Rita stepped clear of the stall. “What’s the problem?”
Janine made a glutinous noise, as if to spit, and staggered a little. Tears crystalled her eyes, then flowed.
“Let’s go,” said BJ, tugging at her arm as Dee came out of the stall, fully dressed now.
A guk-guk sound, a hiccup, issued from Janine’s throat
“Come on!” said BJ.
Janine shook her off, petulance uglying up her face. “Cunt,” she said thickly to Denise. “Fucking cunt . . . slut.”
“You left out ‘bitch,’ ” said Rita.
The blond’s eyes skipped to her. “You. . . . you’re the bitch.” She said it without much conviction, as if she had only just noticed and had not yet processed all the evidence.
A stall door closer to the exit flew open, and three girls emerged. “ ’Scuse us,” one said, hand-signaling apology. “Just passing through.”
They fled into the din.
Rita turned to tell Dee they should leave, and the blond rushed her, a mushy weight slamming her into a partition. Rita braced, grabbed a handful of half-tit, half-blouse, wrenched and spun the blond into a stall and pinned her against the wall with an elbow barred under the chin. A scream from BJ. The blond’s blue eyes went buggy. She clawed ineffectually at Rita. Slobber filmed over her chin. A few ounces more pressure, Rita thought, and it would be thumbs down for this first-time gladiator. Her heart, speedy from the coke, had slowed. The skin of her face felt cold, bloodless.
“Don’t hurt her!” Dee laid a hand on Rita’s shoulder. “Please!”
Rita slung the blond about, shoved her down onto the toilet. She sat with knees spread, holding her throat and gagging.
Dee pulled Rita away, then toward the exit. “Let me talk to her.”
“You start talking to her,” Rita said, “and we might as well say our goodbyes right now.”
“That’s not true.” Dee kissed her. “I’ll be out soon as I can. Wait for me?”
“All right,” Rita said off-handedly.
Dee rested her arms on Rita’s shoulders. “You don’t believe me?”
“If you say so.”
“Do you know what you are?” The girl enveloped Rita in a hug and whispered. “You couldn’t! If you did, you’d know I have to be with you.”
Her intensity touched off Rita’s paranoia, but she had already decided to disregard such signs. “I believe you,” she said.
“It might take a while, but I promise I’ll be there.” Another kiss. “Promise you’ll wait?”
“Yeah, I’ll wait. I might be in the parking lot. If not, I’ll be at the bar.”
Rita passed back into the club, BJ at her heels. The band was on another break, and the jukebox was down so low, the song it played was all but drowned in a surflike babble. People milled on the dance floor. Shouts demanding music arose. Rita felt the ruler of all she saw.
“That was some shit,” said BJ. She had a furtive, skittish look, touching her hair, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “Janine’s been crazy ’bout Dee for fucking ever. And Dee knows it. . . .”
“Not my business,” Rita said, cutting in.
“If you’re getting involved with Dee, you might want . . .”
“We ain’t talking about a lifelong relationship here.” Rita angled her head an inch toward BJ. “You got a cigarette.”
“I don’t smoke.” A few seconds pissed themselves away, then the blow-job queen said, “I thought you were interested in Walter.”
“ ‘Interested’ ain’t quite the word.”
“Well, if you are, you should watch yourself. He’s hard on his girlfriends. I hear he gets physical with them sometimes.”
Rita scouted the crowd, not searching for anyone in particular, just looking for potential.
“Friend of mine says he beat her up,” said BJ by way of clarification.
“It’ll happen,” Rita said.
“Y’know . . .” BJ let it slide, then fired up again. “I don’t know what you’re after, but Walter and Dee, they both have issues. Dee’s impressionable, and a little crazy, I think.”
“Maybe she and Walt should get together.”
“Don’t think he hasn’t tried!”
The band came back onto the stage, picking up guitars. The drummer did rim shots, rolled the snare, rattling his cage.
“I’m just concerned.” BJ put hands on hips. “I don’t want to see Dee get hurt.”
“You’re lucky, you’ll be somewhere else when she does,” said Rita.
“That’s a great attitude!”
Rita gave her full attention, lashing out. “Who are you? Her troop leader?”
BJ stood up bravely. “I’m her friend.”
“You’re such a friend, whyn’t you come on back to the room with us and referee? That way you can make sure she don’t get hurt. Hell, you can even join in the fun. I’m liberal that way.” Rita went jaw-to-jaw with her. “That don’t do it for ya, I’d advise you to keep the bullshit to yourself, ’cause I’m sick of hearing your mouth work.”
Unbowed, BJ held her ground.
Rita chested her, knocking her back a foot. “You got something else to say?”
BJ pretended to cower. “Hey, do who the fuck you want! I don’t care.”
“It’s the best way to be,” said Rita.
* * *
Aaron had never associated evergreens with Cuba, but the road to the colonel’s lodge traveled not through the lush vegetation typical of the lowlands, but wound through towering, dark-green sentinels, rank upon rank of them, such as you might find in the pristine forests of the Northwest. The air was crisp, and he shivered as he walked—he had brought no clothes suitable for the heights of Matanzas. With a trace of desperate glee, he thought that had he anticipated this side trip, he might have packed his tweed jacket, though it was far too dignified a garment for the errand he had been designated to perform.
The road terminated at a gate surmounted by a sign on which had been painted a rampant red-eyed stag. Whether figment of the colonel’s ego or element of his family coat-of-arms, either way it spoke to the man’s unnatural degree of arrogance. The gate, a construction of planks and wire, was locked. Beyond it, the road dwindled to a path that wound away into the trees at a sharp incline. Aaron thought he made out a light through the boughs, but doubted anyone would hear if he were to call out. He searched along the fence for a means of ingress. Finding none, he was on the verge of attempting to scale it, when a man hailed him, saying, “Get your ass away from the fence!”
The man, whom Aaron assumed to be the colonel’s servant, was a roosterish little fellow distinguished by a head of close-cropped whitish blond hair, and further by the rifle of peculiar design that he was aiming at Aaron’s chest. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “You bring it?”
The question forced Aaron to make yet another assumption—that the man had mistaken him for someone else. “I brought it,” he said.
“Awright!” The servant ported his rifle. “The man’s gonna love your shit.”
He led Aaron back to the gate, fumbled with a ring that must have held several dozen keys. He cocked an eye toward Aaron. “So how about you show it to me?”
“I beg your pardon,” Aaron said, uncertain what to do.
“You take some stupid pills?” The servant squinted at him, and sucked on his upper lip, a gesture that caused his mouth, which was extremely small and delicate by contrast to the rest of his loutish features, nearly to disappear. “The gun! You said you brought it.”
Should the servant have knowledge of the weapon in question, Aaron realized that he might then be forced to shoot him, an option he did not want to elect—the noise might alert the colonel. But not to produce the gun seemed an even less attractive option. Tentatively, Aaron drew the Colt from his jacket pocket. The servant inspected it.
“That’s it?” said the servant. “That’s Bob Champion’s gun?”
Aaron could conceive of no reason not to say, as he then did,
“Yes.”
“Way Ray was going on, I figured it’d be gold-plated.”
Without first asking for permission, the servant seized the Colt by its barrel and wrenched it from Aaron’s hand. He thereupon took a crouching position and pretended to fire at, presumably, imaginary targets hidden among the trees, making spit-filled explosive noises to simulate the sound of fire. He winked at Aaron and said, “Guess I killed them niggers.”
“I don’t believe the colonel will appreciate your delaying me with this frivolity,” Aaron said. “If you insist on delaying me further, I will be forced to report your behavior.”
“Hell’s wrong with you?” The servant edged away. “You on something?”
“Please hand me the weapon. Or shall I return to town and report a theft to the authorities.”
“I don’t know I should let you in. You sound like you on something.”
“The only thing I’m ‘on’ is an errand to deliver this gun to your master.” Aaron held out his hand. “Now give it to me.”
Grudgingly, the servant tossed the Colt to Aaron and turned again to the lock. “I’m gonna keep an eye on you—you ain’t acting normal.” He swung open the gate and performed a mocking bow.
As they negotiated the rocky path toward the lodge, the servant continued to harass Aaron, suggesting in no uncertain terms that he might be prone to a number of debilitating conditions. “I didn’t think much of you, you was out last time,” he said. “But ’least you acted like a human being, not like some kinda faggot. That’s it, ain’t it? You a goddamn fairy. AIDS is crawling up your asshole.”
These non-sequiturs did not perturb Aaron. On passing inside the compound, he had a sense of calm settle over him. He felt grounded in—indeed, comforted by—the inevitability of what was soon to happen. Though thoughts of Susan assaulted him still and his heart hung heavy in his chest, those things were counterweighted by a cold emergent anger attaching to the realization that within a short while he would look into Colonel Rutherford’s eyes for the last time. It would be interesting to see what lay there.
Melting up from the shadows, its every window lit, the lodge was more impressive a structure than Susan’s sketchy description had led Aaron to believe. Large and appropriately rustic in design, with a wide porch columned by logs, set about with hand-hewn chairs. Viewed from the path below, fortified by massive boulders and guarded by towering sentries, it seemed both splendid and pagan, a sentient production of the forest floor, the genius of the place given over to the form of a squarish, many-eyed head made of logs and pitch, glowing furnace-bright with inner fire, whose brute body was nine-tenths buried in the earth.
At the foot of the steps, the servant placed a restraining hand on Aaron’s chest and said, “Major’s working in his study. I’m gonna leave you downstairs, but don’t you go poking around. Don’t touch nothing! We straight on that?”
“As you wish.”
Could the man be ignorant of his master’s rank? Scornfully, Aaron thought that the colonel’s choice of servants offered a pungent comment on all his judgments, the clumsiest being the one he had made concerning his wife’s character. But then not even Aaron had suspected that Susan’s graceful form embraced such a depth of rage and iniquity. As the servant turned to mount the steps, Aaron struck him behind the ear with the butt of the Colt—he had no complaint against the fellow, but left to his own devices, he might prove a threat. The servant slumped to his hands and knees, groaning, and Aaron struck again, laying him out flat. He then proceeded to lift the man onto his shoulder, a chore of no small difficulty, and carried him up the steps and into a long, well-appointed room lit by several lamps and by a fire roaring in a hearth so grand, it would have been sufficient to warm a castle keep. He deposited the servant on a leather couch and hunted about for something with which to bind him. Unable to find rope, he switched off the lamps and stripped them of their cords, making certain he had enough left over to bind the colonel. Protruding from the servant’s jacket pocket was a bandana, and this Aaron used for a gag. Once he had completed his task, holding the Colt in his right hand, he took a chair in the shadows to the side of the hearth, so that he would be hidden from the view of anyone descending the stair at the far end of the room.
Gazing into the hearth settled Aaron’s pulse, which his act of violence had elevated to an alarming rate. In the flames that flourished behind an ironwork screen, among the ember-edged logs, gone to charred blackness in patches, he saw the fall of a great city, its toppled towers trapping a defeated citizenry who, burning yet alive, skittered helter-skelter amid the blazing ruin of their culture. Watching them scamper, he imagined himself as God might perceive him: a tiny creature with a relatively clean soul who, moved by a single debasing flaw that ran through the center of his being like the dark twist at the heart of a ruby, was preparing to commit murder. He cursed Susan, not for what she had done, but for the fact of her existence, and he cursed God, too, for having created of his, Aaron’s, own blood the only woman whom he could love. In the face of such sacrilege, a man of the cloth might cite God’s mysterious ways, or suggest that it was not given us to know all things. But there was no mystery here. No deep philosophical conundrum. Either God in his boredom, perceiving the earth to be a dwindling concern, had relaxed his moral regulations so as to create a more entertaining prospect, or else—and this was the bitter regulation Aaron now accepted—the tablets with which Moses had returned from the mountaintop were either a misreading or a conscious manipulation of the one true commandment, Do What Thou Wilt and Suffer.
Logs shifted in the fire, the city’s fall complete, and Aaron, too, fell, collapsed, surrendered to the pressures that bound him to that place and time. He had a sudden apprehension of his position. Alone and friendless in a strange land; about to dare the wrath of god and, more pertinently, that of all the powerful men who had a vested interest in the life of Colonel Rutherford; too weak to escape the prison of his compulsions. How the thought of Cuba had changed for him! No longer a paradise isle, a postcard panorama of beaches and brown bodies, but a territory of darkness and flame that even now might be marshalling its forces against him, summoning spirits from the wild. Impious policemen with gold teeth and red hands and black guns, old luminous saints, and licorice-skinned demons of the talking drum . . . The servant stirred, moaned, and Aaron, whose attention had been so enlisted by his imagination that he had forgotten the man, started from his chair, panicked and uncertain. He went to the sofa to inspect his victim. The man’s face was pale. In the flickering light, the beads of sweat on his brow shimmered like crystals. A considerable patch of his whitish hair was matted with blood, and the blood had trickled down into the creases of his neck, drying there in tributary patterns. His right eye was partially open— firelight made the slit glow orange and silver, the colors gliding along the surface of the humor, as if it were composed not of human stuff but some rare infernal element. He moaned again. Aaron leaned over him, resting a knee on the sofa, intending to give him another tap with the Colt to keep him quiet, but as he drew back his arm, the lightning of impulse galvanized his muscles, tensing him throughout, and recognizing that the man could not survive, must not survive, he brought his arm down in what he knew might prove a killing stroke.
* * *
On her way out of Gainer’s, Rita bummed a cigarette from a bouncer. She smoked it off at the edge of the lot, at the end of the row of cars closest to the highway, leaning on the hood of a vintage Buick with a rain-beaded windshield and a grille like a toothy chrome fish mouth. It was her first cigarette in months, and it made her dizzy. She slid up onto the wet fender of the Buick and crossed her legs. From this distance the music sounded like derangement—guitar squeals breaking free from pulsing bass walls, now and then a fragment of shouted vocal. The fools by the front door were shoving each other, yelling, gearing up for a fight. Beyond the lot lay a vast acreage of brush-covered fields, some strung with surveyor’s twine, the future homes of Mr. Goodwrench and Krispy Kreme.
To the west, the riverine brightness of the expressway. The sky was all low clouds that reflected a dusky orangeness of metropolitan Seattle. Up near the light poles she could see a fine rain falling, but by the time it hit her hair, she could scarcely feel it. Rita blew smoke rings, watched the coils grow shapeless in the mist. She wondered what Jimmy was up to. Wasn’t much point to worrying about him. She could feel the circuit that channeled energy between them glowing white-hot, hotter than it had ever been, and from that she understood that he was writing the finish to their story. And it was their story now that she had manipulated him to change the ending, but she wasn’t sure he would carry it through. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to. If he did, whatever happened, she’d be in the clear, but she was not prepared to lose him. Not until she was ready to take the step she had programmed him to take, and she realized that she was not ready . . . though the energy of the story was hard to resist, inspiring her to go with the flow, to surrender to the impulses it generated.
Maybe she was ready.
She flicked the cigarette butt out into the road, exhaled a final stream of smoke, and thought about Dee. That angel had a couple of loose wires, for real, but Rita sure did admire the way they sparked. Crazy goes to college. She bet the Berkeley Theater Arts department had their hands full with sweet Denise. She probably put on a hell of a show whenever they asked her to do a sense memory exercise. Who could have put that crack in her? Daddy, maybe . . .
Rita noticed a blond guy in a red shirt crossing the lot toward her. Walter’s friend. “Hi,” he said as he ambled up. “Walter’s looking for you.”
“He must be looking in the wrong places.”
“Want me to tell him where you are?”
“That’s what you want.”
Colonel Rutherford's Colt Page 14
