After the Rain (4 page)

Gordy and the guy drifted to the window and stared into the parking lot.

“Which one’s that?” Ace asked.

“The other one,” Gordy said.

The guy nodded, “The dark-haired, dikey-looking one.”

Ace and Gordy perked up and raised their eyebrows thoughtfully.
The dikey one. Uh-huh.

The guy shrugged. “Minnesota plates. That’s a dead giveaway. Twin Cities is a regular dike pit. I feel bad for the kid.”

Ace and Gordy nodded again, thoughtfully.

“Aw, screw lunch, gimme a beer,” the guy said.

“All we got left is Old Milwaukee,” Gordy said.

“That’ll do.” When he had a beer he gestured at the walls of an alcove to the right of the bar. The framed pictures, newspaper articles. A military unit flag. “Yeah. This is the place.”

“How’s that?” Gordy said.

“I was here once, back in the seventies. Came to visit my brother when he was in the Air Force, in the 321st Missile Wing. Was stationed down in one of those control pods, tending to ten of those big mothers, the Minutemen. We sat in this bar and had a beer.”

Ace smiled. And Gordy said, “Sure, during the Missile Time.”

The guy nodded. “Usually I take Route 2 across, but, hell, thought I’d swing up through here, not in a big hurry. So when did they pull the missiles out?”

Ace stared at his coffee cup. In the shadow of those missiles he’d had something like a happy childhood. Whole damn town had…

“You fucking bitch! You are not going to pull this shit after all we been through…
” The angry voice screeching through the front door. The floor snapped back on its hinges, rattled off the wall.

Then,
“Mommm…”

That was the kid. A wail full of shattered innocence that got to Ace like a dentist’s drill—kid suddenly figuring out, hey, my world is falling to shit here. That nothing’s for sure anymore. Something kids shouldn’t have to bend their minds around. Ace understood it perfectly from arguments in the house back in town. His eight-year-old son Tyler, and six-year-old Trevor…

Ace shook his head. He’d started losing to Darlene when he let her stick those foo-foo names on those boys and he never did catch up.

And then Ace got a look at the redhead.

She came spinning
through the door fast. Ace thought he caught a whiff of sulfur—but also roses—so he sat up and took a hard look as she wheeled around and confronted the dark-haired one, hands on hips.

“Back off, Janey…” Real strong no-nonsense voice.

The redhead was built, but not that built. And she was pretty—but not stun-gun pretty, to Ace. What struck him was her presence. Her stance, the tattoo on her shoulder, and the set of her eyes hinted at danger.

Not just trouble. Trouble in a woman was appealing to scavengers who like to nose around in weak, messy lives.

Uh-uh. Just lookit the way the energy pulses around her. Like a swarm of hornets.

He saw real danger in her too-intense green eyes—and Ace was thinking,
Damn if a redhead couldn’t look like she invented anger.
Eve, the first woman, was probably a redhead. This one was mad and fed up as a woman could be; short red hair frizzed out like static. She wore flared jeans with cargo pockets, this iddy-biddy white top with spaghetti straps and short at the waist, so her flat
belly’d show. And sandals. Red lipstick; red polish on her fingernails and toenails starting to chip like she’d picked at it all the way from Minnesota. All that red hit his eyes at once, like warning flags. Clear across the room he could see the pale stripe of untanned skin on the third finger of her left hand where she had recently removed a wedding band. Her worn leather saddlebag purse caught his attention; gray quill leather he couldn’t place. And the way it seemed to overflow with too many things, Ace read the purse as a sign.

Like her life, maybe.

And then their eyes caught briefly in some fast barroom magic. Ace had to work at getting his breath. He felt the smile roll into his face, rubbing out the hangover. Figure the odds.

Damn.

You spend your life standing out under the biggest loneliest sky in the world and you’re just bound to get hit by lightning…eventually.

And, aw shit, her eyes were that kind of sticky hot that transfix a guy if he ain’t real careful. Damn if he didn’t feel the tug clear across the room. And he was sure he knew her just a little bit.
Not real sure if you’re a saint in the kitchen, but I’d bet my last dollar you’re a whore in the dark.

Ace Shuster just had to go with it.

And it was like the feeling he woke up with this morning had climbed in the catbird seat and was driving him the way he’d pushed all that big iron for Irv Fuller’s dad all those years. The tug just kept getting stronger and more complicated with him ad-libbing a few self-dramatic flashes of redemption and rescue and deliverance. So he just had to stand up and clear his throat, like he was waiting on a formal introduction.

Goddamn, Red. I been waiting to meet you all my life.

The dark-haired one was inside now and read his face quick and fired a hostile look right through him.

The dark-haired one…

And for a moment Ace almost took a sensible step back because these women had all the right curves but he didn’t see an ounce of softness showing and that should be a caution—but his curiosity had the better of his common sense…

And then he thought,
Uh-huh, like the guy said, the dark-haired one could be a lesbian.
Maybe that’s what he was picking up? She was younger. Cleaner of muscle—no, strike that—more like colder, with permanent moody shadows burned right into her like beautiful bruises. Witch-black hair, styled short on the side, longer on top. No makeup, no purse; green designer fatigue pants and heavy black boots. And carrying a lot of metal, gleams of it notched the outline of both ears and pierced her left nostril.
More at her throat, a coke spoon on a silver chain,
Ace thought. He squinted and saw it was a little double-bladed ax.

“Girls, girls.” Gordy tried acting big and easy and gracious. Coming forward, the peacemaker.

“Girls!
” hissed the redhead. “You see any fucking
girls
around here?”

“Mom!” The little girl made a face.

Gordy swallowed and said, mollifying: “Ladies.”

“I’ll settle for the
ladies room,
” said the redhead, raising her eyebrows.

“Ah, that door past the pinball machine.”

Ace eyed Gordy, who raised a reassuring hand. “No problem, I cleaned it this morning.”

Ace nodded and turned his attention to the kid, who was around six or seven, in beat-up tennies, shorts, a yellow T-shirt with
North Shore
printed across the chest. She was angular like her mom, with the same freckles and the same thick, burnt-crimson hair, but longer, pulled back in a ponytail. Dejected, she plopped down on a chair at the table and folded her arms across her chest.

The dark-haired one lit a cigarette. The kid waved her hand in disgust, got up, stalked across the empty bar, past where Ace stood
and brooded at the pinball machine in the corner. She went up on tiptoes and studied the glassed-in bumpers and lights. Touched the flippers on the side.

Aware of Ace watching her, she asked, “What kind of video game is this?”

Ace was impressed. Cool kid. Staying focused through all this bullshit. He smiled. “Well, it ain’t a video game. This is what you call a machine. Got no computer in it. There’s springs and pulleys and stuff like that.”

The girl made a face. “Springs?”

“Yeah, you put in a quarter, pull that knob, and these five ball bear—”

“
Kit!
”

The dark-haired one hurled it with a sharp huff to her voice, almost like a snort, like when a doe warns a fawn.

The girl smiled tightly and stepped away.

“Not supposed to talk to strangers, huh? That’s good. Tell my own kids like that,” Ace said with a nod, leaning back.

The mom came out of the john. Her hands busy around her waist in a reflex, tucking in an imaginary shirt. The dark-haired one got up and approached her. “Well,” she said.

“There was a theater in town, maybe you two could take in a show.” Eyes darting. Still some mad in her voice, dismissive.

“While we’re taking in a show, where are you going to be?”

“Here maybe. I’ll hang out for a while. I need some time to think about things.”

“Things.”

“Us. You and me. I need some time to think about us,” said the redhead.

To Ace the words were barbed. Like big muskie lures swishing in the air. Whatever they had going had burst through normal restraints.

“You bitch,” said the dark-haired one. “I took time off work. I
walked out on Debbie to play nursemaid to you. Now you’re sliding back into it.” She shook her finger in the redhead’s face. “Hang out here, huh? And drink, right?” She stuck a finger in the redhead’s face. “You’re the one who has to get drunk to tolerate sex with a man, remember.”

The redhead slapped the hand away. A crisp focused slap that cracked like a whip and brought Ace forward on the balls of his feet.

“No, please,” the kid cried.

The dark-haired one seized the redhead by the arm and yanked her toward the door. The redhead resisted, they began to shove each other. The kid screamed, got between them and both women tried to move her out of the way. Tug-of-war.

The kid came away wincing with red Indian burns on her arm.

The dark-haired one was coiled to hit back but Ace was up and moving, amazingly light on his feet for a man with a bellyful of hot hangover gravel. Going in, he noticed that the old guy at the bar had put down his beer bottle and stood, hands loose at his sides, watching in a certain way.

“Hey, take it outside,” Gordy yelled.

“Mom. C’mon, let’s go,” yelled the kid, grabbing at her mother’s arm.

“Not now, okay? Just, not now,” the redhead said. Then, in an eruption of nerves, she shoved her daughter away. “Look. Mom needs a time-out.
Okay?
”

“That’s it, hands off the kid,” Ace said.

The guy at the bar was bouncing slowly from foot to foot, watching them carefully with those flat dead lifer’s eyes. Ace signaled him, firm but not belligerent.
Back off. I got this.

Gordy rolled his eyes. “Ace, you’re making a big mistake here. Walk away, man.”

Ace ignored Gordy, threw open his arms, swept the women forward, and marched them through the door. They banged down the porch steps and into the parking lot.

“What’d I tell ya,” the guy said as he and Gordy hurried out the door. To watch. “A cat fight.”

“I don’t know. I’m sure not buying this. Uh-uh,” Gordy said.

Cats
?

Ace was thinking:
More like cougars, jock cougars, padded with muscle.
It took all his strength to move them and then a full minute to untangle them and get them separated. Enough time for several cars to pull onto the shoulder of Highway 5 to rubberneck the goings-on. Ace sensed more than saw the drivers hunching to their cell phones. As he held the women at arm’s length he was panting and sweating with the exertion, and his hangover had started banging like a drum.

But he felt good, younger, in step with fortune.

“Okay,” he said, “it’s like this. Red, you sit on the porch. And you…”

“Jane,” the dark-haired one snarled.

“Jane—you go stand by your car. We’re going to calm down for a minute. Then we’re going to talk, one at a time.”

“Where do I go?” the little girl said, rubbing a fist over her tears.

“You stay right here with me,” Ace said as he gently lowered a protective hand on her shoulder.

It took another muscular minute to manhandle them into their separate corners. Just about the time he got them quieted down, Ace saw the black-and-white Crown Vic with the Cavalier County five-pointed gold star come up fast and turn into his parking lot.

County Deputy Lyle Vinson
had graduated in the same class with Gordy and Ace’s brother Dale. With
his
bulk augmented by a Kevlar vest, Lyle looked like the product of a union between a fire-plug and a sumo wrestler as he eased from the car.

He hitched up his service belt and took a thoughtful sip from a twenty-ounce plastic bottle of Diet Coke, set the Coke on the roof of the car, and hitched his belt again. Studied moves. Letting some seriousness sink into this situation. Then he eyed the two angry women. Then the crying little girl. Finally he settled his gaze on Ace.

“Couple people called dispatch about a ruckus in your parking lot,” Lyle said. “Little early in the day for a drunk bar fight, ain’t it, Ace? Seeing’s how they ain’t been a fight at the Missile Park for going on ten years.”

“Nobody’s drinking—
yet
,” Jane said.

“Nobody’s drinking, period,” Ace said. “The redhead came to use the bathroom and the other one and her got into an argument, so I helped them outside and separated them and…”

Lyle held up his hand, “Let’s see some ID, folks. License and registration.” The two women went to their purses, then the glove
compartment of the car, and produced their driver’s licenses and the title to the Volvo.

Lyle raised an eyebrow. “You just bought this car yesterday in St. Paul?”

“Yes, officer,” the redhead said.

Lyle took the licenses back to his squad. While Lyle ran his checks, Ace played uneasy referee and cautious explorer. He discovered that when he looked at the redhead, the resolution on things sharpened up and the day acquired this pleasing velocity. He listened to the suddenly playful wind. Felt it ruffle through her hair.

He tried to read the driven energy centered in her hollow cheeks, those hungry eyes.

Definitely strung out.

He could understand strung out. And when he dared to listen with his heart he heard a rushing, as if they were both leaning into the same white-water rapid that was about to sweep them away.

Ace blinked and caught himself as Lyle returned, handed back the licenses. “No wants, no warrants,” he said, then he knelt next to the little girl. “Hi there, what’s your name?”

“My name is Karson Pryce Broker.”

“That’s a lot of name,” Lyle said.

She nodded. “My dad calls me Kit.”

“And where is your dad?”

“At home, in Devil’s Rock, Minnesota.” Her lower lip trembled. “They had a fight, so we went on a trip with Auntie Jane.” Then she lost it and her whole face transformed into a red tear gusher.

“Oh boy,” Lyle said. Then he patted the girl on the shoulder, stood up, and looked at the redhead. “How’d she get those marks on her arm?”

“I was trying to move her out of the way so she wouldn’t get caught in between,” the redhead said.

Lyle eyed Ace. Ace nodded and said, “Wasn’t intentional.”

“Maybe I grabbed her a little too hard.”

“Just a little,” Lyle said, judiciously, with a whiff of copper menace.

The redhead heaved her shoulders and said, “Look. I’m sorry this happened. My husband and I had this ugly fight back home. So my friend and I thought we’d take a road trip. We were on our way to see the Peace Gardens.” She shot a cross look at Jane. “Looks like we didn’t make it.”

“We were doing fine until you got thirsty,” Jane again.

“Oh, right, as long as you thought
you
were getting what you wanted…”

The two women surged at each other and the anger creased their faces like war paint. Lyle stepped between them.

“See what I mean?” Ace said.

“Okay, okay,” Lyle said holding the women apart with his out-spread arms. “This is how it is. I want you two in separate corners and then you got thirty seconds to convince me this kid isn’t in jeopardy and I don’t need to call Social Services and stick her in protective custody.”

“Custody? Hey, wait a minute.” The redhead grimaced.

“No,
you
wait a minute. I bring in Child Protection and they contact Minnesota where you live for a background check. You understand?”

The kid sobbed, “I want my daddy.”

“I told you we shouldn’t have brought her. We should have left her with her dad,” the redhead said.

Jane toed the trap rock, said nothing, looked away.

Lyle laced his fingers together, placed them on his chest, and cocked his head. Reasonable. “Perhaps we could call her dad and arrange something. Maybe he could come and get her,” he said. “Then you two could continue to work out your problems, hopefully down the road in the next county.”

The tension eased a notch as the women looked at each other.
Clearly there was room here to negotiate. Then the redhead said to her daughter, “Kit, honey, why don’t you go inside and play the pinball machine so Mom and Auntie Jane can talk alone with the policeman.” Her charged eyes drifted up to Ace’s.

Ace shifted from foot to foot, absorbing the redhead’s creeping voltage. “Sure, uh, c’mon, honey, let’s go inside. Let the grown-ups talk.” He held out his hand.

Lyle squatted down on Kit’s level and said, “That’d be a good idea, Kit.”

Eyes still downcast, Kit said, “Am I going to get to go home?”

“We’re working on it, honey,” the redhead said.

“Okay.” Kit turned and walked toward Ace.

“Thanks,” the redhead said.

“No problem,” Ace said.

Seeing the eye play between her companion and Ace, Jane said, “I know what you’re up to. This really sucks.”

Lyle held up a hand indicating silence while Ace walked Kit into the bar. Then he spun on the two women. “Thirty and counting. Talk to me.”

“Okay, okay, we’ll work it out. There’s a motel in town, right?” the redhead said.

Lyle nodded. “The Motor Inn.”

“I know what you’re pulling here,” Jane said. She shut up when Lyle held up a beefy palm.

Practical now, and more than a little demure and deferential to Lyle, the redhead ignored Jane. “You’re right, officer. We need a time-out. A couple hours. Then we talk, call Minnesota, maybe arrange something.”

“There you go. Clear the air,” Lyle said.

“He’s right, Jane. Couple hours, then tonight we have dinner. Figure out how to put Kit with her dad and you and me start fresh. What do you say?”

“Do I have a choice?” Jane said.

“Sure. Take the wheels. Leave,” the redhead said, taking a small step forward, showing some edge.

They stared each other down. Jane dropped her eyes first. “Okay, a couple hours.”

The redhead folded her arms across her chest. “You take Kit and get a room. Settle down.”

“What about you?” Jane said.

“C’mon, Jane, it’s what? A quarter-mile into town. I’ll take a walk. Breathe some fresh air.”

“Okay, good,” Lyle said. He removed a card and a pen from his chest pocket, wrote on the back of the card, and then gave it to Jane. “My cell’s on the back. Things don’t work out, you call me and we go to plan B.” He turned to the redhead. “You follow me?”

“I understand,” she said.

“Okay, now go in and get the little girl,” Lyle said.

Kit was up on a chair hunched over the pinball machine, letting her third ball bearing fly into the clattering bumpers and buzzers and flashers.

“So, what do you think?” Ace asked.

Kit wrinkled her nose. “It’s okay but I like Age of Empires more.”

“Age of Empires, huh?” Gordy said, moving up to the machine.

“It’s a computer game, ancient civilizations at war,” the redhead said, walking up to them.

Kit nodded her head. “Assyrians have the best ballistas.”

“What happened to dolls and dress-up?” Gordy said.

“She was playing it on Jane’s laptop in the car,” the redhead said.

“Uh-huh, and while she’s playing on Jane’s laptop Jane’s playing on your lap…,” Gordy said softly.

“Don’t even try to get your mind around it, farm boy; we’ll have to wrap you in duct tape to keep your head from exploding,” the redhead said slowly.

Ace was impressed the way she thrust her hip and let her hands
dangle loose in this great bring-it-on stance. And now that things had calmed down a little he noticed her left ear peeking from her askew layered hair. The lobe was missing, just a lump of scar tissue. Like it had been cut off.

Sonofabitch! I bet she’s got some stories.

A lazy morning, lying in bed, smoking, looking at the water-marks on the ceiling…

“Watch it,” he said. His words were quiet but aimed right at Gordy.

Gordy was undeterred. He leaned over closer to Kit. “So what’s your daddy do?”

“He’s got these cabins on the lake. We rent them to tourists.”

“Uh-huh.”

Kit straightened up, looked around, and thrust her hand toward the window. “He drives one of those sometimes.”

Across the highway, a rusted white Bobcat was frozen in front of a large pole barn. Chest-high weeds fringed the building and poked up in the trap-rock parking lot. A rusted windmill revolved in the soft breeze.

“C’mon, honey,” the redhead said, helping her daughter off the chair.

Gordy moved next to her. “So your husband drives a Bobcat. What is it you do?”

“Hey.” It was the older guy, who was still hanging around, following the action. He’d come back inside to finish his beer. “Can I get some of that beef jerky?”

Ace nodded at the customer. He puffed up some. He ordered, “Go wait on the man like you’re paid to do.”

Wheels revolved in Gordy’s eyes, like he was thinking of challenging Ace. But he decided to wait and returned to his post behind the bar. After squirting a little wolf pee in Gordy’s direction, Ace put a hint of strut in his walk as he escorted the redhead and her daughter out onto the porch.

When they got outside, the redhead leaned down and kissed Kit on the forehead. “You go with Jane into town and get a motel room. I’ll be along in a little while.”

There was more cynicism than innocense in the kid’s frown. “Promise?”

“Go on, scat,” the redhead said. Obediently, the kid went down the steps. They stood on the porch and watched her and Jane get into the Volvo.

“Now what?” Ace said.

“According to Officer Friendly’s intervention plan they go in town and get a room. I’ll walk in, see the sights, hook up in an hour or so when everybody’s cooled down.”

“Well, good luck cooling down in July in North Dakota,” Ace said.

“You got a point. A girl walking down a hot highway probably could use a lift,” she said.

“That’s true.”

She rolled her eyes slowly over the bleached brick facade of the Missile Park Bar. “This is fine and all, but is there anyplace around here to get a drink?”

“Like, what did you have in mind?”

Bang. She hit him dead on with a full frontal look. “Surprise me.”

They were standing absolutely still but Ace could feel them rolling side by side like dice.

The red Volvo had pulled on the shoulder, Jane leaning out the driver’s side, looking back. She pounded the horn.

Lyle walked up to the porch and said, “You want to walk or I could drive you around a while and drop you off?”

“I’ll walk, thank you,” she said.

“Well, then,” Lyle said.

“In a minute. Unless I’m breaking any laws standing here,” the redhead asked politely.

“No, ma’am, but funny you should say that, considering where it is you’re standing,” Lyle said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said.

“Long story,” Ace said.

“Right,” Lyle said.

Across the highway a heavy-set guy in a long-sleeved black shirt came out of the equipment shed, walked to the road, and yelled.

“Hey, Ace! What’s the problem?”

Lyle waved him off. “Nothing. Just talk.”

“You all right?” the guy yelled.

“I’m fine,” Ace yelled back

The guy nodded, peered at the redhead for several seconds, and then retreated back into the shed.

Ace held out his hand to the redhead. “Ace Shuster.”

She raked his face with her conflicted eyes and almost smiled. Then she closed up her face, took his hand in hers, and said, “Nina Pryce. Pleased to meet you.”

She turned and started walking toward the town.

Ace heard Gordy come up behind him.

“We gotta talk before you go do anything,” Gordy said. Ace didn’t respond at first, he was very involved in watching Nina stride away along the gravel shoulder. Gordy tapped him on the shoulder.

“What, her?” Ace shrugged. “She’s just looking for a party.”

Gordy shook his head. “C’mon, Ace, look at her. She’s way too put together to be some lush.”

Ace grinned. “You check out that ear? Like it got cut off or something. That’s different. Little skull-and-crossbones action on her shoulder…”

“I ain’t joking here. Take a look around. Where are we?”

Ace exhaled. “You’re ruining my morning, Gordy.”

“Nobody comes here except for weddings, funerals, or to deliver something…” Gordy paused and plucked at his sideburns.

“Deliver something,” Ace repeated, mulling it. But still staring down the road.

“Yeah, like say a subpoena, or a warrant, or a wire.”

“You think she’s a cop,” Ace said flatly. He turned and faced Gordy.

“Just saying keep an open mind, like she
could
be some kind of snitch thrown in the mix, kinda off the wall,” Gordy said.

“How sure are you? Hundred percent?”

Gordy scrunched up his face, thinking. “Well, the kid…”

Ace nodded. “One hell of a novel approach for a cop outta Bismarck, I’d say. The kid was
good
. I’m keeping an open mind. But the kid was for real.”

“They got satellite cameras that take pictures from space, man. They got infrared over the border now. They can come up with a kid.”

Ace turned and squinted down the road. He could just make out one last flash off the sweat on her shoulder blades. “An undercover? Why now? I’m not breaking any laws, am I?”

“We been through this with the state cops. Now that the volume is scaled way down, you’re not drawing any heat. Hell, man, you’re up for sale. You’re history.”

A shadow passed behind Ace’s eyes. “What about you? You and your biker friends up north? You guys and that meth shit are all over the front page.”