Norman Partridge - Saguaro Riptide

But most of all Jack wanted to give Kate Benteen the right answer, the one that she wanted to hear. He didn’t know why. But it occurred to him that maybe if this whole thing was something personal to Kate Benteen, it might become something personal to him, as well.

He sucked a deep breath. That was crazy. Man, he didn’t know anything about this woman. She could be anybody. Sure she could dive into a swimming pool as smooth as Esther-fucking-Williams, but that didn’t make her an Olympic medalist. And sure she could ride a horse, but that didn’t prove she was a rodeo queen.

Let alone all the other stuff she claimed to be.

And she claimed to be one hell of a lot.

Man oh man. .

“I’m waiting, champ,” she said. “One more time: is it personal?”

“I’ve got to think about that,” Jack said, and the words were barely out of his mouth when she whispered, “Don’t think too long.”

They pulled into town.

“You still hungry?” she asked. “Want me to look for a Jack in the Box?”

“No,” he said. “I think I’ll take your advice.”

She raised an eyebrow.

Jack raised an eyebrow as well. “You can drop me off at the public library, Major Benteen.”

Kate swore under her breath. The former light-heavyweight champion of the world had certainly romped and stomped ail over her first impressions. Jack Baddalach was definitely smarter than she’d guessed. And that played serious hell with her ego, because she had always thought of herself as a crackerjack judge of character.

Barring Vince Komoko, of course.

She swung the Dodge Dakota into a parking space in front of the Saguaro Riptide. Sandy Kapalua-Dayton was over by the swimming pool, busy with one of those little chlorine test kits. She waved as Kate slammed the door of the truck, and Kate waved back as she headed up the stairs.

Kate entered her room and closed the door, relieved to have escaped even the most minimal human contact. She stood stock-still for a second in the dark, appreciating the silence.

The simple truth was that she loved it. She was glad to be alone, glad to be out of sight.

Glad that there wasn’t an answering machine to check, so she didn’t have to feel bad that no one had left a message for her. Glad that there wasn’t a mailbox out front with her name on it, so she didn’t have to feel bad that no one had written her a letter. Glad that she didn’t know anyone within a thousand miles who gave a damn about her one way or another, apart from a guy who obviously had a missing bag of money foremost on his mind and a motel owner who only wanted to know if someone had been pissing in her swimming pool.

Kate hit max a/c and the air conditioner whirred alive. She sat on the bed, untied and kicked off her army boots, and speared the shackled TV remote with her index finger.

"Well, Ricki, I never meant for things to get so out of hand. I mean, Patrice and Rene was in different towns. I never thought they’d be findin’ out about each other. .”

Kate’s index finger came down hard.

CLICK . The channel changed.

". . it wasn’t like that, Geraldo. You make it sound like I was using her. Remember, she got something out of it, too. But she acted like I owed her something, even said that I was insensitive. Man, I am sensitive. Mucho sensitive. Shit. . next to me, Mr. Rogers is like Jeffrey Dahmer. That woman just wanted too much, way more than I could give. .”

CLICK .

“. . and that’s the way it is, Oprah. It’s over. I accept that now. I’m just looking for closure.”

Kate’s palm slammed down on the remote.

The TV screen went blank.

Still, Kate couldn’t look away. The picture tube was murky green, the color of an angry sea. The color of deep water out past the point where whitecaps churn, where people drown and their bodies are lost forever.

Sitting there on the bed, Kate could see her reflection in the picture tube very clearly.

“Don’t you dare wimp out on me, Benteen,” she said.

She snatched up one U.S. Army-issue size 8 boot and brought it down hard on the shackled remote.

Plastic shrapnel exploded across the bed. Two AA batteries flew through the air with the greatest of ease and disappeared in a wave of shag carpet like a couple of depth charges vanishing in a deep blue sea.

Kate pulled off her canary yellow T-shirt and draped it over the TV screen so that the coiled snake and the legend beneath it-DON'T TREAD ON ME-faced her bed.

She stared at the legend for at least a minute. Then she unzipped her jeans and wriggled out of them.

She needed to think.

It was definitely bikini time.

“This database indexes magazine articles for the last several years,” the librarian said. “What would you like to look up?”

“A person named Kate Benteen,” Jack said.

The librarian typed BENTEEN, KATE. A moment later, a list of articles appeared on the screen.

“You can scroll through this listing, even print it out if you want to.”

“Great. Thanks a lot.”

“No problem. Let me know if you need anything else.” The librarian smiled, semi-ingratiatingly. “It’s not often we have a celebrity in our midst, Mr. Baddalach.”

The elderly woman didn’t wait for a reply. She turned and headed toward the reference desk before Jack even had a chance to say Aw shucks, ma 'am. Robbed of his opportunity to turn on the charm, he sat down at the keyboard and scrolled through the list of articles.

And there it was, in golden letters glowing on a black screen. Somehow, Jack didn’t have it in him to be surprised. Still, he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

He stared at the screen for a long time, letting it all sink in. Then he hit the print button. A moment later he had it down in black and white-what the computer nerds called a hard copy. And Jack could definitely go with that, because this information seemed seriously hard, one amazing road map of one amazing past:

Jack tore off the list and turned, eager to ask the librarian where the magazine collection was stored.

He came face-to-face with the two cops instead.

“My God,” the deputy said. “It can actually read.”

“Yeah.” Wyetta Earp grinned. “Kind of scary, isn’t it?”

Twenty laps quick-time and Kate felt a whole lot better. Lungs on fire. Lithe muscles pumped and hard.

She kicked to the edge of the pool, avoiding the ladder. Two hands solid on the coping and she vaulted from the water as smooth and graceful as anything on God’s green. If there were judges for swimming pool exits, every damn one of them would be holding up a sign with a “10” on it.

A lazy afternoon breeze-hot and dry as they came- washed over her. Kate toweled off and grabbed the sunblock. Lathered on that Coppertone 45.

Her mind felt as clear as the afternoon sky. Swimming did that for her. Blew all the misery right out of her soul. Something about pushing her body to the limit-every inch of it, every muscle working in concert-provided a solitary satisfaction and restored her confidence. All alone, she could stay afloat and keep it moving, plowing through the water, her direction sure and constant.

Jesus. She almost laughed. What was she doing thinking thoughts like that? Was she ready for Oprah or what?

She slipped on her sunglasses and glanced over at Sandy Kapalua-Dayton, who was cleaning out the filter trap. Sandy smiled, gave her the old thumbs up.