Richard guessed it was, but took his time giving Louis his keys. Then told Louis when he came back, he was to back the Hornet in the driveway like he found it. Richard liked it headed out at the street, ready.
Louis almost told him to stay away from the lady: they didn't want to get her mad and upset now that it was over. But he thought better of it and kept his mouth shut. He'd hurry instead.
In fact, Louis decided, once he was out on Woodward Avenue in the Hornet, he might be able to get back in about five minutes.
His original plan was to go north into Ferndale and Royal Oak; but then he got the restaurant idea and couldn't think of a good one north, with valet service, within ten miles. There was a good one about a mile and a half south though, the Paradiso. He could walk there from Richard's house, later on when it was dark. Go in the parking lot, spot a car in the back row, describe it to the parking guy and hand him a buck. It was a lot easier than crossing wires. And he wouldn't have to go scouting around and leave Richard alone with the lady.
What he'd do, check the distance to the restaurant on the odometer to make sure it wasn't farther than he thought or had burned down or anything. If it was still there, he should be back in about five minutes easy.
Try it again. You walk in the house--Mickey pictured it, opening the door, seeing the familiar black-and-white tile. You go into the kitchen. There's a sound from the den. Frank comes out. He sees you, stops. His hands come up. He says ...
Quietly--no, gravely, his hands at his sides. 'How are you?' And you say, 'I'm fine, thank you.' Very coolly, looking him right in the eye. 'And how was Freeport?' And Frank says ... 'Not bad. I shot a seventy-two at Lucaya yesterday. The greens were slow, otherwise--'
'Do you want something to eat? I haven't been to the store this week, but we must have something.' She goes to the refrigerator.
Her mother was there, somewhere, saying, 'Oh, Margaret, don't be silly. Frank wouldn't do that. Frank's a wonderful husband and father.' While her dad, holding his pipe, watched. 'No, mom, really. Things are not as nice as they seem. Nothing is.' But why bother? It would require too much of an effort to tell her mother, to tell her friends at the club. And for what? Assuming they would let her go. She would sit and wait and see and if they did she couldn't tell anyway. Frank would go to jail.
Try that.
'Keep your mouth shut, Frank. You say one more word about your golf game, I'll turn you in.' It was getting better.
Richard entered his mother's room without the monster mask on, without knocking and telling the woman to turn out the light first. He walked in, looked at her sitting in the rocker and then at the tray of food on the bed. Sure as hell just what he thought, she hadn't touched it.
He said, 'You didn't eat your ham.'
'I'm not hungry.'
'I forgot you're not allowed to eat it.'
He lifted the tray and took it over to the dresser, Mickey giving him a funny look. 'Why aren't I allowed to eat it?'
'Your religion, if you want to call it that. I call it something else.'
She wondered if it was worth asking him what he was talking about ... and why he'd left the light on and wasn't wearing the rubber Frankenstein face she had seen once through the uncovered eye of her mask. She watched him come around to the near side of the bed--in his policeman pants and a white T-shirt, hands on his hips, the armpits stained gray--and tried not to breathe.
'He tell you, Louis, you're going home?' Louis. 'Yes, he did.' The nice one was Louis. 'I'm gonna miss you around here.'
'I'll miss you too,' Mickey said. 'I've had a lovely time.' The wrong thing to say, making fun of him. Seeing his nose tighten, seeing Richard's hard-eyed look-right-through-'em look.
He pulled her up by the arms and threw her on the bed, moving in over her as she tried to twist free, as she strained, turning her head from the red face looking down at her, feeling his knee between her legs. He was telling her now he had been wanting to see something and he was gonna see it, goddarn-it, and he was gonna do whatever he wanted and she was gonna lie there and not move or holler or anything or he would kill her right now, right here on his mother's bed, and not wait till after. Her eyes were closed. She was trying to get her breath and trying to remember what she was supposed to do that it said in books and on the women's page. Fight him. Kick him in the balls. Or was it don't fight him? Let it happen. She could not imagine letting it happen. She could not imagine that it would be possible for it to happen. He would tear her, injure her--
He rose, pulling her to a sitting position on the side of the bed. 'Take your clothes off or I'll rip 'em off you,' Richard said, and began unfastening the heavy, gold-plated Wells Fargo buckle on his belt.
Mickey looked down unbuttoning her shirt, chin to chest, seeing the whiteness of her bra, still snowy white, and the tiny pink bow between the cups. Little Mickey sitting there. The real Mickey perched above watching, thinking, The pink bow is too much. Thinking, The poor girl. Seeing Frank come in naked from the bathroom with a towel over his arm. Seeing 6-4 Marshall Taylor stoop-shouldered naked, vaguely, Marshall there and gone. Thinking, What would Susan Brown-miller do? Thinking, Get it over with. She took her shirt off.
'Now the bra-zeer,' Richard said.
Her hands went behind her, unhooked the bra and pulled it off. My God, her nipples were sticking out.
'Now your pants and your undies,' Richard said.
He was standing with his uniform trousers around his ankles, showing his round, marble-white thighs, thumbs hooked in his Jockeys, ready to push them down. The Mickey up above said, you poor little thing. I'd take my chances and kick him in the balls.
And was totally surprised when nice Mickey on the bed rolled back, came forward with momentum, eyes on Richard's crotch, and with a grunt and all the force she had drove her foot into the sagging pouch of his Jockeys.
Unbelievable, Richard saying, 'Unnnngh!' doubling over, holding his groin, little Mickey rolling off the bed, grabbing her shirt, doing it almost as a reflex action--the shirt and the bra with it--running through the door and down the stairs, almost down the stairs--
Louis--she remembered his name--was near the bottom, already on the steps looking up at her.
Louis said, 'Jesus Christ.' Louis knew. One look at her, bare-chested, holding the shirt, Richard nowhere downstairs. He said, 'Come on. Come on!' Reached up and tried to grab her arm as she held the shirt tightly against her. 'Where is he?'
'In the room.'
They heard Richard then, from upstairs, screaming, 'Come back'n this room! You hear me!' 'Jesus Christ,' Louis said. 'Come on.'
She was into her shirt, holding it closed, ran out the front door and down to the walk, hearing Louis yell at her to get in the car, and turned and ran toward the driveway, cutting after him through the low hedge. The car was pointed toward the street. Inside, Louis fumbled with the keys. He got the right one into the ignition and started the car and she heard the fat one's voice again. 'Get back in here!'
The car was moving. It shot down the driveway and Mickey held onto the seat and the door handle because the turn into the street would be abrupt, wrenching. But the car didn't turn, it kept going-- Louis pressing down on the accelerator--straight for the chainlink fence across the street, into a driveway toward closed double gates in the fence and a yellow sign that said FAIRGROUNDS PARKING USE GATE NO. 5.
The blue-and-white Detroit Police cruiser rolled past Grayling Elementary School on Bauman--a woman's voice crackling on the radio--reached the corner and came to a stop. After a pause the cruiser turned left onto State Fair.
The Detroit patrolman, looking straight ahead through his windshield, saw the black car come out of the drive halfway up the block and knew he was about to hear tires scream through a turn and if the guy didn't sideswipe some cars and pile up he'd be on him before he hit Woodward, nail him with the gumballs flashing blue and siren turned up to high yelp. Christ Almighty, but the car kept going. Smashed through the horse-trailer gate, smashed right through it, the cyclone swing-gates flying apart and the black car heading north through the empty fairgrounds. It looked good, it looked to be something different for a change.
The Detroit patrolman flipped on his Super Fireballs, took the radio mike off the hook.
Before he could say a word he heard the gunfire ... saw the fat guy on the porch, the guy holding his belly and
