Exit Blood (Barefield Book 2)

by Trey R. Barker

  “Just sit for a few minutes,” the doctor says. “You’re going to be alright.”

  “Never,” he replies.

  Everything, everyone, every thought is blurred.

  “Is there someone we can phone?” asks the nurse.

  He looks up at the woman, trying to regain focus.

  “My wife,” he says weakly. “I need a telephone. I promised her I would call.”

  Back to TOC

  Here’s a sample from Terry Holland’s Chicago Shiver.

  One

  Saturday, December 6

  Kailua, Oahu, Hawaii

  I was coming downstairs buck naked, drying my hair from the shower, when Muhammad called from Chicago to say we had work to do.

  I didn't hear the phone ringing. I saw its button blinking. I'd have heard it ring if Dickey Betts and Gregg Allman hadn't been so cranked up on the stereo that all my fuses were blowing. Lately I'd been going through my big stack of albums of the old dirt bands, trying to decide if the Allman Brothers Band was anywhere near as good as I thought when I was a stupid kid wired on cheap weed and warm beer. It was. They were the best cracker band ever.

  I picked up the receiver, said, "Hold on," into the mouthpiece and laid it down on the end table. Across the room at the turntable, I waited for Chuck Leavell to finish his pounding piano solo and then toggled the lever that raised the arm and the needle and went back to the phone.

  "Hello and excuse me," I said in the sudden silence to whomever was there.

  Muhammad's deep voice said, "Allman Brothers."

  "Their band. Duane was dead on this one. But their band."

  "What was that? Jessica?"

  "Yeah. From Brothers and Sisters. Surprised a man of your...uh...complexion would be so hip to redneck culture."

  "And the horse you rode in on. Had a brother on drums, those boys did. Name of Jaimoe."

  "That's right, they did. Had two drummers and a black guy named Jaimoe was one of them. Muhammad, was there a honkie in your woodpile?"

  ***

  I was just in from two hours on Kailua Bay in the Boston Whaler with a crew of my three neighbors. Crew overstates it. It's a seventeen-footer with a 90-horsepower outboard Mercury, so there's neither need nor space for deck hands. Actually, they were fishing. For our dinner.

  The Whaler's controls are in a center console that makes it perfect for walking the perimeter and playing a fish from anywhere. On the downside, there's no tower, so in a rolling sea it's hard to spot the bird clusters that hover above the schools. It's not deep sea fishing either; we work only the upper layer of the ocean. I ran the boat and Richie Cosopolous, Cindy Rendell, and Leanne Fitch, who live in three of my five apartments, cast lines of live bait. When Cindy boated a smallish Yellowfin Tuna--an Ahi, here in the islands--that looked no more than thirty pounds, we spent the rest of the excursion in catch and release. We don't fish for inventory, not with bounty so close at hand. With an Ahi this size, we'd have enough for our dinner and extra for our neighbors on either side.

  We beached the Whaler, winched the trailer down from the tree it's cabled to, backed the boat out into the surf to float it to its rigging, and cranked and pushed the boat fifty yards up the beach and secured it to the tree. Richie and I did the Whaler work while the girls gutted and cleaned the tuna and packed it in the ice chest.

  Richie said, "Harry, if we stay here 'til we get old and feeble, how'll we get the boat up the beach?"

  "You'll figure out how to rig a motor to the winch."

  Sam Dodson and Teresa Hanifan and their new baby Estelle were our guests for the evening. Sam and Teresa had lived here before and after their wedding, until they moved into a house with a nursery to prepare for Estelle. It was a reunion dinner and Estelle's first night out. Richie and Leanne had dates coming over, but Cindy and I didn't.

  I don't know why Cindy was flying solo. All she had to do was whistle and they'd be lined up and slobbering. I, on the other hand, was in an odd spot.

  Valerie was in New York working with her father, peering into each of his investments to make sure he doesn't own something that owns something that owns something that could embarrass him. That accounts for my spending so much time with old rock albums and a lot of yard work and reading. Not that the terms of our separation stipulated convents and monasteries. We'd agreed to lead unrestricted lives. We're not nuts. Or dead. And we had committed to get together in one interesting place or another for a few days every month or so. We've been doing that and it is unfailingly fabulous. Broadening even. To say nothing of the salubrious effect that getting next to Valerie Sabatino has on my sanity.

  When she first left, back in April, I thought of her as just away for a while. I knew she'd settle into a nice place, not live out of her suitcase in a hotel, but I kept thinking of her not so much as living there but sort of hanging out. Passing through. Whatever that meant. But that was then. By now, it was clear. Valerie was living in New York. She had even bought a house in the Village.

  I don't want to replace her. She's irreplaceable. Still, I do have an occasional urge to get laid in a meaningless sort of way. But I don't know where to find it. The meaningless part, that is. Casual sex has become the prime oxymoron. More's the pity.

  So, there'd be eight for dinner. Plus Estelle.

  ***

  Muhammad said, "Remember Jack Netherland?"

  "Sportswriter for the Sun-Times."

  "Yeah. He's in trouble. Real big trouble. A charge of capital murder. About a month ago he was found in bed with a dead woman. He'd been shot by her and somehow got off a 9-1-1 call before passing out. Cops had to break in. The door was dead bolted from the inside. Jack was lying on top of her and she was strangled. He's recovered from the gunshot, was real lucky with that, and now he's in the county lockup. Bail was denied. Rita, his wife, called me today and asked if I could help. I said I thought I could get you to come back and look into it."

  "Who's his lawyer?"

  "Guy named Ben Brill. Good reputation. Problem is he says, according to Rita, the case is a loser. He wants to plead it. Otherwise, Rita says, Brill thinks Jack's going to be looking at the death penalty. Jack insists he's innocent, refuses to plead it."

  "I thought Illinois threw out capital punishment."

  "Recent governor released a bunch of death row prisoners, but he couldn't rewrite the law all by himself. The threat of it's still there."

  "And it's beside the point if you know you're innocent. What do you think? Is he innocent?"

  "Jack and Rita are good friends. I find it pretty hard to believe he's a murderer. Serena thinks it's ridiculous. Of course, there's the wild card here. They were having sex. That changes things some. And he had a blood alcohol of point one seven, more than a little drunk."

  "Polygraph?"

  "Yes, and he passed it with flying colors. But...Guilty people do pass lie detectors on occasion. He's still inside."

  "Is he indicted?"

  "Not yet. There was a probable cause hearing."

  "He have a history of running around on Rita?"

  "No. She says she wouldn't swear he hadn't fooled around once or twice in fifteen years, but she says he's been a good husband and a good father and she's solid with him now."

  "What do you know about the dead woman?"

  "Not a lot. Thirty-three. Very attractive. Former model. Unmarried. Rita says Jack says this was their first time together. He blacked out, he says. Woke up with a knot on his head and a bullet in his chest."

  "And the door locked from the inside."

  "Yes. Deadbolts. Both doors and all the windows. Can you get away?"

  "Is it cold there?"

  "It's December. What do you think?"

  "It's not cold here."

  He was quiet. I thought about telling him what a nice time we'd had on the bay today. Then I thought better of it.

  "I'll leave tomorrow. There's a United non-stop that gets to O'Hare about ten tomorrow night. I'll be on it. Got a spare room?"
r />   "Sure. I'll meet your flight."

  "Don't bother with that. That's a nightmare. I'll take the train downtown and grab a cab from there. Can you email me a file on this before I go, so I can read it on the plane? Background on the woman. And Jack. Newspaper articles. Copy of the state's case. Stuff like that. From Francis."

  "You'll have it."

  Muhammad Ali--not that one, another one--works in a restaurant. It's to the west of Chicago's Near North side, but still an easy walk from the Drake. The restaurant is called "Serena's" after his wife, who owns it. Muhammad, who is coal black and mountainous, is front man, bookkeeper, husband, and crap catcher to the girl of his dreams, Serena, a native of Singapore, who is minuscule.

  I try not to think what my life would be like today if not for them.

  ***

  I booked first-class for the flight with an open return. It was painfully expensive, but eight hours in steerage would have been even more painful. I took the hit to my bank account as a reminder that I'd have to get a little more serious about finding someone to move into Sam and Teresa's place.

  Since finding this place and the great life that comes with it, I have always rented the four units through dumb good luck. There's a fifth unit that I keep empty for Muhammad and Serena when they come--they're my partners in this investment--or for good friends on a vacation or a short term. The apartments are side-by-side, each with a small but useful kitchen, a good-sized room off that for whatever, plus a bedroom and big bath. They open to the front and rear and have big windows and a couple of skylights.

  I get very good rates but it's a fair trade because of all the rest we have and share.

  There's the Great Room. Valerie named it, not me. It's thirty by sixty with a high barrel-vaulted ceiling. Usually we keep its wide doorways open on both ends. A few insects wander in but the salamanders control them. I don't know what controls the salamanders. Sometimes you look up and there's one making his way across the ceiling. We coexist. It's island life. The room is full of sofas and soft chairs, a big-screen TV, a six-speaker Bose setup, a dining table that seats twelve, and an Olhausen pool table behind that. And space here and there for a little dancing.

  I've created a great kitchen off the Great Room where we prepare big meals like the one we'd have this night. It has granite counter tops, a big dual-fuel Viking--eight gas-fired stove-top burners, including a continuous grate, and two electric ovens--a built-in Sub-Zero, and every appliance I ever coveted. Counter and stools for spectators and critics. Spacious and well-lit. Hell of a kitchen.

  My place is on the other side of the kitchen. It's two stories. I turned the downstairs bedroom into an office and library and built a bedroom, big bath, and deck upstairs.

  Beyond the Great Room there's the back lanai with our outdoor dining area and the big Jacuzzi.

  The fountain in the back yard is new. Rafael Sabatino, Valerie's father, gets credit for it. Here earlier this year, he noticed my struggles with pond construction and suggested a fountain as an alternative. A month later a bronze mermaid arrived. She had plumbing any girl would be proud to call her own. Richie and I filled in the pond excavation and set up the fountain in a flower bed. Unlike most fountains, the water never pools in this one. It just empties from the mermaid's hands as she's washing her hair, spills down her body and splashes across the volcanic rocks that we've arrayed at her feet. There, where you'd expect it to pool, it sort of disappears. Richie figured out how to do it. Eventually, he'll figure out how to rig power to that winch.

  I've set up a half-assed gym in the big tool shed, a couple of bags, a bench, and some free weights. And we have beautiful flowers and herbs and vegetables and six big old palms and the beach and the South Pacific and the Whaler and the outrigger canoe. We also fish from the canoe, the way the natives did centuries ago, spreading nets at night and bringing them in at sunup.

  If you believe you can have too much good, healthy fun, it's probably not right for you.

  Good as it is, it would fail with just one bad apple, so I keep hoping the new neighbor will show up recommended by someone I trust. And I don't trust a lot of people.

  I don't solicit neighbors and I don't solicit the kind of action Muhammad just called about. There are two reasons I don't knock on doors with my hat in my hand, and the other one is I don't wear a hat.

  I didn't know how long I'd be gone. I had plans to meet Valerie in New York for Christmas and one thing could lead to the other. The evening now looked like a Sam and Teresa reunion, an Estelle adoration, and an aloha to me, Harry Pines.

  ***

  We divided responsibilities.

  I'd cook two side dishes that I'd enjoyed at Mario Batali's restaurants in Manhattan when Valerie and I were there last spring. One is deep-fried potato croquettes seasoned with parmigiano reggiano that I'd been served at Babbo, and the other, from Esca, is a well-flavored green bean thing called Fagiolini in Padella.

  Leanne said she'd grill the tuna on the big Weber we keep on the back lanai, using a rub of garlic, rosemary, lemon zest, parsley, and extra virgin olive oil. Richie does great vichyssoise and we'd open with that. Cindy would have hostess duties, selecting the wine, entertaining the guests while we prepared the meal, and earning the seat at the head of the table. I know it sounds like grown-ups acting like college kids, but what the hell.

  Leanne, who is on the music faculty at Chaminade University in Honolulu, has been teaching me the clarinet for about a year. When I began to express guilt a few months back about the donation of her professional time, she suggested a trade.

  "Teach me to cook," she said.

  "You can cook."

  "I mean a big meal full of dazzling recipes for a lot of people."

  "I'd be swapping amateur instruction for professional."

  "Not so. You used to cook at Serena's."

  "But not as the chef. That's her. I was kitchen flunky."

  "Modesty bores me. And you don't do it well. Teach me to cook."

  "Okay." We were in the front room of my apartment, finishing a lesson. "Let's visit the scene of the crime." We walked the thirty feet to the communal kitchen.

  "To begin," I said, "fill a stock pot half full and bring it to a low steady boil."

  "Okay. Why?"

  "It's like in those old Western movies where the baby's about to come and they get the daddy out of the way by telling him to go boil some water. It's like that. And, you never know, it might come in handy. Maybe you'll want to throw bones or trimmings or something in there to make a stock. Might want pasta."

  "Makes perfectly good sense to me."

  "Then there're these things to remember before you chop your first onion.

  "Get your hair out of the game. I think a ponytail'd work for you. Or a bun. Like you wear it when you go to school."

  "Not one of those big hats?"

  "Maybe for Halloween. Get an apron, a plain, belted apron without the bib. White is best. Long is good. No flowers or pictures, no cute quotes. Keep a towel tucked in the waistband." Mine was on a hook and I used it as a demo. "The skirt of the apron and the towel're what you mostly use for grabbing hot things. Williams-Sonoma sells cute quilted mittens, but you can't use them for a little thing, the lip of something. Get a smock, or a shirt you can spare to the cause. Nothing too baggy, sleeves not quite to the wrist. Comfortable rubber-soled shoes you don't worry about if things spill on them. Mine are slip-ons," I pointed to them on the floor by the door, "so when I leave the kitchen I can leave them behind."

  I slow-walked the room, proprietarily.

  "Survey your domain. Learn where everything is so when you need it, you just reach for it. Pots, pans, all the skillets, all the knives, all the ladles and spoons and scoops. Everything. If it's not there when you reach for it, you are entitled to kill whoever moved it."

  "I think that should be whomever," she said.

  "No. Here's the rule on that. Always use whichever form makes you feel good."

  "Okay. Good rule. Easy to rem
ember."

  I took one of the cookbooks from the rack beside the refrigerator and flourished it. I said, "Read the recipe." There's an obnoxious pedagogue living within me. "Study it. Understand what it's all about. So you're not just proceeding step-by-step but actually creating something."

  Leanne saluted a little sarcastically, getting into the spirit of the diatribe.

  "Then put the recipe aside. It's a concept, not a road map. Somebody else's proportions aren't as important as your own taste buds. Cook with an attitude. Invade the food. Touch it, taste it, listen to it cook.

  "Above all is ingredients. Use only the best. Only the freshest. Grown nearby, too, if you can find it. Substitute something fresh or home grown for what's called for in the recipe every time."

  She said, "Don't think because I'm not writing this down, I'm not taking it very seriously."

  "You better be. Now, that's what you do before you begin. After that comes the fun part. Preparation and cooking. We'll partner on that for a few weeks. You'll be my apprentice. I'll abuse you."

  At that she laid down a lascivious little moan.

  Watching us one day at our work, moving around the kitchen, subconsciously anticipating each other's positions, Cindy said, "Fred and Ginger. Together again."

  "What do you do about picky eaters?" Leanne asked me one day.

  "End the relationship."

  Cooking with Leanne Fitch has taught me it's a good thing for a man to work closely with a woman he's not trying to take to bed, especially if the woman looks as good as she does.

  ***

  Estelle's requirements, as expected, brought the evening to an early end. Richie and Leanne and their dates had tickets for the Norah Jones concert on the other side in the Waikiki Shell at the foot of Diamond Head. They were running late, so Cindy said she and I would tidy up. She said, "You kids go on and have fun. Your dad and I'll do the dishes. And don't stay out too late."