Friday (serial) Fiction: Devils Walk Through Galveston: Chapter 6

Next installment of Devils Walk Through Galveston.  

It's a great book with ten five-star reviews on Amazon, including this one from SarahArmyWife:  "Not only could I not put the book down, I cannot get the characters out of my mind. Schreiber has written an intelligent and intriguing novel that will take up residence in your head. The characters have a dimension and life that makes them pop off of the pages. The story has a great pace and a twisting and fascinating plot. My only complaint about the book was that it ended. I cannot wait to read this author's next work."

Its supposed to be rainy in Texas and cold in the North. It's a good weekend for a new book for you or a friend.  Get a taste below.  Get the whole thing on Amazon.

The prologue, Chapter 1 (which introduced the crime and criminal), Chapter 2 (which introduced the police officers), Chapter 3 (the seduction of the initial victim), Chapter 4 (which follows the fleeing killer), and Chapter 5 (police begin tracking the killers) were posted earlier.  In this chapter, the backstory of Eli.

I hope you enjoy it. Please read it and share.  Go to Amazon and get the book for the rest.

6.  Eli and Danielle, courting

They drove the city in the late evenings.  She’d pick up Eli in her car, an old Buick Century that had been her father’s.  It was soft and low.  It smelled of Chanel No. 5, her only financial indulgence, and had her books in the back seat. 

Danielle’s parents hadn’t approved of Eli at first.  Hadn’t approved of their twenty-three year old daughter dating a police officer who was twenty-six and in a different stage of life: out of school and working for four years.  They wanted her to finish school without distractions beyond her son and studying.  They said Eli was too old, in a dangerous line of work, should have been dating a woman his own age.  Mostly, they didn’t want her hurt again. 

She’d lived in the dorms her first year at the University of St. Thomas while they scraped and worked overtime to pay her tuition and living expenses.  They were devastated when she came home one weekend and told them that she was pregnant, maybe four months along, and didn’t want to give up the baby.  They didn’t understand how she could have been so stupid.  They told her so.

She told of a broken condom, a visit to Planned Parenthood on a Sunday morning, and two days of sickness.  Thinking the pill they gave her ended everything.  Missing a period and thinking it was stress.  Missing another and hoping.  Missing a third and taking four different pregnancy tests in the dorm bathroom with her friends outside the stall door and then crying.  A trip home for support.  For forgiveness.  She didn’t think they’d call her stupid so she wept.  They wanted to know who the father was.  At least she knew.  She didn’t bring him with her.  Wasn’t going to marry him.  Her father rubbed his temples and didn’t talk.  That hurt worst of all.

Danielle wanted to shield her son from disappointment.  He had never met any of her boyfriends.  Had never met his father.   The father didn’t want it.  Paid his meager child support and never sent cards on holidays.  It was likely better that way.  She had moved home and taken a year off school.  She went to college at the University of Houston part-time now in the mornings and watched her son in the afternoons.  He played with his grandpa in the evenings while she did schoolwork.  They all ate dinner together and she put him to bed, reading him a story then patting his back gently until he fell asleep.

Her parents wanted to meet this policeman.  They could see it in her eyes that she liked him.  They could tell she was happier, always anticipating.  So they all met for dinner one evening he had off.  They left the boy with a sitter.  Eli had come dressed well. He was overly respectful.  Said he just wanted to see Danielle and get to know her.  They talked briefly of his past, of his work, what church he went to.  Underlying all of her father’s questions was the question of why Eli would want to date a woman still in school who lived at home with a baby son.  Shaded questions of whether he would leave her when he got tired of it.  Whether he would get killed at work and leave her alone again. 

Her mother saw a young man who rose out of his chair when one of the women left the table and again when they returned.  Who gently placed his hand over Danielle’s when he talked.  Who looked her husband in the eye when he spoke and knew how to say “sir” with quiet confidence.  So they approved grudgingly and said to take it slow.

They got in a routine where Danielle would meet Eli after his shift at the police station or in front of his house.  She would drive while he rested his hand on her right forearm, then her thigh.  Never moving it up.  Just gently stroking her leg through her pants with his index finger as they talked of his days and her classes.  He left out most of the details of the dangerous things.  But he told her of getting a call about an unarmed bank robbery and pulling into the bank parking lot seeing an old man walking slowly with a cane and a bag of money.  Ordering him to stop while he hobbled toward a huge car trying to ignore the flashing lights right next to him.  It was funny and sad and nonsensical.   He gave her the details of the old robber’s hearing aid and pants pulled too high and a demand note signed with his name.  Getting out of the car and walking in front of him and gently turning him toward the squad car and taking him to the station.  Calling in a department psychologist to meet them at the station.  Knowing that dementia or Alzheimer’s and a ruined pension had done this poor old man in.  Knowing he would be put in a home and not jail.  Eli told her once that he had served a warrant on a Southwest Side meth den.  He wouldn’t give her any details.  But she watched the news the afternoons she knew he was working and knew that he had been the first in the door with a shotgun drawn.  Had leg-shot the first man running to the back of the house and that the hazmat team had spent the rest of the day at the little house.  She saw Eli gently rub his St. Michael medallion when he first got in the car.  She knew he was saving her the details but didn’t understand his calm. 

So they drove and listened to the radio and he complimented her shirt.  How good she looked.  How nice her perfume smelled.  And she: “You look tired tonight, Eli.”

“I’m fine.  Long day.” 

“Who was it this time?”

“Retarded gangbangers shooting each other.”

“You’d think it was too hot today?”

“Hot was what probably did it.  It started at the basketball courts down in South Union.” 

“Two gangs were at the same basketball court?”

“No, just one.  They got in a fight with each other over a foul.  At least that’s what we figured out after one was leg shot with a nine millimeter.”

“That seems kind of excessive.”

“Well, it was really just bad aim.  He shot out a whole clip while the dude ran away.”

“Over a foul?”

“I guess.  Probably really over who was higher up the ranks.”

“What’d you do when you got there?”

“Just came in with the lights on and the sirens blaring.  Got out of the car and cocked the shotgun.  That has a way of calming everyone down.  But, really, the guy who got shot was talking more shit than he needed to be while laying on the ground holding his leg.  They got him in the ambulance.  The guy who shot him wasn’t there anymore.”

“Who was he talking shit to, then?”

“The other guy’s buddies, the air, I don’t know.  Lots of ‘I’m gonna kill that nigga’ this and ‘I’m gonna cap a motherfucker’ that.  We reminded him that that wasn’t going to help his cause on a terroristic threat charge.”

“Did you arrest him?”

“No, just got everyone calmed down a little until the ambulance came.  Went and got the other guy down the street lifting weights in someone’s backyard.”

“How do you know you got the right guy?”

“He was the only guy in that clique who wasn’t at the basketball court.  The detectives will sort it out when they interrogate him.  He’s not going anywhere for awhile.  He had outstanding drug warrants.  What did you do today?”

“Nothing exciting.”

“No, seriously.  What did you do?”   Eli’s hand rubbing her leg gently.

“Just class.”

“I want to know.  For real.”

Quiet.  Listening to the radio.  They got off the highway on Allen Parkway, rode it along the bayou.  This the pretty part with the park on the right along the water.  People running in the late evening sunset.  Man walking a dog toward the fountain, probably hoping to have a woman approach and pet it, start a conversation.  Always at least one fat guy with no shirt and no shame.  Tonight’s guy in little purple shorts, shuffle-running with huge sunglasses on. 

They turned off on Montrose and rode it slowly into the neighborhood. He wanted to drive down Westheimer a while. See the tattoo parlors, then the restaurants.  Maybe stop at the antique stores before Shepherd.  Maybe just get an ice cream somewhere.  This was the part of town where he wanted to live.  Little coffee shops and restaurants.  Some smaller houses and decent schools.  Always something going on.  Always interesting people walking around.

She placed her hand on top of his hand resting on her leg. Stroked his thumb while his finger moved gently.  When they stopped at a light, she looked over at him.  At his soft, patient eyes.  She searched the shallow lines of his face.  This man with a reputation for fearlessness bordering on reckless.  He was feared in the ghetto because he never flinched.  He fired back with fists or elbows or his gun, but never trying to kill.  Firing back without hesitation.  Wondering how he could be so calm every evening.  Asking about her history class.  Asking how her son was sleeping at night.  She saw how he looked at her neck and the curves in the skin over her tendons as she turned her head.  She leaned over and offered her lips.  He met them for a second, then pulled back and pointed forward at the green light.  They drove on to the next red light. Another sweet kiss.  Another moment of peace.

§§

Danielle drove through the night, meandering over to the southeast side of town where Eli lived in a little rented bungalow.  Near the coffee and bread factories.  He said it made him feel at ease when he woke at night and smelled the air.  He didn’t mind the coffee grounds that occasionally made their way over on the air to dust the sidewalks and his car. 

She seemed ready to drop him off at home for the night.

She moved onto the little side streets, moving slowly around kids playing on sidewalks.  Grandfathers in big pants and tight tank-tops smoking cigars on porches watching the children play on the street, breaking up the occasional fight and nursing hurt egos with popsicles.  Eli and Danielle watched all this while hands rubbed legs absently under the dashboard glow.  An occasional wave from a car or porch.  Danielle less at ease, asking, “When do you want to meet my son?”

“Whenever you’re ready.  Whenever he’s ready.”    

“Do you want to meet him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’d just like to meet him.  I like you a whole lot.  No, it’s more than that.  I adore you.  He’s part of you.  Part of you you’ve been keeping private and safe.  I understand that.  I’d like to meet him and see that part of you.”

Danielle pensive, asking, “What do you want out of this, out of me?”

Eli tried not to look shocked.  But, he couldn’t hide his becoming pensive, too.  He knew this talk would come.  He didn’t know how it would go.  So he thought he’d try to play it smooth, let her set the tone of the talk.  Then Eli changed his mind abruptly, said, “I want all of you that you’ll give me.  I want the peace you give me on these drives to last longer.  To grow.”

Eli paused, unsure.  She let him continue. She pulled over under a large tree in a quiet part of the street.  Met his pause with silence and her fingers stroking his palm.

Eli: “I wake each morning thinking of you.  I carry you around with me all day in the back of my mind.  I carry the scent of your skin.  I pause to close my eyes and think of the taste of your lips.  You give me peace.  You give me hope.  I don’t want it to stop.  I want it to grow.”

Her heart loosening: “What about my son?  Don’t you want to keep this simple?”

“No.  Nothing good is simple.  Nothing worth anything is simple or easy.  I know he’s a little boy.  He’s two.  He still needs his butt wiped.  Still probably cries when he gets tired or hungry or just crotchety.  They do that.  They’re little.  I’m sure there are nights you don’t sleep at all and days you wander around half-feeling.  I can see it on you some days.  I like to sleep.  But I like you more.  And, he’s yours.  He is a part of you.  I want all of you.”

Danielle turned forward in her seat, put the car in gear and drove silently on the most direct route to Eli’s house.  But she kept his hand tight in hers.  Kept it on her leg.  Both silent.  She parked in front of his house and shut off the engine.  Opened her door and walked around to his side.  Eli got out and walked with her up the sidewalk and steps to his porch.  He took out his keys and opened the door.  Held it open for her to enter.  Didn’t turn on the lights.

Instead, he walked her to the middle of the living room.  Barely illuminated by the street light outside, the candle he lit.  Left her standing briefly by herself.  He turned on the record player.  A Miles Davis album, Kind of Blue.   He moved the arm over and set the needle gently down.  The piano starting the song softly, then the string Bass and trumpets.  He walked back to her.  Put his left hand on the low of her back.  Reached up the right to cup the nape of her neck.  Held it there and started to sway, his lips a few inches from hers.  His hands beginning to sweat. 

Eli leaned in.  A sweet kiss. He touched.  She shuddered, then moaned. They offered, longed for, wanted. She felt him aching.  She touched.  He shivered. He bared the skin of her back.  He took off his shirt and bared his own.  They danced slowly in the candle light. 

He ran his fingertips down from her neck, tracing her collar-bone tracing the soft skin at her elbow.  He moved it inside her arm and felt the thin scars, the tiny horizontal lines she hid under three-quarter length sleeves. He stopped and looked back in her eyes.  She leaned in his ear, said, “That’s over.  I don’t need to hurt to feel anymore.  I don’t need to hurt.”  She kissed his ear, gently, scared: “I can feel now.”  She took off the rest of her clothes, slowly, ran his hand over all her skin.  Showed him it was smooth.  Took off his clothes and he let her.  Stood naked before her.  Bare.  She brought him down to the carpet.  Brought him into her embrace. 

They kissed like weeping.  Drank each other’s breath and tears.  Moved slowly through their embrace until their bodies tensed.  They made no move to separate.  They tightened their grip.  Then their bodies sighed and they rested gently inside the embrace. They rested gently inside their fear and hope.