* * *
"D. C. Lyman."
"Your briefcase will be in the Veteran’s Cemetery at midnight, at a headstone ten rows south of Constitution Avenue and ten rows west of Veteran. Got that?"
"Yes."
* * *
"Let’s go bury this," Shelley said.
She held up the key to Brooks’s apartment. They buried it at the base of a headstone labeled “Boyd,” several rows from where they dropped the briefcase.
* * *
Clendon stretched out on the velour couch and Shelley sat in the recliner. The bag of money rested on the floor.
"Where shall we go?" he asked.
"Anywhere."
"Do you have a passport?"
"No."
"Do you think it went too easy?"
"Far too easy."
"We should start driving."
"They’ll never look for us here."
"I should be tied down so my head won’t bump the ceiling," Clendon said.
"Do you want me to tie you down?"
"If you think it will help."
Shelley adjusted the lamps and the dimmer light made her face golden. She came over to the couch and touched his arm. She unlaced his shoes and pulled them off, then slipped his socks off.
"Shelley, how did you get rid of your accent? You talk like you’re from L.A."
"It took years of practice into a tape recorder. They’d never given me a Ph.D. here if I still talked like you. Try talking faster."
She sat on the couch and placed his feet in her lap. Her hands caressed his toes. It tickled and Clendon tried not to twitch.
"Careful. I have a sore knee."
She began squeezing his feet. Her thumbs and fingertips pressed into his soles. With each rhythmic squeeze he began to relax and soon he felt like melting into the velour. He then noticed she was wearing a pair of brushed gray denims.
"Should we sneak across the Mexican border or just move to New Orleans?"
"Is that far enough?" Shelley asked.
"How far do you want to go?"
Shelley’s hands went smoothly up and down on both his feet. Clendon closed his eyes. He felt a swelling inside the crotch of his pants.
"You have beautiful feet, Clendon. Have you ever had your toes sucked?"
"Is this ethical? Sucking the toes of your patient?"
"I’m not your therapist and you’re not my patient."
"What about your analysis of my dream?"
"I should tell you something."
"What?" Clendon asked.
"Clinical psychologists aren’t trained in dream analysis."
Shelley bent over and placed her lips over the big toe of Clendon’s right foot. She ran her hands inside his pant legs and rubbed his lower calves. Her hair hung over her face. She took three of his toes into her mouth and sucked lightly and ran her tongue between them.
"You just lie there and take it," she said.
"I’m thinking."
"About what?"
She gave him a tongue flick across his toes.
"I’m thinking about what I can do about my alienation from my own body," Clendon said.
"Where would you like to start?"
"Maybe I should start with your body."
"How?"
"I could to start with your feet, then slowly work my way up."
"Yeah? How far?"
"Far, but not too far, because I would stop and massage your head, starting on the crown, and rub your scalp, then work my way down to your forehead, and your face, and your neck."
"How far down would you go?"
"Far, but not too far."
"How far is too far?" she asked.
"I wouldn’t go any farther than you wanted me to go."
Clendon slid to the floor and took off her shoes, a pair of brown Bass walkers. She was wearing yellow and blue striped cotton socks, and he pulled those off, too. He knelt before her feet, held her right foot in his hand, and began massaging it. He flicked his tongue across the tips of her toes. She shivered. Her toes smelled like warm honey.
"How far can you go?" Shelley asked.
"As far as you like."
"Can we go to China?"
"If you like," Clendon said.
"Tahiti?"
"Fine."
"Bora Bora?"
"Yes."
"Bangkok too?"
"All in one night?"
Clendon’s head felt light, like a hot air balloon. He began unfastening her brushed denim pants. She took his hand and moved it to the place where she wanted his fingertips to be.
"Tell me if I go too far."
"You can’t go too far," she said.
PART THREE
ZERO
They woke, shivering. Shelley stretched and groaned.
"Do you want to go up to bed?"
"No," she said.
Clendon searched for a blanket. The house creaked. When he came back, he clicked off the table lamp. Shelley lay curled up. He lay back down and covered them both with the blanket. She stretched out. They began warming, intertwining legs and pressing chest to chest. Shelley slept in his arms, her breath on his neck as he faded away.
* * *
There were no stairs now, no building, no height, only space, the open country, miles and miles of plains receding away. Shelley and Clendon walked in fields under bright sunlight on a cool autumn day. She wore a flowing dress to mid-calf. They followed a freshly plowed furrow until Clendon stepped in an opened leather travel bag. They fell to the ground and landed in a patch of sand burrs that stuck him painfully in the back. They rolled on the ground and struggled to get up, but the burrs kept sticking. Their hands became stuck together by the burrs. There was a loud bang. A steel animal trap inside the leather bag had clenched on Clendon's ankle. His eyes snapped open and he jumped.
Shelley was awake.
"What was that noise?" she whispered.
"You heard it? I thought it was in my dream."
Another loud bang was followed by crashing glass from the kitchen.
"I locked all the doors and windows."
They heard scraping noises.
"Call 911."
Shelley, wrapped in the blanket, crawled across the floor and picked up the phone.
"It's dead."
The lights came on, blinding them, and Asp's voice said, "Well. Adam and Eve."
Clendon blinked and sat up, one hand shielding his eyes, the other covering his balls. Shelley shrank under the blanket. Asp and two other men dressed in business suits stood in the doorway to the living room and held pistols on them.
"What are you, the snake?"
"Since when did you ever study the Bible?" Asp asked.
His sunburned face turned redder.
"Is that loaded?" Clendon asked.
"Cocked, too, asshole."
Asp seated himself in the recliner while the other two men stood at each doorway. They had identical suits and hair cuts, except that one was skinny and the other one pudgy.
"So I was right," Asp said.
"About what?"
"You were fucking her."
Clendon glanced at the wall clock. It was almost four a.m. His eyes burned.
"What do you want?"
"Mrs. Boyd, you should remove that blanket real slow so we can see what's under there."
She didn't move.
"Come on, take off the blanket."
Shelley still didn't move.
"I said take it off!"
Asp jumped up and jerked at the blanket as she fought to stay wrapped in it. Clendon started to get up.
"Don't move," the skinnier man said.
He aimed his .38 at Clendon's head. The pudgy man helped Asp wrench the blanket away from Shelley.
"Just tell us what you want and we'll give it to you," Clendon said.
"You are dumber than a Dallas banker," Asp said.
"Let her go put some clothes on. You'd rat
her stare at me anyway."
Asp sat down and they all put their revolvers away.
Shelley unfolded herself and stood up naked. She put her arm out as if to shove the pudgy man aside, but he grabbed her hair, yanked her across the room, and shoved her onto the couch next to Clendon. She raised her arm to swing at him, but he yanked her hair once more. She screamed and went limp. Then she huddled herself again and chewed her lip.
"You left the wrong briefcase in the cemetery, and you are so fucking dumb that you didn't even know it."
"Okay, so I'm dumb."
"But not so goddamn dumb that you know you can't take payment on phony goods."
Asp nodded. The skinny man picked up the leather bag and handed it to Asp, who rummaged through the cash.
"It's all here," Asp said and returned the money bag to the skinny man. "Secure this."
The skinny man left the room with the money bag. The front door opened and closed.
"You are a dumb fuck, Mr. Lindsey. You should've hopped the first goddamn flight to Amsterdam or some perverted place like that. Then you'd been free, white, and rich, but like I said, you're too damn dumb. You had to come back to the widow's house and wet your dipstick first. Couldn't even wait till you got to Amsterdam."
"At least now I know you work for Lyman," Clendon said.
"You don't know anything," Asp said. "You were given a gift and you blew it. You were going to walk free with one hundred grand in cash and nobody was going to stop you."
"It looks like you're taking the hundred grand for yourself now."
"Mr. Lindsey, you could've been taken any time after you called Lyman's secretary. How many people in L. A. with Okie accents are going to be calling up D. C. Lyman about Brooks Boyd's briefcase? No, they decided to let you walk with the cash so they could get the briefcase back. They were going to play your game-- "
"Who's they?"
"Don't interrupt, Okie."
"What's in the briefcase?" Clendon asked.
Asp bolted from the recliner and shoved Shelley's legs apart as she tried to squirm away. They struggled as she clamped her legs together, crossing one over the other. Asp reached with his hand and yanked on her pubic hair. She screamed and grabbed herself as he held up a tuft of dark blond pubic hair between his fingers. He pushed the pubic hair into Clendon's face and rubbed it against Clendon's lips.
"If you don't shut up, next time I'll yank out her little joy button with some tweezers and shove it down your fucking throat! Do you know what happens to persons with microscopic brains who think they can outsmart certain people?"
Shelley rubbed herself where her hair had been pulled out.
"They wouldn't be here unless they were desperate," she said. "He can't do anything to us because he thinks we still have the briefcase they want."
Asp made a disgusted face.
"Haven't you noticed those local cops haven't been around anymore?"
"So you called them off," Shelley said. "It doesn't mean anything. It's a stand off."
Asp adjusted himself in the recliner again until he was comfortable.
"Look, Clendon, we have evidence that you've been dealing with the Russians."
"Why don't you tell the FBI?" Clendon asked.
Asp smiled.
"Maybe we will, if we need to."
"He's so full of bullshit, Clendon," Shelley said. "He has nothing."
"Spying for the Russians," Asp said. "That usually carries forty years to life, the last few trials they've had. Unless you killed somebody while you were doing it, then it's execution."
The skinny man returned, bagless, but he was now carrying a large ball peen hammer.
"Now that's secure, we have to do a couple of things," Asp said. "We have to look, and we have to wait."
"Could we get dressed now?"
"I'm a decent person," Asp said. "I'm not comfortable doing business with people who aren't dressed. One at a time. Ladies first. I'll take her upstairs myself."
"You touch her, I'll kill you."
"Cut out the macho crap."
"My clothes are right there on the floor," Shelley said.
"They're dirty," Asp said. "We'll go upstairs and you can put on some fresh clothes."
"I'm not going upstairs with you," Shelley said. "You can go up yourself and bring some clothes down for me."
"I wouldn't want to pick out the wrong thing."
Asp stepped over to Shelley and swiftly threw her over his shoulder. He clomped up the stairs, Shelley cussing at him.
"Hey, guys," Clendon said. "My clothes are right here on the floor, can I just slide them on real fast?"
"Wait'll they get back."
Clendon waited, listening for thumping, crashing, and yelling, but it stayed quiet for slow minutes. Then footsteps dashed down the stairs and Shelley appeared in the room, dressed in another pair of brushed denims, a light cotton shirt, and no bra. She put her shoes on as Asp came back, grinning and looking more relaxed.
"Get dressed, Okie," he said. "You look stupid naked."
Clendon pulled his clothes on and sat on the couch next to Shelley.
"Now we have to look around," Asp said.
"Don't waste your time," Shelley said. "There's no briefcase or anything else here."
Asp settled into the recliner again. The other men brought in two chairs from the dining room and placed Shelley and Clendon back to back. The men pulled Shelley and Clendon's arms behind them and handcuffed them together with two pairs of cuffs. One pair connected his right wrist with her left wrist, and vice versa.
When they started with the ball peen hammer, the men didn't overturn any plants or drape panty hose over furniture like the cops. First, they smashed the base of a lamp on an end table. The base shattered and collapsed. The light bulb stayed on under the twisted lamp shade. Then they smashed the end table and cracked it in half.
"Where is it?" Asp asked.
They smashed the other lamp and the other end table.
"Where is it?"
They smashed a framed Van Gogh sunflowers print. The glass splintered and a big shard fell on the floor.
"Where is it?"
"You can break everything," Shelley said. "We don't have it."
The two men went into the bathroom and banged around and broke the mirror. They went upstairs and the smashing and breaking went on.
"Where is it?"
They came back in and smashed the glass coffee table. It cracked into five jagged pieces and fell to the carpet. They took Shelley's Volvo keys and the keys to the BMW and went outside. They searched the cars until they didn't find anything. Clendon was beginning to get hungry. It was after seven a. m.
"Look in the backyard," Asp said.
When they returned, they said nothing looked freshly dug up.
"Where is it?"
"We don't know," Shelley said. "You said yourself when you walked in that you thought we were dumb for thinking we ever had the right briefcase. So why are you acting like we're not so dumb? Can't make up your mind?"
"Honey, plan A was first we had to look. If we didn't find it, then we go to Plan B, which is wait."
"Wait? Wait for what?"
"Just wait," Asp said.
"Could we wait on a full stomach? I'm hungry," Clendon said.
"If you'll let me loose, I'll go in and cook everybody a real big breakfast," Shelley said. "You guys must be tired after all that destruction."
"Do you have some eggs?" Asp asked. "I love fried eggs."
"I have some eggs."
"Do you know how to fry an egg?" Asp asked the pudgy man.
"Sure."
"Good. Ed, go fry me and you and Carl up some eggs. Do you have some bread?"
"Yes," Shelley said.
"Make lots of toast, too."
"How about a cup of coffee?" Clendon asked.
"Make some coffee for the three of us," Asp said.
They ate and drank their cof
fee in front of Clendon and Shelley. After they finished, Ed and Carl went into the kitchen and broke some cups and plates.
In an hour or so, Clendon's hunger pains passed. He still felt light-headed for another hour, but that passed, too. Asp talked football until his men got bored. It was pushing noon before Clendon's hands went numb. His butt had gone numb about nine.
At quarter after twelve, Clendon said, "Jesus Christ, Asp, let us go take a leak."
They were uncuffed and allowed relief one at a time as the two men escorted them to and from, then recuffed them together as before.
"How long are we going to wait?"
"Until the sheriff comes to repossess the house."
"Are you going to let us eat? It's easier to cooperate and think clearly on a full stomach."
"What makes you think I care how clear you think?"
Ed went out and came back with hamburgers. Asp started talking about pro rassling. His two men started a pinochle game on the floor. It was getting dark outside. Shelley fell asleep.
Clendon decided that whomever they were waiting for wasn't expecting them, and he couldn't think of any company Shelley had mentioned that she was expecting. He was almost beginning to feel safe as long as the doorbell never rang.
Finally, Asp stopped talking, leaned back in the recliner, and dozed. In five minutes he was snoring. It woke Shelley up. Ed and Carl got tired of sitting on the floor among the debris and moved to the kitchen's breakfast nook with their pinochle game.
"Shelley."
"Yes."
"I have a plan."
"About time, Clendon."
Another hour creaked past before Carl came back in the room. He looked at Asp still sleeping and shook his head.
"I have to go to the bathroom again," Shelley said softly. "It's been six hours."
Carl went in the kitchen and returned with his partner. He uncuffed them as Ed watched. They left Clendon's cuffs on but freed his hands as an empty cuff dangled from each wrist. Ed followed Shelley out of the room. Clendon flexed his hands and arms to rebuild the damaged circulation. Carl sat on the couch. Asp kept snoring.
"Don't do anything, wise-ass," Carl said.
"My arms are killing me and you know it."
Clendon started doing the Stan Laurel hand trick he had learned as a kid, a trick Stan had used to distract Ollie. Clendon placed his hands on his thighs, then at the same time brought his right hand to his left ear and his left hand to his nose, put both hands back on his knees, then switched-- bringing his left hand to his right ear and his right hand to his nose. The cuffs bobbed and jangled along.
Land of Dreams Page 12
