this?”
The stark and surprising shock of being violated, as swift and sudden as a hawk stooping out of the sky and
strike
.
I let go the breath. As if Sport had been gently gyring, wings extended the whole time, lazy circles and
siiiiiiiiiiiii—WHAM
. A dangerous man. Far more dangerous than I’d thought or given him credit for. No point in lying.
“Yesterday,” I said.
“About what time?”
“Maybe it’s time I get a lawyer.”
He cocked his head and looked at me. The first time level. No BS, squared off, measuring. “That’s your right. Is that something you want to do?”
“I don’t want to do any of this.”
We looked at each other. He nodded.
“Understood,” he said. “Could you ask Sofia to come out and talk to us for a second?”
“No.”
He nodded.
“I think you two better leave,” I said.
He nodded. Took one more long look at the painting, glanced at me again, this one honest and bleak, like:
I have just looked into the heart of a murder and it raises the hair on the back of my neck, still—as many of these as I work I still can’t get used to it
. Then he set the painting back down, carefully flipped it backside-out, fastidious, the way you do something distasteful and guilty, leaned it so the paint wouldn’t smear.
“I wanted to be an artist growing up,” he said. “Then I got married.”
He said it like he thought maybe he had made the right choice after all.
“Thanks for the coffee,” he said, and went through the door. The big kid followed him, ducked his head at me, didn’t say a word, didn’t know what to say, looked like he’d been hit on the head with a cow.
Sofia flew out of the bedroom. The second they left. It’s a small house. The bedroom is just off the main room with the long counter, the kitchen, their stools weren’t twenty feet from her listening head. The door flew open and she burst out naked.
Most women would have dressed, armored themselves somehow with clothes. She felt stronger I think without them. She came outof the bedroom like a whirlwind, all tossing dark hair, all curves, all huge eyes flashing the five colors, and scents and something like a hum, a breathed song, a sigh, like someone singing to herself.
She wasn’t singing to herself, she was finding her rhythm. She did that when she modeled, very low, didn’t distract me, and she did it now with an urgency. I was rooted to my spot between the painting and the front door.
“You killed that sonofabitch? Last night?”
She stood just more than an arm’s length away.
“When you got up in the middle of the night? I felt you, I went back to sleep. Thought you were peeing. Heard the truck, thought you were gone a long time, too sleepy to wonder about it, figured you might be an insomniac, next thing I felt your arms around me.”
She stopped, cocked her head the way she does, listening for something it seemed inside her. She was more beautiful right then than maybe any woman I had ever seen.
“You
killed
him?”
Not really saying it to me. To herself. Listening inside for how she felt about it. Then eyes on me. The eyes different colors, the colors shifting, the way pebbles on the bottom of a stream, the way the fast water is constantly moving the lances of sunlight.
She said: “He didn’t say
how
. I guess he wouldn’t. That’d be giving a suspect inside information.
Fuck
. With a
knife
?”
She shook her head. Like trying to clear her ear of water. She looked straight into me. Not only with her eyes, with all of her—her eyes, her breasts, hips, the sparse thatch of dark hair.
“Well you better have a good fuck.” She said it exasperated, as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “You better store them up, who knows how long it will be when they get serious about you.”
I stood there. Kind of transfixed. Watched her turn and walk bare-ass into the bedroom.
Falling. Falling into her. Like stepping off a cliff and spreading arms and flying downwards.
The stark and surprising shock of being violated, as swift and sudden as a hawk stooping out of the sky and
strike
.
I let go the breath. As if Sport had been gently gyring, wings extended the whole time, lazy circles and
siiiiiiiiiiiii—WHAM
. A dangerous man. Far more dangerous than I’d thought or given him credit for. No point in lying.
“Yesterday,” I said.
“About what time?”
“Maybe it’s time I get a lawyer.”
He cocked his head and looked at me. The first time level. No BS, squared off, measuring. “That’s your right. Is that something you want to do?”
“I don’t want to do any of this.”
We looked at each other. He nodded.
“Understood,” he said. “Could you ask Sofia to come out and talk to us for a second?”
“No.”
He nodded.
“I think you two better leave,” I said.
He nodded. Took one more long look at the painting, glanced at me again, this one honest and bleak, like:
I have just looked into the heart of a murder and it raises the hair on the back of my neck, still—as many of these as I work I still can’t get used to it
. Then he set the painting back down, carefully flipped it backside-out, fastidious, the way you do something distasteful and guilty, leaned it so the paint wouldn’t smear.
“I wanted to be an artist growing up,” he said. “Then I got married.”
He said it like he thought maybe he had made the right choice after all.
“Thanks for the coffee,” he said, and went through the door. The big kid followed him, ducked his head at me, didn’t say a word, didn’t know what to say, looked like he’d been hit on the head with a cow.
Sofia flew out of the bedroom. The second they left. It’s a small house. The bedroom is just off the main room with the long counter, the kitchen, their stools weren’t twenty feet from her listening head. The door flew open and she burst out naked.
Most women would have dressed, armored themselves somehow with clothes. She felt stronger I think without them. She came outof the bedroom like a whirlwind, all tossing dark hair, all curves, all huge eyes flashing the five colors, and scents and something like a hum, a breathed song, a sigh, like someone singing to herself.
She wasn’t singing to herself, she was finding her rhythm. She did that when she modeled, very low, didn’t distract me, and she did it now with an urgency. I was rooted to my spot between the painting and the front door.
“You killed that sonofabitch? Last night?”
She stood just more than an arm’s length away.
“When you got up in the middle of the night? I felt you, I went back to sleep. Thought you were peeing. Heard the truck, thought you were gone a long time, too sleepy to wonder about it, figured you might be an insomniac, next thing I felt your arms around me.”
She stopped, cocked her head the way she does, listening for something it seemed inside her. She was more beautiful right then than maybe any woman I had ever seen.
“You
killed
him?”
Not really saying it to me. To herself. Listening inside for how she felt about it. Then eyes on me. The eyes different colors, the colors shifting, the way pebbles on the bottom of a stream, the way the fast water is constantly moving the lances of sunlight.
She said: “He didn’t say
how
. I guess he wouldn’t. That’d be giving a suspect inside information.
Fuck
. With a
knife
?”
She shook her head. Like trying to clear her ear of water. She looked straight into me. Not only with her eyes, with all of her—her eyes, her breasts, hips, the sparse thatch of dark hair.
“Well you better have a good fuck.” She said it exasperated, as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “You better store them up, who knows how long it will be when they get serious about you.”
I stood there. Kind of transfixed. Watched her turn and walk bare-ass into the bedroom.
Falling. Falling into her. Like stepping off a cliff and spreading arms and flying downwards.
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