Bad Desire

by Devon, Gary;

  Reeves’s cruiser came off the end of the bridge, turned right and swung into the lot. Come on, Burris! What’re you doing! Slater’s nerves were taut as wires. The car door swung open and the police chief got out, ambled across the street and entered the donut shop.

  The binoculars swerved from the glass door to the parking lot. Another car arrived—there were eight now altogether counting the cruiser—and Slater waited for the driver and his companion to go inside. Quickly he examined the lot. No one else had driven in.

  Do it, he thought. His thumb pressed the black button.

  There was a thudding blast, a flash of light. The floor of the building shuddered under Slater’s feet. He was certain he saw the cruiser bounce into the air, but a huge cloud of smoke and dirt billowed over the wreckage that was taking place before his eyes. As the dust drifted away, he saw the crazy angles of the badly battered cars. The cruiser had actually rocked backward a few feet, its hood torn off, its entire front end blackened. The cars parked on either side of it were wrecked.

  In those first few seconds as he surveyed the damage, there came a second blast—the cruiser’s gas tank exploded and then the rear of the car next to it heaved up. Its tank exploded. Flames leapt into the sky. It was happening so fast that Slater couldn’t take it all in. “Goddamn,” he whispered to himself. “God—damn!”

  He waited until he saw the men run out of the donut shop and into the street, where they stopped and stared, Burris Reeves among them. Okay, Reeves, he thought, now what are you going to do?

  Slater stepped back, cranked the window shut, returned the transmitter and the binoculars to his briefcase and snapped it shut. The other bombs were rigged with timing devices—there was nothing he could do about them now. It was out of his hands—irreversible. He had chosen the places and times as carefully as he could. A vision came to him then, just as if he stood on the sidewalk in the crowd: the riot of blue police lights, red ambulance flashers, sirens, fire equipment, TV crews—all gathered at the carcass of the black and white cruiser.

  Now you see the diamond, now you don’t.

  The art of distraction.

  Slater had planned four bombings in all, three the first day, two within the first hour, in rapid succession.

  The second explosion came at 8:19—flames shot fifty feet into the air. The unoccupied new addition of the St. Pius Grade School, which Slater had dedicated only a couple of weeks earlier, collapsed in fiery ruin.

  Through the heavy plate-glass windows of his office, he watched the fireball lick the air but he could hardly hear it. Bulletins were coming from the radio behind his desk: “We interrupt this broadcast … an explosion has occured at Three Points Avenue near the entrance to the Rialto River Bridge. Police are asking that commuters please avoid the area. We repeat—”

  No mention was made of the convicts. It’s too soon, he thought, too much confusion. He kept changing the stations. “KRIO has just been informed that the city of Rio Del Palmos has been shattered this morning by two explosions. We will be keeping you up-to-date with those locations as soon as they are verified. Police officials are advising that residents stay inside their homes unless it’s absolutely necessary to go out—”

  Slater paced beside his office windows, watching the devastation and waiting. Running through his fingers and in his mind was Sheila’s gold necklace, a single gold thread, pliant as her hair. I’m closing this city down, he thought. It’ll all grind to a halt, all for you. It occurred to him that this was one of the few times in his life when he knew exactly what had to be done. Never had he been so careful; he had to think of everything.

  Two gray pillars of smoke curled into the early morning light. It was awesome to watch the world blow apart with forces only he controlled. Never in his life had Slater felt more in command, more omniscient. He heard the dim wail of sirens but the noise rose to him as if from the depths of the ocean. Only the two columns of smoke made it real. And the ringing telephone. He put the necklace into his pocket, reached across and picked up the receiver. “This is Henry Slater.”

  But it wasn’t Reeves.

  Frightened herself, Abigail came in and tried to elaborate on what the bulletins were saying on the radio. Faith called, obviously upset, wanting to know if he was all right and Slater assured her that he was. She wanted to come down, to be with him, but he told her not to—to stay home.

  The intercom beeped on his desk as Abigail screened and announced his incoming calls. It was ten o’clock, it was eleven. With the receiver tucked between his cheek and shoulder, he shuffled through the blue slips she periodically brought in. Still nothing from Reeves.

  When Slater wasn’t on the telephone, he paced in front of the windows, his hands in his pockets, his right-hand fingers wrapped in gold. Then Abigail said Burris Reeves was on line three. This is it, he thought. Finally. But Reeves was only giving him an early assessment of damages, reporting that he had requested additional manpower from neighboring communities. “You do that, Burris,” he said. “I want some answers.”

  “I’ll get back to you,” Reeves told him.

  Slater hung up. I’m still waiting, Burris.

  The morning was spent on the telephone, the afternoon in emergency meetings. Rumors flew; men raced in and out of his office; implausible theories took on the ring of truth. At one o’clock, Slater stepped before the microphones and cameras and expressed his shock and outrage, calling the bombings “fiendish” and “insane,” and assuring the public at large that immediate action was being taken.

  Through it all, he waited for Reeves to call him back. And again, the only call that mattered didn’t come. The afternoon and evening newspapers began to arrive. The local Gazette carried a small header above the double banner headline.

  Police stymied, no leads, no critical injuries

  2 EXPLOSIONS SHOCK RIO DEL PALMOS

  BOMB DESTROYS POLICE CHIEF’S CAR

  The Santa Barbara News Press devoted the entire front page to the bombings and the L.A. Times carried the story below the fold:

  TERROR ERUPTS IN RIO DEL PALMOS,

  FEAR STALKS THE STREETS

  Two bombs in less than an hour sent waves of panic through affluent Rio Del Palmos at dawn this morning. The powerful explosions jarred homes as far as a mile away, although miraculously no one was injured.

  He saw his own words—fiendish and insane—quoted in headlines. The police chief was quoted again and again, but nowhere were the convicts mentioned.

  Slater shoved his hands into his pockets. Again, he paced. The intercom beeped but he ignored it. A minute elapsed, then two more—minutes when he imagined Reeves thinking that the worst was over. At 4:26, there came a noise like an immense thunderclap. His pictures shook against the office walls. In an instant, the old abandoned boat-works collapsed in a heap of dust and rubble. That’s three, he thought. Talk to me, Reeves, or I’ll bring you to your goddamned knees.

  Abigail stood at the doorway. “Oh, Mr. Slater!” she exclaimed. “My God, did you hear that?”

  Her face was more frightened than his own. It fed him with strength.

  Night fell. Barricades and emergency torches sealed off entire neighborhoods. Slater took a roundabout way home, talking with the patrolmen stationed at intersections, passing through the roadblocks surrounding the city.

  And again the next morning, a bomb blew at 6:48 while Slater looked at his watch and got into the shower. He walked through police headquarters on his way to the office, but Reeves wasn’t there.

  Noon came and still no call, no word. Slater was hanging up the telephone when he realized that the door to his office was open and that Reeves was looking at him. In the way the police chief stood, Slater could see the man’s exhaustion.

  “Well, Henry,” Reeves said. “I guess everyone’s entitled to a mistake once in a while. I was wrong. It’s been those goddamned convicts all along—Christ, have we ever got a situation on our hands.”

  Okay, Slater thought, now it can stop. It�
�s over. It worked.

  “Close the door, Burris,” he said, measuring his tone, getting up and going around the desk to meet him.

  It worked. It worked.

  And yet there was still that lingering doubt.

  You’re too damned smart, Reeves.

  15

  An illusion of smoke haunted the air over Rio Del Palmos, although the mornings were clear and unclouded. A smaller, low-intensity bomb had been set off in an open field, which investigators now considered the work of a prankster, and there had been an undisclosed number of bomb threats. But people knew about them. Both a nursery school and a restaurant had been evacuated and thoroughly searched. The fear of a sudden cataclysm did not stop. In a plea for reason, the harassed police chief issued a statement telling the city the rage was not over. Until the convicts were captured, nothing, it seemed, could stop the bomb threats. But for years to come Denny Rivera would mark those few days of terror as the time when his life fell apart at the seams.

  That first week after the murder had been a tender time for Denny and Sheila. Mornings when she let him into the house after the McPhearsons had left for work lingered in Denny’s mind long after they were over. Even if he was running late, he always stopped at the bakery and got half a dozen pastries—Sheila liked eclairs—and she made coffee. Nothing much ever happened and yet, the hour or so they spent together seemed full and quiet and rich.

  Mary would leave them alone in the kitchen to drink their coffee and talk. It was as though Sheila were giving him a glimpse of how it would be—the two of them married and living together. Seldom had Denny felt more privileged. She was funny and sweet in those first moments after waking up, her face soft and clean, still puffy with sleep.

  He was careful not to mention the murder or anything having to do with it, unless she did. Many times during the week that had passed, he knew Sheila was longing for her grandmother. The undercurrent of her grief was ever present. With that in mind, most of their conversations were subdued and about the immediate future.

  “I don’t know,” Denny told her one morning soon after he had arrived, “I don’t think I should leave you right now. To tell you the truth, I almost called Burgess last night and canceled, so he could get somebody else.”

  Licking a smear of chocolate from her lip, Sheila smiled and said, “Oh, Denny, what’s wrong with you? It’s only for six weeks. You’ve talked about working at that sports camp all winter.”

  “Well, it’s not really a camp; it’s a clinic.”

  Mary agreed with Sheila. “But it’s got to be easy money, Denny. Where else’re you gonna do that well?”

  And he backed down. “All right,” he said. “It’s probably too late to get out of it now, anyway.” He watched the two girls move idly around him in their sleep-wrinkled gowns and loose robes. Then Mary was gone and Sheila was smiling at him. He was crazy in love with her.

  Then, two days after the explosions, Sheila met him at the back door but she stayed inside the screen. “Maybe you forgot,” she said. “I’ve got to go to Mrs. Sanders’s tomorrow and—Denny, I’ve got a thousand things to do.”

  “I guess I did forget,” he said, “but I can give you a hand.”

  She was still in her robe, but he noticed that she had already taken her shower and that her hair was brushed and silky clean. “Denny, not now, okay? Not this morning. I’ve got a lot of things I need to do by myself. Why don’t you wait and come by tomorrow afternoon? You can ride with me when I go over there.”

  “Okay—but wait a minute,” he persisted. “If this is your last day here, then let’s take off somewhere. I can get away and I’ll help you with your stuff tomorrow. Come on, let’s go some place … to the beach—”

  “I can’t,” she said. “I really can’t. You have no idea what this moving from place to place is like.” Her eyes slid away. “I’m going to be tied up all day and half the night. Don’t make me feel so pressured.”

  Denny stood, clutching the bag of pastries in his hand. It was true. He had no idea what it felt like to be so unsettled. “I know a way to change your mind,” he said. “Here, you and Mary have these. They’re for you anyway.” He pushed the screen door open, handed her the bakery bag, kissed her on the cheek and headed down the side of the driveway toward the street.

  Sheila dropped the eclairs on the kitchen counter and ran upstairs.

  “Is he gone?” Mary asked.

  “He’s gone. But I’ve got a feeling he’ll be back.”

  Mary rolled over and sprawled across the bed, her chin propped in her hands, watching Sheila strip off the robe and run to the closet in her bra and panties. “If he’s coming back,” Mary said, “I’m not staying here, either. If he gets mad … Sheila, I don’t want Denny mad at me.”

  “He won’t do anything,” Sheila countered, clearly preoccupied with what she was going to wear. “He’s always mad at somebody and he’s never done anything before.”

  “So?”

  “I can’t help it,” Sheila said through a dark red Thai silk dress she was pulling on. Lifting her hair from the yoke, she stepped quickly to the mirror, turned twice and shrugged the dress off again. “I need to get away,” she said, as if to explain. “I just have to get away for a while.” This time Sheila stepped into a chamois minidress, fawn colored, and pulled it up over her shoulders. “So, I’m talking to Annie Gilbert and she asks me to come spend the day. What am I supposed to do? Say I can’t? Mary, you’ve got to cover for me, just this once.”

  “Once! Did I hear you say, ‘Once’? How many times have I covered for you?”

  “Okay, okay.” Sheila laughed. “But you will, won’t you?” She cinched a wide red belt at her waist and pushed on red cowboy boots. “What do you think—do I need stockings? I look awful, don’t I?”

  “With that tan? Don’t make me sick!”

  “No, seriously.”

  “You look fabulous.”

  At a raffish angle, Sheila put on a big, red, straw hat so that it shadowed half her face. “Is this all right?”

  “Absolute depravity.”

  “Thank you,” Sheila said. “You will take care of things, won’t you, Mary?”

  “Have I ever let you down?”

  The florist shop was called The Artesian and it was just opening its doors. Denny counted out thirty-eight dollars from his pocket. He had to keep five for something to drink, five or six for gas, leaving him with twenty-seven, twenty-eight dollars. The roses were a buck fifty apiece; he did a quick calculation—he could afford eighteen of the white bud roses.

  “How much for that pink tiger?” He motioned toward the four-foot-high stuffed tiger sitting behind the counter.

  “Twenty-two, fifty.”

  “What d’you think is better for a girl: the tiger or roses?”

  The florist laughed and shrugged. “I’d take the roses,” said the woman arranging flowers at a table.

  Denny had roses in mind, but he had wanted a roomful. At the same time, he worried that they might remind Sheila of the funeral. “Okay,” he said, “but could you wrap ’em up nice in that white paper? It’s a surprise.”

  With the eighteen roses in a cone of white paper lying on the seat beside him, he swung by the garage and asked Gonzales if he could keep the pickup for the day. “When you gonna pay me back these favors?” the mechanic called after him, but Denny was away, winding through Woodrow Estates and coming out on Belvedere Avenue, two blocks from the McPhearson house.

  He let up on the gas, shifted back a gear, traveled the two blocks and cut the engine at the curb. The Dutch Colonial sat across the intersection, on the opposite corner. Afraid of breaking the wrapped roses, Denny cradled them protectively in his arm and got out of the pickup, moving around to the sidewalk.

  He was about to cross the street when he saw the door at the side of the house fly open. Sheila came out. Quickly he hid the flowers behind his back but Sheila didn’t turn around. Why was she all dressed up? She wasn’t in mourning; she looked fabu
lous. What’s going on here? Denny watched as she ran for the alley. Where’s she going in such a big hurry? He started after her, but directly ahead of him, down the next block, he saw the old red and brown station wagon whip from the alley and sink from sight in a patch of gray exhaust.

  Denny stood rooted where he was, peering into the thinning fumes. What is this!

  He ran to the pickup, tossed the roses onto the seat and jumped in beside them. He tried to tell himself that she must be running out to her grandmother’s house, but his instinct got in the way. Why would she dress like that—to go out there? Denny tore after her through the intersection, pushing the truck faster and faster. He thought, Let’s find out where the hell she’s going.

  He let her trail ahead of him. As long as he could keep her in sight, that was all he cared about. She was headed east, into the country. You goddamned little sneak, he thought. You lied to me.

  She wasn’t there.

  Slater parked the Jaguar facing the closed stadium, snapped the engine off and slid lower in the cockpit to wait. He told himself he was behaving like a schoolboy. Through an open portal, he could see a patch of the Vandalia Tigers playing field—silent, artificially green. 10:06. Six minutes late. Christ. His eyes were riveted on the rearview mirror, waiting to see the station wagon among the approaching cars behind him. But it was still another five minutes before the wagon appeared. He watched as it turned and parked a short distance away in the shade of old mangroves. She’s here.

  Stopped at the corner traffic light, hemmed in by other cars, Denny sat frozen in the pickup, watching with amazement as Sheila darted toward the low-slung car. There wasn’t a thing he could do. He saw the passenger door swing open and then Sheila was getting into the bucket seat.

  The traffic light flashed green; the cars ahead of him in the turn lane started to move. Denny slid his foot from the brake to the gas and let out the clutch, still thinking he might catch them. Come on! Come on, let’s go!