The Last Resort (A Kate Jasper Mystery)

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  “I’ll have the buffet, then,” I said.

  “Mr. Jasper’s bill?” he asked.

  I nodded and scurried to the buffet as Bradley broke into another bout of discordant laughter.

  How crazy was the man? Was he merely acting? Bradley reminded me of a woman I’d known a few years back. She was an artist and had enjoyed pretending to be crazier than she really was. On the other hand, her enjoyment of the role hadn’t changed the underlying fact of her basic madness. I shrugged away the thought and surveyed the dining hall.

  The hall was filled with people. Some were recognizable to me. Others were newcomers. I saw the twins seated at a corner table across the room. I smiled in their direction, but they ignored me. Protecting my cover, no doubt. Terry McPhail was topping off his plate at the buffet. Once he had finished, he went to the table where Don Logan sat.

  “Mind if I join you?” I heard Terry ask.

  Don shook his head and grunted an invitation to sit down. There was no accompanying warmth in his voice or his eyes, however.

  Terry sat, then nodded at Logan’s legs. “Vietnam?” he asked.

  “No,” responded Logan curtly.

  So much for conversation at that table. I averted my eyes and ears, and concentrated on filling my own plate high with brown rice, vegetables and a healthy serving of both the Brazilian beans and the tofu-nut loaf. I hoped Bradley’s cooking was better than his state of mental health.

  I sat down alone at one of the smaller tables and dipped into the Brazilian beans and greens. Delicious. The banana complemented the garlic-and vinegar-flavored beans and greens perfectly. As I took a bite of tofu-nut loaf I heard the noisy arrival of Jack Ireland.

  “Just one good gig—” he was saying.

  “Two buffets,” Nikki said to Bradley. Bradley nodded.

  Jack continued, not seeming to notice the interruption. He waved his hands in the air excitedly. “That’s all it’ll take. If I can get them a gig, it’ll all start happening. I can feel it. They’re gonna be dynamite. With Mad Dog on drums, Colin doing vocals and bass—”

  “Honey,” said Nikki gently as she shepherded him to the buffet. “They might be taking you for a ride. Did you front them any money?”

  “They gotta have equipment,” he answered sullenly.

  Nikki stopped in her tracks. “How much?” she asked. Her hands were on her hips now, in the classic pose of disapproving motherhood.

  “What does it matter?” he answered impatiently, shuffling his feet. “They’re for real. They’re good. Why are you giving me shit on this?”

  “Oh, honey,” Nikki said. “You don’t have to be a rock promoter.” She put her arms around him. “A roadie’s good enough for me.”

  He shook off her embrace, dancing around like a prizefighter in his agitation. “Shit! You don’t get it. I am a rock promoter! You didn’t know me when I put Trax together. My brother and my best buddy and these other assholes. Without me they would have never gotten together. Now they’re flyin’, man.” He slowed down his dancing feet and finished softly. “And I’m a fuckin’ roadie.”

  “That’s okay,” said Nikki. She put her arms around him. This time he didn’t shake her off. She looked him in the eye and said, “I love you exactly as you are,” before kissing him on the mouth.

  He returned her kiss with passion, then held her out away from his body. “Suzanne called me a phony. Do you think I’m a phony?” he asked.

  “No,” she answered. “I think you’re the man I love.” She gave him a gentle punch to the shoulder. “Now, cut out all this foolishness and let’s eat.”

  He lurched back as if she had walloped him. “Whooee, you’re a mean woman,” he said, grabbing his shoulder. “Guess I’ll have to do what you say.” He gave her a mock leer and said hopefully, “The chains again?”

  Nikki giggled. They sparred playfully as they began filling up their plates at the buffet. I sighed with relief.

  “The lovebirds at it again?” asked a familiar voice.

  I looked up and saw Craig’s smiling face. He looked more relaxed now. Maybe the swim had done him good. I smiled back.

  He bent down and whispered. “Do you know you’re being watched?” He tipped his head to point across the room.

  I turned to look, just in time to see the twins studiously avoiding my glance. I turned back to Craig. “Get some food and I’ll tell you about them,” I whispered back. “But you’ve got to keep what I tell you under your hat.”

  “Bond’s the name,” he replied with a wink. “Secrecy’s the game.”

  It was a good and pleasant meal, an interval of peace and relaxation. I told Craig all about the twins. He promised to keep his lips sealed. Pretty soon we were talking about old times. Nostalgia can be dangerous.

  “Kate, we were always so good together,” began Craig.

  Time to change the subject, I thought. But I didn’t have to.

  Two tables over, Jack Ireland jumped up out of his seat and blew a short blues riff through his cupped hands. Heads turned toward him. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “You’re right, as always, baby,” he sang to Nikki. He blew a few more notes, then cried, “Enough of this shit!” He pulled Nikki from her seat. “Let’s get high and fly,” he sang.

  “Oh, Jack,” Nikki answered sadly. She shook her head.

  “Come on, baby,” he cajoled. “It’ll be copacetic. Do a little ecstasy—or maybe a toot or two—and then ride the Harley into the desert.” He grinned at her. “It’s such a trip flying high down the highway. They even named it for getting high. The highway. Get it?” He threw his head back and laughed. When he didn’t get a response from Nikki, he cupped his hand gently under her chin and pulled her face up to his. “How about it, baby?” he asked softly.

  “No, Jack,” she said, shaking her head violently. “We came here so you’d get clean.”

  “Come on, baby,” he pleaded.

  “Did you bring drugs along with you?” she asked. I shifted in my chair uncomfortably. Wasn’t she afraid of being overheard?

  Jack shuffled his feet guiltily.

  “Jack, answer me!” Nikki said. Apparently she didn’t care if anyone was listening. Her tone was no longer gentle. And it was loud. “Where’s your stash? Where’s the coke? Where’s the ecstasy?”

  “Forget it,” he answered. He threw himself back into his chair. “I’ll go by myself.”

  But Nikki wasn’t going to drop it. “You don’t need any more drugs,” she said. “You’re already drunk! You think I’m stupid. I know you’ve got your beer hidden out there somewhere.” Her beautiful eyes were glossy with tears. “Jack, this vacation was for you. To get you clean.”

  “I know, baby,” he mumbled. He reached out a hand and stroked her arm gently. She sat down at the table and put her head in her hands.

  “Hey, baby,” said Jack softly. “It was just a couple of beers. No big deal. Gives me a little buzz is all.”

  Nikki lifted her head. Her makeup was dissolving under her tears. “How many is a couple?” she asked. “Twelve? Twenty?”

  “I need it,” Jack said quietly.

  “You need to quit,” Nikki answered. “Be real!”

  “You think I’m a phony, too,” said Jack sadly. He didn’t look far from tears himself.

  “I think you’re an alcoholic,” corrected Nikki.

  Jack dropped his head.

  “Jack?” prodded Nikki gently.

  He lifted his head to speak but I missed his words. Just as he opened his mouth, Ruth Ziegler swept into the room shouting, “I’ve sold Healing the Broken Heart!”

  In Ruth’s rush to our table she blocked my view of Jack and Nikki.

  “I just wanted to thank you for your help with my title,” she said. She bent over to hug me. I peered over her shoulder at Jack and Nikki as she engulfed me. But it was no use. I couldn’t hear what Jack was saying over Ruth’s spate of words.

  “My agent says they love the idea. They love the title. They’ve alr
eady made a six-figure offer on the advance!” She clapped her hands together in delight. “And my agent says she can get them to go even higher.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said.

  “It is wonderful.” She sighed dreamily. Then she scanned the dining hall until she spotted Terry.

  “Terry,” she shouted. “Did you hear?”

  “How could I help it?” he answered as he walked toward us. “You’re getting money. The final objective of psychology.” His smile took the sting from the words.

  Ruth chuckled. “I should have known you could find the grey lining in the silver cloud. But live a little. Congratulate me.”

  “Congratulations,” he said. He gave her a quick hug. “Now all you have to do is write it.”

  Ruth tucked her hand in the crook of Terry’s arm and they walked off together. As her excited babble retreated, I could hear Jack’s voice once more.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll watch the fuckin’ yoga movie. But then I’m out of here. With or without you!”

  Nikki offered no reply. They continued with their meal in an uncharacteristic silence, heads bowed over their respective plates.

  Damn.

  I turned back to Craig. There was a hint of amusement on his tired face. “You could go sit with them,” he suggested in a whisper. “Then you could hear everything they say.”

  “That obvious?” I asked.

  “That obvious,” he confirmed. “But you should have been watching the old ladies—”

  “The twins,” I corrected.

  “Okay, the twins,” he agreed. “The skinny one’s eyes almost popped through her glasses when Nikki mentioned drugs.” He glanced across the room in their direction. “Don’t look now, but I think they’re at work.”

  My head whipped around before I could stop myself. Edna was shaking Ruth’s hand. From the snatches of conversation I could hear, she seemed to be congratulating Ruth on her book sale. Arletta had moved in on Terry. She looked up at his face, a flirtatious tilt to her head. I could hear her giggle at whatever he was saying.

  I turned back to Craig. “Let’s hear it for the detective’s assistants,” I proposed, and raised my glass of organic apple juice.

  The after-dinner yoga movie was better than Solar Cooking for Vegetarians, but not by much. I told myself I’d stick with tai chi as I walked back to Rose Court from the old theatre. I was alone on the dirt path. Craig had offered to escort me, but the longing look in his brown puppy-eyes had signaled danger to me. I didn’t want to reject any more romantic proposals. I didn’t want to witness any more hurt in those eyes. So I rejected his offer to walk me home. Now, I listened to my unnaturally loud footsteps echo in the dark and wished I had taken him up on his offer. I stepped up my pace to a near-jog.

  By the time I reached Rose Court, my pulse was stampeding and I was out of breath. I was busy blaming Barbara and her spirit guides for my jittery nerves when I saw the dark figure silhouetted in the doorway.

  TWELVE

  SHOULD I RUN? Even in the dark I could tell the figure in the doorway was menacingly tall and muscular. At least it couldn’t be Paul Beaumont. Paul was small and slender, the guy in the doorway was huge. He looked as big as my sweetie, Wayne.

  I centered myself and stepped cautiously forward until I was close enough to see the face that went with the body. It was a scarred and pitted face, dominated by an enormous cauliflower nose and brows so low I could barely glimpse the sorrowful brown eyes peering out. Hot damn! The guy wasn’t just as big as Wayne. He was Wayne!

  “I’m sorry,” Wayne growled softly. “Couldn’t stay away. Kid at the desk told me which building you were in.”

  The leap I made into his arms would have probably knocked over a smaller man. But Wayne just moved with it and lifted me into the air. Then he pulled me to his chest. I put my arms around his neck and held tight, my feet dangling above the ground.

  “It’s okay?” he inquired, his low voice muffled by my hair.

  “Okay?” I echoed.

  He put me back on the ground and bent his head down to look me in the eye. “Okay that I came here,” he explained. “Didn’t want to patronize you. I know you can take care of yourself. But I was so worried—”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “Everything is all right now.”

  I peered under his eyebrows. His eyes still looked doubtful. The incongruity continually amazed me. Here was a man with a law degree. A former bodyguard with a blackbelt in karate who managed several businesses. And he had yet to learn to be pushy. I grabbed his head by its curly brown hair, pulled him to me and kissed his homely face all over until my lips were numb. If that didn’t reassure him, nothing would.

  It seemed to reassure him. He was smiling when I pulled my lips away.

  “You don’t know how glad I am to see you,” I said. “I must have called your answering machine a million times.” All right. So I exaggerated. All in a good cause. “Where were you, anyway?” I asked.

  “Getting business taken care of,” he answered, “so I could fly down. Know I should have called. But I was afraid you’d tell me to stay home.”

  He was right. I probably would have told him to stay home. I scrutinized Wayne’s shy, scarred face and found myself glad for the pinch of cunning in his soberly thoughtful nature. The miasma of Spa Santé began to lift. I pointed at Wayne’s suitcase and gave his arm a squeeze.

  “Feel like coming up to my room, big boy?” I said in my best Mae West voice.

  Wayne’s answer was to pick me up and kiss my lips until they were numb again. Wayne didn’t talk a lot. But he was still a great communicator. Once he put me back down, we climbed the staircase together.

  My foot was suspended over the last stair when I stopped short. “Who’s feeding the cat?” I asked. Had he forgotten my poor cat, C.C.?

  “Felix,” Wayne answered.

  I chuckled. Poor Felix.

  “Felix is not happy,” Wayne added. He looked at me inquiringly. “Says you’re not sharing. Thinks you know who the murderer is.”

  “I don’t have a clue,” I said. I took the last stair, and strode down the hall. “And you know what? Right now, I really don’t care.”

  With that I opened my door, flipped on the light and waved Wayne into my room.

  Wayne entered the room and stopped dead. For a heart-clutching moment I thought he must have seen a danger I didn’t. Then I remembered. It was his first view of the saffron curtains and phantasmagoric paisley wallpaper that covered my room. I kept quiet as he walked over to the wall to study the psychedelic squiggles. Once he had finished, he turned to me, his face deadpan.

  “Groovy, man,” he pronounced carefully. “Make love not war?”

  It sounded good to me.

  It felt good too.

  We were still at it the next morning, when Craig knocked on the door. Guiltily, I pulled the covers up over my head and Wayne’s, suffering simultaneously the fear of discovery and the pleasure of forbidden love usually reserved for teenagers.

  “Kate?” Craig called. “Are you up?”

  I buried my face in the tangle of hair on Wayne’s chest, ostrich-style. Craig knocked again. Poor Craig. Part of me wanted to cry for his loneliness, for my own betrayal of his renewed romantic longings. But another part of me had the irrational urge to laugh. I began to shake with the tickle of incipient giggles. I felt the tickle spread to Wayne’s body, vibrating his long torso with ever-increasing tremors.

  “Kate?” called Craig again.

  Wayne pulled me up the full length of his torso slowly until our faces met. Then he stifled both of our giggles with a long, silent kiss. I listened to Craig’s footsteps receding as Wayne’s gentle hands drew me back into passion. Then I forgot to be guilty for a while.

  But I made up for it an hour later. The guilt came back the minute Craig knocked on my door again. No matter that Craig and I were divorced and that Craig knew about Wayne. No matter that I was only at Spa Santé to help Craig in the first place. N
o matter that Wayne and I were fully dressed now. Despite all that, I knew that Wayne’s presence in my room was going to be one more hurt for the already battered Craig. Damn.

  “Kate?” Craig called once again.

  I took a breath and opened the door.

  “Look, Ma,” Craig said, displaying his hands, palms up. “No panic. I didn’t even go and look for you when you didn’t answer your door. I had breakfast instead. I’m a new man.” He was looking better; the tension of the last days seemed to have receded from his face.

  Not for long. I saw his body stiffen as he looked past me and spotted Wayne. Craig’s eyes widened instantly with hurt. By the time he had them back to normal size the old tension had returned, tightening his face into a smiling skeleton’s once more.

  “You’ve met Wayne, of course,” I said. Thank God for social conventions in times of stress.

  Wayne moved forward dutifully, his hand extended.

  Craig shook it with unsuitable heartiness. “Just get in?” he inquired hopefully.

  “Last night,” Wayne answered softly. I recognized the undertone of pity in his soft words. I hoped Craig couldn’t hear it.

  The artificial smile tightened another click on Craig’s strained face. We stood in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments. I tried but failed to think of something neutral to talk about. Craig regained his sociability first.

  “You’ve got to try Fran’s breakfast buffet while you’re here,” he said with a good show of bonhomie. “Great vegetarian cooking. You’ll love it.”

  Wayne nodded politely. I wondered if Craig remembered that Wayne wasn’t a vegetarian. Was this his way of baiting Wayne? There was no clue in his frantically smiling face.

  “I think I’ll go for a drive, myself,” Craig rattled on. “Lots of interesting sights around here. I’ll walk with you to the dining hall if you’d like. It’s next to the parking lot.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Wayne. He looked in my direction for affirmation.

  “Great!” I said, in an effort to match Craig’s geniality. I led the way out the door.

  Once Craig, Wayne and I had exhausted the subject of sightseeing in Southern California, we let the strained conversation die in peace and trod the dirt path silently. When the main building came into view it was all I could do to keep from running to it to accelerate our parting.