing?”
“I don’t know . . . go out and touch my car . . . confirm for sure it was the killer who was following me.”
He sits on the bed. “It doesn’t work that way, Bridget.”
“And you call yourself a psychic?” she says. In her voice there is a very subtle tango of umbrage and flirtation.
“I already told you the killer was watching you,” Gus reminds her. “You chose not to believe me.”
She brushes her hair back. “It wasn’t that I didn’t believe you, Gus. I just honestly didn’t trust you. I’m not a huge believer in psychics. I don’t expect you’ll change my mind. I just thought you came to me with a sort of made-up warning because what you really wanted was to fuck me.”
Gus coughs instinctively, a decoy reaction. “Excuse me?”
“It could have been a creative come-on. You know, scare me into fucking you.”
Her fingers skitter across the mattress in his direction.
He fidgets. “Furthest thing from my mind,” he tells her emphatically, though he does, indeed, sense the faintest stirring in his groin (faint, very faint, could be anything).
“So you don’t want to fuck me?”
“I wanted to warn you. I wanted to bring you into the fold.”
“Well, okay then. Consider me warned. And I’ll come into the fold if only to find out who was following me tonight. But I can’t believe you don’t want to fuck me.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Bridget.”
“Then you do want to fuck me?”
“What I’m saying, Bridget, is that you were wrong to think that sex was my motive. It wasn’t and isn’t.”
She pouts her full, moist lips. Here she is, an insanely fuckable woman in his bed. Or perhaps she is fuckably insane. He suspects the latter, but even so, there’s that stirring, that very faint stirring. He hates that his dick has a mind of its own. It’s probably the wine, Gus tells himself. The wine and the smell of perfume. Perfume can kill him. Maybe some other time, some other place, at some other age, but if nothing else, age has taught Gus Parker that a few minutes of pleasure is not worth the crazy. Beatrice thinks he’s asexual, a spiritual guru who knows all pleasure through the Zen of the universe, not the flesh of a woman, but if that were true, which it is not, why would his healthy dick be coming out of hiding?
“Well, I just can’t go home right now,” she says.
“You can sleep on the couch, Bridget.”
She gathers her clothes. As she walks from the room, she turns to him and smiles. “I’ll make a deal with you, Gus Parker. You prove to me you’re really a psychic and solve this crime. And I’ll prove to you that you really do want to fuck me.”
“Can’t you think of a nicer way to put it?”
“Resolve this case? Give us closure? Apprehend the suspect? What do you want, Gus Parker?”
He shakes his head. “A good night’s sleep,” he says and shuts off the light.
In the morning Gus rolls over and swings his arm over a soft mass lying beside him. Then he feels a tongue brush against his cheek, leaving behind moist heat and bad breath. He scrambles for the covers and sees a face staring him down.
“Thank God it’s you,” he tells Ivy. “Where the hell have you been?”
She whimpers.
“I know. I know. I’ve been a bad dad. A very bad dad.”
She paws him softly. He kisses her head. He stretches, rises, and wobbles to the living room to check for remnants of Bridget. The couch has been slept in but abandoned. It says so in the subtle imprint of a body, the pillows askew. His next stop i
s the bathroom where he pisses out his bladder. The relief is unusually satisfying.
The relief across town is satisfying, as well. Nothing like some morning fornication to put a smile on the face of Alex Mills. They love Saturday morning sloppy sex, he and his wife. No expectations, just bed hair, cotton mouth, musky smells, and the overnight sheen. Kelly has bitten his ear, and it’s a sting he’s learned to love. “If I had a maid who could bring me coffee I’d never leave this bed,” she tells him.
“You really want some hot chick joining us?”
“Who said she was going to join us? And who said she’d be hot?”
He squeezes her waist, and she writhes with laughter.
“Stop it,” she pleads. “I hate being tickled.”
“No, you don’t.”
She rolls over on top of him and pins him by the wrists. “I wish for one day we could lock the world out completely. Your job, my job, our son.”
“I love you, Kelly.”
“I love you, too,” she says.
He looks at her in disbelief. Not that he’s surprised that she loves him, but he has just seen another layer of beauty unfold across her face, unravel around her body. She constantly regenerates her sexiness, her clarity of self; it’s that clarity that surprises him—it resides in her eyes, as if she has just discovered a precious jewel.
He grinds beneath her. Not to start anything; it’s just a lusty affirmation.
“Oh, Alex,” she says.
“I couldn’t live without you,” he says.
She releases his wrists. “I’ll deny I ever said this, but fuck Trevor. He’s staying with Gus Parker tonight while we go to the theater.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“That’s great. Really great.”
Later that morning he calls Gus to let him know.
Gus sounds tired, ambivalent about the plan. His sentences are short, his voice awkward.
“Everything okay with you?” Mills asks.
Desert Remains Page 21