Three Deuces Down. Keith Donnelly

I had immediately said yes because Marlene and I were great friends and because secretly I was in love with her even though in all the time we had known each other we had never dated. Mike and I were not friends but we knew each other and I thought he was an okay guy even though he was a brain. He had been voted most likely to succeed and was going to Duke on scholarships. He hadn’t been dating Marlene very long and I could never picture them as a couple. Mike had to be home early as part of his punishment and so I dropped him first since he lived on the south side of town. Then I took Kitty home. She lived on the east side. Marlene lived near me on the lake north of Mountain Center.

      We were alone in the car heading toward the lake when Marlene scooted over next to me and said, “I don’t feel very much like going home right now, okay?”

      I nearly ran off the road. “Sure!” I said.

      She inched closer. My heart started pounding. What the hell was going on? I drove to a deserted lot very close to my house and backed the car into a shelter of trees so that we could not be seen. Marlene had not said another word. When I shut off the engine and turned toward her to ask what was going on she kissed me before I could say anything. It was a deep passionate kiss, the very best kiss of my life. I was having a hard time getting enough oxygen. We were kissing, slowly and passionately, locked in a slow sexual waltz, one I had never danced. I would have given everything to stop time and live forever inside that car with Marlene Long in my arms.

      The car windows were down and I could feel the breeze flow through the car. Outside the cicada and cricket serenade faded from my awareness as life morphed into slow motion. Buttons were unbuttoned, zippers unzipped, clothes discarded, and my virginity was lost inside a 1975 Chevy on a magical summer night that would haunt me for years.

      I laid awake that night replaying every move of my encounter with Marlene Long. When sleep finally came, it came deep and long and I slept until noon. On waking I thought at first that Saturday night had been a dream, but as I sat up on the edge of my bed I knew it had been real.

      I got up and fixed a cup of coffee. I had been drinking coffee since I was six years old and because I started at such an early age I took cream and sugar. When I felt I was back in the land of the living, I picked up the phone and called Marlene. Thank God she answered.

      “Hi,” I said.

      “Hi,” she replied.

      “Can I come up?” I asked.

      “Sure,” she said. She sounded normal. I was hoping that she didn’t feel like she had made a major mistake.

      “See you in a few minutes,” I said. “I’m walking.”

      Marlene’s house was about a half-mile walk. I took it slow. I needed time to think about last night and try to make some sense of it. When I arrived Marlene was waiting for me at the edge of her driveway. She came to me and kissed me as if to say last night was for real.

      She smiled. “How are ya?”

      “Confused,” I said.

      “Don’t be,” she said. “This has been coming for a long time. I had a sense of how you felt about me but I was never sure.”

      “It should have been pretty obvious,” I smiled. Then the bomb dropped.

      “Let’s get married,” Marlene proposed. She just blurted it out. “Let’s just run away and do it. It will be great. We can attend the same college, live in a married dorm, study together, and everything.”

      She was babbling and my head was spinning. Even at eighteen I was a pretty good detective and I sensed that something was not right. I thought that I did love her, but I wasn’t sure about her.

      “I’ll marry you only if you are really in love with me.” I said.

      She stared at me and did not reply. Tears started to form in her eyes and my world started breaking apart. Then it hit me. “You’re pregnant,” I whispered.

      If a look could have killed, I would have died right where I stood. We stared at each other for what seemed like eternity. Then finally Marlene spoke in mean guttural sounds. “I never want to see you again,” she hissed. “And don’t ever call!” With that she turned and ran back to her house, leaving me standing at the edge of her driveway with a dumbstruck look on my face and a knot in my stomach.

      The next day I called anyway. Marlene’s mother answered.

      “Hi, Mrs. Long. It’s Don Youngblood. May I speak to Marlene, please?”

      “Oh, hi, Don,” Mrs. Long said pleasantly. “How are you?”

      “I’m fine, Mrs. Long. Is Marlene around?”

      “I’m sorry, Don, Marlene left for California early this morning to spend some time with my sister.”

      “When do you expect her back?” I asked.

      “I really don’t know, Don. She was talking about staying out there and going to college. If I hear from her, I’ll tell her you called. I have to go now, Don, I think someone is at the front door.” She hung up before I could say good-bye.

      It was definitely a kiss-off. If I hear from her . . . So Marlene had been banished to California.

      I spent the rest of the day trying to decide what to do and feeling sorry for myself. I had managed to have the best and the worst days of my life back-to-back. No easy task. Still, I wanted to figure this out. If Marlene was pregnant, who was the father? I doubted it was Mike Brown, but nothing would surprise me now. My best guess would have been Mark Lewis, who Marlene had dated a long time, but they had broken up months ago and she wasn’t that pregnant.

      I wandered around in a trance the rest of the day. When I went to bed that night I wasn’t any closer to a conclusion than when the day had started. Little did I know it would be years before I discovered the truth, but I knew one thing for sure—Marlene Long was gone.

1

      I was in the inner office late one fall afternoon. Billy, my best friend and partner, was in the outer office working on his latest painting. The sign on our outer door read,

      Cherokee Investigations

      Donald Youngblood and Bill T. Feathers

      Private Investigators

      Billy and I didn’t start out as licensed private investigators. We were basically just hanging out. The whole thing started as a joke. Then we got our licenses and in the years that followed a lot of people began to take us seriously. I didn’t need the money but I did want to help people and bring some excitement into my dreary life. Becoming a private investigator seemed the perfect occupation to do just that. Besides, you can put anything you want to on an office door.

      Billy, on the other hand, did need the money. His only other source of income was from his photography, painting, and drawing, where his reputation had far outdistanced his income. He had a small gallery where he sold underpriced original framed photos and his art. He also acted as a forensic photographer for a number of the smaller local police and sheriff’s departments in the east Tennessee area. He lived frugally and he invested well. I know because I handled his investments.

      I was playing solitaire on my desktop computer when the door opened to the outer office and I heard voices. One voice was Billy’s. The other voice I did not recognize.

      “Blood, you busy? Someone here to see you,” Billy’s voice rumbled back into my office. Billy did not have to talk loud to be heard. Billy had called me “Blood” since we became best friends in college. He says it is a spiritual thing. A few of my close friends have called me Blood since junior high school, but I didn’t tell Billy. Best for him to think that it was his idea.

      What Billy brings to our partnership is a deep understanding of the human condition and an air of danger. Billy is a big person. He seems to be in touch with life on a different plane than I am. It