Frankie met him at her door, flushed, eyes sparkling. She looked stunning in a black skirt and a belted wine-colored blouse that picked up nicely the warm highlights in her hair—which now hung straight to her shoulders, the bottom turned under.
He was self-conscious for only a moment, kissing her smooth cheek, aware of her bare, slender neck within inches of his lips, smelling her faint cedar scent.
He took a half-step back, drinking her in with his eyes. “You look absolutely lovely,” he said, his voice breaking a little. He handed over the drawing.
She, too, looked flushed. “Oh, what’s this?”
“I know you have a lot of good art, but then, I’m guessing Cecil took his collection. Feel free to hide this one under the bed.”
Her eyes lingered on him, soft and full of light, and then they glossed over all at once with tears. In silence she took the drawing, laid it on the foyer table alongside a bouquet of lilies, took his navy pea coat and hung it in the foyer closet. She surprised him then, put both arms around his neck, breathed warmly against his cheek, then found his lips and kissed him deeply.
“I always wanted to do that,” she whispered as he drew her close. All the strength of his body seemed to have marshaled in his penis, leaving the rest of him weak and trembling.
“And I always wanted to do this,” he said, barely breathing as he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.
IN THE TWO weeks since renewing their friendship, Frankie spent most nights with him in the loft, swinging by her place first each evening to check mail and phone calls. She seemed to take pleasure in the loft environment, and when she wasn’t engaged in business elsewhere, remained quietly unobtrusive while he worked. She seldom spoke of her own work, though he knew she was on the board of a couple of museums, active in the business of grants and fundraisers, much as Mavis had once been.
He tried again to contact Sherylynne through the child support services, but got the same old runaround: “Either file for a custody hearing in person, or have your legal representative do it.”
“And if I come down myself, how long will it be before the hearing?”
“That depends on the case loads. Could be a month, could be three or four.”
“You can’t mail me the forms? Save me a trip?”
“Sorry. Either you, or a legal representative—”
“I’ll be there,” he interrupted and hung up.” He began making plans to fly to Midland, get this custody business on the road.
It crossed his mind that Sherylynne might be living with Whitehead. But he couldn’t picture them together—or didn’t want to. The idea of his daughter being witness to such a scenario was more than his mind would allow. Sherylynne was probably in their little house on Chaparral, cooking a few meals for Whitehead, a little housekeeping, and finagling whatever she could get out of him, materially.
On returning to the loft one noon with Chinese takeout, he and Frankie ran into Vanita. They invited her up to join them. She timidly refused, but the following day, she brought up an Indian dish of kadai vegetables. Vanita was shy, but Frankie had a way of making people feel at ease, and at her invitation Vanita joined them occasionally. Tactfully, Vanita never mentioned Sherylynne. Harley sensed that Vanita was a little more comfortable with Frankie than she had been with Sherylynne.
SHERYLYNNE HAD LEFT two racks of her clothes and other odds and ends in the loft. After a light Saturday brunch, Harley stood with Frankie, casually observing Sherylynne‘s things. A stack of unmade packing boxes lay on the floor, rolls of duct tape nearby. Something of Sherylynne seemed to linger over him and Frankie with Sherylynne’s things so visibly present. He planned to ship everything to Whitehead. Whitehead could pass it on or take it to the dump.
Harley made up a couple of boxes, taped them, then slid two drawers out of the bureau and stacked them on the dresser top. There were bras and underpants, pantyhose, a lipstick, a box of tissues, a movie magazine, and a couple of old record albums: “Blowing in the Wind” by Peter, Paul and Mary, and the soundtrack from “Hello Dolly” with Carol Channing and Louis Armstrong.
“I don’t feel comfortable doing this,” Frankie said.
“She should’ve taken the damn stuff when she left.” he said, shaking out a wool skirt, laying it alongside. He felt a little funny about it himself.
Frankie tentatively picked up an album cover. “This is empty,” she said, flipping it to show there was nothing inside. “Shall we pack it anyway?” A sheet of paper slid out to the floor. Though it was folded to the inside, Sherylynne’s heavily looped letters showed through.
He picked it up, thinking to drop it in the trash, but first reading to himself:
Dear Wendell,
I will keep this short. I’m not writing
you again. This is the last time.
Harley is not making any money and
you haven’t helped me out like you
promised. If you really don’t want me,
then what about Leah? I would think
you would at least want your own flesh
and blood baby…
Harley read the next line. Slow. Word by word. Blurring before his eyes:
…I never knew why you let us come
off up here in the first place when you
knew all I ever wanted was to make
you happy…
There was more but it all ran together. Blinding. His heart pounded, thumping in his ears. Sherylynne and Whitehead, the two of them…little Leah… “Da-da”…her pale amber eyes…Whitehead’s yellow eyes…
“Harley…?” Frankie had gone very still.
He was only vaguely aware of her, the alarm in her eyes, her voice, as a shockwave swept through him. He struggled to keep his wits while in the same moment he found himself charging down the staircase with no idea where he was going. He looked dumbly about, then opened the cabinet and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He stood, locked in place, trembling.
Frankie raced down after him, but stopped at the foot of the staircase, her face filled with shock. “Harley…” she whispered hoarsely.
His chest was bursting. He couldn’t breathe. He stared at Frankie. Damn you! he tried to shout, but his throat locked up, a faint shriek of sound he didn’t recognize. Fear overtook him, afraid he was slipping away, losing touch with reality, in danger of forever gibbering, a mindless idiot.
Frankie took a step back, pale, eyes ringed with fear.
With all his strength, he threw the bottle against the wall. It exploded, glass and liquor raining down.
Frankie shrank with a small cry as he rushed past, back upstairs. He dragged his suitcase out and threw it on the bed. He hardly knew what he was shoving into it. Jeans. Shirts. Shorts…
“Harley, what’re you doing? Please! Look at me!”
Trembling, he took Uncle Jay’s 12-gauge from under the bed, unhinged the breech and wrapped each of the two halves in the legs of a pair of jeans. He found a box of Winchester number-eight birdshot shells, pitched them in the suitcase and slapped it shut. He looked in his wallet—thirty-six dollars. He looked at the clock. Ten till twelve. First City Bank closed at one on Saturday. He grabbed his Levi’s jacket, tore a few checks out of his checkbook and folded them into his wallet.
“Harley… What’re you doing?”
He froze for a moment, aware of Frankie in his face—Frankie, the ultimate betrayer—Frankie, who knew all along, for of course Mavis would have told her.
“You…” he blathered, unable to finish. His eyes burned and he had difficulty seeing for the tears distorting his vision. He made his way past her, back down the staircase with his bag. Frankie hurried behind, followed him into the elevator, trying to hold to his arm. He shook her off, but she ran after him out into the street, ran after him through the slush of snow all the way to Varick where a taxi was easing along.
He flagged the cab, jerked the rear door open, tossed his bag inside, and fell in after it.
Fr
ankie hovered at the window. “Harley… Please!”
He leaned forward, in control now, his voice recognizable as his own, if only barely. “Twenty bucks if you can get me to First National City Bank on Sixth Avenue and Fifty-second before one o’clock.”
“You got it.” The taxi lunged ahead, tires hissing through the slush. The driver grinned at him in the rearview mirror. “Trouble with the little woman, huh, bub?”
Chapter 43
—South by Southwest—
Showdown
HE SAT RIGID in one of the molded plastic chairs in the Delta departure area at JFK, waiting for his flight to begin loading. His head felt full to bursting, hands cold, feet numb. He was unable to think, oblivious to the other passengers, a cocoon tightly wound around his own thoughts and emotions.
He knew now, of course, what Mavis had meant to tell him when he visited her in the hospital. She had known all along; that’s why she had refused to look at the baby pictures of Leah. Now he understood clearly why Sherylynne had insisted he go on to New York—it gave her free reign with Whitehead. Then, stealing the money Mavis left him when she knew he was barely squeaking by, dropping his classes, doing without… He recalled Sherylynne’s tears, watching him through the taxi’s rear window, taking Leah to the airport, knowing all the time she was headed, not to Vinton, but to Midland, to Whitehead. And then there was Frankie. Frankie, the silent conspirator. He was the simpleton, all right, the idiot, the last to know.
There had been a layover in Atlanta. Now, here in Dallas, he discovered there wasn’t a flight to Midland before noon.
He rented a car.
It was just over three-hundred miles to Midland. He should make it in five hours at the seventy speed limit, depending.
The night-lights in Dallas, Grand Prairie, Arlington and Fort Worth fell behind. Darkness stretched out over the long country before him. A thin sliver of moon rode low on the horizon. The tires droned on the pavement. A high note hummed in his head like the hum in telephone wires.
He stopped at a truck stop in Ranger for coffee and gas. The tank was still half-full from Dallas, but he didn’t know when he would get another chance. Tractor trailer rigs idled on the asphalt lot. He took the coffee to go.
The more he visualized Sherylynne with Whitehead, the two of them, Sherylynne dancing for Whitehead as she had for him, coupling, laughing at his naiveté…
He pulled off on the shoulder, went around to the passenger side of the car and threw up until he had the dry heaves. His eyes were bleary wet, whether from retching, fury, or hurt over Leah, he didn’t know, didn’t care. He rinsed his mouth with what was left of the cold coffee.
Near Abilene, he became aware of a black wall creeping up above the northern horizon. Sandstorm. As he neared Big Spring, the wall overtook the moon and a darkness more dense than any hour of night closed over the long country. He recalled the sandstorm the day he and Sherylynne first drove into Midland as newlyweds. Had he known then, he would have left her on the side of the road and hoped to hell she choked to death.
The car pushed against the wind. Scrub mesquite flailed past in the periphery of the headlights. Dust seeped into the air vents.
He arrived in Midland a little after six in the morning. A few oil trucks and pickups moved beneath the dust-dulled streetlights. He drove out onto Kickapoo Road, pulled off onto the shoulder and killed the engine. A thin blood-red slit was becoming visible on the eastern horizon, the sky crimson.
He opened his suitcase on the backseat and snapped the two halves of the 12-gauge together. Wind moaned through the weeds, singing in the barbed-wire fence. He broke the breech, thumbed in two shells and stuffed another handful in the side pockets of his Levi’s jacket. Back in the car, he placed the shotgun, muzzle-down, in the passenger-side footwell, then drove down the road and turned in over the cattle guard between the stone portals with their curbed islands of exotic cacti. The big house and its outbuildings stood dark against the red slash opening on the horizon.
Two pickups and a Mercedes stood huddled against the weather in the graveled drive; sheets of sand flowing over the ground like a torrential river.
He switched off the lights, cut the engine, opened the door, stepped one leg out, and reached across for the shotgun. In the same moment, a sharp pain shot through his leg. He jerked around to see the Doberman, eyes red, snarling, tearing at his booted ankle, twisting it back and forth, dragging him from the car. Harley managed to cock one hammer on the shotgun as he was pulled off the seat. He jammed the gun’s muzzle against the Doberman’s nose, but hesitated, afraid of blowing his own foot off. The Doberman let go, locked his teeth onto the gun muzzle, shaking it violently. Harley pulled the trigger. His mind went numb for a moment as the explosion echoed back through the car, the big dog turning in on itself. Harley regained his senses after only a second, climbed back up in the seat, his eyes on the dog kicking in its death throes as he broke the breech open. Both the empty casings and the live load arced out.
Lights came on in the front room, yard lit red with the blowing sand. Whitehead came stumbling out onto the portico, shirtless, barefooted, peering into the gloom. He yelled something but it was carried away on the wind.
Thumbing in two replacement shells, Harley stepped out and raised the shotgun, thinking to shoot out the big picture window next to Whitehead—but no, Leah might be somewhere inside.
Harley stepped forward into the porch light, aware of pain in his left leg just above his ankle.
Whitehead, backlit, shaded his eyes, then turned as if to run. Harley pulled the trigger. Stucco exploded off the porch support. Whitehead spun around and fell back, clutching one side of his face where the plaster had peppered him. Harley thumbed in a replacement shell and cocked both hammers. Whitehead hovered against the support, eyes gleaming as Harley went up the steps. He jammed the muzzle hard against Whitehead’s cheek, forced his face against the wall.
“Boy…you crazy?” Whitehead said from the fleshy warp of his mouth.
Harley reached aside and jerked the door open. He spun Whitehead around and shoved him through the entranceway, the muzzle pressed against the back of his head. Whitehead half turned. Figure-eight circles showed red on his cheek from the gun muzzle.
“Where’s Sherylynne?” Harley said in a voice he himself didn’t recognize.
A clatter of noise sounded from the kitchen. Wesley Earl burst in through the dining room and came to a stop in the doorway. Harley wheeled Whitehead around between them.
Wesley Earl had rolled out of bed in a hurry, shirtless, hair sticking up, but his eyes were wide-open. A small-caliber pistol in one hand.
“Leave ’im alone,” Whitehead mumbled to Wesley Earl.
Wesley Earl leaped back as Harley lifted the shotgun toward him. The shaggy head of a buffalo exploded off the living room wall in a mist of coarse hair and went spinning over the floor, glass eyes glittering in the arc.
Wesley Earl jerked the pistol up.
“One shot left here!” Harley shouted, holding Whitehead between them. “I don’t want to kill you with it!”
“Leave ’im alone!” Whitehead yelled again.
Wesley Earl hesitated.
“Do like I tell you!” Whitehead said.
“You’re gonna get you and him both killed,” Harley said.
Wesley Earl stared. “Harley Jay, you gone plumb crazy, or what?”
“I got no fuss with you.”
“Want me to call the sheriff?” Wesley Earl asked.
“I want you to get on outta here like I told you.”
“Throw that gun over here,” Harley ordered.
Whitehead nodded. “Go on. Give it to ’im.”
“Give it… You mean…?”
“Go on. Do it!”
Wesley Earl looked from one to the other. He let the hammer down with slow deliberation, then slid the pistol across the floor, skipping over the tiles, coming to a stop on the rug.
Harley dipped down and scooped it up.
Wesley Earl slipped uneasily back behind the door facing.
“You pop back in here with another gun, you’re both dead as hell,” Harley shouted.
Harley heard a door slam shut out back. By now he realized Sherylynne and Leah weren’t here.
He turned and stiff-armed Whitehead into a chair. Whitehead looked up from under his spiny brows, but his eyes were without spirit. Yellow flesh hung from his rib cage in stitched puckers. He looked old for fifty-one, decayed.
Harley tucked Wesley Earl’s pistol in his belt and pressed the muzzle of the shotgun against Whitehead’s forehead.
“Where is she?”
Whitehead lifted his gaze. “Like I done told you, they wasn’t here but a little while.”
Harley grabbed him by the hair, jerked his head up, leaned into his face. “Where’d she go?”
“I done told you that, too,” Whitehead managed. “I don’t know. If I did I’d tell you. It ain’t nothin’ to me.”
“What do you mean, ‘it ain’t nothin’ to me’? Your own child? She doesn’t mean anything?”
Whitehead glared. “Boy, all in the world Sherylynne ever wanted from me was my money. That’s all that gal ever thought about. Money. She ain’t never thought about you or me or nobody else. You’re just too damn dumb to see it.”
“Well, you two had that in common, didn’t you—money.”
“You married ’er, I didn’t.”
“I read a letter she wrote, said all she ever wanted was to make you happy.”
Whitehead narrowed his eyes in disgust. “Bullshit. You don’t know a goddamn thing about nothin’. I don’t know how you ever got to be so goddamn ignert.”
“Like you’re one to talk.”
“You’re ignert and you’re stupid,” Whitehead said again. There was a trace of the old belligerent glitter in his eyes now. “Just lookit you, runnin’ around here like a goddamn chicken with his head cut off. ‘Sherylynne! Sherylynne! Where’s Sherylynne!’”
Yellow Mesquite Page 31
