* * *
The room was nicer than I’d expected. The double bed was larger than my parents’ and the floor was carpeted. There was even a real oil painting bolted to the wall – a picture of a ten-point buck with mountains behind him. Big ones. Not the Adirondacks. Must be the Rocky Mountains.
“I like this,” Katie said.
“Me, too.”
She stood there for a minute. I had no idea what to do next.
“You want to peel a tomato?” she said.
“What?”
“It’s a line from a movie I liked. The Sterile Cuckoo. The girl says that to the boy when they get inside their motel room. ‘You want to peel a tomato?’ It seemed like the thing to say here.”
“Yeah,” I said.
She grinned at me. “I’m waiting. Get peeling, Gunner.”
I got peeling. She stood, quiet and relaxed, and let me do it. I was in no hurry and it took a little work to get her jeans unbuttoned. As I got down to the essentials, she looked a little apprehensive. I’d seen a lot of her, but there were a few parts that had remained clothed until now. Those parts were as good as the rest. She was lovely from head to toe.
“You’re beautiful,” I said. “More beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen before.”
She grinned. “My turn.” She began unbuttoning my shirt.
When my clothes were piled on the floor next to hers, she grabbed me and hugged me tight. My whole body tingled where it was pressed against her naked skin.
She kissed me long and soft and I was in heaven.
This room couldn’t have been nicer if the walls were made of gold and encrusted with precious jewels.
She led me to the bed, threw the blankets and top sheet on the floor and laid me down.
I was as hard as I had ever been.
She spread her legs and pulled me on top of her, then she used her hand to guide me into her.
She brought me to a higher circle of heaven. Much higher.
Feeling her press herself against me and moan and convulse in ecstasy was even better than my own climax. That they both happened, her right after me, was perfect.
She held me tight to her long afterward, so that she could feel me relax and drift into semi-consciousness.
I must have slept because it was dark in the room when I looked around. Not completely dark – twilight dark.
Katie was lying beside me, looking at me. When she saw that I was looking back at her, she slid her hand down across my belly and whispered, “Think you could do that again, Gunner?”
This was the night that Katie began calling me Gunner. She would never again call me Phil.
We did do it again. And it was good again.
This time, I didn’t fall asleep. We talked softly for a while, saying nothing but how good we made each other feel.
After a bit, she said, “I wish that I could stay here all night with you, but I have to get back home. Mom won’t go to bed until I’m back and she’ll call the police if it gets too late.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too. My folks would freak out if I didn’t come home all night. I don’t know if they’d call Chief Albertson at home or go straight to the FBI.”
“Parents,” she said. “I don’t know how we live with them.”
“I won’t be living with them for long. School starts in another month. I’m going to have to move to New York.”
She was quiet for a minute, then she said, “I’m going to miss you.”
“It’s not so far. I can come back on weekends.”
“It’s an eight-hour bus ride,” she said.
Everyone in Wemsley knew how long it took the bus to get to New York City.
“For you, I’d travel a lot further than that.”
“You’re sweet but goofy. You’d have to spend all day Saturday getting to Wemsley and all day Sunday going back. And it would cost a fortune if you did it much. It’s like thirty dollars for a round trip ticket.”
She was right. I couldn’t afford to come home even once a month. “Maybe I should forget about Columbia and stay in Wemsley,” I said. “I could apply to closer colleges next year.”
“Now you’re really being goofy. You’re going to go to Columbia and I’m going to stay in Wemsley and we’ll see what happens. If we are meant to be, then it’ll work out somehow. And if it doesn’t work out, then we aren’t meant to be.”
“Don’t even think that.”
“I’m just being practical,” she said.
I had never before imagined Katie being practical. I didn’t know that she had it in her.
“Okay,” I said. I couldn’t be less practical than her. “But I think we were meant to be.”
“We’ll see.”
I was in no hurry to get dressed and get back on the bike. I’d already ridden too far today.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Around sundown. Must be nine or so.”
“We’d better get dressed.” My fingers caressing her belly conveyed my reluctance.
She kissed me. “We’d better or we won’t get out of here until midnight.” She hopped off the bed and took her purse and clothes into the bathroom.
I hadn’t thought about Randal for hours but, being alone in a strange room in near darkness for a minute, made me think of him sitting in a jail cell in Canton. That wasn’t so far from here.
My heart sank as I thought about what I’d have to do to get him out. I still had to get into the Road Snakes clubhouse and search for evidence that they’d killed Billy.
The problem with trying to find evidence of murder is that you already know that the murderer is willing to kill you if you become a problem.
Whether or not I could maintain a relationship with Katie while I was in Columbia would be a moot question if I were dead.
At least I wouldn’t die a virgin, now. That was a mercy.
I heard water running in the bathroom. It sounded like Katie was taking a shower. I should probably do the same. I didn’t want her to think that I didn’t care about basic hygiene.
I wondered if it would have been any worse if the Snakes were real Hells Angels. Probably. The Snakes were a pretty small club. I had to take on only five of them. That was why they wanted to join the Angels. To be big fish. If you take on one Hells Angel, you take on hundreds of them. Everybody knew that much.
That’s when I figured out how to solve Randal’s problem. Right there, lying naked on a motel room bed while my lover – God, I loved the sound of that: my lover – was in the shower.
Not only would I get the Snakes to confess to every detail of what they had done, but I’d make them give me the evidence that was needed to convict them. Give it to me. Just hand it over.
If my plan worked.
If it didn’t, they would kill me. That was a hundred percent certain.
I decided not to tell Katie about it. There was no reason for both of us to be terrified.