"Why'd she worry about you?"
"Mama used to say, a girl who's got a taste for a trouble-man once, she keeps it forever."
"And you did?"
"Chandler Wells. God. Used to be I could just write his name in my school notebook and get trembly right above the tops of my nylons thinking about him. He was a wild boy. Not bad, not evil like some. But wild. He ran 'shine just for the kick of it. Gambled away all the money he made. Folks said he'd be a stock-car champion, he could ever settle down long enough, get him a good ride at the track. He even tried it a couple of times. Told me it wasn't much of a thrill going round in circles."
"What happened to him?"
She wasn't listening. Her long nails absently scratching my chest. Back there, then.
"Mama ran him off a dozen times. She couldn't get mad at him, not real mad. He'd come around to the back. And the girls, they'd help me sneak out, be with him. One time, the troopers chased us. Just for speeding, but Chandler, he wanted to play. He had this old Mercury he put back together from a stock car and there wasn't a car in the county could catch him when he was flying. The troopers had the road blocked off at one end. They used to leave just enough space between the cars to let one through. Just enough. Like a challenge: that opening looked like a slit when you were going fast enough. They played it square: you got through, they wouldn't chase you anymore that night. But if you didn't, they'd call the meat wagon. Chandler was smoking down this old dirt road when we saw it. 'You want me to stop?' he asked me. 'Go on through, honey,' I told him. Holding on. 'I love you, Blossom.' It was the first time he said that to me. Like he did then. We shot through the roadblock like it was a mile wide. Weeks after that, folks would come to see Chandler's Mercury…there was paint streaks down both sides from where he passed so close. When he finally brought me home that night, Mama grabbed a strap, chased me all around the place. The girls had to sit on her, hold her down, she was so mad. Later, when she was calm, she sat me down. Told me what Chandler was. A trouble-man. She said some men are rogues and ramblers, and some women are just drawn to them. After a while, the good ones, they settle down. But a trouble-man, he never gets quiet."
"Chandler never got quiet?"
"Got real quiet. Dead quiet." A tear tracked her face. "He got into an argument with another boy in one of the riverfront joints. Chandler asked him to step outside. The other boy had a knife. Chandler didn't. He was twenty-two. I was still in high school then. Thought I'd never stop crying."
I lit another smoke. "Some people, they never get to find their love."
"You ever love a woman, Burke?"
"Two."
"Where are they?"
"One's dead. One's gone."
"The girl's who's gone…why'd she go?"
I dragged on the smoke. "The woman who died, Belle, it was my fault. It didn't have to be. I used to think all the time about the woman who's gone, Flood. Why she left. Now, maybe I know. Maybe she knew what you know. Didn't know what to call it, but she knew."
"Trouble-man," she whispered, coming to me.
103
LIGHT WAS BREAKING across the bedroom window. Blossom lying on top of me, wetness still holding us together below the waist.
"Trouble-man," she said. "Troubled man, you are. What did you go to prison for?"
I looked into the center of her eyes— the way you do with a parole officer. "For something I didn't do."
"And what was that— what was it you didn't do?"
"Get away," I told her.
Her body trembled against me, giggling. "You want a cigarette?" she asked.
"Yeah."
She lit one for me, supporting herself on her elbows, holding it to my mouth.
"Cigarettes are an addiction."
"Bullshit."
"You could stop anytime you wanted?"
"Sure."
"I know how to do a lot of tricks I never actually did myself. Listening to the girls. You want to see?"
"Un-huh."
"Close your eyes."
I put my cigarette in the ashtray, felt her eyelashes flutter on my cheek. "That's a butterfly kiss. You ever have one before?"
"No."
"You like it?"
"Do it some more."
"Keep your eyes closed." A wet slab sliding across my face. I opened my eyes. Blossom was licking her lips, smiling. Licked me again. "That was a cow kiss."
"Ugh! Save that one for the farmers."
"I told you, baby"— her voice play-sexy— "I never tried these tricks before." Her voice turned quiet, little-girl serious. "You could really stop smoking?" Raising herself higher on her elbows, rolling her shoulders so the tips of her breasts brushed my chest.
"That's what I said."
"Why don't you?"
"Why should I?"
"I'll make you a deal, trouble-man. The best deal you ever had in your hard life. You stop smoking for one week. Seven days. You do that, I'll do whatever you want. For one night. Whatever you want to do, whatever you want me to do. Show you some of those tricks I never got to try. Her eyes were wide, mocking. "What d'you say?"
I put the cigarette in my mouth, took a long, deep drag. Ground it out.
104
BLOSSOM WAS all in black and white the next morning. White wool jacket over a black silk blouse, white pleated skirt, plain black pumps. Black pillbox hat, white gloves. She'd worked the makeup expertly around her eyes so she looked older.
"You going to need your car today?"
"Sure."
"Not a car, your car. You could take mine. I figure, the Lincoln, it'd make a better impression if anyone's looking."
"Where?"
"At the hospital. I'm up here for the summer, visiting my relatives. Thinking about doing a paper on medical responses to child abuse emergencies. So I figured, I'd stop by the hospital, make some friends. Get some questions answered. Your questions."
I handed her the keys.
"Is it hard?" she asked, pulling on her gloves.
"You mean still?"
"I mean giving up smoking, you dope," she said over her shoulder, walking out.
105
I WAS IN THE back in the prison yard, walking the perimeter with my eyes, checking the gun towers. The Prof materialized next to me. Like he'd always been there. He didn't have to ask what I was doing.
"First place to look is inside your head, schoolboy. Over the wall don't get it all."
I took out a smoke. Fired a match. Remembered. Blew out the match. Started to look for the sniper. Inside my head.
I've known a few. A nameless Irishman working in Biafra— a big, unsmiling man who got his training on the rooftops of Belfast under the blanket of blood-smog. A desert-burned Israeli, part of a hunter-killer team meeting at the Mole's junkyard. El Cañonero. The FBI said he was a terrorist. And Wesley. Terror itself.
Faceless men, with interchangeable eyes.
Even in wartime, they stood apart from the soldiers.
Wesley once told me, you don't shoot people, you shoot targets.
But the freak who stalked the lovers' lanes— he hunted humans.
106
I TRIED THE Interstate joint. No sign of the Blazer. When I swung past Blossom's house, the Lincoln was out front.
She was sitting at the kitchen table, still in her black-and-white outfit, a bound sheaf of computer printouts in front of her, drinking her coffee.
I stepped behind her, put my hand on her shoulder. She reached up, brought it to her face. Sniffed deeply. "You're not smoking," she said, not looking up. Kissed my hand, put it back on her shoulder.
"What'd you get?"
"This is a sample," she said, all business. "They gave it to me. For my research." Accenting the last word, sneering at someone being naive. Maybe not them. "Here's the way it works, Burke. There's an 800 number. State-wide. Where you call if you have a case of suspected child abuse. Everyone calls the same number: social workers, ER nurses, schoolteachers, next-door neighbors. The call goes to Indianapolis, where they keep the Central Registry. Then the call gets dispatched back out to a local agency. That agency sends someone out to investigate. Then they make a report: it's real or it's not. Either way, the report goes back to Indianapolis. Every report's in their computer."