The Stupidest Angel (9 page)

Her house smelled of eucalyptus and sandalwood and had a woodstove with a glass window that warmed the room with orange light. The bat was locked outside for the night.

"You're a cop?" Lena said, moving away from Tucker Case on the couch. She'd gotten past the bat. He'd explained the bat, sort of. He'd been married to a woman from a Pacific island and had gotten the bat in a custody battle. Things like that happened. She'd gotten the house they were sitting in, in her divorce from Dale, and it still had a black marble Jacuzzi tub with bronze Greek erotic figures inset in a border around the edge. The jetsam of divorce can be embarrassing, so you couldn't fault someone a bathtub or fruit bat rescued out of love's shipwreck, but he might have mentioned he was a cop before he suggested burying her ex and going to dinner.

"No, no, not a real cop. I'm here working for the DEA." Tuck moved closer to her on the couch.

"So you're a drug cop?" He didn't look like a cop. A golf pro, maybe, that blond hair and the lines around the eyes from too much sun, but not a cop. A TV cop, maybe—the vain, bad cop, who has something going on with the female district attorney.

"No, I'm a pilot. They subcontract independent helicopter pilots to fly agents into pot-growing areas like Big Sur so they can spot patches hidden in the forest with infrared. I'm just working for them here for a couple of months."

"And after a couple of months?" Lena couldn't believe she was worried about commitment from this guy.

"I'll try to get another job."

"So you'll go away."

"Not necessarily. I could stay."

Lena moved back toward him on the couch and examined his face for the hint of a smirk. The problem was, since she'd met him, he'd always worn the hint of a smirk. It was his best feature. "Why would you stay?" she said. "You don't even know me."

"Well, it might not be about you." He smiled.

She smiled back. It was about her. "It is about me."

"Yeah."

He was leaning over and there was going to be a kiss and that would be okay, she thought, if the night hadn't been so horrible. It would be okay if they hadn't shared so much history in so short a time. It would be okay if, if . . .

He kissed her.

Okay, she was wrong. It was okay. She put her arms around him and kissed him back.

Ten minutes later she was down to just her sweater and panties, she had driven Tucker Case deeply enough into the corner of the couch that his ears were baffled with cushions, and he couldn't hear her when she pushed back from him and said, "This doesn't mean that we're going to bed together."

"Me, too," said Tuck, pulling her closer.

She pushed back again. "You can't just assume that this is going to happen."

"I think I have one in my wallet," he said, trying to lift her sweater over her head.

"I don't do this sort of thing," she said, wrestling with his belt buckle.

"I had a test for my pilot physical a month ago," he said as he liberated her breasts from their combed cotton yoke of oppression. "Clean as a whistle."

"You're not listening to me!"

"You look beautiful in this light."

"Does doing this so soon after, you know—does doing this make me evil?"

"Sure, you can call it a weasel if you want to."

And so, with that tender honesty, that frank connection, the coconspirators chased away each other's loneliness, the smell of grave-digging sweat rising romantic in the room as they fell in love. A little.

Despite Theo's concern, Molly wasn't at the old chapel, she was getting a visit from an old friend. Not a friend, exactly, but a voice from the past.

"Well, that was just nuts,"
he said.
"You can't feel good about that."

"Shut up," said Molly, "I'm trying to drive."

According to the
DSM-IV,
the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,
you had to have at least two of a number of symptoms in order to be considered as having a psychotic episode, or, as Molly liked to think of it, an "artistic" moment. But there was an exception, a single symptom that could put you in the batshit column, and that was "a voice or voices commenting on the activities of daily life." Molly called it "the Narrator," and she hadn't heard from him in over five years—not since she'd gone and stayed on her medication as she had promised Theo. That had been the agreement, if she stayed on her meds, Theo would stay off of his—well, more specifically, Theo would not have anything to do with his drug of choice, marijuana. He'd had quite a habit, going back twenty years before they'd met.

Molly had stuck to the agreement with Theo; she'd even gotten decertified by the state and gone off financial aid. A resurgence in royalties from her old movies had helped with the expenses, but lately she'd started falling short.

"It's called an enabler,"
said the Narrator.
"The Drug Fiend and the Warrior Babe Enabler, that's you two."

"Shut up, he's not a drug fiend," she said, "and I'm not the Warrior Babe."

"You did him right there in the graveyard,"
said the Narrator.
"That is not the behavior of a sane woman, that is the behavior of Kendra, Warrior Babe of the Outland."

Molly cringed at the mention of her signature character. On occasion, the Warrior Babe persona had leaked off the big screen and into her own reality. "I was trying to keep him from noticing that I might not be a hundred percent."

" 'Might not be a hundred percent'? You were driving a Christmas tree the size of a Winnebago down the street. You're way off a hundred percent, darlin'. "

"What do you know? I'm fine."

"You're talking to me, aren't you?"

"Well . . ."

"I think I've made my point."

She'd forgotten how smug he could be.

Okay, maybe she was having a few more artistic moments than usual, but she hadn't had a break with reality. And it was for a good cause. She'd taken the money she'd saved on her meds to pay for a Christmas present for

Theo. It was on layaway down at the glass blower's gallery: a handblown dichromatic glass bong in the Tiffany style. Six hundred bucks, but Theo would so love it. He'd destroyed his collection of bongs and water pipes right after they'd met, a symbol of his break with his pot habit, but she knew he missed it.

"Yeah,"
said the Narrator.
"He'll need that bong when he finds out he's coming home to the Warrior Babe."

"Shut up. Theo and I just had an adventurous romantic moment. I am not having a break."

She pulled into Brine's Bait, Tackle, and Fine Wines to pick up a six-pack of the dark bitter beer Theo liked and some milk for the morning. The little store was a miracle of eclectic supply, one of the few places on the planet where you could buy a fine Sonoma Merlot, a wedge of ripened French Brie, a can of 10W-30, and a carton of night crawlers. Robert and Jenny Masterson had owned the little shop since before Molly had come to town. She could see Robert by himself behind the counter, tall with salt-and-pepper hair, looking a little hangdog as he read a science magazine and sipped a diet Pepsi. Molly liked Robert. He'd always been kind to her, even when she was considered the village's resident crazy lady.

"Hey, Robert," she said as she came through the door. The place smelled of egg rolls. They sold them out of the back, where they had a pressure fryer. She breezed past the counter toward the beer cooler.

"Hey, Molly." Robert looked up, a little startled. "Uh, Molly, you okay?"

Crap,
she thought. Had she forgotten to brush the pine needles out of her hair? She probably looked a mess. She said, "Yeah, I'm fine. Theo and I were just putting up the Christmas tree at the Santa Rosa Chapel. You and Jenny are coming to Lonesome Christmas, aren't you?"

"Of course," Robert said, his voice still a little strained. He seemed to be making an effort not to look at her. "Uh, Molly, we kind of have a policy here." He tapped the sign by the counter.
no shirt, no shoes, no service.

Molly looked down. "Oh my gosh, I forgot."

"It's okay."

"I left my sneakers in the car. I'll just run out and put them on."

"That would be great, Molly. Thanks."

"No problem."

"I know it's not on the sign, Molly, but while you're out there, you might want to put some pants on, too. It's sort of implied."

"Sure thing," she said, breezing by the counter and out the door, feeling now that, yes, it seemed a little cooler out than when she'd left the house. And yes, there were her jeans and panties on the passenger seat next to her sneakers.

"I told you,"
said the Narrator.

BE OF GOOD CHEER; 

THEY MIGHT HAVE PUT A TREE 

UP YOUR BUM

The Archangel Raziel found, after some consideration, that he did not care for being run over by a Swedish automobile. As far as things "dirtside" went, he liked Snickers bars, barbecued pork ribs, and pinochle; he also enjoyed
Spider-Man, Days of Our Lives,
and
Star Wars
(although the concept of fictional film eluded the angel and he thought they were all documentaries); and you just couldn't beat raining fire on the Egyptians or smiting the bejeezus out of some Philistines with lightning bolts (Raziel was good with weather), but overall, he could do without missions to Earth, humans and their machines in general, and (now) Volvo station wagons in particular. His broken bones had knit nicely and the deep gouges in his skin were filling in even as he came upon the chapel, but all things considered, he could go a very long time not being run over by a Volvo again and feel just dandy about it.

He brushed at the all-weather radial tire print that ran up the front of his black duster and across his angelic face. Licking his lips, he tasted vulcanized rubber, thinking that it wouldn't be bad with hot sauce or perhaps chocolate sprinkles. (There is little variety of flavors in heaven, and an abundance of bland white cake has been served to the heavenly host over the eons, so Raziel had fallen in the habit of tasting things while dirtside, just for the contrast. Once, in the third century
b.c
., he had consumed the better part of a bucket of camel urine before his friend the Archangel Zoe slapped it out of his hand and informed him that it was, despite the piquant bouquet, nasty.)