On the Loose (12 page)

"You gonna be one of mine, Dibs?"

"Not this time," he said with a false smile of regret. "But you know I love you."

"Sure," she said mockingly. Her name was Virginia, her blond hair fool's gold. She was twentysix years old, her anus abused, her vagina a gully,
her insides awaiting a hysterectomy. "I know who
you want. You want Sharon."

He glanced over his shoulder and glimpsed
Bobby poised in the doorway, hesitant to enter.
"That's the kid rooming with me. Wet behind the
ears."

"I'll take him," Virginia said quickly and then
slowly frowned over Dibble's lack of expression.
"What's the matter? Ain't I good enough?"

"It's his first time, Ginny. You understand."

"Yeah, you're a real prick, Dibble."

Sharon was the other white woman, her breasts
raised and pinched together under a tight top cut
low. She had a moody voice and showgirl legs. "I'll
take five, Dibs, counting you, and no more."

Dibble gave a backward glance. "The kid standing at the door, his name is Bobby. He's fourteen. I
want you to take him first."

"Ahead of you?" She smiled. "Since when did
you wait in line?"

"He's a first-timer, what can I tell you?"

"Four kids already had their hands up. What do
you want me to do?"

"Drop one of 'em."

She motioned the boys forward and, her finger
jabbing from face to face, said, "eeny, meeny, miney,
moe. Out goes Y-0-U." The boy she counted out,
on purpose, had holes in his pallid face from old
acne scars and red welts from new disturbances.
"Don't worry, kiddo. Virginia will take you."

Dibble sauntered to the doorway and leaned toward Bobby. "I got you the best. Her name's Sharon,
the one looking at us. Take her to the room."

There was no color in Bobby's face. "I don't
know if I want to."

"You got no choice," Dibble said. "Those are the
rules."

In the room Bobby stood rigid. Sharon shed her
shoulder bag and, with a toe to her heel, removed
a pump, then the other one. "You scared, Bobby?
Nothing to be scared of."

"I've never done it with a woman."

"Same way you do it with a girl. Ever do it with
a girl?"

"No."

"Just little-boy stuff, huh? Not to worry." She
traced long fingers over her hips. "I'm wearing
pastel-blue panties, would you like to see them?"

He didn't dare say, didn't know for sure, and
kept his stance rigid when she lifted her short
skirt. Her underpants were little more than a label,
which his eyes gulped up. She undid her skirt and
let it fall.

"Never seen a woman naked?"

"Pictures," he murmured.

She had little more to take off. Unclothed, her
body was an event. Her breasts quaked, her belly
rippled, her hips expanded. Whipping her hair
back, she said, "Well?"

He couldn't speak, not until she stepped toward
the wrong cot. "That's Dibs's bed."

"I know. Let's use it."

He started to panic. "Did he say we could?"

"Dibs and I are old buddies."

She lay flat on Dibble's cot and smiled up at
him. He saw her pubic patch as an abandoned
robin's nest. When she parted her legs, he saw it as
a monkey's mouth.

"Not still scared, are you?"

"No," he said in a dry voice.

"Your clothes, Bobby. It's better without them."

Slowly he began tugging, yanking, at one point
tripping over himself. Naked, his face smarting,
he shivered in the overheated room. Her smile
grew.

"You sure you're only fourteen?"

"I'm almost fifteen."

"We'll cuddle first. Would you like that?"

He moved in the instant and was in her arms.
Eyes closed, he breathed her in. His nose nudged
her skin, and his fingers crept to warm places.
Everything was solid and real and yet soft and
dreamlike, as if two worlds, both lost, had locked
together. She freed an arm.

"What do you want mama to do?"

He didn't know. Anything she did would be fine.
His mouth found a nipple.

"So that's what you want." When she reached
below, he spurted.

The history quiz, true-or-false variety, was easy.
Bobby finished fast and sat back in his student
chair, the paper on the desktop arm where Duck
could see it. Grades on their papers were always
identical except when Duck copied wrong.

Duck whispered, "Thanks, Bobby."

Moments later the teacher collected the papers
and told the class to open their books to chapter
twelve and read the first five pages to themselves.

His face in his book, Duck whispered, "It was
good, huh, Bobby?"

Bobby barely nodded. Some things were too private to talk about. He had backed off even with
Dibble.

Duck leaned sideways. "I had Virginia. She's always nice to me. Who'd you have?"

The name was too precious to come off his
tongue, too sweet to release. "I had the best."

"Then you had Sharon. You lucky dog."

He had a vivid and sustaining memory of her
arms around him as if she were shelter, though she
was still not entirely real in his mind.

"Dibs must've got her for you."

"He let me go first," Bobby said and, lapsing
into silence, closed his eyes.

Duck turned an unread page of his book and
then leaned sideways again. "Whatcha thinking
about, Bobby?"

"Her. I love her."

It was a winter when too much snow fell. The
town went dumb with it. The cold made the snow
seem like stone. It was as if the dead were being
buried twice, Reverend Stottle said to his visitor.
The visitor was Trish Becker, who had come to his
house in a ski cap and full-length mink. She had
removed the cap but not the mink. They were
seated in a room with drafts. The room, which had
a mood of its own, brought out the worst in the
furniture, dulled colors, hid highlights, and resented the two windows. The windows overlooked
the rear of the church.

"I can't stand shrinks," Trish said, "so I've come
to you."

The reverend could not have been more pleased.
He had little contact with residents of the Heights,
who, if they went to church at all, went to
churches in Andover, usually Christ Episcopal.
"What's the problem?"

"It's Harry. It's his son. It's everything." She pushed her hair back. "For the first time in my life
I have a fear of dying."

"Are you ill?"

"Physically, no. Mentally, I'm a fucking wreck.
Excuse the language."

Secretly he was pleased she used it. It made him
feel more worldly without disturbing his spirituality. Indeed he felt his spirituality increase. "Dying,"
he said, "has a bad name, undeservedly. I believe
that when the end comes we'll dissolve into music
we can't hear while we're flesh."

"I don't see it that way. I see a hole in the
ground, I see the dark." She stuffed her hands in
the pockets of her mink. "Besides, you're missing
the point."

He didn't want to miss anything. He wanted to
help, to heal. His congregation he had endowed
with a tribal quality. He was the medicine man.
"What is the point?"

"Nobody can get away from what the kid did to
that woman, possibly to two women, if the chief of
police is right. His father is tearing himself up inside. Harry's an alcoholic, you know."

"I feel a grave responsibility," Reverend Stottle
said. "I married you and Harry."

"Don't fret about it. I knew exactly what I was
getting into, but now I don't know if I can deal
with it. I feel like a coward."

Each looked up at the solid sound of footsteps.
The reverend's wife entered with a silver service of
coffee and slivers of cake. Trish accepted coffee
but passed on the cake.

"You remember Mrs. Sawhill," Reverend Stottle
said, accepting both coffee and cake, his sweet
tooth showing.

"I've kept my own name," Trish said. "It's
Becker."

"We don't see you in church," Mrs. Stottle said.
"Of course we don't see much of Harry either."

"I'm a Lutheran. Lapsed. I can't speak for
Harry."

Mrs. Stottle placed the tray nearby. Purposely
plain, she wore a thick cardigan and no makeup.
"That's a lovely fur you're wearing. Why don't I
turn the heat up, Austin. Then Mrs.-Miz
Becker-can take her coat off."

The heat raised, his wife gone, Reverend Stottle
helped himself to another slice of cake. He was
built bony and had only a bit of a pot. Trish kept
her mink on but opened it wide. Filigreed stretch
pants showed off the expanse of her thighs.

"I don't want to desert Harry," she said. "I don't
want to leave him with nothing. I don't know what
to do."

Viewing her thighs, Reverend Stottle experienced a sinful excitement he told himself he didn't
want. A romantic, he imagined rapture in an idyllic setting, perhaps on a secluded bank at Paget's
Pond. Fearing his thoughts were diminishing him,
he said, "I sense a strength in you, perhaps a
strength you don't know you have."

"Nice words, I hope they're true."

"Marriages are sacred, connections are everything. The world cannot exist with ampersands."

"More nice words. How do I make them fit?"
She put aside her coffee cup, his wife's finest
china, and crossed her legs as if, he fancied, for
him to worship. She said, "I don't want the marriage to go under, me with it. I have to think of
myself."

Nervously he contemplated a third slice of cake,
the thinnest of the two remaining. No willpower,
he gave in.

"Don't make yourself sick, Reverend."

Crumbs on his mouth, he spoke quickly. "I think
you and Harry should get away for a while. Give
yourself a chance at peace of mind."

"It's hard to get him to go anywhere."

"And I recommend Alcoholics Anonymous,
strongly."

"He promises to go but doesn't."

Her voice was crusting over, which alarmed
him. She was escaping, eluding him. He dragged
his cushioned chair closer and openly admired her
features. Her knee burned his hand. "I must work
closely with both of you," he said.

"What?"

He gave her a deep look. His hair was wispy,
hers blond and thick. His chin was dented, hers
smooth and perfect. "We must all get in tune," he
said in a hushed voice. "Before there was a world
there was music waiting to be played, language
waiting to be spoken."

"Are you coming on to me, Reverend?"

"Call me Austin." He imagined her elegant even
on the toilet. "Yes. I mean, no."

She pulled herself erect. "I'll take your word for
it. Whatever it's worth."

"Is she gone?" Sarah Stottle asked.

"Yes," the reverend said, standing behind his
chair, which was back in its proper place. He
moved to the thermostat and lowered it.

"What did she want?"

"She's afraid of dying."

"We're all afraid of that. Is she sick?"

"Her soul is suffering."

"Really," Sarah said skeptically. "I wonder how
many minks were skinned for that coat of hers.
She sure looked warm and comfy in it."

"It may not have been real."

"It was real all right. Why do people with money
like to flaunt it? All it does is lessen the dollar and
cheapen the merchandise."

Reverend Stottle, his head swimming, scarcely
listened. His hand, still warm from Trish Becker's
knee, had sensed the skin beneath the fabric.
Sarah turned to the silver service.

"I see she tried my cake. Did she like it?"

He nodded. "She thought it very tasty."

"She didn't finish her coffee. Was that not
tasty?"

He ignored the unaccustomed sharpness of his
wife's words and smiled, though he resented her
voice obtruding into his thoughts.

"For the life of me," she said, "I can't imagine why
Harry Sawbill married a piece of goods like that.
Wasn't he already living with her, more or less?"

"She's a fine woman, Sarah."

She turned slowly and gazed at him at length.
"You didn't do anything foolish, did you, Austin?"

He colored faintly, just enough to show.

"Damn it, you did," she said.

Bareheaded, Chief Morgan felt the cold as he
crunched over frozen snail tracks left by the plow.
Snow was banked high around the green and
heaped higher at a point beyond the post office. In
front of the post office he saw the bundled figure of
Amy White, though he didn't recognize her until
he approached her. She wore a knit cap and a scarf
pulled tight across her chin. Her nose was violet.

"I saw you coming," she said.

A gusting wind nearly threw her against him. He
gripped her arm and steadied her, surprised by
how small she was inside the bundle.

"We're leaving soon," she said. "No more winters."

He had heard that she and her husband had
bought a condo in Florida and planned to live
there permanently. "We'll miss you," he said.

"No, you won't. Nobody will, but before I go I
want to know if it's true. Did the Sawhill boy kill
my aunt?"

The question didn't surprise him. His suspicion
had been rumored throughout the town and now
was coming back to haunt him. "There's no
proof."

Her eyes condemned him and made him look
away for a moment. The sky was ice blue, the sun feeble. She said, "It's made me sick thinking
about it."

"It hasn't made me feel good either."

"But you're the police chief. You have a responsibility."

He knew it better than she. He felt the weight,
which had shifted into guilt, much more of a burden.

"I loved my aunt, Chief. I lost my mother young.
Aunt Eve took her place."

The cold was getting to him. They each endured
another hollow blast of wind that had swept
across the snow-covered green, powdering the air.

"I'm glad I'm leaving," Amy White said. "I don't
want to be here when they let him out."

"But I will be," Morgan said. "I'll be waiting."

Belle Sawhill picked up her daughters from Pike
School in Andover and drove cautiously over winter roads back to Bensington. At the gateway to
the drive she braved the wind and collected the
mail. As she drove toward the house, the twins fidgeted. Jennifer said, "Anything for us?"