Scar Tissue, page 10
“Is it usually difficult?” Dylan asks while looking over the crossbow, wondering if she can break it down and clean it as if it were an M4. She owes this feeling to Abby, and though she won’t tell her that she feels more alive than she has in years, she will enjoy it when Abby isn’t looking.
Abby pauses and thinks better of telling Dylan how anyone’s first kill is at least somewhat emotional—pity or pride, there is usually something. Abby first killed a bird in the backyard. She had grabbed Lawton’s water rifle as she walked outside with her mother to get the mail. She happened upon a bird nestled in the thick grass and shot it like Daniel Boone because that’s what she thought she was supposed to do with wildlife. The water didn’t seem to do the job, so Abby turned the gun around and began chopping at the bird with the wider end. Her mother ran over to stop her, but it came too late. With mail fluttering to the ground, Abby got her first look at death. She cried for days after that. But now, Dylan isn’t letting on that shooting a deer even registers. “Well, that will mess up somebody’s bookkeeping,” Abby says.
“You mean you rank them?”
“That was a Key deer. Only three hundred left in the state. My father had five brought out here.”
“You said this wasn’t a sanctuary,” Dylan says. Her voice comes out low and lacks any kind of emotion.
“The herd surely won’t miss him. They’re not that smart. No one will know it was you.” As they walk toward the deer, Abby says, “These aren’t God’s creatures. They’re baubles, novelties. Items. Nothing more.”
Dylan tugs out the arrow from the spinal cord, just behind the skull. She wipes blood and sinew on the pine needles at their feet in an effort to remove the evidence.
“Doing this,” Abby says, “proves you’re even more perfect for me than I thought.”
“Really?” Dylan says. She puts the arrow in place as she reloads the crossbow and squats down.
“What are you doing?” Abby asks, something like panic in her voice.
“Shhh,” Dylan says. “I’m more perfect for you than you ever imagined.”
Six
Cleve Bejeak hears the call come in over the police scanner he keeps on his dead wife’s pie table next to his recliner: “Three deer, each with single point of entry wounds found on the Stratton Plain called Devonwood.” The old lady would shit if she knew her prized antique served as a podium for such violence and mayhem, but she’s dead and the police scanner is all that Cleve has beside scotch and biographies of dead presidents. The call coming across makes him close his book and put down his drink.
As he arrives on the scene twenty minutes later, there are two county cop cars near the gate on Faulkenburg Road, along with three Fish and Game SUVs.
Cleve’s orthopedic shoes sink into the dank mud on the outskirts of the vast refuge of old-time Florida wilderness owned by the richest son of a bitch in Hillsborough County.
“Cleve? Is that you?” a heavyset deputy named Thompson says from amongst a huddle of the clueless in uniform. He’s got a baby face, but one cheek bulges from a wad of chewing tobacco. “What are you doing here?”
Cleve approaches the group standing by the wire fence. “I was in the area and thought I’d stop by.”
Thompson spits into the rough near the gatepost. “That’s no way to live your retirement. But it’s good to see you,” he says. “Do you all know Detective Bejeak?”
Cleve interrupts any semblance of recognition by saying, “Former detective. I’m retired.” Cleve retired a detective, but he’d gotten promoted to that rank only two years prior—the oldest deputy to be appointed detective in department history. Everyone considered his work solid, but admittedly slow. Not mentally challenged, but rather meticulous. Everything he did took longer than anyone else in the department. He only had a fraction of the arrests his fellow deputies had, but his conviction rate was one hundred percent. His record of one hundred percent accuracy served as his saving grace all his years in the department. On balance, this proved for a respectable career.
After those assembled nod acknowledgement and take turns shaking Cleve’s hand, he repeats what he heard on the scanner. “Single entry wound took down each of these animals?”
“There’s blood, but no lead best we can tell.”
“You think it might be kids?”
“Kids with jackknives or something?” a skinny, female “fish and gamer” asks. “I don’t know.”
Cleve plods through the moist earth to the carcass of one of the dead deer lying prone along the fence. A swarm of flies buzz about his head as he nears. Birds have long since gotten the dead animal’s eyes, leaving moist holes and fragments of connective tissue. Cleve bends, then squats. The wound is obvious, with a trail of blood staining the blond fur. “Who would kill such a beautiful animal?” Cleve says, rubbing the animal between its empty eye sockets. The dead deer’s face looks almost comforted.
“This far out in the country, all sorts of strange shit happens,” Thompson says.
“This isn’t a stab wound,” Cleve says, pulling back the deer’s fur. “Too much force. I’ve seen plenty of stabbings in my days. This ain’t a stabbing. Besides, who could get close enough?”
“Deers are skittish,” Thompson says. The fish and gamers all grumble and add their two cents on the issue.
“Whoever did this is long gone, too. I can tell you that. They didn’t want venison or they would have taken the fucking things.”
“Such a damn shame,” the female fish and gamer says.
“What about a knife thrower?” Thompson says, spitting a stream of Red Man onto the ground. “You reckon someone could be that accurate?”
“Yeah, a ninja came all the way out here to sniff nature and snuff deer,” the female fish and gamer says.
“Don’t get nasty,” Thompson says.
“A single, fatal entry wound on each of them—Money Bags Stratton been out here lately?” Cleve asks.
“He made a statement over the phone that he ain’t been here since February.”
Cleve thinks it’s a crime to own this land and not spend time on it. “Who reported this?”
“Caretakers,” the female fish and gamer says.
“Did Stratton have any guests out here?”
“Come on, Cleve. Go on back home. This is no way to spend your retirement. Go play golf. Let us worry about all this,” Thompson says, and spits.
On Monday afternoon, Lawton unhitches the trailer from his pickup and drives to Tampa to meet his buddy Elliot at Mom’s diner on Dale Mabry Highway.
He arrives early and sits in a booth within eyeshot of the counter where a girl leans on a stool, showing off the backs of her legs. He wishes she had been at his party, but for now he’s content staring at her while pretending to read a menu.
The girl turns around after a few minutes and locks eyes with Lawton, who waves at her, suggesting she join him.
A waitress comes by with a coffee pot and cup. “That’s my daughter, and she’s only seventeen.”
“That’s cool. I was just saying hello.”
“Right,” she says, filling his coffee cup.
A moment later, a bell clangs as Elliot enters. He wears his Air Force dress uniform and removes his hat the second one shined shoe touches the linoleum in the diner.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Lawton says.
“You look like shit.”
“Alcohol flu. Probably shouldn’t even be driving.”
“Your party was that good, huh?”
“Epic. You missed an all-out blow-out.”
“Rub it in,” Elliot says, waving the waitress over by signaling for coffee.
“I hate to cut you short, but I’m suffering here. What did you find for me?” Lawton uses his friend to check out certain clients who piss him off, as well as the people his sister sees while she’s in town. He doesn’t like what she’s up to. Though he doesn’t know for sure, he can’t risk Abby hanging around the wrong kind of guys or girls. Having a friend like Elliot makes it as easy as looking in her wallet: driver’s license number, credit cards, and paper business cards. Down at MacDill Air Force Base, Elliot pulls reports from banks, credit companies, and military dependent status.
“Dude,” Elliot, says. “This chick’s all-American. She was a Navy chief’s dependent as a kid and a Marine for a couple years. College degree on the G.I. Bill, held the same job for over a decade. No arrests, not even a speeding ticket. She’s begged off jury duty twice, but she’s got strong credit. And, get this, she’s single, but she owns a house and is sitting on a six-figure savings account. It’s a portfolio, really, like a potato baked twice and stuffed once; you know what I mean?”
“Really?” Lawton sits back, the vinyl booth sticking to his skin. “You ought to see this woman. She’s a freak. All scarred up.”
The waitress pours coffee, pretending not to hear any of their conversation.
“You mean like burned and shit?”
“No, I mean like scarification.” He slurps coffee. “You know, rituals or something.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“You know?” Lawton slurps again.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll just make sure she doesn’t hang around too much or too long, you know?”
“It’s probably a good idea.”
“I mean, I can’t babysit Abby when she’s out of the country, but I can damn sure keep an eye on her when she’s in town.”
“I’m telling you, put in a good word for me and she’ll be well supervised.”
“Don’t fuck with me,” Lawton says. “I think I’ve done major brain damage.”
“I wish I could’ve made it to your party.”
“You should have sold your shift.”
“SinTel came down special to survey the information we put together last week.”
“Sounds fun. I’ve got to go, but thanks for looking at this chick.”
“What about breakfast?”
“Are you insane? I can’t eat.”
“You’re supposed to buy.”
Lawton takes out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill and tosses it on the table. “All right, man. I’ll talk to you later. And thanks again for the info.”
“Keep an eye on Abby,” Elliot says as the bell jangles on Lawton’s way out.
To learn the whereabouts of the Stratton family during the typical day, Cleve Bejeak has his buddy at the sheriff’s office run a crosscheck. Mr. Stratton has eleven corporations attached to his name, and after some digging, Cleve learns the building he spends the most time in is also the tallest in downtown Tampa. Mrs. Stratton doesn’t work. Instead, she can alternately be found at the yacht club, golf club, one of various charity events or, more often than not, at the private shopping areas of Saks Fifth Avenue or Nordstrom. Her son runs a lawn care service under an LLC, but the daughter has no recent W-2 history. There is information indicating an eight-figure trust in each of their names. And though they’re entitled to draw from them as they see fit, they remain untapped, with all interest and dividends fed back into them, making them grow even larger.
Cleve has an address, so he stakes out the house that brother and sister own together in Pinellas Park. Eight hours he sits there, his car parked under the shade of a banyan tree that harbors birds with active bowels. Droppings land like wet gunfire on the hood, trunk, and roof before the Stratton girl finally exits the house.
Following her means he never sees her face, but for now he can dial into her dark hair visible in the rear window of her car. He follows at a distance, not close enough to be noticed.
On the way into Rifley’s, traffic across the bridge is heavy for a Wednesday night, and by the time Abby gets to the three steps in back of the building, she’s late for Zoe’s shift.
Abby doesn’t want to be there. She doesn’t care about Zoe or her aunt or whatever, but she couldn’t pull a no-show and fuck the girl over. Besides, it’s the one-time Rifley actually got to write her name onto the schedule board himself. She can’t let him down either. She isn’t bitter about that; she just wants to be with Dylan. Never before has she gotten so close so quickly to a man or a woman, and she fears Dylan might get away just as quickly. Abby feels good about having Dylan wrapped up for the moment based on recent events they shared, but anybody who’s into the kind of radical shit she is can be considered unpredictable, at best.
“Four hours,” Abby tells herself, facing Rifley’s cold gray stage door. “If I’m not making killer money, in four hours I’ll leave.”
Standing there she hears car horns and tires on the pavement in a steady rush of traffic heading south into the city. She notices the peeling, gray paint on the thick metal door. She’s never taken the time to see it before, but today it looks like petals opening from a flannel rose. It’s a laughable image in her brain, and it’s then she realizes how much she will miss this place.
Inside, the velvet-covered benches along the back wall are enveloped in the red haze of the house lights. It’s already seven thirty, and in the dressing room the girls are still talking about Abby’s party. When she walks in, they all stop and applaud her.
Star stops brushing glitter onto to her eyelids and neck, gets up from her stool in front of the mirror, and hugs Abby. “Girl, that party set some kind of record.”
The other girls chime in with, “Yeahs” and “Uh-huhs.”
“It was more fun for me,” Abby says, tempted to tell them what she did with Dylan out in Plant City while they were getting drunk and grab-assing. “I’m glad you all had a good time, even you, Star.”
“I didn’t even know about the party,” Bunny says from her seat on the couch.
Unlike most of the other girls, Bunny is conscripted to Rifley. She has an all-inclusive deal with room and board at a one-bedroom place not far away. This way she never goes homeless or hungry no matter how far she snorts herself into the hole.
Abby hates Bunny because she’s danced for so long that she’s the only one who takes herself seriously. She is the ghost of stripper future and Abby doesn’t like what she sees: still good-looking, still in great shape, still dancing…what then? Does she retire when she feels the time is right? Will she notice a steady decline in her earnings? Being conscripted to Rifley, it would hardly matter unless customers ridiculed her every night.
“What’s that supposed to mean, even me?” Star asks.
“I’m just a little on edge is all. Besides, you tried to get my date fucked up and I needed her sober.”
“She’s all right,” Star says, taking her seat. “But she ain’t worth getting so fucked up over so quickly if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Abby says, slamming down a hairbrush on the makeup counter. “And I don’t need your shit. I’m only here tonight, Star, because of you. I’m doing this for you, remember? So don’t fuck with me.”
“Yo. Lighten up. Shit, girl. It’s cool.”
Abby fights the surge to her head and heart and breathes in and out. She isn’t mad at Star so much as she’s shaken by what might have happened if she’d gotten to Dylan too late.
Chardonnay, being the youngest and least comfortable with confrontation, speaks up in an obvious attempt to change the subject. “I want to be somebody else today.”
“Step into my salon,” Abby says, exhaling aggression and dusting off the stool nearest her. “I’ll give you a mini-makeover.”
And as Bunny sulks away to the bathroom, Abby cuts Chardonnay’s bangs, long and feathery. “How do you feel about retro?”
“Hey, Cassandra,” Chardonnay says. “Would you please work for me on the twenty-ninth?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Just this once? I’ve got a rich kid’s prom to go to.”
“Find somebody else to ask. I might be going somewhere.” It’s as much an explanation as Abby wants to give.
Cleve Bejeak waited until half past ten to enter Rifley’s Eden. It was the first time he’d been in there, but it wasn’t so different from other strip clubs he’d seen back in his day. He finds a seat near the door and watches the girls take the stage. He laughs when a cocktail waitress with fishnet stockings and a little coat with tails tells him, “Totally nude means no liquor, just juice and soda. Because of the old blue laws that’s all we’re allowed to serve.”
The strongest drink they serve there is club soda, so he sips from the glass now and again while looking at all the women. Instead of ogling their naked bodies, he occupies himself by trying to match the dancers’ faces to the photo of Abigail Stratton that he found on file at the Tribune. The photo is a number of years old, and though crystal clear, the makeup, hair, and lighting make Cleve have to study each face. The nudity stirs something in him, but all that comes of it is three trips to urinate.
For Abby, dancing is a strange balance of aggression and submission, but no matter her mood, it is always physical. Amid the spotlights and applause, she swings around the pole with a roundhouse kick.
Today is busier than most Wednesday evenings, packed with suits and uniforms gathered together to throw money at nude women just for being nude. The execs and trades will be turned on for their twenty-dollar cover charge, nourished by the ten-dollar buffet, with a lap dance or a trip to the VIP room for dessert.
In the third hour of Abby’s shift, she’s all smiles and relatively anonymous in her black wig, but she’s wishing she’d gone with the Ace wrap beneath her boots. Her ankle is sore and swelling.
With the injury, coming back to the stage after even a thirty-minute break makes every twinge in her back remind her that the gelatin in her joints is eroding. It’s only a matter of a few years before bone grinds arthritic bone and vertebrae, then collapses with osteoporosis. Nothing hurt in her younger days, nothing. A life lived healthy and pampered, and when not completely healthy, she got pampered even more. All discomfort pacified. Rectified.
