The Juliet (16 page)

A dead bandit, a dead priest, a dead girl. That was a lot for a girl to see before she’d had her first period, but Willie Judy always kept her head. She became interested in the condition of death, death on its own terms, disentangled from the why. She had learned quickly that death wasn’t just a part of life, it was the most important thing that ever happened.

And then the Judys themselves fell, one by one, into early graves. As Willie grew older she realized that she would never grow very old at all.

* * *

March 20, 2005: Centenary, NV

The front door to The Mystery House was unlocked and once inside, Willie banged into an unexpected clutter of boxes left on the doormat. She groped the wall and found a series of six switches, only one of which seemed to work. Overhead a bare bulb hummed to life.

Rigg Dexon was flat out on the floor. For a moment Willie thought:
maybe he’s just dead drunk
, but in her heart she knew she was only half right. She crouched by his side and lowered her ear to his mouth. Nothing. She took his pulse. Nothing.

Nothing except a syringe stuck in Dexon’s arm.

He was green. There were green maps stacked everywhere, and there was still a greenish glow that tinted the air in the room, even after the light was turned on. Broken glass littered the floor. Willie saw now that some of the wallboard had been chopped and pried away to reveal rows and rows of bottles embedded in cement.

She examined Dexon from head to toe without touching him. There were a couple of unsettling details, apart from the obvious. One was a piece of notebook paper folded into his shirt pocket. Even without removing it, she could see that there was an ink-heavy message inside. Another detail was the white paper bag on the couch. Carter used bags just like it, and only yesterday Dexon had gone off to pick a fight with him.

Willie sat on the floor against the wall, staring at the man who had given her such hope. Dexon’s face didn’t look real, his features too symmetrical and sharp. His mustache just sat there as if it could be snatched away. Corpses always looked fake, but in this case she could see he’d had work done; the skin hung over the nose, cheekbones, and chin like a tarp.

That white paper sack seemed to glow in the general green gloom.

“You son of a bitch.”

She crawled over to him again, through the plaster and the shards. The needle in Dexon’s arm was only barely inserted under the skin, but she could see a little blood in the barrel. Willie climbed over to the sofa and grabbed the bag and hissed at what she saw inside. She’d always assumed the bags were for the small stuff that went with the big stuff, hardware, belts, plugs, etc. Carter always dropped a couple in her trunk when she made a parts run. It never occurred to her to check the contents. Why would she? Auto repair was the dullest subject she could imagine.

“Damn you Carter, and damn you Dexon,” she muttered.

There was no landline that she could find. She had to get back to the Alkali to call the police.

It was all a mess. All ruined. Soon everyone would know that a famous actor had OD’d in a legendary house in Death Valley, a house that was supposed to be Willie’s house now. She could not stop eyeing that piece of paper in Dexon’s pocket. A message in a bottle house.

* * *

March 21, 2005: Death Valley, CA

Willie slept until one in the afternoon, waking in the stifling heat of a trailer. Scottie had set up two 48-foot singlewides in the back corner of the campground near the dumpsters. The trailers were for seasonal employees to live in rent-free in exchange for security and maintenance. There was a shotgun just inside the front door.

The AC was running, but it was no match against a Valley afternoon. Willie lay in the bunk trying to remember how to breathe when she realized it wasn’t the heat that woke her. Someone was pounding at the trailer door.
Finally
, she thought. The deputy who took her report seemed more annoyed than interested, inconvenienced by the late hour. Now she imagined all kinds of law enforcement out there, forming a wedge of power to overtake her and force her into revealing truths both factual and metaphysical.

“Just a minute.” The knocking stopped. Willie struggled with the cheap robe Scottie had given her from the camp store, still in its plastic packet, and when she shook it loose, the square lines where it was folded remained sharply visible. She was skinny enough that the robe covered her completely, but the fabric was so light it didn’t hang so much as it floated stiffly over her breasts and thighs.

No cops out there. Only Scottie on the stoop with a take-out container and a Coke from the restaurant.

“Hangover food,” he announced. When he climbed inside, he looked around and behaved as if the ceiling was lower than it actually was. “I haven’t been inside one of these for a while. Cramped but tidy. Hate to see what Terry’s done with his.” Terry was a beet-faced dry drunk Scottie’d hired to clean the guest rooms.

Willie felt a headache coming on, as if she really were hung over. “Did the Deputy call or come back?”

“No. Why would he?” Scottie put the food on the tiny table in the kitchenette and started going through the drawers. He found a fork and a cup and set the table. Then he sat down so he could watch Willie eat.

“Well, come on.” His grin was unsettling, given the circumstances. It was the same grin he flashed in all the magazine photos—snapshots from the finish line.

“Thanks. I just thought the cops might have more questions.” Willie pulled the robe a little tighter. She sat across from him and lifted the plastic lid from the take-out container. A cheese and veggie omelet. She tried to look grateful, even though there were too many flavors and textures present for her comfort.

No follow up from the law. What kind of place was this? She began to pick at the parts of the omelet that were least involved with other parts. She took a big gulp of cola.

Scottie said, “Well, I don’t think they know that place is legally yours. If you want I’ll call later, see when they can release the property.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Was it messy? You may need to hire a special cleaner or something.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“You seemed pretty shaken. I mean, we’re all upset, of course.”

“I’ll be fine.” Willie discovered a shred of pepper in the egg. “But I don’t think I’ll make it into work today.”

Scottie half chuckled. Willie could smell it on him, his insecurity. His want. His need to be needed. Her being out of commission ignited in him a paternal predation that was as ugly as it was sweet.

Willie gave him a little peep under the robe, showing him the edge of an ugly bruise while keeping her breast covered. “Gets worse the farther up it goes,” she said. “We need to rethink my suitability for kitchen work.”

“On the contrary. Your instincts are spot on. That’s
why
you got hurt. You just need to learn how to fall properly. Crucial skill in food service, to fall right and save the dishes. Shouldn’t be an either or choice.”

“Yeah. Send me the OSHA pamphlet on that. Anyway, thank you. If you hadn’t caught me I’d probably have a cracked head.”

“My pleasure,” he said. Not
you’re welcome.
It was as if English was his second language, emotionally. He was certainly better at moving than talking, and that was easy to forget. The fussy man in the apron seemed to have so little in common with the hard-sculpted demigod who could run 135 miles to Mt. Whitney in temps as high as 130 degrees. But the night before, when Willie slipped on the steamy kitchen tile and bounced off the rail of the old Hobart, Scottie was there to catch her.

Now the look on his face showed that he was remembering the accident fondly. “That was all,
Gone With The Wind
there for a moment,” he said. “Are you not hungry?”

“I guess my appetite is off,” she said. “I’m pretty tired, too.” In fact Willie was very hungry. She would kill for a plate of onion rings, but what she was contending with now was a tangle of rubbery cheese and loops of green things occasionally interrupted by chunks of mushroom. She planned to ransack the cupboards as soon as Scottie left. It was a solid bet that there were some Froot Loops or Cocoa Crispies somewhere in this trailer.

Scottie asked, “How
do
you like your eggs, then?”

“I like these.”

“No you don’t.” Suddenly the question of eggs was one of intimate potential, and Scottie decided to put that right out there. “I’d like to know. In case I get to cook for you again. Which I would very much like to do.”

There was no way out of this. “I like my eggs plain. Scrambled dry. Every time I bite into a mushroom I can’t help thinking I’m eating a baby mouse head, and it makes me gag.”

“I see. So you are a vegetarian who can’t stand vegetables.”

“I’m a vegetarian from Hardy, West Virginia. That means a lot of pizza and French fries.”

Scottie closed the lid on the omelet and pulled it away from her. “I saw some graham crackers on top of the refrigerator. You should eat.” He retrieved
the box for her, which she accepted gratefully. “Last night, you were starting to tell me about all those cereal crates you found.”

Willie nodded. “There were map pieces in stacks. From the old contest. And then in the back where the bedroom is, all these unopened boxes of Nuggetz. Dozens, in shipping boxes as if they just fell off the Sysco truck. Dexon was even using one as a nightstand.”

“Makes you wonder what that stuff is really made of, if not even the rats got to it after all this time.”

“And the walls. He was tearing the place apart. It’s a bottle house, did you know that?” Willie was breaking the graham crackers apart, carefully along the seams. “This is a stupid thing to ask, Scottie, but can I trust you?”

“Absolutely, but can you not call me Rhys once in a while?”

“That would be confusing,” she said. “What I mean is, you can handle a lot of shit, right?”

“What is it?”

“Wait here.” Willie got up and went to the bunkroom where she’d left her clothes in a wad under the bed. Not even twenty-four hours had passed since they’d found Rigg Dexon, and she felt worse and worse every second that went by; she wasn’t cut out for a life of secrets. She wasn’t even cut out for a day of them. When she came back, she dropped the white sack on the table and pushed it across to Scottie.

She said, “This is one of Carter’s bags. I found it on the sofa in The Mystery House. I think Carter’s a dealer.”

Scottie looked inside the sack and cursed. “Willie, you needed to leave this at Dexon’s.”

“You don’t get it. What if I’ve been shuttling drugs back and forth across the Valley?”

He sat back, and Willie watched the warmth he felt for her drain away. “You never looked in the bags?”

“No. And no one will ever believe me.”

“Few are likely to give you the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “There’s a slight difference.”

She knew what he meant. Willie Judy was weird. The Weasel-Girl. Not really a part of the community, except now she owned The Mystery House, and The Mystery House was a part of history. The story swallowed its own tail: she worked for Carter, Carter gave the drugs to Dexon, Dexon gave her his house…on and on it went.

Her chest was tight and her bruise was on fire. “There’s something else, Scottie. Dexon left a note.”

“Please, don’t tell me you took that, too.”

“I didn’t, but I read it. It said,
No More Pain
, and it was signed with a bunch of Xs and Os.”

“So not just an overdose,” Scottie breathed.

“No.” Willie bowed her head, forgetting that every time she closed her eyes she saw Dexon lying on that cracked linoleum floor. “Why would he do something like that? Why give me a house and then commit suicide inside it?”

“I think you have the order wrong. You give things away once you have decided you no longer need them.” Some of Scottie’s tenderness returned. “Dexon was impulsive. He adored you as long as you were in the same room with him. I’ve met people like that before. They’re very exciting, but they leave messes behind.”

That sounded about right. Dexon was a force. His disposition was exactly the opposite of hers, and yet they were both on their own. She left messes behind, too, especially when she tried to clean up after herself.

Big
messes.

“Scottie,” she said. “I need to get the bag back to Carter.”

JOSHUA TREE

Chapter 6

March 22, 2005: Beatty, NV

The road was narrow, winding around steep hills with no guardrails. And it was two-way traffic, commonly traveled by massive delivery trucks that would suddenly appear from around tight corners to cross over the centerline. As Scottie drove them to Beatty in his rattle-worn green pickup, he tried to cheer Willie up by telling her the story about his first visit to the desert and his run-in with a man he called “Old Teeth.” He described the man’s strange green belt buckle and how it glowed in the headlights of Tony’s car.

Carter’s paper bag was on the floor mat between her feet. “So was that The Juliet?” she asked. She meant Old Teeth’s belt buckle.

“Tony thought so. I wasn’t even aware of The Juliet back then.”

Hot already, Willie shook out of her sweatshirt jacket, and underneath she wore a blue beater undershirt she bought in the boy’s section of a discount store. The wide gray strap of her sports bra showed a little, and she caught Scottie peeking at that. He wore long shorts with pockets, and his hairy knees bounced like they always did, from the energy he could never fully discharge.

Willie asked, “What happened to those women? Miranda and the others.”

Scottie didn’t know, except for Larissa. “I made my flight, just barely. That was back when you could make a last minute run through the airport without security knocking you down. I returned to the states a year later, and by then Tony and Larissa were married. Then they had a kid, a girl. And right after that they divorced.”