How tricky, to give life to another human being and then to have so little control over his survival. The water boiled and Jessie made tea and fixed herself a big vodka gimlet. The slow descent of the sun had begun again in the stillness of the late afternoon. Dry cool air, windless, amplified their words. Jessie let Gabe crawl around in front of the trailer and sat on the steps with Kenny.
Jessie drank the gimlet down pretty fast and her cheeks got flushed. “It’s nice to see you relaxing,” Kenny said.
“Don’t kid yourself. I can get it back together in a half second.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“You know, this whole jackpot thing—I’m not really expecting to collect. I just want Gabe to be safe and healthy. But, you know, that first moment when you said, ‘You hit!’ and I could see it on the machine, the three banks. For just that moment—oh, the feeling was—I felt this enormous burden on my shoulders. I had never noticed it before, but now I felt it, because now I could imagine it going away. It hasn’t been easy.”
“I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose your whole family,” Kenny said.
“I thought the Marine Corps would be my home. I lost that. And I lost Dan. After so many losses something happened here”—she put her fist to her chest—“and I wanted to give up. But then Gabe came and I had to keep fighting.”
“You kept me alive. I would be dead if not for you.”
“Don’t talk stupid.”
“It’s true.”
She frowned. “I get tired of your bull, Kenny. Is this your way of making a pass?”
“I’m going to fry that sausage you brought. And get the rice going.” He went inside the screen door and started banging around the pots, a comforting activity for him. “And I’m going to tell you a story. A true story. About me.”
He told it to her, all of it, about the restaurant and his father and the company, the people he had to lay off, the bad decisions, the money he’d lost. It was easier to be moving around, setting the table, checking pots so he wouldn’t have to look at her. She never interrupted once. She just sat out there on the steps, watching Gabe, frowning.
When he was through, so was their paper-plate dinner. Gabe went back to the Portacrib and they pushed aside the laptop.
“You have to make it right with your parents,” Jessie said.
“I either come to them with the money you’re giving me, or I don’t know.”
“You’re not going to kill yourself now, are you? After seeing how quickly your life can change?”
He decided to keep her guessing, maybe worrying about him for a stolen second here and there, in between the long runs through the desert, two hundred sit-ups, and caring for Gabe. “Hasn’t changed yet. How are the carrots?”
“Too chewy.”
“Gabe ate all his carrots. Bioflavonoids are important.
You don’t eat well.”
“As opposed to you, who eats all the time.”
“But usually nutritiously.”
“Your parents must be really worried about you.”
“Yeah.”
Jessie washed the dishes. Kenny drank his tea, saying, “I have to go up the hill.”
“Not a good plan.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Must be important. Considering everything. So go. I’ll be okay. No TV, no company except my aunt’s rifle.”
“You could read. I have a really good book in my pack over there. It’s by William Gibson. You know him?”
“No.”
“Visionary stuff. Futuristic.”
“Kenny, we don’t have the same interests. I read how-to and gardening books when I have time, which I never do.”
She didn’t understand yet that that was the intriguing part. The simple perfection of the two of them together escaped her. She was passionate physicality; he embodied the obsessed mental realm. They were complements, two halves that, combined, made a fascinating whole, and separate, existed only as fragments. Chemistry is all that matters, he wanted to say to her, but she would have taken it wrong and gotten mad and he wanted to leave her in a good mood. He put on his jacket. “Bye-bye, Gabe. Jessie, you’ll lock up tight?”
“What do you think? Can’t this wait until morning? Where are you going?”
“The Horizon.” “Not to gamble.”
“No fear,” he said. “I’ve got about thirty bucks Nina loaned me and I plan to use that for gas and food until our mega money pours through the door.”
“When do we expect you back?”
“After, I might make another stop.”
“Oh?”
“To see my family.”
“Yeah, do that. You’ll feel better. You’ll be fine. Go on and take care of your business.”
“Anyway, I’m not sure when I’ll be back. I may have to stay until morning.” Suddenly he saw Charlie Kemp’s face again and thought, What am I doing? Would she and Gabe really be safe?
He clumped down the trailer steps and went toward the Lexus, debating with himself.
“Wait,” she called, disappearing inside.
Lounging against the hood of the car, he let himself indulge in a brief fantasy in which he went back inside and everything was different, Jessie really became Joya, submissive to his every whim. A long, romantic desert night.
She came back with a ham sandwich. The offering wasn’t quite as good as his fantasy, but he smiled.
“I know you’ll get hungry later,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said, taking a bite. Ah, his favorite spicy mustard.
She had remembered.
The drive took longer than he could ever have imagined, but he made it by seven-thirty, prime gambling time. He found Amanda Lewis in the change booth by the dollar slots. He stood in line at the counter, astonished at the number of people that found gambling so infernally fascinating. When he got up to her window, he asked for five dollars in quarters.
“That all?” she said.
Was she supposed to say things like that? Make a man feel like some small-time loser?
“For now,” he said, resisting mightily the impulse to toss the whole thirty and make a big show about it. He tipped her a buck. “Uh,” he said.
“Yes?” She gave him her nice smile.
He had been the last in the line, and right now, he remained last, so he felt he had some time to come up with something catchy. If only he could think what to say. There was something so hard about direct confrontation. Women, excepting Jessie, who didn’t give a damn about him—yet—often responded so awkwardly to his awkwardness.
“Oh, it’s you!” she said. “Hey, aren’t you married to that woman, what was her name—the woman that won the monster pot?”
“But—how would you know that? You left,” he said.
“My friend—the guy that was with me—he was interested in all that commotion, so we went back. We were only three rows down from you. Wow,” she said, looking hard at him. “You’re rich now, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, filthy rich.” He nursed a brief vision of what it would be like if he really could experience even fifteen minutes of filthy richness.
“Buy me a drink?” she said. “I’m done with the shift as of ”—she peered down the aisle, and along came her replacement—“now. I want to know all about what people like you do when you hit big like that. I mean, did you tie one on?” Closing her window with a clatter she came rolling out, this time using her own steam to move the wheels of her chair. As she got closer he saw that she was laughing. “Oh, I forgot,” she said. “You already had.”
Her dark hair streamed down the back of her chair, and Kenny followed her, trying to remember how to flirt.
She steered up a ramp to a cocktail lounge overlooking the action on the floor. “Bourbon and soda, if you please. Or tell you what. I’ll buy, since I invited you.” She held her hand out and shook his. She had a good grip.
“Why are you here, anyway?” she asked him a few minutes later, taking a sip
of bourbon. “You’ve got enough money now to blow this town. Or are you one of those guys, whatchamacallem, a compulsive gambler?”
“Not at all,” Kenny said.
“Well, then.”
“I came to talk to you,” he said, all plans to be devious completely abandoned in the face of her merry candor.
“Why? You want to talk to me? You want to know what it’s like to be in a wheelchair? You one of those freaks?”
“Don’t be touchy. I want to know,” Kenny said, “whether you know Charlie Kemp.”
“Charlie who?”
“Kemp.” Kenny described him for her. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “The man on the stool next to you.”
“You remember him.”
“No. Just that he was on the stool there. You were between us. Why do you care, anyway?”
“I need to find out about him.”
She shrugged. “Can’t help. Never saw him before in my life.” As far as Kenny could tell, she told the truth. She seemed relaxed but curious. “Why?”
“Come on. I saw you talk to him.”
“You never.”
“Then maybe it was your friend. I can’t remember. Somebody said something.”
“What’s the matter? Why are you quizzing me about this stuff?”
“I’m not just asking out of idle curiosity. Kemp—he threatened some people.” He didn’t mention that Kemp’s days of threatening people were over.
“Who?”
“What difference does it make, who?” he said, exasperated.
“I bet he’s threatening your wife. She got the jackpot. He wants some of it, right? It is such a bitch being rich.” She drew lines in the moisture on her glass with a pretty, pink-tipped finger, her face resentful. Some people have all the luck, her face said, but not me.
“Listen. Kemp’s dead. He was murdered three days after the jackpot.”
“That’s weird.” Her shoulders slumped and she got a sad and hurt look, and he got an idea how hard it was for her to keep that cheerful expression all the time.
“Amanda? She’s not rich. She’s had a rough time. She hasn’t seen a dime of the jackpot. It’s all tied up. She may never get it. I’m afraid. Someone tried to hurt us too. I thought it might be Kemp, but now I don’t know. Do you know a man named Atchison Potter?”
“Never heard of him. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” She put on that look of gaiety, flushed, smiled, gathered herself to herself. Kenny tried to go with her mood.
A three-person band climbed up onto a small stage next to the bar and began setting up. Amanda studied them. “The token thin blonde,” she said. “The token tall hunk. The token hairy brown man. Same old thing. No doubt they’re talented, too, and destined to shoot beyond this lowly start into superstardom. I’d like to see a band with some hideous people.”
“With blue skin,” Kenny said, getting into it. “Tokens of nothing. No possibility of being stereotyped.”
“Exactly.”
“Then, to completely shatter our expectations, they need to play like shit.”
She laughed hard.
Kenny thought, Well, a long trip for nothing. “Could I talk to your friend?” he said, not hoping for much.
“He’s not from around here. He was just visiting.”
“From where?”
“Transylvania, I think he said. Just kidding. Pennsylvania.”
“You know how to tell a liar?” Kenny said. “They get this wavering in the eyes. It’s called nystagmus.”
“I’ve heard of that. Cops look in your eyes to see if you’re drunk.”
“Amanda, I am no good at this. I’m doing this all wrong. I think you’re lying about your friend. So I’m just going to ask. Are you?”
She had nice eyes, large, not much mascara. “No.”
“Nystagmus city,” Kenny said, and she laughed again.
“I like you. You were nice to me that night. You wanted to talk to me, didn’t you? But I was with someone, I had to go. You know, when we heard the commotion and came back—I was watching your wife, and there was something bothering her a lot. And she hardly seemed to know you existed. I don’t know—I picture you with a different type.” Just then, the band broke into a rowdy, bottleneck blues version of Fred MacDowell’s “You Got to Move.” Amanda stopped what she was saying and clapped her hand against the table, keeping the beat. “I just love that song!” she shouted. “I take back every rude thing I said about this band.”
“What type is my type?” Kenny asked her. “Who in this world is my type?”
But Amanda was singing along with the band. She had a nice voice, too. Kenny found himself relaxing along with her.
When the band left the stage, Amanda said, “I have to get home.”
“Does your friend live with you?” Kenny said, feeling, to heck with politeness. I mean, there were all kinds of friends, and he was running out of time.
“Don’t you wish you knew,” the little flirt said. She patted his cheek and rolled off into the night, her long skirt melting into the blackness. Kenny escorted her out the door. She waved and said good night to several people on the way out. Outside, in front of the Horizon, she motioned to him to bend in closer to her, then gave him a peck on the cheek.
She smelled like lemongrass and honey.
Not that he let the innocent aura stop him from sneaking over to his car and following her progress across the parking lot to her special van.
She scooted up to the side of the van, pulled the handle on the door, and slid it back. Mechanical sounds inside were followed by a lift lowering itself slowly to the ground. She rolled on, up, and into the van. After the lift rose up, disappearing behind her, the sliding door closed.
She drove herself, Kenny thought, then kicked himself for being surprised. She held a job, she gambled, she drove with hand controls. He knew people could do that, he just hadn’t given it any thought before. She was like anyone else, and like anyone else, she lied. She had deflected every question about her friend, and he just didn’t believe her.
Watching her maneuver the van out onto the street, he considered what she had said. Not enough.
He followed close on the tail of the red van, wondering if her friend the biker was really a friend. He imagined a scenario: he probably was a real biker, and she had been riding on the back of his motorcycle when she had had this accident that cost her the use of her legs. She was the type with a good heart, who would forgive the stinker for doing something so horrendous to her, but the friend, eaten up with guilt, spent all his time off from the repair shop trying to make it up to her, even though he never could.
Kenny did wonder what had caused Amanda’s paralysis, but after that crack suggesting he might be some kind of wheelchair freak, he had permanently lost the nerve to ask.
She cut off Lake Tahoe Boulevard at Al Tahoe, swinging into a right turn onto Pioneer Trail. Up here in the mountains, there were no streetlights. A soft summer drizzle made the headlights of oncoming cars shimmer in Kenny’s windshield, but the night was his cover. She drove at a cautious speed, so he had no trouble following her. After Elks Club Drive, she made a left, then he followed her through a few dizzying turns until she parked in the driveway of a dark cabin on a street called Chippewa. She ended up close to the house. When she stopped, the lights went on in the van. He watched her work the lift again and roll slowly toward a back porch that had been equipped with a temporary-looking wooden ramp.
She went inside the cabin.
Kenny parked nearby, watching as the lights went on, room by room, and she moved through, presumably making herself at home. The ramp did not look permanent, but then nothing old did in Tahoe. The wood cabins rotted, burned, and fell just like the trees eventually. They were never built with posterity in mind, and lay lightly upon the land. They were simple abodes of the forest, as Kenny’s family house was.
He started thinking about his family, and what Jessie had said. He couldn’t hide forever. If he waited the full ten
days before getting in touch, they would have the police out looking for him. What on earth would he say to them? He had landed in a situation that was complicated and frightening, and he wanted them kept out of it. If only he had the money right now. He would go over to the Five Happinesses—he checked his watch—they would still be there, mopping floors and washing pans— and hand over the check to his father with a promise to make up the interest and small losses.
Some of Amanda’s windows did not have curtains or blinds, Kenny noticed disapprovingly. Here was another feature of proud old Tahoe cabins. With nothing but the animals and forest to witness them, people felt private. Pulling his jacket off the back seat and putting it on, Kenny got out of the car, feeling bad and good at the same time. He didn’t want to peep. He just wanted to see, he told himself.
But before he could get closer to the house, another car drove up, parking directly in front of the cabin. This car looked out of place in rustic, windswept Tahoe. This car rated an immaculate, air-filtered garage with only the odd genteel Sunday outing to sully its low mileage. A warm gold color, the car was small, pointed and dynamic as an arrow, and low to the ground. It irradiated the small street with its glow. A Porsche Boxster. Whew.
A man with a goatee and baseball cap got out, slamming the door, without a care in the world, his ponytail flying. The boyfriend. What should he do? Wait and watch, he decided.
That car was far from the world of Harley. Odd. Kenny waited until Amanda’s friend had knocked and been admitted into Amanda’s cabin. He then moved as slowly as he could across the side yard until he could see directly into the living room. And oh, joy. The window was open. He could hear them inside.
The friend had his back to Kenny, however, so he could only see the accusation on Amanda’s face.
“You did say something to him,” Amanda said hotly. “I remember. And now he’s dead. Why did you bring me to Prize’s that night? You were so nice, so sweet. I really thought it was for me. But it wasn’t for me, was it?”
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