“It’s time,” he said finally. “Past time, maybe.”
She blinked. “Not past time,” she whispered. “Just tell me what you want, Mickey. All you have to do is talk to me. It doesn’t matter what about.”
Mickey drank more coffee and put the cup down again. Sandy released his other hand and propped her elbows on the table with her chin resting in her upturned palms. She had on a white blouse, unbuttoned and knotted under her breasts, and the position deepened her cleavage so that was about all he could see for the moment.
“Stop that,” he said. “I can’t concentrate.”
“Really?” She smiled at that.
“Yes, really.”
She sat back again and Mickey wondered how to tell her what he was really thinking. He was engaged again, but it was different this time. He was like anyone else. It was necessary to feel strong and confident, but he wanted her to depend on him. To trust him. He wanted her to need him, and above all, to trust him. And he wanted more than anything to be the man she could do that with, and do it without reservation.
One day, he would have to tell her about venting his rage on Linus Davidson. Not because of any catholic need on his part for confession or absolution, but because he didn’t like lying to her, even by omission. And because he wanted her to know how strongly he felt, and maybe, just a little, about how dangerous he could be. There was something about that inside, a straightening of the spine, the strong pulse of hot blood, the hardness of his cock – something tangible and provocative.
“Just tell me,” she said softly, looking very directly at him.
“I want you to be mine again,” he said then. “All of you, like it was when we started. And I want to deserve you.”
Tears spilled from Sandy’s eyes, but that was all. She turned away so that Cindy wouldn’t see her and after a minute got up without saying anything then went into the bedroom and closed the door. Mickey let her go.
Chapter Eleven
They went back to the Bob Graham beach on Sunday morning and took Cindy along. Sandy wouldn’t wear the black bikini, choosing something with a tropical print, instead. The bottoms tied at her hips and Mickey teased her because the one she insisted on was actually a little smaller and more revealing than the black one. She treated that dose of logic with serene indifference.
Watching her picking up seashells with Cindy was worth the effort. They ate hot dogs at from the concession stand for lunch, and Mickey paid for them with cash, which felt pretty good considering how empty his pockets had been for two months.
When it got too hot, they went home. Sandy took the little one in for a shower, and then went to Cindy’s room. Her mother got in bed with her to read about a hat wearing cat who spoke in lyrics, and Mickey left them to it. The phone rang just after two and Mickey answered. It was Linus Davidson.
“I need to talk to your old lady,” Davidson said. It was hard to understand him with his jaw wired like it was. He was talking mostly through his teeth.
“That a fact?” Mickey asked, surprised to hear the man’s voice, and even more surprised to note that his hands stayed steady.
“It’s business.”
“She doesn’t have any business with you, Linus.”
There was a long silence, with only the sound of painful breathing. And then Linus said, “So, it was you?”
“What was me?”
“With the baseball bat. I should’a known.”
“You still on morphine or something? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Fucking pin in my leg says different,” Davidson rasped. “The docs say I gotta have a knee replacement, soon as I can walk enough for rehab. I’ve got six busted ribs, in case you were wondering, and I’m going to need a whole shit load of dental work.”
“Like I give a rat’s ass,” Mickey said. “Tell me what you want, or I’m hanging up.”
“I ain’t talking to you,” he replied. “Gimme your old lady.”
“Not happening.”
“Look, you pussy little fuck...”
Mickey hung up on him. In about twenty seconds, the phone rang again. He answered it for the second time and said, “Better say it quick, Linus. I’m short on patience, here.”
“Okay, shit head, here’s the deal. I need Sandy to work my lab for a couple of months. She don’t, I’ll lose every customer on the books.”
“I don’t care about your customers,” Mickey said.
“She does, though, and she’s the best there is at that stuff. A lot better than me. I’d split the money with her. She can work evenings in the office. Maybe couple hours a day, do some deliveries, that kind of shit. It’s good money, McCord. You know it is.”
“I’ll ask her,” Mickey said thoughtfully. “There won’t be any splitting the money though. She does the work, she gets paid, full boat.”
“I’m going to kill you one of these days.”
“From your wheelchair?”
“You don’t know who you’re fucking with, you really don’t.”
“That works both ways, pal.”
“I’ll take her away from you,” Davidson said.
“Better see about a testicle transplant, seeing as how you’re already in the hospital, and all,” Mickey said. “You don’t have the balls for this anymore, Linus.”
“We’ll see.”
“Better think about that, old man, while you’re drinking through a straw.”
Mickey went to the hospital without Sandy. Davidson was a mess, leg in a cast and suspended to hold the bones still while they knit, taped ribs, broken fingers. He glared at Mickey from the hospital bed and there was some serious hate in his eyes.
“Sandy says she’ll need the keys,” Mickey said without as much as a hello. “We’ll have a look at the books and see if there’s anything worth bothering about.”
“You stay outta my shit,” Davidson grated, pulling his lips back to speak. “She can go, but you don’t set foot in my place.”
“Okay,” Mickey said, and turned to go.
“Why you doing this to me, man?”
“Don’t be stupid, Linus.” Mickey stopped in the doorway and turned around and propped a shoulder against the jamb. “The way it is, you want something from my old lady, you go through me. That’s the deal.”
“Ain’t the way it is,” Davidson said.
“It is now,” Mickey said heavily. “Best you remember that.”
“Gimme a drink.”
Mickey went back over and held the flexible straw to Linus’s cracked lips. He even took the towel hanging on the bed rail and wiped the spillage off his cheek. Davidson drank half the glass.
“You owe me,” he finally said, panting from just the effort of drinking.
“I don’t owe you jack,” Mickey replied and put the glass back on the bedside table. “Lesson’s over, Linus. We’re square unless you’re dumber than I think.”
“Who ya’ think you are?”
“Nobody,” Mickey said. “Just a guy with a wife and a kid, trying to keep things in one piece.”
Davidson laughed and grimaced at the pain in his ribs. He wiped his mouth with the bandages over his left hand. “You ain’t done much of a job so far,” he said. “Bitch came to me. Wasn’t something I did. Just something I finished.”
“Got a funny way of asking favors, Linus. Don’t you?”
“Don’t like asking favors from a bastard like you.”
“I expect not.”
“Shit,” Davidson sighed. “Keys are in the drawer there.”
“Okay, I’ll let you know,” Mickey said.
“You get there,” Davidson said, “have a look at that leather couch in my office. Fucked your old lady on it, bunch’a times. Had that sweet ass in my hands any time I wanted it.”
Mickey felt the tension in his chest, but he wasn’t really angry. Maybe he was way past that. What he felt was a sort of murderous calm. He bent over the bed with his arms braced on either side of Davidson and put his face righ
t down so they were staring eye to eye from about eight inches apart. He kept his voice very low.
“You touch my woman again, Linus, I’ll kill you. Won’t be any laying around complaining about it, and it won’t matter about who did what to who. One time, just one, and I’ll put you on a stainless steel autopsy table so fast you won’t even know until they cut your chest open and find out you got no heart at all. Am I clear about that?”
“Fuck you,” Davidson said, but it sounded weak, all of a sudden. His brown eyes skittered back and forth, looking at Mickey’s nose, or his ear, or anything that wasn’t those cold blue eyes. He was experienced, and knew how many ways Mickey McCord could do him right there in the hospital.
“I’m not kidding, Linus. One word to her out of line, I’m punching your ticket. Bang. No discussion. End of story. Meanwhile, you just lie here and hurt, and be glad you’re alive to do it.” He straightened again and looked at the man he had ruined. “Tell me you hear that loud and clear, man. Say it.”
Davidson had spent most of his working life studying criminals and criminal behavior. Whatever he saw in Mickey’s eyes seemed to sober him a bit. He’d seen a lot of killers in his time, and maybe he saw the potential for another one. His eyes slid away from Mickey’s again and he said, “I’m not talking to you anymore, McCord.”
“Say it,” Mickey said, bowing up, thinking about strangling the guy right where he lay. He balled his fist and his voice sounded hollow and dark like it was coming out of a grave. “Say it, goddamn you.”
“I hear you,” Davidson finally said. “You son of a bitch.”
“You poked a rattlesnake, and he bit you,” Mickey said. “Don’t forget that, Linus. Do it again, it’s going to be worse. A lot worse.”
“I hear you,” Davidson grated. “Now get the fuck outta here.”
And Mickey went.
He drove out to western Palm Beach county where Darrel Jones had a few ratty acres and an open-air shop behind a house trailer. The props were ready. Mickey loaded them up and they drank a beer sitting on tattered lawn chairs under a ficus tree. It was hot as blazes that far from the coast.
They shot the shit about work and diving and kids and smoked a couple of cigars without any need to hurry. Mickey kept thinking about what Linus had said. “I fucked your old lady on that couch a bunch of times.” A bunch of times. Shit. He had it all honed down nice and tight to the one night with the DeMarini bat, knowing all along it wasn’t the only time, but not thinking about the rest.
He hated being reminded. Damn, but he hated it. Christ, he’d threatened to kill the man, too. Had promised to kill him if he looked cross-eyed at Sandy. What had he been thinking, saying shit like that?
Darrel’s shed had a lot of junk in it, clearly visible from where they sat. “You planning anything for that treadmill over there?” Mickey asked at one point, trying to clear the conversation with Davidson out of his head.
“What treadmill?” Darrell asked. “Oh, shit, you mean my stinger rack?” He had weld cables draped over the treadmill’s cross bars, with more coiled on the deck.
“Does it work?”
“Last time the old lady was on it,” Darrell said. “Why? You need one?”
“Can’t afford it.”
Jones laughed. “Shit, just take it. You sell the thing, bring me the money. Isn’t doing me a bit of good sitting out here.”
Mickey got himself filthy again moving heavy gauge weld cable, and then had to pull the props back off the truck to load the treadmill. It took a few minutes to get everything arranged. Then he had to offload the props to get the treadmill into the garage at home. Sandy gave him a look.
“You’ll see,” he said.
While he got the dive gear reloaded, later on, Sandy came out on her way to bed. She had on an only slightly less offensive cotton nightgown than the night before. Mickey took one look at her and pointed to the trash can.
“What?” she said.
“Take that thing off,” he replied firmly.
“I don’t have anything else.” She stood there a little pigeon toed, clasping her hands in front, and looked about twelve years old.
“You don’t need anything else,” he said. She gave him a blank look. “Off,” he said again, hefting the newly filled scuba tank.
“What about...you know, what if Cindy...?”
“Wakes up? Put your robe on the foot of the bed. You can grab it if you have to go see about her.”
“But honey...”
“Off, damn it!”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“So?”
She huffed a little, but removed her glasses and pulled the gown up over her head. She had on powder blue panties underneath.
“Them, too,” Mickey said. “I told you, no panties.”
That stiffened her face up. “You’re pretty damned bossy, aren’t you?” she said. “You think I like this, you telling me what to do all the time?”
“We’ll see,” he replied, and turned his back on her.
Chapter Twelve
The alarm jarred Mickey awake and it felt like he’d been down for about ten minutes. He groaned and got up, leaving Sandy asleep, and went to make coffee. He’d left his running gear in the living room and got dressed. Then had a big drink of water and dropped down to do his workout. He was sweating when he got done, and it wasn’t quite five o’clock. He poured another cup of coffee and one for Sandy.
“Good God,” she rasped. “What time is it?”
“Time to get moving,” he said. “Come here, I want to show you something.”
She sat up in bed and reached for her glasses, and then for her bathrobe. Mickey crooked a finger at her. She sighed heavily and followed him out to the garage. The treadmill was clean and plugged in.
“Got you set up for thirty minutes, no incline,” he said. “It’ll be an easy way to start, I think.”
“Start what?” she said, trying to hug herself and hold the coffee at the same time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mickey.”
“Exercise program,” he said. “You do the treadmill while I’m out for my morning run. Same in the evenings before bedtime.”
“You’re running again?”
“Starting today. Here, let me show you how this works.”
“I need to get dressed,” she said uncertainly.
“No you don’t.” He gave her a wicked grin. “This here is a nude treadmill.”
“A...what?”
“You can wear socks and shoes.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Cindy could waltz in here...”
“She sleeps until seven. That’s why you’re up at five. You get a cup of coffee, a pint of water, half an hour on the treadmill and a shower, all before she so much as budges.”
“I’m not doing it without clothes,” she said flatly.
“Want to bet?”
He spent five minutes showing her the controls and had her practice straddling the walking belt to start the thing, and then stepping aboard. It wasn’t hard, and Sandy had no trouble figuring that kind of thing out on her own.
“Now, go have your coffee and do your bathroom business,” he said. “I’m going to do some stretches.”
Sandy turned and went back into the house. He watched her, remembering Davidson in spite of himself. “Had that sweet ass in my hands anytime I wanted,” he’d said. Mickey wondered what that big ass would look like after he took a belt to it.
She came out later in her bathrobe with tennis shoes on, looking mulish again, and not even a little bit happy about the expensive machine Mickey had brought for her. She hadn’t even remembered to give him the third degree about where it came from, or how much it cost.
“This pisses me off,” she said with her face drawn flat and cold.
“Do you good,” he said. “Your weight’s just right, but you spend too much time in that office. Need to get you toned up again.”
That got him a cold cut of eyes, but she stepped onto the machine and set
a water bottle in the holder on the right handle. She had a towel in her other hand, and draped it over the rail by the water. Then she looked at Mickey. He motioned toward the machine.
“Come on, get that robe off,” he said. “I don’t have all day. And you’d better be sweating when I come back.”
Sandy took the robe off with a set look on her face. She was naked underneath, and Mickey breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He’d been afraid she was going to pitch a fit about it. Instead, she had decided to do it with that “so there” kind of tone, like a little kid proving herself to a bully. He was alright with that. She reached out with an index finger and pushed start, but forgot to step off the belt beforehand. With a yawp of surprise, she lunged forward for the rail and got her legs moving before she lost her balance.
“Bet you don’t forget that next time,” he said.
“Screw you, McCord,” she said grimly.
Mickey went for his run, but cut it short. He wanted to keep an eye on Sandy. She was still on the treadmill. He could see over her shoulder that she’d run the pace up from two miles an hour to two and a half. Not fast, but okay for the first time. Her back was wet with sweat. He went to pour another cup of coffee and took it out to sit on the tailgate of the truck and watch her.
“You’re not just going to stand there staring, are you?” she said, wiping her face with the back of her hand.
“I’m sitting,” he said. “You’re standing.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Bump it up a little,” he said. “Go for two point seven, and we’ll work you up to three pretty quickly. Maybe four, next week.”
“This is hard,” she said, and he could hear the depth of her breathing. The motor whine raised a notch. Sandy scowled, adjusting her pace.
Mickey found that he enjoyed looking at her. Her breasts shook a little with each stride, and the flesh on her hips and thighs jiggled every time her heel came down. Very pretty.
“Now slow down to two miles an hour for the last couple of minutes,” he said. “That’ll let you catch your breath and cool you down a little.”
“There’s nothing cool about it,” she panted. “I’m sweating like a hog.”
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