Clown Girl - Monica Drake [37]
The cop offered a hand. “Practicing for the rodeo?”
“I’m not a rodeo clown,” I said, with all the dignity I could muster. My sunglasses slid low, my hat sat cocked. I dropped the pink bag. It was no small trick to get up. I fought the tall grass, straightened the hat, and took the copper’s hand in mine.
He came forward and pulled me up. He stepped on the rubber toe of my big shoe as I pulled my foot away, and he stumbled back, then pulled me forward with his momentum; the world was a fast blur, all sun and color. My heartbeat doubled. I smacked against his chest, hat knocked askew; the sunglasses smashed into the bridge of my nose and I knocked loose his shoulder mike. “Whoa, Nelly!” he said.
My hands pressed into the grosgrain nylon of the uniform shirt, and I felt the spread of his pecs underneath. His body was hot. He held my arms a moment too long, long enough for me to feel the strength in those hands, like a decision well made. He let go, dropped his hands, reeled his shoulder mike back in by the cord, and reattached it to his chest. “That’s quite the big sneaker you’ve got there.”
Herman? The big sneak, who slunk along the porch and peered out between planters?
The cop tapped the empty toe on my mismatched size fifteen with the tip of his heavy cop shoe. “Tricky.” He picked up my cane and handed it back to me.
My breath was fast and shallow, the world aswim. The squirting daisy tacked to my hip was crumpled as used tissue, plastic petals bent. Dry grass clung to my clothes and hair. I hoisted my pink bag onto my shoulder. “You like the shoes? If you want to buy a pair, I got another set just like ’em inside. Opposite foot, is all.” I pointed and crossed my hands at the wrist to show the switched feet. The joke felt right, familiar terrain in the midst of an unnerving situation.
Herman hissed a quick, “Shit,” like I’d given out a family secret.
The cop looked toward the sound of Herman’s whisper just as Herman hid behind a narrow, broken bookshelf. He had a couple of shaving nicks on his throat. “Baloneyville Coop,” he said, pointing to Herman’s sign over the porch.
“That’s Co-op,” I said.
The cop squinted at the sign. He surveyed the place. Maybe we were a coop, trapped, and this cop was a hawk with an eye for detail. He said, “While we’re at it—last I checked this was Baloneytown, not ’ ville.’”
He turned back, wiped a hand across his forehead. “I suspected you might be the one looking for me, because as it happens, I do have something of yours.”
“Something of mine?” So he still had the urine funnel.
“Your halo,” he said, and drew an invisible circle in the air over his head. “You left it at those old buildings.”
The Ruins. I said, “Ah! About that, I wasn’t…I didn’t spray that spray paint. I found the can and—”
“No worries. You do an angel act?”
My fingers played over the tips of the tall grasses that tapped against my thighs. “Sure, sure.” I could do an angel act. “A clown angel.” I said. “That’s why I need the, ah, halo back. Got it with you, perhaps?” I tapped my fingertips together, hands like spiders. Nervous.
He shook his head. The sun shimmied in his hair as though over a field of wheat. He said, “Didn’t expect to see you. But I can bring it by here anytime.” He jerked a thumb at the house.
I said a fast, “No no no. ” No cops at the door. “It’s all right, we’ll work it out. I’ll find you, OK? At the station.”
“Or I could give you a ride, we could get it right now.” His prowler purred in the road, the door open and ready. The console was a cluttered rack of cop gear. A stack of papers filled the passenger’s seat. A shotgun gave a dark smile from another rack bolted to the floor. Heat waves rose off the white hood like fumes off gasoline. His office.
I couldn’t get in that office with Herman watching. I said, “Let me give