Leather Maiden

  “If it’s any consolation, a nomination eats your heart out.”

  “No. No consolation. I’m used to getting screwed.”

  “I hope you don’t think this is some kind of racial thing, because if you do, I just want you to know, sincerely, and I say this pleasantly and from the bottom of my heart, you are full of shit.”

  Oswald sat on the edge of my desk. “I don’t. I’m just one of those people born to be screwed and to be bitter about it, but with a slight and engaging sense of humor, of course.”

  “You really believe that?”

  Oswald nodded. “I believe some of us are born with a target on our butt, and dead center of it is a slot with a sign above it that says: Insert dick here.”

  “Do you look both ways when you cross the street?”

  “I see this coming,” Oswald said.

  “That’s what you can say if you look both ways…Do you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you believe your destiny is at least partly up to you, otherwise you wouldn’t be worried about being a hood ornament. It would be pre-ordained. So I suggest you remove the target from your ass.” Oswald gave me an irritated look. I said, “Let’s change the subject. What happened to Francine?”

  “She was either fired, or she died. I don’t quite remember. Does it matter?”

  “Suppose not. Where do I find those ideas of Francine’s?”

  Oswald patted my computer. “In yon machine. Francine’s codes and information are on a pad in the desk drawer. So now my duty is done, and I go back to work.”

  The testy asshole went back to his desk. For all his talk, I had a feeling Oswald really felt more entitled than ambitious. I figured, you got right down to it, his greatest ambition was teaching his dog to lick peanut butter off his balls.

  I looked in the drawer and found the little notebook with the information I needed, went to work. Most of the stuff I found in Francine’s computer notes was about as exciting as counting the hairs in an armpit. There were terse investigations into the ingredients for Snickers Bar Pie, the major ingredients being the Snickers themselves and lots of butter. I was surprised the recipe didn’t come with a funeral plan. There were bits on flower arranging and how to get stains out of damn near anything. Nothing that really grabbed me by the lapels, but I persevered.

  And then I came across it. A six-month-old mystery.

  Caroline Allison. A university student. History major. Age twenty-three. She disappeared on a late-night run to a fast-food place, Taco Bell. A week later her car was found just outside of town, near the old rail station, not far downhill from the Siegel home. It was a creepy place to disappear.

  The Siegel home had been a kind of legend for years. It had belonged to two sisters. Story was they had been high-tone in the 1920s. They were in their teens at the time. Then came the Great Depression, and their family lost money when the stock market fell. As the sisters grew into their fifties, their parents died, and the ladies knew nothing about how to survive. Soon people saw them digging in trash cans, and since they wouldn’t take charity, folks put food in the cans for them to find. Finally, the ladies sold their home place and moved into another house where they lived upstairs. That place caught on fire and the firemen put a ladder up to the window, but the women, in their sixties now, were in their nightgowns and wouldn’t come out the window dressed that way. It was not what ladies did. What ladies did was burn up like cotton wicks; death by fire and modesty.

  The house the sisters had originally lived in had been bought, but nothing was done with it. It stayed abandoned, sitting on top of a hill spotted with trees, the yard a wad of greenery maybe three feet deep. The house was almost consumed by the vines until the whole thing looked like a large clump of vegetation with a couple of rectangular glass eyes.

  Jimmy and I had played there as kids and gone parking up there behind the house with girls many years ago.

  Had Caroline been there, near the old house, with someone? Had things gotten out of hand?

  Had someone driven her car there, left it, gone away on foot? Did the person have an accomplice?

  I scrolled down Francine’s notes. Caroline’s fast-food order had been found in the car, untouched. So had her shoes. The old train station had been searched, along with the house. The vines had been mowed down to see if her body was under them. Nothing.

  I scrolled down some more.

  There was information on Caroline, on her past. She had been raised as a foster child. She was as bright as a blast of nuclear light, according to the information Francine had gathered. In fact, Francine had a lot of meticulous notes. Perhaps even she had bored of Snickers pie and flowers in a vase, thought she was on to something.

  No one could think of a single reason why anyone would want to hurt Caroline. Her only brush with the law was an overdue library fine that she refused to pay for some reason. The book was by Jerzy Fitzgerald, called And the Light Is Bright Glancing Off the Fangs of the Bear.

  Francine had found one girl who knew her pretty well, Ronnie Fisher. Ronnie said she had known Caroline back in their hometown, that they shared a foster parent and had moved to Camp Rapture about the same time.

  I leaned back in my chair and thought, what if I did a series of articles for the paper about her disappearance? About the illusion of safety in a small town? Then I could write a more ambitious article based on my columns, but with material I had left out of the local newspaper. I could get some interviews with the people who knew her, maybe a few shots of the car and that Taco Bell sack from the files, a photo of the young lady, then send the piece to some place like Texas Monthly. I had a few contacts there. The Pulitzer nomination still had some clout. Like a guy who had played in the Super Bowl and missed a pass, but had still played. I could probably slide the article right in.

  If I set it up right, made sure the right people saw it, it might be just the sort of thing that would boost me into the big time. I had it all together once, until I started letting the little head think for the big head. Why couldn’t I pull it together again?

  When I went out the bees were still at work and the flowers still smelled strong, and they still made my stomach churn. But now I had a job and I was pretty sure my shoes were still clear of dog shit and that the Caroline Allison story could be big, so life wasn’t sucking quite so much.

  I thought about Caroline Allison for a while, then got out my cell, called Mom and Dad, told them I got the job, which they seemed dutifully excited about. I wanted to call someone else, but didn’t really know anyone. My brother and his wife, maybe. But Jimmy was at work, and I hadn’t seen them in a while, and I was working up to the moment.

  Then there was Booger. I don’t know why I thought of him. I was trying to get rid of him, lose all the old connections from the war. But I knew he’d like to hear how I had turned out, even if he did think it was kind of a weird job for a grown man, writing for a newspaper. Booger thought man had been put on earth to find out if he was ruler or slave, and to eat meat, especially anything chicken-fried. He liked women too, but they came third in his business plan, and then there was nothing romantic about it to him. It was all just a service.

  It was Gabby I really wanted to call. And not about the job, either. I just wanted to hear her voice. I drove by the veterinarian office. Her car was there. The same one she had owned when I left for Afghanistan. There were two other cars and a pickup. A big black mixed-breed dog was in a cage in the back of the truck, and a lady who looked as if she might wrestle alligators for a living was letting the dog out, placing a leash around its neck.

  As I drove on, I looked back in the side mirror. The door to the office opened and the alligator wrestler and the dog started through it. I thought I got a glimpse of Gabby, but the truth of the matter is, it was so quick, and I was out of sight so soon, I couldn’t be sure. It could have been a dancing bear or a nude man carrying a slide trombone. It could have been anyone.

  4

  I drove over to Mo
m and Dad’s house, parked at the curb, sat in the car and looked at the place. There was a new, white wooden plank fence between their house and the next-door neighbor’s house. It was straight and freshly painted, so I knew it was my dad who had put it up. The vines that ran up twine runners all along the fence I recognized as my mother’s work. The sun-yellowed grass that was ankle-high in the next-door neighbor’s yard was all the work of nature.

  When I lived at home, there wasn’t a house next door. Just an empty lot with a couple of big elms, one of which grew next to the fence and extended boughs into Mom and Dad’s yard, splashing shadow onto the roof.

  When I got out of the car with my suitcase, I locked the car doors and walked up in the yard. A small voice from over the fence and from the boughs of the elm called down to me.

  “You don’t live here.”

  I turned and looked up. There was a little platform tree house up there in the elm, hidden behind smaller limbs and lots of leaves, and on the platform was a little girl about nine or ten with blond pigtails, wearing a sloppy T-shirt and blue jean shorts and no shoes. She was cute in a rawboned sort of way, would probably grow up and fill out her features and be quite beautiful. She sat on the edge of the platform and let her feet dangle. She had a lot of tomboy bruises and scratches on her legs, a couple of scabs.

  I smiled up at her, said, “I used to live here. Long ago when I was your age.”

  “Are you Mr. Statler’s little boy?”

  “I was once. I mean, I’m still his boy, but I’m not so little.”

  “You’re big. Are you six foot tall?”

  “Six-two if I have on good shoes and I hold my shoulders straight.”

  “Why do you wear your hair so long?”

  “Because for a long time I had to wear it real short.”

  “Oh. Did you know your daddy beat my daddy up?”

  I took a moment to regroup. “And why was that?”

  “He wasn’t really my daddy. I was just supposed to call him that. He drank. He hit my mama and run her out in the yard with the leg off a chair, and your daddy knocked the shit out of him.”

  “You shouldn’t talk like that.”

  “That’s what your daddy did. Daddy Greg, that’s what I called my daddy your daddy beat up. Daddy Greg messed himself and me and Mama could smell it standing out in the yard. It run down one of his pants legs. Mama thought it was funny. You should have heard her laugh.”

  “Well, don’t say that word, okay?”

  “What word?”

  “About what got knocked out of him.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Your dad, what happened to him?”

  “Oh, he run off for a while. But he comes back sometimes. Mama’s got me a new daddy now. Daddy Bill. Daddy Bill isn’t home a lot, and when he is, he and Mama stay in the bedroom most of the time. They don’t fight as much as her and Daddy Greg. Daddy Bill is kind of funny-looking.”

  “My name is Cason. It was nice to meet you…What’s your name?”

  “Jasmine. People call me Jazzy.”

  “Glad to meet you, Jazzy.”

  “You too. Did you know there isn’t any ladder? I climb the tree to get up here. Like a squirrel, Mama says. Daddy Greg used to say like a goddamn monkey. I liked Daddy Greg better than Daddy Bill, even though he was kind of mean, but don’t say I said that.”

  “I’m sure you’re a very good climber.”

  Jazzy jumped to a new topic.

  “I used to stay at Mee-maw’s before I stayed here.”

  “Is Mee-maw your grandma?”

  “No. But she let me call her that. She lives in Houston. Do you want to go play dead?”

  “Dead?”

  “There’s a graveyard out back, and me and Mama go out there and lie on the graves sometimes. We play like we’re inside them, and we’re dead.”

  “Not a very active game.”

  “We do it at night sometimes and look at the stars.”

  I thought, Swell. A Gothic mother.

  “You be careful up there,” I said.

  “I will,” she said.

  Inside Mom hugged me and said all the good things moms say when you get a job and they think maybe things are finally on track and maybe you’re not going to end up living in a cardboard box and cruising Dumpsters.

  Mom looked good. Healthy and a little thicker and there was no doubt she dyed her hair, but she still moved the way she always did, quickly. I put my suitcase down, gave her a better hug and this time a kiss on the cheek. She said she’d make a sandwich.

  “That sounds good,” I said.

  “Turkey on rye, your favorite.”

  “Good.”

  She patted my shoulder. “We’re going to put you in your and Jimmy’s old room.”

  “That’s great.”

  She looked me over, and hated to say it, I could tell, but she couldn’t help herself. “Don’t drink so much, Cason.”

  “That’s what Mrs. Timpson told me. It’s that obvious?”

  “All you need is a neon sign over your head that blinks I’VE BEEN ON A DRUNK to make it any more certain. You might want to button your shirt buttons even too. That may not be a sure giveaway, but the way your eyes look and your face red like that, it kind of puts the capper on things.”

  I looked down at my shirt. “Damn,” I said.

  “You went to the interview like that?”

  “Afraid so,” I said, buttoning up correctly. “But I did get the job. Glad I wasn’t interviewing for a male model.”

  She smiled. “I’m glad you decided to stay with us.”

  “Not too long,” I said. “Just long enough to find a place. You know, when I get settled into the job.”

  “It’s going to work out fine, isn’t it?”

  “Certainly,” I said. “Did the boxes I shipped arrive?”

  “They did. They’re in the storage room.”

  “Good. Otherwise I’m going to be wearing the same three pairs of pants and shirts a lot. Rotating between two pairs of underwear and a pair of socks. I got a few things in the car from Houston storage. I’ll unload them later.”

  She hugged me again. “Take your time on finding a place. It’s good to have you home.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “In the garage, of course.”

  I went out the back way, across the backyard, with the smell of fresh-mowed grass in my nostrils. At the back of the yard, Dad had a little garage he had built after retirement. That way, officially retired or not, he could still work on a few cars, mostly for friends and neighbors. What he called tinkering. It brought in a few extra bucks. He and Mom had been smart. They had saved and invested in some good stocks, they had Social Security, and she had her teacher’s retirement.

  In the garage there was a light blue car with the hood up, and Dad had his head under it and was poking around inside. The car was an older model, from when parts were fixed, not just replaced like they are now. Even though I was a mechanic’s son, I had never been interested in cars, and I didn’t know one from the other. I couldn’t fix a wheelbarrow, but I was always proud of my dad. You could have dropped him off in the Sahara with a screwdriver and a hair tie, and he could have fixed most any kind of car, made it run.

  Dad lifted his head out from under the hood, picked up a shop rag and went to wiping grease off his fingers. “They’ve taken care of it. Sixty-nine Plymouth Fury. Front seat is big as a living room, and it runs like a scalded pig.”

  He came over and shook my hand. It was a big hand, callused and dark from years of putting it in grease and oil and gasoline. He still had the same sturdy body, though he had gained a lot more belly since I saw him last. His hair, which used to be as black as the bottom of a hole to China, was now as white as cotton.

  “Congratulations on your job,” he said.

  “Thanks. I guess it’ll be okay.”

  “Got to think positive, boy. Can’t let the gremlins take over…Damn, son. You look like death warmed over.”
br />   “You ought to be on this side of it.”

  “Lay off the booze a little, boy. That stuff will mess you up.”

  “Mom said the same thing. And so did Mrs. Timpson.”

  “Good advice gets around.”

  “Yes, sir. The little girl next door—”

  “Jazzy?”

  I nodded. “She said you beat up her Daddy Greg.”

  “Me and him had words.”

  “Words won’t hit you so hard they make shit run down your leg.”

  “The words led to a whipping. His.”

  “That’s what she said. How many times did you hit him?”

  “Hit a guy hard enough he shits himself, you don’t need a follow-up.”

  I laughed a little at that.

  “World has changed,” Dad said and tossed the rag in the direction of the Fury. “Seems like every other girl you meet these days had a kid when she was fifteen or sixteen and the boy run off and the girl’s raising it alone. Someone needs to tell those gals babies are caused by screwing. Hasn’t everyone heard of a goddamn rubber by now?”

  “Well, from my talk with Jazzy, I take it her mother isn’t so hot.”

  “Good deduction there if you’re talking about her parenting skills, but from another viewpoint she is as hot as the proverbial firecracker. I haven’t seen anything that hot since Joey Heatherton danced on The Dean Martin Show.”

  “Who?”

  “Thanks for making me feel old. ’Course, I’ve only seen Jazzy’s mother twice and one of those times she was being hit with a chair leg by Daddy Greg. But she’s a pretty, dark-haired thing…. Goddamn Child Protective Services. We’ve called them half a dozen times, but nothing. The agency is in disarray. There have been three or four scandals, them losing children, that sort of thing. So no help there. Not yet.”

  “Jazzy told me she and her mom lie down on graves and look at the stars.”

  Dad nodded. “When they cleared some of the land out back, down by the creek, they found a graveyard. There’s still a patch of trees back there and the graves are under those.”

  “Me and Jimmy played there for years. We didn’t see any graves.”