3 A Brewski for the Old Man

by Phyllis Smallman

  I cruised around the block checking out the cars waiting for kids while his phone rang. I left a message on the voice mail and tossed the mobile on the seat. I couldn’t wait for Styles. I turned around and drifted back up the block past the school.

  No sign of Ray John unless he’d changed vehicles. I double-parked in front of the door, waiting and watching. Kids spilled out the big double doors, laughing and yelling, some lighting cigarettes before they were off school property — but no Lacey. The owner of the car I was blocking came out. I backed up, barely taking my eyes off the door. The rush dribbled down to a trickle.

  I had to move for another car to get out. Now I was starting to panic. No good to call Rena; she might know where Lacey was but she wasn’t going to tell me.

  My finger was punching Styles’ number again when Lacey came out. But she didn’t come far. She stopped on the stairs like a wary animal and looked around. Only when she saw the little red pickup did she come down the stairs, still cautious, still ready to turn and run back inside to safety. Twenty yards from the truck she bolted. I reached over and opened the door for her. Safely inside, she turned and hit the lock.

  “Take it easy,” I told her.

  She was already looking out the rear window, searching for her tormentor.

  “He isn’t here. I checked while I was waiting for you.” No answer.

  “Let’s start over. Hi. How was your day?” She looked at me but didn’t answer. “Hungry?”

  She shook her head. “Has your mom called?”

  “No,” cautious and wary, waiting for the other shoe.

  “She wasn’t feeling well, closed the store this afternoon. I was just wondering if she still wanted you to work.”

  “I have a key.”

  “Maybe we’ll just leave it closed for today.”

  “No, no.” She shook her head in denial. “We can’t afford to have it closed.”

  She couldn’t be talked out of it.

  Rena wasn’t at the store when we pulled in. I went in with Lacey and watched her open up. Efficient and reliable, she had it all under control. How can a kid be so together in one part of her life and have the rest so messed up?

  Styles called back when I went up the stairs. Our conversation didn’t make me feel any better. “I’m on my way to talk to Leenders.”

  This was only likely to make Ray John madder and more desperate, but there was no way Styles was going to back off. I didn’t have a real good feeling about any of this.

  I hung up and called Marley. “I’ve got a little problem.”

  “Gee, that must be a novel experience for you.”

  “Yeah, it is a pleasant change from my dull life.”

  “Well, if it’s money you want, forget it. I’m only staying with you ’cause you’ve got food in the fridge. When it’s gone, so am I.”

  “I can always use money, but at the moment it’s Lacey I’m worried about. Ray John beat Rena up today.”

  “Shit,” Marley said when I told her about my little chat with Rena. I was too worried to take any joy in her lapse from grace.

  “Lacey is alone in the store. I’m right upstairs but it’s kind of scary. What if Ray John comes for her?”

  “He wouldn’t dare kidnap her in plain view of all those people coming and going.”

  “I don’t know what he’ll do. I think he’s over the edge. Will you pick her up at nine and take her home? I’m short-staffed and won’t be able to get away until closing, and I don’t want to just take her back there and dump her, leave her alone at the apartment.”

  “Sure, no problem. Better yet, give us each a free dinner and I’ll go to the store as soon as I get off work and hang out with her.”

  “I don’t know if I can afford your friendship. You’re going to eat me into bankruptcy.”

  “Who knew? You and food is still a novel concept but I knew if I hung in there long enough, knowing you would pay off in something besides laughs. My magnanimous forgiving nature and the bounty of my friendship is finally being rewarded.”

  “You aren’t doing drugs, are you?”

  “That would be your other best friend.”

  “All right, dinner on me but you aren’t eating the whole damn menu. Chicken off the kids’ menu.”

  She made a gross sound.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll throw in a couple of salads.”

  “What are you going to do, Sher? This situation is out of control. You need help. Get that guy off the street.”

  “Styles tells me that won’t happen. If Rena denies Ray John hit her, nothing happens. And even if they do arrest him I have to be prepared for him to be back out in twenty-four hours. Best we can hope for is they’ll have a restraining order against him and he won’t be allowed back into the house but how will he react to that? Maybe it will just make him crazier.”

  A new thought hit me. “For sure, Rena will take Lacey back now. I’m surprised she hasn’t yet. I bet she doesn’t want Lacey to see her face and know what happened. It might buy some time. I need to do something, but what? Where’s Miss Emma when I need her?”

  It would be good to have someone older and wiser to help with this problem. Older, but not necessarily wiser, made me think of Tully. “I told Tully about Ray John.”

  “Phew!” Marley spat out. “So sorry I missed that. How crazy did he get?”

  “Took it fine. Didn’t break anything, shoot anything or even threaten to kill anyone. He did offer to off Ray John though. Wasn’t that sweet?”

  “That would be mildly amusing if I didn’t know it was true. For sure he’d do it. Remember setting up bottles for him and your Uncle Ziggy to shoot? They barely waited for us to get out of the way before they started blasting away. Those two set a whole new standard for bizarre.”

  “I learned to shoot out there. I’m quite a good shot.”

  “Great, I’ll tell that to the reporter who interviews me after your arrest. You with a gun is just bad news.” I’d heard this before, which was why I hadn’t mentioned what was in the fanny pack.

  I told Marley, “Things are bound to get nasty when this comes out. I’ll sound like just the sort of trash Bernice always said I was.”

  “Hey, your mother-in-law is a whole lot trashier than you ever thought of being, just trash with money. Gotta go, my patient is here.”

  All night I kept calling down to the Beach Bag to check on Lacey. Everything was fine. Nothing happened. Instead of reassuring me, it was freaking me out. When Skip dropped a tray of dirty glasses I jumped about two feet in the air.

  The night slipped away with still no sign of Ray John, but he was out there waiting. Ray John wasn’t going to give up his victims that easy; I just didn’t know where or when he was going to come after them — or after me.

  Marley called to say they’d closed the store. We stayed on the line until they were safely in Marley’s car. At the Tradewinds she called again and said, “We’re home but we were followed. He didn’t do anything. Didn’t even get out of the truck, but just his being there behind us freaked Lacey out.”

  After the Sunset closed I had Miguel walk me to the truck.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Sure, no problem.” But I wasn’t fooling him.

  “Want me to follow you home?”

  The answer was yes, but he’d already worked twelve hours and babysitting me wasn’t part of his job description.

  “I’m fine, Miguel, just tired.”

  I headed for downtown Jac to make a night deposit. Even at the best of times I hate going to the bank at night. I usually just lock the receipts in the bottom draw of my desk and don’t worry about it, but I hadn’t gone to the bank that afternoon and the insurance company has rules about how much cash I can have on the premises.

  I looked over my shoulder as I went up Beach Road. I watched all the pull-offs and all the driveways, waiting for a dark monster to shoot out and trap me. Not a sign of Ray John.

  At the bank I sat in the truck, checking out
the empty parking lot, sure he was there someplace just waiting to get at me.

  C H A P T E R 1 7

  My plan always was if anyone came close to me when I was making a night deposit, well, I planned to throw the bank deposit bag as far away from me as possible and run like hell.

  But Ray John wasn’t interested in money, so he wouldn’t follow the cash and leave me alone. He’d come after me. I’d seen what he’d done to Ruth Ann and Rena, what would he do to me?

  Even though there was no other vehicle in the lot, fear anchored me in the truck. In the end I squealed out of the parking lot, taking the money with me.

  When I got home Marley was still up. I dropped my keys and the fanny pack holding the Beretta on the counter. “How’s she doing?” I asked, nodding in the direction of the den.

  “I think she’s waiting for that bastard to come drag her back. Of course, my hanging around pretty much says she’s right to worry.”

  I opened the bread drawer and stuck the night deposit bag inside. “I’m going to see Brian tomorrow and charge Ray John.”

  Brian Spears was my lawyer as well as my friend and although he was a real estate lawyer, he’d help me through this.

  “And I’m going to have another go at Rena. She has to understand what Ray John has been doing to Lacey. Rena wouldn’t listen today but I can’t wait, can’t keep Lacey’s secret anymore. It just helps Ray John. Sooner or later Lacey has to go home; this is just a time out, and if he’s still there the whole thing will start over. I can’t let that happen. I can’t wait any longer.”

  “It ain’t going to be pretty,” Marley said. “Are you ready for that?”

  I opened a packet of hot chocolate and poured it into a cup. “Do you want some?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Answer the question, are you ready for the bomb that’s about to go off in your life?”

  “If you want to reconsider your choice of bridesmaid, I’ll understand,” I told her.

  “Like hell you would. You’d do something painful and nasty to me. So you’re still in, even if you end up on Dr. Phil’s show.” Her face clouded over. “That’s if it ever happens, the wedding I mean.”

  “Have you talked to David?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hasn’t he called?”

  “Nope.”

  “What exactly did you do?” I took the steaming mug out of the microwave and sprayed canned whipped cream three inches thick on top of the hot chocolate, taking comfort in calories. I led the way out to the balcony.

  “The church needs a new roof and donations aren’t cutting it. I was just trying to get the bloody garage sale organized.” Marley picked up a silk cushion off a rattan chair and plopped down cross-legged on the chair, hugging the cushion to her chest.

  “Seeing how you’re the greatest garage sale fanatic in the nation, they had the perfect person in charge.”

  “I know,” she wailed and punched the cushion. “You should see the neat stuff I’ve got stacked in the Sunday School nursery room.” Her emerald eyes gleamed at the thought of the loot. Every Saturday and Sunday she cruised up and down every back street on the island buying vintage stuff. She often talked about opening a small antique store on Hope Street, one street over from Banyan. Hope Street is full of antique stores and tea shops and packed with bargain hunters.

  “They’re just so sensitive. I was really into it, but those women just wouldn’t get with the program. Everyone with their own ideas but no one was ready to do any work. I was trying to be efficient.” “I’m thinking you were a tad bossy.”

  “I’m not bossy; I just have the best ideas. Besides, what we needed was labor, not ideas. We had a great handmade quilt to raffle and some antique furniture for a silent auction. It was going to be terrific.”

  “Words were exchanged?”

  “Some.”

  “I’m betting not ones that are normally heard in Sunday School.”

  “Not exactly.” She reached a finger out and scooped up a dollop of whipped cream. I refrained from slapping her, knowing she was going through a bad time. “A delegation went to David. David asked me to step down as chairperson.” The cushion came in for some more punishment. “He took their side over mine. Don’t you think he should have told them to get stuffed?”

  “I don’t think ministers are allowed to use those words.” She frowned. “He should have been on my side.” Suddenly I was exhausted. That’s what happens when you start the morning cleaning toilets — you just don’t have enough juice to finish the chocolate.

  Before sleep found me my cell rang. No caller ID. Ignore it or take a chance? It could be Clay or it could be a crude reminder that I was annoying a real bad guy. Curiosity is a terrible curse.

  C H A P T E R 1 8

  “I give in,” Clay said.

  “To what?”

  “Love, that’s what it is, I know that now. I admit it, I can’t live without you.”

  “What’s happened since I talked to you two hours ago?”

  “The sky, big and full of stars, do you realize how unimportant we are? The only thing we have is each other and love.”

  I smile into the dark, figuring a little booze was involved with the stars and the love, but even though I like to take advantage of other people’s weak moments, it had been a long day. “Look, it’s one-thirty in the morning and I’m beat, too tired for philosophy. Let’s talk about the meaning of life tomorrow.”

  “It’s love I want to talk about. Meet me in Miami.” For a nanosecond I thought about it, thought about leaving the mess for someone else to sort out. “Can’t,” I said. “Marley’s here.”

  “Marley can look after herself. Let her stay there if she wants, although I can’t quite get why she’s there.”

  “Hiding out from the church ladies. They want to lynch her. Also she knows I’ve had trouble being alone.” “And how are you doing with that?”

  I laughed. “I haven’t really had a chance to find out. But I’m okay. No big panic attacks, no waking up screaming all in a sweat. Mostly now I just wake up horny.” “Come to Miami. I have the cure.”

  “There’s something else, or rather someone else.” The wrong time for this conversation but it couldn’t wait. I told him about Lacey and to tell him about that, I had to tell him about Ray John.

  The silence dragged out between as long as the miles. “Were you ever planning on telling me about this?”

  “Not really.”

  “Why?”

  “I just wanted to forget it.”

  “You don’t trust me, do you?” Clay asked. His voice was heartbreakingly gentle.

  “Why are you taking this so personally? It has nothing to do with us.”

  “Everything about you has to do with us. No secrets. Isn’t that what we agreed?” “There’s a tall order.”

  “If we’re in for the long haul, that’s how it’s got to be.”

  “We’ve never really talked about longer than next week. Can we talk about this when you come home? I need you closer for a serious conversation like this. Need to be able to see you.”

  “And yet it seems to me we always have our serious conversations long distance.”

  “That’s because when we’re together you can’t keep your hands off me long enough to talk.” “I’m not the only one doing the grabbing.”

  “It’s true. I never knew I was a nympho before I met you.”

  “You’re trying to distract me. It’s working, but there’s one more thing I want to say before we go right off topic. Call Styles and charge that bastard. Do you want me to come home? Screw the race.” No excuses now.

  “Don’t come home. I’m calling Brian in the morning and bringing a civil suit against him. But thanks anyway. Got to go.”

  I dropped the phone and slipped into sleep. Hours later, pounding on the bedroom door woke me. Fuzzy-headed and annoyed I sat up in bed. The door slammed open and Marley shot in.

  “He’s dead,” she said.

  C H A P T E R
1 9

  I shot upright in bed. “No.” One word was all I could manage. My lungs no longer worked. Clay dead? I couldn’t conceive of it. I always felt I’d lose him but not this way. More likely one day he’d wake up and see what a fool he’d been wasting time with me, but to lose him in a stupid race? I couldn’t lose him to water. “No, no,” I was shaking my head in denial, wanting Marley to take back her words. “I told him not to go. Why did he go?”

  For a minute Marley’s face wrinkled in confusion. “Oh no, not Clay.” She came farther into the room. “Sorry,” she said coming to the bed and dropping down to its edge. She was wearing white cotton pjs with black sheep on them. How strange was that? Death and black sheep.

  The world righted itself again. “Who?” I croaked. It didn’t matter as long as it wasn’t Clay. I’d give up anyone to keep Clay. She wrapped her arms around my knees. “Ray John.” I could function again. “Good.” I was relieved that it was no one I cared about. “I hope it was painful.” “You don’t mean that,” Marley said gently.

  “Yes I do. You don’t know how much I hated him.” I took air deep into my belly and let it out slowly. Relief washed over me. “It’s over now. Lacey is free.”

  “It’s only just beginning.” Marley’s face held concern and something else. “The radio said his body was found about three in the morning at the recreation hall of the Preserves.”

  “He was head of security there. Did they say anything else? What happened? How did he die?”

  “He was shot.”

  And now I knew why she didn’t share my relief upon hearing he was dead. “Funny but I would have thought he’d be the one doing the shooting. He was a violent, dangerous man, hard to think of someone killing him. Do you know what I mean?”

  “You mean like violence came from him not to him?”

  “That’s it,” I nodded. “I thought he might try to kill me or even Rena, never thought of anyone killing him.”

  “But surely,” Marley said, “there must be more than enough people who wanted him dead. Isn’t it a surprise it hasn’t happened before?”