Craig Johnson - Kindness Goes Unpunished

Vic sat on the stool. “You don’t think we’re looking for William White Eyes.”

I pulled two of the longnecks from the refrigerator. “No, at least not as a killer.”

“Osgood?” I opened both of them and handed one to her.

“I don’t think so, but I’ve been wrong before.”

“Diaz?”

I took a sip of my beer. “He’s a killer.”

“You don’t think that he and Osgood could have kissed and made up?”

“Toy Diaz does not strike me as the forgiving type.”

She took a sip of her own beer. “The assistant DA could be a pretty convenient partner in crime.”

I thought about it. “I think they’re in cahoots.”

She laughed. “Cahoots, Jesus…” She slugged down the rest of her beer. “It is pretty convenient that Toy Diaz appears to be flying around under the radar, and all the inconvenient people in Osgood’s life are meeting with the pavement.”

“Including Cady?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me it didn’t cross your mind.”

I shrugged. “Devon was very convincing.”

“I would be too if somebody was trying to tear off my head and flush it down a public toilet at Citizens Bank Park.”

“I was a little more civilized than that.”

She nodded and placed the tip of her tongue at the bottom of a particularly pointed canine tooth. “Yeah, I’ve seen you in those moods; I bet the meeting was very civilized.” She stood and stretched, her black T-shirt rising and exposing the flat, toned muscles of her midriff. I looked away, but I was pretty sure she’d seen me looking. “I need a shower.”

“Me too, but you go first.”

She had taken the second bedroom upstairs, so I collapsed on the sofa and noticed the blinking light on the answering machine. Vic had stopped on the landing and was looking through the glass of the cupola at the cables that rose from the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. “Cady’s not involved with this.”

Not for the first time, I studied her profile. “You mean in cahoots?”

She grinned. “Yeah.”

I took one of my shallow breaths. It didn’t hurt as much. “I think Osgood put the pressure on Devon, and Devon tried to put the pressure on Cady. I think Cady discovered Devon’s laundering scheme through William White Eyes and was going to drop a dime on them. I’m just trying to figure out why she didn’t do it.”

“You still think Devon hurt Cady.”

I nodded and watched her as she stood there looking at the flat light on the powder blue bridge. “I think if it’d been Toy Diaz, we’d have already been to a funeral.” I cleared my throat and voiced what had been on my mind since I had heard the message on her cell phone. “How could she let herself get involved in an abusive relationship like that?”

“You mean the daughter you raised?” I didn’t say anything. “It can happen to anyone, that’s the point.” She still looked up at the skyline, and her hands slid across the railing as if she were petting the city. She nodded a sad smile, looked down and watched me for a few moments more, and then disappeared.

I was left with the answering machine. There were people back in Wyoming who were desperate for information about Cady and me. I started to reach across and press the button, but the energy eluded me again. I slumped against the cushions and pulled my hat down, thinking that a short nap might do the trick.

The water began running through the pipes, and it was like rain. I could feel myself drifting off. I sat like that, with my back crooked and my finger guard lying on the back of the couch and thought about what I was going to do about Cady.

The water stopped after a while, and I heard Vic’s bare feet padding across the balcony above. I felt myself slipping away but woke a few minutes later because of pressure across both of my thighs. I started to push my hat up, but she took it from me and placed it on her head, an old western tradition. She straddled me with her strong legs and, since the hat was out of the way, I could see that her bathrobe was untied. I could smell the still-wet of her skin, smooth and full.

I started to speak, but she put a finger to my lips and leaned in. “Just shut the fuck up.”

She pulled my face forward with the fingers of one hand twisted into the hair at the back of my head, and I buried my face into her breasts as she reached to unbutton my pants. I could feel her taking the majority of her weight up onto her knees as her fingers quickly undid my belt and began working me through the opening in my underwear and jeans. Her fingers felt cool encircled around me, and it was all I could do to restrain myself from climaxing right then.

I could feel her leveraging me, and I slid into her. She gasped and yanked my head back, locking her mouth over mine, her tongue sliding deep between my lips. I could feel her grinding her hips down onto me, the furious quality of hungry passion as if she might swallow me whole.

I thought I heard a noise from behind her, almost as if the door had opened, but ignored it and slipped my hands under the robe, feeling the heat of her body as my fingers slipped beneath her breasts and cupped them. She broke from my mouth and gasped, a guttural growl coming from the back of her throat as she looked down at me and began pulling my face forward again.

I stopped her. “No.”

I watched as her nostrils flared and the pebbled surface of her nipples rose and fell inches from my face. “No what?”

“I want to see your face.”

Her eyes softened, and she smiled. She pulled my head back, her face a little above mine, and we settled into a rhythm with our eyes locked. I slid myself to the edge of the sofa and for the first time was able to push myself all the way into her. Her eyes flashed again, and her breath caught in her throat as she stayed like that, her grip tightening.

When I was able to think again, I was in the shower trying to wash myself with one hand, the other with a bread bag over it, secured with a rubber band. I couldn’t be sure if I was ever going to leave the water; it wasn’t safe out there.

Vic must have been reading my mind because, after about fifteen minutes, I became aware of her outline through the opaque surface of the shower door. I turned off the water and stood there, dripping.

“Walt?”

“Yep?”

She waited a moment and then spoke again. “It was just sex.”

“Uh huh.”

It was a longer pause this time. “You’re still who you are, I’m still who I am, and we’re still who we are.”

“Right.”

I watched as she put earrings on and applied lipstick. “The only difference is that we had sex.”

“Okay.”

She laughed and turned toward the shower. “Are you all right?”

I took a deep breath and winced a little. “Yep.” She waited, and I finally heard her let out a long sigh. I wiped the water from my eyes. “Vic?” I stared at the shower control and tried to stay focused. “We can’t ever do that again.”

She chuckled as she went out, not closing the bathroom door behind her. “Speak for yourself, big guy.”

I didn’t have any clothes upstairs, so I had to go down with a towel wrapped around my middle. She sat at the counter with another beer and the two-day-old Daily News that had the story about Devon Conliffe’s death on the front page.

I memorized every detail of her appearance with just one glance: the wife-beater T-shirt; the brown, pebbled leather jacket with studded conchos; the belt with green copper studs; a dark green lace skirt which stalled out at midcalf; and a pair of clunky-heeled alligator packers.

She had blown her hair dry so that it feathered down and covered her eyebrows, and she wore a turquoise choker and earrings, with my hat sitting ludicrously large on her head. I had known her for three years and, as good as she had always looked, she had never looked this good. “You want your hat back?”