Clean Slate

Chapter 46

Ruth was late. Again.

And this was not good.

Earl Bucaro sat on the low vinyl chair by the pulled drapes of Room 33. The bulky smooth-haired tanned law man wore khaki cargo shorts and an olive thin-strapped wife beater tee shirt that showed off the strength of his brown, hairy arms and shoulders. All was Sunday silent in the spare, musty motel room. And to look at his flat, symptomless face one would think him calm, but this was an illusion. Inwardly his thoughts were a dull disorderly roar.

He's seen Clarisa again. This time it was in a dream, one of his rare dreams. In it Clarisa's severed head rolled bloodily around the floor of the passenger side of his Corvette. As he drove he was looking down at her, and her open eyes blinked every time they came in line with his. Her soft sensual mouth was moving; evidently she was trying to tell him something, but her words were indistinguishable because her mouth was too full of blood.

Okay. Just a dream. No big deal.

But the Medardo investigation, that was something else again. Because, said Earl's sources, the investigation was still open. Most disturbingly, he'd been unable, at least so far, to plot some kind of angle of pressure on the sheriff's detectives working the case. This was unusual. Highly unusual.

He wondered what they were doing with his hair sample.

And then there was McGladrey. Not nearly as serious a matter as the other, because McGladrey was little more than a muddle-headed soft hearted chump with few friends and zero street smarts. Even so, Bucaro had measures in mind, sure to spook the man back into full passivity. Earl had hoped to arm himself with ammunition during his toss of McGladrey's country shack. Thanks to the homely bitch with the shotgun, that hadn't worked out. So tonight, or very early tomorrow, he'd roll out Plan B.

Meanwhile, he waited for Ruth. All morning the thought of her, the anticipation of her, had burned in his mind. He hadn't had that good a week. His newest bitch, a pasty blond 19 year old shoplifter with a nose stud and full pouting lips and an ass-swinging strut that had suggested an adventuresome spirit, had just lain flat and limp as a wad of pie dough on the Room 33 bed, limbs inert, belly-flesh and slack breasts quivering like jelly in rhythmic reaction to his thrusts, eyes rolled back as he rutted her. Even before he had his pants on, she rushed into the bathroom and, without bothering to close the door, noisily and messily vomited. This type was the least satisfactory. The ideal girl, of which Clarisa had been the exemplar, engaged him with enthusiasm. (Or at least seemed to. Even if the enthusiasm was feigned, so what? It's the thought that counts.) At the opposite end of the scale, and just as much fun really, in a different way, was the openly resistant chick who would spit and slap, wriggle and writhe, force him to force her. Then in between were the ones who just lay there stolidly – well hell: you'd might as well be fucking an inflatable. In a way, inflatables were preferable; they didn't puke, afterward.

So as he sat there staring, with his heart pounding harder than normal, he was ready for Ruth: more than ready. His desire for her, which even he conceded was bizarre, had not waned. If anything, it had strengthened. By now he had had her in just about every physical way available, yet she still remained remote, out of reach, a bright light always just around the corner, beckoning him. He wondered what they'd do today –

The door pushed open and in came Ruth, with a quiet smile for him before she closed the door and turned the latch. She wore an ivory skirtsuit, the hem of which went nearly to her ankles and split a short way up the back. Her matching jacket had lacy cuffs and button front and was open at the neck, revealing strands of large pearls. Matching bulbous earrings nested beneath her short combed brown hair, and her makeup was, as always, just-so, especially the lipstick, a pale glistening shade. She wore the reserved, expectant, quietly hungry look she always had, coming through that door. As she put her handbag on the other chair Earl went to his feet and swarmed her with an embrace, large hands working their way under the jacket and blouse, lips and tongue nuzzling her neck. She felt slight, fragile, insubstantial, but he'd learned this was an illusion; she liked rough use and would take all he would give her. He felt her hands lightly on him, and then she pushed him back gently. "Take off your clothes," she said.

"You first."

Tongue emerging slightly between her lips, she shook her head, eyes alight.

He grinned. "Okay." Quickly he shucked his shoes, pulled off his teeshirt, unbuckled his shorts. She only watched; did not move. He paused. "You too."

"When I'm ready," she said casually.

Earl dropped his shorts and kicked them away; pulled off his briefs also. Ruth was studying his erection, a straining mass of muscle pointing straight at her. "Come here," he said.

"Sit down." He hesitated, then sat on the edge of the bed. Ruth stepped out of her pumps and knelt before him, hands lightly on his knees, spreading them. Her open moist lips were very close to his cock as she breathed, "Are you really and truly hot for me, Earl?"

"Yes."

"I'm. . .not sure. I think you need a little foreplay." Earl made to get up – suddenly all he wanted was to fling her on her back, open her up and just have her – but Ruth, knowing the signs, tapped his thighs lightly and looked up into his eyes. "Not yet. Be still."

Earl said nothing.

Ruth bent to his thighs, gave each a little lick. Delicately ran her fingers under his scrotum and around the base of his cock without ever touching it. Earl thought he would come at her face without even being touched. After a few moments of this she paused and, without looking at him, said, "Have you made our arrangements?"

"For what?" he asked huskily.

"What I asked for," she said. "The last time."

Oh, Christ.

She looked up at him. Her expression was calm, but her eyes were very, very focused on him. "I expected a call from you this week," she chided gently, "with all the details."

Earl thought: Okay. This is it.

"Not going to happen," he said.

"Oh?"

"It's too much, Ruth. Too much."

"But I want it."

"No."

"You can get it for me."

"I could," he said, "but I won't."

Abruptly she stood. "Well then," she said, "I believe we're through here."

As she turned for her shoes, Earl rose and pounced at her and shoved her toward the door. She had her arms up defensively, but her eyes were bright and she was smiling as he sandwiched her to the steel. Face close to hers, Earl whispered, "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

She put a thin hand up to his chest. "You know who I am," she said. "And you know what's at stake. And you're not about to do anything stupid here. Are you."

Earl felt himself trembling, boiling over with the urge to put her down and fuck her senseless. But his calculating side was on the job – she was married to the Judge, she knew lots of people, she had the upper hand here and she knew it – and he reined himself in just in time. Releasing her, he moved back. Ruth went to her shoes and stepped into them; picked up her handbag and opened the door. "Contact me," she said, "when you've made the arrangements." She walked out, leaving the door impudently ajar.

Earl slammed it shut, hesitated, shaking his head as he fought for control. In full seethe, his thoughts replayed the scene, editing his responses to make them better and more powerful. Gradually he calmed as he dressed himself and put on his shoes and left the room. Looks like, he thought, I need to do this thing for her. He had the players, he could manage the logistics, and he actually thought it could end up kind of interesting, even for him.

Except that it truly was nuts. Because it would put him, and her, at the mercy of others.

He'd think about it. They'd see, Ruth and he, who was the stronger. But first –

As he drove away, he decided that tonight he'd sit down with the tapes and get to work. He did not think that he'd ever get so jammed up that such extreme measures would be required. But trouble was afoot. His keen ears picked up the thrum of distant drums. And it was always good to be prepared. Besides, God knows he had enough material.

---

This Sunday the menu had rotated back around to scalloped ham and potatoes. The arrangement of Marie McGladrey's table place cards, as significant an indicator of political position as the placement of Soviet officials atop Lenin's tomb, had landed Mac at the opposite end of the table from Suzanne, who had the place of honor at his mother's right. Mac felt fortunate to have his next-youngest-sister Julie to his left. To his right was his brother Paul's latest date, a quiet young dark haired woman who, the back-channel family whispers insisted, seemed way too nice for him. Mac ate with good appetite and partook of the conversational smorgasbord as it worked its way slowly in its appointed and predictable rounds. Everyone was reasonably pleasant, as these things went. Bonnie kissed him, Nicole gave him her version of the Marie McGladrey contactless hug, the brothers-in-law joked around with him, and even Todd managed to congratulate Mac on his acquisition of the family farm, having failed to find anything in the paperwork at which to take offense. Paul, more keenly sensitive to affront, possessing the predictable array of smaller man / younger brother resentments, and scowling beneath his drooping Confederate mustache, had accosted Mac upon his arrival to complain loudly and with well rehearsed bombast that the farm deal was a deliberate and colossal cheat of him personally. Nick McGladrey, who had been nowhere near the conversation, emerged, deftly dealt Paul out of the group, and spent a few moments alone with his son in his study, from which Paul emerged stiff, grim-faced, and seemingly unable to make eye contact with his oldest brother. And Suzanne, who wore her hair in a wavy blond explosion today, engaged with Mac not at all, the set of her head and shoulders and the occasional barbed glance in his direction broadcasting to one and all that he had really, really pissed her off this time.

By the time the dinner's conversational tide had crested and started to recede, Mac had started to think that maybe he'd get out clean for once.

But no.

"Mac?" came his mother's voice during a momentary dip in the clamor.

"Yes, Mother."

"So I hear," she said, tone archly casual, "you have a new lady friend in your life. Tall and red-haired, I'm told. Leggy and buxom."

That stopped table talk dead in its tracks. Mac looked at Suzanne, who was staring down into her plate; she'd might as well have been wearing a WRONGED WOMAN sandwich sign. Lonnie, second only to his wife Bonnie in ability say the exact wrong thing, piped up: "Well, there goes the Paxil theory."

That got a low rumble-chuckle going around the table. Mac let it fade. He considered denying it, but no – he would not lie, not even to make himself seem better than he was. He also thought of offering up Suzanne's own extramarital excursion, something he was sure she'd never shared with them, but decided against that too. "It's nothing serious," he said. "It may in fact be done already."

"Ah," his mother said.

"I just think," Suzanne piped up, voice shaking, "maybe I shouldn't come around here any more."

"No!" Nicole said. "You're part of the family."

"Lot of years," Todd said. "We want you here, don't we, gang."

"You'd best keep coming," Marie told her, patting her arm.

The response around the table was general agreement, the exceptions being Julie, who just stared remotely polite into middle distance, and Nick McGladrey, impassive as always. Perversely, Mac felt gratified by his clan's loyalty to his errant wife. She was part of the family, she had been around a long time, and, though no one around here would dare breathe a word, she was and would forever be mother to Nicholas. As far as Mac was concerned, regardless of what became of their relationship, Suzanne belonged in this house as long as she cared to.

"There's something else," Mac said, having waited for an opportune moment and not found it. "Some of you guys, you may get contacted by a man in the Bailiff Bureau. Doing some sort of investigation."

"What kind of investigation?" Ross asked alertly. "You in trouble, Mac?"

"What's his name?" Nicole asked.

"Bucaro," Mac said. "Earl Bucaro." Silence around the table as people searched memory in vain for the name. "I don't know what his game is. I know he's sneaking around asking questions about me. He was out at the farm Friday – Bren Stallwood caught him in the back yard on his way to the house."

Marie said, "Only back on the job three weeks, and already you're upsetting people, Mac?"

He shrugged. "I'm clean," he said simply. "But Bucaro may reach out to some of you guys, to ask questions about me."

"As if," Julie said.

"Yeah, who the hell is he?" Todd said acerbically.

Glances, grimaces, nods around the table. "What does this guy think?" Ross demanded. "We're going to talk out of turn about Mac?"

"Man," Bonnie said with a grim smile, "is he dreaming."

Nick McGladrey spoke up. "It's wise of you to alert us, son," he said, with the casual tone of one who knows his word is law. "And it matters not who this man Bucaro is, or what he wants. He'll learn that we are the McGladreys, and we stand by each other." He glanced at Suzanne. "All of us."

She nodded.

---

Mac stood just inside his office door, staring around, as Abigail arrived. "Good morning!" she said, cruising by him, and then stopped dead, staring also. "What the hell happened here?"

"Not sure," Mac answered. "But it looks to me like I had a visitor."