Neely Tucker - Only the Hunted Run

“I’m not a prude,” she said, turning her head away from him, pulling up the covers. “But I already know what the inside of my hoo-ha looks like. I’m really not interested in looking at anybody else’s.”

John and Elaine Parker had gotten married right out of college-they met at a mixer at Howard a million years ago-produced progeny nine months and fifteen minutes later, and now their boys were grown and settled in Seattle and San Diego. The couple had their two-stories-basement-and-an-attic American four-square stucco back to themselves. It was in Cathedral Heights, a leafy neighborhood in Northwest D.C., on Macomb, the south side of the street. Its back was to the trees and the open expanse of the Washington International School. They also had a small beach house on the Eastern Shore, which Sully sometimes rented in the off-season, and others rented in the high season. The couple spent two or three weeks a year there, the mortgage being covered by the rentals.

Alexis had agreed to house- and Josh-sitting, Sully suspected, half as an act of kindness, to help him get resettled after the shooting, and half as an act of going out of her mind in the microscopic studio apartment where the paper was putting her up during her trial run as editor.

She wore short cutoff blue jeans, sandals, and a spaghetti-strap top, a thing in gold and blue. The shorts were not quite Daisy Dukes but not far from it, either. They were ironic, what with her hundred-dollar Italian sunglasses, that’s what they were. The go-to-hell self-confidence the woman possessed. It was what drew him to her the most.

Chez Parker faced the street, with a covered front porch, two gleaming white columns, rocking chairs, and petunias in hanging baskets. Homicide cops got paid only so much, but Elaine, who had gone into patent law, had worked her way up in a white-shoe firm downtown. She had made partner a decade ago. That the kids had gotten full-ride scholarships hadn’t hurt.

Best, John had told Sully, they had been able to buy the lot beside them from an elderly neighbor whose children had moved him into an assisted living facility over on Connecticut Avenue. After a decent interval, they had demolished the one-story rancher in order to give themselves a comfortable, L-shaped back and side yard.

Elaine, being Elaine, had the entire property surrounded by a white picket fence. She came out onto the front porch while they were still parking, waving, smiling.

“Come on up here and let me hug your neck,” she called out to Sully, as soon as they got out of the car, the Honda he kept in a neighbor’s garage. “I hardly recognize you, driving anything but that crazy motorcycle.”

“Hard to get three people on it,” he called back.

Sully had dinner with them a couple of times a year at their place, and once or twice at his, ever since he’d come back from Bosnia. John had just made detective when Sully went abroad, and was running the homicide squad when he got back.

Work talk was verboten by unspoken agreement at social gatherings. Sully introduced Alexis and Josh and then they all retreated to the shaded back deck, where John was holding court. The grill was already going, sea bass and scallops above low flames. He was working on a beer from a frosted pilsner glass. Elaine, being Elaine, already had the outdoor table set up beneath a green-and-white-striped patio umbrella. A breeze came up, the heat breaking.

John came off the grill, grabbed a football on the deck, and playfully underhanded it to Alexis, with nothing but a quick “Hey now” as warning. She, having picked up a Corona on her way through the kitchen, nimbly shifted the bottle to her left hand and let the ball come to her, tucking it in against her right side.

“Whoa,” John said. “Lady’s got hands.”

“And didn’t spill the beer!” Alexis said. She set the Corona on the table, flicked her tongue across the middle fingers of her right hand, and took the ball by the laces. She patted it twice, shifted her left foot forward, and cocked her arm, the ball up by her ear.

“Gimme a look,” she told Josh, flicking her chin up, toward the open expanse of the yard.

Josh looked over at Sully, who just nodded, smiling, knowing what was about to happen.

Josh, awkward as always, went down the steps to the yard, then half-trotted out in the grass, looking back at them all. Alexis zipped him a strike over the right shoulder, high and tight, a spiral that flew through his hands.

“Hey,” he said, frowning, shaking out his fingers.

She laughed. “I thought you said, back there in the car, that you knew your football.”

“I play,” he said, defensive, color coming up in his cheeks. “I wasn’t ready, that’s all.”

He came back, tossing it to her, wobbly. She caught it, then repeated the same motion, flicking the tongue, shifting her feet, but now bounced on her toes, knees bent, like she’d just come from under center. She snapped her right arm up, ball beside her ear, and slapped it twice with her left hand.

“Gimme a deep post.”

Josh lit out, no kidding this time. She stepped into her throw, putting some air under it, a floating spiral that came down, down, down, right into his outstretched hands, five yards before the picket fence. Josh had to put a hand out for it, halting his momentum. He looked back, smiling, like he’d just snagged it in the back corner of the end zone.

“Nice grab, champ,” she said, saluting him with a short, piercing whistle. “Now lemme finish my beer.”

John stood with his hands on his hips, forgetting the scallops, eyebrows raised, looking over at Sully, who shrugged. Elaine made a show of dropping her chin, opening her eyes wide, and then closing them both. She used a paper towel to dab a film of perspiration from her forehead-the humidity, the heat from the fire-and said, turning to Alexis, “Where did-”

“I was the only boy,” Alexis said, sitting down on the bench, crossing her legs, the show over, reaching for her beer, “that my father ever had.”

By midnight, they were back at Sully’s, the back-porch conversation with the Parkers having lingered over everything and anything but the shooting. Gladiator , which Alexis liked but said wasn’t half the movie Memento was; the Saints, Sully’s team; the Cowboys, John’s (“They were the first to integrate. The Redskins, last. Old heads don’t forget.”); Tiger; the brushfires out west; the lingering bullshit over Bush v. Gore ; Jesse Ventura as Minnesota governor (which drove Elaine to near distraction); land seizures in Zimbabwe.

Once home, Josh wanted to turn in without a shower. Sully was going to let him slide but Alexis, already in charge, said, “Absolutely not. Boys stink.”

She frog-marched him to the basement door and gave a light push. “Wet. I want to see that hair wet . I want the smell of soap and shampoo. Don’t try running the water for two minutes while you stand there with the door closed.”

Sully went upstairs to pack, grabbing two pair of jeans, a pair of slacks, a sport coat, two dress shirts, two pullovers, some underwear and socks, and a pair of gym shorts to sleep in. Nobody on the road ever saw you more than twice, so nobody knew if you wore the same shirt three times in one week, and if they did, fuck ’em.

He was getting toiletries from the bathroom-razor, shaving cream, and toothbrush-and from that spot, there at the top of the stairs, he could hear that Josh had come back up from the basement to the kitchen. Alex was unpacking the dishwasher. Sully stopped, listening.

“So, here,” he heard Josh say.

Footsteps and then a long, exaggerated sniff. “Aaaahhhhh,” Alexis said. “Shampoo and clean hair. Girls dig that kind of thing.”