Stories: All-New Tales

“I have to tell you,” he said, unfastening her seat belt, wrestling her out of the car. “I enjoy life a lot more as a catch-and-release fisherman. It’s got all the pleasure of fishing without the downside, you know?”

He arranged her on the ground on her back. He went back for a tire iron, and smashed both her kneecaps before untaping her ankles, but left the tape on her wrists and across her mouth.

He cut her clothing off her. Then he took off his own clothes and folded them neatly. Adam and Eve in the garden, he thought. Naked and unashamed. Lord, we finished all night and caught nothing.

He fell on her.

BACK HOME, HE LOADED his clothes into the washing machine, then drew a bath for himself. But he didn’t get into the tub right away. He had her scent on him, and found himself in no hurry to wash it off. Better to be able to breathe it in while he relived the experience, all of it, from the first sight of her in the supermarket to the snapped-twig sound of her neck when he broke it.

And he remembered as well the first time he’d departed from the catch-and-release pattern. It had been less impulsive that time, he’d thought long and hard about it, and when the right girl turned up—young, blond, a cheerleader type, with a turned-up nose and a beauty mark on one cheek—when she turned up, he was ready.

Afterward he’d been upset with himself. Was he regressing? Had he been untrue to the code he’d adopted? But it hadn’t taken him long to get past those thoughts, and this time he felt nothing but calm satisfaction.

He was still a catch-and-release fisherman. He probably always would be. But, for God’s sake, that didn’t make him a vegetarian, did it?

Hell, no. A man still had to have a square meal now and then.

POLKA DOTS AND MOONBEAMS

Jeffrey Ford

HE CAME FOR HER AT SEVEN in the Belvedere convertible, top down, emerald green, with those fins in the back, jutting up like goalposts. From her third-floor apartment window, she saw him pull to the curb out front.

“Hey, Dex,” she called, “where’d you get the submarine?”

He tilted back his homburg and looked up. “All hands on deck, baby,” he said, patting the white leather seat.

“Give me a minute,” she said, laughed, and then blew him a kiss. She walked across the blue braided rug of the parlor and into the small bathroom with the water-stained ceiling and cracked plaster. Standing before the mirror, she leaned in close to check her makeup—enough rouge and powder to repair the walls. Her eye shadow was peacock blue, her mascara indigo. She gave her girdle a quick adjustment through her dress, then smoothed the material and stepped back to take it all in. Wrapped in strapless black, with a design of small white polka dots, like stars in a perfect universe, she turned in profile and inhaled. “Good Christ,” she said and exhaled. Passing through the kitchenette, she lifted a silver flask from the scarred tabletop and shoved it into her handbag.

Her heels made a racket on the wooden steps, and she wobbled for balance just after the first landing. Pushing through the front door, she stepped out into the evening light and the first cool breeze in what seemed an eternity. Dex was waiting for her at the curb, holding the passenger door open. As she approached, he tipped his hat and bent slightly at the waist.

“Looking fine there, madam,” he said.

She stopped to kiss his cheek.

The streets were empty, not a soul on the sidewalk, and save for the fact that here and there in a few of the windows of the tall, crumbling buildings they passed a dim yellow light could be seen, the entire city seemed empty as well. Dex turned left on Kraft and headed out of town.

“It’s been too long, Adeline,” he said.

“Hush now, sugar,” she told him. “Let’s not think about that. I want you to tell me where you’re taking me tonight.”

“I’ll take you where I can get you,” he said.

She slapped his shoulder.

“I want a few cocktails,” she said.

“Of course, baby, of course. I thought we’d head over to the Ice Garden, cut the rug, have a few, and then head out into the desert after midnight to watch the stars fall.”

“You’re an ace,” she said and leaned forward to turn on the radio. A smoldering sax rendition of “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” like a ball of wax string unwinding, looped once around their necks and then blew away on the rushing wind.

She lit them each a cigarette as the car sailed on through the rising night. An armadillo scuttled through the beams of the headlights fifty yards ahead, and the aroma of sage vied with Adeline’s orchid scent. Clamping his cigarette between his lips, Dex put his free hand on her knee. She took it into her own, twining fingers with him. Then it was dark, the asphalt turning to dirt, and the moon rose slow as a bubble in honey above the distant silhouette of hills; a cosmic cream pie of a face, eyeing Adeline’s décolletage. She leaned back into the seat, smiling, and closed her eyes. Only a moment passed before she opened them, but they were already there, passing down the long avenue lined with monkey-puzzle trees toward the circular drive of the glimmering Ice Garden. Dex pulled up and parked at the entrance. As he was getting out, a kid with red hair and freckles, dressed in a valet uniform, stepped forward.

“Mr. Dex,” he said, “we haven’t seen you for a while.”

“Take a picture, Jim-Jim,” said Dex and flipped a silver dollar in the air. The kid caught it and dropped it into his vest pocket before opening the door for Adeline.

“How’s tricks, Jim?” she asked as he delivered her to the curb.

“They just got better,” he said and patted his vest.

Dex came around the back of the car, took his date by the arm, and together they headed past the huge potted palms and down a brief tunnel toward a large rectangular patio open to the desert sky and bounded by a lush garden of the most magnificent crystal flora, emitting a blizzard of reflection. At the edge of the high-arching portico, Dex and Adeline stood for a moment, scanning the hubbub of revelers and, at the other end of the expanse of tables and chairs and dance floor, the onstage antics of that night’s musical act, Nabob and His Ne’er-do-wells. Above the sea of heads, chrome trombone in one hand, mic in the other, Nabob belted out a jazzed-up version of “Weak Knees and Wet Privates.”

A fellow in white tux and red fez approached the couple. He was a plump little man with a pencil mustache; a fifty-year-old baby playing dress-up. Dex removed his homburg and reached a hand out. “Mondrian,” he said.