Midnight Guardians (6 page)

“Thanks,” I said, matching his head movement, minus the cigarette.

The freight elevator was clunky and smelled of stale booze and sweat, which only served as a hint of odors to come. Sherry was silent. I knew she was anticipating the scene, steeling herself for the introduction to come, working out a dialogue ahead of time. I had already decided to make myself as unassuming as possible.

When we got off the freight elevator, we entered a corridor open to the outside at either end. Along the hallway, there were two doors to the east, two to the west. On the west side, I could hear music. And it took a couple of measures before I tagged it as “Hell Patrol” by Judas Priest. I was guessing that if I put my fingertips on the cinderblock wall next to me, I would feel the bass vibration. But given the looks of the flaked and mildewed paint job, I kept my hands in my pockets.

Sherry rolled down to a glass door and started to open it herself before I could get there; so I stood back after grabbing the handle to hold it. Anyone inside would see her glide in unassisted, with me following.

Inside the music wasn’t as loud as I’d anticipated, and the clanking of metal was off the beat. There was one big room before us, spread out and planted with chromed-up exercise stations, as in some metallic cyber garden: iron stalks of pipes and steel cable, stacks of heavy black plates, and small cushioned red pads attached at seemingly impromptu places. The odor was of stale sweat and close heat and ripe testosterone.

Sunlight was pouring through the windows onto a row of treadmills and stationary bicycles. But at mid-morning, there was only one person jogging there with his iPod strapped to his arm. I spotted an office cubicle carved out with a half wall of fabric at the far front corner. But the action was obviously in the back, where I could see the free weight stacks flanking the bench press and squatting rack, where eight big guys were milling in front of the wall of mirrors, looking at themselves. A couple of others were spotting for a man pumping a load on the bench press, his high-pitched hissing cutting through the music. No one looked directly our way, but I got that same feeling I did when entering a neighborhood bar where I was new: No one missed the entrance of strangers.

While I was still taking in the scene, Sherry rolled off toward the back corner. She had spotted her appointment, a guy in a sleeveless sweatshirt with bulky shoulders and no legs. He was sitting in a wheelchair and pumping a set of iron dumbbells with both arms. When we approached, I saw that his eyes were closed. Despite the fact that he was facing a wall of mirrors, he was not looking at his image. Sherry stopped a few feet away.

“Marty Booker?” she said in greeting.

The man did not stop his methodical curling; left, right, left, right. His biceps were bulging with the effort, blood pumping through engorged veins that looked like fat blue worms crawling just under the skin. He also did not open his eyes.

“How’d you guess, Detective?” he said, the words leaking out between clenched teeth.

“Familiar hair color,” Sherry said.

There was a twitch of a smile at the corner of the guy’s mouth as he tightened his lips to finish the repetitions, and then dropped the weights to the floor beside him. Booker took a towel that was draped across one of his wheels and wiped his hands. He finally looked Sherry in the eye and offered his hand, which she shook, and then nodded up at me.

“This is my friend Max Freeman.”

The man’s handshake was hard, the skin almost hot to the touch. I could feel the callus on his inside palm. He looked me in the face.

“You’re the dude who helped out with the junk man a few years back, right? The serial killer doing druggies in the northwest.”

“It was Sherry’s case,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, turning a smile back at Sherry. “She blew the guy’s face off, if I remember.”

It was, in fact, a case I’d been pulled into by Billy. One result was that I had surprised the serial killer in his own lair only to have him get the drop on me. He was about to finish me off when Sherry saved my ass by putting a 9 mm into the man’s brain.

Sherry said nothing, and kept any recognition of the incident from showing in her eyes. Instead, she looked down at Booker’s wheelchair.

“Nice rig,” she said.

“Yeah,” Booker said, thumping the wheels with the heels of his hand. “Nothing but the best for a gimped-up cop; your county tax dollars at work.”

But he quickly dumped the cynical tone and returned Sherry’s attempt to break the ice by assessing her own chair.

“Yours ain’t bad, either. Built for speed, eh?”

“Yeah,” Sherry said. “Lightweight alloy, it’s good for distances.”

Booker nodded and looked down in his lap. “Never was one for the long run. More of a short blast kinda’ guy.”

Sherry was silent, seemingly lost for words, an unusual predicament for her. I was starting to feel an uneasy creaking in my knees, like I needed to move and get out of the way. But then I sensed the movement of others in the room as a couple of the corner lifters inched their way over to us.

“And hell, now he’s an even shorter blast,” said a voice from the group, a comical tone in his voice. “Just kidding…”

Sherry pulled one wheel back, spinning her chair around.

“Well, it’s you, Detective Sergeant Richards,” said a mutt-faced man dressed in a black stretch-fabric shirt, hemmed above the shoulders to show his bulky biceps, and tight at the waist. His matching black shorts were as loose as the shirt was tight, hanging down below his knees. He had one of those half-smiling faces on that tries to show he’s being friendly and funny, but smart-assed and dangerous at the same time. It probably worked on teenage girls looking for adventure. It only made me begin flexing and curling my fingers.

“Never seen you in here before, Detective,” the man said with one of those glances back at his friends, to indicate he was speaking for all them. “Trying to get back in shape, ma’am?”

Sherry cut a look at Booker to assess his reaction. I figured she was looking for something that might indicate friends or foes. When she got no sign, she turned back to mutt-face.

“Did someone invite you over here, McKenzie?” she said to the guy. “Because we’re having a conversation that entails stringing nouns, verbs, and adjectives together, so I doubt that you have the capacity to participate.”

I heard a couple of sniggers escape from someone’s mouth. Sherry was still staring at mutt-face, a.k.a. McKenzie, who, I’d guessed by now, was some sort of cop. Despite being verbally dinged in front of his buds, he kept the faked-up smile on his face in place.

“Hey, you’re a stitch, Detective,” he said, gesturing to Sherry’s missing leg, “pardon the pun. But we were just wondering if maybe you were recruiting for some special unit with our buddy Booker here—a new gimp patrol or something.”

I did not move. I’m about six feet three and a lean and ambling 215 pounds. I’m quicker than I look, and I knew my stamina was twice as good as anyone in the room other than Sherry. She on the other hand is as lean as a cheetah. Everyone here outmuscled us in bulk. It would be nasty if we had to get into it. But I’d learned over the years to let Sherry handle her own situations. To interfere is to hint that she can’t take care of herself, and that’s the last thing anyone in their right mind would want to do with Sherry.

She just nodded at the gimp patrol comment and then gestured to McKenzie’s crotch, matching his cynical smile.

“Why, McKenzie?” she said. “You have a recent amputation or something? You are looking a little light these days.”

Now the sniggers turned to laughter, peppered with a few
woofs
.

“Smart mouth for a girl in a wheelchair,” McKenzie said.

I could see him flex the muscle in his abnormal-size neck, giving Sherry that shrug they must learn when they’re posing in front of the mirror. It’s not much different behavior from that of a cane toad that puffs itself up to appear bigger, in order to scare off an attacker.

McKenzie was sizing me up. I had several inches on him, but we were probably the same weight. I’d have him on reach if it got physical, but you’d have to be careful not to let him get a hold of you.

“Don’t look at him, dickless,” Sherry said, careful not to let anger seep into her voice, thereby letting the scenario spin out as locker room jibbing. “Challenge me, tough guy.” She waved her hand around the room, indicating the variety of workout machines.

“Let’s see if you can make my short list,” she said, looking him up and down. “Excuse the pun.”

McKenzie huffed and looked back at his buddies. And when no help was offered, he turned around to Sherry. “You choose, little girl,” he said.

Sherry looked around like she was deciding, but I knew exactly where she was going.

“Dips, rockhead,” she said, pointing at two matching iron towers that included pronged handles at about chest height. She wheeled over and McKenzie and his gang followed. When she unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it off to reveal a workout bra underneath, I instantly wondered if she’d had this scenario in mind all along. Her arms and shoulders rippled with finely cut muscles, slim and corded, devoid of any softness that might indicate fat of any kind.

McKenzie stepped up and peeled off his shirt to go naked from the waist. He flexed his pectorals, which jumped like trained gerbils on his chest, and then tried to stretch his huge biceps, which because of their size seemed to bend his arms at a permanent angle.

An older man in khakis and a polo shirt with the gym’s logo stitched on the breast appeared from behind the half-wall office and sauntered over. When he caught my eye and recognized me as a stranger, I gave him a shrug, as if I had no idea what was going on. He stood next to me and folded his arms, watching.

After locking the wheels on her chair, Sherry pushed herself to a standing position. On one leg, she hopped over to the machine on the right and positioned herself between the handles that flanked her shoulders. She put her palms on the two grips, with her elbows cocked behind her shoulders. The fabric of her bra stretched tight across her breasts. McKenzie followed suit on the machine next to her, his smile intact.

“Count out your own reps, McKenzie,” Sherry said. “Unless you need help from your boys here if you get past ten.”

She took a small hop and pressed herself up into a locked elbow position, and then lowered herself to the start. Then she pressed her entire body weight up again. McKenzie jumped up on his tower to match her.

“One, two, three…”

The music in the place had changed over to “Down ‘n’ Dirty” by Steelheart. I took the gym manager by the elbow and urged him toward his office.

“Maybe you could show me what kind of contract you have for a membership,” I said.

I
KNEW THE outcome of Sherry’s little “challenge” without watching or listening. But the manager couldn’t keep himself from peering around the corner of his cubicle for the first sixty seconds of our impromptu meeting.

Sherry has been doing those dips ever since I’ve known her. She’s been knocking them out on the curved stainless handles of the ladder into her pool for years. Even back then, she could do thirty reps without breathing hard. After her amputation, and the consequent loss of 20 percent of her body weight, I’d seen her do fifty before giving up, seemingly out of boredom. Mutt-faced McKenzie had maxed out at twenty-three. He was, of course, pressing an enormous muscle mass, which weighs even more than fat.

After Sherry had kicked his ass in front of his other lifter friends, she invited Booker to lunch quietly. I thanked the gym manager for a brochure and followed them out, depositing the printed materials in a trash can outside. On the sidewalk, Sherry and Booker wheeled over to a café on A1A. But I begged off, opting to go sit on the beachfront retaining wall with my feet in the sand and watch a trio of kite surfers fly off the waves and swells of the ocean in the shimmering sunlight.

Less than an hour later, I heard Sherry’s wheels crunching on the sandy sidewalk behind me. I let her pull up beside me, without turning. She said nothing, and I hoped she was enjoying the same sight I was. She knew, of course, that I was aware of her presence. It’s a gift that couples gain over time.

Finally, she broke the silence.

“Want to go swimming?”

When I turned to see if she was serious, the mischievous smile on her face answered the question. Then she stood up, put her palms on the three-foot-tall wall, and swung her torso and leg over it like a gymnast on a pommel horse. I leaned across and folded her chair before hoisting it over and laying it down in the sand for minimal safekeeping. While still sitting, we both took off our shirts and shoes, and then I looked at her with a question I didn’t want to ask. How did she want to get down to the water? Hop across the sand in front of two dozen sunbathers, or have me carry her?

Again she read my mind. And without hesitation, she stood up on one leg, and then leaned over to lock her arms around my neck, shifting her weight onto my back.

“Giddy-up, hoss,” she said, and I could feel the infectious smile behind my neck. I grinned and stood, adjusted her weight on my back, and then we half jogged across thirty yards of sand and into the white foam of low breakers.

We swam with the noncompetitive purpose of pleasure alone, for a while breaststroking, our faces popping up from the surface in slow rhythm, eyes blinking away salt water with each breath, and then letting the coolness wash over our faces again as we dipped our heads below. Then, at a distance from shore, we rolled over on our backs and floated, with our views of the sky the same: a cloudless canvas of blue like a porcelain cup covering our limited horizons. I could feel the movement of the sea, the rise and fall of deep waves.

As I sneaked a look over at Sherry, I saw that her eyes were open, but relaxed. I knew she was coming down from her earlier shot of adrenaline in the showdown with McKenzie. It was a rare pleasure to see her this way; I closed my eyes and enjoyed it.