Earth Angel (27 page)

“Aren’t we digressing from the story you forced me to tell?”

“Don’t be a jerk. Answer me.”

He dunked his head under the water again, rinsing the soap out of his hair. When he bobbed up again, I reminded
him that he was rinsing in soapy water. He shrugged, unconcerned. “The answer is no, I did not remain celibate. I had sex
with some of the widows, who were not allowed to remarry anyway. They seemed to be the happiest members of the tribe. They
were respected, they had important jobs, they had children, and they answered to no one. Often they had sex with the young
single boys, sort of broke them in sexually.”

“How old were these women?”

“Twenties and thirties, mostly.”

I reached out for his penis again. This time it was semi-hard. “Now you are getting off.”

“I have a few fond memories.”

I released him again. “So what happened with the girl, the one who committed adultery?”

“They raped her. Each man in the tribe, except me. And because I refused to embrace their family values, the tribal elders
gave me a choice. I could be expelled on the spot, sent into the jungle to find my way back home, or I could do combat with
the husband of the adulterous wife.”

I squirmed in the tub, excited. “And?”

“Well, being expelled was suicide. I wouldn’t have lasted three days in the jungle by myself. And we were weeks away from
the nearest town. So I chose combat. Her husband was about thirty, small but extremely muscular. We each were given knives
and a ten-foot rope was tied, one end around his ankle, the other around my ankle.”

“Christ, it’s like a movie. Did you live?”

He splashed water at me. “The excitement pretty much ends there. The chief said the equivalent of ‘Go!’ and the husband leaped
on top of me, knocked me down, and batted away my knife. Took a total of three seconds. He straddled me, trying to decide
what to do. He wasn’t permitted to kill me but he could disfigure me any way he chose. He looked down at me, right in my eyes,
and I swear I thought I saw some sort of gratitude. Anyway, he
decided to just cut my leg with his name.” David raised his leg. The scars glistened with soapy water: three parallel wavy
lines with a straight diagonal cut across all three. He touched the scars with his fingers as if he were reading Braille.
“His name means ‘waterfall.’ Coincidentally, their sign for water is similar to the ancient Egyptians’ hieroglyphic for water.
Think there’s a connection?”

The scar curved over his thigh, rainbowing the quadriceps, which bend the thigh at the hips and straighten the knee, and the
sartorius, which bends the thigh and knee. Probably both were affected. Possibly surgery could correct the damage. I wondered
why he hadn’t had any, but didn’t want to press him now. “What happened to the girl, after the rapes?” I asked.

“Happened? Nothing. Her husband took her back, a rare but not unheard-of thing in that tribe. As for me, my leg got infected
and the tribal doctor treated me with maggots. Apparently they eat away the dead, infected flesh.”

“The maggots of blowflies do,” I said, “including the bluebottle and greenbottle. During World War I they used to put sterile
blowfly larvae into wounds to prevent bacterial growth. But maggots of some of the other flies don’t discriminate between
dead and living flesh. So don’t try this at home with a housefly.”

He gave me a funny look. “How’d you know all that?”

I shrugged. “Crossword puzzle? PBS special?”

“I wish I’d known. I saw those fat maggots eating away at me and nearly passed out.”

I touched the scars, leaned over and pressed my lips to them, running my lips the length. I sat up and looked at him. “That
was brave, what you did. I mean, about the girl. I’m impressed. Truly impressed.” Had I ever said that to Tim? Tim, who had
done so many impressive things in his life. I was sure I had. But had he ever said he was impressed with me? Why would he?
He was the genuine thing, a silver
dollar. I was the copper alloy sandwiched in the middle of a quarter, the part you never see.

“You believe me then?” David said.

“What do you mean? Believe what?”

“You believe my story. The whole thing.”

“Of course. Oh, please don’t tell me you made that up, that you really fell down some hill while hiking. That would really
piss me off. You didn’t, did you?”

He smiled. “I’m starving. You want to grab a bite?”

I looked at his crotch. “I’m thinking about it.”

“W
HAT’S SHE DOING NOW
?” R
ACHEL ASKED
.

“Whatever she’s doing,” Josh said, “it’s disgusting.”

“She’s trying to ‘see’ what Heather is thinking,” I explained.

“But she’s got her fingers plugged in the girl’s ears.”

Josh made a face. “Looks like she’s cleaning them out.”

“How would you know what that looks like,” Rachel said.

We all stared at the video, Mrs. Hudson with her fingers jammed into Heather’s ears. Their eyes closed. Both of them rocking
slightly, trancelike.

“She said it was like a radio antenna or something,” David said. “She could pick up the vibrations from Heather’s brain. Sometimes
she sticks her fingers in her daughter’s nose because it’s like a direct funnel to the brain. But Heather wouldn’t let her
do that in front of us.”

“No, duh,” Josh said.

“Fast forward, David,” Rachel said. “This part is gross.”

“Not so fast,” Josh said. “Heather’s kinda cute.”

“You think she’s cute?” Rachel said. “Look at that haircut.”

“Now, now, is that the kind of thing a good Jew would say?” Josh said. “I’m telling your rabbi.”

I stared at Heather’s elongated hands, still wondering about Marfan’s syndrome. “Don’t you think her fingers are too long?”
I said.

“For what?” Josh said.

“For this,” David said. He did a Three Stooges movement in front of Josh’s face, up and down with his hand, then side to side.
Then he pretended to poke Josh in the eyes with his split fingers. “Cer-oit-anly, Moe,” he said. “Woo, woo, woo, woo.”

Josh laughed, hit his own fist, which swung around and lightly conked David on the head.

“Oooh, wise guy, huh?” Rachel mimicked. She placed her hand under her chin, waggled her fingers at both of them, then barked
in an amazing imitation of Curly.

I had no Three Stooges schtick, so I just munched on the grilled peanut-butter-and-avocado sandwich David had made for me
when we got here. As a child, I wasn’t allowed to watch
The Three Stooges
because my father didn’t like the fact that they were Jews. Moe and Curly Howard were brothers (Shemp was also their brother
and an occasional Stooge), and Larry Fine was the third Jew. “That’s not the way Jews should be portrayed,” he said. “We have
enough troubles.” Dad once heard a news commentator referring to The Troubles in Ireland, and thought he meant anti-Semitism
there. After that he always referred to anti-Semitism as The Troubles. No one tried to correct him. So, to Dad the Three Stooges
were equivalent to Hop Sing on
Bonanza
and Step ‘N’ Fetchit in the movies.

“Do you believe in this stuff, David?” Josh asked, watching Mrs. Hudson press her forehead to her daughter’s, like a faith
healer or a Conehead.

“Yes,” David said, “I believe the Three Stooges were gods sent among us to show us the True Path.”

“I meant this psychic stuff. You believe they can see stuff, like the future and past?”

“Only God can see that,” Rachel said.

“What about the prophets?” Josh said. “Maybe they were just psychics with a road show.”

“The ancient Hebrews didn’t believe the prophets had special powers,” David said. “The prophets were just wise men whose visions
of the future were based on what they saw at the time. Their predictions were more like warnings than prophecies. Like Orwell
writing
1984
or Huxley’s
Brave New World
.”

“I think it’s a scam,” Josh said.

Rachel stood up, picked up my empty plate and whisked it off to the kitchen. I heard her wash it, dry it, and replace it in
the cupboard. As if I’d never been here.

Josh started up the stairs.

“Hey, Miss Manners,” David called.

Josh sighed and said formally, “ ‘Night, John-Boy, ’night, John-Girl. Okay?”

David nodded. “Yeah, okay. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Josh,” I said.

Rachel returned from the kitchen, kissed David on the cheek, shook my hand. “Thank you for coming to visit,” she said. “May
God keep you and bless you.” Then she charged up the stairs two at a time yelling, “Josh, I hear you in my room. Leave my
CD’s alone.”

I stood up. “Well, now that I’ve been fed and blessed, I may as well wander on home.”

But David was already rewinding the videotape. “There’s something I want you to see.”

“I saw the tape, David. Plus, I was there.”

“Yeah, but you missed this. So did I at first. Watch, this is interesting.” He stopped the tape, pressed Play. The tape ran.
We were all walking down the hall, Mrs. Hudson and Heather in front of us, me slightly in front of David. David zoomed in
on my butt, which I hadn’t noticed him doing
at the time, but which got a laugh when Josh and Rachel saw it. We were in Mrs. Hudson’s study now. “Here!” David said. “Right
here. Watch closely.” He paused the video and started clicking it ahead one frame at a time. Mrs. Hudson was at her desk,
reaching for the open police file. David froze the frame. “Look.”

I got on my knees and leaned toward the TV screen until I was about eight inches away. “It looks like a memo. It says: ‘To:
Santa Barbara Police Dept. From: Secret Admirer. Re: Next Kidnapping.’ ” I looked over at David. “Jesus, David, it’s from
the, serial kidnapper. Shit!”

David was kneeling beside me, reading from the screen. “All it says is: ‘If I halve the fare, I’ll be there.’ What the hell’s
that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a plane fare. If he only pays half, that’s where he’ll be. But from where? To where?”

David shook his head. “Too many variables with that. There’s no point to a note like this unless the person is trying to show
how smart they are. That means we’re supposed to figure it out from the note.”

“You’re assuming sanity. Maybe the note makes perfect sense to the kidnapper. He probably thinks he’s some kind of Professor
Moriarty.”

“He has gotten away with it so far.” David ran into the kitchen and returned with a notepad and pencil. He copied the note
down and shut off the videotape and TV. “We’re two educated people, an anthropologist and a dentist. We talk like we’re smart—”

“There’s a difference between smartass and smart. Smartass knows a lot of stuff, smart knows how to use the stuff practically.”

“Well, this is a good time to see if we can be more than a couple of smartasses.” He set the paper on the floor between us.
“Now, think lovely thoughts,” he said.

“That’s from
Peter Pan
,” I said. “See? We know lots of useless crap like that.”

“Don’t be so serious. We’re just doing it for fun. Like watching TV. Are you any good at figuring out the killer on a TV mystery?”

“Sure. I just look in the
TV Guide
, see who the top listed guest star is. That’s the killer.” I pushed the paper away from me. “This is serious business, David.
Those little girls suffered great emotional trauma. It seems wrong to just be playing with it for our own amusement.”

David crumbled up the paper and shoved it into his pocket. “Okay. What do you want to do?” He lifted his eyes toward the ceiling.
“Something we can do with two nosy teens in the house.”

He was just being nice, letting me know he wanted me. But something inside me turned cruel. “You did it with Annie here, didn’t
you?”

His face flushed slightly. “Yes.”

“Not that I want to, I’m just pointing out a fact. It is possible, even with two nosy teens around.”

He leaned closer to me and lowered his voice, the way parents must learn to speak in a household with children. How many corners
had I hidden behind in my parents’ house, when I was supposed to be in bed asleep, listening to their low rumbling conversation,
sometimes punctuated by my mother’s naughty giggles. Trying to discover what it was grownups said to each other. Now, here
I was a grownup, and this is what I was saying: “She’s an old friend, David, I understand that…” It sounded high-school bitchy,
even to me, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “… and sleeping with two different women in two nights might be hard to explain
to the kids. Right?”

David didn’t say anything right away. He took my hand, held it for a minute, looking at it. Then he lifted his head and looked
at my eyes. “I’ve been divorced for four years now. I think when I inherited the kids, Lisa, my ex, came to help thinking
that might lead to some sort of reconciliation between us. I didn’t think about that then. Or maybe I did
and I was willing to use it because I was so scared to do this alone. Maybe when I went into some tribe, some foreign culture,
I was arrogant enough to screw with them, throw the monkey wrench in and see what chaos develops. But my job here, my responsibility
to Rachel and Josh, is the opposite. To combat chaos, kick the shit out of anything that could disrupt their lives any more
than has already happened. If I see someone like me around here, I’ve got to kill him.” His voice started steady but now was
just a little shaky. “Lisa lived here for the first four months. We had sex during that time. I don’t know, maybe I used Lisa.
Maybe she used me. In any event, when it became clear she and I were not going to reconcile, we parted. Lisa moved out.” He
shook his head hard. “No, it wasn’t that civilized. What happened was, I told her point blank we weren’t ever reconciling.
At first, she said fine, then she started acting weird, hostile. It was affecting the kids. So I threw her out.”

“What did she do?” I asked, mostly to let David know I was listening, to let him hear the apology in my tone.

“She was a ghostwriter for academics. Professors have to publish or perish, but most of them can’t write anything worth reading.
They have a billion facts and ideas, but no communication skills, at least when it comes to writing. She specialized in historical
biographies. The profs would write their dry-as-dirt historical biographies, and she would come in and make it readable. She
was very smart.”