by A. W. Gray
He answered without thinking, “What gun?”
“The gun you were going to buy the day you picked me up at the library.”
He tried to recover. “I didn’t say I was buying a gun. I was just researching the different kinds.” Actually he’d been looking up firearm laws, researching the procedure for regaining his gun rights as a convicted felon, when he’d noticed her frowning over magazine pictures of Llama 380s and Beretta .25s, both of which he could break down and reassemble in his sleep. “I like you in those shorts,” he said.
Meg looked down at snow-white thigh-length shorts with pleats. “Thank you. That’s not what you told me then.”
“When?”
“At the library.”
“Jesus, Meg, it must have been thirty-two degrees. I think you were wearing jeans. Long pants of some kind.”
She showed an irritated smirk. “I’m not talking about shorts, dopey. I’m talking about guns. And you told me you were looking up to decide which one to buy, for protection. That’s how you managed to strike up a conversation.”
He dusted the leg of his khaki Dockers. “I thought it was you that struck up the conversation.” Yellow-brown Bermuda blanketed the slope, with springtime weeds beginning to grow, creating minute swatches of green.
“I don’t remember it that way.” She turned her back.
“Yeah, you asked me, which one it’d be easiest for a woman to learn to shoot.”
She looked at him, little laugh crinkles tightening at the corners of her eyes. “You sure you weren’t just trolling, buster? Searching for a female alone, to put the story on?”
“No, I was…”
“I thought you came out from the shelves awfully fast for a guy thirsting for knowledge. You don’t strike me as the library type. You did strike me as the gun type, though. The ice-cream type, I had to get used to that.”
“I’m a management trainee.”
“Nothing wrong with what you do,” she said. “I just had you pegged as, maybe, a golf or tennis pro.”
“I sunburn too easy for that. I told you a Beretta .25 doesn’t have enough kick to throw off a lady’s aim.”
“And that’s what I finally bought yesterday.” Meg gestured behind them, up the grassy knoll where her Mazda was parked alongside his Jeep Cherokee in a grove of pecan trees with a couple of weeping willows mixed in. “It’s in my glove compartment,” she said.
He looked toward the car, wondering if the parole people could make something of it if he was with her during a routine traffic stop and the cop found the Beretta. He suspected that Ms. Marjorie Rapp would raise an issue, even if he proved the gun was Meg’s. Being on parole, Frank was never certain what he could do and what he couldn’t.
“I thought maybe this weekend,” Meg said, “we could go somewhere and you could teach me to shoot.”
He couldn’t meet her gaze, looking instead down the slope to where one girl released the kite as another ran down the shoreline like a bat out of hell, dragging the string behind her. The kite became airborne, tail fluttering, then did a dipsy-doodle and crashed to earth. “I’m kind of rusty,” Frank said.
“With all those trophies at your apartment,” Meg said, “you shouldn’t have any trouble getting into the swing.”
“It’s been a few years.”
“You never practiced when you worked in California?”
A pang of guilt shot through him. Liar, liar, pants on fire. The California job wasn’t a complete falsehood, only a half-truth. He and four Bolivian cocaine dealers had built a little shack once with the hacks standing guard, and for a brief time he’d had a job in the prison sign factory. Forty-four cents an hour. “Never got the chance to shoot out there,” he finally said.
“I still think you could teach me, if you really wanted to.”
He rolled onto his side, pulling some grass and chewing on the blades. “Why do you need to shoot?”
“Don’t you read the paper? Every day somebody’s…”
“I mean, why not Mace or something?”
She seemed thoughtful. “I didn’t really have a choice about buying the gun. It was Mrs. Dunn’s idea.”
“The principal at the school?”
She wrinkled her nose. “At Riverbend”—rolling the r, speaking through her nose hoity-toity fashion— “she’s called the headmistress, Mr. Public Education. Yeah, Dunn the Hun. She’s scared to death of kidnappers, she goes,”—Meg tucked her chin and deepened her voice—” ‘Some of the wealthiest children in America are under our care here. We must be on guard.’ God, everybody out there giggles behind her back.”
“Why don’t you move out of that place and into an apartment?” Frank said. “Make it easier for us to…you know, see more of each other.”
She stuck out her tongue. “I know what it’d make it easier for you to do, bucko. Unless I get suddenly rich, though, you’re going to have to content yourself with weekends. It’s a good deal, free room and all, but I think this summer I’ll be looking for another job. I’ve had about all of Mrs. Dunn I can stand.”
“She must be something,” Frank said. “She’s the only one you’ve ever had a bad word to say about since I’ve known you.”
Meg scootched around on the blanket and laid her head in his lap. “I should keep my mouth shut. Helen Dunn’s only trying to do her job, but she’s gotten paranoid about it. Now she’s got me on patrol.”
Frank stroked her hair. “You mean, like guard duty?”
She snickered. “All I’m lacking is the uniform. It started this semester when the Dalforth brats took up residence.”
“The jeweler Dalforths?”
“None other. These are grandkids, Trina and Trisha, only they’re not twins. Trina’s a junior and the other little angel is in ninth grade. Talk about spoiled. God.”
“They’ve got some bucks okay.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Meg said. “Mrs. Dunn reminds everybody on the staff, about a hundred times a day, that they’re worth millions. That’s just the way she says it, too, millions. She sounds like Tweety-bird. For someone that’s not supposed to be materialistic, you know, a headmistress, Mrs. Dunn’s more obsessed with people’s wealth than anybody I ever saw.”
“Their folks probably donate a lot to the school,” Frank said.
“They’d have to, to keep me running around all night. Mrs. Dunn’s got me setting my alarm every two hours. One, three, and five o’clock I go tramping around the dorm in my bathrobe making sure everybody’s accounted for. Prayer number one is that no one snatches one of the Dalforth kids. Mrs. Dunn might not survive.”
“A place like that does need some security,” Frank said.
“I’ll go along with you there, but why don’t they hire some off-duty cops or something? I signed on to teach sophomore English. When they offered free room and board to be the dorm mother I jumped at it, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Just cool it. Things’ll get better.”
“If they don’t by the end of the term, it’s adios, and I’m not kidding about it. Until then I’m gutting it out, but God—if something should happen, number one, I’m calling the police. Then I’m taking smelling salts over to Mrs. Dunn’s house to break the news. I don’t know which would be worse, a real kidnapping or having to tell her about it. A tossup, if you ask me.”
5
Howard Molly, addicted to wintergreen Certs, popped one in his mouth, held it between capped front teeth, and smiled. “I’m enjoying our visit, don’t get me wrong, but you really should have made an appointment with the casting director. My office only handles the business end.”
“You’ve really got the credentials,” Darla Bern said, running her finger inside her Bruno Magli sheenless spike-heeled pump and tugging back on the heel. “Hip Pocket Theater, that plaque says, that on the wall’s an appreciation certificate from
Little Chicago Theatrical…wow, that pen set, is that from…?”
“Century Plaza Playhouse,” Molly said, lovingly raising the fountain pen and then sliding it back into its holder. “Gave me that when I left to take this job, in fact.”
“You like Dallas?”
Molly crunched on his Cert, the minty taste spreading throughout his mouth along with a slight stinging sensation. “Compared to what?”
“To wherever else you’ve lived. Which apparently is a lot of places.” Darla wore a yellow silk sheath with leopard spots, the skirt halting six or eight inches above her knee, and her L.A. Eyeworks sunglasses. “I’d only want a small part.”
“The city could stand more culture, which is what I’ve agreed to try and give it. Not much theatrical opportunity here, frankly.”
Molly rubbed his temples with his forefingers. “Which part did you have in mind? There are several lesser roles.” He had thick, jet-black hair, graying at the temples, and spent a lot of time in tanning salons. Visible through his office window were forty-foot elms and sycamores, the still waters of Turtle Creek, a chiseled stone sign reading “Dallas Theater Center,” mounted on a block of granite.
“Which ones are open?”
Molly frowned, considering her, trying not to watch the shapely nyloned calf as the foot swung to and fro. “Have you read Autumn Midnight?”
“The play?”
“Yes. That is what you’re here to talk about, right?”
“That, and to meet you in person. I’ve heard so much.”
“You must know that I don’t cast plays.”
The corners of her mouth turned up. “The casting director works for you, doesn’t he?”
“We give all our creative people full rein.”
The smile broadened. “I know how that goes, Mr. Molly.”
Molly leaned a bit sideways to look through the floor-to-ceiling window beside his closed door. In the reception area, a huge man with shoulder-length blond hair sat reading a magazine. Molly said to Darla, “Would your husband like some espresso, Mrs. Bern? Cafe mocha or something?”
“It’s ‘Miss.’”
“Oh? I thought he was with you.”
“We traveled here together. There’s no attachment.”
“You came from…?”
“L.A. I’ve brushed up on my Texas accent, in case the role requires it.”
“I’ve got to say I find that strange, someone moving from the land of milk and honey to try to be an actress in Dallas. There isn’t much work here.” Molly swallowed his crunched Cert, quickly stripped another free of the package, and put it in between his lips. He made a sweeping gesture around his office.
“This you see here, this is more of a civic undertaking than anything else. If it wasn’t for endowments we couldn’t survive.”
“I had other reasons to come to town.” she said. “And I thought I had a connection here.”
“Who is it?”
She removed her glasses and sucked on an earpiece. “Why, you.”
Molly spread his hands. “But we’ve never even met.”
“You know a friend of mine.” Her lashes lowered. “Quite well.”
Molly propped his shin against the edge of his desk and snugged up his tie.
“Lisa Reed,” she said.
His pulse quickened. “She appeared in some things we did out on the Coast.”
Darla let her shoe dangle from her toes. “She spent some time with you in Dallas a few months back. She says you were great to her.”
“Was nothing. I only put in a word.”
“Which is what I’m looking for.” She gave him an airy wink.
“I’d, uh, seen her perform, Miss Bern.”
“Darla. So I’m told.”
He extended a hand toward the outer office. “But your friend out there.”
“I told you. No attachments.”
Christ, he thought, she has the longest thighs. “How long have you been in town?”
“Last night. Stayed in a motel by the airport.”
“You came in on American?”
She wrinkled her nose. “We drove. The highway comes in by the airport.”
“You know there are a couple of other theater groups here. There’s Theater Three…Do you have other appointments?”
Soft skin crinkled around ice-blue eyes. “I was hoping I wouldn’t need any more.”
He shot his snow-white cuff, checked his Piaget. “You’re free for the afternoon, then.”
She gave a little shrug. “As a bird…Howard.”
He flipped through his calendar. “I don’t seem to have anything going, either…Darla.”
“How nice,” she said. “What is there thrilling to do in this town?”
One hour, fourteen minutes, and twenty-seven seconds later, Howard Molly shrieked, “Christ,” at the top of his lungs. He thrashed wildly about, kicking satin sheets into a jumble as Darla rose up on her haunches and finished him with her hand. Molly’s pelvis rose, his body stiffening, hot semen pumping onto his belly. Finally he uttered a long sigh and relaxed, sinking slowly back down onto the mattress.
He softly closed his eyes. “Christ,” he whispered.
She wiped her hands on purple satin. “You like it that way?”
“Christ.”
“How else do you like it, Howard?”
He looked up, over the raised mound of his own belly, at a slim waist, pointed breasts, shoulders that were slumped as her hands rested on her thighs. Visible beyond her was his bedroom door, pictures of himself at social functions with Bette Midler, Tony Bennett, the mayors of Dallas and Baltimore. He felt poetic. “Let me count the ways…”
“You like threesomes? Lisa said you…”
“Christ.”
“You’d like me to keep you happy, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m a man of simple pleasures.” He laughed.
She looked around the room. “I’m in a bit of a bind, Howard. I’d need a place to stay.”
His mind drifted, spent, his body limp. “The man with you looks like a stud.”
One corner of her mouth tightened. “He is. You’d want a threesome with him? Maybe you’d like to watch, him and me.”
“Oh no. Much more than that.”
“We’re waifs, Howard. Nowhere to call home.”
He raised himself up on one elbow. “I couldn’t do it here. My ex-wife comes by. Leaves the kids, every two weeks for the weekend. I’ve got appearances to keep up. I can have you over, often, I hope, but only when I’m sure we wouldn’t be interrupted.”
“Sure.” Her look showed disappointment. “But we’d have to find someplace to live.”
“Look, I have a lake house.”
Her eyes widening. “You do?”
“It’s where your friend Lisa stayed.”
A softening of her mouth as she brought up one hand to touch her hair. “Seems like she said. I’d only need help until I can get a part.”
“I’ll set you up with our casting director.”
“I’m a good actress. You won’t—”
“Yes.”
“—be disappointed.”
“I’m sure I won’t. Listen, I don’t go to the lake house very often. It’ll take some cleaning up.”
“I’ve got no problem with housework, as long as it’s not on a steady basis.”
“Needs new drapes. Sheets on the bed. Just about everything.”
She reached out and pinched his nipple. He gasped. “I’d have to go shopping, Howard,” she said. “Listen, have you got a credit card or something I can…?”
6
Twenty-six thousand feet above Denver, Colorado, Randolph Money mopped cold water from his face. He wadded and dropped the paper towel into the disposal slot. Seen in the mirror, his face was long a
nd narrow with slightly drooping jowls. He wore a sky-blue blazer over a white-on-white shirt and tie combination, the aging exec on vacation, dressed for springtime. He flushed the toilet. Blued water swirled around before the vacuum sucked it below. He slid the latch to one side, opened the door, and excuse-me’d his way past a woman who’d been waiting to use the John. She shot Money a curious glance as she went inside. He moved up the aisle and passed the galley, flight attendants loading trays into slots with a series of flat, metallic clicks, and went up half the length of the Economy Class section to where Basil Gershwin sat.
He went up behind Gershwin and tapped him on the shoulder. Basil turned and grinned, indicating the two airline meals spread out before him, one baked chicken with green peas, the other slices of gristly beef with brown gravy. “I took yours.” Basil said, “since you told the broad you weren’t hungry.” Which brought a scalding glare from a woman in an aisle seat, one row up.
Money crooked his finger. “Let’s talk back here.” He retreated toward the empty rows at the rear of the plane.
Basil frowned. “Soon as I eat!’
“No, right now.” Money said. “Now.” He led the way, sinking into a window seat with four empty rows between him and the nearest passengers. Basil flopped down beside him, wearing a neon green sport shirt, yellow slacks, and black lace-up shoes. Money held up his flattened palm. “Hold your voice down, will you?”
Basil looked guardedly toward the front of the plane. “This ain’t about your food, is it? You said—”
“No…food. Nothing about food. I’ve been thinking about what’s going to happen when we land.”
“We talked already. We got a rental car.”
“We have a car arranged and paid for. I’m thinking we should part company.”
Basil showed a hurt look, bushy brows tightening, mouth partway open. Like something from Gorillas in the Mist, Money thought. Or better yet, call this guy the misty gorilla. Basil wore a blue knit shirt and yellow slacks.
“Nothing against you,” Money said, “but together we stand out too much, as I see it. Two men dressed so differently. People are less likely to remember us separately than if we’re together.”
