Harmless (25 page)

Since I’m a
gentleman, I’ll refrain from sharing the rest of the experience.  You know how
all the appropriate parts look and insertions work.  Make up something.  For
some of you, our experience will be less pornographic than you thought.  For
others, see if you can make yourself blush.

We fell somewhere in
between.

Okay, I have to share
one minor detail—no, no I won’t.  Let’s just say that she had this trick…I
squealed.  I, Steven Allister Pendragon, sang a high C note.

When it was over,
after we’d shuddered in unison—perfect timing; atomic clocks aren’t that
concise—she flopped onto my chest and then kissed my neck.  “I needed that,” she
said.  “Thank you.”

“I’d say the pleasure
was all mine, but I think we both know that’s not the truth.”

She nuzzled.  I
hugged her closer.

“Steve?”

“Yeah.”

“I want you to know
something.”

“Oh no, you’re a man,
aren’t you?  How’d I miss that?”

She smiled into my
neck, pinched my nipple hard.  “Shut up, I’m trying to be serious.”  Win pushed
herself up, straddling me with her hands on my chest.  “Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Promise you won’t
think I’m using you.  I mean, to get out of here—that’s not what I wanted.  I
don’t need you to save me or anything like that.  I don’t need help.  I’m
good.  I’m good on my own.  You don’t think that, do you?  That I’m using you?”

“Of course not.” 
Which was true—the thought
hadn’t
occurred to me—but now that she’d
mentioned it, I began to consider the possibilities.  That is, if I had a
future to consider.  My back itched from lying on the dirty floor.  I sat up
and wrapped my arms around her.  “But what if?  What if I came back in a couple
of days?  If everything’s okay and I’m in the clear, would you want me to?  I
know you don’t
need
me to, but would you want that?”

“I don’t know.  I’d
have to think about it.”

“What’s there to
think about, Win?  You’d have a bed and a shower and food, whatever you
wanted.”

She pinched my cheeks
and tugged.  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  I’m homeless, not desperate.”

“But why wouldn’t
you?”

“I don’t know—it’s
not—I barely know you.  I may be out here, but I’ve still got principles.  I
wouldn’t move in with you back in the real world after one night.  I’m not that
kinda girl.”

“So you’re telling me
you’d rather be homeless than come live with me?”

“Hey, don’t act so
offended,” she said, pulling my head down to her chest.  She squeezed my neck. 
“It’s not about circumstances.  You get that, don’t you?  More than anything in
the world, I want to feel normal, even if it’s overrated, and normal me
wouldn’t do that.  Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Look at me.  Come
on, look.  I’m fine—I’ll
be
fine for the next week or two weeks, the
next year, whatever.  I can do this—I’ve been doing this.  But you?  I don’t
want you to get your hopes up.  Think about it; don’t forget what you have to
go back to.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“You’ve got some
serious shit to take care of—more serious than me needing a shower or a bed. 
You do your thing and if you’re okay, if it works out, then you come and find
me, okay?  Then we’ll see what happens.”

Win was right.  I’d
gotten wrapped up in the moment and wasn’t thinking clearly.

I blame the
afterglow.  “Okay.”

“Now, unless you have
another condom, I need some sleep.”

Sadly, I didn’t, and
so we slept.  Together, wrapped up in her sleeping bag.  It was too hot in
there, supernova hot, naked, sweaty flesh pressing against each other, but I
didn’t mind.

I didn’t mind at all.

I don’t remember
dreaming, but I woke up with an erection the next morning.  Win ground her
backside against me until—sorry, that’s private.

We spent the day
together—naked, if you’re curious; we were comfortable like that—talking,
laughing, getting to know each other some more, and lamenting the dearth of
available condoms.  She’d never been married.  Her first kiss was in eighth
grade at a homecoming dance.  She could wiggle her nose like Samantha on
Bewitched
. 
She’d once been bitten by a small shark and showed me the scar on her ankle to
prove it.

Little stuff.  The
mundane things that make us normal, make us human.

It was a perfectly
normal day, hanging out in the belly of a place that meant so much in so many
ways.

Home, but not home,
for us both.

We listened to my
radio a while, then turned it off once we’d heard too many news reports
mentioning my name.  We didn’t want the outside world to interfere.

Eventually, the
conversation meandered toward more serious topics—things I didn’t exactly want
to discuss—but conversations go where conversations go, especially when you’re
trying everything possible to ignore the fact that your time together is coming
to an end, because talking about it makes it come true.

She asked if I’d ever
been married.

I said yes, once, and
almost one other time, and when she pressed me for details, I told her the
stories of Shayna and Shauna.  I told her Shauna had died in a plane crash, but
not that I had sensed the impending disaster.  That was a story for another
day, if ever.

When I finished, she
wrinkled her forehead and frowned.  “Wait, that doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

“You met
both
Shayna
and Shauna while you were in college?  Both were the hottest girls in their sorority?”

With that question
came a pinpoint of uncertainty.  “I...yeah, that seems right.” 

And it did.  I had
clear memories of them both.  But now that Win had made the
connection…something was off.  In my mind, I could see Shayna and Shauna, different
memories but the same.  Years ago, standing by the tapped out keg, parrying
advances by Johnny Hartman, our rocket-armed third baseman and Eddie Cagle, the
right fielder with biceps like two Christmas hams.  Me swooping in to save her.

The same, but
different.  Like how they tried to change the Beckys on
Roseanne
and
hoped you wouldn’t notice.

Before I could
process any further—and would it have helped then, given what I know now?—Win
changed the subject.

“I’m just curious—can
I read Kerry’s diary, the part she wrote to you?”

“Why?” I asked. 
There was more protective defensiveness in my tone than I’d intended.

“If it’s too private,
I’d understand.  I thought maybe I could help.  What if—maybe you could use a
different set of eyes.  Maybe you were so messed up that night that you missed
something.  Would it help for me to take a look?  Maybe I’d notice something
you didn’t see.”

Such prophetic
words.  There were many things I hadn’t seen.

CHAPTER 27

Win flipped over the
last page of Kerry’s diary and immediately went back to the beginning of the
entry.  “She called you Step-Hen?”

“Just in that note. 
I told her that joke when we first met and she didn’t get it.”

“She didn’t get you. 
And it seems like she wasn’t really comfortable with your infatuation there,
Rod.”

“If you’d seen her,
you wouldn’t blame me.”

“Steve?”

“What?”

“You know that’s not
the best thing to say to a naked woman, don’t you?  Not unless we’re watching
porn together.”

I missed the point. 
“You watch porn?”

“Really?  That’s what
registered in your brain?”

“I, uh, no.  I
was…joking.”

“Mmm hmmm.  So you
know about the cop; I’m guessing the one following her might’ve been the one
trying to frame you?”

I hadn’t looked at it
like that, but it could’ve been.  “Maybe?”

“And who’s the angry
woman she mentions?  The one she’d seen outside her house?”

I thought back to the
stack of photos Kerry had, of Smoke and Shade, of Angry Shayna.  It’d only been
a few days, but it seemed like I’d looked through the pictures years ago.  The
night I’d read the diary, I’d been focused on so many other important points in
the contents that I’d somehow glossed over—or hadn’t assigned enough weight—to
what Kerry had been trying to tell me.  My memories of Shayna were a hazy
mishmash of snapshots in time, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember an
instance where she’d been to my house.  My new one—not the home where she lived
with Smoke and Shade.

I sat up and quickly
grabbed the diary from Win’s hands, then read the short passage again:

Oh, I should mention the
picture of that angry woman.  Is that your wife, or ex-wife, maybe?  I printed
that one because she looks familiar and I was trying to remember where I’d seen
her before.  Now that I think about it, I swear I saw her in front of the house
one day.  She was probably coming to visit you.  Never mind.

“Shayna,” I said. 
“She’s talking about Shayna.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“You’ve got a weird
look on your face.”

“I don’t know—I
think—no, maybe.”

“What?”

“I don’t think
Shayna’s ever been to my house before.  Not that I can remember.”

“Really?  That can’t
be right, can it?  She’s never dropped the kids off or anything?”

“No, she wouldn’t let
me within ten feet of them.  And whenever I went to visit them, I always went to
her
house.”

“What a jerk.”  Win
stretched out on the sleeping bag and cracked her knuckles. 

Not as an
I’m-gonna-kick-her-ass gesture, but an annoying habit that I was able to
overlook.  Normally I collapse into a writhing mass of irritation when I hear
it—it’s worse than listening to someone chew ice cubes. 

She said, “But does
that have anything to do with your situation, you know, with the guy trying to
frame you?”

“Well, it’s strange,
but nah, I doubt it.”  Maybe Shayna had a change of heart one day, thought
about bringing the kids by, then decided against it.  Right place, right time
for Kerry to see her.  That was the likeliest explanation.  “Berger’s the key
to all this, but why would he have been stalking Kerry? 
If
it was
him.”  I didn’t have an answer—not a single clue—and if he’d been the one
stalking Kerry, what strings had the Moirai pulled (the Greek Fates—brush up on
your mythology, please, it’ll be easier for us both) to get he and Schott
assigned to the case?  I suppose more amazing coincidences have happened.

In fact, I know they
have.  Here’s an example: in 1898, an author named Morgan Robertson published a
novel called
Futility
.  In it, he described the sinking of an unsinkable
ship that struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage called the Titan.  Fast
forward fourteen years, and, well, I’m sure you’re all familiar with the
Titanic.  True story.  Look it up.  The similarities are astounding.

“Okay, so you’re
meeting with Thomas tonight, right?  And he was supposed to find out why—what’s
the other cop’s name?  Smith?”

“Schott.”

“Right, Schott.  He’s
supposed to find out why Schott was going along with Berger framing you?  Is
that right?”

“Supposed to, but
it’s a huge stretch.  He thinks maybe Berger has something on him, like he’s
blackmailing him to go along with it because Schott is supposedly such a
straight shooter.”

“And Berger’s framing
you because he’s embarrassed and needs a scapegoat?”

“As far as I know.”

Win flipped onto her
stomach, crossed her arms, and rested her head on them.  “God, what’s wrong
with people?  Would you ever do that?  Would you be such an asshole?”

“I’ve had a lot of
people call me a wretch, but no, I couldn’t.”

“You’re not a
wretch.  He’s the wretch.”  She reached over and rubbed my back.  “I’m sorry
this is happening to you.”

I smiled, thinking
about what random paths we’re led down by unfortunate events.  “Eh, if Berger
hadn’t been such a dick, I never would’ve shown up here.”

“That’s true,” she
said, rolling onto her side, propping her head up at an angle.  “Then yeah, I
guess I’m glad you’re a wanted man.  It’s so strange, huh?”

“What’s that?”

“This,” she said,
pointing to me, pointing to herself.  “Homeless woman meets wanted man.  Who’ll
write our story?”

“Maybe I will.”

“Make it good.”

“I promise.”

“What time is it?”

“Eight o’clock,
maybe?  I have to go soon, like in an hour or two.  I’m meeting Thomas at
midnight.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Multiply nervous by
infinity and it wouldn’t even come close.  I feel like I have a bunch of snakes
slithering around in my stomach.”

Win gave me a
mischievous grin.  “Since you have some time, would this help?”  She put her
hand between my legs and squeezed.

Given the
circumstances, you’d think it would’ve been the last thing on my mind.

But it was exactly
what I needed.

***

I’d like to keep the
details of our goodbye to myself, if you don’t mind.  It was private, personal,
and emotional.  That’s all I’ll say.

Except for this:
promises were made.

Promises that I
intended to keep, whether it was within a few days or in a few years after time
off for good behavior.

***

When I left, it was a
dark and stormy night. 

I’m kidding.  I’m
sure Snoopy wouldn’t mind me borrowing his opening-line attempt at writing a
novel.  But, the darkened sky threatened rain again and I cursed my luck. 
Unbelievable.  The past two days with Win, though hotter than Dante’s lowest
level of Hell, had been so pristinely clear, it was almost as if the blue sky
itself had intentionally and resolutely waged war on any encroaching clouds.  A
war it was sure to lose, given enough time.

As I walked down the
stairs and out the bottom floor hallway, I tried so hard not to look back.  Win
had begged (no,
ordered
) me not to look back.  “Don’t jinx it,” she’d
said.  “Just go.”

And, like the sky, I
lost the battle.

I looked back,
mentally begging her to be standing in the doorway, hoping for one last glimpse
of my salvation.

She wasn’t.

Instead, I saw the
darker-than-dark depths of the hallway, a rectangular black hole that had
swallowed me for a couple of days and then, regrettably, spat me back out.

Inside those walls, I
had been safe and secure.

Inside those walls, I
had found the answer to Steve’s Eternal Question: was I the wretch that
everyone claimed me to be?  The answer was “No.”  Not in Win’s eyes.  Not in
the eyes that mattered.

That building had
been the real Pendragon Castle.

I wouldn’t say I
walked.  I trudged, mostly.  Like a child that’s been sent off to clean his
room.  Head hung low, pouting, lifting my feet that now weighed a hundred
pounds apiece.  I walked like I wore two blacksmith’s anvils for shoes.

Step,
clunk
. 
Step,
clunk
.

I can’t express to
you how much I didn’t want to return to the land of What Comes Next.  Back
there with Win, the world outside those walls had ceased to exist, but as it
goes with all good things, time continued to march forward without me, and
avoiding the inevitable countdown to zero was impossible.

I took a different
path back.  I walked through a newly constructed residential area where most of
the lights were off at that hour, spooking a couple of determined Dobermans
that were thankfully bound by the invisible shield of their shock collars. 

Dog lover I’m not,
but I don’t necessarily agree with the practice, and yet I couldn’t have been
more grateful at the moment.  I crossed the street, away from their bared fangs
and booming barks, then picked up my pace before their owner got curious and
decided to investigate.

Whenever I spotted
headlights, I hid behind trees and bushes.  When I got closer to the commercial
areas, again I stuck to alleys and streets off the main roads.

This may be too much
information, but I had to pee so badly that it became uncomfortable to walk. 
Why is it that you never read about people needing to address nature’s
inevitabilities in novels or see it in movies?  Did you ever watch that show
24
with Kiefer Sutherland?  Not once did he ever stop to potty.  Another mole
inside CTU?  Another possible terrorist attack on American soil?  “Sure, I can
go twenty-four hours with a full bladder—it helps me shoot straighter.” 

I call bullshit.

I passed the Phoenix
Hotel, where Harry DeShazo had barely proved his innocence, and then died and I
was certain I could feel those brick walls and uniform doors staring back at
me.  I could hear them saying, “You’re next.”

I shivered and kept
trudging.  I checked my watch.  Right on schedule.  Thirty minutes to go before
my meeting with Thomas.  Thirty minutes before I found out What Comes Next.

A horn honked, and
for a split second I thought it was directed at me.  Why, I don’t know.  Well,
that’s a lie—I do.  During that six-mile walk, every noise, every smell, every
inch of light seemed like it had something to do with me.  Exhaust fumes meant
an approaching police car, ready to pull a snatch-and-grab on the wanted man. 
Every unidentifiable sound was the whisper of a gun removed from a shoulder
holster.  Every bulb shining a spotlight on me, like a helicopter from above,
revealing my location to anyone hunting.

Okay, I apologize for
this, but I had to stop and take a leak.  For some reason I thought it would be
a good idea to go in an empty aluminum trashcan on the edge of an empty city
park.  I wasn’t thinking clearly.  The drumming of my urine stream inside the
hollow receptacle sounded like a waterfall amplified by a bullhorn.  It
bellowed, ‘Hey, here I am!  Over here!  It’ll be easy to arrest me now because
I can’t cut off the stream!’

Skulking around made
me feel like a stranger in a place where I’d lived for years.

I felt like Dave
Berringer of Ocala, Florida, and I’d just touched down in an unfamiliar place.

By the time I made it
to the north end of the park, I could barely breathe.  Not from exertion, but
from anticipation.  My short, pitiful breaths stopped halfway into my lungs and
made me dizzy, lightheaded.  I needed to sit down, but I kept going.

A strong gust of wind
rippled the lake to my right and a thick mist peppered my face.  I couldn’t
remember the last time it’d rained so much in such a short amount of time. 
And, it’d popped up during all of my intense moments over the past week. 

Maybe it was a sign. 
Maybe it was coincidence.

I was five minutes
early.  The boathouse was empty.

I paced.  I checked
my watch.

I desperately wanted
to run back to Win.  To grab her and never let her go.

I accepted the
consequences of my actions leading up to that moment, but for the first time
ever, I did something that would’ve been inconceivable not too long ago: I
cursed Kerry.

The fault is mine,
yes, but I cursed her for coming into my life.

Then I thanked her,
because like I’d said, without her I never would’ve met Win.  At least, I think
that’s true.  Life has a way of moving us where we’re supposed to be, pushing
the chess pieces around on the board until we’re set up for that great big
checkmate we call The End, but would two little pawns named Steve and Win ever
have found each other under different circumstances?  I don’t know. 

But I sure as hell
wished they had.