Carcass Trade (17 page)

“The teeth will be done pretty soon,” Joe said.

“Doesn't look like it. Glaciers are slower than Meyer Singer, but not by much.”

When I came back with his cup, he jabbed for the creamer handle and missed, grimacing. I took hold of his finger and blew onto it, then poured a dollop of milk in his coffee myself. He said, watching, “Ever wonder when cows laugh does milk come out their noses?”

“You could get a job as a comedian.”

“A criminalist comic. I like it. I could borrow the skeleton from the morgue, sit it on my lap . . .”

Dividing the last muffin, I gave him half.

“These are good,” he said. “Old or not.”

“Heidelberg Bakery in South County. The best. Ray goes there. A pretty Austrian girl owns it.”

“Of course,” he said.

I was back to thinking about Miranda. “If we just knew for sure . . .” I said. “If the doctor would just
say
his wife is missing . . .”

“But he doesn't,” Joe said. “Where's her family? Did Nathan tell you that?”

“She's got a brother but he doesn't know where. The mother's dead. The father left when she was two.”

“Then I guess we'll just have to wait.”

“Joe?”

“What, baby?”

“Am I stupid to be pursuing this?”

He gave me that look that told me he'd been considering. “We could have been hasty. This undercover stuff.”

I said, “I'm going somewhere with him tomorrow.”

“Him?”

“Blackman.”

“Where?”

“His house. Then for a motorcycle ride.”

“You're kidding.”

“I wish.”

“So don't go. You don't have to go.”

“I'm in it this far,” I said. “I don't know if I'll have the courage to get on his ‘hot iron,' as he calls it, but I can look.”

“You'll get on.”

“Another model's coming, name of Jolene. That'll be good. We can talk. She seems nice. I just haven't had time to talk to her.”

In the alcove off the kitchen, my newly acquired guinea pig, courtesy of Bird Dog Farmer, was chirping in the cage I'd set on the washing machine. “Mortimer wants milk,” I said, fetching the bottle hooked over his cage, and then the creamer. “I named him Motorboat because he purrs, but Mrs. Langston calls him Mortimer and now I do it too half the time.”

Joe smiled and shook his head and said things about women nurturers.

By the time I got the milk warmed in the microwave, the guinea pig was gnawing furiously on the rubber-coated wire cage. He'd drink, smack his lips, and flick the tiny tongue that looked as perfect as a petal in and out, while I drew my finger down his little nutlike head and said, “Oh, purty, doo, doo, doo.” Animal owners say funny things like that. As I stroked his soft sides, he vibrated with what I took to be delight.

When I looked back, Joe was leaning against the sink, popping the stem of a banana and peeling a strip down. Frowning.

“What's the matter?”

“Someone should follow you.”

“I'll be all right. The blond guy I met in Monty's office that first time is going too. He's apparently Jolene's boyfriend. The more the merrier.”

“Names on those?”

“Jolene's is Josephson. The guy's called Switchie. Hold on,” I said, and went to the bedroom and got the black leather cord strung with Indian beads and finger bones, and put it around my neck. It looked a little strange resting on my shortie robe. Back in the kitchen, I lifted the bones and said, “Part of my biker garb. What do you think? Human?”

Joe came close, banana smell on his breath, lifted the bones, and said, “Bear or chimp.” The banana peel was draped over his upright hand like a collapsed torch. “You're wearing these?”

“Hey, I am certified trike trash,” I said. “Harley gypsy, babe. Whatdya say, wanta get it on?”

After Joe left, I took Mortimer's cage out on the patio for a while so he could see the universe from his little jail. On my neighbor's balcony, a Belding's savannah sparrow sat flicking its tail, calling a rapid
Chip-chip-chip chee-ayyy
. Its superefficient kidneys allow it to drink salt water. It looked me over as it bounced nearer, until my neighbor's gray cat, sleeping on the first shelf of a plant stand, looped its tail in a contented dream and the bird flashed off.

When I looked at Mortimer, he was down in the pine shavings on his milk-fed tummy. The sparrow flew back and perched on the near railing, chip-chipping loudly. Mortimer's blond body tensed and he darted toward me. He rose high on his back legs like a miniature kangaroo, sniffed the air, his fearful eyes unblinking, as if to say, “What's next? Oh, what's next?”

When Monty first shut the big garage door, I felt on guard, jittery, and he told me I looked nervous as a whore in church. Then he turned the light on and I felt better.

Monty's stallion leaned on its gleaming chromed kickstand in a garage so clean no bike of Miranda's could ever possibly have been spray-painted there. The fringe from the black leather saddlebags nearly combed the floor. Now I was straddling the beast's bobtail, watching Monty look for a small wrench he knew he had just set down on his worktable, seeing him give up with a wave of the hand. I had on a denim jacket, white tanktop, jeans, and the blue boots with the flame cutouts. And of course, the monkey-finger necklace.

A few feet away from the stallion was another bike covered with a beige tarp. Miranda's? The one she wanted Monty to paint a design on she saw in a castle?

“What's under there?” I said, pointing.

“That one's my baby,” he said softly. He plucked off the tarp to expose a deep-green metal machine replete with intricate engravings on all the silver parts. A bulbous molded snake head stared out backward on the rise of the fatbob fender.

“Wow,” I said.

“If I do say so myself.” He stood admiring it with his hands on his hips, then stepped forward and stroked two fingers over his work. “I can tattoo anythin' that holds still and don't bite.”

“It's beautiful. But do you ride two bikes at a time?”

“Oh hell, I got bikes all over the place. I got a couple at shows right now. Friends of mine takin' care of 'em.”

“Nice. Do you do any for women?”

“You interested? You have to buy one first.”

“Maybe I will.”

“It's not just a paperweight, now.”

“No kidding.” I looked down at the monster beneath me.

Monty took a wooden dowel and tripped it over the front spokes. “Hear that? Like a harp. But they got to all sound the same. There's a hundred inch-pounds of torque on each one, never have to be retrued. You talkin' about women, a woman friend laced these spokes. It cost her eight hours, and that's workin' fast. Payback, I put my little ol' pneumatic Gravermeister to work and hammered her point cover and tank, real nice design.” He slid the dowel back into the cardboard tube by his drill press, then swiped at something on the cream-colored boots nosing out of his jeans.

“I like this design,” I said, admiring the swirls of snake coated in a thousand scales. “A python, of course?”

“Not only that, my dear, she's got a Python antireversionary exhaust system. Couldn't have any old exhaust system on her.”

“Of course not.”

“Monty's always thinkin'.” He tapped his head. “Now let me show you how you twist the wick,” he said, reaching in front of me to the handlebars. “Rummm! Rum-rum,” he said in a deep gargle. He stood up, and I smiled in spite of myself.

“I know you're being nice, but I don't think this is for me, Monty.”

“You got the wrong kind of fear, baby.”

“What's the right kind?”

“No kind. Here goes.” He slid me forward with two hands on my hipbones, then leaned over me to the handlebars. “Put your hands on these here ape hangers,” he said, and picked up one of my wrists to guide it to the handlebar just above his. He turned the key and twisted the throttle. The machine growled to life.

“How's that now?” His face was close to my ear.

“It's always fun losing your hearing,” I shouted.

“You're out there, your mind's set free,” he said. Then he shut it down and walked back to the workbench. I sat there feeling a little let down because the indoctrination was so short.

As if he read me, he said, thoughtfully, “You're tired, you're broke, been dumped on by the boyfriend, your boss is giving you a bad time . . .” He gestured widely, winking at the last. “Say, ‘Fuck the world.' Leave your troubles behind. You wheel that baby out, get in the wind, you are fuckin' born again.” He was laughing now, pacing to the front of the bike with me still sitting on it. His arms spread open and hung above his shoulders. “You just let yourself come into it like the heavy arms of God.”

“You could have several professions, Monty,” I said.

His arms dropped, his spine went loose again, and he slid a paint-splattered wooden stool out from under a second workbench and sat down right in front of the wheel, framed through the handlebars.

“I have
had
several professions, dear girl.”

“Like what?”

“I could have raced big time. You get out there on a track with a bunch o' boneheads all willin' to die for that prize, man, it's a high. First you want to be Number One Bonehead. Then you get beyond that. You don't care about Number One Bonehead, Number Two Bonehead, Number Ninety-Nine and a Half Bonehead. You just want to master the machine. Oh yeah, each one of these got a mind of its own. A spirit. I can build one with all kinds of love, piece by motherfuckin' piece, and it'll drag its lazy ass around the track like it wished you died and went to hell with no forwardin' address.

“But you get it right—you get it
right
—and now you done somethin',” he said. “You win. You can triple-fuck anybody squeezes you too hard. Now out on the road, bugs shittin' in your eye, that's a different challenge. Little rock, little bit o' ice here, little water, oil there, ah-hah. And the cagers—that's you guys in the
vee-hick-els
. Little peanut-head ol' lady sittin' on a cushion to see over the dash, she's the most dangerous eager out there. Or you get your everyday office geek that hates your guts 'cause you're ridin' free and he's an hour late for dinner after polishin' his knob with his secretary down the Holiday Inn. They'll turn their tires out on you, man, open their doors—'Uh-oh, didn't mean that, Officer. Highway hash now. Oh my, isn't that too bad?'”

Miranda, I thought, How did you find it going back to your foppish Mr. Doctor or my solemn Mr. Nate? And I thought of Monty's weapons violation and wondered how
he
felt about Miranda going back to either of them.

The garage door was open to let in some sun when Switchie and Jolene ratcheted up the sloped driveway on a candy-red bike. The ape hangers on it were so far out Switchie's ears were riding on his shoulders.

Switchie dismounted, undid his chin strap, and pulled off his helmet, and before he even took off his gloves, ran a comb through his hair which stood tall in a long crew cut. He wore leather leggings over new blue jeans, a leather jacket over a black Harley shirt.

Jolene had on calf-high boots with low heels and a pocket in the side for cigarettes. Black cotton Lycra pants with holes in them were held together at the sides with beaded lace-ups. She wore a black leather vest that wasn't meant to button over a sleeveless red top. Handcuffs swung from her belt, and she had so much silver jewelry on her arms and fingers I thought she'd clank, but she didn't.

“God,” she said, coming toward me, “you know what I feel like? A lemonade. You got any lemonade, Monty, inside?”

He told her to go on in and make herself at home. I followed her in, not having seen the house because of entering through the garage. We came in directly to the kitchen. It had a small Formica breakfast table in it, two mismatched wooden chairs, and window curtains that had faded to a rose color in the involutes and remained kind of purple on the evolutes. The entire refrigerator was covered with Harley patches, Gary Larson cartoons, snapshots of engraved metal parts and painted gas tanks, and pictures of beer-drinking men and women. I looked for the face of Miranda Robertson among those in the photos, saw no pretty woman with a long auburn braid. One photo, though, had a blurry half eye, cheekbone, and naked shoulder, bright with light, and a motorcycle in the background, white flames painted on blue. My attention kept returning to that snapshot, and then Jolene found some Pepsi, no lemonade she said, and I took a can from her. She got another for Switchie.

“By the way, Jolene, what's Switchie's real name?”

“Ralph.
R-R-alph
. I hate that.
R-R-alphhh
. He's into knives—like a hobby—so somebody called him Switchie once, I guess, and it stuck, pardon the pun. Hey, are you up for this ride?” she asked.

“I don't have a lot of experience on motorcycles.”

“Oh, the guys'll try to tell you how much fun it is, but the truth is after a while it's pretty boring. Get on, putt-putt, get off, eat, drink, brag, go to the next place. Watch everybody be cool.” She shrugged, and the moisture left on her full bottom lip from a swig of Pepsi made her seem pouty. She had her hair cut in sort of a ducktail. On her it looked nice.

Back again with the men, Jolene and I found something to talk about, but I was trying hard to listen to the men when somewhere in their tapestry of talk about gas/air mixtures, engine displacement, and skimming the piston crowns, I heard Switchie say he had a Tec-9 he'd like to get rid of, and was Monty interested? An Intratec Tec-9 is a nine-millimeter semiauto pistol banned in California because it can hold more than twenty rounds in the magazine and is therefore classified as an assault weapon.