Dead and Gone (21 page)

“They never killed you, sweetheart,” I promised Pansy. “You’re always with me.”

My eyes flooded. I bit my lip. But my last promise gave me the grip I needed. “And you’ll be there when we take them out, honeygirl.”

For us, from where we come from, that’s all the heaven we ever get.

You think it’s sentimental stupidity, that’s your business. But when we’re keeping our promises, don’t ever get in our way.

“W
hat?” I answered the cellular.

“We’re breaking it off for now.” Byron’s voice. “No action last night. Can’t be in two places at once. Some of the stuff that has to be checked, it’s going to take the personal touch.”

“How’re you fixed for—?”

“Plenty left, don’t worry. My … partner doesn’t work domestic, but he thinks there may be some interest in the visitors by his people, you with me?”

“All the way. You want me to—?”

“Hang, bro. I checked with the studio. It’s a blank slate for the next week, easy.”

“All right.”

“Later.”

“M
ay I have your clothes, please?” Gem asked me the next morning.

“What?”

“We have been here a while; it is time to do our laundry.”

“The hotel has—”

“Maids gossip,” she said, with the air of one who knew from personal experience.

“There’s no labels in my … All right, let’s go do it.”

“Do you know
how
to do it?”

“Laundry? Hell, yes. You think I don’t know how to take care of myself?”

“Do you cook?”

“Well … no.”

“And you ‘take care of’ your laundry by … what? Taking
it
somewhere, yes?”

“Yeah. Fine, I get your point. But—”

“Just put it all in the pillowcases,” she said. “I will return later.”

“W
hy are all your tops the same?” she asked me, later that afternoon. She was refolding all the freshly done laundry on the bed in my room.

“The same? They’re not—”

“They all have raglan sleeves. Is that a fashion preference?”

“Oh, now I see what you mean. No, miss, it’s not about fashion. If there’s no shoulder seam, your arms can move faster. Probably gets you an extra tenth of a second or so.”

“And that is important?”

“Almost never. But for when it is …”

“I understand,” she said, thoughtfully. “I must go out for a while. I will return when I can.”

H
ours later, I heard the door handle click, and I stepped quickly outside to the terrace. I’d already checked—if it came down to it, I could go across the roof to one of the other suites, smash my way into the glass patio door if they’d left it locked. Tear through the suite and out its front door into the hallway. If the suite I picked was occupied, it wouldn’t slow me down much.

I stood with my back against the outer wall, twisting my neck to peer through the glass into my suite. When I saw it was Gem, alone, I pocketed my pistol and stepped back inside. She looked as fresh as when she’d left, regarding me solemnly with her hands on her hips.

“You prefer it outside?” she asked.

“Just cautious.”

“Why not put the chain on the door, then?”

“I didn’t want to slow you down. If you needed to get back inside in a hurry …”

“Oh.”

I didn’t say anything. I wanted to strip off her dress, check her for bruises. But I settled for watching her eyes.

“That was very considerate,” she finally said.

I didn’t like everything I could see in her eyes, but I didn’t want to ask about it. So I tried another question: “You want something to eat?”

“Yes!” she said, smile flashing. “I have to take a bath, first. Can you order …?”

“Sure,” I promised. And reached for the phone.

I
t took about half an hour for the food to arrive. Another few minutes for the sharply dressed room-service waiter to set everything up. I scrawled something on the bill for the signature, added 20 percent for the tip. Took the guy another couple of minutes to say thanks.

Soon as he was gone, I tapped lightly on the door to Gem’s room. Nothing. It was closed, but not shut, so my next taps opened it.

The door to her bathroom was ajar. “Gem?” I called out, softly. No answer. Something skipped in my chest. I stepped over to the bathroom door, pushed it all the way open. Gem was lying in the tub, her head on a couple of rolled-up towels, eyes closed. I touched the water. Still warm. Realized I was deliberately avoiding looking at her wrists. I put my hand behind her neck, pulled her toward me. Her eyes blinked open. “Burke.…”

“Yeah. You okay?”

“Yes. I am fine. I was just so … tired, I guess.”

She reached up, slipped both hands behind my neck. I stood up slowly, pulling her along with me.

“I got you all wet,” she said, her face buried.

“Ssshh,” I said, slapping her bottom lightly.

She made a noise I didn’t understand.

I walked her over to where the towels were racked. Found a big white fluffy one and wrapped it around her. Then I scooped her up and carried her over to the bed.

“You can eat when you wake up.”

“Little girl.”

“Huh?”

“ ‘You can eat when you wake up, little girl,’ that was the entire sentence, yes?”

“I—”

“I know what it means now. All right?”

“Yes,” I said, patting her dry.

She was asleep before I finished.

I
t was a little past nine when Gem came into the living room. And started in on the food like it had been served a minute ago.

She was still chewing away when the phone rang.

“What?” I answered.

“Cop come. Same one. Say, find bone hand.”

“Whose hand?”

“Not hand, bone of hand. Chop off at wrist. With ax, maybe.”

“The hand was chopped off with an ax?”

“Maybe. Look like, he say.”

“Whose hand, Mama?” I asked again.

“Cop say
your
hand. No flesh on hand. Just bones. But same place, find pistol, too. With thumbprint. Yours. Cop say, you leave hospital, people find you, kill you, cut off head, cut off hands, nobody trace. But cops find hand and pistol in big garbage can in Brooklyn. Way at bottom. Cop say, probably, they miss it when come to collect, stay there long time.”

“Big garbage can” was Mama’s term for a Dumpster. “Is it going to be official?” I asked her.

“Cop say you dead now. On record.”

“Thanks,” I said. Meaning: Tell
him
thanks. If she ever saw him again. Morales had owed me—big-time
and
long-time. And he’d just squared the debt.

I
went to my bedroom a little after midnight. Gem said “Good night, Burke,” absently, absorbed in some footage of Russia’s pitiful invasion of Chechnya.

I took a long shower. Used some of the fancy shampoo the hotel supplied. Shaved slowly. Nothing worked. I stayed tired, but not sleepy. I had to let it come when it would.

The sound of a wooden match cracking into fire woke me. I was on my back—must have finally drifted off. The room was dark except for the candle Gem had just lit, a stubby thing in a little glass holder. It smelled like citrus and blood.

“You must own the images, or the images will own you,” she said softly, standing next to the bed, looking down at me.

I didn’t say anything.

She walked out of the room. Came back in a minute with the wooden straight chair that had been next to the writing desk in the living room. She placed it ceremoniously between the bed and the candle, so it was backlit. Then she stepped to the side and gestured, as if parting a curtain to a display.

“Do you see this?”

“Sure.”

“What do you see?”

“A chair. What are you—?”

“Watch!” she whispered. Then she sat down on the chair, facing me, knees together, hands in her lap. That’s when I saw she was wearing the schoolgirl outfit. “When you think of the chair, you will see me, yes?”

“I … guess so.”

“Hmmm … but
what
will you see, Burke? A girl, or …” She stood up, hiked up her skirt, turned, and sat, her legs straddling the chair this time, body facing away from me, looking back over her shoulder. “…  a woman?” she asked, silk-voiced.

“A woman,” I told her.

“Ah. A woman with too many clothes on, yes?”

“Yes.”

She stripped right there on the chair, never taking her eyes off me, wiggling and squirming to slip her underpants down to her thighs.

Then she stood up, still facing away from me, pulled the panties all the way off, spun around, and sat back down in the same pose she’d used at first.

“It is not the same chair anymore, is it?” she said. Shifting her hips slightly to underline every word.

“No.”

She came over to the bed. Bent at the waist and untied the drawstring of my pajama pants. Then she nipped at my thigh until I reached up and grabbed a fistful of her night-gleaming hair and pulled her closer to where I wanted her.

“A little bit now,” she whispered against me. “Next time some more. And, some sweet night, Burke, the window that opens will be the one you wish.”

I
was afraid she’d want to talk about it the next morning, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was a demand for breakfast.

Fair enough. I left her still half asleep, face buried in a pillow, and went into the living room to order from room service. When I saw the wooden chair standing by itself against the back window, I realized Gem had gotten up during the night.

And when I looked at the chair, I could see … that she was right.

G
em wanted to return to the poolroom and practice some more. I wasn’t crazy about the idea, thinking the same two clowns might be there, but she quickly pointed out that there were lots of places to choose from … and we weren’t in a hurry, anyway.

That last was true. I couldn’t make a move until I heard from Byron. And we had the cell phone, so …

We took a ride, just meandering, looking to stumble across the right place. South of Portland, I saw a sign that said we were entering Milwaukie. Wondered if it was a misspelling. A candy-apple-red Honda Accord coupe with mirrored checkerboard graphics angling across its flanks rolled up next to us at a light. It squatted on huge chrome wheels, with tires that looked like rubber bands, the sidewalls were so thin. It was major-league slammed, lowered so radically that I couldn’t see an inch of ground clearance. The driver had a knife-edged buzz cut, set off by wraparound orange-lensed sunglasses. He blipped the throttle, letting me hear his turbo kick in, cocked his head in an invitation.

I was going to ignore him, but Gem pounded both little fists on the dash. “Yes, yes, yes!” she yelped.

The road was clear ahead as far as I could see … but that wasn’t very far. I didn’t know how the Subaru would do off the line, but the Honda looked more like a canyon-racer than a dragster anyway. I returned the guy’s nod, switched my attention to the light, and gave the knurled knob next to the gearshift a quick twist to the right.

We both launched an eyeblink before the green, but it was no contest—the Subaru’s tractor heritage showed as it out-torqued the Honda with a two-length leave. By the time the Honda got up on its cams and its turbo started to whine, I was already backing off in third gear, letting the engine brake me for the next light.

The Honda driver pointed ahead through his windshield, then gestured for me to follow him. So he
was
a canyon-racer after all. No way I was going to try the twistees with that guy, especially in daylight. I tapped my wristwatch to tell him I didn’t have the time. He aimed a finger at me, cocked his thumb, mimed cranking off a round. Meaning: next time, he’d make sure we played on his field.

“Aren’t we going to—?” Gem protested.

“I don’t know where he wants to go, but this isn’t the time,” I told her. “The last thing we need is some law-enforcement attention.”

“All right,” she pouted.

“Hey, come on. We raced him like you wanted.”

“I thought it would be longer.”

“Maybe sometime.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise to try, okay?”

“I … Oh, look! There’s one.”

I guessed Gem was one of those folks who think the food’s better in a roadhouse.

T
he joint had a long bar, bunch of square wooden tables scattered around, a couple of red vinyl booths, sawdust on the floor. But it was no honky-tonk—that was Garth Brooks coming out of the jukebox, not Delbert McClinton.

It did have a pool table; one of those bar-size little ones with a slot for the quarters, designed for playing eight-ball and not much else. But that was fine with Gem—she said it looked just like the one in the bar near her home. Once I explained how eight-ball was played, she happily slammed balls all over—and occasionally off—the table, attracting some admiring glances, but no audio.

She finally pocketed the eight ball while I still had three stripes on the table, and rewarded herself with a brief “Hah!” of triumph. I was still congratulating her when a fat blond guy with a bad haircut and worse acne stepped up with a quarter in his hand, saying, “I got the winner.”

Before I could say anything, Gem swung her hip into me to shut me up, said “Okay!” to the blond guy.

He slotted his quarter, waited for the balls to drop, took them out, and racked them. “Your break,” he said to Gem.

“Oh, you go ahead,” she replied, nestling against me.

I didn’t move. Gem reached across her body with her right hand, grabbed my wrist, and pulled my arm around her neck. She turned her head until she found my hand, nibbled at it until she got my thumb in her mouth. Then she sucked on it, hard, her innocent eyes watching the blond guy.

He miscued, missing the entire rack. Somebody laughed. His face mottled red. Without waiting for a response from Gem, he snatched the cue ball, set it up again, and, this time, slammed it deep into the rack, scattering the balls. Two solids and one stripe dropped. He pocketed two more balls before he missed. Gem slowly disengaged her mouth from my thumb, walked over to the table with three times her normal wiggle, and bent over the table a long time, studying her shot. Which she finally dropped in. But that was it—she was done, not another shot was open. Grinning, she whacked away at the cue ball, turning away to walk back over to me while the balls were still flying.