The Dream Virgin

by Don Quine

  See you over the rainbow,

  Perry

  The note had a colored rainbow printed at the top. George put it back in the file.

  “Kinda sad. Perry was a good guy even though he got off watching people get off. No big deal when you think of all the real perverts out there,” said George.

  Rahim stood up from the table, stretched and looked at Leon.

  “We done?” Rahim asked. “I’m not bitching, but it’s the 4th of July and I’m stuck in a motel room playing Scrabble with a schmuck.”

  Leon said, “Before we wrap it up, let’s take a minute to look at how Reimer entered the Raedeane picture.”

  “Thought you said that was speculation,” said Rahim.

  “Let’s speculate,” Leon said, so Rahim and George speculated what likely happened to get Reimer hooked up with Raedeane after Perry died.

  They thought it possible that when Raedeane went to the funeral at Rainbow’s Bridge, it being an emotional affair, she might have forgotten to bring Perry’s box with his videos.

  Rahim said, “Then once she remembered, she probably got the guilts because he was already cremated. Didn’t go to Enterprise to get the money Perry left her, we know that. Down in the dumps, she hangs out at the Easy Does It, drinks wine and sings karaoke while Chip plays amusement games.”

  Rahim looked at George.

  George said, “The bartender at the time, Rusty Letterman, moved on to open his own tavern in Cody, Wyoming. He said she was seen singing the blues with a blonde chick into outdoor camping. Rusty forgot her name, but she was a cute cutup. Just possible that Raedeane maybe told the blonde her reasons for feeling blue. Difficulties of raising a kid on your own, how Chip missed Perry taking him fishing, playing with the wolfdog that Perry got from a breeder he knew.

  Something like that?”

  “Half Akita, half Timber wolf,” Leon said.

  He remembered Harry telling him it was named Shadow and her pups and Raedeane’s body were found in the burned out RV, but not Shadow.

  Eight years was a long time. No one in Lake Meadows or vicinity took in the creature, not that she’d trust humans after what she went through. Long shot, who knows, but maybe Shadow hooked up with one of the wolf packs that roamed the Snake River Mountains. Some were known to come down from the range at night to prey on stray pets. Two from one pack were shot going after the zebras at Ventures Nest.

  George said, checking his notes, “Right, it was a wolfdog. So then Reimer shows up, works the blonde to say he’s a good guy, like ‘Hey, Rae, here’s a fella with tools, fishing poles who digs kids. Might like to rent out the RV you’re not using now,’ that kind of shit. What do you think?”

  Rahim continued the speculation at a faster pace, taps on the table after each of his points.

  “He moves in, takes him a few days to set up a meth lab in her RV, then finds Perry’s note and the box stashed somewhere in there, then gets Raedeane to tell him what’s up. She tells him, he thinks bathroom videos of rich people fucking around with their pets has gotta be worth something.”

  Rahim taps.

  “Raedeane sees she’s got a bad situation on her hands, figures it’s time to tell Reimer it ain’t working out for her with him being there, walks back to the RV and tells him and he don’t like it. He’s in the middle of cooking a batch maybe, they get into it, and the batch blows up.”

  Taps.

  “He grabs the videos,” Rahim said, “and for whatever reason, grabs the kid and takes off. Thinks, wait a second, he could get caught with the videos, they could pin him to Perry place, better hide them. Drives to the nudie camp, plants the note and box in the tree that everyone knows about but nobody would think someone stuffed something in it, kills Chip’s puppy to let him know he means business, then the Sheriff shows up.”

  Rahim did not tap.

  “That do it?” he asked Leon, forcing a smile.

  Leon said, “Now if Reimer was working the scam with a cute blonde camper it would be nice to know her name or her whereabouts, but since we don’t have access to that information, let’s assume the little old church lady named Dorothy Stilton is someone else. Disguises aren’t hard to come by, but finding a good accomplice is.”

  Leon slid off the hammock and walked over to the motel room entrance near a coat rack.

  “Leon, can you ask Molly to drop off some cherry pie, after she closes? “

  “And chili fries?” said Rahim.

  “Stay on your toes, guys,” Leon said, signed a shaka and left the motel room.

  As soon as Leon left, George walked over to the coat rack, repositioned a Dodgers jacket and lifted up a trench coat that hid a sawed-off shotgun.

  “Leon’s still pissed at me for losing Reimer.”

  Rahim shook his head.

  “You’re a miserable fuck up, time you accept it.”

  George snatched the weapon, somersaulted over to the kitchenette, landed with the shotgun up on his left knee and pointed at the door.

  “Kapow! Kapow!” George yelled softly, tossed the sawed-off to Rahim who caught it one-handed; ready for it. Had seen this act before.

  “Leon said stay on your toes, not your knees, tough guy.”

  George said, “I should of nailed the scumbag four summers back when he was picking up road kill on that prison work crew. Before he faked finding God.”

  Rahim said mockingly, “I should have nailed the scumbag. Yeah. Perfect. Then Leon would probably of shot us. You know it’s personal with him. But sure as shit, either way we’d be out of a job except for my brother having us standby in case he needs us if something comes up which could be never; who knows? Did you ever think about that? Ever think that if you didn’t have your head up your ass half the time maybe none of this would have happened and we wouldn’t have to do these endless recounts and miss the fireworks?”

  Rahim breeched the 10-gauge, checked the shells, snapped it closed, leaned the shotgun against the table, reached underneath, and pulled out a Smith & Wesson 500.

  “Get it all out, dude. I accept total responsibility.”

  George walked over and opened the refrigerator, peeked in.

  “You’ve every reason to be angry and upset,” George’s face suddenly fell as he turned from the frig freezer to Rahim.

  “You Arab bastard, you ate my fucking pint of pistachio!”

  Rahim mixed the letter tiles around, tapped the table, pointed to the Scrabble board and told George to sit down.

  CHAPTER 22

  “They figure there’s a chance the video cards are still in the tree, seems to me they’re going to look into it,” Jack said.

  Leon sat across from Jack and Molly inside one of the red leather booths by a window that looked out of the Cafe onto the bowling alley.

  “I mean if they do look and they see Reimer’s bear trap hasn’t been triggered, it figures that they’d take the videos and play blackmail, wouldn’t you think?”

  “We removed the GPS tag, Jack,” Leon said, watching a small crew clean up the party remains in the bowling alley.

  “Then how’re we supposed to track them?”

  “We don’t,” Leon said. “Unlike Reimer, his partners in crime seem smart enough to scan for plants.”

  “So we sit back and wait for them to look through the videos, maybe send blackmail notes to some of our upstanding citizens who might pay to keep their perversions on the QT,” Molly said, matter of factly.

  Leon said, “Right. We keep this to ourselves and wait. I’ll speak with Oliver and Nicole tomorrow.”

  “What if I get some of my boys to ask around, mention a cash reward for spotting a big ugly idiot with missing fingers and a cross on his skull?”

  “Goes no further than this table,” Leon said softly.

  Jack nodded. “Okay. Just a thought.”

  Ja
ck knew when Leon spoke soft about a matter he had made a decision about, it was no longer up for discussion.

  “That it, then?” Molly walked over to the cafe counter, picked up a big bag and handed it to Jack. “Drop these goodies off to George and Rahim.”

  Jack gave his mom a hug, headed toward the kitchen’s back entrance and followed Leon out of the cafe.

  It was past midnight.

  They stood in the hallway a long time, Elfri soothing Chip until he recovered from the nightmare. After a while Chip showed Elfri his private room at the end of the dark hall, took out his key, unlocked the door and flicked a light switch. Chip took Elfri’s cold hand and led her into his room full of spiders.

  Heart pounding, Elfri told herself it was black widows that killed you, not tarantulas.

  CHAPTER 23

  “I assume you’re familiar with firearms, Will?”

  Leon and Will were sitting on Leon’s back porch. Frogs croaked nearby and lingering lights reflected on the lake from a spent Main Streat.

  Will wondered how to answer Leon. They’d been sitting outside awhile, talking about the gala opening, the lumberjack fight at S2S, Elfri helping Chip with his nightmares.

  When Leon’s question came out of left field, Will waited a minute before he said, “Can I ask why you’re asking me that question, Leon?”

  Leon was deep breathing. Not seated in a chair like Will, but on the cobblestones with his legs crossed like a yoga teacher. After an exhalation and a fleeting thought that it might be premature to tell him, Leon said, “The man who traumatized Chip eight years ago just escaped from prison.”

  Wanting details, but knowing he’d hear more about it, Will decided to answer Leon. Let him know what Leon might suspect.

  “I’m familiar with the Beretta Px4 Storm pocket pistol Tallula keeps strapped to her thigh. Not sure what Rahim packs, but the few times I’ve seen him makes me think the lump under the left sleeve of his baseball jacket conceals a handgun. Haven’t seen you armed, Leon, though you look like you could handle yourself if needed. As far as the concealed weapon locations on your property, they vary. From the 12-gauge in the trash can near the front gate,” Will pointed to the private wharf, “to the Uzi hidden in the rowboat.”

  Will would keep the two other weapons and their locations to himself for the time being.

  Leon breathed. Looked calm.

  “Thanks, Will. May I ask where you came by your discerning observations? I doubt it was riding the range and hunting prairie dogs.”

  Watching Leon breathe and do his yoga made Will tired. He wanted to call it a night, but Leon wanted to know who he was like he figured he would, so he told him that he’d been a cop with the Amarillo PD for five years in his late-twenties.

  What division, Leon wanted to know.

  Will told him Robbery-Homicide.

  Leon wanted to know why Will only served for five years so Will told him how he and his rookie partner, Jimmy Nails, tougher than his name, caught three thugs stabbing an elderly couple waiting for a bus in Soncy, a bad part of the Amarillo Southside, an early evening in late October.

  When it was over, Jimmy died on the scene from a shot to the head.

  The couple died on the way to the hospital from the knife wounds.

  Will took a bullet in the chest, lost a lot of blood. The .38 missed his heart, went through his spine, between the T-4 and T-5.

  A couple of surgeries later he was good to go. Just not with a badge.

  Will stopped talking and looked at Leon whose eyes had closed.

  So much for his cop story. Will started to get up and go in the house when Leon asked him what happened to the three thugs.

  “They survived ten bullet wounds, were sentenced to first-degree murder, plea-bargained to life without parole, and were all dead within forty-eighty hours after a failed escape on route to the county jail from the courthouse.”

  “Losing your partner must have been rugged.”

  “Got drunk for a month.”

  “Then?”

  “Stuck my medical insurance money in munis and used my retirement benefits to do as little as possible. Ride the Dreamland Express with Elfri, and occasionally enjoy short-term romances with charitable ladies I meet on the road who smile at my poor jokes.”

  Because Leon’s eyes were closed, and since it was very late and Will got no response from Leon except a subtle nod, Will got up from the lounge chair, said, “Let’s continue this tomorrow, Leon. You’ll fill me in on the escaped con.”

  Will went into Leon’s house.

  Leon breathed for a while. It was hard to tell he was breathing at all.

  When he opened his eyes they no longer belonged to a hip business tycoon into yoga and Zen.

  Leon’s eyes looked cold-blooded and lethal.

  After a moment, he reached into his pocket, took out his phone, checked to see who was vibrating.

  When he saw that it was Nicole, his revenge went back into hiding.

  Leon said, “Hey, good looking.”

  CHAPTER 24

  After breakfast, when Elfri left for the Nest to work on Dream Zoo and Chip went into the study with Tallula for math and science, Will and Leon went outside and took a walk down to the wharf where the fiberglass rowboat was.

  With its teak woodwork, a bronze centerboard, and a sculling-sailing rig kit, Leon’s boat enjoyed immaculate maintenance like everything on his estate. They got in the boat and Leon rowed them around the lake, staying close to shore near the frogs and cattails.

  Leon filled Will in on Reimer, the gory details of what he did to Chip and his puppy. How Reimer and his associates might try to blackmail some citizens of Lake Meadows who performed sexual acts they’d prefer to keep private. Chances were that Reimer was figuring out how to make profitable use of stolen videos recorded years ago by a Lake Meadows plumber and electrician named Perry Wilcox who was a voyeur and installed a lot of video cameras in bathrooms of homes that he serviced over the years.

  Leon confided to Will that he kept an armed front because Reimer was a vicious psychopath who would have gotten out of prison five or six years ago if he hadn’t tried to kill a guard over a tuna fish sandwich.

  Reimer being on the loose was something Leon took very seriously.

  “I understand your concern,” Will told Leon.

  Leon told Will that he had shared Reimer’s escape with Jack and Molly last night and would talk with Oliver and Nicole today. It would not be a good thing for the information to be shared with anyone else in town at this time; people panic, act irrational. Not good for business. Knowing that Will had been a cop made Leon feel better about sharing Reimer’s escape, and even though he had reservations, Leon felt he should ask Will if Elfri knew how to use a gun.

  Will told Leon Elfri could kick ass better than most men, but she hated guns.

  “She puts up with a pistol I have stashed in the bus, but just barely.”

  Leon nodded.

  “School room massacres, movies and restaurants, soft-target attacks by twisted people, it’s not so hard to understand why she’d feel that way.

  And your getting shot has a part to play, no doubt.”

  Will and Leon looked at one another a good while, the door of trust opening, Will almost letting Leon know the real reason Elfri hated guns.

  “Far as Reimer, I see no need for Elfri to know about him, at least for now. She’s got enough on her plate.”

  Leon nodded and rowed.

  Will watched the Wonder Way shops recede and the shoreline curve east into a stretch of cattails, then he looked up at Ravens Rest.

  “Good God Almighty!”

  Leon acknowledged Will’s reaction to seeing the huge bird-in-flight residence up close, knew it was hard not to be overwhelmed by the scope of its beauty. Leon told Will the home was designed by Frances Lear
Riverbottom who was the wife of James Riverbottom who with Robert Bickford, Leon’s father, turned a fisherman’s getaway into a tourist town over half a century ago.

  Will said, “The same James Riverbottom related to Molly from the cafe with the rocker son with the pot shop?”

  “The same. Jack is James’ grandson. Jack’s dad, Harry, was sheriff of Walla Walla County until his patrol car went off the Canyon seven years ago.”

  Leon spoke more about how Frances Lear Riverbottom was a dymaxion architect that studied with Buckminster Fuller at Black Mountain College, how she designed the winged Ravens Rest home for James because James was in love with ravens and airplanes, and Frances was in love with James. When Ravens Rest was finished, James told Frances that hiring her to design his home was a way to get to know her and show her he loved more than just her talent. Frances told James she suspected as much and accepted his proposal of marriage.

  Leon’s home, inherited from his father, Robert, was the second estate Frances designed. Then starting in the mid-1950s, Frances designed Nature Lovers Retreat, the motel, the bowling alley, a good number of the commercial buildings on the north side of Main, and most of the estates along the south side of the lake. Frances was responsible for giving Lake Meadows the far-out look that put it on the tourist map.

  As they rowed past Ravens Rest and back around the lake toward Leon’s boat slip, they passed an estate with glitzy gazebos and a swimming pool shaped like a coiled snake.

  Will pointed to it. “Looks like a fun pad.”

  “It belongs to Randall Roberts who owns the EcoErotica Emporium. Retired porn baron from the San Fernando Valley in Southern California. He likes to throw parties.”

  Will considered what Leon had shared with him about possible blackmail and said, “You think Randall’s bathrooms might have witnessed a few indecent activities?”

  “I believe it to be more than possible.”

  “Sounds like you got your own little Peyton Place here, Leon.”

  Leon maneuvered the boat smoothly into the slip.

  “Don’t believe I’m familiar with Peyton Place, Will. Where’s it located? Texas?”