Jack O'Connell - Box Nine

“Do you use drugs, Lenore?”

“Of course not. Narcotics officer, remember?”

“I was wondering what percentage of the enforcers, the policers, were guilty of the crime themselves.”

“No idea. I don’t know of any. You could probably find a study somewhere.”

“No doubt. Why have you never married?”

Lenore can’t help but laugh. Her face crumbles into a huge smile, then she dissolves, laughter coming full from the mouth, shoulders and stomach actually shaking. She pulls her noise into a closing whine and says, “Oh, Freddy, Freddy. I think you have a real attraction to violence. You just push and push.”

Woo loves the reaction he’s gotten out of her. He folds his arms across his chest, pleased, a little proud of himself, she thinks.

“You’re being wasted in academia. You should be one of those all-night radio guys. Syndicated. Open lines to all of America. Get them on the line and open them up. An audio incision from head to toe. Push and push and get every twisted insomniac to confess all their sins and crimes to the public. What entertainment. You’d be a phenomenon. Ratings history.”

“I will admit, I’ve always had a strong love of radio.”

“That would have been my guess. You’re a radio guy if I’ve ever seen one.”

“You are quite a package of contradictions, Lenore. I suppose it’s no secret at this point that you fascinate me.”

“I’m trying to picture that sentence coming out of anyone else’s mouth. Can’t do it.”

“Could we admit a mutual attraction here? Could we both extend ourselves to risk and vent these hazardous feelings?”

Lenore goes quiet and just stares at him. She opens and then closes her mouth. Then she opens it again and says, “You’re either the most pathetic guy I’ve ever met or you’re over the top, you’re tooling with me and I don’t even know it, you’ve got capacities that I’m just blind to.”

“And aren’t you curious to know which it is, Lenore?”

She wishes she had some perfect, hateful line. Instead she says, with little conviction, “You tell me.”

“Like you said before — things change. I think that’s the bottom line, really. I think everything is in constant flux. I think that nothing in this world is stable. I think maybe the difference between being pathetic and being overwhelmingly in control is a difference of perspective. And that perspective, like a pendulum, will swing from one extreme to the other.”

He reaches across to her and just barely touches the skin on the back of her neck. He runs a finger lightly down a cord of knotted muscle. If it were Zarelli doing this, a man she’s spent the past several months sleeping with, she’d be driving an elbow into his chest and curing his stupidity. Now, shocked at herself, she comes up with a weak, heartless “Don’t.”

Woo doesn’t stop. He shifts a bit in his seat, draws nearer to her side of the car. His voice goes low and he says, “My guess is you drink far too much coffee. The tension is just gleaming off your body. You could do with a month of massage and hot baths.”

His fingers slide around the curve of her neck, around the front to below her jaw. He has a delicate touch that surprises her, like a kind doctor, a combination of professional, learned knowledge and instinctual sensitivity. His index finger travels back up her throat to below her earlobe and probes softly at the hinge of her jaw.

“You clench unconsciously. I would guess that you grind your teeth in your sleep.”

She keeps herself from looking at him. She stares at the Penumbra garage and mumbles, “I don’t sleep.”

“No surprise there,” he says, his fingers moving down soothingly over her Adam’s apple.

“Stop,” she says, but her body stays rigid, her eyes frozen forward, unblinking, then closing up.

She feels him unfasten the first button on her blouse. Her eyes open, but she doesn’t speak. He frees the second button. Her breath starts to come heavier and she makes a loud swallowing noise. The third button comes loose.

And the garage door swings open and Mingo Bouza pulls the Jaguar out into the street and rolls off, headed west.

Lenore shifts the Barracuda into gear and Woo’s hand hesitates for only a second and then falls away from her chest. She waits a moment to give Mingo a safe lead, then pulls out of the alley and begins the tail.

They both stay quiet and Lenore’s glad for this. She leaves four and five car lengths between herself and Mingo. She’d rather risk losing him at a red light than give themselves away. They drive for close to an hour and, for Lenore, that leaves only two possibilities — either Mingo is in love with the Jag and logging time behind the wheel just for the kick, a fairly innocent fix, or Cortez has told him to watch for a tail and he’s making a safety arc, driving a huge circle around the borders of the city.

But if Mingo expects a tail, he’s not doing a thing to lose it. He drives long stretches of speedway — Chin Ave, Hooey Road, William Brown Hill. He keeps at a constant rate of motion. He stays in the same lane for long stretches of time. It makes Lenore more than a little suspicious. She wishes she had the time and appropriate conditions to give this some thought. She wishes she could take a half hit of crank and pump some weight in a dim and deserted gym with the latest underground speed metal playing off a portable Bose and echoing off soundproofed walls. Then the truth would come to her. Her intuition could combine with the limited facts and tell her the most likely answers to the questions Where is Mingo headed? Is he aware of my presence or just stupid? Is this a trap?

Eventually, Mingo winds toward the west side of Quinsigamond and Lenore is unsure of whether or not to feel comfort now that she’s on home turf. Woo stays silent in his seat, possibly sulking over coming so close to what he wants so badly. How far would she have let him go, she wonders, and is hit instantly with a picture of herself, naked and hungry for a little more air, in the cramped backseat of the Barracuda like some high school girl with an encroaching curfew. She puts the picture out of her mind, only with difficulty, by thinking of Vicky in her long black nightgown, swaying like a limp branch up the telephone pole.

Lenore watches Mingo take a left onto Sapir Street and her stomach tightens up. She’s not sure why, but she doesn’t want to consider the possibility that Ike could see her with Woo. The Jaguar slows, pulls into the curb just beyond the post office, and Lenore pulls into the parking lot of a convenience store on the corner of Breton and Sapir. She sinks in her seat and Woo glances at her, then does the same.

Mingo climbs out of the Jag carrying an oxblood briefcase, looks around as he fumbles with the keys to lock the car door. Then he crosses the street with a small jog and heads into the Bach Room. Lenore watches the screen door swing closed and then, absent-mindedly, she begins to rebutton her blouse.

“You play gin rummy?” she asks Woo, still staring at the Bach Room entrance.

“Excuse?” Woo asks, but Lenore ignores him.

“We’ve got to make a couple phone calls,” she says, “and pick up a thermos of black coffee.”

I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked … This can’t be necessary. I’ve done everything— … No. I’m begging you— … No. Then it’s best left to me.”

Cortez brings the cordless phone down from his mouth to his chest and holds it there for a moment, his eyes closed, his hands trembling. Then he moves the phone away from his body, looks down into the small cradle of illuminated rubber buttons. He pushes on the Open Speaker switch and sets the phone gently down on the fireplace mantel, mouth-grid faced up toward the library ceiling.