by David Wiltse
"Did it come back to you at the interview, John?"
"Did what come back?"
"The… feeling you get sometimes. What we've worked on."
"Is that what we've been working on, Gold? That oldtime feeling?"
"It did, didn't it? You wanted to hurt him, didn't you?
Isn't that what upset you? Isn't that what the shower was about-he brought back that feeling? Or rather, the prison did, the circumstances, the claustrophobia…"
"Wrong on two counts, but otherwise, dead-on."
"Which two?"
"One, the interview, the claustrophobia, whatever it was-it didn't bring the feeling back, because the feeling was never really gone, is never really gone. You should attend more twelve-step programs, Gold. You'd realize that old habits don't go away, they just get under control."
"And?"
"Wrong on count two. I didn't have the feeling that I wanted to hurt him … I had the feeling that I wanted to kill him… But you knew that, didn't you?"
"Yes, I knew," said Gold.
Becker twisted a corner of his mouth ironically. "So nice to be understood," he said.
Karen wrapped herself in silence for half the flight to New York, burying her face in files and typing memos on her laptop computer.
Becker was grateful for the interlude of peace. He knew that in time he would have to account for his stop in the motel with Pegeen. Karen was not suspicious, nor had he ever given her cause to be, but trust beyond a certain point veered toward indifference, and he knew that Karen was not indifferent to him. She had based her career on a mastery of details, and she would want to know all the particulars of his motel visit when she got around to asking.
Becker pretended to sleep and then slept. Karen woke him as they approached New York.
"You'll be pleased to know that Hatcher has taken you off the case."
"Oh?"
"That's what you wanted, isn't it? That's why you behaved that way with Swann."
"What way?"
"Hitting him."
"I didn't hit him."
"He says you did. He requested medical treatment after you left."
"The little shit."
"No doubt. But he is also considering a lawsuit. I don't think he'll go,through with it-Hatcher will mollify him one way or another."
"Why is he so involved, Karen? What does Hatcher want with this case?
It can't do him any particular good, can it? He's operating on too lofty a scale to benefit from the capture of one man."
"If you're a black hole of ambition like Hatcher, ultimately you suck in everything to your benefit, but in this case it wasn't very hard. One of those two girls who was found in the coal mine-her uncle was Quincy Beggs."
"Never heard of him."
"No one else had when his niece disappeared-what, ten years ago? As a result, he ran on a fiercely aggressive law-and-order platform and got elected as a congressman from West Virginia."
"I've still never heard of him."
"But Hatcher has. Now four-term Congressman Beggs is on the Oversight Committee, the congressional committee that deals with our budget and, not indirectly, some of our top-level promotions. You have heard of that onehaven't you?"
"So Hatcher has a chance to deliver to Beggs the man who killed his niece. No wonder he's so involved."
"Just thought you'd be pleased to know you're off the hook," Karen said.
"And you're still on it."
Karen shrugged.
"I really am sorry," he said.
"I'll manage."
"I'm sorry you have to."
Karen returned her attention to the computer. Becker put his hand on her arm. "It really was just a shower…
"I believe that. I do."
"Good… Nothing went on at all. She's just an agent."
Karen smiled patiently. "The sorry thing is, you probably believe that, too… Men..
"What does that mean?"
"Something 'went on' with her whether you noticed it or not. I saw the way she looked at you. And she knows I saw it."
"There wasn't anything special in the way she looked at me or the way I looked at her or the way Hatcher looked at you or any combination thereof," Becker said.
Karen shook her head patronizingly. "John, you're a very sweet man in your special way, but you don't understand women at all."
"I was there, Karen. Nothing happened, nothing was said, nothing was intimated. I did nothing to lead her on, she did nothing to lead me on.
I bent over backwards to treat her like another agent. I wouldn't have made a man sit in the car-"
"You really don't get it, do you?":'There's nothing to get." 'You didn't take a shower because you have a fetish for cleanliness. You took a shower because you felt deeply soiled by your encounter with Swann, isn't that right?":'Yes." 'And you let her see that about you. You showed her how vulnerable you are underneath the super agent exterior. Don't you realize how attractive that is, John? If you share your vulnerabilities with a woman, that is intimacy. To her, you had a very intimate moment together. Not because she was in the next room when you took a shower, but because you allowed her to know you needed it in the first place."
"It doesn't really work that way, does it?" Becker asked.
"It worked with me," she said. She took his hand and held it until they landed.
Nahir Patel had reached the fourth chapter of The Satanic Verses when the battered Oldsmobile pulled into the station. Nahir didn't consider himself much of a Muslim. His mother had dragged him to Episcopal Sunday school until he was in his mid-teens and was able to mount an effective rebellion, and his father seemed to have no religion whatsoever beyond an abhorrence of pork sausage. As a family they attended a mosque-which required a trip to Memphis-only when relatives visited. Nahir himself had drifted into a vague belief in an essentially indifferent creator to whom one applied for relief in emergencies but otherwise ignored. With mild variations, he discovered, it was the basic American concept of the deity, based primarily on convenience, with no thought required. Best of all, it was a maintenance-free credo, plastic enough to cover a variety of permutations-he knew one girl who thought God was revealing herself through the anim ' alswhile demanding absolutely nothing of the believer. Islam, on the other hand, had some rigorous requirements, the hardest one being, for Patel, belief.
However, thoroughly non-Muslim though he was, Patel could not help feeling an illicit, not to say mildly dangerous thrill when reading the work of a man condemned to death for heresy by a large segment of Islam.
It seemed akin to deliberately walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror just to prove one was not superstitious. Rationally, there was no danger, yet one did not take such unnecessary chances without the sense of tempting retribution.
A man seemingly larger than the car itself got out of the Oldsmobile and puzzled for a moment at the gas pump. Nahir watched him with half an eye, wondering briefly that there were some people in this day and age who still did not understand that one must pay before receiving the gasoline. The instructions were written large, but somehow some people never managed to see them.
The big man stuck the hose in his tank and squeezed and looked at the pump and squeezed some more.
Nahir returned to his book. He had been working — the five-to-midnight shift for six months now and had seen all manner of dummies in that time. They all caught on eventually and came to visit him in his Plexiglas booth.
He had a microphone at his disposal if he had wanted to help the customer, but he chose not to use it. He would be off duty shortly and he wanted to read a bit more. At home, he kept the book out of sight, not wanting to risk stirring up any atavistic orthodoxy in either parent. He thought they were enlightened-for parents-but there seemed no reason to press the point. He had time enough to read while on the job, after all.
The big man had finally noticed Nahir in the booth.
"I want gas," he said.
Duh, thought Nahir. No kidding.
Although schooled in politeness at home, he found that the insulation of the booth led one towards a degree of insolence that only absolute security could nurture. No one could touch him in his little booth. The glass was even bulletproof. There seemed little need for civility when the worst that could happen as a result of rudeness was a dirty look and a nasty remark. What were they going to do, drive away without gas? A few did, but if any had ever reported him to the manager, he had never heard about it.
"You have to pay me first," Nahir said, making no effort to conceal his contempt.
The man seemed bewildered by the statement.
"I want gas," the man said, I and then, as if clarifying things, he added, "for my car.'
Nahir made a big display of seeing the car for the first time. "Oh, for your car! Why didn't you say so?"
The man nodded. "Gas for my car."
Nahir could not believe this moron.
"Pay first," he said. He turned back to his book. Let the goon figure it out, or not.
The man scowled at him. "I don't like that," he said.
Nahir sighed deeply and looked away from his book, letting the man know how tired he was of the whole conversation. He turned the microphone on so that his words were issued into the night.
"You don't like what? Paying? Sorry, chief, that's the way the system works. Pay now, gas later."
"I don't like the way you talk to me," the man said.
Nahir leaned his face right against the glass, grinning contemptuously.
'I'm not here to talk to you. I'm here to throw a switch that allows you to pump gas, after you pay for it. Got it?
Too hard? You. Money. Give me. I. Gas. Give you."
"I could kill you," the man said.
Nahir smirked.
"Ooo," he said. "Oooo."
The man smashed his fist into the Plexiglas in front of Nahir's face.
Nahir jerked back, startled, and the man struck the glass shield again and again, hitting it with the power of a club.
"Hey," Nahir cried. "Hey, calm down." He looked out into the night for help. The station was lighted in the unreal sodium light, but outside that oasis was a desert of blackness.
The man kicked the cage in the metal siding below the glass. Nahir heard the thuds as if he were on the inside of a drum. People had hit the glass before, but no one had ever attacked the metal. He did not know how strong it was; he hoped it was strong enough, they wouldn't have built it that way if it wasn't strong enough, would they?
The man was hurling his whole body at the shack now, slamming with his back and shoulders with his full weight behind the blows. The booth groaned and shuddered. Nahir thought he heard the whine of bolts giving way. He was being attacked by a hurricane of rage, and the storm had worked its way to the door of the booth. The door was held by a dead bolt, but that was secured only by screws. The door bucked and crashed as the man alternately yanked on the handle, then threw himself against it. Nahir could picture the screws popping and the giant catapulting into the booth.
"I'll give you gas," Nahir shouted. "Please stop! I'll give you gas.
Fill it up, fill it up!"
It was not until Nahir remembered to use the microphone and his voice reverberated through the empty Chattanooga night that the man seemed to hear him.
"Free gas!" Nahir shouted, crying with fear now.
"Free gas!"
The giant stopped and nodded once as if he found the notion reasonable, then returned to his car and turned on the nozzle. He watched the pump rather than Nahir.
With the giant looking away, Nahir dialed 911 and whispered frantically for help. The huge moron returned to the booth and Nahir quickly hung up.
"No charge, no charge," Nahir said, waving the man away.
"I want some money," the man said. His voice was perfectly calm, as if it were the most ordinary request.
"Yes, sir, how much would you like?"
Oh, no, I confused him, Nahir thought. The giant was actually considering sums.
"Why don't I give you all of it?" Nahir asked.
"Yes." The man nodded.
Nahir opened the cash drawer and took out half the money. It occurred to him that he could pocket the rest and report all of it as stolen. The giant was certainly too dumb to know the difference. Nahir was proud of himself for recovering his wits so quickly despite the incredible stress. He had turned a bad situation into something positive for himself.
He put the giant's share of the money into the revolving drawer and slid it out.
"That's all I have," Nahir said.
"That's okay. Thank you."
"No, I thank you." For a moment Nahir thought the comment was too much, that the moron might react again, but he walked to his car and started it up. "Y'all come back now, you hear?" ahir said, doing his best cracker twang.
Nahir waggled his fingers in a parody of a wave, then froze as he realized the man had put the car in reverse and was driving backwards straight at the booth, and very fast.
Cooper thought he had to do something about the Oldsmobile. The rear end was badly smashed after driving over the snooty clerk at the gas station, and it sounded as if it was scraping against the tire. He could steal one from somebody else, but not this late at night, not unless he got real lucky and saw someone just getting into or out of a car. He had never learned how to steal a car without a key. Somebody had tried to explain it to him once, but Cooper found it confusing and far too much trouble when all you really had to do was take somebody's key away from him. He decided to wait until morning when lots of people were getting in and out of cars, then he would drive back to that Dairy Queen where he had seen that girl. She was a cute little girl with her hair all braided like that. She didn't look anything like Mayvis, but she smiled when she took his order and seemed real helpful.
He wondered if he couldn't get her to help him the way Mayvis did and then maybe she'd do some of the other things Mayvis did for him. He had already found a good place in the woods where he could take her.
The Reverend Tommy was more agitated than usual when he finally returned to the trailer after the show and the increasingly extended meeting with fans and converts that succeeded the revival meeting itself He should — never have let Aural do any actual healing. Now that she helped him out by laying on hands, the people could not get enough of her.
"Did you see her tonight?" Rae did not need to be told that he was referring to Aural.
"During the show? Of course."
"No, not during the show. Afterwards-did you see her afterwards?"
"No, darling, I hurried back here to get ready for you."
Rae was wearing a new magenta teddy and she touched it with both hands, hoping for a reaction. She didn't think the color was the best for her complexion, but Aural had helped her to find one that was cut long enough to hide the thickest part of her thighs and it was available only in magenta.
"Well, you won't believe what she's up to now," he said, paying no notice to her lingerie.
"What is it?" Rae asked cautiously. Tommy expected Rae to share his outrage over Aural's ever-rising stature, but Rae not only liked Aural, she was becoming increasingly indebted to her for her tips on how to make Tommy her sex slave. His bondage was a long way from complete, but Rae felt she was making progress. He hadn't noticed the teddy yet, but he might later when he took it off her.
"She was standing on a box, " Tommy said. "Can you believe that? A goddamned box."
"She was standing on a box?"
"Don't you get it? The box makes her taller, taller than anybody. There she is, her head above everyone's, her goddamned little face shining like she's an angel. She does enough of that onstage. The last thing I need is for her to be carrying a box around so everyone can gawk at her offstage, too."
"You think it was her box?"
"Of course it was her box, Rae. You normally see any boxes outside the tent after a show? Boxes don't just grow out of the ground, they don't just materialize. She put it there, sh
e planted the damned thing so she'd be taller than me."
"Maybe someone brought it for her? One of her fans?"
"None of my fans come equipped with boxes, do they, Rae? That just isn't the kind of thing people bring with them to a show. We're not crating oranges here, you know. How come you take her side, how come you're always defending her?"
"I'm not defending her, Tommy. She certainly shouldn't have brought a box, that's for sure."
"You're on her side, ain't you?"
" 'Course not…"
"Why not? Everybody's on the side of the angel-hahhah, some pun. You might's well team up with her, too."
"I'm on your side, darling." Rae fumbled with his belt with one hand while rubbing him with the other. "For Christ's sake, lay off, Rae.
Can't you see I'm upset here? I'm too mad to fuck."
I 'I'm just trying to comfort you, Tommy."
Rae continued to work on his belt. Aural had told her of the value of discreet insistence. Any healthy man, according to Aural, could be diverted from just about anything else in life by his erect organ if a woman went about It in the right way.
"Well, I've got a little surprise coming for our sweet angel-face,"
Tommy said. He allowed Rae to pull his pants to his ankles, scarcely noticing. "She's going to have a visitor pretty soon."
"Who's that, honey?"
"let's just say he ain't her biggest fan," Tommy said, laughing. "You might call him her anti-fan."
Rae slipped her hand down the back of the Reverend Tommy'.s shorts with a conviction taught to her by Aural.
It was not a move she would ever have thought of making on her own. She wiggled her finger a few times. That got Tommy's attention.
"Whoa!" he said, but he didn't mean stop. As it turned out, Tommy wasn't too mad to fuck after all.
The next morning, after the Reverend had gone out and she and Aural were sharing coffee in her trailer, Rae told her what Tommy had said about her anti-fan. Aural had shrugged.
"What is that suppose to mean?"
"He said it like it was the anti-Christ or something," Rae explained.
"He's sicking the devil on me, is that it'? The man's been preaching too long-he's beginning to believe it himself."