Bad Desire (25 page)

Twenty miles down the highway, they slowed to go through Glen Terrace. “You've changed,” he said. “You seem full of yourself—more grown up.”

“No,” she said, “I haven't changed.” When she laughed, he felt young again himself. She said, “I'll bet you do this kind of thing all the time?” He saw the gleam in her eyes—her delight in being able to tease him. “Don't you?”

“What's that?” he asked.

“Take girls riding in your car?”

“Not for a long time.”

“But you're so good at it,” she said. She smiled playfully. “Haven't you done this before?”

“Only with you,” Slater said. “I'm fairly new at this.”

“Really?” she replied. “I'm not.”

After they were out of town, he stopped by the side of the highway to put the top down. He wanted the ride to be glorious for her. He drove leisurely through the hamlets and towns, streaked over the foothills and between the long fields of artichokes, rich and verdant. “I love the speed,” she shouted.

All the way there, again and again, she was aware that he was smiling. “What's the matter?” she asked more than once, “why are you smiling?” but he only shook his head.

At a few minutes past noon, they rolled to a stop at the corner of Twelfth and Navarro in the renovated older section of Pacific Grove. Slater pointed out the shops and restaurants, arranging to meet her at six.

“I'm sorry I have to leave you like this,” he said. “I thought we might have time for lunch, but I can't stay. Why don't you buy some new clothes? I'd like to see what you would do. Change yourself completely.”

“What's wrong with the way I look?” she said. “God, you must think I'm made out of money.”

Slater shook his head indifferently. The thought of transforming her filled him with recklessness. He got out of the car, opened the trunk and put on his suit jacket. From his wallet, he took out several bills and folded them into her hand. “Don't look at this now,” he said, “and don't bring any of it back. Don't save a penny. Have a good time; I won't take no for an answer.” He told her the name of a boutique, to ask for a woman named Harriet Holt. “Tell her you know ex-senator Tripplet's wife. She'll take it from there.”

I shouldn't do this, Sheila thought. Gramma wouldn't let me—but she's not here any more. Oh, forget it; why spoil the fun? Just forget it and take the money because he wants you to. Slater wasn't smiling exactly, although it seemed he might smile at any moment and she wished he had. What she saw, instead, was so naked it embarrassed her—Sheila had never seen a more defenseless look than the one he gave her, never before.

Sheila nodded to herself then, and in that single movement, she seemed to him to be very young and very lost. “Mr. Slater, why d'you always do this?” she said in a low voice. “Do you want me to come to you for everything?”

And Slater thought, If I destroy everything around you, then you'll have to come to me. He grinned at her. “Sheila, if you'd let me, I'd take care of everything for you from now on.”

She still couldn't meet his eyes. “What kind of changes do you want me to make?”

“You decide. Something expensive and extravagant and sexy. Maybe you don't know it yet, but, Sheila, you are a really expensive girl. Tell Mrs. Holt you're going to a fancy dinner. She'll know what to do.”

“Am I going to a fancy dinner?”

“You'll see.” He opened the door for her.

It was as if a secret drum had sounded: the men having lunch at the sidewalk café casually raised their heads when Sheila got out of the car. Slater saw their eyes drift from their conversations and sandwiches and slowly attach to her. One man nudged another when she bent into the open car for her straw hat and purse. She would always be noticed; it unnerved him at times, knowing that her beauty, alone, could be their undoing.

Sheila said, “See you at six,” and walked away and the men followed her as if she existed only for their eyes and for the sweet switching rhythm of her hips.

He had only a passing interest in the conference he was to attend, but he knew he had to be there and he had to do more than merely go through the motions. A certain attitude, a questioning cast of mind had become expected of him. In the lobby of the First Pacific Mercantile Bank and Trust, Slater stood at the mirror in the public rest room, setting his tie, running a comb through his hair, rearranging his jacket on his shoulders, trying to collect himself for the monotony of the hours ahead. He was thinking that he had wasted so many years of his life—the only life he would ever have—on meetings and conferences much like this one. The world would never be new again. Only Sheila was new—hers was still the life of old dreams.

He threw off the lightheartedness he'd felt with her in the car and his face became serious and hard. He took the elevator to the twenty-first floor, got out, stepped past the placard that read:
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REVIEW FOR CITIES AND TOWNS. QUARTERLY MEETING
.

Identifying himself to the guard, he entered a second elevator, ascending to the penthouse suite. He was greeted by Vern Tripplet's private secretary, a pleasant woman he had seen here many times before, who showed him into the conference suite with its towering Palladian windows and vast views. “We'll be getting started in about ten minutes,” she said. “Mr. Tripplet had a small luncheon brought in. You're familiar with how we do things—you're welcome to help yourself. There's coffee and iced tea.”

“Yes, thank you, Marie. I would like something.” He scanned the long room, the small coteries and clusters of men.

“Would there be anything else, Mr. Slater?”

“No, thank you.” He smiled and thanked her again.

At the elaborate rosewood buffet, he selected among the finger sandwiches and miniature vegetables. Taking up his plate, he went toward the windows, aware that several of the other men, singly and in pairs, would eventually join him. There would be twenty of them in attendance, mayors of municipalities with a population of less than a hundred thousand. He knew he would be asked about the explosions; Slater braced himself with noncommital answers.

“Hello, Whitey, you old rascal,” Slater said, extending his hand to the mayor of Villa Grove. “Good to see you, McGuiness.”

“You've had your hands full down there, haven't you, Henry?”

“Yes, you'd better believe it. It's been one hell of a mess.” He talked with the men and ate the sandwiches and drank coffee. He looked through the windows at the city. Sheila was out there now, away from home and waiting for him, three miles away, in the gray-green maze of streets.

16

“Couple of six-packs, cold,” Denny said, leaning his weight against the counter. In the old jukebox, the needle slid off the record and the turntable whirred to a stop. He flicked the ash from his cigarette on the floor.

Florence, the big black woman who owned the place, eyed him. “Sweets, you're not legal. I can't sell you no beer.”

It was one-thirty in the afternoon. Except for a hobbled old black man who was rearranging the chairs and cleaning the ashtrays, the place was empty. Denny kept his voice low. “Come on, Florence, you've done it before. Don't you recognize me?”

“Everybody's always in a hurry,” the black woman commented. She smiled, exposing incredible white teeth and purple gums. “When you take up smokin'?” She was dancing a little samba behind the counter on her way through swinging doors to the kitchen. “Put some music on my jukebox,” she said. “I dance when I work.”

He fed two quarters into the jukebox, punched in Aretha twice and a Billy Ocean.

“Give me three dollars,” the black woman said, putting the brown bag on the counter. “Six Miller in here, that's all.”

“I'll leave you a tip,” Denny said and held up a five. She leaned over the counter and stretched out her fleshy arm to take it. Then she was moving again, feet shifting, massive hips shuddering, doing the samba to the cash register.

Outside, in the Firebird, his friend Tommy Ames said, “Where to next?”

“Just go.” Denny popped two cans and passed one over. Finally, he said, “I don't know what I stay here for. I wish to hell I had enough money to get away for good.”

“Sheila giving you a hard time again?”

“Nothing I can't handle. Got any weed?”

“Yeah. You want to get really fucked up, try some of this.”

They slammed out through the country on back roads, pushing the Firebird up to a hundred, once, just to see the needle jiggle on the two zeros. They drank the cold beer, three apiece, threw the cans at road signs, and couldn't think of any place that would sell them more in the middle of the afternoon. After a while Denny drove and Ames rolled a couple of joints of what he claimed was weird Panamanian. It messed them up, but nothing did Denny any good. It had eaten into him by then—the horrible, numb feeling of his loss.

“So …,” Ames said. “Where d'you want to go?”

“Just drop me off downtown.”

They drifted back into Rio Del Palmos.

“What're you gonna do?”

“I don't know,” Denny said. “Something. I'm gonna do something.”

“Why don't you just kick her ass?”

“I might. That's what my old man used to do.”

It was three-thirty when he got out and the Firebird rumbled off. The sidewalks were busy and he turned again to look at the flow of afternoon shoppers, thinking he might see someone—some girl—he knew. For several seconds he watched a huge man leading a fox terrier. Then a woman in a dark blue suit caught his eye. He thought she looked familiar, but at first she was obscured in the crowd. Something self-assured in her manner stirred his memory. A name slowly detached itself and rose in his mind: that's Mrs. Slater. He struggled to clear his head. He thought, That's the bastard's wife. I met her. So what was her first name?

Denny was trying to remember the rest of her name when it occurred to him what he should do. Suddenly he stood up, straight as a stick, resting his hands on his hips and turning over in his mind the possibility of actually talking to her. Faith. Yeah, that's it. Faith Slater. Wonder what she knows about this. He made his way across the street through traffic.

He watched as she waited in line at the cash register of an outdoor market. Her straight black hair was cropped at the shoulders, pushed behind her ears—a slender, dark woman, tan, polished. She had been nice to Sheila the day of the murder, Denny thought. He wondered if she was always so kind. Maybe she knew something he didn't know.

He watched Faith Slater pay at the checkout counter and move along through the crowd; she paused for a moment and looked around. He worried that she wouldn't recognize him. He felt nervous about talking to her, he had to admit that. Apathy fell upon him and Denny gave himself to it. What the hell good would talking to her do anyway?

Suddenly he was struck with an image of Sheila in that short little dress that hardly covered her and those high-heeled cowboy boots. Two months ago, they had been talking about getting married; he had been making a real effort to save some money so they could be together and there came to his mind that picture of Slater, in that sports car, with
his
girl. Denny was seized with jealousy. “I'm gonna do it,” he muttered, girding himself. “I'm gonna ask her. I'm gonna goddamn do it.”

Immediately he set off through the milling crowd with their shopping bags and newspapers and vintage wines.

“Mrs. Slater?”

Faith raised her eyes with a start and saw a young man coming toward her. “Yes?”

With every step, Denny felt more and more uncertain. Struggling to appear levelheaded, he stopped a short distance from her. “Hi,” he said, “maybe you don't remember me, Mrs. Slater. I'm Denny Rivera. I met you that day at the Malcolmsons'. I was with Sheila.”

“Oh, yes,” Faith replied. “I do remember you now.” Denny noticed that she held herself very straight, like a lady poised on a horse.

She seemed too carefully made up, her black hair perfectly in place. She was holding a small leather-bound notebook and a pen. Denny looked at her cool, languid hands, her bracelets and rings. Doubt settled over him like a fog; he had trouble meeting her eyes.

“Nice to see you again,” Faith said. She looked at her watch and started to walk away.

“I thought …” he began. “I wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

She stopped. A look of concern came into her face. “How is Sheila?”

She
is
nice, Denny thought, and somehow that made it worse. “Don't you know?” he said. “I thought maybe you'd tell me.” She heard the bitterness in his voice, the note of desperation.

What's this all about? Faith thought. “I'm sorry but you've got me at a loss. What do you mean by that?” She slipped the pen into the notebook and returned it to her purse. “Has something happened to Sheila?”

“Yeah. Kind of. It kind of has. Mrs. Slater, does Mr. Slater drive around in an old sports car sometimes?”

Her eyes widened in bewilderment. She thought, What's wrong with you? There was something definitely wrong with him. Without knowing why, she was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Still, she smiled. “Well, yes, once in a while,” Faith said, “but I don't see what that has to do with anything.”

“Is it black and dark red? Is that his car?”

Suddenly, she ran out of patience. “Oh, come on, what is it? Has there been some kind of accident? What're you talking about?”

“Then it is his,” Denny said in triumph, as if he'd known all along. “So, Mrs. Slater, what I want to know is this …” He started to walk toward her, opening his hands out before him in supplication. “Why did Sheila drive to Vandalia this morning and go off with him in that sports car?”