“And I do believe you.”
“You bet your purple bottom.”
“I don't know what to make of it all, but I do believe you. And don't ever confuse my bottom with Charlie's again.”
“We'll talk more about this when I get back.”
“I'd like that. Not about our bottoms, though.”
“Oh, and one more thing, if I were you I'd turn my cell phone off. The way this story has been exploding in the news.”
“It's in the news?” That would explain the dozens of missed calls on my cell phone.
“The press is stuffing this like a Thanksgiving turkey, so turn it off.”
“Anderson Cooper might call.”
Josephine looked at me. “Turn your phone off.”
“You've got it, boss.” I lowered my head and closed the car door. “Now get the hell out of here.”
“Heaven, you mean.”
“Oh, that's right, the honeymoon; beach itches and all that.”
“Though it may just be hell for Charlie, with what I have in store.” Her grin was menacing. “School's in session.”
I said: “One woman's heaven is another man's hell.”
Josephine was too excited plotting out a complete domination of Charlie to answer. I tried to imagine what terror Charlie had in store for him and the war stories that would surely follow as she sped off down the street for the airport. Maybe some horrors were better left off unsaid.
13
ONE MISERABLE GAZE at my Belmont Shore apartment building and I immediately knew what I was really pining for, a cold beer from The Guide Dog; my go-to Second Street hangout. I was miserably tired, dehydrated, and my electrolytes, whatever those were, needed a good fill. My logic was sound. And besides, it was only a short four minute walk. I was rather fond of its bartending owner too, especially since growing up the two of us were as complimentary as wooden clogs and tulips to tiptoe through. I waited until Josephine's metallic Mercedes-Benz rounded the corner of my block before starting up in the direction of Michael's pub.
When I arrived there was still a good minute or two left on the clock before the short hand met up with the six and Happy Hour came to an abrupt end. The pub was overlaid with mahogany wood, a wall-sized mirror, chrome-lined bar, hand crafted pillars, and booths that glimmered in the light of Arthurian knights staring back at us through panes of glass. I slid up next to Phil at the bar. Phil’s big claim to success was the fact that he was somehow related to both Edwin Hubble and Alexander Graham Bell, a family of geniuses, he always claimed, by which he included himself, though we never put that theory to the test, and in all the time that either Michael or I had known him neither knew what he actually did for a living. Phil was tall and skinny with predominantly mousy features. His mouth was wide, teeth bold but jagged in places and yellow, and his eyes practically bulged from his small oval-shaped head. All he needed were whiskers and the ensemble would be complete. From behind his pint of yellow beer, probably a Coors Lite, he nodded at me as I sat.
“Samuel Adams Boston Lager,” I told the bartender and then took a second to recognize Phil’s presence with a return nod. “I didn’t miss Happy Hour, did I?”
“All of the sudden you’re concerned about Happy Hour?” Michael followed my instructions accordingly, pouring a pint-sized glass on tap. He was dressed in his usual uniform; flannel shirt with tight blue jeans, pointy-toed boots, cheeks one or two days unshaven, and a head of jet-black hair so thick it could break the teeth off a comb. “When was the last that you actually paid for beer?”
I thought about it. “My memory seems to have escaped me at the moment.”
“Happy Hour or no Happy Hour, it costs me all the same whenever you show up to dirty the chrome.” He set Sam Adams in front of me.
“But the important thing is, you enjoy my company.”
“Mm-hmm,” Michael frowned. “I heard the news about Gracie.”
His tone of voice expressed his every condolence. And there were many.
“Word spreads quick.”
“It does. You called the family lawyer. Josephine called her twin sister. Elise called my wife. Susan called me. She's in New York for a few days, you know.”
“Who were you planning to call?”
“I called Phil here.” Michael smiled.
“You did?” Phil looked confused as he retrieved a cell phone from his pants pocket. “How come I didn’t hear it?”
“And since he didn’t pick up, I called you.”
“They don’t have an answering service in prison.”
“Hey, I think you must have dialed the wrong number.” Phil scanned through the call log on his phone. “I got nothing here.”
“You seem nonchalant over the whole thing.”
“Despite appearances, I’m devastated,” I said. The bartender just stared back at me. “Really, Michael, I am. A police interrogation and however many hours I spent in that cell sort of sucks the life out of you. It takes a while to let it all sink in when you’re caught up in the middle of things. I've got a busy weekend ahead. I figure I’ll process the entire episode when it's over with.”
“It took me years to realize you were never going to pay that beer tab. I’m still mourning.”
“I haven’t exactly been able to sleep much at night either. I’ve been plagued with nightmares.”
“I don’t blame you. I’ve had a little PTSD myself after our run-in with the Barnum & Bailey freak show.” He was referring, of course, to Shluba-Buba-Ding-Dong.
“Are they in town?” Phil said, confused as always.
“I keep having these dreams where Elise is in trouble. We're in the North Tower. And whatever I do to save her, no matter how fast I run or how many times I warn her, she always ends up getting herself killed.” I leaned into a whisper. “And that man with the EMINOR tattoo, the droog, I feel him too. It’s like he's never far away, always watching, but refuses to reveal himself.” I'd even felt his presence on Second Street, at least I thought I had, for a short moment on my walk over.
“Sounds a lot like reality. Still seeing that shrink?”
“I paid the doctor a visit yesterday.”
“You know why you’re having nightmares, don’t you?” Phil said.
“Yeah, why’s that, Phil?”
“It’s one of those Freudian things. You know, the subconscious and your birth through mommy's passageway or something. What you’re really worried about is another four years of the Bush Administration.”
“He’s already been president for eight years.”
“He has?” A stunning display of wrinkles formed around Phil’s eyes as he considered the matter. “Talk about a nightmare. All the better reason to vote for the black guy from Chicago.”
“George W. can’t run again.”
“Didn’t Nixon change the constitution or something?”
I shook my head.
“Then who the hell is running?”
I let the unanswered question brew in Phil's head a little longer.
“Where to this time?” Michael said. “I can never keep up with your travels.”
“New York.”
“Weren’t you just there a couple of weeks ago?”
“A city of eight million people, and they have the audacity to keep getting married. Can you believe it?”
“You’re going out there to see her, aren’t you?”
“The last time I went out there to see her,” I used bunny ear quotes with my fingers when pronouncing see her, “I had the misfortune of spotting Leah on a subway…. kissing another man.”
“Ouch. But she called you anyways. And you plan to reacquaint. Don’t tell me there’s not an underlining sexual tension here.”
“There’s nothing happening between us.”
Michael wasn’t convinced.
“Even if that possibility presented itself, I’ll be busy. I’ve got two entire weddings to photograph, one in Jersey and the other in Connecticut, which doesn’t budget a lot of time for
socializing on the weekend spreadsheet. And with Alex leaving me in this tight spot....”
“So you technically have no genuine reason to stay in the city.”
“New York is smack dab in the middle of the two.”
“You were staring at her Facebook page throughout our weekend in San Francisco, and always when you thought nobody was looking.”
“You saw that too?”
“I have eyes in the back of my head. It's a bartender thing. And besides....” Michael's thought was interrupted by another couple sitting down at the other end of the bar, a husband and wife, regulars, though I didn't know their names. He handed them a couple of menus, took their drink orders, prepared them in less than a minute, what looked to be a White Russian and the unmistakable face of a pre-mixed Bloody Mary, and delivered the goods. “And besides…” He returned to finish his thought. “There are more pressing matters at hand, like the mere fact that they’re still out there. I can't babysit you twenty-four hours. Have they shown up again?”
“What are we talking about, aliens?” Phil was confused as always. “Because if so, my brother-in-law’s got one held captive in his garage in Alamogordo.”
“No,” I said to Phil and Michael at the same time. “But if they do, you’ll be the first to know.”
“It will be too late by then.” Michael.
“True.” Phil said to us both. “When they get word what my brother-in-law’s done to that alien in his garage in Alamogordo, and they return to earth, we’re all screwed.”
“There's something deeper, more spiritually focused going on here than either of us can imagine,” Michael said.
“Like those pyramids they built,” Phil said, “and Stonehenge?”
“I just think running away from all of this right now...”
I interrupted him. “I'm not running away.”
Michael stared at me with that sarcastic look of his.
“Okay, maybe I'm running away, but only a little.” I squeezed two fingers close together to illustrate my point. “We both know I book these weddings months in advance. I'd be going out to New York regardless of my circumstances.”
“But you wouldn't be staying with her.”
“No. I wouldn't.” I thought about it, clearing my head with a swish of Sam Adams. “I just need a shoulder to lean on, that's all.”
“You've got my shoulder.”
“I've tried it. It's a nice shoulder.” Phil.
“She uses deodorant,” I said.
“That sounds nice.” Phil, in a meditative posture.
“Last I heard, Catholics don't divorce, which means you've got to work this out with Elise.”
“I haven't forgotten that part.”
“What I'm trying to say is, Leah had better be free when you return.”
“I’ll let you know on Monday.” I stood up.
“I’ll be on the edge of this bar in anticipation.”
Phil twitched his bulging eyes between the two of us, confused as always.
I turned around at the door to say: “I will too.”
14
I HAD ALREADY SEEN that man earlier in the day, about thirty minutes before, en route to Michael's pub. I'd chanced to look over my shoulder when I spotted the creep about two dozen yards behind. He was wearing a cream colored trench coat, and from the bulk in its sleeves I gathered his arms were well-defined, borderline huge. Not that I thought much of him at the time, despite the fact that he was dressed for a rainstorm in Seattle and it was a sunny Southern California summer. I mean, it was Los Angeles County after all, which lent itself to all sorts of self-entitled creeps. Sometimes Hollywood residents even escaped from the electric fence and wandered this far south before they were apprehended by proper authorities.
It was when I left the Guide Dog for home that I spotted him again. He was waiting across Second Street, leaning up against a lamp post, both hands slung in his coat pockets, and making very little effort to conceal himself. And if that didn't grab my attention his aggressive jaywalking stride across the street did. I only made it so far as half a block when a car screeched to a halt. It was a Lamborghini of some sort, rather classical in symmetry, with four doors instead of the typical two, which really stood out to me, especially for a custom made automobile, and the engine purred. A back door opened as quickly as it’s break lights lit up.
“Get in.” A short stubby man peeled his head out.
“My mother said never to climb into cars with strangers, especially if it’s Italian made.”
The man who’d been following me slid his trench coat up against my back. I felt what might have been a gun protruding into my thigh, or maybe he was just happy to.... oh, never mind. Either way, definitely a Hollywood resident on the loose.
“This isn’t a suggestion, dipshit,” Stubby said. “Get the fuck inside before we crack your frontal lobe.”
I did as he asked and slid into the back seat. The bearish pedestrian with tree-trunks for arms lowered his head and swooped swiftly after, thoroughly wedging me into the middle of the party. They were listening to some bad techno remix on KIIS FM. Not my kind of party, but Josephine might approve.
“No candy?” I looked to the two men seated in the front. One of them was driving, and neither turned around to look at me.
“Come again?” Stubby said.
“I just thought if you had a Snickers bar or something, it might be nice. I always have this irrational fear that I'm an undiagnosed diabetic.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I thought his head might have hurt.
“Nothing.”
“Then shut your trap. Look, our little business meeting is going to be straightforward and simple. You give us what we want to know and we’ll let you out at the next stop. Play smart-ass and we’ll keep driving all the way to the pig farm.”
“I don’t care what you wrap it with; I’ve never been much for bacon. They’ve introduced these bacon sundaes now at PANCAKE HOUSE. Can you believe it? If there’s two things that don’t go together, I don’t care what anyone says, its bacon and ice cream.”
“That’s strike one.” Stubby erected his thumb. “Two more and we’ll be making a quick layover at the dentist's office, have your teeth removed.”
“The name’s Giorgio.” The man in the front passenger seat turned around and extended a hand. I was stunned. He was tall and skinny, and his face was rather small and oval looking, but his doe-like eyes and nose was an exact match to Gracie’s. There was no doubt in my mind that I was staring at one of her siblings.
I raised five fingers to accept it.
“Are you looking at me? Did you just look at me?” Giorgio turned to Stubby on my left. “I think your hitchhiking guest just looked at me without an invitation, Dino.”
“What the hell? Did you just give my cousin eye contact without an invitation?” The short stocky man, whom I presumed now to be Dino, slapped me. “You’re my guest. You’re with me. Don’t get any fucking ideas about looking Giorgio in the face again unless you’re thoroughly invited to. Do you hear me?”
“But let’s not be uncivil.” Giorgio kept his hand extended. “No reason we can’t at least be gentlemen. Even Roosevelt and Stalin did a little hand shaking.”
I removed five fingers from my jaw and grudgingly accepted it.
“Where’d your traveling buddy fly off to?”
“I don’t know.”
I turned my focus to a couple of magazines tucked into the back pocket of the seat in front of me, but the slap had knocked my sight into a daze, and it took me several seconds to realize I was ogling Playboy, though I doubt the women on each cover would cry sexual harassment for such a thing.
“This interview isn’t starting out so good.”
“Giorgio, you tell your father I had absolutely nothing to do with this.” I looked to Miss June Play-bunny as I spoke. “I was just helping an old college buddy. Had I known he was going to kill your sister, I’d….”
Dino slapped me.
“Ow,” I said.
“What did you call him?”
“I thought his name was Giorgio.”
He slapped me again.
“Ow.”
“You address my cousin, you call him Sir. Who do you think you are, you little shit?”
I waited a few seconds in silence for whatever it was that Giorgio or Dino or Mr. Happy on my right wanted to say, and since all eyes were apparently on me (and mine were on Miss June), I slowly opened my mouth. When nobody slapped my face for opening my mouth, I continued: “I didn’t know Gracie all that well, Sir. But she was a lovely girl.”
“What did you say, ass-hole?” Dino skewered his face into ugly contortions.
“Did I ask for this shit-licker to write her eulogy, Dino?” Giorgio looked to the short stocky man.
“Hell, is that what this creep here just attempted, to write your dear sisters eulogy?”
“I think he did, Dino.”
Dino gave me the broadside of his hand again, harder than he’d ever done before, and I toppled over into Mr. Happy's lap. The massive hulk of a man spoke with a deep Italian accent as he pushed me back. “What the hell?” Lips curled with an extra layer of disgust. “You one of those guys who likes to suck dick or something?”
“I don’t know, Franco. He looks like a dick-sucker to me. You think that’s what he and Parker were up to on all those romantic weekend getaways?”
“Okay guys. I get it.”
“No,” Giorgio said. “I don’t think you do. That old college pal of yours, he’s in some real deep shit, if you get my drift.”
“I believe you, Sir.”
“You just had a conversation with a couple of detectives down at police headquarters.”
Dino tapped my jaw. “Hey, are you paying attention, numb-nuts?”
“What did you tell them?” Giorgio.
“Everything that I know, Sir, which is absolutely nothing.”
“Bull shit.” Dino.
“I know driving him to the airport made me illicit in a crime, but honest to God, Giorgio, I mean Sir, had I known…”
“What flight? What airliner?”
“I’m not sure. I was a little under the influence when he drove me. He had me convinced that it was a last minute wedding in Boston. He said he was posting ads on Craigslist or something, and that they hired him after another photographer dropped out, which isn’t totally unheard of. But that much is a lie.”
Goodnight Sometimes Means Goodbye (Wrong Flight Home, #2) Page 8
