Cat in an Aqua Storm

16

Crime and Punishment

Sobered by Katharine’s sad predicament, Temple bustled out the back of the Goliath to the guest parking garage. Eager as she had been to get home and type up her radio schedules for Lindy and Ruth, the image of Katharine’s battered face haunted her. In the elevator up to the ramp’s fourth floor, that face seemed to float on the stainless-steel door, a distorted reflection of herself.

Her heels clicked across the concrete garage floor as she pawed through her tote’s awesome collection of effluvia searching for her key ring. She hardly heard the footsteps approaching behind her.

They didn’t stop, and they didn’t overtake her. Just followed along. A woman who lives alone gets used to being wary, and her stint with Max had not been lengthy enough to blunt that self-defensive instinct.

Temple turned casually to see just who was behind her. Two men, who noticed her noticing them.

“Where do you think you’re going?” one demanded with the voice of authority.

Temple speeded up. Was there some snafu about her guest parking status? They could discuss it once she was prudently locked inside the Storm, which was just down several vehicles....

Steps pounded behind her, few and hard.

She glanced back, primed to run, and found the men sweeping past, sweeping her up between them, carrying her away in the irresistible current of their force.

Temple felt like a little kid being hustled away by two of the block’s big-boy bullies. Mean preteens, they would whisk her tiny five-year-old self behind an empty garage and make her swear eternal silence—“Don’t you ever blab, baby. Hope to die and tell a lie”—about what they’d done to Mrs. Saletta’s flower garden, or the secret location of their forbidden tree house or...

These real-time big boys—men—whisked her away, all right. Each grabbed an elbow. Between them, Temple’s high-heeled feet barely touched ground as they dragged her around a concrete pillar and pinned her against the wall behind it.

Temple fought to catch her breath, aware that she now occupied a dead-end notch in the parking ramp design, invisible to anyone who wasn’t looking for people to be there.

As the men’s grip on her upper arms relaxed a bit, she realized that their initial grab hadn’t hurt only because it had clamped off the blood supply. Sensation screamed back into her veins, pulsing hotly around the impressions of their fingers in her flesh.

But, unlike childhood bullies, these goons didn’t want her silence, quite the contrary.

“Where is he?” one demanded in a raw whisper.

“Who?”

“Your boyfriend,” came the other’s impatient rasp.

“I... I don’t have a boyfriend. You must—”

Fingers tightened like wrenches. “Don’t be funny. Your boyfriend the magician.”

“Max? You want—?”

“Where is he?” the first man repeated, glancing nervously toward the main area as a car engine wheezed down the exit spiral.

Temple shook her head in confusion, in disbelief. “I don’t know—”

She heard the oncoming car draw near, its tires peeling over the rough concrete like tape being pulled free, the cramped steering wheel squealing as it took the torturous exit curves.

The noise covered her yelp as the first man suddenly twisted her right arm behind her at a shoulder-wrenching angle.

Pain paralyzed her. The tote bag slid off her left arm, hitting the concrete with a solid clunk followed by the brittle shift of its contents.

“Where is he?” The second man’s face leaned down to hers, so that his unwelcome breath warmed her cheeks, her eyes.

“I don’t know,” she began again, trying to figure out what they wanted her to say, why they wanted her to say anything.

She stopped when the second thug’s big hand circled her throat and clamped it to the concrete wall. The dry, piercing pressure on her windpipe made her want to cough.

“We don’t want to hear that,” the first man whispered almost intimately in her right ear. His breath tickled, and smelled of radishes.

“The police don’t even know!” she managed to gag out.

“We know that,” the second man said. “That’s why we’re asking you. You’d better tell us. You were his girlfriend. They always know.”

“No point in being a martyr,” the first riffled into her ear.

Martyr? The man illustrated his remark an instant later. His fist jabbed into her side, jolting her against the concrete wall for a secondary buffeting.

Temple doubled over despite the grip on her throat, pain exploding in her midsection. Before she could absorb the incredible reality of the assault, another fist followed the first, even as the other man’s meaty, salty hand clamped over her nose and mouth. Breathless, she felt pain rising like a sudden tide, pulling her down into the watery dark.

But the men wouldn’t let her sink. Hands slapped her back to startled consciousness. “Where? Tell us. Where is he?”

Her arms pinioned, she began kicking frantically, fighting unconsciousness. Keep afloat, she told herself. Keep moving, don’t let the sharks get a good grip on any part of you.... Temple felt her spike heels graze shins and bounce off bone. Her angry, frightened cries were muted by a palm slimed with her own saliva. She bit into the meager pleats of flesh her teeth could find.

Then her right wrist, elbow, shoulder seemed to be twisting off in another direction. The men hemmed her in, fists pummeling, just hurting her now, not asking anything. She heard their hard, exhausted breaths, glimpsed faces ugly with unreachable violence.

Brakes shrieked.

Someone yelled. A man. An angry man. In Temple’s mind, her assailants had divided like amoebas, had multiplied and invaded the entire universe, inflicting pain, pain, pain in a kind of manic rain.... Blood gurgled in her mouth. At least at the dentist’s they let you lean over into the white bowl and spit it out—no, not done anymore, not for a long time. Now they vacuumed it out.

“Goddammit!” a furious male voice exploded on the other side of the wall. “You nearly ran into me. I just had the goddam car waxed. Watch where you’re going!”

“Listen, you barreled around that corner so fast it’s lucky you didn’t get a new buffing job all along the side.”

“Freaking screw yourself!”

“Same to you, buddy!”

Their deep, raw voices, despite their anger, sounded distant and sleep-inducing, like the murmur of visiting relatives in the kitchen on a rainy Sunday morning.

Temple flailed to pull herself above an enveloping tide of dreamy dark water, away from the crimson stingers of the jellyfish and the bloody white teeth of the circling sharks.

When she finally reached up and her shoulder shouted with pain, she listened and let her arm fall back limply. Something was fading away. Shapes large and not quite seen. The quarreling drivers continued berating each other, their words growing clearer, though no more meaningful for Temple.

She looked around through the blur in her eyes—not tears, because she didn’t think she was crying. She was too shocked to cry.

The world seemed vaguely askew. She took a cautious step forward, away from the wall, clammy despite the Las Vegas heat. The whole world jumped. She looked down, dizzy, and saw the contents of her tote bag scattered at her feet. Inching her back down the wall, her left hand touching it for balance, she finally crouched on the balls of her feet and began sweeping her things back into the bag one by one.

The men still shouted. Now one wanted the other to move his car out of the way. “Over my dead body!” the other vowed.

Their belligerent voices kept her anchored in reality. She leaned past her fallen personal effects and spit out the sour, tangy saltwater in her mouth.

A red blob blossomed on the gray pavement. Sidewalk spit revolted her, something only crude men did, but this was her own, an oddly disassociated lovely red phenomenon, like a blooming rose.

Her fingernails scraped the sandpaper-textured concrete as she shuffled papers, pencils, makeup bag, card case, keys back into her bag. No. Not keys. Would need keys. Her right hand clasped them, an aching gesture shooting up to her shoulder.

She was about to rise when she saw something odd lying in front of her. About three inches long, tapered. And purple. Oh. Her heel. One of her heels had broken off.

Anger flared in Temple’s anesthetized brain. Her favorite Liz Claibornes!

She scooped up the heel in the same hand that clutched the keys, and—again using the wall as a support—pushed herself slowly upright. Her lips, mouth and jaw were burning now. She knew she was hurt. What to do? The other men—even as she listened she realized that they were gone.

Her car. Must get to her car and lock the doors. But first she must unlock them. Keys in hand, she edged around the pillar, not sure what she would do if two tall men were waiting.

No one there. Only the noncommittal humps of parked cars. Her own wasn’t far. She had almost reached it. A miss is as good as a mile, an inner voice mocked. Left. Facing the outside of the ramp. Aqua.

She limped along, carrying the tote bag in her left hand, because it freed the right hand to use the keys, because the arm hurt too much to carry more than a ring of keys and a broken heel. She had to brace herself on the trunks of cars she passed, hearing her car keys chime on metal, wincing and hoping she wasn’t scratching the paint. Couldn’t look. Couldn’t stop. Need help. Find help. Find car!

The Storm’s cheerful aqua hit her hot, blurred vision like a splash of cooling water. She staggered along the driver’s side and slung the tote bag onto the hood while she fumbled with the keys. The heel kept getting in the way, but she had to hang on to it. For a moment she couldn’t remember whether the key turned left or right, couldn’t remember ever knowing that.

And then instinct resurfaced. She wrenched it right—a sharp hot needle of pain jabbed all the way up to her collarbone. The door opened to her left hand. She was easing herself in when she remembered the tote bag, straightened and retrieved it. She paused for a minute, panting, before the open door. She needed to get in, to lock it. But how to get the heavy tote bag past her first, into the passenger seat?

Sighing, Temple swung it with her left arm, letting its weight pull her arm back and then tug her arm inward. She loosened her grip. The tote plopped upright in the passenger seat like a bag of groceries.

Temple eased herself into the car seat, let her right foot reach in and her knees bend—that felt all right—let her torso bend—that didn’t—and her head dip forward... oh. She was seated, gripping the steering wheel, watching its spoked circle whirl around and around in her gaze.

Her left leg still trailed out the open car door. She pulled in the foot with the heelless shoe. At least she didn’t have to drive with it. Her left arm pulled the door shut. Such a nice sound. Solid and safe. Her forefinger hit the door locks, and they snapped to attention.

Safe in the car, alone in the car, Temple felt pain pool into one tidal wave of agony and almost swallow her.

Home. She had to get home. Safe at home. Keys in ignition. Yes. Taken-for-granted motions were returning. Her teeth suddenly started chattering, scaring her more than the pain, than the mental haze that still surrounded her. Shock. Shouldn’t drive. Had to. They might come back.

The Storm’s valiant little engine purred obediently at the right movements with the key. She would have to shift with her right arm. Ow. Reverse. Back out. The pallid red reflections of her own taillights startled her into braking sharply for an instant. Then the car was backed up. She gritted her teeth and pushed the automatic gear into Drive. The Storm was idling along to the exit ramp, ready to circle down. No one coming. She entered the concrete corkscrew. Dizzy, oh God! She hit the brakes, then reconsidered. Had to circle out. Had to. Only way.

Every turn set the whole gray concrete world lurching, made her stomach do somersaults. She turned and turned and turned before finally seeing the straight stretch that led to the attendant’s booth. Maybe here—?

But the sullen young man on duty barely glanced at the guest parking placard on her dashboard, and she was already beyond him, rolling toward a wall of blazing Nevada sunshine.

Sunglasses! Her right hand pawed for the familiar case in her disheveled tote. She must find her sunglasses before her bloodshot eyes hit blaring daylight. She had to see better to drive in traffic.

Her fingers played blindman’s buff among a raft of displaced items—makeup bag, not glasses case!—while the Storm rolled toward a force field of sunlight as inevitable as a wall of fire. Then she clutched the padded vinyl case, clawed the glasses out, forced the bows open and clapped the glasses to her face just in time.

Masked, disguised, sheltered, she breathed again. She could see to drive. She could get home. Or should she drive downtown to the police station? No. Far. And she’d have to say why. They wouldn’t believe her, or if they did, she’d get Max in more trouble. Apparently he was in enough already.

Las Vegas streets were clean, uncomplicated, pin-straight for the most part. The Storm virtually smelled the way home, the wheel canting right and left in a specific rhythm. Second nature took over. Even the occasional red light passed in a blur of gleaming, sun-baked auto bodies and the funny static buzz in Temple’s head, funny because she didn’t have the radio on.

And finally every tree looked familiar and the oleanders were massing in predictable clumps. The driveway into the Circle Ritz parking lot was one more right turn away, one more interminable pull on her bad right arm.

Someone had left the shady spot for her.

Temple struggled out of the car in the reverse order of her painful entrance. She teetered beside it for numb instants before she locked it, hating to leave her mobile safety zone. Maybe the men were waiting for her here. No. Too close to where she lived, not enough crowds around to disguise their purpose. Too many witnesses who might know her. No. Besides, they’d have to tangle with Midnight Louie, almost-twenty-pound watchcat, if they tried anything funny in her own place. Right.

She lurched forward, touching the ball of her left foot to the asphalt and keeping her heel in the air at the right height, so she barely limped. Like the wine, the properly aged instep remembers. She was amazed to find a rueful brand of humor resurfacing amid the shock and pain, like unsuspected flotsam from a shipwreck. Something she could hold on to.

Just a few more steps to the gate. Once there, she struggled to open it, her key ring and the severed heel still keeping clumsy company in her right hand, her left arm captive to the heavy tote bag slung over the wrist.

The cumbersome stockade gate scraped across the concrete and pulled shut again as ungraciously, but at last it was latched. She could cross the searing cement to the nondescript side door that offered shade and safety in equally blessed doses.

Only a few more steps. This one. That one. Careful. Don’t shake the shoulder, the head, the eyes. Step as daintily as a cat on a hot tin roof. Fire-walking.

She was halfway there when the voice came.

“Temple,” it said.

She paused, swallowing. Her throat was as sore as if she had strep. Temple. She had to think about that one.

“Temple?”

Closer now, the voice. It was becoming a person. She didn’t want to see a person. She didn’t want a person to see her. She froze like a rabbit. A stupid, helpless rabbit on a moonlit lawn. Maybe you can’t see me. Maybe you will just go away, or I will. Maybe—

“Temple, what happened?”

Shocked now, the voice, and too familiar to ignore. She turned, looked through the comforting dark of her glasses to find Matt Devine approaching her in cautious disbelief, like a nosy neighbor in a TV commercial viewed through a distorting fish-eye lens.

Go away! she wanted to scream, but her throat hurt too much to shout.

“Good God, Temple, what happened to you?” he demanded in the hushed, awestruck tones reserved for funerals and hospital rooms.

The words, the shock, did what she had feared. They released the logjam in her emotions, rejoined her physical and mental selves, forced her stability meter off the scale.

She opened her right hand, where the keys she’d clutched had impressed their cryptic profiles into her flesh, across her lifeline and headline and heartline. The severed heel lay there, too, a greater cipher to anyone but her.

She felt the tide coming, sensed the flash flood behind her eyes, heard the flux thickening her voice. “They... they broke it. They broke the heel off my shoe,” she managed to explain, heartbroken as a child with a shattered toy, before she began sobbing.