by Nancy Martin
“You know that for sure? You know, for instance, where she is tonight?”
I held still and let him record the expression of loathing on my face.
“She’s with a friend of mine,” Brinker continued. “Monte Bogatz works for me, you know. In a roundabout way. They’re probably partying right this minute.”
Partying. I nearly lost it. Instead, I asked, “What does Monte do for you?”
“A little bit of everything. He’s expensive, though. It’s not just the liquor I have to buy for him and his girlfriend, but he loves that hillbilly heroin, too. Maybe he’s introducing your sister to its pleasures tonight.”
“Emma wouldn’t do that.”
Brinker laughed. “Don’t bet on it.”
“She’s not as weak as you think.”
“It’s not a matter of her being weak. It’s the dope that’s strong.”
“You want me to back off,” I said. “Or you’ll hurt Emma. You’re gifted, Brinker. You’ve only gotten better at torturing people.”
He lifted his shoulders. “The ball’s in your court now, isn’t it? Thing is, I wish you’d hurry up and decide, because I’ve got business to do tonight.”
“Is it Emma? Are you—”
“Don’t flatter yourselves. I’m meeting someone who’s got something I want, so you’re gonna get out of here before he arrives, understand?”
“Where is Emma now?”
“You think I bother to keep track of people like her?”
“How can I reach Monte?”
He laughed. “Hit the road. I’ve got an important meeting.”
“With whom? Another lowlife?”
The bar suddenly turned quiet. Within an eerie moment, all conversation stopped.
From behind me where he’d slipped in through the back like a ghost, Michael said, “Lowlife?”
“Don’t listen to her.” Brinker scrambled to his feet. “She didn’t mean—”
Michael put his hand on top of the camera before Brinker had a chance to focus it on anything but the floor. Gently, he pushed the camera down to the tabletop.
“Give me the tape,” he said quite reasonably.
Brinker obeyed, fumbling a little, but handing over what he’d just filmed.
Michael dropped the videotape on the floor and stepped on it. The crack of plastic sounded very final.
“Who’s this?” Michael said, looking down at me with a complete lack of recognition in his face. “She with you?”
“No, no. She’s nobody important,” Brinker said. “You have the crotch rocket I asked about?”
“Don’t rush it,” Michael said, still looking at me with a poker face so good he could have cleaned out Atlantic City.
“No rushing. Okay, good.”
Michael said to me, “You’re a surprise.”
I stood up from the table. “You must be the motorcycle salesman.”
“I haven’t decided if I’m going to sell anything yet. Especially to anyone who calls it a crotch rocket. And what’s your story?”
“I’m here to ask Brinker a question.”
Michael remained unfazed. “So go ahead. What’s the question?”
Brinker said, “She just came up to me, man. Have a drink. Let me buy a round. Where’s your crew? We’ll get acquainted.”
“Shut up,” Michael said. “Let’s hear her question.”
I cleared my throat. “I want to know if Brinker met somebody here last week. A man named Danny Pescara.”
“Who?”
“You heard her,” Michael said.
Brinker heard something in his tone that I could not. “Pescara? Oh, yeah, I know the guy. A little, that is. We’re not best buds or anything.”
“Best buds.” Michael almost smiled.
“Was Danny in here last week?” I asked. “Did you meet with him?”
Brinker glanced at Michael and realized he wasn’t going to complete any transactions until he answered my question. So Brinker said, “No, I didn’t meet him last week. I’ve been tied up with the fashion show. Lots of details to take care of—you know what it’s like,” he added to Michael. “There are some things you just can’t trust to anyone else. It’s the price of being your own man. This is the first chance I had to get away.”
I asked, “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
Michael said to me, “You don’t believe him?”
“I don’t . . . I’m not sure.”
“He wouldn’t lie to me,” Michael said.
“How can you . . . Oh.”
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Brinker,” I said. “He has my sister.”
“What do you mean, he has her?”
“He’s . . . It’s complicated. He’s having her watched by someone dangerous.”
Michael shrugged as if he didn’t care. “I think it’s time for you to go home now. Say good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” I said.
Chapter 15
“What do you think?” Libby asked when we were speeding home and she was punching the buttons on the console to get some heat in the minivan. “Was Brinker telling the truth?”
“About Danny? I think he was scared witless of Michael and didn’t dare lie. But I’m worried, Lib.”
“About Brinker?”
“He likes nothing better than having the upper hand, humiliating people. And I just embarrassed him in front of his people. I made him show his fear. He’s going to retaliate.”
“How?”
I realized my teeth were chattering. “I’m most afraid for Emma.”
I told Libby how Monte Bogatz had been hired to snoop for Clientec and keep an eye on Emma.
“We have to do something!” Libby grabbed her cell phone. She telephoned the hotel where Emma was staying.
After listening to several employees say they didn’t divulge information about guests, Libby finally extracted the truth: Emma and Monte had checked out.
“Michael will look for her,” I told Libby when the call was over. “He got the message that Em is in trouble. I’m sure he’ll go find her.”
“Even he can’t force Emma to do something she doesn’t want to do.”
“No, but he can force Monte.” After watching Michael in action in the bar, I had no doubt he could force anybody to do his bidding under the right circumstances. With Emma in danger, I was suddenly all in favor of brute force.
“Will he start looking tonight?” Libby asked.
“Probably.” I shivered, hoping I was right. Michael would know how to find Emma. He had a lot of resources he could bring to bear.
For the first time, I had seen him in his milieu. He’d come alone, quietly. But Brinker and everyone in the bar had seen through that quiet and respected the potential danger Michael kept alertly coiled inside himself. The warm, funny man I’d welcomed into my bed could actually become the tough brute everyone warned me about. He didn’t need to talk big or make idle threats the way Brinker had. Michael was big—powerful and unyielding and lethal. I’d seen it with my own eyes. And for the first time I could imagine him doing the things that lurid newspapers claimed he had done in the past.
“You okay?” Libby asked.
“I’m trying.”
“You’re not asking what happened to me in the bar,” she said.
I swallowed hard. “Okay, what happened?”
“I talked to the waitress, Ashley. She said Danny Pescara was in the bar twice last week. And both times he spoke with a woman.”
“The same woman?”
“Yes. I couldn’t find out more. Ashley had to take a tray of cocktails to some customers, and I got busy, too.”
“Busy how?” I had heard the delight in her voice.
“I sold my entire stock of Potions and Passions samples! Can you believe it? I’m definitely going back to that place, Nora. It’s a gold mine! Half the men in that bar were gay. You have no idea how much gay men love their gadgets! Maybe gays should be my target customer.”
“Lib, give me a minute to steam-clean a few mental images out of my mind, okay?”
“But then the bartender said he was calling the police. Can you imagine? He accused me of solicitation!”
I was doubly glad we’d left when we had. Libby dropped me at home. Aldo sent her a surly look as he allowed us into the driveway.
I found the boys snoring on the sofa in front of the television, surrounded by Pop-Tart wrappers. Somehow, Orlando had traded his tidy Oxford shirt for one of Rawlins’s well-worn sweatshirts.
I woke them both and personally escorted Orlando up to a bed in the guest room next to mine. Barely conscious, he asked only that Spike be allowed to sleep with him. The dog was already snuffling in the bedclothes, and Orlando gathered him up and began to breathe deeply, the two of them looking suspiciously angelic.
In my own bedroom at last, I stopped dead in the middle of the floor and absorbed what had changed in the room.
Michael’s clothes were gone. Even his toothbrush and razor.
I looked for a note and found nothing.
My teeth began to chatter again. I sat down on the bed, hugged myself, and tried to remember the last thing I’d said to him at the bar.
Good-bye.
During the night, my brain wouldn’t let me sleep. Over and over I found myself reviewing what had happened and trying to figure a way to resolve things. I knew Brinker got the bra design from Gallagher. I knew Brinker and Hemorrhoid were cooking up something the SEC didn’t like. I knew Kitty’s murder had something to do with their plans. But why did Kitty have to die? And who hired Danny Pescara to do it?
In the morning I got out of bed and fired up my computer. Online, I checked the Web site of the city’s foremost newspaper. Carefully, I scrolled through the pages looking for Richard’s byline, but found nothing. As promised, he hadn’t written his story.
Next I telephoned Lexie at her office. Even though it was barely seven in the morning, she was already at her desk.
“Sweetie,” she said when I asked for assistance. “I’m happy to help.”
“I need a diversion, Lex.” And I told her what I required. “Can you make it happen this afternoon?”
“Sure.” Her own creative juices began to flow. “How’s this for an idea?”
After hanging up with Lexie, I telephoned Mary Margaret, who reported that Orlando’s guardians would be in the city by late evening. Could I keep him safe until then? Of course.
Next I had a brainstorm and called the concierge at Emma’s hotel. I should have thought of him before.
My friend Carlos Sanguilla picked up. “Nora, tell me the truth,” he said sternly. “Am I the only one in town not invited to your party tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“It’s New Year’s Eve, honey-child.”
I tossed caution to the wind. “Sure, why not? Bring the whole gang from the hotel, if you like. I’d love to see everyone again. Just . . . can you tell me when Emma checked out, Carlos? Was it last night?”
Carlos graciously consulted the hotel records and came back on the line an instant later. “She and her vaquero departed yesterday morning, Nora.”
Yesterday morning. Which meant she had a lot of time to get into trouble.
I climbed back into bed with a cup of tea, half hoping Michael would show up with bagels to prove I didn’t need to be afraid.
He had second thoughts? He didn’t want to be with me? Those weren’t the true sentiments of a man who sometimes made love to me as if he were drowning and I was his only rescue. He’d been desperate when I’d first met him—lost in a life he needed to change. Desperate for love and meaning and a place in the world.
With sudden clarity, I wondered if the person who hired Danny Pescara had been equally desperate for help.
I took a shower and tried to think two steps ahead of my opponent.
After dressing in jeans and a sweater suitable for housework and errands, I put on my coat and hiked the long driveway to speak to Aldo. After asking for his help, I invited him inside the house for breakfast. He accepted, but said first he’d make some phone calls.
When Rawlins, Orlando and Spike appeared downstairs, I whipped up a double batch of sour-cream pancakes and looked in the pantry for a bottle of blueberry syrup I had purchased at the farmer’s market last summer. I listened to the boys talk.
“Can’t we have Pop-Tarts?” Orlando asked Rawlins once they were sitting at the kitchen table. His hair stood up in tufts, and he seemed comfortable in the rumpled sweatshirt he had obviously permanently confiscated from Rawlins.
“You ate ’em all last night, nerd. Man, it’s like you never saw junk food before.”
“What other kinds of junk food do you have?”
Rawlins dug into his pancakes, hiding a secret smile that told me he enjoyed playing mentor. “You ever have Cheez Whiz?”
Orlando paused in the act of mopping blueberry syrup, enthralled by the melodious sound of the new words Rawlins spoke. “What’s Cheez Whiz?”
“Cheesy stuff you spray out of an aerosol can. Sometimes I squirt it on my finger and—”
“Rawlins,” I warned.
“No, I want to know more,” Orlando insisted. “My mom wouldn’t let me have junk food, and Uncle Hem says it will poison me. Except he keeps a candy stash in his desk drawer. I saw it. What else do you know about?”
“Well, if you like cheese, there’s Cheez Doodles, CheezIts, cheese curls—”
“Cheetos,” Aldo offered.
“Yeah, I like to smash those on sandwiches made out of olive loaf.”
“You like olive loaf?” Aldo asked, warming to the subject.
Rawlins and Aldo proceeded to regale their young audience with an encyclopedic knowledge of products I had never heard of. The list of unappetizing substances made me put aside the plate of pancakes I’d prepared for myself. But watching the boys, I was gladdened to see Orlando coming out of the cocoon his uncle had spun around him. His eyes sparkled in a way that reminded me of his fun-loving mother.
When the discussion came to an end, the boys put their dishes in the sink and dashed for the living room with Spike in hot pursuit.
Aldo put down his fork and patted his stomach. “You’re not a bad cook when you set your mind to it.”
I poured him a little more coffee. “Thanks.”
He reached into an interior pocket on his tracksuit and withdrew a small, battered ring-bound notebook. “I got the information you wanted.”
“So fast?”
He gave a modest shrug. “I called a guy. This is the address.” He tore out a page and handed it to me.
I accepted the paper. “Thank you, Aldo. I appreciate your help.”
“You know,” he said, pulling his napkin from the neck of his tracksuit, “I wasn’t crazy about you at first. But you turned out okay.”
“Is that an endorsement of my cooking?”
He shook his head. “The boss’s son, he’s not usually impetuous. He had us a little worried when you came along. But you’re all right.”
I sat down at the table with him, hesitant to ask Aldo the questions I’d longed to understand. “So you work for Michael’s father?”
“I help out, that’s all.” He looked at me from under his heavy eyebrows. “Just so you understand, we’ll stick around.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary much longer. Orlando will probably leave this evening, and then—”
“After,” Aldo clarified. “If there’s a conviction. We’ll be around.”
“A conviction?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Sure you do.”
“No, Aldo, I really don’t.”
He picked up his coffee cup again and shrugged. “Big Frankie’s health isn’t too good. So. You know.”
I must have looked like a cartoon character struck by a falling anvil. “What are you talking about?”
“Big Frankie wouldn’t survive a sentence. His constitu
tion isn’t up to it. So. The son takes the stretch.” He sipped his coffee daintily.
“The son . . . ? Are you saying Michael would go to jail? To spare his father?”
Again the shrug. “You know. It’s the way.”
“The way?” I snapped. “Danny Pescara kills Kitty, and Michael goes to jail? So his father doesn’t die in a prison cell? What way, exactly, is that?”
“I’m not saying it’ll happen.” Aldo put his beefy elbows on the table and supported the coffee cup under his chin so he could smell the steam. “There’s a lot of slips between here and there. And the lawyers, they’re the best money can buy. But these cops . . . they have a thing for Big Frankie. They’re working hard to get him this time. It’ll hurt him bad if the son has to go, but—”
“I don’t believe this.”
Michael had tried to tell me the same thing—that he might have to leave. Except I hadn’t realized he meant going back to jail.
“No,” I said. “This can’t be happening.”
I grabbed the phone and dialed Michael’s cell again. No answer.
Aldo sat looking at me stolidly. “He has things to do.”
“Where is he? What’s he doing?”
Aldo put his coffee cup back on the table. “Not for me to know. Or you either. He’ll be back if he can.”
“If he can,” I repeated. “What about Danny? Will he go to jail?”
Aldo smiled a little. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Danny’s not the surviving type no matter where he is.”
“How. . . ? No, you don’t mean the family will do something?”
Aldo got up from the table. “Nobody likes a cooperating witness.”
“You’re talking about killing a person!”
“I’ll be outside,” Aldo said. “Thank you for the breakfast. A little sausage would be good. I’ll bring you some.”
I locked the door after him.
I broke a plate as I washed the dishes. Shoving the pieces into the trash, I knew I had to start thinking straight or lose everything. I cleaned up the kitchen and went over things in my mind until I had a plan. I continued to clean the rest of the house as my scheme grew to trap the person who hired Danny Pescara. While I was vacuuming, everything became clear for me.
I called Libby. She showed up in the afternoon, when my home was immaculate.
