by David Cole
“That’s it?” I said. “You got a bad back from too much Mace?”
“Uhhhh, well, not really. So. I went to get some stuff out of my trunk. I could barely see and thought my face was on fire, so I wasn’t paying much attention to this little Russian dude. Except, like, he’s handcuffed behind his back, he throws off the officers, who can’t stop him from storming down the sidewalk, dragging one of the backup officers behind him. That’s when I got the Samsonite treatment, he’s on top of me, a backup officer is below me, I’m jammed up totally. My back was never right again. Almost totally wack because of that Russian. But not totally.”
“You can still do…uh…”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sex is good for me. Anyway. Some time later, after physical therapy and I’m finally getting back to the street, I had to tackle another guy, a loser who hit a woman’s car and took off. We stopped him and as I was standing next to his driver’s window, he decided to leave. I grabbed his keys from the ignition, he shoved the door open and took off running. I knocked him down twice, finally cuffed him. A little while later, at the station, my back locked up completely. I mean, I could barely breathe. It was the last day I ever spent on the street. I gotta go to the john. Sorry.”
Waiting for our order, watching people crowding in the front door. I saw a “Golden Tee” golf pinball machine against a back wall, more like a video game. It couldn’t be very popular, since across the top electronic message board, those things where words flow from right to left describing the wonder of the experience you’d enjoy if only you popped money into the slot, at the end of this message it read, “Last updated on 12-11-2002.” I guess golf isn’t too popular, probably because kids can’t shoot and kill a host of video monsters.
Ken came back and sat down just as our order arrived and the waitron took away our whale.
“What is this?” I said.
“Fish tacos. They’re great.”
“For breakfast?”
“Hey, I read that the favorite food for undergrad college kids and Wall Street yuppies is the same thing. Cereal. Sugar-sweetened cold cereal. Let ’em have their regulation breakfast. I’ll eat these.”
While I ate the fish tacos, Ken insisting between mouthfuls they were excellent, I kept hearing a hissing sound behind me, so when I finally looked I saw it was a helium tank and balloons were being filled for kids of all ages.
I picked at the food, ignored the truly weird tortillas under the fish, ate the salad and some rice and beans. Finished, Ken scrunched this way and that, trying to ease the pains of all his police-related injuries, and finally he just said, “I’m dying here. You done?”
“Yes,” I said. “What now?”
“Don’t think I’m an alcoholic. I’m not. But I’ve not seen a mutilated body for years, and I’m kinda freaked by that guy in the barbeque pit.”
“I just saw mutilated bodies this week, but I’m still freaked out.”
“Okay. If we’re going to talk about it, I really need a drink.”
“More coffee?”
“Margaritas.”
“If that’s what you need,” I said. “Where we going, who serves alcohol so early in the morning?”
“There’s this bar a few blocks away, you just sink into these leather booths. Or naugahyde, you know, it’s like sitting on an air mattress that cuddles your body.”
The booths were comfortable. It wasn’t leather. “Don’t you wonder,” I said, “how many naugas died just for this one booth?”
He didn’t get the joke, but it wasn’t worth explaining and I didn’t feel hilarious anyway, I couldn’t even giggle.
“I saw you eying that business card,” he said.
Licking some salt from the lip of the margarita glass, not finding enough salt so he curled his left fingers as though they were holding a beer bottle, poured salt into the small valley between thumb and index finger. Licked it, finished the margarita, and ordered another.
“Agricultural supplies?”
“Yeah. Want to tell me why you were curious?” he said.
“You ever been to a cockfight?” I said. Nursing my iced tea.
“A few. When I worked undercover.”
“Ever play a video game?”
“Where you going with this?”
I told him everything I knew.
Mary Emich’s fear of the maras.
Her diary entry, which I’d not read yet.
Her adopted girl, and the dead child from the murder house.
The online gambling site, with the animated cockfights.
“It’s a stretch,” he said finally. “Connecting the gardener with cockfights, just because of a business card for a place selling agricultural products. Connecting what looks like a random computer visit to the casino with maras.”
“I’m stretching it so hard it’ll break, snap in my face. It’s instinct.”
“Yeah. Instinct. Twelve years in undercover, I got the nose for instinct. Saved my partner’s life once. But I don’t see where you’d go with this.”
“How well do you know Mary?”
Salt, lots of salt, smiling into his fist while his tongue dabbed at the salt.
“She’s a very close friend,” Ken said finally. “One time, I thought I was in love with her. Probably was. But she was still married, really happily married.”
“What happened?”
“Husband died in Iraq, killed by friendly fire. Sometimes Mary says she lost her husband years before that, lost him to the army. They were high school sweethearts who married very young, had no children.”
“What was his name?”
“Jim. Jim Coyne. Helluva nice guy. Anyway, Jim wanted a career in the Army, after fourteen years of it had been away from home three times as long as he was with Mary. He rose to the rank of captain in the Army Nursing Corps, was in civvies helping wounded Iraqis, and during a heavy night firefight was killed by a young sniper. An American Marine. Broke the Marine’s heart, he never could pull a trigger again. Broke Mary’s spirit for a whole year.”
“She seems happy now. She laughs, she smiles a lot.”
“Yeah. Her smile, yeah. It’s beautiful, but sometimes…she smiles on the outside, it’s just a physical thing. You know? She’s beautiful. You’re beautiful, Laura. But she’s got honor. I’d say it was honor. To protect her girl, this girl, and I’ve gotta tell you, I have no idea where this girl came from. She just showed up one day. Mary brought her to work, didn’t want to let her out of her sight for about three months. Mary would do anything to protect the girl.”
“She said she’d kill if she had to.”
“Yeah. She’d kill. Knowing the penalties, religious, personal, yeah, she’d kill. To protect that girl. As a cop, I guess, I’d kill if I had to protect myself. Protect somebody. I don’t know, it never really got that far. But to save a child? I ask myself, would I kill to protect something? Somebody?”
I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. Said nothing.
“You don’t know her well.”
“Well enough,” I said. “For a client.”
“A client.”
“A client. As a client, she’s direct, she’s self-confident, honest.”
“Honest?”
“Yes. Honest. She said she’d do anything to protect her child.”
“Mary is profoundly against violence. She’s a pacifist, she can’t stomach violence, senseless violence. She can’t fathom it. But what a profound thing, that this woman would kill to protect her daughter. Do you truly realize what a profound thing that would be?”
“Can I ask you a personal question?” I said.
“Sure. Just do it quick.” He’d finished the second margarita, ordered a third, and sat with his head lowered, eyes flicking up to me and down to the glass.
“What happened to your marriage?”
His eyes moved instantly to a pale band of flesh on his left ring finger, the rest of the hand deeply tanned.
“Cop’s life. She couldn’t take it.
Her second marriage. My third.”
“You watch a lot of movies?” Ken asked. Changing the subject.
“Yeah,” I said. What I wasn’t going to say was that I felt that Ken was becoming something more than a movie trailer, more than a coming attraction, it almost felt like the first time I believed that a man’s true love was the main feature.
“So? I catch a movie whenever I can. What do you like?”
“Easier if you just tell me what you last saw.”
“The second Charlie’s Angels movie? Kill Bill, volume two, but I liked the first one better. What?” he said. I pretended to stick four fingers down my throat.
“I like good movies,” I said.
“Okay, how about music?”
“Sure. But let me guess. Country Western?”
“Dixie Chicks, sure. But I like this weird stuff. I listen to this program from San Francisco. Music From the Hearts of Space. Before there was ‘new age’ music, this program had the best. Terry Reilly, Phillip Glass, Tangerine Dream, Eno. They were also one of the live broadcasts of the group hum.”
“The…hum? Humming in a group?”
“A few NPR stations across the country,” Ken said. “They fill an auditorium, they schedule everybody on the air at the same time. They strike a specific note. People hum.”
“You mean, like, a song?”
“No. Just a note.”
“They hum a note? On the radio?”
“It sounds weird,” Ken said. “When I was a kid, living in some Yaqui village somewhere, I don’t even know where, for different reasons there were different songs.”
“Like the Navajo singers,” I said. “Like a Blessing Way.”
“But now, the closest I get is to take part in a group hum.”
“How many people?”
“You’re a detective,” Ken said. “Work out some figures.”
“A few hundred?” He snorted. “A few thousand?” He growled, shook his head. “I’ll guess, six thousand, three hundred and forty-nine hummers.”
“Last group hum, something like fifty thousand.”
“No way.”
“Way,” he said. “Course that doesn’t count everybody humming alone at home. So. Music. Who do you like?”
“I used to have some raps,” I said. “But tell me, what did your wife hate so much that she left you?”
“Some years ago,” Ken said, “I really loved margaritas to the point where I’d have a few every day. To forget about the violence of my work. Then I got to having a few at lunch and more with dinner. I never thought I might be an alcoholic, until my ex listed margarita as one of the reasons she was leaving me. I was in such denial about drinking that for a while I thought she was referring to another woman, a Latina named Margarita.”
“Ken,” I said. Reached out to touch his hand on the table.
“Laura,” he said.
“Ken,” I said. I almost felt like flirting, except I couldn’t quite remember that dance and anyway I didn’t care enough about him to flirt. Liked him, yes, but flirting raises the temperature when you’re least ready to get hot.
“So. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Hell, that’s easy,” Ken said. “Either a cop or a jet pilot. And you?”
He laughed at his answer. I’m used to asking people that question. Not answering it myself.
“To be loved,” I said.
“Mary used to ask me this question. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? My answer? Here’s directions to the margarita bar. And you?”
“I’ve been so far away from God, for so long…I don’t know, I really don’t know. Listen. Here’s what I’m going to do. First I’ll read Mary’s diary. You can ask her if she’ll let you read it also, I’m sure it’s the story of where she found the girl. Then I’m going to spend time with Jordan Kligerman and consider his offer of working with TPD.”
“You just decided that,” Ken said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“All right. Here’s what I’ll do. I don’t know how it fits together with everything else, but I do know that this weekend is the finale of the local cockfighting contests. The champions go on to the state finals. So there’s bound to be cocks fighting all day long, probably already gearing up for the first match. Let me work some of my sources, find out where we could see one tonight. Would you go?”
“Yes.”
“All right. I usually ride a Harley Fat Boy. You rig yourself out like a biker chick, I’ll pick you up between eleven and midnight. You really up for this? It’ll be…you’ll have a hard time watching.”
“I’ll be ready,” I said. Gave him my private cell number. “For whatever.”
“Weird things do happen. I worked in Texas for a while, before I joined TPD. One day, I’m going to work, I’ve got this new convertible, at a stoplight, wham, this pickup broadsides me from the left. Not much damage to either vehicle, both of us jump out to see if the other person’s all right. And guess what? The other driver I recognized. Thirty years before, when my parents had a pecan orchard, this girl would come over with her family to harvest the pecans. The same girl, same me, everything else is random. What are the odds of that?”
“So what are the odds?” I said. “Of us meeting like this?”
“A long shot. But, as Mary would say, there’s got to be a meaning.”
“Or just a coincidence.”
“To us, maybe. To Mary? She’d say, God doesn’t roll dice.” Eying me over the salted rim of his glass. “You’re a kinda fascinating person yourself, Laura Winslow.”
“That’s the booze talking,” I said.
“There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
“I wasn’t, I mean, I hardly know you. What am I supposed to say?”
“Not my purpose,” Ken said, “to put words in somebody else’s mouth. So what are you going to do about this…about…this is bad shit going down. You should just walk away from it, Laura.”
“Now, that’s the third time I’ve heard that. This morning, I’m going to the park and talk to Mary. Later, I’m doing a command performance for some cops.”
“And tonight?”
“Let’s get this really clear,” I said. “I don’t have patience for another man in my life. Not after being dumped by my partner.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“So am I.”
“None of my business,” Ken said. “But, this just happened?”
“He made me an offer he said I couldn’t refuse.”
Ken held up a hand to the bartender, thought better of it.
“I got dumped by email,” he said.
“Email?”
“Not even face-to-face.”
“Email?”
“What’s the difference? A note on the kitchen table, a letter overseas, an email message. When they’re gonna leave, they’re gonna leave.”
“And why?”
“Because it’s time,” Ken said. “For them, it’s just over.”
19
Following Mary’s directions to her office, I bypassed the main entrance to the park and drove slowly up the service road, all the way to a chain-link fence bordering the staff parking lot. Past a short patch of ground, I went up three steps and opened the back door to the gift shop.
“Hello,” a tall woman said. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Mary Emich.”
“Go through the gift shop, turn left, and go through the two gallery rooms. At the far end, you’ll see a swinging door, go through that and turn quick left and quick right. I think she’s the only staff person back there today.”
I walked away without saying anything, took several steps, realized what I’d done again. I have a hard time with some social things, like, when I’m done talking to somebody, on the phone or in person, I’ll just leave without saying goodbye.
“Thanks,” I said. The woman smiled.
The first and smallest of the
galleries had fascinating pottery called Green Feelies by a woman named Rose Cabot. One had that clear, distinct green that immediately reminds you of broccoli, another the exact faded yellow of a summer squash. In the main gallery I didn’t stop to look, pushed on the swing door, and worked my way back to Mary’s office.
“Welcome to the vortex,” she said. Moving piles of paper from the guest chair, looking around with no hope, finally stacking the papers on top of other papers. Her entire office awash with paper, cardboard, signs, calendars, event brochures, books, computer disks, and software manuals.
Pinned to a wall, a dozen balloons, all different colors, but limp, exhausted, nearly flat, and still tied tightly at the neck and all of them joined by a yellow ribbon.
“I keep them,” Mary said, “because they’ve still got some of my dead husband Jim’s breath inside.”
When I sat down I kicked an empty water bottle.
“Sorry,” Mary said. “I usually throw that bottle to get somebody’s attention. The rest of the staff keeps the debris from flooding the hallway, sometimes my stuff wanders by itself out to Kim’s desk.”
Lighthearted, chatty, giggling, smiling, and wrapped very tight.