Cliff Baxter brooded over the events of that morning. "Don't know what got into her." Of course he knew exactly what had gotten into her: She hated him. He sort of accepted that, but he was still convinced that she also loved him. He loved her, so she had to love him. What really bothered him was that she'd gotten feisty, went and actually took one of his guns. She'd always had a smart mouth, but she'd never so much as thrown a dish at him. Now she was pumping buckshot over his head. "Got to be that time of the month. That's it. PMS. Pigheaded Monthly Shit."
He was sure he'd gotten the better of the argument, but that was true only if he discounted his bladder letting loose. He hadn't really evened the score on that one, so he tried to forget it happened. But he couldn't forget it. "That bitch."
He would have dwelled on this more, but he had a whole new problem to think about — Mr. Keith Landry, ex-boyfriend of Miss Annie Oakley.
He drove past the Landry farm and noted the black Saab in the gravel driveway. He noted, too, that there was a man on the porch, and he was certain that the man noticed the police car driving by.
Cliff used his mobile phone and called his desk sergeant. "Blake, it's me. Call Washington, D.C., Motor Vehicles, and get me whatever you can on a Keith Landry." He spelled it out and added, "Drives a black Saab 900. Can't tell the year and can't see the plate number. Get back to me ASAP." Cliff then dialed information. "Yeah, need a number for Landry, Keith Landry, County Road 28, new listing."
The information operator replied, "No listing for that name, sir."
Cliff hung up and called the post office. "This is Chief Baxter, put me through to the postmaster."
A few seconds later, the postmaster, Tim Hodge, came on the line and said, "Help you, Chief?"
"Yeah, Tim. Check and see if you got a new customer, name of Landry, RFD, from Washington. Yeah, D.C."
"Sure, hold on." A few minutes later, Hodge came back and said, "Yeah, one of the sorters saw a couple of bills or something with a forwarding sticker from D.C. Keith Landry."
"How about a missus on that sticker?"
"No, just him."
"This a temporary?"
"Looks like a permanent address change. Problem?"
"Nope. Used to be a vacant farmhouse, and somebody noticed activity there."
"Yeah, I remember the old folks, George and Alma. Moved to Florida. Who's this guy?"
"Son, I guess." Cliff thought a moment, then asked, "Did he take a P.O. box?"
"No, I'd have seen the money if he did."
"Yeah. Okay... hey, I'd like to take a look at what comes in for him."
There was a long pause, during which the postmaster figured out this wasn't a routine inquiry. Tim Hodge said, "Sorry, Chief. We been through this before. I need to see some kind of court order."
"Hell, Tim, I'm just talkin' about lookin' at envelopes, not openin' mail."
"Yeah... but... hey, if this is a bad guy, go to court..."
"I'm just askin' for a small favor, Tim, and when you need a favor, you know where to come. Fact is, you owe me one for your son-in-law's drivin' while totally fucked-up."
"Yeah... okay... you just want to see the envelopes when they're sortin'?.."
"Can't always do that. You make photocopies of his stuff, front and back, and I'll stop in now and then."
"Well..."
"And you keep this to yourself, and I'll do the same. And you give my regards to your daughter and her husband." Cliff hung up and continued to drive down the straight county road, oblivious to his surroundings, contemplating this turn of events. "Guy comes back, no phone yet, but wants his mail delivered. Why's he back?"
He put the cruiser on speed control and chewed on a beef jerky. Cliff Baxter remembered Keith Landry from high school, and what he remembered, he didn't like. He didn't know Landry well, at least not personally, but everyone knew Keith Landry. He was one of those most-likely-to-succeed guys, hotshot athlete, a bookworm, and popular enough so that guys like Cliff Baxter hated his guts.
Cliff remembered with some satisfaction that he'd jostled Landry in the halls a few times, and Landry never did a thing, except to say, "Excuse me," like it was his fault. Cliff thought Landry was a pussy, but a few of Cliff's friends had advised him to be careful with Landry. Without admitting it, Cliff knew they were right.
Cliff had been a year behind Landry in school, and he would have ignored the guy completely, except that Keith Landry was going out with Annie Prentis.
Cliff thought about this, about people like Landry in general who seemed to have all the right moves, who went out with the right girls, who made things look easy. And what was worse, Cliff thought, was that Landry was just a farmer's son, a guy who shoveled barnyard shit on weekends, a guy whose folks would come to Baxter Motors and trade in one shit car for a newer piece of shit and finance the difference. This was a guy who didn't have a pot to piss in, or a window to throw it out of, and who was supposed to shovel shit and bust sod all his life, but who went on to college on a bunch of scholarships from the church, the Rotary, the VFW, and some state money that the taxpayers, like the Baxters, got hit for. And then the son-of-a-bitch turned his nose up at the people he left behind. "Fuckhead."
Cliff would have been glad to see the bastard leave, except that he left for college with Annie Prentis, and from what Cliff heard, they fucked up a storm at Bowling Green for four years before she dumped him.
Cliff suddenly slapped the dashboard hard. "Asshole!" The thought of this prick who'd once fucked his wife being back in town was more than he could handle. "Cocksucker!"
Cliff drove aimlessly for a while, trying to figure out his next move. For sure, he thought, this guy had to go — one way or the other. This was Cliff Baxter's town, and nobody, but nobody, in it gave him any shit — especially a guy who fucked his wife. "You're history, mister." Even if Landry kept to himself, Cliff was enraged at the mere thought of him being so close to his wife, close enough so that they could run into each other in town or at some social thing. "How about that? How about being at some wedding or something, and in walks this asshole who fucked my wife, and he comes over to say hello to her with a smile on his fucking face?" Cliff shook his head as if to get the image out of his mind. "No way. No fucking way."
He took a deep breath. "Goddamnit, he fucked my wife for four years, maybe five or six years, and the son-of-a-bitch shows up just like that, without a goddamn wife, sittin' on his fuckin' porch, not doin' shit..." He slammed the dashboard again. "Damn it!"
Cliff felt his heart beating rapidly, and his mouth was sticky. He took a deep breath and opened the Orange Crush, took a swig, and felt the acid rise in his stomach. He flung the can out the window. "Goddamnit! God damned..."
The radio crackled, and Sergeant Blake came over the speaker. "Chief, about that license plate info..."
"You want the whole fuckin' county to hear? Call on the damned phone."
"Yes, sir."
The phone rang, and Cliff said, "Shoot."
Sergeant Blake reported, "I faxed the Bureau of Motor Vehicles with the name Keith Landry, car make and model, and they got back to us with a negative."
"What the hell do you mean?"
"Well, they said no such person."
"Damn it, Blake, get the license plate number off the fuckin' car and get back to them with that."
"Where's the car?"
"Old Landry farm, County Road 28. I want all the shit on his driver's license, too, then I want you to call the local banks and see if he's opened an account, and get his Social Security number and credit crap, then go from there — Army records, arrest records, the whole fuckin' nine yards."
"Yes, sir."
Cliff hung up. After nearly thirty years of police work, he'd learned how to build a file from the ground up. The two detectives on his force kept the criminal files, which did not interest Cliff much. Cliff had his own files on nearly everyone in Spencer County who was important, or who interested him in some way.
Cliff was vaguely aware that keeping secret files on private citizens was somehow illegal, but he was from the old school, and what he learned in that school was that promotions and job security were best accomplished through intimidation and blackmail.
Actually, he'd learned that long before he joined the force; his father and his father's family were all successful bullies. And, to be truthful, the system hadn't corrupted him; he had almost single-handedly corrupted the system. But he couldn't have done it without the help of men who conveniently screwed up their personal and business lives — married men who had affairs, fathers whose sons got into trouble with the law, businessmen who needed a zoning variance or a tax abatement, politicians who needed to know something about their opponents, and so on. Cliff was always right there, sensing the signs of moral weakness, the little character flaws, the signals of financial and legal distress. Cliff was always there to help.
What the system lacked when he entered it was a broker, a central clearinghouse where a citizen could come to offer a favor for a favor, where a man could come to sell his soul.
From these humble beginnings, Cliff Baxter started keeping notes, which became files, which became gold.
Lately, however, a lot of people he didn't like were getting too involved in the system. Schoolteachers, preachers, housewives, even farmers. Already there was one woman on the city council, Gail Porter, a retired college professor, a nosy bitch, and an ex-commie. She got elected by a fluke, the guy running against her, Bobby Cole, getting himself caught in the men's room of the Toledo bus station. Cliff hadn't paid any attention to her until it was too late, but now he had a file on her thick as a lamb chop, and she'd be out on her ass in November. Women like that didn't appreciate the system, and Cliff knew if she stayed, there'd be more like her to follow.
The mayor was his cousin, the city council and county commissioners were men he knew, and every one of them had to run for election. But Cliff Baxter was appointed, and as far as he was concerned, he'd been appointed for life. The fact was, if he ever lost his job, he could think of about a hundred men and some women who'd go for his throat, so he had to hold on tight.
Cliff Baxter was not unaware that the world had changed and that the changes were coming across the borders of Spencer County and that they were dangerous to him. But he was pretty sure he could keep it all under control, especially since the county sheriff, Don Finney, was his mother's cousin. Don had only two deputies to patrol the whole county, so he and Cliff had an understanding that the Spencerville police could leave the city limits whenever they wanted, just as Cliff was doing now. It gave Cliff a lot more latitude in dealing with people who lived outside of town, like the Porter woman and her husband, and like Mr. Keith Landry.
So he'd keep a lid on things for a few more years, then, with thirty years in and his kids out of college, he could skip across the border into Michigan, where he had a hunting lodge. Meantime, he had to eat his enemies even when he wasn't hungry.
The part of him that was shark could smell blood in the water a mile away, but he smelled no blood on any of these new people, including Gail Porter. He'd shown her his file on her once, thinking he could get her in line, showed her all he knew about her left-wing activities at Antioch College, and some stuff about boyfriends that her husband wouldn't appreciate. But she told him to roll up the file, put a coat of grease on it, and shove it up his ass. Cliff had been more than pissed off, he'd been almost homicidal. If people weren't afraid, how was he going to keep them in line? This was a little scary.
The part of him that was wolf sensed danger before any other animal in his woods had an inkling of it. In the last few years, he'd noticed these new people sort of circling around, sizing him up like he was fair game instead of the other way around.
Then there was Annie. Little lady perfect who usually wouldn't say shit if she had a mouth full of it. Then all of a sudden, she gets the idea of checking up on him, then comes that close to blowing his head off. "What the hell's goin' on around here?"
He'd been working on these problems when this new thing came along. "Goddamnit! People after my ass, people after my job, and now my own wife tries to kill me, and some guy who used to fuck her shows up. Hey, God, what'd I do to deserve this shit?"
He wondered if Annie knew yet that her old boyfriend was back in town. Maybe that's why she tried to kill him. But that didn't make sense. She'd go to jail before she could fuck him. No, she didn't know yet, but she would, and he'd watch for it. It did occur to him that maybe she had no interest in Keith Landry, and he had no interest in her. Still, he didn't want this stiff cock around town.
He realized he couldn't watch both of them forever, but he'd watch for a while, and maybe catch them. If not, Landry was still going to get fucked, but not by Mrs. Baxter.
Cliff was a pro at lovers' lane busts, and in the old days, before kids started screwing in the houses of working parents or in motels out of the county, he'd grabbed a few every weekend in cars or abandoned barns. He had a sixth sense for knowing where they were and catching them naked or at least half-naked. This was the part of his tough job that he enjoyed, and if he thought about it, a night like that always ended with him going to one of his ladies' houses with big Johnson trying to bust out of his zipper. Sometimes he took Johnson home, and a couple of times Annie would comment that he must have been cruising lovers' lane. "Yeah, she's got a smart mouth." Too damned smart for her own good.
All this thinking about sex was getting him cranked up.
Cliff Baxter turned back toward town and drove into the south end, the part of town that was literally on the wrong side of the tracks. He called headquarters and said to Blake, "Takin' an hour. Beep if you need me. In fact, beep in an hour so I can get onta where I'm gonna be."
"Right, Chief."
Baxter pulled into the cracked concrete driveway of a wooden bungalow and used an electronic opener to raise the garage door. He parked the police cruiser inside the garage, got out, and hit the button to close the door.
He went to the back door and opened it with a key. The kitchen was small, dirty, and always smelled like bad plumbing. Annie, at least, for all her other faults, knew how to keep a house.
He took a look into the untidy living room, then walked into the first of two bedrooms. A woman in her mid-thirties lay sleeping on her side on top of the bed sheets, wearing only a T-shirt. The room was warm, and a window fan stirred the hot air. Her white waitress uniform and underwear were thrown on the floor.
Baxter walked up to the bed. The T-shirt had ridden up to her hips, and Cliff stared at her pubic hair, then regarded her big breasts and the nipples pointing through the pink T-shirt. The shirt said, "Park 'n' Eat — Softball Team."
She had a good body, good muscle tone, and good skin if you overlooked a few zits and mosquito bites. The short hair falling over her face was blond, but the hair on her crotch was black.
The woman stirred and turned on her stomach. Cliff looked at her rounded rump and felt himself getting hard. He reached out and squeezed a handful of cheek. She mumbled something, then rolled over and opened her eyes.
Cliff Baxter smiled. "Hey, good-lookin'."
"Oh..." She cleared her throat and forced a smile. "It's you."
"Who'd you think it was?"
"Nobody..." She sat up, trying to clear her head, then pulled the T-shirt down to cover herself. "Didn't know you were coming."
"I ain't come yet, sweetheart. That's why I'm here." She forced a smile.
He sat on the bed beside her and put his hand between her legs, his fingers entering her. "You havin' a wet dream?"
"Yeah... about you."
"Better be." He found her clitoris and massaged it. She squirmed a little, clearly not enjoying going from a sound sleep to having a man's fingers in her within sixty seconds. "What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing. Got to go to the bathroom." She slid off the opposite side of the bed and went out into the hallway.
Cliff wiped his fingers on the sheets, lay on the bed fully clothed, and waited. He heard the toilet flush, water running, gargling.
Sherry Kolarik was the latest in a long line of women that had begun before his marriage, continued during his courtship of Annie and through his engagement and all through his marriage. They never lasted too long, and he never had a real heartthrob, a girlfriend, or a full-fledged mistress — they were all just sport fucks of short duration. In fact, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he was incapable of any real relationship with a woman, and his ladies were simply targets of opportunity — the town sluts, women who ran afoul of the law, desperately lonely divorcees, and barmaids and waitresses who needed a little extra cash — the lower elements of small-town American society; they were all easy marks for Police Chief Baxter.
Now and then, he picked on a married woman with a no-account husband such as Janie Wilson, the wife of the station house janitor, or Beth Marlon, wife of the town drunk. Sometimes he got the wife of a man who needed a favor real bad, like a prisoner. He enjoyed these conquests more than the others because fucking a man's wife meant you were fucking the man, too.
He was careful not to try his act on wives who had husbands who could become a problem. He did ogle female attorneys, schoolteachers, doctors, and other professional women, married and unmarried, who turned him on; but he knew without admitting it to himself that he didn't have a chance with these women. He knew, too, or rather had a dim awareness, that even if he scored with one of them, they'd reject him after they got to know him better. His only major conquest on that level had been Annie Prentis. But at that time, Cliff Baxter was better-looking, a little more charming, and also gave it everything he had. And, in truth, there had been a war on then, and the pickings in Spencerville were slim, so that a draft-deferred cop looked good to a lot of young ladies. He knew all of this without actually acknowledging any of it to himself. Thus, Cliff Baxter's ego was intact, while his predatory senses were always alert, a lone wolf who knew what prey was weak and vulnerable and what was dangerous.
Still, he had rape fantasies about the snippy female attorney in the Bounty prosecutor's office, about the two female doctors at the hospital, and the uppity bitch bank president, and college girls home on vacation, and so forth. He knew that to fuck one of these women would be to fuck the whole class of people who looked down on him. Someday, he thought, he'd go for it. He'd cut one of the snobby ladies loose from the herd and lay the wood to her and dare her to make anything of it. Maybe she'd enjoy it. But for now, he'd settle for Sherry Kolarik and women like her.
She came back into the bedroom, and Cliff looked at his watch. "Now, I ain't got much time."
"I wanted to clean up for you."
"You don't got to clean up for what you got to do." He hopped out of bed and walked to the living room and left through the front door. He rang the bell and she came to the door and opened it, wearing a robe now. "You Miss Kolarik?"
"Yes."
"Chief Baxter. I'd like to speak to you." He backed her up and closed the door. "Miss, you got a hundred dollars in parking tickets downtown. I'm here to collect the money or take you in."
If Sherry Kolarik thought it was romantic of Chief Baxter to recreate how they'd met, she didn't say so, didn't laugh and put her arms around Cliff. Instead, she said, "I'm sorry, I don't have the money."
He replied, "Then I got to take you in. Get dressed."
"No, please, I have to go to work. I can pay you Friday when I get paid."
"You had three months to make good on these here tickets. So now you're under arrest. You come peacefully, or I cuff you and take you in just like you are."
In fact, she'd been wearing her waitress uniform when this scene took place a month before. But she'd felt just as helpless and exposed then as now. Only now she didn't owe the bastard a hundred dollars. But there was still the matter of her car that had to pass the state inspection, and Baxter Motors could overlook some defects. She said, "Look, I work at the Park 'n' Eat, you know, you've seen me in there, and if you come around Friday, about noon, we can go over to the bank with my check. Can't you wait?"
"No, ma'am, I dragged my butt over here, and I'm goin' back to the station with a hundred bucks or with you. Don't mess with me." He jiggled the handcuffs on his belt.
"I'm sorry... I don't have the money, and I can't miss a day of work... look, I've got about twenty dollars..."
Cliff shook his head.
"A postdated check..."
"Nope."
"I've got some jewelry, a watch..."
"I ain't a goddamn repo man. I'm a cop."
"I'm sorry. I don't know what to..."
He took the cuffs off his belt. They looked at each other a long time, and both of them remembered the moment when she'd figured it out. She asked, "Can you loan me the money?"
"What's in it for me?"
"Whatever you want."
"Had lunch."
"Look, all I've got is me. You want me?"
"You tryin' to bribe me with sex?"
She nodded.
"Well, let's see what you got for collateral before I decide. Take 'em off."
She unfastened her robe and let it fall, then pulled the T-shirt over her head and dropped it on an armchair. She stood in the middle of the living room, naked, while Chief Baxter circled around her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the bulge in his pants.
"Okay, Miss Kolarik, you got real good collateral for a loan. Kneel right there. Park 'n' Eat, sweetheart."
She knelt on the rug.
He unbuckled his gun belt and put it on the armchair, then undid his belt and zipper and lowered his pants and undershorts. "Go for it, darlin'."
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and with one finger lowered his erect penis to her lips.
When it was over, Cliff said, "Swallow it." He pulled up his clothes, buckled on his holster, and threw a twenty on the armchair. "I'll take care of the tickets, but you owe me four payments."
Sherry nodded and mumbled, "Thank you." He'd said that the first time, and, for the last ten times, it had always been four more.
Cliff, not particularly sensitive, nevertheless saw she was a little upset and patted her cheek. "Hey, I'll see you later for coffee. Got to go..."
He left through the back door.
She stood, went into the kitchen, spit in the sink and washed out her mouth, then ran into the shower.
Cliff Baxter drove around Spencerville, feeling very good. He had, at the moment, two women, which was enough for one time: Sherry, mostly for oral sex, and a separated woman with kids, named Jackie, trying to live on what her husband sent her from Toledo. Jackie had a nice bedroom and a good bed, and she was a good lay. Cliff always brought groceries, compliments of the local supermarket. He had a third woman, he realized, his wife. He laughed. "You are all man, Cliff Baxter."
The mobile phone rang, and he picked it up. Sergeant Blake said, "Chief, I had Ward drive by Landry's place with binoculars, and he got the license number."
"Okay."
"So I called these clowns back in D.C., and I gave it to them."
"Good. What we got?"
"Well... they said this plate was some kind of special thing, and if we needed to know more, we got to fill out a form, tellin' why and what it's about..."
"What the hell are you talkin' about?"
"They faxed me this form — two pages."
"What kinda shit is that? You call those sons-of-bitches and tell them we need a make on this plate now. Tell 'em the guy was DUI or somethin', can't produce a registration or nothin'..."
"Chief, I'm tellin' ya, I tried everything. They're tellin' me it's somethin' to do with national security."
"National... what?"
"You know, like secret stuff."
Cliff Baxter drove in silence. One minute he's on top of the world, pipes cleaned, feeling good, and in charge. Now this guy Landry shows up from outside, from Washington, D.C., after how many years?.. Twenty-five maybe, and Cliff doesn't know a thing about him, and just finds out he can't even get a make on his car registration or driver's license. "Who the fuck is this guy?"
"Chief?"
"Okay, I want this bastard watched. I want somebody to swing by his place a couple times a day, and I want to know every time he comes to town."
"Okay... what are we lookin' for? I mean, why?.."
"Just do what the hell I tell you."
"Yes, sir."
Cliff hung up. "The man fucked my wife, that's why." And people in town knew, or they'd remember, or they'd hear about it soon enough. "I can't have that. No, siree, I cannot have that."
Several plans of action began to form in his mind, and he remembered something old Judge Thornsby once said to him... "Sometimes a problem is an opportunity in disguise."
"That's it. This stupid bastard came right onto my turf. And what I couldn't do twenty-five years ago, I can do now. I'm gonna kill him... no, I'm gonna cut off his balls. That's it. Gonna cut off his balls and put 'em in a jar on the mantel, and Annie can dust it once a week." He laughed.