Compound Fractures

by Stephen White

I ALLOWED AMANDA A SHORT lead before I followed her in the general direction of the address on the card. I stayed on the Mall until Thirteenth. I passed the Boulderado and continued to Pine Street.

  The address that Amanda had given me was assigned to a unit of a fourplex crammed onto a lot on the north side of Pine. Two of the units were in a subdivided plain-Jane Victorian that had graced the front side of the property since the late nineteenth century. That house had been alone on the land until the restrictions of Boulder’s growth controls—love ’em or hate ’em—motivated the owner to squeeze more revenue out of the investment by erecting a utilitarian addition behind the original home.

  The unit I was looking for was D. Upper rear. Amanda had left the door cracked open. I paused at the sidewalk to shut off the power to my smartphone, my “tracker.” As I climbed the stairs toward the apartment I realized that the alley between Pine and Mapleton provided an alternative entrance to the rear apartments. That meant an alternative exit, one I might need if it turned out I was being lured into a trap. The nature of Amanda’s trap? If it occurred, I had a suspicion that it would involve Raoul.

  Amanda was standing in the kitchen. Expensive flowers arranged into a too-large bouquet were beginning to die in a cheap crystal vase on the laminate bar. Beside them were a stack of red plastic Solo cups, a half-consumed jug of cheap vodka, a bottle of good red wine, and a glass candy dish full of condoms.

  She had called them “covers” during her therapy with me.

  The apartment’s bones were utilitarian. I felt certain that Amanda didn’t live there. “Yours?” I said, wondering if she would lie to me.

  “God no.” She shivered dramatically. “I’ll explain. Close the door, please.”

  In layout and construction the flat was a basic rental. Living room and kitchen in front, a bath with doors to both the hallway and to a solitary bedroom in back. Builder finishes. Laminated counters and flooring. Hollow doors, cheap carpets. Mini-blinds. White appliances. Not a place where Amanda Bobbie would go home at the end of the day to kick off her Christian Louboutins.

  “I borrowed this so that we could have a quiet place to talk. It’s a friend’s. A colleague’s. It’s private.”

  Amanda was a grad student at CU, about to get her master’s. A colleague could be a fellow student. Amanda was also an adult service provider. An escort. A colleague could be a fellow adult service provider.

  Despite its pedestrian construction the apartment was comfortable, even welcoming. It didn’t look like a student’s abode; the space had a clear sensual vibe. I made a guess I was in an escort’s lair. I felt relief that I had turned off my tracker.

  I said the obvious. “Your colleague doesn’t live here.”

  “It’s set up for work. The previous tenant was a graduate student who was kicked out of school for selling weed on campus. My friend is paying his rent. She and one of her girlfriends use it to see clients. The landlord is in Oklahoma, doesn’t know the grad student is gone.”

  “Clients?” I said. I realized that Amanda wanted to be certain that she and I talked about her business. During her therapy she had demonstrated an ability to distract me by sharing provocative stories. She was adept at it. I had a proclivity to fall for it. This was shaping up to be one of her provocative stories. I was forewarned.

  “Some girls prefer hotel rooms. Most hotels look the other way, but there is always a risk of discovery, and hotels get expensive. A few girls bring guys to their homes. I don’t get that—the security issues make my skin crawl. Others get places like this. Or short-term rentals. Month-to-month things. Sublets. Industrial spaces. Or they make kickback deals with landlords who are happy not to notice things.

  “By the time neighbors begin to get suspicious the girls are scouting the next place. This one expires at the end of the semester, one way or another.”

  I had an image of a prostitute/landlord/vice cop game of Whac-A-Mole. I thought, In Boulder? I then felt naïve for thinking it. Why not in Boulder? I nodded as nonjudgmentally as I could. It was my therapy nod.

  “This is an incall,” Amanda said. “If you’re wondering.” I had been wondering. She continued the lesson. “If a girl has the place—flat, hotel room, whatever—and the guy joins her, it’s an incall. If she meets the guy where he is—his hotel room, usually, or sometimes where he lives—that is an outcall.”

  I wasn’t sure why I was getting the lesson, why Amanda had invited me to meet in that particular incall, or why she was emphasizing the sex trade she worked in. My history with her told me to redouble my vigilance for prurient distraction.

  I said, “I get what here is. That leaves the question of why? Why are we here?”

  “It’s better that you don’t know where I live. I moved after that … day. From the place he was renting for me. I don’t want the Buffer to know where I live.” I didn’t know it while I was treating her, but the Buffer was Amanda’s nom de guerre for Raoul. I was puzzled why she continued to use it. “I have no more confidentiality with you. What you don’t know you can’t reveal. This is an impersonal place, and it’s private.”

  Amanda was hiding from Raoul. Not from the cops.

  “I will leave town as soon as I graduate in May. Until then? Caution.”

  I said, “Same plan? Legit job? Atlanta?” She nodded. “What do we need to talk about?”

  “I’m getting there,” she said. “Back when I used to smoke? This is the moment when I would light up. When I’m anxious. This isn’t easy for me.”

  My empathy for other people, those I didn’t love, was nearing an all-time low. I almost tipped my hand by telling Amanda that I didn’t care if anything was easy for her. The only reason I didn’t say it was because I feared the admission might drag out our ordeal. I wanted to get to the part about the shoes with the red soles.

  “Do you work here, too?” I wanted to know if she had gone from being the companion of an überwealthy man to being a worker bee in the world of hourly escorts.

  As soon as I spoke, I recognized that Amanda had succeeded in distracting me. My question was provocative, even hostile. And it was certainly inappropriate.

  She flipped her hair. “Why? Are you interested, Alan?”

  She wasn’t flirting. She was letting me know she had taken offense at my question. She was also sending a clear warning that she wasn’t planning to take more.

  I would have to behave myself. The apology I offered lacked sincerity.

  She said, “I neither need nor want your understanding. Your approval? Hardly. I have income to replace. A lot. I intend to land in Atlanta with no debt.” She had answered my inappropriate query without admitting a thing. “Would you like to sit?”

  The living room offered a choice of a reasonably new futon or a leather sofa from a decade past. Not a recent decade past. The kitchen counter was fronted by two simple wooden stools. “These look fine,” I said.

  From the counter I could see into one end of the bedroom. A massage table. I assumed the other end had a bed. Or maybe something else. I felt a flash of curiosity. “You wanted to talk, Amanda. I’m here.”

  She sat beside me and waited until I made eye contact. She said, “We’re not doing this well, are we? I’m good at it—at making people, men, feel comfortable. So the awkwardness is on you. You may be unwilling to feel comfortable.”

  Provocative went both ways. I was tempted to lash out, to cause some damage. I didn’t. I said, “Maybe you should just tell me what you think I need to hear.”

  Amanda checked her perfect posture. She touched the insides of her knees together primly as she tucked her modest skirt into alignment. “I think you should know, you have the right to know,” she said, “that Diane Estevez had motive that morning.”

  “Motive?” I said.

  I’d said it as though I didn’t know what the word meant.

  29

  MOTIVE? WHAT?

  “This is hard,” Amanda said. “Diane had a motive to shoot your wife.”

  Aman
da’s words seemed to bounce around the room, not so much an echo but in a syncopated repetition, as though a DJ were spinning the sounds on vinyl. Over and over, fragments of the words kept hitting at my ears. Gaining, then losing amplification.

  Motive … to shoot your wife. Diane. Motive to shoot your wife. Diane. Motive.

  I took a few steps away. I didn’t return to the stool until the reverberations stopped. I said, “May I have something to drink? Please.”

  “Vodka or water?” She didn’t look; she knew the choices.

  A Solo cup of cheap vodka was unlikely a wise idea. “Water.”

  She retrieved two bottles of Eldorado Springs water from the refrigerator. I took a long drink.

  She said, “You are taking this better than I expected. Did you know?”

  I tried to be gracious. “I know some of what Diane was dealing with that day. Thank you for being honest enough to tell me what you think. I was—I have been a jerk tonight. I apologize. I’m not in a good place.”

  Amanda screwed up her nose and eyes and forehead into an expression of you-know-I-don’t-think-so. She said, “Wait. What is it that you think you know? What do you think Diane was dealing with?”

  She wasn’t challenging me. Her voice was compassionate. She was inviting my reply. That her concern for me was sincere made me more wary, not less. I said, “Last summer? Diane hacked into Raoul’s computer. She found out about you and Raoul. She’d read the emails or texts or whatever was there between you and him. The pregnancy? Your arrangements, the finances? She knew all of it, I think. She was already fragile over some other things.”

  She said, “Go on.”

  I thought I was making perfect sense. “My guess? Your relationship with Raoul overwhelmed her. But I think it was Raoul’s financial setbacks that pushed her too far. The shooting, that morning? She wanted you to suffer. Like she was suffering.”

  Amanda’s shoulders slumped. She said, “Oh no.” She momentarily puffed out her cheeks and lifted her hand to her mouth. “No. No, no. You have it so wrong. I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve known Diane a long time. I’m right about this, Amanda.”

  She leaned toward me. She reached out to touch my cheek. I pulled away. She reached out farther. I allowed her touch. “No, Alan. You are wrong.”

  In a nanosecond I went from I’m not wrong to I don’t want to be wrong to I could be wrong. To holy shit. Holy shit. My pulse jumped. It skipped the canter. It went into full gallop.

  Amanda said, “I’m not telling you that Diane had a motive to shoot me. No.”

  “What then?” I asked. In the moment I was already feeling the truth as a stab into my flesh. I knew that Amanda lacked any explanation that might comfort me. In any way.

  The stool I was on suddenly felt as though it lacked the requisite number of legs.

  She said, “Have you been thinking that Diane confused Lauren and me that day? Physically confused us? Like shot the wrong one? No, baby, no.” She bit her bottom lip and she shook her head. “I wish it were true, but that didn’t happen.”

  My mouth hung open. Of course I’ve been thinking that. I was there. That’s exactly what happened. But in that instant I began to accept that I was missing something crucial. I managed to blurt, “It didn’t happen that way?”

  “No, baby, it didn’t happen that way.” Amanda’s phone buzzed. She ignored it.

  I was growing more uncomfortable by the second. My ignorance about why I was in that incall and my confusion with whatever Amanda was trying to tell me were coalescing to leave me feeling completely off balance. My instinct was to run like hell.

  Her phone buzzed again. I said, “No one else is coming here?”

  She used a soothing tone. “If the door is closed, men knock. My friend knows I am here. This is a one-girl-at-a-time place. No one is coming here tonight.”

  She reached out and touched my hand. She knew she was doing this operation without anesthesia. Her fingertips carried the heat of midday sand at the beach.

  I returned to my confusion. I said, “Your hair was dark. The day of the fire. You’d colored it recently. Cut it short.” Lauren’s raven hair was short that day, too.

  “Yes. He asked me to.” He was Raoul, the one who would not be named. “He liked things to be certain ways at certain times. Clothing. Hair. Makeup even. I’d been blond for a while. For him. I’d gone back to my natural color. For him. He wanted me to let my hair grow. Then he asked me to go as black as I could. He wanted it short again. I did all that. For him.”

  Amanda had told me in therapy that the most important part of her job as a companion was accommodation, not sex. She was describing that accommodation.

  “George didn’t care?” She had been a paid companion to two men. Raoul was one. The other was George.

  “George cared about a lot of things.” She laughed. “But not about that.”

  I did not know what to do with the information about her hair. I tried to put it in the pile marked “coincidence” but it kept jumping away as though it had the wrong polarity to remain in that vicinity. I made my case: “You had just left my office, Amanda. After our session? Lauren came to visit. Then Diane burst in. She fired the gun. Your hair was black. Lauren’s hair was black. She could see the hair from the door. She confused Lauren with you.”

  Amanda shook her head, her eyes soft. She was not only disagreeing with my statement of facts, she was also sad that she was about to hurt me. I could see the hurt coming, but I wasn’t prescient enough to anticipate the nature of the pain.

  I tried to postpone the agony by expressing some desperate certainty. It was all I had left. “Diane thought it was you. In my chair. She was shooting you.” That explanation fits. It’s an explanation I’ve proven I can choke down and digest without vomiting. I didn’t ask for much those days. But I did require an explanation for that morning that didn’t make me gag and that didn’t make me puke.

  “No, baby,” Amanda said. “That’s not what happened. I am sorry. God.”

  “What are you saying? About Diane? And Lauren? What did happen? If that didn’t happen— Wait. Were you still there? Did you stay around after your session?”

  “I left when we were done. Out the back door like you asked. Over to the spa at the St. Julien. A mani-pedi? I left when you thought I left.”

  “That’s right,” I said. Those facts supported my version. I felt some hope that we would come back around to Diane’s confusion about identity. Nothing else fit my facts. “You weren’t there. What can you know?”

  The words sounded more persuasive in my head than when I said them aloud. Aloud they sounded like something defiant Grace would say with her hands on her childish hips.

  “It’s what I know to be true, Alan. That’s all.”

  “Then tell me, damn it. Please.”

  Amanda sipped water. “I so hoped you already knew this.” She winced. “I thought you knew this. So here it is: they were having a thing.”

  A thing. What?

  She said, “This shouldn’t be up to me. One of them should have … They—”

  “What kind of thing? You’re nuts.” Her words weren’t registering. A thing?

  “You know I’m not nuts,” Amanda said. “Nor am I wrong about this.”

  Her craziness—she wasn’t—was irrelevant. But I could hardly have been more certain that Amanda was wrong. Diane and Lauren had never been that close. If it hadn’t been for me, I didn’t think they would have mounted the pretense to be friends.

  Lovers? Absurd. A thing? A sexual thing? My wife and my friend? The two most important women in my life? Involved with each other? Involved involved?

  “Are you okay, Alan? I am … sorry.”

  I was shocked to discover a small part of me willing to believe that Amanda had it right. I knew in my heart that Lauren didn’t view fidelity like I did. But I said, “No way. Diane and Lauren? No.”

  Amanda’s eyes went wide and she shook her head in a fast, tight arc as h
er hand flew up to her open mouth. Her eyes implored me to take a big step back. She said, “Oh, no. Oh God. I am so blowing this. Diane and Lauren didn’t have anything going on. Not them. I am being so careful with you that I am not being clear.”

  Reality was returning to a dimension I recognized. The moment I felt that relief, I felt another blow was coming. “Then what? Tell me! Just fucking tell me, Amanda.”

  She pulled away. She said, “Okay.” She touched the top of my hand again. I felt her heat, again. My hands were cold, bloodless.

  “Raoul and Lauren were having an affair.”

  Before my brain had a chance to attach meaning to her words, someone turned the knob on the front door. The door was locked. A second later, the person knocked. A male voice said, “Sasha? Sasha?”

  The same sequence—something earth-shattering said, someone intruding—had occurred the morning Diane shot Lauren. I felt the new fright as that old terror, along with some indescribable new overlay of anguish and dread.

  Amanda witnessed my temporary catatonia, but she wisely chose not to rely on it. She put her hand over my mouth. She shook her head slowly as she raised a finger to her lips. I reached up to pull her hand away. I mouthed, Are you Sasha?

  Amanda shook her head. The knob rattled again.

  I mouthed, Raoul and Lauren? Yes?

  She nodded. The voice outside said, “Sasha? You in there? I see the lights.”

  I mouthed the word shit.

  I intended for the profanity to cover a wide range of territory.

  30

  I WAS FORCED TO SIT with my agony as the man outside the door phoned Sasha.

  Amanda mouthed a prolonged barely audible shhhhh.

  “Hey, it’s me. Paul. I’m here. It’s locked.” Pause. “What do you mean? … Yeah, I know you always confirm. I tried, but you didn’t answer so I figured you had a phone problem.” Pause. “What do you mean that’s not how it works?” Pause. “Of course you don’t answer when you’re not working. But you are working. Last week, we—” Pause. “Really? Tomorrow? Are you sure? Crap. I’m in Tucson tomorrow.” Footfalls going down the steps. “Fuck,” Paul said. “I can’t do tomorrow.”