Neon lights oranged the sky as the town's avid move-goers queued up in zig-zagged lines anxious for the late afternoon matinee to spill out of Elston's sole movie, which only last year had been converted from a 1940's dance hall.
Auburn-haired Kathy McGuire gave her husband's hefty paw an extra squeeze and leaned her head forward to peek at the promotion poster that advertised this week's movie, the only local entertainment around except for George Mason's bango trio that played twice a week in the basement of the country club. The post depicted a teenage couple seated on a Harley Davidson; the boy's high booted heels dug into the ground to support the massive weight of the machine while a girl with long blonde hair clasped her hands around the boy's stomach, letting her hands drift down to the vee of his pants. The square-jawed youth was turning to hand the girl a poorly-rolled brown cigarette.
"Any idea what this movie is about, honey?" Kathy asked demurely in her hushed voice, knowing her husband didn't like to discuss anything in public.
"Cop show," he sputtered with a jerk of his head.
"Oh, I thought maybe it would be a romance or a musical," Kathy pouted, stepping back at her husband's side and staring straight ahead. The orange of the twinkling neon caught the bored expression on her delicate features. As if I even had to ask, thought the young woman with a twinge of bitterness. Cop shows, violence, death, and justice… that's all he cares about. With a sudden empty ache, the question skipped through her mind: What would her husband have been, if not an undercover policeman? What else could a suspicious, brusque man like Art McGuire contribute to society, except for an occasional "bust" on a drug or prostitution ring?
Drawing her lips into a taut line of disgust, she stared up at her husband, studying the dominance of his strong jaw line, the rippling of his cheek muscles as he worked his lower jaw against his upper. He's hard at work again, realized the finely-boned wife with a smattering of guilt for feeling neglected. Mentally, she caressed the taut muscles in his neck, the tightness in his shoulders. The pressure of work, a job never completed, impossible to complete until the last criminal was behind bars, showed in the furrows of his high, straight forehead.
Did it really matter that she wasn't getting her own way? No, she conceded, it couldn't override Art's devotion to his work. His determination. His sense of justice. For it was those qualities that made Art who he was – a well respected member of the police force, a man who loved children, hated to see them throw their futures away for a few adolescent kicks. What he failed to give his wife in the way of affection, he sacrificed whole-heartedly to the cause of purifying America's youth. That, she could not complain about.
"Wanna see this movie," he grated, giving his wife's hand a jerk in a compromised show of affection. "Got a hunch it's gonna help me bust this drug ring we've been investigating," he whispered, cupping his hand next to his mouth and tilting his head to accommodate the ten-inch difference in their statures. As a policeman, he'd learned the power of secrecy, discretion.
And Kathy had learned to respect that in her tall, broad-shouldered husband. The excitement of the unknown; never knowing if it was a whore, a pimp, or heroine smuggler that he was putting behind bars. The task always involved one common ingredient: change. Different clothing every day to disguise his identity, working miles away from home. Yet it meant a continuous circus of moving from city to town, West coast to the East coast, finally to settle here in the corn belt of Elston for a few weeks – months…? – until this dope case was settled. Then on to another assignment, Texas, California, Georgia?
The past eight years of their marriage had been a merry-go-round, staying on one place long enough to open a bank account, always renting a house, never buying. No thought of the future, only contemplating scars from yesterday. And Kathy, seven years younger than her husband, was growing weary of change.
Time to settle down, she'd finally admitted to herself. Time to plant a tree and watch it grow. Although the subject had never been openly discussed, she had her hopes that Art really wanted to have a family, even though he'd grunted all too often about the decay of America's moral standards, to make her believe he wanted to raise children. Thinking he didn't want any would be too painful a realization to live with.
And so she'd courageously endured it all, the loneliness of watching the late-night movie on television, slipping into a cold empty bed and reading ladies magazines, waiting for the telephone to ring or for Art to come stumbling through the door, dog-tired and irritable from a day of hunt and chase. Someday it would be different, she kept telling herself; someday she might have a baby to coddle and love with the fullness of her being, the way she wanted to love Art.
If only he'd put as much effort into our marriage as he does into putting people behind bars, she thought, watching the black exit door burst open to the sound of stampeding feet.
Kathy stood there leaning against her husband's firm chest, feeling his strong hands weighing on her shoulders while they watched the pubescent crowd brush past. None of them over sixteen, most of them were dressed in sloppy levi jackets with tattered cuffs, cigarettes – still unlit – dangling from their mouths. Faint shadows of fuzz tickling their upper lips, they looked so incongruously innocent yet worldly at the same time with a characteristic clumsiness particular to the young. In their tight levis and tee shirts that showed off developing muscles and sinews, their bodies rippled, fairly quivered with energy. They surged on past like a herd of frightened buffalo, never looking to the right or left of them, their loud, coarse voices guffawing in laughter, cracking on the higher tones.
Sparring with his friend, one particularly rambunctious boy dodged a flying fist by stepping back, sending five-foot-three Kathy McGuire hurling into her husband's chest. The boy turned to apologize, but taking one glance up at the tall man's face whose hands were resting on the woman's shoulders, he thought better of it and instead quickened his pace.
Kathy heard a deep, low rumble emanate in her husband's body, like a dog ready to spring. He hated unruliness, hated insults, and hated anyone touching his wife, intentional or otherwise. She knew it, and although it made her feel secure, it often scared her, too. There was hint of animal in Art, a part she'd chosen to ignore or better still, not inspire.
Art clenched his fists, kneading his fingernails into the palms of his hands. Oh, he couldn't wait to find out who was selling dope to these kids, who was corrupting these poor stupid, unsuspecting souls. Couldn't wait for that damned rock concert scheduled to take place out at the Olson's property was over with this weekend, for then he could get down to business and slap a few suspects behind bars, coax them to cop a plea, and give names, dates, addresses to find the real criminals – the smugglers, the big time dealers.
From experience he knew who they'd be. The kids who smoked the evil weed never made the money, the poor dupes. It was the middle-aged pushers who wanted to make a fast buck, hit town, then split, leaving a town full of kids to get picked up on a possession charge, ruin their record, raise their father's car insurance.
What did marijuana do for them, anyway? Just look at them, he thought with a sneer and ripple of his upper lip, glaring. They didn't even dress decently… they didn't care to look presentable. Why did they show themselves in public in dirty jeans and tee shirts, like the bums who dried out in jail?
Yes, the boys were bad enough, but the girls! My God! The girls! If he had a daughter who dressed in skin-tight levis and sloppy shirts, letting her hair grow long and messy, she wouldn't get out of the house.
He remembered, glowering, one young girl… couldn't have been more than fourteen… who'd been picked up on a charge of possession of marijuana. They'd hauled her into juvie at the county court house; if he hadn't been so concerned about her case, he never would have risked divulging his identity. But, Christ, she'd been wearing a tee shirt so tight you could see the nipples standing out straight under it. And the other's they'd brought in that day! One wore a blouse cut so low and so wide that her round, budding breasts actually bounced out. Then there was one in a see-through blouse who might as well have been naked; the blouse concealed nothing. Not the two round spheres of her firm, full breasts, or the rosy aureoles that were vivid against the snowy flesh or the pert, hard little nipples.
She'd worn pants, too… pants so tight they looked as if they'd been sprayed on. They pulled and strained across the round curves of her buttocks, cupping them, molding them to her skin, rippling like flesh itself as she moved lasciviously across the room. Art had noticed that the pants bunched up and caught in the furrow of her buttocks, outlining the little pucker of her anus. And every policeman in the reception area was staring at her, practically panting with sheer, raw desire to fuck her back there in the ass.
But the most disgusting of them all, Art remembered, was the girl who'd been brought in in handcuffs. She was young – not more than fourteen and slim, with a waist he could have spanned with his two hands. She'd even had a certain beauty, with her olive skin, the raven hair that hung to her shoulders, the eyes round as two black saucers.
No pants for this one, but a skirt as brief as a bikini. It had hardly covered the hard little half-melons of her sensuous buttocks, barely concealed the vee of her crotch.
The girl's full rich thighs were bare – why, oh why didn't these girls wear bras and girdles and stockings like decent people? Her breasts were lewdly tilted, the nipples taut under the sheer summer blouse she wore.
That one had flashed Art a knowing look as she passed by, a look that told him as plainly as words that she would be willing to "put out" for him. Her walk had been an open invitation to him and every other policeman in the court building.
No, he'd resisted. They'd tried to pull that one on him again; the old I'll-do-anything-if-you'll-let-me-out-of-juvie trick. He didn't bite.
But it had been damned tempting. Her walk had been an open invitation to him and every other policeman in the room. Hips undulating sensually, she prowled the room like a bitch in heat, just begging for some man to shove his rock hard cock deep into her quivering little belly. And there were plenty policemen in the juvie hall who were willing to do it, too.
A deceptive calm settled over the hall when the girl sat down, just in front of the desk where the girls were being booked. She smoothed her skirt over the lushness of her hips, pressed her knees together, even crossed her ankles demurely. Beneath the calm, though, was a subdued current of excitement that threatened to explode at any moment. But as the day wore on, as the girls' parents were phoned and alerted, the excitement had drained away. The room was left blanketed in a lethargy that weighed it down like heat.
Art had been waiting for a phone call from the Chief of Police in Allsworth, and had seated himself near the front door, leaning back in a chair. Twirling his thumbs, he'd pulled his golf cap – his incognito uniform for the day – over his eyes, feigning sleep. It had been a long hard night, and a few "z's" would set him up fine. A fly buzzed around his ear, and he opened his eyes to slap at God's curse to mankind. Then his eyes settled on the girl seated in the front row.
The lithe young body had gone slack with boredom, and the girl sprawled in the chair, now, legs wide apart, knees splayed open teasingly. Art stared absent-mindedly. No thin strip of nylon, however narrow, however flimsy, concealed the quivering flesh of her smooth, curling thighs. There was nothing to hide the thin triangle of dark, silken curls that grew so sparsely there in the tight little vee between her legs, nothing to hide the delicate pink tinted edges of her moist, pouting little pussy.
The girl shifted in the seat, knowing his eyes were on her, and now her legs slid farther apart, her smooth skinned, swelling thighs spread open even wider. The pink tipped hair-lined split lay open now, parted like the petals of a flower, and revealed the tiny bud of her clitoris that nestled within.
Art stared in fascinated shock. The tiny, blushing mound attracted him and held his attention riveted to it. He yearned to close his eyes, to ignore the tender tip of flesh, to close his eyes and to close his mind. But he was transfixed, powerless, trapped by the lewd sight.
He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that somebody was calling his name, for what and who, he had no cognizance.
She was a menace to society, Art had though; just as much of a menace spreading her lewdity as her parents were for letting her dress that way. For being a female, she was no more feminine then those boys who start fights in public and push women around.
But someday they'd grow up and find out it took more than a fast line and a dollar stolen from their grandmother's social security check to get through life. It took guts.
Kathy grabbed her husband's hand, guiding him through the crowd, wondering what he was thinking about that made his hands clammy and cold. Why didn't he talk to her? He seemed a thousand miles away.
They chose two seats in the back. Art always preferred to sit in the shades of darkness among the youngest lovers, old lonely singles, and those who'd snuck in a hip-flask filled with Wild Turkey, not caring what was on the screen as long as it wasn't real. Life was real enough.
There, in the darkness, Art could watch the small town's youth slither by in their patched levis, watch for nods of heads and bills slipped into conspicuously open palms. That meant dope, and where there was dope there was a potential bust.
Art clutched the hard, plastic arm of the seat, his knuckles turning white as he watched with squinted eyes a blonde-haired boy named Jim who'd been known to sell dope in small quantities, a lid or two but never more. A year older than most of his freshman friends, and the son of a well-known lawyer, he'd been busted once before, but released. With surreptitious watchfulness, Art spied the adolescent zip open the bulging breast pocket of his levi jacket and, cupping the plastic baggie in his hand, held it close to his body and slipped it to the dark haired boy sitting in the seat next to him.
Art wiggled in his seat! Nothing delighted him more than to catch a law breakers with his fingers hot and dirty! Dope. Art sneered, his nostrils flaring into dime-sized holes. He could smell it a mile away, had a talent for seeking it out. These poor, dumb little snots thought they were really hot stuff selling a couple bucks worth of dope. Well, when that damned rock concert came to town that weekend, he'd have every policeman in the whole damned county out there ready and waiting for them to light up one match… one joint, and they'd be sitting down at juvie with that bare-assed little bitch, plucking at their recent growth of pubic hair for lack of anything better to do.
At least now he suspected who might be one of the poor, duped middle men in peddling that nasty weed. A low rumbling laugh jerked in his belly. Just wait til that rock concert… they think they're gonna pull a big one with those screaming rock and roll bands that shake the tree roots for a mile around, while the poor farmers' fences get stampeded, trampled by the kids who hadn't an ounce of respect for personal property. They're all gonna end up lying to their parents about their whereabouts, then camp out over night and smoke marijuana and take that mind-rotting LSD.
It had happened back in upstate New York a couple of years ago; Art remembered – he was there. Rock concerts were nothing new, just a front for the dope peddlers who eyed a chance to make a buck. But these ignorant kids ate it up, didn't mind spending a month's allowance on a ticket to have their ear drums blasted. Art snickered again, shooting a fast glance around the crowd as the lights in the theater died.
He could imagine it now. The whole damned town of Elston would be overrun by kids who'd come from miles around to hear the local talent. The poor shop owners would have to lock up their merchandise for the whole damned weekend and stare out from behind drawn shades, watching their own moral town turn into a God damn drug circus. There's be problems with under-age kids trying to buy beer, probably a few gang fights over a naked dancing girl. Before the weekend was over the local jail would be full.
But the pushers. Those were the ones he was really after. They had money and a smooth way of talking that would make any unsuspecting kid count out his pennies for some dope that would only rot his brain, ruin his morals. The poor gullible kids, they didn't know any better. They'd pay ten bucks for an ounce of alfalfa if some fancy talking guy told them it was the real thing.
Yeah, he'd get them! He'd track them and trail them for the sake of justice. Then let them see how smart they were. But somebody like Jim here, he had probably just bought a couple of ounces worth and was selling one ounce to his buddy. No big deal, just enough to cut his expenses, like any smart businessman would do. But who was supplying Jim? That was the crucial point, the reason why he was an undercover cop.
The credits flickered across the movie screen to the background music of roaring rock n' roll, amidst a cheer of hooting from the front rows of the theater where the junior high rowdies always sat.
Art felt a light tug at his sleeve and, knowing Kathy wanted to feel young like ninety-eight percent of the audience, wanted him to slip his arm around her shoulder like he used to when they first started dating nine years ago. Compliantly, he crossed his legs and stretched his sleeved arm around the back of her seat.
Damn! he thought with a twinge of guilt. I just can't seem to get my mind off of work. But Jesus, when I see a kid selling dope in front of my nose, what the hell can I do? I can't just ignore it to give Kathy a little rub on the thigh. What the hell kind of cop would that make me?
Aching for Art to take her in his arms, Kathy let her head fall on his shoulder. Surely he felt something, too, when they were around all these young kids, hugging and kissing so openly, not caring who saw them, just enjoying the freedom of being together. Instinctively, she knew her husband's attention was riveted on some suspicious looking face, some off-handed remark, or obscene gesture. Anything that was immoral was also illegal: that was Art's philosophy, and he never ceased trying to prove it true.
Would he always be like this, she asked herself. He didn't have to tell her why he had chosen this particular movie. God knows, the six o'clock news would have been more entertaining and more their style, but with silent patience she'd sit through this second rate film and watch enviously as the couples surrounding them found pleasure in each other's company, hugging and kissing between chomps of popcorn.
This was Art's mania, his livelihood. It would never be any different, she thought with resignation. At least he could learn from it, learn that being young does not necessarily imply vulnerability. These kids, if her guess was right, knew more about some aspects of life than Art would learn in fifty years of tracking down crime and watching gangster movies.