by S. G. Browne
“What about him?” says Tuesday.
“I thought you wanted to talk about him. Discuss your case.”
“Not here. This place is too public. Too many eyes and ears.”
I glance around at the people at the bar and sitting at the tables in the handful of nooks, drinking their beers and having normal conversations about normal lives. I bet some of them are even going to get laid.
“Then why did you ask me to meet you here?”
“Because I was thirsty.”
Her second beer arrives, which apparently turns out to be her third, and I notice for the first time that Tuesday’s a little tipsy. I also notice that her sweater is sliding off one shoulder, revealing a glimpse of her black bra strap.
When it comes to women, men love to catch glimpses of three things: bra straps, panties, and tattoos. They create a sense of discovery about what other treasures might be hidden. Which is half the fun of undressing a woman, both physically and mentally. The anticipation of what you might find. When you see a man checking out a woman, he’s either storing up information for a masturbation session or he’s hoping her clothes will miraculously fall off.
Right now, I’m multitasking.
“So tell me about yourself, Mr. Monday,” she says, taking a drink, oblivious to the effect her exposed bra strap is having on me.
“What do you want to know?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She gives me a sultry glance that makes me wonder if she’s bipolar or just playing hard to get. “Amuse me with your personal history.”
So we spend most of her third Stella and my first Guinness discussing my childhood, where I grew up, where I’ve lived, how long I lived in Tucson, why I moved to San Francisco, what made me become a detective. I fabricate most of the answers because I’m not about to tell her the truth since I don’t trust her. She doesn’t seem to notice. Just orders up another round of drinks and keeps asking me questions and I keep answering, both of us ignoring the white elephant in the room.
Wait. That’s not right. A white elephant is a party where you bring a used or worthless gift to exchange for another used or worthless gift. This is just a regular elephant we’re ignoring. Lingering about, waving its trunk, batting its eyes, then leaving a big, steaming pile of excrement on the floor.
Or maybe I’m the only one ignoring the elephant since Tuesday doesn’t know that I know the truth about who she is. Or rather, who she isn’t. Except I’m not even sure what the truth is, only that she’s apparently not who she claims to be. I don’t know why she’s here or how come she’s impersonating the mayor’s daughter. And since I’m the only one of us who’s aware of this information, then technically I’m the only one avoiding it, so maybe there isn’t any elephant to ignore.
Stupid idioms.
By the time I’ve finished my second Guinness and Tuesday’s almost drained her fourth Stella, it’s seven o’clock and happy hour’s over and I’m still no closer to figuring out who she is or what she wants or how I can get my hands on her breasts.
I can’t help it. It’s just innate. Like breathing.
Some men like legs. Others prefer butts. Some are tits-and-ass men, which I can respect, but you should really make up your mind. Choose a body part and stick with it. I’ve heard a few men have a thing for necks. Which I find completely baffling.
I’ve always been a breast man. Big breasts. Small breasts. Real breasts. Fake breasts. Breasts of any shape, size, or color. I even prefer them when it comes to dinner. If it’s a turkey, give me a breast. If it’s a chicken, ditto. A duck? You bet. I’ve never had a pig breast, but if someone ever served one up, I’d be first in line.
“Would you like to go someplace more private where we can discuss my father?” asks Tuesday. “Or would you prefer to stay here and stare at my breasts?”
At least I’m predictable.
“How about we go someplace more private where I can stare at your breasts.”
“I’m sure you’re going to stare at them no matter the venue. So I suppose it doesn’t really matter.”
“How about my office, then?”
I’d take her back to my apartment, but that would be breaking one of the cardinal rules of poaching: never let anyone know where you live. Or maybe that’s just my rule. Besides, I don’t think she’d appreciate my six hundred square feet of drug-infested heaven.
“Fine.” She pulls out her cell phone. “I’ll call a cab.”
I settle the tab while Tuesday calls a cab, then she goes to use the restroom and I try to figure out my next move. I could continue to play along, pretend I don’t know that she’s impersonating the mayor’s daughter, and see where it leads. Plus she’s had enough to drink that I’m pretty confident sex isn’t entirely out of the question. I’d give it a better than fifty-fifty chance. But sex isn’t a good idea for all sorts of reasons.
One, I don’t have time.
Two, I can’t think of a good second reason. And the first reason is negotiable.
“I told the cab to meet us at the corner,” says Tuesday, returning from the restroom.
“Perfect.” I offer her my arm, which, oddly enough, she takes.
We walk out of O’Reilly’s into the relative tranquillity of the early San Francisco evening, the shadows stretching across the city, and head away from the crowds and traffic of Columbus Avenue toward Powell Street. A cab is already sitting at the corner on the opposite side of the street, so we cross over until we’re passing in front of the Green Street Mortuary parking lot, which sits deserted. No one is within a block of us. It’s just Tuesday and me, weaving down the sidewalk. More than once she stumbles and falls into me, so I, being the perfect gentleman, put my arm around her waist to hold her up and cop a feel.
“I think I had too much to drink,” she says.
She staggers again, one hand reaching around and grabbing on to me, and I smell the beer on her breath and the shampoo in her hair. Her body presses against mine and I feel her soft curves, the warmth of her flesh, and her heart pounding, fast and rhythmic, like a long-distance runner’s.
Even without the heightened perceptions of Donna Baker’s high-grade good luck, being this close to Tuesday is intoxicating. It’s all I can do to maintain my self-control. I know I’ll probably kill any chance I have of discovering her hidden treasures if I divulge that I know she’s a phony, but I need to find out what she wants from me and why she’s pretending to be someone else.
“You know,” I say as we approach the front bumper of the cab, “for someone impersonating the mayor’s daughter, you should really learn how to hold your—”
Before I can react, Tuesday pivots around and knees me in the balls. I let out a sound like a baby seal calling out to its mother and I fall over as the driver-side cab door opens and Scooter Girl steps out.
I wonder if this is what she meant by it’s complicated.
I’m on the ground, curled up in a fetal position, whimpering, with Tuesday leaning over me, her breasts hovering above my face. But I’m in so much pain, I can’t appreciate the view.
Tuesday grabs a handful of my hair, pulls my head off the sidewalk, leans in close and whispers, “That’s for my father, you son of a bitch.”
Then my head is slamming into concrete and everything goes black.
When I wake up, I can barely move. Part of the reason is that the slightest movement sends tendrils of ball-tugging agony snaking through my groin and up into my abdomen and causes me to throw up a brown, foamy liquid that looks too much like Guinness to be anything else. My lack of mobility isn’t helped by the fact that my hands and ankles are bound with zip ties.
This getting-kidnapped thing is becoming a habit. And not nearly as enjoyable as apple fritters or corporate-coffeehouse baristas.
I’m on my side on a concrete floor in what I’m guessing is some kind of a warehouse, which from my limited vantage point appears empty except for me. Fluorescent lights hang from the ceiling, but they’re turned off. Fading daylight filter
s in through the skylights. I hear something that sounds like water, waves lapping at a building, which makes me think I’m in a vacant warehouse on one of the piers. I don’t know how much time I’ve lost, but from the soft, orange light coming in through the skylights, I’m guessing it’s pushing sunset.
My head is throbbing and my throat is burning and my mouth tastes like the inside of a Dumpster. Not that I’ve ever tasted the inside of a Dumpster, but I imagine it would probably taste something like what my mouth tastes like now.
I’m cursing Elwood for taking my Mentos.
I try to get my knees under me so I can sit up, but the effort is more than my testicles can handle, so I just lie on the concrete and let out a groan.
“Good, you’re awake,” says a woman’s voice from somewhere behind me. Then I hear shoes clicking on the concrete, and a moment later a pair of red heels and creamy-white feet come into view. The feet are attached to legs, which disappear into a red circle skirt, and before I get to the bountiful cleavage inside the black V-neck sweater, Tuesday crouches down and looks at me. Only instead of a brunette, she’s now a blonde.
“Sorry about smacking your head on the sidewalk,” she says. “Chalk it up to a lot of repressed hostility.”
“I notice you’re not apologizing for turning me into a eunuch.” The words come out in a raspy whisper. I sound like Louis Armstrong with laryngitis. Or Don Corleone with strep throat.
“No, that you had coming.” Tuesday stands up and walks past me. She comes back a moment later with a folding metal chair, which she sets in front of me before sitting down on it, crossing her legs.
I’m still lying on my side, my face inches from the pool of regurgitated Guinness and something that looks like peanuts. I don’t remember eating any peanuts, which bothers me, but I suppose I should be worrying about other things at the moment rather than what I had for dinner.
Tuesday just sits there, watching me, wearing a faint smile, one ankle bouncing up and down to the beat of some distant, unheard music.
“Isn’t this kind of cliché?” I ask, my voice slowly returning.
“Which part?”
“Good point. But I was referring to the hero tied up in an empty warehouse. Where are the implements of torture and the briefcase full of money?”
“First of all, you’re no hero,” says Tuesday. “As for the implements of torture, let’s just say you’ll get what you deserve. And if you’re thinking you can buy your way out of this, forget it. This is where it ends for you.”
I’m hoping she’s wrong. I’ve got tickets to the Giants and Dodgers game on Friday night. And I still haven’t seen Wicked.
“I liked you better as a brunette,” I say.
She smiles and runs a hand through her hair. “It served its purpose. Besides, we really do have more fun.”
I should have known from her blond eyebrows the first time we met that she was a fake, but I was too distracted by her breasts. And the jury’s still out on those.
“So who are you?” I ask.
“Doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t mean anything to you anyway.”
At the moment, the only thing that means anything to me is making it to my next birthday.
“Then I take it you weren’t interested in retrieving your so-called father’s luck.”
“Gordon Knight’s political tailspin just provided my cover. If the last person anyone saw you with was me, they’d identify the mayor’s daughter. No one would even know who I was.”
“So what do you want from me?” I ask, half into the concrete. It’s not easy talking when you’re lying on your side with your hands and ankles bound while your testicles feel like they’ve been pounded with a meat tenderizer.
“For a detective, you’re not very perceptive.”
“Yeah, well, for a hot-looking chick you’re not very personable.” It’s all I can come up with on short notice.
Tuesday just laughs at me.
“Okay, for starters,” I say, trying to redeem what little pride I have, “I know you and Scooter Girl are working together.”
“Scooter Girl?”
A door opens and closes somewhere behind me, followed by the approach of footsteps. Moments later, Scooter Girl is standing next to Fake Tuesday in jeans, sweatshirt, and tennis shoes and wearing a small leather backpack.
“Everything taken care of?” asks Tuesday.
Scooter Girl nods, then looks at me and cocks her head, as if she’s empathizing with my current horizontal position. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better.”
She gives me a smile, and in spite of my current predicament, I still can’t help but think that there’s something here worth pursuing. Sure, she lied to me and got me beat up by a bunch of teenage skate punks and helped to kidnap me, but every relationship has issues that need to be worked out.
“I guess this is what you meant when you said it was complicated.”
Scooter Girl smiles, then cocks her head again. “You know, it’s kind of a shame. He is kind of cute.”
“Please,” says Tuesday. “Don’t make me gag. And speaking of gags, get out the duct tape and let’s get on with it.”
“Wait a minute,” I say. “Can’t we talk about this?”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” says Tuesday. “There’s nothing you can say that will change what you did.”
“Look,” I say, “I know you’re both working for Tommy Wong—”
“We don’t work for Tommy Wong,” says Tuesday.
“Then why did you take me out to lunch?” I say to Scooter Girl.
“I didn’t say anything about lunch. You did. I just played along.”
I think back to the conversation, replaying it in my head, but I can’t remember who said what first. No surprise, considering I was still coming to terms with having a dead body behind my desk.
“So why were you at my office?”
“Following up. Finding out where you were from. Making sure we had the right guy.”
“The right guy for what?” I ask. “What the hell kind of poachers are you?”
“We’re not poachers,” says Tuesday.
“You’re not?”
Scooter Girl shakes her head.
“What about the skateboarder on Lombard? I saw you poach his luck.”
“I just shook his hand. You presumed the rest. Like the lunch.”
If I wasn’t confused before, I’m completely lost now.
“I’ve studied poachers for the last three years,” says Scooter Girl. “Learning what you do and how you do it. All I had to do was make you think I was stealing his luck. It was all part of the act.”
“Act?”
Tuesday looks at me and laughs. “Oh my God. You don’t really think she likes you, do you?”
I look at Scooter Girl, who just smiles and shrugs. “I spent three years in the theater program at U of A.”
So much for my instincts.
“But if you weren’t there to poach that kid’s luck, then why were you there?”
“I was keeping an eye on you,” she says. “And confirming our suspicions.”
“Suspicions?”
“Of who you were,” says Tuesday.
“You were following me?”
Scooter Girl nods. “Ever since my sister left your office.”
“Your sister?” I say, looking from Scooter Girl to Fake Tuesday.
“We’re from Tucson,” says Tuesday. “We grew up there.”
“Tucson?” I look back and forth between the two of them, trying to figure out what I’m missing. “So I take it you didn’t come to San Francisco to work for Tommy Wong?”
“No,” says Scooter Girl. “We came here to find you.”
“To find me? For what?”
Tuesday gets up and walks over to me, then squats down and grabs me by the hair. “For what you did to our father.”
“Your father?” I say, my eyes closed and my face scrunched up, hoping this isn’t going to be a re
peat of having my head slammed against the ground. “Who’s your father?”
Tuesday lets out a bitter laugh and lets go of my hair. I open my eyes as she walks out of view, then Scooter Girl walks over to me in her sneakers and jeans and leans down.
“What did I do?” I ask.
“You killed our father.”
“What? I didn’t kill anyone. You have the wrong guy. I don’t even know who your father is.”
“No, but the person you poached bad luck for in Tucson does. Or should I say, he did.” Scooter Girl gives me a wicked smile.
And then it finally dawns on me.
The bad luck I poached three years ago in Tucson was used to kill their father, and they found me through my buyer, who I’m guessing is no longer in the present tense. And I’m about to join him. Not that I have anything against the past tense. He said. She said. They were. I was. People get along just fine with the past tense. But I prefer the present tense, especially when there’s a possibility I won’t have any future tense.
I never was good with grammar.
“We spent the past three years tracking down your buyer and then you,” says Scooter Girl. “It wasn’t easy. But my sister refused to give up. Said we owed it to Dad. And she was right.”
No matter how far you go, sooner or later, your past is bound to catch up with you.
“It’s too bad,” she says. “You really are kind of cute. But like I said, I don’t have sex with men who poach bad luck.”
Somewhere behind me, I hear a door open and the sound of water increases in volume.
“Look, I didn’t know what the bad luck was going to be used for,” I say. “I never know what my buyers are going to do with the luck they purchase.”
Scooter Girl shrugs off her backpack and opens it. “That’s kind of like a gun dealer not taking responsibility for the people his merchandise kills, don’t you think?”
Before I can offer up a rebuttal and grovel for my life, Tuesday is behind me and Scooter Girl is ripping off a piece of duct tape and taping my mouth closed.
This is another reason why you don’t get involved with women. Eventually you end up bound and gagged in an abandoned warehouse.
