Blue Belle

if I understood.

'It's okay,' I said.

100

'Anybody come calling?' I asked Belle, stepping past Pansy.

'Been real quiet,' she said, taking the cartons of food from me. Pansy followed her into the back room, ignoring me. The bitch.

Belle cleared off the desk so we could eat. 'What's all that?' I asked her, pointing to yellow legal pads covered with scrawls.

'Just some charts I made. I have to see the streets for myself - the maps don't do it all. But I wrote down some ideas.'

'Is it easier for you to memorize directions if you're driving or if you're a passenger?'

'Driving is best.'

'Okay,' I said, digging into the hot-and-sour soup, 'you drive tonight.'

'Where're we going?'

'To a place you might have to come back to by yourself someday. A safe place.'

She nodded, her mouth full of food. I tossed an egg roll over my shoulder, saying 'Speak!' as I did. It never hit the ground.

I smoked a cigarette while Belle put the dishes away, playing with the few pieces I had. I put the thoughts down - after tonight, I'd have more pieces.

Six o'clock. I let Pansy out to the roof, went to the back to put things together. Steel-toed boots with soft rubber soles. Black cotton pants. A black sweatshirt. I took a white jacket from the closet, checked the Velcro tearaways at the shoulders. Slipped the orange headband into a pocket. I put a clean set of papers together: driver's license, registration, Social Security card, all that crap. Six hundred bucks in used bills, nothing bigger than a fifty. A cheap black plastic digital wristwatch.

I let Pansy back inside. Took a shower. Put on a terry-cloth robe. When I came out, Belle was lying on the couch, her hands locked behind her head, long legs up on the backrest. Wearing one of my shirts over a pair of little red panties. She couldn't button the shirt.

I sat down. She dropped her legs across my lap.

'Burke, this is it, isn't it?'

'What're you talking about?'

'This place. This office. That's all there is, right? This is where you live.'

'Yep.'

She rolled over on her stomach, pushing her hands against the couch until her hips were across my lap. There's a new kind of stove they make. Induction coil, they call it. You don't have to turn it on - the burner stays cold until you touch it with a copper-bottom pot. I knew how the stove felt.

Belle leaned her head on her folded arms, talking back over her shoulder at me. 'I thought you had a house. I thought you wouldn't take me there . . . wouldn't let me sleep in your bed. Because you had a woman there. The woman you talked about.'

I lit cigarette, watching my shirt move on Belle's rump every time she readjusted herself.

'But she's gone, isn't she? Like you said. You told me the truth.'

'Yeah. I told you the truth.'

'I'm a bitch. I know that's not all bad - it's what I am. But I should have believed you; there's no excuse.'

'Outlaws only lie to citizens.'

'No, I met plenty of outlaws who lie. But I know you don't. Not to me.'

She wiggled her hips, snuggling tight against me, feeling the heat.

'Is she dead?'

'I don't know, Belle,' I said, my voice hardening. 'I told you all this before. There's no more to tell.'

'Are you mad at me?'

'No.'

'I'm sorry, honey.'

'Forget it.'

She pulled the shirt off her hips. 'Why don't you give me a smack? You'll feel better.'

'I feel fine,' I said.

Belle wiggled again. 'Come on, please.'

I put my hand on her rump, patting her gently.

'Come on. Do it, just a couple of times. I swear you'll feel better.'

I brought my hand down hard. A sharp crack. 'Do it again,' she whispered, 'come on.'

I smacked her twice more in the same place. She slid off my lap to her knees, looked up at me. 'Feel better?' she asked.

'No.'

'You will,' she promised, taking me in her mouth.

101

We were on the East Side Drive, heading for the Trihoro Bridge. Belle took a drag road.

'How do I turn up the dashboard lights?'

I told her. She peered at the speedometer. 'I can tell how fast we're going without it, but I need to know the mileage.'

'There's a trip odometer.'

'It's okay, I'm keeping count.'

We motored over the bridge. I showed her the cutoff, led her through the twisting South Bronx streets, past the warehouses, past the burned-out buildings, into the flatlands. 'Next corner, left,' I told her. 'That's the spot.'

She pulled to the side of the road. No streetlights here - we were in darkness.

Belle turned to me. 'You think I'm a freak?' she asked, her voice shaking a little bit.

'Why would I think that?'

'Don't play with me - you know why I asked you. I liked it when you pinched me so hard - when you made me say what I saw in the mirror. I liked it when you spanked me before. I like it when you do that. Makes me feel like you love me. Special.' She took another drag. 'You think that makes me a freak?'

I lit a smoke of my own. 'You want the truth?'

'Tell me.'

'I think you think you're a freak. I think you believe your life is a damn dice game. Genetic dice, rolling down the table, and all you can do is watch.'

'My blood . . .'

'Your blood may have done something to your face. Your blood tells you not to have babies. But it doesn't tell you how to act. You still have your choices.'

'You don't understand.'

'You're the one who doesn't understand, girl. You see it but you don't get it. Remember what you told me about alligators - the difference between a six-inch gator and a six-foot one?'

'I remember.'

'What's the difference between a puppy and a dog? The same thing? Just size?'

'Isn't it?'

'How you raise the puppy, how you treat it, what you feed it - it all makes a different dog when it grows up. Two puppies from the same litter, they could be real different dogs when they grow up.'