Jon Talton - Cactus Heart

Men underestimate the sensual power of kissing. For a long time, I just kissed her-long and deep, short and teasing and anticipatory. Using the tongue, a circle and a thrust. The subtle turns and tenses of the lips. Gentle bites on her lower lip. Nothing much else. Not much caressing or hugging, yet. The room felt ten degrees hotter. Then she let me push her to the sofa, and slowly ease her down. She smiled a far-away smile. Her pupils were black and wide. I knelt down and used my tongue.

“Oh, my,” she gasped.

This was my show. Starting at the ankles-the exquisite planes and facets of the ankles of a woman gifted with athleticism and good DNA. Moving up to the smooth, taut surfaces of the calves. Behind the knees…The intimate, dangerous, tender skin of the inner thighs. Then starting all over again on the other leg, slowly moving up…

She came awake with a start. We were on the rug in front of the fire. It had cooked to embers, like a little burned village. I pulled her back down to me, smoothed her mussed hair, and pulled the comforter back up.

“That wasn’t like me…” she whispered.

“You were wonderful.”

“I have a hard time giving up control.”

“You sounded like you had fun.”

“I’m very loud,” she said. “My previous boyfriend didn’t like that.”

“I love it,” I said, wondering about this previous boyfriend. So much I didn’t know about Gretchen Goodheart.

“I had a dream about you,” she said. “About you and those two little boys trapped in the wall.” She shivered against me.

“What was it about?”

“It’s bad luck to tell a bad dream. You’ll make it come true.”

She stood and put on a Lucinda Williams CD, the volume low. The fireplace snapped and sizzled. Then she came back and nuzzled against me. I held her tight. The old building creaked. A train whistle sailed through the window.

“Why did they put that woman in prison and keep her there her whole life?”

“I don’t know,” I said quietly.

“The Yarnells had all the power. Frances had no power at all.”

“They didn’t have enough power to stop the kidnapping,” I said. “I guess none of us is safe.” I thought of Bobby Hamid: None of us in the world…

“Do you believe in justice, David?” She raised up and looked at me. Her eyes were bright with imagined starlight.

“I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t.” Women were asking me about justice this week.

“I mean real justice.”

I thought about that. I said something lame. Something egghead-stupid about fallible human institutions, the rule of law, and the razor edge between justice and vengeance.

“I believe in vengeance,” she said, a catch in her throat. “Don’t you, really?”

Before I could answer, she had me on my back and was pulling my clothes off. Then she straddled me, guiding me inside her with one sure move.

“Come here, my cactus heart.”

“What?” I was into more than hearing at that moment.

“You know what I mean.”

She rode me gently, an achingly tight sensation coursing up from my groin. She still had on the cocktail dress. I moaned and stroked her smooth knees and forgot about thinking.

“Could you ever love me like you do Lindsey?” she whispered.

“I…” She slid down on me with a twisting motion.

“Don’t lie to me, David.”

“You feel so goddamned good,” I gasped.

“That’s better.” She kissed my chest, circled my nipples with her tongue.

“You have just the right amount of chest hair,” she said. She rode me slowly, then fast and deep, tossing back her head, brushing that straight, fine hair against her shoulder blades.

“I love to play with you,” she said, slowing down again.

“I love to play with you.”

“I believe you,” she smiled, her white teeth gleaming in the half-dark.

She moved up and down, met my stroke, tensed and released. I grasped her hips, syncopated our movements.

“I want you to love me, David,” she said, quickening her pace a bit. I reached up and caressed her breasts through the fabric of the dress.

“Don’t be afraid. Don’t you see what kind of life we could have together?” She put her hands hard against my chest for purchase and moved against me with more urgency. My God, what a feeling!

The fire popped. “I want your heart.” She was breathing faster. “The heart you hide behind all those books and thoughts. You keep it from me right now.” She gasped and shuddered. Then, “It has thorns around it because you’ve been hurt before, and you are very conflicted now. I can feel that. You hold back.

“But I know it’s a good heart, like mine is a good heart…” She giggled. “Goodheart.”

She moved faster, an irresistible rhythm. Lucinda Williams sang “Right in Time.”

“I want you to come back to me when this is all over, and let me in David’s cactus heart…”

“Gretchen…”

“I love the way you say my name!” A moaned anthem. “I love you, David!”

I knew I was too far gone. I was ready to say anything. And I did.

Saturday the sun returned to a sky scrubbed flawlessly blue by the rain. It would take Phoenix at least a day to dirty up the air again. Downtown was deserted as usual on a non-sports weekend. I was sitting on the old broken curb in front of the Triple A Storage Warehouse when a gleaming new silver Mercedes drove past, parked and disgorged a tall, snowy-haired driver.

James Yarnell walked up. “I could be through nine holes by now, Mapstone. On the other hand, it’s good to know I can be out in the world and nobody’s trying to kill me. What’s this all about?”

“I think you’ll agree it’s worth your time,” I said. “Let’s go inside.”

I led him through the side door into the old building. It smelled different after the rain: dust stirred on bricks, ashes tamped into mud, a vague scent of rot and disuse. Our footsteps echoed in outsized sounds. Inside, the big room was once again visible thanks to bare bulbs, far overhead. A strand of temporary lighting followed a heavy orange cord down into the elevator shaft.

“This is where you found them?” Yarnell said, putting his hands on the hips of his tan chinos and looking around. His eyes followed the orange cord to the frame of the freight elevator and to the square hole in the concrete.

“Come down,” I said.

He hesitated.

“It’s not far,” I said, walking to the ladder. I started down, and after a minute James Yarnell followed me.

Then we were down in the passages. It was noticeably colder, the cold of a violated grave. Every six feet, a small fluorescent light attached to a spindly aluminum stand beat back the blackness. We tramped down the main tunnel, made the now-familiar turn, came to where the bricks had fallen away. Yarnell stepped around me and just stared at the opening. The only sound was a slight hum from the lights.

“Is this how you spend your weekends, Mapstone?”

“Actually, I’ve been spending my time trying to figure out this case.”

“I didn’t think that was in doubt. The handyman was tried and convicted.”

“That’s what everybody keeps telling me,” I said. “But the more I looked, the less made sense. Talbott couldn’t have kidnapped the twins. He was in jail that night.”

“He was? How do you know that?”

I told him about the booking and release records. “I’m not saying he wasn’t involved somehow. He just couldn’t have been the initial kidnapper. Then I heard about Bravo Juan, who ran the numbers in the Deuce. It seems your uncle Win was in debt to him.”

“My God, do you think he was the one?” Yarnell was absently scratching his forearm. “Let’s get out of here. You can tell me more upstairs.”