“You’re also arrogant. And that pisses me off because I like arrogant guys. You’re really starting to piss me off.”
“Your place or mine?”
“My place.” She blushed like a second-hand virgin. “I’ve got champagne on ice.”
“I’ve got a quick meeting but I’ll drop by later on.”
We shook hands. And with business out of the way the conversation went south.
“Mrs. Clark is a witch you know.” She screwed up her face. “No one can stand her. She orders everyone around like she owns the hospital. With her daughter so sick and all.”
Patience? Never had it. Never will. “Well, Pamela. I’ve known the Clark’s most of my life. Judith is a fine person. And while she doesn’t exactly own the hospital she has helped raise a substantial amount of money for it and has personally contributed to the building of a wing. She’s a McFadden. She comes from a family of philanthropists. You might want to check that out.” Oops. Shooting yourself in the balls, are you, Charlie?
Yup. She shot me a lethal look. “I’m not sure I like the way you said that. I’m not sure I like you anymore.”
Ok. So, I was thinking about the sex toys rumored to be in the mini-bars upstairs. Sex alone again? “You like me. And I like you. So let’s just change the subject.”
She sat there nodding her head as though trying to think. “Judge Clark doesn’t like you. He hates you, in fact.”
“Really? You seem to know a lot about Judge Clark.”
“He’s sweet. He’s a sweet old man.”
I choked on my straw. “Sweet like a rattlesnake.”
“No. You don’t understand. He’s always sending presents to the nurses’ station. Chocolates. Baskets of wine. Theatre tickets. He spoils everyone.”
“I see. He hasn’t been to see Tina, has he? Not since the first day.”
“No. He hasn’t.”
“So he’s sending guilt presents. Sent to ease his conscience.”
“Well!” she said officiously. “There isn’t any point in his sitting there when his daughter is somewhere else. He has important things to do.”
“Like what?” To my knowledge the retired judge spent most of his time in the garden.
She waved her arm in the air. “This cobra bracelet is platinum. With real rubies. He gave it to me.”
I slurped my drink. It was about those albatrosses. You couldn’t trust them. Especially the ones with black feet. “You must have been good to him.”
She nodded. “Mrs. Clark is a witch.”
Ah, what the hell. Since I’d already pissed on my own parade…. “Judge Clark is an asshole. Personally, I’m with Judith.”
Her chin almost hit the table. “You are an asshole!” With that she flopped from her chair and with her yellow hair swishing behind her, staggered from The Opus Hotel.
I took her keys out of my pocket, walked to the bar, and handed them over. “She’ll be back for these. Give her the house key and call her a cab will you, pretty lady?”
Well, so much for getting laid with no effort. On my raw elbows. But since I’d been making eye contact with a gorgeous brunette two tables over, well, I had time to kill.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I WALKED INTO THE BAR on East Hastings Street with a smile on my face and a number in my iPhone. It was just a game of catch and release, I knew. I applied my best fake charm to catch a woman before she promptly released me, on a second or third date. Apparently, I was married to myself.
Muscle-bound Dumbbell flexed his forehead as he rudely slapped down my drink. “Would there be anything else?” he threatened. “We’re closing in half an hour.”
“Line them up, Gregorian.” Well, the name Greg was written in script on his shirt pocket. “I’ll take two and raise you two.” I threw down a fifty.
He eyed the bill. “Are you saying that I should keep the change?”
I nodded. “Unless you want to donate it to charity, soldier.”
He stuffed the bill into his pocket before cracking a fresh bottle of Canadian Club. I winked at him and he winked back. Great. Soon I’d be hanging out there picking up hookers and drinking free booze on Jack. At the end of the bar Biker grinned and waved, just as Robocop arrived to straddle a stool. Old home week. Opus Bar eat your slick heart out.
“Two for my friend.” I threw down Jack’s second-last fifty. “And two for the biker at the end of the bar.” So, I was almost broke. Soon I’d need a steady job, like following more adulterers and such. Except that it hurt too much.
Robo had had a long hard day. “We may have been going in the wrong direction on this one. It might have been the girl they were after. Although that will hurt your ego a little, Charlie. You’re so self-centered. Everything is pretty much about you.”
I wanted to punch him in his crooked nose. “What do you have, Robo?” Didn’t I tell you I was growing in patience?
“The girl was into drugs. And maybe even selling drugs. As near as we can tell.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Sources. Snitches. Information peddlers. Everyone has something to sell.”
“Oh, I get it. People that sell information. Very reliable sources.”
“Some are. And some aren’t. Give me a little credit for knowing which is which.”
“There’s just one flaw with your research, Robo. To my knowledge drug-dealers usually do it for the money. Tina Clark has money she’ll never be able to spend.”
Biker came by and slapped me on the back. “How you doing, son?” he boomed.
I grinned. “Are you ever going to wash that rag on your head, Biker?”
“Not unless I have to.” His laughter sounded like a roar of happy thunder, the kind that goes rumbling off into the distance without causing much trouble. “Not unless it gets flees. It’s my good luck bandana. If I wash it that could all change.”
Biker and Robocop left the bar at closing time while I stuck around, since Gregorian didn’t seem allergic to bribery and I had fifty bucks to blow. He snatched it up like a one arm bandit.
“I only slept with her once,” he began. “That’s when I knew that skinny little thing couldn’t be twenty like her ID said. With all the black flowers pasted on her face it was hard to tell. When I finally got the truth out of her I felt like a creep, my being twenty-three and all. I felt like a pedophile.” Red patches splashed across his cheeks.
“So you should.”
He didn’t take it personally. “She’s just a really fucked up kid. Really wild.”
“What about the drugs? Was she selling them?”
“No. She bought them though. Crack. For herself and her friend Matt. They’re just a couple of rich kids looking for kicks. Too much family money I suspect.”
I stood up. “Just one question. Why did you let her back in here when you knew her real age?”
“For two reasons. Number one, she was blackmailing me. She said that if I didn’t let her back in she’d tell my boss about us and I’d be history. Maybe even go to jail because she was just sixteen at the time.”
“And number two?”
“She was safe here. With me behind the bar no one would touch her.”
I shook his hand. “You’re not a bad guy, Gregorian.” I strolled out the door and into a starry night.
From the crest of the bridge I could see Jack’s mausoleum teetering on the cliff, with only the hall lights and lamps in the library on. I figured Jack would be sipping his midnight whisky with the papers spread all over the floor and Tony would be occupying the opposite wing chair, cognac in hand. The money business would be finished for the day and they’d be celebrating their successes in the same old way. Nothing would have changed. For some unexplained reason my Beemer sped up Taylor Way and tiptoed past 33 Terrace Place.
As sometimes is my custom I took the long way home, turning right on Stanley Park Drive and cruising along the ocean through a forest of spicy pines. Headlights glowed in my rear-view mirror so I floored it past
the darkened Teahouse but the lights closed in behind. Soon a siren was blaring and I was skidding sideways from a punctured tire. Shrapnel tends to do that to rubber. In my rear-view mirror I could see a fat cop struggling out of the passenger side of the cruiser, gun drawn.
“You’re under arrest!” he roared as I exited my vehicle.
“Mind telling me what for?”
“For failing to yield to police and for reckless driving.” He motioned to his sidekick. “Get his gun, Joe. He’s a lefty.”
Joe-boy hopped like an Easter rabbit, frisked me, to no avail, my toy being in the trunk among friends.
Big copper held his revolver on me. “And maybe even DUI.”
I don’t usually argue with guns, especially in a twitchy hand, but there are exceptions. “You can do better than that, Bubble Boy.” Hey, I didn’t name him, the bullies at school did. And I’d actually stuck up for the creep when the tough guys were pushing him around. And this would be the thanks I got?
A Chrysler New Yorker passed by paying no attention. The police were doing their job.
Bubble Boy waved his gun above a flabby white face. It was hard to miss that noggin. “I knew you’d remember me, Charlie. Charlie,” he taunted like a mocking bird. “Charlie the big shot. The big man at West Van High.”
All right. So, call me stupid. “No, Bubble Boy. You were the big man at West Van High. I was just a skinny kid who didn’t have to order his gym shorts from West Coast Tent and Awning.”
That did it. A couple of warning shots at my feet. “This sissy,” he spat at Joe, “rode to school in a Rolls Royce. With a chauffeur. What a fucking sissy!”
Alfonse, I remembered under duress. His name was Alfonse. “Let’s just cut the crap, Alfonse. Who are you working for? You’ve got plans for me. Who’s paying?”
“Right. Like I’d tell you.”
“Why not? Both you and I know I’m not leaving here tonight. You have your orders and you’ll carry them out. You have nothing to lose by telling me. I won’t be squealing when I’m six feet under.”
“Get the tasers, Joey. This man is out of control.”
Joey scurried to the police cruiser for the guns. In the meantime I made a quick decision not to further antagonize Alfonse since he was itching to blow me away.
“Do you want to make a run for it, Charlie? It would be more fun that way.”
Another car went by slowly before quickly gathering speed. Cowards. They were all cowards where the cops were concerned. I was going to die alone.
I turned to Joey. “What about you, soldier? Is this your first murder?”
He looked pale.
“You don’t have to do it you know. Just because a goon like Alfonse says so. You can have scruples. Even if Bubble Boy doesn’t.”
That did it. Alfonse let me have it. All 50,000 volts. I went down like the Berlin Wall in a frenzied heap. But while I was kicking up dust, gyrating and convulsing and silently saying sorry to Jack, Alfonse suddenly put on the breaks.
“Do you hear that?” Joey said excitedly. “They’re coming out of the bushes with flashlights. A whole bunch of them. We’d better scram.”
“Get away from him,” a woman screamed. “You pigs! You murderers!”
“We’d better blow, Alfonse.”
Alfonse gave me one last shot for good luck. “This isn’t fucking over. Not over ‘til I say it’s over.” Doors slammed, an engine turned over, and the cruiser sped away.
“Not over,” I mumbled, struggling to get my face out of the road. “Not by any means.”
The homeless of Stanley Park gathered around me. A stick man with long thinning hair and the face of a half-gnawed bone was helping me to sit up. “You ok, dude? He zapped you pretty good.”
“I’m good. My ex-father in law.” I sat there like an idiot picking debris from my eyes. “He doesn’t seem to like me anymore.”
“Name’s Tommy,” said the stick man. “And skip the bull. We heard it all. The fat man is on the take. And the skinny one is scared as hell.”
Faces nodded. A lot of faces.
“Someone wants you dead,” Tommy said.
I tried to shake the spiders out of my brain. “There’s sort of a line-up for that. I’m not that popular in certain circles.”
He smiled. “At least you’re ok, dude.”
With Tommy’s help I managed to struggle to my feet. “Nice of you guys to help me out. I’d pretty much be a goner without you.”
“Well this is our home and we try to keep the place safe. We’ve been known to help out strangers.”
I fished a gym bag from the back seat of my car and produced a forty of whisky. “You guys drink tea? I don’t have cups but whiskey itself will kill the germs. Hope you don’t mind my taking the first swig.”
They didn’t. I had help installing my spare tire before driving away to the happy sounds of a party.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I COULD SMELL THE FRENCH perfume even before I opened the door to my office at seven a.m.. She was wearing legs. A lot of legs, long and shapely legs crossed at the knee. A short white dress hugged a body lean and lithe and the tennis muscles in her arms were poised to swing. At me.
She sprang from her chair. “How could you!” she shrieked. It wasn’t a question. “How could you do that to Jack!”
“Nice to see you too, Jillian. I’m taking back my key.”
She hurled it at my nice tin desk. “You’re pathetic! You’re such a loser. Have you no shame?”
I decided to let her cool down so I walked to Robert the Plant, gave him a friendly cuff, and cracked a bottle of water. “Let me see, Jillian. Is this the same girl that moved out of Jack’s house not that long ago and would have nothing to do with him? Hmm…”
She turned to face me, eyes blazing. “It’s not the same thing. He had wronged me. He did absolutely nothing to you.”
I tried to smile but my bruised face wouldn’t let me. “That’s debatable. His entry into the drug world didn’t exactly thrill me, if you get my drift. I see too much of the damage on the streets every day.”
“There is absolutely no proof of Jack’s entry into the drug world. None. And you know Jack. You know there’s something more than what meets the eye. He’s hiding something, yes. But no one knows exactly what it is. I doubt that Tony even knows.”
Yeah right. “Tony knows. He raised Jack, remember. And he’s still wiping his ass. There’s not much Tony doesn’t know.”
She flipped back her long blond curls. “You’ve been in a fight!” She seemed to be seeing me for the first time. “And apparently you didn’t win.”
“That is yet to be decided.”
She laughed facetiously. “Ok. If that’s what you want me to believe. Your big fat ego would never let you admit defeat. But from where I’m standing you look beaten up. Badly. Your face is full of cuts and bruises. Unless the other guy is dead you lost.”
Damn her quick mind. “Wanna kiss me?”
She shuddered. “I don’t want to kiss you when your face is normal. So, when it’s been pulverized by a meat grinder I say no. Never. Not in this lifetime.”
What did I tell you? The woman was crazy about me. I limped to my chair, slowly lowered my posterior into it, and with sufficient difficulty raised my feet to the top of my desk. My tin desk responded by rattling cheaply.
At the door Jillian turned back to me. “Just so you know he looks terrible. Broken hearts do that to people.” With that she stomped out, slamming the door behind her.
I’m not afraid of much but was inexplicably terrified of Pamela in Pink. I therefore sneaked into the hospital through the emergency entrance and slid down the corridor against the wall. Tina wasn’t alone but the kinder half of the ferocious Clarks beat the alternative.
Judith said hello. “Got yourself beaten up did you, Charlie?”
“You should see the other guy.”
She nodded. “Is he dead?”
I walked to Judith who was standing at Tina’s bed
side. “I wasn’t sleeping with your daughter,” I blurted out.
“Oh, I know that, Charlie. And Angus will come around eventually. We were just upset and wanted to blame someone. And you were there. You were there because you cared about our daughter. We should be ashamed of ourselves.”
“Yes you should.” I gave her a little hip check.
Her face broke into a smile. “Would you mind if I asked you some questions? There’s a lot we don’t know.” She sniffled through the details I was able to offer. “I’m sorry I flew off at you that morning. Even though I knew it didn’t make any sense I just had to blame someone. I couldn’t take responsibility for being a poor parent. That would have been too painful.”
I put my arm around her. “You know me well enough to know I’m shallow. I didn’t carry it around.”
“I watched you grow up. You have a tough outer shell because you’ve always tried to prove yourself to Jack. But you don’t have to. There isn’t a child more loved by a parent on the planet. Both you and Jillian are adored. I’ve always envied people who could love like that. I love my daughter but I’m afraid I’ve been a complete failure as a parent.”
I tightened my hug.
“I had a terrible step-mother myself,” she continued. “She was a Christian in the worst possible way. Spare the rod, spoil the child, and pray for their sins. I was always sinning. I went to church three times a week to get rid of it but it didn’t work. I was a sinner according to her. If I spilled on my dress or tripped and fell down I was the worst sinner in town.” She looked up at me through teary eyes. “I always vowed that if I had children of my own I’d leave them be. And that’s just what I did. I gave Tina a free rein. And you know the old saying that if you give someone enough rope to hang themselves, they will? Well I did. And she did. I did this to myself.” She started to sob.
A few tissues later I said, “Did your step-mother ever pay for the abuse?”
Her eyes lit up. “She did! She died young. Before my dad came into a lot of family money, thank goodness. And I’m sure she went straight to hell.”
Tina began to stir.
Jack in a Box Page 12
