West and Brazil had not gotten to the point of worrying about what sort of birth control was best suited to their anatomies, needs, tastes, belief systems, personal choices, fantasies, secret pleasures, or faith in consumer reports. This way of communicating with each other was new, so they took the time to linger in places they had always wondered about. Then reality asserted itself with alacrity, and West suddenly sat up and looked out the windows of her police car, remembering she was on duty with a man in her lap.
“Andy,” she said.
He was busy.
“Andy,” she tried again.
“Andy, get up. You’re on my… gun.”
She tried to move him, with no energy or enthusiasm, not wanting him to go anywhere ever again. Hell was here and she was finished.
“Sit up,” she said, wiping her face again. Her life was ruined.
“This is incest, pedophilia,” she muttered, taking a deep breath as he went on with what he was doing.
“You’re right, you’re right,” he mumbled with absolutely no conviction, as he explored the wonders of her existence in a way that was unknown and overwhelming to her.
It was difficult to predict exactly where this might have gone had Bubba not intervened. There was a Holiday Inn Express not too far away on 1-77, and it had an indoor pool, 42-channel cable TV, and free local calls and newspaper, and complimentary continental breakfasts.
Possibly, West and Brazil would have made their way to one of those rooms before morning, and gotten into even more trouble at a bargain price. They possibly would have slept together, and that was where West always drew the line. Sex was one thing, but she did not sleep with someone she was not in love with, meaning she slept with no living soul except Niles.
Again, such contemplations are moot when there is a sharp rap on the window and one peers into the barrel of a carbine rifle reminiscent of Bosnia, or perhaps Miami. West did not have her glasses on, but the redneck with his assault rifle outside her police car looked familiar in a fuzzy sort of way.
“Sit up very slowly,” she said to Brazil.
“What for?” He wasn’t ready yet.
“Trust me,” she told him.
vft It was just as well that condensation had formed on the glass.
Bubba could not see exactly what was going on inside the dark blue Ford Crown Victoria, but he had a pretty good idea. This heightened his excitement, making him more certain that he was going to waste these two after doing something really, really bad to them first. If there were two things Bubba could not endure in life, they were queers making out, and straights making out. When he saw queers flirting,
touching, Bubba wanted to beat the shit out them and then leave them dying in a ditch. When he saw what he thought he was looking at right now inside this police car, he felt pretty much the same impulse.
People with money, importance, or a good sex life, and especially all three, made Bubba insane with righteous outrage. It was his calling, he was sure, to smite them in the name of America.
West was not as frightened by the rifle with thirty rounds as most people would have been, and her brain was powering up.
It seemed this was the creep from the Firing Line who had gotten arrested for exposing himself in Latta Park. She had a pretty good idea why she had found Super Glue in her shrubs, and she wished like hell that Brazil hadn’t busted the guy’s nose. All the same. West was ready for violence. When anyone pointed a gun at her, there was a true cause and effect that rapidly clicked into gear. Unhooking the mike, she placed it next to her hip. She keyed it with her right hand, locking out all radio traffic in her response area. Dispatchers, cops, reporters, and criminals with scanners, could hear nothing but her.
She rolled down her window a few inches.
“Please don’t shoot,” she said loudly.
Bubba was surprised and pleased by her rapid submission.
“Unlock the doors,” he ordered.