Chuck Logan - Vapor Trail

Janey and Drew began to speak at the same time. The young copper held up his hand. “People, we’ve been through this; you will speak in turn, you will not raise your voices, and you will listen to Mr. Broker. If I have to come back, we will continue this discussion at the county jail.”

Drew and Janey shut up. The cop said to Broker, “You know the Hensens. Right?”

“Yes, I do,” Broker said.

“Okay. The husband called for assistance. Said the wife was wrecking his studio. Reason I called you-their little girl, Laurie, is in the bathroom. She’s the only one with any common sense; she says she won’t come out until everybody stops yelling. The thing is, her hands are all cut up and bandaged, which looks like rough stuff I have to report-so naturally I have questions. They both said you could explain.”

Broker nodded a second time. “They had a fight; he walked out. Laurie’s way of dealing with it was to go in the backyard and dig up her dead cat. That how she tore up her hands.”

The copper growled at them, “If it was up to me, you’d have to pass a competency test before you’d be allowed to have children.”

“I can take it from here,” Broker said.

“Good luck,” the cop said, heading for the door. “I’ll be up the hill at the scene if you need anything.”

“Thanks, I think we’re good,” Broker said. He stood with his hands folded in front of him as the officer left. Then he went to the bathroom and knocked on the door.

“This is Phil Broker, remember? I let you take the cat home; gray, shorthaired?”

“I’m not coming out till they stop yelling at each other,” Laurie said.

“Okay. We’ll do something about that. You wait right here. I’ll be back in a minute,” Broker said.

“Okay,” Laurie said.

Broker turned back to Janey and Drew, who sat facing each other with their arms folded tightly across their chests.

“Okay, why are you yelling at each other?” Broker said.

“We have agreed to separate,” Janey said. “He wants to move out and live here. Fine. I just don’t want him to run his parade of bimbos past Laurie. Just keep it away from my kid, okay?”

“What? Lisa-a bimbo? C’mon Janey,” Drew said, “she has a master’s in child psychology for Chrissake.”

“Ohhh, a master’s . .” Janey wiggled her fingers.

“So this is a custody dispute,” Broker said.

“Yes. I want Laurie to spend tonight here with me. Janey says she has to go home,” Drew said.

Broker jerked his thumb toward the bathroom. “What about her? She’s involved in this too.”

They were silent for a moment, then Drew sat back, refolded his arms, and said, “I promised to take Laurie to Camp Snoopy tomorrow.”

Broker looked at Janey. “Is that okay with you?”

“Of course. It’s tonight I’m worried about,” Janey said.

“There you go again; just settle down,” Drew said.

Drew was also staring at him. Broker looked down and noticed that his shoes were caked with drying mud from his night walk around Lake McKusick, his jeans and shirt were gritty from diving in the tomato patch.

Drew said, “It’s no big deal. I have to work. She can watch movies on the TV with the headset.”

“Where will she sleep?” Janey asked. “Certainly not back there where you. .” She pointed at the alcove where Drew had his futon.

“No, no; I’ll take the small futon off the chair and make a pallet in front of the VCR.”

“I suppose that would be all right,” Janey said. Grudgingly, they nodded to each other.

“Okay, I’m going to bring Laurie out,” Broker said. He went to the bathroom and knocked on the door. “Fight’s over. Time to come out.”

Slowly, Laurie opened the door. “I heard,” she said as she squinted past Broker at her father. “Can I watch three movies?” Laurie asked.

“Not three movies,” Janey said.

So Broker watched them work out the details. Absently, as they talked, Janey began to pick up books and stack them back in the shelves. Immediately, Drew stooped to help. Broker thought the behavior bizarre, yet also comforting. Or saddening. He wasn’t sure which.

Finally, Broker and Janey left the studio and stood on the sidewalk.

“Hop in, I’ll give you a ride,” Broker said.

They got into Mouse’s car. As they drove away, Janey brightened with a forced eagerness. “Don’t take me home yet. Let’s take a drive. Now that we’re both separated persons, we could go somewhere and have a drink. A lot of drinks. In fact, we could get drunk,” she said.

Broker studied her across the front seat. Scraps of moonbeam caught on her teeth and the whites of her eyes. She was looking very warm and available. But the glimmers on her face reminded him of the tiny feathers stuck to Gloria Russell’s cold skin. “I don’t get drunk,” he said.

“Not even during a moment of weakness?” Janey said.

He had the windows open, and the night pressed in feeling foreign; Galveston, New Orleans-someplace else. So hot you wanted to take off everything to cool down, and not just your clothing-your normal restraints. Broker thought about it. For the second day in a row, bullets had zipped past his head. He’d seen two dead women. .

“Weak moment, huh?” he said.

“Yeah,” Janey said.

“Separated,” Broker said.

“Uh-huh. You know, Broker, you’re, ah, all dirty,” Janey said.

“We were chasing somebody tonight,” Broker said.

“Did you catch them?” Janey said.

“Catch them. .” He thought of his first wife, Caren; how after hunting season she would say, “Phil caught a deer,” not “shot” it, not “killed” it. “Yeah, I guess we did,” Broker said. “Okay, look; I’m going out to Milt’s and jump in the river. You want to come along?”

Broker floated on his back and stared up at the stars. He considered a world in which Diane Cantrell and Gloria Russell had to die while he and Harry continued to live.

Janey surfaced beside him, a gleam in the moonlight.

“Just relax, just let it happen,” she said.

An experiment at playing skinny dipping in the dark. Pale flashes of skin, like fish, curving out of sight. Laughter. Splashing.

Then the bodies grazing, just nibbles of touch at first.

So just let it happen. Forget the death. Embrace the life.

You think you lose it,that it’s gone forever, worn to nothing by the drip of familiarity that breeds contempt. You resign yourself that it’s never going to happen again. Not happen like it used to, not heightened and intense, and then you discover it’s been there all along and that all you needed was the right person to bring it back strong. Flint and steel. Sparks, flame, inferno. .

He was lost in his lovemaking.

God, it was like he was twenty-five again, and she made it all new. So good. Like secrets. All these cunning little physical secrets she revealed. Could she always do this? Or was it something kindled special between them?

Was it her? Was it them? It was like she was a mirror, and when he looked at her writhing in his arms, lips parted, eyes shut, slippery with sweat in this heat-all he could see was. .

Himself.

But he wanted to please her; he wanted to slowly gather her in, then herd her, then push her into a run until they ended in a happy stampede.

Shhh, she said. We have to be quiet.

It’s all right; it’s all right, he said.

We’re making too much noise, she said. But then she began to really like it and then she began to whisper loudly, Oh God, oh God; it’s perfect, it’s perfect, and now I’m afraid I can’t stop. I’m afraid I can’t stop.