Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom (15 page)

“How do we get to the beach?” Benjamin asked.

“What do you want to go to there for?”

Benjamin shrugged. “Never been.”

Roscoe directed him to an empty parking lot at Zuma Beach. Benjamin stood on the asphalt and listened to the Pacific smite the continent. Together they wrestled the motorcycles from the truck. Benjamin hot-wired Sheila’s and kicked it over. Roscoe did the same with Samantha’s.

“Where to?”

Benjamin rode onto the beach. “To the sea,” he yelled.

Benjamin fish tailed in the sand, the Harley’s throbbing engine competing with the ocean’s clamor. He stopped in firm, wet sand thirty yards from the surf. Roscoe stopped beside him. The distant look in Benjamin’s eyes made Roscoe stare out to sea. But he could see nothing save frothing water and a half moon in the clouds.

“What the hell are you doing?” Roscoe yelled over the engines.

Benjamin grinned a demon grin and screamed an Arapaho war cry. It was loud and cruel over the engines and surf. He twisted the throttle and popped the clutch. He hit the Pacific at thirty miles an hour. The water stopped the motorcycle, but inertia insisted the rider continue. He flipped over the handlebars in a pinwheel of hair and arms and legs and sailed forty feet before he belly flopped and disappeared beneath the waves. Roscoe did not know whether to laugh or call a lifeguard. Benjamin bobbed up and whipped his wet hair behind his back.

“What a rush!” he yelled. “Come on in, Roscoe. The water’s fine!”

“What the hell,” Roscoe said.

He twisted the throttle. He hit a big wave and went over the handlebars as Benjamin had. On the second flip he landed flat on his belly. He knocked the wind out of himself and floundered badly. Benjamin had to drag him to the beach, where he spent five minutes retching up seawater. All the while Benjamin stood over him, dripping and laughing madly, and if the little bastard had not just saved his life Roscoe would have ripped his lungs out.

Duncan stood at bat in his Cheyenne Dodgers uniform, squinting at the boy on the mound. Dewey Humboldt’s fast ball was fabled in Wyoming little league. Only Benjamin was more dreaded, but since his early retirement, Dewey reigned supreme. Rumor was that Deputy Steve Humboldt, Dewey’s father, had clocked his fast ball at eighty-six miles per hour using a Laramie County traffic radar gun. Duncan had never hit off Dewey. He imagined the ball smacking his helmet and knocking him brain dead to the dirt. He near wished it would. Fiona had pushed him into sports when he expressed an interest in art, even though she knew he was not what you would call an athlete. Hands sweating, he watched ten-year-old Dewey pitch. Duncan closed his eyes and swung.

“Strike one!” yelled the umpire.

Duncan wondered what chewing tobacco was like. He heard Dewey chewed and his dad allowed it. That was intimidating in itself. Add an eighty-six mile per hour fast ball and Satan himself was no more feared. Dewey spit brown fluid in the dirt and pitched. Duncan swung.

“Strike two!” the umpire yelled.

Fiona leapt to her feet in the stands, yelling what he hoped was encouragement. Her mouth moved but no words emerged.
That’s odd,
Duncan thought. Sean Delaney sat three rows behind her. He smiled and waved. Duncan waved back. Tiffy sat in the next row back. She was naked again. Young Benjamin sat in her lap. Duncan turned back to the mound, vaguely disturbed. He crouched and held the bat high behind his shoulder.

I’ll show them,
he thought.

Dewey pitched. Duncan swung. He heard a deafening crack and thought,
hey, I did it!
But his feet refused to move and the ground rose up to meet him and the next thing he knew he was sucking dirt. He pulled his head up far enough to see Benjamin run from the stands to lay Dewey flat with a malicious right cross. Officer Humboldt grabbed Benjamin. Benjamin kneed him in the groin and father joined son on the turf. Benjamin raised his fist to the sky and yelled his battle cry. That’s when the outfield dog piled him. Duncan tried to rise, but his limbs were as ponderous as his eyelids. The last thing he saw before the world faded into darkness was Fiona assisting Dewey to his feet. She coldly regarded Duncan lying battered on the earth, and all he could think of as he drifted into the grip of a concussion, was that he had let her down again.

Duncan woke at noon and found Benjamin laying naked on the kitchen floor, the wet clothes beside him smelling of seaweed. He covered him with a blanket and threw the clothes in the sink. He took a quart of juice from the refrigerator and drank until his sinuses hurt. He showered and brushed his teeth. He wiped the steam from the mirror and looked at himself. He chanced a smile and his reflection smiled back.

Because I’ve never wanted a man before.

He dressed and went back into the kitchen. He stepped over Benjamin and started frying bacon and eggs.

“Make mine over easy,” Benjamin mumbled.

“Make your own damn eggs,” Duncan said.

But he buttered some toast, put it and the bacon and the eggs on a plate and set the plate on the floor next to Benjamin’s head. Benjamin rolled his face onto the plate and began eating without benefit of hands or utensils while Duncan cooked another portion for himself.

“We took care of that bitch for you,” Benjamin muttered into his eggs.

“You didn’t hurt her, did you?”

“Hell no! What do you think I am? Hurt a woman.”

“Well,” Duncan said, “well, good.”

“We hurt her pocketbook.”

“I don’t want to know about it.”

Duncan put a fresh canvas on his easel. He set his plate aside and picked up his pallet. He stared at the canvas for a minute. He put his pallet down and sat on the couch. Benjamin rolled off his plate, got up, and wiped his face with a paper towel. He went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Duncan stared at the canvas, wondering what it meant that she did not live with Sheila. Maybe Champagne and Cassandra were wrong. He hoped so, as much as he feared they were right. If Pris was a lesbian, fine, he could not change that. A preference was a preference. God could alter it but seldom did. But the way she looked at him, the words she said and how she said them, convinced him that she was at least sixty percent heterosexual. Duncan would have settled for fifty-one percent.

Because I’ve never wanted a man before you
.

He did not know whether to be ecstatic or depressed. She took all hope away, ripped it up, and handed the torn pieces back. He wished he could make sense of the jigsaw puzzle that remained. He got a beer and sat back on the couch. Cat crawled into his lap and rubbed his head against Duncan’s chest. Duncan kissed his head.

“It’s your fault,” he said, knowing it was not true even as he spoke, “if it wasn’t for you I never would have met her.”

Benjamin came out of the shower. He dressed and brushed his hair. He grabbed a six-pack from the refrigerator and picked up his keys.

“Come on,” he said, “let’s get out of here.”

Duncan stood and put on his hat. “Where are we going?”

“How should I know?”

Duncan followed him out the door. “You’re driving though, right?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” Duncan said, “I’d hate to get lost.”

At dusk Benjamin parked on a bluff overlooking the valley. They had spent the day following a map of stars’ homes bought from a street corner girl in Beverly Hills. They saw seventeen houses and thirty parked cars but not a single star, though Benjamin claimed he spied a reporter for
Entertainment Tonight
. Now Los Angeles spread below them like a circuit board, with lights like electrons pulsing down the streets and around the hills to the mountains beyond. Thunder heads drifted in over the valley from the north but the night was otherwise warm. They sat on the tailgate and drank beer.

“I’ve been having strange dreams,” Duncan said.

“You’ve
been having strange dreams. Last night I dreamed I was back on the reservation standing on a grassy hill with a shaven head and an Igloo brand cooler. Two virgins in wet suits smeared mayonnaise on my scalp. They took bread from the cooler and sprinkled crumbs on the mayonnaise. Crows fell from the clouds and perched on my shoulders, pecking at the bread crumbs. When the crumbs were gone, the crows kept pecking and soon bloodied my head. I ran but the crows flew beside me. I put my arms out and the crows grabbed my sleeves in their claws and lifted me into the sky. We flew across Wyoming until my shirt ripped and fell away and I dropped into a swimming pool. When I came up for air, there was Fiona, naked on a rubber raft beneath a wildly humping Woody. Not wanting to be rude, I submerged and sat on the bottom. I breathed water and watched fish swim by.” Benjamin turned to Duncan. “What could it mean?”

“Haven’t a clue,” Duncan admitted.

“Me neither. Are your dreams anything like that?”

“Not even close.”

Lightning struck far off in the valley. A minute later thunder rolled past.

Duncan said, “how did your date go?”

“It wasn’t a date.”

“Struck out, did you?”

“Yes and no. She wanted to go to bed with me. I refused. I told her I wasn’t that kind of guy.”

“But you are that kind of guy.”

“She doesn’t have to know that.” He took binoculars out of the glove compartment. He sat back in the bed with Duncan and raised the glasses.

“Let me guess,” Duncan said, “Angela lives down there.”

“Yellow Spanish Colonial with the pool.”

“And stalking her is a good idea because …”

“I’m not stalking. I’m gathering intelligence. We’re going out tonight. I want to see what she’s wearing.”

“More like you want to see her put it on.”

“That too.”

They watched the rain cross the valley from the mountains. Lightning sparked, thunder burst. A Mercedes parked beside the Purgatory Truck. A thin woman with expensive hair and a rottweiler got out and stood beside them. Together they watched the sky poke its fiery tongue from its mouth to lick the ground. A bolt struck a mile off. Thunder rattled Duncan’s bones. When the rain came, Benjamin put the glasses down and lay back in the bed. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth and let the rain beat down upon him. Lightning struck again.

“It’s all so beautiful,” the woman with the rottweiler said.

The dog lifted its leg and urinated on the Purgatory Truck.

“Most of it, anyway,” Duncan agreed.

Ten

The water was warmer, the sun brighter, and the day nicer than any one of the three had a legitimate right to be.
Still,
Fiona thought as she pulled herself out of the hotel pool,
it certainly is a nice change from Cheyenne
. She slipped her sandals on and dried herself with a thick towel, conscious of the reverent stares of seven males and three females of various ages and economic status who lounged by the pool. She wore a white bikini recently purchased at a boutique on Rodeo Drive, and three days by the pool had transformed her skin from a pasty cream to an earthy tan that accented her luminous blue eyes. Her body was already trim from riding, but hours a day in the pool and in the hotel gym had made her downright tight. She frowned. It would be an ideal vacation if not for her troubles with Duncan.

She donned tan Bermuda shorts and a white cotton tank top over her damp bikini. She relinquished her towel to a towel boy and signed the tag for the banana daiquiri she had sipped by the pool. She thought about Woody as she strolled back to her bungalow. The sex of the last few days was as close to perfect as any she had experienced since Sean Delaney’s death. She sighed. Now there was a man with stamina. Woody could not compare in vigor, technique, or inventiveness, but what the man lacked in talent was more than compensated by the recent mood. She reached her room and went inside. She showered then stood naked before the mirror. Her breasts were not big, but that had saved her from sagging, and though she seldom did, she could venture out bra-less with no fear of embarrassing herself. There was no sag in her backside either, she proudly noted. She put on a floral patterned silk skirt, a lace bra, a light yellow silk blouse, and tan leather sandals. She regarded herself again. She took off the blouse and bra and put the blouse back on. She wondered if Woody would notice. She looked at her watch. One o’clock. She was late for lunch.

As she walked down a garden path to the main building, she speculated on what she would do if Duncan found out about her and Woody. Despite Benjamin’s repeated assertions, she had no clue that Duncan actually believed that she had relentlessly humped Woody since Duncan was old enough to know what humping was. He did not care and never had. If fornicating made Fiona happy, then it was all right by him. Duncan liked and respected Woody, though he wished the man would show more spine.

“Mrs. Delaney,” the maitre’de said when Fiona entered the restaurant, “Mr. McCune asked that your lunch be sent to the pool.”

That was like Woody.
Downright obsequious,
she thought. But as bothersome as that could be, it was also one of his principal attractions. She invariably knew what to expect from Woody and that held its own comfort. It was like having a friend, a lover, and a butler all for a working man’s wage. She felt a little guilty. She cared for Woody, and if not for the memory of her departed husband and Duncan’s imagined disapproval, she could have considered making their relationship permanent. That was not the right word.
Legal
was more like it.

She spotted Woody at a table by the deep end. What appeared from a distance to be a woman sat beside him with her back to Fiona. The woman wore faded jeans and a t-shirt and had long black hair. Woody wore shorts and sandals and a tank top that said
I Love LA!!!
Woody’s arms were tan to mid-biceps, as was his face and neck, but the rest of his skin and the legs protruding from the shorts were an angry red despite repeated applications of sun block. He spoke earnestly to his companion, gesticulating as he talked. Woody’s friend appeared to be eating Fiona’s lunch. Woody saw her coming. She could not hear, but Fiona imagined the two syllables he uttered were
uh
and
oh
. Woody grabbed the fork from his companion’s hand and the knife from her plate and threw them along with his own cutlery into the pool. Fiona wondered why he did that, until Woody’s friend stood and turned and then she forgot all about the silverware at the bottom of the pool.