Dangerous (26 page)

But what really held my interest was the wall of framed photos and news clippings beyond the bookshelf, covering an area so large it wrapped around to the wall behind his desk. I found several photos of Milton himself standing with people at art shows and public functions. It was interesting to see him as a younger man, just as solid but with sharper edges, and laser-like eyes. He bore a faint resemblance to a young Val Kilmer.

Then one image caught my eye: a flash photo from the mid-90s (I guessed) at a convention hall, or maybe a party. Standing beside Milton was a blond, bob-haired woman in a green military dress uniform with three chevrons on her upper sleeve. She wore a sharp-looking cap, and a line of multicolored medals were pinned above her left breast. One hand held a drink, the other rested on Milton’s arm, and she was smiling as if she had just been laughing.

It was Val.

But so painfully young! And a very different creature than the grave, controlled Val I knew.

I turned to Milton and found he’d been watching my progress. Despite my look of astonishment, he didn’t speak. I resumed my search for more images of Val. This is what I found:

Two photos, side by side, of Milton and Val wearing tee-shirts and brimmed hats. Both photos had been taken the same day, at a shooting range in the desert.

In the first, they were standing together, hefting scoped, big-bore rifles. Her black shirt was sleeveless, tight-fitting over her boyish breasts. Her shirt had a graphic showing a fleeing, turbaned man in camos caught in a cross-hair with the words STOP RUNNING above, and YOU’LL JUST DIE TIRED below. She had a cocky, confident grin that reminded me of an ex-Marine I dated briefly. Her arms were more muscular than now.

In the second, a bare-headed Val lay on the ground with one eye on the scope of the rifle, which rested on a barrel-mounted bipod. Milton stood behind her, looking downrange with binoculars at whatever she was targeting. They both wore headphone-style ear protectors. I guessed these photos were taken around the time of the uniformed picture, by the length and cut of her hair.

There was also a photo of Val in a business suit, standing before a Power Point presentation, radiating competence. I guessed the image was probably a couple of years later than the others, based on the clothes and cut of her hair, now grown nearly to her shoulders. Here, finally, was a version of Val I recognized: cool, direct, a little threatening.

“She’s quite a woman,” Milton said, standing behind me now. His tone conveyed respect, but also a touch of…sadness? Regret?

I wanted to ask a hundred questions. I could only nod.

“I have something to show you. Please,” He said, motioning to the couch. I obliged him, smoothing my skirt beneath me as I sat. The cold leather squeaked against the backs of my thighs.

Milton produced a small brown scrapbook and held it out to me, then went back to his computer. I was almost afraid to open the album.

It was a scrapbook of Val’s life, compressed to a visual haiku of about two dozen images and clippings.

There was only one photograph from her childhood, creased as if it had been folded and flattened again. Here Val was perhaps eight, hair in pigtails, sitting in a swing. In the background, naked trees cast long, claw-like shadows across patchy grass. It was probably springtime, or she’d have worn a jacket or sweater.

The real message here was the look in her eyes, which had taken a brownish hue in the photo’s faded pigments.

Her eyes reminded me of Gomi. That was my mother’s name for the slightly lame beagle-mutt we adopted back on Guam, after I found him rooting in our trash one stormy morning. He must have been running loose for a while; he’d lost part of his left ear, probably in a fight, and it was already healed. I thought he had been abused, too, because it took weeks to gain his trust, and I was never able to coax him inside our house.

This young Val had Gomi’s eyes: wary, introspective, isolated. She was gawky, all knees and elbows sticking out of faded cut-offs and a red-and-white top with frayed shoulder straps. Her nearer hand held the rusty swing chain (such delicate fingers, with short, tiny nails) while the other brushed uneven bangs from her eyes. The afternoon sun in her face had narrowed her pupils to dots. Her expression was distant, unreadable. It haunted me.

It was an unhappy picture. I touched it and felt my heart throb for this withdrawn child, recognizing the soul of the lost girl in my doll painting.

Milton read my face like a book when I looked up from the photo. It seemed to confirm something for him, and he nodded for me to continue.

Next were a couple of pictures from her teens. She had grown feral, chopped her hair ragged and streaked it red, wore punky, butchy clothes and ran with a rough crowd. In one, she brandished a switchblade, gleaming brilliantly in the camera flash. In the other, she was looking at something to the left while drawing on a cigarette, hollowing her cheeks. I’d never seen her smoke and could not imagine it, now.

Stark contrast was provided by a head-and-shoulders service portrait of Val in uniform, standing stiffly before a mottled gray backdrop and American flag. Her eyes had a new hardness, sharp and predatory, while a Mona Lisa smile suggested she had at last found her element in the military. She looked about nineteen.

Next was a photo from a nightclub. Val had short hair that came down to her jawline. Lots of black eyeliner and multiple earrings gave her a distinctly punk look, supplemented by her black tank top and baggy green fatigues over heavy boots. She sat at a booth with one arm around a slight, black-haired, androgynous young man with his arm behind her, thrown back over the top of the seat. Both looked a little buzzed. He kissed Val’s cheek while she made a face and flipped the bird to the camera.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw next, when I turned the page: two large black and white photographs showing Val and that same slender man, but now in a wholly different, and shocking, aspect.

They were in a vast desert under a moody, overcast sky. A dark Sixties-era Mustang stood in the distance, its passenger door left open.

In the first, the man stood in the foreground with hands raised beside his head, cuts and bruises on his tear-stained face. He was bare chested, wearing only jeans and sneakers.

Before him stood Val, holding a large, squarish pistol inches from his face and seemingly about to pull the trigger. The tendons stood out plainly on her gun hand, every muscle discernible on her straight, taut arm. She was hard—harder than I’d ever seen her, cool murder gleaming in her eyes. She wore a ripped white tee-shirt and no bra underneath to hide the outline of her small, hard nipples. Pinstriped slacks and black shoes gave her a thuggish look. I wondered if her leg had yet been scarred when the photo was taken.

In the second picture he was kneeling. With his head tilted upward, he seemed to beg for his life, with an expression so unrehearsed it made me squirm.

I beheld all this in a moment, and had just enough time for discomfort before I realized the images were simply full-page photos cut from some obscure counterculture magazine. The name of the publication was printed next to the page numbers:
Chamber
.

These images did not fit with anything I knew of Val. She had never mentioned the man, or any modeling work. I’d have remembered that.

On the next page were couple of Polaroid photos showing Val at what looked like BDSM gatherings. She was on a stage, whipping a man’s striped back before a crowd of onlookers.

And finally, a few informal snapshots of Val, Milton, and Millie at a backyard barbecue, apparently taken within the last year. She looked exactly as I knew her.

I was reviewing the album in detail when Josie entered and placed my clutch purse on the coffee table before kneeling beside Milton’s desk.

“It’s almost ten, Sir,” she told him.

“Ah yes, thank you for reminding me,” he said, touching her hair pleasantly. “Koishi, I’ll take you to the airport now. Is there anything you need before we go?”

“No, thank you, Sir.”

After Josie unlocked the little belled chains upon my wrist and ankle, Milton gave the girl permission to say goodbye, which she did with a tender hug and kisses that brought a tear to my eye. If ever a creature thrived in such a lifestyle, I thought, it was Josie; the sweetest, most unprepossessing person I’d ever met. I knew she fancied me. I’d miss her too.

20     
gondriel

IT DRIZZLED ON the way to the airport. Unlike Josie, Milton was an aggressive, capable driver. Once on the freeway, he said in that warm accent:

“Koishi, do you like fairy tales?”

I said I did. And he told me a story:

Long ago, in a not-very-prosperous kingdom, there lived a husband and wife and their fair little girl. When thieves killed the girl’s father, her mother took a new husband rather than starve. But she chose ill, for the stepfather was often drunk and rarely home and soon her mother began drinking as well, to forget their troubles. Fights were common.

The miserable little girl was beaten more often than she was fed. One night she woke to find her stepfather standing beside her bed, and saw he was not a man at all, but a wolf in a man’s skin.

He saw her horror and growled, warning he’d eat her if she ever betrayed him, even though she was too small to make a meal.

From that night on, the girl prayed for deliverance, until a fairy came and offered to enchant her. “I can turn your heart to stone, so you will feel neither fear nor pain, and your stepfather can no longer hurt you. But neither will you know joy nor love, so long as the spell is upon you.”

“Forever?” asked the girl, thinking this no salvation at all.

But the fairy promised that one day a stranger with a magic stone would fall in love with her, and break the spell. Who, and when, she would not say.

The girl was afraid, but she feared her stepfather more, and so it was done. And from that day forward she was not the least bit afraid of her wolf stepfather, which only sharpened his vexation and hunger.

By her sixteenth winter she’d grown large enough to make a meal for the wolf. But she’d also grown strong enough to fight back. When at last he tried to eat her, she cut the wolf with a kitchen knife and ran away. Behind her, his howls of anger and pain filled the night.

Having nowhere else to go, she joined the King’s army. Her hard, fearless heart made her a fierce warrior and she slew countless enemies, won many battles. They called her Gondriel,
woman of stone
, but when even her fellow soldiers grew fearful of her, they sent her away.

Homeless once again, Gondriel wandered aimlessly until she chanced upon a young man locked in battle with a dragonet, which she slew. The man pledged his life to her, and for several seasons they traveled together. At last he confessed his love for her, but for naught, because he was not the promised stranger with the magic stone. She felt nothing for him, and had even forgotten about the spell which hardened her heart. Spurned, the man went away.

And so Gondriel would remain, until the day a stranger with a magic stone would come to love her, and quicken her heart.

§

Milton pulled into the short-term parking and shut off the motor. He watched me in silence as I assimilated the story.

Now it was clear why he’d wanted to bring me far beyond Val’s reach for a weekend. Being Val’s closest friend, he would never betray her confidence. But he had provided a wealth of clues, and left it to me to connect the dots.

“You love Vee dearly. I see that,” he said.

I nodded.

The traffic was an oceanic sound, flowing around us as we sat without words. I found myself drawn to his kind eyes, the lines at their corners.

He made me memorize his phone number, just in case. When we got out of the car he came around and hugged me.

“Goodbye, Koishi. We’ve enjoyed having you. Give my love to Vee.”

I wiped away tears. He held my hand as we walked to the airport. Inside the terminal, a poster reminded me of a fact I’d completely forgotten.

It was Easter Sunday.

21     
keeper

THAT NIGHT VAL demanded an account of my trip, as she drove me home from the airport in the Batmobile, my name for her electric sports car. She had met Lorena and Josie, and shared my opinion of both. The tale of the ice water pistols made her laugh. “Yes, that’s something Milton would do.”

I made no mention of either the scrapbook or fairytale, knowing Milton had shared those things in confidence.

But when I spoke of the photos on the wall and asked about her military service, she said, “Come, now. Are you surprised?”

“Yes, but I guess it fits you. I saw stripes on your uniform. Were you an officer?”

“NCO. Sergeant.” Being ignorant of military matters, I didn’t know if that was a
yes
or
no
.

“Did you fight in any wars?”

“That depends on what you consider a war. I saw action, yes.”

She would say nothing more, and I let the subject go rather than betray my colossal ignorance. I’d have to look it up on the internet, later.

Val parked in front of the condo and came up with me, unlocking my front door with my house key, which she had kept.

The moment the door was shut she gave the signal for
front, kneel
and I obeyed, a little fearful. Was I in trouble?

Her right foot, in a low-heeled pump, slid forward a fraction of an inch. With immense relief I bent forward to shower it with soft kisses. Her shoe smelled new, and her white sheer stocking was rough under my lips. Finally her foot slid back, which meant
enough
. I resumed a neutral kneeling posture.

After growing accustomed to Milton’s calm demeanor, Val’s dispassion now struck me as exaggerated and harsh. I had not known how different their styles could be, and had simply assumed all dominants were like Val, to a greater or lesser degree. Now I knew better.

“Doll may express its feelings,” Val prompted.