THUGLIT Issue Twelve (11 page)

He waved a hand at me to simmer down while he flipped open the bolt lock I had just closed when I came in.

"Gonna keep us waiting all night or what?"

The cops entered and Connie stood beside the door.

"Hey Denton," Connie said, but didn't offer his hand.

"
Officer Denton, Connie."

"
Yea right. Officer's Denton and Salvador, sorry."

"
You're goddamn right. We'll make this quick."

A rickety wooden chair stood between the entering officers and me. It was hardly protection.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"
Frances Goatt," I didn't offer my hand, more out of established ceremony than disrespect.

"
Goat?"

"
Yes, like the animal, but with two T's."

Denton turned to Connie and thumbed a finger at me. His heavy cop jacket caught on the waist and I could tell he was wearing a vest.

"Just along for the ride," Connie replied to the thumb.

"
I don't like variables."

"
He's not a variable."

Denton pointed at my chest, his eyes blaring.
"You. Get the fuck out. Wait outside until we're done."

"
There's no need for that. This won't take long," Connie tried.

"
Keep your mouth shut, shorty," Officer Salvador this time. He pointed as well, but something about his demeanor, maybe the insult he added to the end of his sentence—or, more likely, his other hand resting on the handle of the gun on his hip, led me to believe he was the most nervous man in the room.

"
I'll leave," I had my hands up, as though Officer Denton's finger could fire at me. Then I remembered; guns were useless without bullets. "I'll be right outside, Connie."

Connie waved.

I slipped through, leaving the door ajar and stepping once again into the night. It slammed shut from the inside.

The fog sprawled and I watched its twisting amorphous shape. Gunshots or a cordial exchange, either was possible now. I wondered which played more to my favor. Sure, a shootout would attract trouble, but I wasn
't in the room to be shot. I could always grab the bags, take the van, and run. But, if Connie made the trade and the cops left, it'd just be me, with no gun, entering a room with two armed men I didn't trust.

I sat down on the rim of a heavy flowerpot, its dead soil still clutching the skeleton of a hydrangea. Head in hands, I marveled at the weight of my skull, and my brain, and my mind, all the things making the decisions leading me to these moments. I wondered how much control I had over any of it.

From around the corner I saw her figure first, obscured by the night and the Kansas State Wildcats hoodie she wore. Still though, even with her hands snug in its pocket, her steps were lithe and elegant, a girl, a woman, I guessed, anachronistic to this shitty motel.

"
The Salesman," she said.

"
The Launderer," I replied.

"
The Graduate fits more appropriately."

"
My apologies."

"
I didn't even know they had rooms on this side of the hotel."

"
I hate to be the one to tell you this but, this isn't a hotel."

"
When you've been in as many Eastern European hostels as I have, this place may as well be the Waldorf."

"I've never had the pleasure."

"
It's not as advertised."

Muffled voices permeated the wall behind me. She looked at the window adjacent to our motel door. I had no idea if the outer walls were thick enough to stop a bullet.

"How come you're not inside with your friends?"

"
How come you're walking around in the fog at night?"

Her nose scrunched bitterly. She nodded back towards where she had come from, or at least, where I thought her room was. I realized then I didn
't even know for certain if she was staying here.

"
I think I've been looking for you, actually."

"
For me? Thought it was my job to go door to door."

"
I don't know. Somehow, when I left my room, I had a feeling I'd find you exactly like this."

"
How's that?"

"
Silent and sullen, sitting outside your door."

I star
ed at her fair complexion, taut over her faint features. I thought of her head, as I had my own moments before. But I didn't think of the ways this nice girl made bad decisions to end up in an ugly place like this. Instead, I thought of her skull, nestled there behind her pretty skin, waiting to one day be released, showing the world just what all that beauty amounts to in the end.

"
You ever spend so much time with a group of people you start wondering what the hell you had in common with them in the first place?"

I nodded towards my own room.

"Yeah, I may have a clue."

"
I've driven all this way with these people, these friends, and now that we're halfway to where we're going I feel like I'm twice as far from home."

Here I couldn
't relate. It had been a very long time since I called anywhere home.

She smiled finally, showing me those teeth of hers and we laughed and flirted some more. Then, as though the entire time we
were talking it hadn't existed (or rather, now that our growing sexual tension had drained away into a quiet puddle of awkwardness between strangers), she pointed to Officer Denton's ride, a stark reminder of the reality of people meeting in dingy motels on Kansas back roads.

"
Are you a cop?"

"
Me?" I pointed at my chest with a thumb. "No, no I'm not a police officer."

"
Are the cops in your room?"

"
They are." There was no reason to lie other than all those reasons not to tell the truth.

She looked at me cross
ways, realizing only now, after seeing the police here, perhaps I wasn't the man she was looking for.

"
You know what they say about this place, right?" she asked.

So, instead of adding up all the reasons to stop talking to me and going back to her room, getting in the car with her friends and leaving this despicable motel in the corner of this forgotten state, she was not only going to entertain me with the telling of a horrific story I myself had just told, but she also wasn
't going to heed that story's moral—the best and only illustration she needed to run the fuck away from me as quickly as she could.

"
No," I indulged her. Recklessness. I had my weaknesses too. "No, I hadn't heard."

She glanced to her left and waited, for what I did
n't know. For the ghosts maybe. For the ghosts to turn their heads and cover their ears and save themselves one more retelling of their grisly demise.

"
People were murdered here." She didn't quite whisper it, but she said it low enough that the words were almost swallowed up before I heard them.

"
Murdered?"

"
Yup. Seven people. A few years ago. People said it started as a domestic thing. Some guy fed up with his wife. They got into an argument." She reached her hand out, picked up an imaginary object. "Took the iron, the shitty one they hide in the closet. He picked it up and bashed her brains in."

"
Did he now?"

"
Mm-hmm. But that's not the sickest part." There it was again. Sickness. Illness. The woes of the world mounting in this one story, but endemic in the very vocabulary of our culture. All hope would soon be lost. And I would be here to see it.

"
What could be sicker than knocking an iron into your wife's skull?" I knew the answer, but was mystified by her eagerness.

"
The manager came out to see what all the yelling was about. He had already called the cops, so Lord knows why he felt compelled to look into it himself. He knocked on the door but the guy left it unlocked. The manager walks in, sees this woman, blood on the floor, her brains leaking from her ear, and he nearly vomits. The guy though is standing there, right beside the door. The manager turns to leave and guess what?"

"
Another head bashing I'm betting."

She stopped, her arms pressed deep into her hoodie
's pockets. Her brow furrowed. "You don't like this story."

"
What's not to like?"

"
I'm—" she stopped and looked into the mist. The ghosts pulled their hands from their ears because we all knew the story was over.

"
Well anyway, seven people was his final tally." She shrunk before me now.

"
Seven people. Appalling I guess."

"
Just a ghost story." Her voice was small now too.

They would disagree I thought.

The moisture in the air swelled. It was so quiet.

"
Where you from, Launderer?"

She hesitated, but soon came back to me.
"Muscotah originally. We moved to the city before I was in grade school though. I headed straight to England after graduation. I've been home just once since coming back from Europe. When we were finally back in the states, we figured we should learn a little more about our own country. We drove through fifteen states. Now we're touring Kansas one last time before settling down."

"
Touring Kansas. There's one I haven't heard."

"
Atchison is something of a shit town, sure. When I'm there all I can do is think about leaving. But when I'm gone for too long, I miss it deep in my chest."

"
Never heard someone talk so fondly of Kansas."

"
My mother always said we lived in the beating heart of the country."

"
I guess that's one way of looking at it."

"
Oh c'mon now, it's a great state."

"
Every state says that about themselves. But they're all wrong."

"
All of them? There are no great states anywhere in the union?" She kicked the gravel at her feet. "You're a salesman though, if anyone knows, I guess it'd be you."

The fog wisped in front of her. A breeze from nowhere unsettled the air. I looked at her as though from the end of a hallway, faraway but perfectly focused, or more accurately, down the barrel of a gun. A bullet, she was, but this time I had no doubt the
gun was most definitely loaded.

The door behind me opened and Connie stuck his head out.

"The hell you doing out here?"

"
You told me to wait."

"
Now I'm telling you to get in here."

He closed the door.

She raised an eyebrow but stayed silent. The grin I offered wasn't returned.

"
Don't be upset. I was just kidding about the states. They're all wonderful. Like you said, I should know. I've seen every one."

She kicked some more gravel.

"You're not a salesman are you?"

I didn
't reply.

I gave her a meek wave and said I
'd catch her around and she nodded. But she didn't move, not even after I climbed the short step to our room. I looked back before closing the door and she stood there, staring at me as all that moisture closed in around her.

Inside things looked better than I could have hoped. The duffel bags were zipped closed in the officers
' hands and a much smaller duffel bag lay splayed on the bed, cash bubbling from its intestines. Connie leaned against the window and Tate hadn't emerged from the bathroom, unneeded cavalry still lying in wait.

"
A hundred and thirty-five in total." Connie nodded at the bed. "That sit okay with you?"

"
What are you asking him for? Thought we were done here?" Officer Salvador said. Now with a duffel bag in each hand, he didn't have a third to hold his gun steady in his holster. He must have been feeling extra insecure.

"'
Cause if it wasn't for him, this deal wouldn't have happened in the first place." A voice of support from Connie. I was happy to hear it, but it wasn't enough to change my mind.

"
One thirty-five. Yeah, whatever, I trust whatever you can get Connie," I said.

Denton
's turn came to speak up. "'You can get'? You can get whatever I decide you can get for all this dirty merch. And what I decided was fair, is sitting there on the bed. Or I can just zip it up and bring you all in, keep the bags, keep the money, and go about my day. Which do you prefer?"