The Deputy Read online

  I went outside, kept the Ford in my peripheral vision all the way back to the Nova. I half expected it to crank up with fire in the headlights like devil eyes. I forced myself to move slow, put on the seatbelt, stick the key into the ignition. The hell if I was going to spook myself with crap about a devil car. My imagination was fucking with me.

  I sat in my car with the window rolled down, my back slick with sweat. I watched the freckled girl through the store window. She flipped pages in the magazine. Why did women read stuff like that? She didn’t live in Coyote Crossing or I’d have seen her. I glanced over at the Mustang, and it just sat there being a Mustang. I sucked on my cigarette, leaned my head out the window and blew smoke at the moon. Big green cheese. Banana cream pie in the sky. The man in the moon had bad skin. The Mustang just sat there. I started the Nova and drove back north on The Six.

  Back in the thick Okie night. I put the Nova in the center of the road and let it eat up the lines like Pac Man. Last Christmas Doris got this computer game that hooked to the TV, a bunch of vintage video games like Pac Man and Galaga. By vintage I guess they meant old crappy games you could get cheap. We stayed up late and played it some nights when we finally got the boy to sleep. When I got on full time with the department, I was going to get one of those new Wii games Nintendo makes.

  I was humming along fine, sucking on a fresh Winston. Maybe three minutes and I saw the headlights in my rearview mirror again.

  And this time they did look like the devil’s eyes.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Truth was I had a vivid imagination. My mother always said so. Too vivid. I hated the barn at night, back when the family had a few acres south of here. Up until I was twelve years old, I hated to go out there. The tools and the tractor and hay would make strange shapes in the shadows. A kid can imagine any kind of monster in the dark. Any sort of shape under the moonlight. A scurrying barn rat can sound like anything.

  And Halloween night after a few scary movies? Forget it. You couldn’t have paid me a thousand dollars to go out to the barn. I remembered this one movie about killer spiders that bred in a barn, all full of webs and everything. Just forget it.

  Dad lost that barn to back taxes then died. Two sure things in as many months.

  But I had that crazy imagination.

  It was pretty easy for me to imagine undead Luke Jordan behind the wheel of the devil Mustang behind me. There was never any traffic this time of night on The Six. Getting followed all the way to the Texaco and back? No way.

  Okay, so probably it wasn’t the undead. But who?

  I drove faster.

  The car got up to about a hundred yards behind me and stayed there. Coyote Crossing loomed in the distance, and I stepped on the gas, slowed down again as I pulled into town but with a little more space between me and my tail. I took the first left without slowing or signaling, then another quick right into the alley behind the firehouse before the guy behind me could see where I was going. I backed up behind a dumpster and killed the headlights. If I leaned forward over the steering wheel, I could just see the road around the edge of the dumpster.

  At first, nothing happened, and I thought I’d made a mistake. Then a wash of yellow light crept along the road, followed by the Mach 1. It cruised along about fifteen miles per hour, maybe looking for me, maybe not. It kept going. I sat there and smoked a cigarette. When the Mustang didn’t come back, I put the Nova in gear and eased out of the alley.

  * * * *

  I drove back down Main Street, heading toward the trailer park west of town. I kept glancing in the rearview mirror, but the headlights didn’t come back. I blew out a relieved gust of breath.

  The town fizzled out again heading west, and I was back into raw wilderness, but not for so long this time. Two minutes later I hit the area near my home, a sorry little hamburger joint called Sam’s, a gas station, and an outof-business used car lot. Once or twice a month, some folks used the old car lot to set up a flea market. Two hundred yards later, I turned into the park entrance, a dingy collection of twenty trailers all waiting for a twister to come along and put them out of their misery.

  I pulled in next to Doris’s old, yellow Monte Carlo. I let the Nova run, flipped around the radio dial until I heard a Garbage song and left it. Lit another cigarette. I didn’t know if I wanted Doris to be awake or not. I felt like talking, didn’t feel like being alone. When you’re with somebody who’s asleep, you’re basically alone. Unless they’re curled up against you maybe. That’s different.

  When I came back to Coyote Crossing for Mom’s funeral, I was told I had inherited the trailer. It was nothing fancy or nice, but it was more than I’d had before. It was a place to flop while I got my plan together. Maybe I’d sell it and go to California or New Orleans or, hell, even London. You could hook up with all kinds of funky bands in London. Anyway that’s what I thought, weep my last tears over Mom’s grave then light out free as a bird on the big adventure of my life.

  The night after the funeral a couple of old high school pals took me out to cheer me up with some beer and somebody’s cousin’s friend was there and felt so sorry for me that she took me out to her cousin’s Buick and hopped right on top of me and eased the pain of my loss, in that grunting, hunched-up way that makes us forget all about death. Twice. That was Doris. We saw each other a few more times. She seemed impressed I had my own trailer, said I was lucky to live on my own because she had to live with her folks. I told her she was lucky to still have folks, and I think that embarrassed her. She always just said things. But I was only hanging around town long enough to sell the trailer anyway.

  Then one day Doris up and tells me she’s pregnant. Then her father’s right there on the front porch asking me if I’m going to do the right thing. Then I’m married. Then I’m a daddy. It happened so fast, it was like it was happening to somebody esle. Life can run you over like that when it comes at you so much at one time.

  Which brings me to now, sitting in the Nova, wondering if I wanted Doris to be awake or not. Some nights yes, others no.

  I finished the cigarette and went inside as quietly as I could. I didn’t want to wake the boy. That’s the first thing you learn as a parent. When they finally get to sleep, you do anything to keep them that way.

  Every step I took creaked and rocked the trailer. Swear to God, a good sneeze would explode the place. I kicked off my shoes, tip-toed into the bathroom, looked in the mirror.

  I looked like hell. Dark under the eyes. The stubble was getting a little out of hand, but I winced at the thought of shaving. Doris used my disposables to shave her legs. Might as well scrape my face with a spatula. I needed a haircut. It was in that in-between stage where it wasn’t short enough to look tidy, but not long enough to look cool. I felt greasy, and my mouth tasted like too many cigarettes.

  Everybody said I smoked too much. They were right.

  I stripped, reached in the shower and turned the water lukewarm.

  * * * *

  I stepped in and soaped up, closed my eyes and let the spray hit my face. Some of the tension drained out of my shoulders, and I stood there until the water went cold. The trailer’s hot water heater might as well have been the size of a thermos. I dried off with an almost clean towel.

  I got lucky with a fresh laundry basket on the toilet and slipped into a pair of clean boxers. A shower and clean underwear can make anyone feel human again.

  I went to the boy’s room and looked inside. He made a fat little lump under his blue blanket, and I heard his steady breathing. He looked perfect. There were those crazy times, when the boy was screaming, a loaded diaper, the trailer a mess, Doris calling to say she’d be late, and I thought how could I do it anymore? How was it possible? All I had to do was look at the boy asleep and it was all good again. He was starting to walk and say words. I went to our bedroom, closed the door behind me and slipped in next to Doris.

  She smelled nice, like Pantene. Not like fried eggs and bacon grease when she first gets in from wor
k. Doris had a nice round shape in the hips, full breasts. It would probably all droop and go to fat in a few years like her mother, but right now it was still pretty good. She had a broad tan back, and she slept naked, so I moved in behind her and spooned. I put my nose in her blond hair and stayed like that a minute. I knew she was awake because she backed her ass into my crotch, grinding back at me a little until I took the hint. I reached around and cupped a breast and felt her hand slip back and into my boxers, guiding me into her. She gasped very softly as the tip went in, sort of cooed as the rest slid home. I settled into a rhythm, kissing the back of her neck.

  Sex with Doris was always familiar and comfortable. Not like the reckless thunderstorm of passion with Molly. With Molly I felt my teeth rattle, muscles strained. Both of us went at it like we were trying to win something. Doris was like easing into a warm bath. I liked having both.

  I felt Doris go rigid next to me and swallow a moan. She was never loud. I sped up my hip thrusts to keep pace and came thirty seconds later. Her being on the pill made spontaneous humps more possible. It was so convenient, I’d told Molly to get on the pill too.

  As soon as I’d shuddered to a stop, Doris rolled out of bed, and I could hear her in the bathroom.

  Maybe I dozed some after that, but I wasn’t sure. Couldn’t have been more than five minutes. The trailer’s air conditioning hummed full blast to keep it bearable. I lay there in the darkness with my eyes open, thinking the same old thoughts. What to tell Doris when I got fired. What to do when Molly left. How to feed the boy and keep him in diapers and pay the doctor when he got sick. I could think these thoughts in a circle so fast it made my stomach ache, but I never came up with any answers.

  I sat up in bed, swung my feet over the side. God, I just wanted to go to sleep. Hell.

  I got up, paused in the hall to peek through the blinds. I half expected to see a Mach 1 cruising the trailer park then felt stupid. Some guy out for a drive and I get all jumpy. I wondered if the chief had heard about my stupidity yet. I thought about calling Billy at the stationhouse but went into the boy’s room instead.

  Toby Austin Sawyer Jr. was perfect and pink. He’d kicked the blue blanket off one leg, and I saw Doris had put him in the Bob the Builder pajamas. He was the best looking boy in the world.

  * * * *

  At that moment the need to scoop him out of the crib and hold him firm against my chest nearly overcame me. Even if it woke him up. He was such a heavy little ham hock. Thick. He’d probably be a linebacker. Get a football scholarship to Harvard and be a brain surgeon. My boy.

  I didn’t pick him up. I satisfied myself with stroking his forehead. He stirred, and I jerked my hand back, but he did-n’t wake. Doris would be turbo pissed off if I woke him up.

  I pulled the rocking chair close to the crib and sat awhile looking at him. A little night light shaped like a blue fishbowl cast a soft glow on everything, all the second-hand toys and stuffed animals. Even the crib and rocking chair had come from Doris’s older sister. My folks were dead, but Doris’s mom and dad did a pretty good job bringing toys and clothes. We had enough. It was close, but we were just making it. Of course, that was probably about to change.

  Toby Junior. TJ. I got this tight, anxious feeling whenever I looked at him and thought something could go wrong or he’d get sick or any little thing might not be right somehow. Like iron fingers grabbing my chest and squeezing. I folded my arms over the edge of the crib and put my head down, sat there a while.

  The boy’s gentle breathing was like some kind of lullaby.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Our cramped living room led right into the cramped kitchen, so Doris could stand at the counter making coffee and still see the television. She had a rerun of The Real World on with the sound down almost to nothing. Some dude was yelling at the Real World kids because they were all supposed to be up early for some project thing, but they slept in instead. What the hell was the big deal?

  I said, “You’re staying up?”

  She shrugged, watching the coffee drip. “I can’t go back to sleep now.” “I’ll take a cup of that.” “When it’s finished.” “Pour me a cup now,” I told her. “It’s only halfway through. It won’t taste right.” “I don’t mind.”

  “I mind.” She tsked, shook her head. “Damn it, who’s making this fucking coffee?”

  “There’s a cut off if you take the pot out before it’s finished. So it doesn’t spill.” I put that obnoxious patient sound in my voice, like I was talking to a little kid. “The coffee maker is designed specifically so you can do that.”

  “We’ve had this conversation already.”

  And there you pretty much had the whole marriage. We fit together good in bed, worked together nice, folding laundry together or doing the dishes, her washing and me drying and putting them back in the cabinet. My mom had been big on companionable silence. Needless talk only causes trouble, she’d told me once. Maybe she was right because Doris and I sure got into it whenever one of us opened our yaps. Something was always eating one of us.

  I decided I’d better say something nice. “You don’t look so fat.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  “Your ass, I mean.”

  “Fuck you, Toby.”

  “Shit, that’s not how I meant it, okay?” She stood there in plain white panties and my Green Day t-shirt, and I thought she looked fine. “You were looking in the mirror the other day, remember? And you said you thought it was getting big. I’m just saying I think it’s fine.”

  “Whatever. You want this coffee now?”

  “Okay.”

  She poured two cups and brought them to the couch. She didn’t sit close to me but not so far away either. She handed me a plain white cup of black coffee. Her mug was bigger and with a sunset clouds scene and some scripture on the side. John 3:16, I think.

  I sipped. She sipped. We watched The Real World with the sound down.

  I tried some more conversation like this: “When do you go into work?”

  “You know what time. Seven like always.”

  Then I tried this: “How’s your sister?”

  “You don’t even like her.”

  I sipped coffee and shut up.

  Real World ended and Super Sweet Sixteen came on. Little girls having fancy birthday parties. This show made me pissed off and depressed at the same time. That these spoiled kids could have it so good and it still wasn’t enough. This one girl got a brand new BMW for her sixteenth birthday but pissed and moaned it was the wrong color. Jesus. Slap that bitch.

  “Oh, cool,” Doris said. “I wish I’d had a big party like that when I was sixteen.”

  We watched a few minutes.

  Finally she asked, “What was the problem?” I looked at her. “With what?”

  “What do you think? Taking off at midnight with your pistol, that’s what. What did the chief want?”

  “Oh.” I sipped coffee. “Somebody killed Luke Jordan.”

  I saw the blood drain from her face. Like somebody pulled a plug and it all leaked right out, her eyes round with startled confusion. I wasn’t sure what surprised me more. Her reaction or that fact she was trying to hide it.

  “Dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why did—” She paused, cleared her throat. “How?”

  “Wayne said he was making a play for some Mexican chick in Skeeter’s. Jealous boyfriend maybe. Shot the crap out of him.” I didn’t tell her the rest of it, losing the body and all. I didn’t have the heart for that conversation, maybe never would.

  Maybe I could get a job at the fertilizer plant. That was an hour drive each way, but I’d be full time with benefits too. Maybe I could go over there and get the job and then even tell Doris I quit the department on purpose to bring in more money. She’d be glad about that. Hell, it might even work. And if I made enough she could quit the waitress job and take care of the boy full time.

  “Maybe it was some kind of mistake,” she said.

  I
blinked. “What?’

  “Maybe he was just talking to that Mexican girl, and it was some kind of misunderstanding.”

  I shrugged, didn’t see what difference that made. “Luke Jordan’s just as dead either way.”

  She got up and went into the kitchen. I thought about asking her for more coffee but didn’t. The Super Sweet Sixteen girl was pissing and moaning because her daddy got the wrong boy band to play at her party. It should be legal just to punch these people. No jail time. Case dismissed.

  Doris came back, stood at the end of the couch.

  “Toby?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Let’s go to Houston. My sister will put us up until we get work. I can waitress anywhere. We have to try something different.”

  That was my chance right then. I could tell her okay, let’s sell the trailer for moving money and go to Houston and remake our lives from the ground up. I was going to get shit-canned anyway. I had no prospects. Even my idea about the fertilizer plant seemed pretty feeble now. Molly would be gone soon. No reason in the world not to give Doris’s idea serious consideration.

  But for some reason I said, “I don’t know. Doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

  “You never liked my sister.”

  “This again.”

  She balled up one of her little fists and hit me in the arm. It didn’t hurt. Much. She went back into the kitchen.

  I could feel her fuming in there. You could almost see the

  anger radiating around her, like heat waves off hot asphalt.

  “Don’t be like that.”

  “You’re stupid.” Her voice sounded funny, kind of shaky.

  “I don’t need this.”

  “Fuck you.” Plenty of venom. Doris never did need much of an excuse to start some shit, but this was sudden even for her.

  “What’s eating you?”

  “I’m, like, all trying to better our life and stuff, and you’re just not even being cool about it. You never listen to me.”

  Bullshit. All I ever did was listen to her run her mouth, complaining about anything and everything. She’d get home from work and start right in and wouldn’t shut it until she fell asleep or I left for work. She was like some kind of Energizer Bunny nonstop bitch machine. Or she’d drop the boy in the playpen with a few toys and sit in front of the TV for hours and hours. Or on the phone with her sister for a million hours at a time. She needed three more husbands, so we could all take shifts listening to her.