Blind switch

It’s Wonderful.”

Caroline nestled into the other end of the couch, sandals discarded, tanned legs folded up beneath her. Caroline was wearing white shorts which contrasted nicely with the beige, scoop-necked T-shirt she had on. He thought, not for the first time, that this was a beautiful, intelligent, and very appealing woman. Unfortunately, Doyle thought, she appeared to have something serious in mind.

Years before, Doyle had read with interest some rules for living laid down by the Chicago novelist Nelson Algren, who advised that a man should never play poker with a man called Doc, eat in a restaurant called Mom’s, or get involved with a woman with more troubles than his own. Doyle had adhered to the first two, but had never been much good about following the third, as his marital record attested. Attracted as he was to Caroline, he briefly considered reining in his interest. Then the thought came to him that while the woman was widowed and a single mother, she at least was not under the thumb of the FBI as race-fixer. Maybe they were at least equal in the troubles department. He felt better immediately and turned his full attention to her.

Caroline brushed a hand through her hair. She looked first across the room, then back to Doyle. She started to say something, paused, then began again.

“Jack, I came here tonight because I’m concerned about, well, the situation here involving you and Aldous. It’s taken me days to come on to it-I should have been more alert or aware when we met in that grand zoo in Chicago-but my mind was on other things.”

Caroline paused and shifted slightly on the couch, her eyes never leaving Doyle’s face.

“I’ve had a lot to be thinking of here on this visit, especially my children and how they’re faring. It never occurred to me that Aldous might be involved in something dangerous, something he could hardly bring himself to tell me about. After all, I came here at Aldous’ invitation to get away from a place that was wearing me down…the memories…the problems of a mother raising children without their father….”

Doyle said, “What has Aldous told you-about this dangerous situation?”

“He’s told me that you’re working with him on trying to establish whether or not horse killings are taking place here. And I know that he thinks you are up to the job, even though you two met such a short while ago.”

She sat back on the couch and laughed softly, shaking her head. “Aldous is such a trusting soul, you’d not believe it. He’s always been that way. He’s just a great person-as a brother, as an uncle to my children. They think he’s a bloody god,” she said.

“What I’ve come to ask, Jack, is that you be very, very sure the two of you know what you’re doing here. I don’t know what brought you into this, or what your motivation is. Aldous has told me nothing about that. If he even knows.

“I know why he’s involved. Because he’s as honest a fellow as you’d ever meet. If he thinks bad things are happening to horses under his care, on this farm, well, he’d do anything to prevent it. And not quit, mind you. No, never that. He’s never walked away from a problem in his life.”

Caroline got up and walked over to the window. With her back turned to him, she lowered her face into her hands. Doyle admired the sleek, tanned length of Caroline Cummings’ legs.

Doyle said, “Whatever Aldous has told you about me and the situation here, well, that’s as much as it’s probably wise for you to know.”

He was slightly shaken by the sight of his beautiful, concerned visitor. He was also, he realized, despite every warning bell ringing out the angelus in his psyche, about to make a move on her. He got up from his couch and walked over to where she stood near the window. As Caroline turned to him, Doyle realized that he was not going to be an unwelcome aggressor.

“I want to know that I trust you to watch out for my brother.” Caroline’s eyes searched Jack’s face.

“He’ll be foremost among my thoughts,” Doyle assured her.

“No, I’m serious,” Caroline protested, her lovely face now within inches of his own.

“I know you are. So am I.”

Doyle put his hands on her shoulders. Before he could gently pull her forward, Caroline gave him a look both questioning and resolute. “Is this going to be all right?” He held her close for a few moments as she rested her head on his chest. Her hair smelled like lilacs in May, Doyle thought. He felt a slight trembling at the back of his knees. She moved willingly against him.

“You can trust me. I’ve got his best interests at heart,” Doyle murmured to Caroline, his mouth pressed to her ear.

“What about mine?” she said, smiling up at him. Caroline looked searchingly at Doyle, shaking her head slightly. “I’ve not been with anyone since my husband…since then….”

“Yes,” said Doyle.

“So,” she continued, her lips on his neck, “no offense, but this isn’t exactly a matter of love that I’m feeling. At this point.”

“At this point,” Jack said, his hand now up inside the T-shirt, fingers brushing her left nipple.

“You might…You might,” Caroline murmured, beginning to unbutton Doyle’s shirt, “describe mine as a case of unrequited lust.”

Doyle said, “I have a suggestion. Let’s requite it.”

Later, as she was dressing and preparing to leave his bedroom, Caroline said with a smile, “Jack, you’re not the awful hard case you make yourself out to be.” Then, realizing the multiple meanings her remark, she let out a whoop of laughter.

“That wasn’t too ladylike, now was it?” Caroline said. “You were hard enough for me tonight, laddy.” She reached down and brushed her lips against his. She was still giggling as she exited the front door.

Doyle remained in the rumpled bed. He lay still, hands behind his head, relishing the lingering scent of lilac and woman.

With a grin, he began humming to himself the first bars of the jazz standard “Out of Nowhere.”

Chapter 21

“The air-conditioner in this tin can ain’t hardly breathing. Motherfucker’s on life support, and it’s fadin’. Gotta be a hunnert degrees in here,” Jud Repke said.

Ronald Mortvedt, at the wheel of the white pickup truck he’d bought off a Louisville used car lot, glanced over at his complaining companion.

“You turnin’ into some kind of pussy? Little heat ain’t gonna kill you.”

Repke’s light blue denim shirt had sweat crescents spreading under each arm. Repke’s forehead glistened with heat-produced moisture. Mortvedt sat chilly behind the wheel, his black T-shirt dry against his muscular torso. Mortvedt never sweated.

“Open the damn window if you have to,” Mortvedt added.

“We got a layer of dust in here already sifted through the cracks of this piece of shit,” Repke grumbled. “I ain’t opening no damn window.”

They drove on in silence through the late afternoon, the only sound for miles that of the pickup’s engine straining up the highway that rose toward Colorado Springs. Interstate 25 would take them south into New Mexico, their next stop on what Mortvedt called their “horse hunt.”

Repke shifted restlessly in his seat. He rubbed out another Marlboro butt in the rapidly filling ashtray, which wobbled as he did so. “Look at this plastic crap. Don’t know why you bought something made by them hillbillies down in Tennessee.”

“That’s no way for you to talk about your people,” Mortvedt said. “Your folks, they were from up in them Kentucky hills, where the mines were. That’s what you told me, right?”

“They did their living up there. I don’t. I’m a former hillbilly,” Repke said, settling back in his seat, his right shoulder against the door, red NASCAR cap brim down over his eyes.

Mortvedt shook his head. “There ain’t no such thing,” he said.

Repke reached behind him to the ice chest on the floor behind his seat and took out a can of Coors. He said, “Why didn’t we rent one of those new Chevy pickups, the ones with all the doodads on ’em? Bet the air-conditioning