Coke with a Twist (A Mercy Watts short)

by A W Hartoin

  Two hours later, Pete called and told me to meet a guy named Paul outside the university biological sciences building. Paul showed up ten minutes late and he looked more likely to swallow my pills than analyze them, but what did I have to lose? I couldn’t give them to Chuck and face questions about where they came from.

  Paul was better than he looked and called with results that night. “They’re Zoloft and GHB. Both good quality. You want 'em back?”

  “I guess so. Can you give them to Pete?”

  “Sure thing. Pete said you might be able to do me a favor if I came back quick with this.”

  “Yeah. What is it?” I wished Pete had mentioned this earlier.

  “I was wondering if you could check out my girl for me. She says she’s never done time but you never know.”

  I gave him Morty’s number and instructions to tell Morty that I would pay.

  “You’re absolutely sure about the GHB?” I asked.

  “No doubt at all. I’m going to be a pharmacist.”

  I thanked him and walked away feeling nervous about having my next prescription filled. If Paul could be a pharmacist, where was the cutoff? He did sound sure about the GHB though. If Becky admitted that she used it with Byers, it would be some nice circumstantial evidence against him. I had to give Chuck the information, but I decided to try to get an admission out of Becky myself first. I left a message for her saying that I knew about her and the GHB. Becky didn’t call back before my next shift at the ABC. I left home with some new scratches from the skanky cat.

  That night the Monday night crowd was back and it was a rowdy one. Some athletic team won something and the celebration was on. I was half-soaked in Bud by ten when Pete called to say he’d try to be there at twelve. He said to wait. I hated to stay at the ABC any longer than necessary, but who knew when I’d see Pete again. He was the only reason I stayed. I figured Byers was long gone, maybe skiing in Europe as rapists have done before him.

  I texted Morty for what could loosely be termed entertainment. He had a line on Josh’s parents’ finances and nothing was going on there. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles were the same. Morty thought a family friend was giving him funds and that’d be harder to trace.

  At eleven, I spotted Becky standing in the back exit in oversized sweats and mud-caked tennis shoes. A drizzle started behind her, making her hunch and wince at the drops hitting her face and shoulders. Her black eyeliner was smudged beyond the limits of fashion, and she wore no other makeup under a curtain of stringy, unwashed hair.

  I walked over, balancing a couple pitchers on my tray and set them on an unoccupied table near her. “How are you doing?”

  She tucked a stray lock behind her ear and shifted her weight from foot to foot.

  “Becky?” I said.

  She bit her lip, looking past my shoulder. “Have you seen him?”

  “Byers?”

  “Yes. I think I saw him come in here. He texted me earlier.”

  “I haven’t seen him. Why did he text you?”

  “He was really mad. I left him a message on his cell phone about the GHB. How did you know?”

  “A pharmacist told me,” I said. “Why’d you have it?”

  “I used to take it sometimes when we were … together.”

  “Why?” I tried to keep my expression neutral, but some cracks were forming. I wanted to kick Byers’s ass.

  “Josh liked it. He said it loosened me up.” Becky looked at everything in the bar, except me.

  Yeah, we wouldn’t want to be uptight for Josh.

  “Why did you keep the pills?”

  Her eyes went to those fascinating hands again and she sniffed. “He might come back.”

  “And you wanted to be ready just in case.”

  “I know it sounds stupid, but I love him a lot,” she said.

  “You’re not stupid.”

  Becky crossed her arms and looked at the ceiling. I started thinking about all the things I’d done for guys who weren’t worth the trouble. If I didn’t nip it in the bud, we’d be having a sobfest before long. I wasn’t in the mood, and most guys are great, excepting the Joshes of the world.

  “I guess I should go.” Becky blew her nose and her eyes started leaking.

  “Not yet. Come have a drink,” I said.

  “I’m not twenty-one yet.”

  “A Coke then.” I sat her at the bar, got more pitchers, and delivered them to an irate table. They ordered two more, yelled at me that I wasn’t getting a tip, like there was hope of that anyway. I didn’t spot Byers in the crowd, but I didn’t try too hard. Let the cops deal with him. I checked on Becky. She was at the bar sipping her Coke and chatting with Tom. I went to the ladies’ room and pulled out my cell phone. I left messages for Chuck on his cell and at the station. Then I went back in. Becky was still talking with Tom and he motioned me to the end of the bar.

  “She says that guy you’ve been looking for came in here,” Tom said.

  “I know.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I already called the detective on the case and I’ll have a look around. Give me a couple more pitchers,” I said.

  “Bud?”

  “What do you think?” I smiled at Tom and he filled my pitchers.

  I delivered the pitchers while looking for Byers, and then I walked the perimeter. No luck. I told Tom and Becky to watch the doors and I went outside to check the parking lot for his Charger. If he was dumb enough to show up at the ABC, he was dumb enough to drive his own car. The Charger wasn’t in the lot, but I didn’t bother with the side streets. Back inside, I served more pitchers and kept an eye out.

  My shift ended and Pete was late as expected. I went to the bar and sat on the cracked vinyl seat next to Becky. She’d wiped off her smeared eyeliner and gave me a wan smile.

  “How are you feeling?” I said.

  “Totally stupid, but I’ll get over it.”

  “I have to tell the police about the GHB.”

  “I know. Will I get in trouble?” she asked.

  “Probably not, but it would be better if you told them,” I said.

  “If you say so, I guess I will. I’m tired of thinking about him all the time.”

  “That’s one thing I know you’ll get over.” I patted her back and watched the last customers file out the door.

  Becky blew her nose into a well-used tissue and Tom brought me a vodka gimlet, served with a bad-boy grin. I took a long, cool sip, and propped my elbows on the bar. We didn’t speak for a while. I couldn’t think of anything positive to say. She was in for it. No doubt about that.

  Tom yelled from the back room that I had a call. I checked and sure enough my cell phone was dead. I went into the back, and took the call. It was Pete begging off. I wasn’t mad, but managed to sound like I was. I liked to keep him on his toes.

  I walked back to the bar. My footsteps echoed off the scarred walls and startled Becky. She searched in her bag for a new, less disgusting tissue, and wiped her cheeks. She started to deflate. Probably thinking about the trouble to come. I asked her about her family, classes, anything I could think of to take her mind off it. Once I got her going she took off, talking about everything from Picasso to hem lengths.

  As she talked, I looked down at my drink, and the edges fuzzed out. After one drink? Please. There it went again. I looked at the remaining gimlet in the glass and it looked different, murky and dark. Pete had told me something about drinks being murky. Murky. Murky. The edges got fuzzy again and stayed that way. I felt like I was looking through a paper towel roll, like when I played pirates as a kid. The feeling was weird, but it didn’t worry me. I felt pretty damn good. What did Pete say about murky? What a funny word. Wait. Pete said drinks got murky when GHB was in them. I looked at my glass. Was it different? I turned to Becky. She was smiling into her Coke. It was the first genuine smile I’d seen on her face and I got a chill at the sight of it. I told her I had to pee and went to the bathroom.

  I knelt by
the stall and stuck my finger down my throat. It all came up, the gimlet, fries from earlier, and I kept going. I had to get it all out. I dry-heaved for a couple minutes and then lurched to the sink. I put my face under the tap and drank as much as I could. The icy water gave my brain some focus, but things were still soft and flowing. My arms felt loose and light at my sides as if they might float off my body. I couldn’t drink any more water and there was no point in vomiting again. I needed to find Tom, if I could get to the door. I rubbed my hands across the rough plaster walls until I felt the door’s wood grain under my fingertips. The wood fascinated me. I wanted to keep touching each subtle variation in texture. I touched and touched until the edges became dark instead of fuzzy. I tried to refocus and remember what I was trying to do when the door swung open and smacked me in the face. I flew backwards and landed in a slimy puddle.

  “What’s wrong? Can’t handle your liquor?” Becky looked down at me from the doorway. She moved in and out of focus, but her smile didn’t waver. Her smile was solid.

  She pulled me up and steered me out the door. We headed outside, not back into the bar. I tried to say that Tom would miss me, that he would know, but she was way ahead of me.

  “Don’t worry. He’ll think it’s Josh,” she said.

  “You drugged Lara,” I slurred.

  “I thought if he had her once, he’d get over it.”

  I tried to answer. Becky ignored my attempt.

  “Now he’s worried about her. She got raped and he’s still into her.”

  I blubbered and drool slipped down my chin.

  “Yuck. We’ll have to take you somewhere and clean you up. How about the north side? Only two murders there last night.”

  Becky pinned my arm behind my back and forced me into the cold, empty parking lot. Tents of warm light came down from street lamps, but we avoided them. My legs kept moving. I couldn’t make myself stop walking. I saw a brick in my path as we headed out of the lot. The more I concentrated on the brick the better I felt. I wanted to hit it and I did. My left foot tagged it; I tripped, Becky released me and I landed face first in a puddle. The ice-ringed water brought me back to most of my senses. I rolled to my left with a fake moan.

  “Oh, look what you did.” Becky averted her face from a group of guys headed towards the ABC as she knelt by my side. “She’s really, really drunk.”

  No one calls me a drunk. I reached up and grabbed her collar. I yanked as hard as I could. She came at me like a brick over an overpass and our foreheads collided with a thud. She shrieked as I rolled over on top of her.

  The guys yelled, “Cat fight! Cat fight!”

  I couldn’t lift my torso, so I started bashing her nose with my forehead. I knew it was good for something. A spray of blood filled my eyes, but I kept bashing. Someone pulled me off. Becky kept shrieking and through that block of noise, I heard a familiar voice.

  “Mercy! For Christ’s sake, knock it off! Shit!”

  Chuck held me tight by the shoulders. I tried bashing him, but my head wouldn’t make contact. I gave it up and realized my butt was freezing. The asshole set me in a puddle. There were two puddles in the entire area and my face landed in one and my ass the other.

  Once Chuck thought it was safe, he wiped my eyes off and started asking questions. I understood none of them.

  “I want to go to sleep,” I said. It must’ve come out differently because I ended up in an ambulance.

  The next morning I woke up lying on the kind of concrete block hospitals like to call mattresses. A lumpy mass pressed on the bridge of my nose and a line of burning pain shot from my jaw to the back of my head. Someone must have taken out my contacts because the room was blurry while my head was clear. A shape walked in and sat beside my bed. I was hoping for Pete or at least a doctor, but it was Chuck. I sensed a smile emanating from him. Something about me and bandages made him jolly.

  “Hey babe. Lookin' good,” he said.

  Grrr.

  “You want to know what the damage is or what?”

  “I’ll wait for Pete or someone I respect.” I rubbed my jaw. It felt like a dentist was drilling up into my brain.

  “Ouch. You really know how to hurt a guy,” Chuck said, laughing.

  “Come here,” I said.

  “I’ll pass. Besides, you’re in no condition to tangle with me.”

  “Ya think …” I tried to sit up and a hot, red throb passed through my head.

  “Told you so.”

  Grrr.

  “Well babe, you’re a friggin mess, but maybe I’ll help spring you anyway.”

  Behind him Pete said hello. He put a tray on my rolling table, tucked my hair behind my ears and put my glasses on.

  “I’m OK,” I said.

  “I’ll be the judge of that, or Dr. Levitt will be.” Pete kissed my cheek. His tone was jovial, but his face didn’t match it.

  “Well, let me have it,” I said.

  “You broke your nose. You have a concussion, a crack in your upper mandible and two sprained wrists. We set the nose. It should heal nicely. There’s nothing to do for the other three but rest. And I mean serious rest.”

  “When did I break my nose?” I asked.

  “If you don’t know, I can’t help you,” said Pete.

  Chuck cackled. “You broke your jaw, too.”

  “Yeah, hilarious,” I said.

  “Seriously now. We have to talk. Do you mind, Pete?”

  Pete kissed me again, said Levitt would be in soon, and went back to his rounds.

  Chuck sat on the edge of my bed and looked at me for a second. For once, it wasn’t a leer. He looked like a nice guy. The image was disconcerting and I could almost understand what my friends saw in him. He was kind of attractive when he wasn’t picturing me naked.

  Chuck patted my hand and pulled out a pad. He proceeded to write down what I remembered. I was in a painkiller fuzz, so it wasn’t much. For once, he told me what he knew. Becky had been telling the truth about Byers texting her. He’d taken a spur-of-the-moment camping trip down at Meramac State Park and returned the day of my run-in with Becky. He’d seen the papers and freaked when he saw he was a rape suspect. The Zoloft was his. He’d had problems with depression for years. When he got in a funk it wasn’t unusual for him to disappear for a couple of weeks. His parents omitted that info because apparently it was better to be a rape suspect than to have psychiatric problems.

  “Becky pretty much told me she drugged Lara. Did she confess?” I asked.

  “Hell no, she didn’t confess. They never confess. It’d probably work out better for her if she did,” said Chuck.

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t think rape was what she had in mind when she drugged Lara Haven.”

  “She wanted Lara out of Byers’s system.”

  “Yes, but I doubt she thought a couple of nice frat boys would come along and rape Lara.”

  “She didn’t seem to mind it though,” I said. “And why’d she want to kill me anyway? I had no idea she put the GHB in Lara’s Coke until she put it in my gimlet.”

  “You found out about her GHB stash and you were going to give me the information. Then Byers told her that he had an alibi and to go screw herself because he loves Lara. Idiot.”

  “He’s an idiot because he loves Lara?”

  “He’s an idiot because he told Becky. You never tell your ex you love someone else. It’s like asking to get framed for rape. Fucking moron.”

  “She’s the moron. She underestimated me,” I said.

  “Oh yeah, you’re Billy Badass.”

  “Hey, I took her down.”

  Chuck put the straw in my juice box for me. “I guess you did.”

  “I can’t believe I felt sorry for her. What a bitch,” I said.

  “You should see her in the interview room. She’s pretty damn cold.”

  Chuck described his interview with Becky. Then I fell into a black hole of sleep. He was gone when I woke up. It’s nice to know something gets rid of
him.

  From my deluxe accommodations, I called my dad and gave him the rundown. He gave me a verbal pat on the head and said that he’d be back in town in a couple of days. I could practically hear him salivating over the Havens’ hefty bill. If I was lucky, I might get a lunch out of it.

  I tried calling my mother at the spa in Tucson, but Pete had called her already and she was on her way back. She’d stay with me whether I wanted her to or not. I deserved some cuddly days sitting on the sofa watching Pride and Prejudice and eating butter pecan ice cream. Mom’s always good for ice cream and six-hour girly flicks.

  Dr. Levitt released me late in the afternoon, just in time for rush hour. Pete pled family illness and swapped a shift in my honor. Once at home and firmly placed on the couch, he dosed me with more narcotics. When I woke up, he was sitting next to me eating BBQ potato chips and watching basketball on the tube. I was horribly injured, and B-ball is my second least favorite sport. I once lost an argument with Pete about bowling. I said that it wasn’t a sport at all. Pete won, so basketball remains at number two.

  I begged for tea and a girly movie. I got the tea and Pete won the movie debate. He thought I would feel better watching someone else walk on broken glass and Die Hard was just what I needed.

  Pete was right. I did feel better. Better, but woozy. He changed my nose dressing and combed my hair. I figured if a man changes your nose dressing, he had to be good people. I’d keep him as long as he wanted to be kept.

  He cuddled to my side, eyeing my split lip and puffy eyes. “I guess you know you look like Marilyn Monroe.”

  “I’ve heard it once or twice. You should see my mother.”

  “Except your eyes are green,” he said.

  “You just said the magic words.”

  “Great. Which ones? I’ll say them again.” Pete stroked my cheek.

  “Figure it out.” The skanky cat sauntered in and jumped up on the sofa between us.

  Pete recoiled. “When did you get this kitten? He stinks.”