“Doesn’t pay to fuck with this particular gweilo,” he said. “I may not be able to spit snake bones on the floor with suave native rapidity, but I’m bigger and I can drink way more.”
“I just hope you weren’t expected to eat the deer penis. Like the worm in the tequila bottle or whatever.”
“No,” he’d replied. “And thank God, because I would’ve been an utter pussy had it come to that.”
“Probably one of those things where you’re actually expected to refuse, insisting it’s an honor you couldn’t possibly deprive your host of, being yourself so pathetically unworthy.”
I heard him snort in agreement, laughing.
And I knew Dean was still grateful to me for what had undoubtedly been my finest moment as a junior-corporate wife: insisting he read Ian Fleming’s You Only Live Twice before his first business trip to Japan.
I figured a quick run-through of Tiger Tanaka’s training regimen to help Bond pass as a deaf coal miner from Hokkaido couldn’t hurt, considering. And I’d been right.
When Dean’s host the first night asked him to please squeeze some lemon juice over the platter of lobster sashimi (served sliced in situ, with only the upper half of the shell removed), my Intrepid Spouse hadn’t batted an eye.
Poor Bond, of course, lost major face by leaping to his feet and shouting a British obscenity when his own unfortunate crustacean scuttled rapidly off the platter and across the table, desperate to escape the acidic juice.
Because a lobster served as sashimi is, of course, still very much alive.
Dean had been well prepared for this eventuality, thanks to me and Ian Fleming.
I grinned to myself, remembering that as I slit open the Amex bill with a paring knife at the kitchen table.
The total was just under seven hundred bucks: charges from Dean’s trips to Texas and Louisiana, mostly.
I’d had two rolls of film developed and bought the girls some really cheap sneakers. Granted, those purchases weren’t exactly necessities, but I figured I was still well under the limit of spousal chastisement, whenever Dean finally came home and read through these pages himself.
I packed the girls into the wagon after writing STOP AT 7-11 on my hand, hoping they’d have a pack of age-appropriate Pampers in stock so I wouldn’t have to slog all the way out to King Soopers by way of the Creek Path. Especially since King Soopers was nowhere near the crime scenes I wanted to check out in the meantime.
Twenty minutes later I was standing at the 7-Eleven checkout counter, royally pissed.
“What do you mean, my card’s been declined?” I said.
The dude behind the register wasn’t exactly sympathetic. He pushed my Amex back toward me with the tip of his index finger, one corner of his lip curled up like he was all worried I’d infect him with food-stamp cooties.
“Dude,” I said, “I just read through the bill for this month. I should have at least five hundred more bucks on that thing.”
He stared at me, unimpressed.
“Run it again,” I said.
“I’m sure you have some other form of payment?”
“No I do not have some other form of payment. Besides which I’m only trying to buy diapers and milk. Run it again.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but it won’t change anything. The card’s been declined. And there are customers behind you.”
I leaned toward him, my hands flat on the countertop between the big jar of Slim Jims and the seriously tacky vase filled with long-stemmed artificial roses, the buds of which were apparently wadded-up pairs of women’s underwear in various insipid pastel shades.
“Dude,” I said, “give me a break. It’s a fucking Gold Card, for chrissake.”
He winced and turned red, Adam’s apple bobbing wildly in his long pale throat, fat as a baby’s fist. “Please, ma’am. Language.”
I’d missed the clip-on tie attached to the thick polyester collar of his uniform.
Oh, great, a Mormon.
I snatched my card back up. “Fine. Whatever.”
He crossed his pale weaselly arms, lip curled farther up.
“And when my kids are reduced to shitting on the kitchen floor,” I said, “I’ll be sure to thank you personally in my prayers to our heavenly father, you candy-ass little schmuck.”
With that, I stormed back out into the parking lot.
Okay, not that one can actually “storm” through a swinging glass 7-Eleven exit door with a four-foot-long Radio Flyer wagon in tow. But I sure as fuck stormed in spirit, despite the dopy little automatic bell chiming in my wake.
Thirty-seven bucks in cash to last me until Dean gets home… I should’ve let Setsuko give me that money back.
Madeline, you are so royally hosed.
And Setsuko was probably on a chairlift in Aspen right now, wearing some fluffy angora ski suit while she crocheted a goddamn overcoat or bassinet or whatever, for whomever.
I called the Amex 800-number the minute we got home. I’d considered dialing from the pay phone on the 7-Eleven’s exterior wall, but feared my flouncingly irate exit had been flawed enough as it was.
Or that I might burst into tears, which would’ve been a deeply hideous and unbearable indignity at that point.
The corporate voice-over-robot lady gave me ridiculously placid guidance through the usual customer-service bullshit: Press “one,” press something else, and then “something-something nueve, para continuar en Español,” which always seemed ridiculous because how would I have gotten that far already, if I didn’t speak English? But it’s not like there was anyone to point this out to.
I punched in the card number and the expiration date. Then it wanted the last four digits of my Social Security number.
After five minutes of dreadful Muzak, a live person finally picked up: Tanya, who wanted to know how she could be of service today—but only after I told her my card number, expiration date, security code, and last four digits of my Social.
“Now, how may I help you today, Ms. Dare?” she asked.
“I’m hoping you might tell me why my card was just declined for a fourteen-dollar-and-thirty-two-cent purchase at my local 7-Eleven here in Boulder, Tanya, when it appears that the current charges on this account are under seven hundred dollars, so we should still have plenty of available credit.”
“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” she said.
“Thank you for your concern, Tanya. My children need diapers and milk and my husband is currently in Tokyo, along with his wallet. This is rather a bummer.”
“Let me just check on that current balance for you, all right, Ms. Dare?”
“Thank you very much. I appreciate your help with this.”
Hey, I’d worked as a customer-service phone chick at a book catalog in New York. Customers who’d gotten pissy about screwups not-of-my-making hadn’t ever inspired me to go the extra mile.
“Just another moment, ma’am. Our system is slow today.”
“That’s fine. Please take all the time you need.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute or so. I could hear the hum of other voices in the room around her, wherever she was.
“All right, Ms. Dare. I think I can explain what happened…”
“I hope we can get it cleared up?”
“Well, I’m afraid that there are some new charges on the account. Made in Tokyo over the last day or so on your husband’s card.”
“And?”
“And the credit limit for the card has been reached, until the existing balance is paid in full.”
“What exactly did he charge?” I knew his hotel room might’ve been expensive, but it was booked through the company travel agent so he shouldn’t have had to pay for that part of the trip.
“Well, ma’am, I’m not supposed to disclose the details of specific charges to the subsidiary card member.”
“Tanya, my husband is the subsidiary card member. This account is in my name.”
“I’m not sure that I can—”
&n
bsp; “I’m sure that you can, Tanya. I’m not only asking about this as his spouse, legally, but as the person to whom the account belongs. Please tell me what the new charges are.”
“Well, I don’t know what the charges are actually referring to, ma’am.”
“Well, what exactly is he supposed to have spent five hundred bucks on, Tanya—gold-plated sushi?”
“No, ma’am,” she said. “I mean, it’s not just one charge.”
“And you can’t tell me what the charges are?”
“I could tell you the names of the establishments, but they’re not in English. I mean, they’re spelled in English, but I don’t know if they’re restaurants, or hotels…”
“Oh. All right. I understand.”
Jesus, I had maybe forty bucks cash left, to last until the following week. Maybe I could get McNally to front me some money?
Yeah, great career move…
“Tell you what,” she said. “I think I may be able to add another twenty dollars of credit here, so you can go back to 7-Eleven.”
“Tanya, really? You have no idea how much that would help.”
She laughed. “Hey, I’ve been married. And maybe he bought you a really nice present.”
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful? You’re a total goddess. Thank you.”
She laughed again. “Nobody’s ever called me that before, in seven years at this job. You have a good afternoon now, you hear?”
“Thank you, Tanya. Same to you.”
I decided I’d give Cary another call, see if he was home and up for a walk with me.
I didn’t want to ask him for money, either. Not if he’d had to hit up his father for rent money because Bittler was fucking him over.
And we had plenty of food in the house, it was just milk and diapers we were short on.
I dialed Cary’s home phone but he still didn’t pick up. I left another message, packed up the girls again, and headed for the 7-Eleven out by his apartment. If Cary wasn’t home by then, at least I could leave him a note.
No way I was going to give Mormon boy any satisfaction by shopping again at his establishment. Although if I’d had a deer penis handy, I totally would’ve swung back through the place so I could make him eat the damn thing and then apologize.
Patronizing little petty-bureaucrat fuck.
36
Cary still wasn’t home when I got to his apartment complex.
I’d only been there once before: an end-unit apartment in this seventies-Bauhaus complex up toward Table Mesa.
I remembered thinking it was the kind of place where graduate-student marriages would die loudly and often—neighbor kids no doubt adept at sleeping right through slammed doors, squealing tires, and the answering chatter of cheap bedroom windows rattling shut within their aluminum tracks.
I just stood there for a minute, trying to remember how many rows back his apartment was—fourth building out of six?
The sun was really hot now. I was glad I’d remembered a hat.
I pulled the girls’ wagon up a crappily poured curb cut and onto the sidewalk. Had to nip around the sun-bleached Big Wheel some preschooler had abandoned upside down on his front walk, one black plastic tire spinning slowly on its axle.
Cary’s truck was parked out in front of the fourth building back, but he didn’t come to the door when I knocked.
He kept his bike hanging from a big hook in the entryway ceiling, I remembered. I leaned out from the little front stoop and peered into the closest window, hands scooped around my face to block out the noonday glare.
No bike, and for all I knew he was out on some crazy daylong endurance ride.
I grabbed my notepad out of the diaper bag, then realized I hadn’t remembered to bring a pen along with it.
Goddamn genius, Madeline. Brain like steel wool that’s been sitting wet on the edge of a sink for about three weeks, rusting into slime-bits.
Oh, well, so I’d have to do the arson tour on my own. I could get in at least a couple of stops before I had to swing home and make lunch for the kids, anyway.
By the time I got back to my house, I felt like even more of an idiot. I was hot and thirsty and had to pee really badly, plus which the girls were cranky and starving.
What the hell had I expected to find, anyway? I’d checked the gas station, the open fields, and the block where the cars had burned. All of which had happened months earlier, of course.
There wasn’t an iota of indication that anything at all had happened in these locations. Except that the gas station was still abandoned.
And I’d figured it would be a shortcut if I walked part of the circuit on the Creek Path—avoiding traffic and having to wait at intersections.
Got myself nearly run down by a bunch of haggard marathon trainees for that bit of brilliant forethought.
Perfect.
Diapers and two gallons of milk had come to $19.47 at Cary’s 7-Eleven.
I should’ve gone to King Soopers.
The answering machine’s message light was blinking, but I got the girls fed and upstairs for their naps before I sat down to check the actual voice mails.
First was Ellis, just checking in: “Still hating your husband for you. Call me.”
Then Mimi, asking if I needed any follow-up info for my article about the neighborhood meeting.
The little digital-LED readout thing on the machine clicked from two to one—last message. I was expecting Cary, but it was my husband.
“Hey, Bunny,” he said.
My slightly inebriated husband.
I could hear lots of background chatter, wherever he was calling from. The chink of china and glassware.
A bar? Some fancy restaurant?
“Sorry I haven’t checked in sooner,” he said. “Things have been crazy busy here. Good, though. Think I have that chem-plant order sewn up.”
My forearms were stinging. I looked down and realized I’d gotten myself a nasty sunburn.
“Taking the bullet train back up to…” There was some drunken group shouting in the background, drowning him out. “… tomorrow morning. Good thing I read up on my Mishima, flying over here. Made some cultured chitchat with the locals.”
The sound got squishy, like he’d covered the mouthpiece with his hand. I thought I heard him say, “Be right there.”
Then everything was loud again.
“Anyway, Kobe beef tonight. You’d have totally dug it. Everything it’s cracked up to be.”
Yeah, great.
“I should take off,” he said. “Guys are waiting on me here. Love to the girls. Hope everything’s going great on the home front, okay? I’ll try to get you again when I’m back in Tokyo. If not, see you Tuesday.”
He rang off and I smiled to myself, heartened that he’d thought of me in the midst of everything else he was juggling, so far away.
And the girls and I had plenty of organic mac-and-cheese, diapers, milk, and cheddar and tortillas here. Plus three packages of frozen tortellini and two more boxes of waffles. Even broccoli and apples.
Supplies enough to last through Tuesday, at the very least.
I pushed down the little plastic button to disconnect, then tried calling Cary again.
Still no answer.
Mimi wasn’t home, either.
“Well, fuck all y’all anyway,” I said aloud to the empty room. “I’m taking a nap on the sofa.”
I didn’t sleep, though.
I was plenty tired enough, and it felt great to be horizontal with my eyes closed, but even so it was like the cogs of the conscious-mind machinery in my head refused to disengage.
And of course thinking to myself that the girls were going to wake up any minute—so this was my last chance to get any meaningful rest before nightfall—didn’t help the situation at all.
My sunburned arms felt all pinchy and weird, and I couldn’t get comfortable on the old decrepit sofa cushions. Not to mention the fact that their foam inserts were off-gassing a distinct miasma of petrified hummus
and Cheese Nips.
I tried rolling over onto my other hip, but that meant I was facing the back pillows—only a six-inch gap between my nostrils and a wall of the sofa’s tired chintz.
Oh, gag: Cheese Nip farts. Seriously. Mixed with Eau de Dean’s socks and something else I didn’t even want to attempt identifying, though diapers came swimming to mind. Not the kind that were fresh out of the plastic Pampers packaging sleeve, either.
No wonder Setsuko had misted the place with lemon Pledge the other night. She’d been forced to it, in self-defense.
I twisted back onto my original hip, eyes still shut but facing out toward the living room again.
Better, but Mimi’s respirator would still come in handy right about now.
I thought about calling Cary again, but the fact that I couldn’t settle into sleep didn’t make me any less tired. Now it felt as though some really nasty rotten dwarfs had Super Glued my eyes shut. After packing sand behind my lashes and lids with their little tiny evil-dwarf shovels.
Hi-ho.
And my arms really hurt. I tried to remember if we had any Solarcaine in the first-aid kit upstairs. Or, you know, laudanum.
Good thing I’d been wearing a hat, anyway. But why the hell had I walked all the way to Cary’s?
Idiot.
Think about something else. Get some goddamn sleep while you can.
I tried retracing my steps around the three fire scenes I’d visited, mentally. Brought up each in as much detail as I could muster.
The field up by Sanitas was full of grass and weeds again, like it had never burned. Tons of joggers and hikers on the trail through it, moving uphill and down.
Had the fire happened during the day? Hard to believe someone could have started one there without anyone seeing him. Not a lot of tree cover.
Have to ask Mimi about that.
There wasn’t anything at all to see on the blocks where the cars had burned. Just more cars parked along the same sidewalks. Nothing underneath—no scorch marks or whatever I’d thought I’d find there.
Old quasi-industrial-looking buildings that hadn’t seemed open for business. Nobody on the street, either.
So at least the guy had picked someplace where he hadn’t been likely to run into witnesses. And he hadn’t had to bring along any acetone that time, as Mimi had pointed out. Just matches and some rags to shove in the fuel tanks of the cars themselves.
Valley of Ashes Page 19
