A World the Color of Salt

by Noreen Ayres

  Roland laughed out loud. You’d think he’d just won at poker. He stood up and made a motion as if to pull a comb from his back pocket, then remembered and dropped his hands and moved toward the mirror. He stopped at the corner of the mirror near where I was sitting, and stared straight in. He had eyes the color of ocean in winter—deep, cold green. Then he ran all ten fingers through his hair. He said, squinting his eyes, “Who you got back there, Ralph? Anybody we know?”

  If Patricia hadn’t had to go to the bathroom, or if we hadn’t gotten hung up by a bag lady who was sitting in the front lobby of the station all alone, asking for a quarter and looking as though she were used to sleeping there, cops coming and going nonetheless, we wouldn’t have been at the car when the Dugdale brothers came out.

  Patricia gave the bag lady a dollar. Standing there, her toes turned in, she dug in her purse for the woman. I watched her and thought, Patricia, you innocent. And then: I remember when I would have stood there and done the same thing.

  At her car, Patricia had a hard time finding her keys, and when the lock on my side clicked open, I looked up to see Roland not twenty feet away on the sidewalk, with his thumbs in his jeans and a cigarette angled up out of his mouth, smiling at us; and Phillip turned sideways but ahead of Roland and still in motion, looking back to size us up also.

  A shot of fear went through me. I got in the car and said, “Don’t turn your lights on right away, okay?”

  “Huh? Why not?”

  “I don’t want your license plate to light up.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “Just somebody I saw over there made me nervous.”

  “Who? I don’t see anybody.” She’d turned around to look. The parking lot was not that crowded, maybe thirty cars in it was all, no movement anywhere. I’d already seen in the side mirror that the brothers had crossed the street, were in shadow now. From their angle on the sidewalk, I didn’t think they’d seen her license plate. Even if they had, it would be unlikely they’d get a fix on it. They wouldn’t have DMV access. But you never know. Being single makes you cautious. Being in my work makes me nervous.

  I said, “Oh, it’s okay. Go ahead. I guess there’s no problem now.”

  She started the car and eased out. “Jeez, Samantha. You trying to scare me or what?”

  CHAPTER

  9

  Driving away from the jail, I thought about the slow way things change us. I thought about the bag lady and tried to imagine ways she might have changed from, say, a thirteen-year-old full of gossip, hope, and promise to a thirty-year-old, close to my age, who’d been around the block but was still looking forward to things, to a fifty-year-old with maybe a dead kid or a bad one run off with her money, no husband for any one of a number of reasons. I thought about my apartment by the bay, how pretty it is, decorated in green and wine, and wondered how it was I’d be here in this car, at this moment, with this friend, and why. I thought about Jerry Dwyer. Wondered how his father was getting on; if he’d ever be able to watch TV or sell magazines without his eyes going red and swimmy.

  Patricia was quiet, but she didn’t seem upset. At a stoplight, a car pulled up next to us on my side. It was a beast from before the oil crunch, dull yellow, with a crumpled front fender and the word Elite in metal letters on the side. The boy driving it wore a black weight lifter’s glove on one hand. His window was down, and I could hear the heavy thump of rock music. I cracked my window a bit, to see what he was playing. He looked over. He gave us a look that said, Yo babe, and maybe he turned the music up louder. Patricia punched on her radio. The same station, the same song. She looked at me, not him, and smiled. “Why not?” she said, and then the light turned and we plunged off, the boy trying to match speeds, surging ahead, then falling behind, until another car came between him and his effort. He hugged the bumper of the car in front of him as he moved up, the back of his arm grown taut and muscled, and as we surged ahead I saw him smack the steering wheel with his gloved hand.

  The lyrics on Patricia’s radio hit me the wrong way I guess. At first I thought I didn’t hear it right: something about waking up dead with blood on the guy’s hands, but then it came again, and I asked her if I could change the station.

  Ray was with us. We were admiring Bob and Dollie Anderson’s hanging fuchsias near the edge of the patio, looking past the people we didn’t know for someone we did. The tequila tasted good, but we’d said all we could about fuchsias.

  Ray kept glancing at Patricia, who was on the other side of me. She made him self-conscious, I could tell. He turned to me and said, “They should run that Bronco for stolen first off. They should have K-nined it for drugs too.”

  “They let them go, Raymond. They weren’t the ones. They checked the ownership or those two would be in jail.”

  “You can find drugs in your popcorn bag, in your shirt it comes back from the cleaners, you hear what I’m sayin’?”

  “That wouldn’t help any in this case.” I couldn’t figure why he was making a thing of this.

  “Alls I’m saying is a little dust could shag off onto the upholstery from mysterious sources. Make ’em cool their heels overnight.”

  “Ray,” I said. Okay. He was trying to impress Patricia. “They don’t put people in jail for traffic cites, and you’re not going to leave Patricia here thinking that police plant phony evidence.”

  “Oh, I have no doubt of that,” Patricia said, and I looked at her with curiosity. She’s not given to cynicism.

  The patio was crowded. Raymond craned his neck around to me—talking to Patricia but looking at me. “Hey, listen, I saw a baby in a tree once. Parents spilled all over the place, deader’n hell. The baby’s in the tree, not a peep out of it, wavin’ its little arms. We almost didn’t know it was there. It would have fallen right onto the street eventually. Guess what else we found? Coke in the diapers, I’m not foolin’.”

  I said I was going to get another drink.

  “I’ll go with,” Patricia said.

  A nearly panicked expression crossed Ray’s face. “No, no—the guy’s supposed to go get the girls’es drink.” He said “girls-es.” He was acting drunk, but he couldn’t be yet. He squeezed in front of Patricia and smiled at us both, taking our glasses from us. “Whoopsie,” he said, bumping into a tall man in a brown suit, then scooting off, a big silly grin on his face.

  Patricia looked at me and said, “Whoopsie?”

  “He’s trying to impress you.”

  She smiled. “I wish he’d try some other way. Those stories”—giggle—“were making me sick.”

  “You’ll hear lots of talk like that if you hang around coppers. Better go for a stockbroker.”

  She turned to me and said, “I don’t know how you stand it, what you do.”

  “It’s like any other job. Most people don’t wind up in the job they think they will.”

  “What did you think you’d be?”

  “In high school I was going to be an artist. Act precious and wear funky clothes.”

  “Oh, you did not. I mean, not you.” She was watching the dancers now, twisting her body in small movements as if she’d do anything to be asked.

  “I did too,” I said, but I’m not sure she heard me.

  Raymond was coming back. “I like him,” she said under her breath, “even if he is a little strutter.”

  “He likes you too.”

  “I sure never thought I’d like a cop.”

  “Coppers.”

  “What?”

  “Sort of an affectionate word cops use on themselves. And, by the way, neither did I.” She raised her eyebrows at me and laughed, kept the smile there as Raymond threaded his way through to hand us the margaritas.

  “Talking about me again? I know you were.”

  “Talking about cops,” I said. “A special breed.”

  “That we are. Primo.” He took a long sip of my drink before handing it to me. “Yum.”

  I said, “And auto-club boys are something else again.”
r />   “Be nice,” he said, and drank from his own drink now.

  “You driving tonight, Ray?” I said.

  “I’d rather be drunk than driving.”

  “Pinch his little cheek for me, will you, Patricia?”

  Instead, she leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. I was glad she was there with us. My drink hit, and I was happy my two good friends were with me. I looked at handsome Raymond and I thought, It would be good to work with cops again, shoulder-to-shoulder. Sometimes, in forensics work, as Gary Svoboda would put it, you get to be just a cog in the machine.

  One time I asked Joe L. Sanders for job advice. I told him Raymond was saying I should wear a badge again. He said, Nobody can tell you what’s best for you but you, but we wouldn’t want to lose you, and that was a warm-fuzzy that kept me happy quite a while. Orange County has its share of women cops. They don’t need me. Granted, they’re not universally loved, but where are we ever?

  The fact is, the reason I’m not a cop now is that I got shot once in Berkeley. It was my own damn fault for not paying attention. This woman pulled a miniwheelie on me—a mini-revolver, tiny little shit of a thing; you can’t control it. We were busting the house for meth. I saw her in a bedroom. She started to come out. I told her to get down on the floor, put her hands behind her neck. She looked kind of heavy but young, and I thought she was just the wife of the primary. I was more concerned about him and his buddy in the front room, two buzzed-out, meaty guys with stomachs that showed under their T-shirts. I turned my head to say something to my partner, phoot! She shot that thing at me. Whizzed right by my waist. Then another one caught me in the shoulder, burrowed along to my fifth vertebra. She jumped the hell out the window. I chased her, but I knew something bad was wrong. My back went numb, I sat down on the sidewalk, and I thought I wasn’t going to slow-dance anymore.

  My partner ran by me and plunked that lady’s tushie down in the street with a .38 in the thigh, then performed some other unfun things upon her person.

  Later I learned the woman’s gun was a Freedom Arms boot gun, one of the smallest ever made, firing .22 longs. Add that much hypervelocity—about nine hundred feet per second—in a teeny-weeny gun with a grip like a bird’s head, it somersaulted right out of her hand or she probably would have popped me again.

  For a while after that, back on the job, I John-Wayned it, a behavior a lot of cops experience after they’ve had some rough duty. Unkind to the suspects, you could say, and my partner didn’t mind at all. The senior officer called me on it, though. My husband, Bill, said that I’d get over it, that I should just ignore the reprimand and do what I had to do. He was right. Time took care of the John-Wayneism. But it bothers me to think I was so stupid. I could have gotten a copper killed. Someone like Raymond, someone like Gary Svoboda, a good, honest man.

  Six months after the shooting incident, Bill died, and the heart went out of me for toughness. That kind of toughness, anyway. I don’t want to be pushing and shoving anybody. I don’t want to use violence. Somebody has to sometime. But not me.

  And so when I saw Raymond needling his way through the crowd, raising the drinks up over his head, I thought, Good for you, Raymond, that you did that kind thing, getting us those drinks like a waiter. Good for you being here, and good for you trying to include me in police work, letting us in on the news of the Dugghh-dales. Feeling gushy, as I always do when I drink. Wanting more to drink, Raymond not stealing any, so I could continue feeling warm and lovey instead of sad and lonely. Then Raymond said, “Guess who’s here?”

  “Not Joe Sanders.”

  “Your bud, Billy Katchaturian.”

  “Oh, Billy’s not so bad,” I said. “I’m a touch critical at times. He does his job.”

  “You must be drunk,” Raymond said. “Trudy’s talking to him. She said come say hi, she’s got something to tell you.”

  “About the Dwyer case?”

  “I don’t know. Just something.”

  It was a wonder he knew what he was answering at all, head cocked so he could look Patricia in her pretty, dimpled face. I left Patricia in his good hands and forged my way through to the kitchen, where I could see Dollie Anderson holding a plateful of deviled eggs at a precarious angle, talking to someone in earnest. Throughout the evening, I’d see Bob or Dollie and I’d remember that they were first friends of Joe S. until a falling out. And I was selfishly sorry, because I missed Joe. I wanted him so to be there. Sometimes it seems like you can wish somebody at a place hard enough, it will really happen. But not tonight. Joe wasn’t coming tonight. Not to Bob’s. Bob used to work at the lab. We all used to party at his house, with its long pool, hot tub, huge patio. Now he’s a private investigator, doing very well despite dozens of PIs in Orange County. Dollie works at the Orange County Law Library—a wonderful place, she says, because it’s funded by everyone, via court filing fees, and therefore more directly belongs to everyone. She could stump for it. Joe would say at least he missed her. He never told me what the problem was, but I heard from others that he suspected Bob of doing a favor for someone at a high level in the DA’s office by altering evidence on a blood-alcohol test involving a fatality. A terrible breach. I wish it were impossible to be true, but I know it is not. All human beings, as Joe will tell you himself, are flawed, and some are more flawed than others. But this night I didn’t know the story to be true, and I gave the Andersons the benefit of the doubt, something which Joe did with most people. He was a hard guy to understand sometimes.

  I looked in the dining room. Trudy wasn’t there. I pushed on into the family room. There was Billy, sipping wine and staring at a painting of blue whales on the wall.

  “Hello, Billy. I hear Trude’s here. Seen her?”

  “I’m all you’ll ever need, doll.” He stood as close as he could get without me giving ground. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  I had to tip my head up to say it, but I did: “Billy, grow the fuck up.”

  “Ow.”

  “Well, really,” I said, but I smiled.

  I started away when he called me back. He said, “Trudy says Joe told her something. You want to know what?”

  “I’ll ask Trudy, thanks.”

  He sauntered over. I moved off.

  I couldn’t find her. I went back to where Patricia and Ray were, on the way putting down my margarita glass and picking up somebody else’s half-finished wine abandoned on a side table. My nose didn’t tingle yet.

  Music started playing out on the patio. I recognized the song, a Don Henley, remembered that I liked his sexy voice. Raymond was swinging his shoulders. I knew he was about to ask Patricia to dance. He asked me instead. Maybe shy. Him. “Not yet, Raymond,” I said.

  “Aren’t you a little bit drunk yet, Smokey, my pal?”

  Patricia looked at me and said, “Smokey? Where’d that come from?”

  Raymond loved this. “You mean you don’t know about her? Well, let me tell you . . . no, Smokey, you tell her. You’re holding out on your friend.”

  “What—tell me,” Patricia said.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Raymond’s got a weird sense of humor.” Then to Raymond I said, “Dance with her. Keep you out of trouble.”

  A smile crossed his face. As they moved out onto the floor, Ray in his red knit shirt that stretched nicely over his pecs, the pants that fit tight over perfect buns, I thought, I really am a lucky woman, to have friends like this, and realized I was out of liquor.

  Getting drunk’s a fun thing to do. You’re not supposed to say that, not supposed to like it. I wish I didn’t; I’d keep my nose cleaner. But at Bob and Dollie’s party, they had good booze and a new CD player, and I was long overdue. After all, Raymond said I needed a party. Thing was, it took only those two and a half drinks to souse me up good, and I wound up back in the dark end of the patio, dancing with Billy K.

  Strange how much better some people look when you’re drunk. He smelled nice and felt good. In the fast numbers he found chances to hold me too tight and I s
hould have known better. On the first slow song—an old Carly Simon, her sweet, plaintive voice singing about the boys in the trees—he pulled me into him, and I was amazed and somehow relieved at how good it felt, body-to-body. Held me so he read me, both of us anticipating the next movement almost like a challenge, who could move least and yet know. I shut my eyes and just enjoyed the sensation of a warm and living body next to mine, he anticipating me, me anticipating him, the music disengaging us from the world. Maybe I was wrong about Billy. Give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Another fast dance, and now I was smiling at Billy. Having a good time, not trying to second-guess. I saw Patricia and Raymond dancing too, Patricia looking a little awkward dancing with someone so much shorter, but happy. When I caught her eye, she made Raymond ease over.

  She leaned out toward me and said, “Hi, Smokey-y-y,” drawing out the name. “You were holding out on me, you stinker.”

  “Oh, please,” I said.

  Billy was taking this all in, grinning at me too. The smile he smiled then was not one I liked. But it was a party, and these were my friends and colleagues, and what the hell, who needs secrets?

  I laughed and said, “Goddamn it, Raymond, you told!”

  Billy pulled me close and I felt how hot his body was. He put his damp face to mine, and left his cheek there. He said, “I’d like to see how you got your name sometime.”

  “Hmph, forget it.”

  “You could show me,” he said. He eased me into him, groin-to-groin like magnets, and though I pulled away I felt lightheaded. His leg was where it shouldn’t be, and my arm of its own accord crept higher around his neck. I was drunk, I was tired, I wanted to be with Joe. Weak, and, yes, lonely. And I went home—goddamn me—with Billy The Fuck Katchaturian.

  I was still lit when Ray and Patricia drove by Billy’s at two A.M. and Raymond came up to the door and rang the bell, asking if I was all right. Billy and I hadn’t even made it to the bedroom. We’d done it on the living-room floor with two giant pillows for help and his white, big-eyed cat watching from the end table. I had most of my clothes on when we fell asleep.