“Blue Martini” by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

A couple like us couldn’t last….

I wanted to be alone. I wanted to be far away. Because every night and every day, Gunther and I fought about stupid things. He always had to have the last word. So did I. Not a good combination. A couple like us couldn’t last. The fight we most often had was over the bills. Since he paid all the bills, he’d say, I needed to help him with his new business. Like hell, I’d say. I wasn’t going to get involved with crystal no matter what. It rots your brain, I’d tell him. It makes you dull inside. He didn’t like that and the last time I said it he squeezed my arms so hard he polka-dotted my skin red and made me yelp.

After that, we kept our distance more than usual, which was fine with me. He’d stay out in the RV creating his Breaking Bad Concoction, as he liked to call it. If Walter White could get rich manufacturing crystal meth, he’d say to no end, so could he. “You idiot,” I finally said, “it’s a TV show,” and this set off some major league arguing. Gunther had a degree in chemistry, and, like Walter, he thought he might use his education to make real money. He deserved to have a good life, he’d claimed more than once. You call this good? I wanted to shout this time, but now, as our voices were rising yet again, I tried to fight fair by merely saying, “Walter White was a fictional anti-hero.”

To which he said he wanted me to explain “anti-hero.” See, that’s what I was dealing with. He was a brilliant chemist but an idiot about everything else.

The bigger idiot for sticking around so long—almost a year—was me. I’d had a front row seat watching a boyfriend transform from one handsome dude into a skinny, crank-addled asshole. Don’t let anybody tell you different—speed turns you ugly, makes you sell out your mother, your grandmother, your best friend. So I decided, after I told him an anti-hero was what he’d see if he’d look in a mirror and he stormed off and sought refuge in his ugly-ass RV, that this was it.

I wiped my sweaty forehead with a paper towel. No telling if he would be out in that thing for thirty minutes or three hours, so I hurried. I packed the car my mother left me when she died last year, my thirty-third birthday gift, a rusted white ’78 Cadillac Eldorado with red leather seats, red carpeting, a red steering wheel, and a plastic hula girl on the dashboard. I loved that car but would have rather had my mother back.

Also from my mother was a set of pink Samsonite suitcases. One I stuffed with clothes. In the other went my baking tools—rolling pin, hand mixer, pie plate. I was all set to go when I jogged back to the house and grabbed the half-full bottle of tequila from the liquor cabinet and one of Gunther’s many guns, a .32-caliber pocket pistol, one he jokingly said he’d won from a woman in a game of strip poker. It was a tiny thing with an ivory grip and silver plating, a fancy toy he’d said was suitable for me because it would fit in my pocketbook.

“It’s a purse,” I’d told him back then. “No one calls it a pocketbook anymore.” To which he’d scoffed and mocked me.

I also couldn’t forget Tomasina, a jar of sour dough starter named for my mother who gave it to me before I left Costa Mesa to be with Gunther. I was intent on returning to the beach city where my mother had had me. My cousin had a two-bedroom apartment in a little ’50s-style converted motel, she was always saying I could have one of the rooms. I scribbled “Have a good life. Fuck you—” on an envelope and left it under Gunther’s stained coffee cup. Outside, the heat felt like somebody forgot to turn off the oven, and let’s not forget the smell—good riddance to the rotten egg fumes from the Salton Sea a few miles south.

Before I took off, I checked out my reflection in the rearview. “You are one sad fuck,” I said to the gray eyes that looked back. “Get it together.”

#

I’d be able to get out of the Coachella Valley today and far away from my old, parched life.

My white and red land yacht lurched onto the rutted macadam. West of me, the sun was making a break for the San Jacinto Mountains, which carved a jagged line in the empty blue sky. Out here on the edge of the Coachella Valley, an hour-and-a-half from Palm Springs, secondary road care wasn’t on the city’s list of priorities. I pulled onto the shoulder beside a family of prickly pear cactii and turned off the GPS on my cell. The land yacht had been handling the bumps in the road okay, but something sounded off. Every so often the engine was emitting the tiniest of hiccups. I refused to worry. Freedom was at hand. I forged ahead, turned onto the 111, and headed west. If the traffic was with me, I’d be at my cousin’s in three hours tops. On the car radio, I tuned in a desert station and landed on Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me.”

My mother, sister, and I had loved Sam Cooke. When this song would come on with the three of us in this car, we’d sing along, a regular trio girl band. I turned up the radio and sang back-up. Cooke sang about someone he loved so much. I couldn’t remember anyone other than my mother loving me that much. But as she used to say, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. Whoever the heck the fat lady was one of the things she never did tell me.

Instead of getting on the 10 west with a clear shot to the ocean, I stayed on the 111 and made a stop in Palm Springs for a late lunch: veggie sandwich and an Arnold Palmer at Sherman’s Deli. Sugar cookies. Lining the back wall were signed black and white headshots of stars who used to hang out in Palm Springs —Sinatra, Dean Martin, Rita Hayworth. Old Hollywood. When Gunther and I were first together, before his current business took off and while he still consumed food, we would drive into Palm Springs for dinner. It was different being here alone, but I didn’t mind. I liked my own company. At an outside table on the patio, misters spritzed fine spokes of water that moistened my arms and made the heat bearable.

I eavesdropped on the conversation around me.

Let’s do the Thursday night art walk.

Where can we find Drag Queen Bingo?

Does that Desert Oracle podcast dude still do a show at the Ace?

Let’s go to Mr. G’s for a puzzle. Thousand piecer.

Yeah, people were planning their todays, looking forward to their tomorrows. I envied the lot of them. I wanted a tomorrow to look forward to. I had a hundred bucks to my name and a credit card that Gunther would soon shut down. I charged my lunch and left a fifty percent tip. Why not? Gunther’s parting gift to me.

Back in the Caddy, I set the bag of sugar cookies for my cousin on the red leather seat, stuck my key in the ignition, and turned. Clickety-click.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

When I first met Gunther, he repaired fancy cars. With that brain of his, he could figure out any engine. He once offered to teach me what was what under the hood, but I was too worried about my fucking manicure.

The engine could be flooded. That much I knew about. I waited a moment and tried again. A click no louder than a lizard’s toenail against stone.

Dammit.

I wrangled open the hood, leaned over the engine, and peered in as if I knew what to look for. Dirt from the Caddy’s monstrous grille frosted the front of my white jeans and top with an outline of what looked like a giant charcoal mouth laughing at me. Great. Just great.

An older dude ambled over, hands in blue jeans, loose white short-sleeve shirt, blue-billed cap that said Singleton Landscapes in yellow, his faded blond hair curling out from it. Eyes swimming pool green. A Robert Redford lookalike. Grizzled, and still hot.

“What’s the problem?” he said. Southern twang. White teeth.

“Won’t start,” I said.

He grimaced in shared pain. “Let me have a look.”

I moved aside and he fiddled.

“Try firing her up,” he said.

I turned the key. Zilch.

He played around with the battery connections. “Got Triple A?”

I shook my head. Gunther had never wanted to pay for that, always said he could fix whatever needed fixing.

“I have cables,” he said. “Hang on.”

He jogged over to a pickup truck with Singleton Landscapes on its side doors and pulled it alongside the land yacht. Dug around in the truck bed, found a wreath of yellow and red cables, connected his battery to mine.

“Fire it up.”

This time the engine turned over. My chest expanded with relief. I’d be able to get out of the Coachella Valley today and far away from Gunther and my old, parched life.

He unhooked the cables and tossed them back in his truck. “That battery looks a mite old,” he said. “You need a new one. If I was you, I’d get a battery before you get back on the road.”

I thanked him, and, as he remained watching, I slid behind the steering wheel, revved the motor, and the engine died again. He squinted down the street as if he was looking for something.

“There’s a shop just down a ways where a buddy works on vintage cars. My guess is your problem is more than the battery. Let’s try jumping it again.”

We did, and it stayed running. “Follow me,” he said.

At first I hesitated, but I didn’t get weird vibes from him and serial killers tended to be younger, so I followed him a few blocks down Tahquitz to the shop. He introduced me to a guy in blue overalls with a white and blue embroidered name tag that said “Jeb.” Chewing a toothpick, Jeb connected the Caddy to a shiny red machine with lots of knobs, outlets, and wires.

 “Your alternator’s shot,” Jeb said, wiping his hands on a blue rag. “It’ll take a day or two to get the part. Alternators for these old cars are hard to find. Come by in the morning. I’ll know more then.”

“How much will it cost?” I asked.

He withdrew the toothpick, looked at it, then at my car. “Seven hundred at least with labor.”

Shit. By the time it would be ready, Gunther would likely have cut off my credit card.

Still, I told Jeb, “Okay.”

Outside the shop, my rescuer held out his hand and said, “Billy Singleton. And you are?”

“Pepper Shannon.”

“Glad to make your acquaintance, Pepper Shannon. You got a place to stay in town?”

“My cousin has friends not too far from here. I’ll give her a call.”

With his chin he pointed at the adjacent motel. “I know the owner. I can try to get you a deal.”

I must have had doubt written all over my face, because he added, “Don’t worry. No strings.”

“I dunno,” I said. “Maybe I should just try to keep on going, make it to my cousin’s in Orange County.”

He made a face that said, seriously?

So I said, “All right. I’d greatly appreciate a deal.”

“This way,” he said, and I followed him across the dusty gravel lot to a one story, pink clapboard motel with six units, seven if you counted the manager’s quarters, and a little connected bar that looked closed. An unlit neon sign that reached into the sky said Blue Martini and was accompanied by a giant martini glass with an olive.

At the front desk Billy introduced me to the owner, Tanya, who had a turquoise brush cut and a tiny earring piercing her left nostril. Then he helped me with my suitcases. We strolled past the pool to the door of my room. He set the suitcase just inside the door and went to leave.

“Wait,” I said. “Shot of tequila as a token of thanks?” I pulled the bottle from my tote bag.

“The holy cactus. Don’t mind if I do.” His face lit up with a bashful smile.

“Think there’s an ice machine?”

He pointed inside the room, at the Styrofoam bucket beneath the TV. “Wherever there’s an ice bucket, there’s gotta be ice.” He took the bucket and disappeared into the twilight.

I looked at my phone. Three texts from Gunther. Previously when I left him, he always talked me into coming back. Not this time. I turned up the swamp cooler that rattled and spewed tepid air. I found two plastic cups in the bathroom wrapped in sanitized paper coverings.

Billy returned with a bucket full of ice and filled our cups to the brim. I poured tequila, enjoying the crackle of the ice as the alcohol hit it. We toasted and drank. The tequila warmed me from my head down to my pinkie toes. My future took on a cheerful gleam. Maybe I’d been worrying for nothing. But I was sweating like a pig. I was used to air conditioning at Gunther’s. Billy took an ice shard and ran it down the side of my face and neck, stopping at my clavicle.

“How’s that feel?” he said, his voice low and raspy.

He could tame scorpions with that voice.

“Very nice,” I heard myself saying.

“C’mon.” He took my hand and tugged me outside. “The magical hour betwixt darkness and light.”

“A poet,” I said.

“Just need to open our eyes. Beauty all ’round.”

The violet sky did feel magical. The only times Gunther went outside anymore was when he had to go from the house to the RV, or to the store. I’d become like a housebound binge-watching little housewife, me. How had it happened that I’d become immune to boring days on end?

Sinatra played through outdoor speakers. We wandered over to the swimming pool. Billy pulled me to him, and we slow danced. Then we sat on the bullnose edge of the pool and drank some more. He had such perfect arms, like those of a much younger man. Toned most likely from his work. Arms had never been such a turn-on. I wanted like anything to see what was under his shirt, but it was too soon.

I jumped up, fetched the tequila, and drained the bottle into our cups. We toasted, lay back on the cement, watched the night sky. Specks of stars poked through a blanket of indigo. We had the place to ourselves. By the time we finished drinking, the time was not only right, it was perfect. He switched off the pool light, and we peeled off our clothes, then jumped into the water where we mated like seals who’d been beached one season too long.

 I invited him to stay the night. We watched the motel TV and laughed at Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue. It was like we’d known each other forever.

In the morning, the sun through the skimpy curtains woke us up. Eight more texts from Gunther. We drank coffee-maker coffee in bed.

“What the fuck,” Billy said, holding one of my arms Gunther had squeezed too hard. The splotches had turned purple. I pulled away.

“How’d you get those?”

“Ran into a wall.”

He shook his head and scowled. “That wall had some hands, did it?”

“I don’t want to talk about Gunther.”

“Gunther,” he repeated, looking like he’d just tasted rancid food.

He stayed on simmer for a while, deliberating before he spoke. “That’s one thing I can’t tolerate, dudes who hurt women. My brother-in-law put my sister in the hospital. And when they released her, she went back to him like nothing ever happened.”

“Maybe she needed him to survive financially.”

“She was a principal of a high school. Made far more money than that bastard.”

“My mom had similar troubles, but she wasn’t educated. Needed my dad for money.”

“Money or no money,” he said, “why don’t women want to leave? They just stay and stay, as if saying ‘more, more.’”

“It’s not that they don’t want to,” I said. “Maybe they don’t know how to leave, or they’re scared.”

He ran his fingers across my bruises. Leaned over and kissed them. “I’d never do that to you. I’d shoot myself first. Does Gunther know where you are?”

“I can’t see how he would.”

“GPS on your phone?”

“Turned it off.”

“Smart lady.”

In the tiny shower stall, we soaped each other’s torsos and backs, took turns under the showerhead to rinse, and toweled off. After we dressed, I said, “Want to go with me, see if Jeb found the part?”

“Whatever you want to do,” Billy said.

The service bay smelled of oil and gasoline. On the radio, an angry talk show host blathered words: socialist agenda, family values. If I’d never heard the words family values again, it wouldn’t be too soon.

“I found you an alternator,” Jeb said while chewing on a toothpick. “But it’s going to take a few days, and, like I thought, it ain’t gonna be cheap. Those old vintage parts…” His voice trailed off, but I did hear the words alternator, fuel pump, and a thousand-plus dollars.

“Can I think a minute?” I asked.

Jeb swiped a red licorice whip from a big plastic jar and replaced the toothpick with it. “Take all the time you need.” Probably used to be a cigarette smoker and had that oral thing going on.

I considered asking my cousin for a loan. I stared at fan belts on the wall.

Billy said to Jeb, “What’s happening with the bar? Looked closed last night.”

“Tanya fired the bunch of ’em. They were stealing from her. She’s hiring now. Just put an ad on Craigslist.”

“I could use a job,” I interrupted. “Pay my repair bill, get me to Orange County. I could give you payments.”

 Billy and Jeb looked at me.

“That’s a shittin’ good idea,” Billy said. “Let’s talk to Tanya.”

#

It was exciting, making money of my own again…. A litany of texts from Gunther kicked into high gear.

That night I started work behind the bar. I’d get to my cousin’s in Costa Mesa when I got there. Making money was my number one priority. The Blue Martini was small. Knotty pine, six stools, three booths—that was it. Little neon beer signs, a large jar holding dill pickles in a filmy broth. Old time jukebox. Two vending machines, one with M&Ms, the other with peanuts. Basic liquors, well drinks, beer. Nothing too exotic except for the signature drink, a blue martini made with vodka, blue Curaçao, and triple sec.

The place would fill up. As well as a salary, customers left tips. It was exciting, making money of my own again.

A litany of texts from Gunther kicked into high gear. I responded only once to say, Leave me alone. Never coming home.

At the end of my first week, with my paycheck and tips, I had almost half of what I needed to pay Jeb.

Into my second week, Billy stopped by just before closing, as he did every night. He took a stool at the end of the bar. Ordered a Corona. He looked as happy to see me as I was to see him. It hadn’t grown old yet and I hoped it never would. Some things were just meant to be. 

“Listen, your ex visited Jeb,” he said with a slug from the bottle.

“What?” My heart raced. “How’d he know my car was there?”

 “That Caddy’s pretty unique. Maybe a buddy saw it in the garage’s parking lot. The Coachella Valley is actually a small town.”

“Would Jeb tell him I was working at the bar?”

Billy shook his head. “Doubt it.”

I was rattled. A glass slipped from my grasp and shattered on the stone floor just beyond the bar floor mat. I spaced out on drink orders. Made a lemon drop martini when a cosmos was ordered, a margarita instead of a mojito. Billy stayed until the bar closed. I finished wiping down the counter and put away all the glasses.

“I’ll walk you home,” he said. “Make you feel better.”

And as we walked we both knew he knew how to make me feel good, forget about Gunther, and believe in new possibilities. A slight breeze swept over the San Jacinto, bringing with it cool mountain air. Billy set a brown paper bag on the little table. I got us cups with ice. He poured the tequila and we drank. The moon was a big friendly face. The hissing of sprinklers watering lawns in the subdivision over the concrete brick wall serenaded us. A far cry from my life with Gunther.

“Why do they waste all that water on the desert?” I asked, more to the air than to Billy.

“Ah, you know,” he said, “people fancy green lawns.”

“I don’t get it.”

We soaked up the moon’s rays and discussed driving up to Joshua Tree where, Billy said, there were trees that looked like someone praying. This was the life. I had a job, a dream of a man. Sure, he was older—much older—and I’d eventually be accused of having a daddy complex. Or he’d be called a cradle robber. I didn’t care. Age was just a number.

Gunther was dissolving into the past, a nightmare I needed to forget. Billy and I sat out there for the longest time, and as had become our habit when it seemed no one would be leaving their rooms. We dropped our clothes and went for a swim.

The next morning we went to Sherman’s Deli for breakfast. I had a beignet that snowed powdered sugar all over me. We strolled Palm Canyon Drive like we were a honeymooning couple, stopping in at Just Fabulous where Billy bought me a pink flamingo pool floatie.

It was around ten o’clock that night at the Blue Martini when an RV with bullhorns painted on the front pulled into the lot. There couldn’t be two of those ugly-ass RVs around. Gunther.

Everyone in the bar was joshing it up. Amy Winehouse on the jukebox belted “Back to Black.” The lights of the RV went off. Every so often I went to the windows for a better view. The tiny spark of orange from his cigarette grew bright and faded, grew bright and faded. He was watching the bar, watching me. I wanted to get out of there, but I couldn’t flake on Tanya. I was the only one on, and anyway, where would I go?

Around midnight Billy came in and took a seat at the bar. I placed a Corona before him.

“Sexy outfit,” he said. “You were wearing that when we met.”

“Took forever to get out the dirt from the car’s grille.”

“You look good enough to eat.”

I leaned over and said, “Gunther found me.”

Billy’s face became a map of worry. “Where?”

“Don’t look now, but that RV in the lot on your way in is his.”

Billy pursed his lips and rubbed at a spot on the lacquered knotty pine as I slid my room key across the bar.

“I have his gun in the room,” I said. “In the nightstand.”

“Is it loaded?”

“I would assume.”

“You don’t know?”

“I didn’t check. Maybe that’s why he’s here. Probably missed it after all.”

“I doubt that’s all he missed.” Billy shut his eyes, gave a vague shake of his head, and got to his feet. “I’ll unload it. You can give it back to the fucker so he leaves you alone. I brought my own gun, just in case.” He reached down and tapped his ankle under his jeans.

“I didn’t know you had a gun,” I said.

“Who doesn’t?” he said.

He made a kissy face on his way toward the kitchen, and I made one too. Then I heard the screen door slap shut.

I carried on with the customers as if nothing was going on, as if it was a normal night. But there was nothing normal about Gunther.

Billy hadn’t returned when Gunther came slinking in sloth-like.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said.

“What time does this dive close? You’re coming home with me. We’ll fetch the Caddy tomorrow. Get me a beer.”

“That’s not my home,” I said, and did not get him a beer.

“You know you love me.” He cracked his knuckles. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

A couple of remaining die-hards watched us from across the room.

“You’re in love with your business,” I said, “not me.”

“My business is why you get to sit on your ass all day and watch TV.”

“I’m sick of TV. I need something to do. I’m doing it now.”

“Tending bar? That’s what you call doing something?”

I waved goodbye to the last customers, regulars who must’ve sensed trouble and didn’t want to stick around for it. Gunther went to use the rest room. I poured the remains of a blue martini from a silver beaker into a cocktail glass and set it on the bar.

Billy was back. He lifted his tee shirt to show me the ivory and silver pistol in the waistline of his jeans.

“I left it loaded,” he said.

I reached for it. “He’s in the rest room.” I wiggled my fingers.

“Jesus,” he said. “Have you ever used a firearm?”

“Yes,” I lied. I took a deep breath. If anything went wrong, I didn’t want Billy going to jail. I would be the one.

“Hurry,” I said, anxious. “He’ll be here any second.”

He handed it over reluctantly. I stuck it in the back of my jeans. So much love and concern poured from his eyes, so much warmth. I smiled, but he must have seen sadness or worry because he said, “You’re the best woman I’ve ever known. Please be careful.”

“Of course.”

“Don’t let the bastard get to you.” He took a barstool, rested on it on his thighs.

Gunther returned and, as he approached, Billy rose from the stool, his chest pushed out, trying to look younger, stronger.

Gunther scowled. “You the new boyfriend?”

Billy looked down his beautiful nose at him.

Gunther turned to me, and said, “You like old guys now, do you?” He licked his lips and clenched his jaw as he always did when he was high on meth.

I wanted to spew forth a flurry of words, say how at least my old guy knew how to treat a woman. Instead, I folded my arms across my chest and said, “You need to go.”

“No. You need to come home with me. You’ve been here long enough.”

“Long enough for what? I’m never coming home.”

“What the fuck, Pepper.”

Billy took a few steps toward Gunther. “Might be best if you left now.”

Gunther glanced over at Billy like he was an annoying elderly uncle. They were the same height. Billy was heavier, more filled out, but Gunther was lean and mean and fueled by meth. The pistol was cool against my back.

“Please go,” I said. “It’d be better for everyone.”

“What’s better for everyone is for you to quit playing nursemaid to this old fool.” He squeezed my shoulder so hard I felt bruises blossoming right then and there, and I wrenched free. Then he grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. “I am not going to keep telling you, Pepper. Time to come with me where you belong.”

With a little push, he let go of my chin and my neck cracked, as if I’d just been chiropracted. Something about that crack and his once-handsome-now-gaunt pasty face made me snap. I whipped the gun from my waistband, held it with both hands, and pointed it at him.

He stepped back and raised his hands. “Put that toy away before you hurt yourself.” He looked bemused.

“Get out,” I said, wagging the gun at him.

“Pepper,” Billy said.

“He needs to go,” I said. “Now.” My voice had a frantic edge to it and it scared me.

“You won’t use that on me,” Gunther said. “You’re too much of a fucking chicken.”

That’s when I squeezed the trigger, but as I did Gunther knocked my arm and the bullet missed him and hit Billy’s shoulder. Billy fell backwards, knocking the blue martini onto the floor, blue droplets splashing onto my white jeans. Billy whipped out his revolver and drilled Gunther in the chest. Gunter’s face stayed brave but he went down with an ugly moan. Etta James’s “At Last” came on the jukebox.

Billy held his arm as I helped him up and over to a booth, where he said, “Like a nasty hornet sting is all.”

“Oh, Billy,” I said, and I ran to the bar, grabbed a clean bar towel, and rushed back to him.

I folded the white towel, lay it against his wound, which was bleeding steadily though not profusely. I’d gotten him on the side of the shoulder.

“Press,” I said.

Billy nodded and bit down on his lip. I went over to Gunther, who lay there unmoving, and felt for a pulse. Nothing. He looked sweeter than I’d seen him in months. The old Gunther was back, the person he’d been before crystal meth turned him into a monster. Death, the ultimate relaxer, had loosened up the ugly frown muscles of his face. I reached into his front pocket, where he always kept a money clip. The metal felt cool on my fingers. There were at least twenty one-hundred-dollar bills. My severance pay for putting up with him for the last year. I checked his other pockets because sometimes, especially when he knew he’d be out of the house for a while, he’d like to put backup cash in them. In these pockets found thirty more C-notes easily.

I took Billy’s gun, wiped it clean of prints.

“What are you doing?” he mumbled.

“I’m not letting you take the fall for this,” I said. “Is it in your name?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good,” I said.

I wrapped Gunther’s fingers around the handle of Billy’s gun so his prints would be on it. Then Billy took over, and I watched as he pointed Gunther’s hand with the gun toward the opposite wall and fired. He shook Gunther’s hand to make the gun fall. He did it calmly, carefully, as if this wasn’t the first time.

Afterward, I called 9-1-1 and said, “There’s been a shooting. One hurt, another maybe dead.” The dispatcher asked for my name and the Blue Martini’s address. When we hung up, I called Tanya, who said she’d be right over.

“You okay?” I called over to Billy, who gave me a dreary thumbs up sign. “They’re going to question us,” I continued. “Whatever you do, say Gunther threatened me.”

“He did,” Billy said.

The faint sound of sirens grew louder, and then they were here, whirly lights from the tops of police cars throwing reds and blues on the walls and the ceiling of the Blue Martini. The cop cars fishtailed into the gravelly lot. Firetrucks and paramedics followed. There were so many cruisers and emergency vehicles piling in you’d think a carnival was taking place.

An EMT wheeled in a stretcher for Billy. I tilted the trash can for his blood-soaked bar towel. They loaded Gunther into another van.

Good riddance, I thought. Jackass.

#

“I’m fine,” I said, though I didn’t sound fine. I wasn’t fine.

I spent the night and most of the next day at the police station detailing what had happened. I claimed self-defense and gave the cops my history with Gunther. I told them about how I’d recently left him because he’d been going loco. I gave them the names of those last regulars who’d witnessed Gunther’s aggression before they’d escaped into the night.

In the morning the police sent a car out to Gunther’s house and another to the RV in the Blue Martini’s lot.

One concerned cop whose name was Glen seemed to have it in for the meth dealers in the Valley, of which there were many. “They’re turning this paradise into a sinkhole,” he said, scowling as if he smelled something bad.

My story about Gunther must have checked out, because it wasn’t too long before this cop said I could go. A cruiser dropped me off at the Blue Martini. The RV was still there, wrapped in black and yellow caution tape.

I walked to my room and was there not even ten minutes when a cab pulled up and dropped off Billy. I ran out to meet him. His arm was in a sling and his shoulder looked bandaged.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he said as I gave him a gentle side hug.

“Did they question you a lot?” I asked.

He lay back on the bed with a groan. “A fair amount.”

“I’m worried. If they get forensics involved, I’m afraid our stories aren’t going to check out.”

“You watch too many cop shows,” he said.

“Maybe.”

I poured us tumblers full of tequila with a squeeze of lime and showed him the money. $7,200. The knob obviously carried so much cash because it made him feel more like a man. Some man.

We sacked out the rest of the day. In the morning Billy left to take care of business and I picked up the Caddy, paying Jeb in full. On my way back I saw an unmarked cruiser in front of the Blue Martini, which was closed until further notice. I parked by my room and wandered over. Tanya swept outside and watered cacti while inside a couple of detectives moseyed about.

“What’s going on?” I asked her.

She looked over her shoulder, gave a nod, and pointed toward the subdivision.

“They questioned people who live over there. A few heard the shots, and now these cops are back here sniffing around. Who knows when I can open.”

“I thought cop shops don’t want to waste their energy on loser speed freaks.”

“Apparently not every officer shares that sentiment.”

Shit.

Tanya must have noticed my concern, because she stopped watering and peered at me. “You doing okay? Must’ve been awful.”

“I’m fine,” I said, though I didn’t sound fine. I wasn’t fine.

“Hang tight. This’ll all be over soon.”

“Right,” I said, and I headed back to my room, where I threw back a shot or two of tequila and fretted over what would come next.

When Billy showed up with take-out—guacamole, enchiladas, and chips from the Happy Coyote Restaurant out on Palm Canyon—he took one look at me and said, “What now?”

We ate in the room, its swamp cooler working overtime so we could talk privately.

I told him about the neighbors hearing shots.

Then I said, “What if someone says they heard the shots far apart?”

“Fuck,” Billy said.

“Maybe it’s time to leave,” I said.

Billy stopped mid-bite. “You’re going to Orange County?”

I shook my head and swabbed a chip in the guac. “I’m not going anywhere without you. Let’s go to Mexico. While we can.”

“I have my business, Pepper.”

“You won’t have it if you get thrown in jail. We could go down there and do something good, help women leave bad men. Open a shelter.”

“Pepper, it’s going to be fine.”

“Ever the optimist,” I said. I poured more hot sauce on my enchilada. Maybe it would burn away the worry that was festering.

#

I soon forgot my worries and succumbed. I had never had a more generous lover.

In the morning I woke up to a voicemail from that detective named Glen saying if it wasn’t too much trouble, could I come in. They had a few more questions.

I stroked Billy’s cheek to wake him and told him about the call.

“What’ll I do?” I asked.

He pulled me to him. His body was warm against mine. “Just go in and be your charming self,” he said. Then he began kissing me all over. I soon forgot my worries and succumbed. I had never had a more generous lover. Those women who think young dudes are better should wake up and smell the coffee.

Afterward I said, “Really, Billy. I’m afraid.”

He rubbed my back. “Shh,” he said. “Go in and play dumb. If they try to get you to say why the shots were far apart, say the night was a jumble. There wasn’t an insurance policy, right? Nothing you want from the asshole’s estate?”

“What estate?” I said, calming down.

“There’s no motive. What’re they going to do? Nothing. They’ll lose interest. I’m telling you, I know how these cops work.”

“What if it doesn’t go that way? What if they arrest me?”

“That ain’t gonna happen.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I nodded. Damn, did that man ever have an honest face. Handsome, sure, but who cared about handsome? I showered while he brushed his teeth and went off to take care of rich people’s yards. I put on my nicest sundress that showed my meager cleavage and rubbed honeysuckle oil behind my ears and across my wrists.

On my way to the cop shop, the Caddy hummed along, the hula girl on the dashboard shimmying to the vibration from the engine.

Both Glen, the detective who hated meth dealers, and the other one who didn’t so much care, led me into an interrogation the size of a confessional that was all tans and whites. Glen offered me a soda or coffee. I said water would be fine.

They did what Billy thought. Asked me about the shots and the timing of the shots fired. And I did play dumb. That night I was so frazzled, so freaked out, I explained, and bunched my arms tighter to my body so they’d notice my boobs more than my replies. I asked, “You get in a habit, you know?”

And it sort of worked. With Glen, anyway. Though I still had a bad feeling. Especially as Glen alone walked me to the door and thanked me for coming in. He suggested I get some therapy, that this had been a trauma that would likely haunt me. I almost said, Not more than Gunther alive haunted me. He explained that they had all they needed, and that it looked like they could close the case. But behind him, the other cop lingered and looked troubled as he watched me go.

Glen accompanied me all the way to the Caddy. I was glad to be away from the obviously scheming cop. The sun swiped a silver brush stroke on the topside of Glen’s hair. He gave me his card. On it he’d written his cell phone number.

“In case you think of something, or need to reach me,” he said. “Or if you want to have a drink sometime.”

I smiled, tried to keep the charm revved up. I told him I appreciated his softer dealings with me.

But as I accelerated down the road that could take me back to the Blue Martini, I knew my days in Palm Springs were numbered. It would be a matter of time before the other cop figured it out and came after me.

I also knew Billy hadn’t been lying when he’d said, I have my business, Pepper. And what he’d meant when he’d insisted I keep all of the seventy-two hundred for myself.

I’d be far away from him if I kept on driving and went to Mexico. But I’d also be alone in Mexico rather than being stuck with a meth-head in a cell. I squeezed my red steering wheel, sat up a little straighter, then took a quick moment to adjust my rearview mirror. My other mirrors were fine. I pressed on.

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett’s latest book is Palm Springs Noir (Akashic), which she edited and contributed a story. Her venture into noir fiction began with the short story, “Crazy for You,” first published in the Akashic anthology, Orange County Noir, later included in USA Noir: Best of the Akashic Noir Series. Her fiction and poetry has been published in Coolest American Stories 2022, CrimeReads, Dark City Crime & Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Crossing Borders, Shotgun Honey, The Literary Hatchet, Rock and a Hard Place, Paradigm Shifts, Broad River Review, Serial Magazine, Beach Reads, and The Oyez Review. Her first book, Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman’s Guide to Igniting the Writer Within, was a Los Angeles Times best-seller and honored with an American Society of Journalists and Authors Outstanding Book Award. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her short story, “Rowboat,” in Kelp Journal (Dec. 2023). barbarademarcobarrett.com