Dwayne changed the subject, addressing Sally. “I heard Dickie arrested Bone Bandy. Rumor has it that Bone burglarized your house and came at you with an axe. And he was the one who attacked you at the rodeo.”
“Not exactly,” said Hawk, answering for her. “As usual, the rumor mill is cranking up a somewhat faulty version of events.”
Taking a page from Dwayne’s book, Sally decided not to elaborate.
“So are you up to gigging tonight?” Dwayne asked her. Was she? Was there anything she could do, with what remained of the day, about the tragedy of Monette Bandy or the displacement of Molly Wood? With Bone behind bars, Sally herself had nothing to worry about anymore. As for Monette, the police were, after all, in charge of the murder investigation. Scotty Atkins might have hit bottom, yesterday afternoon at a table not far from where they were sitting. But Sally knew, with a deep, not altogether comfortable certainty, that Scotty wouldn’t let go of this case. He’d drive himself, and everybody else, hard, fast, and into the ground, looking for the answer.
And then there was the problem of the Happy Jack for Wood’s Hole land swap. When it came to the future of Molly Wood’s home on the range, Sally and Hawk had done pretty much everything they could. They had the carry-on-size eye bags to prove it.
Face it. Sally’s Jubilee Days had so far been a bust (with the demise of Big Esther, a true flaming bust). But at last she was out of danger. She was entitled to seize a little pleasure, make a little music, blow off a little steam. The proceeds from Delice’s benefit would go to the women’s shelter. It would be partying with a purpose. “What the hell,” said Sally.
“But first a nap,” Hawk insisted.
Right as usual. She was beat enough to lie down in the gutter in front of the Wrangler, never mind the spilled drink cups and half-eaten pretzels, the drowned cigarette butts, the Slim Jim wrappers.
When he found out that they’d walked downtown, Dwayne considerately offered Sally and Hawk a ride home. In her demented state, she had to laugh. Riding in Dwayne’s Beamer, the “little bitty” vehicle Nattie had complained about having to drive sometimes, was like sailing along in your own custom-made cloud. And Dwayne, unlike Nattie, kept his vehicle shipshape. Whatever emergency gear he might have stowed away, the interior of the BMW was immaculate, not marred by so much as a stray Post-it note. Sally wondered if some employee of the Centennial Bank was obliged to vacuum the boss’s car every day.
“Nice car,” she told him. “I remember a time when you were driving a VW bus with a mattress instead of a backseat and the remains of a McCarthy daisy on the window.”
“To everything, there is a season,” Dwayne answered.
“Must drive you crazy, taking Nattie’s Escalade fishing, the way she’s got stuff piled up in the back,” Sally went on.
Dwayne shrugged. “It’s her car. The way business has been lately, I barely have time for fishing, much less organizing her gear. Here you go,” he told them as he pulled up in front of their house, and leaned over her to open the passenger-side door. “Get some rest, and we’ll rock ’n’ roll.” He took off the moment they were out of the car.
“Damn,” Hawk muttered as they went inside. “Guess we missed our chance to grill him about the land swap.”
“He sure split in a hurry,” Sally said. “I don’t think he was in the mood to answer questions.”
And she did have questions, but not ones she could put into words. Something was tugging at the back of her brain, but at the moment there wasn’t enough electricity firing inside her head to do more than pull her shoes off and fall on the bed. Hawk collapsed nearly on top of her.
She dreamed of a mountain brook, bubbling through a mountain meadow, and birds singing. But as it flowed on, the stream darkened and turned the grass the color of dried blood. Then there were ants, hauling the coated dead stalks away, groaning, and a woman lying in the grass, her hair and nails and lips the same deadly color, and no face.
And then Sally was dragged out of her daytime nightmare, in a tangle of jeans and T-shirts and Hawk’s arms and legs, when the telephone rang. She put a pillow over her head, but Hawk sprawled over Sally’s back to reach the bedside table and picked up the receiver. “It’s Brit,” he said, handing Sally the phone.
The sulky voice came through the wire, but for once Brit didn’t sound bored out of her mind. “Hello, hello? Sally?”
“Gmmph,” said Sally, trying hard to wake up.
“Listen. Herman just called me from the Lifeway. He went down there after the team roping this afternoon.”
“Oh yeah? How’d they do?”
“Third. Hamburger money. But that’s not why I called. Remember you asked me to get Herman to lean on his brother?” she said.
“Mmm-hmm,” Sally murmured.
“He and Adolph are on their way down to the courthouse to talk to my dad. I don’t know how, but somehow Herman, like, convinced Adolph that he had to come clean with the cops.”
That woke her up. Sally shoved Hawk off her and pushed herself into a sitting position. “Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. I don’t know what Herman did to him, but he managed to get Adolph to tell him that he didn’t just drop Monette off Monday when he took her home.”
“What happened?” Sally said.
“Adolph is a total worm,” Brit observed.
“What happened, Brit?” Sally persisted.
“According to Herman, Adolph said he decided to stay for his whole lunch break. He ‘just went in for a toke and a quickie,’ ” Brit answered. “At first he said Monette was ‘her usual horny self,’ and he was just doing her a favor.”
“A favor. But then he changed his story?” Sally asked.
“When Herman leans on you, I guess he can get pretty heavy,” Brit said.
“Get to the point, Brit,” Sally said, fully alert and out of patience.
“Adolph finally admitted to Herman that he deals a little smoke now and then. Monette had made some connections for him, on a kind of barter basis, I guess—he’d give her a couple of joints if she found him buyers. And sometimes she’d trade sex for dope.”
“And that’s what she did Monday?” Sally asked.
“Yeah. This gets kind of gross, Sally.” Brit hesitated.
“Don’t worry about it, Brit. I’ve seen stuff that goes way beyond ‘kind of gross,’ ” Sally prompted.
“She wanted something new. He went inside, and they got loaded, and then she pulled out a rope. Adolph used to ride with Herman, and he recognized it as a piggin’ string.”
“Go on,” Sally said, wishing, with part of her heart, that Brit would just stop right there. Too late to stop now.
“She made Adolph let her tie him up before they had sex, Sally,” Brit said.
“She tied him up?”
“Uh-huh.” Sally heard Brit swallow, hard. “Then they did it, and then she wanted him to tie her up, and do it again, but he had to get back to work.”
Sally had to ask. “Did Adolph say anything about how Monette was when he left her to go back to the store?”
She heard Brit take a breath. “He said she cussed him out for leaving her high and dry. And he pitied the next fool she got her hooks into, because, in Adolph’s words, ‘That bitch had a hole in her that nothing could ever fill up.’ ”
Chapter 27
Dirty Work
She hung up the phone and looked down at the bed. Hawk was gazing up at her, seeing through her, holding her with his eyes. “I’m afraid to ask,” he said.
She told him what Brit had said. He took her hand, kept looking at her, said nothing.
“How in the world do the cops stand it?” she said, her voice rising. “You and I wandered into this hideousness completely by accident. All we wanted to do was take a walk in the mountains. It wasn’t like we were looking for trouble. But guys like Dickie and Scotty Atkins have to live with every horrible, awful thing humans are capable of doing and thinking and saying. All the time. It comes with the job.”
“Walk away,” Hawk said simply. “Let them do what we pay them to do.”
“That would be the sensible thing,” Sally conceded.
“We both suffer from the delusion that there’s something we know, or can do, or have to do, to help,” Hawk said. “For me it started with finding the body. That made this thing personal.” He pulled Sally down next to him, put his arm around her, wrapping her close. “You know, Dickie amazes me. I don’t know how he manages to stay on the wagon, living with what he’s seen.”
“Then again,” Sally pointed out, “however tough it is staying clean, he sure knows the alternative. Imagine what he must have gone through, all those years he was on the run and at the end of his rope. And after all that, he came back sober and applied to the police academy. He looks cuddly but he’s a tough mother.”
“And how about Scotty?” Hawk asked her, his eyes very steady on hers.
“Tough. Not cuddly,” said Sally shortly.
“Looks like his job cost him his marriage. Wonder what else it costs,” Hawk mused.
“Too much,” said Sally, kissing him and snuggling down into the curve of his arm.
Hawk’s other hand slipped under her shirt. She felt the warmth of his palm, moving on her stomach, circling higher.
“You know, I really ought to get up and go over to Edna’s, see if Sheldon’s still around,” Sally told Hawk, and then sighed as he unsnapped her bra.
“Be reasonable,” he said. “If Sheldon’s there, he’ll just make you mad. If he’s gone and left a mess, that’ll piss you off too. There’s no hurry about getting over there to clean it up.”
“But maybe we should talk to him about the problem with his land,” Sally insisted.
“We could tell Sheldon his hair was on fire,” Hawk said, nibbling her neck, “and if he didn’t feel like hearing it, he wouldn’t pay any attention even when his head was burning.”
His logic was persuasive. So was his hand, and his busy fingers, and the fact that he’d thrown a leg over one of hers and was pressed against her in a most intriguing and inviting way. She could feel the warmth spread from Hawk to her, and gave it back with a kiss, beginning slow and soft. She seduced his mouth with her mouth. She reveled in the sweet heat of kissing her lover.
After a time she wanted more. She wanted to look at him, and touch him, to enjoy him completely, in the golden light of the passing afternoon. Hawk seemed content with the lazy pace of the way she made love to him, encouraging her with his own gentle, persistent overtures. She could feel the hardness of him through his jeans. “You want to be inside me,” she whispered.
“I want whatever you want,” he murmured back, his breath warm in her ear, a finger rubbing over her lips. “Take your time. I’m loving this.”
If she could have, she’d have stroked and kissed him for hours. One part of desire wanted just that. The other had claws, and no patience. “I need to see more of you,” she told him. “Take off your shirt.”
He did. And smiled slowly. “Aren’t we supposed to be in the place where the women are strong, and the men are equal?” he teased. When he pulled her T-shirt over her head, peeled her out of her bra, pushed her back down on the pillows and bent his head to her breasts, nuzzling, suckling, she groaned and strained up against him.
“I know you’re supposed to be doing me,” he said softly, “but I’m having a hard time controlling my urges. You’ll understand, won’t you?” he asked, fingers working on the buttons of her jeans.
“I’ll be very understanding,” she said, her own hands shaking as he finished the job, and slid his fingers down.
“Conserving underwear,” he said a moment later, “very sensible.”
Sally was anything but sensible as she freed him from his jeans, as he dragged hers all the way off. She was too impatient to return the favor, but now she rolled on top of him, and had him where she wanted him. “I think you’re going to like this,” she said, kissing her way down his chest and belly, slow and deliberate.
“Oh man. Nice mouth,” was all he could say when she reached her goal.
They were both shaking a little when she finally got his pants off, slid back up his body, and took him in. She remembered her resolution to go slow and gentle. Her intentions were noble, but soon it seemed that nothing could get in the way of a burgeoning desire to see if she could make him scream.
“There’s a lot to be said for sexual escapism,” Hawk said, after a while.
“Works for me,” Sally agreed.
“I’ve been thinking about Sheldon,” he allowed.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she told him.
“Not for long,” he said, “just the past second or so.”
“And what are you thinking?” she asked.
Hawk rolled onto his side and leaned on one arm, looking at her. “I should probably go over to Edna’s with you, and if he’s there, try to talk to him about the ground-water problem. The worst he can do is blow us off.”
“Only a little while ago you thought Sheldon could wait.” Sally smiled.
“Changed my mind,” said Hawk.
She gave him a half smile. “A lot of women who’d just screwed a man halfway comatose would be insulted at the thought that he could switch from senselessness to contemplating the fate of the earth, in the space of just that second or so. But not me. I admire that kind of obsessive-compulsive move.”
“You’re my role model,” he said, hauling himself out of bed and giving her a smacking kiss. “You’ve got great moves.”
The good news: Sheldon was sitting in a lawn chair by the picnic table in Edna and Tom’s backyard, staring up into the crown of the sheltering cottonwood. On the ground next to him was a packed duffel bag.
The bad news: He was guzzling wine out of a Mason jar, and Sally recognized the label on the bottle. Edna had a friend who ran a boutique winery in Napa Valley, a man who had made a quasi-religion of the mysterious California zinfandel grape. Edna had put down a bottle of the angelic inaugural 1989 vintage for a fitting occasion—say, the Second Coming. Not only had Sheldon cracked it open—he’d managed to shove the cork down in the bottle, and the jar he was just refilling had small, blasphemous pieces of cork floating a quarter of an inch below the screw-top.
Now that would be hard to find on the Net.
“I know you’re eager to get me out of here, and as you can see, I’m packed and ready to go,” Sheldon told Sally. “You’ll be glad to hear that I’ve found a place to stay tonight. Dwayne and Nattie have kindly offered to put me up.”
“Isn’t that nice?” Sally said, too sweetly. “I thought you’d turned in your report to Carhart today. How come you’re sticking around?”
Sheldon took a gulp of the zin, and then looked up with a weak smile. “Don’t want to miss the big party of the week.”
“Now which party would that be?” Sally asked. “The one for the benefit of the women’s shelter, or the one you and your partners are going to throw in celebration of cheating an elderly woman out of her home?”
“Sal . . .” said Hawk, putting a hand on her arm.
“Lay off, Hawk. I want to know, right now, what the hell you’re up to, Sheldon. We’ve found out some things that make us think you’re not just here playing with yourself.”
“There’s no need for you to question the legitimacy of my ethnographic research project,” Sheldon said, affront in every word.
“That’s enough!” Hawk spat. “I refuse to listen to even one minute of horseshit. Just answer one question, Stover—yes or no, do you own the land up at Happy Jack that the investors’ group is proposing to swap for Molly Wood’s place in Centennial Valley?”
Sheldon ran his finger around the edge of his Mason jar. “For the moment,” he finally answered.
Sally was ready to explode, but Hawk cut her off. “By that I take it to mean that the deal hasn’t been finalized.”
“In a world of uncertainty such as ours, nothing can truly be finalized,” Sheldon pronounced
.
“I said no horseshit.” Hawk spoke slowly and quietly. “Facts here, Stover. You believe that the swap will go through, sometime soon, leaving you part owner of the ranch. And Molly comes out of the deal with the Happy Jack property and several millions of dollars in cash. Correct?”
Sheldon put a finger in his wine, chased a chunk of cork around, fished it out, and flicked it on the ground. “Understanding that knowledge is fractured and fragmented, and susceptible of reception according to innumerable contingencies, I see no reason why I should share any information on this matter with the two of you,” he said, raising the jar to his lips.
Hawk’s hand lashed out, slapping the jar out of Sheldon’s hand and sending it flying, smashing against the trunk of the tree, dark purple wine and bits of glass cascading down. The next thing Sally knew, Hawk had him by the neck of his T-shirt, half out of his chair, and Sheldon appeared to be choking.
“Stop strangling him, Hawk,” she said, batting at Hawk’s fist, clenched tight in the fabric of the T-shirt. “No more postmodern fancy dancing here, Sheldon—in case you’ve missed the news, you live in a real world of real things, like land and water and beavers. And dioxin.”
Sally watched his eyes. If Sheldon was surprised at her last word, it didn’t show. “I don’t deny the existence of real things, Sally.” Hawk had released his hold only enough to permit Sheldon to breathe, and here he was lecturing. Priceless, in a way. “Only a fool would do that. I do, however, maintain that many of the things that have the appearance or the shadow or the trace or the imprint of the real are susceptible of interpretation, to an almost infinite degree. Most of what appears natural to us is, indeed, naturalized, conjecture masquerading as certainty.”
“I know where this is going,” Hawk hissed, teeth gritted, as he shoved Sheldon back into his chair. “Let me see if I can summarize. You do own the land, you’re aware that the groundwater is polluted from the old tie plant up-aquifer, and you’re fully willing to toss the potato, hot as it is, to the next poor slob in the game. Am I getting this straight?”
Bad Company Page 29
