it on the street, on the bikes, and into the rarefied air of homicide. Danny wondered how it must be for him to be back in uniform now in a county car.
But that was something else they never talked about. He studied Sam as he bent over the report, one hand splayed on the desk, his long, skinny legs dangling next to
47
the spittoon that had been there for forty years. Clinton looked as if he'd been born and raised in Natchitat County. His tooled boots were beat up but polished, just like every other deputy's were. His skin was as tanned and crisscrossed with frown and smile lines as any apple grower's. Danny couldn't picture him in the suit, white shirt, and striped tie he must have worn when he was a Seattle dick.
He stretched and said softly to Sam, "How's your balls? Maybe you better get home and pack them in ice."
Sam stood up painfully and grinned, showing the gap between his front teeth. "They're better than yours on a good day, Junior."
Fletcher looked up from the dispatch desk and laughed. "He's right, Clinton. You better get on back to your trailer and ice 'em down. At your age, anything that will make them keep, you better give it a shot."
"There's some things that go on forever, gentlemen," Sam said. "I may just drop in on Mary Jean on the way home, Fletch, and show her what a real stud can do—since you're stuck here playing radio."
Fletcher laughed.
"Mary Jean's working tonight, old buddy. You'll have to go over to the maternity ward and see if she can slip out to the broom closet with you, but don't hold your breath. I just talked to her and they're catching babies over there as fast as the mamas can squeeze them out."
"Full moon," Sam nodded. "You can count on it. I'll nail her next week."
"It won't be hard to catch her," Fletcher grinned. "That little woman is putting on weight. I think she weighs more than I do."
Mary Jean Sayers outweighed Fletch easily by eighty pounds, but Danny and Sam tactfully avoided agreeing with the little radio operator. Sam, in fact, envied Fletch, dreading the thought of returning to his own mobile home empty of any living thing except his old tomcat.
Sam didn't want to leave the sheriffs office; it was more home to him than anyplace else, just as all the department offices over the years had been. He belonged here, bull-
48
shitting with Fletch and Danny and the deputies who wandered in and out. He liked the smell of the place: cigar smoke, dusty files, leather, gun oil, and drifts of aroma from the jail kitchen beyond the steel mesh doors behind the waiting room. Working graveyard, he could make the work time stretch, usually delay until the sun began to creep up on the other side of the hills before he'd finished his paper work. Everybody else had someplace to go after shift, and someone to go to. Sam had run through everyone he'd ever had waiting for him, and he tried not to think about the women who had finally had enough of him. Enough of him, and liquor, and too much overtime, too many night call-outs, and his stumblings from grace with other women.
When Sam left home at twenty to join the navy, he encountered a seemingly endless supply of girls and more-than-girls who responded both to his open acceptance of them and his profound sexual force. Somehow, he could not keep them or they could not keep him. But until he was forty, until Nina, he had emerged unscathed beyond a fleeting depression. After Nina, he still liked women but doubted that any singular love might be his again. And he blamed only himself. Even sitting here in the office, nursing his bruises, he felt no animosity toward the Indian woman who'd landed the blow. She'd been hysterical over a real or imagined rejection by the runty cowboy at the bar. She hadn't wanted to go to jail, but he couldn't blame her for that. He'd been in a lot of jails, knowing he wasn't the one to be locked in, and they still gave him the feeling that his throat was closing up, that he could not expand his
But that was something else they never talked about. He studied Sam as he bent over the report, one hand splayed on the desk, his long, skinny legs dangling next to
47
the spittoon that had been there for forty years. Clinton looked as if he'd been born and raised in Natchitat County. His tooled boots were beat up but polished, just like every other deputy's were. His skin was as tanned and crisscrossed with frown and smile lines as any apple grower's. Danny couldn't picture him in the suit, white shirt, and striped tie he must have worn when he was a Seattle dick.
He stretched and said softly to Sam, "How's your balls? Maybe you better get home and pack them in ice."
Sam stood up painfully and grinned, showing the gap between his front teeth. "They're better than yours on a good day, Junior."
Fletcher looked up from the dispatch desk and laughed. "He's right, Clinton. You better get on back to your trailer and ice 'em down. At your age, anything that will make them keep, you better give it a shot."
"There's some things that go on forever, gentlemen," Sam said. "I may just drop in on Mary Jean on the way home, Fletch, and show her what a real stud can do—since you're stuck here playing radio."
Fletcher laughed.
"Mary Jean's working tonight, old buddy. You'll have to go over to the maternity ward and see if she can slip out to the broom closet with you, but don't hold your breath. I just talked to her and they're catching babies over there as fast as the mamas can squeeze them out."
"Full moon," Sam nodded. "You can count on it. I'll nail her next week."
"It won't be hard to catch her," Fletcher grinned. "That little woman is putting on weight. I think she weighs more than I do."
Mary Jean Sayers outweighed Fletch easily by eighty pounds, but Danny and Sam tactfully avoided agreeing with the little radio operator. Sam, in fact, envied Fletch, dreading the thought of returning to his own mobile home empty of any living thing except his old tomcat.
Sam didn't want to leave the sheriffs office; it was more home to him than anyplace else, just as all the department offices over the years had been. He belonged here, bull-
48
shitting with Fletch and Danny and the deputies who wandered in and out. He liked the smell of the place: cigar smoke, dusty files, leather, gun oil, and drifts of aroma from the jail kitchen beyond the steel mesh doors behind the waiting room. Working graveyard, he could make the work time stretch, usually delay until the sun began to creep up on the other side of the hills before he'd finished his paper work. Everybody else had someplace to go after shift, and someone to go to. Sam had run through everyone he'd ever had waiting for him, and he tried not to think about the women who had finally had enough of him. Enough of him, and liquor, and too much overtime, too many night call-outs, and his stumblings from grace with other women.
When Sam left home at twenty to join the navy, he encountered a seemingly endless supply of girls and more-than-girls who responded both to his open acceptance of them and his profound sexual force. Somehow, he could not keep them or they could not keep him. But until he was forty, until Nina, he had emerged unscathed beyond a fleeting depression. After Nina, he still liked women but doubted that any singular love might be his again. And he blamed only himself. Even sitting here in the office, nursing his bruises, he felt no animosity toward the Indian woman who'd landed the blow. She'd been hysterical over a real or imagined rejection by the runty cowboy at the bar. She hadn't wanted to go to jail, but he couldn't blame her for that. He'd been in a lot of jails, knowing he wasn't the one to be locked in, and they still gave him the feeling that his throat was closing up, that he could not expand his
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