Cut to the Quick

by Dianne Emley

  They went by Vining’s house so she could pick up a change of clothes and make sure everything was okay. It was. The alarm was still set and, as near as she could see, no one had bothered her house. She could have spent the night there—Kissick would have picked her up later—but she had taken him up on his offer to bunk at his house. It was a few miles farther east and closer to their destination. That was the trivial reason they’d settled on. Neither one shared their true motives. Vining guessed he had hoped for more than sleep. As for her, sleeping beneath his roof and sharing coffee in the morning was all she wanted. She’d had enough of saying good-bye to him.

  They picked up carne asada burritos from Taco Fiesta near Vining’s house and ate in his dining room, drinking bottles of beer from his refrigerator. The old Craftsman-style house’s original wood chandelier with its amber frosted glass shades gave off a warm light and made even the humblest of meals special. Sitting there in the easy silence made her acutely aware of how painfully empty her cluttered life was.

  All of a sudden, emotion welled within her. She knew that when she was tired issues took on a magnitude they wouldn’t normally. She ran her hands over her face and eyes, rubbing off the last traces of the makeup she’d put on that morning.

  He slid his hand across the table and touched hers. He misinterpreted the source of her distress. “Hey, we don’t need to figure anything out tonight about Nitro, T. B. Mann, or whatever you’re not telling me about that necklace. Let’s get some sleep and tomorrow maybe we’ll catch us a bad guy.”

  She dared to meet his eyes. She opened her hand and he laced his fingers with hers.

  This was how they’d started three months ago. They’d gone for drinks and his hand on hers had led to a soulful kiss. That had happened in a public place, and it had been easy to back away, to listen to all the practical reasons they were not a good idea. Now they were alone. It had been her call to come here. And it was her call now. She knew why she’d come. Another person she needed to stop lying to was herself. His hand on hers swept away the cobwebs. She’d thought barbed wire had encased her heart, but it was only cobwebs, scary but harmless.

  She withdrew her hand. She could tell by his eyes that he thought she was backing away again. If she did it again, here where everything was perfect, it would be the last time; he wouldn’t keep putting himself out there. She wouldn’t respect him if he did.

  She pushed herself up, her eyes not leaving his.

  He slowly pulled his arm across the table and into his lap, but didn’t move to stand. His lips parted slightly as she rounded the table. The old wooden floorboards creaked beneath her deliberate steps. He slid back his chair. She took her spot on his lap and reached to hold his face between her hands. They kissed. He tasted like spicy beef, beer, and some long-missed but never-forgotten delicacy.

  After a while, she got to her feet, took his hand, and led him through the living room. They passed the fireplace and the rug in front where they’d last made love two years ago and he’d made the mistake of confessing his love for her. She led him down the hallway and into his bedroom. She had much to confess, but it could wait. He closed the bedroom door behind them.

  It was dawn when they arrived at the Salton Sea. They had roared across the Southland and into the desert at high speed, encountering little traffic. They’d only been stopped once by the CHP outside Redlands. A flash of their shields had quickly resolved the situation.

  While Kissick drove, Vining touched base with the Imperial County Sheriff’s El Centro station to give them a heads-up that they were working in the vicinity. She also checked in with Sergeant Early. They didn’t expect any fireworks, just a couple of uneventful hours seeing if Jack Jenkins was around, who he associated with, where he went, and possibly snatching something with his DNA on it.

  They had dressed like tourists, wearing light trousers and loose shirts over their belts, which hid their guns. Vining had her backup Walther in its usual spot—her ankle holster. Kissick had suggested that she wear shorts and a thigh holster, but she didn’t have a thigh holster and wouldn’t have indulged his prurient fantasies even if she did.

  He wore a Dodgers baseball cap, and she had brought the floppy sun hat she put on when working in the minuscule portion of her yard that was landscaped, if a patch of lawn and a few ancient rosebushes could be considered landscaping.

  They didn’t talk about what had happened the night before. For Vining, the silence was comfortable, as had been their lovemaking last night. New but familiar, like a favorite food one hadn’t enjoyed in a long time, sampled again with trepidation that one’s tastes had changed, which would ruin not only the present experience but taint the fond memories. But it had all been just as good as she’d remembered.

  As for Kissick, he had held her in his arms and whispered, “I missed you. You have no idea how much.”

  In Mecca, the last big town before the Salton Sea, they found a diner open, busy with workers headed for the fields. They had breakfast and picked up sandwiches and coffee for later. A shop beside the diner carried old-time candy and sodas. Kissick carried on like a kid as he snatched up boxes of Good & Plenty, Red Hots, and Boston Baked Beans. From the cooler, he grabbed a six-pack of Dad’s Root Beer in bottles. She grabbed a couple bottles of water.

  She selected magazines for the long hours of surveillance, indulging in guilty pleasures: People, Cosmopolitan, and Guns & Ammo. Kissick had brought a book from home. At the counter, she tossed in a pack of gum and picked up wrapped flexible straws for the root beer.

  She surveyed his stash at the checkout stand. “Thought you were on a diet.”

  “That’s only valid in L.A. County.”

  She grabbed a roll of Rolaids. “Carne asada.”

  “It wasn’t that spicy.”

  “It was to me.”

  He took out his wallet to pay, and she made a motion toward hers.

  “Get the next one,” he said.

  “All right.” She found herself already making a plan to invite him over for a steak dinner. She could see it unfolding in her mind. She didn’t know if it would ever happen, or could happen, but it was another guilty pleasure of their pseudovacation, like her magazines.

  They drove along the sea’s eastern shore. The sunrise cast a pink haze on the surface of the water and across the tips of the Santa Rosas to the west. At evening, the effect would be reversed; the fading sun would tint the sky purple and gold, and the sea would shine with a reflection of the Orocopia and the Chocolate Mountains to the east.

  The traffic on Highway 111 was light, mostly large flatbed trucks either empty or piled high with bales of hay. Latino farmworkers headed to the fields crowded into the open beds of pickup trucks, pinch-front straw cowboy hats pulled down low, jacket collars pulled up against the cool morning air, which would slowly turn brutal as the sun completed its ascent.

  Kissick took the turnoff to the Visitor’s Center. “I stopped by here the other day. Let’s take a look. The birds will be feeding.”

  They traveled down a narrow paved road, passing a closed kiosk where the fees for day use and overnight camping were posted. They drove off the pavement to go around the chain pulled across the road. At the end of the road was a large parking lot with the Visitor’s Center on one side. It wouldn’t be open for hours. Only two RVs were parked there, lawn chairs set up in semicircles, awnings pulled out for shade. It was still summer, and hotter than Hades during the day. Only the most stalwart RV-ers would camp there.

  Kissick parked close to the wide white beach, which had a few deteriorating wooden picnic tables.

  When they opened the truck’s doors, the potent odor of decay that had been filtering into the vehicle hit them full on.

  “Phew!” she exclaimed.

  A couple of flies flew inside. They chased them for a while and then left them alone, figuring they’d get them later.

  The lake was bathed in that early-morning soft pink desert light that teased out hidden creatures and colors. Later
, its ruthlessness would be revealed, like the fanatical gaze of a jealous lover, its white haze devouring all life and shades of variation. But for now, the magic was working. Insects, fish, and fowl were feeding. Like the pink light, the birdsongs bounced off the water and ragged mountains.

  Sagebrush and saltbush grew densely on the sandy dirt. The beach was loaded with small dead fish in various states of decay. Vining stepped onto the pure white shore that from a distance looked composed of rough sand. She was surprised when her feet sank and she had the sensation of walking on cornflakes. She reached down to scoop up a handful of what she discovered were barnacle shells, bleached white by the sun.

  “Barnacles in the desert?” She showed the shells to Kissick.

  “Lots of theories about how they got here. Most likely, they were attached to ocean craft towed here from San Diego during World War Two, when the Salton Sea was used as a naval base.”

  They walked toward the water, which was deep blue in the middle but lapped shallow brown waves onto the shore. The closer they got, the thicker the layer of dead fish grew. At first, they walked on skeletons, but near the water’s edge, the fish hadn’t yet fully decomposed.

  She frowned at the carnage and decay beneath her feet. He nudged her and jerked his head toward the sky. She looked up to see flocks of birds soaring and diving into the water, the surface covered with little pockmarks made by the tilapia feeding. There were seagulls and pelicans and hundreds of smaller birds.

  She closed her eyes to take in the birds’ cawing and singing. In this place that reeked of decay, teetering on the edge of death, life persisted in spite of everything.

  She opened her eyes and saw him looking at her. She didn’t overanalyze the situation. She simply walked into his arms.

  They kissed, their passion rising on the music of birdcalls.

  Taking her hand, he led her to a picnic table, backing her up until she was sitting on top of it.

  “Oh no we don’t,” she weakly protested.

  He was already unzipping her khaki pants. “No one’s watching. No one knows us here.”

  She looked around. The beach sloped down, and they were out of sight of the RVs.

  “No one knows us.” She liked saying it. She let herself go.

  He didn’t need any encouragement.

  For too brief a moment, they did not exist. They were part of the birds, fish, air, mountains, and water. She melted into him and was carried away. She had been carried away before, on the wings of death, and had returned changed. This journey would also change her. Only time would tell in what ways.

  Afterward, he held her face in his hands and said, “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.”

  He climbed onto the tabletop and wrapped his arms around her. She looked at the water and its changing colors.

  Holding her tightly, he rubbed his nose in her hair. Together, they watched a spectacle in the sky. A flock of white birds was flying so closely aligned, they looked like a sheet gliding on the air. They dipped, banked, and changed direction without losing form.

  She snuggled against him. The years that had passed since they had been a couple collapsed. It seemed as if it had only been yesterday. That was the enduring power of love, she thought. She had denied it for years. Still it persisted, latent, waiting for the right trigger. Still, she couldn’t quite release it.

  “What are we doing, Nan?”

  She raised a shoulder. “Living in the moment. This now that will never be again.”

  He craned his neck to look into her face. “That’s profound. I had something more mundane in mind, like why don’t we get back together? Warning: I’m only going to ask another two, three dozen times.”

  All she had to do was let him back into her life. That was the temptation and also the problem. She was no longer the woman she’d been then, and she was no longer alone. Now there were T. B. Mann and Nitro and their secrets. Their secrets had become her secrets, to have and to hold from this day forward, until …

  She turned and raised her hands to caress his face, that good strong face that was pure and simple, like his heart. She was simple too. Simple wants, needs, motives, principles. But her purity had been lost, clouded by spilled blood. If she got too close, she would taint him too. She loved him too much to do that.

  “What are we doing?” he asked again.

  “Enjoying the now.”

  He pulled her close. Lost in each other, they didn’t hear the Harley-Davidson roar past on the highway. They wouldn’t have thought it important even if they had.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  It had taken Crowley a couple of hours to make the drive to the Salton Sea, having adhered to the speed limit the entire drive. The CHP loved to mess with motorcyclists, especially if they were driving in the wee hours of the morning, and particularly if they had long hair. If he was going to be jacked up by cops, he wanted it to be for something he’d done, not something he was. He was contemplating doing something that would give them a reason.

  Scoville had told him that Jack Jenkins was living at his mother’s place. Crowley knew all about Jenkins’s mother, the desert gas station, and the no-good wife who’d gotten herself murdered. During their long hours together when they’d shared a cell at San Quentin, Jenkins had lovingly recounted his bar fights, assaults, and burglaries the way other guys talk about athletic or sexual triumphs. The way Jenkins had spoken of his wife’s murder had creeped Crowley out the most. Jenkins kept a photo of her. Tiffany. She was cute. Fresh-faced and unsophisticated, she’d grown up in a double-wide trailer with a gaggle of siblings and a mother on disability in Slab City, the squatters’ settlement not far from the Salton Sea.

  Tiffany had her high school diploma, Jenkins was quick to add. Crowley had known lots of girls like Tiffany in his day. In Jenkins’s photo of her, Crowley saw the earnestness in her eyes that nearly cried, “Love me.” No doubt Jenkins, with the family spread and business, was a good catch for someone like her.

  Jenkins was too cagey to admit that he’d murdered Tiffany. He was nobody’s fool. It sickened Crowley how Jenkins would talk about Tiffany’s murder with near glee, recounting how her bones, found months later in a shallow desert grave, indicated multiple fractures, especially to her skull.

  “He really did a number on the bitch,” Jenkins would say with a faraway look in his eye.

  “Who do you think did it?”

  Jenkins shrugged. “She was a bitch. Bitches get murdered.”

  He talked about other women who had disappeared from Niland, his desert-rat town, and the surrounding area. It was a transient haven, so most people didn’t know when people were gone—really gone. Prostitutes. Illegals. Crowley thought that if they dug up the desert around the Chocolate Mountains, they’d find a bone-yard. Jenkins was careful to withhold details, so there wasn’t enough for Crowley to take to the cops. But then maybe most of Jenkins’s talk had been jailhouse swagger. Everyone wanted to be a badass. Few were.

  Crowley was fascinated by Jenkins, by his personality, habits, and tales. The guys in the Q with histories of violence had usually had something to gain from it: prestige, revenge, money. If Jenkins’s stories were even partially true, he was among the minority that mutilated and killed for the sheer pleasure of it. That made Jenkins a genuine scary guy.

  Crowley had become friends with Jenkins, after a fashion. They sort of complemented each other. Crowley had the intimidating size and Jenkins those empty eyes that suggested that nothing was off the table. Sure, Crowley had been a bad guy in his day, but his antics were penny-ante compared to the things Jenkins hinted at. Crowley suspected Jenkins was at least half bullshit, but Scoville’s recounting of Jenkins’s slaughter of the Pasadena couple finally confirmed to Crowley that Jenkins was just as bad as he’d wanted to be.

  When Crowley was in prison, out of necessity he’d aligned himself with the Aryan Brotherhood. Jenkins was a high-ranking member of the gang and had vouched for him. If you didn’t run with a gang in prison
, you were alone—not a good place to be.

  Crowley had had his own reputation in the Q for being a badass, wielding the persona as protection, even after he’d undergone a transformation. Over time, all that mattered to him was his son, his faith, and his writing—and getting out in one piece. Still, he kept up the ruse.

  He liked to read and even got Jenkins to read a book cover to cover for the first time. It was I, The Jury by Mickey Spillane. Jenkins pronounced it brilliant. Crowley fed Jenkins more fiction, mostly crime novels, and Jenkins sometimes finished them. He also took an interest in Crowley’s vocabulary list where Crowley recorded and tried to learn words he came across that he didn’t know. Like Crowley, Jenkins would include the vocabulary words in his speech, but in Jenkins’s mouth, the words had the same effect on listeners’ ears as biting into sandy, insufficiently washed spinach has on the teeth.

  Inmates knew Crowley liked to write, but he didn’t speak of it. If asked, he said he was writing letters home or his memoirs. He didn’t want the guys to think he was writing about them. Of course he was inspired by them, but he took care to camouflage his fictional characters, making them as different from the source material as he could without stretching credulity. Small literary magazines began publishing his stories, paying him with copies of the publication. Thus, word by word, he began to build a life outside the joint. Given the obscure forum for his published works, it was unlikely that his worlds would collide. He wanted to keep them separate. His writing belonged to him and him alone.

  Like any good writer, Crowley listened more than he talked, took in more than he gave. As their time together wore on, Jenkins opened up more and more.

  Then there was the night Crowley had returned from his shift in the laundry and Jenkins had confronted him with a copy of the Bloomsbury Quarterly. He shoved it in his face, the pages rolled back to the title page of a story: “Call Me Diva,” by Bowie Crowley. It was about an angst-ridden male cross-dresser who has a vitriolic relationship with his overbearing mother and who slaughters a woman in a frenzy.