Flesh

at me. He intended to hit me. Some kind of a nut. Anyhow, I tried to get out of his way and the bike flipped. That’s how I got busted up.” She sat up slightly, wincing, and took a drink. Then she settled back. She rested the glass on the lap of her sweatpants.

“He intended to hit you?” Helen sounded skeptical.

“You bet your buns.”

“Why would someone—?” Alison began.

“Cause he was a fuckhead, that’s why. And no, I didn’t flip him off. I didn’t do anything.”

“I’ll just bet,” Helen said.

Celia glared at her. “What’s your problem, your vibrator go on the fritz?”

“Matter of fact—”

“Come on, Helen,” Alison said. “Lay off. She’s hurt, for godsake.”

“I’m pulverized.” Celia took another drink.

“Anything broken?” Alison asked.

“No bones. I’ve got sprains, strains, contusions, abrasions, and general fucking mayhem from head to foot. I was in the emergency room about two hours. On the bright side, my doctor was a hunk. A guy that really enjoyed his job. He checked me out where I wasn’t even hurt.”

“Every cloud has its silver lining,” Helen said.

“Yeah. I’ll probably be hearing from him.” She lifted her glass, held it in front of her eyes, and stared at the amber liquid. “You wanta hear the good part?” she asked. From the tone of her voice, she didn’t sound overjoyed by “the good part.” Helen frowned. Celia kept her eyes on the whiskey. Her jaw moved slightly from side to side, rubbing her lower lip across the edges of her teeth. “The guy that did this to me…he bought the farm.”

“What?” Alison asked. “You mean he—?”

“Crumped, croaked, bit the big one. His van went onto the shoulder of the road after he tried to hit me, and plowed into the guard wall of a bridge. Killed him dead. Then he got his ass cooked.”

“Holy Jesus,” Helen muttered.

“Served the bastard right,” Celia said, and drank her glass empty. “I didn’t even know the guy. So what’s he doing, trying to kill me? Huh? Can’t even go riding my bike without some nut trying to murder me. Served him right. What’d he wanta do that for? He didn’t even know me. But he sure paid. He paid. Wish I coulda seen the look on his face when he hit the wall. Boy, I bet he was surprised.” She smiled and her chin trembled and she began to weep. She lowered the glass to her lap. It fell over. A few drops of whiskey trickled onto her sweatpants. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pressed her head back against the sofa cushion and sobbed.

Alison put a hand on Celia’s thigh. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”

“Christ.” Celia sniffed. “The guy got cooked.”

CHAPTER SIX

The buzz of the alarm clock startled Jake out of sleep. He killed the noise and pushed himself up on one elbow. Ten o’clock. He’d slept for seven hours. So how come he felt like death warmed over?

Because of yesterday.

Groaning, he swung his legs off the bed, sat up, and rubbed his face.

Yesterday. One charbroiled man hanging out the windshield. One woman with pieces of her brain and skull clinging to the wall and spread around in clumps on the kitchen counter. One man munching on her flesh.

Jake felt sick, remembering.

Then his sickness changed to fear as his mind did a slowmotion replay of Smeltzer going for the shotgun. The patch of skin in Smeltzer’s teeth flapped lazily, sprinkling blood, as he turned and reached. Jake thought, He’s going for it! He thought, This is it! He fired, feeling the revolver jump, feeling the blasts slap his ears, smelling the pungent smoke, watching Smeltzer jerk each time a bullet kicked into him, saw again how one slug opened his throat and how he drifted backward, hosing Jake with blood, the skin still clamped in his teeth, his body twitching after he hit the floor, the blood raining down on him.

Jake took a deep, shaky breath, and got to his feet.

I had to do it, he told himself. I’d be dead if I hadn’t dropped him.

It wasn’t an excuse; it was the truth. And he had reminded himself of that truth so many times since last night that he was tired of it.

He went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

Last night, the water going down the drain had been pink from Smeltzer’s blood. He’d showered until the hot water ran out. Then he had waited half an hour, and taken a second shower. This would be number three.

He stepped under the hot spray and began to soap himself and saw Smeltzer look up at him, ripping a patch of flesh from the woman’s belly. The flesh tore away and he started to turn. He’s going for it!

“Turn it off!” he snapped. “We’ve seen it, we’ve seen it a hundred times, thank you very much. What is this, the goddamn network?”

Just what it’s like, he thought. How many times had they shown the footage of Hinkley blasting away at Reagan, or the Challenger rising beautifully into the sky and blowing up? And each time they show it, you hope it’ll be different this time, you hope they rewrote the script and Hinkley waves instead of shoots, and the Challenger makes it into orbit, and you go charging into the kitchen and Smeltzer and his wife are busy mopping the floor and they look at you as if you’re nuts. But the script never changes. Each replay is identical to the last one, no matter how hard you wish it different.

They aren’t mopping. She’s on the floor with just her chin on the end of her neck, and Smeltzer is down on her. My God what is he doing!

Oh, I do not need this not one little bit. It’s my day off, how about my memory taking the day off, too? Pick up Kimmy in about an hour. That should help. A lot. Call Applegate first, though, find out when he’ll be winding up the autopsy on Smeltzer—guy must’ve been drugged out, probably angel dust, which is about the only logical explanation for what he did. Eating her, Jesus! Had to be angel dust.

But how does angel dust connect with the van? The two incidents had to be related, somehow. Didn’t they?

When he finished showering, Jake got dressed and made a cup of instant coffee. Then he dialed the morgue. “Betty? It’s Jake.”

“How you doing, fella?”

“Hanging in.”

“I heard about last night. Pretty rough, I guess.”

“I’ve had better times.”

“I’m free tonight, just in case you could use a little loving.”

“Thanks for the offer,” he said. Betty’s idea of a little loving was a lot of hard work. She was a twenty-two- year-old blonde beauty. She had been a champion gymnast in high school, and now her performances were confined to the bedroom. She was truly awesome. Jake’s several encounters with her had been real adventures, but exhausting, and afterward he had always somehow regretted the time spent with her.

He was glad, now, that he had an honest excuse for avoiding Betty. “Afraid I can’t, tonight. This is my weekend with Kimmy.”

“Just let me know.”

“I’ll be sure to. Is Steve around?”

“He’s out for the day.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wouldn’t kid you, fella. He got a call first thing this morning from Dr. Willis—the coroner over in Marlowe? Willis wanted him to take a look at some stiff they turned up.”

“We’ve got stiffs of our own.”