But that wouldn’t help him find her. David came on.
“Hey, Sam,” he said, when he got up next to the door. He didn’t have a gun on. He was wearing blue jeans and black shoes and a red button-up shirt. “I’m sorry to bother you at home.”
“That’s all right,” Sam said, and stepped back from the door so that he could come on in. He’d always liked David and had been glad for him when he’d gotten elected the first time. “I was just sitting out here having a beer or two. Come on out.”
He stopped halfway across the living room.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“No thanks. Nothing for me,” he said, and kept on walking and went out through the sliding door.
“I’m gonna get me another beer,” Sam said, and he saw David nod and head toward a chair.
“Yeah, go ahead,” he said, and sat down. Sam watched him for a moment. He was looking out across the lake and he was wearing the same face he’d had on across his desk last night. The wheels were moving fast just as he’d been afraid they would.
He opened the icebox door and got the last beer from inside and carried it out. David had pulled one leg up and crossed it over the other. He had his fingers laced across his stomach. Part of the other beer was still left and he put the cold beer next to it. He’d have to go to the store if he wanted more now. This was his fourth or fifth, he couldn’t remember. But it would only take a few minutes to go up the road to the store. He needed some cigarettes anyway.
He pulled another one from his pocket and lit it, then sat down and reached for the other beer. He turned it up but there was too much for one drink.
Out there past the deck the sky was clear and the sun floated high above. A good breeze was blowing, but he was looking forward to sundown, and cooler air. Maybe he could even go take a ride in his boat after while. After he got through talking to David about whatever it was he wanted to talk about. Maybe Fay had only gone to the other side of the lake and was hiding, and waiting, catching fish to live on. Were any of the rods and reels gone? The camp stove? He’d have to look. She might have gone to Tupelo. To Memphis. Maybe even Chicago by now.
“Sam, we got a problem. You know we do.”
He nodded in agreement and tipped the last of the beer down his throat. It was warm and made him want to gag. He quickly opened the other beer and took a good cold drink. He hadn’t eaten breakfast this morning. Too nervous about going over to see Grayton. If he was going to keep drinking he needed to put something in his stomach.
“I mean something like this ain’t going to go away if you just ignore it.” David said.
“Yeah. I know that.”
“It would make everything a lot easier on everybody if you’d just talk to me. Are you trying to protect her, Sam, is that what it is?”
He raised his eyes and stared at David.
“How do you know she did anything?” he said.
“I don’t. But I’d like to talk to her.”
“Yeah,” he said, and took a drag off his smoke and let it out. The beer was cold in his other hand. “So would I.”
David sat there for a minute without saying anything. He uncrossed his legs and put his hands on the arms of the chair.
“They’ll fire you,” he said.
“Maybe they will.”
“Her daddy’s got friends in high places. And he’s making noise already.”
He remembered David from when he was a deputy sheriff, six or seven years back now. A good young cop.
“The Farris lady, Sam. The one they found in the boat. Did her and the one who lived here ever meet each other?”
“What does it matter?” Sam said.
David put his hands back across his belly. He looked like he was trying to relax.
“You’re not that far from retirement, you know. What, a few years?”
“Something like that,” Sam said, and took another drink of his beer. It didn’t seem right to be sitting out here this time of day. The sky didn’t look right. Fay had killed her down there on the beach and the cartridges had ejected from the pistol and she’d never thought about that and had gotten her into the boat somehow and somehow had left it out there with Alesandra in it. She might have drifted for days until somebody found her. The boat could have floated into any little cove or patch of willows. The buzzards would have come. The flies would have buzzed over her. Had he gone fishing in the right place he might have found her himself.
“Are you willing to risk all that, Sam? Your job? Your good name? If we find this girl and she did it, you might even have to do some time.”
“I’ve thought about all that,” Sam said, and he turned his head to look at David. “Believe me. I’ve thought of just about everything you have. And I can’t think of a reason strong enough to tell you her name.”
David stood up.
“Is that your last word, then?”
He tried to think if he had any other last words, but nothing would come to him.
“I guess it is,” he said.
FAY STOPPED THE tape and went downstairs and opened the cabinet door that hid the liquor. She knew she shouldn’t be drinking, but she was going to the doctor tomorrow. He even said he’d take her. She wished he was back here now. There wasn’t any wine in there, only some whiskey and gin and vodka and tequila.
She looked at the whiskey. She didn’t know if she’d like that or not. Sam drank it. Aaron drank it. She’d seen Reena drink it. What did Reena trying to kiss her mean? Did it mean anything? Would she have tried it again if she’d stayed with her some more? But she fucked men too.
All these girls knew about things she didn’t know. They knew how to look sexy for a man. She never had tried to look sexy for Sam. She’d always just taken off all her clothes as soon as he got in the room with her. All that stuff down at the strip joint was teasing a man. She hadn’t done that to Chris Dodd, had she? She hadn’t teased him, had she? She didn’t get him killed over something she’d done drunk, had she? No. Hell no. She hadn’t teased him. She’d kissed him, yeah. But that son of a bitch had climbed up on top of her and taken some of her clothes off and spread her legs while she was passed out. Still … was that worth the whole rest of his life up there in that plane looking down?
The whiskey had a gob of what looked like red wax on the cap and some of it had dribbled and hardened down the side of the neck. It looked like only a sip or two had been taken out of a whole big bottle. Well. What did he do? He put Coke in it. Ice first.
She got some of both from their places and found a jelly glass up in the cabinet. She’d watched Sam. The ice was in there. She put some whiskey in the glass. It kind of just lay there on the bottom. It didn’t look like much. She turned the bottle back up and poured it on up there a couple of inches. She wondered what it tasted like straight.
The fumes hit her nose when she held it close and sniffed. She sipped it. It tasted like some good wood if wood could taste good. Her old daddy, how he’d craved it. It burned a little but then the fire was gradually gone and there was just a warm glow left in her belly down there so close to that little one.
She almost poured it out, thinking about the baby suddenly, and then she thought about how much fun it was going to be, drinking and watching the tape, and getting hotter, just waiting for him to get home. She’d unzip him and get down on her knees first thing. He liked that.
Back up in the room she started the tape again and found her cigarettes and sat down. There were some dead spaces on the tape, places where fuzzy lines came across and made colored noise. Snippets of somebody sucking on something, too close to tell what it was, just a mouth and some skin.
She sipped at the drink and watched the screen. Some woman ran naked across a room. Somebody chased her but in clothes. The picture tilted, went over sideways. It panned the room at that crazy angle, bounced back, stopped, wobbled back and forth between a corner in a floor and a window.
Why hell this part wasn’t interesting at all. She guessed th
ey just made these things for people to watch and jack off to. But everybody was horny. If it hadn’t been for getting sick she might have done it with that Jerry, but his breath smelled so bad and the way that woman treated that baby.
She wondered how many men one woman could have. In a whole lifetime, reckon how many there could be?
She sipped easily at the drink now. It was going down pretty smooth and it was the kind of thing where it got better and better. Like making love. It tasted good and it was really good with a cigarette. She might just have to have herself another one. Or she could just drink until Aaron came home and then quit, since there was the baby to think about. She could drink tonight and then tomorrow she would go see the doctor and then she wouldn’t drink any more until after the baby came.
She was feeling pretty sexy now. She wanted him to do it to her in this nightie of Gigi’s and then ask him who was the best.
Then the tape was back and it was different and Reena was lying on a bed. Fay recognized the bed since it was the same one she was lying on and both rooms were the same. Reena seemed to be waiting for something. Fay slowly sat up, and then somebody came into the frame with Reena, just his legs in front of the bed.
She held her breath, waiting to see who it was. But she already knew.
TO AARON IT seemed that the crowd had begun to roll and surge and die back like waves against the beach, or out at sea. The smoke level had increased and the dark inside seemed to have gotten deeper and the music louder and he knew that he was steadily being driven deaf. He guessed that was what they meant by an environmental hazard.
He’d found his pipe stashed in the nylon bag in the back room and had locked the door and sat down on the bed, huffing at it until a knock had come at the door.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Eddie,” said Eddie, muffled by the door.
Aaron reamed out the bowl of the hash pipe with the fingernail file on his clippers and pinched off another chunk and pressed it into the bowl. He held it up in front of his mouth, lighter poised.
“What is it, Eddie?” He fired up the lighter and moved the wavering blue-and-yellow flame close to the bowl. He touched fire to the stuff and pulled on it, and the chunk of hash slowly smoldered and glowed deep within itself.
“Bunch of these drunks out here,” Eddie said.
He sucked the smoke in and held it.
“Yeah?” he said.
“They won’t keep their hands off Billie.”
Billie. He had to think. Was she the one with the knocker job or the short one with red hair and the big ass? He liked feeling this way, half drunk and starting to get high. A man needed it for a long night.
He blew the smoke out and up toward the ceiling and rocked back on the bed. Damn. It was some good shit.
“Tell Cully.” He probably needed another hit. He considered it.
“I can’t find Cully.”
“Well hell,” he said.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said, raising his voice. “Tell …who’s out there?”
“Just me.”
He didn’t want to have to fuck with this shit now. He wasn’t even high yet. And here they were already trying to fuck it up. It didn’t matter how many heads you busted, you always had to bust some more. Some damn people couldn’t keep their dicks in their pockets.
“Well hold on,” he said finally. “Or go on back out front. I’ll be out in a minute.”
He heard Eddie say something in reply and then he must have gone away. People would be stealing beer if he didn’t get back out there. He wondered where in the hell Cully was. He was probably hunching that Kristy in his office with the door locked. Looked like a nasty bitch to him. Cully liked them that way though.
He loaded the pipe again and set it down momentarily to rewrap the rest of the hash. He pulled up the leg of his jeans past the top of his right boot and wedged the dope down inside his sock.
The music was coming steady through the wall. He fired up his lighter and took two tremendous hits off the pipe, settled back on the bed, let it sink in. Then he shook his head and got up and stashed the pipe in the cabinet inside the tiny bathroom and went out front.
There was nothing going on that he could see. A chunky brunette had walked onto the stage and was dancing. Charlene, he thought her name was. Sometimes they came and went so fast he couldn’t keep up with them.
Eddie was serving drinks when he went back to his stool at the bar and sat down. He looked over the crowd and a few faces turned toward him briefly, then looked away. Damned if he wasn’t getting tore up. Or maybe down. He’d need to take it easy now and not drink much.
Eddie came over. “You want another beer?”
“Yeah. What was going on?”
Eddie reached for a clean mug and started filling it at the tap.
“They left. I told em to get the hell out and they all took off.” He finished drawing the beer and set it in front of Aaron. “Shot of that Rumpleminz?”
Aaron looked at the beer. Some more schnapps would be good with it. He wasn’t drunk. Nowhere near it.
“Yeah, sure, let me have one.”
Eddie poured the shot and leaned over close to him.
“I wish I had about a pound of whatever the hell you’re smoking, boss.”
Aaron reared back, looked up, smiled dimly.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes sir.”
He considered it. Hell he’d thrown the assholes out. Saved him from doing it. Cully had hired him. He was clean-cut but that didn’t mean he was a cop. And it wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty of the shit.
“You a straight-up man, Eddie?”
“Yes sir. I sure am.”
“Can you work high?”
“A monkey could do this blindfolded.”
“Well let me just come around there and relieve you of your post for a few minutes.”
Eddie nodded. “All right,” he said.
Aaron bent over when he got behind the bar and retrieved the hash and palmed it over to Eddie.
“You seen the little room down the hall on the right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“There’s a pipe in the bathroom back there. It’s stuck in there in the cabinet behind some makeup and shit. You got a lighter?”
Eddie was already pushing on the door behind the bar.
“I got one,” he said, and was gone. Aaron reached now for his beer and the glass and pulled them back over in front of him. He watched the crowd. They felt like trouble tonight. Some nights he could feel it and this was one of those times. Maybe it was the trouble that came in waves. Sometimes things seemed to float along smooth for a while, but never forever.
He picked up the schnapps and drank some of it, set it back. That shit was dynamite, he had to watch it.
Eddie stayed gone for a while. Aaron mixed some drinks and served a few beers to some customers. He didn’t talk to them and they didn’t talk to him other than to order.
He saw Wanda come through the door. She stopped at the stool in the corner and got up on it and sat there. Waiting for Eddie to get out of the back room where she could clean up probably. Fay wasn’t any of her goddamn business. She knew what was good for her she’d keep her fucking nose out of it. Fuck you a few times they thought they owned you.
Here came Cully and the big blonde who was all smiles now. Aaron hoped he hadn’t hired her fat ass to dance but he figured he probably had.
He turned around and found Eddie’s stool and pulled it over to where he was and sat down on it.
Here they came over here now. Cully going to buy her a drink on the house probably. Impress her good.
“Shit let’s give everbody one,” he mumbled.
They stopped in front of him. Cully had his hand on her shoulder.
“Well hell,” Aaron said. “I guess y’all want a drink don’t you? How bout a drink on the fucking house?”
“Two of em, little brother.” Cully was wearing the shit-eating grin he
used whenever he latched on to a new one. The blonde teased the tip of her tongue around on her upper lip. He guessed she thought that was sexy. He guessed she thought that was supposed to let him know that she’d like to do something to him with her mouth now that she’d already let his brother have everything she had. Nasty bitch. If she’d fuck his brother for free she was a nasty bitch. Well it wasn’t exactly free. It was for a job.
“All right,” he said. “Got your thirst all worked up, have you? All ready for a little drink, are you?”
She didn’t seem to know what to say. She tried to smile and glanced sidelong at Cully and put her hands on the bar. The polish on her fingernails was chipped, looked to Aaron like she might have just changed a tire. Cully just looked at him.
“Hell, I’ll get it,” he said, and started around the end of the bar. Aaron pushed him back.
“Get outta here,” he said. “I’m the goddamn bartender, what you want?”
“I want a goddamn drink,” Cully said, and started forward again. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Aaron pushed him back.
“Stay out of back here,” he said. “I’m the goddamn bartender.” He turned. “Let’s see. Glasses. Got to have some glasses before you can have a drink. That’s the first fucking thing they teach you in bartender school.” He grabbed glasses and scooped them full of ice and looked up from where he was bent over. “That’s the first fucking thing I learned in bartender school.”
Cully was going back around to the front beside her. “Bartender school my ass. I want a Beefeater on the rocks.”
Aaron grabbed the bottle from the rack of them back there.
“Just say when.” He upended it over the glass and poured one shot, then another, and had it almost up to the rim when Cully said, “Whoa, goddamn.”
He served it to Cully and leaned to the woman.
“Now little lady, what can I do for you?”
“I don’t know, how long’s your tongue?”
“Uh uh,” Cully said, and put his arm around her. “I saw you first.” They giggled.
The girl on the stage was finishing her number and some more people came in and Aaron was shaking his head to himself. He didn’t know why his life had to be such a slime. Look at his ignorant-ass brother. If there was any worse scuzzball on the entire Gulf Coast he hadn’t met him yet. Standing there hugging and kissing on this common whore who had probably fucked her way across the whole United States to him finally and was way past her best years if she’d ever had any and was still trying to look twenty-one. She probably needed a damn drink.