and Laurel were lying in bed together. They were naked. He was on his back, staring, fascinated, at the darkened ceiling. It seemed to ripple and blur under his gaze. After the three of them had eaten, Roy had broken out a Baggie of crystal meth and cut several lines for each of them. Stan had never done meth before. The stuff burned his nostrils fiercely as he snorted up the fat lines. But the rush when it came was a hundred times more intense than the boost he had gotten from the laced joints before. It was like being shot out of a cannon. Stan’s heart felt like a car engine with the pedal jammed to the firewall. His thoughts rushed by him almost faster than he could capture them. In minutes, they were all flying high, Roy and Laurel jabbering about whatever came into their heads. Then Laurel took Stan by the hand and dragged him into the bedroom. He had glanced nervously back at Roy, but the older man had ignored them in favor of cutting out more lines. Once inside, she had giggled like a mischievous child as she yanked his pants down and pushed him back on the bed. The next few minutes had been a blur of images flashing in his head like a strobe as Laurel pulled her own clothes off and straddled him. She rode him hard and fast, gasping and tearing at the front of his shirt with her nails. As he groaned with his oncoming climax, she had leaned down and bit him on his cut lip, hard. He had screamed as he came, the meth rush combining with the pleasure and pain and the taste of blood in his mouth in a mind-shattering explosion.
Afterwards, as they lay together, thoughts continued to zip through Stan’s head like fireflies. He hadn’t realized that he had spoken aloud until Laurel answered. “What’s that, honey?” she murmured, her hand moving down to stroke him again. He didn’t think he could get hard again so soon, but he couldn’t bring himself to push her away. She was the first real woman who had ever touched him like that, and he was afraid if he stopped her, she wouldn’t do it again.
It took him a moment to remember what he’d asked. “Back at the station,” he said. “You handed the gun to Roy and he said, ‘Like we agreed?’ Like a question. What did that mean?”
“Oh,” she said. “When Roy an’ I were talking about this, we agreed early on. We’d share in everything. All the fame, and all the blame. There wouldn’t be no killin’ that was just done by one of us.”
Stan closed his eyes. Whenever he did that, it was like he was seeing tiny flashbulbs going off behind his eyelids. When he heard the bedroom door open, he opened his eyes. He saw Roy’s shadow in the doorway and tried to sit up. Laurel pushed him back down. “Like I said, honey,” she smiled down at him as Roy approached the bed, “we share everything.”
Keller walked into the office the next morning. Angela came out of the back at the sound of the bell. “Anything?” she said.
“Yeah,” Keller said. “I need you to find me any info you can get on this Randle guy Laurel Marks was hanging out with. She may have been living with him.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll put Oscar on it.”
Keller had picked up a phone book and was thumbing through the R’s. He looked up. “Oscar?” he said.
“Yeah. I’ve been teaching him records searches. Criminal records checks, Register of Deeds, stuff like that.”
“It’s something to do,” Oscar Sanchez said as he hobbled out of the back office. There was a touch of bitterness in his voice as he said, “Since I can no longer work as a laborer.”
“Well, hell,” Keller said. “You didn’t want to do that, anyway, right? It was just a way to earn a few bucks.”
Sanchez nodded, his face still glum. He sat down at the computer.
“Lot more future here in working with your brain, Oscar,” Keller said.
Oscar looked up and smiled sadly. “Oh, si” he said. “Oscar Sanchez, Private Eye. I can see it now.” He turned back to the computer. “You forget, I am illegal. I can only rise so high.”
“I’m going to get the mail,” Angela said abruptly. She walked out the front door, banging it slightly.
Oscar looked at the door and sighed. Keller took a seat at the desk. “Things aren’t going too well, I see. With Angela.”
Sanchez was silent for a moment. Finally, he said, “I do not know. Things were well for us at first, but after… after I was shot…” He trailed off and rubbed his face wearily. “I cannot sleep. I keep seeing what happened in my mind. I feel angry all the time, even when there is no need.” He bowed his head. “I am not the same man I was, Jack,” he said softly. “I do not know how to be that man again.”
Keller crouched down beside Sanchez’s chair. “Oscar,” he said. “Look at me.” Sanchez looked up.
“When I was in the army,” Keller said, “I and the men with me got lost in the desert. A helicopter…I never saw it, but it had to be one of the ones on our side…mistook us for an enemy. They fired a missile at us. Every one of my men was killed.”
Sanchez looked at him soberly. “How did you survive?”
Keller grimaced. “Dumb luck,” he said. “I had walked off to take a piss. If I hadn’t, I’d have died, just like them. I saw them bum, Oscar. I heard them screaming.” He stood up and put his hand on Sanchez’s shoulder. “For years after that,” he said, “I couldn’t sleep. I was angry all the time. Then I went through anger, to the point where there was nothing left. I was a dead man, Oscar, except I was still walking around.”
“So what changed?”
Keller looked out the window. “I found someone who cared about me.”
“Angela.” Sanchez’s face was expressionless. “Yeah,” Keller said. “She gave me a job, and I found out I liked it. And she liked me. For someone who’d spent a lot of time not being able to stand himself, that was pretty amazing.”
“I have wondered…well, I know you have been together for a long time. I have wondered why…you and Angela…”
Keller shook his head. “It’s complicated. I guess we just decided we were good as friends. As lovers we’d be a disaster for each other. Too much baggage.”
Sanchez looked confused at the idiom. “Too much bad stuff in our lives,” Keller explained. “Anyway, don’t worry on that account.”
Sanchez smiled. “I wasn’t worried. Exactly.”
“Okay,” Keller said. “Look, Oscar, a friend of mine has been helping me out with this stuff. A doctor. You want me to…”
Sanchez’s face had clouded over. “I have no money for a doctor.”
“Well, now you’ve got a job. I mean maybe—”
“No, Jack,” Oscar said, then he smiled again. “I’ll be fine. Knowing I have friends…that helps.”
“Okay,” Keller said. “You’ve got my cell. If you find out anything, let me know.”
“You need it today?”
“Soon as you can get it,” Keller said. “But I’m going to Fayetteville to see Marie tonight. Let me know if there’s some reason to believe they’re going to make a run for it. Otherwise,” He smiled. “I’m taking the night off.”
Sanchez
