Shop Talk (25 page)

“Are you getting out, or am I going to have to plug you in my water supply?”

“Ma’am,” Slade held up both of his hands to show his willingness to comply. “In deference to your decency, I can’t get out naked as the day I was born.”

She lowered the rifle slightly. “You’ve got yourself a problem, cowboy.”

“The name is Slade. And yours?”

She swung around suddenly with the rifle, aimed it at a tree across the river and blasted off a tree limb. “Annie Oaktree,” she said, “and this is the Oak Grove Ranch. My ranch. I knew you years ago back in Crowsfoot, Montana. You kissed me beside the Red Rock Canyon when I was little more than a young girl and then you went off to study books and forgot all about me. You broke my heart, Slade Rivers. I came south to care for my ailing aunt and when she died she left me, her only heir, her three thousand acre ranch, where you are currently trespassing. Now I’m going on home, and when I come back down here tomorrow, you and those skeletons on four hooves had better be gone.”

Helplessly naked in the water, Slade watched until she disappeared into the black outline of the pines that grew beside the river. Annie! He remembered her now. She’d been a slip of a girl with a wild tangle of hair and a paint pony she rode bareback. She’d been half wild, a woman-child with lips as plump and tender as a well-basted hen. When she kissed, she put her entire body and soul into the process, leaving a man drained and aching. Annie Oaktree. He’d thought about her often while he was off at school, studying the poetry of great writers. The first poem he’d written and read in public had been about her. When he’d gotten out of school and gone back to cowboying, he’d been afraid to look her up. Afraid that the fact would never live up to the fantasy. But here she was, right on the banks of the river, and here he was, as if fate had led him and the cows to this very spot just so they could meet again. Annie Oaktree. A woman with grit, spit and wit.

Damnation! He’d made a rhyme! His talent had not deserted him after all. And it had been the shotgun toting woman from his past who had inspired him.

When he was certain she was gone, he rose out of the water and went to his saddle to find the clean clothes he always packed. As soon as he was dressed, he found his journal and his pen. The nib was clotted with dried ink. Months had passed since he’d felt like writing. Angelita was a good woman, a fiery woman. For a time she had inspired him, but his poems had gotten more and more sexual, until he’d been reduced to one form, the limerick. No matter how he had tried to write a deep, meaningful bit of verse, the words had arranged themselves into the meter and rhyme of the titillating little ditty.

Annie Oaktree was another matter. Now she was a woman worthy of words. Sitting on the bank of the Jordan River with the cows grazing peacefully beside him, Slade began to compose a poem for Annie. As soon as he was done writing, he intended to follow her tracks until he ran her to ground so he could recite the poem to her. Years had passed and the distance between them was great, but Slade knew it was not insurmountable. He could build a bridge of words across the gulf that separated them. The nouns of love would be the solid planking of the bridge, the adjectives that described her beauty would be the railing, but it would be the verbs that supported the structure, and the rhyme that would make it all balanced and easy to cross.

The pen scratched against the page as he wrote and wrote, crossing out and staring over, pouring his soul into the measured lines of the poem.

Slade folded the note into his top shirt pocket. There was no way Annie could ignore the passion of his poem. No matter how mad she was at him, no matter that he’d sampled her pleasures by Red Rock and had then gone away. He was back now. And he was a better man for his pursuit of Clara and his sabbatical with Angelita. And the cows would be happy in Mississippi. They could walk on the beach late at night. They’d never have to wallow, belly-deep in snow. They could graze in the shelter of the oaks on Annie’s ranch, fatten and grow old.

While he and Annie kissed away the dark nights together.

Face turned into the last light of the setting sun, Slade Rivers, cowboy-slash-poet, walked toward his fate.

Lucille’s fingers trembled as she typed
The End.

“Lucille, you did it. You finished,” Driskell said as he held out a platter of pimento cheese sandwiches that Iris had made in lieu of the ham. “Have something to eat. You deserve it.” He watched with satisfaction as she bit a healthy hunk out of a sandwich.

“I can’t believe she sat there and wrote while her apartment is nothing but shreds and ashes, and the man who did it is running loose around Biloxi. Not to mention her uncle.” Iris stubbed out her cigarette as she turned to her husband. “And you’re not much better. How can you think about televisions while all this is going on?”

“It’s a family thing,” Bo answered as he picked up the power screw driver to replace the back of a set. “The Hares can focus on the job that needs to be done.” He gave Lucille a nod of approval.

Driskell took the laptop from Lucille’s hands. She clung to it a moment, a child attached to a mother’s breast. But when he spoke her name softly, she relinquished it with a sigh. His lips reddened, puckering in a silent kiss that flew across the short distance to Lucille’s cheek. “I need the computer to take care of something.”

“As soon as you finish can we make a copy of my book and then run by the bank and drop it in the night depository? Just in case there’s another bomb.”

“Certainly, Lucille. Then we’ll go out to the beefalo ranch a little early. I want to check a few things. Let me take care of this one little matter, and we’ll be off.” He hooked up the telephone line and tapped onto the Internet. In a moment he’d accessed the E-mail portion to find a host of messages from Roger. He ignored them all and wrote his own.

“Hares are under attack by Marvin Lovelace. Someone you forgot to mention? It doesn’t matter. I have taken matters into my own hands. Will use necessary force to rectify situation in a permanent way. Send back-up to old Dillon Road north of Saucier. I also quit. Driskell LaMont.” He sent the message, unplugged the telephone, and handed it back to Lucille. “Whatever is out there, we’ll put an end to it.”

Peter Hare gripped the steering wheel of the cement truck he’d stolen from Carlisle Construction and waited for the cramps in his gut to pass. With each twist and tremble of his intestines, he thought of one more vicious thing to do to Driskell LaMont. Once he finished with Driskell, Lucille would be the icing on the cake. He checked the rearview mirror to make certain the cement was still mixing. He’d bury the little whiner in a cement mountain–alive. She wouldn’t last long under the density of wet concrete. Silenced forever.

He’d driven past the shop, disguised as an honest laborer with the truck, and he’d seen them, a view through the plate glass window as clear as that of a television. They were all gathered up in the shop–red lips, Lucille, that harridan, Iris Hare, and good ole Bo. The idea of driving right through the plate glass window and dumping his load on all of them appealed to him. Only the thought of torturing Driskell held him back. The skinny interloper had destroyed his truck, forced him into an altogether too intimate relationship with soap and water, nearly killed him, and then left him to walk out of the woods. Almost as much as Peter hated water, he hated physical exertion. Only the ever-more-gruesome plans of what he was going to do to Driskell once he caught him had kept Peter going, until he’d happened upon the poorly protected construction company. Peter had learned at a young age how to hot-wire a vehicle. That the truck he’d stolen came with an enormous amount of weight and a cement mixer was God’s helping hand in evening out the score.

All he had to do was wait until Bo and Iris went to bed. He’d snatch Driskell, find Lucille, and then come back to finish off the rest of the family. Bo and Lucille should never have been born. They were aberrations. Happy had known that. Ethel had suspected it. Against the best advice of doctors in the U.S. Army, Happy had given Ethel the two children she wanted. And look what had happened. Not that Bo was so bad, but Lucille–Hare blood gone awry. The only thing to do with a creature unable to manage on its own was to put it out of its misery.

When the front door of the shop opened and Driskell and Lucille slid into the Cadillac, Peter felt a moment of indecision. Should he tail cape-boy and Lucille? Or should he take the opportunity to finish Bo and Iris? The glide of the Cadillac into the flow of traffic was too hard to resist.

Peter put the truck in gear and started after them.

Dallas pulled up behind the shiny red Miata and stared at the personalized license plates that read C-R-A-P-S. It could only belong to Sonny Zanzarro. Without bothering to open the door, Dallas vaulted out of the car and ran up the steps, taking care not to make a bit of noise as she peered into the window. Coco was seated at the kitchen counter, elbows propped and chin resting on her hands. Before her was a cup of coffee and beside her Sonny forked hunks of cheesecake into his mouth. Dallas pressed her face to the glass for a better view. Coco was not even looking at the cheesecake. She was staring at Sonny, who put down his fork and reached across for Coco’s hand. In a movement so fast Dallas couldn’t really discern what had happened, Coco was across the counter and in Sonny’s arms. The plate of cheesecake, forgotten in the moment, teetered on the edge of the counter before it fell to the floor with a loud smash. Coco didn’t even glance at the food.

“Geez, Louise,” Dallas whispered in delight. Coco was inhaling Sonny rather than food. With an expert movement, Sonny flipped Coco across his arm, supporting her as he dipped her down for the finale of the kiss. It was a bad moment to interrupt, but if she didn’t break them up soon, it might be too late. Gathering her purse, she rose, smoothed out her skirt, and pounded on the door loudly. “Coco, Coco,” she called.

The door was thrown open and Coco, cheeks flushed and eyes gleaming, reached out and hugged Dallas. “Sonny is going to publish my book! He loves the photographs! He loves my cooking!”

“Looks to me like he loves everything about you,” Dallas offered. It occurred to her that Sonny would not be a bad man to have at a beefalo ranch. He probably didn’t know a damn thing about livestock, but it was a given that he’d have a gun.

She instantly changed her plans. “Why don’t you take Sonny with you to the beefalo ranch?”

“What’s up?” He came toward the door, agreeable as long as Coco was within touching distance. His hands stroked her arm.

She drew away from him. “He has to know the truth.”

Dallas grasped Coco’s slender wrist and pulled her down three steps. “Zip it, Coco,” she whispered. “Men don’t have to know anything you don’t want to tell them. They have their own set of secrets.”

“No.” Coco gripped the banister at the last step and held. It was as if she’d suddenly developed strength. Before Dallas could stop her, she looked up at Sonny. “I used to be really fat,” Coco said. “There’s a chance I might get fat again.” When he didn’t say anything, she held her hands far out from her lean hips. “I mean really fat.”

Sonny shrugged. “I knew that.” He came down the steps. “When you donated your skin, it was my cousin Vinny that got some. He got a bad burn when he was torching a … when he got caught in an accidental fire.” Sonny brushed the backs of his fingers across Coco’s cheek. “Now he’s got the smoothest skin in the world. But I got to say, it looks better on you. He can’t even grow peach fuzz now, and it drives him wild.”

“You knew?” Coco wavered as if she might faint. “You knew I used to be fat and you want to publish my cookbook anyway?”

Sonny looked at Dallas as if he’d missed some important point. “Sure. The food is great. The photos are terrific. What’s the problem?”

“But I could get fat again.” Coco couldn’t think of a way to make him understand.

“Hey, the world could blow up. A hurricane could

destroy the casino. Listen, Coco, lots of things
could
happen. Who can foretell the future?” He put his arm around her. “And besides, if you put on a few pounds there’ll just be more of you to love.”

The rhythms of Bonita Avenue were familiar to Mona. Through the last hours of the afternoon, she’d watched the residents, several of them elderly and moving carefully, as they unloaded groceries, set out their garbage, or turned on the kitchen lights and began to prepare dinner. Mona watched the scenes of domesticity with a new eye. The routines were there, buried beneath many layers of experience. She had once set the table and chopped onions for a meal. She had once checked the clock to time a roast as she waited for her father to return.

How long had it been since she’d cooked for someone? Not long enough. She’d abandoned that lifestyle as easily as a snake sheds its summer skin. She had come out new and glistening and supple, with only an itch or two to remind her of what her hide had once looked like.

From her car she had a clear view of Marvin’s apartment. The small light still burned behind the seafoam curtains, and the driveway was as empty as it had been when she’d first arrived. He’d be back, though. This was his base. They’d established that much. Marvin Lovelace always returned to the apartment on Bonita Avenue.

The sun slipped behind a large red oak, and through the window of her car, Mona could hear the Sound. All of her life the water had been just a short walk from her door. It was especially beautiful at dusk, and she would miss it.

She picked up her wire cutters and gloves and hurried across the leaf-covered lawn. She couldn’t leave this job to Dallas. By her estimations, Dallas was almost seasoned enough to deal with Marvin, but not quite. In order to go to Washington and leave WOMB behind, Mona required Dallas to be in good health and ready to take over the reins of the writers’ group. That meant she, Mona d’la Quirt, would deal with Marvin. She snapped the wire cutter in her hand, a tiny click, click, click sound. There were indeed certain procedures she could perform that would bring the old codger to his knees.

Footsteps echoing on the wooden stairs, she raced up them and paused at the door. A moan of dismay greeted her. It had to be Robert. There was no time now for finesse. She kicked the door, using all the strength of her thighs and back, and felt it give. In a moment she was inside.

The creature huddled over in a chair was hardly recognizable as the man she’d seen in magazines and television interviews.

“Robert?”

“Un-huh!” He nodded his head.

“This does not look like fun. When I tie a man up, I like to hear an occasional cry of pleasure.” She bent to the task, glad she’d brought the wire cutters to get through the plastic-coated clothesline that Marvin had used. The thin wire was effective but cruel. She’d quit using it years before, preferring silk stocking or scarves. They could be tied as tightly, but didn’t destroy the tissue.

As she cut the bonds away, she wondered if the scientist would ever regain use of his hands.

“Thank you,” he nearly wept when the gag was removed. “I don’t know who you are, but thank you.”

“No time for the niceties, Robert, let’s move!” She grabbed his arm and propelled him up, covering his scream of pain with her hand. “One more noise like that, and I’ll have to leave you.” She felt his jaws clamp shut beneath her hand. At least Dallas had trained him to believe it when a woman spoke.