When she returned with my beer, she stood close as she poured. Angling the frosted mug, she kept her eyes on mine. The foamy beer slipped slowly into the mug. Her leg pressed against mine. Her tongue slid around her lips. The smile she gave me was warming. Altogether an encouraging moment.
“I’ll be right back with your burger and fries.” Over her shoulder she said, “Enjoy Heidi while I’m away.” And her eyebrows pointed to the girl on the stage. She had found a feather boa. She drew it over her thighs and pulled it up then back and forth along her crotch.
All the time I was thinking of the librarian. And the fires. And the money. If I had any sense, I would probably be best to just leave the money and get gone.
‘Leave the money.’ No, I couldn’t see a way for that to work. Almost as unthinkable as leaving the librarian. I was surprised, catching myself thinking that. She’d made an impression on me and it wasn’t fading.
After the day I’d had, even the Burning Bush’s soggy burger and fries was a feast. At least there was plenty of it. I finished the beer and Danni brought another. Each time she came to the table she lingered. Turned more slowly to go. Pouted a bit more over pouring the beer.
I could see the opportunity. A couple of the truckers who were still conscious stared enviously. I had the sense that Danni was the prize here. Next beer, she sat close by me to pour.
Another weary girl took to the stage. Two more came out to keep company with the untalkative truckers. Heidi came over to join Danni and me. Sat on the other side from Danni. She blew in my ear. Tickled my neck with her tongue while her fingers danced up and down my thigh.
Danni told me that if there was anything else she could do I should ask. “Or tell me.” She said, “Sometimes as lady likes to be told.” Sparks lit in her eyes.
Heidi looked in my face. “If you had a room in the motel,” she told me, huskily, “We could go there and,” she squeezed my thigh, “we could relax.”
Danni said, “You’d need to give fifty bucks to the bar for each of us.” She put her head on one side, “But I’d be glad to make the night a free sample. As an introductory offer.”
Heidi nodded, “Yeah, me too. And you’d get two for one.”
It was tempting. “Ladies, it’s a kind and truly delicious offer,” I told them, “but I had a long day, and I am going to have to take a raincheck. If you will excuse me, I think I’m going have to just hit the sack.”
Danni’s eyes flashed and she grinned, “Well, that could work,” and Heidi nodded with enthusiasm. But I wasn’t interested. I thanked the girls and tipped them and I got out of there.
Rather than flop around in the motel room, I headed back into town. It was only a few miles more. I’d get what I had from the hotel. Either get an hour or two of sleep there or maybe just drink coffee until the bank opened.
I parked up a few blocks from the hotel. No point being careless. The card I’d used to pay for the hotel room was the same one I rented the car with. As I crossed the dark rug in the lobby, the dozing boy at the desk suddenly roused. He took a keen interest in some papers.
He smiled and said, “Good morning,” and I decided that this should as short a visit as I could possibly make it.
TOOK THE LONG bus ride to work.
It was a sunny day and I didn’t care. Time would pass, I’d get over it but today the library was nothing but the place where he wasn’t. The place he had been yesterday and, I felt pretty sure, where he would never be again. When he waited, lounging, long, loose, and brooding against the railings of the City Square park, he’d waited for me. And I should have gone to him.
When I saw Flip, I imagined like an idiot that I’d protect my stranger. That he would play along. He would trust me. And wait. He had no reason to do any of that. And he could take Flip with one hand.
I read about men like him. All of the time. Crime, thrillers, and noir fiction were my guilty pleasures. Then, when a real life killer stepped into my life, strong, fierce, and with the smell of a man, I hesitated. I wouldn’t have if Flip hadn’t been there. If Flip wasn’t a cop. If. If. If.
I got off the bus and headed up the wide boulevard to the library. The sun was warm and the scent of cherry blossoms drifted from the city park. And still I didn’t care. I would get over it. I was a grownup. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that my world would be half a shade duller from now on.
N THE ELEVATOR, on the way up to the room, I thought about where in the room everything I’d left was. What, if anything, might I have missed that could be carrying any DNA. The sheets and towels should have been changed. I made a mental note to check. I couldn’t remember if I’d used the glass. I didn’t think so but I’d take it. Just in case.
Otherwise, I’d left everything packed. I’d grab my kit from the bathroom, my bag in the wardrobe and the money from the safe. The glass had the hotel’s logo etched. After I hurried around the room, I dropped the glass in my bag. Then the money from the safe.
I had a coat that I slung over my shoulder. Then I took the back stairs quickly down to the garage. Up the ramp at the rear of the hotel, I slipped out to the street behind. Moving down the side street, I saw two black and whites approach the front of the hotel from opposite directions.
I found a place that was open. They served bitter black coffee. After two cups I got a big beaker to take out. Took it to the pickup. Parked up on a wide street. Near enough to the bank. Somewhere I could see a long way up and down the street. More or less across from the library. As it happened.
The coffee only went so far. I must have nodded off. It was almost two hours later when I started to blink and yawn. The sun was up. Traffic hustled in the watery morning light. I felt cold. Banks were open. The library door was, too. It was nine-forty.
I went to the bank first. On the way in I pulled down the hood of my coat and slippeed off the shades. To avoid the cameras I kept my face low. Right after the doors opened there was a line for the clerks. I thought everybody did their banking with a phone or on a tablet now. You’d never know it if you went into that small-town bank. Waiting kept me alert. The guard watched me suspiciously.
A pretty, middle aged clerk looked up the transaction. She put the hundreds onto the counting machine then slipped the wads into a big envelope for me. I didn’t see her take any special interest or make any notes. She didn’t stare or look into my face any longer than I’d expect.
Leaving, I checked that no one watched me. Back in the cab of the pickup, I looked around. Everything seemed fine. I started the engine and glanced in the mirror. Two dark blue cars turned into the street behind me. Could have been a coincidence but I took off smartly around the next left anyway.
As soon as I could I made an U-turn. The two blue cars were just turning into the street. The occupants, two males in each car, watched as I passed them. I was already making the next turn while they both spun around to follow.
Two turns more and I hadn’t seen them in a while. I was coming up to the ramp for the hotel car park. Too easy, I thought, but right across the street was an entrance for a supermarket carpark. I drove in, pretty sure I hadn’t been seen.
I got the pickup tucked into a corner in the basement level. By the exit, but near enough to the way in so I could see if either or both of the blue cars followed. If they did I’d have time to break for the exit.
I gave it two and a half minutes. My heart rate was up. Combat medicine, I heard it called. Battle rush. It makes your muscles zing. Especially when you have to wait.
I gave it long enough. Then I got out of there. Headed straight for the highway. Watched the mirror all the way. I’d got all the money. I was clean out of the room with no DNA left. Nothing to connect me to the now useless driver’s license and cards.
I figured I should be free and clear. I could forget about Garberville and everything about the place. Work all done. Exit effected. Put the whole thing behind me. Maybe go back for Danni and Heidi.
Who was I kidding? It was crazy and dumb to a po
int of lethal. But it was what it was.
ND HE WAS there. In front of the library steps.
He wore a thick hooded coat and obviously not for the weather, and he had another coat over his shoulder. Big dark glasses made him conspicuous. The way people instantly stand out when they quickly turn away or try to hide their faces. The black leather bag that he carried looked heavy.
Before I knew what I was doing, without even knowing I was going to do it I ran at him. I shouldn’t have done that. Not when he was trying so hard not to be noticed.
He half turned and he saw me coming but I was on him before he even had time to put down the case. I launched myself at him. I grabbed his face in my hands. His hard skin and stubble rasped. I pulled him to me. Kissed him like I would steal his life from him. I wrapped myself around him.. Kissed him again. Harder. Longer.
Breathless, I drew back. His thin, amused grin set me afire. I slapped his face. Hard. His jaw hurt my fingers.
I told him, “Don’t you ever do that to me again, you fucker.”
He was still grinning. “Do what?”
I was livid. “You know what I mean and don’t pretend.” And I slapped him again.
He looked around quickly and he said, “Listen, I need your help.” One blue car followed another down the street. They were driving too slow. He looked down and away as they passed.
I was on a roll. “What do you need my help with, big boy? Got something hard you need polishing? Got a special itch that you can only scratch on the back of my throat? Need somewhere dark and wet to hide your cruise missile?”
He did a double take. “That doesn’t sound like my small town librarian.”
“Don’t you dare!” I shouted, “I’m not your anything, buster. And I can talk how I like, see?”
I grabbed his face and kissed him again. Really hard.
I took a breath, stood back a pace, and then said, “I read books all the time. I always wanted to know what it would be like to say stuff like that.” I slapped his face again. I was getting to like the way it stung my fingers. “And do stuff like that.”
He rubbed his jaw. “And?”
“What do you mean, ‘and’?”
“I mean, ‘and,’ how does it feel?”
“It feels pretty goddamn fine if you want to know. Buster.”
“You’re a dangerous woman, you know that?” He narrowed his eyes, “But look, see?” he was doing a voice like a gumshoe in a black and white movie, “I gotta blow from here. Take a powder. The heat’s on. I’m on the lam.”
I smiled. He was still looking around, agitated. I told him. “I’ll drive you. I’ll go with you. Do anything you want. Really. But I know that you’ll want intimacy. And you have to understand something.”
“Listen, doll. This sounds like a pretty speech, but I need to get a breeze. Vamoose. See? I gotta get outta Dodge.”
“I know.”
“You have to understand,” he dropped the voice. “I’m in a deadly fucking hurry, girl.”
I gave him a slow close and open of my eyelids and said, “You need to understand that those blue cars have driven right by us twice already. If they haven’t spotted you in that hood and those ridiculous glasses, you’re safe from them. At least for now.”
He grabbed me, roughly. The charge that I got almost drained me out. But I got an even bigger one when I told him calmly, “You just wait. I need you to know something.”
His eyes blazed and his voice lowered. “Would you mind doing the me knowing something and the us getting the fuck out of here, the other fucking way around?”
I slapped his face again. But we went. I liked him taking charge and being forceful. I would never let a man treat me like that. No other man but him.
~~
We rode the bus. He wanted to get a cab but I told him nobody had ever seen one in Garberville. Standing with him by the door in the middle, I felt like I’d brought a wild animal on a public bus. There were seats free but he wanted to stand. So he was as close as he could be to the exit, I guessed.
He kept his sunglasses on the whole time. Everyone on the bus looked at him. Fortunately there weren’t very many people.
When he asked me, “Is it far?” and I told him that it wasn’t, that was all of our conversation. We both stood, very stiff. I kept shifting my feet. He did to. We couldn’t seem to get a comfortable distance apart. The things I wanted to say to him I couldn’t say when there were people near.
Even behind the shades his eyes burned into me. I looked away. Pulled my lips tight, in between my teeth. Moved my shoulders. My eyes slid back to him. He was still looking at me. The bus was turning into my neighborhood. Being with him there, the quiet streets and the little stores all looked prim and frail.
Everything seemed to have shrunk since I left for work that morning. He could set it all on fire. Standing next to him was already burning me up. I agonized about taking him to my apartment, but it would mean my landlady seeing him. I really wasn’t ready for that.
We climbed down off the bus. Both of us acted like we’d never had to step down from a bus before, like we weren’t certain how it was done. Turning, looking round too many times. Then I took him straight to my car. My little Saturn. I opened the trunk for him to put his bag and his coat in, but he said he’d keep them up front. I said “Okay,” and unlocked the car.
When I sat in the driver’s seat, he came and closed the door for me. He walked around the back of the car. I watched him look around before he got in and sat beside me.
We sat like that, side by side. I said, “The thing I want to tell you, that I have to tell you…”
And his mouth was on mine. I clasped him around his neck. Ran my fingers through his hair. Pulled his head to me. His mouth and mine made a seal. Us inside. The world out. I pulled him as close as I could. Stretched my hand as far as it would go down his back. Then into his collar to feel the heat of his skin. How could all this be happening?
There in the front of my little blue car, on a quiet, leafy street, the world changed forever.
I said, “I’ll drive you. I’ll take you wherever you want, I’ll stay with you and follow you to the end of the earth. Or, if it’s what you say, I’ll take you to wherever you want to go and I’ll drop you off and wave. I won’t look back.” The way he was looking at me was like a schoolboy would look at the biggest ice-cream he ever saw.
“I mean it.” I made my voice as stern as I could. I don’t think it worked. But I was serious. “Will you listen to me?”
He nodded softly.
I told him, “I will gladly do whatever you want me to. Anything. But you have to know this. If you want physical intimacy, with me I mean, it has to be for real and for keeps.” He nodded again. He reached out to me. I held up both hands to wave him off. “Please. Let me speak. Hear me out. It’s important. This speech has been a lifetime in the making.”
He sat back. All the jokiness was gone. He folded his hands in his lap and turned his body to face me. He’s a huge man and it was a little car, so I knew it was uncomfortable for him. But he didn’t let it show. He was quiet and I felt that he was really trying to let me know that he took what I told him seriously.
He waited. I liked that. I said, “I want whatever you want. Really. And I do want intimacy with you.” I had to pause and draw breath, “I cannot tell you how much. I literally am aching for it. But it’s something that up to now I haven’t shared with anyone. Ever.” As he drew breath through his nostrils, I could see he made an effort not to show a reaction. I loved him for that.
I said, “For that reason, and others, I insist. Please, do not open that door if you don’t really mean it.” His chin lifted but I held up a hand. “When I say, ‘really mean it,’ I need to be absolutely clear. I only want to do that with a man who will stay by me and stay with me. Until the very end. Whatever that may be and however hard it may be.” He waited. Watched. “Please, I’m begging you. Don’t go there if you aren’t ready to make that commitment.”
Killian: The Hitman’s Virgin Page 5
