Low Pressure

When Haymaker finished his spiel, which ended with his telling Dale that an interview might do his mind and body good, Dale surprised himself by asking Haymaker to hand the phone over to Bellamy.

They wasted no time on an exchange of phony pleasantries. She asked him the name of the nearest regional airport, and when he told her, she asked if he’d be there to meet her.

“No. Rent a car. Got a pencil?” After giving her directions from the airport to his place, he said, “Come alone.”

“Dent Carter will be with me.”

“I’ll only talk to you.”

“Dent will be with me.”

She was unbending, and he could have used that condition to scotch the whole thing. But he figured that if Dent meant to kill him, as he’d once threatened to, he wouldn’t do it with her as a witness.

As of this moment, they were the only two people on the planet who knew his whereabouts, and that in itself filled him with misgiving. But it was too late now to change his mind. With a crunch of gravel, the car rolled to a stop.

Moody watched from his sagging porch as they alighted, she with more alacrity and eagerness than Dent, who’d been driving. Dale figured that behind his Ray-Bans the boy’s—the man’s—eyes were cutting like razors. Hostility radiated off him like mist off a bog.

Bellamy was less guarded. She came up the steps as though not noticing how dilapidated they were and extended her hand to him without a qualm. He shook hands.

“Thank you for agreeing to see us.”

He bobbed his chin once but kept an alert watch on Dent, who took the steps up onto the porch in a measured tread. They eyed each other like the adversaries they were.

Bellamy brushed a mosquito off her arm. “Maybe we should go inside,” she said. Dale turned and opened the screened door, whose squeak seemed abnormally loud. In fact all Dale’s senses had grown more acute since their arrival. He realized how lazy he’d become now that he no longer had to depend on his wits and constant awareness of his surroundings, which, while a cop, had been second nature to him.

Dale gauged the gashes and bruises on Dent’s face to be no older than a day, if that. It spoke to Dent’s character that he was unselfconscious of them. He’d been a tough bastard at eighteen. Maturity hadn’t softened him one iota. Which made Dale all the more cautious. Being that he was soft and inflated where Dent was hard and honed, he would lose in a fight. In a clean fight, anyway.

Bellamy was prettier in person than on television. Her eyes had more depth, her skin a softness that studio cameras couldn’t capture. She also smelled good, like flowers. Dale felt a pang of yearning to touch a woman, which he hadn’t had the pleasure of doing for several months now. It had been years since he’d had the pleasure without having to pay for it.

Loneliness, even if self-imposed, tasted metallic. Like the blue steel barrel of a pistol.

Once inside, Dent peeled off his aviator sunglasses and slid them into his shirt pocket. Dale said, “You can relieve yourself of the handgun, too. Just set it there on the table.”

Dent didn’t ask how he knew he was carrying. Dale supposed he realized the pointlessness of the question. A former cop would know. Dent reached behind his back and pulled the pistol from the holster attached to his belt.

“After you, Moody.” He motioned down at Dale’s left hand in which he’d kept the .357 palmed and held against his thigh.

When he hesitated, Bellamy said, “Please.”

He looked down into her large, expressive eyes, which were perhaps the only feature reminiscent of the girl she’d been, then he met Dent’s level stare. Neither relented, exactly, but they moved simultaneously and set their weapons on the TV tray already crowded with Dale’s bottle of whiskey, his pack of cigarettes, lighter, and ashtray.

Since he didn’t have an extra chair, he said, “You can sit on the bed, I guess.”

He could have saved himself the trouble of making it up in advance of their arrival. The bedspread was something he’d found in a garage sale. It didn’t quite cover the stained top sheet. Beneath its ragged hem, the exposed springs screeched when his guests sat down on the foot of the bed.

Dale held up the bottle of Jack by its neck. “Drink?” They shook their heads. “Mind if I do?” But he didn’t wait for their go-ahead before pouring himself three fingers’ worth. He took a swig, then set the glass down so he could light a cigarette, and after taking a long pull on it, he sat down in his armchair—another castoff—and gave them his undivided attention.

Bellamy glanced at Dent, and when he said nothing, she nodded toward the copy of her book that Dale had left on the top of his television set. “Did you read it?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you think of it?”

“You want a review? You’re a good writer.”

“Did I accurately capture the events as you remember them?”

“More or less.”