Dangerous Times (8 page)

Dryer, Kirk worried, relying on the
repairman to show up on Monday. It reminded him of the water
heater, hoping the old monster wasn’t acting up again.

Kirk looked through the green mist that rose
off the pool. The bulbs between Cottages Three, Four and Five
burned brightly, nearly drowning out his view of the back alley
that ran from 10th to 11th.

He straightened from the wall and narrowed
his eyes, thinking he had seen a shadowy figure back there. Take it
easy, he told himself. It wasn’t that unusual for someone to be
cutting through the alley.

Kirk looked to his right, the walk between
Five and Six lighted. But not between Six and the wall. Son of a
bitch, he would have to get the ladder and change it before going
back to the shop.

Kirk stepped to the edge of the pool and
gazed down through the mist. Damn it. Gets dirty so fast. Clean it
in the morning, he ordered himself.

Kirk stood in the mist and flicked his eyes
toward the vacancy. Good old Cottage Two, Kirk frowned. He had all
the supplies in there and still hadn’t painted it.

Kirk got his keys out and went to Cottage
Six, pulled the screen door open and unlocked the door. He entered
into the dimness of the living room and heard the shower going.

Good, he thought. The water heater was on
the job.

Bad, he thought. She hadn’t left yet.

Kirk had wanted some time alone; a little
time, that’s all. Sit and think about how he might change his life
around. His eyes landed on the trophy that sat on the coffee table.
Damn it, he had told her he never wanted to see it again.

The award. His award.

Best shot in the Armed Forces National
Competition. Kirk had won it for the Marine Corps. He could still
see the smile on his weapon-instructor’s face. The first time he
had ever seen Sergeant McKay smile.

Kirk, shipped off a week later. Halfway
across the world. Then a month later, friendly fire at sunrise.
Adam Forstadt dying in his arms. The explosion at sunset. Shrapnel.
Waking the next day in a German hospital.

Kirk had sworn at the time that he would
never touch another firearm, and he had kept his word.

Chapter
18

Kirk entered the bathroom and studied the
silhouette behind the shower doors. The far panel slid open a crack
and she peered out at him.

“Hi,” Lisa said impatiently, and she closed
the panel.

Her abruptness didn’t bother Kirk. She
didn’t mean anything by it. He understood her ways, what everyone
else seemed to take as cold and difficult. They didn’t know her as
well as he did; they didn’t know the real Lisa Brock.

Kirk stood at the sink and faced the foggy
mirror. No reason to wipe it. He wasn’t going to shave. He
unsnapped the onyx buttons of his black western shirt.

“Not now,” Lisa called over the flow of
shower water, “I don’t have time!”

“Just going to change my shirt,” he called
back. Kirk took it off and dropped it into the hamper. Removing his
T-shirt, those two little words of hers stayed in mind. Not now,
heard so often lately.

Kirk checked his fingernails. There was
always that extra bit of grease after cleaning up at the shop. He
opened the cupboard under the sink and took out his tube of
Lan-Lin. Squeezing some on the nailbrush he dampened it with
water.

Hands in the sink he brushed away the
grease. Then as he rinsed his hands, the shower water cut off.

Lisa gave him a light shove. “C’mon, I’ve
got to get going.”

Kirk moved aside and used a washcloth to dry
his hands. He sat bare-chested on the hamper and watched her defog
the mirror with her hair dryer, and he wondered if she was really
going to work.

Kirk studied her towel-wrapped backside. He
lowered his eyes to the clear tight skin of her legs. He sat there
with thoughts of lifting the towel.

Not now, he heard her say among his
thoughts.

Kirk breathed deeply, shifted on the hamper
and leaned back against the wall. “I want to work on the car,” he
said. “Can you drive me to Staub’s?”

Lisa kept her eyes on herself in the mirror,
blow-drying her dark shoulder-length hair. “Want to work on the
car,” she mocked. “On a Friday night, no less. Bet Staub’s making
you do it.”

“You’re right,” Kirk said, “but I really do
want to work on it.”

“And I bet he still hasn’t given you a
raise,” she continued as if Kirk hadn’t spoken. “I don’t know why
you take his shit. Makes you look like a worm.”

Under the drone of the hair dryer Kirk
muttered something to himself. He spoke out then: “You know I’ve
been looking for a better job.”

“Just how much you think a better-job
mechanic makes? If it wasn’t for the money I make—Jesus!”

“Stop it!” he demanded, standing now.

Lisa flicked her eyes to his mirrored image.
A threatening stare, one that almost brought him to strike her. An
impulse he had never had toward a woman. He restrained himself as
Lisa clicked the hair dryer off and set it on the counter.

She fluffed her hair out, eyes back on her
own reflection. “No, I can’t drive you,” she said tiredly. “It’ll
make me late. Get Beverly to drive you, or take the bus.”

And then another stab from her: “You and
that damn piece-a-junk car.” She gave her hair a quick spray.
“Sorry,” she said, “I mean ‘classic’ car. Only reason you got it
was because you can’t afford anything new and comfortable.”

Kirk scowled and sat back down on the
hamper.

Lisa raised a foot against the countertop.
Her towel hiked up and revealed more thigh as she massaged the
lifted leg with lotion.

Kirk averted his eyes. With no pay-off in
sight, there was no point in feeding his desire. Cold and difficult
they called her, he thought. Maybe everyone else was right and he
was wrong. Maybe he was the one who didn’t know the real Lisa
Brock.

Blinded by love…he smirked at the old
phrase. Kirk looked at her in the mirror. Dark hair framing her
angelic face, brown eyes aglow with childlike innocence. The
perfect woman, if it weren’t for her disposition.

Lisa dropped her leg from the countertop,
raised the other and proceeded to massage it with lotion. Kirk
appraised what he saw. No, he decided, he wasn’t blinded by love.
He was blinded by passion. Taking the verbal punches in exchange
for the touch of her skin, the spreading of her legs.

Lisa capped the lotion bottle and put it
back under the sink. She padded barefoot out of the bathroom. Kirk
followed her into the bedroom.

She took the towel off and tossed it on the
bed. He went to his dresser and put on a fresh T-shirt. Kirk sat
then, alongside the damp towel. Eyes on Lisa, naked at the closet,
bewitched by her inviting figure. The line of the back curving in
above the buttocks that rose up and out like a pony’s, as if
pleading for the feel of his hand.

Her two little words came back to him: Not
now.

Lisa put a tight-fitting blouse over her
bare firm breasts. No bra, Kirk noted. No surprise, the way she
liked to billboard herself in public. He watched her button the
blouse and said, “I saw the trophy in the living room. What’s it
doing out?”

“Since you don’t like it,” she answered
casually, “I’m going to take it in tomorrow and see how much it’s
worth. Twenty-four carat,” she added. “That’s pretty good.”

Kirk said nothing, convinced now that it
would take more than fire to melt this woman’s heart. Okay, he
thought, the damn trophy reminded him of the past. That was no
reason to sell it. For better or worse, it was his. And maybe it
was good to be reminded of his mistakes. They would always be with
him, thinking about them or not.

Lisa stepped into a blue-pleated miniskirt.
She hooked the waist while on the way to her dresser. Kirk followed
her with his eyes. She pulled a cashmere sweater out and put it on
over the white blouse.

Kirk said, “Schoolgirl look. Very nice for
your age.”

“Don’t start with me,” she told him.

He was struck by the start word. Finished
seemed more like it.

From another drawer of her dresser came dark
tights and a pair of white socks. Lisa brought them over to the bed
and sat on the other side of the damp towel. She pulled the tights
on, stood and rocked her hips, adjusting the tights under the
miniskirt.

No underwear, Kirk said to himself. Great,
just great. She sat again and put the socks on. Got up and went to
the knee-high boots that lay in the corner. She leaned her back
against the wall and slipped them on.

Kirk silently said goodbye to the schoolgirl
look.

“The trophy gets put back where it belongs,”
he said.

It was Lisa’s turn to say nothing. She
headed out of the room, boot heels pounding the carpet.

A moment later Kirk heard her at the coat
closet, shoving aside the hangers. One of them banged against the
bottom of the hat shelf. At the sound of it Kirk knew it had to be
a wooden hanger, swinging upward as she yanked one of her heavy
coats from it. The full-length cashmere one, he guessed.

Lisa Brock, he thought. Should change her
name to Lisa Cashmere.

“I ate at Bev’s,” Kirk heard her call out.
“She’s got leftovers if you want,” and he heard the slam of the
front door.

He lifted the damp towel off the bed. He
carried it into the bathroom and slung it over the shower doors.
Kirk returned to the bedroom. He opened his closet and stood before
a row of black shirts. Six on hangers, one in the hamper; all
western-cut with onyx button-snaps.

Unlike most western shirts, his had no
collar points and no piping. Plain black was the way he liked them.
He put one on over his T-shirt and questioned his attraction to
dark clothing. Was it his way of fading from view, a weak attempt
to satisfy his eagerness to disappear?

Stop it, Kirk told himself. And he threw the
question onto the pile of other questions that had been nagging
him.

Kirk went into the living room and grabbed
his marine jacket off the sofa. While he got into it he stared at
the trophy on the coffee table. The Greek god Ares carrying a
spear, and wearing a helmet with not much else on; the pedestal
inscribed with Kirk’s name, the marksmanship event and date.

God of War, he thought. Why couldn’t it have
been the God of Peace? Probably wasn’t any. Kirk remembering what
he had learned back in the marines. Five thousand wars in the past
four thousand years.

“Okay, then,” he whispered to Ares, lifting
him off the table, “time for your nap.”

On his way to the linen closet with it, he
again thought of Adam Forstadt dying in his arms. Kirk had the Ohio
address, wondering now if Adam’s family was still there. He had
meant to visit them over the years, never having the time or money.
Or the nerve. Kirk had often asked himself if they knew the name of
the man who had killed their son.

He held the trophy tightly and had to fight
the urge to heave it across the room. Instead, he returned it to
its resting place, facedown in the back of the linen closet. Behind
the towels, sheets and pillowcases he and Lisa had shared over the
past four years.

Chapter
19

It hadn’t been clear to Frank what had been
said on the inside of Cottage Six, but there was no doubt about the
tone of it. And now came the slap of a screen door and the
appearance of a dark-haired woman in a full-length coat.

Cashmere, Frank thought as she passed
through the spreading mist of the pool, black boots clomping toward
the back of the opposing cottages. John Kirk’s ill-tempered wife or
playmate, Frank supposed, losing sight of her.

Leaning against the side of Kirk’s cottage,
he straightened and brushed the shoulder of his camelhair coat. In
shadow under the dead security bulb, he stood between Kirk’s place
and the fieldstone wall, the image of his own playmate coming to
mind.

Emily…

How sad it was, Frank thought, leaving her
behind as bait for Eddie Jones. Never again would he see her red
hair and green eyes, forever deprived of the opportunity to open
Emily’s pretty blue veins.

Frank caught sight of a sports car backing
out of the lighted drive. Seen across the length of property, it
drove past the far end of the walk that ran alongside Cottage One.
Frank glimpsed John Kirk’s cashmere-coated woman at the wheel.

Going out for the night, he hoped.

He stepped quietly toward the front of
Cottage Six. He paused at a side window, the interior light
softened by the closed blinds. Frank heard nothing, but knew his
pigeon was still in there.

He reached under his coat and pulled out his
Russian-made 7.62mm. Because of its smallish size and built-in
silencer it had an excellent reputation for close-up work, the kind
of gunplay Frank had always been fond of.

Gun in hand he turned from the window, faced
the stone wall and gently racked the slide. Thinking now of
what’s-her-name, the divorced woman he had been with this
afternoon, asking him why he carried a weapon.

The question hadn’t surprised him, since
they were stripping naked at the time.

Diamond salesman, Frank had said.

Julia, that was it, Julia Gavin. He had met
her at the West Channel while researching the docks and waterways,
making sure he knew where to abandon the speedboat tonight. First
spotting her on hands and knees, washing down the stern of her
46-foot cabin cruiser.

Funny, Frank smiled, seeing himself below
deck with her. Julia embarrassed about it being her time of the
month. How could she know how much it pleased him, slipping in and
out of the blood.

Tomorrow night, he thought. The Saturday
night yacht-club party. Though he knew he wouldn’t be able to
attend, he had accepted the glitzy invitation from her. She had
written his name on it. James Anthony, he had made up on the
spot.