by Matt Coyle
After The Suit passed by, I noticed Red Soul Patch returning from the bathroom. His eyes locked onto the back of the man and he stopped. He waited until The Suit disappeared into the bar, then buzzed by me out the front door. A shade paler than when I’d seen him earlier.
You see all kinds of wealth in La Jolla. Old money, nouveau riche, oil sheiks, professional athletes, trust fund slackers. But none who could send a scumbag with prison tats running in the opposite direction just by being seen.
I trailed The Suit into the bar.
The band had just come off a break and opened with a cover of “Eleanor Rigby.”
Leron’s tenor sax took the place of the lyrics. He was on tonight and he made that sax sing.
I scanned the bar and found The Suit. With Melody. He had his hand on her shoulder, leading her toward the exit. She looked as happy as she’d been when Red Soul Patch whispered in her ear.
None of my business. Except that they stopped right in front of me.
“Is it too late for dinner?” Melody asked. Her voice was higher than before. Slightly brittle. The man loomed over her, his dead eyes held me at a distance, an imitation smile lifted the corners of his mouth.
I grabbed a couple menus and a wine list from the hostess stand and led them to a candlelit booth. I ran the night’s specials and asked if they wanted drinks. Melody ordered a glass of Mer Soleil chardonnay and then Italian Suit finally spoke.
“I’ll have Macallan, single malt. That is, if your bartender can find it behind the flavored vodkas.” His voice was a deep ooze. A note of superiority rode underneath a baritone that filled the booth like hot tar spilled over cement.
“Twelve- or eighteen-year-old?” The GenY’ers covered the bar costs, but you didn’t stay open in La Jolla as a restaurant without catering to old money.
“Well then, you didn’t really have to ask. Did you?” He showed me teeth. It was either a smile or a show of dominance. “Neat, of course.”
“Of course.”
I liked him better when he ignored me.
When I returned to the dining room with the drinks, the man’s voice spilled out of the booth, “—a dangerous game.” An edge broke through his syrupy cadence.
He held Melody’s right hand across the table. The muscles in her arm at full cord. Her left hand hidden in her lap. A flame from the candle danced in a mild draft. Anger flickered in her eyes and the candlelight disappeared into his.
Whatever was going on was none of my business. Domestic dispute, argument among friends, or enemies. It didn’t matter. I had a restaurant to run and, at the end of the night, a quiet life to retreat back into.
I set the drinks down and looked at Melody. The anger in her eyes melted down into a plea. I hesitated. I lived by a code that kept me out of the spotlight and out of trouble. It had worked for eight years. Before I could decide whether to break it for a woman I didn’t know, The Suit interrupted.
“That will be all for now, waiter.” The certainty of his command of the situation hung off each word.
I checked the table. His hand still clutched Melody’s.
“Everything all right?” I looked at her.
She stayed silent, but the plea remained in her eyes. The man grinned up at me. This wasn’t his boardroom, it was my restaurant. I glanced back down at his hand then into his eyes. It was like staring down a well.
“Everything all right.” I left the question mark off the end.
He looked at Melody and then back at me. He kept showing me teeth, then finally let go of Melody’s hand. She pulled it back and dropped it into her lap. I noticed her table setting was short a steak knife.
I turned to leave when the molasses baritone stopped me. “Is the proprietor in tonight?”
“If you need to talk to an owner, I’ll do.” If he wanted to complain about my service, he’d have to do it to me. This was my boardroom.
“You mean we’ve had the pleasure of Mr. Muldoon’s company and weren’t aware of it?” He smiled at Melody. She didn’t smile back.
“I’m his partner,” I said.
“Why, that’s odd.” With the dead eyes and the white teeth, he looked like a Great White zeroing in on a sea lion. “My realtor saw this property on the market a month ago and the only owner listed was Thomas Muldoon.”
His statement landed in my gut like a sucker punch. I had to fight just to breathe and stay upright. My partner and best friend trying to sell the restaurant out from under me? Couldn’t be. This guy was just flexing his muscles to remind me he was still in charge.
“We have a private arrangement.” Like any good fighter, I tried to convince my opponent that his punch hadn’t hurt me.
“Business seems to be a bit down.” He surveyed the empty dining room. “Now might be a good time to explore new career opportunities.”
He was right. We’d lost money in September and were running darker red in October. All of which was none of his damn business.
“I’m happy here.” I matched his lifeless look with one of my own. “Thanks.”
“Well, apparently your partner isn’t.” He pulled a business card from a silver case and lifted it toward me. “Have him call me.”
The name “Peter Stone” was embossed on the card with a phone number. Nothing else. I snatched it and retreated to the kitchen.
I delegated all further interaction with booth one to Justin and went back into the tiny office at the end of the storage hallway behind the kitchen. I sat in the captain’s chair in front of the chipped oak desk. Corkboards tacked with pictures chronicling the life of Muldoon’s hung on the walls.
I zeroed in on my favorite picture. In it, Thomas “Turk” Muldoon and I were going nose to nose over some long-forgotten dispute in a pickup softball game. We were always opposing captains and played every game like it was the World Series. After a few beers and a rehashing of the highs and lows of the game, we’d get back to being best friends.
If the restaurant really was for sale, there wasn’t enough beer in the world for Turk and me to be best friends again. I looked at the black rotary phone below the picture and remembered Turk couldn’t be reached. Tough to get cell service while hanging off the face of Half Dome in Yosemite. After he mounted that summit, we’d have to convene one of our own.
Justin popped his head through the doorway. “Booth one decided not to eat. They just want the check.”
I left Justin in the kitchen with the dishwasher to get a head start on the nightly floor scrub and went into the dining room. I’d just printed out Peter Stone’s check at the wait station when a crash of broken glass snapped my head up. Melody stumbled out of booth one onto the floor. She sprang up, feral eyes wide. Stone lunged at her and grabbed her wrist as she started to run for the exit.
I was on Stone in three strides. I grabbed his wrist and twisted. Melody broke free and ran toward the front door. I let go, but my force had already sent Stone backward and his leg caught a chair and he hit the floor hard on his back. I glanced over my shoulder at Melody and she did the same. Our eyes locked for an instant. I saw primal fear in them. Nothing else. She spun her head back around and sprinted down the hall and out the front door.
I turned back to Stone. He was already to his feet and moving forward. I stepped in front of him. He tried to move around me, but I shadowed him like an offensive lineman fending off a pass rusher.
“Are you adding holding me against my will to assault?” A smile cracked his face.
What was I doing? Playing hero to a woman I’d never see again? Getting back at my past through an asshole in my present? The right thing? None of the motivations justified my getting involved. Not even the last. I’d moved on instinct and adrenaline. Reason hadn’t entered into it.
“I wanted to make sure you weren’t running out on the bill.”
Stone pulled out his wallet and I noticed that his left hand was bleeding. Melody must have put that missing steak knife to good use. He handed me a one hundred dollar bill and stepped around
me. I let him go. Melody’d had enough time to get lost and I had a quiet life to try and find again.
The deep-water voice turned me around.
“Good luck on the job hunt, Rick.” He gave me the dead eyes. He knew my name without me giving it to him. What else did he know? “If you need a character reference, feel free to have your next potential employer give me a call.”
Stone flowed out of the dining room like a lazy stream. No hurry, now back in command of his world. He pulled a cell phone from his breast pocket as he turned down the entry and out of the restaurant.
When I locked up the restaurant at twelve thirty a.m., a shadow moved across the etched glass window as I double-checked the front door. I spun around and found Melody. A dark leather coat now covered the upper half of the killer dress and her hair was pulled up under a black San Francisco Giants ball cap. Black tennis shoes had replaced her heels.
“Melody.” In the light of a patio lamp I noticed that her left eye was swollen and bloodshot. Stone must have found her in spite of my schoolboy heroics. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes I’m fine.” The words came out fast and ran together. Her good eye, a black drop in a white circle of fear, scanned the night. “But I need your help. I think someone’s following me.”
“Stone? Did he hit you?”
“No. I don’t know.”
I’d already broken my rule of not getting involved once tonight and now that had mutated into a black eye and a midnight cry for help. What would my next involvement lead to?
I offered my cell phone to Melody. “Call nine-one-one. I’ll wait with you until the police arrive.”
“I don’t want the police. I just need to go someplace safe.” Her eyes tugged at me like a scared child. “Just for a little while.”
Even rookie beat cops know the danger of getting involved in a domestic dispute. But that’s why they were cops, and I wasn’t anymore. They got paid to run into danger; I got paid to lock and unlock a restaurant.
“There’s nothing I can do that the police can’t do better.” I slid my hands around her leather-clad biceps. There were taut, ready for fight or flight. “The safest place for you is the police station. It’s only a couple blocks away. I can walk or drive you over there.”
“I’ll be fine on my own.” Her eyes shimmered as they filled with liquid. She backed away from me into the night. “Goodbye, Rick.”
The husky gravel in her voice cracked into raspy sand. The way Colleen’s used to when our fights ended in tears. Just like the last night I’d ever see her.
“Come on.” I extended my hand.
“Where are we going?” She stayed in the darkness.
“Someplace safe.”
She took my hand and we climbed the steps that lead up from the courtyard to Prospect Street. When we hit the top step, I saw headlights creeping down the street toward us. I spun and hugged Melody.
“Play along while this car passes,” I said.
She tightened, but hid her face between my neck and shoulder and wrapped her arms around my waist. I caught the scent of cinnamon and a trace of lavender as I pressed my cheek against her head. Her breath was warm on my neck.
I gently turned us so I could spy the street. The headlights belonged to an SUV. Big, black, tinted windows. A Ford Expedition. It passed in a steady crawl. No front plate. Parked cars blocked the view of the back. I watched it until it disappeared around a bend.
“Okay.” I loosened my grip around her waist, but didn’t let go.
Melody stayed still for a second, then slowly turned her head, sliding her cheek along mine until she was facing me. The only thing between us was the bill of her Giants cap pressed against my brow. Her lips, full, cushiony, inviting. Her eyes, obsidian ciphers. We hung there, suspended, our breath comingling.
Melody moved first. A half step backward. “I guess we’d better go.”
I grabbed her hand like it’d been my idea to break the trance and led her onto the street.
We hustled down Prospect toward Cave Street and the bank parking lot that held my car. A thick breeze off the ocean chilled the night. I scanned both sides of the street as we passed palm trees, restaurants, jewelers, and art galleries, but didn’t see anyone who wanted to steal my restaurant or punch Melody. Just another autumn night in the Jewel by the Sea.
When we hit the parking lot, a rat the size of an heiress’s purse dog shot out from a hedge and scampered up a palm tree. Melody whiplashed but didn’t scream.
Safely nestled in the palm fronds on top of the tree, the rat could look out over paradise and plan its next intrusion into it.
Muldoon’s
CHAPTER THREE
The drive home I made every night in my Mustang GT suddenly seemed unfamiliar. The night was cast-iron black and every pair of headlights assaulted my eyes. Melody didn’t ask where we were going. She sat hunched down with the brim of her hat pulled low over her eyes. Her right hand clutched the door handle. She was scared, hiding from the night, but ready to escape into it.
We drove in silence along Torrey Pines Road, the main artery out of downtown La Jolla. I lived in North Clairemont, a few miles east of La Jolla off Highway 52. There the ocean was only a memory, occasionally recalled through one of the cooling breezes it sent inland. The coastal hills rolled flat as they made their way east and then climbed one final time up to a mesa where houses, duplexes, and apartments sat cramped together.
A pair of headlights followed me off the freeway. I made a couple of turns, but the headlights were still there. They were wide set and high off the ground like they belonged to an SUV. Just like the one I saw crawling down Prospect Street.
“Was the person following you in a black Ford Expedition?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Her voice unsteady. “It was a big, dark SUV.”
The Expedition seemed to rule out Stone. A Cadillac Escalade seemed more his style. Whoever it was, they were still behind me.
When my next turn came up, I kept my foot on the gas until the last second then slammed on the brakes and made a hard right. Melody rolled toward me until her hand on the door handle stopped her. Her eyes were wide as she looked at me and then over the seat at the night behind. I stood on the gas and glanced over my shoulder. Our pursuer slid around the corner and accelerated toward us.
My heart jackhammered in my chest, and I gunned the car down the dimly lit street. The charging headlights flashed to brights. I downshifted hard and cranked a left turn on the next street, cut my headlights, and dropped down another gear. The transmission groaned and the car bucked, but I made a quick right without flashing my brake lights. I gunned it a hundred yards, then slammed to a stop in front of an RV parked under a towering eucalyptus tree.
Melody had already slid down in her seat and I followed her lead, but kept my eyes on the driver’s-side mirror. A cone of light appeared in the intersection behind us and then a dark mega-SUV sped by. I’d lost them. For now. But they knew my car and, if they were friends of Stone, they knew my name, too.
“Melody, who’s after you?” My voice matched my elevated heartbeat.
“I don’t know!”
I didn’t believe her. But right now it didn’t matter. The truth could come later. Safely home came first.
I eased back onto the road leaving my lights off. We were only a few blocks away from my house and I figured I could Braille my way there. Neither of us spoke again, perhaps afraid that if we broke the silence we’d give ourselves away and the SUV would return.
A block from home, another set of headlights approached from the opposite side of the street. Too low to the ground to belong to an SUV. Still, Melody sank down in her seat. When it got closer, I could make out a light bar on top of the vehicle. A cop car or private security. This was North Clairemont, not La Jolla. Closest people here got to gated communities were tailgate parties at the stadium before Charger games.
I switched on my headlights. Too late. A blast of white light exploded inside my car. I
braked to a stop and threw an arm in front of my face to block the invasion of light. It stayed pinned on me, but also caught Melody below the bill of her cap. I expected a command to turn off the ignition and step out of the car. Nothing.
I rolled down the window and squinted behind my arm.
“Is there a reason you were driving your vehicle with the lights off?” A gruff voice hidden behind the floodlight.
In my experience as a cop, there were only two reasons people drove at night with their lights off. They were drunk or they were casing a house. I could now add evading mysterious SUVs to the list, but I didn’t think that would sound plausible. But telling the cop the truth could be a way to turn Melody’s problems over to him. Then I could deal with my own. I glanced at Melody. Eyes hidden under the bill of her cap, lips pinched tight, and a hand squeezed around the door handle.
Scared, but brave.
“My girlfriend and I were arguing so I pulled over and turned off the lights. I was just a bit late turning them back on. Sorry.” Maybe I thought I could handle someone else’s problems better than my own. Maybe I thought I’d get lucky if I played hero for Melody. Maybe I wasn’t thinking at all.
The floodlight shifted to Melody’s face, the mouse under her eye highlighted in white relief. Melody put her hand on the bill of her cap, shielding her face.
“Is everything okay, ma’am?”
Great. Now I was in the middle of my own domestic dispute. I shot at glance toward the voice, but the floodlight blasted my face again before I could see who was behind it. I did get a look at the car, though. Black-and-white cruiser. Real police.
“I’m fine, officer.” Melody’s voice was calm, friendly. She was good. A chameleon. “Just tired and anxious to get home.”
This cop was operating off the manual for a late-night vehicle stop. He should have been out of his car with my license in his hand or had me against my car assuming the position if he wanted to be a hard guy. I’d given him enough ammo; driving with lights off, woman with a freshly swollen eye.
