Patricia Cornwell - Book of the Dead

Marino noticed him when they got here earlier, has never seen him before. He watches him get a pitiful five bucks out of the ATM while his mutt of a dog sleeps curled up in a chair at the bar. The man hasn’t petted him once or even asked the bartender for a treat for him — not so much as a bowl of water.

“I don’t know why it’s got to be you,” Shandy starts in again, but her voice is different. Quieter, colder, the way she gets with the first frost of spite. “When you think of all you know and all you’ve done. The big-shot homicide detective. You ought to be the boss, not her. Not her dyke niece, either.” She drags the last of a biscuit through white gravy smeared on her paper plate. “The Big Chief’s kind of turned you into the Invisible Man.”

“I told you. Don’t talk about Lucy like that. You don’t know shit.”

“Truth is truth. I don’t need you to tell me. Everyone in this bar knows what kind of saddle she rides.”

“You can shut up about her.” Marino angrily finishes his drink. “You keep your mouth shut about Lucy. Me and her go back to when she was a kid. I taught her how to drive, taught her how to shoot, and I don’t want to hear another word. You got it?” He wants another drink, knows he shouldn’t, has already had three bourbons, strong ones. He lights two cigarettes, one for Shandy, one for him. “We’ll see who’s invisible.”

“Truth is truth. You had a real career before the Big Chief started dragging you around everywhere. And why’d you tag along as usual? I know why.” She gives him one of her accusatory looks, blows out a stream of smoke. “You thought she might want you.”

“Maybe we should move,” Marino says. “Go to a big city.”

“Me move with you?” She blows out more smoke.

“What about New York?”

“We can’t ride our bikes in New Damn York. No way I’m moving to a place swarming like a beehive with all those stuck-up damn Yankees.”

He gives her his sexiest look and reaches under the table. He rubs her thigh because he’s terrified of losing her. Every man in this bar wants her, and he’s the one she’s picked. He rubs her thigh and thinks about Scarpetta and what she’ll say. She’s read Dr. Self’s e-mails. Maybe she’s realizing who he is and what other women think of him.

“Let’s go to your place,” Shandy says.

“How come we never go to your place? You afraid to be seen with me or something? Like maybe you live around rich people and I’m not good enough?”

“I have to decide whether I’m going to keep you. See, I don’t like slavery,” she says. “She’s gonna work you to death like a slave, and I know all about slaves. My great-grandfather was a slave, but not my daddy. Nobody told him what the hell to do.”

Marino holds up his empty plastic cup, smiles at Jess, who’s looking mighty fine this evening in tight jeans and a tube top. She appears with another Maker’s Mark and ginger, sets it in front of him. She says, “You riding home?”

“Not a problem.” He winks at her.

“Maybe you should stay in the campground. I got an empty camper back there.” She has several in the woods behind the bar, in case patrons aren’t safe to ride.

“I couldn’t be better.”

“Bring me another.” Shandy has a bad habit of barking orders at people who don’t have her status in life.

“I’m still waiting on you to win the bike build-off, Pete.” Jess ignores Shandy, talks mechanically, slowly, her eyes on Marino’s lips.

It took a while for him to get used to it. He’s learned to look at Jess when he talks, is never too loud, never exaggerates his speech. He’s hardly aware of her deafness anymore and feels a special closeness to her, maybe because they can’t communicate without looking at each other.

“One hundred and twenty five thousand dollars cash for first place.” Jess draws out the staggering amount.

“I’m betting River Rats is going to get it this year,” Marino says to Jess, knowing she’s just messing with him, maybe flirting a little. He’s never built a bike or entered any contest, and never will.

“And I’m betting on Thunder Cycle.” Shandy inserts herself in that snotty way Marino hates. “Eddie Trotta’s so damn hot. He can trotta into my bed anytime he wants.”

“Tell you what,” Marino says to Jess, putting his arm around her waist, looking up at her so she can see him talking. “One of these days, I’ll have big bucks. I won’t need to win a bike build-off or work a shit job.”

“He ought to quit his shit job, doesn’t earn enough to make it worth his while — or worth my while,” Shandy says. “He’s nothing but a squaw to the Big Chief. Besides, he doesn’t need to work. He’s got me.”

“Oh, yeah?” Marino knows he shouldn’t say it, but he’s drunk and hateful. “What if I told you I got an offer to go on TV in New York?”

“As what? A commercial for Rogaine?” Shandy laughs as Jess tries to read what’s being said.

“As a consultant for Dr. Self. She’s been asking me.” He can’t stop himself, should change the subject.

Shandy looks genuinely startled, blurts, “You’re lying. Why would she care a shit about you?”

“We got a history. She wants me to go to work for her. I’ve been thinking about it, maybe would have accepted right away, but that would mean moving to New York and leaving you, babe.” He puts his arm around her.

She pulls away. “Well, looks like her show’s on its way to being a comedy.”

“Put our guest over there on my tab,” Marino says with loud largesse, nodding and pointing at the man in the flame do-rag sitting next to his dog at the bar. “He’s having a rough night. Got five lousy bucks to his name.”

The man turns around and Marino gets a good look at a face pitted with acne scars. He has the snake eyes that Marino associates with people who have done time.

“I can pay for my own damn beer,” the man in the flame do-rag says.

Shandy continues complaining to Jess, not bothering to look at her face, so she may as well be talking to herself.

“Don’t appear to me like you can pay for much of anything, and I apologize for my southern hospitality,” Marino says, loud enough for everyone in the bar to hear.

“I don’t think you should go anywhere.” Jess looks at Marino, at his drink.

“There’s room for only one woman in his life, and one of these days he’s gonna figure that out,” Shandy says to Jess and anybody else listening. “Without me, what’s he got, anyway? Who do you think gave him that fancy necklace he’s wearing?”

“Fuck you,” the man in the do-rag says to Marino. “Fuck your mother.”

Jess walks over to the bar, crosses her arms. She says to the man in the do-rag, “We talk polite in here. I think you better leave.”

“What?” he says loudly, cupping a hand behind his ear, mocking her.

Marino’s chair scrapes back and in three long strides he is between them. “You say you’re sorry, asshole,” Marino says to him.

The man’s eyes touch his like needles. He crumples the five-dollar bill he got out of the ATM, drops it on the floor, crushes it beneath his boot as if he’s putting out a cigarette. He smacks the dog’s butt, heads to the door as he says to Marino, “Why don’t you come out here like a man? I got something to say to you.”

Marino follows him and his dog across the dirt parking lot to an old chopper, probably put together in the seventies, a four-speed with a kick start, flame paint job, something funny-looking about the license tag.

“Cardboard,” Marino realizes out loud. “Homemade. Now, ain’t that sweet. Tell me what you got to say.”

“Reason I’m here tonight? Got a message for you,” the man in the dorag says. “Sit!” he yells at the dog, and it cowers, flattens on its belly.