The fear in her eyes was obvious, but the dog was friendly enough. I grabbed his head and looked him in the eyes. His tail waved back and forth. I peered up at her, keeping my eyes on her face, avoiding the body scan. She was attractive, but worn-looking.
“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” she said, turning to the dog, “Come on, Hoagy.”
“Carmichael?” I asked.
“What?”
“Hoagy. Hoagy Carmichael, the singer. That’s the dog’s name?”
“How did you guess?” She almost cracked a smile. “My dad used to sing ‘Stardust’ all the time. That’s why I picked the name. Reminded me of my dad, I guess.”
Hoagy was bouncing around, and she was warming up to me.
“Want a drink?” I offered. “All I’ve got is iced tea and coffee, but iced tea is good in this heat.”
She looked past me into the woods. “Sure, iced tea sounds good. I’m Maude,” she said, reaching out to shake my hand. As she did, I noticed fingertip bruising on the inside of her arm.
We sat on the deck. She wasn’t relaxed, constantly twisting a cheap ring on her finger that looked like a purple flower. She had other bruises, fading but still obvious. She kept glancing back over her shoulder at the woods. I could have told her I would see anyone before they arrived, but I didn’t.
“So you live on Sainte-Thérèse?” I asked.
“Yeah, about half a mile through the woods.” She pointed in the direction she’d come from.
I’d seen the house. It was a crap magnet, a worn-out looking shack surrounded by junk, like an old all-terrain vehicle on cinder blocks, rusting parts on the ground like it had spilled its guts, a refrigerator lying on its side, empty beer cases, rusted appliances. It was the kind of place that brought down the neighborhood. But there wasn’t any neighborhood, so who cared?
“So we’re neighbors, Maude,” I said.
We made small talk. Then I saw movement. Hoagy was on his feet running toward it. I dropped off the deck, moved to the woods at a right angle to the dog’s path, and made a wide circle through the trees. I came up behind a stocky guy in green pants and a camouflage T-shirt, carrying a shotgun in his right hand. Hoagy made crotch contact with him, and turned to run back to Maude.
Camo-boy stepped into the clearing and yelled, “Maude?” It wasn’t a Hey, darling, where you been? More of a What the fuck are you doing here?
I moved quietly toward him. Here’s a rule: never surprise a guy who’s carrying a gun, unless you’re close enough to jump him. He probably felt my breath on his neck before he heard me.
“Afternoon,” I said. I was getting good at this friendly neighbor speak.
He spun around and backed away from me. Another rule: if it’s a choice between invading someone’s personal space and giving him room to lift and aim, go for invasion. I had maybe forty pounds on him. I reached out and grabbed the gun. He wasn’t happy.
“These things make me nervous,” I said, grinning. “So I have a rule: no guns on the property.”
He didn’t argue when I cracked the gun open and lobbed the two cartridges in his general direction.
“John’s the name. Want to join us for iced tea?”
It took him a few seconds to process everything. Eventually he said, “Sure.”
We walked back to the cottage.
“My name’s Ace. Me and Maude live back over there,” he said, pointing over his shoulder.
Ace was trying to be nice.
I left him with Maude on the deck and went for another glass. When I got back, they were silent. Hoagy was sleeping in the shade.
Right away, Ace started to explain himself. He carried the gun because you never knew who you might run into. Maude had been gone awhile, and he had gotten worried. Then he started into the questions, too many questions. He was trying to figure out where to slot me in his limited universe. I was thinking how to pull his wires to leave him safe. Maude was watching both of us with a who-gives-a-shit expression.
At some point Ace felt comfortable enough to stake his claim: “Me and Maude, we’ve been together for a long time. We love this place. That right, Maude?”
“Sure, I suppose. It can be nice here sometimes,” she replied.
Ace waited for Maude to say more, but she looked away. He rolled his eyes. “Women. They’re never satisfied, know what I mean?”
“I’ve known some pretty satisfied women in my time.” I looked him in the eye, let him understand. Then I let him off the hook: “But I’ve never been able to satisfy one myself.”
When they were leaving, Ace acted like he had made a new friend, full of the we-should-do bullshit of fishing and drinking beer.
Doing nothing on Sainte-Thérèse wasn’t easy. I was thinking too much. I couldn’t help it, but I started going over every hit I had done in the last fifteen years. In my business, forgetting is what keeps you going; you just do the job and move on. Yet with nothing to do but sit around, I started reliving the old jobs, and there had been a lot. I even did a priest once, for paying too much attention to an altar boy. I gave him a knife through the ribs, right after he gave me absolution.
Don’t get me wrong — I wasn’t feeling guilty. They all deserved it. It was more like, How did I end up doing this? The only reason I could come up with was that some moron had paid me. It wasn’t personal. I hadn’t felt anything personal in years.
Maude came back three days later, early in the morning. I was having a coffee on the deck and saw Hoagy coming through the trees. I disappeared into the woods. She didn’t notice the coffee cup as she crossed the deck and went into the cottage like she owned the place. I was back in my chair when she came out.
“A regular Houdini,” she said, her eyes hidden behind big movie-star sunglasses. She had washed up. Her hair was clean, and it looked like she had ironed her T-shirt. When I brought her a coffee, I smelled flowers in her hair. She cradled the mug in her hands, tucking her feet under her chair. She hardly protested when I lifted the sunglasses off her face. Her right eye was ringed with dark bruises.
“You got him mad by taking his gun off him.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“It’s the way it is.”
“You could leave. Walk away.”
“Walk away?” She stared at me like I was an idiot. “He’d come after me. He’d kill me. I’ve learned to put up with things, to be satisfied with whatever little escapes I can get.”
She looked me in the eye. I was today’s little escape.
I grabbed her hand and led her into the cottage, straight into the back bedroom. She let go of my hand, peeled off her T-shirt, and unclasped the front hooks on her bra. I stood and watched. She stripped off her boots, socks, jeans, and panties. Then she came up and kissed me. She braced herself against me, wrapping both legs around my waist. I held her ass to support her. She took her time, testing me. Then she put her feet back on the ground and started undressing me. There were no questions, no hesitations, and I’m not the kind of guy who argues with women.
The sex was quick and rough. I let her scratch, claw, and grab handfuls of me, squeeze like she was causing pain. She was hitting me, solid punches, one after the other into my ribs while she played with my tongue in her mouth. She was slick with sweat, and my hands glided into her body’s slippery crevasses as she pushed herself into me. We stared at each other in the final moments.
We lay naked on the bed, covered in sweat. I could feel her heart beating against my chest. Finally she stirred.
“Shit,” she said.
“That bad?”
She aimed another blow at my ribs, softer this time.
Not even five minutes later, she stirred again. “I gotta get going, before Ace wakes up.”