The Rabbit Factory: A Novel (20 page)

They’d already done the good cop/bad cop thing with her cigarettes. One cop had played good and would let her have a cigarette and one had played bad and wouldn’t. Right now the one playing good was back in the room with her, so she was smoking. She didn’t like him as much as the one playing bad. The one playing good had bad breath and dandruff and long nose and ear hair poking out all over the place, actually needed to have that seen about pretty soon with some type of barbering person.

The one playing bad was kind of small but muscular and had a nice clean head of hair and pretty cool clothes with good shoes, she always noticed shoes. He was outside somewhere. Maybe looking at her through the two-way glass. She wished he’d come back in because she was hoping she could fuck her way out of this.

“So,” Good Cop said, shelling some wet goobers from a paper bag. “Why’d you work over Miss Barbee over at the uh…?” He paused to chew and consult a card on his desk. “Pleasant Years Nursing Home?”

“I had my reasons,” she said. Pleasant years my ass.

He leaned forward. It was hard to keep from staring at the tufts of hair protruding from his ears. But she didn’t really want to look at his nose, either. She settled for staring at the middle of his forehead.

“They better be good ones. You could be going up the river on this one. I see on your rap sheet where you couldn’t make it as a hooker in our fair city.”

He dawdled with a rubber band for a little bit. He’d brought back the ashtray that Bad Cop had taken away and she thumped some ashes in it and took a long slow drag, let it trail out her nose.

“Some of your boys are worse than some of the ones they’re after.”

He raised his eyebrows. They even had dandruff in them. He had about the worse case she’d ever seen. An epidemic on his head.

“She slapped this old man,” she said.

The cop didn’t say anything for a moment. He just gazed at the wall.

“Are you sure?” he said without looking at her.

“She slapped him twice.”

Now he did look at her.

“Why’d she slap him?”

She waited a moment before she answered, thinking about her grandmother. She remembered how her grandmother had smelled.

“He messed in the bed.”

The door opened and the one playing bad cop stood there.

“Are you willing to testify to that?” he said.

She straightened in her chair.

“What do you mean? Why?”

“A few old people died over there who weren’t very sick according to some relatives who called it in. We think maybe she’s got something to do with it. We’re getting ready to do an investigation.”

The names and faces, the watery eyes behind the glasses hit her with a new shock: Mr. Pasternak, Miss Doobis, Mr. Munchie, Mrs. Haddow-Green. Sweet old farts every one. She leaned back and crossed her legs.

“Hey, close the door, Ronnie, huh?” the one playing good said.

The one playing bad came on in after he shut the door and sat down at the scuffed table. He was wearing an empty brown shoulder holster over his burgundy sweater.

“I like your sweater,” Anjalee said.

“So does my girlfriend who made it. You want me to tell her, Acey, or you want to?”

“Why don’t you tell her, Ronnie.” Acey said, and then scratched with all his fingers at his scalp briefly but furiously.

“You know there’s people who can help you with that,” Anjalee said.

“Who? I’ve tried everything!” he shouted. “I’m about to go absolutely! Fucking! Wacko!”

“What the shit, Ace.” Ronnie said. “Having a bad-hair day?”

“Sorry, Ronnie. Look. I gotta go wash my hair with this medicated crap my wife got me. You give her the lowdown about her probation and all that bullshit. I’ll be back later.”

And he got up abruptly and rushed out of the room. The door slammed. She didn’t feel anybody watching her now but Ronnie. His eyes were brown and sad, like a sick beagle’s.

“Look,” he said. “Miss Barbee’s healed up enough to be transferred from the Med to here and we’re holding her until we can find out if we can charge her with anything. But your ass is in a crack, ’cause you violated your probation by not going back to work at the old folks’ home.”

He leaned over a little bit. He was half smiling.

“You know what it means. Handcuffs. Wearing an orange jumpsuit. They can strip-search you and look up your ass any old time they want to. And take it from me, the women in the Shelby County Jail are not the gentle refined kind who’ll offer you a bite off their Hershey bars. You know we can send you off. Or just keep you here.”

He’d said it now and she was scared shitless all over again. What’d she ever come up to this fucking place for? She remembered all those women-in-prison movies at the Pontotoc drive-in with her mother moaning and groaning along with some guy in the back seat.

“Yeah. I know.”

“Where the hell you from, anyway, Mississippi or some fucking where?”

“Yeah. Toccopola,” she said in a small voice.

“Another hick comes to town.”

“So did Elvis.”

“Oh crap.” He laughed a short one. Then he picked up some papers on the desk and looked at them and then dropped them.

“This is your arrest report. You got nabbed by the couch cops giving blow jobs at Fifi’s Cabaret? Jesus. That rat palace should have got shut down a long time before it did. I heard Fifi got deported back to Kyrgyzstan.”

“Yeah. But they didn’t actually catch me giving anybody one.”

He folded his arms across his chest.

“It’s against the law to
try
to rob a bank, kid. Or to offer up your sweet monkey for money. In this state anyway. When’d you start selling your ass?”

She looked up at the wall and away from him. She swung her leg.

“A long time ago. But I worked in that club for a while.”

“How long did that go on?”

She turned her face back to him. Still swinging her leg.

“Not long. I met this guy. I’ve been with him for a while. I mean, I stayed with him for a while. I’ve got somebody else now.”

That seemed to amuse him.

“Why don’t you try for a regular relationship with somebody that doesn’t involve them paying you for sex?”

She shook her hair out of her eyes and looked back over at him.

“’Cause I guess I kinda like the way it feels.”

His eyes changed and so did his body posture and his voice got lower.

“How much do you charge?”

“It depends on what I need. Right now I need to get the fuck out of here.”

He leaned back and studied her. He lowered his gaze and looked long at her breasts. Like he was thinking them over. He gave them that little smile again.

“You know what?” he said slowly. “I’ll bet we can work something out where you can be released on your own recognizance in case we need you to help us out later. I mean, with the approval of your probation officer, of course. You’ll have to check back in with him but I can probably straighten it all out.”

Anjalee looked around. She stopped swinging her leg.

“Where’s he at?”

“He’s probably around somewhere. We’ll go find him. But it might take a while.”

“That’s okay. I wasn’t doing anything anyway.”

“Well, come on, then. My car’s outside.”

“You gonna call me tonight?” she said.

“Absolutely. I’ve just got to teach this last class and then get my grades together.”

“When we gonna go over to your house? I want to see your place.”

“I don’t know…like I said, it’s dirty and needs to be cleaned up…maybe in a day or two…”

“You don’t want me over at your house,” she said, all pouty suddenly, and she somehow managed to look abused. “What, I ain’t good enough to bring home?”

“I just want to clean it up first,” he said.

She drew back. She looked at her nails. They were white and glossy and short.

“Well, okay. You better call me.”

“I will.”

“Maybe we could go out to eat.”

“Maybe we could.”

“Don’t you be flirtin’ with none of them little old skank gals in your class, you hear me?”

“I won’t.”

“’Cause ain’t none of them little gals got any stuff near as good as what I got for you.”

“I know that’s right.”

“Well. Long as you know.”

“I do. Believe me, baby, I do.”

“Why? You done screwed some of that little bony ass with that big old thang? I bet they done some yellin’.”

“Hell no.”

She turned her chin up sideways a little.

“Baby. Come on. They didn’t do no yellin’?”

“I mean no I didn’t…”

She laughed at his reddening face with her pretty teeth white as ivory, her rich voice deep, her cheek in a strong brown curve. She chucked him under the chin with her fist, softly. She kept looking at him from up under her eyelashes. Girls knew how to do stuff to you. Boy did they. This one was melting him like Silly Putty on a hot day.

“I’m just playin’ with you, baby.”

“I know it. I like you to play with me. You can play with me all you want to.”

“I plan to. Tonight.”

He stepped back and she shut the door and pulled off. He watched her circle through the parking lot and go down the hill and stop at the highway, then heard her toot the horn before she headed back.

Merlot got in and drove fast, back to Oxford and the campus. It was early in the afternoon and a lot of students had already left for the Christmas break, so there wasn’t any problem finding a parking slot near Bishop Hall. He stopped by his office and got all his notes. He hurried upstairs and picked up his grade sheets in the English department office and then almost never got out of there for people wanting to talk about his carjacking, even some people who worked in offices down the hall, and he had to tell it three or four times but he finally said he had to get to class and they understood and finally let him go but told him they wanted to get together for a drink or two sometime in the near future and hear the whole story and he said okay and walked down the hall to the classroom but nobody was there. That was good because he didn’t have his class together. So much had gone on in the last couple days. He’d been smoking all that dope and they’d made a bunch of love, about nine times. All he was going to do anyway was give a summary of the semester, and he could do that off the top of his head. He sat there going over the notes he’d made over the semester but none of the students started drifting in. Then two did. By the time he’d been sitting there for ten minutes, he realized that was probably all he could expect, so he launched into a discussion about the things they’d read, kind of an overview, and he could tell that they were just as ready to get out of there as he was, and had already had about all they could stand for one semester, just like him, so he cut it short and let them go real early. They asked if he was okay because they’d seen the paper and he said he was and wished them a merry Christmas and they left.

After class he hustled over to the grill, through the dead brown leaves that were blowing across the campus in the chilly wind, and picked up a cup of coffee and a club sandwich and then went back to his overheated office and spread all his papers out on his desk and ate his sandwich and drank the coffee until it got cold, and worked up his grades. He signed all the papers and filled in all the little boxes and then took them back up to the English department office, which had closed by then, but he had everything in a manila envelope with his name on it and he just crammed it in under the door.

After that he drove around for a while. He didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t ready to tell her about Candy yet. Maybe they ought to just take on off, just go ahead and go. Maybe he could tell her in Natchez.

He circled the square in Oxford. The city electric department had hung wreaths on all the light poles and all the stores had Christmas decorations out. There was Christmas music playing on loudspeakers mounted in front of city hall. People were out shopping. Some were carrying bright gift-wrapped packages. A shitload of people were in the bookstore. Neilson’s had people going in and out. He thought about going by City Grocery and having a drink, because he knew that some of his colleagues from the English department would probably be in there, celebrating the end of another semester, but he knew if he got in there he’d probably catch a buzz and stay too long, and he wanted more than anything first to check on Candy. So he went by his house.

Mrs. Poteet met him at the door. A natural redhead, her now-raven hair was piled high and she was wearing a tight red dress with sequins and a daring slit up the side. She gave him a fierce hug with her bony freckled arms.

“Hey, Marla. How is she?” he said.

“She’s asleep,” she said, patting him on the back. “I’m so glad you’re all right. It was in the paper.”

“That’s what I heard.”

Merlot walked down the hall and into the room. Candy was lying on her bed and she was asleep. Her ribs were rising and falling slightly with her breath. She hadn’t shit in the bed. He thought about the first time she’d slipped into the bed with him, and how he hadn’t told his mother about it, until the morning she’d walked in and caught them together. But she never had said anything. He guessed she’d always known that they’d one day wind up sleeping together. But they didn’t now. She’d gotten too old for that.

He didn’t wake her to tell her good-bye. She looked peaceful. What if she died while he was gone? He went into his bedroom and packed some clothes and underwear and socks, another pair of boots, got his toothbrush and toothpaste and his shaving gear from the bathroom, then went to the kitchen for some cash from under the cookie jar.

“I guess I’m going off for a few days,” he said to Mrs. Poteet. She was sitting on the kitchen counter having a glass of red wine. She had the stereo going and was listening to C. J. Chenier doing “Bad Feet.” “You got enough wine to last you?”

“We’re good,” she said. “A bunch of people called over here today wanting to talk to you. They all saw that thing in the paper. Was it horrible?”

“It was horrible enough,” Merlot said. “Hell, I might as well have a glass with you, Marla. I’m not in that big a hurry.”

“Please do,” Mrs. Poteet said, and got him a glass from the cabinet without getting down. She poured him a full one and then lit a thin cigarillo. She had crossed one leg over the other in the tight dress. In her prime she’d been a stripper named Louisiana Red. Now she was about eighty years old, but still evidently pretty hot. She had more than one boyfriend now that she was a widow, and once, after attending a poetry seminar in St. Petersburg, Merlot’d found three empty condom packets in the bathroom garbage can. And had chuckled looking at them.

He leaned against the counter, close to her, and sipped his wine.

“I met somebody,” he said.

Mrs. Poteet’s eyes watered and filled almost up with tears but didn’t brim over until she lowered her face and shook her head, slinging a few of them on Merlot’s leg.

“Oh! I am
so
glad,” she said.

“I’ll bring her over sometime. She’s got to meet Candy.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t wait too long.”

“How’s she been lately?”

Mrs. Poteet lifted her glass and sipped, then lowered it and held it with one hand. She rubbed the ash from her cigarillo on the edge of the ashtray.

“Every day’s about the same. I don’t think even she wants to live much longer. You could always call Dr. Dees. He’s got that painless steel.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Merlot said. It was an old discussion.

The clock ticked. The television was playing low up front. A car went down the street outside. He hoped it wouldn’t snow anymore.

“What’s her name?” Mrs. Poteet said.

“Penelope. She’s a cop.”

“That’s such a lovely name. Are you falling in love with her, Merlot?”

He took a big drink of his wine.

“Shit. I think maybe I already have.”

He set his glass down and went to the phone on the wall.

“I’ll be gone a few days probably. I’ll call you and give you my number once I get somewhere. I think we’re going to Texado in Natchez if we can get in. I’m gonna call them. Probably stop somewhere tonight. But you’ve got my cell phone, too.”

“Yes I do. Well then. I might have a couple people over tonight if that’s okay. I’ve got a few friends who are just dying to watch
Dancing Outlaw
and I told them you had
Vernon, Florida,
too, so we might just get into an orgy of video watching tonight.” She gave him a look. “And maybe some other things, too.”

“You go for it, girl. Buy some more wine if you need it. If you need any money, it’s right there under the cookie jar.”

“I know where it’s at. I don’t need anything,” Mrs. Poteet said, lifting her glass.

“You want to get stoned? You want a couple of joints?”

A smiled leaped on her face and she leaned forward eagerly.

“Why, Merlot, have you got some?”

He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out two and put them in her hand. She stared at them and he grinned when she dropped her jaw.

“This stuff does the trick.”

“Coo-ool,” she said. “I know just who to call.”

He called information and got the number for Texado and a nice lady answered and they exchanged a few pleasantries and he found out that they could get in tomorrow night, preferably before six
P
.
M
. if they wanted dinner. He said that was cool and thanked the lady and told her ’bye and called Penelope and told her to start getting ready. On the way out, he squatted down and got a few CDs from the rack in the living room and told Mrs. Poteet ’bye and drove on down to Penelope’s house, stopping on the way for some rubbers at a Texaco station just off 315 that sold hot gizzards and cold minnows. She wasn’t ready and he had to sit on her bed and wait for her to pack her clothes and her gun, and he didn’t understand why she was taking it, but he didn’t say anything, and when she finally got ready, they took off from her house in the Four-Runner happily still burning the deadbeat’s gas. He sped driving over to Tupelo and they got on the Trace there. Merlot said it would make for a longer, more scenic ride if they got on it there instead of down close to Columbus. He drove while she sightsaw but it was starting to get dark. They saw a few groups of deer but he guessed the turkeys had already roosted. There were some pretty creeks beside the road, where the water ran over rocks and trickled through trees. It was nice to be able to drive at a leisurely pace and not have all those monster trucks breathing down your neck. Why did they sometimes creep up close behind you and start blowing their horns and scaring the shit out of you on downhill grades in the steep, curvy mountains of the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina? He still didn’t know if she would understand about Candy. He’d made a very short call on her phone while she was in the shower and Mrs. Poteet said that Candy was awake now and fine but missing him.