Getting Rid of Bradley

by Jennifer Crusie

  “Yep. Even before I fed him.”

  “It wouldn’t have been the food, anyway. You don’t cook that well.” Tina sat back and marshaled her thoughts. “You’re going to have to face it He’s serious.”

  Lucy tried to shrug it off. “Probably. But I don’t know if I am.”

  Tina started to say something and then blinked instead.

  “I don’t believe it,” Lucy said. “You do it, too.”

  “Do what?”

  “You blink when you think of something you can’t say. Zack says I do it all the time. And now you’re doing it, too.”

  “I am? We do?” Tina was nonplused. “You’re joking.”

  “Nope. What was it you were going to say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Something about Zack.”

  “No.” Tina stopped and blinked again. “I don’t believe it. I could feel it coming, and I couldn’t stop it That is one habit I am definitely breaking.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  “Just that if you think you’re not serious about Zack, you’re deluding yourself.” She looked again into Lucy’s glowing face. “I give up. He’s not the guy I would have picked for you, but he’s obviously the guy you’ve picked for you.”

  Lucy looked prim. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just got divorced. It would be foolish to talk about getting married again so soon. Really foolish.”

  “Illogical.” Tina buttered a piece of toast and bit into it.

  “Right.”

  Tina licked the butter off her fingers. “Don’t put me in pink for the wedding. I hate pink.”

  ZACK AND ANTHONY stood in the dry metal-lined basement of the Third National Bank of Riverbend and stared into a dry, metal-lined safe-deposit box, the contents of which they had just inventoried. It did not have one hundred and fifty ten-thousand-dollar government bonds in it.

  It had one hundred and thirty-two.

  “He spent a hundred and eighty thousand dollars in less than a year?” Zack shook his head. “This guy needs a budget.”

  “Running from the police and homicidal in-laws is not cheap,” Anthony said. “I think it’s time to alert the media and get this guy off Lucy’s tail.”

  “Hell, yes.”

  But when they got back to the station, there was a new report.

  Bradley Porter —or somebody— was using his credit cards again.

  In an Overlook motel.

  OVERLOOK WAS A MISERABLE part of town, bleak and gray. As Zack got out of the car, an old hamburger wrapper blew down the street in front of the motel, startling a dirty mongrel who skipped away, limping, and a metal sign creaked and banged over a derelict gas station. The only signs that humanity had ever been there were the two cars parked in front of the motel, and the overflowing trash cans outside the burger place next to it.

  There were no people.

  “You take me to the best places,” Zack said to Anthony, as they went into the motel lobby.

  Anthony ignored him.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were back on the street again. John Bradley had stayed there and then checked out There were other people in his room now. In fact, there had been several other people in the room since.

  Bradley Porter had never been there.

  “This is nuts. This makes no sense,” Zack said. “What is he, the Invisible Man?”

  “Zack...”

  “We know he’s in this with John Bradley. So why doesn’t anybody ever see him?”

  “Zack...”

  “If this guy really is in Kentucky all this time...”

  “Zack!”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got to stop obsessing about Bradley Porter,” Anthony said. “Get back to the case. It is entirely possible that he’s not really that involved, mat he was just doing a few favors for an old friend and got in over his head.”

  Zack set his jaw. “Porter’s involved. Let’s ask the people in that burger joint. They had to eat Maybe they went there.”

  Anthony stared at the cracked plastic restaurant sign with distaste. “If they did, they were desperate.”

  “Exactly,” Zack said.

  Five minutes later, Zack was back outside with a greasy burger and a great feeling of annoyance. The counter girl had never seen Bradley Porter, but she’d recognized the picture of John Bradley immediately.

  “Are you sure you haven’t seen this man?” Zack had pressed her, showing her Bradley Porter’s picture again.

  “Positive. He’s hot. Him, I’d remember.”

  Great He was hot Great.

  Zack had picked up his burger and stalked out, leaving Anthony to question her about John Bradley. Now out on the street, he unwrapped the burger. It didn’t look like food. It didn’t smell like food. And he didn’t want to know what it tasted like. He went to put it in the trash and noticed the mongrel he’d seen earlier, sitting by the can. It was a middle-size dog, dirty gray-brown and mangy, but it had huge eyes that looked up at him.

  And at his burger.

  “This is your lucky day, mutt.” He broke the sandwich in half and then in fourths so it wouldn’t choke trying to swallow the whole thing at once.

  He put a quarter of the sandwich down, expecting the dog to lunge for it. The dog looked at the sandwich and then at him with huge, pleading eyes.

  “Go on.” Zack nodded. “Go on. Eat it.”

  The dog moved cautiously toward the sandwich and then grabbed it and wolfed it down.

  “Easy.” Zack put the second quarter down. “Easy. You’re going to choke, and I don’t do the Heimlich maneuver on dogs.”

  The dog wolfed that section down, too.

  When Zack reached down with the third quarter, the dog took it directly from his hand. Gently.

  “You were somebody’s dog once, weren’t you?” Zack crouched down across from him, watching the third section disappear. He held out the last section and the dog took it, as gently as before. Zack wadded up the paper while the dog chewed and tossed it in the trash can. It immediately blew out again and tumbled down the street, startling the dog into skipping back a few paces.

  “Rough life, huh?” Zack said, and the dog came back, cautiously, to stand only an arm’s reach away.

  Zack reached out and scratched him carefully behind the ears.

  The dog closed its eyes in ecstasy.

  “Don’t get used to this,” Zack said, and then he heard Anthony behind him say, “You talk to dogs?”

  “Of course, I talk to dogs.” Zack straightened quickly and scared the dog back another couple of steps with his movement. “It’s not like I talk to plants or anything non-sentient.”

  Anthony cocked an eyebrow at him. “Non-sentient?”

  Zack winced. “Sorry. Lucy’s rubbing off on me.”

  “Well, if your conversation’s finished, we’ve got things to do.”

  “Right.” Zack got in the car, deliberately not looking at the dog. It was just a dog. Big deal.

  Anthony started the engine, and Zack turned to the door to get his seat belt.

  And there was the dog, sitting exactly where he’d left him. Staring at him.

  Oh, hell.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, and Anthony stopped.

  “What?”

  Zack opened the car door. “You coming?” he said to the dog.

  “You’re kidding,” Anthony said.

  The dog just sat there, looking at him.

  “Well, come on,” Zack said, and the dog stood and walked slowly toward the car.

  “Get in,” Zack said. “We don’t have all day.” And the dog climbed in carefully, favoring its back leg, and curled up at Zack’s feet.

  “I don’t believe this,” Anthony said.

  “Just drive to Lucy’s.” When Anthony didn’t move, Zack glared at him. “Listen, I have no choice. If I left this dog, she’d never speak to me again.”

  “She’d never know.”

  “You don’t know Lucy.” Zack suddenly grinned down at the
dog, and it thumped its tail. “Besides, this is a great dog.”

  Anthony stared at the dog and Zack with equal incredulity. Then he started the car and drove to Lucy’s.

  Chapter Ten

  When Zack and Anthony came in the back door, Lucy was startled. She dropped a spoon back into the cake batter she was stirring and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “You’re back early. What happened? What’s wrong?”

  Tina appeared in the doorway from the dining room and made a face when she saw Zack.

  “Nothing,” Zack said, his hands in his pockets. “We found the money. But we found something else, too.” He stepped to one side.

  Behind him was the most pathetic-looking dog Lucy had ever seen.

  “You poor baby.” She sank to her knees on the bare wood floor and held out her hand.

  The dog limped over to her instantly, and Lucy began to scratch it gently behind the ears, trying not to cry.

  Zack had brought her a dog. Nobody in her life had ever brought her a dog. They rolled their eyes when they found out she had three, and they acted as if she were crazy, and they made jokes about her zoo. But Zack had brought her a dog. A wonderful dog that obviously needed her. And him.

  She looked up at him. “Where did you find him? He must be starving. Tina, get me the biscuits. The poor baby. Where did he come from?”

  Zack snagged the biscuit box off the counter and crouched down beside her. “Actually, he’s full of hamburger. He was in Overlook, but he’s a nice dog.”

  “He’s a beautiful dog,” Lucy crooned as Zack fed him a biscuit.

  “That’s the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen,” Tina said from the doorway.

  Anthony met her eyes. “Thank God. I was starting to feel guilty, because I wouldn’t have touched it with a cattle prod.”

  Zack and Lucy ignored them.

  “All he needs is a bath and some food,” Zack said. “I’ll give him a bath tonight. We’ll take him to the vet tomorrow if that limp doesn’t go away.”

  “He’s precious,” Lucy said, and the dog sighed and lay down beside her with his head on her knee.

  “And he’s not that much bigger than Heisenberg and Maxwell,” Zack said. “He won’t be much trouble.”

  “He won’t be any trouble,” Lucy said. “But he’s going to be a lot bigger than Heisenburg and Maxwell. Look at his feet.”

  The dog had feet as big as saucers.

  “He’s only half-grown,” Lucy said. “That’s probably why whoever had him dumped him in Overlook. He wasn’t a puppy anymore, so they didn’t want him.” She scratched the dog behind the ears again. “I think people like that should be shot.”

  “Well, he’s ours now,” Zack said, trying not to sound pleased. “Just what we needed, another dog.”

  “We have room,” Lucy said.

  Tina and Anthony exchanged glances.

  “We’ll have to think of a name,” Zack said, and Lucy said, “You get to name this one.”

  “Okay,” Zack said, and patted the dog’s hip. “Pete.”

  “Pete?” Lucy stopped scratching. “Pete?”

  “I had a dog named Pete when I was a kid,” Zack said defensively. “It’s a real dog’s name. Not like...well, some I could mention.”

  “I didn’t know you’d had a dog.” Lucy smiled at him suddenly. “Okay, Pete it is.” She scratched the dog behind the ears again. “Hey, Pete.”

  Pete drifted off to sleep, his head on Lucy’s knee.

  “I COULD HAVE FIXED YOU up with somebody rich who’d bring you diamonds,” Tina said. Zack and Anthony were gone again, the dogs had been introduced to their new brother with a minimum of snarling, and Lucy was stirring her cake batter again. “But you want a guy who’s never going to make six figures and who brings you flea-bitten dogs.”

  “Yes,” Lucy said.

  “You’re hopeless,” Tina said.

  WHEN ZACK CAME HOME at six, he walked Tina out to her car.

  “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you from the beginning,” Zack said as she got in her sleek red two-seater.

  Tina looked at him impatiently.

  “Why did you put those locks on Lucy’s house?”

  Tina shrugged and started the car. “I didn’t want Bradley taking anything out. It was her house.”

  “Bull,” Zack said. “I don’t believe it.”

  Tina started to say something nasty and then stopped and cut the engine. “Get in the car.”

  Zack went around to the passenger side and got in, sinking down into the butter-soft black leather seat.

  “Give,” he said.

  Tina took a deep breath and turned to face him. “I’m afraid of Bradley.”

  “What?” Whatever Zack had been expecting, it wasn’t this. “I didn’t think you were afraid of anything.”

  “I’m not afraid for me.” Tina drew back, annoyed. “I’m afraid for Lucy.”

  “What did he do?” Zack said, murder in his voice.

  “Nothing,” Tina snapped back. “If he’d ever done anything, I’d have had him arrested and executed. This is why I didn’t want to say anything. He never did anything. Get out of the car.”

  “No,” Zack slouched lower in the seat from stubbornness. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. If all you’ve got is a feeling about him, that’s fine. Just tell me. I need to know.”

  Tina frowned at him.

  “I need everything I can get on this,” Zack said. “I’m afraid for her, too.”

  “It’s hard to explain.” Tina stared across the steering wheel at the empty street. “It was the way he looked at her. Like she was the most precious woman in the world and he owned her. It used to scare the hell out of me.” She turned to face Zack. “He hated me. But it wasn’t because of what I said or did. It was because Lucy loved me. He hated that. He wanted her all to himself. And he hated the dogs, too. Anything that Lucy loved, he was jealous of. He scared the hell out of me.”

  Zack tried to stay calm. “Did he ever lose his temper? Hit her?”

  Tina flushed, and Zack remembered too late that she’d been married to a man who had. Before he could apologize and get himself in deeper, Tina went on.

  “No. He treated her like...a queen. He didn’t know her, not the real Lucy.” She stopped and then tried again. “When you first meet Lucy, she’s very quiet and polite because she’s shy.”

  “The first time I met her, she beat me up in an alley.”

  Tina smiled suddenly and Zack was amazed. It was Lucy’s smile, and Tina was an entirely different person with it. “Well, then you know the real Lucy.” Tina’s smile faded. “Bradley didn’t. He thought he was marrying this...I don’t know, this quiet, proper, wife kind of person. I think she tried to tell him that she wasn’t, but he didn’t want to see anything that wasn’t what he wanted. And he was awful when she wasn’t what he wanted. She told me that he wouldn’t speak to her when she was wearing jeans. He just pretended that she wasn’t there if she wasn’t wearing what he wanted.”

  Zack clenched his jaw. “I really hate Bradley.”

  Tina nodded. “I know. It’s the only thing you and I have in common.”

  “Why did she stay with him?”

  “She’s not a quitter. And he wasn’t beating her or cheating on her or even yelling at her. He never yelled. So she just moved upstairs and they lived this very polite fiction. I honestly think Bradley may have preferred it that way. Making love to Lucy was probably too emotional for him.”

  “Bradley is an idiot.”

  “No,” Tina said. “Bradley is scary as hell, but he’s not an idiot. That’s another reason why I hated him so much. I didn’t think he would ever be dumb enough to do something that would make Lucy divorce him.”

  “Ah,” Zack said. “I begin to see the light.”

  Tina clenched the steering wheel as she remembered. “When Lucy called me, crying, that day, I wanted to kill Bradley, but I was also really grateful. Because he’d finally done something wrong. I bribed a
locksmith to get there in minutes because I knew he’d be back, and I was afraid she’d let him in and listen to him.” She turned to look Zack in the eye. “Lucy is very fair. I’m not.”

  “Good for you,” Zack said, looking at Tina with unqualified approval. “You know, I like you.”

  “It won’t last,” Tina said. “I’m a bitch. Ask Bradley. You should have heard the things I threatened that man with when he showed up at the door. I think I seriously told him I’d have him killed. Not just as a figure of speech. The real thing. I threw everything I had at him, shrieking.”

  Zack’s smile broadened. “I really like you. Thank God you were there.”

  “He’s not going to just go away, you know.” Tina looked very sober. “He’s not going to give up. He’s almost...obsessed with her. This government bond thing may be keeping him busy right now, but he’ll be back for her.”

  Zack spread his hands. “Hey, I’m here. I’m not leaving her.”

  “Well, that’s another thing.” Tina darted a glance at him. “He’s going to be furious about you. I’d watch your back very carefully if I were you. Bradley’s too proper to ever do anything actually illegal in the normal course of things. But if he lost his temper for once, I think he could be homicidal. And the person he’d kill would not be Lucy.”

  “I’ll remember that.” Zack grinned at her. “I didn’t know you cared.”

  Tina shook her head. “I’m not joking.”

  “Listen, people try to kill me all the time. It never happens. I’m Superman.”

  Tina rolled her eyes to the heavens. “Oh, terrific. Listen, I don’t give a damn who you are. Right now, you’re the only thing standing between my sister and that...that...”

  “Rat,” Zack supplied.

  “No,” Tina said. “That homicidal loon who wants her back. You be careful. We need you.”

  “Relax. I’ll be careful.” Zack hesitated, and then plunged on. “Listen, as long as we’re being honest here, I should probably warn you. You’re not going to like this, but I’m going to marry your sister. She hasn’t said yes, but she will.”

  Tina sighed. “I know. I’m past that. You’re not my choice, but you’re Lucy’s. She won’t admit it yet, but you are.”