Sunderson opened his eyes a squint and saw the startled look on Valerie’s face. Next to him Bob was text messaging on his cell in his lap. Berenice was staring up at a fly on the ceiling. The torpor was in full flood. Hulda paused to take a gulp of her iced champagne. He was bored enough to childishly drop his fork on the floor in order to catch a view up Valerie’s legs. He leaned over and the view was dizzying what with Valerie abruptly giving her legs an extra spread. There was the fabled little muffin contained in blue undies. When he popped back up he blushed when she gave him a silly grin. Why was he such a fool? “To thine own self be true,” said Polonius but then his Shakespeare professor at Michigan State forty-five years before had said that Polonius was a parodic character blathering the street wisdom of the day.
“And Lord, we are in thine hands for better or worse,” Hulda continued with a champagne burp, “and of late it’s been worse for my little retirement fund which as you know is handled by the Lutheran Brotherhood. It sure would be nice if you could see fit to let the market fly high like a balloon.”
And so on. Luckily Valerie reheated the turkey gravy in the microwave. Sunderson left as soon as it was vaguely polite to do so after Berenice’s medley of pies, which apparently came from a bakery as they were without her vaunted lard crust. He was barely in the car when he got a cell call from Melissa.
“It was unpleasant,” she began, then paused. “He was wearing a red robe and we were alone in a den.”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“He was like, you know, a slick fraternity guy at U of A. He wanted to see my butt and I said no. That put a stop to things so for you I quickly showed him my butt which because of you is sore today. So then he got friendlier. The ticket for me to enter the group would be fifty grand which would get me complete spiritual satisfaction and a transcendent mind whatever that is. I asked him why he needed so much money and he said he and his people were moving to Nebraska in the spring.”
“Where in Nebraska?” Sunderson asked.
“How should I know? Nebraska is Nebraska. Anyway, he got real friendly when I let on that I was rich and the fifty grand wasn’t out of the question. He said that it appeared I was already on level twenty-three of the hundred levels of spirituality. Then he shocked me and suggested that I give him a blow job. He wouldn’t come in my mouth because he had to save his fluids for younger women who needed them more. He said that sperm is the most powerful fluid in the world. I thought fast because I can’t blow a man unless I actually like him so I told him I couldn’t because I had a tooth pulled yesterday. So that’s that.”
“Thanks. You did a fine job.”
“A little bad news. Xavier is coming home tonight and he’s real pissed that we met at the Wagon Wheel so be careful.”
Sunderson’s heart dropped in temperature and he pushed the off button. Jesus Christ. He called Mona and asked her to book him a flight home via Minneapolis or Chicago, whichever was soonest. She said that he sounded scared and that he had to pony up fourteen hundred bucks for her new Apple. Within a minute she had him on the dawn plane for Minneapolis with a two-hour wait for Marquette. He said fine and she said she’d call Marion and make them a nice dinner.
He wasn’t thinking clearly and stopped at the Wagon Wheel for a pick-me-up. He couldn’t help himself and asked Amanda how Xavier could have known that Melissa met him at the bar. She was evasive.
“She needs a lot of looking after. He’s a good stockbroker and a good brother though he’s up to no good in Mexico. She just lost her volunteer job at the hospital for stealing drugs. Last summer she got busted twice for leaving her kid in the hot car. In July she ran off with some motorcyclists from the Aryan Brotherhood in Idaho and Xavier retrieved her in bad shape. Last winter she tried to board a plane for Hermosillo with a pistol in her purse and had to be restrained. She had to go to a clinic for a month to stay out of jail. There’s more. I was thinking of warning you but I figured that you were just another horny old fool.”
“Thanks.” He bought a travel pint and sped home to pack. Kowalski had tossed his apartment again, which bored him, leaving a note saying “Where’s my cell?” Sunderson had dropped it out of the car at the Nogales interchange hoping that some kid would find it and call China. He had wondered idly how Melissa was acceptable to the Aryan Brotherhood but then an attractive woman has a passport to anywhere.
