Leather Maiden (16 page)

“Man, you have made a turnaround,” I said.

“I'm not as scared as before. I'm ready to let it go. You should be too.”

“Can't. It's the reporter in me.”

“It's the obsessive-compulsive in you. This isn't Santa Claus and this isn't trying to call up the bull ape. Whoever did this thing, took Caroline, I got a feeling he isn't like the kids. We don't want to fuck with whoever that is, now that we don't have to. He's most likely moved on, so why stir things up, man? Let's let this stuff be.”

“You're probably right.”

“I know I'm right.” Jimmy put his empty bottle on the coffee table and got up. “I got to go home. I think I'm going to soak in a tub, try and treat Trixie right. Give her a foot rub, take her to lunch. Something nice.”

I walked him to the door. I said, “I really am sorry about hitting you.”

“I don't think you're that sorry.”

“That was sort of for Trixie.”

“Oh, it was, huh?”

“Sort of.”

“Listen, man,” Jimmy said. “We're done on this. Right?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

I opened the door, and he reached back and slapped me on the shoulder, smiled and went away.

25

Exhausted and confused, I stretched out on the couch and was soon asleep. When I awoke the apartment was hot and full of the aroma of rotting rat. I got up and turned up the air conditioner and found something to eat in the fridge, compartmentalized my thinking about the rat to some deep section of my brain and tried to enjoy eating. I took a shower and put on some clean clothes and was happy that with the air conditioner going the rat was down to half level, demoted to corporal.

I didn't really have to check in, but I got my cell phone and dialed work and told Timpson I would be out today so I could work on a story at home. Then I dialed Belinda.

She answered immediately.

“Cason,” she said.

“Wanted you to know I took off today, but I was wondering what you're doing tonight.”

“I called in sick, not because I'm sick, but because I'm sick of the job.”

“I lied and said I was working at home.”

Belinda laughed. “What liars we are. I called this morning and went back to sleep, not wanting to get up, wondering if maybe you had already had your fill of me. I was thinking about what my mother used to say about giving out, and how when you did it was pretty much over.”

“Mothers aren't right about everything,” I said. “It's time you moved into the twenty-first century, though I've been living here for a few years now and don't think much of it…Look, I've just been a little wrapped up is all.”

“Work?”

“You could say that.”

“Is that what we'll say?”

“Yeah. Let's say that.”

“Will I hear more?”

“Nothing really to hear.”

“Okay, then. What are our plans?”

“It's as much about your choices as mine, kid…But I was just sitting here thinking we ought to go to dinner tonight and maybe a movie. After that, we could come to my place, but it smells like there's a dead rat in the wall, because there is.”

She laughed. “Sounds like a plan. Maybe we can do the hotel again. I loved room service.”

We worked out the details, and I lay down on the couch again and went right back to sleep. I woke up after a few hours of deep satisfying sleep, got into the boxes I had first shipped to my parents' house and brought over just a few days ago. I had yet to open them. What was in them was a new computer, the odds and ends that go with it. I spent some time setting it up and made myself a cup of hot coffee. I fiddled on the computer for a time, making sure it was working, no damage in shipping, just sort of cruising Web sites, looked to see if I could find a MySpace site for Caroline. I didn't.

I finally decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to work on a column, so I did. When I finished with a rough draft, I went back to playing online. While I killed time, I wondered about Belinda, thought maybe I ought not to have called, that it was just a way for me to soothe my banged-up heart and she deserved better. My penis argued with me for a while, and by the time I had to get up and brush my teeth and put on a better set of clothes, my penis had out-argued my brain and was trying to tell me that what we were doing was okay and that all that mattered was everyone had a good time and didn't get hurt. It was the greatest oration since Cicero.

I drove over to Belinda's place. We went to a nice steak house downtown, had some rib eyes and some drinks and a lot of conversation. We went to a bad movie, and then we went back to her place instead of the hotel. I don't know why we did it that way, instead of the hotel, which had been our plan, but that's how it came out.

Inside, the place was neat. It was about the size of my joint, but it was well furnished. Nothing fancy, but everything was nice and the colors were coordinated and there was no dead rat smell in the wall. That fact alone was enough to charm me.

We talked about having drinks, but we never got that far. Our hands found each other, and then we were kissing, and pretty soon she was leading me through a door and into her bedroom, which smelled of scented candles, which had a real leg up on my dead rat. She lit a fresh candle that was melted onto a saucer by her bed, and the smell that came off of it was banana nut bread. She started up her CD player, some soft jazz. She slowly took off her shirt and bra, smiled her shiny braces at me and shook her head, throwing her hair about. She began to move slowly to the music. It wasn't what I expected of her, but I stood there grinning like a fool, watching her move, watching her skin out of her pants and what little there was of her panties. She was someone who didn't overdo the shaving and had left a bit of womanly hair where it counts, and when she swayed the little guy in my pants swayed with her.

She danced over to me, took hold of my shirt and started to undo the buttons. I tried to help, but she pushed my hands away and did it herself, and pretty soon I was out of my clothes and we were in the bed. The smell of the banana nut bread from the candle was strong and I felt hungry. I took it out on her, and she didn't mind. The next thing I knew it was morning and the sun was shining through the thin white curtains, and we made love once more, just to make sure we remembered how, and then we went back to sleep and didn't awake until midday.

I woke up first and thought about trying to make breakfast in bed, but that time was long past, so I took a shower, and about five minutes into it, she joined me. That took some more time.

Dressed, we went to the kitchen. She got out some plates, the bread, peanut butter and jelly, and we made sandwiches and poured up glasses of milk and sat at her kitchen table and talked about silly things for a while, then she said, “You know, I knew her.”

“What?”

“Caroline.”

“You knew her?”

“Not well, but I knew her. I didn't say anything before, because I didn't know her that well, and I didn't want that to be the first thing between us, some work-related thing. What I've been thinking, though, is I'm not sure anyone really knew her. Not in any way that really told you anything about her.”

“I've been thinking the same thing.”

“When I was going to school, I took some night courses at the university, and I saw her one night. And you know what I remember about her?”

I shook my head.

“I'm standing in the hall, by the elevators, waiting to go up to the fourth floor, and I see her coming toward me. I looked at her, because you couldn't not look at her. She was stunning. She was coming toward me and her head was held down a little, but not so much I couldn't see her face, and I remember thinking, Wow, that is one beautiful but dead face.”

“How do you mean?”

“When she saw me, she came out of wherever she had been visiting inside her head, and her face changed, lit up, and she smiled and said something friendly, and we rode up in the elevator together.”

“People can look that way if they're thinking about something else. Dead-faced, I mean.”

Belinda shook her head. “Not like that. I don't mean she wasn't carrying a lot of expression because her mind was elsewhere; she had these perfect features that didn't have any animation. It was like she was all made up for her coffin. It was like a book I read once about these things from outer space that were pods, and they were hid under beds and in closets while people slept, and the people didn't wake up. Their place was taken by the pods and the people ceased to exist. They looked the same and did the same things, but their expressions were gone, their voices lacked inflection. They didn't radiate emotion. They weren't human.”

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers,”
I said.

“That's it. That's the one. That's how Caroline struck me. I knew who she was because really anyone that went to classes in that building knew who she was. You were in that building, and you saw her, you never forgot her. But I tell you, that girl wasn't right. She was whatever you wanted her to be.”

I had heard something similar from Ernie and Tabitha. But I said, “You can't know that.”

“You're right. I can't. But we rode the elevator up together, and when we got to the top floor, she saw one of the professors unlocking his office door, and when she called his name, she changed. Her posture. Her face. It was as if something came from somewhere and filled her up with personality. She moved differently. She had something she hadn't had in the hall, or in the elevator, except for that little flash when she spoke to me.”

“Maybe she knew how to handle men.”

“No doubt she did. But it wasn't just that. There was something about her that was empty, and when she needed a personality, it was like she borrowed it.”

“From who?”

“I don't know. From any source she might have seen or learned from. She was someone who imitated life. I know how dramatic that sounds. But riding up in that elevator, I had the coldest, saddest feeling, and I wouldn't turn my back on her. I pushed up in the corner so I could watch her.”

“Did she watch you?”

“She did. She even smiled a couple of times, but it was like a beautiful tiger showing its teeth, not like someone happy to see you, or just being friendly. I know. I know it all sounds like some kind of creep show, and from the outside I must sound like the biggest creep of them all. She was gorgeous, and I won't lie to you, part of me was very jealous of her. I wanted to look like her, but I didn't want to be her. Not even in the littlest ways. I don't think she had feelings one way or another, except for the borrowed ones. I think had she not been so beautiful, she would have been found out sooner. People wouldn't have trusted her.”

“You mean men, don't you?”

“I mean anyone, but men especially. She could charm when she wanted to make the effort. She borrowed charm from her memory banks, and she only needed so much, because men, they don't always have to have everything else just right if the woman looks good.”

“That's a sad commentary on my sex,” I said, “but what makes it even sadder is you're probably right. This professor you mentioned, way you said it, you're telling me something there, aren't you?”

“It was your brother. He was teaching a night class.”

“And?”

“And the way they looked at one another, the way he touched her shoulder, even though it was nothing but friendly, there was something going on there. I think it was one way. I think she wanted to make him think it was two ways, but I think it was one way. I didn't even mean to get into this, and wouldn't have said anything at all, but we are getting closer, and I don't think a secret like that is good, even if it isn't much of a secret. I'm sorry to tell you something like that, and now that I think about it, I wish I had just shut up. And you know what, I could be full of it. It might have all been innocent.”

“I know about it. And you're right. There was something there. Jimmy's married, you know?”

“I know. He and his wife have been in the news a few times. Stuff up at the college, even charity work. And he was in some kind of hunting club or something.”

“I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention what you just told me. I don't want to make things worse for Jimmy. He knows he messed up, and now that it's over…”

“You've heard the last from me as far as their relationship is concerned.”

“Do you know if anyone else knew they were having an affair?”

“I didn't really know much of anyone at the university. I knew your brother because of the newspaper, and I knew her because of how she looked, and some of the other students talked about her. I knew a few of the professors.”

I thought about that a moment.

“I know what you're thinking,” she said. “That my opinions about her may come from something someone else said. But no one said anything about her, other than the guys, and then it was just the usual stuff about how fine she looked and what they would like to do with her.”

“Any of those boys ever sound weird about it? About what they'd like to do?”

“Not the way you're thinking. I don't have any better idea what happened to her than anyone else. You've been checking this out, haven't you? And not just because of the column you wrote. Because of your brother?”

It was hard to bullshit another reporter, or in this case, a would-be reporter.

“A little. I didn't really know about him and Caroline until I started checking things out. I think I'm through checking.”

“I bet you're not.”

“No?”

Belinda shook her head. “You're too much of a reporter, and you have something of an obsessive personality.”

“You think?”

She grinned. “Yes, I do. I know about you and Gabby.”

“That's old news.”

“Not the way I hear it.”

“You are a fountain of information, girl. How did you hear about it, and from whom?”

“Melanie Popper.”

“Who?”

“She works at the vet's office. Gabby told her you came by and tried to patch things up, and Gabby asked you to leave. Or that's what Gabby told her anyway.”

“Damn small town…Yes, that's true. I did try and patch it up, and if she walked through this door right now and said she'd take me back, I'd go. I wouldn't ask a question, and I wouldn't look back. I'd go.”

There was a bit of silence, like a couple of respectful sailors watching a huge iceberg pass by.

“I can understand that,” Belinda said.

“I don't think you can. Listen to me. I said I would go without one word, and I would. But she doesn't want me, and deep down, some place hidden behind the furnace, I don't want her and know she's wrong for me, and you're helping me understand that. I don't want it to sound like I see you as something to take her place until she comes back. I don't mean it that way, but I'm trying to be honest. I hope you believe that.”

“I do.”

“You know what I really fear?” I asked.