by Clare Kauter
James nodded. “That’s fine,” he muttered.
“Charlie’s coming with me. That cool?”
James closed his eyes for a second. He seemed really stressed and I found myself, momentarily, actually feeling sorry for him.
“I guess it’s OK if she comes as long as she doesn’t cause a scene.”
That seemed like a fair deal.
“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I won’t.” And at the time, I meant it.
“Why is it that when you do what I ask, I start to get suspicious?”
There. All the proof that he didn’t deserve to be pitied contained within that one simple question.
What a prick.
Chapter Seven
Only a guy like Tim could get away with driving a car like this. For most people, this car would look like a mid-life crisis. I’m not saying that the car itself was a try-hard car – it just required a driver who looked cool enough to own it. Especially in black. In black, this car was a tad… Sinister.
It was kind of like when you see a hot guy dressed in black suit; it looks good, but you try to avoid it. With men that was because they were either:
a) a cop
b) a Mafioso
c) getting married, or
d) the defendant
With the car, you stayed away because the person driving was either:
a) a drug dealer
b) too rich to travel without a very large and dangerous bodyguard
c) a very talented thief, and/or
d) carrying a gun
The problem was, I was worried that this rule might also apply to Tim. At a guess, I would have taken option d), because I couldn’t see a PI also being a part-time drug lord, and he didn’t seem like he needed a bodyguard. Given the lack of police chasing us, I was fairly certain he hadn’t stolen the car. But the gun thing? Totally plausible. (Almost required, what with him being from the Deep South and all.) And since I wasn’t a big fan of guns, that was kind of stressful.
So I focussed on the interior instead. Black upholstery, GPS, surround sound. There were so many buttons it was like being inside a spaceship. A stylish spaceship. I wondered whether this was his work vehicle.
“Is this car yours?” I asked him. Shit, that hadn’t come out right.
He gave me a funny look then said (sarcastically), “No. I stole it.”
“What I meant was, is it your car or is it a company car?” There. It came out better that time.
“Company car.” Thought so. I wondered if Baxter & Co. would fork out so much money for me? “Speaking of company cars, I heard about what happened in the parking lot. Heard you acted like an old lady.”
“I panicked. I’m not used to getting in trouble for being in a car park.”
“Didn’t I tell you to be careful?”
“I didn’t know that car parks were so dangerous.”
“The whole of B-Co is dangerous, honey. It’s a good place to work, but watch your back.”
“Reckon they’ll give me a car?”
“Sure. Maybe not a Porsche, though, given that you’re admin.”
“At the moment I’d be happy with anything. Just as long as it’s not a Nissan.”
He laughed. “I’ll let Adam know.”
“Adam?” As in the Adam who’d investigated Jeremy? The same Adam who Tim had said was his lawyer?
“Yeah, he basically runs the Gerongate branch. Harry’s not around much,” he explained. “Travels a lot. Setting up offices overseas, you know. So his son takes care of Gerongate.”
“Didn’t you say Adam was your solicitor back at the funeral?”
“Yeah. He does that too.” Well, someone’s an overachiever. Who runs a security business and does law in their spare time?
“Is he a friend of yours?” I asked.
“Yeah. He’s pretty cool once you get to know him.” He paused. “Well, he is if he likes you.” Oh, good. If.
“He seems scary.”
He thought for a moment, looking like he was choosing what to say carefully. “Well, yeah. He could take me in a fight.” Oh, right, so he’s a PI lawyer ninja. Great. “And he can be kind of… Standoffish. Kinda has to be like that though, being the boss and all.”
“Right.” I was not looking forward to meeting this guy.
We rode in silence for a while, until Tim spoke again.
“OK, when we get to the wake, I have three rules. One, we leave when I say, or I’m going without you. Two, don’t cause a scene and annoy James. Three, don’t get so wasted that I have to carry you out of there, or drunk enough that you are going to spew in my car. Got it?”
“Easy.” Don’t talk or do anything. I could handle that. Probably.
I realised we were travelling in the wrong direction.
“I’m just going to drop into the office for a second. You can wait in the car,” he said. He parked in the underground car park and turned off the engine before turning to me and saying, “Stay in here. Don’t move. OK?”
“OK.”
“I mean it. I don’t want you causing a lockdown or something.”
“I’ll stay!”
“Good,” he said. “You’d better.”
Twenty minutes he returned, a stack of newspapers in hand. I was going to ask, but from the look on his face I knew he wouldn’t tell me what they were about. Back on the road, I broke the silence. “Don’t you think having a wake is a bit cruel? I mean, not only is the poor guy dead, but everyone’s celebrating it. At the dead guy’s house. They’re paying for it with his money. That’s a bit disrespectful, isn’t it?” This was one of the rare moments when my conscience came into action. It only ever happened at inconvenient times.
He laughed. “If you put up with the funeral, it’s only fair that you’re rewarded at the end.”
I suppose that made sense. If you didn’t think too hard about it.
“So, Charlie,” he continued. “You and McKenzie obviously don’t get along. Any particular reason?”
“There are too many reasons to even begin to list.”
“OK, if you don’t want to talk about it that’s cool.” He paused. “Looking forward to work tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” I lied. Sharps shot me a disbelieving look. “No.” Another disbelieving look. “I don’t know! What do you want me to say?” I snapped at him. This time he was wearing an amused expression, and looking self-satisfied. Was he stirring me up on purpose?
I know, stupid question.
Of course he was.
I tried again. “I’m a bit nervous.”
“With good reason.” Thanks, Tim!
“That’s a comforting thought.”
“I’ve told you already, honey. It’s good money, but it’s hard work. And it’s dangerous.”
“It doesn’t seem so hard.” But I was pretty sure about the dangerous bit. I was going to have nightmares about that car park for years.
“Are you starting the fitness program?” he asked.
The what now?
“Um, I’m secretary.” Why would I need to?
“Yeah, so? Are you starting fitness or not?”
“I don’t know.” No. Please, god no. Aphrodite? You still there? Lend a sister a hand?
“You probably will.” He sucked in some air. “I pity you. You’re gonna have a hard time of that. I hope you don’t live too far from the office.”
“About five Ks. Why’s that?”
“Because you’re going to have to run that distance five days a week.”
Five?! “What are you saying?”
“That’s what you do until Adam thinks you’re fit enough to cut back.” Had this guy not heard of rest days? Personally, I was a big fan of rest days. I would advocate having rest days as often as possible. Seven days a week was ideal.
“Running?”
“That’s part of it. Generally you do 2 hours of exercise every day when you’re starting out. You have to jog to the gym adjoined to the office and then spend the rest of the time
working out with a personal trainer. Part of that is self defence.”
I was practically hyperventilating by this stage.
“I have to do 10 hours of slogging my arse out per week just so that I’m fit enough to be a secretary?”
“Yep.”
What kind of whacked-out place was Baxter & Co.? You couldn’t walk into a car park unarmed, and you had to be as fit as an Olympian just to handle the books – that wasn’t normal.
Tim spoke again. “You should probably get there a bit early tomorrow. They’ve been fixing up your office over the weekend. Adam will have to show you how to work everything and do searches on the computer.” He paused. “And organise your fitness classes.” I groaned. “Because I can tell you’re really looking forward to them.”
“Don’t even joke about it,” I warned. “So,” I said, desperately trying to change the subject, “I guess B-Co didn’t have a secretary for a fair while before they hired me.”
“I think it was about a month,” Tim responded.
“All those files… in one month?” How was I going to keep up if I had to put that many files away each month as well as being receptionist and researcher?
“Not exactly. Half of them – well, more than half, actually – were old files that the last secretary pulled out of the cabinets. She was trying to trash the place.”
“What possessed her to do that?”
“You don’t want to know,” he said.
“Just tell me.”
He sighed. “Well, there were a few reasons. She sent us a list of complaints and was going to go to court over it, until her solicitor told her that she would be better off leaving it. We would have been represented by Adam Baxter and he’s never lost a court case.”
“He’s that good?”
“Yeah. He’s ridiculous. Did two university courses at once – he did law externally and medicine internally. Topped both of them.”
I decided to pretend I thought Tim was lying, because that would probably make me appear as less gullible than if I showed I believed him. Even though I did.
“So, what did she want to complain about?”
“The fitness program.”
Oh no.
“How long had she been doing it?”
“I think this is one of those things that you’re probably better off not knowing,” he warned.
“How long?”
He sighed. “I really think – ”
“How long?” I demanded.
“A week.”
“Please tell me you are joking.”
He grimaced. “If only.”
“Wow. And I thought the way I quit my last job was impressive. I had four years to prepare.”
“You spent four years planning how to quit your job?”
“Well, not really. I spent four years wanting to quit, but I kind of did it on the spur of the moment. I don’t know why I left it that long.” Now that I think about it, since I got paid nothing and hated it I really should have left earlier. Sometimes I worry about my mental capacity.
“What happened?”
“Well,” I began, “Have you ever heard of Gregory’s Groceries?”
“Oh, yeah. Lea’s husband – ah… I think I’m starting to see where this is going.”
“Well, I kind of got Lea to divorce him and then I quit.”
“Nice. And now you and Lea are friends?”
“And now Lea and I are friends.”
We were silent for a while before Tim said, “So, you made a bet with James McKenzie.”
“Yeah.”
“Things really aren’t friendly between you and James, are they?” I shook my head. “And you got Jeremy’s wife to divorce him.” This time I nodded. “You should probably avoid Karen Martin at the wake, then. She might not be your biggest fan. You know who she is?” I nodded again. “OK. Here we are.”
We found a park pretty close to the house. The wake was to be held, as you know, at Frank McKenzie’s mansion. The house was situated in a snobby part of town called Madison Hill, which the rest of the town had affectionately nicknamed ‘Maddies-on-the-Hill’. (Yeah, not the best pun ever, but don’t blame me. I didn’t come up with it.) Basically, all the people who lived here were very rich, married to someone who was very rich, or drowning in debt, but everyone in the city wanted to live there anyway.
Frank’s house was the crème de la crème of Madison Hill, and therefore it was also the nicest house in Gerongate. It was huge. It was expensive. And it was beautiful.
The four-storey mansion was like a palace. I thought back to the conversation I’d had with McKenzie at the cemetery and almost smiled. ‘King Dickhead’ now owned the castle.
Tim and I hopped out of the car and proceeded to Frank’s front door. We passed Karen Martin’s super fancy wheels on our way there and I wondered if she knew who I was. Just in case, I decided to take Tim’s advice and avoid her.
The front door was being held open by a six-pack of beer (like they couldn’t afford a doorstop), setting the tone for the occasion. I was willing to bet that six-pack would be gone before the party was over. It was amazing how much of a head-start the other party-goers had gotten in the extra 40 minutes or so we’d taken to get here. There was loud music playing, plenty of food and a lot of people doing the Macarena. Weren’t wakes meant to be a sombre sort of affair? Not this one, apparently.
I hoped there was some un-spiked punch or lemonade or something. I wasn’t much of a drinker. The one time I’d drunk a vodka cruiser, I passed out, and when I woke up I had a broken arm. Apparently I’d been doing the chicken dance on a table when I fell unconscious. And then fell off the table. Onto the concrete floor.
You could imagine what moonshine-laced punch would do to me. Not exactly an experience I was craving.
I looked around the room. I could see eskies filled with ice and drinks, plus a couple of fridges. I could see some cans of soft drink, lying untouched. It occurred to me that most people were probably here for the free booze. I turned to Tim.
“I’m going to get a can of lemonade. Do you want anything?”
“Can you get me a bottle of water?”
“Sure. You aren’t drinking?”
“You should be grateful. I’m driving you home. And anyway, I’m not supposed to get drunk on duty,” he told me.
“You’re working now?”
He gave me a look of disbelief. “You didn’t strike me as this thick when we first met.”
“I’m just amazed that you’re getting paid to go to a party. That’s pretty cool.”
“You get paid for any work you do. This kind of stuff is classed as overtime.”
“Do I get paid for this too?” I joked.
“Depends if you find out any information for me.”
“I was only kidding.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I think I could get used to this job.”
“You just remember that when busting your ass in the gym early in the morning.” Thanks for bringing that up, Tim. Just when I’d started to breathe normally again.
“Is it really that bad?” I asked hesitantly, not really wanting to know the answer.
“They say it gets better after the first couple weeks. Think of it like this: some people pay a lot of money to work out with trainers. You get it for free. And you’ve got a lot of motivation.”
“Motivation?”
“When you get paid you’ll know what I mean.”
That sounded promising. Mmm. Money. I was pretty sure that even I could manage exercise if I got payed enough. And judging by Tim’s car, B-Co wasn’t exactly hard up for cash. It didn’t seem like they were very hesitant to hand it out, either.
“I still don’t get why I have to be fit.”
“Because you won’t spend all your time in the office. You’ll realise why you need the exercise after a few weeks. You’ll do a lot of filling in.” Filling in? A what exactly did that entail?
I didn’t end up asking Tim about it further
, however, because it was then that a very drunk James McKenzie stumbled past us, one hand clasped over his mouth and the other gripping the doorframe for support, heading (I assumed) for a toilet.
“He doesn’t look too well,” I commented.
Tim grimaced then nodded in agreement. “I’m going to go and talk to some people. Stay out of trouble.” And he disappeared into the crowd.
I stood there awkwardly for a while, rocking back on my heels, not really sure what to do. I glanced around at the doorway behind me. James hadn’t come out. I wondered whether he’d passed out or was still throwing up. Yuck, I thought. I’d heard of people passing out and drowning in their own vomit. Someone should probably go and check on him.
I looked around. Everyone near me looked too drunk to spell their own names. I doubted they were going to be concerned enough about James to go looking for him. He wasn’t my favourite person, but I didn’t want him dead. And not just because I wouldn’t get a house that way. (But maybe partly because I wouldn’t get a house that way.) I decided to go check on him, because even though my conscience had never weighed largely on my personality, I didn’t want to be responsible for a death.
I walked through the doorway and continued down the hall for a while. I didn’t spot any neon signs saying ‘Toilets’ with an arrow pointing me in the right direction (or any direction, for that matter – there appeared to be a shortage of neon signs), so I just guessed what way to go. Luckily I guessed correctly and by following the groans of pain I managed to find the right bathroom.
He hadn't shut the door and I could see him sitting next to the toilet with his back to the wall and his head between his legs. He lifted his head with his eyes still closed and said, “If you need a toilet, there’s four others. You can find them. I believe in you.”
He looked awful. I wondered how much he’d had to drink since he got back from the funeral. He was definitely sober when I saw him at the burial, and yet now, not even an hour later, he had the kind of look I associated with a full weekend spent drinking.
“You look like crap,” I informed him.
