Bill Pronzini - With an Extreme Burning

“Probably.”

“Wouldn't you? I mean, Tom Cruise's dick!”

Silly, Amy thought.

“The only one I've ever seen is Brian's,” Kimberley said. “It was kind of disappointing, you know? Not nearly as big as I thought it would be.”

“Mmm.”

“What about Davey's? You never said what it was like.”

“I don't want to talk about Davey.”

“Come on, Amy, tell me. Was it big?”

Amy sighed. “Huge,” she said.

“Didn't it hurt a lot?”

The radio was playing a rap song. Ice-T or somebody. Amy reached out and fiddled with the dial and got an oldies station.

“Why'd you do that?” Kim asked. “I like rap.”

“I don't.”

“Well, excuse me.”

“Oh God, Kim, don't you get pissy.”

“I'm not pissy. You're the one who's pissy. The way you've been lately, it's been like going around with my mother .”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Well? You don't want to talk about anything, you don't want to do anything, you just want to mope around, looking deep.”

“I haven't been moping around.”

“Well, you have been deep. Half buried.”

“I've got things on my mind.”

“Like what?”

“Like things, different things.”

“Davey?”

“Davey and I are history.”

“Then what? Some other guy?”

“No.”

“I'll bet it is. Some other guy, right?”

“No.”

“What's his name?”

“Oh, balls, Kim.”

“Come on, what's his name?”

“Wouldn't you like to know?” And wouldn't you just crap if I told you?

“Steve Payton? I saw you talking to him at Safeway the other day.”

“Steve Payton's a nerd.”

“Then what were you talking to him about?”

“Ice cream, if you have to know. Tom and Jerry's versus Häagen-Dazs. Big deal.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Think what you want. I don't care what you think.”

“So who is he, really?” Kimberley asked.

“Who?”

“Your mystery lover.”

“I don't have a mystery lover.”

“But you'd like to, right?”

Maybe, Amy thought. Maybe I would.

“Well?”

“Look,” Amy said abruptly, “there's Brian!”

“Oh, shit, where?”

“In that Ford that just passed. In the backseat.”

“Turn around, quick!”

Amy drove around the block instead of making an illegal U-turn; she wanted the Ford to get far ahead of them so it would take time to catch up to it. Brian wasn't in it; Brian was probably parked somewhere by now, screwing Tara Sims's brains out with his not-nearly-as-big-as-Kim-thought dick. But for a while, at least, she wouldn't have to fend off any more of Kimberley's questions.

She wasn't about to tell Kim about him , not now and probably not ever.

Kim would think she was crazy.

Maybe she was.

She worried her lower lip, wondering again if she could be wrong about the way he felt about her. No, she was sure she wasn't. The looks he gave her, the smiles, the occasional wink … and the warmth in his voice when he was alone with her … and the time he'd held her hand for a few seconds and it had been like electricity shooting up her arm .. it was body heat, pure and simple. She'd sent out signals, too, in spite of herself at first and then, lately, on purpose. So what if he was old enough to be her father? What difference did that make anyway, people's ages? The important thing was how they felt about each other. He didn't treat her like a kid, either; he treated her like a woman. Thought of her as a woman. That was plain, too, in everything he said and did, in every look and smile.

Of course, he hadn't tried to hit on her yet. Not yet. And he'd have to be the one because she wasn't that bold, or that sure of herself. What if she made the first move and she was wrong after all and he blew her off cold? He might even tell Mom. God, she'd die of mortification.

Would he come on to her?

The idea thrilled and frightened her at the same time. What would she do if he did? Say yes right away? Play hard to get? Lose her nerve and blow him off cold? Did she even want him to make a move? Because if he did, and she melted, it meant going all the way. All the way.

Her thoughts shifted to the package of rubbers in her purse. She'd got them from the machine in the women's rest room at Big Red's, right after the last time with Davey. The first three times he'd had rubbers, so there was no problem, but not that last time. She hadn't wanted to let him then, but he'd kept playing with her, getting her hotter and hotter, and finally she'd given in. I won't come inside you, he'd promised. Hah. Boys were such liars. So then she'd had to worry about AIDS and getting pregnant and she'd vowed it would never happen again without protection and then they'd had that big fight about Davey doing coke and broke up. Four months ago, and the package of rubbers was still unopened. She wasn't going to do it with just anybody, no matter what Mom might think. It had to be somebody she cared about, somebody who cared about her.

Him?

“There's the Ford!” Kimberley shouted. “Pull up alongside, I want to see if Brian's with that bitch Tara.”

Silly. So silly.

Kids' stuff.

FIVE

Early Sunday morning Dix spent an hour going through what was left of Katy's things.

He had already boxed up her clothing, cosmetics, items like that; the cartons were in the garage, waiting for him to summon the wherewithal to call Goodwill or one of the homeless shelters. But he hadn't been able to bring himself to pack the remainder of her belongings. For that matter, to even go into her office and studio. The packing had to be done sooner or later—but not today. Today, all he was doing was looking.

The room was cluttered with canvases, finished and unfinished. All were oils; she'd been studying watercolors with Louise Kanvitz, Los Alegres's resident art expert, but none that she'd done had been worth bringing home to show him, she'd said. And all were the quirky abstracts that several knowledgeable people besides Louise praised as showing genuine talent. It had been Louise's lofty assessment, in fact, that had led Katy to trade full-time high-school counseling for part-time teaching so she could devote more hours to her painting. He'd been supportive. Would have been even without Louise and the showing at Louise's Bright Winds Gallery last December and the three paintings she'd sold for Katy at $350 each. The drop in household income hadn't been a problem, not with a moderate mortgage and few other debts. He'd been proud of her, and willing to do anything within reason to make her happy. Anything within reason to shore up the unstable foundation of their marriage.

In one corner was her desk, with its littered surfaces and bulging drawers. He started to it first, changed his mind, and went to the closet instead. It wasn't the storage boxes or the painting supplies or the old ledgers that drew him; it was her treasure box. That had been her name for it, the hammered copper box where she kept all the little mementoes that she'd accumulated over the years. She had shown it to him once, a long time ago, but she hadn't let him look inside. He had never tried to look on his own. He'd respected her privacy, just as she had respected his.

He opened the treasure box first. Photographs, dozens of them: Katy when she was a toddler, a little girl in her father's arms, a teenager in her prom dress, a student at Balboa State, the two of them at a community dance, on Tom Birnam's sailboat in San Francisco Bay, in atrocious Heckel and Jeckel costumes at a Halloween party, in other places and in the company of other friends and relatives. The joke engagement ring he'd presented to her—a pot-metal thing bought at Woolworth's—when she'd accepted his proposal, in lieu of the diamond to come. A sappy and mildly obscene Valentine's Day card he'd given her so many years ago he'd totally forgotten it. A tiny gold nugget she'd found on a pack-trip in the Sierras. A McGovern for President button. The plastic penis, Eileen Harrell's birthday gift one year, that hopped around like a toad when you wound it up and that had sent Katy into hysterics the first time she tried it. Other things, some he recognized and some he didn't, that had been significant to her but that meant little or nothing to him.