The Famous and the Dead

43



An hour and forty minutes later, Clint was parking the Kia at the red curb in front of the Regal Hotel. The missile attack on the Imperial Bank was all over the news—at least one dead and several wounded. His pulse was good and slow and the world was in terrifically sharp focus. When he’d let that Stinger go at the bank building, he had felt a surge of adrenaline go through him, like the missile had actually released it, but by the time he’d dropped the launcher into the trunk and gotten back into the Kia and watched the aftermath of the explosion he was already beginning to feel calm again. The only problem was the finger, swollen and burning with pain.

He went inside the Regal and the man at the desk told him he couldn’t park there. It was the law. The man had one of those goofy accents that make everything a question. RAKVI, said his name tag. Clint said he’d just be a minute and what room was the girl with the black eye in? The clerk scowled darkly and shook his head. Nimble as a chimp, Clint swung himself over the counter, landed lightly on his feet, and rapped the clerk hard on the forehead with the blackjack. Rakvi dropped and started moaning. Clint pressed his boot to the man’s mouth to mute him while he fiddled with the computer. It didn’t take long to find the room assignments, but no listing for Mary Kate Boyle. There were eight rooms taken by women and Clint saw that parking charges applied to five of them. Mary Kate had no car. Of the remaining three, two had given credit cards and one, Jennifer Logan, was a cash customer. JL, Clint thought. MK loves J-Lo. Room 6. He lifted his boot off the clerk’s mouth and put Rakvi’s wallet in a back pocket of his jeans.

Room 6 was first floor. No spy hole. Clint knocked softly on the door and tried to mimic the clerk. “Miss Logan? This is Rakvi? The manager. I have a letter for you from a man named Charlie Hood?”

Mary Kate slid the deadbolt and Clint barged inside and hit her with the sap, top and middle of her skull. The book she was holding fell to the floor and Mary Kate slumped but he caught her before she hit. He slung her over his shoulder. He found her cell phone on the desk by the TV and used his free hand to slide it the front pocket of his jeans. He walked back into the lobby, where he got her upright. She couldn’t stand on her own so Clint clutched her tight around the waist and half-danced, half-dragged her to the car. It wasn’t easy to swing open the door and get her in but he managed. A passerby said it was kind of early to be that wasted and Clint told him his wife was a diabetic so go to hell.

He left San Diego, navigating wide around the Greyhound station, which was only a few blocks away. She was out, her head lolling against the door and window. Her eye was still discolored. When he was away from the city, down south on Interstate 5, he pulled off and found an out-of-the-way place to park and taped up her hands and ankles. She didn’t open her eyes. He snuck a kiss when he was done. He didn’t make the tape too tight, didn’t want to hurt her. He kissed her again, fully starved for some home-cooked love but he couldn’t do that to a girl in this condition. I got standards, he thought. Clint’s no rapist.

She hardly moved as he drove the interstate south toward Imperial Beach. In National City, she started to wake up. Clint pulled off again and parked in a strip mall parking lot and rolled down a window. He listened to the radio. It was all about the bombing in Buenavista. But they couldn’t even figure out how many rockets had been fired. No wonder this country’s so messed up, Clint thought. A few minutes later Mary Kate raised her head and squinted at him through her mess of hair. “Ouch,” she whispered, raising both taped hands to her head. “You hit me, Clint?”

“Not with my fist. With a secret weapon.”

She lowered her hands to her lap. “And you got me all taped up?”

“Just don’t scream or say nothing to nobody. I don’t want to tape up your mouth so just stay quiet, will you?”

“Oh man.” Mary Kate was still whispering. “I got such a headache . . . if I screamed my head would explode.”

“Then don’t and we’ll both be happy.”

“What are you doing?”

“I got it all figured. I know you been with Charlie Hood, Mary Kate. I seen him walkin’ you out of the ATF place and I seen the way you looked at him. I know he was telling you what to say to me on the phone. And I know you thought you were fooling me but you weren’t. You betrayed me after all that time I was secretly in love with you. I been mad enough to kill you, MK. I was gonna and I still might. But seeing you in person has beaten down the hardness in my heart. Mostly. Hood’s another story, though. Hood I’m gonna waste.”

Mary Kate closed her eyes and slowly let her head settle back against the door frame. “I wasn’t ever with him, Clint. He’s a nice enough guy but he didn’t have the time of day for me. I think he’s got a girl stashed somewhere.”

“Or a boy.”

“What did he do to you?”

Clint held up his left hand. “This is all consequential of what he did to my finger, Mary Kate.”

“That’s just a hurt finger, Clint.”

“It’s more than that. It’s the whole stupid thing about me being stupid.”

“Goddamn, you hit me hard. I can’t open my eyes without it hurting worse.”

Clint gave her a sweater for a pillow and got back on the freeway. The day was bright and cool and the shipyards rose high at the edge of the Pacific, cranes and booms fussing over the huge navy ships and tankers, mile after mile of them. A California Highway Patrol car passed him going close to ninety, didn’t so much as look at him, which pleased Clint. Probably headed for Buenavista. Nobody was looking for his little white Kia and that was just the way he liked it. He kept stealing peeks at Mary Kate Boyle, dazed or asleep with her head on his sweater, and he felt bad for hitting her so hard but he couldn’t have a scene getting her out the hotel and into his car, now, could he? She had a small upturned nose and pretty lips and he even liked her ears. He wondered what her scalp looked like where he’d walloped her. No blood, because a good sap wouldn’t cut if you hit flat with it. And his was a good one, made it himself out of bull hide and a hearty slug of lead he’d cut from an ingot using a coping saw. Sewn by his own hand. He’d tried it out on one of Carl Blevins’s young hogs out by Alley Spring back in Missouri, and that porker had collapsed like the rug had been pulled out from under it. Woke up about a minute later and ran around in circles, snorting.

He worked her phone out from his pocket and flipped it open and scrolled down the contacts.