Cross Your Heart and Hope to Die

by Nancy Martin

  On top was a candid photo of Michael that Libby had snapped during the hubbub of our family Christmas gathering—the first Michael had ever attended with all of Libby’s kids. As soon as we arrived, her baby had thrown up on him. Michael had taken off his shirt for me to rinse out in a sink, and while he was bare-chested, Libby must have given him the baby to hold and taken their photo. Man and child were in quarter profile with the rounded curve of Michael’s bare shoulder creating a frame for their faces—one rough-hewn and dangerous, the other perfectly angelic.

  An artist herself, Libby had managed to capture something both erotic and heart-stoppingly adorable. I stared at the photograph and felt my face get warm.

  Libby kept talking, unaware of my reaction.

  “What’s going on around here, anyway?” she asked. “Why is Orlando here?”

  Gently, I put the photo down. Feeling disconnected, I told her everything I knew about Brinker, the bra, Gallagher, Hemorrhoid and the Finehart twins. Libby stopped unwrapping unmentionable items while she listened. Toward the end of my tale, she sat down on the sofa with me.

  At last, she said, “What are you going to do?”

  If any information could absolve Michael or his family from Kitty’s murder, it would have to come to light without his help. Tainted evidence would be worthless.

  So I asked, “Do you know a biker bar in New Hope?”

  “Of course I do.” She looked affronted. “What do you think I am? Some kind of fuddy-duddy?”

  “I think we should go.”

  She eyed her box of goodies. “Maybe I could find some customers there. Bikers like machinery, don’t they?”

  I headed for the kitchen and grabbed my coat. Orlando was safer with Michael’s crew than he could possibly have been in anyone else’s custody, and I wasn’t prepared to speak to Michael again. Not until I could tamp down the hysteria that roiled inside me when I thought about him leaving.

  I helped Libby load her box of Potions and Passions paraphernalia into the minivan and we set off for town.

  My sister drove the winding road to New Hope, a few miles down the Delaware River from Blackbird Farm. The town was a picturesque village of country inns and quaint shops that teemed with tourists in the summer months and enjoyed the benefits of a thriving gay community, a few psychics and the occasional oddball writer. All was quiet now and beautifully decorated for the holidays.

  Libby drove past the gift shops, galleries and at least one fortune-teller’s storefront to a lively street illuminated by old-fashioned street lamps but parked full of motorcycles. Interspersed with the bikes were expensive sports cars.

  “You’d have to really love motorcycles to ride one in the middle of winter,” Libby said as we went around the block a second time in search of a parking space.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t carry my whole box of goodies inside.” Libby judged the distance from her parking space to the door of the bar. No doubt she also decided she’d look more attractive without a huge cardboard box in her arms. “I’ll just take a few items in my handbag.”

  She got out of the van and opened the sliding door. To gain access to her Potions and Passions box, she shoved aside the heap of family junk that had accumulated on the backseat.

  I stood on the sidewalk and put her handbag over my arm with my own. “Need any help?”

  “You’re not afraid of snakes, are you?”

  “Snakes? Libby, it’s December.”

  “It’s a fake. One of the pranks the twins played on Rawlins.” She reached into the flotsam at her feet and hauled out a long rubber snake. Very lifelike.

  So lifelike I couldn’t help myself. I backed up a pace and felt my insides clench. “You really do have a problem with the twins. You’re going to have a serious discussion with them soon, aren’t you?”

  “As soon as I figure out what to say. How do you stop kids from picking on each other?”

  “By not ignoring it, for one thing.”

  “And by making everybody take responsibility for their actions, I know. But it’s hard for me.”

  Libby wanted to be a friend to her kids. But sometimes they needed a mom. Before they turned into Unabombers and began to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world.

  “You need some professional help,” I said. “Why don’t you go see that nice therapist you used to visit? Maybe he has some suggestions.”

  “If he can get over the little misunderstanding we had,” Libby said.

  “I’m sure there are other therapists. Ones you haven’t tried to seduce.”

  She frowned. “Probably.”

  Libby dropped the snake, and she pulled a few more Potions and Passions unmentionables out and handed them to me. I stowed them in her bag. When it was full, she emerged from the minivan with her hair newly mussed and her cheeks flushed from the exertion. She looked ravishing, of course.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Lib, have you ever actually been inside a biker bar before?”

  “Not exactly, no. But how different can it be?”

  Chapter 14

  It was different.

  We charged through the door and found ourselves staring at a sea of men.

  Men in leather.

  “Hand me a lipstick,” Libby said. “I think I’m in heaven.”

  The bar was low-ceilinged and packed wall-to-wall with every size and shape of the male persuasion. Tall or short, muscle-bound or lean, scowling or laughing—they were all there. Rough-talking, beer-drinking men.

  Honky-tonk blues thundered around us, punctuated by a roar of laughter as a scantily clad barmaid turned her tail to a table of Hell’s Angels and swivel-hipped away.

  A blue haze of cigar smoke hung in the air like smog around a steel mill.

  But I recognized that smoke. I hadn’t been raised among gentlemen of refined and expensive tastes for nothing. This particular fog of smoldering tobacco didn’t smell like cheap cigars bought at roadside gas stations. No, it was distinctly the finest fragrance of Cuba.

  My bullshit detector switched on, geared to its highest frequency.

  “Hi,” said a giant who swung off the last seat at the bar. He had a full head of dark curls, untrimmed sideburns and gold-rimmed glasses. He looked like a bashful bear with spectacles. “Libby?”

  My sister gave the large chap a disbelieving stare. “Perry? Perry Delbert? What are you doing here?”

  Perry’s large nose hovered over my sister’s cleavage as if she kept a store of honey hidden there. He tried to play it cool, however. “Oh, just hanging out. I bought a Harley last year, so I thought I’d get to know the rest of the guys. I . . . uh . . . haven’t seen you lately.”

  “I know,” she said with a frosty edge.

  “Right, last I saw, you were . . .” He pantomimed a pregnant belly by smoothing his hand over his own oversize tummy. “And,” he added shyly, “you were beautiful.”

  She blinked. “Thank you. I . . . uh . . . Nora,” Libby said, “this is Perry Delbert. He helped me get rid of some carpenter ants last fall.”

  “That was one heck of an infestation, too. I had to come back several times.”

  “Three times, that’s all,” Libby corrected, mustering some chill again. “Then you. . . I mean, the ants disappeared before we had a chance to . . .”

  “I saw the birth notice in the newspaper. I figured you were busy with a new baby to look after. Hi.” Perry shook my hand without quite meeting my eye. “I wanted to call myself the Exterminator, but the real Exterminator said he’d sue. I’m in pest elimination.”

  “I think of you,” Libby said, “as the bug man.”

  “Oh.” Perry looked crestfallen.

  Tonight the Exterminator wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase LOOKING FOR A HOT MAMA, and depicting the rear view of a short-skirted, pantyless woman on the back of a departing motorcycle. Perry also had a nervous nod combined with his slippery eyeglasses, so he kept one hand free to push them back into place every few seconds. His other hand was shoved
into the front pockets of his pleated khakis.

  “So, Perry,” said Libby, “are you presently in the market for sensual aids?”

  A new song cued up on the sound system just as loud as before, giving Perry time to think. He nodded while deciding whether he’d heard correctly.

  I saw my chance and leaned closer to ask very originally, “Do you come here often?”

  “Couple times a week,” he said, still nodding, but relieved that he understood me. “I’m getting a feel for the crowd.”

  “Do you know a lot of the people here?”

  “Most of the regulars. They don’t know me, really, but I ask Ashley, the waitress, and she tells me about everybody. Eventually I’ll introduce myself, but I don’t want to push it yet. It takes a while to slide into a new crowd.”

  He made the hand motion of a surfboard cleaving across a wave.

  Libby said, “You don’t have a problem with erectile function, do you?”

  Perry opened his mouth but couldn’t come up with an answer.

  “Because if you don’t like the idea of polluting your body with a drug like Viagra,” she continued, “I sell an herbal alternative that also gives you fresh breath.”

  Starting to look frightened, Perry turned to me. “Are you looking for somebody in particular?”

  “Danny Pescara. Do you know him? Or what about a guy named Brinker Holt? Has he ever been in here?”

  Relieved to know at least one answer to the questions we tossed at him, Perry nodded eagerly. “Brinker? Oh, yeah, he comes in here a lot. Brings his camera. Very funny guy. He’s supposed to stop here tonight, in fact.”

  Libby and I exchanged glances. We hadn’t planned on bumping into Brinker. I hoped Richard D’eath was with Brinker, as he’d promised.

  Perry said, “Brinker’s had some trouble with his bike ever since he took a slider on I-95 last summer. He’s in the market for a new bike. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. So he’s been coming around here.”

  “This is a good place to buy a motorcycle?”

  “Well, if you want something hot, sure.”

  “Hot? You mean stolen?”

  Again with the hand gestures. He put one palm up to me as if to refuse a tray of canapés. “Whoa, I don’t know anything about that. I only meant a quality bike. You know, a really good one.”

  I remembered Brinker’s use of motorcycles in his fashion show. Richard had seen motorcycles as a way of getting closer to Brinker, so I hoped he’d find a way to follow Brinker here tonight.

  To Libby, I said, “I’m going to talk to the waitress.”

  “Okay. I’ll see if I can drum up some business.” Libby leveraged herself onto a stool, which Perry thoughtfully held still in case it tipped beneath her weight. I thought I caught him admiring her soft behind during the process. But she played it cool and signaled for the bartender with one upraised forefinger. “Do you have something in a nice white zinfandel?”

  I eased away from Libby and the Exterminator. Making my way along the bar, I tried not to draw attention to myself, but it was hard. The few women in the room were biker chicks, mostly dressed from the Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog. I stood out like a weed in an exotic garden.

  One man in biker leathers glanced up at me, then looked away quickly. I recognized him despite his costume—a young lawyer from Lexie’s financial firm. Not exactly the kind of guy who kept a rusty knife in his wingtips in case a brawl broke out in a boardroom, but tonight he endeavored to look like an easy rider. A bottle of scotch sat on his table. No rotgut for him, I noted, but a fine Scottish single malt.

  I saw the busy Ashley shimmy between some tables, so I followed.

  As she began to bus a table near the men’s room, I cornered her.

  “Hi,” I said. “Ashley? A guy at the bar said you might be able to answer some questions for me.”

  She looked up from wiping spilled beer and blew her blond bangs off her damp forehead. In a short denim skirt and stretchy cotton shirt, her slim body moved as if she were hardly out of high school, but her face was older. “Oh, yeah? Who’re you?”

  “My name’s Nora—”

  “You a reporter?”

  “Well, yes, as a matter of fact, but—”

  “The festival is in June, and we invite everybody who rides a Harley. We rent out the campground, but some guys like to stay at the Comfort Inn. The races are on Saturday, and the street show is on Sunday.”

  “Thanks. That’s very—Thanks. But I was wondering if you know a guy by the name of Danny Pescara.”

  She rolled her eyes. “He got himself arrested again, right?”

  “Well, you know Danny. Always up to something with him.”

  No answering smile. “Does he owe you money?”

  “No, I was wondering if you saw him in here last week.”

  She swiped her tip off the table, a dollar bill and a couple of quarters. Hefting the change in her hand, she snorted at it before sliding the money into the pocket of her short apron. “Yeah, Danny’s in and out of here a lot. Thinks he’s a player. Comes across as a guy who’s connected, you know, but he’s strictly small time. He’s not worth the heartbreak, honey.”

  “Who does he talk to when he’s here? Anybody in particular?”

  She shrugged, picked up her tray and braced it on her outthrust hip. “Lots of guys. This place sees a lot of horse trading, you know? Bikes, that is. You want a good bike, you come here and ask around.”

  “I see.”

  “Danny’s not into bikes, but he pretends, you know? But these guys?” She indicated the crowd with a snap of her head. “You want to spend some serious money on serious motorcycles, you come here. Which means things aren’t always clean and pretty. You’ve got to look after yourself in this place, honey.”

  “Thanks. I wasn’t planning to stay long.”

  She nodded. “Good. There are some guys you just don’t want to tangle with, you know?”

  Again, I hoped Richard had hooked up with Brinker already. I felt the need for some backup.

  “I gotta get back to the bar, honey. Can we shoot the breeze later?”

  “Of course. Thanks.”

  She was gone in a blink, whisking off to take more orders.

  I lingered at the back of the room, trying to blend in but watching the crowd while I tried to decide if I should chicken out and go home.

  I was still dithering when Brinker arrived. He came in carrying his trademark camera and followed by his entourage. They dodged among the other patrons to make sure Brinker had enough light to adequately photograph the surroundings.

  The bikers in the bar roared his name rather like a parody of a television show. Suddenly the air was buzzing with excitement.

  Ashley responded to Brinker’s arrival by pointing him to the empty table right in front of me.

  If I had planned to hang back to reconnoiter, I was out of luck. Brinker headed straight toward me. With dismay, I noticed Richard was nowhere to be seen.

  Brinker strode through the bar, scanning the crowd with his camera. He lingered over a scene of two guys arm wrestling. But when nothing exciting happened, he gave up and sat down at the table, his back to the wall so he could watch the proceedings through the lens of his camera, just five feet from where I stood.

  One of his muscle-bound compatriots came up to me. “Hey, you can’t hang around here. We’re waiting for somebody, and we need the space.”

  “Are you the owner?” I asked.

  He was very handsome in the cut-cheek way of models, but gave me an unattractively slit-eyed look and didn’t answer. “We’re gonna do some business. You can’t stay here.”

  Brinker heard us and turned. I saw the dark lens of his camera focus on me.

  He gave me a head-to-toe once-over before realizing who I was. Then he lowered the camera and frowned. “Are you following me?”

  “Are you following me?” I asked in return, mustering some indignation. “What do you want?”

  “What d�
�you mean, what do I want? I come here all the time.”

  “I was here first.”

  “But—Oh, hell, just get away from me, will you?”

  Instead, I sat down at his table.

  “She can’t stay here, Brink. The guy is on his way. You don’t want to piss him off.”

  “Take it easy.” He tracked me with the camera again. “Now what?” he asked from behind it. “Are you stalking me? Get in line. I’ve got women waiting all over the city.”

  “I just want to know how much you paid Gallagher. For the bra.”

  He took his thumb off the “record” button and put the camera on the table. Then he popped the tape out of the machine and removed a Sharpie pen from inside his leather jacket pocket. Carefully, he wrote my name on the tape. “So you think you know something,” he said, capping the pen.

  “I know you paid off an old man—”

  He stopped me with a gesture. “Fellas,” he said to his hangers-on, “why don’t you get a round of drinks from the bar?”

  “But what about—”

  “This will only take a minute.”

  They melted away unwillingly, leaving us alone at the table.

  I said, “You paid Gallagher a pittance to get your hands on a design that’s worth a fortune.”

  “I call that good business.”

  He put the videotape with my name on it into his messenger bag and retrieved a new tape. He tore off the cellophane wrapping and dropped it on the floor before popping the fresh tape into the camera. He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I invented the Brinker Bra, and I’ll sue anybody who says otherwise.”

  “You did more than sue Kitty Keough.”

  “If you claim I had anything to do with her untimely death, you’d better have some good lawyers standing behind you.” He fussed with the camera. “But you may be too busy with family problems to worry about Kitty Keough much longer.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He thumbed the “record” button on the camera and pointed the lens at me again. “I hear your sister drinks too much.”

  I stared at the eye of his camera. “Emma has a problem, but she’s dealing with it.”