Nobody Lives Forever (24 page)

“You could always post her bond, take her home with you and play big sister,” Jim said.

“I have enough problem people in my life already,” Dusty said playfully, cutting her eyes at Rick, who had been deliberately distant all evening. “But thanks anyway.”

Little Benjie from next door was visiting and Jennifer was giddy with excitement. They jumped up and down on the bed, hurled pillows and screamed with laughter. They ate cake and ice cream and colored with Benjie's Crayolas. Jennifer was quite pleased that she stayed inside the lines better than he did
.

Laurel was afraid of being alone. She usually welcomed company, even a three-year-old, but this time she had been reluctant to baby-sit. She could not trust herself to be responsible for a child. She was too upset, too much was happening. She was even afraid to go to the fitness center to exercise, because of violent, terrifying dreams about Barry, the aerobics instructor. Another new torment was the magazines. She had to reach the mailbox every day before Rick so she could hide them. She had ordered the

She had wanted to make excuses to Beth, but there was no way out. Beth's pregnant sister in Kendall had gone into premature labor after a minor auto accident. Her insurance executive husband was out of town on business.

Without warning, Beth had appeared at the door, Benjie holding her hand. He was already in his pajamas, carrying his coloring book and crayons. “Would you mind?” She said it was a family emergency. “I have to go to the hospital to be with Sue. I can't take Benjie, and Ben has got to go find out where her car has been towed to and what the damage is.” She did not wait for an answer. “Honestly, Laurel, I don't know what I did before you moved in here.” She hugged Benjie and told him to be good. He nodded solemnly.

“No tears. He
loves
to come here,” Beth whispered to Laurel. “I'll call you in a couple of hours. He should be sleepy, he only had a short nap this afternoon.”

Benjie waved at his mother's car from a front window, then turned expectantly. She was already waiting, impatiently shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Hi, Benjie,” she whispered. “Laurel isn't here anymore. I'm Jennifer!” He whooped with delight and they ran, giggling, to play trampoline on the bed.

“Wanna play policeman?” Jennifer asked. They were smeared with chocolate ice cream and tired of coloring.

“Yeah, policemans,” Benjie said.

Jennifer knew where to find Rick's old uniforms. Some of the shirts still bore the lightning-bolt insignia of the motor squad. The shiny boots were in the closet beneath them. Benjie put on Rick's visored police hat. It nearly covered his face. Pushing it up, he aimed a pudgy forefinger at Jennifer. “Bang! You're dead!” Jennifer clutched her chest dramatically and fell. They shrieked with glee.

“Want to see something?”

“Yeah,” said Benjie, game for anything.

“Come on,” she whispered.

“Okay,” he whispered back.

He tiptoed behind Jennifer to the night table on Rick's side of the bed. She slid open the drawer and lifted some folded T-shirts.

“It's Rick's,” she said proudly.

“Ohhhhh,” Benjie breathed in admiration.

The gun did look impressive, bright stainless steel with a short barrel.

“It's real,” he whispered. “Can I hold it?”

“Okay,” said Jennifer, “but now it's my turn to wear the hat.” He gave up the cap with little reluctance, enthralled by the shiny new toy.

Benjie's small hands could barely manage the weight of Rick's off-duty gun, a snub-nosed .38-caliber Smith and Wesson detective special. The weapon flopped heavily to one side. “Bang, bang,” he shouted, jerking the gun at Jennifer.

Then he turned it toward his face and peered gravely down the barrel. Pointing it again at Jennifer, he held it like a cowboy he'd seen on TV. Two little thumbs straining, he pulled back the hammer and cocked it.

“Jesus Christ!” Alex had emerged, hurling Jennifer against the wall, out of the line of fire. Lunging at Benjie, he snatched the gun away. Knocked off balance, Benjie sat down hard and began to wail.

“You could've killed somebody! This is not a toy for kids to play with,” Alex said. “Christ!” He held the hammer with his thumb, squeezing the trigger and letting the hammer down slowly. He flipped open the chamber, dropped the load, five hollow-point bullets, into his hand and stared down sternly. “Real guns are only for big people like me who know how to use them.” His voice was husky. “That's what the hell is wrong in this town. Nobody has any respect for guns. Got me, kid?”

Whimpering, Benjie nodded.

“Jennifer's been a bad girl,” Alex said. “She knows better. Shoot her and we're all in deep shit. You want to play with her some more?”

Benjie nodded, tears still glistening on his cheeks.

“Only if you promise to leave the gun alone.”

“I promise.”

Jennifer again emerged. Badly frightened when Alex had thrown her against the wall, she was crying too. She wiped her tears with a balled fist. “We can't play policeman anymore.”

Benjie nodded and then looked puzzled. “What was his name?”

“Alex,” she said, pouting. “He's a bad man.”

“Wanna watch cartoons?”

“There are no cartoons on now,” Jennifer said contemptuously. “It's too late.” She thought for a moment, then brightened. “I know another game, a kissing game.”

Benjie looked guarded. “Okay,” he said uncertainly.

“Good,” she said, unbuttoning her clothes. “Take off your pajamas, and I'll get Teddy.”

Little Bit could not believe her good fortune. The social worker trying to recruit her to participate not only in AIDS testing but in a job-training program had slammed out in a snit. It must have been something I said, she thought gleefully. Now she was alone in the interview room at the women's detention center.

The setting was not bleak, grim and institutional. There were no bars, in fact. The walls were painted yellow, with brightly colored murals. This was a cheerful place where inmates, called “residents” by the guards, could visit in comfort with their lawyers, their bail bondsmen, their families and even their children. There was lilting piped-in music, color TV in every room and even a fully equipped, inmate-operated beauty salon, where prisoners could have their hair done and their fingernails manicured before receiving visitors or making personal appearances in court. All in all, it was not a bad place. Even the food was good, prepared by inmates undergoing job training in the culinary sciences.

What Little Bit liked best about this new state-of-the-art jail, however, was the high window in the first-floor interview room where she sat, without restraints, waiting interminably for a matron to escort her back to her room. The window looked easy to open. It unlatched, to swing down during months when air-conditioning was not necessary and provide ventilation in a room where the inmates and their visitors often smoked.

Little Bit dragged the wooden table over to the wall. She placed her chair atop it, then climbed up onto the table. Standing on the chair, she could easily work on the window latch. “No problem,” she murmured.

In her crack cocaine-induced hyper state, from which she knew she all too soon would crash, she began to wonder if this was too easy. Maybe those asshole cops who busted her were setting her up for an attempted escape rap. She was just paranoid, she decided. The people who ran this user-friendly jail would not be party to any such setup. That would be entrapment and a violation of her rights.

The window came down with a creak and a fine scatter of dust. Then it was just a matter of getting a good grip on the top frame, hoisting herself up and throwing one leg over. The screen did not appear to be attached to any alarm. At least she could not see one. She hesitated, then heard a step in the corridor outside the room below. Now or never. Planting the sole of her foot firmly on the screen, she kicked it out. No alarm. Not an audible one, anyway. The screen made no clatter when it fell. What a break, she thought, the sidewalk below did not extend to the wall of the building. Instead, there was fucking grass and flowers. Landscaping. What a great jail! She would not have minded a longer stay, had it not been for two outside attractions, crack cocaine and her man, Jake the Snake.

The drop was no sweat, about twelve feet, onto soft dirt and grass. She clung to the lower frame of the window, stretched out her legs and let go, landing soundlessly, in a crouched position. Little Bit trotted across the street, stuck out her thumb and hitched a ride to the Boulevard with a friendly postal employee on his way home from work.

After Benjie and Jennifer fell asleep, Harriet climbed out of bed to clean up the mess. She was furious. That little bastard, she thought, fuming. Red crayon ground into the rug. Ice cream stains on her crocheted tablecloth. The bedclothes were a tangled mess, and the guest towels lay crumpled and sodden on the bathroom floor. The toilet had not been flushed, and the seat was wet. That was the last straw.

She stalked into the kitchen and drew the seven-inch butcher knife from the block on the counter. Pondering it for a moment, she slid it back into place and reached for the meat cleaver instead. She smiled at her reflection in its stainless steel surface and admired the curved easy-grip handle. Handcrafted in Germany, it was her favorite piece of cutlery. The cleaver never needed sharpening, but she liked to sharpen it anyway. She carried it to the bedroom and gently pushed open the door. Benjie was curled up in the middle of the bed, all rosy and angelic. His thumb was in his mouth and his eyes were closed.

Fury coursed through her as she watched him drooling onto her quilted bedspread. Her fingers tightened around the handle of the cleaver, then her shoulders sagged as she sighed audibly. The timing was not right.

It just would not do when they were so close to having it all. Action now, no matter how justifiable, would surely upset the others. Alex seemed to tolerate the little brat surprisingly well and Jennifer would be inconsolable at the loss of her only playmate. Marilyn was already furious because of what happened to Barry and because Laurel had tried to send back her breast enlarger. Laurel had unwrapped the package, addressed it and put it in her bag. Marilyn had emerged to unwrap and hide the thing. She used it faithfully for an hour every night, squeezing it between the palms of her hands, trying to build up those chest muscles. Afterward, she would strip in front of a mirror, examining her breasts from all angles, trying to discern an increase in her measurements.

Disposing of Benjie right now could create enough excitement to push Laurel over the edge. No telling what she might do. She was already shaky—especially since the scene at the post office, when she had emptied her bag searching for the parcel she intended to return to sender. Harriet could sense her mounting hysteria, particularly after she discovered the new black dress, appropriate for a funeral, hanging in the closet. The magazines had rattled her, too, because of the bills. How could she pay them? Well, that's her problem, Harriet thought. I am certainly entitled to
Good Housekeeping
and
Home and Garden
and
Gourmet.
Alex had demanded
Sports Illustrated, True Detective, Popular Mechanics
and
Penthouse.
So it seemed only fair that Marilyn should have
Playgirl, Cosmo
and
The National Enquirer.
And poor little Jennifer, all she wanted were subscriptions to
Jack and Jill
and some magazine about raccoons and woodchucks. It did not seem like too much to ask, so Harriet had helped her fill out the proper forms.

Reluctantly, she replaced the cleaver in her kitchen and finished cleaning up the mess. Soon she would have time to sit down for a cup of coffee and a few telephone calls. She and Alex had alternated lately, dialing Tawny Marie at four
A.M
. If not for Benjie and the chance that Beth might call or pop in at any time, they could have driven over to Pigeon Plum Circle to see if Rick and Dusty were at it again. Let them fuck around while they still can, she thought malevolently. She took out a notebook and began to sketch plans for converting Rick's study into a sewing room. Harriet was looking forward to getting married and becoming a police widow.

Then she could have the place all to herself
.

Rick stood in the doorway, gazing at Benjie and Laurel curled up together in peaceful slumber. The scene was touching after a tense tour of duty. The memo to internal affairs was written by not yet sent. It all seemed too impossible to believe, but stranger things happen all the time in Miami. He hated uncertainty. His usual unerring instinct for guilt was skewed. He was too close. Too much guilt of his own was involved. Dealing with strangers is so much easier.

The telephone rang, and he hurried to take it in the kitchen.

“What? Are you sure? Goddamn son of a bitch! How the hell? I don't believe this. Have uniforms hit the Jolly Roger Dream Bar and the Boulevard from Twenty-sixth Street to Seventy-ninth. Maybe I'll come back in for a while to see if we can pick her up fast. Shit! That broils my butt. We needed her.”

Laurel and Benjie trooped into the kitchen now, sleepy-eyed and curious. She was pulling on a terrycloth robe. Rick put the telephone down. “I'm sorry it woke you,” he muttered.

“What time is it?” She was apprehensively studying the wall clock. “Did you say you're going back to work?”

“Just for a little while,” he said, angrily pacing the kitchen and rubbing the back of his neck. “They lost a prisoner on us. Let her escape. Damn!”

“Coffee?”

“Yeah.” He saw Benjie staring wide-eyed. “Take my advice, Ben, don't grow up to be a policeman. It's too frustrating.”

“I like policemens,” Benjie said, looking hopefully at a tin of fresh-baked brownies on the sideboard.

Laurel poured two cups of coffee and a glass of milk. She wanted to tell Rick about the clothes, the magazines, all the lost hours and the inexplicable events that were frightening her, but this was not the time.

“It's that country club of a jail,” he was saying, “the women's detention center. What the hell kind of operation are they running over there anyhow? We put this … woman,” he said, glancing at Benjie who sat at rapt attention, “that we're trying to flip in there last night to chill out. Apparently they go off and leave her in an interview room with some social worker who takes off. Before they send somebody to escort our prisoner back to her—her suite—she drags the conference table over to the window, puts a chair on top of it, climbs up, opens it, kicks out the screen and out she goes. By the time those cretins noticed she was missing she was probably … having a beer in Opa-Locka.”

“You mean she
jumped
out the window?” Laurel, like Benjie, was all eyes. “Did she get hurt?”

“It's no big deal. It was probably only ten, twelve feet, onto grass. And she was motivated. Wait till Dusty hears this. She's gonna be PO'ed.”

Laurel poured cereal into a bowl for Benjie, who looked disappointed, his big eyes still caressing the brownies. She watched Rick, hoping that when he calmed down, they could talk. Maybe after Benjie goes home, she thought hopefully.

He got up from the table, paced the length of the kitchen twice more, then gulped the rest of his coffee. “I'm gonna run back out and see if I can spot her in her usual haunts before she relocates.”

He ruffled Benjie's hair in passing, then slammed out the door. She winced at the sound of gravel flying as he backed too fast out of the driveway.

Two hours later he was back, empty-handed, frustrated and still raging about sloppy security at the women's detention center.