by Meg Gardiner
From the sling I pulled out Devi’s lighter. I held it up, thumb on the striking wheel. P.J.’s face went blank.
‘‘Ever hear of a drink called a Flaming Asshole?’’ I said.
‘‘Plain Bacardi isn’t a . . .’’
‘‘No. You are.’’
I flicked the lighter. The flame jumped alive. So did P.J., leaping to his feet and dashing for the door.
28
A quarter of a mile down the road from the Ranch, I caught up with P.J. He was walking along the shoulder with his thumb out. Hearing an engine approach, he looked over his shoulder expectantly. He did a double take, jumped, and broke into a run.
‘‘Oh, please,’’ I said.
We were going downhill through wooded countryside, heading toward Montecito village. I gave him a head start before pacing him, close enough for the motor to sound threatening. Ten miles an hour; he could do better. I put the car in neutral and gunned the engine.
He burst into a wild sprint. Nineteen mph—now we were talking.
But after seventy yards his form disintegrated and he began staggering. When he floundered to a walk, I pulled alongside him and rolled down the window.
‘‘How long do you want to do this? I have a full tank,’’ I said.
He was grabbing for breath, mouth hanging wide. His glare crumbled with defeat. He faltered toward some boulders off the shoulder and flopped down. I stopped and got out.
‘‘I paid your lunch bill,’’ I said.
He was panting. ‘‘Great.’’
‘‘Otherwise Devi would have been stuck with it. But you’re going to pay me back. For a lot of things.’’
He stared at his feet, shaking his head. ‘‘Save it, all right? One Jesse in my life is plenty.’’
If my ribs hadn’t been broken, I would have collapsed with hysterical laughter. ‘‘You’re not even being ironic, are you?’’
‘‘The big nagging finger, wagging in my face. Always perfect, always smarter than everybody else. And off-limits from being criticized, because of everything.’’
‘‘Oh, P.J.’’
He slid off the rock slowly, his coat riding up, his hands raking his hair. Dropping to the ground, he wrapped his elbows around his knees and put his head down.
‘‘You’re going to tell him, aren’t you?’’ he said.
Did he really think Jesse was his big problem? Well, duh.
‘‘How long have you been doing this? How many people have you scammed?’’ I said.
He sat with his head on his arms, his knee beginning to jitter. ‘‘I’m so screwed.’’
‘‘Did Brittany take part in any of it?’’ I said.
He rocked back and forth. ‘‘No.’’
He said it softly, but it felt like a punch in the gut. ‘‘P.J., why?’’ When he didn’t respond, I touched his face and turned it so he had to look at me. ‘‘Why did you do this to me?’’
‘‘I didn’t think it would hurt you.’’
I searched his face. His handsome, stupid, pain-stricken face. The air was cool and the sun thin. His blue eyes squinted against the light. Traffic sped past, rocking us with noise.
‘‘You knew it would hurt me,’’ I said.
‘‘No, you’re not liable for anything. You’re not responsible financially. That’s the law. The banks and stuff can’t come after you.’’
‘‘The banks didn’t. Merlin and Murphy did.’’
‘‘I didn’t know they were going to get involved. Honest.’’
‘‘What did you think was going to happen?’’
‘‘I don’t know.’’ He dug his heel into the dirt.
‘‘What you told me about Brittany being a kleptomaniac—’’
‘‘That wasn’t fair of me.’’
‘‘She wasn’t the kleptomaniac. Sinsa is. Right?’’
He leaned his head back against the rock.
‘‘You have to stop protecting her,’’ I said.
‘‘You’ve gotta understand. To the outside world it looks like Sin has everything, but she’s trapped. She has nothing of her own. Unless she does everything her folks tell her, she gets cut off without a dime.’’
He pulled off his tie and undid the top button on his shirt. ‘‘I know you don’t understand. But not all of us have the kind of resources you and Jesse do.’’
‘‘Are you crazy?’’
‘‘Look at this suit I’m wearing. Jesse could have bought it without breaking a sweat. I’ve just never caught a break like everyone else. Is it so wrong to want that?’’
I stared at him, speechless.
‘‘Sin needed help. She just needed enough cash to jump-start her project. And her parents wouldn’t give it to her. What was she supposed to do?’’
‘‘Get a job?’’ I held up my hands. ‘‘Rhetorical question. And Sinsa convinced you to play Jesse?’’
‘‘It was the clincher. I mean, he works for the firm that represents her parents’ business, what’s—’’
‘‘How many times, P.J.?’’ I gritted my teeth, amending that. ‘‘How many women?’’
‘‘He should thank me. They all love him. I mean, they all think he’s just the most lovable guy.’’
My hands drew into balls. ‘‘You’ve given him a reputation as a stud?’’
‘‘They think he’s a teddy bear. And they’re so happy that they can . . . I mean, he’s so grateful. . . .’’
I boxed his ear.
He clapped a hand against the side of his head. ‘‘What was that for?’’
‘‘Jesus, are you trying to get me counting down into negative numbers?’’
This explained the woman blowing kisses at Jesse, and the gal shaking her boobs at him outside Chaco’s.
‘‘Please tell me you didn’t sleep with them. Please,’’ I said.
He looked affronted. ‘‘That wouldn’t be professional. I just made out a few times.’’
I boxed his other ear. ‘‘Did you want to impress Sinsa? Buy her love?’’
He rubbed his ears. ‘‘I didn’t know how else to help her. And before I knew it, I was doing more and more to help her get the project going.’’
‘‘Did you hook Brittany up with her, to produce the demo?’’ I said.
‘‘Yeah. But Britt already knew Sin, through me, and from doing that Rock House show with Shaun Kutner.’’
‘‘And Brittany got her dad to stump up the money for the project, because she was so desperate, and her dad didn’t know anything about the music industry to know that—’’
‘‘No, no—Britt knew that once she signed a recording contract, the record company would pay her an advance to record an album. She just paid for the demo.’’
‘‘You mean Ted Gaines paid Sinsa. Way above the real cost of the recording.’’
‘‘Producers get paid, Evan. It was legit.’’ He wiped his nose.
A rusty soda can lay on the ground. I kicked it. ‘‘How did Toby Price get involved?’’
‘‘I didn’t have anything to do with him, never. He’s bad news.’’
‘‘Did he know Brittany?’’
‘‘He wanted Brittany to sign him as her manager.’’
‘‘Did she?’’ My heart was thumping.
He shook his head.
‘‘What happened the night Brittany died?’’ I said.
‘‘I don’t know.’’
I crossed my arms.
‘‘She was crying. I was jamming with some guys and she tried to pull me away from the party.’’
‘‘Why?’’
He shrugged. ‘‘I was pretty toasted. I—’’
I stepped closer. He put his hands over his ears.
‘‘She got hold of the credit cards. You know, the Evan Delaney cards.’’
‘‘How?’’
‘‘She found them in my pocket.’’ He wiped his nose and avoided my eyes. ‘‘I left a pair of jeans in her apartment. She washed them.’’
‘‘She did your laundry
?’’
And he was still sleeping with her. I pulled him to his feet. He looked abject.
‘‘I told you, she was obsessed with hanging onto me. But she found the cards in a pocket, and a bunch of credit card receipts. She recognized my handwriting on them and figured it out.’’
‘‘And that’s why she came to the party?’’ I said.
‘‘She thought I was gonna ruin my life, end up in prison. She wanted to stop me.’’
‘‘You mean she was going to tell the police?’’
‘‘No, no. You. If I didn’t cut them up, she said she’d tell you.’’
I rattled my head back and forth, trying to clear my thoughts. ‘‘How did she know who I was?’’
‘‘She knew everything about me. My folks, Jesse, and she’d seen you with him at the Battle of the Bands and asked who you were. So she knew.’’
My aches were returning. ‘‘You’re telling me Brittany only had the credit cards on her to confront you? That she never used them, never participated in the scheme?’’
‘‘That’s right.’’ He squinted into the distance. ‘‘I’m sorry, Evan.’’
It was the first time he’d said it. I sat on the rock. A breeze riffled through my hair, and the air took on an edge.
‘‘She was killed because she had them,’’ I said.
He stared at the trees. ‘‘You think so?’’
‘‘Yes.’’ I let that settle on him. ‘‘Who else knew she had them?’’
He lifted his shoulders.
‘‘Who killed her, P.J.?’’
‘‘I don’t know.’’
‘‘But you saw it happen.’’
He hunched on the rock. Though it was only mildly chilly, he had begun shivering.
‘‘We have to clear Brittany’s name,’’ I said.
‘‘How?’’
‘‘You need to tell the cops.’’
‘‘I don’t want to talk to the cops.’’
‘‘You go to them, or they come to you.’’
He crossed his arms, sticking his hands under his armpits for warmth. ‘‘My lawyer won’t let me talk to the police. No way.’’
My head was throbbing again. We were back to Skip Hinkel, asshole-at-law.
‘‘P.J. I’m going to tell the cops. They’ll take it from there.’’
‘‘No. Evan, it wasn’t that bad. Brittany shouldn’t have died. I don’t know how that happened. All the rest—Sinsa, I . . .’’
I stood up. ‘‘Let’s go.’’
I couldn’t convince him that she was worse than he thought. In his eyes, Sinsa was the goddess. Huge and powerful and needing to be appeased. I walked toward my car. I heard him shuffling behind me.
‘‘And by the way,’’ he said. ‘‘At the restaurant, you accused me of buying expensive plane tickets. That’s totally untrue.’’
I shook my head. ‘‘Give it a rest.’’
‘‘No, seriously. It wasn’t me.’’
I glanced at him. ‘‘You didn’t take Sinsa on a nice little jaunt to Barbados recently?’’
‘‘No. I don’t even have a passport.’’
‘‘Shall I show you the bill? Two first-class tickets on American.’’
He stopped. He looked wan. ‘‘Whose names were on the tickets?’’
I hadn’t checked. ‘‘Let’s find out.’’
If I was right, I might knock some sense into him.
Back at my house, I phoned the credit card company. They put me on hold. P.J. stalked the living room, scratching his nose.
‘‘Can I grab a beer?’’ he said.
‘‘No.’’
‘‘Just one.’’
‘‘No.’’ Muzak burbled against my ear.
He stopped in front of the flower arrangement. ‘‘They do look nice.’’
‘‘Glad you think so. After I finish this call, you’re going to cut them up and eat them for lunch.’’
A woman came on the line.
‘‘I need some help tracking down a thief who flew to Barbados on your dime,’’ I said. I gave her the transaction number for the airline tickets. I heard her typing. After a minute she came back with a locator number, names on the tickets, flights, and the rest of the vacation package, which had posted since I’d last checked. I wrote it all down. She said she’d fax me a copy of the information.
P.J. drew near. ‘‘Well?’’
He looked over my shoulder. All his jittering stopped. Dead.
‘‘I’m sorry,’’ I said, though I wasn’t.
He was staring at the names I’d written down. One was Kathleen E. Delaney, which indicated that Sinsa had managed to obtain a fake passport. The other was Shaun Kutner.
‘‘Are they sure?’’ P.J. said.
‘‘It isn’t a wild typo.’’
He stared numbly at the sheet of paper. ‘‘This other stuff, too. The day spa, that’s Shaun getting his Botox treatments.’’
‘‘You can’t be serious.’’
‘‘Not his face, his armpits. It helps stop the sweating.’’ He shook his head. ‘‘I can’t believe I’m such an idiot.’’
‘‘One other thing, P.J. The checks that were stolen from Datura Inc.’’
‘‘No. I told you, I would never steal from the Jimsons. I helped Sin get around their restrictions, but I would never, ever rip them off.’’
‘‘Then it wasn’t you who closed the fake checking account at Allied Pacific Bank?’’
‘‘No.’’
I made one more phone call, to the bank manager, Bianca Nestor. I described Shaun Kutner and asked if it matched the surveillance tape. The Adonis build, the slouch, and especially the pale green eyes. To a T, she said.
I told P.J., and waited for it.
I expected him to get mad, but he melted to a lump of wax. ‘‘She did it for him all along. She was using me.’’
‘‘It’s a tough break.’’
‘‘But . . .’’ He was grasping, but not so hard anymore.
‘‘She and Shaun ripped off Ricky, P.J.’’
‘‘What am I going to do?’’ He wiped his hand over his face, like a washcloth. ‘‘And no cops. Don’t even go there.’’
‘‘You’re done running away from this,’’ I said.
He sighed, and surprised me. ‘‘Then let’s talk to Ricky.’’
29
I parked on the circular driveway in front of Green Dragons and headed for the front door. Halfway there, I realized that P.J. wasn’t following. He was still in the car, ducking his head, trying to get out of sight below the dashboard.
When I yanked open the passenger door he was tipping pills out of a Baggie into his palm, a colorful candy store of pharmaceuticals.
‘‘You don’t need that,’’ I said.
He picked out a blue one and slurped it before I could stop him. ‘‘It’s Valium. What’s your problem? Jesse takes Valium all the time.’’
Diazepam. ‘‘As a muscle relaxant for chronic pain, not an anesthetic against bad love. Jeez.’’
‘‘This is hard. I’m just taking the edge off, hey—’’
I grabbed the Baggie from him. He closed his palm and stuffed the remaining pills into his pants pocket.
‘‘Did you bring a sampler for the afternoon?’’ I stopped myself from giving the lecture. There was no point. ‘‘Just tell me none of those pills is Viagra.’’
I squeezed his arm and pulled him toward the front door.
P.J. went straight in. He was entourage, after all. The housekeeper was in the living room, vacuuming beneath the jimsonweed painting. He waved and asked her where Ricky was. She pointed up, indicating the studio.
We climbed the stairs, hearing music coming from a room above.
P.J. called, ‘‘Ricky?’’
We approached the door. Inside, Ricky was leaning against the recording console. Behind him a sofa was piled with his old stage outfits, a sea of Day-Glo Lycra. He was wearing a blue-and-black leopard-print catsuit. He looked our way with
bloodshot eyes.
‘‘Peej. Help.’’
His face was scarlet. He was stuffed into the catsuit like a sausage into an intravenous line.
P.J. darted past me and into the studio. ‘‘Ricky, shit.’’
‘‘I’m stuck. The zipper,’’ he said. ‘‘Fucksake, I can’t breathe.’’
The catsuit was zipped up to the top of Ricky’s sternum. P.J. grabbed hold of the pull and yanked. Ricky yipped.
‘‘It’s caught in my chest hair.’’
They fought with the zipper but got nowhere. Sighing, I pulled out my key ring. It had a little Swiss army knife on it. I flipped it open and said, ‘‘I can get it.’’
‘‘No. This is vintage.’’ But he was clawing at the neckline, scraping his fingernails against the skintight fabric. P.J. thrashed with the zipper.
‘‘It’s no good, Ricky,’’ he said.
‘‘All right, all right.’’
‘‘Turn around,’’ I said.
He did. I slit the bodysuit up the back seam. He spilled out, gasping.
‘‘Thank you.’’ He drew breath. ‘‘Karen’s not here, or Sin. I was desperate.’’
The suit flapped like a popped balloon. He slumped onto a chair.
‘‘This is weirding me out, man. After Tiger getting burned, and the ravens on the engine. I threw away all the outfits with flame motifs. But now the animal prints too . . .’’
I felt for him, but enough was enough. ‘‘Ricky, you have bigger problems.’’
He looked at me. ‘‘Gal, you don’t look so good.’’
‘‘I have bad news,’’ I said.
He looked at P.J. ‘‘You either, dude. What is it?’’
P.J. walked to the bay window and thumped down on the window seat. Outside, La Cumbre peak shoved into view, teal and gold against the sky.
‘‘It’s about Sinsa,’’ I said.
Ricky frowned.
‘‘Where’s Karen?’’ I said.
‘‘Up in the valley, checking out that vineyard where we’re doing the gig next week. She won’t be back till tonight.’’ He looked from me to P.J. ‘‘What’s wrong?’’
‘‘P.J.’s going to tell you,’’ I said.
Perhaps it was the Valium kicking in, or the bloodlessness of his broken heart, or the desire for revenge. P.J.’s voice went flat.
‘‘She’s ruined me, man. She’s ruined us all.’’
