Gregory Mason
The helpless captive
CHAPTER ONE
Neon lights oranged the sky as the town's avid move-goers queued up in zig-zagged lines anxious for the late afternoon matinee to spill out of Elston's sole movie, which only last year had been converted from a 1940's dance hall.
Auburn-haired Kathy McGuire gave her husband's hefty paw an extra squeeze and leaned her head forward to peek at the promotion poster that advertised this week's movie, the only local entertainment around except for George Mason's bango trio that played twice a week in the basement of the country club. The post depicted a teenage couple seated on a Harley Davidson; the boy's high booted heels dug into the ground to support the massive weight of the machine while a girl with long blonde hair clasped her hands around the boy's stomach, letting her hands drift down to the vee of his pants. The square-jawed youth was turning to hand the girl a poorly-rolled brown cigarette.
"Any idea what this movie is about, honey?" Kathy asked demurely in her hushed voice, knowing her husband didn't like to discuss anything in public.
"Cop show," he sputtered with a jerk of his head.
"Oh, I thought maybe it would be a romance or a musical," Kathy pouted, stepping back at her husband's side and staring straight ahead. The orange of the twinkling neon caught the bored expression on her delicate features. As if I even had to ask, thought the young woman with a twinge of bitterness. Cop shows, violence, death, and justice… that's all he cares about. With a sudden empty ache, the question skipped through her mind: What would her husband have been, if not an undercover policeman? What else could a suspicious, brusque man like Art McGuire contribute to society, except for an occasional "bust" on a drug or prostitution ring?
Drawing her lips into a taut line of disgust, she stared up at her husband, studying the dominance of his strong jaw line, the rippling of his cheek muscles as he worked his lower jaw against his upper. He's hard at work again, realized the finely-boned wife with a smattering of guilt for feeling neglected. Mentally, she caressed the taut muscles in his neck, the tightness in his shoulders. The pressure of work, a job never completed, impossible to complete until the last criminal was behind bars, showed in the furrows of his high, straight forehead.
Did it really matter that she wasn't getting her own way? No, she conceded, it couldn't override Art's devotion to his work. His determination. His sense of justice. For it was those qualities that made Art who he was – a well respected member of the police force, a man who loved children, hated to see them throw their futures away for a few adolescent kicks. What he failed to give his wife in the way of affection, he sacrificed whole-heartedly to the cause of purifying America's youth. That, she could not complain about.
"Wanna see this movie," he grated, giving his wife's hand a jerk in a compromised show of affection. "Got a hunch it's gonna help me bust this drug ring we've been investigating," he whispered, cupping his hand next to his mouth and tilting his head to accommodate the ten-inch difference in their statures. As a policeman, he'd learned the power of secrecy, discretion.
And Kathy had learned to respect that in her tall, broad-shouldered husband. The excitement of the unknown; never knowing if it was a whore, a pimp, or heroine smuggler that he was putting behind bars. The task always involved one common ingredient: change. Different clothing every day to disguise his identity, working miles away from home. Yet it meant a continuous circus of moving from city to town, West coast to the East coast, finally to settle here in the corn belt of Elston for a few weeks – months…? – until this dope case was settled. Then on to another assignment, Texas, California, Georgia?
The past eight years of their marriage had been a merry-go-round, staying on one place long enough to open a bank account, always renting a house, never buying. No thought of the future, only contemplating scars from yesterday. And Kathy, seven years younger than her husband, was growing weary of change.