by Dan Taylor
“What are you talking about?”
“Did your doctor put you up to this? You know, getting you to phone all your sexual partners from the last five years. Whatever it is, Jake, you didn’t get it from me!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Her perfectly plucked eyebrows narrow. “So it isn’t one of those calls?”
“No, whatever you thought, it isn’t that.”
She raises her voice an octave, slows it right down. “You know, I think there might be a few days’ expiration left on that rain check.”
“Good to know. But not right now. Kate, I need your help.”
Kate’s good at making U-turns. “And why the hell would I help you?”
“Out of the goodness of your heart?”
Kate snorts with laughter, then brings her hand up to cover her face. “No, really. Why would I help you? When I woke up in the morning you’d gone, and you left the door unlatched. I found Giles sleeping next to the water heater.”
“Who’s Giles? Some neighbor’s cat?”
“No, the hobo who sleeps in the laundry room from time to time. He found his way in because of you, Jake.”
“Funny name for a hobo.”
“His parents didn’t know he’d become one when they named him, duh!”
“Anyway, we’re getting sidetracked. Do you still live in that crappy apartment in Glendale?” Not realizing Jake can’t see her, Kate puts her hand on her hip, pouts, while narrowing her eyes.
“Kate, are you still there?”
“I’m here. Crappy apartment?”
There’s silence a second. “I’ve been watching a lot of British TV. Crappy means small and quaint over there. Like how fanny means vagina.”
“Eww!”
“I know…anyway, are you still in that crappy apartment?”
“Yes, I do.” She sits down, picks up the bottle of White Zin standing by the side of her crappy sofa, puts it between her toned thighs, and then pulls out the cork with her free hand.
“I need a huge favor.”
“Which is?” She looks over at the kitchenette, sees a pile of filthy dishes and glasses in the sink, shrugs her shoulders, and then takes a pull from the bottle.
“I’m going to meet a guy who I don’t know, and I need to find out who he is?”
“And what? I’m the Glendale bike, so I know every guy who lives here?” She takes another pull of White Zin.
“Of course not. You won’t know him, either.”
“Before we go on, we need to discuss the terms of what I’ll get out of the deal.”
He sighs. “Okay.”
Kate waits.
And waits.
Then Jake asks, “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Tell me what you want, and then I’ll tell you if it’s acceptable.”
“Oh, I thought it was going to be the other way around.”
“Kate, I’m in a hurry. This is a life-or-death situation, here. Please try to listen—”
“If that’s the way you’re going to be, Mr.—”
“Just ask. Anything…”
Kate puts the wine bottle between her legs and drums her manicured nails on the armrest. “I want your apartment.”
“You’re not getting my apartment, Kate.”
She thinks a second. It was a long shot, so the rejection of her offer hasn’t taken her out of her stride. “Okay, I get to host a party in it for all my girlfriends.”
“Okay.”
“Really?”
“If that’s what you want.”
She thinks again, looks down at the bottle of White Zin. “And you buy the booze.”
He sighs. “Okay. Anything else?”
“And I insist you have to be there.”
“That was a given, Kate.”
“How stupid of me. Of course you do…to look after the apartment and whatnot.”
“Yeah…that’s the reason.”
Kate’s feeling good about herself, so she picks up the DVD remote and turns it off, takes off her headband. “So, this guy, what does he look like?”
“Finally someone that’s making some sense.”
“What?”
“Never mind. I don’t know what he looks like yet. But he’ll be sitting next to me.”
“Where?”
“Extreme Bowl. Try the bar first, then the lanes.”
“This all sounds a little confusing, Jake.”
“You can do it. I believe in you.”
Kate blushes. “Thanks! So you’re going to be sitting with a guy and you want me to come and take a photo of him.”
“Yeah, but he can’t know about it.”
“How am I going to achieve that?”
“You still have that phone app, right? The one that takes a photo using both the front and back camera simultaneously?”
Kate had forgotten about that until Jake mentioned it. She used it when out on a date with Jake, asked him to take a snap of her, which took a photo of him, too, which she posted on Twitter. Jake got annoyed about that, but she had no clue why. It got seventy-six favorites and fifty-two retweets.
She says, “I do. But I’ve stopped using it since then.”
“Good. Use that.”
“But how?”
“I don’t know…pose as a tourist, ask him to take a photo of me and you together.”
“So he’s going to find out that we know each other? Now I’m really confused.”
“No, he won’t know that. You’re to pretend that you don’t know me, and that you’ve mistaken me for a celebrity.”
“Who’s hanging out in Extreme Bowl in Glendale?”
“Yeah.”
“Won’t that look suspicious?”
“Not if you do it right. Act ditsy.”
“I can do that.”
“I know you can.”
She thinks a second. “Which celebrity?”
“I don’t know. Whichever one I look a little like.”
Kate thinks. “John Lithgow?”
“He’s sixty-something.”
“I know.” She sticks out her tongue, again not realizing Jake can’t see her.
“Someone else.”
“You don’t look like any celebrity.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“I know. Take one of those quizzes on Facebook then phone me back.”
“There isn’t time for that.”
Kate’s feeling the pressure. “I can’t think of anyone. It’s like one of those times when someone asks you what your favorite movie or record is. There are too many.”
“Okay, I’ll choose.” There’s silence. “Just say Brad Pitt or someone.”
“Brad Pitt?”
“Or someone…”
“We’re better off choosing someone who this guy doesn’t know. Not someone who he definitely knows.”
“Kate, that’s the smartest thing you’ve said all day.”
“Thanks. Is this guy young or old?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because if he’s young, we should go for someone from a bygone era…ooh, or maybe the son of a famous actor from a bygone era.”
“Good thinking. But I’m thinking maybe older. Besides, you’re young. You wouldn’t notice Gene Kelly’s son or someone of that ilk. He’s off your radar.”
“Who’s Gene Kelly?”
“Exactly my point.”
“Then someone who’s young. It’s our only shot.”
“Right.”
Kate scans the DVD shelves. “I got it. Orlando Bloom.”
“Never heard of the guy.”
“Really? He was in Lord of the Rings.”
“Never seen it.”
“Really?”
Jake breathes heavily into the phone. “We need to speed things along.”
“Orlando Bloom, then. I think you’re Orlando Bloom.” Kate giggles.
“Kate!”
“Sorry. What do I do after I’ve taken the
picture?”
“You need to go to my apartment. Tell the security guy I sent you, and use the words code yellow.”
“And he’ll know what that means?”
“He’ll know. He’ll give you a key to the apartment. I’ve got a spare cell from an outdated contract in my top bedside draw. Take it out, then find the number for Scottie McDougray. Send him the photograph and write that I need him to find out who the guy is.”
“Wait, which photo do I send? The one taken with the front or the back camera?”
“The one of him, not the one of me and you.”
“Right. Got it.”
“And Kate, thanks for this. Wear something that makes you incognito. These guys might be dangerous.”
“Ooh, I like a bit of danger.”
Kate hangs up, takes another pull of White Zin, then goes over to her wardrobe. She takes out a baseball cap and wayfarers, puts them on, then takes off her Lycra. She looks at herself in the mirror, shakes her tits, and repeats what she said to Jake. “I like a bit of danger.”
She dresses in something she thinks a tourist might wear then heads out.
On the way out, she goes past Mr. Heis’s door, stops, then thinks she’ll speak to him another day.
13.
CHARLES SPITS PHLEGM out onto a handkerchief, says, “You’re an unlucky kid, Jake.”
“How so?”
“That girl didn’t think you look anything like this Orland Bloom or whatever the fuck his name was.”
Sweat starts to develop on my upper lip. I resist the urge to wipe it away as Charles fixes me with a curious stare, as though he’s looking at the magician he hired for his daughter’s birthday who performed a trick he couldn’t work out.
“Why do you think that?”
“I watch movies. Often. And although I’m not usually good at remembering the names of the people I see on the screen, I remember this guy. Played some elf or something in the Lord of the Rings.”
He pauses, downs his Scotch then holds his empty glass up for the barman. “Now she was wearing wayfarers, but I didn’t see no seeing-eye dog. Did you, Jake?”
He laughs, pats me on the back, a little too hard to be jovial, and hard enough to let me feel the weight of his hands.
“I didn’t, Charles.”
“So we’re both agreed she could see?”
“We agree on that.”
“So I’m sitting here and adding all these things up as I play along—me, taking a couple of photographs, which you insisted on, I seem to remember.”
I want to break eye contact, but to do so would be telling.
“That’s what happened.”
“Right. It did. And I can only come to one conclusion…”
At this point the barman interrupts us by coming over with the drink, and sets it down. Without taking his eyes away from mine, Charles takes out a wad of cash, peels a note off the top, and then hands it to the barman, saying, “Keep the change.”
Like a tough guy in a Scorsese movie, Charles delays telling me his sole conclusion by taking a sip of Scotch. Pokerfaced, he says, “Where were we?”
“You were saying something about only one conclusion…”
“Right. So I add all that up, and the only conclusion I can come to is that broad wanted to bang you.”
Charles snorts with laughter, bangs the bar with his hand. I laugh along, out of relief.
Still laughing, Charles continues, “You poor son of a bitch. You’re stuck here with me, and some tight-assed twenty-something comes up to you, flirts with you in the only way she knows how. But you can’t do shit about it.”
This sets him off again. “I told you, one unlucky son of a bitch. And you would’ve banged her too. Am I right?”
“You’re right.”
Charles suddenly turns serious. “Of course I’m right, you dumb truck. That was a—whatcha call it?—rhetorical question. Who wouldn’t bang that broad?”
I don’t answer, and he stares at me as though he wants me to, then says, “Nah, I’m just messing with you. Let’s get down to brass tacks, kid.”
I nod, afraid to speak.
“The only thing I’m going to tell you about Leo is that he’s a mean son of a bitch, and real clever. He runs an organization, which retrieves lost gains in situations that an attorney is as useless as a pair of tits on a bull. Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t some mad gun-toting wild cat who’ll put a bullet in you, before first asking why you spat in his cocktail. He’s not like that. But he’d get someone else to do it. Someone, who if caught, would have motivation for doing the thing he did without Leo putting a cattle prod up his backside, just in case he were to decide that the law could help him. And that’s where you come into this.”
“Okay.”
“What do you mean okay? What the fuck kind of response is that. Say got it.”
“Got it.”
“Too right you have. He only takes specific cases. A lot of people in this world want money back from someone who they don’t know how to get it off. And most of those aren’t in unique positions that would allow Leo to use leverage against the taker. Hence his only taking specific cases.
“A couple weeks ago, some cat from Africa phones up, some cat that deals in uncut diamonds from Sierra Leone, and who has a hand in a heroin-smuggling ring based out of Nigeria. He’s as dumb as he sounds on the telephone, this guy. Guy had government officials and the law and military in his pocket, so everything had been running like shit out of a crack addict’s ass. Stones went out, money came in. Likewise with heroin. Made himself a cute pile of cash. Except one day the dumb shit bangs some politician’s wife who he shouldn’t have banged. Things start turning ugly for him. All of a sudden he’s no longer allowed to fly unchecked planes from some fly-bitten strip in Africa. All of a sudden police and military are no longer watching the asses of airhostesses making their way to Arrivals. Instead they’re suddenly taking an interest in the boys he gets to run his errands. He starts getting nervous, shuts operations down for a while. Starts thinking that cute pile of cash shouldn’t stay a pile of cash any longer. He thinks about offshore bank accounts, bearer bonds, any way he can launder the cash and keep it away from the grubby hands of those politicians. But there’s a reason this cat has a pile of cash in the first place. He wouldn’t trust his mom with ironing his shirts. So he starts putting his mind to it. Finds he has a deceased white relative who, in the great fuckup that is African bureaucracy, was never issued a death certificate. He decides that if there’s one relative he can trust, it’s a dead one. All he’s got to do is set up bank accounts in the guy’s name, forge all the bureaucratic documentation—which in Africa is as simple as upgrading your fries from medium to large at McDonald’s, at least with the contacts this guy has—deposit the cash in the accounts, make a will for this relative, kill some old guy, who he’ll plant identification on. Death get’s processed, he ‘inherits’ his own money. Tax-free, too. Then he’s home and dry. Politicians can’t touch him.
“Except his brother betrays him, lays claim to some of the inheritance. This brother gets some heat, so he runs off to the good ol’ US of A. Makes his home in Hollywood, the first place he thought of. Gets involved with some nurse, who’s called—”
I interrupt him. “Regan Coalfield.”
14.
“RIGHT, YOUR WIFE.”
“My ex-wife.”
“We’ve looked into this, and you’re legally married to her. Am I right?”
“On paper, yeah. But we’ve been separated awhile.”
“You’re telling this to a man who already knows, Jake. You keep in contact with her, too, though, am I right?”
I don’t answer.
“Yeah you do. Which puts you in a unique position to help us with what we need to do.”
“How so?”
“This guy’s covered his tracks well. He’s not registered at any address. He only has a pre-paid cell. To cut a long story short, we can’t find him. Plus, if we could, there’
s still the issue of our not getting too involved in the retrieval of the ill-gotten gains. That’s where you come into this.”
“You already said that.”
Charles raises an eyebrow. “I know I did, you conceited little prick.” He adjusts his sitting position, takes a sip of Scotch, and then continues. “So here’s what I need you to do. You’re going to arrange to see your wife—”
“Ex-wife.”
“Wife. You’re going to tell her you’d like to meet the new man in her life.”
“And why would I want to do that?”
“That’s for you to come up with.”
I sigh. “Charles, have you spoken to my ex-wife?”
“What do you think?”
“No, I think you definitely haven’t. We’re not exactly on speaking terms. And if we were, there’s no way she’d agree to meet me, especially with her new boyfriend.”
“That’s not what your phone records show.”
“What we do on the telephone can’t exactly be called speaking. More like sumo wrestling, but with words.”
“That’s your problem, not mine.”
I take a deep breath, then speak. “I know you think you’ve got the right man for the job, but I’m telling you you’re wrong. You seem like a reasonable guy. I tell you what. If you guys give back Mary and Randy, and Cole Baxter, too, then we can forget about the kidnapping and other felonies. We all walk away from this.”
“Not going to happen, Jake. Unfortunately for you, you’re the only man for the job, regardless of whether you think you’re the right one or not.”
I don’t respond, just take a sip of beer, my eyes darting around the bar.
“It’s getting late, Jake. You’re going to have to make the call.”
I think a second. “So what’s Cole Baxter got to do with this?”
“You’re stalling.”
“Just tell me and then we’ll get the ball rolling on this gig.”
He sighs. “Okay, Cole Baxter is nothing more than a smokescreen. We know how the Agency operates. We knew that if we abducted one of you guys, made it look like our interest was in the Agency itself, then you’d retreat into a bunker, hole up somewhere. Communications would be shut down, and at some point you’d be isolated from them, giving us an opportunity to manipulate you, without them sticking their beaks in.”
