Wild Horses (33 page)

“Madeline wants me dead. If that’s not forfeiture, I don’t know what is.”

“It’s kind of a gray area,” Krystal declared, “but I don’t think what you’ve done is karmically punishable.”

“Bitchin’ good news!” he cried, overjoyed at the way she put it all together. This was real world philosophy, a thousand times more practical than guilt-drenched Catholic confession. By extending these principles, then, to the big picture, Krystal was not nearly so distressed yesterday when their cash reserves began to deplete and he appropriated a booklet of traveler’s checks from a restaurant table while their owner administered the Heimlich maneuver to an elderly gentleman choking on filet mignon.

“It’s a corporation, remember,” he reminded her. “And they’re fully insured.”

After which came the process of converting checks to usable cash. Reserving one unsigned check, he demonstrated his forgery technique on the rest, after practicing until he had the signature down: You didn’t try to copy the signature right side up; rather, you turned it upside down and drew a replica, thereby eliminating all traces of your own handwriting.

He enlisted her help when it came time to pass the checks. As cashiers were required to witness the transactional signature, and match it to the original, Boyd would display the single unsigned check and poise his pen. Krystal would then chime in with a diversionary question or action, during which he would substitute a presigned check and feign the rest. It was a good system.

“The neat thing is,” she said later, as they made a hot, dry stretch of Texas blacktop go down smoother with a shared bottle of DP, “I don’t feel like a criminal.”

“That’s an entirely healthy attitude.”

“I mean, I know we broke the law, technically, but—”

“Law, what law? What you have to do is get yourself past that kind of puritanical thinking.” Maybe it was the champagne talking, as he had never reasoned things out this clearly before. “There’s the law of politicians and the interests of the rich, and then there’s the law of the jungle. I don’t need to tell you which came first, which one keeps a better balance.”

He had her swerve close to the side of the road as he rolled down the window and whizzed an empty Dom Pérignon bottle at a no-passing sign. It nicked the top of the sign without breaking; spun out of sight, into the weeds.

“
Boyd
,” she said sharply. “You shouldn’t litter. Do you have any idea how long it takes glass to decompose? Like half a billion years or something.”

“Sorry, babe. High spirits just got the best of me.” Clearly, there were lines with her that he could not cross. “Later on I’ll pick up some trash and reestablish the balance.”

This mollified her, and they leaned together in the center of the car for a deep soul kiss of peace restored, straying across the center line until a blaring horn yanked her back to reality, or as much reality as she ordinarily dealt with. She careened back into the right lane, blew a kiss to her angels, and patted the Mazda’s dashboard as though it were an obedient dog.

Boyd waited until his cardiac rate returned to normal, then told her how — getting back to this slippery concept of legal and moral relativism — she was already predisposed to making such bold distinctions for herself. This call-girl thing, for example. Now that wasn’t strictly legal, was it? But obviously she had made her peace with that. And he respected this; truly he did.

“So maybe,” he concluded, “since I’ve been laying so much on the line with you, you could return the favor … and tell me why it is you’re so committed to this career choice you’ve made.”

“You know, I think you’re ready to hear it,” she said. “I really think you are. Because you’ve come a long way in ten days.”

Driving all day and still she looked so fresh; clean raven hair in a breezy torrent around her face, so smooth, so flawless. That face was a bit like unsculpted clay, no fixed set to it yet — by life and by years, by laughter and tears. Allison had her set. Krystal did not. For a moment Boyd found himself confused, because having it seemed better somehow. More real. More dependable.

“I’m making amends for a past life,” she said. “More than one, actually … but mostly this particular one.”

“Okaaay.” He should have known. “And you were…?”

“The Marquis de Sade.”

“Well,” said Boyd. “Well! I … I didn’t see that one coming.”

“Oh, Boyd, I had some real problems then, let me tell you.”

“Problems,” he echoed, nodding.

“I mean, my name from that life was the basis for the word ‘sadism.’ And have you read any of the books I wrote?
Justine
? Or
Juliette
? Or
120 Days of Sodom
?”

Frowning, Boyd said he had not. He calculated his chances of escaping injury were he to leap from a moving car, decided they weren’t good, then dismissed the idea. Krystal was eccentric. That was all. He could compromise on eccentricity. For that body and what she could do with it, and unconditional love, he’d not yet settled on the depths beyond which he would
not
compromise.

“Well, don’t, not a word of them,” she warned. “They’re just dreadful, the most appalling stories you could ever read in your whole life. I’m so ashamed. I’m pretty sure I intended them as indictments of the ruling class in late-eighteenth-century France, but hardly anybody took them that way, so what does it matter? The damage was done.”

“Damage,” he murmured. “I’m … still having trouble finding a link between this and the call-girl thing.”

“Oh, sweetie, I’m just trying to do my little part to balance it all out. Like you picking up a bottle for the one you threw out the window? Except it’s a little more involved. I mean, oh wow, I was personally responsible for so much pain being inflicted, that now I feel obligated to, well, you know…”

“Inflict pleasure,” he concluded with a groan. “I notice you’ve decided not to do it for free.”

“Well of course not. That would make me a slut. So as long as I’ve got to make a living somehow…”

Briefly, Boyd entertained the notion that he should become her agent, that plenty of TV talk shows would pay big money for delusions this deep. Napoleons were a dime a dozen … but
this
!

“So,” he said, not knowing what else to say for now. “So. You were the Marquis de Sade.”

“And Mary Todd Lincoln. That’s another one where I could’ve done better. I was such a nag to poor Abe.” Talk show gold mine and she didn’t even realize it. “That’s why I’ve been thinking we should get a past life regression done on you. We really should find out where we connected.” Krystal looked suddenly stricken. “You do believe you’ve lived before, don’t you? I was just taking for granted you did.”

“Let’s put me down as undecided.” Ever the diplomat. “I guess I’d have an easier time of it if everybody wasn’t running around with such grandiose histories. I would gladly shake the hand of the first guy who came up to me and admitted the best job he ever had was hauling buckets in a Roman vomitorium.”

“Okay, so you’re a little skeptical, I can accept that,” she said. “I’m glad you told me. Because after some of the lines I’ve had run on me? It’s, like, your honesty is so refreshing.”

There. That was it. That was the big reason he knew he could not let this woman go. She said to him all those things that he’d never heard from any other woman.

*

When they got to the Wainrights’ neighborhood, the thing that struck Boyd was how wide everything was. Wide houses, wide yards, the tops of trees so wide they sometimes shook branches with the trees across the wide street. Krystal parked along the curb, so he could gather something a little more substantial about the lay of this green and foreign land.

“I suppose it would’ve been too much to ask for to pull up and see that black van Allie rode off in,” he said. “I really hate not knowing whether she’s in there or not.”

“If I were you, I’d be more concerned about that Gunther guy being inside already.”

“And Madeline.” He shuddered, recalling Saturday morning. “What a perfect waste of sperm and eggs, those two.”

“Now, sweetie, there’s a reason they act that way,” Krystal said. “Inside, they’re still just frightened little children.”

“Frightened little
homicidal
children, maybe. Kind of puts the squeeze on us, doesn’t it?” Although, realistically, how much did they have to worry about? Gunther had him taped into a chair, a gun on him the whole time, and still couldn’t hold him. Either some of Krystal’s radiant good vibes had rubbed off or Gunther Angelo Manzetti was the most colossally brainless human being on the face of the earth.

Just the same, he would happily keep Gunther’s confiscated pistol handy. He’d studied it long enough to figure out which part did what, then bought two boxes of bullets. On Sunday morning, he and Krystal had detoured into a secluded stretch of New Mexico desert, where he’d gone through the first box of fifty rounds to familiarize himself with the weapon. Krystal opted to have nothing to do with it, personally, and insisted that he first approach the saguaro cactus he’d used as a target to ask its forgiveness. Boyd took its silence as a nod of approval.

Zen,
he kept telling himself.
Be the gun.
Never forgetting that he was much happier just being the card. The cactus emerged from the experience little the worse, and the pistol had remained in the glove box ever since.

They watched the Wainright house for an hour, an occasional figure passing before the screen door or one of the windows. The most frequently glimpsed stood not yet four feet tall; a ponytail whisked at the back of her head. A younger child, with the full-tilt speed of a two-year-old, once went charging for the porch. He got halfway out the door, unencumbered by pants or underwear, before being snatched from behind by his T-shirt. That would be Constance in action. Boyd began to suspect that wide hips might be a family trait, augmented in her case by plumped thighs. The price of motherhood, maybe, among the women of this clan. He filed it away for future reference. You never knew what tomorrow could bring.

The last Wainright showed himself once, a silhouette that looked to be plump not only of thigh, but of everywhere else. He stood briefly before a window, or as close as his stomach would allow, after which the only thing Boyd could see was the erratic flickering of a nearby television.

“That had to be Jefferson,” Boyd said. “And you can bet he’s not in there watching
Buns of Steel
.”

At no time did he see a silhouette or shadow that looked like Allison — the way she stood, the way she moved. He let another half hour pass, then dug the cell phone out of the backseat.

“You’re calling them?” Krystal asked.

“Why not? I’d say she’s had time to get that kid bathed by now, wouldn’t you?”

He punched out the number. Constance caught it in the middle of the seventh ring, a little breathless.

“Hello!” Boyd said. “Have I reached the Wainright residence?”

“You sure have.” Quite the accent this woman had. And she was one of Allison’s people? His ex had gone to some lengths to strip herself of audible roots.

“This is Peter Wackermann, calling from Las Vegas. I do hope it’s not too late.” If it was, Constance was too polite to say so. “I’m the bookkeeper for Gingerbread House Day Care, where Allison used to be in our employ until about ten days ago. And this … this wouldn’t be her cousin Constance, would it?”

“Why, yes, it sure would be.”

“Constance! This
is
a delight! Forgive me, but I feel like I know you, Allison talked so much about you. Not a day went by, I don’t believe. I can almost picture you now, and let me tell you, it was some lovely portrait she painted. And how are the kids?”

“They … they’re fine.” She sounded a bit mystified. “Lainie’s still up, but I just got Randy tucked into bed, not five minutes ago.”

“Randy — of course. I bet he still raises a fuss at bath time, doesn’t he?”

“Allison said
that
?”

Boyd assured her she had. “Again, I’m sorry to be calling so late, but Allison left you with us as her forwarding address and phone, and … has she arrived there yet?”

“No, she hasn’t, she called to say she’s had some delays.”

“I ask, because, like I said, I handle the payroll here, and Allison has one more small check coming. But! We suffered a virus in our computer, and portions of the master payroll files were lost, so I’m working late trying to rebuild. I was hoping I could find Allison in so we could get her Social Security number again.”

“So she does have a check coming?” Constance asked, and he said yes. “You have no idea how happy that’s gonna make her! And here you could’ve kept that money and she’d never have known the difference!”

“Well, hush my big mouth! It’s too late now, isn’t it?” Boyd laughed with her. “Has she given you any idea when to expect her?”

“I shouldn’t think it’ll be much longer. She sent a couple of boxes of her things, and they’ve beaten her already, just sitting here waiting. So I’d say any day now, and I’ll be so tickled to see her, why, my eyes are just gonna fly right out of my head.”