“Your husband fought it.” It was not a question.
“Bitterly,” she said.
“And?”
She knew he was way ahead of her already, but there was sometimes a necessity to go through the formalities.
“And I wasn’t sure I should have custody at all. I’m not sure I deserve it… I’m not sure I want it…”
Becker waited, looking at her.
After a moment she said, “It scares me, John. Having complete control over him. I’m… I’m sometimes afraid of what I might do.”
Becker nodded slowly. He gripped her hand with his own, squeezing briefly.
“You won’t,” he said. Becker pulled the file toward himself. “I’ll need to look at everything as soon as you can get it to me,” he said. “But first I need to be alone with these.”
She knew he meant the photographs of the dead boys and she thought she saw him shudder.
Chapter 4
Dee was feeling good; she couldn’t remember when she’d been in such good spirits. She felt so good she didn’t even object to the sight of Ash eating tacos.
She saw the man watching her from his solitary table in the corner where he sat nursing a cigarette and a cup of coffee. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She knew she was fascinating. A vibrant, attractive woman, full of energy and high spirits. Who wouldn’t watch her? Who wouldn’t want her?
She said something to Ash and then laughed, tossing her head back, filling the place with her ringing merriment. Dee loved her laugh; it was so free, so honest. She hated people who tittered behind their hands. Dee let the whole world know she was amused, god damn it, and if it was too loud for some people, then to hell with them. They didn’t know how to have a good time. If there was anything Dee did know, it was how to have a good time. She was even having a good time right this minute, watching Ash spill taco and salsa on himself. She knew the secret of joy. Some book had come out with a title like that The Secret of Joy. and Dee had read it to see if the author was someone like herself. But she hadn’t known what she was talking about, and after a few pages Dee had thrown the book across the room in disgust. The real secret, the only secret, was to just let yourself. If you wanted to laugh, then laugh, god damn it. Laugh as if you meant it and screw all the poker-faced killjoys like that toad of a cashier who was looking at Dee as if she had her tit caught in the cash register. The man in the corner knew what she was laughing about. She could see him smiling from the corner of her eye. She could tell he was caught and mesmerized by her.
“Dee,” Ash said, sounding worried again. He looked at her with concern, bits of tomato and shredded lettuce spilling from the taco.
There was a bar at the restaurant just a few doors down. Dee had made note of it as soon as they entered the mall.
“Ash, I want you to walk home,” she said.
His eyes went wide.
“You work your face like a clown,” she said lightly.
“Sorry,” Ash said.
“Don’t apologize. I like it; it makes you easy to read.” She patted him on the cheek.
“Walk home?”
“Don’t act like you’ve never done it before. You know how to do it. Go out of the mall and turn left.”
“Left,” he said, concentrating.
“Turn left and just keep walking until you get to the motel. You know the name of our motel, don’t you?”
“Okay,” said Ash.
“Okay nothing. What is it?”
Ash furrowed his brow and she laughed again. “You wouldn’t even have to paint the creases and lines on the way clowns do,” she said merrily. She glanced to see if the man in the corner was appreciating her good humor. He smiled and inclined his head slightly. Dee looked at him as if he had startled her with his familiarity, as if she had only now become aware of him and wasn’t at all certain how to take such boldness.
Ash saw the exchange and knew why he was walking home. He would be spending another night outside the room, listening to Dee and some stranger. But mostly to Dee, her laughter, her shouts of exuberance, her ecstatic screams at the end. It hurt him so much to listen to her, to see her behaving this way for the benefit of the strange man in the corner, to know she was giving herself to someone else.
“What is it?” she was saying.
“Nothing,” he said, thinking she was inquiring about his thoughts. She would figure it out on her own soon enough. She always did, but it hurt him even more to tell her how much it hurt.
“Nothing? That’s a strange name for a motel.”
“Oh.” So she was not reading his mind. That happened sometimes when she was this happy. She seemed to lose her magical wisdom when she was this way.
“Days Inn?” he guessed.
“Daybreak,” she corrected him. “Daybreak Motel. Got it?”
Ash nodded.
“Say it.”
“Daybreak Motel. Daybreak. I turn left and stay on the highway till I get to Daybreak Motel.”
“That a boy. You’ll do just fine. Now pop the rest of that muck into your mouth and off you go.”
Ash rose dutifully and let her swipe once at his face with a napkin.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Never better,” she said. “Don’t worry about a thing; we’ve got the world by its ying-yang.”
Ash smiled. He thought the word was funny even if her mood frightened him.
“Now scoot,” she said.
“Daybreak?”
“Stop stalling and go on.”
Ash shambled out the door, looking back at her once with that face of a mourner, and Dee waved goodbye to make sure the man in the corner understood that she was now alone.
She stayed at the table for a few minutes more to emphasize the separation. She opened her compact and checked her makeup, holding the mirror at an angle so that she could see the man’s reflection. He was still studying her, of course. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Now he raised his hand and wiggled his fingers in a greeting. The gesture looked silly in the mirror, weak, feminine. Dee hoped he wasn’t one of those, but if he was, there were lots more fish in the sea and she was just about the best bait they were likely to come across.
Dee started out of the taco shop and paused once to look back at the man. She held his eyes fully and smiled. He smiled back. Dee saw no point in being too subtle about these matters. It just wasted time.
The bar portion of the restaurant was noisy and she could hear the music and the sound of voices spilling out as soon as she stepped from the Mexican place. At this time of night most of the shops were closed except for the food pavilion and the individual restaurants, so a little more noise would get no complaint from neighboring merchants.
Dee had time to order a white wine and study the men on either side of her before the man from the restaurant showed up. The other men looked passable enough, provided they were in proper working order-so many men were not these days-but she still preferred her friend from the restaurant. He was a little younger than the other two, a little cuter, and he did not sport a gold chain. Dee had long since despaired of men who wore gold chains as hopeless to talk to and useless in bed.
“Is your-uh-friend gone?” he asked.
Dee looked at him, then around the room, then back to him. “I like to think I have friends wherever I go,” she said.
