The Accidental Detective and other stories: Short Story Collection. Laura Lippman

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      “A horse,” she said. “Duh.”

      “Just any horse? Or a certain one?”

      She smiled. “In fact, I am a particular horse. I’m Misty of Chincoteague.”

      “Misty of where?”

      “It’s an island off Virginia,” she was shouting in my ear, her breath warm and moist. “There are wild ponies, and every summer, the volunteer firemen herd them together and cross them over to the mainland, where they’re auctioned off.”

      “That where you from?”

      “Chincoteague?”

      “Virginia.”

      “My family is from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. But I’m from here. I go to Tulane.”

      The reference to college should have made me feel a little out of my league, or was supposed to, but somehow it made me feel bolder. “Going to college don’t you make you from somewhere, any more than a cat born in an oven can call itself a biscuit.”

      “I love it here,” she said, throwing open her arms. Her breasts were small, but they were there, round little handfuls. “I’m never going to leave.”

      “Ernie K-Doe’s?” I asked, as if I didn’t know what she meant.

      “Yes,” she said, playing along. “I’m going to live here forever. I’m going to dance until I drop dead, like the girl in the red shoes.”

      “Red shoes? You wearing cowboy boots.”

      She and her friend laughed, and I knew it was at my expense, but it wasn’t a mean laughter. Not yet. They danced and they danced, and I began to think that she had been telling a literal truth, that she planned to dance until she expired. I offered her cool drinks, beers and sodas, but she shook her head; I asked if she wanted to go for a walk, but she just twirled away from me. To be truthful, she was wearing me out. But I was scared to leave her side because whenever I glanced in the corner, there was Big Roy, his pop eyes fixed on her, almost yellow in the dying light. I may have been a skinny nineteen-year-old in blue jeans and a Sean John T-shirt—this was back when Sean John was at its height—but I was her self-appointed knight. And even though she acted as if she didn’t need me, I knew she did.

      Eventually she started to tire, fanning her face with her hands, overheated from the dancing and, I think, all those eyes trained on her. That Mardi Gras was cool and overcast, and even with the crush of bodies in Ernie K-Doe’s, it wasn’t particularly warm. But her cheeks were bright red, rosy, and there were patches of sweat forming on her leotard—two little stripes beneath her barely-there breasts, a dot below her tail and who knows where else.

      Was she stupid and innocent, or stupid and knowing? That is, did she realize the effect she was having and think she could control it, or did she honestly not know? In my heart of hearts, I knew she was not an innocent girl, but I wanted to see her that way because that can be excused.

      Seeing her steps slow, anticipating that she would need a drink now, Big Roy pressed up, dancing in a way that only a feared man could get away with, a sad little hopping affair. Not all black men can dance, but the ones who can’t usually know better than to try. Yet no one in this crowd would dare make fun of Big Roy, no matter how silly he looked.

      Except her. She spun away, made a face at her cowgirl, pressing her lips together as if it was all she could do to keep from laughing. Big Roy’s face was stormy. He moved again, placing himself in her path, and she laughed out loud this time. Grabbing her cowgirl’s hand, she trotted to the bar and bought her own Heineken.

      “Dyke,” Big Roy said, his eyes fixed on her tail.

      “Yeah,” I said, hoping that agreement would calm him, that he would shake off the encounter. Myself, I didn’t get that vibe from her at all. She and Cowgirl were tight, but they weren’t like that, I didn’t think.

      When Pony Girl and Cowgirl left the bar, doing a little skipping step, Big Roy wasn’t too far behind. So I followed Big Roy as he followed those girls, wandering under the freeway, as if the whole thing were just a party put on for them. These girls were so full of themselves that they didn’t even stop and pay respect to the Big Chiefs they passed, just breezed by as if they saw such men every day. The farther they walked, the more I worried. Big Roy was all but stalking them, but they never looked back, never seemed to have noticed. And Big Roy was so fixed on them that I didn’t have to worry about him glancing back and seeing me behind him. Even so, I darted from strut to strut, keeping them in my sights. Night was falling.

      They reached a car, a pale blue sedan—theirs, I guess—and it was only when I watched them trying to get into it that I began to think that the beers they had drunk had hit them hard and fast. They weren’t big girls, after all, and they hadn’t eaten anything that I had seen. They giggled and stumbled, Cowgirl dropping her keys—after all, Pony Girl didn’t have no place to keep keys—their movements wavy and slow. The pavement around the car was filthy with litter, but that didn’t stop Pony Girl from going down on her knees to look for the keys, sticking her tail high in the air. Even at that moment, I thought she had to know how enticing that tail was, how it called attention to itself.

      It was then that Big Roy jumped on her. I don’t know what he was thinking. Maybe he assumed Cowgirl would run off, screaming for help—and wouldn’t find none for a while, because it took some time for screams to register on Mardi Gras day, to tell the difference between pleasure and fear. Maybe he thought rape could turn to sex, that if he just got started with Pony Girl, she’d like it. Maybe he meant to hurt them both, so it’s hard to be sorry for what happened to him. I guess the best answer is that he wasn’t thinking. This girl had made him angry, disrespected him, and he wanted some satisfaction for that.

      But whatever Big Roy intended, I’m sure it played different in his head from what happened. Cowgirl jumped on his back, riding him, screaming and pulling at his hair. Pony Girl rolled away, bringing up those tiny boots and thrusting them at just the spot, so he was left gasping on all fours. They tell women to go for the eyes if they’s fighting, not to count on hitting that sweet spot, but if you can get it, nothing’s better. The girls had all the advantage they needed, all they had to do was find those keys and get out of there.

      Instead, the girls attacked him again, rushing him, crazy bitches. They didn’t know the man they were dealing with, the things he’d done just because he could. Yet Big Roy went down like one of those inflatable clowns you box with, except he never popped back up. He went down and … I’ve never quite figured out what I saw just then, other than blood. Was there a knife? I tell you, I like to think so. If there wasn’t a knife, I don’t want to contemplate how they did what they did to Big Roy. Truth be told, I turned my face away after seeing that first spurt of blood geyser into the air, the way they pressed their faces and mouths toward it like greedy children, as if it were a fire hydrant being opened on a hot day. I crouched down and prayed that they wouldn’t see me, but I could still hear them. They laughed the whole time, a happy squealing sound. Again, I thought of little kids playing, only this time at a party, whacking at one of those papier-mâché things. A piñata, that’s what you call it. They took Big Roy apart as if he were a piñata.

      Their laughter and the other sounds died away, and I dared to look again. Chests heaving, they were standing over what looked like a bloody mound of clothes. They looked quite pleased with themselves. To my amazement, Pony Girl peeled her leotard off then and there, so she was wearing nothing but the tights and the boots. She appeared to be about to start on them, when she yelled out, in my direction:

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