by Jarret Keene
“Uncle Jimmy.”
He rattled the ice in his glass, traveled somewhere with his thoughts. “I like kids. Want kids. My turn’ll come.” Then, brightening suddenly: “I’d be up for a play date some time, with Natalie. I mean, if that doesn’t sound too weird.”
That’s how it started, same playground near the apartment. And he hadn’t lied, he hit it off with Natalie at first sight—stunning, really. He was a natural, carrying her on his shoulders to the park, guiding her up the stairs to the slide, taking it easy on the swing. He had Sam cradle her in her lap on the merry-go-round, spun them both around in the sun-streaked shade. Natalie shrieked, Sam laughed; it was that kind of afternoon.
They brought Natalie home, put her down for her nap, then sat on the porch with drinks—the usual for him, Chablis for her. The sun beat down on the freshly watered lawn, a hot desert wind rustling the leaves of the imported elm trees.
Surveying the grounds, he said, “Nice place. Mind if I ask your monthly nut?”
“Frankly?”
He chuckled. “Sorry. Professional curiosity. I was just doing the math in my head, tallying costs, wondering what kind of return the developer’s getting.”
She smiled wanly. “I don’t like to think about it.” That seemed as good a way as any to change the subject. “So, Nick says you wanted to ask me something.”
Suddenly, he looked awkward, a hint of a blush. It suited him.
“Well, yeah. I suppose … You know. Sometimes …” He gestured vaguely.
She said, “Don’t make me say it for you.”
He cleared his throat. “I could maybe use an eightball. Sure.”
There, she thought. Was that so hard? “Let’s say a gram. I don’t know you.”
“How about two?”
It was still below the threshold for a special felony, which an eightball, at 3.5 grams, wasn’t. “Two-forty, no credit.”
“No friend-of-a-friend discount?”
“Nick told you there would be?”
“No, I just—”
“There isn’t. There won’t be.”
He raised his hands, surrender. “Okay.” He reached into his hip pocket for his wallet. “Mind if I take a shot while I’m here?”
She collected her glass, rose from her chair. “I’d prefer it, actually. Come on inside.”
She gestured for him to have a seat on the couch, disappeared into her bedroom, and returned with the coke, delivering the two grams with a mirror, a razor blade, a straw. As always, a stranger in the house, one of the cats sat in the corner, blinking. The other hid. Sam watched as Jimmy chopped up the lines, an old hand. He hoovered the first, offered her the mirror. She declined. He leaned back down, finished up, tugged at his nose.
“That’s nice,” he said, collecting the last few grains on his finger, rubbing it into his gums. When his hand came away, it left a smile behind. “I’m guessing mannitol. I mean, you’ve got it around, right?”
Sam took a sip of her wine. He was referring to a baby laxative commonly used as a cutting agent. Cooly, she said, “Let a girl have her secrets.”
He nodded. “Sorry. That was out of line.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She toddled her glass. “So—will there be anything else?” She didn’t mean to sound coy, but even so she inwardly cringed as she heard the words out loud. The way he looked at her, it was clear he was trying to decipher the signal. And maybe, on some level, she really did mean something.
“No,” he said. “I think that’s it. Mind if I take one last look before I leave?”
And so that’s how they wrapped it up, standing in the doorway to Natalie’s room, watching her sleep.
“Such a pretty little creature,” he whispered. “Gotta confess, I’m jealous.”
Back in his car, Jimmy horned the rest of the first gram, then drove to the Roundup, a little recon, putting faces to names, customers of Sam’s that Nick had told him about: card dealers, waitresses, a gambler named Harry Thune, homely Brit, the usual ghastly teeth. After that, he drove to the strip mall on Charleston where the undercover unit had its off-site location, an anonymous set of offices with blinds drawn, a sign on the door reading Halliwell Partners, Ltd. He logged in, parked at his desk, and wrote up his report: the purchase of one gram Cocaine HCL, field tested positive with Scott reagent—blue, pink, then blue with pink separation in successive ampoules after agitation—said gram supplied by Samantha Pitney, White Female Adult. He invented an encounter far more fitting with department guidelines than the one that had taken place, wrote it out, signed it, then drove to the police tower, walked in the back entrance, and delivered the report to his sergeant, an old guy named Becker, who sent Jimmy on to log the gram into evidence. Jimmy said hey to the secretaries on his way through the building, went back to his car, moved $120 from his personal wallet to his buy wallet to cover the gram he’d pilfered, then planned his next step.
The following two buys were the same, two grams, and she seemed to grow more comfortable. Then he got bumped up to an eightball, and not long after that he rose to two. He always took a taste right there at the apartment, while they were talking, one of the perks of the job. Later, he’d either log it in as-is, claiming the shortage had been used for field-testing, or he’d pocket the light one, chop it up into grams, then drive to Henderson—or, on weekends, all the way to Laughlin—work the bars, a little business for himself, cover his costs, a few like minds, deputies he knew.
He found himself oddly divided on Sam. You could see she’d tried to cultivate an aura: the wry feminine reserve, the earth tones, all the talk about yoga and studying for her real estate license. Maybe it was motherhood, all that scrubbed civility, trying to be somebody. Then again, maybe it was coke-head pretence. Regardless, little things tripped her up, those selfless moments, more and more frequent, when she let him see behind the mask. Trouble was, from what he could tell, the mask had more to offer.
He’d nailed a witness or two in his time, never a smooth move, but nothing compared to bedding a suspect. As fluid as things had become morally since he’d started working undercover, he’d never lost track of that particular red line. That didn’t mean he didn’t entertain the thought—throwing her over his shoulder, carrying her into her room, dropping her onto the bed, watching her hair unfurl from the soft thudding impact. Would she try to fight him off? No, that would just be part of the dance. Soon enough she’d draw him down, a winsome smile, hands clasped behind his neck, a few quick nibbles in her kiss, now and then a good firm bite. And was she one of those who showed you around the castle—how hard to pinch the nipples, how many fingers inside, the hand clasped across her mouth as she came—or would she want you to find all that out for yourself? Playing coy, demure, wanting you to take command, maybe even scare her. How deep would she like it, how slow, how rough? Would she come in rolling pulses, or one big back-arching slam?
Then again, of course, there was Natalie. Truth be told, she was the one who’d stolen his heart. And it was clear her poor deluded mother loved her, but love’s not enough—never is, never has been. He remembered Sam asking, in their first face-to-face, about his marriage, about kids. You’re not a cop till your first divorce, he thought, go through the custody horseshit. Lose. Bobby was his name. Seven years old now. Somewhere.
When he found himself thinking like that, he also found himself developing a mean thirst. And when he drank, he liked a whiff, to steady the ride, ice it. And so soon he’d be back at Ms. Pitney’s door, repeating the whole sad process, telling himself the same wrong stories, wanting everything he had no right to.
Six weeks into things, he asked, “What made you get into this business anyway?”
She was sitting on the sofa, legs tucked beneath her, wearing a new perfume. From the look on her face, you would’ve thought he’d spat on the floor. “No offense, but that came out sounding ugly.”
He razored away at three chalky lines. “Didn’t mean it that way. Sorry.”
She thou
ght about it for a moment, searching the ceiling with her eyes. “The truth? I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.”
He had to check himself to keep from laughing, and yet he could see it. So her, thinking that way. “Why not marry the father?”
Again, she paused before answering, but this time she didn’t scour the ceiling, she gazed into his face. Admittedly, he was a little ragged: His mouth was dry, his eyes were jigging up and down, his pupils were bloated. And his hands, yeah, a mild but noticeable case of the shakes.
“Some men are meant to be fathers,” she said. “Some men aren’t.”
Sam let one of Claudia’s Persians settle in her lap, pressing her skirt with its paws. The other cat lay in its usual spot, on the cushion by the window, lolling in the sun. Natalie sat in her stroller, gumming an apple slice, while Claudia attended to her ferns, using a tea kettle for a watering can.
“I usually charge thirty, which is already low, but I’d trim a little more, say, twenty-eight.” She was talking in thousands of dollars, the price for a pound—or an elbow, in the parlance.
“That’s still a little steep for me.”
“You could cut your visits here by half. More.”
“Is that a problem?” Secretly, Sam loved coming here. She thought of it as Visiting Mother.
Over her shoulder, Claudia said, “You know what I mean.”
“Maybe I’ll ratchet up another QP. I don’t want any more than that in the house.”
Claudia bent to reach a pot on the floor. “The point is to get it out of the house.”
Well, duh, Sam thought, feeling judged, a headache looming like a thunderhead just behind her eyes. She was getting them more and more. “There’s something else I’d like to talk over, actually. It’s about Natalie.”
Claudia stopped short. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Not yet. I mean, there’s nothing to worry about. But if anything ever happened to me, I don’t know who would take care of her.”
A disagreeable expression crossed Claudia’s face, part disdain, part calculation, part suspicion. “You have family.”
“Not local. And not that I trust, frankly.”
“What exactly are you asking?”
“I was wondering if she could stay with you. If anything ever happened, I mean.”
Claudia put the tea kettle down and came over to a nearby chair, crossing her legs as she sat. “Have you noticed any cars following you lately?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Any new neighbors?”
“That wasn’t what I meant. I meant if I got sick, or was in a car accident.” She glanced over at Natalie. The apple slice was nubby and brown, and both it and her fingers were glazed with saliva.
Claudia said, “I couldn’t just walk in, take your child. Good Lord.” Her voice rippled, a blast of heat.
Sam said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“A dozen agencies would be involved, imagine the questions.” She rose from her chair, straightened her skirt, shot a toxic glance at Natalie that said: Your mother can’t protect you. “Now what quantity are you here for? I have things to do.”
Sergeant Becker called Jimmy in, told him to close the door. He was a big man, the kind who could lord over you even sitting down. “This Pitney thing, I’ve gone over the reports.” He picked up a pencil, drummed it against his blotter. “Your buys are light.”
He stared into Jimmy’s whirling eyes. Jimmy did his best to stare right back.
“I’m a gentleman. I always offer the lady a taste.”
“She needs to sample her own coke?”
“Not sampling, indulging. And there’s always some lost in the field test.”
“Think a jury will buy that? Think I buy that?”
“You want me to piss in a cup?”
Becker pretended to think about that, then leaned forward, lowering his voice. “No. That’s what I most definitely do not want you to do. Look, I’ll stand up for you, but it’s time you cleaned house. You need some time, we’ll work it out. There’s a program, six weeks, over in Bullhead City, you can use an assumed name. It’s the best deal you’re gonna get. In the meantime, wrap this up. You’ve got your case, close it out.”
Jimmy felt a surge of bile boiling in his stomach—at the thought of rehab, sure, the shame of it, the tedium, but not just that. “Like when?”
“Like now.” Becker’s whole face said: Look at yourself. “Why wait?”
Jimmy pictured Sam in her sundress, face raised to the light, hand in her hair. Moisture pooling in the hollow of her throat. Lipstick glistening in the heat. He said, “There’s a kid involved.”
Becker stood up behind his desk. They were done. “Get CPS involved, that’s what they’re there for. Make the calls, do the paperwork, get it over with.”
“For chrissake, don’t overthink it. Sounds like the last nice guy in Vegas.”
It was Mandy talking, Sam’s old best friend at the Roundup. She’d stopped by on her way to work, a gram for the shift, and now was lingering, shoes off, stocking feet on the coffee table, toes jigging in their sheer cocoon. They were watching Natalie play, noticing how her focus lasered from her ball to her bear, back to the ball, moving on to her always mysterious foot, then a housefly buzzing at the sliding glass door.
“Dating the clientele,” Sam said, “is such a chump move.”
“Rules have exceptions. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be rules.”
Natalie hefted herself onto her feet, staggered to the sliding glass door, reached for the fly—awestruck, gentle.
“He’s got a bit of a problem.” Sam tapped the side of her nose.
“You can clean him up. Woman’s work.”
“I don’t need that kind of project.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, how long’s it been since you got laid?”
Admittedly, sometimes when Jimmy was there, Sam felt the old urge uncoiling inside her, slithering around. “To be honest, I do mind you asking.”
They weren’t close anymore, just one of those things. To hide her disappointment, Mandy softly clapped her hands at Natalie. “Hey, sweetheart, come on over. Sit with Auntie Man a little while.” The little girl ignored her, still enchanted by the fly. It careened about the room—ceiling, lampshade, end table—then whirled back to the sliding glass door, a glossy green spec in a flaring pool of sunlight.
“She doesn’t like me.”
“She can be persnickety.” Sam glanced at the clock. “Don’t take it personally.”
“You think if you let this guy know you were interested, he’d respond?”
Sam felt another headache coming on. Each one seemed worse than the last now. “It’s not an issue.”
“You’re the one playing hard to get, not him.”
Jimmy’s last visit, Sam had almost thrown herself across his lap, wanting to feel his arms around her. Just that. But that was everything, could be everything. “I’ve given him a few openings. Nothing obvious, but since when do you need to be obvious with men?”
Mandy crossed her arms across her midriff, as though suddenly chilled. “Maybe he’s queer.”
Once Mandy was gone, Sam tucked Natalie in for the midday nap with her blue plush piglet, brushing the hair from the little girl’s face to plant a kiss on her brow. Leaving the bedroom door slightly ajar—Natalie would never drop off otherwise—Sam fled to her own room and took a Demerol. The pain was flashing through her sinuses now, even pulsing into her spine. Noticing the time, she changed into a cinched sleeveless dress, freshened her lipstick, her eyeliner. Jimmy had said he’d stop by, and she still couldn’t quite decide whether to push the ball into his end of the court or abide by her own better instincts and let it go. Running a mental inventory of his pros and cons, she admitted he was a joy to look at, had a soldier’s good manners, adored Natalie. He was also a flaming cokehead, with the predictable sidekick, a blind thirst. Those things trended downward in her experience, not a ride she wanted to share. Loneliness
is the price you pay for keeping things uncomplicated, she thought, pressing a tissue between her lips.
She heard a shuffle of steps on the walkway out front, but instead of ringing the bell, whoever it was pounded at the door. A voice she didn’t recognize called out her name, then: “Police! Open the door.” To her shame, she froze. Out of the corner of her eye she saw three men cluster on the patio—shirtsleeves, sunglasses, protective vests—and her mouth turned to dust. The front door crashed in, brutal shouts of “On the floor!” and shortly she was facedown, being handcuffed, feeling guilty and terrified and stupid and numb while cops thrashed everywhere, asserting claim to every room.
When they pulled her to her feet, it was Jimmy who was standing there, wearing a vest like the others, his police card hanging around his neck. The Demerol not having yet kicked in, her head crackled and throbbed with a new burst of pain, and she feared she might hurl right there on the floor.
“Tell us where everything is, and we won’t take the place apart,” he said, regarding her with a look of such contemptuous loathing she actually thought he might spit in her face. And I deserve it, she told herself, how stupid I’ve been, at the same time thinking: Now who’s the creature? She could smell the Scotch on his breath, masked with spearmint. So that’s what it was, she thought, all that time, the drink, the coke. Mr. Sensitive drowning his guilt. Or was even his guilt phony?
She said, “What about Natalie?” In her room, the little girl was mewling, confused, scared.
Jimmy glanced off toward the sound, eyes dull as lead. “She’s a ward of the court now. They’ll farm her out, foster home …”
Sam felt the room close in, a sickly shade of white. “Why are you doing this?”
Almost imperceptibly, he stiffened. A weak smile. “I’m doing this?”
“Why are you being such a prick about it?”
He leaned in. His eyes were electric. “You’re a mother.”
You miserable hypocrite, she thought, trying to muster some disgust of her own, but instead her knees turned liquid. He caught her before she fell, duck-walked her toward the sofa, let her drop—at which point a woman with short sandy hair came out of Natalie’s bedroom, carrying the little girl. Her eyes were puffy with sleep but she was squirming, head swiveling this way and that. She began to cry. Sam shook off her daze, turned to hide the handcuffs, calling out, “Just do what the lady says, baby. I’ll come get you as soon as I can,” but the girl started shrieking, kicking—and then was gone.
