T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 03 - Southern Peril

by T. Lynn Ocean

  Her former boss was a married man with kids. And now he was playing chauffeur for an ex-employee? Morgan’s smile froze as he fought to stay upright. His hand tightened around the door handle. Mark found Morgan’s other hand and shook it.

  “Great to see you again, and glad to hear from Maria that your restaurant is doing so well.” Mark waited for Maria to move inside before following. “I’m really looking forward to dinner tonight, let me tell you.”

  The hostess determined that the Greer party was early for their reservation, but she could seat them shortly. They agreed to have a cocktail in the bar. Mark Greer, Morgan remembered. He’d met Maria’s employer on a few occasions, at company functions. The man was a terrific boss, Maria told Morgan the day she’d given notice that she was quitting to move east with her fiancé. Mark gave Maria severance pay and her upcoming holiday bonus. Most employers would have bade Maria farewell and offered to serve as a reference. Mark Greer had given her extra money. And now he’d flown fifteen hundred miles to retrieve her.

  Morgan watched them settle in at a cozy bar table, Mark tending to her comfort before finding his own chair. Most people wore upscale casual attire to Argo’s, but Mark and Maria had decked out for the occasion. She’d worn her hair up. Long earrings dangled from her lobes and glittered every time the light caught them just right. Her lips were glossy red. He loved that shade of lipstick on Maria and wondered if she’d worn it for his benefit or Mark’s. In a tailored suit, colorful tip of an artfully folded silk handkerchief sticking out of the breast pocket, Mark leaned back and smiled at his date. She returned the smile. They sure were showing a lot of teeth to each other, Morgan thought.

  “Put them at the Green Table,” he told the hostess.

  “Josh Brown is coming, and he always sits at—”

  “Just do it,” Morgan growled, and stalked off.

  “Fine,” she mouthed to his back, wondering what had gotten into the new owner. He was more edgy than usual.

  Repulsed at what he was about to do, Morgan locked himself in the private office, inserted the earbud, and fiddled with dials on the blue box until he could hear activity in the dining room. The audio came through so clearly, he envisioned exactly what tasks the bus-boy did as he cleared and reset the Green Table. Five minutes later, Deanna seated Maria and her former boss. Morgan heard the click of a lighter when Deanna lit the five fresh tea candles in the table’s centerpiece. Recognizing that her customers were new to Argo’s, she told them about the artwork surrounding the Green Table.

  “You were right, Maria,” Morgan heard Mark say. “This place is impressive.”

  “And romantic! Morgan put us at the best table in the house. I thought it might be weird to eat here, but I guess he’s forgiven me.”

  Morgan shut his eyes tight. Now his employee would want to know who Maria was. And what he’d supposedly forgiven her for.

  Deanna took drink orders, and then they were alone. The three of them: Maria and Mark and Morgan. He could see them on the monitor, from the overhead dining room camera. It was a wide shot, and although their features weren’t clear, their body language was. Two heads, leaning toward each other. Maria’s elbow on the table, her fingers playing with the stem of a water glass. The table’s unique kidney-shaped design allowed for a couple to sit next to each other, and these two had positioned themselves as lovers would. Definitely not a simple employer-employee relationship. Mark reached for Maria’s hand, the one that had previously held an engagement ring. Morgan’s chair lost its legs, and the video monitor seemed to move. Nauseated, he yanked out the earbud and covered it with a stack of invoices. He didn’t want to hear. He didn’t want to learn how little he’d meant to Maria.

  But he had to know. Rocking to ease the pandemonium in his stomach, Morgan twisted the earbud back into place.

  “—doesn’t matter now,” came the man’s voice. “She knows I want a divorce. I’ve already hired an attorney. We can be together and as soon as the divorce is final.”

  “No more sneaking around?” Maria said.

  “Never again. I told her that we can do the divorce the easy way or the hard way. Easy is that she contests nothing and gets a very generous settlement. Plus the kids get to keep me in their life. They’ll spend some weekends and holidays with me. With us.”

  Deanna arrived with a bottle of wine, and the table went silent while she opened it. Mark declined the customary tasting. Deanna filled two glasses and placed a small tray of bread and cheese in front of them. As soon as she’d gone, Mark continued.

  “My wife is a smart woman. She chose the easy divorce. Which means that you and I can openly be together starting, well, right now.”

  The dark dot on the monitor that was Maria’s head tilted back when she drank her wine. Morgan shut his eyelids tight so he wouldn’t have a visual. Listening was all the input he could handle.

  “Where will we live?”

  That was his Maria, Morgan thought. Always practical.

  “I’ve found a great condo and put an offer on it. You’re going to love it. We can move in as soon as the deal closes in two weeks. Until then, I’ll stay where I am, but we’ll get you a motel room at one of those residence-type places.”

  Maria’s voice, always soft and seductive when she was happy, drew Morgan into its depth like a cushy down comforter on a freshly made bed. He envisioned her mouth, glossy red lips, moving the way they did with a slight upturn at the corners, and he felt as though she were mere inches away. He fantasized that her velvety words were meant for him. “You are so brilliant,” he heard Maria say, “and decisive. That’s what I love about you. You want something and then you figure out how to make it happen.”

  He was brilliant. He was loved. He was the recipient of her compliments. Just one more time, for a few seconds, anyway, as long as Morgan could hold on to the fantasy.

  “You flatter me too much,” Mark said. Morgan wished the man would shut up.

  Deanna arrived to take their food orders. Morgan opened his eyes, stared at the monitor. Saw the happy couple. Heard him order two of the seafood specials. Watched Deanna refill Maria’s wineglass. Heard Maria thank the server. Watched Deanna retreat as Maria and Mark made a toast.

  “To us,” Mark said, “and our future.”

  Their words faded in and out as ripples of vertigo overtook Morgan. He sat perfectly still in his chair with both feet planted firmly on the floor, but still the office swayed around him.

  “Well, I’m going to have to get a job, even so,” Maria said.

  “You’ll work for me again.”

  “What will people think?”

  Mark laughed, a confident, short laugh. “I own the damn company and don’t really care what people think. Besides, once we’re married, it will be your company, too.”

  Her sharp intake of breath and subsequent squeal came through the earbud like an ice pick. Muscles paralyzed, brain throbbing, Morgan endured the remainder of their meal from the confines of his small office. He discovered that Deanna was a professional and polite server and overheard that she was attending classes to earn a master’s degree in education. He learned that Maria had been dating her boss, on and off, the entire time she’d been with him. Almost a year longer, in fact. He found out that it took Maria quitting her job and moving away to bring Mark to his senses and that Mark was apologetic about the way he’d treated Maria in the past. Morgan found out that his ex had always wanted to vacation in Maui, a factoid she’d never shared with him. He learned of a special chair, presumably one in Mark’s office, that—according to Maria—was perfect for making love while sitting on his lap. She was eagerly looking forward to another business meeting, in fact, and planned to wear a dress without panty hose for the occasion.

  The partially digested contents in Morgan’s stomach rolled up his throat, and he heaved into a small trash can.

  “By the way, I forgot to ask,” Mark said. “How did your boyfriend take it when you told him you were breaking off the engagement? He
seemed cordial enough to see you tonight.”

  “Oh, he’s fine with it. His whole life is this restaurant, anyway. It’s like he’s obsessed with proving something to his dead father. And he wasn’t even tight with the man. It’s weird.”

  “Well, he’s a very good-looking guy. I’d be beside myself with jealousy if you were still with him.” Mark leaned forward, as though he weren’t already close enough. “Anyway, I’m really glad that he didn’t make things difficult for you, Maria.”

  “I gave him back the engagement ring and told him it was better to break it off now rather than later. He was cool with that.”

  Morgan felt like crying, the kind of let-it-all-out wail that a child in pain might give after falling onto a concrete sidewalk. Instead, he could only laugh as he thought of his MasterCard bill. Maria hadn’t given the ring back, and he was still paying for the diamond she planned to wear around her neck. In a drop. To remember him by.

  SEVEN

  The Block is a laid-back joint that falls somewhere between “local dive with great food” and “happening happy hour spot.” My two favorite things about the old converted warehouse are the river view and the wide-open feel. I was behind the bar, filling ice bins and restocking beer. I did it to be helpful, but on a selfish level, the chores made me feel closer to Ox, since his management style often puts him behind the bar. It might have been wishful thinking, but I detected the warm and fresh hint of his aftershave lingering around the cash register.

  It didn’t help that every other customer coming in wanted to know where Ox and Lindsey were. They’d gotten used to Lindsey’s enthusiastic fist-bump greetings and Ox’s good-natured chatter. The Block, I’d heard several regulars say, was like a second home to them. If I measured such things, I’d probably find the overall decibel level in my pub to be lower than usual.

  “The kitchen didn’t do a special for tonight,” Ruby said. “Not that it really matters. People are going to ask for what they want anyway, I suppose.”

  “Anything wrong?” I asked her.

  “I just told you. There’s no special to tell people about.”

  “No, I mean with you. Are you okay?”

  “It’s just not the same around this place.” She spied a beer can that had missed the trash bin and bent to pick it up. “Ah, well. It’s only for another month or so.”

  So I wasn’t the only one feeling the absence. Ruby patted my shoulder motherlylike and headed for the kitchen. Normally, the veteran server sashayed when she moved. Today, she walked. Even Cracker was docile, not bothering to circulate and beg for peanuts. Some people say that animals don’t have emotions, but I know better.

  Wiping down counters, I allowed my thoughts to wander to Morgan and his motivations. Most people, I’d learned, could be evaluated by whatever it was that motivated them. Profiles sketched, relationships discovered, and future courses of action revealed—all based on an individual’s motivating factors. In Trish’s world, a man’s motivation boiled down to a sexual rendezvous with a mistress. The overriding constant in his daily routine was how, where, and when he’d next hook up with her. The window of opportunity could be quite brief, but still, it was the mark’s main motivators that allowed Trish to get the goods on a cheating husband and collect a fat fee from the wife.

  Of course, the cheating spouse is a simple example. Your average person is motivated by a much wider host of factors. Yet Morgan remained a mystery, and it didn’t appear that anything motivated him, other than seeing Argo’s succeed. I couldn’t find anything outstanding or unusual or even commendable about the man, other than he’d been a law abider. No record. No arrests. Not even a traffic violation. Problem was, he didn’t have any type of record. No social clubs, memberships, favorite vacation spots, or best friends. He drove an average car, had spent many years in an average job earning an average salary, and had lived in an average neighborhood in Dallas. Why he’d decided to relocate his life to run a restaurant—an eatery previously held by a father he hadn’t spoken to in years—remained a mystery to me. A shrink I’m not, but maybe Morgan’s unremarkable past was his motivation. Maybe he’d grown weary of a dull life. The bigger question that spun inside my head was this: What did he know that he wouldn’t share with his own sister? He’d obviously stumbled into something perilous, something he meant to keep a secret. Your average citizen would not so easily dismiss a home break-in.

  I washed out my bar rag and went to work on the blender base. Sticky dried globs of something whitish had attached themselves to it, like barnacles on a pier post. Probably margarita. I never knew that lime juice and Cointreau, when dried, had concretelike properties. Seemed like the tequila would have counteracted them.

  “Is this where the NABs are meeting?”

  I straightened up from my scrubbing to see a woman in a tie-dyed turban. I couldn’t tell whether she was fifty or eighty. “Excuse me?”

  “The New Age Babes. Is this where we’re meeting?”

  I rinsed and wrung out my rag. “Sorry, ma’am, I think you’re in the wrong spot. What’s the name of the place you’re looking for?”

  A fellow NAB appeared next to Tie-Dye. She wore a knee-length flowing skirt and sandals. The hoops in each ear were the size of appetizer plates, and both thumbs were adorned with turquoise rings.

  “This is the Block, right?” Tie-Dye said.

  I nodded yes. A clump of people filed in and stopped to take inventory. I could tell without asking that they were part of the same group.

  “Well, some dude named after a potato is our new president, and he said we could have our next meeting at his place,” Thumb Ring told me.

  “He told a women’s group they could meet here, at the Block?”

  “We just voted to start accepting men. That’s why we elected the potato man our new president,” Tie-Dye explained.

  Before I had a chance to dial my number upstairs, Spud came clopping down the stairs, his cane running interference with each step. Wearing a blinding neon yellow hat and an untucked Tommy Bahama shirt, he blended right in with the ladies standing in front of me, hands on their hips. More people ambled in during the time it took my father to reach us, and the buzz of voices fired up as they greeted one another.

  “Dammit, Spud, what have you done now?”

  “Frannie told me I need to join some social clubs, so I did.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of the Lions Club? Or the Elks? Maybe the American Legion?”

  He limped behind the bar and helped himself to an O’Doul’s beer. “I ran into these delightful ladies at the flea market and they recruited me. Me and Bobby and Hal and Trip. All four of us.”

  His poker buddies. “And you volunteered to be their next president?”

  Spud threw back his head to chug, gripping the edge of the bar for balance. “I’m on painkillers for my pulled leg muscle, for crying out loud. I ain’t thinking real clear.”

  “Spud, you’re as adorable as ever!” Thumb Ring said. “Where should we all sit?”

  My father looked at me. His mustache twitched.

  “What exactly does your group do, Spud?”

  “Beats the hell out of me. I told you, I’m on painkillers,” he said. “I might have taken two at the same time yesterday.”

  “We’re a social club, sweet pea.” It was Tie-Dye. “Retirees who want to find meaning in their lives.”

  “We do aura adjustments, tarot cards, astrological sign readings, Reiki therapy, dating nights,” Thumb Ring added. “We’re going on a cruise in two months. That’s what we’re doing today. Planning our cruise activities.”

  I glared at Spud, but like Cracker when he knew he was in trouble, my father wouldn’t look at me. I saw Bobby, Hal, and Trip amble into the Block. They wouldn’t make eye contact, either.

  I clapped my hands. “Okay, all you NABs out there, listen up! Feel free to make yourselves at home over there”—I pointed to a far corner area of tables that were separated from the main dining area by a row of quarter-slot
pool tables—“and welcome to the Block. Somebody will be by in a minute to get your drink and food orders.”

  Tie-Dye patted the top of my hand. “Oh, we always bring our own refreshments to our meetings. But Spud did say that all our drinks would be on the house.”

  Spud limped back around the bar to join the New Age Babes, still not meeting my look. Not only had he sprung a group on me, but the Block wasn’t selling any food. And giving away free drinks.

  “You want a veggie wrap, dear? We have plenty for everyone.”

  EIGHT

  Immersing himself into other people’s lives—albeit in hourlong chunks—busied Morgan’s mind just enough to keep his thoughts off of Maria and her amazing abilities of deception. He’d been a blockhead, he knew. Used like a reliable but boring loaner car while Maria waited for the real thing—the sporty luxury model—to be fixed.

  To keep from thinking about what a total loser he was, Morgan gobbled the Green Table’s savory slices of life as though they were his favorite dessert: cheesecake. Plain cheesecake, caramel-drizzled cheesecake, chocolate-crust cheesecake, or vanilla-bean-coffee cheesecake. The varieties were endless. He knew that the Johnson couple was trying to spice up their marriage, for example, and that Nina Johnson regularly had intercourse with another man while Jamie Johnson watched. Morgan learned that Realtors from the Max-Sell Agency loathed their broker-in-charge, who happened to be afflicted with an enlarged prostate, and they brutally made fun of him each and every time he left the table to find a urinal. Morgan discovered that another couple of regulars, retirees in the design and printing business, had two grandsons in prison for arson, twins. He found out that a professional women’s group of stock market investors were gleaning insider information from one of their members who owned a commercial cleaning business and had after-hours access to professional office buildings. And of course, there were the romantic dinners where futures were planned and dreams discussed. For those who’d already spent a great deal of their lives together, Morgan detected an intimate and overriding familiarity marred by the occasional fight. And gossip about others. Lots of gossip about neighbors, friends, co-workers.