The Taming of Billy Jones

by Christine Rimmer

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  THE TAMING OF BILLY JONES

  Christine Rimmer

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  Contents:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

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  Chapter 1

  ^ »

  The ancient Eldorado, gold in color and as big as a boat, waited right by the front door of his club when Billy Jones pulled into the parking lot. Swearing under his breath, Billy slid his wraparound shades up onto his forehead.

  The big, old car was clean for once. And it actually gave off a kind of glow, sitting there all by its lonesome. The late-afternoon Southern California sun poured down over it, bringing a deep luster back to the faded paint, making the hood ornament twinkle. Yeah, that car was a classic, all right.

  Too bad it belonged to Billy's long-lost uncle, Oggie Jones.

  Scowling, Billy settled his sunglasses over his eyes again, cranked up his stereo another notch and drove on around the back of the building to his personal parking space, which was next to a small door that led into a storeroom not far from his private office. As soon as he nosed the car into the space, he turned off the engine. The quiet, when the stereo cut out, seemed intense and oppressive. Billy Jones hated quiet. To him, quiet was something to be avoided at all costs – like marriage and church. Still, he sat there for a moment, in the dreariness of silence, staring out the windshield at the club he had owned for just about seven years now.

  Bad Billy's was a two-story barnlike structure, sided in unfinished pine, with no windows to speak of. The lack of windows was a real bonus right then, because without a window to look through, the odds that the old man might have seen Billy drive up had to be just about nil.

  Billy kept on staring at the building, considering. What if he just went ahead and turned his car around and drove back on out the way he had come? The place could do without him for a night. It had done without him before.

  The silence got to be too much. Billy started tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel, getting the music going in his head to complement the beat. He closed his eyes. Everything went away but that new song he'd been fooling around with the past few days. He let the music have him.

  Then someone tapped on the window. He turned his head and saw a sweet little redhead with full, kissable lips and a come-and-get-it gleam in her eye. Billy was pretty sure she worked for him, but he couldn't for the life of him remember her name.

  He looked at her through the window and smiled, slowly. She smiled back. Then she pantomimed a cranking motion: a signal for him to roll the window down. But to do that, he'd have to start up the car again. And there was no point in starting up the car when he'd decided to stick around, after all. Damned if he'd let Oggie Jones chase him away from his own club.

  The redhead realized he didn't plan to do anything but smile at her. With a shrug and a tiny wave, she trotted off toward the storeroom door, her curvy rear end swaying an invitation at him as she went.

  Billy waited for the door to close behind her before he reached over the seat for his straw Resistol. He slid the hat on his head, readjusted his shades and climbed out from behind the wheel, pausing only to beep on his burglar alarm before he entered the building.

  He saw no one in the storage room. Good. He wasn't hiding from the old man, exactly. But the way he looked at it, the fewer people who saw him, the better. Maybe the old fool would give up and leave before he learned that Billy had arrived. Keeping his head down and his hat tipped low, Billy strode past the paper products and turned left at the bar nuts. A moment later, he was sticking his key in the lock of his office door. And then, at last, he was inside. And safe.

  He flipped on the light and just stood there, his back against the door, surveying the cramped room as if it might have changed some since last evening. But no such luck. The big, scarred oak desk was still piled with food service magazines, brochures from different distributors and demo tapes from up-and-coming bands – things he should have read or listened to or thrown away a long time ago. The computer he never used crouched right in the center of the mess, gathering dust. The file cabinets had more papers stacked on top of them than inside. And it was damn dark, too.

  He took off his sunglasses. There. He could see better. He tossed his hat, keys and the shades on the stand by the door and marched over to slide behind the desk. Once there, he took a big breath, looked around at all the papers – and decided it was just too damn quiet. He picked up a padded mailer and dumped out one of the demo tapes, along with a letter of introduction. The tape was of some group called the Prairie Wailers. Their songs had titles like "Rodeo Addiction" and "Love is Bull."

  Billy shook his head and tossed the tape across the desk. He preferred to audition bands live anyway. He had no idea why the hell they all kept sending him tapes.

  He fumbled around under a pile of receipts. "Hah!" he exclaimed, when he found the television remote. He pointed it at the Sony Trinitron, which sat across the room on a metal shelf, right above a long row of stereo components.

  The news popped on. A perky blonde with incredible teeth babbled cheerfully about the weather. "Except for the leaves falling here and there, you'd never in your life believe it was October." Big smile, blinding in its whiteness. "But then, this is the Southland and it's always beautiful here."

  Just then, the door flew open so fast and hard, it hit the wall with a bang like a pistol shot.

  Billy jumped in his seat. "What the—?"

  "Think you can hide, do you? You can't hide. Forget it."

  Billy realized he was getting a headache. "Damn. Alexis. You scared me."

  Alexis Sacadopolis, his head-waitress-turned-manager, had acres of platinum hair and a body like a Vegas showgirl. She also had a mind like a steel trap. Nothing got by her – which made her a great manager and, on occasion, a pain in the ass.

  Billy dropped the remote. "I'm trying to get some work done here, Alexis."

  Alexis let out a snort. "Yeah. Right." She leaned against the door frame and studied a chipped fingernail. "He's out there again."

  Billy considered pretending he didn't know who "he" was, but decided it would be futile. "I know. I saw his car."

  "Well, Loretta saw you. She went straight in and told him."

  "Loretta?"

  Alexis folded her arms under her remarkable breasts. "Redhead. Gorgeous." He remembered the pretty girl in the parking lot. Alexis must have seen that he remembered, because she added, "That girl is barely twenty-one, which is too young for you."

  "Yes, Mother," he muttered, not even really thinking about the girl, telling himself that he should have known. The old man had all of them, all of them, under his thumb.

  Alexis reached into a back pocket of her skintight red jeans and came out with one of those little boards with sandpaper on it. She set to work on that chipped nail.

  "Alexis, go somewhere else to fix your nails, okay?"

  She shot him a sour glance and went right on filing away. "He just wants to talk to you, one final time."

  "Get me some Excedrin, will you?"

  She made a disgusted noise and disappeared from the doorway. Just when he thought maybe he'd actually gotten rid of her, she reappeared with a couple of tablets and a glass of water.

  She marched straight to his side. "Here." He took the tablets and washed them down with the water, then looked around on his cluttered desk for somewhere to set the glass. "Give it to me," she said, rolling her eyes around in her head so he'd know just how much he was putting her out.

  He gave her the glass. "Thanks. You can go now."

  She just stared at him. He tried to appear abused. "Alexis, I've already talked to
him one final time. Night before last, in this very cubicle. He blathered on for hours."

  "He's an old man."

  "Alexis…"

  She leaned over, braced her hands on the desk and got right in his face. "Look, he swears this is the last time he'll bother you. He says if you don't want a thing to do with your own people, if you're that cold and unfeeling, that's your business. He's leaving, headed back up to that dinky town he's always talking about."

  "North Magdalene," Billy provided grimly, sitting back in his chair to get some space from her.

  She only leaned closer. "He just wants to say goodbye."

  Billy swung his boots up onto the desk, causing a number of magazines to slide off. "Tell him to have a nice trip." He laced his hands behind his head.

  Alexis rose to her full height again and braced her hands on her hips. "What am I, Western Union? Tell him yourself. And anyway, he says he won't leave, no matter what, until he speaks to you personally." Billy believed that. He'd never met a man so relentless as Oggie Jones. "So, can I send him back?" Alexis demanded.

  He shot her a sideways look. "Tiny Tim in yet?" Tiny Tim was Billy's head bouncer – all six foot six and three hundred heavily tattooed pounds of him.

  "Yeah," Alexis muttered suspiciously. "So what?"

  "So send him in to see me. Pronto."

  Alexis sputtered and shook her huge head of hair. "Billy, that's an old man out there. An old man who is blood to you."

  "I don't want to hear it."

  "Billy, you can't sic Tiny Tim on your own flesh and blood."

  "Watch me."

  "Besides, Tim won't do it."

  Unfortunately Billy had no comeback for that one. It was probably true. After all, Oggie Jones, with his threadbare dungarees, down-home palaver and smelly cigars, had managed to charm the sense out of every last waitress and busboy in Billy's employ. The odds had to be high he would have gotten to Tiny Tim, too.

  Alexis batted her false eyelashes at him. "Billy, sugar. It's ten minutes of your time."

  "Right. And if you believe that, I heard Graceland's for sale."

  "Billy, come on. Just talk to him. One more time."

  Billy swore some more. Then brought his boots thudding to the floor. "Is there any way I can get out of this?"

  Alexis only shook her head.

  Billy let out a long, weary breath. "One last time. And that's all."

  Alexis beamed. "I'll go get him."

  "No need," a grit-and-gravel voice announced. "I figured you'd see me, boy. So I'm already here."

  Alexis blinked in mild surprise, then turned to the grizzled old coot who stood in the doorway. "Well, then." Her voice had gone as sweet as clover honey. "I'll just leave you two alone."

  "Thanks." Oggie gave her a grin and a wink, edging into the room as she went out. "Nice girl," Oggie said, when she'd shut the door behind her.

  No one ever called Alexis a "girl." She didn't like it and she made her opinions known. "I'm a woman, sugar," she'd say. "And don't you forget it." No one ever did. Except, apparently, Oggie Jones.

  By the same token, Billy himself didn't particularly care to be called, "boy." More than once, he'd ordered the old fool not to do it again. The command had had about as much effect as a .22 cartridge in a twelve-gauge shotgun.

  Oggie was glaring at the television. "You think you could shut off that idiot box, boy?"

  Billy picked up the remote and turned the sound down a fraction.

  Oggie looked from the television to Billy. He heaved a big sigh. "Guess that'll have to do." Leaning on his gnarled manzanita cane, he limped the few steps to one of the two extra chairs. Huffing and puffing, he lowered himself to a sitting position. He made a big production of laying his cane beside the chair. Then he sat back and folded his knotted hands over his paunch. "This is goodbye."

  Promises, promises, Billy thought.

  A sad look clouded the old man's rheumy little eyes. "At least you know now that you got a family."

  "Yeah, I'd say you made that real clear."

  "Spare me the sarcasm. Let an old man have his final say."

  "You had your final say."

  "I tried. But you didn't listen."

  "I listened."

  Oggie scowled. "You hear me out this last time. It's the least you can do."

  Billy wondered at that moment if he would ever get rid of this old man. But what could he do now? He'd agreed to listen one more time. He shrugged and slumped back in his chair. "Say what you have to say. For the last time."

  "Don't interrupt me, then."

  "I won't. Just get it over with."

  Oggie coughed and glared some more, shifting around in the chair, settling in all over again. Then, at last, he began, "On his deathbed, my brother Gideon told me of your father, my brother Nathaniel – and of you, his only child. Told me how your father was gone now, and his dear wife, too. How, of that branch of the family, you alone remained, down here in Los Angeles, runnin' this nightclub of yours and livin' wild…"

  Billy stifled a yawn. As usual, Oggie was repeating himself. He'd already dispensed all this information more than once. If Billy thought it would do any good, he'd tell the old horse thief to get to the point. But that would be a futile endeavor if ever there was one. So he tuned Oggie out. His attention wandered to the events on the news.

  Ten seconds later, Billy had forgotten the old man existed. He was too busy gaping at that TV screen, feeling as if someone had just sucked all the air right out of the room.

  Meanwhile, Oggie droned on. "I been tryin' my damnedest to get through to you, hopin' with all my heart that you'd reach out to me. But you ain't reached out. I'm not a man who gives in easy. But I guess I know when it's time to fold my hand and head on home."

  Billy tried blinking, several times in a row, hoping he would see something different when he looked again.

  But nothing changed.

  "Boy, you listened to a word I said?"

  No matter how many times Billy blinked, he still saw Randi on that high resolution screen. Randi all dressed in white and smiling serenely – with a baby on her lap.

  The newscaster announced, "Here you see the sex goddess, Randi Wilding, in another light, with her beloved baby boy, Jesse. This picture was taken just days before the fatal airplane flight that took her life. And now, just a month after the actress's death, representatives of her estate have announced the creation of the Jesse Wilding Needy Children's Fund."

  "Boy? Yoo-hoo. I'm talkin' to you…"

  Squinting, Billy leaned across the desk. But the baby in Randi's arms didn't change. It continued to look exactly like a picture Billy remembered of himself at just under a year, wearing ridiculous blue shorts and a silly little billed cap, chewing on a rubber frog. His mother used to keep that picture on her mantel. Billy had always hated the thing.

  The studio photo of mother and child vanished, to be replaced by a shot of an ugly woman sitting in a wing chair: Randi's sister. The woman smiled tightly and introduced herself to the camera, but Billy didn't catch her name because Oggie sputtered out something just as she said it.

  Billy frowned. What the hell was her name, anyway? It was one of those names that could scare a man off all by itself. A name like his mother's name, which had been Honor. A name of some upright and annoyingly admirable personality trait: Patience or something?

  Billy had met the woman once or twice, at Randi's Bel Air mansion, during those three months of burning lust he and Randi had shared. The times he'd seen her, she'd been sitting behind a desk in the office there, squinting at a computer screen. She managed all of Randi's money, Randi had told him. Randi said she did a bang-up job of it, too.

  "Jesse really changed Randi's life," the sister was saying. "She settled down a lot, when she learned she was going to have him – and even more so after he was born. He awakened the natural mother within her. She became more contented. More relaxed. And more thoughtful."

  Billy had to hold back a snort of disbelief.
Randi Wilding, thoughtful? Right.

  The sister hadn't finished. Unshed tears making her eyeballs seem to float behind her thick-lensed glasses, she continued, "Randi really felt for the homeless and disadvantaged children of the world. Every time she looked at Jesse, she would be reminded of all the children forced to grow up without the love and tender care she was able to lavish on her own little boy. She worked hard to establish this fund. And those of us who loved her are proud to see it become a reality, even after she is no longer with us. Randi was a wonderful, warm, giving—"

  Billy couldn't take any more. He grabbed the remote and shoved it toward the TV. The screen went blank.

  "I'll be damned," his uncle said.

  Billy closed his eyes and muttered a few bad words.

  Oggie slapped his knee. "That was a Jones baby if I ever saw one. Yours, I take it?"

  Billy threw down the remote and stood. "Look. Let's cut to the chase here. I said all I had to say to you the other night."

  Oggie's tiny raisin eyes twinkled in glee. "Cute as hell, that kid. Congratulations, son."

  "You're leaving now. Aren't you." It was not a question.

  The old man started cackling in obvious delight. "A baby. I can't believe it. Bad Billy's got a baby boy."

  Billy said, "Out."

  "All right, all right." The old man bent and collected his cane. He pulled himself upright, grunting. "I'll be at the same hotel, in case you need to get in touch with me."

  "Why the hell would I need to get in touch with you?"

  The old man shrugged – and chortled some more.

  Billy scowled. "You said you were leaving town."

  "That was before I found out about my little grandnephew. Even if his father's a coldhearted S.O.B., that baby's got a right to know his people." Oggie hobbled to the door.

  "I never said that baby was mine."

  Oggie snorted. "You didn't have to. I know by the look of him – not to mention the look on your face when you saw him." Oggie pulled the door open and moved into the outer room.