Hob Broun - Odditorium

“Okay. But if I pass out, don’t tie my shoelaces together.”

Christo saw consolation just ahead as Tildy ushered him into the bedroom and closed the door.

“I wish there was a lock on it,” she said.

His skin tightened like a drum head. “Risk always adds a little something,” he said, reaching for her.

Tildy dodged away, crackling with annoyance. “If that’s what you’re expecting, forget it.”

His fingers brushed lightly against her contracted face. “Haven’t you been thinking about me since New York?”

“Not that way. No more than a couple of times.” She turned away, leaned her sudden weight on the dresser like a seasick passenger at a ship’s railing. “If you drifted down here looking to bolster yourself somehow, I’m sorry. It’s the wrong time, I’m the wrong girl. The list goes on and on.”

“A wishful misunderstanding then. No harm, no foul.”

There was an odd delicacy about him now. And Tildy appreciated it, even if it meant he’d been pounded in the last few months, tenderized like a piece of veal.

“How is it for you when the booby trap goes off? Does gravity get stronger? Do you withdraw?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I take all the drugs they’ll give out and I’m just a cloud of vapor inside pyjamas.”

“How do you feel right now?”

“Strong as an ox, but that could change.”

“The weather’s never right,” Tildy lamented. “Why the hell couldn’t you have shown up weeks ago when I really needed you?”

“I thought about it. I thought about you all along.”

“So much for telepathy.” Tildy went to her knees, lifted a flap of bedspread and reached underneath. “You want to be filled in? I’d love to.” She tugged and scuffled until the trunk was clear and she could raise the lid. “But this is the only thing I’m sure about.”

At first sight, the conglomerate sheen of nuggets and metal was like a cold draft on the eyes. Christo flinched and there wavered in his brain, if only for a moment, the urge for flight. Then envy took over, then apprehension. He stammered.

“Gorgeous. It’s a … sweet Jesus … It’s trouble.”

“Pandora’s box,” Tildy said.

“And I’m not hallucinating?”

“I wish you were. That I could handle.”

Christo took her hand and pulled her up. He stared into her flat eyes. “Who did you rob?”

The story she had to tell did not lend itself to synopsis and the deeper into it she got, the more blurred it became, the little men in Karl’s dream as outlandish as the real-life characters. She lost her hold on the precise sequence of events. By the time she arrived at the collision in Sparn’s office, the words were baffled and running together.

“Throttle back a minute. Your old boss, he figured out where this bonanza came from?”

“That’s what I thought. But he hasn’t contacted me, hasn’t made a move since.”

“Your dyke friends out there? How much do they know?”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. That’s what I mean. I can’t handle it. Don’t you see? It’s too much weight for me to carry, far too much. Dammit, I’m just a stupid small-town housewife.”

“And all you needed me for was my criminal expertise?”

Tildy instantly repented of any appeal she had let slip. “It’s not your problem. You’re free to disappear. Go on, I’m not asking you to stay.”

He kicked the trunk lid shut. “You already did. The moment you showed me what was inside.” Walk away from a score this size? he thought. Not a snowball’s chance in hell. He pressed her reluctant head to his shoulder. “I may not be as sharp as Machiavelli, but you’re no stupid housewife either.”

In the face of her better judgement, Tildy softened against him, let her fingers walk across his upper lip. “What will we do?”

“I don’t know yet. But at least I know what kind of stakes we’re playing for.”

Elsewhere, the afternoon was running out like a slow leak in a tire.

“Another Gatortail sets sail,” Karl sang to himself.

He was deep in the suds, and suspicious. What could Tildy be doing in there all this time? It had taken him a while, but he’d narrowed down the possibilities. She had to be showing that big-town slick something he shouldn’t see. Either the box under the bed or herself on top of it.

“Some kinda way for a man to be treated under his own roof,” he called out.

The silence came back down like a trap and Karl had to ask himself the really thorny question: What is it makes me such a pussy? Why can’t I kick that door in and pull my wife out by the hair?

He could only ask, not answer. It hadn’t always been this way. Once he’d been a death defyer in a cherry red race car, and any woman who went behind his back got popped in the chops — But jackshit! A man of his young age shouldn’t be playing “those were the days.”

He tottered to the window. There were those bitches he’d asked Tildy to do something about, and they were playing cards in their bras and laughing.

“Hey. Hey.” He rapped on the glass. They took no notice, so he flung the window up and dangled himself out. “Hey, you fatbags gotta take off now. You see there, it almost be night.” He pointed to where the sun was like a damaged eye socket on the western horizon. “Put on your pants and take off…. I said it right. Put on, take off.”

“Pipe the fuck down,” M.J. responded.

Karl swung at the air, spilled beer down his arm. “Pull your bags over here and we’ll see ’bout it.”

“Break it up, brats.” Tildy had come out to see about the noise.

“Your husband can’t hold his liquor. Don’t get salty with us about it.” Flora, nonetheless, was getting into her pants.

Tildy, pulling Karl aside, yelled back, “I’m sober and as anxious to see you gone as he is.”

“What took ya so long?” Karl tried kissing her, missed.

“I overslept,” she told him.

“What’s this attitude for?” Flora said.

“For peace and harmony.”

“Your problem, girl, is you forget who your friends are.” M.J. hoisted herself up, toed a pillow like it was something not quite dead. “You practice loyalty, and in the end you thrive. Go your own way and you won’t have shit to show for it.”

“An attitude problem,” Flora agreed. “It all stems from that.”

“No sermons. Just get going.”

“You wrote the ticket, just remember that.” M.J.’s head vanished inside a Cougarettes sweatshirt, then popped free again. “Straight along to clown town.”

“I’m sorry it had to be this kind of job,” Flora said, “but I want that garage.”

“What kind of job?”

All Tildy got for an answer was M.J.’s upraised middle finger as Flora slapped her car into reverse, cut past the Galaxie to the blacktop; and then all six splatting notes of the custom installed “Charge!” horn.

“Should be some purple exhaust ’bout now,” Karl said.

Christo came up behind them with a tube of olive loaf seated cherootlike in his molars. “So what’s the latest?”

“Finally run them bags offa the property, din’t we?” Karl missed another kiss and fell heavily among the Gatortail empties.

Tildy pictured transiently a famous tattoo: Born to lose. She was dazed but cognizant. Sparn had sent those two for bloodhounds. They’d report back now, if they hadn’t already with that phone call from R.C.’s.

“I think we’re in the crosshairs,” she said. “I think we ought to pack a bag and go.”

“Could you translate that?” Christo said.

“Just think the worst and you’ll be there.” She helped Karl to his feet. “Come on, kiddo. Help me sort through the drawers.”

“Awful sudden ain’t it?” Tildy herded him backward. “We goin’ on a trip, I’d like to know where.”