by Anne Argula
The stand itself was long and narrow and consisted of a wide counter laden with pyrotech small fries, behind which was a long wall in three tiers, displaying the hard stuff, in ascending order of fire power. After hours, it was battened down by a series of hinged four-by-eight standard plywood panels, hung during the day in an open position. The whole thing was whitewashed, but stamped lumber markings bled through.
Near the entrance was an old rusted pickup for sale, with the bald spare tire mounted to the grille. The camper shell that used to be on the pickup was on the ground, at the far end of the stand. It served as kitchen and break room. A portable Honey Bucket toilet was set up at the other end of the stand.
All signage was hand-lettered, including the large Rocketman sign that sat on the roof of the stand, with its logo of an Indian atop a blasting rocket. The others: NO SMOKING, MUST BE 16 OR OLDER, NO M-80S OR LARGER WITHIN 150 FEET, VISA AND MASTERCARD OK.
Cheap plastic pennants in red, white, and blue were festooned from the stand to outlying poles in the ground. A string of Christmas lights ran the length of the stand for nighttime sales.
We pulled onto the lot, drove over the crushed rock, and up to the stand. We were the only car on the lot. Two teen-aged boys appeared from behind the counter, rising from their lawn chairs. They were bare-chested, wearing jeans that hung below their hips, revealing three inches of their boxer shorts. One was listening to rap music, the other was watching Jerry Springer on a jury-rigged battered black-and-white TV set. Goofy kids, both, but I would have killed for their hair, either one, glistening black, thick, and hanging down their backs in expertly crafted pigtails. My own had become brittle, dry, and thin. In moments of despair, I’d thought of shaving it all off and letting people think I had cancer, which, let’s face it, is a tad more socially acceptable than menopause, if less forgiving at the end.
The boy at our end of the counter, the one listening to rap, which he hadn’t bothered to turn down—Snoopy, Doopy, Dogg, Dogg, Gangsta, Bitchslap, Copkiller, Boyz, Noize—asked, “What can I get you, yo?”
I glanced over the exotic rainbow array of Chinese imports, everything from little hand-held poppers to diversionary concussion bombs, stuff I had never seen up close and had always regarded as slightly insane, just another way to split a tranquil night with ear-whacking discomfort. What possible satisfaction or joy could come by putting a match to these things? On the other hand, there are people who liked to be peed upon. No one can account for another one’s pleasures.
“Is Cammy here?” I asked.
“Yeah, she’s in the camper making tacos,” said the kid. “Just go on in.”
The camper door was open and we could see the back of a woman half as wide as the camper itself. Like the boys outside, her hair hung down in pigtails. A few flies buzzed around her, but summer had not yet come with any real heat, so the bug population was sparse.
“Cammy?” said Odd, and it was a real question. More like, you can’t be Cammy, my beautiful friend. If that’s what Odd was thinking, what do you suppose Camilia was thinking, when she turned and saw a big Swede addressing her so familiarly.
What Rap Boy hadn’t told me, but would be explained to me some time later, was that the tacos she was making were, more specifically, Navajo tacos. You take a bag of Frito corn chips, slit it along the long edge and puff it open like an envelope. Then you cover the chips with refried beans, grated cheddar, some salsa over the top. I couldn’t wait to get home and try it myself. I was going to add diced kielbasa.
I wasn’t sure Nascine had talked to her about Odd. I wasn’t sure he ever talked to her at all, he might be that kind of husband. Indians, I was learning, unless they talked to you, didn’t tell you much of anything, and even then sometimes left a lot to the imagination.
“Cammy,” he said again, “is it you? Is it really you?”
“I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“When you were in fifth grade,” said Odd, “you had this idea for a very exclusive club. You found the perfect cedar, and your idea was to build a treehouse in that cedar...”
Camilia took a step or two toward Odd. Her hands were trembling.
“It would be our club house. You wanted to call it the Tree Top Club. But it was to be exclusive and secret so you said we should use just the initials and call it the T.T. Club, so that no one could guess where our clubhouse was. And I said, ‘Think about it, Cammy...the T.T. Club? The Titty Club.’ You were so embarrassed, and then we laughed and laughed, and that was the beginning and the end of the famous Titty Club.”
Gripping the doorframe, she eased her bulk down to the step and sat there, benumbed, staring up at the big Swede.
“No one else ever knew about that,” she said.
Earlier, the chief had asked me if I ever saw an Indian cry. I was seeing one now. Odd squatted down on the gravel before her and took her hand. He didn’t say anything. She cried for a long time, then leaned forward and put her arms on Odd’s shoulders and drew him to her. She pressed her face next to his.
“Jeannie,” she wept, “Jeannie... I’m so sorry....”
The rear of the camper was set back behind the fireworks stand, so the two kids working there could not see us, nor we them. At least there was that. I heard a car pull onto the lot. We were pretty well out of the sight of any customers, too, unless they decided to come back there and blow up a few Kamikazes. Unlikely as that might be, I thought I’d better head it off anyway. Besides, I wanted to give Odd and Cammy a moment alone.
I slipped away without the two old girlfriends noticing.
“Hello, Sheriff,” I said. Nascine was just getting out of his car.
“Deputy,” he said.
“Right. I shot the Sheriff.”
He stopped in his tracks and knitted up his brow.
“It’s a song, Bob. I shot the Sheriff, but I did not shoot the Deputy...”
I sang it loud, loud enough for Odd to hear and wonder what the hell. I circled Nascine and turned him around, so that I was looking past him, at the front end of the camper, waiting for Odd to appear. I wished he would.
“You’re a real smart ass, ain’t you?” Nascine said with a kind of free and easy venom, lighting up a Camel in defiance of a rather sensible rule against smoking near a fireworks stand.
“That is part of the profile, but I like to think I’m just misunderstood.”
“Why are you still on the island?”
“Why else? Loading up on fireworks.” I had missed a sign. BEST DEALS. “I hear Rocketman has the best deals.”
I led Nascine over to the stand and started randomly selecting my arsenal from the back wall. The kids stacked them and tallied the price.
“Gimme an Ambush, an Atom Splitter, a Warp Speed...”
“Where’s your prisoner?” asked the deputy.
“Offer’s still open. You want him, you can have him, and the two females as well.” To the kid, I said, “And I want a Texas Cyclone, a Dark Zone...a Golden Shower?”
“I don’t name ‘em,” said the Springer fan, “I only sell ‘em.”
“Where’s your partner?” asked Nascine.
“You took a real shine to him, didn’t you?”
“Where is he?”
“People do take a shine to him. He’s very popular. Every other month he gets named Officer of the Month, they give him that good parking place close to the door. The guy gives off a light, you know? I guess you could call it a glow, and everybody wants to kind of get within that glow. What a wonderful thing that is. I guess.”
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”
The f-word came much easier to this guy.
“My partner. You know, the way there’s always one person in town that everyone is attracted to. The Golden Girl...or guy. He’s an unusual guy. You never met a guy like him. I’d like for you to hang out together for a while, see what I mean.”
“I’d like for you to get off the island.”
“I can see that. I just don’t know why
. Or maybe I do.”
“We don’t like big city cops...”
“Big city? You ever been to Spokane?”
“...skirting our jurisdiction, cozying up to the Indians to get around dealing with the county.”
“Which must be a pleasure, I’m sure. Next time.”
“You are one smart ass bitch, ain’tcha?”
“Now, you’ve crossed the line, Sheriff. Only my colleagues call me bitch.”
I really wanted to send a kick to his jewels, and I had a clear channel, as he was standing feet apart, arms folded across his chest.
“What else?” said the kid. They were in business here.
“What the biggest thing you got?” I asked, still staring down the wiry deputy. “I want the most bang for my buck.”
Both kids answered at the same time. “The Predator.”
“Then give me two predators.”
“Where’s my old lady, Calvin?” asked the deputy.
“Makin’ tacos,” Calvin told him.
“Yeah,” I said, “We went back to see if we could buy some...Odd’s still back there trying to strike a bargain...but here’s the thing, they don’t look like any tacos I ever saw before.”
That’s when Calvin gave me the recipe for Navajo tacos, and when Deputy Nascine ditched me and started walking, a little unsteadily in his cowboy boots across the crushed rock, to the camper.
The kids packed my fireworks into recycled grocery bags. The bill came to $285, which entitled me to a free Rocketman’s t-shirt. I handed Calvin my Visa. No way would the lieutenant reimburse this one, and Connors was going to have a conniption when he saw the bill next month, but what could I do? Messing with people can cost you.
I dumped the stupid fireworks in the trunk of our Lumina. It was just then the yelling started.
18.
I was driving again, but I didn’t know where or what we would do next.. We were cooling down. We had, after all, just assaulted a police officer, which is a serious offense everywhere in the world, unless it is committed by another police officer and it’s personal. Those assaults rarely reach a court of law, and I was hoping this one would not be an exception.
Deputy Nascine had rounded that fireworks stand to find Odd on one knee, as though proposing, and Camilia Two Trees Nascine sitting on the camper step with her arms resting on his shoulders and in her eyes a look of such quiet joy that it had Nascine all but spitting. He had not seen that look since shortly after she had graduated from high school, when he married her. Now it offended him. Everything about her offended him. He started yelling, ugly words, accusations, insults. Odd stood up and backed away, and though he towered over Nascine, outweighed him by forty pounds, and had youth on his side, he appeared frightened...until Nascine backhanded his wife and called her a fat whore squaw. Then Odd grabbed the back of Nascine’s collar, yanked him off her, and pinned him to the side of the camper, his forearm hard under Nascine’s throat, the deputy high on his tippy-toes.
“Don’t you ever hit her!” Odd hissed at his face.
I saw the deputy’s arm flailing for his weapon, so I got to it first, unholstering the nine, popping the clip, clearing the chamber, all while Odd was choking the man. I threw the clip in one direction and tossed the nine under the camper. This was kind of serious too, disarming a peace officer. I would build my defense later, if I had to, but at the moment, I was more worried about Nascine shooting somebody, me maybe.
“You don’t care about anything, do you?” Odd said to him, nose to nose.
If he expected an answer, he was going to have to let up on the guy’s windpipe, because he was letting the deputy have just about enough air to stay conscious, and not for very long, either.
I put a hand on Odd’s shoulder and said softly that we should go now, and with all deliberate speed. He released the deputy, who fell to his hands and knees, gasping. Those nicotine coated lungs were very slow to fill. Camilia waved us back with the palm of her hand and indicated she could deal with all of this. So we motored.
“Where would you like to go, Odd?”
He didn’t hear me. He was off somewhere, not in himself. We drove past the boatyard, past the Northern Comfort, on which James had earned his Ford pick-up. I asked him again.
“Back to Jimmy Coyote’s house,” he said.
“Okay...” I waited for him to tell me why, or to tell me something, because I knew he had something to tell, but he sat silently. “Any particular reason?” Nothing. I waited a minute, then said, “Something happened back there, didn’t it? I mean, besides you strong-arming the deputy.”
He nodded.
He wasn’t going to tell me. A cop is used to people not telling him everything. A cop has to fill in the spaces. I was doing that, beginning with the autopsy report. Inside of her was semen.
I took a detour to the Honeymoon Cottage. I wanted to check on that crowd to see what had gone wrong in our absence, because surely everything had, but more than that I had to pee and I did not want to show up at the Coyotes’ house asking to use the can.
Our three were sitting on the porch, just enjoying the nice day, Gwen sitting between the other two and keeping them at a safe distance, as she was sworn to do. I had a sudden, and in some ways an alarming sense of well-being. I parked the car and we walked to the porch. I was trying to read their faces and I was drawing a blank, which could be a good thing.
“Welcome back, you two,” said Gwen. “We were wondering if we’d been abandoned.”
“Everything okay here?” I asked, on my way up the steps.
“Everything is hunky-dory.”
I was passing them on my way into the cottage and to the bathroom, with what was by now was an urgent need, when Gwen added, “Your lieutenant called from Spokane.”
Oh, shit. Not a good thing, not nearly. I stopped, came back out onto the porch.
“Who gave you the message?” I asked, cautiously, hopefully.
“Oh, I took the call.”
All hope gone, caution useless. “You took the call?”
“Angie yelled there was a phone call, so I went and took it.”
“Don’t worry about us,” said Stacey. “We didn’t do anything while she was gone. Hardly anything.”
“You took the call?” I said again, and tried to get Odd’s eyes, but who knew where he was? “You spoke to the lieutenant?”
“Don’t worry, I played it cool,” she said.
“Tell me what he said, and tell me what you said.” My voice had the calm of death.
“He said where’s his officers, and I said which one, and he said either one, and I said they were off, and he said where, and I said, both off trying to solve the murder of the young guy—I forgot your name, I’m sorry—the young guy who used to be the young girl who was actually the one murdered but this was in a previous life.”
“You said all that?”
“Was it supposed to be a secret?”
“Go on,” I said, seeing my career thrown out with yesterday’s coffee grounds. You play it careful your whole life and then something runs over you like you weren’t even there.
“Well, he asked what kind of shape the prisoner was in, and I said it looked like pretty good shape ‘cause he’s right over there on the porch of the Honeymoon Cottage, and he said, What?”
“He said what.”
“He said, What? He was a little surprised.”
I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I was doing the wee-wee dance.
“Don’t anybody say another word! Don’t anybody move an inch! Not until I come back from the bathroom.”
“Your Royal Highness...,” said the brat.
“Not a word!”
What control can you hold over a situation when your back teeth are swimming? I made it to the bathroom, did my thing, and went into one of those hot flashes where I was sure my very duppa would ignite the toilet paper and I would go up in smoke.
I stripped off my clothes and jumped into the shower, setting the lever full ri
ght. This place, like the rest of the island, was on a well, and that deep ground water came out cold as ice picks. A minute of that did the trick. I toweled off, got my clothes back on, and went skidding back to the porch.
“The lieutenant was a little surprised,” I prompted. “Don’t tell me he was a little surprised, tell me what he said, and tell me what you said.”
“I already told you. He said, What! Surprised, like.”