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By Root 1136 0

a flatbed truck bulging with cattle turn into the stockyards across the street. The tangy smell of manure hung heavy in the hot August air. The old beater Sandy had hauled him home in that last night before he took the pledge was nowhere to be seen, but he got out of the cruiser anyway. He was pretty certain it had been a station wagon. He walked around the side of the house and climbed the rickety stairs that led to their door on the second floor. At the top was a little landing that Sandy called the patio. A sack of garbage lay overturned in one corner, green flies crawling over egg shells and coffee grounds and wadded-up hamburger wrappers. Next to the wooden railing sat a padded kitchen chair and underneath it a coffee can half full of cigar butts. Carl and Sandy were worse than the coloreds up on White Heaven and the holler trash out in Knockemstiff, he thought, the way the two of them lived. God, how he hated slobs. The prisoners in the county jail took turns washing his cruiser every morning; the creases in his khaki pants were as sharp as knives. He kicked an empty Dinty Moore can out of the way and knocked on the door, but nobody answered.

As he started to leave, he heard a sliver of music coming from somewhere close by. Looking over the railing, he saw a chubby woman in a flowered swimsuit lying on a yellow blanket in the yard next door. The rusted frames and parts of old motorcycles were scattered around her in the tall grass. Her brown hair was pinned on top of her head, and she held a tiny transistor radio in her hand. She was slathered with baby oil, shiny as a new penny in the bright sun. He watched as she twisted the dial around searching for another station, heard the faint twang of some hillbilly song about heartbreak. Then she set the radio on the edge of the blanket and closed her eyes. Her slick belly rose and fell. She turned over, then raised her head and glanced around. Satisfied that no one was watching, she undid the top of the bathing suit. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached down and tugged the lower half up to reveal three or four inches of the white cheeks of her ass.

Bodecker lit a cigarette and started back down the stairs. He imagined his brother-in-law sitting out here in the sun sweating buckets and trying to get his eyes full. It was easy enough to do, the way the woman lay spread out there for anybody to see. Taking pictures seemed to be the only thing that Carl thought about, and Bodecker wondered if he ever took any of the neighbor without her knowing it. Though he wasn’t sure, he figured there was a law against shit like that. And if there wasn’t, there sure as hell ought to be.

16

BY THE TIME THEY LEFT THE SUNDOWNER, it was noon. Sandy had woken up at eleven, then spent an hour in the bathroom getting ready. She was only twenty-five, but her brown hair was already beginning to show traces of gray. Carl worried about her teeth, which had always been her best feature. They were stained an ugly yellow from all the cigarettes. He’d noticed, too, that her breath was bad all the time now, regardless of how many mints she consumed. Something was starting to rot inside her mouth, he was sure of it. Once they got back home, he needed to get her to a dentist. He hated to think of the expense, but a nice smile was an important part of his photographs, providing a needed contrast to all the pain and suffering. Though he’d tried time and time again, Carl had yet to get one of the models to fake even a little smirk once he took the gun out and started on them. “Girl, I know sometimes it’s hard, but I need you to look happy if these are gonna turn out good,” he told Sandy, whenever he’d done something to one of the men that upset her. “Just think of that Mona Lisa picture. Pretend you’re her hanging up on the wall in that museum.”

They hadn’t driven but a few miles when Sandy braked suddenly and pulled into a little diner called the Tiptop. It was shaped somewhat like a wigwam and painted different shades of red and green. The parking lot was nearly full. “What the hell are you