Body Language

by James W. Hall

  “I believe I recognize this lawbreaker,” he said. “Yes indeed. I put this one away back in the seventies. Armed robbery. Held up a gas station near the airport, wounded the attendant and two patrons. Went by the name of Frank Sinatra. Got a free ride to Raiford, thirty hard ones.”

  “Frank Sinatra,” Stan said. “Jesus.”

  With his eyes on the pistol, Stan bent forward, scooped up more of his breakfast, and patted his mouth with his napkin.

  “Okay, Frank, quit stalling. On your feet, and do it slowly, with your hands in plain view.”

  “Dad, stop it. This is Stan, my husband. He lives here.”

  Her father swiveled his head and gave her a careful look.

  “You married this ex-con, this goddamn lowlife? Don’t tell me that, Alexandra. Don’t break an old man’s heart.”

  “Dad, this is Stan Rafferty. He’s my husband. You used to watch him play football in high school.”

  “What? You married a football player?”

  “Yes, Dad. You gave me away, remember? St. Jude’s. It was July, a hot day. All the bridesmaids in pink. You and Mother were so happy. You remember that. I know you do.”

  “St. Jude’s?”

  The pistol began to sag. Alexandra put her hand on his arm and lowered it. Her wedding day was one of the moments he still recalled vividly.

  “Pink,” he said. “All the bridesmaids. Yeah, and it was hot, and there was some damn bird in the chapel, a laughing gull trapped in there, flying around, squawking. We all thought that was a sign of something. But I never was any good at reading signs.”

  Alexandra tried to pry the pistol out of his hand, but her father pulled away from her and holstered the weapon and buttoned the safety strap.

  Stan shook his head and turned the page of the paper, folded it in half the way he liked, got the creases even, and continued to read.

  “You say his name’s Stan?”

  “That’s right, Stan.”

  Her father narrowed his eyes, trying to catch her in this lie.

  “What position did he play?”

  “Cornerback at South Miami,” she said. “He was allstate.”

  “Damn right,” Stan said. “MVP in the regionals, too.”

  “Where are my grandchildren? They at school already?”

  “There aren’t any, Dad. Stan and I don’t have any children.”

  “No children? Nine years married and no children?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You got something wrong with you, son? You got a sperm problem, do you?”

  Stan looked up from his newspaper. He stared at Alexandra for a few seconds and shook his head again.

  “He probably got adopted by one of those weight-lifting monsters at Raiford. Guy wants to have butt-hole sex five times a day. Before you know it, he’s banged your prostate to death. No wonder you two don’t have any kids.”

  Stan slapped his paper down.

  “Hey, shut the hell up, Lawton. You hear me? Can you understand what I’m saying? Just shut the hell up about my prostate and the rest of that garbage.”

  “Don’t talk to him that way, Stan,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah, yeah. So tell him to stop saying that trash to me, why don’t you?”

  “You know better. Just calm down, control yourself.”

  “Butt-hole sex,” Stan said. “Jesus, I have to listen to this shit at breakfast?”

  He was about to say something else, but Alex caught his eye.

  “Enough,” she said. “From both of you.”

  Stan sighed, smoothed some wrinkles from the paper.

  “Hell, what difference does it make? I could call the old fool every goddamn name I ever heard and he wouldn’t remember it ten seconds later. There’s no water in the well. Drop a brick from ten feet up, there’s no splash.”

  “Well, today’s the day,” her dad said. He cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders, and his eyes were suddenly bright and clear. “I’m relocating.”

  He stooped over and picked up his suitcase and started for the door.

  “Wait a minute, Dad. Come on, sit down, have something to eat.”

  “No time to eat. I’m out of here, on my way up the road.”

  “Dad, Dad. You can’t go relocating on an empty stomach, right? Breakfast is the most important meal.”

  He stopped at the back door and stared at her.

  “It’s very important,” she said. “Keeps you going the rest of the day.”

  “Well, yes. That’s a good point. I suppose I should have something warm in my belly before I start out.”

  Stan groaned and went back to his plate, sopping up the runny egg yolks with the last of his toast. He was a big man. Jet-black hair that he wore just long enough for a part. Short arms, brawny from his barbells and morning push-ups, small hands with blunt fingers. He was television-handsome, with a muscular face and light blue eyes. He’d hardly aged in the eleven years she’d known him. One of the two or three most popular boys at South Miami High, co-captain of the football team, senior class treasurer, big-time practical joker. Iguanas and corn snakes set loose in the teachers’ lounge. Once coaxing half the football team into hoisting the principal’s Volkswagen up onto the bed of the vice-principal’s pickup.

  But it wasn’t his status that won her heart, or his looks, or his prowess before thousands of cheering fans. It was the way he treated his sister, Margie. She was a year younger and suffered from an acute case of multiple sclerosis. Stan Rafferty had been fiercely protective of her, leaving his classes five minutes before the bell so he could run to Margie’s classroom and help her move down the hall to her next period. They joked and spoke in whispers and Stan seemed to be her one solace and relief from pain. Every game ball he received, he held high above his head and trotted up into the stadium to present it to his smiling sister. The summer after their senior year, Margie died, and Stan sobbed openly. Alexandra was deeply touched. Such a strong, independent boy capable of such mature and sheltering warmth and unguarded displays of emotion.

  And for the first few years of living together, sharing Stan’s small apartment, and later in the house on Silver Palm, things had been fine. Both of them nineteen, Stan at work for Brinks, helping her parents pay Alexandra’s tuition to the local state university. It was a pleasant time. Not blissful, not a swooning romance, but good and sweet. Stan, a tender lover, almost too tender. He seemed skittish and vulnerable. Touching her body with a lightness and caution that seemed childlike and full of wonder, as if her body were made of fine crystal that might break at the slightest miscue. But in some ways, it was exactly what she’d needed. The muscular football jock with the feathery hands, the watchful and delicate strokes. The perfect man to set the record straight.

  Over the years, she’d come to find that Stan Rafferty was a mostly decent man, a little childish sometimes perhaps, a streak of self-centeredness. They didn’t bicker, rarely snapped at each other. But there were no longer any fond stray touches, either—no foot massages or back rubs, as there had been in the first couple of years, no hand-holding in the dark, no kisses that heated to combustion. Even their regular Sunday-morning lovemaking had become as perfunctory and timed as his calisthenics drills. Not sufficient reason for divorce, but less and less reason to stay married.

  Last month, she’d gone to see one of the shrinks who worked for the department. A Latin woman in her mid-forties whom Alex had seen for years around the hallways of Miami PD. They’d had a cordial, nodding relationship, mild water-fountain gossip. The woman welcomed Alexandra into her office and listened to her description of her nine-year marriage. The loss of passion, the growing distance, whole days passing by with fewer than ten words between them. When Alex was finished, Maria Gonzalez stared idly down at the papers on her desk. For a moment, Alex thought she’d dozed off.

  “Maria?”

  The therapist looked up from her notes.

  “This is all?” she said. “He doesn’t hit you?”

&n
bsp; “No, he doesn’t hit. I wouldn’t stay a day if he hit.”

  “No arguments, no screaming, no throwing things. He doesn’t berate you, belittle you in any way?”

  “No, it’s all very quiet. Very low-key.”

  “And you love him still?”

  Alex hesitated a moment.

  “Yes,” she said. “But it’s more like the feeling I’d have for a kid brother.”

  Maria waved her hand as if such fine distinctions didn’t interest her.

  “Does he love you?”

  “In his way, yes, I suppose he does.”

  Maria looked at Alexandra for a long time without speaking. It was a look similar to the one she’d gotten over the years from various auto mechanics when she’d brought her car in because she’d heard a creak that she was sure was the telltale complaint of a crucial part about to give way. Inevitably, the mechanics never heard the creak, and they sent her on her way with that same patient but mildly scolding look. They had plenty of customers with real problems, cars that wouldn’t run at all.

  “Trouble with Miami,” Lawton said as he sat down,

  “it’s always summer. I’m sixty-seven years old, and, goddamn it, I’m ready for a real fall. Maybe I’ll try Ohio. I’ve heard that’s nice.”

  “You were raised in Ohio,” Stan said, eyes on his plate. “You old fool.”

  “Stan,” she said. “Cut it out.”

  At the sink, Alexandra watched Mrs. Langstaff across the street. Big woman heaving herself into her van, then pulling out the drive, off to work at her candle shop. A row of neat lawns over there, prim hedges running along the sidewalks. Dogs asleep on porches. Flowers blooming in window boxes. Alexandra’s daytime world. Miami Nice. Almost as unreal as her nights.

  She walked over to the oven, took out her father’s pancakes, carried them to the table, and set them in front of him.

  “You like summer, Dad. Yellowtail fishing, dolphin. You used to love that time of year most of all.”

  “I used to love a lot of things.”

  He stared into a slant of sunlight, mouth clamped.

  “Dad?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Don’t disturb. him,” Stan said. “He’s counting dust motes, picking his lotto number for the day.”

  Stan stood up, brushed the crumbs off his white uniform shirt.

  “You’re not funny, Stan.”

  “Hey, Alex.” Stan’s blue eyes were hard on hers. “It isn’t working. We can’t keep living like this. Guns and shit. The old man’s got to go. You should just start getting used to the idea.”

  Alexandra sponged off the counter by the sink, kept her eyes from him.

  “After work, I’m going over to the range,” Stan said, “hit a few buckets of balls.”

  “With Delvin.”

  “That’s right, with Delvin.”

  “The mysterious Delvin.”

  “He’s a guy from work, Alex. He’s not mysterious.”

  “So why have I never met him? Why don’t you ever bring him home?”

  Alexandra looked over at Lawton, who was pouring more syrup on his pancakes. There was syrup spilling over the edge of his plate, pooling on the table.

  “Look, I’m not having a goddamn affair. I like to hit golf balls, and I like Delvin. Why is it that all of a sudden I can’t spend a little free time with a buddy?”

  She rubbed hard at a crusty spot on the rim of the sink.

  “Just be home before nine, okay? I need to be at work early tonight. There’s stuff piled up from the lab.”

  “The Bloody Rapist strikes again, huh? Guy kills somebody, next day the goddamn overtime starts.”

  “I don’t have a whole lot of choice. It’s my job.”

  “You’ve got choices, Alex. You’re just making the wrong ones.”

  She turned to face him. She kept her voice under control.

  “Is that supposed to be some kind of warning?”

  “Take it any way you want. But get one thing straight—I’m not going to keep doing-this, baby-sitting your old man. Spending every night listening to his babble. I didn’t sign on for that.”

  Measuring her breath, she leaned her hip against the stove.

  “Is that right? And what did you sign on for, Stan? Just the good times?”

  Stan wouldn’t hold her gaze. He busied himself with his newspaper.

  “I’ve had enough of this. It isn’t right. Guns and shit. You said it was going to be temporary, him living here. A couple of weeks and you’d find a place for him. That’s what you said, Alex. I remember plain as day. It’s the only reason I agreed in the first place.”

  “Those places are horrible, Stan. I looked at half a dozen and I wouldn’t leave a dog in any of them.”

  “Well, then you’re damn well going to have to keep on looking, Alex. Because this isn’t working out.”

  “I can’t do that to him, Stan. Stick him in one of those sterile, hopeless places. He’s my father.”

  “No, he’s not. Not anymore. He’s some five-year-old kid with slobber on his chin.”

  He was about to say something more when Lawton pushed back his chair.

  “Hands in the air, Frank Sinatra. Get ’em up and there won’t be any trouble.”

  He had his pistol out again. Rising slowly to his feet, using his left hand to steady his aim.

  “Dad, now stop it. Come on, listen to me.”

  “Up in the air, where I can see them. And you, young lady, over by the fridge. Hands up, as well.”

  “Fuck this,” Stan said, and started toward the dining room.

  “Freeze, you bastard.”

  Stan kept going and Alexandra’s father lifted the pistol and fired a warning shot into the ceiling. A slab of plaster fell to the floor and milky dust clouded the room. He fired again, gouging a hole in the wall above the doorway.

  Stan was on his knees in the dining room, hands above his head.

  “Jesus Christ! Alex, goddamn it. Do something.”

  “When I say freeze, I mean freeze, punk.”

  Alexandra stepped in front of her father. The pistol pointed at her heart.

  She took a breath, edged close to him, tried to intercept his eyes. Very quietly, she hummed the first few notes of the wedding march, hearing the shiver in her voice, but going ahead with it. Eyes on her father’s eyes, watching them slowly unlock, drift away from the felon he saw beyond her shoulder. His mouth opening as Alexandra stepped closer, singing the notes again, a little louder.

  The pistol sagged, came slowly down. Her father took a long breath and looked up at the ceiling as if searching for the laughing gull trapped in the big sanctuary. She slipped the pistol out of his hand and hooked her arm through his and propelled him forward toward the dining room.

  Stan was on his feet, fists at his side. His mouth was twisted and his face purple. There were muscles quivering in his cheeks, as if he were chewing on roofing nails.

  “Goddamn it, Alex, the bastard could’ve killed me.”

  “You’re okay, Stan. Everything’s fine.”

  “Where’d he get those goddamn bullets?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Jesus H. Christ. One of the neighbors hears gunshots over here, calls the police … I could lose my fucking job.”

  “All right, all right.”

  She went back to the wedding march, her arm looped through her father’s, leading him down that long aisle of memory.

  “I don’t need this shit,” Stan said. “Not today. Not any day. He’s out of here. I’m not arguing about it anymore. When I come home today, that’s it. He better be packed. You’re going to have to decide, Alex, who you want to live with, your husband or that half-wit.”

  FOUR

  After Stan left, Alex got Lawton into a pair of khakis and a short-sleeved plaid shirt, then settled him in front of a morning news show.

  In the bedroom while she straightened the quilt and fluffed the pillows, she listened to the television in the next roo
m, a reporter detailing the background of the latest victim of the Bloody Rapist. A paralegal with a prestigious downtown firm. Recently divorced, the woman had moved to Miami only the month before. Her family back in Baltimore had warned her that Miami was too dangerous, but she’d come anyway. “She believed the travel posters,” her brother snarled.

  When the TV cut to a commercial, Alex went to her closet, took her fanny pack down, and strapped it on. Stepping into a slash of sunlight, she withdrew the photographs and held them up to the light, four twisted hieroglyphs. Gasper, Hear No Evil, the Swatter, Floater. Studying them carefully one by one, as if in that harsh morning sun she might glimpse the crucial detail she had overlooked before.

  It was a violation of department rules, bringing home evidentiary material. But she couldn’t help herself. Dan Romano was right, of course: This case was troubling her, disturbing her already-restless sleep. Time after time, she would jerk awake, the answer in her mind, but as she fetched for it, the image faded, staying just beyond her reach, some insistent warning signal that continued to elude her.

  Over the last few weeks, she had slipped the photographs one by one into her pouch and now carried them with her everywhere, sneaking them out when she was alone, staring at them, focusing, trying to identify that intangible detail that was prickling silently on the edge of her awareness. The answer was in the photographs—she was certain of it—somewhere in the austere, brightly lit images. Some key, some revelation. At times, she had begun to feel like there was even something larger at stake than solving this particular case, that if only she could see the detail she’d been missing, she would have, as well, the solution to her own unending grief.

  These women were not swingers or risk takers. They’d wanted no more or less than anyone else, but in their understandable hunger for love, each of them had opened their doors and admitted the same man into their homes, a man whose savagery must have come clear to them only in the last seconds of their lives.

  It was herself Alexandra saw in those photographs. Her naked form repositioned with such hideous care. Eighteen years had passed since she had risen out of her body and hovered high overhead, a loose cloud of energized gas, escaping from the physical self. And even though over those long years she had gradually reoccupied her body, it was never the same again. The fit was wrong. Some inexpressible unease plagued her still. Even the years of martial-arts training—the stretching, the conditioning, the deep awareness of her own body’s strengths and limitations—had not enabled her to achieve the wholeness that had once been so natural. She had been driven out of her own body and had never fully returned, and that part of her that still drifted free seemed at times to take up temporary residence in the very victims she photographed.