Unmanned

by Lois Greiman

  Taking a deep breath, I gave Peter a wave and marched bravely through the scanner and headed toward the gate.

  The flight was bumpy, noisy, and crowded. I slept like the dead. If the dead drool. By the time I awoke, the landing gear was screeching out of its hidden compartment and the right corner of my mouth was crusty. We touched down like a meteorite, bumping and grinding.

  Despite gummy fatigue and rancid terror, memories assailed me. Chicago may be filthy, windy, and dangerous, but it’s also the place where I had been spawned, sworn off boys, and donned cutoff overalls to work the crowd at the Warthog. In short, Chicago sucks.

  I hailed a cab like a veteran, gave him an address, and closed my eyes against my own stupidity. Afternoon traffic was bumper-to-taillight. Even so, it didn’t take long to reach my destination, a concrete high-rise located squarely on Chicago’s famous Gold Coast. There was no coast in view, however, just endless gray buildings towering over me like disapproving gargoyles, dark against a bumpy, overcast sky.

  Shutting down any good sense that may have the nerve to show in the terrifying light of day, I opened the door and stepped into the lobby. Marble walls greeted me on all sides, as gray as the exterior. According to Pete, D owned the entire building, but security didn’t seem particularly heavy. A handsome woman with black hair slicked back in a bun manned the desk. There was a pale leather couch where two supermodel-tall women discussed a fashion magazine. One was a redhead, one brunette. The rent-a-cop that lounged near the steel elevator was approximately half their height, but they may have been the same species.

  I went straight for the desk, stomach churning. “I’d like to see D,” I said. My tone was no-nonsense, my demeanor the same.

  The dark-haired beauty gave me a tight, professional smile. “I beg your pardon?”

  “D,” I said, nerves clattering like wind chimes, sweat glands laboring like overachieving workaholics. “I’m here on business.”

  A little line formed between the receptionist’s perfectly groomed brows. “Would D be the first or last name of the person with whom you hope to converse?”

  I was starting to feel ridiculous. And relieved. I had obviously made a mistake. Or more likely, Pete had made a mistake. D didn’t reside here at all. Perhaps he didn’t even exist. But then I noticed the veins in Dark Beauty’s wrists. They were swollen like spring tributaries. I’d once dated a bodybuilder and knew the signs. She’d been pumping iron and popping steroids, which meant she wasn’t just some pretty bimbo trained to man the desk. She was some pretty bimbo strong enough to toss me out on my ass.

  “Just D,” I said.

  Her gaze held mine for an instant. It was like staring down steel. “I’m sorry, there is no one here by that name.”

  “He tried to kill my brother,” I said, raising my voice.

  That got her attention. Hers and every other person’s in the place. But suddenly I realized that everyone was female…and watching me with narrow-eyed expressions. The tall pair of superwomen put down their magazine and rose deliberately to their feet. There were identical lumps just above the waistbands beneath their jackets. I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t cellulite.

  “Listen, I don’t want to cause any trouble,” I said, but the Amazon Pair was already moving toward me. One was reaching for the lump behind her back. See how I was right about that cellulite thing? “I just want to pay back what I owe—”

  “Will you come with me, please?” said the brunette. The redhead stood a few feet back, legs spread beneath a pencil-thin, ivory skirt. Below the hem, her legs looked like something from a James Bond trailer.

  “StairMaster or aerobics class?” I asked.

  The supermodels glanced at each other, then at me. “Come with me,” repeated the brunette.

  “This is a misunderstanding,” I said, but everyone was on their feet now, watching me, absolutely still. My hair was starting to sweat.

  “Please,” repeated the brunette, clasping my arm. I jerked away, and that’s when the guns came out.

  My bladder quivered in concert with my knees. The room was absolutely silent, and then the elevator doors opened and someone laughed. We turned toward the noise in breathless unison.

  A man with curly hair and dark sideburns stood in the very center of the conveyance. He was wearing an ivory-toned Western shirt and dark blue jeans that someone else had labored to wear out. He was in his mid-thirties and had his arm wrapped around a curvy black woman’s back. They were both smiling. “Well,” he said, brows rising as he took in the scene, “this looks interesting.”

  “Please, sir,” said the receptionist, hand hidden beneath the desk, “I think it would be best if you returned to your office for the time being.”

  He looked at her for an instant, then glanced at me and smiled. “Who are you?”

  I tried to speak. Nothing came out but a squeak, so I cleared my throat. But it didn’t do much good. “Are you D?”

  “That your first name or your last name?” he asked. The African American woman laughed. Everyone else was sober as Sunday. I felt like I was going to faint.

  “My name is Christina,” I said.

  His smile brightened a little. If Pete hadn’t told me he was a mobster with a liver fetish, I would have thought him kind of handsome in an urban cowboy kind of way. His boots seemed to be snakeskin.

  “Christina McMullen,” I added, and waited for the bomb to drop. But apparently I’d neglected to light the fuse, because he finally shook his head, looking lost.

  “Do I know you?”

  “Sir,” repeated the receptionist, and he laughed.

  “Tanya here seems in a terrible hurry to shoot you,” he said, “so I’m going to have to assume I should recognize your name, but I’m afraid I don’t.”

  I felt weak and stupid. “You tried to kill my brother.”

  He tilted his head at me, then, “Goldy, honey, it looks like I’m going to be detained for a short time. Why don’t you go on to lunch without me?”

  Goldy was as black as the inside of my eyelids. “You sure?” she asked.

  He nodded and looked back toward me. “Would you care to step into my office?”

  “Sir—”

  “She armed?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, sir. I haven’t had time to ascertain—”

  “You armed?” he asked me.

  I shook my head. “Airport security frowns on handguns in carry-ons,” I said, and realized in that moment that I had kind of bonded with the Glock and missed it something fierce.

  “Then come on up,” he said, motioning toward the elevator. Something inside me told me not to go. I think it was my liver. My feet concurred, but I still tripped forward.

  The elevator was absolutely silent as it slid upward. The doors were just as quiet when they opened. He motioned me out. For a moment I couldn’t seem to convince my legs to carry me through, but finally one knee bent and the other was obliged to do the same.

  His office was as big as Wrigley Field. Photographs lined the walls. I stared at them, expecting celebrities, but saw that every picture featured him with a costumed Disney character. Cinderella seemed to have lifted him into her arms.

  “So who is your undead brother?”

  I jerked my gaze from a photograph of him wrestling with Minnie Mouse. He motioned me toward a chair, but my brain had gone numb.

  “I say ‘undead’ because you said ‘tried,’” he urged, but my dura mater was still struggling with the seven dwarfs. Had they been throwing darts at him?

  “I say ‘brother’ because you indicated he was your—”

  “Peter,” I said, grappling my thoughts into submission.

  He raised his brows, sank into a chair the shape of a satellite, and made a stronger motion toward the one that stood opposite him. I managed to take the few steps to it and settle in, nerves jumping like wet cats.

  He stared at me for a long second, then shook his head. “Nope. Sorry. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  �
��Three of your thugs attacked him in L.A.”

  He made a face and laid his left ankle over his right knee. I’d been right about the snakeskin. “Thugs,” he said. “Kind of politically incorrect, don’t you think? I like to call them collection engineers.”

  He was making light of it. Making fun of me. And his clothes looked wrinkle-free. I wasn’t sure which one of those things made me more teed off, but I held my temper and my stomach. “I’ve come to return your money,” I said.

  “And you are Christina?” He settled back in his chair and cocked his head. “Pretty name. What do you do, Christina?”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with—”

  “I’m just making small talk. Trying to prevent you from peeing in your…dress. Nice color, by the way. Great with your skin tone.”

  I considered telling him he didn’t scare me, but I’m not that good a liar. “I’m a psychologist,” I said.

  “Really?” He leaned forward suddenly, making me jump. “That’s fascinating. Do you practice here in Chicago? ’Cuz I gotta tell you, we’ve got a shitload of nutcases in this little burg.”

  I blinked, wanting to look at the picture of him and Snow White something terrible. I think they’d been making out. “As I said, I’ve come to return the money my brother borrowed from you.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right. Peter…?”

  “McMullen.”

  “McMullen. Good Irish name. Are you Irish? Hey! Can I get you a drink?”

  He was obviously right; there were nuts in Chicago. “No. Thank you,” I said, then: “Lieutenant Jack Rivera is expecting me back in L.A. this afternoon.” I was gripping my armrests as if I were prepared to blast off. “He’s a…police officer.”

  He stared.

  “LAPD,” I added.

  He raised his brows at me, then reached for his pocket. I neglected to breathe, but he only pulled out a razor phone and punched in a number. “Sandy.” He gave me a grin. “Do we know a…” He paused, shifted his gaze to me, brows raised.

  “Peter,” I supplied.

  He shook his head with a grin for his own forgetfulness. “Peter…”

  “McMullen.”

  “Great name,” he said, then back to Sandy. “McMullen.” After that he narrowed his eyes and listened. “Really? No kidding. Uh-huh.” He tilted his head up and scratched his neck. “Fuck me,” he said, and hung up.

  I shifted in my chair, barely breathing.

  He snapped his phone shut and stared at me. “You sure you’re a psychologist? ’Cuz your brother sounds like kind of a fucktard.”

  Fucktard! That’s exactly what he was, and I’d just started to worry about running low on insulting nomenclatures. “He is a…” I paused, finding I couldn’t quite say the word. It was all well and good to ridicule Pete myself, but that sort of thing should be kept among family. “He’s going through some hard times,” I said.

  “Yeah? Like what?” he asked, and rising, went to polish a picture of himself and Belle with his sleeve.

  “Like…” I tried to focus, but damn it, Belle seemed to be wearing combat boots. “Why all the pictures with cartoon characters?”

  He stared at me an instant. “Minnie’ll never let you down,” he said. “Are you married, Ms. McMullen?”

  I shook my head.

  “Engaged?”

  “Listen—”

  “Twenty thousand dollars is a lot of money. Do you make a lot of money as a psychiatrist?”

  “Psychologist,” I corrected, which seemed to prompt him to return to the seat across from me and smile.

  “Are you busy tonight?”

  I felt breathless and kind of loopy. “Like I said—” I began, but he waved away my protest.

  “Your flight. I know. But you could go back tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think Rivera—”

  “Lieutenant Rivera,” he said, nodding. “LAPD. Policeman. He your boyfriend?”

  My mind was starting to spin. “Boy—”

  He laughed. “It’s a god-awful term, isn’t it? Boyfriend. He’s probably some muscle-bound gym junkie with a six-shooter in one fist and handcuffs in the other, and I’m calling him—Hey, you ever been handcuffed?”

  My head felt cottony, but I managed to pull the check from my purse and wobble to my well-shod feet. My sandals matched my sheath to perfection. “I’m paying my brother’s bill.”

  “Bill.” He laughed again. “Sounds like I’m a greengrocer or something.”

  I handed the paper to him, but he didn’t look at it. Instead, he was staring at me, first my legs, then my face, then everything in between.

  I swallowed my heart. “Do you promise to call off your thugs now that—”

  “As I said, they like to be called—”

  “Collection engineers,” I corrected.

  He stood up, smiling. “I don’t think your brother deserves you.”

  I prepared to disagree, but I couldn’t force out the words. “He made me eat sheep droppings.” I was, quite obviously, losing my mind.

  He raised his brows. “And you still don’t want me to kill him?”

  “My mother would blame me.”

  He laughed. We were standing uncomfortably close. “Where’d you get the cash, Christina?”

  “A friend loaned it to me.”

  “The muscle-bound lieutenant?”

  “A girlfriend.”

  He raised his brows a little. “Her legs as notable as yours?”

  I drew a steadying breath, trying to keep up. “If her legs were here, you’d toss mine out the door.”

  His brows dipped a little, but his eyes were laughing. “What’s her name?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him, but she was the one unsullied person in my life, a gleaming paragon of sanity. “I can’t say.”

  His brow furrowed as he studied me, thinking. “Have dinner with me,” he said.

  For a moment I couldn’t get any words out, then, “I’m afraid I can’t do—”

  “Have dinner with me and I’ll say this check is good.”

  My heart clunked in my chest. “It is good.”

  He glanced at it. “Twenty thousand.”

  “That’s what he said he owed you.”

  He stared at me, letting me think, and the truth sank in slowly, freezing my mind.

  “Interest,” I murmured.

  He tilted his head. “Bingo.”

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  “I promise not to eat you.”

  “What?”

  “If you dine with me, I promise not to eat you.”

  I blinked. He laughed.

  “Really,” I said. “I can’t.”

  “One meal,” he said, “and you’re off the hook.”

  I paused, thinking, No, no, no. “And Pete?”

  “He really make you eat sheep turds?”

  “Put them in my cereal. Said they were raisins.”

  He shook his head.

  “He’s going to be a father,” I said, and he shrugged.

  “All the more reason to have two functioning knees.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Yeah? You’ll do it?”

  “Yes,” I said, and knew I hadn’t been adopted after all. Retardation obviously ran in the genes.

  14

  A guy’s got to get a license to drive a Geo, but any doofus with a few good swimmers can be a father.

  —Dagwood Dean Daly, better known as D to those who want to keep their livers

  WE NEVER LEFT the building, just took the elevator up to the top floor. From there I could see a long, tawny stretch of Oak Street Beach. Despite the fact that the beach is man-made and had been laboriously hauled in from more tropical climes, the beach was nearly deserted. The restaurant was just as empty.

  “So what does it take to become a licensed psychologist? A master’s? A bachelor’s?” he asked.

  I drank my strawberry margarita and set it back on its leather coaster. The whole restaurant had a Western motif, making me
wonder if he matched it or if it matched him. “I have a Ph.D.”

  “Really? Even though your father called you Pork Chop?” We’d been there a while. And maybe I had talked too much. “Or maybe because he called you Pork Chop.”

  “How do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “You needed to prove your value. To vindicate yourself. Some people succeed because of their heritage. Some despite it.” He drank his daiquiri. You don’t usually see men drink daiquiris. Especially pseudo cowboys in snakeskin boots. “Maybe you should thank him.”

  “For calling me a slab of meat?”

  He laughed. “I happen to love pork.”

  He was looking at me funny, maybe the way mobsters look at people they’re planning to fit for cement boots, maybe like they look at folks they want to get in the sack. I guess I don’t know much about mobsters.

  “And complicated women,” he added.

  “Complicated.” I shook my head. “I’m pretty straightforward.”

  “So you adore your brother,” he said, leaning back in the booth. “Admire the hell out of him. In fact, you adore him so much that you agreed to borrow twenty thousand dollars from a friend you won’t even name and bring me said money to get him off the proverbial hook.”

  I fiddled with the coaster. It felt kind of like suede. Those crazy cowboys.

  “Or could it be that you think your brother’s a first-rate peckerhead but you still agreed to bring the check?” He tilted his head, thinking, then: “No,” he said. “It was your idea.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He chuckled and leaned back against the rust-colored cushions of our booth, steepling his fingers. “Still trying to impress your father after all these years, Ms. McMullen?”

  “I just didn’t want to read about Peter in the morning news.”

  “Your parents wouldn’t understand, then, if you let him sink because of his own moronic decisions?”

  I snorted. It didn’t sound very ladylike. Or human. But he’d insisted I have a drink.

  “Don’t tell me your mom called you Pork Chop, too.”

  I made a smiley face in the condensation on my glass. “What did your parents call you?”

  He eyed me for a minute. “Funny, isn’t it? You need a damned license for the privilege of driving a Geo Metro, but any doofus with a couple good swimmers can be a father.”