Hawks turned the music down and asked, “You think I’m stupid for what I did?”
“Depends. What did you do?”
“I went to see the man who hired me.”
“Depends on what you did when you went to see the man who hired you.”
“I killed him.”
“What happened?”
Hawks told me that the loan shark would be found dead in his bathtub the next morning, all of his records, every trace of every single debt, gone.
I said, “Bathtub.”
Hawks had knocked the loan shark out, then filled the tub with water. Undressed the man and put on some Motown. The Four Tops sang and drowned out the gurgles that came from a drowning man. Hawks had held the loan shark upside down by his ankles until water filled his lungs.
Accidental drowning. That was her specialty.
She said, “I can use a gun but I don’t like to. And I don’t like using a knife. I can and have, but I don’t like the mess. Water is better. And it’s quick. No bullets. No knife. No bang and no blood. Nothing but a little water to mop up if I’m in a mopping mood, and today wasn’t a mopping-mood day.”
That was what would’ve happened to the soldier if his apartment hadn’t been filled with crying babies. But then again, Hawks had been a military brat, so maybe the contract was too close to home.
In the end the soldier was alive and his debt was erased.
She asked, “Do you think that was just plain dumb?”
“The envelope filled with money.”
“Took that from the loan shark. That no-’count, worthless jerk.”
“Do you always do that?”
“You think what I did . . . letting the soldier go . . . you think that was wrong?”
“Was that your first time?”
“I broke the rules of the business.”
“You were paid to do a job.”
“And I made you my accomplice.”
“You did.”
“So you think what I did was stupid.”
“You did what you did, that’s all I can say.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll still get the money you were promised.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I don’t always do something stupid like that. I was out in Bakers-field last month, did this thing for Konstantin off Highway 99 out on Buck Owens Boulevard with no problem. Flight attendant for Continental. Got inside her room at the Doubletree Hotel on Camino Del Rio, did it good and quick. Contracts I did at Fort Meyers, Hilton Head, Raleigh, Louisville, and Indianapolis, all good and quick.”
“Konstantin spoke highly of you.”
“He sent me on another job up in Memphis, made sure this guy did a T-bone into a semi. He hit the trailer and the trailer took the roof of his car off. Needless to say he was too busy screaming to duck, so he lost his head and lost his head. Official ruling was brake failure. Double-indemnity clause kicked in, wife got paid a million dollars, I got paid my fee, happy ending for everybody. Except the poor guy.”
“Thought you liked doing the bathtub thing.”
“Can’t drown everybody. Have to pick and choose.”
“T-boned into a semi.”
“Which wasn’t easy to make happen.”
“He lost his head and lost his head.”
“That’s what I said.”
It sounded like she was trying to convince me she was competent, had what it took to work in this cold business. I didn’t help her with that part of the conversation. Didn’t bother me one way or another.
My mind was on the whore who had raised me. I wanted to find her and finish our business. That was before I knew about the kid. Before I had found her on Berwick Street in London.
A moment passed. The temperature was mid-sixties, skies partly cloudy, sun bright.
I shifted in my seat, stared out at the edges of nowhere, this drive taking us toward its middle.
Hawks took a deep breath. “Do you think I’m nice-looking?”
“Where did that come from?”
“First it was in my head, then it slipped across my tongue and came out my mouth.”
“You’re kinda pretty.”
“Kinda?”
“The soldier thought you looked like one of the Judds.”
“Ha.”
“The actress.”
“If I had a dime for every time I heard that one. I do not look like Ashley Judd.”
“When I first saw you, the cheekbones, I thought you looked a little like Janet Jackson.”
“Well, if you hold up a picture of Momma Judd and Janet Jackson side by side you see they almost have the same face. Same cheekbones, same smile. All that is to say, I have heard the Janet thing a time or two.”
“Doesn’t matter if you look like a Judd or Miss Jackson, you’re pretty.”
“Pretty is for little girls and women who will never be nice-looking.”
“You look sexy, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Oh, now I’m sexy.”
“And mean.”
“I am not mean.”
“More mean than sexy.”
“Is that right.”
“You PMSing?”
“That was mean. Sexist and mean.”
“Looks like you need sex real bad, if you ask me.”
“That was evil.”
“Maybe that’s why you look so tense. Your hormones are out of control.”
“Stop being evil.”
“You have a boyfriend?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“You need somebody to make you smile.”
“Why do men think that is all a woman ever needs?”
I closed my eyes, chuckled a bit.
She said, “So you think I’m sexy.”
“Of course.”
“Liar, liar.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I have on brand-new jeans and my best Tony Lamas and you haven’t looked at me once.”
“We were going to kill somebody.”
“So what?”
“Trying to be professional.”
“When has a man ever been
that
professional?”
“So you don’t have a boyfriend.”
She took a breath. “I’m tense. What I just did . . . geesh . . . really tense.”
“Want me to drive?”
“I said tense, not sleepy.”
“Was trying to help.”
“So you think I need somebody to make me smile.”
“Face in the pillow, ass in the air.”
“Oh really.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Well, I don’t have a boyfriend, if you must know.”
“Which explains the tension.”
“Jerk.”
“Vibrator?”
“I’m not into that. Can’t imagine putting an inanimate object inside me. I’m into flesh and blood, not into plastic and batteries. A vibrator can’t hold you and kiss you and get on top of you.”
“So you have tried it.”
“Couple of times. Felt stupid.”
“What do you do?”
“Nothing. Ride it out the best I can. Been riding this so long I’m about to get bucked off.”
“No wonder you’re acting the way you’re acting.”
“And how am I acting?”
“Like you need somebody to make you smile.”
“Bet you’ve made a lot of women smile.”
“A few.”
“What kind of smiles?”
“Big smiles.”
“You are so full of it.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Maybe you could . . .”
“Could what?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Chicken.”
“What you said, face in the pillow and booty in the air, that image done got stuck in my head.”
“That’s what you need to make you smile.”
She laughed a little. “Since you think that’s what I need, you want to try to make me smile?”
“I don’t think you want to go there with me.”
“Kind of figured that would make you shut your trap.”
“Keep it professional.”
“Now who’s the chicken?”
“Not chicken.”
“Well, maybe I want to see if you can back up all that yack talk.”
“I’d be more than happy to do my best to put a smile on your face.”
“Maybe we need a little less conversation, little more action.”
I thought Hawks was just shit-talking, but she took the next exit. Walked into Motel 6 and rented a room. Stepped into the room pulling off her cowboy boots and T-shirt. I pulled the legs of her dungarees, tugged her pants off her, and she climbed on the bed naked. She didn’t wear panties or a bra.
Some women look good dressed up. Hawks looked better undressed. She had been camouflaging paradise with boots and jeans and a T-shirt. What I saw made me pause like I was at a museum admiring a work of art. Her body was beautiful, the right combination of softness and firmness, her breasts full and round, her nipples erect. Had no idea that sensuality was hiding under those dungarees and T-shirt. What I saw on that bed could make a man feel like a goddamn god.
She asked, “You going to stand there staring at me or strip and get down to business?”
I undressed and went to Hawks, the center of my chest throbbing, an aching down below.
She said, “I don’t know if this is a good idea, but I’m sure I’ve had ones worse than this one.”
I kissed Hawks, did that to shut her up, and that kiss was probably the best kiss I had ever had. It surprised me. That kiss led to me being on top of her, her soft breasts pressed on my chest, her legs wrapped around me, backside moving as her hand reached for my hard-on, put me against her wetness.
I went inside her, went in slowly, came out just as slowly, went in as deep as she would let me.
Hawks was a moaner. A woman who dragged her short nails across a man’s skin and rose up to meet what was being given. Never would have thought she could gyrate her ass the way she did.
Twenty minutes later Hawks was catching her breath, sheen of sweat on her reddened skin.
“Good Lord.”
“Smiling?”
“Like a baby with a lollipop.”
We laughed a little.
Hawks asked me where I was from, the start of her asking personal questions. With a woman personal questions were inevitable. With most women. That had never happened with Arizona.
I searched for a lie but settled on what I knew, had no choice with her whispery and soft breathing on my skin. I put my fingers inside her hair and told her I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina.
She asked, “Who are your people?”
“My people?”
“Family. Where is your family?”
Again I went on a mental safari. Again I stopped searching for a lie and gave her my truth. All I knew was what I had been told, that I had been born in North Carolina. I’d never seen a birth certificate.
I told Hawks the lie that had become my religion. I told her that my father was an army man. That he used to jump out of planes, took sniper training, made Delta Force. That when I was a child he had been sent to Latin America, had been shipped somewhere in Honduras and Nicaragua, so he could deal with arms traders. He met my mother on his sojourn in South America. He had stopped at a brothel in Montego Bay, where my mother was working at the time. Told her that my mother had been the prettiest woman in the whorehouse. And nine months after my daddy eased his load I was born in the city named after King George III’s wife.
When a lie is repeated enough, it becomes the truth.
I didn’t tell her the other things that Catherine had told me, that my father was strong, used to fight bulls bare-handed, beat them every time. I just knew that after I told Hawks as much of my history as I could bear to repeat, I felt strange. Strange because I had always known that my mother was the queen of lies, and that meant that my entire history, everything my mother said, could have been a lie.
She asked, “You done unloading your wagon or you ready to head on to Dallas?”
“I’m good for another one.”
“Good, because when I get heated up I can go awhile.”
“Me too.”
“Hard to find a man who can keep up with me.”
“Oh, I can keep up with you.”
“Little less conversation.”
Hawks’s legs opened for me and I eased on top of her. We kissed, touched, started off slow, ten toes up, ten toes down. Lots of kissing. Lots of nibbling. Lots of soft biting. Lots of soft noises. Soon I had Hawks upside down, her long hair coming loose and tickling my feet as my tongue massaged her clit.
She shivered and moaned for Jesus.
I took her to a chair, put her on her knees, made her hold the back of the chair. I took her from behind. Her hips moved, her ass coming back at me. She was beautiful. Hawks let out a spiritual hallelujah chorus. We had intense sex and had a short nap. There was no cuddling in between. We’d had sex like we were whores to each other, and when it was done, we each moved to our side of the bed, boxers going to their corners, then when it was time the imaginary bell rang and we went at it again.
Hawks said, “You over there asleep?”
“Not asleep.”
“Well, are you going to ask me anything about me?”
“Where are you from?”
“Just like a man. Can get some and not care who he’s getting it from.”
I slapped her ass. “Where are you from, Hawks?”
Hawks told me that she was born in Pittsburgh.
I said, “Three Rivers.”
She nodded. “Where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers kiss and form the Ohio River.”
She was proud of Pittsburgh, a city with a skyline of one hundred and fifty-plus high-rise buildings, four hundred and forty-six bridges, two inclined railways, and a pre-Revolutionary fortification. Never would have guessed she was from that part of North America. Hawks had a mild Southern accent and deep Southern ways, but she told me that she had been born a Pittsburgher at St. Francis Medical Center.
She said, “My mother was half and her father, my grandfather, was full-blooded.”
“Heard there used to be a lot of Indians in Pittsburgh.”
“Native Americans have been here since the Ice Age.”
“Can’t argue that.”