“Well, he did come back, and Ben lit into him. I had to pull Ben off to keep him from killing Nick. Miriam felt she owed Ben something I guess, and she’s been with him off and on ever since. Only now Ben’s the one knocking her around. He wasn’t the same when he came from deployment, you know? Used to be a decent guy.”
Carson was starting to get a larger picture. He felt for Miriam. He’d watched his own mom get knocked around as a kid. He had no patience for wife-beaters. He’d become a cop to stop shit like that from happening. To stop people like his dad. Carson shook his head, refusing to think of his Dad, and put his notebook in his pocket. “So where would Miriam go?” he asked.
Larry shook his head. “I dunno, detective. I swear. She don’t have any family around here, that I know of. Like I said, she tends to stick around this place, work and home. Sometimes Ben’s place, but if he’s dead and she ain’t there, then I dunno where she’d go. I hope she ain’t in no trouble. She’s a sweet girl. Just has shitty taste in men.”
If that shitty taste in men had led to an argument, Carson could see it going too far. If Miriam had gotten fed up and finally snapped, anything could have happened. That provided motive, but it still didn’t answer the two biggest questions: what had caused the fire? And where was Miriam?
Chapter 6: Then
Miriam’s phone buzzed in her apron. She took the pair of Coors to the two businessmen at table 45 and then retreated to the kitchen to check it. Some vague sense told her it was Jack, and she was right.
Are u still coming to the party tonight? I’ll keep it kosher i promise. Pick u up @ 7?
Miriam had already agreed, hadn’t she? She couldn’t very well ditch him at the last second. See you at 7 then, she texted back. He’d keep it kosher. The part that worried her was that she didn’t want him to keep it kosher; she wanted him to touch her, to kiss her. What she’d told him was true enough, but it wasn’t what she wanted, and he knew it. It was confusing, even to her. This was a second date, which meant she was now technically cheating on Ben. Actually, she’d cheated on him when she kissed Jack. Did thinking about Jack count as cheating? If so, then she was cheating every five seconds. Ben would flip if he knew. Like, actually kill them both. There were times when his eyes went dark and evil, when the Ben that was still in Afghanistan hunting down insurgents showed up, and that Ben scared her shitless. The thought of telling Ben, “I’ve been seeing someone,” actually made her blood run cold. She just wouldn’t tell him, then. She would find a way to break things off, and he would never have to know.
Right.
She cashed out, said goodbye to Larry, and went upstairs to change. What should she wear to a family party? She’d never been to one before. It wasn’t a one-on-one date, so nothing too sexy, but she wanted to leave a good impression…
Eventually she decided on an arabesque-patterned maxi-dress, not too low-cut, but still clingy in all the right places. She was finishing her make-up when Jack knocked on the door. She went out to meet him, thinking as she locked the door that a dress might be tough to manage on a motorcycle.
“You look amazing,” Jack remarked. “Like, totally stunning. It’s gonna make this whole keeping-it-kosher thing even harder.”
Miriam ducked her head, unused to compliments. “Thanks,” she said, “you look great too.” He did look hot, in a pair of khakis and tight black sweater that hugged his muscular torso, his hair tousled in its usual brown tangle. You were supposed to return compliments, right? Ben never told her she looked nice. His way of complimenting her was slapping her ass or squeezing her tits. Not exactly the same thing.
Miriam was contemplating suggesting she change when she realized his bike wasn’t in the parking lot. “Where’s your bike?”
“Oh, I thought an actual car might be more appropriate in this case. I figured you might do your hair or whatever, and a bike would mess it all up, right?” Considerate, too? He needed to stop being so amazing. He followed her down the stairs to an older but well-cared for black Jeep Wrangler with oversized tires. He opened the door for her and lifted her up. His hand was warm and dry, and he left it in hers for a moment longer than strictly necessary. Not that she minded.
Jack’s parents house was a modest two-story Colonial not far from Jack’s apartment. When they pulled up to the curb, there were already several cars lining the street, and Miriam could hear voices laughing and talking from the backyard. She was suddenly nervous. Jack took her by the hand, twining his fingers in hers; she squeezed his hand, realizing that she was more than nervous, she was outright terrified. This was more than a family party, she was meeting his parents. Oh god. What had she gotten herself into? She’d been on one date with the guy, maybe two if the first night at National counted as a date. Why was she here?
She stopped and pulled back. “Wait, Jack…I don’t know about this…”
He stopped with her. “What? Are you nervous or something? Don’t be. It’s just a party.”
“I don’t know. This is, like, your family, your parents. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.” She wasn’t even really his girlfriend. She had a boyfriend, for god’s sake.
Jack seemed to understand her trepidation. “Look, you’re my friend, okay? There’s more than that, sure, but that’s between us. My brothers and sisters bring friends to these parties all the time. It’s no big deal, okay? Just relax.” Miriam nodded, a little reassured, but not completely.
Jack pushed open the door and led her in. Inside was a madhouse. There were, as Jack had promised, dozens of people, all of them with drinks in their hands, milling and chatting. Not letting go of Miriam’s hand, he led her through the crowd, most of whom greeted him with a hug and a slap on the back.
She leaned in close to his ear, asking, “Who are all these people? Is this all your family?”
“Most of ‘em. Cousins, uncles and aunts, friends. We’re a big family. This isn’t even the half of ‘em. You should see this place on the holidays!” Miriam tried to imagine double the amount of people, and just simply couldn’t. Holidays when she was growing up were quiet affairs, to say the least. Jack led her outside to the backyard, going straight through the house, past the kitchen and living room, both of which were packed as well. He sat her down on a rocking swing on the back porch and disappeared. Miriam went rigid, staring around at her. Everyone seemed to know everyone else, and there seemed to be conversations going on between people across the yard from each other. Everyone was drinking, but no one seemed to be drunk, just loose and genial. An elderly man tottered up to Miriam and sat down next to her, sipping from a red plastic cup of beer.
“Hello there, girlie,” he said in a thick Irish accent. “I saw Jackie sit you down here, and thought ya might need some company, hey? I’m Séan, Jackie’s grandfather. He treatin’ you well, then, my boy Jackie?”
“Hi, yeah I’m a friend of Jack’s. I’m Miriam.”
“Miriam, you say? Why, ain’t that a pretty name, then.” Séan leaned in close and peered at Miriam with bright blue eyes set deep in a tanned, wrinkled face. He seemed to be searching Miriam for something, exactly as Jack had done before, not looking at her so much as into her. He nodded.
“Aye, you’ll do, then,” he said, cryptically.
“I’ll…do?” Miriam had no idea what to make of his words.
“Oh, aye. You’ll do.” Séan tapped the side of his nose, a gesture Miriam didn’t quite know how to interpret. “You’re Jackie’s friend, you say, but old Séan, he knows better. You don’t gotta hide the truth from me, no ma’am. He’s a good boy, my Jack. He’ll take good care of you. Just promise me one thing, will you?”
“I’ll…I’ll try, I guess.”
“He loves quick, and hard, that boy. The other one, the mean one? He’s trouble, he is. Best make your move quick, or you won’t make it a’tall.” Séan nodded sagely, sipped his beer and turned away, patting Miriam on the knee. Miriam’s head was spinning. He had seemed to know exactly what was going on. Had Jack talked to him?
Jack returned with two bottles of Molson, a bag of tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa. “Ah, you met Gramps, I see. You aren’t scaring her are you, Gramps?” Séan moved over and Jack sat between them, handing Miriam the beer.
“Oh no. We just chatted a wee bit. Didn’t tell her none of your secrets.”
“I don’t have any secrets, Gramps. Don’t be weird.”
“Everyone’s got secrets, boy-o.” Séan glanced sideways at Miriam as he said this, winking at her. “Yours are just more boring than most.”
Jack laughed, crunching a chip. “Oh yeah? So what’s an interesting secret, then?”
Séan pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket, clipped it and lit it, puffed on it. At length he answered. “I’ll tell you a secret, Jackie. One of my very own. Just ‘cause you’re my favorite grandson, and this here Miriam of yours seems a right corker.” Miriam didn’t know what that meant, or whether it was good thing or not, but she didn’t interrupt.
“This goes back, oh, to when I was sixteen or so. Before the war, this was. Me and me two mates were off to the river, fishin’ on a Sunday mornin’. Mass was over, and we had nothin’ to do but laze about all the day, and that’s what we did, right enough. Well, on about noon come these two girls, strollin’ down the road, pretty as you please. They sees us, me and my mates, and they come over to us and ask us what we’re doin’. Well, we thought it were fairly obvious what we was doin’, so I says, ‘we’re fishin’ ain’t we?’ and the prettier of the two, ‘cause you know whenever there’s two girls as friends, there’s always one who’s the prettier, I dunno know why, but there it is. Anyway, the prettier of the two lasses says to me, she says ‘well I’ve got a dare for one of you, if you’re brave enough.’ This was a serious thing, you know. You didn’t never back down from a dare, even at sixteen. So I puffed up me chest and said, ‘I’ll take your dare,’ and threw my pole to my mate Bill. The girl takes me by the hand and starts pullin’ me back up the road, away from my mates and her friend and the fish, and I says, ‘what’s the dare, then? Where’re we goin’?’ and the girl she don’t answer, just yanks me into a run. I can’t back down, can I?
“So I run with her, and she takes me right over the hill and down the other side and around a corner so we’re alone as can be, and she comes to a stop behind a bush, and she says, ‘are you sure you want to take the dare? No backin’ out if you promise, now.’ And I tell her of course I’ll do it, even though I got no idea what the silly girl has in mind. So she pushes me down to the ground and starts tuggin’ at me pants, and I’m wonderin’ if the girl has gone and lost her silly damn mind. I say so, too, I ask her ‘what the bloody hell are you doin’ girl?’ And she just says, ‘Well I took a dare from Emily that I wouldn’t get married still a virgin, didn’t I? And I’m gettin’ married tomorrow, ain’t I?’ And with that, the girl, whose name I don’t know, who I’ve never met, why this girl pulls ups with her dress and shows me her bubbies, and away we go. And it were my first time, that was, right there in the grass behind a bush, with a girl I ain’t never met in my life. And you know what? I still don’t know her name, to this very day. I saw her next day, ridin’ in wagon with a strapping young lad, and she were dressed all in white with flowers and the whole bit, just married. She passed right by me on that wagon, sittin’ next to her new husband, and she smiles at me, nods, as if we had only spoken in the pub or somethin’. Damndest thing ever, that was.”
Jack was coughing, having aspirated his beer. “Gramps! You can’t go around tellin’ stories like that!”
“Why ever not, Jackie? It’s all true, every word, and don’t no one know that that’s livin. ‘Specially not your grandmother, and I’ll thank you not to repeat it. She’d skin me alive if she knew, though it happened ‘fore I ever met her.”
“Gramps,” Jack said, “that never happened, did it?”
“Why of course it did! Would I lie about that?” Séan grinned, and Miriam saw a glint of roguish humor in his eyes.
“Gramps, you tell the biggest fish stories of anyone I know.”
“This ain’t a fish story. You need more details, to prove it? The girl, she had red hair, all braided up, and she wore a gray gingham dress, with black shoes. And she had a big old freckle, right near her nose, and another one on her ribs, just below her great, big–”
“Gramps! Okay. I believe you.”
“She did have the biggest, roundest bubbies I ever saw, though,” Séan muttered into his beer. Miriam actually laughed out loud at that. Jack just shook his head and finished his beer, stood up to get another.
When he was gone, Miriam asked, “Was that story really true, Séan?”
Séan nodded. “Oh, aye, mostly. I knew her though. Kate O’Hara, her name was. And we’d been flirtin’ all summer. I’d been tryin’ to get up the nerve just to kiss her for weeks. But I really was fishin’ with my mates on a Sunday after mornin’ mass, and she came up and took my pole from me and dragged me off and we…you know…without so much as her sayin’ nary a word. I guess she got tired of me hemmin’ and hawin’ about it.”
Miriam heard Jack just inside the kitchen, and it sounded as if he was angry about something, his voice raised. Jack threw the screen door open and stormed out, followed by a younger man who looked enough like Jack that she guessed it was his brother. He was an inch or two shorter than Jack, but wider and more muscular, wearing a wife-beater tank top and black jeans, his massive arms covered in tattoos. “I said I don’t want to talk about it,” Jack was saying. “There’s nothing to discuss, okay? Just let it go, John.”
“You’ve never let me explain, though,” John yelled. “She came onto me! She was throwin’ herself at me, what was I supposed to do?” They were out in the middle of the yard now, standing face to face. Jack pushed John, hard.
“You were supposed to say NO! You were supposed to NOT sleep with my fiance!” Jack was furious, the veins in his neck standing out, the muscles in his arms corded and bulging, fists clenched.
John shoved Jack back, shouting, “Well I did, didn’t I? She was a slut! She was sleepin’ around on you the whole time you were with her. You were just too damn stupid to see it. She slept with your friend Brian, too, did you know that? And I slept with her again, after you broke up. The day you dumped her she came back here and I fucked her in my car.”
John was poking Jack in the chest, spitting his words, goading Jack, who half-turned away, rubbing his forehead, then whirled and hit John in the jaw. He’d struck so fast Miriam wasn’t even sure what had happened until John stumbled backward, staring at Jack with anger in his eyes, then bull-rushed him, swinging both fists. Jack took one to the gut, but the other missed, and then Jack was dancing away, John following, head down between his shoulders, fists low, bouncing on his heels. Miriam stood up to stop it, but Séan pulled her back to the rocking chair.
“Nah, let ‘em go, lass. They’re Irish boys, that’s how they solve it. And those two have had this comin’ for a while now. Best for them to get it out rather than stay angry.”
“So no one’s going stop it?” Miriam was horrified.
Séan shook his head, waving a hand at the fighting brothers. A crowd had formed around them, cheering them on. “It ain’t a family party without a scrap, is it? Oh I know you’re worried for your boy. You can relax, girlie. Jackie can take care of himself. I know John’s a rough lookin’ sort, and he is. He fights in those, what do you call it, cage-matches. Disgraceful, if you ask me, fightin’ for money like that, tearin’ apart people you don’t know, just for show. But Jackie, now, he’s a scrapper, he is. Don’t look it, but he is. John loves the fight. He’s got the warrior in him, Johnny does. Jack ain’t that way, he only fights if he has to, and he fights to get it over with.
“Watch him now. See how he don’t let Johnny in close? He’s seen John fight, he knows he can’t go in close. Johnny will tear him like paper if he lets him get his arms on him, but Jackie’s got the longer reach, so he stays back, fights smart. THERE! Get him!
Use your LEFT, Jackie!” Séan was standing up and shouting, now, and Miriam looked from Séan to the crowd, and back, not quite understanding. Jack was bleeding from his mouth and nose, but he didn’t seem much slowed, and John was shaking his head like a confused bear, not bouncing as much as he had been at first. John charged again, and this time Jack swiveled out of the way and hit John on the cheekbone with a hard right and John went down. Jack slumped back against the fence, and Miriam rushed over to him, a napkin in her hand, dabbing at his face. Jack stripped off his shirt, pressing a palm to his ribs. Miriam couldn’t help admiring his physique, shining with sweat and still heaving from exertion.
“What the hell was that, Jack?” she demanded.
Jack shook his head, too winded to speak. He leaned over and held a hand out for John, who took it and let Jack pull him upright. The brothers exchanged a glance, and Miriam could tell it was fraught with unspoken meaning, though she couldn’t tell what it meant. John nodded, dabbing at his lips with a wrist, and went in the house.
When he had caught his breath, Jack said, “That’s just my asshole brother being an asshole. It’s an old story that’s not worth telling. It happened a long time ago, and now it’s over.”
“But you had to fight him over it?” Miriam asked.
“Well yeah. He’d have hit me, so I hit him first.” Jack said this as if it were obvious, like two plus two equals four. Miriam pressed the napkin to his nose, standing closer to him than she should, if they were supposed to be just friends.
“Are you okay?”
Jack nodded, straightening. He hissed, though, and put his palm back to his ribs. “I think he cracked one of my ribs, but I’ll be fine.” Miriam watched him trying to ignore the pain, and she felt the coil of power in her belly unfurl, a feeling that was becoming familiar. The energy rushed through her body to her palm, and she pressed her hand against Jack’s side. She felt the heat buzz from her hand to his ribs, felt the break under her palm knit back together, the bruise fading and vanishing. His nose stopped bleeding, and his split lip healed. Jack looked from Miriam to his side, pressed a finger to his nose and lip, and back to Miriam. His eyes held a thousand questions, and Miriam didn’t have answers to any of them.
Jack and Djinn Page 6
