“Let’s add something else to all this,” I said. “Cops have got a fugitive on the run-meaning you-wouldn’t they post someone at your house for a time, waiting for you to come back?”
“I guess they would.”
“That didn’t occur to me when I went over there. I thought of it driving over here. Had I thought of it before, I wouldn’t have gone in, especially carrying a gun, which I was. I put it in my pocket in case Fat Boy or Cobra Man were there, not that I really expected them to be, but I’m getting scared enough with all this to consider the possibility. But if there had been cops, and they’d caught me with a gun, I’d be in on this frame tight as you.”
Bill dropped his towel and began putting on the clothes I had brought. He slipped into the Santa Claus boxer shorts, pulled on the pants and zipped them up. “I don’t know. More I think about all this, more off center everything is. Could it be the Imperial City police are just stupid?”
“It’s a consideration entertained by many,” I said, “but in this case, I don’t think they’re that stupid. And they’ve got a new Chief. Guy’s supposed to be a real go getter, had plenty of experience. He’s solved all kinds of old cases here in the short time he’s been Chief. But a deal like that, taking the cars over after the fact, letting a fugitive know someone has been there, not posting a guard, it doesn’t show much judgment… You sure you’ve told me everything?”
“Swear to God, Uncle Hank, I’m telling this straight as an arrow.”
“All right. I’ll get the number here, call you tomorrow night. Just to check on you. Let’s see, it’s Jack Frame you’re listed under. Right?”
“Yeah. Jack Frame.”
“Monday morning, I’ll call the lawyer, set things up, then I’ll come get you. I think doing it through the lawyer is the safest way.”
Bill buttoned up the shirt and sat down on the bed and looked thoughtful. “Uncle Hank, am I getting this right? Are you saying you don’t trust the police?”
“I’m not sure what I’m saying,” I said.
Time I started home, I felt even more confused than before. I didn’t trust anybody. I began to get the feeling the entire dirty little universe was unraveling; that I’d open the door and step outside just in time to see the gnomes packing away the last of the props: the city, the highway, the motel, and then they’d come for me. Fold me up neatly and press me flat and put me away in a tiny plastic container marked Hank Small, Asshole.
· · ·
When I got home the house was dark and a little cool, Bev having turned the thermostat down before going off to bed. I thought about that itch she’d had, and that she had been the one initiating the scratching. Not something she was loathe to do, but something she didn’t do enough to suit me, and now I was home with my itch still working and it was past midnight. Pumpkin time. I had pissed my loving out the window.
To worsen the situation, I now had a different kind of itch, one that was bone deep and impossible to scratch. An itch so bad it had turned my stomach sour and given me a headache.
I got out of my clothes and laid them on the chair in the dressing room, opened one of the dresser drawers silently, got a couple of antacids and some aspirin and took them. I drank some water from the bathroom tap, went back through the dressing room and to bed, lifting the covers gently and sliding as softly as possible onto the sheet.
“It’s after midnight,” Bev said, surprising me.
“I thought you were asleep,” I said.
“No,” she said, and rolled over and ran her hand over the front of my briefs. My soldier immediately sprang to attention. Bev made with a kind of purring sound, said, “I’ve got an itch, remember?”
“I thought after midnight the itch went away and you turned into a pumpkin?”
“No, I just turn into a pumpkin. I still itch. Ever fuck a vegetable, big boy?”
“You mean a pumpkin-type vegetable?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Let me see. I’m trying to remember. Watermelons. Tomatoes. Stuff like that. I don’t remember any pumpkins.”
“It’s quite an experience.”
Her hand went away from my briefs and she moved in the bed, and then her hand laid her panties over my face. I could smell the sweetness of her. I took them off my face and tossed them on the floor and rolled over and took her in my arms. She wasn’t wearing her nightgown. She slid tight against me and let her hand drift down again.
I moved my hand to her breasts, roamed {easft over them and gently squeezed her nipples with my thumb and finger. I kissed the top of her head and her curly hair foamed around my face. I moved my lips to the side of her face and along her neck where the softness of her skin mixed with the slight bite of her perfume. Finally I kissed her lips.
She took my hand and put it between her legs. She was warm and moist. I probed her with my finger, looking for the man in the boat. She kissed me harder and ran her tongue against mine. Sparks leaped through me; the ole battery nearly overcharged.
“Why don’t you taste the vegetable before you poke it,” she said. “I’ve got it all baked into a juicy pie.”
I was all out of snappy comebacks. It’s hard to talk with your heart in your throat. She rolled onto her back and lifted the covers. I slid under and let my tongue slide wetly between her breasts, on down, and over the slight mound of her belly, into her navel, where I did an artful swirl, then on down to a little trail of soft pubic hair.
Not long after she made a happy noise and made some talk about zucchini and I got a special thrill, then we both got scratched in the way we wanted to be scratched and we both got happy and the rain slammed down and the wind blew hard, and for a little while, I felt safe and happy and warm inside my woman. God bless the Great Pumpkin.
10
Next morning, while Bev slept, I got up quietly and dressed and discovered the gun was still in my coat pocket. I hadn’t dreamed it all last night. I really had gone over to Bill’s house and found a murder scene, and I really had been scared enough to carry a gun, and stupid enough to forget to put it back in its place.
I went downstairs and started the coffee and went outside into a cold morning and walked down to the end of our drive and got the local paper.
Imperial City has grown a lot in the last ten years, but it still has a small town mentality, and it still threw its Sunday paper late Saturday night, figuring it would contain news enough for both days.
I walked back to the house and went through the garage and put my revolver back in the pickup under my Dad’s coat, went inside the house and took the paper out of the clear plastic bag, and opened it up, looked to see if there was anything about the Doc’s wife or the bodies over on Red Vine Street or about Bill being a suspect.
If there was, I intended to misplace the newspaper until I could talk to Beverly. That’s when I planned to lay it all out for her. I felt like a swine for holding it back this long, but I just didn’t know how to tell her the nephew she thought was a horse’s ass, was, in fact, a bigger horse’s ass than she thought.
I examined the front page. If it wasn’t there, it most likely wasn’t anywhere else. Something like the murder of the doctor’s wife, the torture and murder over on Red Vine Street, would be big news for Imperial City.
Nothing.
I carefully scanned the rest of the paper, just in case.
Nothing.
I left the paper on the couch and checked the coffee. The glass ~eight="0 pot was starting to fill up. I went upstairs and leaned over the bed and kissed Beverly on the neck. She rolled over and the bed clothes came off and her bare breasts poked at me. I was happy to see them. I gave them a smile.