Here Comes the Night

by Linda McDonald

  And that way was to get in her Beamer and push it to the limits of its endurance. To drive it so fast she couldn’t think. In truth, couldn’t react if anything went wrong. It was emotional hydroplaning for her. You left the ground with your stomach whirling and didn’t care if you made it back down or not.

  A sign flew by on the side of the highway: Red Rock Canyon. She’d partied there as a high schooler. Her friends had all laughed that it was Oklahoma’s answer to that big canyon in Utah where Thelma and Louise had bought it driving off a cliff in their convertible, while a sympathetic cop watched helplessly.

  It would be simple to drive off the Interstate right now, race to the edge of the rocky red cliffs and blast off into the canyon at a hundred miles per hour. No one would ever know what had driven her to it. Except now, she realized her romantic, deadly ending would be a cheap, pitiful out. Anybody half decent would at least save Buck by leaving a confession behind. With that thought, Angie lifted her foot off the pedal.

  The sports car rolled to a stop. Angie pulled over to the shoulder and turned off the motor. The quiet murmured in her ears. In the end, nothing could ever justify what she and Buck had done. It had started as the glimmer of an idea one night while she and Buck made love in the moonlight with the top on the BMW down. Rocking on top of him in a blue silver glow…

  But now it was all spilt milk.

  Chapter 86

  Dell was visibly shaken by the encounter with Tony. So was Vivian, but hers had taken the form of a charged silence. She just sat there in the passenger seat, dress still open, holding and staring at the .38 from time to time.

  Five miles down the road, they had pulled themselves together somewhat and found a place to pull off. Dell checked the damage. They were both livid when they counted half a dozen serious dents or bullet holes in the gleaming coach’s exterior. And Dell found at least three in the Porsche itself.

  “If I had that little fucker here, I’d kill him myself,” Dell fumed.

  After pulling her clothes back on, Vivian’s response was surprisingly limp. “Now, honey.”

  Dell raised his voice. “This will cost thousands of dollars.”

  “We’ve got more insurance than we know what to do with,” she said, still flippant.

  “Oh, so you think it’s smart to report this?” He looked at her as though she didn’t have good sense.

  “Dell, any little smart ass punk could have done this. In fact, did do this. Who’s going to be the wiser?” She stroked his arm. “You’re so sweet, but you worry too much.”

  “The legal implications…” he said, trailing off.

  “…are not enough to worry about. It’ll be a minor inconvenience. We’ll be in a motel somewhere waiting for a week or so getting the work done.” She stepped back inside the Safari. “I don’t know about you, but I need a drink.”

  Dell took a last sad look at the damaged motor home and sighed before going inside. He fired up the generator and turned on the vent for some fresh air.

  A few minutes later, as they drank dirty martinis, he noticed Vivian actually looked refreshed. “You don’t seem any the worse for the experience.”

  “It was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done,” Vivian said, her eyes wet and vibrant. She told him how incredible her quick orgasm at his first touch had been, then asked him if he knew criminals who had that kind of reaction to violence.

  “I’ve heard of it, yeah,” Dell admitted, not sure he wanted to embark on this subject.

  “I mean, it was a kind of heat that…I’ve never been turned on quite like that. I wanted to straddle you right there while you were driving.”

  Dell wanted to be happy for her, but it actually sounded a little weird. His concern was the encounter last night and how it had gone beyond the kind of rules they always followed. As he had reminded her on a number of occasions before they picked up strangers, it only took one thing to go wrong, something he could not cajole or bully their way out of, and they could be the ones getting cuffs slapped on them.

  Picking up the wrong people, or his personal fear, somebody with AIDS, could ruin them. He thought he would recognize someone like that, with their wasted, milky eyes, but you could never be sure. And, of course, Vivian left all those difficult judgments up to him. She just wanted the fun part.

  Last night had been a huge fuckup, as evidenced by this shithead who came after and found them on the road. Now he, and he alone—Vivian would be no help—would have to decide whether to report the little rat bastard or leave it to fate. For all they knew, the motherfucker was alright and right behind them in another vehicle. Just the thought gave him a chill.

  “Sweetie,” he said, watching her start on her second drink, “I think we better get moving.”

  “I was going to surprise you with a little b.j. before we left,” she said, giving him that sassy look she could still pull off.

  “Best we get into the city first,” Dell grinned back at her. “It’s only thirty more miles.”

  “Okay,” she teased, “but I don’t know if I can wait.”

  Chapter 87

  A light salsa beat ran through the cab of the SUV, which was so airtight that the music sounded like the inside of a recording booth. It purred along so smoothly that Twigs, in the front seat beside Jorge, laid her head on the backrest and closed her eyes.

  As they nearly always did, her daydreams traveled to a European haute couture runway, a synthesizer thumping out a metallic beat, the audience of rich patrons sucking on exotic drinks. Everyone sat in a hushed air of expectancy, anticipating her entrance, the model famously six feet tall in her bare feet, trailing gauzy layers of sea greens and muted aquamarines. Her hair effortlessly whirled around her shoulders as she executed her turns, shooting cool nymph-like glances to a chosen few.

  And, as always in her dreams, her skin exuded creamy perfection. No trace of the ravaged acne tracks that the best cosmetic work Twigs could find had been unable to totally smooth over. There on the runway, the diaphanous glow under her skin made even the most jaded buyers jealous, desperate to find out how she maintained her youthful dew, especially at her age.

  In the back seat, Meatface was drumming the tops of his thighs to Jorge’s salsa beats. During his trips to Mexico he had seen the roaming musicians, gigged out in fat sombreros and silver studs and buckles on their funny-cut black jackets and embroidered pants. Hell, all they needed was a Pancho Villa ammunition belt criss-crossing their chests to look really stud. But they still looked plenty fucking cool, rambling with their acoustic guitars around the restaurants, sloppy drunk tourists throwing dollars at them and wetting their pants over the private serenades.

  Late one particular night, sitting alone with a view of the Gulf, he had ordered a high-dollar flaming coffee drink, prepared tableside by some ancient waiter in a monkey suit, who managed to show enough excitement in the performance that Meatface believed he might actually be getting a kick out of it. With a flourish, the waiter had lit a small silver torch and crystallized chunky, amber sugar on the coffee cup’s glass rim.

  Then he’d loaded up the coffee with a sweet almond liqueur. Just as he placed it in front of Meatface, the tricked out singers strolled by, singing something the head waiter translated as being about warriors fighting for their beloved country. It was the classiest Meatface could ever remember feeling. Like the whole fucking hotel had showed up just to honor him.

  In the front seat, Jorge, grateful the ache in his mouth had left, let his head drift back to Lupe, his voluptuous cousin from their village. How she would never make out with him, though he had begged until his cajones ached. They must have been sixteen, but she had never given in, except for an occasional kiss. He would swoon about how beautiful her breasts looked under her embroidered peasant blouses. But Lupe would say that God, and especially her mother, would never forgive her if she did it with her cousin, or if she did, maybe she would get pregnant and have a baby with too many toes.

  He heard she had married somebody
and gotten fat, but he had never forgotten how he got tired of begging and told her he wouldn’t bother her again. He couldn’t take any more blue balls. Then, just like that, she got all sexy on him, like knowing he was going to leave her alone turned her on.

  Lupe told him if he promised on pain of death he would not do anything, she would show him her breasts. Just let him look. That’s all. She made him swear. Jorge could still remember the way she had removed her worn-to-gray bra under a pale cotton blouse, as a blue-green moon bathed the beach by the water. Then, her eyes shyly lowered, she pulled down the blouse’s elastic top and let him look. She’d leaned back on the sand and told him he could take as long as he wanted.

  That was the greatest turn on Jorge ever had. Even now, he could still see her breasts, like caramel melons with nipples the size of thimbles, could remember getting the biggest boner ever, but stayed a gentleman, a man of his word, even though it nearly killed him. She had lain back and smiled at him, the moon bathing her breasts until he had seen his fill.

  Jorge never saw the enormous copper motor home ahead on the road, the way it was swerving into his lane. Nor, as he closed his eyes, seeing Lupe’s breasts, did he know he was driving right at it.

  Twigs, Jorge and Meatface all had their eyes shut when they crashed head-on into the 45-foot Safari. The SUV’s front grill compacted like an accordion.

  Jorge woke up just as the steering wheel cut through his chest with a horrific moan.

  Twigs opened her eyes in time to watch her legs crumple up under her and into her stomach, like a grim stick figure cut in half.

  The front seat literally pushed through the backseat, smashing Meatface like a garbage compactor.

  As the SUV exploded into flames, black garbage bags of money shot up into the sky and rained dollars over the two lane road. Buck Dearmore’s football helmet sailed off Meatface’s crushed head, revolving like a red ball against the gunship gray clouds.

  Chapter 88

  Moments earlier, Vivian had stared out the passenger side window, noticing the dam of steel gray wall clouds. She was on the edge of an epiphany which hadn’t quite risen to the point of articulation yet. But it was burning to reveal itself.

  For the moment, though, she just knew she was ready for some really rough sex, no holds barred. She wished there was a way to bring Dell up to where she was, turned on and hot, instead of calm over there behind the wheel.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “You seem…way out there.”

  “I’ve never felt this…alive.”

  Dell laughed. “I haven’t heard you talk like that since college.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  Now Dell’s voice had a trace of annoyance. “Come on, Vivian, what’s this about?”

  She knew this new sort of turn-on she was feeling was impossible to describe. Vivian needed to make it real for him, make him experience it as she had, let it stun him as it had her. “Just let me show you.”

  He seemed unsure. “What are you going to do?”

  She put her finger over her lips and got on her knees in the aisle by his seat.

  “Oh, honey, not now.” Dell sounded impatient, but his partial erection by the time she unzipped his pants negated the caution in his voice.

  “Don’t look now. Just sit back and relax.” Keeping it out of his sight, Vivian slid the .38 out of her pocket and pushed the cool metal barrel inside his thigh, toward his crotch.

  He jumped like he’d been slapped, almost climbing out of the seat, like a wasp had flown into his trousers. “What the fuck are you—?”

  “It’s okay…” Vivian tried to explain.

  “The hell it is.” Dell was swatting at his pants, with his free hand barely on the steering wheel.

  “Honey, don’t,” she laughed. “I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

  “Have you gone nuts?” Dell reached for the .38, trying to take it away.

  At that moment, Vivian felt the R.V. swerve and push her backwards into the floorboard beneath the passenger seat.

  Dell pulled both hands back to the steering wheel and tried to correct it, but the R.V. was too enormous to react so quickly. He was tossed back against the driver side door.

  Stunned, they both turned to see out the wraparound windshield. But it was already happening.

  The Walkers stared numbly as a dark SUV rushed headlong straight at them.

  Dell and Vivian turned and looked at one other from opposite sides of the cab, already realizing their fate.

  As the huge copper beast began to tip on its side, Vivian stretched her hand toward Dell.

  He reached back for hers, both grabbing for a last touch. But the gap between them was too great. They spoke no final words before their bodies were shattered by the impact. But their emotions surged toward one another. In their eyes, surprise at this abrupt end, sadness for things left unsaid. And finally, a melancholy gratitude for their small, inconsequential lives.

  Chapter 89

  As the doors to a clean, spartan cell clanked shut, Erika felt sweat beads pop out around her neck and temples. Resisting a wave of claustrophobia, she found herself circling the cell, with its desperate messages, names of loved ones, and vulgar jokes, written and scratched on the walls.

  Every sound from the station beyond echoed in the hall outside. There was no window to the open air, just a bare fluorescent fixture, and a lumpy mattress with gray ticking on the bunk bed.

  It was barely five minutes before she started to feel antsy. It was hard to believe people existed like this for years, in a room barely the size of an area rug.

  Tony had lived like this for the past ten years, not only locked up in a cell, but thrown into the general population, with potential enemies everywhere. He had told her the only time he finally felt safe was with his last cell mate, a long-timer called Chuckles.

  Erika shivered and crossed her arms around herself. One thing Tony had been dead-on about. It did feel like being in a tunnel, except you weren’t moving. And it screwed with your head to look around and see yourself entrapped in concrete. No matter what you’d done.

  Erika leaned in to decipher an awkwardly scrawled message. It began with a quote she’d read somewhere in high school: ABANDON ALL HOPE…

  The rest of the quote had been scratched out and a new line added. Now it said, “ABANDON ALL HOPE—Get dope.”

  Chapter 90

  When Buck unlocked his apartment door, his shoulders dropped with relief to be home again. But the first glance inside stunned him. Papers, books, lamps had been thrown everywhere, his knock-off Greek sculptures toppled and chipped. Drawers pulled out, with whatever was in them streaming out onto the floor.

  With everything else going on, he had forgotten that Twigs and the boys had rifled through the place, looking for the money. And he knew the detectives had been there as well. It didn’t matter much who’d done the ransacking, though. The sense of violation left him shaken. His own things suddenly seemed dirty after strange hands had handled them.

  Buck picked up a lot of it off the floor, then fell, exhausted, into his couch. He slumped there, rubbing his hands over his swollen face. The doctor had been wrong about dropping off to sleep after eating. His body had wanted to, alright, but his head wouldn’t allow it. The vigilance he needed to get through this couldn’t take a break. To rest somehow meant it was over.

  Still, Buck felt desperate to wash himself. He found some plastic wrap and stretched it around his injured hand to protect the new bandage, then stepped inside his huge shower stall. He couldn’t stand another second of the caked-on blood and its raw odor. Not to mention the stink of old fear coming off his body. It had festered inside and come back out his pores smelling rotten.

  He stood under the high pressure showerhead and let the hot steam wash off the night. Afterwards, he awkwardly dressed himself in some jeans and a sweater. On opening his medicine chest, he realized someone had absconded with all his prescription bottles. He should have known that, he tho
ught, remembering Jorge’s glazed eyes.

  He brushed his teeth forever. Then he realized, even though his mouth tasted of sweet mint, that he would kill for a drink. Naturally, all his liquor, especially his premo scotch, had taken a hit. He could just see Meatface and Jorge guzzling it while they ruined his place.

  No matter. He poured a double shot and downed it in one swoop. He rolled his head back and savored the warm sting trickling down his throat. Immediately, he wanted another, but forced himself to put the lid back on the bottle.

  He walked to the picture window, with its view of Devon Tower and Bricktown, the unpretentious skyline that was Oklahoma City, and wondered what would happen next.

  The answer that came, his doorbell buzzing, was not what he expected. His head immediately raced to the possibility of its being Angie. Buck knew she surely wouldn’t, couldn’t come here, but she also had a wild streak. Hoping it wasn’t her, and wanting it to be, he opened the door.

  Waiting there were Detectives Edgars and Douglas.

  His head dropped.

  “Mr. Dearmore,” Edgars began, “we’re going to need to ask you a few more questions.”

  Without a word of greeting, Buck gestured them into the chaos of his home. “If you can find a seat, make yourselves at home.” He let the detectives clear away their own spots and get settled. “I’d offer you something to drink, but I don’t know whose hands have touched my glasses.”

  “Rest assured they were not ours,” Edgars said.

  “Do I need to call my lawyer? Because I’m not…”

  “Just a few quick questions. You can call him if you want, of course, but we only need to confirm a couple of things,” Douglas said.

  Buck’s curiosity gave him a second wind. “About what? I thought you had identified the kid who stole the Mustang.”

  “Oh, that, right,” Edgars nodded. “No, we’re dealing with Gordon Wesner’s murder now. We figure since you office next door to him, you might be helpful.”