Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom (17 page)

“Don’t move.”

“You make me feel naked looking at me like that,” Misty said. “I know, that’s a crazy thing for a stripper to say.”

“You wanted me to paint you, didn’t you?”

With a few strokes Duncan began painting her into the picture. Misty was amazed at how quickly he worked.

“Sure,” she said, “but I wanted you to paint me alone.”

“This is better. You’ll be in my first ever self-portrait.”

“How come you never painted yourself?”

“I’ve never been worth painting.”

Misty looked at the canvas. The swollen eye, the bloody hair, and the split lip were all there, painted in deft, bloody strokes, lacking only detail to bring the portrait to life. And there she was, growing rapidly in black and white and yellow, coming to life too. He was right. The other girls could not match this. She sipped her beer and tried to look pretty for his brush. And all the time he painted, Cat lay sleeping in her lap, his purrs sounding to her ears like the thunder of a distant Harley.

Duncan finished at dawn. Misty put Cat down and stood behind him. It was all there, Duncan and the easel, the brush in his hand poised near the canvas while his eyes, one swollen red and the other clear blue, stared out of the mirror into nothing. He looked terrible, and yet, the way he looked out of the canvas was beautiful. And there Misty sat on the toilet, her makeup and clothes making her look hard and her eyes on Duncan making her look soft. She had never felt so naked on stage as she did looking at herself in Duncan’s painting. She thought of her eighth grade graduation picture. Her hair was brown then, like her eyes, but the innocence she now saw in the canvas had vanished from her smile long before that photograph was taken, and now she wanted it back.

“What’s wrong?” Duncan asked when she began to cry. “I thought you liked it.”

“I’ve never liked anything so much.”

“Why are you crying then?”

“You know, for someone who can see so clear to paint a picture like that you sure are blind.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“Don’t say anything.”

She took his hand and led him to the couch. She pulled her boots off, took off her skirt and her top. She pulled his shirt over his head.

“Misty,” Duncan said, “I can’t.”

She took his shoes off, undid his belt, then pulled off his pants. She pulled him down onto the couch and pulled the sleeping bag over them.

“I just want you to hold me. All right? Just hold me.”

He put his arm around her. She pressed her head into his shoulder. He smelled roses in her hair and felt her breasts against his ribs. He found himself with an erection. He fought it, but he could feel Misty’s leg across his hip, her pubic hair tickling his groin. He was flustered and he tried to move away. Misty would not release him.

“We don’t have to make love if you don’t want to,” she whispered.

“I want to. I just can’t.”

“Poor Duncan,” Misty said. “You’re in love with someone who can’t love you back. And she’ll never know how lucky she is.”

Lucky? Duncan did not know about that. He had not been anything special in Cheyenne. He really was not even a cowboy. Sure, he could ride and do odd jobs about the ranch, but he had never roped a steer and never fired a gun and did not care to, and the girls back home liked their steaks tender and their men tough, and Duncan cried at the rodeo when he was ten and a wrangler’s rope jerked a calf’s head into an unlikely position. Fiona, shamed by Duncan’s tears, had dragged him by the ear from the grandstand to the general amusement of those around them. And she brought him to a psychiatrist when he told her he wanted to be an artist.

His chest ached, not so much from the beating, but from the desolation within. He pondered his emptiness until Misty’s breathing softened and slowed. He lay his face near her hair and breathed deeply, her hair’s rosy smell mixed with her skin’s sweet and sour odor.

Mother,
he thought,
if you could see your pansy son now
.

Duncan held Misty, his breathing synchronous with the pressure of her breast on his side, and holding her, fell asleep, and sleeping, dreamed of a mountain stream in Canada where he returned with his father in the penultimate month of Sean Delaney’s life.

Eleven

“Maybe you ought to slow down,” Danny Carpenter said.

“Maybe you ought to stop being such a weenie.”

Tiffy changed lanes and punched the gas. The new red Mustang Cobra convertible shot around a Lincoln driven by a woman with steel wool hair and telescopic glasses. Tiffy laughed and waved when the old woman honked and then the Lincoln was a half mile behind and mattered not at all. Danny had first rented a four-door Lumina, but when he pulled to the curb at the airport and popped the trunk, Tiffy refused to put her bags into the car much less her body. Danny had to visit five more rental counters before he finally found a vehicle satisfactory to Tiffy.

“After all,” she had said, “we
are
in Los Angeles.”

She swept through four lanes of freeway to the Sunset Boulevard exit. Danny gripped the door handle. The sign on the ramp said twenty-five miles per hour. He did not know their exact velocity, but he knew it was significantly greater. Attendants ran to the car when they pulled up to the Beverly Hills Hotel. A valet opened Danny’s door and he fell out. He had forgotten to let go of the door. He lay panting on the driveway until the valet pried his white fingers from the handle. He watched Tiffy enter the lobby, marveling at the perspective his placement against the planet afforded of her legs and firm buttocks. It was an indication of Danny’s pure love that, though he would rather she turn to him for comfort than to Duncan, ultimately he only sought her happiness, and if getting Duncan back accomplished that, he would be sad but satisfied. And forty years hence, when Tiffy cried over Duncan’s casket like Fiona had over Sean’s, Danny planned to be there with a handkerchief and a shoulder for her tears. Still picturing a gray haired yet magnificently built Tiffy leaning on his arm, he allowed the valets to help him to his feet and dust him off. He followed a bell hop pulling a cart with Tiffy’s four suitcases and his duffel bag. Tiffy already had her key when he reached the front desk.

“I’m in bungalow 35,” she said.

“What room am I in?”

“How would I know? Fiona made my reservations. I assumed you made your own.”

Danny turned to the girl behind the desk. “I’d like a room.”

“I’m sorry, we’re booked up. May I suggest another hotel?”

“Well,” Danny said, “I guess I’ll stay in your room, Tiffy.”

Tiffy frowned. “I don’t think Fiona would understand my sharing the room she’s paid for with a man who is not her son.”

“Oh.” That did sound bad. “Ok.”

In the end Danny found a room at a motel just over Coldwater Canyon in Studio City, and it was not until Danny reached the valet stand that he realized Tiffy had the receipt for his rental. He took a taxi over the hill, checked into his motel, and spent the next four hours in his room waiting for Tiffy to return any one of his fifteen phone calls.

“Fiona,” Tiffy said, “just look at you!”

Fiona spun in delight. “You like?”

Woody sat back in a chair across from the television. He put down the remote and smiled. Fiona did look tasty, better than ever, and he was proud to have her on his arm, so to speak. She rarely allowed him to hold her arm in public, and in private it was not usually his arm she was on.

“This California sun has done you a world of good.”

A shadow established residence for voting purposes in Fiona’s eyes. “I’d feel better if it wasn’t for Duncan. He seems to blame you for the break up.”

“All I did was register my disapproval with an unwise life choice.”

“Duncan said you hit him,” Woody said.

“You stay out of this,” Fiona said.

“Cold-cocked him from what Benjamin said.”

Tiffy rolled her eyes. “As if you’d believe that reprobate over me.”

“Nevertheless,” Fiona said, “he blames you. And he has found solace in the devil’s own.”

“You mean that stripper you told me about. Well, don’t worry about her. I am not above competing for my man.”

“You haven’t seen her,” Woody said.

Both turned on him. “What the hell does that mean?” they asked.

Woody shrugged. “I was just saying …”

“Go on,” said Fiona.

“Nothing. I wasn’t saying nothing.” He went into the bedroom.

“I didn’t think so.” Fiona turned back to Tiffy. “You should get right over there before that woman sinks her talons any deeper into him. I’m afraid he’ll do something stupid.”

“Like what? Sleep with her?”

“Tiffy!”

“Oh, hell, Fiona. Let him get it out of his system. It’ll make him appreciate me more.”

“I’m not sure I want to discuss this with you.”

“Then let’s not. Besides. First I need to lay by the pool a few days and get a tan like yours. And I want to check out the competition.”

“We can do that right now.” Fiona seemed strangely animated at the prospect. “Woody and I will take you to where she works.”

“Oh, lord,” Woody groaned from the bedroom.

“What is wrong with that man?” Fiona asked. A knock on the door diverted her. “Who could that be?”

“Evening Mrs. Delaney,” Danny said when Tiffy opened the door.

“Now Fiona,” Tiffy said, “there’s no need for you to go to a place like that. That’s why I brought Danny. He’s always made Duncan jealous.”

“God knows why. He’s no competition for my boy.”

“I’m standing here,” Danny said. “I can hear you.”

“I don’t know why you tolerate him sniffing after you like he was a hound dog and you were a bitch in heat.”

“Jesus, Mrs. Delaney! I’m standing right here.”

“No offense,” Fiona said. “I’m sure you’re a fine young man in your own right. But you’re no Duncan.”

“Well, from what I’ve seen and heard,” Danny said, showing a small segment of spine, “I wouldn’t want to be.”

Tiffy said, “Danny, you watch your mouth and wait outside.”

Danny left in a sulk. Tiffy closed the door.

“Don’t worry, Fiona. He’s harmless.”

“I know that. I just don’t know why you have to complicate things.”

Tiffy hugged Fiona. “Don’t worry. I know how to handle your boy.”

Fiona held her at arm’s length and looked into her enormous brown eyes. She was exquisite in her rural way. But Woody was right. That other woman was just as beautiful. Probably more so. Fiona smiled sadly.

“I used to think I could handle him too,” she said.

Duncan woke late that afternoon. Misty had stocked his refrigerator with fruit and yogurt, twelve-grain bread and cheese, apple juice, lettuce, broccoli, and sprouts. He drank a jar of juice. It was cold and sweet and tasted as good as the beer he had intended to have. He made a salad for breakfast. He spent the day reading about the aliens among us in a
National Enquirer
and staring at his painting of Edward.

“Holy shit,” Benjamin said when he returned, “what happened to you?”

“Got the crap beat out of me.”

“I can see that. It was that Rascowitz bitch, wasn’t it?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“Nothing until I’m sure she did it. Maybe you could just hang around for a while until I feel a little better.”

“Well,” Benjamin looked uncomfortable, “thing is, Angela invited me to her condo in Santa Barbara for a few days.”

“Well, go on. I’ll just do crossword puzzles and feel sorry for myself.”

Misty came to see him the next day. She held his chin and moved his head from side to side. His lip was scabbed but the swelling had ebbed in both his lip and in his wonderfully purple eye.

“You should’ve had your lip stitched. You’ll have a nice scar.”

“Thanks for the groceries.”

“I thought you might not want to go out.” She faltered at the door. “Do you want me to come up later?”

“No thanks. I just want to be alone for a while.”

Duncan sat on the couch with Cat after she left. He listened to the radio and stared out his window at the darkening sky. At nine he went to the mini-mart to buy cat food. As he came out, he saw the Cadillac parked in front of the Hollywood. He sighed and climbed the stairs. He was surprised to find Pris waiting in the studio. She wore a short black dress, black silk stockings, black cowboy boots, and a black imitation cowboy hat with a wide, flat brim. She looked like a fashion conscious cowgirl in mourning. She came to him and touched his lip. Duncan winced.

“Still a bit tender,” he said.

He filled a bowl with cat food and another with water and put both on the floor. He sat on the linoleum and leaned against a cabinet and watched Cat eat. Pris sat on the floor beside him and took his hand.

“Misty told me what happened.”

Duncan panicked. “What did she say?”

“Only that someone had beaten you up. It was Sheila, wasn’t it?”

“Beats me. I was hit from behind. All I heard were motorcycles. That and a woman laughing.”

Pris stood. “I’ll kill her.”

Duncan grabbed her. “Don’t do anything on account of me.”

She softened slowly and tenderly kissed his battered lips.

Duncan smiled. “Ow,” he said.

“Did I hurt you?”

“It was the smile that done it.”

“Be careful, ok? Sheila doesn’t understand you. Or me for that matter.”

“I don’t understand you either.”

She stroked his cheek and smiled. “I’m late for work.”

“Angela arranged for my paintings to be in a gallery opening next Sunday. Would you come with me?”

“What the hell,” she said, “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

From his window he watched her wait at the curb for traffic to clear. He smiled so hard his lip cracked and bled. Her hat fell off unnoticed when she ran across the street. She went inside. He went downstairs and picked up her hat. He heard motorcycles. He turned and looked and dropped her hat on his steps. Sheila, Samantha, and two friends had parked in front of the Hollywood. They wore jeans and t-shirts and leather boots. Sheila wore a black leather vest crossed with chains. All had short hair, and if it was not for the curves of their breasts and the shape of their hips they could have been men. But that was not what Duncan stared at.