by Peter Ponzo
Chapter 30
When Charles and I get home, it's late afternoon and I'm starved. We'd driven all the streets within ten miles either side of Cantor West where Oerschott Medicals was located, knocked on doors, questioned pedestrians, wandered into back alleys, hopped fences; nothing. Several times we saw cop cars driving at slow speeds. I was sure they were doing the same thing.
The red light was blinking on the answering machine:
"This is Willum Boone. Mah message is jest this: we got the li’l gal from Brazil."
Charles had played back the message and seemed immediately nervous. I went to my study and phoned Boone. Penny had been found early in the morning, unharmed, he said. Boone wanted to come over, but he couldn't bring Penny; she was being held for questioning. Good luck, I thought. There was something else he wanted to talk about. I saw no reason to refuse. He could have dinner with us.
Boone arrived shortly before 7 p.m., dressed in jeans, suede jacket and matching boots. I watched him through the kitchen window. He was actually quite handsome in a crude and angular way: more height, more jaw, more hair and, although lanky, more muscles it seemed. I made a mental note: get him into bed, soon.
Charles answered the doorbell. I was in the kitchen, preparing the Chicken Parmigiana.
"Hullo, Ms. Fleetsmith," Boone said. "Ah thought Mr. Curran did all thet cookin, yuh know." He was leaning against the door to the kitchen, his hat in his hand.
"Usually—but tonight I thought I'd flaunt my culinary prowess. Sit down, cowboy. Tell me what's on your mind." Charles took up a position to my left. He was in charge of the salad, with his secret almost-black dressing. Boone laid his stetson on the table, swung his leg over a chair and sat.
"Do that again," I said.
"Ms. Fleetsmith, ma'am?"
"Get up, then get down, over the back of the chair. I've never seen anyone do that, except in John Wayne movies ... and cut the Ms. shit." I walked to his side, laid my hand on his cheek and said, "Cowboy, you kin call me Fran if'n you've a mind to." I left a streak of flour across his jaw.
"Ma'am—"
"Fran."
"Yes, ma'am ... Fran, Ah thought you should know. We bin lookin' fer Hans ... uh, Mr. von Oerschott."
"Hard to get your tongue around 'Oerschott'? Josey calls him Ohshit. You can call him Hans." I stopped flouring the chicken. "Did you say you were looking for Hans?"
"Yes, uh, Fran. They've bin reports of a gorilla, 'scaped from the zoo, but Ah figure it's Hans. He killed them two at the Flanagan Motel, bashes outta the morgue, now hidin' somewhere. No tellin' what he's gonna do next, so we got everybody lookin' fer him. Thought y'all should know, mebbe help."
"Help? In what way?"
"Mebbe knowin' where he'd go, hide. Mebbe Miss Josephine Cowley, she'd know where he'd be at."
"I really didn't know Hans all that well," I said. "While at Oerschott Medicals, I spent most of my time locked up in my lab. Rarely saw the man."
"Miss Fleetsmith," Charles interrupted, "I have finished the salad and would like to be excused from dinner."
"Certainly," I said, "take the Porsche." Charles left the room immediately.
"Where's Charlie goin'?" Boone asked.
"Cowboy, I have something to show you. My etchings, in my room."
I looked at Boone carefully, expecting some adverse reaction, but he just swung up and out of the chair and said, "Lead the way, ma'am." He wore a great, oversize smile. This is one cool gent. I wiped the flour from my hands, led him up the stairs and pushed him into my bedroom, expecting he would object, but it was he who turned, leaned against me and closed and bolted the door, his arms over my shoulders. He had already removed his suede jacket and now he dropped it to the floor.
"Y'all thinkin what Ah'm thinkin?" he whispered, still leaning against me, my back to the door.
"Ah reckon," I said, kissing him lightly on the cheek.
"Y'all sure of this?" he said.
"Listen cowboy, have you forgotten your promise?"
"Ma'am?"
I put on my best drawl: "One day, ma'am, Ah'm gonna take y'all to bed, yuh know."
He turned and went quickly to the windows to close the venetian blinds, but first pulled open a crack and peeked out, police-style.
"Charlie's takin' off," he said. "Where's he goin'?"
"To see Penny," I said.
I quickly dropped my jeans, wriggled out of my sweater and stood like a school girl, naked, one knee bent over the other, my hands demurely placed behind my arched back. I never wear bra or panties. I tried to look coy, bashful. This was going to be one hell of a scene.
Boone turned and smiled. "Don't suit yuh, bein shy 'n all," he said, walking toward me. I growled mightily, leaped on him, wrapping my legs about his waist, tearing the shirt from his back. "Thet's mah gal," he said and fell back onto the bed.
Now I'm not much at Act One, Scene One, but I think I did a creditable job, judging from the moaning and groaning. And the Final Act was splendid. When the curtain came down my coyboy was flat on his back, panting, eyes closed and grinning.
"Wanna smoke?" I murmured in my most exotic voice.
"Don't smoke, ma'am."
Boone rolled out of bed and went to the window, opening the venetian blinds just a bit. The sun was setting, just up the street, and thin streaks of red light immediately rushed through the blinds and covered his body, rippling, psychedelic. I had been right: more height, more jaw, more hair and definitely more muscles.
"Thet was like biscuits in the mornin' ... real good," he said.
"C'mere, cowboy."
He came to my bed and sat, running an enormous hand along my thigh.
"The short Texan," he said.
"Not so short," I reassured him, as though he needed reassurance.
"The four foot cowboy, ma'am," he said.
"Four feet? Come now, cowboy ... you jest. Four feet? That's the height of exaggeration." I reached between his thighs, but he twisted aside. "And after tonight I want Fran," I said. "I don't want this ma'am shit," I said.
"The joke 'bout the short, four foot Texan," he said quietly. "What's thet joke?"
He was such a sweet man.
"Jest yer regular Texan," I drawled, "with all the bullshit knocked out."
I pulled him into bed and he laughed. It was the first time I had heard him laugh. Actually, it was less a laugh and more the bawl of a calf, the bray of a donkey. I couldn't contain myself; I neighed, I whinnied, I barked. My cowboy slipped to the floor, snorting, carrying the sheets—and me—with him. Wrapped together like two weiners in a bun, we howled and bellowed. It made an admirable finale.