“What are you drinking?” I asked.
“Anything you can mix with Coca-Cola.”
Well, you can mix Pinch with Coke but I wasn’t going to do it. I have some standards. Fortunately I stumbled over an almost full fifth of Jack Daniels in the back of the cabinet and hauled it out. Thompson had come up with Coke, ice, and tumblers on her own, and she promptly made good use of the bourbon. I filled another tumbler with ice, spritzed tonic water into it, and brought it over to Proxy. I kept the tonic water bottle for myself so that Proxy could think she was having a positive influence on me.
“What about you ladies?” Thompson asked the eye-candy.
“Diet Sprite for them, unless they show you government-issued picture IDs,” I said. The blonder one playfully stuck her tongue out at me and giggled.
Proxy took a measured sip of her tonic water. Then she dove into her purse and pulled out a fistful of folded twenties.
“DDD said the charge was four hundred and I gave them a credit card for it.” She said this to Thompson. “But I can give you eighty in cash for the tip.”
“You got yourself a deal, sister.” Thompson took four twenties and wedged them into the left side-pocket of jeans that she wore under the leathers.
“I’ll need a receipt.”
“The forms are in my scooter’s saddle bags. I’ll get one for you as soon as the tsunami out there has died down. The way it’s going, though, I don’t expect that’ll be anytime soon.”
“We don’t want to inconvenience you.”
“No problem at all. It’s warm and dry in here, and Lucinda and her mama ain’t taking a scooter home in the dark over slick pavement anyway.”
“Too bad it’s not a Harley.” I thought I’d better jump in before Proxy dropped any more subtle hints.
“Oh, God, a Harley.” Thompson closed her eyes like she was dreaming. “I would do anything short of a Class C felony for a Harley.”
Anything short of a Class C Felony. Interesting way to put it. An intriguing little question started banging around in my head.
Tires squealing to a quick stop on asphalt signaled Levitt’s arrival. Slamming doors. Then the bell rang and I opened the door to let Levitt in. Trowbridge suddenly woke up like Sleeping Beauty at the prince’s kiss. He stopped snoring, started, blinked a couple of times, then swung himself to a sitting position.
“Hey, Saul. ’Bout time you got here. Fix yourself a drink.”
“Later. Right now, you and I and Trans/Oxana Insurance Company have to reach an understanding about a few things.”
“Ah!” Trowbridge jumped to his feet and thrust his right index finger into the air like a college professor in a Marx Brothers movie. “A confabulation! Confabulous! To the bat cave!”
He began to shuffle through the dining room toward a pitch-black room behind it. Levitt followed him, Proxy followed Levitt, and I followed Proxy. I suspected that “the bat cave” was a private screening room and I’d always wanted to see one of those. Maybe next time. At the doorway Proxy turned to face me.
“Jay, I think you can add more value out here looking for jail-coach leads.”
She had a point, even if what she really meant was that we needed Levitt on our side in this little conference and he was never going to be best buddies with me.
“You got it.”
I did my second about-face of the day and went back into the living room. I found the less-blond half of the Doublemint twins digging a pack of L&Ms and a lighter out of her purse. Luci’s novelty value had apparently worn off. The two ingénue-wannabes headed for an open kitchen that might have been delivered yesterday morning fresh from a high-end home show, and exited through the back door onto what must have been a roofed porch. Thompson picked up Luci, who was holding her dolly’s left arm with her left hand and sternly wagging her right index finger in the doll’s face while she said, “If I ever catch you with a cigarette, young lady, so help me I will wear you out.”
“That’s a good mommy, Lucinda,” Thompson said. “Now why don’t you and Annabelle take a little nap here on the couch until it’s time to go home?”
Not a murmur of protest from Luci. Thompson laid the tyke on the sofa recently occupied by Trowbridge and fitted a throw-pillow under her head. Luci pulled Annabelle to her chest and wrapped her arms around her in a motherly embrace while Thompson dimmed the lights, fetched her biker jacket, and laid it over the eight-year-old.
Retrieving our drinks, Thompson and I made our way to the kitchen. It sparkled—clean not in the way well-tended kitchens are but in the way kitchens that are almost never used are. Thompson parked her hips against a massive Sub-Zero refrigerator-freezer and fixed her eyes on the living room. I hauled my 4G out of its holster with designs on surfing the net.
“Luci seems to feel very strongly about smoking.” I said that just to say something. Break the ice.
“One of the only times I ever really prayed.” Thompson kept her eyes on the living room, speaking in a low, intense voice that the girl couldn’t have heard even if she were still awake. “Halfway to Tikrit we come under fire. I scoot my butt under the truck, and first thing you know it is big time hot. They have mortars and rpgs and twenties, and I am goddamn wet-my-britches scared. So I said, ‘I am piss-poor at praying, but if you get my sorry ass out of here in one piece and back with my little girl, so help me I will never smoke another cigarette the longest day I live.’”
Chapter Six
“Marines?”
“Three tours in Iraq.” Thompson glanced at me as I whistled. “You too?”
“Army National Guard. Federalized after nine-eleven. One tour in Afghanistan and one in Iraq.”
“Infantry?”
“MPs.”
“Yeah, you look like an MP, come to think of it. No offense, but I would take any MOS in the book before MP.”
“That’s what Sergeant Rutledge told me before I shipped out.” I moved to the other side of a cabinet-counter island, where I could lean over and park my forearms. “Rutledge was this crusty old African-American sergeant in charge of our National Guard unit. Day before we shipped out he pulled me aside. ‘Davidobitch,’ he says, ‘soon as some officer gets a look at the build on you, he’s gonna tab you for MPs. Davidobitch, do not—say again not—take this assignment. I would rather spend all day stirring shit in a vat than pull an MP detail.’”
“Bet you wish you’d listened to him, boy.”
“Bad things happen in war.” I shrugged. “Thing is, when my detailer came to me with that MP gig, I was literally stirring shit in a vat.”
“Been there. You’d think that if we can zap a guy in northern Pakistan by watching him on television while we pull a trigger in Virginia, we’d have something more high-tech than a private with pole to keep the latrine goop churning while chemicals do their thing. But nooooo.”
“‘You go to war with the army you have.’”
That got a chuckle. Quoting the Busher’s Secretary of Defense to an Iraq War veteran usually will. Thompson pulled out her own mobile phone, punched up a game app, and started thumbing the keyboard. I began Googling “Jail Coach.” The two blondes reappeared and headed upstairs.
“Jail Coach” produced a quadrillion hits or so. I started methodically going through them. A lot of fetish come-ons, natch. Hit number sixty-one sucked slightly less than the first five dozen. I was about to click on the link when I realized something: any jail coach I found on Google was, by definition, the wrong guy for this job. The first bullet point on his job description had to be, “Can’t figure out he’s a jail coach by Googling him.” Setting the blogosphere abuzz with rumors about prepping Trowbridge for the slammer was not my assignment.
Now, don’t ask me why, but somewhere in there I started doing math. Not sixty-one divided by a quadrillion but twenty-twelve minus eight equals twenty-oh-four. I looked up a
t Thompson, who was intensely focused on killing angry birds or breaking bricks or whatever she was up to. I politely waited until her deflating shoulder sag signaled the end of round.
“When did you punch out?”
“Last year.”
“So you signed up in, what, oh-six, when Iraq looked like it was headed right down the crapper? What was that all about? Bush fever?”
She clicked her app off and turned to face me. People like to talk about themselves. They think they’re a fascinating subject.
“Allergy to the Harris County hoosegow.” I could tell from her eyes that she was thinking about whether to cut it off there. She decided to go on. “Grand jury in Houston wanted to know where Luci was. I wasn’t saying. They kept me in jail for contempt until the grand jury’s term ended. Seven months. At the discharge hearing the judge told me they’d do it all again as soon as the next grand jury convened. Then he settles back in this good ole boy way and says, ‘’Course, I don’t have jurisdiction over Camp Lejeune.’ And he winks. I took the hint.”
“What are you doing now, besides Dial-a-Designated-Driver?”
“Little acting, little modeling.”
I kept the smart-ass smirk off my face. The average fashion model in California has the body of an anorexic sixteen-year-old boy, which Thompson hadn’t had since she was twelve. And I would have given you thirty-to-one on a rainy day that she couldn’t act her way out a wet paper bag. What she meant was “acting” and “modeling”—the Simi Valley samba. Porn. Porn stills and porn films.
“Sounds like the rain has finally stopped,” she said. “Guess I’d better be thinking about getting Lucinda and me home.”
No no no! I only get one blinding insight a week. Couldn’t waste this one.
“That’s a forty-five minute ride on wet pavement in the dark. Tell you what. Maybe Trowbridge will let me borrow his Lexus long enough to drive you.”
I had to follow her into the living room and say this to the back of her head. She answered me without slowing down her brisk pace.
“Nope. DDD is supposed to provide a service to customers, not inconvenience them. That’s a nice little gig and I don’t wanna blow it.” I heard Lucinda gently snoring—scarcely more than a whisper—as Thompson picked up the leather jacket. “Wake up, wake up, Lucky Luci. Time to go home to your own bed.”
“Absolutely not.”
This came from Trowbridge, who was striding back into the living room trailed by Proxy and Levitt, neither of whom looked very happy.
“What are you saying?” Thompson asked Trowbridge.
“It’s too late and too dark to make a trip like that with a child on a scooter that’s two steps above a moped. I want you and your little girl to sleep here tonight. Plenty of room. Comfy beds. I promise to behave like a gentleman. And if you have to be somewhere in the morning you can get as early a start as you need to.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind? I can’t say I was looking forward to the trip.”
“I insist.”
“Well that is just the nicest thing anyone has done for me in a long time. Mr. Trowbridge, you got yourself a deal—and if there’s anyone you’d like to have killed, you just let me know.”
Proxy and I said goodnight, and I had my mobile phone out before we were elbow to elbow in the Fusion’s front seat. Proxy waited until she was pulling out of the driveway before she asked the obvious question.
“What are you looking for?”
“Hotel.”
“We have a hotel. Less than an hour from here. Westin. Nice one, right at the top of Trans/Oxana’s allowable expense range.”
“We need one forty-five minutes closer, and as long as it has a bed and a bathroom I don’t care how many stars it gets from Zagat.” I glanced over and had no trouble reading her this-better-be-good expression. “You look like you and Levitt ran into a brick wall with Mr. Hollywood Royalty just now.”
“Not smooth sailing for sure. Did you find a jail coach?”
“As a matter of fact I did. Right at the first light around this curvy road. There’s a Ramada ten minutes away.”
Chapter Seven
“Two things I can’t stand: Clerks who give you this does-your-mother-know-you’re-buying-that? look and—”
“You know something, Davidovich? You say that a lot. ‘Two things I can’t stand.’ Third or fourth time around, I get the feeling there are more than two things.”
I couldn’t blame Proxy for the attitude. She’d had to get up at five, she hadn’t had her workout or her mucho grande latte whatever, and she’d had to put up with me. She’d actually been a reasonably good sport about it until the trip to the twenty-four grocery store with the snarky cashier. I climbed out of the Fusion, cradling the paper sack from Von’s Grocery around the bottom. Instead of slamming the door and yelling through the window, I leaned inside and did my soft-answer-turneth-away-wrath thing.
“Just cruise around until you find a Starbucks. I’ll give you a call when I’ve got the trail blazed.”
“Why don’t I just park here while you blaze it?”
“That would probably qualify as loitering with intent. I suspect it’s a misdemeanor even to be in possession of a Ford Fusion in Malibu.”
The car rolled sedately away. I did not cross the street to the speaker on the gate that protected Trowbridge’s place. I stayed on the other side of the road, worked my mobile phone out, and punched in the number I’d memorized when I’d glanced at Thompson’s phone last night. Four rings took me to voice-mail. I gave my watch a puzzled glance. 6:38. Hmm. Someone less than a year out of the Corps shouldn’t still be in bed.
“Hey, Hurricane Katrina,” I said after the prompt, “this is Jay Davidovich, the tall dude you met last night. I’m outside Trowbridge’s house. I brought some groceries by in case you’re in the market for any.”
I signed off and waited. Could she possibly already be headed back to Simi Valley on that scooter? That would be unfortunate.
My phone vibrated on my hip.
“Davidovich.”
“Jay? Jay?”
Not Thompson. The voice was trembling which isn’t exactly unheard of for this particular voice. I heroically suppressed a sigh.
“Yes, Rachel, this is Jay.”
“Jay, he beat me. He actually beat me.”
I straightened up and automatically started scanning the perimeter, as if I were back in Iraq. Pure reflex. The beginning of Rachel conversations often has that effect on me. I asked what struck me as the most urgent question.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he in the house?”
“No. He stormed out last night and hasn’t come back yet.”
Yet? Hasn’t come back YET?
“Does he have a key?”
“I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Well, I mean, he’s had one for awhile. Unless he didn’t take it with him or something.”
She started to sniffle because the sarcastic emphasis that I put on “guess” constituted yelling at her. No doubt she’d be hearing soon from her therapist that this represented emotional abuse. I tried to think of a constructive follow-up.
“Can you get the locks changed?”
“I suppose, but…I mean, I have to work today.”
“You just said he—”
“I know. I mean, it’s not like he punched me or anything. He just slapped me around a little.”
“Oh, well, that’s okay then.”
“No, I know. I’m not saying it’s okay. I’m just saying…Jay?”
“What?”
“Could I just go to the apartment tonight?”
Shit. I didn’t suppress this sigh. Didn’t even try.
“I’m sorr
y,” she said. “I mean, if it’s too much trouble…”
“Yes, you can go to the apartment. I’ll call Hal and tell him to let you in. You, but not Denny.”
“It’s Nick.”
“Oh, you’ve moved on. Nick, then. Nick doesn’t set foot in my apartment. We clear on that, Rachel?”
“No Nick, got it. And would it kill you to be a little less condescending?” Then her voice softened. “ I was hoping maybe I could stay through the weekend.”
“You can, but that’s it. I’m shooting for Tuesday night to get back and I’m not in the mood for a roommate. You get your locks changed or get a restraining order or buy a gun or something between now and Tuesday morning.”
“Is there any way you can get back tonight or maybe tomorrow night?”
“No. Look, Rachel, the deal hasn’t changed. We can stay married or we can get divorced, but we’re not gonna get divorced and sleep together on weekends. It’s one or the other.”
“Okay. Bye. Thanks.”
“De nada. Bye.”
I was a little distracted on the “bye” because I’d just noticed the cop. He cruised up on the other side of the street, stopped, and looked at me with what I would call pointed and conspicuous interest. At that moment a piercing west Texas screech from across the street preempted whatever follow-up the cop had in mind.
“Is that really food, Tall Dude?”
“Sure is, Hurricane.”
“Well just you bring it on over here.”
Thompson was standing right inside the driveway gate, which she’d managed to open. She’d presumably wheedled the code out of one of the Doublemint twins, which was probably where she’d also gotten the jogging shorts and halter top she was wearing, because they were both one size too small. Not that the cop or I had any complaints. Wet sand caked her bare feet, and sweat glistened on her body.
“I tried returning your call, but you must have been on the phone with someone,” Thompson said as I crossed the street.
“I was.”
She led me around the house to the back. Funny thing, it didn’t look all that big in the daylight. Proxy’s briefing book put the value at three-point-two million and I wondered why. Then we got to the back of the house and I had the answer: the Pacific Ocean. Right there. Forty feet from the back porch where Lucinda was offering breakfast to her doll.
Jail Coach Page 3
