“Miss Gilbert, I presume,” I said.
She looked at me with a studied unconcern. She was naked atop a swelter of mussed sheets, one knee raised. From my vantage I could see her legs were heavy and her blonde hair was bleached. Her arms lay languidly across her torso, not deigning to cover breasts that were slight and pale. She was young and she was pretty because she was young, but already you could tell she wouldn’t be a beauty, and I suppose she could tell, too.
“I figured someone would get here sooner or later,” she said. “This is just sooner than I expected. But you can go right back and tell him I’m not coming home. Tell him I’m in love.”
I turned to look at the man on the floor. “With that?”
“Jimmy’s the love of my life.”
“I guess it hasn’t been much of a life.”
“Don’t let him push you around, Bree darling,” said the man on the floor. He was a good decade older and was taking things much more seriously, but then again he had the gun in his face. “Love will keep us together for now and for always.”
“You found yourself a charmer, Miss Gilbert, I’ll give you that,” I said. “You call him the Captain, or is he Tennille?”
“Run back to my daddy like a good little servant boy,” said the heiress, “and tell him to leave me alone.”
“Oh, don’t worry. He has every intention of leaving you alone. Both of you. In fact, Miss Gilbert, I just came here to get both your signatures on a few documents.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” said the man on the floor. “She don’t sign nothing without my say-so.”
I looked up at Gordon; he nodded his head sadly and then slugged Jimmy in the jaw with the barrel of the gun. There was blood and a spit tooth and a gratifying volume of shouts and curses, all of it coming from him, none of it coming from her. When I turned back to the girl, she was looking at me with a fine impassivity.
“You’re not one of his usual goons,” she said.
“That’s because I’m not a goon,” I said cheerfully. “I’m a lawyer.”
“God help us, then. What kind of documents are you talking about?”
“Well, for you an emancipation declaration.” I put the briefcase on the table, opened it so that Jimmy could see a flash of money, and took out a multipage document with an official-looking legal-blue backing. “You want to be free to live your life with that fellow on the ground there, undisturbed, for all of eternity. Your father is determined not to stand in your way. I’ve no doubt he’s told you over and again how he made it on his own, rising from nothing with just his wits and his wiles and how that made all the difference in his life.”
“My God he goes on, which is funny because his own father started the business.”
“Well, he wants you to have the same experience.”
“Fuck that,” said Jimmy.
“Here you go, Miss Gilbert,” I said, offering her the document. “You’re still only seventeen, so you can’t really be independent without an official emancipation. But this will do it. Sign on the line and you’re free to live your life without your father’s interference.”
She sat up in the bed, pulled her legs beneath her, took hold of the papers. I drew a pen from my pocket and held it out as she scanned the document, her face twisting in confusion. I had drafted it with enough legalese that it would take a team of Latin majors from Notre Dame to figure out that it meant absolutely nothing.
“Freedom,” I said. “With just the stroke of a pen. Sign the document and the rest of your life is yours. How many would jump at such an offer?”
“And if I don’t sign this thing?”
“Then, because of your age, I would have the legal authority to forcibly take you away from this motel, from this state, and from the love of your life. I would have the legal authority to take you to your father. He’ll probably whisk you off to the house on Molokai so you can recuperate from this whole ordeal. You’d end up back in his clutches, back to being dependent on his money, a virtual prisoner. On Molokai.”
“I do like the house on Molokai.”
“Don’t do nothing, honey,” said Jimmy as he climbed onto his knees. “They can’t do nothing to us.”
“Sweet ring,” I said, looking down at him.
“It was a gift.”
“Is that a Super Bowl ring? It couldn’t be a Super Bowl ring, could it?”
“It’s mine.”
“It’s on your finger, that’s for sure.”
“And that’s where it’s staying.”
“Go ahead, Miss Gilbert,” I said. “Just sign on the dotted line and this wonderful font of grammar and dignity is yours forever.”
“I’m hers forever anyways. What about her money? What about her trust funds?”
“Freedom and money,” I said. “Sometimes you can’t have both. You’d be poor, yes. But think of this, Miss Gilbert: you’d have Johnny.”
“Jimmy,” said Jimmy.
“Right. Jimmy. At your side. Forever and ever. Through all eternity. Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. What could be sweeter?”
“Are you really a lawyer?” she said.
“Bar certified and everything.”
“I hate lawyers.”
“That’s okay, we hate ourselves.”
She laughed and then climbed off the bed, stooped beside the still-bleeding man. She caressed his face while she said, “Maybe I should talk to him, Boodles.”
“No, baby, stay with me. We’ll do this together.”
“Maybe I should talk to him just to sort things out.”
“There’s a limo outside waiting for you,” I said.
“I’ll go, too,” said the man.
“Just for Miss Gilbert. And there’s a picnic lunch in the backseat. Some of Estela’s fried chicken.”
“Estela’s chicken?” she said, her eyes brightening.
“Don’t listen to him,” said Jimmy. “Stay with me, baby.”
“I need to talk to my father, Jimmy, sweetie, or he’ll never let us alone.” She kissed his bruised lips, his forehead, his ear, and then lifted her face to me. “Did Estela pack iced tea with the chicken?”
“With the limes how you like it,” I said.
“I’ll come with you,” said Jimmy, “and make sure he don’t do nothing funny.” But she was no longer listening.
“It’s best if I go alone, Boodles.” She straightened. “You wait here, I’ll be back.” As she passed me on the way to the bathroom, she said, “Just give me a minute to clean up.” She grabbed a suitcase and closed the bathroom door behind her.
Jimmy tried to scramble to his feet but Gordon knocked him down again, and that was that. Still on the floor, still with the gun pointed at his face, he leaned against the wall, poked at his missing tooth with his tongue, and stared at the briefcase. Whatever he wanted to do in the name of violence and greed, the money in the briefcase was stilling his hand, as I knew it would.
She came out of the bathroom in jeans and a T-shirt, her face scrubbed, her hair wet and loose. She looked wholesome and fresh and totally out of place in that shithole. Her posture was straight and haughty; she handed me the suitcase as one would hand it to a bellboy. She barely glanced at Jimmy on the floor as she walked out the door. Carrying her suitcase, I followed her to the parking lot, where Kief, in full chauffeur’s getup, cap included, waited at the limousine’s open door.
“It’s tougher than you think being his daughter,” she said.
“I couldn’t imagine,” I said.
“That’s right, you couldn’t. But at least now he’s paying attention. Sometimes all we want is to be looked at the right way.”
“I understand.”
“You have nice eyes.”
“I don’t get that much.”
“Don’t hurt him.”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“I know Daddy’s lawyers.”
“Enjoy Molokai.”
“Do you want to come? I think I’d like you to come. I could arrange it.
”
“Hawaii’s not for me,” I said. “Lawyers burn easily.”
“The afterlife must be tough on you guys, huh?”
“Enjoy the ride.”
After she was inside and the door slammed shut, Kief looked up at the still-open door of the motel room.
“That seemed easy enough,” he said.
“It helps having Gordon along, especially Gordon with a gun. But in truth, she wanted out. If Riley hadn’t found her when she did, the girl would have sent out a homing signal on her own.”
“Desert motel, two kids on the lam. I’m assuming they had some pretty impressive pharmaceuticals up there.”
“Take her right home,” I said. “No detours.”
“No problem.”
“And no partying with the passenger.”
“Really, boss? I thought we were a service industry.”
“We’re not servicing her. Take her home and take the next flight out.”
“I might as well be working for Uber.”
I watched the limousine pull out of the parking lot, turn onto the road, and start heading to the father’s mansion high in the hills above LA. Then I walked over to our rental SUV, where Riley was leaning against the back bumper, her sunglasses on, her arms crossed.
“Now comes the fun part,” she said. “How’s our boy Jimmy doing?”
“Not so well. Gordon had to work him over a bit. There’s a tooth on the floor.”
“You find the jewels?”
“Not yet.”
“What about the ring?”
“Oh, the ring is there.”
“The old man, he seemed pretty hepped up about that damn ring.”
“It’s a collector’s item.”
“Will Jimmy boy give it up?”
“One way or the other.” I opened the rear door of the vehicle, reached to the seat, and pulled out a large-handled wire cutter with the price sticker still attached. “It’s all just another negotiation, right?”
Mr. Gilbert was in a silk robe, hunched gnomishly at a round table covered by a white cloth, eating a grapefruit. While I stood to the side, he sprinkled sugar onto the citrus with his shaking hand and then one by one scooped pink wedges and slipped them between bleached dentures. His skin had the pale, glossy brittleness of parchment, his hair was dark and full of false, a rivulet of juice rolled down his chin. On a chaise by the pool a woman not much older than his daughter, but breathtakingly more beautiful, sunned while topless. The house was a dated monstrosity on Mulholland Drive, but the pool was bluer than the sky and the city spread out beyond it like a carpet to be stepped on. It was ten in the morning.
“You took longer than I expected,” said Gilbert without looking up from his grapefruit. His voice held the arrogance rich men get working in their fathers’ businesses.
“They made themselves invisible,” I said. “She turned off her phone and used the cash they had gotten from the pawnshops instead of the credit card.”
“I don’t like excuses, and I don’t like being kept waiting. Where are the jewels she stole?”
“We’re in the process of retrieving them.”
“That sounds less than promising.”
“Don’t worry. It turns out he kept the pawn slips.”
“And he just gave them to you?”
“Toward the end of our discussion he became quite reasonable.”
“She does know how to pick them, doesn’t she? There was a boxer from Fresno before this. Fresno. You know, I started with nothing. That made all the difference. I didn’t have the luxury of screwing up my life. The money has ruined her and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
I sucked my teeth and looked at the breasts on display by the pool. The woman lifted one arm over her head. She did that for my benefit, I could tell. Her wrist was slender and bound with faded friendship bracelets.
“Nothing to say?” said the old man.
I said nothing.
“You’re not the first I’ve sent to fetch my daughter out of a mess. I know how it goes. This is the part when you start telling me how to be a father. This is the part where you start telling me to show her some love.”
“No,” I said. “This is the part where I tell you because your daughter is safe in Molokai that it’s time for us to get paid.”
“You took longer than I expected. I don’t pay for tardiness. And how do I know this baboon won’t try to see her again.”
“He signed an agreement.”
“Oh, he signed an agreement. Wait, he signed an agreement?”
I took a document out of the briefcase and placed it beside his grapefruit. Four pages with a blue backer, signed by Jimmy boy and notarized by one Dick Triplett.
The old man barely glanced at it. “What is this worth? Less than toilet paper. What happens if he does see her again? What happens if he pursues her like an animal?”
“Pursuant to the agreement, you get to kill him.”
He lifted his ugly, round head at that, finally, and gave me a full look, like I had suddenly become human. “And he signed it?”
“I told you he became quite reasonable.”
“Is the agreement enforceable?”
“Not in a court of law.”
“Too bad.” He turned back to his breakfast, slipped out a wedge, let it shiver between his teeth before he bit it like it was a squirming salamander. “But I suppose it might have some deterrent effect. Now what about the ring? I told Maambong I especially wanted back the ring. It has sentimental value.”
“Not to mention a diamond the size of a walnut.”
“It’s a Super Bowl ring. Those don’t come cheap, and this one certainly didn’t. Come back when you have the ring and we’ll talk about the final payment.”
“I have the ring.”
“Where?”
“In my pocket.”
“And let me guess, you’re holding it as ransom? Pay up or the ring gets it.”
“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Gilbert. That would be bad form.” I took the box out of my pocket and placed it gently atop the document. “I happen to be responsible for ensuring you pay the full fee, yes, but Mr. Maambong told me you are a man of your word. I choose to believe him. And so consider this ring a token of our good faith.”
He glanced up at me, turned his attention back to the grapefruit, above which he let the spoon hover shakily for a moment before he dropped it carelessly onto the table and opened the box.
“Oh, you are awful,” said Cassandra.
“I try,” I said.
“But that’s the point, Phil. You don’t have to try, you just are. That’s exactly why you’re here.”
“I thought Mr. Maambong hired me for my especial talents.”
“He did. That’s what I’m saying. You’re an improvement on what we had before. You are next generation, team leader two point oh. That’s a good thing. Don’t overthink this.”
We were lounging in our bathing suits by the pool at the house in Miami, sipping frothy umbrella drinks prepared by Bert, letting the beat pumping out of the sound system slip into our slack muscles like a massage. This was just a normal Tuesday for my crew. So far, in addition to the case of the missing heiress, we had been assigned to steal back a stolen painting, to evict a renter from a million-dollar mansion he had refused to leave, to convince a wife’s lover that he should find other fields to plow, and to rob a warehouse and then burn it down before returning the stolen items to the owner. It was a dirty business, and sweetly profitable, and when we were on duty, the Last Chance Crew turned into an admirably taut team.
But on days we weren’t out on a job, we reported to the house and leisured by the pool as we waited for a new assignment. One thing I could say about our early days in the Hyena Squad: in moments of calm, we were chill. Gordon was floating on a yellow raft, a beer resting on his cut gut, his thick black knee brace lying on a granite tile beside the pool. Kief was sleeping off a high within the shade of an umbrella. Riley was at a table, sipping one o
f Bert’s famous mojitos and tapping on her computer, keeping up with the world. I didn’t care a damn about keeping up with the world, it was enough for me to keep up with the Joneses.
“So what did Gilbert do when he opened the box?” said Cassandra.
“He swallowed his own vomit,” I said.
She let out a spurt of laughter.
“It took him a moment to realize what it was. Nestled inside the velvet it looked pale and fake, rubbery even, like the exposed piece of bone was just a piece of chalk added for effect. He maybe thought it was a joke before he touched it. And that’s when his body heaved involuntarily and he turned away from me. I was waiting for it to hit the tiles around the pool, but nothing. He was tougher than I gave him credit for. He swallowed his vomit, then turned and thanked me for returning the ring.”
“You do know how to get paid.”
“That’s the name of the game,” I said just before taking a sip of the drink to burn away the taste of copper. I didn’t tell Cassandra about the look Mr. Gilbert gave me, a look full of loathing. The kind of look you give a rat pawing through a piece of feces. The kind of look I had seen before. And I didn’t tell Cassandra what I had done about it the very next day.
“Who had this job before me?” I said.
“Rand. He was quite dashing; too bad it didn’t work out.”
“Did you have sex with Rand?”
“I told you he was dashing. Where do you think we dashed to?”
“Why didn’t it work out?”
“It is better not to ask too many questions here,” said Cassandra as her phone started buzzing. She picked it up, peered at it lazily through her sunglasses. “Fun time’s over. Mr. Maambong wants to see you.”
“You’ll be gratified to know,” said Mr. Maambong, sitting behind the glass-topped desk in his office, wearing his white suit, his dark glasses, “that our friend Mr. Gilbert has paid in full both our extravagant fee and all billed expenses.”
A Filthy Business [Kindle in Motion] Page 9
