Eventually the examiner came out. He was short and round, and seemed to sort of roll forward in bursts, short spurts involving many tiny steps.
“Cates,” he said, and led me to a closet-sized white room with a small desk and two chairs set in the middle of it. The cop-out box was open on top of the desk, the wires from the graphing mechanism tangled over the back of a chair.
He skipped the pretest interview, which was what most examiners used to try to get their subject to tell the truth. I sat down and right away he strapped the equipment onto me: blood pressure cuff on the right biceps, an accordion-pleated, round plastic hose around my chest, metal plates Velcro-ed onto the index and middle fingers of my left hand.
He hit a switch on the wall and the main light went out, leaving the room filled with a dull orange glow, like that of a photography darkroom.
“Sit very still and look straight ahead please,” he said. He spoke softly, but his voice had a flat kind of whine to it.
I had visions of answering the first question and seeing the needles sling red ink all over the walls.
“Relax now.” He adjusted the knobs on the instrument.
When I had taken my first polygraph, for Pasadena, I had walked into the room believing the machine could read my mind. That was then.
“The test will begin in three minutes,” he said. He made some more adjustments.
I picked out a white paint bump on the wall in front of me and concentrated. There was nothing else. Only one little bump of paint on the wall. Only now, this minute, this one tiny instant of existence, and the littlest sliver of gray shadow cast in the orange light by a bump of paint on the wall.
“Answer yes or no please,” the examiner said. He touched a knob. “Is your first name Kristen?”
Control question. My responses to the other questions, the real ones, would be measured against the response to this one. I thought about the time I had walked into the suicide’s kitchen, what was his name, Todd, yes. Todd with his brains all over the refrigerator. I needed to get a few neurons popping, give a strong reaction to this question so that when he asked about drugs, the difference in the ink waves flowing onto the graph paper might not be obvious.
“Yes,” I said.
My real name is Kristen. I wondered if I was lying.
Toward the end, he asked the standard questions about supporting the Constitution of the United States, and then finished up with a catch-all.
“Have you ever engaged in any behavior which is a felony against the laws of the State of Texas or the United States of America?” He said “America” just the way Lyndon Baines used to, “aMURka.”
“No,” I said, and I believed it.
Dodd sat reading a magazine while we waited for the results. Finally the examiner bustled out, a cigar in one hand and the other trailing about twelve feet of graph paper. He tapped the paper with the soggy end of his cigar and squinted his face up until he looked like a squirrel with a mouthful of pecans.
“Something’s wrong,” he said flatly.
Dodd’s eyes got big and he stared first at the examiner and then at me. The examiner broke into a big lopsided smile and toked on his cigar and a croaking noise came out of his throat.
“Hell,” he said, “she’s too damn clean to have been a police for two whole years. She ain’t never done nothing wrong in her whole damn life.”
Dodd smiled at me and said, “Pheeyoo! I though was had us some trouble there for a minute. Well girl, congratulations! Welcome to the Beaumont P.D.!”
Later that night I stood in Dodd’s kitchen, waiting for him to dig paperwork out of his briefcase. The whole house was dark but for a small light over the gas range, which was pale green, like the refrigerator, dishwasher, and sink. Finally he pulled out the papers.
He turned to face me and lifted his right hand. He really was big. Maybe a defensive lineman.
“Raise your right hand,” he said. I looked at him.
“Aw, fuck it,” he said. “We don’t have to do this shit. By the power invested in me by the assholes that run this town I hereby appoint you police in the City of Beaumont in the County of Jefferson in this here great State of Texas. Kick ass and take names. Amen.” He put the papers on the kitchen table. “Sign here,” he said, pointing. He pulled out another form and said, “Pick an alias.”
“Jim’s been introducing me to people as Florence,” I said.
“What the hell kind of name is that?”
“Assumed,” I said.
“Huh?”
“It’s a name, “ I said. “I go by Flo. Nobody would believe a cop would choose a name like that, right?”
“Damn straight. What’s your last name going to be, Nightingale?”
“Wright,” I said.
“No way. No fucking way.”
“W-r-i-g-h-t. Wright.”
“I got it,” he said, nodding sheepishly and scribbling something on the form in front of him. “Okay, Florence Wright.” He shook his head. “Jesus Lord. Take this down to D.P.S. tomorrow and they’ll give you a driver’s license with your new name. And by the way, I don’t need to know if you’ve been living with Jim to this point. All I need to know is that you have your own place now. So find yourself an apartment. And kick ass out there, now. We want some cases.”
Walking up the drive to Jim’s apartment, I looked around at the pine trees surrounding the parking lot and smelled their cold, clear scent and asked myself what I was doing. Jim was always saying, “What goes around, comes around,” and walking up that quiet drive in the dark I had the feeling that things might just come around with a vengeance. I laughed at myself, tried to shake it off. You’re being emotional, I said. It’s only a feeling. The afternoon wind had turned into a nighttime breeze, and I listened to the pines creaking and tried not to imagine the witch-like whispers of haints perched in the branches. But things were different here, as in a good fifty years behind the times. The races didn’t mingle. A man worked hard, played hard, and took care of his family. If he got to drinking with the boys on a Saturday night and broke a few windows, well, that was just life. His woman would try to glue things together until the next time it happened. And then she’d try again.
Beaumont. The outer limits of East Texas, hard against the southern edge of the Big Thicket National Preserve. The locals were always sighting UFOs and having personal encounters with aliens out there in the piney woods.
6
I should have listened. I should have paid attention to the part of me that was whispering Be Carefuls from somewhere near the base of my skull. I hushed the voice, told it to be quiet, go away, leave me alone. I was determined to know what I was doing.
Jim was asleep when I got home from the midnight swearing-in ceremony at Dodd’s house. When I slipped out of my clothes and crawled in next to him, he rolled onto his side and pulled me close, his body warm beneath the covers.
“You the police now?” he asked sleepily.
“Call me officer,” I said.
“Love you,” he whispered, and I turned to press my face against his chest. The scent of his skin mingled with the smell of clean sheets as he wrapped himself around me and took me into sleep.
In the dream, I was lying naked in a snow-covered field, but it wasn’t at all cold. Snow floated around me like music, purest white and melting warm against my skin. It surrounded me, was covering me, and then suddenly there was ice on my breast.
I startled awake, and when I opened my eyes, there was Jim’s hand pressing a glass to the center of my chest.
“You’re cruel,” I said. He laughed.
“The ceremonial cup.” He grinned. I sat up and saw that the bedroom window was still dark. He handed me the glass and raised his own in a toast.
“To my partner,” he said. “Drink heartily and prepare to do battle.”
The champagne exploded icily down my throat, and Jim was draining his down in one long swallow. I tried to keep up and then he handed me the green bottle, uncorked and swea
ting water. He grabbed a second bottle, pressed his thumb over the bottle opening and began shaking, staring at me like I was a target. I jumped and ran, or tried to run; there was no place to hide and he got me square in the back just as I reached the bedroom doorway. I rounded the corner and pressed myself against the wall, laughing and shaking my bottle furiously, and when he crouched into the living room, I let him have it. Suddenly we were wrestling, the bottles were somewhere on the floor, and we were slick-wet with champagne. He pinned my arms to the wall, straight up, leaned down and kissed my neck, frantically licking champagne from my skin, and then quietly, and kissing again, pressing his chest to mine in circles, and guiding my hands, wrapping my arms around him and pulling me to him, he took us to the couch and started slowly, deeply, with a gentleness I had not known he possessed.
Someone was knocking, banging on the door. I was halfway to the bedroom before I woke up, scrambling to find clothes. It was still dark outside, or gray with morning. I couldn’t get my bearings, I had no idea what time it was or how long we’d slept.
I tossed Jim a pair of jeans and he stepped into them on his way to the door while I dug through the bed covers, looking for my pistol.
I heard the door open and listened for alarm in Jim’s voice. There was none. I tucked the gun back under my pillow, calmed myself, looked for something to wear. When I walked into the living room, my shirt sticking to the dried champagne on my back, Jim was sitting on the couch, smoking a joint with a shaggy-headed muscular guy who choked on smoke by way of greeting.
“Flo,” Jim said, “meet Walker.”
Walker stood up, shaking his light brown hair from his eyes, and nodded. Tall, with sleepy blue eyes, he was in a Blues Brothers T-shirt and faded jeans.
“Hey,” he said. “Seen you around. Wanted to ask if you needed help with those groceries last week, but. . .” He shrugged and sat down. His voice was low and soft, full of the yes-ma’am courtesy of a shy cowboy. His steel-toed work boots were black, crusted with red mud, and he had the winter tan of someone who works outdoors.
“You know that Blue Hawaiian last week?” Jim asked, giving me a wink. “This is the guy who had it.”
“Good stuff,” I said. Walker nodded again.
“We knocked off at lunch today on account of the rain,” he said. “I got some more coming in and just stopped over to see if y’all were interested.”
“Always,” Jim said. He passed me the joint. Walker watched carefully as I took a hit.
“What time is it, anyway?” I asked.
“Close to three,” Walker said. “I apologize for waking you.” I went to the window and pulled back the drapes.
“No problem,” I said. “I don’t usually sleep all day, but I was ambushed with champagne about four this morning.” I could feel Jim smiling at me. “It’s really dark out there.”
The clouds were blue-gray, the color of egg yolk beyond hard-boiled, and seemed to be hanging only yards above the rooftops. Everything was wet, water dripped rhythmically from the dark green pine trees in the courtyard.
‘Well it’s been raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock for the better part of an hour,” Walker said. “I don’t see how anyone could’ve slept through it. Thunder and everything.”
When I turned from the window I almost tripped on an empty champagne bottle. I picked it up and aimed it at Jim.
“Be forewarned,” I said. “The attack will come when you least expect it.”
Walker put a joint on the table and stood up.
“I’ll let y’all get back to whatever it was you were doing.” He smiled. “And I’ll stop by when that comes in. How much do you want?”
“Quarter pound should do for now,” Jim said. “You wouldn’t have any of that other, would you?”
“White stuff?” Walker sniffed emphatically. “It’s coming in with the Hawaiian. Interested?”
“Only like a hawk on a June bug,” Jim said.
A few minutes after Walker left, the rain started again, coming down hard and steady against the wood-shingled roof and pouring in sheets off the eaves and past the window.
“Looks cold out there,” Jim said. He got up and flicked on the television, leaving the volume off, and turned on some music. A black-and-white John Wayne was peering through some bushes at a circle of young boys who were passing around a bottle and laughing, this to the sound of Eric Clapton.
Jim sat down on the couch and picked up the joint Walker had left.
“If nothing else,” he said, “the boy deserves some slack for having such jam-up smoke.”
“Try running that at the D.A.” I sat down next to him, feeling pleasantly high from the single toke I’d taken.
“He’d probably ask for a pound himself. Anyway, I figure everybody’s got at least one probation coming.”
“Get real. This guy, yeah. Everyone? No way.”
“I had Dodd check him. No record.”
“Technically, this joker Gaines doesn’t have a record. Zero convictions.”
“Rob’s got a snitch in Houston says Gaines started out as a bouncer in Atlantic City. Fat Willy, they called him. Dude’s six five, two hundred thirty pounds and bragged all over New Jersey that the thirty was swinging.”
“Prince Charming incarnate.”
“You got it. Fat Willy. Jesus. Snitch says he saw him beat the shit out of a skinny-assed card-counter one night. Carried the guy out to the parking lot behind the casino, knocked most of his teeth out and stomped on his chest until he heard ribs cracking.”
“Guy like that needs more than probation.”
“Only thing he’ll understand is a gun in his face. But we’ve got to figure a different route.”
“Check it out,” I said. Jim looked at the TV.
“John Wayne saves the day again,” he said. “I grew up believing that shit.”
* * *
The Drillers Club was pumping heavy metal cranked so loud that the walls of my stomach rattled. At the far end of the room-length bar was miniature oil pump that would squirt beer into your cup in exchange for a few quarters. Walker was leaning next to it, talking to a guy who looked like Charles Manson. Jim and I had a table near the back wall, waiting to see if Gaines would make his customary appearance.
He usually showed up at one of his clubs every night, strutting around, checking out the local talent, ordering another stinger when his glass ran dry. He was huge, and it was difficult to tell how much of it was muscle, but he looked pretty solid. He was indeed six five, six five at least, with thick blond hair rimming his earlobes and porkchop sideburns coming in yellowish-gray. His face had the look of a heavyweight fighter who’d been K.O.’d one time too many. His nose had been mashed for sure.
Each night, night after night, Jim and I made the rounds until we found him. We had to let him see us, Jim said. We needed to be regulars. After Drillers came Ace’s and Ate’s where we would sit sipping gimlets and playing backgammon, trying not to listen to disco. The Yellow Rose was our last stop; we drank Lone Star and watched dancers two-step their way through the night, ending always with a C&W version of the William Tell Overture. It started slowly, getting faster and faster with each verse, until finally the bodies whirled around the floor, out of control, while multicolored lights above flashed rapidly, in time to the music.
Jim leaned close and spoke straight into my ear.
“Maybe we should split, check out someplace else.”
“It’s early,” I said. “Let’s give him a few.”
It wasn’t yet ten, and would be an hour or so before the roughnecks would be drunk enough to start throwing beer around and cracking each other across the back with pool cues.
I went to the Heifers room and when I got back, Gaines was ambling through the club, greeting customers and rubbing one large hand over his belly. He had on a V-neck blue velour pullover and gray slacks, and when he walked past our table he slapped a hand on Jim’s shoulder and said, “How you doing, man?” He smiled quickly at me and walked
toward his office, pausing at the bar to say a word to a couple of scooter nasties.
He had spoken softly, without emotion, in monotone. Hadn’t even slowed to wait for a reply from Jim.
“The dude’s hainty,” Jim said, leaning close to whisper. “Tagged us for his men.”
I looked slowly around the room, taking in the guys Gaines had nodded at. One of them was rather slight and had pure white hair that hung to the middle of his back. No facial hair. Not even eyebrows. The other was bigger and wore a Fu Manchu. Both had on bike gang leathers.
“Maybe I’ll go get a couple of refills,” I said. “Say hi to Walker, get a better look at those two.”
“Do that,” Jim said. “We leave now, Gaines will know for sure we’re the heat.”
The man talking to Walker saw that I was coming over and said something to him before heading toward the men’s room. I took a cup from the stack on the bar and dropped a few quarters into the beer-pumping derrick.
“You know that’s Lone Star coming out of that thing.” Walker grimaced. “I’d rather drink sheep-dip.”
“I’d rather have some snow,” I said. “You’ve made yourself scarce.”
“Minor delay,” he said. “It’ll be around in a few days. I’ll have that other tomorrow. Come by if you like. I’ll be home after six.”
“See you then,” I said. The scooter nasties stood a few feet away, sipping their beer, and as I turned from the bar I thought I saw the one with the white hair wink at me.
Jim was halfway through a Margarita when I brought the beers back.
“That thirsty?”
“I set up a score for later. Red-headed waitress over there. Crystal meth.”
“She looks like a scab,” I said. “Have you no scruples?” She was a walking skeleton in black lycra tights, her skin almost yellow, her hair dyed the color of a rotten tangerine.
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