She reached to the snap on my jeans and I felt my heart race while I closed my eyes. The tongue was warm and wet and just a bit rough against my side, and I felt Trina shift off my lower body. I kept my eyes closed to heighten the anticipation. Again, with the tongue, only this time it felt scratchier.
“Ewwww. Make him go!” Trina shouted, startling me out of my bliss.
“WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF,” Al said, frightened by Trina’s yelling.
I looked up and there was Al’s nose. He was poised to lick me in the face to make sure I was all right from whatever it was that this intruder was about to do to me. I tried to shoo him away but instead he climbed up on my bare chest and sat on it with his back to Trina, who was now sitting on the couch with her head in her hands.
Al had a satisfied look on his face, as if he was experiencing a sense of success in protecting his master. Trina’s expression was less than satisfied as she fumbled to put on her clothes. Just a moment ago, when she was fumbling to get out of her clothes, she looked incredibly sexy. Now, with the process in reverse, she looked incredibly awkward.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really don’t know what to say.”
“That’s okay, I got carried away. It probably wasn’t a good idea anyway,” Trina said.
I didn’t know how to respond to that because the whole thing seemed like a swell idea to me, but I realized women aren’t like men. It was one of those things where if I disagreed I think I would’ve come off like a sexually desirous pig-which of course I am. I just didn’t want to state the obvious.
In an effort to ease the awkwardness, I got Trina and myself a drink even though she didn’t ask for one. I threw on the TV just to have some noise other than our silence. The Crawford station was in a special report. The attractive female correspondent was live at the McDonough High football field next to the bleachers. There was police tape, flashing lights, and a lot of activity.
“Crawford appears to have another murder victim on its hands. The victim is seventeen-year-old Elisa Madnick and though police officials and the FBI are releasing very little information, News Channel 13 has learned that the victim was sexually assaulted, sodomized, and then stabbed repeatedly in the neck and chest.”
“Oh my God,” Trina said.
“Yeah.” It was all I could think of to say.
The reporter continued.
“Police still have not determined the whereabouts of Howard Rheinhart, the serial killer who was recently paroled from prison. Rheinhart disappeared around the time of the murder of Connie Carter, the McDonough High cheerleader who disappeared several weeks ago,” she said.
“How many is that now?” Trina asked.
“Five, I think,” I said.
“Oh my God.”
18
The next morning was the start of my unofficial vacation. I didn’t have to go to work and I didn’t have a fight to train for, but I didn’t feel like working out either. My new karateka was conspicuous by his absence, which was a bit of a relief but it also made me sad because I hadn’t wanted to hurt his feelings.
I was into my third cup of coffee and trying to ignore Al, who was whipping around the house like I spiked his dish with Sudafed when the phone rang. It was Hymie and I dreaded talking to him.
“Son, what is this latest mess you’ve got yourself into? That Claudia is meshugenah with anger, you know,” he said.
“Yeah, I know, Hymie. I’m sorry. It’s my fault,” I said.
“You threw a coffee cup at the doctor?”
“Yeah.”
“Son, I’m sorry about your fight. It’s okay, there’ll be others.”
“I’m not sure there will be, Hymie.”
“Son, you’ve got to let it go. You’re a crazy Irishman and the Polish doesn’t help, but you know better.”
“Yes, I do, Hymie.”
“What did this doctor do?”
“He believes Rheinhart is the murderer. That, and he took a shot at me about my fight.”
“Isn’t this guy, Rheinhart, the guy?”
“I don’t think so, Hymie.”
“Son, you have a soft heart-this Rheinhart, he has had it rough, no?”
“Yes.”
“Son, I’ll see what I can do with Claudia, but I don’t know this time.”
I thanked Hymie and I signed off. At this point I didn’t particularly care about the job and I didn’t care about my boxing career. There wasn’t much I gave a shit about, but I didn’t like the thought that Howard was getting screwed. Of all the shit swirling around my toilet of a brain, that was the one piece of shit that just wouldn’t flush.
Sure, I promised Kelley I’d back off, but with all this time on my hands it certainly wouldn’t hurt anything if I poked my head around a little bit. It would give me something to do and it would be a way not to think about everything else. I definitely could use the diversion and I was betting that Howard could use someone-anyone, to look out for him. After all, he asked me for help.
In the meantime my Muslim brother was on my last nerve. I grabbed the leash and tried to get him hooked up but he thought it was an opportunity to practice his open-field running. Again, he was running crazy as dog shit all over the Blue, dying for me to give chase. I’d try to stop and pretend like I wasn’t going to chase him, thinking he would feel guilty and relent to the leash. Apparently guilt wasn’t an emotion that Al struggled with, because when I’d pause he’d stay just out of reach until I took a step toward him and then he’d fake left and go right. Finally, out of frustration, I ran as fast as I could after him and got real close when he shifted direction and ducked under the coffee table.
My shin was actually bleeding and the thin skin over the bone was a dark purplish red. Al crawled out from the table with his tail wagging, ready for his walk just as soon as I stopped hopping around repeating the f-word. I’m man enough to know when I’ve lost.
I lifted Al’s fat ass into the passenger side of the Eldorado and switched tracks on the Blue Hawaii eight-track until “Can’t Help Falling in Love” was cued up. Al curled up, belched, and went to sleep. I drove toward Smitty’s house, not to see him but instead to have Al pick up his scent and follow it to the Y. Smitty was almost never home, except late at night, so I figured I’d let Al nose around, see if he could pick up some Smitty aroma, and see if he could find his way to the gym. I guess in some ways I knew I had to see Smitty and maybe I was setting up a scenario to bump in to him accidentally on purpose.
Al huffed around Smitty’s front lawn, his porch, and settled on a bench where Smitty read. I gave him the “Go find!” command and he was off with his nose working the ground and the pavement like an Electrolux on overdrive. Al kept a steady pace, stopping and raising his nose in the air, pausing to think from time to time, and then getting back to the ground to do his work. He worked the trail for a couple of miles and he was more intense then I’d ever seen him. Trailing was clearly in his blood and it was what he was meant to do, at least in addition to eating and farting.
About a block from the Y, Al stopped, crapped, and then sprinted to the parking lot right to Smitty’s car. He was jumping all over Smitty’s Oldsmobile, happy as could be with me praising him when I heard voices a couple of rows behind me in the parking lot.
“That would be a fitting dog for you. A dog that looks as pathetic as your life.”
It was Harter, the karate guy. I looked up and he was standing there with Mitchell and, of all people, Dr. Abadon. They were standing in front of a shiny black Escalade with gold chrome all over it.
“Maybe floppy-ears would like to play with Seagal,” Mitchell said, and with his remote he lowered the driver’s-side window just a bit. The head of a pit bull emerged with its snarling mouth almost foaming and its teeth barred. Al got behind my legs and whimpered.