That touch was real.
She hadn’t imagined it.
Had he meant to do that? Patty wondered. Had he? Or was it her being weird about being in a new place? New store. New town and state.
Patty stood looking out of her storefront window. Not knowing. She held her left hand—the one he’d touched—in her right, massaging the point of contact with a thumb that went around and around and around.
Will it hurt?
That was what he asked. She’d told him it would. It didn’t hurt that much. Not to most people, but if you said it did then they were usually happy it wasn’t as bad as they thought. They felt braver, stronger. That strength made them feel validated for having chosen to get a tattoo in the first place.
Will it hurt?
“Yes,” she said aloud, as if answering that question again now.
Good.
That’s what he said, and then he didn’t say anything at all until the blowfly was done. He was a cadaver in the chair, one of those people who go so far into their heads during the process that they might as well be dead. Patty preferred new customers to be chattier, because it gave her insight that might affect the kind of colors she used, or to inspire remarks that might bring them back. With a good conversationalist in the chair she could double the job in one sitting, or get them back as regulars and build some sleeves, or get them to buy the chest pieces or full-back work. Good money but also jobs that would allow Patty’s artistry to shine. Jobs that would make her fully alive.
Not this man, though. He asked the one question and then said, “Good.” Nothing else. Not a word.
She was quick with him, but only as quick as art allowed. After the blowfly was done, she gave him a printed aftercare sheet to which was stapled a 10 percent-off coupon for any new purchase.
He said nothing. But he’d sniffed the paper like a dog sniffing a patch of ground he wanted to roll in; then he folded it carefully and put it in his pocket. He left without saying a word. That word, though, echoed in the empty shop after he was gone.
“Good,” Patty said, repeating it, trying for the same weight and inflection. Getting too close. The word tasted wrong in her mouth. Like someone else’s spit.
5
The first time Monk tried to call Patty, while he was still in New York, it had gone straight to voicemail.
The second time, while he was way out in some part of Jersey that seemed to be nothing but strip malls, there was no signal. One flickering bar that simply refused to push through his call. Or didn’t give a fuck. He wondered how the hell people who owned, worked in, or shopped at all those stores got through the day without Wi-Fi. He realized that he was being way too twenty-first century about that, and it soured him.
He called a third time as he was cruising along through farm country on the east side of the Delaware, while motoring between fields of corn that seemed endless. The corn was hypnotizing. Every mile seemed identical to the last. It was like being in one of those old Twilight Zone stories about being caught in a time loop, driving forever with no chance of ever getting where you needed to be. He was positive he was passing the same fence posts and the same damn scarecrow over and over again.
He called Patty again. Fourth time? Fifth? It rang three times and then she picked up.
“Monk…?” said Patty Cakes in a voice filled with sleep. It was early evening on a long workday.
“Hey, there,” said Monk, slowing to a stop on the shoulder for fear of driving out of cell range. “I’m here.”
“Here…?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Here. In town. Or almost. Still way the hell out in farm country, but I’ll be there soon.”
There was a pause. A little too long, even for someone who just woke up. “In town…? You’re here in Brooklyn?”
“Huh? No,” he said, “I’m in Pine Deep.”
Another pause. Then, in a voice that was more dreamy than sleepy, Patty said, “Oh. Sure. Good. See you.”
And the line went dead.
Monk stared at the phone as if the screen display would provide an explanation. Or translation. Or something. He frowned, not liking that conversation one little bit. Patty was going through some shit—that’s why she left New York. This place was supposed to be a dial-it-down move; zero stress in rural America. But she sounded out of it. Or high. He put the pedal down. The speed was posted at thirty-five. He didn’t give much of a fuck about that.
6
The big cop in the shiny black-and-white cruiser was tucked behind a billboard advertising the Pinelands Fringe Festival. He sipped a Diet Dr Pepper and felt the day get older one dying molecule at a time. There had been five cars in two hours. All of them local, none of them breaking any laws he cared about.
Then he saw the old Chevy blow past. The cop didn’t have a radar gun pointed out the window, but it didn’t matter. Guy had to be doing sixty in a thirty-five zone.
The cop reached out a hand and got as far as the switch for the lights and siren, but stopped there. It wasn’t the car that stopped him, or the profile of the big man behind the wheel. He hadn’t seen either before.
No, it was the birds that made him pause.
In the air, fifty or sixty feet above the car, a flock of nightbirds followed that car. More birds leapt from trees and joined in. All of them dark. No pigeons or finches. He wasn’t even sure they were crows. He knew those birds. Had for a long time. Birds like those anyway.
This was, after all, Pine Deep.
The cop leaned back and let the car go. Thunder rumbled off to the east. Very close. Maybe already on this side of the river. There had been a lot of clouds lately, a lot of rain. The early October crops were getting fat, but there was a weird feel to things. People seemed a little jumpy. The nights were colder than they should have been. Lots of roadkill on the highway. The cop didn’t like any of that because it reminded him of another autumn back when he was a kid. That started with storms and nightbirds, too.
There was a sudden bang of thunder accompanied by a supernova of lightning. The cop winced and covered his eyes; the cruiser shuddered.
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed and then fought to blink his retinas clear. The storm seemed to have suddenly leapt across the river and now crouched over the farm fields, its underbelly heavy with ugly udders filled with rain. The next bursts of thunder were loud, but not as shocking, as if the storm—having gotten his full attention—was settling down to business. The cop saw lightning reflected on the curved leaves of the corn, making them look like polished porcelain, and when the lightning flashed they looked cracked and ready to break. The cop ran the pad of his thumb along the red-gold stubble on his chin. A habit he had that he didn’t know he had.
Then his radio squawked.
“Base to four,” said the voice of the dispatcher, Gertie. “Base to four, over.”
The cop picked up the handset. “Four to base. Go ahead.”
“Mike, honey,” said Gertie, “are you off dinner yet?”
This was a small town and they weren’t all that formal.
“Copy that. Skipped dinner. I’m watching by the Fringe billboard on A-32. What’ve you got?”
“A 10-54 out on Barkers Farm Road.”
Officer Mike Sweeney smiled. That ten-code was for “livestock on road.”