The mid-morning sunlight seeping in through the mini-blinds that covered the bedroom window woke him up. Erle moaned and grunted loudly – to himself because there was no one else in the room. Joanne was already at work. The kids were at her mother’s for the weekend because she wanted him to take her out over the weekend. On a date. He’d been married to Joanne for nearly fifteen years and had settled into the idea that he wasn’t obligated to date her anymore. That’s why people get married, right? So they don’t have to sneak off just to have a quiet dinner, a movie, and a fuck in the back seat of the car?
His feet hit the floor and a sharp pain shot up his left leg. It was hurting more than usual lately. Like if he sat too long, or when he first got out of bed. Joanne had been on him to get it checked out, but that would mean going to the doctor. They had insurance – mostly for the kids – but Erle just didn’t want to be bothered. The doctor was an ass, anyway. Another Ivy-League dipshit who was paying off his medical school loans by handing out flu shots in farm country. The last time Erle let Joanne nag him into going to the clinic, all that city faggot did was get on his case for smoking and tell him to cut back on fried food. And for that, he charged a $25 co-pay. To hell with that. The leg hurt, but he’d deal with it.
There was coffee left in the pot from earlier that day, so Erle poured some in a cup and nuked it for a few seconds to warm it up. There was coffee at the station; but Eugenia, the octogenarian secretary, couldn’t make decent coffee to save her life. It was more like dirt colored water, and that was about how it tasted. On a good day. Most days it had no flavor at all and it was so weak he could see the bottom of the cup when it was full. If they’d a made ME Chief of Police, he thought, I’d a gotten rid of that wrinkly old bitch and hire someone who knows how to make coffee. Or at least someone useless who would be worth looking at.
Joanne’s coffee was only slightly better; but at least he could add sugar to that and make it bearable.
The new chief – Chief Dolarhyde – put him on the mid-day shift. Dolarhyde was an out-of-towner. Sort of. He’d been BORN in Mount Arliss, but his parents moved to Chicago before he was even school age. Dolarhyde was a veteran – he’d done something to earn a medal in Iraq – and had been a deputy two counties over for five years before the City Council bent down and kissed his ass. Dolarhyde moved him, he had said, to “make better use of the city’s resources.” Bullshit. If that Schmidt woman hadn’t killed herself while in custody and forced Cleary to retire, Erle would’ve been next in line for the job. It was all but his. Everybody pretty expected him to be the next Chief. He was prepared for it.
And then that bitch… bah. He tried not to think about it. He’d gone to school with her. They’d even dated – if you can ever date a girl like that – and he visited her off and on over the years. Even after Joanne got pregnant and he married her and even after Rachel married that drunken idiot Jeremy Burns and popped out two more little bastards. Everyone knew what Rachel Schmidt was; and the only thing that anybody ever wondered was whether Jeremy was ever sober enough to consider the probability that those kids weren’t his.
But she’d finally gotten Erle back. When she hanged herself that pretty much ensured that he would never be Chief of Police. And since Joanne had no intention of moving more than ten minutes away from her mom and sister, that meant Erle was stuck being a deputy until he retired or died from the boredom.
Mid-day shift meant babysitting prisoners until the afternoon arraignments. Then, once they were back in their cells, on their way back to the towns they were arrested in to sit in cells there, or out on bail, Erle was out on patrol until his shift was over. There was nothing to patrol. Mount Arliss wasn’t big enough to drive around in. Sometimes he’d sit out in front of Siegerson’s or the Moose Head and try and catch drunk drivers; sometimes he sat out at the end of town to catch the speeders who missed the barely visible speed zone sign as they barreled into town.
And when he didn’t feel like doing any of those things (He just had to accessible by radio, which he mostly was) he dropped by Marie’s house.
Marie was from Someplace Else. She worked out of her house on Codger Street and lived off the money her husband made serving over seas in Afghanistan. She was another one like Rachel – just another whore – and he didn’t feel at all bad that she had hooked some soldier into marrying her. How some men were so dumb was beyond him. Marie wasn’t the kind of girl you married. She didn’t carry herself like a marriage-minded girl. She called herself an artist and she wore outfits that made her stand out. She had a tattoo right above her cunt. It was a small heart with three initials: JBF. Erle never asked her what the tattoo meant, but he’d seen it up close more than three dozen times since the two of them met.
When he was at home with Joanne, he thought about Marie. When he couldn’t avoid fucking his wife, he fantasized that he was fucking Marie. Joanne was still a pretty woman, even after having the kids; but she didn’t do the things Marie did. She didn’t treat him the way Marie treated him. When he was passed over for Chief, Joanne hugged him and talked about finances and adjustments that would have to be made since the expected pay raise wasn’t going to happen. Marie, on the other hand, greeted him at the door naked, carefully peeled his uniform off him and gave him a mind-numbing blowjob – and that was just on the enclosed front porch. By the time she got up off her knees and shimmied into the back bedroom, the only thing on Erle’s mind was how Marie liked it when he fucked her from behind and how she begged him to give it to her harder and faster.
There were only a five prisoners in lock up and of them, only one needed arraignment. Jefferson. He was from Yonkapple County. Brought in for being behind on child support. Erle didn’t know him or his situation, but from the way the prisoner talked, his ex was a queen bitch. That seemed right enough to Erle; but the law is the law (that’s what Old Man Cleary always said) and it didn’t matter how he felt about it. It came out in arraignment that the prisoner had been fired six months back and was unable to pay. Judge Henderson gave the poor bastard 30 days in county lock up and ordered restitution within a year.
After the hearing, Erle sat in the office and talked to Martin, who was just coming off the day shift and filling out paperwork. Martin bitched about his wife and the kids needing new shoes every two months. Then Erle asked how he liked the new Chief so far.
“Eh.” Martin answered, not looking up from his paperwork. “He’s alright I guess. Doesn’t talk much. When he does, it’s usually something important.”
“WELL now,” Erle snorted. “When you can break your lips away from his asshole, maybe we’ll have time to talk.”
Martin looked up and shook his head. “It’s not my fault you got passed over. And it’s not the Chief’s fault neither.”
“You sayin’ it’s MY fault??”
“No.” He sighed. “Things are what they are. What about that job over in Whiteside? You think about applying for that?”
Erle didn’t want to talk about it. He’d brought it up to Joanne, but she refused to move, and he couldn’t be Sheriff of a county he didn’t live in. He’d been friends with Martin going on 30 years; they played high school ball together and had gone to the State Championships both varsity years. He’d been the best man at Martin’s wedding and paid for that stripper to do a little extra for his last hurrah. They’d both been on duty when Rachel Schmidt hung herself; but as far as Erle could tell, Erle was the only one paying for it.
“Aren’t you supposed to be out on patrol?”
Erle looked up. Chief Dolarhyde was standing there, looking down on him. Dolarhyde struck an imposing figure. He was tall, wide-shouldered, and stood like a military man. The uniform made him seem even more intimidating, even though it wasn’t much different than the uniform Erle wore; Erle always thought the uniform made him look like a gas station attendant. He was pretty much right about that; but Dolarhyde would look like he was in charge regardless of what he was wearing. Erle stood up.
“Uh, yeah. I was just on my way out.”
Chief Dolarhyde nodded. “Good. Report any problems.”
Erle nodded and retreated from the office, not bothering to look back at Martin. Goddamn turncoat, he thought.
Without even bothering to pretend to patrol, Erle drove straight to Marie’s. He needed to relax and not think about his trouble for a while. When he got there, she was in the studio, covered in paint. Erle didn’t understand why she called her paintings art; they didn’t look like anything to him – just splashes of color on canvas. He asked her once why she didn’t paint something that looked like something – a tree or a deer or a house. She laughed and never really answered him. That didn’t bother him, though, because not long after that she climbed on top of him and rode him until every thought was gone from his brain.
She smiled when she saw him. “Don’t you knock anymore?”
He smiled. “I didn’t know I needed to.” Erle looked her over. Even covered in paint and wearing those overalls she wore when she painted, she was beautiful. He didn’t know if it was her deep dark eyes, dark hair, and olive skin, or maybe just her childless, beautiful body. Maybe it was the fact that she never wore anything under her overalls when she painted and he was two easy hooks away from absolute heaven. He approached her, kissed her, and reached for the hooks that held up her overalls.
“I should take a bath first,” she giggled and sighed.
“Why don’t we both take a bath?”
The bath was nice; Marie had a large bathtub with little air jets. They did it in the tub, laughing and sliding across one another in the soap. And after, they got dressed and Erle grabbed a beer from her refrigerator, feeling absolutely refreshed. He sank into her couch and closed his eyes, feeling the contentment a person feels after an impossible itch has been scratched.
Marie came in holding a beer and smoking one of her clove cigars. She say down on the couch next to Erle. “Rough day?”
“It’s a lot better now.”
She smiled and blew O rings. “That’s good.”
“Sorry I interrupted your … uh… painting.” He wasn’t sorry; but it was something to say that sounded nice.
“You like it?”
She was referring to the piece she’d been working on when he walked in, but Erle didn’t really look at it. He didn’t really look at anything she painted. “Sure,” he answered, taking a drink. “Sure I do.”
“That’s good. You’re going to see a lot of it.”
“How’s that?” Maybe she wants me to come over more often, he thought. He didn’t know if he could manage it. But after all, what else did he do all day? He couldn’t have her getting too attached, though. Couldn’t have her getting the wrong impression.
“It’s going to your house when it’s done.”
Uh-oh, he thought. Can’t have something like that around. How would I explain it to Joanne? “I appreciate that,” Erle said. “I really do. But don’t you think you’d be better off selling it?”
“I did.”
“Huh?”
“Your wife wants it. Says it will go with the new dining room.”
He nearly choked on his beer. “My wife?”
“Yeah.” Marie blew more O rings. “I ran into her on the street. She saw some of my paintings at the Arliss Town Festival last month and asked how much a commission would cost.” She smiled. “I gave her a good deal. A policeman’s discount.” She laughed.
The new dining room. Right. Joanne’s new and entirely unnecessary house project. New paint, new furniture. Joanne always had her nose stuck in design magazines. Erle felt his heart stop. “She doesn’t know does she? You didn’t SAY anything, did you? She didn’t…”
“She doesn’t know anything,” Marie reassured him. “And I don’t know that she’d care if she did know.”
“What do you mean??”
“Look, baby, don’t get upset.” She stood up, walked over to the ashtray by the recliner, and mashed out her cigar. “Why do you care? You’re here three days a week, anyway.”
He sighed, almost feeling relieved.
“It’s almost finished,” she went on. “The painting. I expect to deliver it by Friday.”
“DELIEVER?”
“Yeah. She said the painting would be finished by then. That’s part of the service.” She laughed. “I deliver and hang the art. When the customer wants me to. I like to make sure they have good homes.”
Erle was tuning her out. Marie in his home? In the home he shared with Joanne?
“She told me she was going to surprise you with it,” Marie said. “So be sure and act surprised.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And there’s something else.”
What could possibly be worse than Marie and Joanne talking?
“John’s coming home.”
“Who?”
“John,” she repeated. “My HUSBAND.”
Oh. “Really?”
“Yes. He’s being discharged, believe it or not. His unit’s coming home and they’re letting him out. So he’ll be home in a few months.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “So this is going to have to be the last time, Erle.”
“Last time? What are you talking about? You just said MONTHS.”
“I want to be ready for him,” she said. “And anyway, this thing,” she motioned between them, “has run its course anyway. So you can’t come around anymore after today. Unless,” she smiled, “you’re interested in buying art.”
“Why does it have to stop?” Erle asked. “We can make adjustments. We can…”
“What? Meet in cheap motels two towns over? Or maybe we can fuck in YOUR bed when the wife and kids aren’t at home?”
“Listen,” he said. “If it’s about the painting or something Joanne said…”
“It’s not either of those things. One is business and the other is your business. This is about John coming home. It’s about me wanting him to come home.” She smiled down at Erle. “We’ve been screwing around, that’s true. But I love my husband. And you’ll never leave Joanne. It’s not like this could go on forever. She waited for Erle to respond; all he did was take a long drink from his beer. She shook her head. “Why don’t you finish that and head out, okay? It’s been … fun. But we both knew what this was. Right?”
He slumped even further into the couch. “Right.”
“And besides,” she said, “you’ll have the painting to remind you.”
Erle drained the bottle and set it on the small table next to the couch. When he stood up, pain shot up through his left leg and seemed to go straight to his head.
“You should get that looked at,” Marie said.
“Right,” he mumbled. Erle didn’t want to look at her; he didn’t want to remember her in this moment at all. In his mind, he was telling himself the way he would remember it so he could look at her when he saw her around town with her war hero husband. He put his gun belt and radio back on and walked out the door. When he got to his cruiser, a call came over the radio. It was Chief Dolarhyde ordering him back to the station
