blazing away with a revolver, shooting at the black car running away, the car nearly gone. Where in the hell was it? Up by the animal barns already.
The Detroit patrolman said to his mike, eyes staring through the windshield, 'Seven four four two ... in the 1,000 block of State Fair east of Woodward. Request immediate backup. We got some kind of wild asshole here firing a revolver.'
There were traces of yellow paint on the grille of the Hornet, from the sign that told about parking at Gate No. 5, the gate the car came darting out to turn right into Woodward Avenue. Seconds later they were cresting the overpass at Eight Mile Road, moving north into the suburbs. The Salem cigarette billboard against the sky, higher than the overpass, told them it was exactly 1:55.
Mickey had buttoned her shirt. She held her bra balled in both hands, her hands resting in her lap. She said, 'Where're you taking me?'
'Where'm I taking you?' Louis looked at her, surprised. 'I'm taking you home.'
Neither of them spoke or looked at each other after that. They seemed interested in the traffic and the franchised food places, the drive-ins and car-dealer lots, moving through Ferndale, Royal Oak, Pleasant Ridge, some more of Royal Oak, out past the Mile Roads toward Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills.
In a little while Louis began to relax. He felt relieved. He didn't want to think about anything right now. He saw familiar signs and places, N & S Automotive. He began thinking of Mopars and Chevies and a '64 Barracuda with a blown Hemi in the rear end, 'Hemi Under Glass,' one of the first of the dragstrip showcars that did wheelies. He had seen it out at Detroit Dragway ... on the way to Toledo ... you went past on I-75 all the way to Miami. Then came back.
He said, 'Right here, this stretch of North Woodward, used to be called the street-racing capital of the world. You know that?'
Mickey looked at him then. She said, 'I don't want to go home.'
Chapter 18
LOUIS TRIED TO IMAGINE EXPLAINING IT TO ORDELL. 'What was I supposed to do, tell her get out of the car?'
Ordell would say, 'Yes. She wouldn't get out, you push her out.'
He'd say, 'I know but, she didn't have any shoes on. She was sitting there holding her bra all bunched up. I didn't know where else to take her. She looked like she was in a daze and I couldn't think of any place.'
Ordell would say to their lawyer, 'This man's crazy. He's gonna get out for being mentally retarded and I'm gonna get ten to twenty-five.'
Louis took Mickey to Ordell's big four-bedroom apartment overlooking Palmer Park. He sat her down in the living room in the La-Z-Boy, put her bare feet up on the Magic Ottoman that rose out of the chair and got her a vodka and tonic. She drank it down in about two minutes and he got her another one. She didn't ask where they were; she didn't ask him anything. She still seemed in a daze. Louis got himself a drink and put his feet on the coffee table where the box of Halloween masks was still sitting, now with a bunched-up bra lying next to the box. They sat there for awhile and didn't say anything.
What happened after that, during the afternoon and evening, Ordell wouldn't believe it if he told him. Mickey started talking.
She said, 'I don't know what to do. I don't know what's going to happen.'
Louis could have said something, a lot, but he didn't.
'I don't know what to say to my husband. I keep thinking about it. I think, after we say the first few things, like how are you and all, then there won't be anything to say and everything will be the same again.' There was a long silence as she sat there holding her drink.
Louis said, 'Well, you'll have enough to talk about,' thinking, Jesus--'He'll want to know all about it.'
'No, he won't.'
'He'll ask you things. How you were treated--'
'Uh-unh. He'll ask me how I am, he'll say well, why don't you get some rest. And put it out of his mind.'
'If you feel like telling him about it,' Louis said--actually giving her advice; he couldn't believe it--'then tell him.'
'He won't listen. He'll be moody for a day or so and then, it'll be like it never happened.'
'Well, then grab him by the front of the shirt, say, Hey, listen, I got something to tell you.'
She shook her head. 'He won't listen. I know.'
'Why not? I mean something happens to his wife--what's the matter with him?'
'He's an asshole,' Mickey said. She heard Louis say, 'Oh,' but she wasn't listening to Louis; she continued to hear the word she had said out loud for the first time in her life and began wondering if she could improve on it.
'He's a pure asshole.' No, 'pure' didn't do anything for it. She said, 'Do you know what I mean?'
'Sure,' Louis said. 'Unless what you really mean, he's a prick.'
'He probably is at work, dealing with employees. But in life he's ... the other.' Losing her nerve again she brought it back quickly. 'An asshole.'
'Well--' Louis didn't know what to say. 'You got a nice house, you got plenty of money--'
'You mean so be grateful? You sound like my mother. Do you have a cigarette?'
'I'll look,' Louis said. He pulled himself up and walked out of the living room.
Maybe they'd get along, Mickey thought. If her mother didn't know what Louis did for a living. (What did he do?) Tell mom he had an important position with GM, at the Tech Center. Her mother would say, 'That's nice.' Her dad would say, 'Oh? I had some good friends at GM belonged to the Detroit Golf Club. Where do you play, Louis?'
'I couldn't find any regular ones. How about one of these?' He was holding several joints in the palm of his hand.
'Is that what I think it is?'
'Yeah, good stuff. I think Colombian.'
'I've never smoked it before.'
'Colombian? It's not that different you'd taste it.' He let them roll out of his hand onto the coffee table.
'Do you smoke it all the time?'
'No, once in awhile,' Louis said. 'Or like if I'm with somebody, a girl, you know, and we want to get a little high first.'
'Do you use other drugs?'
'No hard stuff, no. Coke maybe, but not as an every week thing. Maybe if it's there, somebody offers it.'
'I'd like to try the grass,' Mickey said.
As Louis got up he seemed to realize what she meant. 'You never smoked before?'
'Uh-unh.' She watched him pick up matches from the table and light the cigarette, the twisted end flaming for a moment. As he handed it to her she said, 'What do you do?'
'You smoke it.'
'I mean how?'
'The way you smoke your True greens. It'll work.'
'Don't you use a--what do you call it, the thing you hold the joint with?'
'A roach clip? If you're poor. No, we got plenty of grass. It gets down, throw it away and have another. But I think one'll do the job.'
Mickey inhaled the cigarette. She didn't like the smell. She handed it to Louis who took a drag, handed it back and picked up their empty glasses. She noticed, watching him as he walked out of the room, he didn't exhale. She drew on the cigarette and tried holding in the smoke. When Louis came back with fresh drinks she said, a little surprised or disappointed, 'I don't feel anything.'
'Well, you got time,' Louis said. 'You don't want to go home we can always sit around and get stoned.'
She said, 'I don't understand. You know it? There's so goddamn much I don't understand. Do you?'
