Shotgun Opera Read online

  “What do you weigh?”

  “A hundred and nine.”

  “Okay,” Mike said. “But go slow.”

  She eased one leg over, straddled his ass, wiggled a little to get settled in. “I can reach you better from here.”

  Mike put the feel of her stockings out of his mind, her soft feet tucked in close to his legs. She kneaded small circles along his spine. She pressed in hard with her thumbs. “Let me know if I hurt you.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  He’d lost interest in the movie, put his face in the pillow instead, and closed his eyes tight. He replayed the day’s events in his mind, the men he’d killed, the phone call to John Jenkins. The pistol had felt right in his hand. In the heat of conflict, the only emotion Mike had felt was a vague dissatisfaction with his marksmanship. Now he didn’t know how he felt. He kept hearing Ortega’s voice, a ghostly echo in his head asking for water.

  “Don’t think about it,” Patricia said.

  His eyes popped open. “What?”

  “Whatever it is you’re thinking about, stop it. Your shoulder muscles are getting all bunched up. You’re all tense and everything.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Take a big breath and let it out slowly. Try to clear your mind.”

  Mike gulped in a breath, held it a moment, then let it leak out between his lips. He did feel better.

  “You must have some kind of stressful job,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you a stockbroker or something?” She pressed the heel of her palm into his back, leaned into it.

  Mike grunted. “No.” He decided to change the subject. “What about you? When you’re not visiting hotel rooms, I mean.”

  “I got my degree in communications last year,” she said. “I specialized in broadcasting.”

  “College? You don’t look old enough.”

  “I’m twenty-two.”

  “If you went to college I mean, why would you ?”

  “I worked through the escort service for tuition and expenses,” Patricia said. “Then just after I graduated, I got an intro position at a classic rock radio station. What I got paid in a month, I make in three days turning tricks.”

  “But you were just starting out, right? I mean, that’s how it is for kids right out of college. You got to work your way up.”

  “I guess. But, you know, I just had this life going already. I had a brand-new Nissan and satellite television and new clothes anytime I wanted. It was like I had been Cricket so long I couldn’t be Patricia again. Did you ever get the feeling that once things are set, it’s just, like, too much trouble to try and do something different? Like making a river flow the other way.”

  But Mike had stopped listening. Patricia’s voice had faded to a soothing drone, her hands working into his flesh. He felt like he was floating, drifting into sleep. He did not dream.

  * * *

  Mike woke up. The movie was now something with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.

  He got out of the bed and lifted the mattress. His wallet was still there. The cash on the nightstand was gone. He was tucking the sheet back under the mattress when he realized his back didn’t hurt anymore. Yes, a distant ache, but no longer the agony. There had been this one, special spot in the center of his back, and the harder she’d pressed, the more things seemed to shift back into place.

  Patricia’s citrus scent still hung in the air. No, not Patricia. Cricket.

  Mike crawled back into bed and didn’t care if he ever woke up.

  * * *

  A heartbeat.

  It had always been there, but so slow it was almost undetectable. It grew stronger. Blood pulsed. Synapses fired in his brain.

  There was something in his mouth.

  He clawed, spit. It was in his eyes and hair. Everything was dark. Where was he? What had happened?

  Dirt.

  He clawed his way through it. Every time he gasped for air he got only a mouthful of soil. He coughed, choked. His hand broke through into cool air. He pulled himself out, coughed out the dirt, gulped a delicious lungful of clean air. Where was he?

  Memories. Yes, he’d been left for dead. He stumbled in a random direction. Dizzy. His head had been bashed. Did he have a concussion? He stumbled, put a hand against a tree, and steadied himself. The pain. Somebody would pay for this.

  Enrique Mars was back from the grave.

  PART FOUR

  29

  The rental was one of those new Fords that resembled the old-style, classic Mustangs. Lizzy liked it and flew up Highway 75 at 90 mph. The scenery grew more dull and bland by the mile, open miles of flat grassland bleached pale green by the sun.

  She slipped a CD into the player, and a second later the car’s speakers blasted selections from Wagner’s Ring Cycle. She was in a Wagner mood and pressed the gas pedal. The speedometer needle edged past ninety-five just as “Ride of the Valkyries” began.

  Maybe she’d look into stripping the VIN number and exchanging license plates. She wouldn’t mind keeping the Mustang, tear-assing around the country for a while. No, it wouldn’t work. Too many of these new rentals had tracking devices. They could zero in on her from orbit with all the satellites and shit. Nikki would know how to disable it. Lizzy didn’t.

  Two minutes later, she saw the red-and-blue lights in her rearview mirror.

  “Shit.”

  She pulled over and the state trooper pulled in behind her. He didn’t immediately come up to her window, and Lizzy figured he was running the plate. Finally, he came up to the driver’s side and rapped a knuckle on the window. She rolled it down.

  “You want to turn that down?” he shouted.

  Lizzy turned off the Wagner.

  The trooper looked like he’d been sent from central casting. Mirror sunglasses, a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. “What’s the hurry, girl?”

  “Sorry, Officer.”

  The trooper bent down, got a good look at her. “Jesus H. Christ. What in the hell are you supposed to be?”

  “Why don’t you just write my ticket, and we can dispense with the chitchat?”

  He frowned. “You want this to be hard? It can be hard. Come on out of the car, smart-ass, and bring your license with you.”

  She got out of the Mustang, and the trooper motioned her around the other side so that the car was between them and the highway. She handed him her license. He looked at it while he picked his teeth.

  “Assume the position,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Hands on the car,” the trooper said. “Spread your legs.”

  No fucking way. This can’t be happening.

  She put her hands on the hood of the car, spread her legs. She wore a denim skirt and fishnet stockings. A white silk blouse. The cop stood close behind her, hands frisking. He groped. One thick hand went under her skirt, brushed her mound with a finger.

  “You enjoying your free feel?”

  He stepped in close, pressed his body against hers. His chin stubble scratched her neck, his hot breath on her ear. “Better watch that mouth. This ain’t New Orleans. Decent people live around here, and we don’t want no pink-haired freaks driving through at a hundred miles per hour. Maybe you’re some kind of queer. Huh? On your way to meet your queer pals?”

  She bit her tongue. Don’t say anything. Just take it.

  “You got any drugs in the car?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t move.”

  The trooper searched the car, popped the trunk and looked in there too. Then he dumped her bag out on the backseat. Through the windshield, Lizzy watched him paw her underwear, toss her other clothes around the interior of the vehicle. Her face went red with rage, but she held it in, didn’t say a word. Find your safe place.

  He came back around, stood next to her, tossed her license onto the hood. “I don’t know where you’re headed to so fast, but keep going until you get there. We don’t want no troublemakers around here.” He got back in his cruiser and sped away.

  He hadn’t even given her a ticket.

  She got back behind the wheel, but didn’t im
mediately start the Mustang. Her hands shook. Rage and frustration. If she could have gotten away with it, she would have killed the trooper, fully believed that he deserved to die. The indignity. So she had pink hair. So she had a pierced nose. So fucking what? Why wouldn’t people leave her the fuck alone? All she wanted to do was live her life.

  She started the Mustang, drove to the next exit, and pulled off. There was a truck stop and an Arby’s and a little gray shack with a dirty sign that said BEER & POOL. She parked in front of the shack and went inside. There were two guys in jeans and T-shirts shooting pool, a fat woman behind the bar restocking a potato chip rack.

  Lizzy slumped at the bar, took out her cigarettes, and lit one. She needed a smoke, needed to calm down before getting on the road again. She felt eyes on her back, knew the two dudes shooting pool were taking a look at her. She didn’t care. Fuck them.

  The fat woman said, “You got ID?”

  “I just want a Diet Coke.”

  “Got to be twenty-one to sit at the bar.”

  Lizzy showed her the fake license, and the woman brought her a Diet Coke. Lizzy finished the cigarette and immediately lit another. Anger still bubbled in her veins.

  She heard the dudes snickering, caught a glimpse of them in the mirror behind the bar. One elbowed his buddy in the ribs, pointed at her. She spun on her stool, blew out a cloud of smoke, and said, “Got a problem, guys?” Let them start something, let them say one fucking thing. She should have been breathing, finding her safe place. She didn’t want her safe place. She wanted trouble.

  The one in the cowboy boots looked at the one in the sneakers before answering. “No problem. It’s cool.”

  “Right.” She turned back around, leaned on the bar.

  She smoked, stared at herself in the mirror, remembered how Dr. Bryant had tried to explain to her that her appearance was a defense mechanism. If people rejected her because of her wild looks, her crazy hair, all the piercings, then she could dismiss their rejection as shallow narrow-mindedness. She didn’t have to consider that maybe it was really her, the deep-down Lizzy, that people couldn’t accept. Maybe. But Lizzy wasn’t feeling very open to Dr. Bryant’s theories at the moment. Mostly, she felt like she wanted to lash out in righteous anger.

  In other words, she wanted to fuck somebody up, and it was okay because the motherfuckers had it coming. It would be some measure of justice, at least to her way of thinking.

  One of the guys leaned at the bar next to her. Cowboy boots. He waved the fat woman over. “How about a Coors, Bess?”

  “Sure.” She popped the top off a longneck and set it in front of the cowboy.

  “I’m Brandon,” he said.

  “Good for you.” Lizzy sucked on the cigarette, held it, exhaled a long gray stream.

  “How about I buy you a beer?”

  “How about you fuck off?”

  Brandon laughed. Half-bravado, half-nervous. “I’m just trying to be friendly. I think you got the wrong impression before. Me and Duane are good guys.”

  She turned her head slowly, met his eyes, and blew smoke straight into his face.

  Duane laughed from the other side of the pool table. “I told you she was a bitch.”

  “Goddamn,” Brandon said. “I was just trying to make nice. Should have known better. Fucking pink-haired weirdo.”

  Lizzy snatched the Coors bottle out of his hand and smashed it across his teeth. Brandon’s face erupted in beer, blood, and broken glass. He stumbled back. The fat woman behind the bar screamed. Lizzy hopped off her barstool, kneed Brandon in the balls. He groaned and went down, holding his bloody mouth.

  “Shit!” Duane grabbed his pool cue and ran at her.

  He swung, and she ducked, dropped to the floor, and swept his legs out from under him. Duane landed hard on his back. Lizzy sprang back to her feet.

  The fat woman behind the bar was in motion. She grabbed a jar of pickled pigs feet and hurled it at Lizzy. Lizzy leapt aside. The jar landed on Brandon’s gut, the air wheezing out of him.

  Duane got to one knee, and Lizzy balled her little fist tight and punched him in the nose. His head flew back. Lizzy heard and felt cartilage snap. Blood gushed over Duane’s lips.

  Lizzy grabbed him by the shirt with one hand, punched with the other, three rapid-fire shots in the face. She let him go, and he fell to the floor, curled in a fetal position, holding his nose and sobbing quietly.

  The fat woman was still screaming. Lizzy grabbed her cigarette, puffed, hands shaking.

  “You’d better get out of here!” The fat woman grabbed the telephone behind the bar. Hysterical. “I’m calling the police. I’m dialing them right now!”

  Lizzy kicked Duane once more, then ran for the door. There weren’t any windows at the front of the bar, so she figured if she sped away quickly, they might not be able to identify the car or get a tag number. She cranked the Mustang and floored it, flying west down the two-lane county road.

  Three minutes later she eased up, started driving the speed limit. It would be stupid to get pulled over again.

  The anger and violence still rang in her ears. She turned the Wagner up, pounded the steering wheel. She had caused that. She wanted to believe that those rednecks had deserved a beating, but it just wasn’t true. She buzzed with anger and had wanted an outlet. She couldn’t kill the trooper, so she’d taken out her anger on a couple of harmless guys in a pool hall.

  Even as it was happening, she knew she was wrong, that she was out of control. Eight months of therapy had taught her to recognize what was happening. But recognizing what was happening and doing something to stop it were two different things. It was as if she were watching a movie of somebody who looked like her going crazy.

  Five minutes later she drove into a small town and pulled into the parking lot of a Wal-Mart. She went inside and purchased some black hair coloring and a pair of jeans and an orange Oklahoma State University T-shirt. The fat lady at the bar might not be able to identify the Mustang, but there couldn’t be too many pink-haired freaks in the area.

  She drove another mile and found a motel with a dirt parking lot. The room was $33.95 a night. She thought the room might have been nice at one time, say, back during the Eisenhower administration. The room was hot. She flipped on the air-conditioning to high, and by the time she got out of the shower, the room had cooled to a tolerable level. She dyed her hair in the sink. Jet-black. She removed all of her piercings.

  In the mirror she looked at her new appearance, bland and anonymous. She was no longer Lizzy. She wasn’t a freak anymore. She wasn’t anyone at all.

  She sat on the bed, looked around the dim motel room. The remote for the television didn’t work.

  She took out the Oklahoma map and the directions Big Sister had given her. If she drove without stopping, she could reach her destination in under two hours, but the thought of getting back on the road was too exhausting to contemplate.

  She stretched out on the bed. Fatigue. Emotionally drained. She was so tired, wanted to sleep, but it wouldn’t come. She stared at the cracked ceiling, at the cobwebs in the corner.