Chapter Thirteen

At six-foot-three, weighing in at around one-eighty, Danny Terrant sometimes felt that in his Santa Monica police uniform he resembled nothing so much as a sandy-topped, navy-blue number-two pencil.

This morning, he and his partner Bobby Nucci had caught a domestic disturbance call at an apartment on Euclid—their first of the day, but one of countless in their experience.

Short, plump, black-haired Bobby was Oliver Hardy to Danny’s Stan Laurel. The pair had buddied up at the academy and, not long ago—after stints for both with older, more seasoned partners—had found themselves back together.

When they got to the Gruner residence, the wife met them at the door, one hundred pounds of frazzled punching bag for the angry three hundred pounds of husband looming behind her. Patsy was a thirtyish bottle blonde and husband Lloyd was a helmet-haired behemoth in a XX-L Knicks T-shirt.

Nobody was screaming, which was good, but Danny could sense the Gruners were merely resting between rounds. As Danny took Patsy’s statement, Nucci led the husband to a neutral corner in the cracker-box apartment. This was not far enough away to prevent Lloyd from hearing his beloved refer to him disparagingly—i.e., “That fat-ass son of a bitch hits me all the goddamn time and I’m sick and goddamn tired of it.”

And the bell rang and the battle was on again.

Burly Lloyd, his lank brown hair running down over his shoulders, made like a bull and charged past Nucci, heading for the kitchen table where Danny and Patsy sat.

Nucci got knocked out of the way by the husband and could do nothing to halt the giant except grab a handful of hair and another of Knicks tee and hang on, getting dragged like Randolph Scott behind an Indian’s horse.

Rising from the table, right hand going for his hip holster, Danny just managed to get between husband and wife as Gruner barreled into him, cabbage-sized punches coming from every angle as the giant and Danny crashed into Patsy and sent furniture and bodies careening to the floor in a cracking crunch that the lanky cop hoped was wood and not bones.

Although Patsy managed to roll clear, Terrant hit the tile floor hard, Gruner landing on him, still punching, Nucci jumping on top of Gruner and trying to restrain him. Danny felt like he’d been working under a Buick and somebody kicked the jack out.

For a moment the skinny cop thought he might die, the air driven from his body by the weight of the pair wrestling on top of him, a big fat man and a small fat man. It probably looked way more comical than it felt….

Danny struggled to get out from under, grappling with the pepper spray at his belt, while Patsy was getting to her feet. Hoping she might supply some sort of help, Danny was dismayed when her contribution turned out to be leaping atop Nucci, pulling the policeman’s hair, and yelling shrilly to “leave my poor husband alone!”

This change of heart on Patsy’s part put three people on top of skinny Danny Terrant, and he could feel himself growing lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. I’ll be the only underweight person, he thought, ever to die from not shedding enough fat. …

But then the pepper spray found his hand and he was spritzing it everywhere he could. If his partner caught some, well, that was tuff-ski shit-ski….

As if by magic, the bodies atop him tumbled away in various directions. Nucci and the Gruners were yelling and flailing and rubbing their eyes as they rolled around on the tile.

After sucking down two deep breaths, blessed oxygen once again coursing through his lungs, a triumphant Terrant rose, his Glock drawn.

Amid the screaming, Lloyd blindly lumbered toward Danny, yelling, “You mother fuh—”

That was as far as the big man got before Danny sidestepped him and brought the pistol down on the back of a neck rolling with fat. Despite the padding, Lloyd sagged to his knees, paused in what appeared to be buggy-eyed prayer, then flopped to the floor, unconscious. With some difficulty, Danny managed to handcuff the man, wrists behind him.

Nearby her tubby hubby, Patsy writhed, feverishly rubbing her eyes and screaming incoherently.

“Stop rubbing,” Danny advised the woman. “You’re only making things worse.”

“Go screw yourself!” she shouted, still rubbing away.

Ah, he thought. To serve and protect. …

“You got it, Mrs. Gruner,” he said.

“You sprayed me,” Nucci moaned, as his partner helped him up. “I can’t believe you sprayed me.”

“I didn’t spray you. I just sprayed. I was getting my ass crushed.”

Nucci had nothing more to say, too busy trying to keep from rubbing his own peppered eyes. Danny knew what kind of agony Nucci was in—their training included getting similarly sprayed—and felt bad for his partner. But he would have done it again.

With the cuffs from Nucci’s belt, Danny returned to Patsy and restrained her, as well, while she shrieked about “suing you and your goddamn department.”

This and other obscene threats were hurled by the woman who had summoned them via 911 as Danny helped navigate the tap at a sink full of dirty dishes so his partner could flush his eyes.

They got the Gruners off to jail without further incident. The unhappy couple would face an impressive list of complaints, but other than a possible court appearance, Danny figured that was the end of it.

Not hardly.

Once the story got around the station, embellished vigorously by the red-eyed Nucci, Danny took a merciless ribbing from fellow officers the rest of the day. Danny pepper-sprayed his own partner, high-lar-ious! This, even though everybody agreed he’d done the right thing, even Nucci himself, when his eyes gradually cleared.

In fact, Bobby had said in the locker room, “You know, Danny boy, you probably saved both our asses. Those two mighta killed each other and made collateral damage out of us along the way.”

Bobby was a good guy, but Danny didn’t hang out with him off-duty much. Single, living in a lowrent apartment on Twenty-eighth Street, Danny Terrant didn’t often socialize with his brother officers. Most were family men, and the few single guys hung out at meat-market-type clubs, trying to look as cool as the drug dealers they busted.

Danny Terrant wanted none of it. Just wasn’t his style. Instead, he would go to Reseda, by himself, at least once every couple of weeks, to the Prairie Lights Bar. There, he could be somebody else, not an off-duty cop, just a nice single guy with an interest in something that was really fun, real fun … but something his coworkers would likely have made a laughingstock out of him over, had they known.

Line dancing.

Yes, Danny Terrant was into line dancing, into it all the way, and he didn’t care to expose himself and his wholesome hobby to the ridicule of his “cool” brother cops.

That evening, having grabbed a fast-food supper on the way home, Danny outfitted himself in black western shirt (snaps not buttons), black chinos, his favorite cowboy boots, and a black cowboy hat. Finishing touch was the black belt with audaciously large silver belt buckle he’d won a couple of years ago in a mechanical bull riding contest.

In apparel like this, his lanky frame looked good. Looked real good. Checking out the effect in the mirror, he pronounced himself ready for fun, and hit the trail. Driving his new Mustang, he took off north from Santa Monica on the 405 headed for Reseda, listening to a Clint Black CD.

Before long, within the barn-wood walls of Prairie Lights, dancing to the blasting of Brooks & Dunn’s “Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” Danny saw his day change from crapola into possibly the best night ever….

She was a tall drink of water with curly red hair that framed green eyes, high cheekbones, and lush, red-glossed lips. Though she was slender, she had curves complemented by her tight jeans and a spaghetti-strap green top that contrasted nicely with the creamy white of her shoulders and glimpse of bosom. All this was set off by hand-tooled leather green-and-brown cowboy boots that must have cost a small fortune.

She sidled up next to Danny and gave him an easy smile, which he was happy to return. They danced next to each other through another fast song, then another, and another. Finally, when a ballad began, they left the dance floor together, old friends.

At the bar, Danny introduced himself and asked if he could buy the lady a drink.

She nodded, but the blaring music, ballad or not, made it tough to be heard without shouting.

When bottles of beer arrived, she took hers, smiled, and leaning close said, “Gail Preston!”

“Nice to meet you, Gail!” he said, and they clinked bottles together in a tentative toast.

Funny thing was, she wasn’t his type. She was tall and slender and so was he, and he preferred short, shapely little things who frankly made him feel big.

But something about her, something magnetic, even charismatic, drew him to her. And it wasn’t like she was skinny—she had a nice full rack, and that bottom was sweet. Hell, Gail was a babe, a four-alarm fox.

Small talk at the bar was followed by what qualified as a quiet corner in Prairie Lights, where they ordered another round. Never a heavy drinker, Danny might have three or four beers over the course of an evening here. That might add up to a beer an hour, and he felt he danced ‘em off.

Still, trips to the john at the Prairie Lights were hardly a rarity for him. He was a little surprised, however, to find his sea legs wobbly on his third trip or so.

When he got back to the tiny table, he found another bottle waiting for him. He knew he had to slow down. But he hoisted the beer and said, “Thanks.”

She smiled and took a swig from her latest bottle.

“You know,” Danny said, “most women don’t come here alone. It’s not a rough bar or anything, but … people tend to show up in groups.”

Her smile was playful. “You’re not a group.”

“No. We could be a group. Our own group.”

“There’s an idea.”

They clinked bottles again, not so tentatively.

“Achy Breaky Heart” was playing. Such an old corny song, and playing so loud. But it lent itself to line dancing, and the bunch out there was having a great time.

He thought about taking Gail back out onto the floor, but he didn’t quite feel up to it. Anyway, he liked this quiet time with her.

As the world continued to wobble on its axis, Danny wondered if he was drunk not on beer but on this pretty woman, and the silly, giddy sense he was falling in love. He hadn’t felt this way about a girl since high school. They just seemed to connect.

“Good thing you’re in my group,” he said.

“Is it?”

“Dangerous for a girl to come to a bar alone.”

“Really?”

“There’s a lot of date rape, and worse.” He couldn’t believe he’d said that. Not exactly romantic….

“You said you were a cop. You must deal with some bad people.”

He’d told her he was a cop in Santa Monica; she’d told him she worked for a Chicago company and made regular California visits.

“Bad people? Sometimes I do, yeah.”

He told her about this morning. It had suddenly become an hilarious anecdote, and she laughed often and in a sweet, fetching way.

“Now I know I’m safe,” she said, and she looped her arm in his. “With you.”

“I don’t know. I know some pretty rough characters on the PD.”

“Then am I in danger?”

“From me? No way.”

“Not even … date rape?”

She said that with a smile. A suggestive one. His head was doing a dipsy doodle.

Suddenly his voice sounded defensive to him. “I wouldn’t … force a woman. I would never take advantage.”

“I was just teasing. … Look, it’s getting a little loud in here. Crowded, too. Maybe we should find someplace quieter. Where we can really … talk.”

The noise was getting to Danny, too, contributing to his wooziness. Leaving the bar seemed like a good idea. He tried to think of some quiet place in Reseda, maybe a restaurant, when she made a much better suggestion.

“My motel’s not far from here,” Gail said, her smile just a glimmer at the corner of her mouth. Her expression held promise but also excitement, and a certain nervous edge.

“Uh, sure. Sounds good.”

“I don’t ever do this.”

“What?”

“I don’t pick up men. You need to know that. It’s just … Danny, you’re different. I feel like I’ve known you forever. So please … don’t think badly of me.”

“I don’t! I’m not!” This was the soberest he’d felt in about an hour.

They rose, Danny hoping he could hold it together—his legs unsteady, his stomach, too. He was feeling like he might be getting the damn flu or something.

Following the lovely redhead toward the exit, he had the fleeting thought he should maybe beg off, collect her contact info, and just head for home. He could just see himself folding her into his arms and moving in for the kill and … throwing up in her lap.

But her swaying hips, in those tight blue jeans, were like the swing of a watch in a practiced hypnotist’s hands.

Outside, with the sun down, a cool breeze swept in off the ocean, providing the fresh air Danny needed to feel a little better.

A concerned Gail took his arm. “You look a little green around the gills, honey. You okay?”

“I’m fine … never better.”

Screw it.

He drew her close and kissed that lovely moist mouth, and she kissed back, her tongue darting into his mouth, like a teasing snake’s. They kissed again, and again, then broke the clinch to come up for air.

“You’re fine, all right,” she said, her smile taking on a wry tilt. “You up to driving?”

No.

“Sure,” he said.

She studied him. “Honey, you had twice as many beers as I did….” “Did I?”

“Why don’t you just ride with me, and we’ll bring you back here when you’re feeling better?”

This was a decent enough neighborhood and his off-duty piece was safely hidden away in the spare tire compartment and locked inside the trunk.

“Good idea,” he said. “You drive.”

She led him to a white Kia Sorento. And then they were inside the vehicle, kissing in the darkness behind tinted windows. When he started nuzzling her shoulder and trying to get a hand under her top, she said, “Whoa there, big fella—don’t leave it all in the gym. Save a little for the big game.”

He grinned at her goofily. “Is there gonna be one?”

“I’ve got a nice big king-size bed in my motel room where we can discuss that.”

“Okay,” he said, with an even goofier smile.

As she pulled out of the parking lot, he asked, “What kind of work you do?”

“I’m a headhunter,” she said.

“That sounds scary.”

“Not for the one doing the hunting.”

“… If I wanted a better job in police work, could you help?”

“Sure.”

Gail made a right onto Roscoe and he settled back into the seat and enjoyed the ride with the window down, the fresh air gliding over him. By the time they got to the motel, he was feeling better and—given this company—he figured he wasn’t likely to pass out or fall asleep on Gail.

Tomorrow, he would have something to talk about with Nucci that wasn’t the goddamn Gruners. In fact, when he got to Gail’s room at a former Ramada Inn, and they were safely inside, her arms wrapped around him tight, his ribs—where Lloyd Gruner had piled on him—didn’t even hurt anymore.

They kissed standing up for a while; then Gail fanned herself, let out some air, rolled her eyes, said, “Wow,” and took a short breather. She built them each a mixed drink from some bottles of liquor and soda on the dresser; these they downed quickly, both eager to finish what they’d started.

Soon she was wrapping herself around him as they stood by the bed, kissing him hard, tongue darting in and out of his mouth, his hand on her blouse cupping a full, firm braless breast, its tip diamond hard.

The lightheaded feeling was coming back, but Danny didn’t think that was the drink—he was drunk on Gail, and anyway there wasn’t any blood in his head, not the big head, anyway….

She unsnapped his shirt, quick but methodical; then her mouth moved down his neck onto his smooth, nearly hairless chest, even as her hands started fiddling with his belt and that giant, prizewinner’s buckle.

Her kisses reached his stomach as she pushed him backward onto the bed, where he sat, legs dangling off its edge. She peppered his stomach with kisses as she unbuttoned his jeans, then tugged them to his ankles.

Danny fumbled with her top, but wasn’t having much luck. For some reason, his hands seemed to be about half a minute behind his brain.

She stuck a thumb inside the waistband of his shorts, tugged them down, too, as his erection sprang up and had a look around, as if seeing what it had missed. The throb of his member was a pleasant ache, oddly the only feeling that seemed to dent the haze.

Then everything turned soft and warm as she slipped him into her mouth, suckled, then moved up and down the shaft as hypnotically as her swaying hips when they had lured him to this room.

She must have sensed how close he was and let him ease away. Rising, she said, “I have to slip something in me, lover, before you can slip inside me….”

“Mmmmmm,” he said.

“Only be gone a minute. Get those damn boots off and be buck nekkid when I get back. I’ll show you the kind of dancing you don’t do in a line….”

She smiled mischievously, and moved away.

Groggily, Danny sat up and tried to focus on her fine, sweet shape as she headed toward the bathroom. She was still dressed, but there was no mystery about the heart-shaped bottom awaiting under those tight jeans. Slowly, she pulled the spaghetti-strapped top over her head and showed him the ivory skin of her lovely back.

With a smile, before ducking into the bathroom, Gail turned off the room light, scant illumination filtering in through sheer curtains on this second-floor window. For a moment she was caught in a shaft of light from the bathroom, a topless beauty with a wicked smile.

Then she shut herself within.

He bent down and started tugging at a boot. Then another boot. Finally he sprawled out on the bed. He was there a while. Long enough for his erection to lose interest.

When the bathroom door did open, the light wasn’t on. Danny had no idea how long she had been gone. Had he drifted off awhile? Might have been ten seconds or ten minutes. In the darkness, all he could make out was curly hair, the ivory skin of one shoulder, and the fact that she was holding something.

In this light it was impossible to tell what. If he didn’t know better, he would have said she was hauling over a pair of those big garden shears, like the ones back in his folks’ garage. The ones the old man to this day used to trim the hedges. No Mexican gardener for his old man….

But in this pitch-black room, he’d seen very little, really, and the thought that had registered seemed absurd. Garden shears—really. …

She was coming to him now, cooing … or was it more like … purring, even … growling? He tried to reach out for her, but his arms felt leaden and he wondered if he could even lift them.

The wooziness seemed worse now; then the figure was towering over him, only he could no longer focus, his eyelids heavy, so very heavy. He would swear she was holding garden shears. He tried to focus on the point of the object, but it dropped out of sight.

There was a quick, terrible, sharp, excruciating pain at his gut, forcing horrible momentary clarity upon him, followed by warmth, all-encompassing liquid warmth, spreading over his stomach, dripping onto his legs.

That feeling was followed by overwhelming cold in his upper body, as if all his body heat were being siphoned off. He worked hard at keeping his eyes open, but could not. Thoughts flitted through his brain, butterflies on a sunny day, but he couldn’t catch them, not any of them; then the butterflies were gone and so was the sun and any other light.

As the coldness seeped through him, Danny Terrant thought, I think those were garden shears.

Then the world turned black.