The Big Ugly

by Jake Hinkson

  "After you talked to Kluge, you come here?"

  I sighed and I could only give her a bitter smile. "Well, I had some drinks first. You know who I ran into after I left Kluge?"

  "No."

  "Frank Morley."

  "As in Kitty Morley. That Morley?"

  "Yeah."

  "The fuck he want?"

  I shook my head. "To … talk. And, I don't know, to …"

  She raised an eyebrow. "He trying to get you back?"

  "I don't know if he wants me back, but he can't help but flirt. You know how some people, that's how they communicate? That's him. Morley just flirts."

  "Motherfucker."

  "Yeah."

  "You going to hit that?"

  "No. Jesus. The last thing I need in my life is that man."

  She crushed out her cigarette and dropped it in the cup. "You thinkin' about it though, I can tell. Only natural. We all been there. I had this best friend, Nikki, all through high school, but I never met her brother because he lived with his daddy in another town. Then, at graduation, I finally met him. Kordell Estime. Finest man you ever saw. Tall, broad shouldered, handsome as a prince. Sweet, though. You know? Goddamn, I loved that man.

  "But he had problems. Shit in his childhood. When his parents first got divorced, he lived with his momma for a while, and one of her boyfriends messed with him. Sex stuff. Kordell didn't never want to talk about it. But it plagued him. Like one of those plagues in the Bible. Plagued him."

  She stared into some space between us, blank except for the past.

  "He killed himself. My Kordell. Shot himself one night. Didn't leave a note. Didn't say a word to me. He had to know it would ruin my life. Had to know I'd blame myself and hate myself for it. But he did it anyway. All by himself, in his room. Not drunk, not high. Just decided to kill himself and take half of me with him.

  "And the thing is, knowing what I know, knowing that he'd do it again, if I could have him back, I'd let him have the other half of me."

  * * *

  After she left, I sat there alone. After a while a car pulled into the lot outside. I peered through the grimy shade. A dumpy guy in a T-shirt and jeans got out of a Camry. He went to the door of another room and knocked. A middle-aged woman in a long T-shirt and cutoff jeans opened the door. He showed her some drug shit in a plastic bag, and she let him inside.

  I went back to my bed. I sat there. I stared at the wall.

  Then I watched my hand as it picked up my phone.

  My fingers scrolled down the names in my contacts.

  FRANK.

  I had never removed his number from my phone. It had been there the whole time I was in prison.

  I stared at it.

  I pushed CALL.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  He was leaning against his car in front of the police station waiting for me. Not texting. Not smoking. Just standing there with his arms folded and a hint of amusement on his face.

  There was an open spot behind his car, so I pulled up.

  He didn't move, so I got out of the car and walked over to him.

  He slid his hands in his pockets. One car passed us, but otherwise the city seemed to be asleep.

  I leaned against his car, our shoulders barely touching.

  He turned to me and lifted his hand to my face and brushed a strand of hair away. I stared at the empty street.

  Quietly, without planning to, I said, "Don't …"

  He pulled his hand away.

  "Don't hurt me," I said.

  He didn't smile. He took my chin and lifted my broken mouth to his own perfect lips and kissed me gently.

  "Let's go," he said.

  I didn't ask where.

  He took me around to the passenger door and opened it and I got inside.

  He drove. I leaned my head back. My body was tired; my spirit was exhausted. I fell asleep.

  Some minutes later, I awoke and we were climbing through some hills. He had the windows cracked and a cool breeze flowed in. He didn't play the radio. He just sat there and drove and thought about whatever it was that he thought about.

  I fell asleep again.

  * * *

  He woke me. I leaned up in the seat as a man in a red valet outfit opened my door. He smiled at me. "Welcome to The Summit, ma'am."

  I stepped out and the valet ignored my face.

  "May I take your luggage in, sir?" he asked Frank.

  Frank smiled at me. "No luggage," he said. "We'll buy what we need."

  We went inside and Frank talked to the guy at the front desk. He reserved the room on a credit card and ordered some wine sent up, along with his and her toiletries.

  Our room was on the third floor facing the valley. I stood in front of the floor-length window and stared up at the night sky while Frank paid off the bellboy who brought up the stuff Frank had ordered downstairs.

  Without saying anything to me, he ran a bath and poured in some kind of soothing mineral and oil solution that the front desk sent up. When it was ready he came to me, took my hand, led me to the bathroom and undressed me.

  I let him. My body was scraped and bruised, but I felt no embarrassment. He didn't seem to even notice. He led me to the bath and poured me a glass of Moscato and left me.

  I soaked. I felt my pores open up and absorb all that stuff in the water. It was like having Mother Nature make love to my skin.

  I drank the sweet, fruity wine. He'd left the bottle, so I drank another glass. I washed my hair. I conditioned. I brushed my teeth and rubbed lotion on my face.

  Wearing a robe, I walked out to the bedroom.

  A single light was on and the window was open to the valley. Frank sat on the bed with his tie and shoes off. He was reading the hotel booklet that introduced us to the room and the surrounding area.

  "Brushing up on a little history?" I asked.

  He smiled and tossed the booklet on the bedside table. "You know me. Always hungry to learn."

  I walked around the bed and stood next to him.

  He started to say something else, but I leaned down and kissed him. My lips hurt a little, but I didn't mind. With the wine in me, I even liked the sensation.

  He pulled the belt on my robe. I climbed on top of him and straddled his lap and kissed him. His hands slid up my back, then down, and over my breasts and up to my shoulders where he pushed off the robe. I unbuttoned his shirt, looking him in the eye.

  I saw hunger there, lust. I pulled at his clothes.

  I saw something else, though, something that I tucked away even as I undressed him. It wasn't communicated like his desire for me. It wasn't something that he knew he was showing me.

  It was satisfaction. He knew I needed him. He'd always known it. He wanted me. I felt it, and I knew it was true. But, in the same instant, I knew he didn't need me and he never would.

  At that moment, though, I didn't care. As we fucked, it felt good not to care. The sex—the sheer physical exhilaration of being intertwined with another human body—helped to exorcise the physical memory of what had happened with Vin Colfax. For the first time in days, I felt connected to my own body. With Frank's face against mine, an orgasm shuddered through me and emptied me out. Part of the release was letting go of caring what Frank felt.

  We fell asleep when we were done, but I woke just an hour or so later and I lay there and watched the moonlight on the floor and listened to Frank breathe, and I felt free for the first time since I'd been out of Eastgate.

  * * *

  When I woke up the next morning, I took a shower. I walked out in my robe, about to tell Frank that I'd dreaded getting back into my old clothes, but I found him sitting on the bed next to a shopping bag.

  "Is that what I think it is?" I asked.

  "What do you think it is?"

  "Clothes for yours truly."

  "'Tis indeed some new attire."

  I walked over and emptied the bag. Blue sleeveless top, black skirt, matching shoes. Black bra and panties.

  "Jes
us, Frank."

  "Made arrangements last night."

  "You tell them my sizes?"

  "Yeah, I remembered your sizes."

  "Of course you did. Any self-respecting cocksman knows women's clothing." I looked at him and smiled. "Frank Morley, you're blushing."

  * * *

  We had breakfast in the restaurant downstairs. The bar wasn't open, so I didn't see Mule, but I did catch myself looking for him.

  A pretty young waitress with hungover eyes came and took our order. When she left, Frank laced his fingers together on the starched white tablecloth and said, "So."

  "So," I said.

  "I haven't asked because … well, I figured you'd tell me. But what is going on?"

  The waitress brought us some water and coffee. As I flapped a couple of sugar packets back and forth, I said, "What do you mean?"

  "We could start … with your face."

  I emptied the sugar in my coffee, stirred it, and took a sip. "Shit, this is good coffee."

  He grinned and waited. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before, but the son of a bitch looked like he'd was ready to anchor the morning news.

  I put down my coffee, and I told him some of it. Breakfast came and we ate, and all the while I talked. I told him about Alexis and Kingston and Kluge and Colfax. I kept my voice low and I paused the story whenever the waitress came around to refill our waters, and I told him what had happened.

  But I left out things. I didn't tell him I'd killed Colfax, just that I'd gotten away. I didn't tell him about the money I was trying to get from Kluge.

  And I didn't tell him where Alexis really was. I lied about that. Instead of telling him that we took her east to Tennessee, I told him we took her west to Oklahoma.

  Why did I lie? I don't know. Frank and I had spent a lovely night together. He'd given me a gift, really. In the midst of a lot of awfulness, he'd treated me with tenderness and passion. Hell, he'd even bought me a snappy new outfit.

  So I told him most of the story.

  But I would never trust him again. I didn't do a year in jail only to get out dumber than I went in.

  * * *

  We were on the exit leading back into downtown Osotouy City to pick up my car when Frank said, "I think you're doing the right thing."

  "Yeah? I wondered. You didn't say much back there."

  "Well, hell, it's a lot to process. Mixed up with people like the governor and Junius Kluge and Jerry Kingston. Those are some heavyweights, Ellie."

  "Not bad for an ex-con."

  He shook his head. "I'm just glad you're okay. After, you know …"

  I rubbed the burns on my hands. "Yeah."

  We pulled up to the police station. A car was parked where his car had been the night before, so he pulled in behind my Escort.

  "Where are you going?" he asked.

  "I need to regroup. Maybe see some people. You going home?"

  "Home?" he laughed. "No. I have to go to work. I gotta pay for that overnight luxury getaway."

  "Back to the salt mines."

  He smiled. "Since my office is in the basement, that's close to being literally true."

  I nodded.

  I opened the door.

  "I'll call you?" he said.

  "I'll call you," I said.

  I gave him a kiss, got out and walked to my car. He waited while I started it, then he pulled into my space.

  I went up the street and drove around the block.

  My heart was beating.

  A couple of days before, he'd told me that he'd been sitting at his desk when he'd seen me. Now he'd just told me he worked in the basement.

  By the time I got all the way back to the parking space in front of the station, sure enough, his car was gone.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I drove, just following the traffic around Osotouy City.

  Thinking.

  I had to figure out where this left me. If Morley was working for Kluge, then maybe Kluge still thought he could get away with not paying me. I could get to the end of this mess and have nothing to show for it.

  And that was if I got lucky. For all I knew, once Morley told Kluge that Alexis was in Oklahoma, Kluge would decide to get rid of me.

  I found myself on the interstate outside Osotouy City. Just a mile or so ahead of me was the exit to a little white flight suburb called Maxonville. When I saw the sign, I remembered that this was where the Morleys lived. I had been here once to see Frank when Kitty was out of town.

  I stumbled into the memory like a room I hadn't entered in years. Kitty had been representing Eastgate at a best practices seminar in Kansas City, and Frank took me to his house because it gave him some kind of kinky thrill to fuck me there while the wife was away. It was cruel, and I hated to admit that the cruelty of the thing was part of its erotic appeal—not just for him, but for me.

  It also turned out to be a catastrophically stupid mistake. Frank thought he could get away with it, thought the neighbors wouldn't notice, or if they did notice, that they wouldn't jump to conclusions, or if they did jump to conclusions, that they wouldn't say anything to Kitty. But someone—some vigilant moral guardian—saw us and jumped to conclusions and told Kitty about it.

  When the exit came up, I took it and stopped at the first gas station off the service road. After a moment to orient myself, I drove down the road about a mile and turned into the Harmony Grove subdivision.

  And there it was. In a neighborhood of green, trimmed lawns and short driveways and nice one-story houses with fenced-in backyards, sat the Morley residence.

  I pulled into the driveway and got out and peeked through the window at the two-car garage.

  One car, not Frank's.

  I walked up to the front door.

  I rang the doorbell.

  Beneath my feet, the dirty mat read: WELCOME TO OUR HOME!

  Footsteps. The door opened.

  It was contest, really, as to which one of us looked worse. I was still beat-up looking, with bruises around my nose and scabs on my lips and scratches on my neck. Kitty, however, looked like she'd just been shit out the ass end of life. Her hair clumped up all around her head, and her skin sagged off her face like some important connective tissues had snapped. She wore a white T-shirt stained six different ways, and her arms hung at her sides like dead appendages. The only sign of life was the grip her left hand kept on a plastic cup full of ice and alcohol.

  She stared at me for a long time.

  Finally, she said, "Well?"

  "Well what?"

  "What do you want, Bennett? You here to kick my ass?"

  "No."

  "Go ahead. Wanna punch me in the face?"

  "No."

  Her eyes were as red as jelly beans.

  Somewhere down the hall behind her, a television played.

  "So what then?"

  "I need to talk to you."

  A chuckle burped out of her lips. "That's … great. That's just … great. The only person in the world with a need to talk to me is Eleanor fucking Bennett."

  She turned around and walked back down her hall, muttering, "I'm tired of standing in the doorway …"

  I stepped in and closed the door and followed her into the living room. It had a high ceiling, paintings on the wall, and a couple of large, plush furniture pieces. But the place was strewn with the debris of a week-long bender: fast food wrappers and globs of congealed cheese covering the coffee table, cigarette butts floating in backwash at the bottom of beer bottles, a half-filled ashtray sitting on the middle cushion of the couch.

  Kitty slumped down next to the ashtray and fastened her attention to the television screen where some girl was being interviewed about a bad date.

  I sat on the love seat.

  She took large breaths, as if walking to the door and back had winded her. Staring at the television she asked, "What happened to your face?"

  "I got beat up. What happened to yours?"

  She grinned at the television as if it was the
one she was having the conversation with. "I started out unattractive, Bennett. Been distinctly unattractive since I was a little girl. Nobody ever said I was pretty, least of all me."

  "You're breaking my heart."

  "You ain't got a heart. You got a pretty, busted up face, and in a couple of days or a week or whatever, you'll have a pretty face again. And I'll still be here on this couch, drunk and distinctly unattractive. Congratulations. You won."

  I picked up an empty vodka bottle. "Frank left you?"

  "Frank leaves. Frank comes back. Frank leaves again. Frank gives, Frank takes. That's the story of my marriage. I'm like his bank. Occasionally he comes back to make a withdrawal."

  "Maybe you shouldn't let him come back."

  "Considering the only marriage you were ever in was mine, I'd just as soon not hear your marital advice."

  She stared at the television, but she wasn't watching it. It was just flickers of light and blips of sound. It could have been dead air and she'd probably still stare at it.

  "Kitty?"

  She turned to me.

  I asked, "You been drunk since I got out of Eastgate?"

  "Yeah, because all I ever do is think about you."

  "Okay. Forget it. You know what Frank is up to?"

  "No. What do you mean?"

  "You know where he was last night?"

  "No."

  "He was with me."

  "Mm hmm. And you ran over here to tell me. Stay classy, Ellie."

  "You care?"

  "No, as a matter of fact, I don't."

  "You used to."

  "I used to."

  "But not anymore?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  She sipped her drink as if that was the answer.

  Less in anger and more in genuine astonishment, I said, "You sent me to prison for a year, Kitty. You ruined my life. And now you don't even care?"

  "Nope."

  I sat with that for a moment. "I know what I did was wrong," I finally told her, "but you ruined my fucking life. Do you know that?"