I could have hit the highway and kept on going. I should have. Put the top down on the 442 and just kept on driving.
I went to the office and sat at my desk. A harness bull stuck his head in the door and asked if Dodd was around.
“Not yet,” I said.
“Tell him to find me in the lounge.”
“Will do.”
I sat there. I took a kit from Dodd’s desk and cleaned my gun. I cleaned and didn’t think and cleaned some more. Finally I holstered it and began reading the quotes on the desk calendar. “The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.” Victor Hugo. “In the choice of a horse and a wife, a man must please himself, ignoring the option and advice of friends.” George John Whyte-Melville. “There is nothing in life so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” Winston Churchill. I sketched a horse head on the desktop.
It occurred to me that I had been looking in every direction but one, and it was only then, in that moment when I forced myself to recognize that I was not, and could not be, responsible for Jim’s life, in the instant when I made myself give up on him, that I realized I would make it. The evidence vault was across the hall, loaded, and the key was on my desk.
I did not want cocaine.
I remembered a night, about halfway through the investigation, when a pot dealer had showed up at my door at two in the morning. He stood on the landing, shaking, his nose swollen and dripping blood. When I brought him inside, he sat down and stuck his bruised arm out at me and said,” My nose is gone and I can’t find a vein. Can you fix me? Please?”
I’d asked him how long he’d been shooting and he said, “I don’t know. Three days? I was at this party, you see, and I couldn’t get my nostrils cleared, so I, you know . . . ”
He handed me his dope and I fixed a syringe and hit him. And then I did my own arm, hating myself for loving the rush, pity-hating the helpless, slobbering fool of a human being who’d just finished begging me to pump him full of cocaine and now sat across from me, supercharged, his eyes so wide they looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets, cartoon style, and start orbiting his head. Weren’t we having fun. I felt like a monster that night.
The evidence vault was across the hall. I wanted to be far away from it, in a house somewhere out in the countryside, far away from the mess I seem so capably to have made of my life. If Jim was going down again, he would do it alone. I was finished. I understood this. I felt it.
When he finally walked in, he was all business, whistling briskly as he began digging in a file cabinet. I watched him, I felt him in the room with me, remembered that first day, his hand across the desk, wrapped around mine, his strength, his eyes.
“You seen the case reports on Jackson?”
“No,” I said.
“He’s up. We’re meeting the D.A. Tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock.”
I sat there.
He yanked a file out of the packed drawer. “If he pleads, that means Gaines is up.”
“Fine.”
“You should look over the reports.”
“Maybe I should just run a little speed, get really fired up for the trial.”
“I’m walking into this office five days a week and doing my job, baby. It’s nothing to get all crazy about.”
That was it, he had it down cold. It was nothing to get all crazy about. It would not do either of us any good at all.
“The trials should be over soon,” I said. “What do you think, another three or four weeks?“
“If we’re lucky.” He slammed the cabinet shut. “Why do you bring that up?”
“I’m not up to finding U-80s in the cracker box.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“You’re right,” I said. “It is definitely not a problem. When we’re through in court, I’m walking.”
“Do what you have to,” he said.
I knew I was pushing, and that sooner or later something would give. I didn’t know what direction it would take, only that I was being a genuine bitch, trying to make Jim hate me. I did my paperwork and followed Dodd’s orders and took my meals alone. I didn’t ask Jim for his advice or his company; I answered his questions with as few words as possible. I kept to myself. It was easier that way not to care.
He had the burn on his arm, he would be careful about tracks now. That necessary scar, in all the right colors. The colors of puncture, the colors of bruise.
I knew his anger, shared it to a degree, the frustration when some spit-bucket defense attorney managed to walk a defendant. I felt the same rage as he did at the incompetence of idealists. Who could believe that playing by the rules would even begin to work against people who had no rules?
As a Law Enforcement Officer, my fundamental duty is to serve mankind; to safeguard lives and property, to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation, and the peaceful against violence or disorder; and to respect the Constitutional rights of all men to liberty, equality, and justice.
There was big satisfaction in beating the sleaze at their own game, at having persuaded them that I was one of them and then facing them in court.
I will keep my private life unsullied as an example to all; maintain courageous calm in the face of danger, scorn, or ridicule; develop self-restraint; and be constantly mindful of the welfare of others. Honest in thought and deed in both my personal and official life, I will be exemplary in obeying the laws of the land and the regulations of my department. Whatever I see or hear of a confidential nature or that is confided to me in my official capacity will be kept ever secret unless revelation is necessary in the performance of my duty.
They told me about everything, they had sold to me, they had bragged of criminal exploits. I quoted their damning words from the witness strand and grinned at them when the jury wasn’t looking.
I will never act officiously or permit personal feelings, prejudices, animosities, or friendships to influence my decisions. Without compromise for crime and with relentless prosecution of criminals, I will enforce the law courteously and appropriately without fear or favor, malice or ill will, never employing unnecessary force or violence and never accepting gratuities.
I played both roles, I was both sides. I comprehended their longing, I shared their needs. And I despised us all. The difference between me and them was that I understood there was no difference.
I recognize the badge of my office as a symbol of public faith, and I accept it as a public trust to be held as long as I am true to the ethics of the police service. I will constantly strive to achieve these objectives and ideals, dedicating myself before God to my chosen profession . . . law enforcement.
I knew, in each case, every trial, even as I was saying “so help me God,” that I was about to get up on that stand and lie like a thief in the name of the law. Because that was how it worked. I had given up on Jim; I just wanted out of there as fast as possible. I had abandoned any hope of my own salvation. And that is why I was so good at what I did.
18
I think he was probably as relieved as I that the struggle was over. Partners we were, and would be, for a few more weeks anyway. But we were lovers no longer, had no future, and both of us seemed resigned to doing our remaining time as painlessly as possible.
When Walker told me that there was a mobile home for sale in the park he’d moved into, I went to take a quick look and bought the thing right away, not liking it, but seeing it as something I could drag onto a couple of acres at some future date and use for temporary shelter while I built a cabin. I wanted to live in something simple and clean, uncluttered, something I had put together with my own hands. I would have watchdogs, which I would train myself. I would work at some sort of manual labor, perhaps look after horses at a stable. In the evening I would garden or listen to music, maybe study toward becoming a park ranger. Animals deserved protection. Protecting animals would be worthwhile. I had not decided on a place, but knew it would be somewhere west of the Rio G
rande, outside of Texas and far away from Jim.
* * *
The rental truck had a large green elephant painted on either side. Jim and Walker and I loaded my living-room furniture and hauled it to the new place Wednesday afternoon. Jim was quiet and helpful, and neither of us mentioned to Walker that I would be living there alone.
After we fit the big L-shaped sectional against the back and side walls of the living room, we sat sweating and trying to decide whether to make another load. It was almost dusk, and I was in favor of going ahead, getting the move done under the cover of darkness.
“I thought I would go clubbing tonight,” Walker said.
“I don’t get it,” Jim said. “Why the hell do you want to sit in a dark noisy room with a bunch of drunks, especially when half of them are probably looking to kick your ass. Or worse.”
“No trouble so far,” Walker said.
Jim pulled a baggie out of his pocket and found a shoebox top. He used his business card—Beaumont Police Department, Jim Raynor, Vice Officer—to separate the seeds from the leaf, and stashed the boxtop under the sectional while we smoked.
“I’ve got the truck until five tomorrow,” I said. “I guess we don’t have to finish it tonight.”
When Walker was gone, Jim and I set about cleaning the place up. The previous owner had left odds and ends of furniture lying around, and what looked like most of his dishes. We found a rolling tray and a power hitter in the kitchen and a bottle of mannitol in the medicine cabinet.
“Looks like we missed one,” Jim said.
The trailer was set low to the ground and felt so flimsy that I was sure if I jumped up and down I would find myself standing on the sandy earth beneath the thing, in amongst the underpinnings. A front door entered into the living room, with the kitchen to the right, separated by an open bar. There was a long, narrow hallway off the living room, and down the hallway were a small front bedroom, a washer and dryer set back in an open space, the bathroom, a door opening onto the back lawn, and, at the end of the hall, the larger bedroom. The wall-to-wall was a ratty orange color, and there was a gold globe swag lamp in the corner of the living room. The walls were wood-grain paneling. But there was a roof, and there were doors I could lock.
When I opened the refrigerator, the musk-drenched smell of mold knocked me back a step.
“Downright nasty,” Jim said.
Greenish-brown blotches covered the interior, like some kind of parasite that thrived on plastic.
“Make you a deal,” he said. “I’ll clean this thing out while you buy some groceries. We got to get this place livable.”
Like there was still a we to talk about. There we were, the happy couple moving into the lovely new home. I wanted it to be that way, and the illusion was mine for the asking, but I knew that sooner or later Jim would throw me a fistful of reality.
When I got back from the store, he was standing on the front patio, whistling “Red River Valley” and hosing down the shelves. I tried to imagine what it would be like if we both left the department, what kind of home we would have. I couldn’t.
The trailer had been vacant for some months, and late summer rains had washed soil onto the patio. It mixed with the water as Jim sprayed the shelves, turning into a thick reddish-colored mud that coated the patio. I stepped around the puddles and went to the kitchen.
Here’s the happy homemaker, preparing dinner for her loving husband, things are just great. I assembled some roast beef sandwiches and considered taking cooking lessons.
On Monday, we would meet with the D.A. to begin preparation for the Gaines case. But tonight, Jim wasn’t wired, he was giving me a break, doing everything he could to say he wanted to work it out. Just like he did every time I said I couldn’t handle it anymore. I thought about waking up in my cabin somewhere out in New Mexico or Arizona, watching the sun rise before I began the day’s work.
We sat on the couch and ate off paper plates.
“Maybe I should move this thing against the other wall,” I said.
“Least you’ve got something to sit on,” he said. “I’ll have to break down and buy some furniture. Anyway, if you move it, it’ll block half the hall.”
After dinner, Jim stretched out on the longer section, against the back wall, and I took up my place on the short part, under three large windows that overlooked the patio. We had the kitchen and the living room windows wide open, and although crickets were starting their evening calls and the screens were missing, no bugs came in. It was cool for the first time that year, and I was loving the peaceful sound of the breeze in the trees, the calm of evening, the clean, rusty-soil scent of the countryside.
Nobody but Walker and the guy who’d sold me the place knew where we were. The phone wasn’t even hooked up. For the first time in long months, I felt I could relax. Just plain rest.
“We could crash here tonight,” Jim said, lighting a joint.
So he was staying. He was lying on my couch, close enough to touch, and he was staying.
“We could make another trip,” I said. “Get the bed and a few tools and things.”
“This is fine,” he said. He got up and locked the front door. “Sledgehammer could pop this open first stroke.”
He brought the shotgun from the kitchen bar and propped it between the wall and the couch, just at arm’s reach from where he was lying. The Colt .25 he had given me during our first investigation, almost three years ago, was on the coffee table next to the former owner’s rolling tray. I moved my .357 from the kitchen table to a place on the floor, next to the corner of the couch, where the pieces of sectional met.
We were where nobody knew we were, and the breeze felt good and the air smelled clean, and when Jim took a Quaalude and handed me a Percodan, I thanked him and swallowed it. Since the bust-out, the county doctors had kept him steadily supplied with legal prescriptions.
After Jim had turned off the patio light and checked the doors one more time, we lay back on our respective sections of the couch to watch the local news. We were in it, usually, some way or another.
El Jefe had leaked a story about Gaines being a pornographer with ties to organized crime, but it said nothing about any pending indictments. It sounded as though the Beaumont P.D. had him cold for delivery of cocaine. Even the D.A. seemed to believe our offense report, and I wondered what the nature of his attack would be. The background material was all in our favor, and I knew they would find a way to bring it in. At least publicly, pornography was about as popular as cancer in Texas.
“I should close the windows,” I said.
There was no answer. Jim was curled on his side, passed out. I gazed at the open windows, but the Percodan had me feeling warm and sleepy. It was such a beautiful, beautiful night.
* * *
It’s a moth. It must be. A moth, fluttering in my hair. I do not want to open my eyes. Sleep is heaven. Percodan sleep, full of dreams, soft, solid, and warm. The lamp has drawn in a moth, attracted it. I brush it away.
It comes back, tickling my forehead, dancing in the light. The open window. I didn’t shut the windows. Crickets will come in and June bugs, let them. Moths can come in. Everything is fine.
Something taps, taps hard against my forehead. It is not a moth. Hard like metal. Tapping. Tap tap tap. With purpose. I feel the blood drain out of my face. I must open my eyes. I can’t open my eyes. I must.
I am looking into the black holes of a double-barreled shotgun. This is not happening. This is happening. This is realer than life. This is life ending. This is shotgun death.
He’s smiling at me. From miles away at the other end of the shotgun, from just outside the window, he is right there, braced on the windowsill, leaning in, aiming a shotgun at my face, smiling at me. I’ve-got-you-now-bitch sneering. Sticking it under my nose, forcing the stench of metal up my nostrils.
I am awake and this is happening. He is tapping the shotgun at my forehead. I am had. I am helpless. I am about to die.
I push myself up
, watch my body move so very slowly, I am sitting and my blood has drained from its veins, it is loose within me, swirling, washing, crashing like waves against the inside of my skin, trying to break loose, gush from my pores. I raise my hands to shoulder level. He’s got me. Make it quick. But mercy is not his, he wants to watch me suffer. Wants it slow and sensual, wants to feel it, wants every loving minute of it.
He teases, plays with my head, caresses my cheek with the cold hard steel of the shotgun, touches my bloodless lips with the shotgun. How long do I have? Jim sleeps. Stretched out next to murder, he dreams Quaalude dreams.
In this instant it is Gaines and I. Blond hair. Big. Filling the window. Smiling. I think it is Gaines, I can’t see past the shotgun, black holes, I stare into them. I feel it is Gaines, feel his hatred, his joy at touching the trigger, at knowing he will soon pull it. I am begging with my eyes for a single minute of air, life is out of the question, I am gone, I don’t even know what is on the other side, if there is anything, please let there be something. I close my eyes. Just let me feel for a few more seconds. Give me a minute to jettison my existence. To say good-bye. To try and make sense of it. I close my eyes and wait for the blast. A few seconds more, I just want to keep breathing. Just air.
Behind closed eyes I see a grave. Perfect in its dimension. Cut into bare black earth, straight and solid as polished marble. A blank headstone, no casket, just bones. A measly half skeleton, rotting, remnants of something human. Animals deserve protection. I could protect the animals. Am I still breathing? My hands are up, I have no weapon. Please, just let me be here for a few more minutes. Please, God, am I talking to you or to myself?
I feel Jim stir, his foot presses my thigh as he straightens his legs.
Rush Page 21