The Throwbacks

by Stephanie Queen

  “We read the papers here—including the London papers,” Dan said. “Plus it’ll be all over the Internet. No way we’ll get away with anything but a version of the truth. The mayor will need a few more details than urgent business.” He looked serious. His eyes were bloodshot.

  “Is Esther talking to me?”

  “You know how she is—you’d think she was ninety percent Swiss.” Dan went to the bar, brought back the bottle of Scotch and poured them both another drink. He sat and put the bottle on the coffee table between them, the house quiet around them. It was nearly midnight.

  “You’ve had quite a night, old fella. Sure you want to push forward with this exchange program?”

  “Yes. It’s a brilliant scheme, really. Gives us both a place to send people who need to get away for a while for one reason or another—and they get to exercise their detecting skills and learn some new ones in the bargain.” David shrugged. “Besides, I can’t hide under a rock forever. Oscar would have found me anyway.”

  “Like a bad penny? The truth: are you really glad he’s back?”

  David didn’t have to think. “I’m deeply gladdened by his return. He didn’t disappoint me by changing one iota. I was being witty when I said Oscar would find me under a rock.” He raised one brow for emphasis.

  “Guess I had more to drink than I realized. To confess, I went through two or three drinks while Esther was on the phone with Frenchie. Uh, Maria,” Dan said.

  “Just call her Frenchie. Simplify matters,” David said.

  Dan snorted. “I have a bit of news of my own to share tonight. There was a question or two raised by I.C.E. about you. I’m pretty sure they’re checking into your background. The mayor may be the only one impressed with their opinion of you, but he’s the one we have to impress the most, unfortunately.”

  “So not only is the mayor going to find out from I.C.E. that I’m under investigation in London, he’ll also know that’s why I’m going back tomorrow. And if I.C.E. doesn’t tell the Mayor about Oscar sooner, they will later.” The prognosis looked bleak. Exactly the conditions David thrived on. Or he had in the past. He was reinventing himself, as the popular phrase went, but that was one feature that needed to stay.

  “Sums it up,” Dan said. He tossed his drink down. David looked at the glass in his hand as it sat on the table in front of him. He took his hand away, a small gesture with a big impact that he knew would not go unnoticed by his friend.

  “I’m impressed.” Dan clunked his glass down on the table. He shook his head. David knew there would be no further comment.

  “I spoke with Interpol,” he said. That got his friend’s attention. “Seems they’ve confirmed that Oscar may very well know something useful for us in the smuggling investigation.”

  “See, I knew we’d need you for something.” Dan eyed the bottle. He was enjoying himself, but then so was David. He felt a buzz, but it wasn’t from the alcohol. It was the pull he got from unraveling the web of whatever investigation he was on. His mind buzzed with possible directions, testing them to find the right paths to follow. It was good to know he hadn’t lost it. It had been too long a time.

  “I’ll follow up with Oscar tomorrow before I leave for London,” he said to Dan. He couldn’t wait to put London behind him and get on with the case.

  “You’re excited, aren’t you?” Dan’s voice sounded incredulous.

  David only smiled and rose from his chair.

  “I envy you,” Dan said.

  “Why?”

  “For one, I wish I was as excited by this freaking nightmare of an investigation—you do realize we only have five days, and then the curtain goes up and we either have a show or we’re caught with our pants down—nothing in between.”

  “And what’s the second reason?” David asked, because he knew there was a more important reason. He knew Dan loved his job—and his life.

  “You get to see him again, to be there, to reminisce and have a drink. You get to apologize to him and beg his forgiveness,” Dan said.

  David sat back down, then spoke.

  “He says it’s not our fault—that we could never have saved him from himself. He’s right. Besides, he’s doing okay. As Oscar termed it, he’s as good as he ever was.” He got up again, and this time he walked to the hallway and the door. Dan didn’t follow him.

  “I’ll let you know what the mayor says. Call me when you hit London,” Dan called out from his chair and poured another glassful of bourbon.

  David smiled. Esther was not going to like all that bourbon drinking, but he’d dropped too many bombs on his friend tonight. He’d ditched Frenchie, taken back up with Grace, was taking off for London in the middle of a VIP attempted murder and smuggling case and, last but not least, he’d announced that Oscar, their childhood friend, leader and hero, an underworld phantom for years, had returned to once again rescue them. This time, with information rather than his knuckles.

  Luckily, he hadn’t divulged that Oscar had once been engaged to Grace. He’d save that for another night, when he didn’t mind getting drunk on bourbon. David was very sure that such a night would be coming up soon.

  After all, he’d pretty much taken up with Gracie again, hadn’t he?

  As he walked out the door and down to the end of the street to hail a cab and head back to his empty townhouse, he thought maybe he ought to get himself a Noodles.

  “Ingenious disguise,” David told Oscar the next morning.

  Oscar lifted his dark glasses to wink at him. The man looked ordinary, which was an extraordinary feat for him. He was unshaven, sporting dark glasses with an accompanying baseball cap—Red Sox, of course, no doubt courtesy of Mabel—and jeans. He never wore jeans. As a youth he favored the skinny black Italian designer pants, but then that had been the era of Fab Four Beatles-inspired fashion. He also wore a black T-shirt with no logo or writing, left untucked under a worn-out saddle-brown leather jacket. The only concession to his real self was the gold chain hiding under the T-shirt, likely with a crucifix hanging from it. Oscar looked disreputable in a normal way.

  Which made David look ridiculously formal in his usual James Bond-inspired fashion—dark suit, white shirt and subdued charcoal striped tie. No matter, he was used to being the only well-dressed man in the room, in his opinion, of course. They walked to a local coffee shop and took a booth in the back. David faced the door. Oscar kept his back to it and kept his baseball cap on, although he removed his sunglasses.

  “We should have had our chat at Mabel’s,” David said.

  “Nah, it’s been too long and I needed to come here. Although it’s not the same.”

  “Right. Everything is smaller.” David understood his need to go back to some of his old haunts. He’d done the same thing when he first moved back to Boston. He didn’t have to tell Oscar he might find it depressing. He could read the same conclusion on his face.

  “What do you have for me?”

  “I know your exporter. Dangerous man,” Oscar said. David would love to know how Oscar knew the dangerous exporter, but he’d have to settle for his own educated guess.

  “Dangerous?”

  “As in psychotic, obsessed,” Oscar said. “Vulnerable because he’s not rational—not smart. But could kill again if he thought in his own warped mind the occasion was warranted.”

  David didn’t bother to enlighten him that Nick wasn’t really dead. “Can you give me a lead?”

  Oscar pushed a piece of paper across the table. “These are the local connections to check out. I’ll follow the man from the other end—in Peru—to keep suspicion down.”

  “You’re not planning to leave the country?” David needed to confirm this and didn’t care that he’d shown he cared. This was his old friend. Oscar smiled. He never minded showing how he felt. It never made him vulnerable. They were opposites.

  “Touching. Don’t worry about me. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time and I’m still here—against the odds.”

  “You’r
e not alone,” David said. It was the most he could offer. It was everything.

  “I know. More importantly, I feel it again after all this time. I won’t let the connection become so tenuous ever again.”

  “What about your handlers? They give you enough rope to come this far astray? Or are you under their radar?”

  “We have an understanding. I’ve proved to be useful and, believe it or not, honest.” Oscar gave David his signature lopsided grin.

  “You were always honest.”

  “Yeah, but no one ever believed me.”

  David chuckled. “True. Except me and Dan.” David thought of the scores of others including his mother and siblings and Mabel—and apparently Grace—who’d believed in him in their own way. But he didn’t bother reminding his friend of all his believers. Sometimes Oscar had to buy into his own bad-guy image.

  “Well intentioned too,” David said in his best tongue-in-cheek manner.

  “Intentions? I have good ones and bad ones—depending.” Oscar the sinner was back. David sat back and laughed out loud. That was a cartoon-like threat if he’d ever heard one. Oscar grinned and shook his head. They both finished their coffee. David had a flight to catch. But before he left, Oscar had one more thing to say.

  “Leave Grace alone. She deserves someone with a life to give her.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” David said. He needed to get a life himself. But if he did, would that give him the right to pursue her?

  Chapter 12

  GRACE looked at the art deco calendar on the wall of her office and was reminded there were only five days left to solve the case—David’s case. She tried to concentrate on the catalog in front of her, but it was tough this morning. A knock at her door made it tougher.

  She looked up to see Oscar in a disguise of red hair, spectacles and a David-like suit. She laughed. “Who let you in?”

  “I told the receptionist I’m a potential new client just in from South America and you were recommended to me,” he said in a heavy Spanish accent.

  “A red-haired South American? I bet the receptionist was too afraid to question you.”

  He came around her desk to pull her from the chair into his embrace, and kissed each cheek. It reminded her of his mama’s greetings, and she felt a pang, as she had when she’d heard of the woman’s death.

  “I’ll be disappearing again and I wanted to give you some parting words of wisdom.” He spoke in his quiet, deep, serious voice and sat on the edge of her desk. He took both her hands in his as if he needed to prevent her from escaping.

  She braced herself.

  “David is not for you, bella mia. He’s not only too old, but he’s trouble—in a different way than me maybe, but just as dangerous.”

  He shushed her when she would have protested, and she resigned herself to hearing him out.

  “I know a matchmaker we can send you to. She can fix you up with the right guy.”

  “No matchmaker.” She didn’t roll her eyes but sighed. Her Antonio meant well. When she thought of him as Antonio, the man his mother named, instead of Oscar, his street persona, she felt much more tolerant. “I have to follow my heart. Circumstances are circumstances. It’ll be worth it. Life would be wonderful with David at my side.”

  “How can you say this? You hardly know each other.”

  “But I feel connected to him.”

  “That’s because of me.”

  She snorted in reaction to that explanation, but saw his look of genuine hurt.

  “Maybe you’re partially right. Part of my attraction to David might be that he’s your alter ego,” she conceded.

  Oscar, as usual, was not appeased. “I’m calling my matchmaker for your own good.”

  Curiosity took over her tongue. “You seem to be treating me more like your…niece than your ex-girlfriend.” She shot him a questioning squint.

  “I agree. That’s what I should have done all along. Then you’d be married to a nice family guy in the suburbs with four kids by now.”

  She knew she could make a home out of any place, any time, but the notion of kids in her future—or more likely no kids—caused a real pain in her heart.

  “No matchmaker, Oscar. Besides, I’ve already got the best matchmaker in town—Mabel,” she reminded him.

  “You’ve got me there. But I bet I can find you an eligible and much younger man to take your mind off David,” he said.

  She shook her head and folded her arms in front of her. “I’m going to be even more stubborn than you are on this one, Antonio.” She didn’t need to try hard to hold firm. It was simply impossible for her to put David aside and she didn’t care if Oscar’s matchmaker came up with Batman himself. David was too wonderful, too…everything for her to be remotely tempted.

  He flinched slightly at her use of his given name, then squeezed her hands one last time, looked at her with that sad smile, and turned to leave. “Oh—and stay out of the murder investigation,” Oscar said over his shoulder as he walked out of her office.

  After Oscar left, her office seemed less bright and her mood less calm. What happened to the happy-go-lucky decorator? Grace sat behind her blue-painted metal salvage desk and flipped through the old-fashioned Rolodex while her elbows rested on the green paper of her blotter. She forced herself to concentrate, found the number of the furniture store she’d been hunting for too long and was reaching for the phone to call when it rang. At the same moment, Pixie kicked in her door.

  “Where do you want these boxes?” Pixie grunted from behind a stack. Grace jumped from her chair to help with the boxes. She waved off the ringing phone as if it would understand her gestured command to stop ringing.

  Her diminutive friend stood dressed in varying shades of green with her hands on her hips.

  “You actually look like a pixie today—straight from the forest of A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Grace said.

  “They were fairies. And since when are you a Shakespeare expert? Why didn’t you just go online and look at samples like the rest of us instead of making me drag these out of the dusty closet?” She gestured at the boxes.

  Grace knew Pixie’s annoyance was shallow. “I’ve always been an expert on Shakespeare. I’ve simply never chosen to share it,” she said, even though it was a lie. The only play she knew was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but it was a doozie. “The texture doesn’t come through on the screen and I want to be extra picky with my selection. I want to do the best possible job on David’s home.” She didn’t have to tell Pixie, or anyone else. They all knew she was decorating his home as if she were going to live there someday. She was hoping, but she didn’t like to admit it. But there was nothing wrong with making a special effort.

  Sophia gave her an eye roll.

  “Everyone knows you’re hunting him down like a cat in heat,” Pixie said.

  “That’s unkind. I hope you’ve hushed them all up with your sarcastic responses.” Grace folded her arms. She was only half joking. She did not want to be the office joke, though she knew they were all fond of her. It was a very family-like office; most of them had worked together for years.

  “Are you kidding? I’m the head commenter.” Pixie plopped onto the chair in front of where Grace was perched on her desk. “Can you answer me something? Your biological clock is ticking, we all know it—most of us are in the same boat. You’re dying for a big family and you’re thirty years old. You’ve had lots of potential marriage opportunities. Now you’re hung up on the least likely candidate of them all for father of the year. What gives?”

  “I have time to have six or eight kids if I wanted, you know. David is very youthful for his age—I think. I actually don’t even know his age. But he’s far from old. He’s not even retirement age yet because he’s still working for Scotland Yard, technically.” She looked at the floor in front of her pointy-toed shoes rather than at Sophia’s truly concerned and puzzled face.

  “Yeah, I know. He’s been exiled to Boston for bad behavior. But I’m willing to con
cede it was probably a bum rap. Even so…explain it to me, Grace. I want you to be happy and have all your dreams come true. You’re the only one who’s had such strong and honest and clear dreams—and you should have them all because they’re good and not crazy dreams,” her friend said.

  “I’m serious. I think we will end up with a brood of children. David is quiet about what he wants, but I can sense in him the same needs, though he’s almost given up on them and he would never in a million years admit to wanting the home-hearth-brood-of-children scene. He really does,” she said. She knew it to be true deep down, but there was no way to actually explain it. “It’s a very ordinary dream, Sophia. Why is it so hard to believe that David wants it too?”

  “It’s not hard to believe that he wants it—well, okay, maybe a little bit difficult—but what’s hard to believe is that he could carry it off at his age, and with you of all people. You’re opposites.” Sophia stood up.

  “Yes, but even you can sense the delicious chemistry. When you mix us together something very amazing happens every single time.” She was daydreaming as she said it.

  “Since when have you been mixing together?”

  “Oh, we haven’t technically done any actual mixing,” she said. But wait until they did—oh boy! Maybe they’d get a girl too.

  “All right, so David is youthful and you’re fertile and you’ll have a passel of kids. Do you realize how much work that is? You’ll have to give up decorating, at least full time, anyway. And what’s he going to do? How will he support you? As Batman? What kind of pay does Batman get, anyway? And living in a Beacon Hill townhouse is all well and good for a bachelor or a couple—but it would stink to raise a family there. Are you going to put up with him being in danger every day he goes to work?” Sophia ran out of breath as she stood there, feet spread and hands on her hips.