The Barbed-Wire Kiss (17 page)

Harry sat across from Janine on the redwood deck, a citronella candle burning on the table between them. Even in the noon heat, the mosquitoes were out in force.

Bobby came out through the sliding glass door carrying a pair of Coronas, set them on the table. He went over to the gas grill, used a metal spatula to flip the hamburgers that sizzled there.

“What I still don’t understand,” he said, “is why he would even consider taking a ten-grand loss.”

Harry took one of the beers. It was ice-cold and sweated in his grip. He waited for Bobby to sit down.

“A couple of reasons, I’d guess,” he said. “Maybe he’s thinking you won’t be able to get the money together anyway, so this way he can at least say he gave you every reasonable opportunity. Maybe he’s got something else lined up, some business thing that’s demanding his attention, and he wants to be done with this. There’s a lot of possible explanations. But in the meantime, I think we have to take him at his word.”

“Sixteen five. You’re a pretty good negotiator.”

“It was his idea.”

“You should let me call my sister,” Janine said. “She and Rich might be able to lend us something toward it, maybe most of it.”

“And want to know what it was for,” Bobby said.

“Does it matter what anybody thinks about us, as long as we get out from under this?”

“Either way,” Harry said, “we should get cracking. Ten days isn’t long.”

“You’ve done enough,” Bobby said. “The money’s my responsibility now.”

“I’ll see it through. In the meantime, I want to poke around a little more into this Cortez business.”

“What’s the point now?”

“I’ve been giving it some thought. Something doesn’t feel right. I want to call his sister, sound her out a little bit. For all we know, he’s been out there the entire time.”

“If so, he flew,” Bobby said. “Or took a bus or something. That car was a piece of shit. It wouldn’t have made the trip.”

“So he left the car somewhere. The airport, maybe. Say he did the deal, stashed some of the money here, took some with him—I doubt if he’d try to bring it all on the plane. Or he took a bus or a train and is holed up somewhere with a suitcase full of cash. It’s worth looking into.”

“You’re acting optimistic all of a sudden.”

“Who knows, I might be able to shake a little loose, help you get back some of what you’re giving Fallon. It’s worth a shot.”

“I thought you said it was a lost cause.”

“Maybe not.”

Bobby thought that over for a moment, then raised his beer.

“Here’s to sixteen grand,” he said. “Sixteen grand we can do.”

They clinked bottles.

“And here’s to old business,” Harry said. “And the end of it.”

“There’s so much,” she said. “That I haven’t told you.”

He was sitting in the sand at her feet, squinting out at the ocean. Out over the water a Cessna, engine droning, was towing a Coppertone banner across the sky.

He put a hand over her bare foot.

“Take your time,” he said.

She was in a beach chair, an oversized umbrella stuck into the sand behind them. They’d chosen Ocean Grove because it was the least crowded of the nearby beaches and it was unlikely they’d run into anyone she knew. It was a Methodist-founded town, one-mile square, with a large population of retirees and senior citizens, so the beach was filled with young children and their grandparents. Inflatable toys and plastic buckets littered the sand.

“It didn’t seem like the summer would ever come this year,” she said. “It felt like February was going to last forever. All those gray days, the snow. Like it would never end.”

“Everything ends,” he said. “But everything comes back too.”

“What were you? The philosopher cop?”

He turned to look at her. She wore a white one-piece bathing suit that clung to her body, and her exposed skin was slick with tanning oil. He looked back at the water, watched a gull dive-bomb a wavetop and come away with something squirming in its bill.

She touched his hair, tucked a lock of it behind his ear.

“I always had such great memories,” she said. “Of the beach. Of living around here. I wish I could have stayed.”

He rubbed her foot, touched the rose tattoo just above her right ankle, traced the design with his finger.

“The other night,” he said, “when I told you I was sorry your stepfather had died. You said ‘don’t be.’”

She was silent for a moment.

“He was a bad man,” she said. “A bad father.” Another pause. “There are things I never told you about him.”

A sudden gust of wind swept along the beach. The umbrella trembled. She dug into the canvas beach bag at her side, came up with her cigarette case and lighter. She got a cigarette between her lips, turned away from the wind and lit it.

“You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” he said. “Ever.”

“No, it’s better this way, out in the sun like this.” She blew out smoke, taking her time, gathering her thoughts. “My mother married Vic when I was thirteen, after she and my father got divorced. You know all that.”

He nodded.

“When I was fifteen—had just turned fifteen—a boy asked me to the junior prom. His name was Billy Stokes. He hadn’t said a word to me the entire school year until that day. He was sixteen and he was cute, he played baseball, and all the girls wanted to go out with him. I remember, when he asked me, he seemed more scared than I was.

“At first I didn’t want to tell anyone about it. You know the way you feel sometimes, as if talking about something would keep it from happening? That’s the way I felt. But I couldn’t think of anything else for the rest of the day, couldn’t concentrate on any of my classes.

“I went home that afternoon and told my mother. I was nervous. I couldn’t sit still, couldn’t eat. Vic was out. He was a guard at the county jail in Ashland. When he worked a middle shift, he always went out afterward, so he didn’t get home until after I’d gone to bed. I used to hear them arguing at night, and it would wake me up. My bedroom was on the second floor, but their voices would come right up through the heat vents, so I could hear every word they were saying. It was like they were in the room with me. I used to wrap my pillow around my head to shut them out.”

He moved his hand to her foot again, rubbed his thumb into the bunched muscle of her instep. She bit the edge of a fingernail, watched a fishing boat cruising slowly offshore, its wake lapping the jetties.

“I think my mother was almost as excited about it as I was,” she said. “The prom was only two weeks away at that point, I think. Most of the girls already had their dresses. It’s funny how that silly stuff can mean so much to you at that age. She told me she would take me out that weekend to find a new dress, just for the prom. You would have thought I was getting married.

“So I went to bed that night—Vic still wasn’t home—and I was so nervous, so excited, so … I guess, happy, that I couldn’t sleep. So after my mother went to bed, I snuck back downstairs with my pillow and a blanket and lay on the couch to watch television. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“Go on.”

“I fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up—I have no idea what time it was—Vic was there, sitting alongside me. He was drunk, I could smell it, and he had lifted up the blanket so he could touch me. That’s what woke me up.”

She dragged on the cigarette, blew smoke into the breeze.

“He was gentle at first. That’s what fooled me. I wasn’t used to him being gentle. He was just smiling the whole time, in a silly way, a stupid way. The way a drunk does. He had one hand up under my nightgown, touching my legs, my knees. I was scared, but I didn’t know what to do. He told me to be quiet, not to wake my mother, but the whole time he kept touching me.

“I was a virgin, of course. But I knew what was going on, and I knew it was wrong. And then he put his fingers inside me and it hurt. A lot. I started to cry then, told him to stop. He got rougher, told me I’d been teasing him, that I deserved this. I guess on one level I must have believed him. He said he’d tell my mother about it, say I’d started it, unless I made him feel good. He said if I did he would leave me alone after that. Pleasant story, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You haven’t heard the best part. I started to do what he asked me to do, to make him go away. That’s when my mother came downstairs and found us. She didn’t say a word. I thought she would scream at him, hit him, throw him out of the house. But she didn’t say anything. She just went back upstairs. She didn’t say anything about it the next day, either.

“He never touched me again, though, so maybe she threatened him or whatever, I don’t know. But we never mentioned the prom again, either, or the dress. The next time I saw Billy Stokes I avoided him. He cornered me one day finally and I told him that I couldn’t go with him, but I never told him why. Poor Billy. He thought he’d done something wrong.

“It wasn’t long after that we moved out here. It was like we were always running. I don’t know from what. Now that my mother’s in Arizona, we talk on the phone maybe once a year, if that. We’ve never talked about that night, ever.”

He gently squeezed her foot.

“You’re only the third person I’ve ever told that story to.”

“Who were the others?”

“My first roommate in college. And a therapist I was seeing for a while a year or so ago. I never told Edward.”

“Why not?”

“He wouldn’t understand.”

“Do you love him?”

“You’ve asked me that before.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know. I used to. When I was in Florida, it seemed like things were falling apart around me again. I was drinking too much. I met this guy, Garry, who ran a restaurant in Boca. He hired me to keep the books, manage the place with him. He was dealing coke on the side, so he used to give me a little now and then, to keep me going. We got married in Miami, but to tell you the truth, I don’t even remember much of it. It was just easier to stay drunk and stoned.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t love him. He was just … an escape, I guess. I’d wanted to be married and now I was. He’d slept with every waitress in the place, and he didn’t stop after we got married, either. I tried not to make a big deal about it—maybe I didn’t even really care that much—but after a while he wasn’t even trying to hide it from me anymore.”

“And then Fallon came along?”

“I guess I thought Edward was going to be the one to take me away from all that. To protect me and take the place of everyone who didn’t. What a laugh. See what I got out of that year of therapy? An explanation for why I’m fucked up and a prescription for Valium.”

She dropped her cigarette, pushed sand onto it with her foot.

“You got a divorce.”

“An annulment. Edward saw to it. I had almost no money of my own, and Garry swore if I left he wouldn’t give me a penny. He even threatened to hire someone to hurt me, cut my face, if I hired a lawyer. I was scared of him. Edward took care of all that, and then I didn’t have to be scared anymore.”

“What went wrong?”

“I’m not sure. I was a basket case when we met. He got me healthy again. He was good for me for a while. And I was good for him too. That’s what he told me. Now, I don’t know. I’m useful to him in some ways, I guess.”

“Useful?”

“He puts things in my name sometimes. Loans he takes out, things he buys. The house is in my name, the cars too. It makes things easier for him.”

“He must trust you.”

“I signed a prenup. I would never get anything besides what he wanted to give me. He has lawyers that would see to that. And I understand that, I accept it. You’re not that different, you know. The two of you.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re both strong—or you try to be. It’s very important to you, isn’t it, being strong? Being in control of the situation.”

“Sometimes. Not always. That bothers you?”

“No, I like it. That’s why I was attracted to him once upon a time. Maybe that’s why I’m attracted to you now.”

The breeze off the ocean cooled. The shadow of a cloud passed over the sand.

“It’s getting cold,” she said. “I think I want to go back.”

They got slowly to their feet, brushed sand off, began to gather towels. He pulled on his T-shirt, slipped his feet into sandals. She shook out the blanket and folded it while he cranked the umbrella closed and pulled the shaft from the sand. She stowed the towels in the beach bag, tucked the strap over her shoulder, put on her sunglasses. By the time he got the beach chair folded, she was halfway to the boardwalk.

He caught up with her at the BMW. They stowed the umbrella and chair in the trunk, and he leaned against the fender to towel sand from his legs.

“I’ll drive you to your car,” she said.

“It’s only three blocks. I’ll walk.”

She’d taken an oversized tan work shirt from the trunk and pulled it on over her bathing suit.

“Thank you,” she said.

He got the last of the sand from his calves, looked at her.

“For what?”

“For being here when I came back.”

She leaned close, kissed him lightly on the lips. Then she turned quickly, shut the trunk, got the keys from the beach bag.

He was still standing there, the towel over his shoulder, when she drove away.

By the time he got home, the temperature had dropped another ten degrees and the willows were swaying in the wind. Rain spotted the windshield as he parked in the side yard. Thunder echoed in the distance.

He showered and dressed, the wind howling around the house. He tuned the kitchen radio to an all-news am station for the weather report, but static was already choking the weak signal. He turned it off just as thunder cracked with a force that shook the windows. The real rain followed, drumming on the house like fast-approaching footsteps. Through the kitchen window, he saw a finger of lightning split the gun-gray sky.

He paced the house, listening to the rain, until the restlessness got to him. Then he found the legal pad on which he’d written the make and license number of Cortez’s car, tore off the sheet, grabbed his leather jacket and keys, and headed out into the storm.