Grave Promise Page 8

  “No!”

  “Nudge sure did.”

  “I didn’t see a thing,” Ruby said. “Poor Nudge! He was totally freaked out. I better go check and see if–”

  They both smelled it at the same time. Avon’s To a Wild Rose. The hair on the back of Crockett’s neck actually stood up.

  “Oh, shit,” said Ruby, moving into his arms and clutching at him.

  “Oh, shit,” Crockett said. He could feel Ruby tremble.

  “Crockett,” she said, “we are staying together tonight, but we are not staying together tonight over here.”

  “Ya think?” he said, and followed her into the closet.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The morning after

  As soon as they crossed through the closets, the scent was gone. Nudge, instead of hiding somewhere as they both assumed he would be, was sitting on one of Ruby’s end tables quietly staring at the cat door. He ignored them completely. Ruby stood looking around the room as if she’d never seen it before.

  “I gotta change clothes,” she said. “Come with me. I don’t want to go anywhere by myself right now.”

  Crockett felt a little giddy, like an arrow had just thunked into a tree missing his head by a fraction of an inch.

  “I’ll brave anything to follow you up a flight of stairs when you’re wearing that dress,” he said.

  Ruby didn’t appear to hear him. He tagged along.

  She spent five minutes or so in the walk-in closet off her bedroom while Crockett paced, trying to stop his hands from shaking. When she came out he could see she was clad in at least three layers of sweat clothes. Protection. She sat on the end of the bed and stared at the floor, saying nothing. After about a minute, Ruby leapt to her feet and bolted to the bathroom. Crockett held her hair and watched the wall while she got rid of the Hereford House.

  It was brutal. Shakes, sweats, dry-heaves, the whole ball of wax. Finally he helped her back to the bed and wiped her face with a damp hand towel. Pale as parchment, Ruby gave him a weak smile.

  “Thanks,” she whispered. “Sorry.”

  “Will you marry me?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “I read someplace that you shouldn’t ask anyone to marry you until you’d helped them through a bout of projectile vomiting. Seemed like a good time to propose.”

  Ruby’s eyes crinkled. “Fuck you,” she rasped.

  “I don’t think you’re up to it, Sweetie,” he said, wiping damp hair back from her forehead.

  Ruby closed her eyes and smiled.

  Crockett kissed her cheek. “I’m going downstairs,” he said, “and get you some Coke on ice.”

  When Crockett returned to the bedroom Ruby was still flat on her back, snoring softly. He sipped the Coke, covered her with a light blanket, shut off the light, and went down to the living room. Nudge continued to stare at the cat-door.

  “Everything okay?” Crockett asked.

  Nudge gave him a slow blink and lashed his tail with low enthusiasm. Everything was fine. Suddenly very tired, Crockett took off his coat and tie, kicked off his right shoe, put his glasses on the end table, and lay down on the couch. After a couple of minutes Nudge ambled over and stretched his full length from Crockett’s chin to crotch, rubbing his cantaloupe head against Crockett’s jaw and purring with enough intensity to make the couch hum. Almost immediately Crockett’s sinuses began to load up.

  Love always has its price.

  Early morning light woke him up. Crockett’s nose was stopped up, his back ached, his bad leg was numb, and his forehead weighed thirty pounds. He opened his scratchy eyes to see Ruby sitting at the dining room table peering back at him over the rim of a coffee cup.

  “Blue Kona,” she said. “Want some?”

  “Myrrph,” Crockett replied, trying to lift his head.

  “Cream with that?”

  “Glarrf,” Crockett went on, attempting to locate his tongue beneath its covering of wool.

  By the time Ruby returned from the kitchen he’d levered himself to a sitting position. She set the cup on the dining room table.

  “Come and get it.”

  “Bitch,” he muttered, trying to remember how to tie his shoe.

  “Coffee’s right over here, Honey.”

  “Cruel heartless bitch,” he went on, lurching to his feet and swiveling to face her.

  Ruby blanched. “My God, Crockett,” she said. “Do you look like that every morning?”

  “Whiz,” he replied, staggering past her and heading for the john.

  After he used the convenience, Crockett looked in the mirror. Jesus. His hair tie was dangling on a wisp about six inches below his left ear. His hair was sticking out up to a foot in any given direction. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy, his face was swollen, a pillow scar that resembled something from the old days at Heidelberg bisected his left eyebrow and cheek, he had a rash on his jaw from where Nudge had laid his nose, and his mustache had lost its tiny mind.

  Crockett re-ponytailed his gnarled locks, washed his face in cold water, prepared himself for the onslaught, limped back out into the dining room, and sat beside Ruby.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” she said. “Have some coffee, Crockett, and tell me you love me.”

  With his second cup, Ruby also brought a toasted bagel with some sort of veggie cream cheese. She ate her half and most of his half. While Crockett was in the kitchen toasting another, she walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “Thanks for keeping my hair out of the john last night,” she whispered.

  Crockett leaned back into her. “Seemed like the thing to do at the time,” he said.

  “I haven’t been that violently ill in years,” Ruby said. “If I’d known that was all it took to get you to propose, I’d have done it much sooner.”

  “You can’t hold me to anything I said while you were in extremis,” Crockett said. “I was just trying to give you a reason to live. I’d have said anything to keep from calling the coroner.”

  The bagel popped up. “It would seem,” Ruby said, “that the toaster has excellent timing. Anything else arise, I wonder?”

  Crockett looked at the bagel and pushed it back down. “Not quite ready,” he said.

  Ruby patted his butt and went back to the table. “That’s okay, Sweetheart,” she said. “You’re not as young as you used to be.”

  They ate the bagel and Crockett poured some more coffee, rinsed the dishes, sat back down and lit a Sherman. Ruby, who customarily only allowed cigar smoke on her side of things, got an ashtray and didn’t complain. She stared at the table for a while, then raised her eyes to him.

  “What happened last night?” she said.

  “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

  “Whatever it was,” she murmured as if talking to herself, “it sure scared the hell out of poor Nudge.”

  “That cat and I have been together for nearly six years,” Crockett said. “I have never seen him move like that. I’ve also never heard him growl like that. As big as he is, he doesn’t have to be scared of much, but he sure was last night.”

  “That’s probably what accounted for our fright,” Ruby said. “Fear is contagious. All animals emit fear pheromones. It’s very possible that we picked up on what Nudge was giving off. That, combined with his behavior, could have made us respond in a less than rational manner.”

  “I find it extremely rational,” Crockett said, “to clear an area that Nudge is afraid of. He grins at dogs that make me wet my pants. If it scares Nudge, I don’t want any part of it.”

  Ruby smiled. “That’s not exactly what I meant,” she said.

  “I know it’s not. If I don’t get a little silly about this, I’ll take it too seriously. In that way lies madness.”

  “I was very afraid,” Ruby said. “So were you. But answer me this, and think about it carefully.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did you actually feel threatened? I don’t mean scared, I mean threatene
d.”

  “Fear comes from threat, doesn’t it?” Crockett said.

  “Does it?”

  “Jesus, Ruby, therapize somewhere else.”

  She ignored him. “It’s like watching a horror movie on the tube. It may scare the hell out of you, but you’re not actually threatened. It is only pictures on a screen. Rationally, you know that you are in no real danger.”

  “It felt pretty real to me,” Crockett said. “It did to you too. I didn’t hold your head over the toilet because you’re bulimic.”

  “I was scared shitless, Crockett. Looking back on it now, I just wonder if I had any real reason to be. Do you remember getting to your feet?”

  “Huh?”

  “When Nudge freaked, you stood up.”

  “I did?”

  “Yep. While he was hissing. You were on your feet before he even started to growl. Why?”

  “Automatic reaction I guess.”

  “And automatic reaction to situational events comes from?”

  Ruby peered at Crockett, waiting for an answer.

  “Intensive training,” he said.

  “That’s true, but what else?”

  He thought for a moment. “Reptile brain,” he said.

  “Had you ever encountered this type of reaction from Nudge before?”

  “No.”

  “Then you weren’t trained for it, were you?”

  “No.”

  “You jumped to your feet for one of only four reasons,” Ruby said. “You wanted to feed, you wanted to fight, you wanted to flee, or you wanted to fuck. All basic, all elemental, all reptile brain.”

  “Well,” Crockett said. “Last night I fled and this morning I fed. Fighting is out of the question, you could kick my ass on the best day I ever had. What was that fourth thing you mentioned?”

  Ruby snorted. “The point I am trying to make,” she said, “is that we possibly, perhaps even probably, had nothing to fear at all. We were elementally re-active instead of mentally pro-active.”

  “God, I love it when you get all medical,” Crockett said.

  Ruby oozed tolerance. “Look, Shithead,” she said, “we all compensate in whatever way best suits. I get analytical, you get stupid. I know these things. I’m highly trained.”

  “So you think the only reason we got scared was because Nudge went over the edge?”

  “I’m saying that Nudge going over the edge made us re-active to our fear rather that pro-active about our fear. If Nudge had not been there and you had smelled that perfume–”

  “To a Wild Rose.”

  “To a Wild Rose, would you have been so frightened?”

  “No,” Crockett said. “Probably not.”

  “You’ve smelled it before, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Most recently in the context of seeing the Amazing Disappearing Woman, correct?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did she scare you?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Then why would you have been compelled to run away from her scent?”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Now comes the spooky stuff,” Ruby said. “Do you think, in light of the perfume, that she was in your place last night?”

  “Aw, Jesus, Ruby!”

  “Do you?”

  “How the hell do I know?” he asked, getting to his feet.

  “You don’t know, Crockett! Tell me what you think!”

  Crockett paced a lap around the table. “I think this is all bullshit!” he said.

  Ruby stared at him. “Denial,” she said. “You saw Nudge as well as I did. He appeared to me to be looking at something moving about the room that you and I could not see. What could that have been?”

  “Goddammit, Ruby! I don’t know!”

  “Tell me what you think!”

  Crockett turned on her. “What do you think it was?”

  She gazed out the window for a moment, then turned to him.

  “I think it might have been the Amazing Disappearing Woman, Crockett,” she said, her voice low and level. “And so do you.”

  “Hell, Ruby! I don’t know what to think! But I do know that this whole fucking mess has got the two of us picking at each other. I know that much, and I don’t like it!”

  “Me either,” Ruby said.

  “I also know that this scares the hell out of me. It goes against everything I count on as being normal. I fucking hate it!”

  “I know you do,” Ruby whispered.

  “But I tell you this,” Crockett said. “Before I let this spooky bullshit come between us, I’ll build a goddam ball diamond in a corn field and wait for Shoeless Joe Jackson and his pals to come play ball under the lights.”

  Ruby stood up and placed a hand on each side of his face. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

  “You would, wouldn’t you?” she said.

  “You bet. I got a brand new shovel.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Carl

  There is something wonderful about a hot soak. A habitual showerer, Crockett became addicted to long hot baths after he got shot while working as a cop. Daily whirlpools were part of his physical therapy for several months and languishing in a tub had been part of his life ever since, both to ease perpetual discomfort in his back and leg because of the ancient gunshot and his more recent amputation, and to ease his mind. Physical therapy had also evolved into emotional therapy.

  When Ruby and he remodeled their current digs he turned the upstairs living room into his master bedroom and the master bedroom into a bath. In that bath was a shower five feet on a side with three showerheads and a comfortable seat to compensate for having to stand overly long on only one foot. Next to the shower lurked a Japanese bathtub. Circular and three feet across, it also had a built-in seat, complete with underwater armrests, and was forty-two inches deep. It contained its own water heating system and did not slurp, bubble, jet or foam. The object of the tub was peace, not froth. Ruby called it “the caldron”. Crockett thought of it more as heaven.

  Mid-morning, he sat in heaven, working out the physical kinks caused by Ruby’s couch and the emotional bruises caused by Ruby, when that very woman, as usual without a thought of knocking, walked into the room. His reverie screeched to a halt and Crockett opened one lid to eyeball her through the steam.

  “What?”

  Ruby handed him a double shot of her single-malt scotch. “Just wanted to make sure you were comfortable,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “And happy,” Ruby went on, lighting a Macanudo Maduro and gently passing it to him.

  “Okay, fine,” Crockett said.

  Ruby sat on the john lid and smiled wistfully.

  “So, are you?” she said.

  “Am I what?”

  “Comfortable and happy.”

  “Oh, sure,” Crockett said. “A little tired of waiting, though.”

  “For what?”

  “The other shoe to drop.”

  “Why, David! Whatever do you mean?” Ruby asked, her eyes too big, too round, and too innocent.

  Crockett sneered. “Gosh, I’m sorry, Snookums,” he said. “I mistakenly thought that because you were being so disgustingly nice to me, you might possibly be attempting to lull me into a false sense of security. Silly me.”

  Ruby got to her feet. “Grilled tuna salad sandwiches and chips for lunch. We’ll eat a little early so we’ll be ready by one this afternoon.”

  “What happens at one, Ruby?”

  “We have a visitor coming to your house.”

  “And who might that be?”

  “His name is Carl Saunders,” she said from the doorway. “He’s an old friend and a very nice man.”

  “And what does this nice man do?”

  “He’s a psychic,” Ruby said, and slithered out of the room.

  Christ.

  Crockett stayed in heaven long enough to smoke the cigar and finish the scotch, dressed in some lightweight wind pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt,
and ambled over to Ruby’s side. She was fussing in the kitchen, heating up an electric griddle and munching on some grapes.

  “Feel better?” she asked.

  Crockett wrinkled his nose. “A psychic?”

  “Yep.”

  “Less than two weeks ago I’d never, to my knowledge, even met a psychic. Now, I can’t swing a cat without hitting one.”

  “Poor baby.”

  “Well, shit, Ruby! Now I got some weirdo coming over after lunch. Did it ever cross your devious mind to check with me before you hit the street in search of Nostradamus?”

  “Yes, it did,” she said, “but I knew you’d give me a bunch of trouble about it. I chose not to go through that twice, so I called Carl. Now you only get to raise hell once. Much better for your blood pressure, Dear.”

  Crockett resisted the urge to wave his arms.

  “Why don’t we just buy our own Ouija board? Cut out the middle man and go straight to the source?”

  “Swiss or cheddar with your tuna salad, Sweetheart?”

  “Swiss.”

  Ruby smiled sweetly and slid the bowl of grapes toward Crockett.

  “Here, Darling,” she said. “Munch some of these and remember not to talk with your mouth full.”

  A little before one, Ruby and Crockett settled on his couch, a carafe of fresh Kona and some sugar cookies on the coffee table.

  “So, how long you known this guy?” Crockett said.

  “Nearly as long as I’ve known you. He’s a very nice man. He’s made his living as a psychic for years and he’ll be completely honest with us. He trusts me, Crockett, and I trust him.”

  “Damn!”

  “Now what’s the matter?” Ruby said.

  Crockett shrugged. “I’m just pissed that the fact that you trust him is good enough for me,” he said.

  Ruby laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “That you can make a compliment sound so much like an accusation,” Ruby said.

  “Bite me.”

  “Not now, Dear. Company’s coming.”

  Company came just a couple of minutes later.