by Ken Lindsey
“Did he owe anybody money? A dealer? Did he sell a bad eight ball or something?”
“No, man. Julian was good, you know? I probably shouldn't say shit, but he hung out with the boss lady a lot. I think she helped him get cleaned up. She asked us not to say shit to the cops about it cuz it wasn't serious, you know?”
“Your boss, Jody?”
“Yeah, she's good people too, you know? Gives us dirtbags jobs, doesn't drug test unless she thinks we're dirty at work.”
A soccer mom that didn't even know our guy, huh? “Did Julian and Jody hang out outside of work?”
“Sometimes, you know, when her old man went out of town. She used to give him rides from work and shit.”
“Thanks, Jimmy.” I shook his hand and gave him the half pack of smokes we'd been sharing.******
Through the steam, she could barely see the outline of her body in the huge mirror that lined the eastern wall of the bathroom. She could feel the heat emanating from the water in the tub she hadn't climbed into yet. Beth drew her finger along the glass in a semicircle.
“C.”
David asked her that morning if they could go on a double date with his friend Gavin, and his other friend, Claire. Her rage was bile at the back of her throat.
“L.”
Why did he need another girl? Wasn't she doing everything a man could want?
“A,” and then, “I.”
David's razor, an old style straight shaver with a black plastic handle that the blade could fold into, sat on the edge of the tub—waiting, calling out with a promise of release.
“E.”
“Claire,” she growled, staring at the name in the fog on the mirror. “Home wrecking bitch.”
The water seared Beth's skin as she stepped into the tub and slid down onto her bottom. Already she could feel her flesh blushing pink, from her toes to her collarbone. The heat and the pain were cleansing, but it wouldn't be enough.
She stared at the lone, stainless steel blade as she ran the fingers of her right hand over the back of her left arm. The scars were like a road map, guiding her through the worst parts of her life. School, her mother and her weakness, different men throughout the years, and the long one for her father.
That had been her first dance with a blade. It should have opened the artery, but all it did was tear up muscle tissue and give her mother another reason to play high and mighty with her. But the pain had changed something that day; it took her mind off the hateful, selfish world she lived in.
With the thin blade cupped gingerly between her thumb and forefinger, the long handle resting along the back of her wrist, she laid back into the tub until only her head was above water.
“He loves me.”
Each cut had its place, no intersections marring the memories of the others. With one smooth motion, she slid the razor in a straight line, just above the scars that covered the back of her upper arm. Her flesh went cold under the water as the blade slid along, opening the skin and letting the blood seep out. Her pupils dilated as she stared at the water. Blood floated from the wound like inky red smoke as it slowly turned her bathwater pink.
She breathed out as the tension melted away in pain-drenched euphoria, the surrounding water swirling with color as the blood drizzled from her arm.
He loved her. Everything would be fine. It had to be.
Chapter 9: The Stakeout
I rolled to a stop a few houses past Jody Dunn's home; the home that she shared with her three children and her husband, the trucker. The place was very Middle America—two stories with lots of curtain-drawn windows, a small patch of lawn that lined the driveway, and a dark-stained privacy fence surrounding the backyard. It looked like all the other houses in the neighborhood, except for the big red diesel cab parked next to the garage.
After waiting more than an hour for her to get off work, I followed Jody from the diner to a grocery store, a dry cleaner's, and finally to her lovely suburban home. I waited until she walked into the house before I found a good, close spot to park for the night, right across the street. I could see the whole yard, the truck, and the front door. It was a perfect stakeout position.
I rolled the window down and lit up a smoke. It would be the first of many, since I always burned through about a pack and a half when I had to stay up all night. I also had a few packets of instant coffee and bottled water, a cup that plugs into the lighter and boils your water for you, and half a sandwich.
Within the first hour I was bored out of my mind. I always meant to grab a book on tape or something to keep me distracted, but inevitably I would forget and wind up flipping quarters for hours on end. I had a pocketful of change, but I wasn't desperate yet, so instead I called David to check in.
His ringer played 80's butt-rock, a ballad about love and heartache and undoubtedly, somebody's bitchin' Trans Am. He picked up three seconds before I would have put my gun in my mouth.
“What's up?”
“How many times do I have to beg you to change that song?” I asked, only whining a bit.
“I like it.”
“One of these days I’ll kill myself trying to call you. When I do, I'm gonna leave a note so that people will know it's your fault.”
“Sweet, I always wanted a parade in my honor,” he replied without a hint of remorse for my impending doom. “Got anything for me to tell the Captain in the morning?”
“The diner lady lied about not knowing Julian, but I'm not sure what that means yet.”
“How do you know?”
“I talked to some of the kitchen staff today,” I answered as I dropped the butt into my smokeless ashtray. I didn't have the discipline to keep from smoking in the Jeep, but I did my best to make sure it didn't smell like ass. “I don't really know what it means yet, but apparently Jody and Julian were spending a lot of time together when her hubby was out on the road.”
“Shit.”
“Yep.”
“So, what are you doing now?”
I lit up another cigarette. “Watching her place. The husband is home, things are pretty boring so far.”
In the background, I heard a woman's voice, “Come on, Davy. I don't want to shower by myself.” Not fair.
“Sounds like you got some solid stuff. Great job, Gav. I gotta go.”
“More like you gotta come.”
David laughed, then the line went dead. I tossed the cell phone into the passenger's seat and dug in my pocket for a quarter.
I was getting good at knowing which side the coin would land on, depending on how it sat when I flipped it, and how hard I hit it with my thumb. I also spent a lot of time rolling the coin from finger to finger, on the back of my hand, like I'd seen so many times on tv. It always looked cool when the bad guy, or the determined cop, did it while they were trying to figure something out.
I'm sure I looked ridiculous, but I was getting better.
The second hour of Heads or Tails came and went before I heard the door slam at Jody's place. I dropped my quarter and pulled my camera in time to get a good pic of Mr. Dunn kicking a Big Wheel ten feet across their little yard. Jody wasn't far behind, so I rolled my window down.
“Don't do this, Rick!” I could hear the tears in her voice, she was begging.
Rick spun around fast, stopping the Missus in her tracks. She looked terrified.
“If you gave a shit about me, or this fucking family, you wouldn't keep going out there and spreading your legs for everyone with a dick! Now get your ass back in the house, or I'll make you wish you had.”
“What are you going to do, limp dick?” she screamed right back at him as fear turned to wrath.
Rick balled his fists and charged, giving Jody less than a second to turn and run. She was ready, though—probably not her first time running away from her husband.
I thought of my mom's face for the first time in months, a memory from my childhood. Her cheeks were flushed and her left eye was puckered red. She was crying. I had been crying too. The temperature
in the Jeep hit somewhere around a million degrees and I tried to shove the memory back into the dark where it came from.
Jody slammed the door just as Rick made it to the first of three small steps. He screamed, “Open the goddamn door, you bitch!” and started pounding away like an angry gorilla. “I'll fucking kill you!”
Then, without knowing how it happened, I wasn't in the Jeep anymore. Somehow, I had gotten across the street, with my hand on the Makarov 9x18mm pistol in the pocket of my jacket. I stopped walking toward the house and took a deep breath.
What the hell was I doing?
Took a breath. Jogged back to the Jeep and jumped in. Grabbed up my cell and dialed 9-1-1, my hand shaking so bad it took me three tries.
“Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?” asked the operator, a woman with a southern drawl.
“My name is Gavin English, I'm a private investigator on scene for the Reno PD. I have a domestic disturbance taking place. Angry male. White. Forty years old, six feet 5 inches tall.”
I gave her the address and the description of the house and the truck. Looking up to the second story, I could see three little faces, blank, staring down as their father raged against the door.
“There are children on the scene, no injuries yet. Send someone right away,” I said before I dropped the call.
I stuck my pistol in the glove compartment to make sure I didn't have time to use it, lit up a cigarette, and got out of the Jeep again. I tried my best to keep my temper under control, but my heart jack hammered in my chest and I could feel my knuckles turning white as I clenched my fists at my side.
I ran to the sidewalk in front of the Dunn house and yelled, “Rick! The police are on their way. Walk away from the house and stop screaming.”
He turned, his face pinched up with rage. I could see ugly, tobacco-stained teeth beneath a thick, red beard. Wow, I needed to kick up my brushing habits if that was in my future.
“This ain't none of your business, Motherfucker!” He started forward, a step closer to me and away from the home. “Get the fuck outta here now, or I’ll have to get you the fuck outta here!” It was poetry, forgotten and lost to a more refined time.
I sized him up. He was tall, probably had seventy-five pounds on me, and at a guess, he was drunk as a bored millionaire in a pool full of absinthe. This was gonna hurt, but better to have him aimed at me than his wife and kids.
“They're on the way here already, Mr. Dunn. Do you want your children to see you handcuffed and shoved into the back of a police car?”
He puffed up his chest and moved more quickly toward me. I took a few steps onto the grass, hoping he might not bounce my head off the sidewalk.
“Now I got your ass!” he yelled as he reached out for me.
Time slowed as I hopped left to dodge those catcher's mitts he called hands. He stumbled, and I took another step toward the middle of the lawn. As he turned on me again, I put my fists up and started bouncing on the balls of my feet. I had a little martial arts training, but my body was still tuned for high school and academy boxing and my instincts kicked in.
He swung at me, his giant fist landing hard into my elbow as I dropped my arm to protect my ribs. It hurt. A lot. As he pulled back, though, he was wide open. I drilled him in the jaw with a right hook, then a left jab kissed his cheekbone. He stumbled back about three steps, rubbing his jaw and staring bullets at me.
I gave him his space, trying not to let on how much my arm hurt. My elbow throbbed and swelled immediately beneath my shirt. I couldn't let this guy hit me in the face, or it would all be over pretty quick.
“Just calm down, Rick. Try to get control of yourself.”
He lunged at me again, clearing the space between us fast for a guy of his size. I dropped back as he threw out a huge left hook. It came so close, I could taste his knuckle sweat.
He swung again and again, too quick for me to retaliate, backing me toward the house. Within seconds his breaths tumbled out in ragged gasps and I knew I just had to hold out a little longer.
He swung hard and high with a left, backing me up another step. Then I was against the house, stuck. He swung again, his right fist landing high on my shoulder, knocking the breath out of me. Then his left found its way to my hip. The blow was so strong it almost took me off my feet.
As he pulled back to ready another assault, I jabbed quickly—left to his cheek again, right to the side of his neck, left to the same cheek with a satisfying crack.
He stumbled back, and I bounced off the wall of the house, my hip and left arm protesting every movement. I shook it off best as I could and went back to the bob and weave as he lurched at me again. He missed right, then I ducked under another big left hook and swung at his ribs. He grunted and stepped back, but I stayed with him, throwing a fast uppercut and one more left to his cheekbone. This time the skin tore open, and I jumped back three quick steps as he reached up to grope at his face.
A police siren seeped through the blood pounding in my ears, so I knew time was almost up.
“Fuck!” he shouted, staring at the blood in his hands. “You broke my fuckin' cheek!”
He stopped coming after me now, and his legs were wide open as he stared at the blood dripping from his cheek, into the palm of his giant hand. His balance came undone, and he teetered left and right. His right eye swelled closed and his left was unfocused and unable to track me. The boxing lesson ended there. I took two quick steps and launched my right foot, fast and hard, directly into his nuts.
It felt so good I expected him to lift off the ground, but he just staggered and fell to his knees, howling like a gut-shot banshee. Then he threw up all over the front of his shirt and passed out, his eyes rolling to the back of his head.
I walked back to the sidewalk next to the Jeep, favoring my hip and holding my left arm gingerly in my right. Somehow, I found my still lit, but half gone, cigarette in the grass near the sidewalk. This was a blessing from a righteous god. Or goddess. Or, Ron Jeremy. I took a long pull from it and sat at the edge of the lawn as three black and white cruisers pulled to a stop in front of the house, lights and sirens blaring.
Chapter 10: Date Night
The cool air hit me as I stepped out of the shower and my nipples stood at attention. My elbow still ached, and in the mirror, I could see that my hip and shoulder wore beautiful badges of yellowish brown from where that white-trash Paul Bunyan pummeled me.
The uniforms hauled Mr. Dunn off in cuffs as soon as he could stand, still spitting hateful slurs about me and his wife between gagging and clutching his family jewels. If there were any justice in the universe, I had done some serious damage to the man's reproductive system.
After my run-in with that lummox, I drove home, downed enough single malt to get me through the night, and slept for almost fourteen hours. Then, I ate a microwave burrito, shot some more whiskey, and went back to bed. It was early evening when my pain coma finally eased. My muscles still burned like the struck end of a match, so I took a long, hot shower. It helped, but the water went cold long before I finished.
Bullshit.
I wiped my hand across the mirror to clear the fog, ran a razor over my face two or three times, and splashed on a light coating of aftershave. Tonight was my double-date with David and his new squeeze, and I wanted to look good for Claire. Unfortunately, all I could remember about her were the white cotton panties she had been wearing the last time I saw her.
I'm sure she had a face and other features too, but you can't expect me to remember every little thing.
Another perk to being me in the last several months is the upgrade to my wardrobe. With extra cash coming in all the time, I could finally fulfill a lifelong dream of mine: I now owned a different custom tailored suit for each day of the week. No more jacket free nights at The Rail, or tucking napkins into the collar of my shirt when I went out to eat. Nope, if I spilled something on my jacket now, I still had plenty of nice choices to get me through the week until the dry cleaning came back.
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br /> Since I had plans to go out with friends, and a serious hope of getting laid, I went with a two-button, steel gray Armani that I hadn't had the chance to wear yet. It fit so well I almost felt naked beneath the tropical wool slacks. I matched it with a white shirt, solid black tie, and my favorite dark fedora.
I checked myself out in the mirror on my closet door and almost felt bad for Claire. She didn't really stand a chance; I looked damn good. I thought of Kara and our gym date and had a stinging moment of regret. It wasn't the first time this had happened since I started to get to know the girl.
But she shot me down, so I didn't owe her anything. Right?
We had reservations at a swanky Italian place downtown in half an hour, so I locked the door and headed out to the Jeep. I took the top off, lit a smoke, and blared a live version of Sinatra at Madison Square Garden. My excitement rolled on the edge in a way I don’t know if anyone ever gets used to. The night had potential. Maybe I had some guilt, but I'm not ready to admit that yet.
It was a weekend so the roads downtown were an absolute nightmare. After being almost murdered by half a dozen different assholes, pretending to know what they were doing behind the wheel, my mood was muted, but still good.
When I pulled in front of the restaurant, a man who looked about fifty greeted me, with gray hair and smile lines bunching his forehead, wearing a bright green vest. I handed the valet a twenty-dollar bill and my keys, “I know you're busy as hell, but if you could put the top on for me, you would be my hero.”
“Not a problem, sir,” he answered with a sincere smile, then climbed behind the wheel of the Jeep and drove off.
I arrived ten minutes early and saw no sign of David, so I strolled a few yards away from the door and lit up another cigarette. The night graduated to that perfect time when you can see the stars, but the horizon still shone out pink and orange. Spring’s end was near, and the temperature had only dropped a few degrees since the sun went down, but felt close to perfect. My favorite time of day during my favorite time of year. I leaned against the wall of the building and closed my eyes, letting the evening air work its magic.
