Angry Buddhist (9781609458867) (8 page)

 

P
iloting the Mustang down the palm-lined streets in the starlit early evening, Kendra's mind is a storm of vexation. The cool of the air conditioning on her supple skin does nothing to tamp her distress. Her heart thuds against her chest wall and she has to concentrate to breathe evenly. The intersection of North Indian Canyon Drive and East Vista Chino comes on her like a curtain rising and when she realizes she is going to run a red light she hit the brakes so hard the Mustang skids and she pitches forward. Checks the rearview mirror to make sure no one is behind her, puts the car in reverse and backs up to avoid getting clipped by someone equally distracted.

Kendra cannot hold her liquor and after a single drink will experience the heightening of whatever emotion she is currently feeling. So the despair coursing through her is amplified by the combination of vodka and schnapps contained in the pair of Mel-tinis she drained. This encounter with Nadine is a fitting capstone to a series of emotional setbacks. For several years she has occasionally thought that her marriage to Randall is one of convenience. Her choice to remain in it is not the easiest thing for her to deal with since it eats away at her sense of self-esteem, the particularly American creed to which Kendra adheres. You must “reach for the sky,” “dare to dream,” “believe in yourself.” If the mechanism that regulates self-generated optimism is faltering, it feels like the ground might open and swallow you.

Then there is her daughter: meant to be a joy, she has become a stranger. And now what was a little innocent diversion, a lubricious sidebar to her anodyne daily life, a small reward for the quiet depredations she suffered as a political spouse, is looming as a disaster that could end Randall's political career and with it their future.

Driving past a sprawling golf course she considers her equally unappetizing options. She could do nothing, although that carries a high risk. Perhaps Nadine is bluffing. Being involved in a scandal will not help in her quest to escape the confines of the tanning business and propel herself back into the more expansive world of resort tennis. If Nadine has her own interests at heart, this will not advance them. But Kendra cannot count on Nadine being rational.

She can always pay the money to have her sit on the compromising material. But perhaps Nadine isn't telling her everything. Perhaps there is further evidence of their affair that she is withholding until a more strategically propitious time. Nadine said she had no intention of blackmailing her but how could she be certain? And once Kendra allows herself to be blackmailed, there is no way to know when it will stop. What if she had pictures? Nadine could continue to bleed her for money, or she could release the images for sport. There is no way of knowing. And since pictures hardly exist as physical photographs anymore but rather as indolent pixels brought to life at the stroke of a key, there would be no negatives to destroy. They would always remain, like free radicals in a human body, waiting for just the right moment to coalesce into something fatal.

The next option is to summon her courage, tell Randall and see what he advises. After absorbing the shock, she assumes he will act in his own interest and that strategic selfishness will require a degree of cool calculation on his part from which they both might benefit. While this gambit involves admitting a lesbian affair to her husband the week before an election, given Randall's record of serially mangling their marital vows he can hardly object to her doing the same. Although she suspects he will be upset with the timing.

Kendra had caught Randall cheating on her early in their marriage when they were taking a spa weekend at a resort in Arizona. Her mud wrap had been rescheduled due to overbooking and she returned to their suite to find him bending a chambermaid over the credenza. She had torn a lamp from its moorings and thrown it at him, and then flew home a day early.

Back then Jimmy was single and upon her return Kendra sought him out. The two of them had always liked one another. At her wedding Jimmy had been the best man and the general theme of his toast was Randall's utter unworthiness of a grade A premium bride like Kendra Kerry. He had had a few drinks that afternoon but only enough to heighten the poetry of the moment and his words were heartfelt and kind. The truth: Jimmy had been a little jealous of his brother. Kendra was beautiful and talented, and her years around football players both in high school and college had given her the ability to swear and tell a joke, something Jimmy found captivating. So when she turned up at his condo the night she got back early from her spa weekend, he had not been displeased.

It was early summer and the clothes she wore were sheer and revealing. Whether this was by design or by accident, Jimmy never knew. Aware her brother-in-law did not keep a stock of Chardonnay in the refrigerator, she arrived with a bottle and a corkscrew. He filled a couple of highball glasses—stem glasses not part of his
modus operandi
either—and they sat side by side on the living room sofa. She was edgy, but her makeup was perfect. Kendra confessed what had happened in Arizona, told him how mortified she had been, and Jimmy pretended to be shocked. But he knew Randall had been sexually profligate prior to his marriage and had suspected that the nuptial state would do nothing to change his habits. He took no joy in being right as he observed his sister-in-law's sadness and Chardonnay-fuelled distress. Kendra cried a little and asked his advice. Divorce was a definite possibility, she was certain. She sipped another glass of wine, then poured a third. The phone rang—it was work-related—and when Jimmy came back from answering it, she slid closer to him. In what had truly been intended as a gesture of comfort, he put his arm around her shoulder and was slightly taken aback when she tilted her face up and kissed him gently on the lips. Although he would have loved to take her to bed, he couldn't let this happen, so he defused the situation by channeling the Rev­erend Donnie Duke and gassing about the importance of marriage and how she had to pray for the strength to forgive his brother and heal their union. This tactic served to chill her ardor considerably.

It was not something she had appreciated at the time.

When the bottle was empty Jimmy realized he was still working on his first glass. Energy spent, passion vitiated, Kendra curled up on the sofa. Jimmy brought her a pillow, arranged a spare blanket over her and went to bed. The following morning she was gone. They never spoke of that encounter again. By the time it became clear she was not going to leave Randall, the closeness that had existed between them that evening evaporated.

Upon Randall's solo return from the spa weekend, Kendra had made it clear to him that, whatever he was going to do in the way of philandering, he needed to be less cavalier in his approach. Randall had been so grateful for her forbearance he didn't commit adultery again for several weeks. And he had made sure to do it while he was travelling. But for all of her husband's cheating since that time in Arizona, he has managed to keep it from fouling the nest. This has been their arrangement, their quid pro quo. In return for her tolerance of his sexual peccadilloes and not divorcing him, it is understood that, should his career continue its ascent she will remain at his side.

A thought takes shape like the outlines of a cavalry appearing on a ridge: What if Nadine does not have any evidence save for the matching tattoos? Perhaps this whole encounter is some kind of attempt to get her to offer money without Nadine actually extorting her in a technical sense, but rather by a masterful use of nothing more than innuendo. Perhaps the whole thing is a bluff.

But it's not. Kendra quickly dismisses that hopeful notion as the sort of weak thinking that has put her in this situation in the first place. No, there must be real, incontrovertible evidence of her bad judgment and, by extrapolation, her husband's lack of moral fitness for public office.

Kendra's cell phone is ringing when she pulls into her driveway. A message from Nadine. She feels her heart thudding and takes a deep breath before checking it. There is no text, only an attachment. She opens the attachment and waits for it to load. In a moment she is looking at two-inch high video of Nadine's naked ass, the manga kitten tattoo staring at her like a hangman. There is a piece of music with the attachment that Kendra slowly discerns through her panic, Michael Jackson singing
Beat It.
Tiny Video Nadine shakes her booty side to side in time to the music and Kendra's head seems like it's going to fly off her shoulders. But then her emotions abate and she begins to feel a little quiver because however horrifying Nadine's return to her life might be, the time they spent together did have its enjoyable moments. The memories of the clandestine assignations that this video calls forth, stripped of the context in which they had occurred and rendered purely pornographically, are kind of a turn on.

A tapping on the car window snaps her out of the near-trance she is in. Brittany stands there in jeans and a band tee shirt that reads
The Violent Mood Swings
. Kendra slams the phone into her lap hard enough to send sparks to her face. She rolls down the window. If the girl has seen anything, she isn't letting on.

“Do I really have to go to this retarded Purity Ball with Dad?”

“Yes,” she tells her daughter. “It's going to be an important night for your father and purity is a very important thing. Particularly now.”

“I'm not a virgin, you know.”

In an instant the weather pattern on Kendra's face shifts from cloudy to storms as she climbs out of her car and grabs Brittany's forearm. “What did you say?”

“I'm joking! God, I just texted pictures, which you already know since you're like Kim Jong Il.”

Entirely too thrown to engage any further in this conversation, Kendra releases her daughter's arm and proceeds into the house without looking back. Inside, she quickly deletes Nadine's email. But she is haunted by the idea that some ghostly hint of it will remain in the device so she slips into the garage where Randall keeps a tool kit. Wielding a hammer she smashes the phone to bits and tosses the wreckage into the garbage.

 

T
wentynine Palms is home to the Air Ground Combat Center, the largest Marine base in the world. Fourteen miles east of the town of Joshua Tree on Route 62, it's the last outpost of civilization for nearly seventy miles. The quiet high desert streets and modest houses are home to a mixture of military dependents, ex-military, retirees looking for cheap housing, people who hate cities, and lovers of the vast emptiness. Winter nights the temperature drops to near freezing. Summers can get up to a hundred and twenty degrees. It's a tough, hardscrabble place where the residents earn their flinty outlooks because they're hardy enough to live there. If you're passing through on your way to Arizona and want to stop at a bar for a cold beer, know it's the kind of town where the drunken Marine seated to your left might pull a gun.

The Marvin's house is a tidy bungalow painted a deep red at 21 Desert View, on a small rise on the west side facing east over the rooftops. Three wooden steps lead to the front door and the sound of a neighbor's wind chimes floats in the early evening breeze. Mounted above the lintel is a hand-carved sign Hard made in his garage workshop. It reads
Casa Contenta.

Vonda Jean Marvin likes dinner to be over in time to watch her game show at 7:30 so the Marvin family dined for years at 7:00 every evening. The serving, the conversation, and the dishes invariably done in less than twenty minutes. Now that only Hard and Vonda Jean are at home every evening, it's just the two of them at the kitchen table. Bane lies snoring on the linoleum floor. There is a bandage on Hard's neck covering the wound Nadine inflicted. To his relief, Vonda Jean hasn't asked about it. In her early forties, she is in superb physical condition and rivals Bane in fearsome. Her body is slim and tight in the black tracksuit she's wearing. Her attractive features are permanently set in an expression that suggests someone is trying to hustle her. She teaches various Asian hand-to-hand combat techniques five days a week at Mojave Martial Arts and while the constant pounding has taken a toll on her knees, at a distance, with her silky blonde bob and cinched waist, she could be mistaken for twenty-six.

Although Vonda Jean is not a big woman, especially when glimpsed near her hulking husband, Hard is afraid of her. Her wrath is mighty and Hard is loath to provoke it. He has been tempted to smack her after a few of her more excoriating outbursts, but what stays his hand is the knowledge that, while he could never actually kill her, he believes she is perfectly capable of shooting him in his sleep.

They are eating fried chicken Vonda Jean picked up at KFC since she didn't feel like cooking tonight and Hard never feels like it. There was a time she would have prepared a hot meal for him as a matter of course, but those days have gone the way of the muscle cars he used to favor and the cheap gasoline on which they ran. Vonda Jean doesn't believe in divorce, if she did she would be eating take out chicken with someone else right now. The two of them have reached a sour equilibrium. Vonda Jean is in the early days of the life's next stage and not in a good mood about it. It isn't something she'll discuss with Hard, things she can discuss with him being an ever-shrinking category. So she chews her chicken and tries to imagine she is somewhere else with someone else and assumes he is doing the same. The only sounds come from the television in the living room. She always leaves it on so she'll have something else to listen to in the event Hard starts talking.

Vonda Jean on her third beer, Hard working to catch up.

They don't get a lot of visitors at night so it is something of a surprise when the doorbell rings. Bane barks energetically. He charges to the door and waits, hind legs tense, anticipates the tearing of a human thorax. Vonda Jean rises and shushes the dog. Bane ignores her and keeps up the racket. A young woman is standing at the door. Tanned and athletic, she gives a half grin when Vonda Jean asks over the din of barking what it is she wants.

“Chief Marvin,” is the reply.

“Harding,” Vonda Jean calls over her shoulder, the only one in his life who calls him by his birth name. “Someone at the door for you.”

Bane determines the threat level will not require his skills and wanders away.

In a moment Hard rumbles out of the kitchen. “Can I help you?” His attitude suggests nothing other than a desire to be of service. There is no sense he has ever seen her before.

“I think you can,” Nadine says. She is confident, standing there in the doorway, backlit by the streetlight in front of the Marvin home. Vonda Jean takes another look in the girl's direction. Is there something in her tone that begs notice? Difficult to tell. Maybe she's just flirty. Hard has played himself out of contention anyway so what's she worried about?

“Do you two know each other?” This from Vonda Jean.

“I'm a civilian volunteer at the Desert Hot Springs Police Department.”

“Good for you,” Vonda Jean says. The theme music from the game show drifts in from the living room and she excuses herself. Hard beckons Nadine inside with a friendly wave. She follows him to the kitchen, the dog trailing. Hard watching Nadine's non-reaction to the dog. Contrary to nature, she does not appear at all frightened of the animal. It figures. Compared to her demented Chihuahua, Bane has the manners of an English butler.

In the kitchen Hard looks at Nadine and quietly growls, “I thought we were done after you stuck a fork in my neck. What the Sam Hill you doing here?” Bane settles into his corner bed, ignoring them.

“Someone threatened to kill me,” Nadine hisses, as if the intensity with which she expresses this information might motivate Hard to do something about it.

But what he says is: “I don't blame them, Nadine. You're a righteous pain in the ass.”

“Did you hear what I told you?”

“Have you been drinking?”

“So?”

“I oughtta arrest you for driving over here.”

A voice from the other room: “Harding, do we have any avocadoes?” Nadine starts at the sound. It is as if she has forgotten there is another person in the house, someone who is more than an adjunct to her hazy plan. Hard half expects Nadine to respond on cue and go marching into the living room for a sit down with his wife. He is relieved that she remains rooted in the kitchen. Hard glances toward the counter and sees three avocadoes in a plastic bowl. He shouts to his wife that tonight is her lucky night. From her perch in front of the television in the living room Vonda Jean, voice like a bullhorn, asks how he feels about making her some guacamole. Keeping his eyes on Nadine, he tells Vonda Jean he'll be pleased to.

Nadine says, “I could take that guacamole in there and tell your nice wife everything.”

“You're seriously misreading the situation if you think that woman's nice, Nadine. She's nice like a wolverine.”

“I'm just saying.”

“Maybe she'd shoot you.”

“You want to kill me, you better do it yourself.”

Nadine is certainly assertive. It is a quality of hers that Hard greatly enjoys in another context, but right now it is more problematic. Removing a bowl from the cabinet, he pretends to turn his attention to the avocadoes. He knows what Nadine is capable of and is in no mood for a repeat performance. Had she hit a carotid artery with the salad fork, his blood would have painted her kitchen wall. Is there a link between a desire for the unhinged, swing-from-the-rafters sex Nadine practices and mental instability? And if there is, what does it say about him? Hard likes to think he has a crazy side, too, but not like Nadine who Hard thinks might be crazy in the way of heavy medication and locked wards.

“How's your neck?”

“You lifted my Taser, didn't you?

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Does she have it on her? He could grab her and find out, but she might scream and that would bring Vonda Jean running. Instead, he takes a paring knife out of the drawer, keeping a wary eye on Nadine. Did she wince when she saw the blade? Maybe it was a twitch. Twitching is not an encouraging sign.

Hard is dexterous with a knife, can bone a fish or skin a rattler with his eyes closed. How easy would it be to stick Nadine? Good payback, too. Being an officer of the law, Hard doesn't like where his mind is going, and upbraids himself silently for not thinking like one. The man can go black. He resolves to try and pray on it. Hard's not religious but if he's going to get into politics that will have to change.

Now he cuts the avocados in half, dislodges the pits and scrapes the fruit from the stippled skin. He places the pieces in the bowl where he mashes them to a pulp with a spoon all the while remaining acutely aware of every muscle tic from Nadine. He gets a lemon and a jar of salsa from the refrigerator. Slicing the lemon in two, he squeezes both halves into the bowl. Feels the astringent juice running over his fingers. Then he pours some salsa on top and stirs the viscous glop together.

Nadine watches in silence. The knife, covered with a film of green, lies on the counter. It occurs to Hard she could reach for it. Thinks about the Taser again. He knows the damage she can inflict with a salad fork. A Taser in her hands would be a nuclear weapon. He hopes Nadine will behave. Should he warn her about the dog?

“You're a regular Chef Boyardee, Hard. How come you never cooked for me?”

“Nadine, I'm gonna bring my wife this guacamole.” Indi­cates the bowl with his hand. His delicacy of tone is intended to have a calming effect but just barely offsets the murderous aspect behind it. “Right now I want you to wait in here. When I get back to the kitchen we're gonna call you a cab because I don't want you driving home. If you do anything, and I mean anything, that deviates from that plan . . . ” Before Nadine can react, Hard grabs her right arm, swings it behind her back, twists her around and clamps his hand over her mouth. The move is so swift and violent Nadine goes limp from fear, her eyes swinging wildly around the kitchen. Bane lifts his head but otherwise remains still. For a moment Hard thinks Nadine might have fainted. He quickly pats her down with his free hand, determines she has no weapons. When he sees her eyeballs bugging he places his lips next to her left ear and says, “I could snap your neck right now.” His breathing quick, her skin warm. Hard notices the pulse in her artery and her lemony scent. “Nadine, understand. I mean you no harm but don't try and put one over on me because that won't work. I'll let you go but you stay calm now. Nod your head if you're willing to do that.” He eases his grip and Nadine, beaten, nods meekly. Hard lowers his hand, disappointed. It appeared he had half a mind to kill her just then. He didn't feel anything with that Mexican. Wonders if he'd feel anything if he killed Nadine. Probably not, he concludes.

“You okay?” Nadine nods again. “Now wait right here. Don't want you picked up for a DUI.” Taking the bowl of guacamole, Hard opens the pantry, grabs a bag of corn chips and leaves the kitchen. Vonda Jean doesn't look up from the TV when he hands her the bowl of guacamole.

“What's she doing here?”

“Gal's got some personal problems.”

“You're her shrink?”

“It's not like that. I'm calling her a cab.”

“Is she your girlfriend, Harding?” Still not looking away from the TV screen.

“I don't have a girlfriend, all right? Someone threatened her, she wanted to tell me.”

“You're the knight in shining armor.”

Hard wants to take the bag of chips, crumble them up and dump the contents on Vonda Jean's head. But instead he hands it to her. Then he gets down on his knee.

“I swear to you, I barely know her. I'm a public figure, Vonda Jean. All kinds of kooky people come up and tell me things.”

“At our house?”

“She's not coming back.”

“I like you on your knee. You look good down there.”

How does she know he is on his knee? She hasn't so much as glanced in his direction since he entered the room. He looks at his wife desperately wishing he were no longer married to her. But that will have to wait until after the election.

“Why don't you ask her to come in here so we can chat,” Vonda Jean says.

“What about?”

“Just being social. Tell her to come in.”

“She's shy.” Hard back on his feet now.

“She's shy? I thought you said you didn't know her.”

“Gal had a rough day. I told you, someone threatened her.”

Before Hard can do anything, Vonda Jean is walking into the kitchen. Hard follows her.

In the kitchen, Bane is devouring his dinner. Hard can't remember; has he fed him? The door leading to the backyard is open, a warm breeze blowing the gingham curtains over the sink. Nadine is not there. Vonda Jean looks at Hard like this is his fault.

“Where's your friend?”

“First of all, she's not my friend. I thought we already made that clear.”

“You're awful sensitive about it, aren't you?”

Hard chooses to ignore this riposte. “And second, I have no idea where the hell she is. Far as I can tell, she left. Now go on back in there and watch your TV show.”

The couple has exchanged more words than they have in the entire previous week and it is enough for Vonda Jean. She turns and marches out of the kitchen. Hard goes to the refrigerator for a bottle of beer. He unscrews the top and settles into a chair where he watches Bane contentedly finish his dinner. Hard's week had been going so well. There was the face time campaigning with Mary Swain and the introduction he provided that day was one of the highlights of his entire career. Hard had never spoken in front of so many people before and he likes the way it feels, the love they give Mary Swain an inspiration to him. Hard likes to stir things up. He has opinions and doesn't mind sharing them. To go off like that in front of a crowd and have them respond the way they did, the shouts, the vibrating energy, that was something he could get used to. Hard doesn't want to be a Police Chief forever. He is looking at the larger world now. Perhaps he'll run for Mayor of Twen­tynine Palms and if Mary Swain ascends to loftier heights he can follow her to Congress. Representative Harding Marvin. But with Nadine on the loose, the woman predictable as a cobra, Hard is worried. The trouble she stirs up could derail any hopes of advancing his station in life.