Trailer Park Noir (19 page)

“That’s all,” Kendra said.

“You were playing with him.”

“Yes. On the kitchen floor. He was chasing my hand in circles. He got dizzy, and – “ She giggled. “ – oh, you should’ve seen him, Mommy, he was wobbling all over the place, and all of a sudden, he just squatted and peed. It was my fault, I shouldn’t have done that to him.”

There seemed to be nothing suspicious about Kendra’s story. Anna did not know if Kendra was even
capable
of lying to her. Kendra had never, to Anna’s knowledge, lied to her. Why should she start now?

“Just don’t get him so worked up indoors, okay?” Anna said. She looked down at the little dog, who was looking up at her, impatiently awaiting some attention from her. Anna patted the cushion beside her, and Dexter hopped up on the couch. She petted him, and he wagged his whole body. She rolled him on his side, then onto his back and rubbed his tummy. “You like that, you little devil?”

Dexter made a playful sound in his throat.

Anna lifted her hand and the dog struggled to get back on his feet. She petted him some more.

“Dexter seems to have made himself at home here,” Anna said.

“Oh, he has,” Kendra said. “He’s made himself
right
at home. Haven’t you, Dexter?”

The dog immediately flew from the couch and ran to Kendra. She bent down and picked him up, held him to her chest like a baby. The dog furiously licked her face.

“Are you going to keep dancing?” Kendra said.

“Good question.” Anna thought about it. The job was still temporary, even though she’d be working nine-to-five for a while. She couldn’t rely on it. So she would have to keep dancing. “Yeah, I guess I will. This job won’t last long.”

“What if they get rid of the woman and they want you to come work for them for
real
?” Kendra said.

Anna smiled –
for real
made her smile. “Then maybe I’ll think about not dancing. But for now, it’s not a secure job. I have to keep dancing. It’s good money. I can’t let that go.”

“Mommy, when am I gonna get to come see you dance?”

“I’ve told you, they sell liquor there, so it’s adults only.”

“Then when are you gonna dance for me? I never seen you dance.”

“It’s nothin’, honey. Believe me. You’re not missin’ a thing.” She stood. “But you know what? I’m not gonna dance tonight. I’m gonna call in sick. I’ll tell ‘em I twisted my ankle, or something.”

“Wouldn’t that be a lie, Mommy?”

Anna went to the door and got her purse from the floor, took out her pack of cigarettes. She went to the kitchen table, put down her purse, and flipped up the lid on the cigarette box, took out a cigarette, and lit it. She went to the refrigerator and took out a beer. She cracked it open and sat down at the kitchen table.

“It’s a white lie, honey,” Anna said.

“A ...
white
lie?”

“Yep. That’s something they’ll never teach you about in school, or in Sunday school, or at Vacation Bible School. So don’t bother asking your teachers about white lies.”

“Then ... will
you
tell me what a white lie is?”

“Sure, that’s what I’m gonna do. White lies are the harmless little lies you have to tell people to get through life. They don’t hurt anyone. Sometimes, they even make people feel better, help them have a better day. For example, if your boss asks you if you like her new dress, and you think it’s ugly, are you going to
tell
your boss you think her dress is ugly?
No
. You’re going to tell her it’s
lovely
.
That
is a white lie. Nobody’s hurt, and the boss has been complimented, which is what she was expecting, anyway. A white lie isn’t a sin. God understands white lies. He lets us slide on those. They’re harmless. Understand?”

Kendra frowned the whole time she listened, concentrating intensely on her mother’s words. “So ... that’s why they’re white? ‘Cause they’re not sins?”

“That’s right,” Anna said, nodding. “So, I’m going to call my boss and tell him I hurt my foot and can’t come in tonight. That’s gonna be a white lie. I’m gonna do that so I can stay home and you and I can go to the store and get some hamburger and some hot dogs and buns and come home and have a barbecue.”

“Oh, goody!” Kendra said, clapping her hands.

“I’m gonna call Aunt Rose and see if she wants to bring the kids over. We’ll make a family feast of it. Maybe we can even coax our neighbor, Mr. Reznick, to come join us, wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Yeah, that would be nice,” Kendra said, her voice lowering with each word until she was whispering.

Anna saw her daughter blush again.

“You’re blushing,” Anna said.

“Am not.” Kendra turned away, then bent down and put Dexter on the floor.

“Uh-oh,” Anna said, smoke billowing from her smiling mouth and nostrils. “Does my little girl have a crush?”

“Do
not
.”

Anna laughed. She sipped her beer. “It’s all right, you know. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I do
not
have a
crush
.” She went to the couch, sat down, and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and watched television.

It was clear to Anna that she did – a crush on their neighbor, Marcus Reznick. She could see it. He was ruggedly handsome and had a rather craggy face with intense, deep-set eyes, and he was very interesting – a private investigator with probably a million fascinating stories to tell.

Sure, she would always have the intellect of an eleven- or twelve-year-old girl, but she had the body of a sixteen-year-old, and a crush on a handsome, much-older man was perfectly natural.

Her only concern was Mr. Reznick – how would
he
handle it? He would be exposed to it sooner or later. Would he try to take advantage of it? If he did, Anna decided she would kill him. She wasn’t sure how, but she would. And no jury in the world would convict her. No woman would, anyway. No mother.

Anna stamped her cigarette out in the ashtray that had a picture of Reno on the bottom – she’d gotten it on a trip to Reno with her sister before Kendra was born – and finished her beer. Then she stood and said, “I’m going to change my clothes, then let’s go to the store and do some grocery shopping, okay?”

“Okay.”

“If you want to wear that bikini bra, that’s fine, but there’s no
way
you’re wearing that shirt unbuttoned, do you hear me? Button that shirt up right now. Have you been walking around this trailer park with that shirt unbuttoned?”

Kendra bowed her head and watched her hands as she buttoned up her shirt. She did not reply.

“Did you? Because if you did, it’s going to be the
last
time. I’ll ask around. I
will
. And if I find out you’re wandering around this park half-naked, you’ll
never
be allowed to stay here by yourself, do you understand?” Anna was very firm, and even sounded a little angry. She wanted Kendra to take her seriously. She was being
very
serious. With Kendra’s body, she couldn’t afford to be going around scantily-clad like that. She was too innocent, too trusting of people. It was a good way to get herself raped. The very
thought
of Kendra walking down to the mailbox with that shirt unbuttoned and that bikini top on underneath – it made Anna’s stomach twist into knots.

She went to her bedroom and changed into jeans, a red tank top, and red sneakers.

“Ready to go?” she said, back in the living room. She got her purse from the table.

“Yeah.”

They got in the car and Anna drove them out of the trailer park.

Sixteen

He found the Carey residence. It was off Happy Valley Road, on the opposite side of the road from him, at the end of a long driveway, like so many houses on that road. They appeared to live in a pleasant-looking, medium-size, ranch-style house with a green yard and lots of trees shading the house. He found a turnout a couple hundred yards up the road and made a U-turn into it, parked, and waited.

It was six-twenty. He would not have the cover of night for another three hours, so he had to hope she didn’t notice him parked down here when she left.

Carey had said she drove a white Hyundai. Reznick saw it parked in the open two-car garage at the end of the driveway. Parked in the other side was a dark pickup truck.

He waited and watched. He turned on the radio and listened to talk radio for a few minutes before it started to give him a headache. There were no jazz stations in the Redding area, but there was a “smooth jazz” station – the elevator music of jazz. He found that on FM. Couldn’t take that for very long, either. Instead of putting in a CD, he chose to wait in silence. Hot, miserable silence.

He’d changed into a blue T-shirt and a pair of denim cutoffs, sneakers on his sockless feet.

He rolled down all the windows and even the hot breeze felt cool against his sweaty neck. The driveway that led to the Carey house was flanked by a field full of green shrubbery. Farther out, the shrubbery leveled out, and he saw some cows lazily grazing on the weeds and grass.

At twelve minutes before seven he heard voices. No words, just a female voice, then a male voice. Then a car door slammed and an engine started up.

Reznick wondered if that was his mark. Sure enough, several seconds later, a white Hyundai – it was a white car, he
assumed
it was a Hyundai because he knew that was the kind of car she drove, but he wouldn’t have known a Hyundai from a Roman chariot – bounced and bobbed over the rough driveway on its way out.

Reznick started his car. The white car turned right and headed for Anderson. It was a long straight stretch for a while, and she had a perfect view of him behind her. He waited, hoping to be less conspicuous.

Finally, he pulled out of the turnout and headed after Alicia Carey.

* * * *

Steven Regent pulled his SUV into the driveway of his partner’s house in the Enterprise district of Redding at six past eight that evening. Shadows were stretched out into long, nightmarish caricatures, but the temperature did not drop. It was a muggy heat that seemed to get muggier as the evening drew on.

Regent got out of the SUV, walked into the open garage, past Josh Garner’s cherry-red classic Corvette. He went to the side door of the house and went through it into the laundry room, through there into the kitchen. It felt good to step out of that miserable heat and into Regent’s place – he always kept the air conditioner on high and the temperature low.

It was a nice house. Each bedroom in this house was a studio for a different website, decorated appropriately. Garner stayed here only occasionally. He had a much nicer house just north of town, out toward the lake. He and Regent both had other homes. Garner had an apartment in San Francisco, Regent had a house in Lake Tahoe, they shared a condo in Park City, Utah. The websites had been exceptionally good to them.

“Hey, anybody home?” he called.

“Be right there,” Garner replied from somewhere in the house.

There was an open bag of Laura Scudders Maui Sweet Onion Potato Chips on the counter, and Regent went to it, picked it up, plunged a hand in. He leaned his hips back on the edge of the tile counter, put one of the chips in his mouth, tasted it, and nodded with approval.

Garner walked in wearing a bathrobe, his hair wet.

“Where do you get all these weird potato chips?” Regent said. “I come over here and you’ve always got these weird, exotic potato chips. You shop someplace funny?”

“You just have to look for them, they’re everywhere,” Garner said.

“Have you seen the pictures of Kendra I sent you?”

Garner rolled his eyes and whistled. “I’ve seen them. She’s ... fanfuckingtastic. There’s only one problem, and it’s a big one.”

Regent frowned. A problem? A
big
one?

“How are you gonna top that?” Garner said as he opened the refrigerator. He took a bottle of beer from it and twisted the cap off, took a swig. “She’s untoppable. After her, it’s all downhill. You’re gonna
open
the site with her, and then everything after her is anticlimactic.” He searched the shelves for something.

“You think she’s that good?”

Garner turned to him with wide eyes. “She’s incredible. I got wood before she even took her clothes off. But you need more of her, Steven,
more
, a
lot
more.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“You want one of these?” Garner said.

“Yeah.”

He handed a beer to Regent, then closed the refrigerator door.

“What were you looking for?” Regent said.

“I don’t know. Something to eat. I’m kinda hungry. Ish. But nothing sounds good.”

“Want me to order pizza?”

“Hm, pizza. Sure, go ahead.”

“What’s up tonight, anyway?” Regent said as he went to the phone.