by Carey Lewis
Cesar lowered the gun slightly. “So you’re returning it?”
“My show rented it, it’s my responsibility. Had a chat with him, said he’d give me time enough to come down here and get it.”
“What’re the chances you’re bluffing?”
“How’d I know Huey already returned it?”
Cesar thought about it then lowered the gun. He said, “First time I met you I thought you were pretty cool.”
“Sounds like a country song.”
“Huey’s down in the bunker, you want to get the keys from him.”
“He’s not doing anything,” Deacon said, moving his eyes to Hector.
Cesar laughed to himself and turned. He gave Hector a nod and turned his head back to Deacon. “We get together tomorrow, watch that movie you’re dying to see.”
Hector went into the barn, down the steps into the bunker. “How do I look in it?” Deacon asked.
“It’s a good performance.”
Deacon reached into his pocket. “You got a problem with it you can call my agent. He’ll set me straight.” He handed Cesar a card.
Cesar took it, looked at it. “Your agent’s a Marshal huh? I already had a chat with him.”
“We had a long chat today about asset forfeiture. You know what that is?”
“Least he changed it here to say Deputy US Marshal. Don’t know who he was fooling saying he was the Marshal. Only one of them appointed by the President per judicial district, you know that?”
“Didn’t come up. Told me to tell you to call him if I’m being a problem. Says to tell you Deacon’s a problem, he’ll put me back in line.”
“That’s what he says huh?”
“Cesar,” Hector called out from the barn.
Cesar turned and Hector threw the keys to him. He caught them and handed them to Deacon. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said and walked back to the barn. Deacon watched him. Both of them sitting back down in their make-shift living room, drinking their beer. Cesar waved him off like he would a pest, dismissive.
Deacon backed up to the passenger side of the SUV and opened the door.
“Where the fuck did that come from?” Brooke asked.
“I think I pissed myself,” Deacon said, breathing like he’d been holding his breath. “Can you see a spot?”
THEY WATCHED DEACON CLOSE THE door of the SUV, smiling at them while he walked to the Town Car. They watched the SUV back up, do a three-point turn, then go out the drive. Deacon followed behind it in the Town Car.
“Thinks he’s planning something, why he’s acting up,” Hector said. “Thinks the bondsman’s going to protect him.”
Cesar stared out to the road even though the car was gone. “Question is, why’s he want me calling the bondsman?”
“Trying to scare you. Making you think he’s in with a Marshal. He don’t know you know he’s not.”
“Even after I tell him I spoke to him. So how’s him and the bondsman get together to decide squeezing me is in their best interest?” Cesar turned to look at Hector. His eyes widened, waiting for an answer.
“What you want me to tell you?”
“You act like you got answers all the time, telling me what I’m not seeing. Got a problem with everything I do.”
Hector stared back at him. It was a showdown. Cesar was right, Hector did always tell him what was wrong with his fuck-stupid plans. Had to be there to stop him, tell him things he wasn’t seeing. Now Hector felt like he was staring at the big problem, right there in front of him. He also felt he had the solution.
He took a swig of his beer.
“What I thought,” Cesar said, drinking his own beer. “You the type likes throwing shit at ideas so you have a claim to them.”
“I’ll look into the bondsman tomorrow, see what role he’s playing in the TV star’s life, see if he’s something we got to worry about. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds like something I already said you’re trying to make like it was your idea.”
Hector took a breath to calm himself. Repeated in his head that it would be soon. He’d go out and look for the bondsman but make a stop at Cesar’s house first, get that Glock out of the tree. Get all this sorted out and see about the ideas. At that point, it wouldn’t matter who came up with shit. What would matter would be who was left standing.
Cesar finished off his beer and dropped it to the ground. He stood up, saying, “I’m going home, let the ladies out.” Called his dogs ladies. “You okay here with Huey?”
“You want me babysitting him?”
“I want you here making sure he don’t do something stupid. He’s a pubic hair away from a cliff and don’t think he won’t grab a hold of us to go with him. Make sure he stays here and don’t stress him.”
“You want him working all night?”
“Huey will work ‘till it’s finished or he stops. It’s when he’s done and his mind starts going other places I’m worried about. You can handle that?”
“Yeah I can handle that.”
Cesar dug into his pocket and took out his keys. “Don’t hit him. Get drunk out here or whatever you want to do, but don’t go smacking him around like you want to.”
“My choice, I won’t even talk to him.”
Cesar nodded, looking down at the hole for the bunker then back to Hector. He nodded again and went to the Acura. Hector watched him climb in, the car coming to life, Bruce Springsteen playing over the stereo. Hector laughed to himself, waving at Cesar as he peeled the car out of there, kicking up stones and dirt.
Guy wants to be American so bad, thinks he’s living the dream. Thinks he’s enterprising and building something. Hector was going to show him who the real American was. Wait until Huey was done his thing and wasn’t needed anymore. Get this TV guy and bondsman to go away. Have those people from Florida come looking for Pablo, tell them Cesar done him in but not to worry, Hector took care of that.
What’s more American than watching a man build up a business then stealing it away from him?
SHE’D NEVER SEEN HIM LIKE that before. Deacon was always happy go-lucky, not confrontational. He always wanted people to like him. Not once had he ever shown that confidence, that no-shit, go fuck yourself attitude. That swagger had her turned on.
Brooke was sitting at the foot of the bed at the Holiday Inn, watching him pace back and forth, taking giant swigs of the whiskey. Deacon never drank whiskey. Rum yes, vodka yes, but not whiskey. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. Her body was bursting with nerves, excitement, something she couldn’t put her finger on. She was staring at him but not seeing him. She could only picture him from her spot in the SUV, through the windshield. Seeing him standing there across from a man with a gun. A man with a gun pointed at him. And he just stood there. Like it didn’t bother him. Like he didn’t give a shit.
He was saying something now. She didn’t hear him. Hell, she couldn’t even bring herself to speak. She took out a smoke and lit it, trying to get herself under control. She took a gulp of the whiskey. It warmed her throat and chest as it went down.
Here was Deacon with the bottle refilling her glass. Refilling his own. Putting the bottle on the mini-bar then coming over with ice. It clinked when it went in her glass. She took another gulp of it, looked up and watched him again. He was definitely saying something but she wasn’t paying attention. Maybe it was the nerves. Everything that was happening she thought she had under control. Realizing now she didn’t. It needed a release.
“So what do you think?” he asked. He wasn’t pacing anymore. He was standing in front of her, waiting for her to answer. Wanting to know what she thought.
She lunged at him, her mouth hungry for his. The drinks and her cigarette fell to the floor. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and he started kissing her back, his hands wanting to touch every part of her all at once. He lifted her up and they fell on the bed together, desperate to get each other’s clothes off.
Brooke kept asking herself what she was doing. Logica
lly she knew it wasn’t right, something that shouldn’t be happening. But she couldn’t help it. Neither could he.
They needed a release.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DEACON STOOD IN THE DOORWAY, watching Brooke sleep, thinking about last night. They left the farmhouse, went and dropped the Town Car off to Jeff. Brooke waited in the SUV, Jeff wanted to chat. Told Deacon to tell Huey if he changes his attitude, he could have his job back. Felt bad for him he said.
Got into the Buick with Brooke, neither of them saying anything, just smoking. He noticed his hand shaking every time he brought the cigarette to his mouth. Couldn’t believe where his bravado performance came from. Just told himself to play a part and that was it. Best performance of his life.
In the hotel room they had a few drinks. He didn’t think it would hit him as fast as it did. Grabbed some whiskey from down the street first, he forgot that part. Felt like a man and wanted a man’s drink. Then he was pacing, trying to get it straight what the hell happened, what brought it over him. He couldn’t remember if she said anything while he was talking. Then she jumped on him.
And it was different this time.
Not that it was bad. It was always good with Brooke. What do they say about sex? It’s like pizza, he thought at the time. He remembered thinking that. Sex was like pizza, even when it was bad it was good. But it wasn’t bad. It was just different.
There was no love this time, no connection. Even when they had lazy sex during their marriage, there was always a connection. He didn’t feel it this time, was sure Brooke didn’t either. Two people needed something. That was it. Two animals using each other.
Deacon stood in the doorway now, holding the door open while he was half standing in the hall. She was still a good looking woman, even while she slept. She was beautiful when she was awake, cute while she slept. She never believed him though. Seems all women think they’re making ugly faces while they sleep. Brooke thought that too. What Deacon thought while he had one foot in the room and one foot out, looking at the woman he loved with everything he had was that his marriage was over. Just so happened that she knew it before he did.
And that’s always the kicker isn’t it? When one in a relationship knows it’s over before the other. In their mind, the one that knew it first had already moved on, surprised when it blindsided their partner, like they should’ve known it too. Hell, maybe Deacon did know it. He just didn’t accept it until this point.
He gently closed the door when he left.
“THIS BETTER BE A GOOD house you drag me all the way down here,” Harvey said. That was the first thing he said to Deacon. Deacon smiled, offered to take his bag, Harvey goes ahead and says that while handing it over.
Deacon led him through the airport, through the throngs of people, the lost passengers, the people reuniting. Took him to a coffee shop with plastic booths and burgundy cushions. “Don’t tell me you bring me all the way here to not leave the airport,” Harvey said. They ordered their drinks and sat down at the back, near the window.
“I got the contractors ready to go,” Harvey said, adding sugar to his mocha. “Makes any difference to you, I think we’re going to get the house you still want it. Fired that intern too, the one that signed that shitty contract.”
“Why you think we’re getting the house?”
“Cops don’t like them I can tell you that. Big write-up in the paper there, not that those people do any reading. Telling people to boycott the house. That house goes up someone’s going to buy it just for spite. I say to them, I say, ‘See all those people outside yelling at you? That’s not bothering you?’ He looks at me and tells me they’re customers, they just don’t know it yet. They’ll want to come in and see what the fuss is about. Anyone having a problem finding the place can just follow the pissed off foreigners to find it.”
Harvey stirred the sugar into his mocha. “Page one, newspaper has this full page article talking about the racist house, how the Campbells are keeping this vile tradition going. Got a picture of them standing in front of it, smiling, like they’re proud of it. Goes into the history of the house, what his family did. You know what’s on page two? A fucking ad for the haunted house seen on Gray’s Ghosts. You believe that?”
He took a sip of the mocha. “Next day there’s another ad. It says ‘as seen in’ whatever that fucking paper was called. I got to laugh because I can’t see myself doing something else, the nerve of those two. It’s the paper I’m pissed off at. They tell me advertising’s another division they don’t control. I ask them if anyone reads their own goddamn paper to find out what’s going on in the pages.”
Harvey took another sip. “Enough about me. I know you’re dying to talk about you.”
“It’s a long story.”
“The best ones are and I’m in an airport.”
“Where you want to go, the beach?”
“There’s another reason to come down here? Maybe some fish tacos.”
“You’re dressed like you belong in an airport.”
Harvey looked down at his suit, flapped the tie onto the table, said, “They don’t wear this no more?”
“I never seen you in anything else.”
“That’s why you have confidence in me. Bring me all the way to a beach to talk at an airport. You want to talk about it here or talk about it with fish tacos and a sea-breeze? I have to get a hotel first.”
“There’s a house we did the show at.”
“Why else would you call me? All our money’s tied up in case you forgot.”
“There’s more to it.”
“I changed my mind, let’s go to the beach.” Harvey slid out of the booth and stood up, waiting for Deacon.
“Thing is,” Deacon said, sliding out. “I don’t think they’re selling.”
“Makes buying a house difficult. You know, them not selling, you not having money.”
“That’s where you come in.”
DEACON DROVE BACK AND FORTH along Ocean Boulevard with Harvey looking out the window at the hotels. Harvey got distracted a lot by the women in their bikinis going to and from the beach. Harvey would tell him to stop so Deacon would pull the Buick into a hotel. Harvey would get out, run inside, a couple minutes later he’d come back, saying the hotel wasn’t for him.
“You ever get a hotel from the Internet? Get there start wondering where they took the pictures from because the one they give you don’t match?”
“I don’t think it’s a big deal.”
“Because you’re too chicken-shit of pissing people off. Let’s drive by that one up there, the white one with the balconies out front.” So Deacon pulled the Buick back into traffic and went along the road, Harvey checking out the women again. Turned out, that hotel wasn’t good enough either.
Forty-five minutes of this, Deacon pulled into the Caribbean Resort and Villas, said, “This is your hotel.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m not driving to another one. Look, you get free WiFi.”
So Deacon stayed outside the Caribbean Resort and Villas for a half hour while Harvey went inside and checked in. He came back to the SUV wearing board shorts and a lime green tank top that was too snug. He opened the door and said, “They give me a spot you can park in. Go down to the boardwalk from there.” Deacon parked and then they were walking along the boardwalk.
“Was half way to thinking they’d offer me a spliff when I checked in from the name of the place.”
“Didn’t think you smoked.”
“When in Rome,” Harvey said and left it at that. They were checking out the store fronts as they walked by, Harvey mostly checking out the women. They got out of the way when a roller-blader would come by or people smacking a ball around.
“How do you not know where a decent taco place is?” Harvey asked.
“It’s not like I’ve been down here yet.”
“Because the other things.”
“The things you didn’t want me telling you at the airport,
yeah.”
“You tell me at the airport, you’re likely to put me on a plane again to go somewhere else. This way I get a day of vacation out of it at least.”
“You don’t mind your wife’s not with you?”
“That’s why it’s a vacation,” Harvey said, smiling at Deacon. “Let’s go in here,” he said, watching a couple girls in bikinis walk in to a place that had signs bragging about their tacos. The place had wooden stools out front where the counter was, and the interior was heavily varnished wood. Deacon guessed it was supposed to be reminiscent of a surf house, if that was a thing. The surf boards on the walls gave it away.
They chatted for awhile while they waited for their food. Harvey had his gaze trained on anything in a two-piece. “You know it was Schwarzenegger had the best line I ever heard? Not even in one of his movies. Maybe that bodybuilding one he did before he was famous, I don’t remember. ‘Eating isn’t cheating’ is what he said. That’s the thing you got to do if you want to say something, you got to make it rhyme, it’s the only thing people pay attention to.”
They only got to business when Harvey got his fish tacos and wasn’t impressed. “If I flew down here for these I’d be disappointed.”
“Maybe that’s why it’s not the selling point of the place.”
“So you got a house people don’t want to sell and no money to buy it with,” Harvey said, taking another bite of the taco, ready to get down to it. “You don’t need me, you need a loan.”
“I don’t want to buy the house.”
“You want to tell me when this gets interesting?”
“I want it to seem like I bought the house.”
“You want it to seem like you bought the house from the people not selling?”
Deacon shook his head. “To someone else.”
“As fun as it is playing the DiVinci Code with you, you want to tell me what’s going on?”
