Bad Desire (24 page)

You're too damned smart, Reeves
.

15

An illusion of smoke haunted the air over Rio Del Palmos, although the mornings were clear and unclouded. A smaller, low-intensity bomb had been set off in an open field, which investigators now considered the work of a prankster, and there had been an undisclosed number of bomb threats. But people knew about them. Both a nursery school and a restaurant had been evacuated and thoroughly searched. The fear of a sudden cataclysm did not stop. In a plea for reason, the harassed police chief issued a statement telling the city the rage was not over. Until the convicts were captured, nothing, it seemed, could stop the bomb threats. But for years to come Denny Rivera would mark those few days of terror as the time when his life fell apart at the seams.

That first week after the murder had been a tender time for Denny and Sheila. Mornings when she let him into the house after the McPhearsons had left for work lingered in Denny's mind long after they were over. Even if he was running late, he always stopped at the bakery and got half a dozen pastries—Sheila liked eclairs—and she made coffee. Nothing much ever happened and yet, the hour or so they spent together seemed full and quiet and rich.

Mary would leave them alone in the kitchen to drink their coffee and talk. It was as though Sheila were giving him a glimpse of how it would be—the two of them married and living together. Seldom had Denny felt more privileged. She was funny and sweet in those first moments after waking up, her face soft and clean, still puffy with sleep.

He was careful not to mention the murder or anything having to do with it, unless she did. Many times during the week that had passed, he knew Sheila was longing for her grandmother. The undercurrent of her grief was ever present. With that in mind, most of their conversations were subdued and about the immediate future.

“I don't know,” Denny told her one morning soon after he had arrived, “I don't think I should leave you right now. To tell you the truth, I almost called Burgess last night and canceled, so he could get somebody else.”

Licking a smear of chocolate from her lip, Sheila smiled and said, “Oh, Denny, what's wrong with you? It's only for six weeks. You've talked about working at that sports camp all winter.”

“Well, it's not really a camp; it's a clinic.”

Mary agreed with Sheila. “But it's got to be easy money, Denny. Where else're you gonna do that well?”

And he backed down. “All right,” he said. “It's probably too late to get out of it now, anyway.” He watched the two girls move idly around him in their sleep-wrinkled gowns and loose robes. Then Mary was gone and Sheila was smiling at him. He was crazy in love with her.

Then, two days after the explosions, Sheila met him at the back door but she stayed inside the screen. “Maybe you forgot,” she said. “I've got to go to Mrs. Sanders's tomorrow and—Denny, I've got a thousand things to do.”

“I guess I did forget,” he said, “but I can give you a hand.”

She was still in her robe, but he noticed that she had already taken her shower and that her hair was brushed and silky clean. “Denny, not now, okay? Not this morning. I've got a lot of things I need to do by myself. Why don't you wait and come by tomorrow afternoon? You can ride with me when I go over there.”

“Okay—but wait a minute,” he persisted. “If this is your last day here, then let's take off somewhere. I can get away and I'll help you with your stuff tomorrow. Come on, let's go some place … to the beach—”

“I can't,” she said. “I really can't. You have no idea what this moving from place to place is like.” Her eyes slid away. “I'm going to be tied up all day and half the night. Don't make me feel so pressured.”

Denny stood, clutching the bag of pastries in his hand. It was true. He had no idea what it felt like to be so unsettled. “I know a way to change your mind,” he said. “Here, you and Mary have these. They're for you anyway.” He pushed the screen door open, handed her the bakery bag, kissed her on the cheek and headed down the side of the driveway toward the street.

Sheila dropped the eclairs on the kitchen counter and ran upstairs.

“Is he gone?” Mary asked.

“He's gone. But I've got a feeling he'll be back.”

Mary rolled over and sprawled across the bed, her chin propped in her hands, watching Sheila strip off the robe and run to the closet in her bra and panties. “If he's coming back,” Mary said, “I'm not staying here, either. If he gets mad … Sheila, I don't want Denny mad at
me
.”

“He won't do anything,” Sheila countered, clearly preoccupied with what she was going to wear. “He's always mad at somebody and he's never done anything before.”

“So?”

“I can't help it,” Sheila said through a dark red Thai silk dress she was pulling on. Lifting her hair from the yoke, she stepped quickly to the mirror, turned twice and shrugged the dress off again. “I need to get away,” she said, as if to explain. “I just have to get away for a while.” This time Sheila stepped into a chamois minidress, fawn colored, and pulled it up over her shoulders. “So, I'm talking to Annie Gilbert and she asks me to come spend the day. What am I supposed to do? Say I can't? Mary, you've got to cover for me, just this once.”

“Once! Did I hear you say,
‘Once'?
How many times have I covered for you?”

“Okay, okay.” Sheila laughed. “But you will, won't you?” She cinched a wide red belt at her waist and pushed on red cowboy boots. “What do you think—do I need stockings? I look awful, don't I?”

“With that tan? Don't make me sick!”

“No, seriously.”

“You look fabulous.”

At a raffish angle, Sheila put on a big, red, straw hat so that it shadowed half her face. “Is this all right?”

“Absolute depravity.”

“Thank you,” Sheila said. “You will take care of things, won't you, Mary?”

“Have I ever let you down?”

The florist shop was called The Artesian and it was just opening its doors. Denny counted out thirty-eight dollars from his pocket. He had to keep five for something to drink, five or six for gas, leaving him with twenty-seven, twenty-eight dollars. The roses were a buck fifty apiece; he did a quick calculation—he could afford eighteen of the white bud roses.

“How much for that pink tiger?” He motioned toward the four-foot-high stuffed tiger sitting behind the counter.

“Twenty-two, fifty.”

“What d'you think is better for a girl: the tiger or roses?”

The florist laughed and shrugged. “I'd take the roses,” said the woman arranging flowers at a table.

Denny had roses in mind, but he had wanted a roomful. At the same time, he worried that they might remind Sheila of the funeral. “Okay,” he said, “but could you wrap 'em up nice in that white paper? It's a surprise.”

With the eighteen roses in a cone of white paper lying on the seat beside him, he swung by the garage and asked Gonzales if he could keep the pickup for the day. “When you gonna pay me back these favors?” the mechanic called after him, but Denny was away, winding through Woodrow Estates and coming out on Belvedere Avenue, two blocks from the McPhearson house.

He let up on the gas, shifted back a gear, traveled the two blocks and cut the engine at the curb. The Dutch Colonial sat across the intersection, on the opposite corner. Afraid of breaking the wrapped roses, Denny cradled them protectively in his arm and got out of the pickup, moving around to the sidewalk.

He was about to cross the street when he saw the door at the side of the house fly open. Sheila came out. Quickly he hid the flowers behind his back but Sheila didn't turn around. Why was she all dressed up? She wasn't in mourning; she looked fabulous. What's going on here? Denny watched as she ran for the alley. Where's she going in such a big hurry? He started after her, but directly ahead of him, down the next block, he saw the old red and brown station wagon whip from the alley and sink from sight in a patch of gray exhaust.

Denny stood rooted where he was, peering into the thinning fumes. What is this!

He ran to the pickup, tossed the roses onto the seat and jumped in beside them. He tried to tell himself that she must be running out to her grandmother's house, but his instinct got in the way. Why would she dress like that—to go out there? Denny tore after her through the intersection, pushing the truck faster and faster. He thought, Let's find out where the hell she's going.

He let her trail ahead of him. As long as he could keep her in sight, that was all he cared about. She was headed east, into the country. You goddamned little sneak, he thought. You
lied
to me.

She wasn't there.

Slater parked the Jaguar facing the closed stadium, snapped the engine off and slid lower in the cockpit to wait. He told himself he was behaving like a schoolboy. Through an open portal, he could see a patch of the Vandalia Tigers playing field—silent, artificially green. 10:06. Six minutes late. Christ. His eyes were riveted on the rearview mirror, waiting to see the station wagon among the approaching cars behind him. But it was still another five minutes before the wagon appeared. He watched as it turned and parked a short distance away in the shade of old mangroves.
She's here
.

Stopped at the corner traffic light, hemmed in by other cars, Denny sat frozen in the pickup, watching with amazement as Sheila darted toward the low-slung car. There wasn't a thing he could do. He saw the passenger door swing open and then Sheila was getting into the bucket seat.

The traffic light flashed green; the cars ahead of him in the turn lane started to move. Denny slid his foot from the brake to the gas and let out the clutch, still thinking he might catch them.
Come on! Come on, let's go!

“I almost didn't see you,” Sheila said. “Is this your car?”

The moment the door shut behind her, Slater backed out of the parking lot, but his eyes were lit up with amusement. “Of course it's my car.” Sheila was breathless, her face flushed.

Slowed by the movement of the cars in front of him, Denny turned left through the intersection just as the Jaguar shot straight at him, going the other direction. As it sped by, Denny looked down from the high cab of the pickup and there was no mistaking who the driver was.
Slater
. That was all Denny could see but the sight burned him.
I knew it!
“What're you doin', Sheila!” He struck the wheel with the bottom of his fist. “What the hell're you doin'!”

The wheels of his pickup squealed into the stadium parking lot, skidded into a U-turn and bounced back onto the street. “You won't get away with this,” he said in the hollow cab. “I'll show you! You don't know who you're messin' with!”

But at the intersection, where he was forced to stop, Denny could see that the Jaguar was gone. He threw his cap onto the seat and ran his hands through his hair. Then he remembered the roses. He grabbed up the flowers and slapped them again and again against the window until a riot of bruised buds covered the dashboard. “All right!” he said to himself. “All right! I'm never gonna forget this, Sheila. Never!”

Sheila wore sculptural gold orbs, like scarabs, on her earlobes. “I didn't see your big car,” she said. “I didn't know what to look for. What happened to the Jeep?”

“I only use the Jeep when I'm not on the job,” he said, shifting into third gear.

If she noticed that he was taking back roads out of town, Sheila didn't mention it. “What kind of car is this?” she asked, her expression bright with curiosity.

As he drove, Slater sketched the Jaguar's history for her, what make it was, where it was manufactured, all the time picking up speed. “One of these days,” he said, “I'm going to have it restored.”

Always afraid that they might be seen, he felt tremendous relief when the town of Vandalia fell away behind them. His hands relaxed on the wheel; his anxiety dissolved, only to be replaced by an extraordinary awareness of how close they were in the outmoded cockpit.

“How are you feeling?”

“I'm better today,” she said. “How fast will this go?”

“Fast enough.”

Sheila leaned toward him. “Wasn't that something? Those explosions!”

“Sheila, you have no idea,” he told her.

She thought for a minute, then she smiled. “Can we have one ground rule?”

“You know I don't believe in rules.”

“Just this once. I don't want to talk about anything awful that's happened. Okay, Mr. Slater? I don't even want to think about it.”

He saw how suddenly serious she was. “Of course,” he said. “And there's another thing. When you're with me, I'd like you to call me Henry. We've been through this before.”

“Maybe I will this time,” she said.

He luxuriated in her presence. The floppy wide brim of her hat was loosely woven, sending splinters of light across the shaded side of her face. “Could we put the top down?” she asked. Her tanned arms were flawless, without mark or blemish and her eyes were heavily lashed, beautifully shaped—great, lustrous blue eyes.

“You might lose your hat,” he said, grinning.

“I'll take it off.”

“Let's put some miles behind us first,” he said. “I was beginning to think you weren't coming.”

“I told you I would.”

On the open road, the wind and engine noise made it difficult to talk. He wondered what she was thinking. He rejoiced at being confined with her in so intimate a space. The explosions had worked even more beautifully than he'd expected. With Reeves buried in investigations and paperwork, Slater could devote himself to her, and he wanted to be with her as often as it could be arranged. When he wasn't looking at her, he felt her presence surround him. It was like a radiance that filled the car.