“That’s Winston,” Kayla said. “He’s part Great Dane or something.”
They sat inside the car and studied Winston. He had his paws on the front of the hood, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, saliva dripping all over the place.
“He’s actually a baby,” Kayla said. “He has nuts the size of baseballs, but he’s a baby. Belongs to my next- door neighbor. Winston likes to walk on cars.”
“No joke?”
“Also likes to put his nose about six inches up my ass every time I go to the door.”
Harry thought, Well, he’s got that in common with a lot of males. He said, “That’s not good.”
“Depends on what kind of mood I’m in,” Kayla said, and looked across at him and smiled.
“Can we get out?” Harry asked.
“We can. But it’s best to let him sort of finish with the car.”
After a moment Winston struggled up to where he could stand on the hood, looked directly into the windshield, making dog nose smears on the glass. From that angle, Harry confirmed that Winston did in fact have nuts the size of baseballs.
“This can’t be good for your car,” Harry said.
“Thankfully, it’s a piece of junk. I love driving the squad car. That baby will run. This one limps.”
“I have a similar ride,” Harry said. “The limping one, I mean.”
Winston sprang off the hood of the car and dashed across the yard, stuck his nose under an overgrown shrub, and started noodling the dirt aside with his snout. A moment later he was snapping his jaws together with a kind of ecstasy that, if he weren’t a dog, might indicate drug use.
“Cat shit,” Kayla said. “He digs it out from under the shrubs. Standing on cars, nosing asses, eating cat shit. That’s his life. Simple, but somehow poetic. Don’t you think?”
When they got to Kayla’s door, Winston ran over and gave them a sniff. “Go on, Winston,” Kayla said.
The dog looked as if he had been insulted, then bolted back across the yard.
“I’m always afraid his big dumb ass is going to get run over,” Kayla said, working her key in the lock. “As a cop, I could make a stink of it, but I’m afraid Winston will end up at the shelter, get the needle. Around here most of the neighbors kind of put up with him.”
Inside, the place smelled faintly of incense and Kayla’s intense perfume. “Thought we’d just have coffee here,” she said. “Besides, there’s something I want to show you.”
“So much time had gone by,” Harry said, “I thought you had forgotten me.”
“Hey. You had my number.”
“I mean after you moved.”
“Oh. Well, I meant now. I was waiting for you to call. And when you didn’t, I was a little pissed. But I cut you some slack. You breaking up with your girl and all.”
“I don’t know she was ever really my girl.”
“Oh,” Kayla said. “That’s just terrible.”
In the kitchen there were a couple of bar stools at the counter. Harry sat on one while Talia made coffee. While it perked, they talked about this and that, old times mostly. When the java was ready Kayla poured them cups and they moved into the living room.
“Think you and Talia might get back together?” Kayla asked.
“Only if our cars collide.”
“You’ll drive safely, won’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ve thought about you over the years.”
“My handsome face, I suppose?”
“You look all right. I’ve thought about you. I always thought you were…sweet.”
“That’s what every red-blooded American boy likes to hear, how they’re sweet. Sometimes we like to be thought of as a little dangerous. Sometimes, when I’m at work, I stack some of the books a little crooked. Who knows if they might fall?”
Kayla sipped her coffee, watched him over the cup.
“No joke?” she said.
Harry crossed himself. “Gospel.”
“I don’t want you to think I only brought you here because I need help.”
“Help?”
“Yeah. Harry. I believe your visions. The sounds. I do. I did when we were kids…Well, for the most part. I’ve been thinking about it for a few days, and what you said about the redheaded guy—”
“You want help?” Harry had a sudden sinking feeling. Maybe women saw him as some kind of temporary utensil, like a plastic fork. Use it and toss it. The coffee turned sour in his stomach.
“Yeah. I mean, I want to see you. But you talking about the sounds, your visions, that’s what got me really excited. Let me tell you something. Back when my dad died, the papers said it was suicide. It wasn’t. Even the police knew that. They were giving it what they thought was a good spin.”
“How do you spin suicide as good?”
“I found him, Harry. He left the force, had his own garage, like he always wanted. I had come to visit him for a few days. When he didn’t come home at dark, I went down to the garage. It was walking distance from the house. Went down there and found him. He was dead all right. He was hanging from a door and had a lamp cord around his neck and he was…Shit, this is hard. Not many people know this.”
“You don’t have to say any more.”
“I want to. I think you can help me.”
“I don’t know, Kayla…I mean, if you’re going with this where I think you’re going—”
“He was hanging from the office door and he was wearing a bra, fishnet stockings, and pink panties.”
“Pink panties?”
“With lace.”
“Ouch.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Last time we were together,” Harry said, “I asked you about your father. You said, ‘Pink’.”
“I did?”
“Yeah.”
“It was on my mind. Those goddamn pink underpants.”
“Go on.”
“So I called the cops, and they came out, said he died of autoerotic strangulation. You know what that is?”
“I think so.”
“Said he was, well, masturbating, and that the choking heightened the sensation. That he went too far. Cord got too tight and he died. Happens all the time. You can even buy special rigs for the operation. Devices hang you for a certain length of time, then the rigs let go. Daddy didn’t have a rig. Had a lamp cord tied around his neck, stretched over the door, and tied to the doorknob on the other side.
“Cops took pictures, made an investigation, decided he accidently killed himself. Being as he had been one of their own, they called it suicide so as not to embarrass me or my mother. But the crime photos, the case—it went into the files. Way deep in the files.”
“You don’t believe he died of autoerotic asphyxiation?”
“No. I know kids don’t know everything about their parents, but I don’t believe that. That wasn’t anything like my father. He didn’t even like to hold my mother’s purse when she was in the store—you know, macho thing. So him dressed up like that, I don’t think so. And there are other things.
“One: The bra didn’t fit. He was going to do that, cared about it, don’t you think it would fit?”
“Gee, Kayla, I don’t know. That’s kind of out of my league.”
“Two: His feet were a foot off the ground. If it was autoerotic, and he didn’t intend to die, don’t you think he would have worked that out better? So he could get loose of the situation when he wanted?
“Three—and I don’t even like to talk about this, but—his penis was in the panties. He didn’t have it out. He wasn’t, you know…stroking it.”
