Another message chimed in. It was Mae stating that she didn’t mean to sign that email Love Mae.
Tag printed out her picture in full size and wallet size. He knew Kade wouldn’t recognize her, but decided to show him the picture and ask anyway, if for no other reason than to see if he was alone in considering her the most beautiful girl on earth. He cut the smaller picture from the printed paper feeling somewhat like a stalker. Was he going to stalk her? He didn’t want to answer that honestly.
Tag knocked on Kade’s bedroom door. A hoarse voice asked him what the hell he wanted. Candor was never something Kade suffered without.
“It’s three o’clock, don’t you think it’s time to get up?”
“Who are you, my mom?”
“Yes, I’m your mom. I’m coming in.” Tag opened the door and entered. It was mostly dark, a few bars of light shone from between broken blind slats. “Look at this picture, tell me what you think.”
“Hit the lights,” Kade said and sat up.
Tag turned the light on and immediately wished he hadn’t. Kade sat up, naked, at the edge of his bed. His hair was a tousled mop of oily black hair. “Jesus, Kade. If I have to see you naked, could you at least not have a hard-on?”
“I have to piss! And don’t act like you aren’t impressed.”
Tag handed him the photo. “What do you think?”
“Who is she?”
“Mae Clark.”
“Name sounds familiar. She’s cute. Really cute.”
“She’s perfect.”
“If you want my boner to go away, it doesn’t help handing me this.”
“And her name should sound familiar, my protagonist in both novels is Mae Clark; but then you only read, what, two pages? Three?”
“I guess there are two big dicks in my room.” He stood and took the boxers and jeans off his computer chair. “You met a chick with the same name as the one in your books? That’s a little crazy. You plan on stalking her?”
“I’m thinking about it,” Tag kidded, but the words came out too naturally. He probably would’ve passed a polygraph with that answer. At least he didn’t know where she lived. It’s harder to cross the line when you don’t know where it’s drawn.
Kade put on a Led Zeppelin tee-shirt, tight and faded. “Let me see that again?” His voice registered high. Like he just remembered he used to date her back in the day. Tag handed it over.
Examining the picture, Kade said, “Huh. You’d think I’d have remembered seeing this hot little number there.”
“There?”
“The dentist,” Kade said as a matter of fact. There was nothing in the picture to signify it being a dental office. Only a framed picture in the background, a filing cabinet off to the side, lots of white paint, and a beautiful girl.
It was the framed picture.
Chapter 34
After business as usual at the Saucy Minx, Tag entered his apartment at 3:00 A.M. to a different kind of Kade. On the couch, beer in one hand, gun in the other. The place was trashed. Tag was used to trashed, but there was nothing ordinary here. Kade watched amusedly as Tag fixed on the coffee table (what was left of it) and said, “Your coffee table might need to be refinished. Whaddya think?”
The coffee table was decimated. It was kindling in a heap with a coaster sitting comically on top. “What the fuck, Kade? What did you do here?”
“Oh sure, blame the roommate. By the looks of things, I ransacked the place before having a little fun with an axe. Go check your room, the fun doesn’t end here.”
“Who did this?”
Kade shrugged, took a pull from his beer.
“I’m calling the police,” Tag said and reached in his pocket for his cell.
“Don’t bother. They left a couple of hours ago.”
Tag went to his room asking if they were robbed.
“Nothing of mine is missing. I’d figure a thief would take my laptop and iPod. Let me know if anything of yours is missing.”
Tag’s room was in disarray. His bed was a jumbled mess of springs, cleaved cotton, memory foam, and tattered sheets. His computer wasn’t stolen, but it was now an art project of plastic shards, circuit-boards and glass. “Damnit! Why didn’t you call me at work?” He returned to the living room and added, “Can you not wield your gun while you’re drinking, psycho?”
“Check your cellphone, Bro’cifer.”
Tag saw that he had three missed calls from Kade. “Oh, sorry. You know how loud it gets at work when it’s busy. Fill me in.”
“I got back from class at seven and this is how it was. Why?—no clue? Who?—I’d love to know myself.”
“How’s your room? Did he fuck up your bed too?”
“My room’s fine. Maybe the psycho got exhausted from destroying your room. Oh, there’s a card on the counter. Officer Pettis. Looks like a young Barney Fife. You need to call him tomorrow and let him know if you have any enemies who might have done this. Or any pertinent information at all.”
“The cops care? That’s a first.”
“That’s the most intelligent thing you’ve said in the three years I’ve known you. They probably wouldn’t have cared if some whacko broke in and trashed our place without stealing anything major or killing anyone. But they do care because of what else happened.”
“And that is…?”
“That damned dog downstairs won’t be waking us up anymore.”
“The boxer? It’s dead?”
“I didn’t see it in the flesh, but judging from the sheet that was draped over it, I’d guess it has a lot in common with your coffee table.”
“Killed with an axe? You’re kidding.”
“Dude, I wouldn’t kid about that. That dog, even though I hated it and wished it would get killed by an axe or a stick of dynamite or a meteorite a hundred times, it was still the pet of that cute little kid, whatsername.”
“Sheila. Ah, man, that poor thing.”
“The dog or Sheila?”
“Sheila. No love lost with the dog. So this guy broke into their apartment too?”
“No. I’m not sure what happened. But I do know it happened outside; the leash was attached to its carcass.”
“So Sheila was taking him for a walk? She saw it happen?”
“Piggy Pettis was pretty sure that Sheila saw it happen, but she denies it. Denile is Chico’s largest river, you know. What scares me is that it was still light out when Paul Bunyan got to work hacking shit up. If that’s not a blatant disregard for getting caught, I don’t know what is.”
“Did anything else happen? Just the dog and our apartment?”
“That’s all. Unless something else happened that hasn’t turned up yet or I don’t know about. So tell me, Tag, do you have any enemies?”
“No.” But he was thinking of one. Had been thinking of one from the moment he stepped foot in the apartment. One named Hell’s Fucking Fury, though his driver’s license would name him Trent Blackwood. “No. Especially one who would do this. It’s just the luck of the draw that he broke into our place. Bad luck.” Words like luck and coincidence were becoming staples of Tag’s vernacular.
“And destroyed your stuff but not mine? Bad luck again? And you keep referring to this douche-bag as a he. Maybe it was a she.”
“Girls don’t do this kind of shit.”
“I’m pretty sure that it’s not in our nature to hack up kids’ pets and destroy people’s apartments for sport, either.”
“If it was an axe, it was a guy. A girl would use a gun or something.”
“I’m just saying, you have a way with girls. Maybe you upset one. Maybe you really pissed one off. Maybe you pissed the right one off on a heavy flow day. One who missed a few doses of her medication.”
“No, Kade. Didn’t happen. And yes I do well with women. The drunk ones. And at closing time. So don’t paint me as a lady-killer, please.” Tag sighed and said, “I guess I can sleep on the couch. I’ll have to get up early to buy a bed. Damnit. I can’t afford to b
e buying a bed and a computer.”
“I feel bad for you, bro. And a little guilty that my stuff is all in one piece. You can use my computer until you get a new one, since I basically just use it for email and porn. You write most of my papers, anyway.”
“That will help a lot. I appreciate it. Might be a month before I have the cash to buy a new one. Is that cool with you?”
“Yeah, whatever. Just buy a bed and sheets for now.”
“I have some old sheets.”
Kade stood. “I’m going to bed. You should try checking your cellphone once in a while. It’s fucking annoying not being able to reach you.”
“You’re right. See you tomorrow.” Tag had a thought. “Hey, would you mind letting me sleep with the gun? You’re in your room, I’m out here. If he breaks in again I’ll be split in two before you get a chance to shoot him.”
“Sure. But would you shoot a girl?”
“Fuck off, it ain’t a chick.”
“Oh? Whoever came in either had a key or I forgot to lock the door. And can you recall the last time I forgot to lock the door?” Tag couldn’t. “Neither can I. You think a guy would be more likely to have a spare key to our place than a chick? We don’t have many guests; the ones we do have are chicks, man.”
“You must have forgotten to lock the door.”
“If I did I’m sincerely sorry.”
“Don’t be. If it was locked, he probably would have chopped our door down and we’d have to buy a new door, too.”
* * *
After a bowl of cereal and a short conversation with Officer Pettis over the phone, Tag threw away in the communal dumpster his heap of computer parts and splinters of coffee table, sheets and mangled mattress. He then set up Kade’s laptop on his now-empty desk (empty but not free from cleave marks) and checked his aspiringwriter-dot-com account. He had no messages, and that was just fine by him. There was no scent of fire in his tinder-house of sanity. He sent a message to MaeClarkisme:
Hey, Mae. I’m probably wrong in thinking this, but did Trent come to my apartment yesterday around five or six in the afternoon with an axe and a temper? And destroy the place? And kill the downstairs neighbor’s dog? I know how ridiculous that sounds, and if it wasn’t for the fact that whoever did this used an axe, I wouldn’t be asking you. Your boyfriend threatened to use a hatchet on me. I hope you’re okay. I can’t stop thinking about you. I think we should get together. What do you say? Signed, Tag.
Tag adjusted his account options to include his personal email address, so whenever he got a message it would be sent to his G-mail and his phone would alert him. He wasn’t sure if referring to Mae’s boyfriend as Trent was a good idea or bad one, but if he was right she’d have a hard time blowing him off. She’d start seeing the light that was now blinding Tag.
He parked his Corolla in front of the Minx. Inside he swapped keys with Dallas and promised him he’d fill his truck up with gas. His first stop was Goodwill. If he could get a bed cheap there, that would help a ton. They only had a single bed and a queen. The single was too small and the queen smelled of urine. So much for discounted beds.
At Sears he bought an on-sale queen bed, wrote a check for just under three hundred. Tag was grateful that Dallas had a camper shell over his truck-bed. Having his new mattress blow out of the truck while cruising along was so easy to imagine that he’d be surprised if it didn’t happen. With the help of a Sears employee he loaded it in the truck.
Driving home he passed Olive street—Diamond Smiles had an Olive Street address—and felt an overwhelming urge to stop by and see if Kade was right. “Fuck it. Why the hell not.” He merged quickly and turned onto Broadway. His heart was racing. He made his first right and then a quick left back onto Olive Street. Seconds later he was parking at the dentist office. Maybe he’d have recognized the place too if he went to the dentist more frequently than once a decade. Maybe not; surely there were several dentist offices in Chico, small as the town might be. Tag thought it dumb luck that Kade not only had an uncharacteristic regard for his six-month dental checkups (paid by his father’s insurance), but that his dentist was that of Mae’s Diamond Smiles. It fit well in the current theme of Luck and Coincidence. There was no time like the present to begin a habit of playing the lottery.
After locking the borrowed truck he checked his cell for new email. He had none. His heart hammered as he neared the office. The cool breeze against his nervous sweat made the season feel less like spring and more like winter. Tag opened the door—a door that his Mae had opened untold amount of times. Maybe her germs were transferring to his hand from the iron handle at that very moment. “You’re certifiably insane, you know that?”
Inside, two women in purple scrubs were on the employed side of the counter, with another woman in nice clothes seated and showing Tag her polite face. Tag smiled at her; she returned it. Her glossy white teeth looked well taken care of.
“Good afternoon. Do you have an appointment?”
“No, sorry.” He scanned the walls behind the receptionist for what Kade had been alerted by and there it was: a framed portrait of a red-headed ginger girl with freckles and bangs—it wasn’t easy to distinguish between the freckles and mud that specked and mottled every inch of her filthy little body—clutching a dripping ice-cream cone and smiling ever so widely at the camera. Her teeth were immaculate. Maybe air-brushed. They were the only part of that kid that didn’t beg for a high-pressure wash and a gallon of soap. The caption read: Because Nobody Likes A Dirty Mouthed Kid.
“I was hoping you could tell me if Mae is working today.” Her brow drew in. Tag knew at once she didn’t know the name.
“Mae?”
“Mae Clark?”
“There isn’t a Mae here, hun.”
“But that picture,” he nodded to the wall behind her. She looked over her shoulder as Tag produced a wallet from his pocket. “See?” He showed her the wallet-sized photo. “Same picture.”
“It’s the same, but so are all our offices.”
“There are other Diamond Smiles?”
“Six.”
“Is there one in Oroville?”
“On Cypress Avenue, yes.”
“Great. Thank you.”
Tag returned to his borrowed truck as he crunched numbers in his head. It was five o’clock. He had to work at seven, and it was a twenty-thirty minute drive to Oroville (times two). He had to get his bed set up as well. Decisions, decisions. He removed a quarter from his pocket and said, “Heads I go to Oroville, tails I take care of business here.” He flipped the coin and slapped it on the back of his hand, peeked. Tails.
“That’s no good, the coin needs to land freely and without me navigating it.” He reached out over the passenger seat and flipped the coin. It bounced off the seat and onto the floor. He leaned over. Tails.
“Nah, it can’t touch the floor. Everyone knows that.” He flipped it again and it bounced off the seat and onto the floor. “Damnit.” He leaned over to find that it was heads this time.
“Heads, huh?” He took a deep pensive breath. “Guess I’ll go then.” The only thing left to decide was bring the bed home now or after. He really wanted to see Mae now, so that decision came pretty easily. Besides, he didn’t have time if he wanted to spend more than a couple minutes with Mae.
* * *
It was half-past five when Tag parked in the crowded lot of the building identical to its Chico branch. It was a single floored building, remote, and had one tree in a planter centered in the parking lot; no other vegetation as far as the eye could see. Tag hated Oroville. Too many tweakers. Admittedly this was the good part of town, but tweakers could travel. They are a resourceful bunch. What the hell was Mae doing living in Oroville, anyway? She was too good for this rotten town. Probably the decision of her piece-of-shit boyfriend. Trent? He had no doubt that was his name.
His hand encircled the ornate iron door-handle on a glass door—not as streak-free as the Chico branch—and the idea of touching Mae
’s germs returned. A fluttering of nerves reminded him of being in high school. He suddenly had to pee. Or was it that he just noticed? He laughed at himself (nervously) and entered.
Inside was a cookie-cutter copy of the Chico branch, with the exception of the girls behind the counter. Two were unattractive even by Kade’s standards. A third wasn’t too bad: tall slender blonde, lank hair drawn into a pony tail, bare minimum makeup. A lady in a dark gray pant-suit greeted him and asked if she could help him. She didn’t ask if he had an appointment, probably because there weren’t any appointments remaining this close to closing time. Either that or this office was a front and not a dentist office at all, but rather a methamphetamine lab and these employees were all in on it. All in on the take. The few people sitting in the reception area weren’t waiting for their loved-ones but waiting for their meth orders to be filled.
“I hope so. Is Mae Clark working?”
The lady rolled her eyes. Tag couldn’t believe she just did that. No class. Then again, he was in Oroville. “No. Called in sick. Again.” Emphasis on again.
What a bitch. “Happens a lot?”
She snorted and asked if there was anything else she could do for him.
“Will she be back tomorrow?”
She looked around, as if she were about to whisper where he could score some really good meth, even better than the stuff they made in back, and said in a low tone, “I doubt it. And not just because she’ll likely call in sick again. Management doesn’t much care for excessive absences.”
Tag matched her volume. “So you think she’ll lose her job?”
A shrug that said I don’t know, but I do know. “I’m sorry, you are…?”
“Her friend Ta—” Are you stupid? You saw your coffee table, did you not? You want your body to look like that? “Adam. Her friend Adam. How long has she worked here?”
“Oh… a couple months? Maybe longer. Hard to say, seeing how she likes her time off.”
“Do you dislike her?”
“She’s all right. I’ve had to come in on my days off more than I like to remember because of your friend. Adam, I can’t shake the sensation that I know you from somewhere. Have we met?”
“If you’ve ever had drinks at the Saucy Minx, probably we have.”
“Saucy Minx?” Her brutal face got uglier with that unknowing expression.