by E M Kaplan
CHAPTER 34
Drew went back to his place to clean up while Josie took a shower. Despite his assurance that it was just a night out with the gang, she lingered over her choice of outfits. She tried on a couple of different ones, including an long J. Crew skirt before she gave up, stripped down again, and put on a pair of soft jeans with a casual striped knit top. She pulled her hair back in a clip, gave herself a once-over in the mirror, and said, “You’re nuts” for good measure.
O’Malley’s was only mildly crowded for a Friday night. Josie looked at her friends’ faces. Oh, yeah—Susan, Benjy, Drew, and Josie sitting around a high-topped table just like old times. Josie could feel the tension unknitting in her shoulders, unraveling from her stomach. They managed to get a good table toward the front. They could see out the street-side windows, which made her feel less claustrophobic. Drew ordered a pitcher and some spicy wings—the guy had a stomach of steel. She still couldn’t handle them herself, but she watched him dig into them with a fervor getting the orange sauce all over his mouth and fingers. After a while, Susan caved and took one, too.
Benjy was busy telling them about his new venture. He’d moved out of Drew’s place and was house-sitting what sounded like a palatial estate.
“And I’ve started my own business,” he said. “I just made an initial investment, so it won’t pay off for a while. But when it does, it’s really going to take off.”
Drew wiped his mouth and took a swallow of beer. Josie found herself staring at his mouth, wondering what it would feel like on her skin. Drew caught her gaze and swallowed hard. He said to Benjy, without taking his eyes off her, “Oh yeah, what is it?”
“Are you ready for this?” Benjy, his blue eyes glittering, leaned in close to protect his secret as if anyone in the bar could actually hear beyond a two-foot radius. On top of that, there was a hazy cloud forming—cigars, it smelled like. Someone was ignoring the no-smoking ordinance.
“People ought to take that outside,” Susan complained, noticing the smoke, too. She delicately waved sticky orange fingers in front of her face.
“Here’s what I’ve got,” Benjy said more insistently. He gestured them to lean closer, which they did mostly to humor him. He grinned at them and said, “Mall carts.”
Susan immediately leaned back and resumed eating the wing she’d paused in the middle of—dismissive and unsurprised. But Josie couldn’t help but blink at him.
Drew said, “Uh, exactly how much did you invest in this?”
“Ten thousand. I got a loan from my dad.”
Drew balked. “Your dad gave you ten thousand dollars to invest in some mall carts?”
Benjy grinned. “You seriously think I would tell him what it was for? I told him I was going back to school to get my M.B.A.” Josie couldn’t help but laugh, which Benjy mistook for encouragement. “Now you see where I’m going with this, right?” he said to her.
She shook her head. “No, Benjy. Not at all.”
He started to try to explain more. Susan was cleaning her fingers with a wet napkin. She took a drink from her mug and paused in mid-swallow. Josie saw her exchanging a strange look with Drew. Josie turned toward Drew, but he seemed just as stunned.
“What is it?” Josie asked her.
A shocked look came over Susan’s face. Then, she gestured across the bar. “The Williams brothers. I just saw them over there.”
Josie’s mouth went dry and her stomach dropped. Here? Why would they be here, of all places? With their resources and connections, they could have been anywhere in the world. Switzerland. A Bahamanian resort. Brazil, for crying out loud.
More than ever, it was clear they had no fear of the legal system and that somewhere in Arizona their freedom had probably been granted by the exchange of a very large amount of money. And that some red-faced corrupt official was about to start enjoying his time in Switzerland, the Bahamas, or Brazil. Her attempted murderers were free and clear and smoking cigars in the same bar that she was in now. Blood roared in her ears, and her instinct was to slink under the table and hide.
Her friends, on the other hand, were furious. Susan shook her head, sputtering, unable to get out any further words through her pursed lips. Her teeth were clenched so tightly that the workings of her jaw line stood out under her smooth skin. Drew grabbed his cell phone to call the police. Josie was a hair’s breadth away from full-out panic, gripping the edge of the table with both hands.
Benjy was eyeing her anxiously. “Let’s leave,” he said. She nodded. With one hand pressing his phone to an ear, Drew grabbed her jacket from where it was slung over the back of her chair.
“Can you still see them?” Josie asked Susan, her voice a stuttering rasp. Josie kept her head down, feeling like she had a target on her back. She was probably safe. All these witnesses. The crowds would keep her safe. Her rate of respiration had accelerated so much spots were swimming in front of her eyes. Moving out of the state didn’t seem like such a bad idea right about now. Alaska sounded pretty good.
“Hang tight a minute. I’ll go see where they are. Then, we can leave.” Susan gave her hand a squeeze.
Benjy craned his neck, watching Susan as she slipped ahead in the crowd. “Where’d she go? Can you see her at all?” In fact, Josie could see Susan, who shrugged her shoulders and shook her head at them. Meaning she had lost sight of the brothers.
Josie scanned the room. They had to be around there somewhere. Gloating and smoking their Cubans. She was grinding her teeth trying to stay calm. Behind her, Drew had stood up on his toes for a better look around the bar. In this crowd, it was hard to see the beyond the next person, never mind across the room. Now Susan had disappeared.
“She can’t find them,” Josie told them. “Maybe we should just get out of here.”
Drew said, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Let’s just stay put for a second. I’m sure they’re back there somewhere.”
Josie sank back down in her chair while the two guys stood at their table, scanning the room. She looked down at their forgotten beers and wings. God, was it always going to be like this from now on? She looked outside and suddenly the Williams brothers were standing directly outside the bar on the other side of the glass from her. Inches away. “They’re right there,” she whispered.
Peter Williams noticed her first. The bar was brightly lit, as if she were in a glass case on display. He hit Michael’s arm and pointed at her. Then, Peter positioned his cigar in the corner of his mouth and flipped the double bird, middle fingers upright and almost touching the glass directly in her face. Michael turned slowly and when he saw her, he did nothing except give her a toothy, ghoulish smile and then continued to smoke. She met their looks and gestures stoically without flinching. But Drew pulled her away from the window and positioned his body between them, glaring at the brothers. Michael chuckled at that, then, pulled his brother by the elbow and they walked on.
“Those fuckers. I could kill them.” Drew turned back to her, seething with fury. “Are you okay?”
“Yep. I’m fine,” she said. It was a lie, but it made her feel better to say it.
Susan made it back to the table at that moment. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t find them at all.” She was flushed, her pretty face tight with worry, strands of hair falling across her eyes.
“They were right out there a second ago,” Benjy told her, pointing out the window.
“Oh my God, did they see you?” Susan asked.
“Yep, they did,” Benjy answered.
Standing behind her now, Drew’s big hand gripped her shoulder, calming her.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Susan asked. Josie nodded, taking a few deep breaths. She clenched her teeth and was finally able to say, “Yeah. I’m okay now. It’s okay,” she tried to reassure them.
“Is it safe to get out of here now?” Susan wanted to know.
“They went up the street. Let’s give it a few more minutes and I’ll go get the car.” Drew said.
Jos
ie nodded. In an odd way, she was experiencing a rush of adrenaline, as if she’d seen two feral animals stroll down the street. She thought of them as animals, she realized. And if she’d had a gun—and knew how to use it—she probably would not have felt any remorse about hunting them down in the street. “Sit down,” she told them. Then, she put her hand on Drew’s arm. “Sit back down for a while,” she said again.
“I don’t understand why they would show their faces here,” Susan said.
“It’s like they were bragging,” Benjy said. “They think they can do anything they want and get away with it. ‘Of all the juice joints they had to walk into’,” Benjy added in his best Bogart impression. Josie gave him a weak smile. Two guys out there had tried to kill her and now publicly taunted her about it. They were immune to the laws of ordinary people.
“We should call the police again,” Susan said.
“No, don’t,” Josie said, and they all stared at her.
A strange peace came over her. Between the din of the bar crowd and the rush of blood in her head that was now receding, she had a screwed up moment of clarity. She appreciated her friends’ concern, for sure. But she felt oddly at peace with the situation. Didn’t they realize? In a sense, every one of them was in as much danger as she was. Every single person in the bar had a predator out there waiting for them, stalking them. Fate. Destiny. Potential disaster. Whatever she wanted to call it. Most people just weren’t aware of the danger, whereas, she knew her predators. They had names. They had faces. She had dealt with them once and had walked away—barely, she realized. But she’d survived.
Drew stood up abruptly. “I can’t sit here. I’m going to get the car.” Josie nodded at him because she understood his anxiety. She was almost detached from her own. He said, “Watch the front. I’ll pull up.”
“Then we can get the hell out of here,” Susan said, who looked sick and was shivering.
Drew made it halfway to the door when there was a commotion outside. Josie heard screams. Outside the window, someone ran down the street. Two or three more people ran in that same direction. Inside the bar, everyone pressed against the windows for a better look, including Josie. As they started to stream toward the door, spilling out into the street, they lost Drew in the crowd.
“What’s going on?” Benjy asked, but Josie was too short to see anything. Benjy took her hand and then Susan’s so they wouldn’t be separated. The mass of bodies blocked Josie’s view of the street. The bar patrons crowded outside, some with their beer mugs still in their fists. Then, a police siren blared, and Josie saw the flashing lights through the spaces between the people milling around.
A young woman bumped into them. “What’s going on?”
“We can’t see anything,” Susan told her. “We have no idea.”
The woman said, “I heard that there was a carjacking. Someone called the police on his cell phone.”
Josie frowned in confusion. Just as she was starting to feel somewhat at peace with the whole insane thing…Was violence following her around? Drew pushed his way back to them. “It’s time for us to leave,” he said, grabbing her hand.
“Let’s go through the bar and out the back door,” she said. The rear of the bar emptied into the street away from the commotion and the police.
“What in the hell is going on?” Drew said as the four of them burst into the back alley. But Josie was in no mood to stop and talk. She had the sudden paranoid fear that the brothers had created this distraction so they could come back and kill her, unnoticed. She headed toward the car. Drew aimed his remote key at the car and the door was unlocked by the time she made it there, almost sprinting. She climbed in, soon followed by the rest of them.
They pulled away from O’Malley’s, the flashing police lights hitting the building fronts that they drove past. A block later, they were stopped by a police checkpoint. The hatless officer who stopped them was a young man, who looked a little rattled standing there in his leather jacket with his too-short haircut. His breath puffed out in a cloud in the chilly night air. Drew rolled down his window as the patrolman shined a flashlight into their car, checking out each of their faces. “What happened back there, officer?” Drew asked him.
On the officer’s jacket epaulet, his radio crackled. He listened for a minute, and then turned it down. He leaned in closer to Drew’s window and said with typical Southie nonchalance, “Sounds like a carjacking gone bad. Two guys shot dead in the head. Go on home now. It’ll be in the papers tomorrow.” He tapped the window and stood back, gesturing for Drew to drive on. Drew rolled up his window. Josie wasn’t sure if she’d heard the officer correctly.
Susan said, “Was it them? Do you think it could have been them? Peter and Michael shot dead? They were going that direction, weren’t they?”
Drew reached across the console to give Josie’s hand a squeeze.
“Crazy coincidence, if it was,” Benjy said, the whites of his eyes reflecting the passing streetlight.
No coincidence. Josie was certain.
CHAPTER 35
Drew dropped Susan off first. Benjy walked her in—they watched her unlock the entry door to her apartment building. Drew idled in the car at the curb with his hazards on as she and Benjy walked up the stairs to her apartment on the second floor. Josie saw the lights come on in her place. Susan came to the window and gave them a little wave. Benjy came back downstairs and leaned out of the lobby door beckoning to Drew, who stepped out of the car to talk with him. Alone in the car, Josie scanned the street. Then Benjy went back into Susan’s building, and Drew slid back into the driver’s seat. “What’s going on?” Josie asked him.
“Susan’s freaking. Benjy’s going to stay on her couch tonight. And I think I’ll go with you to your place,” he said. “Check it out with you and make sure you feel safe. Bert is going to need to go out.”
“Sure,” she said nervously. “You on call tomorrow?”
“No—two days off in a row.”
“Minor miracle,” she said. “My couch is pretty comfortable. I’ve been testing it out a lot the last few months. If you want to stay over,” she added.
“You’d feel better if I did that?” He glanced at her.
She nodded. “Yeah. These are strange times.” She cleared her throat. Eventually a few things were going to have to be cleared up between them. Either that, or the chitchat would kill her.
Before long, he was parking his car in the guest space in the garage under her apartment building. They went up to her place—she unlocked the door and he insisted on going in first. All they met was a frantically happy dog.
“I’ll take him around the block, if you want,” he offered. She cast a glance at the messy couch and agreed. “Lock the door behind me,” he reminded her. “But don’t forget to let us back in.”
What an odd sensation it was, she realized, to be alone in her place but to know that he would be back in a few minutes. She cleared off the couch and brought out clean bedding and a pillow. She took a deep breath in the pillow and was suddenly glad that Susan had gotten her those cedar air fresheners for her closets. She plumped it up and arranged it on one end of the couch, fidgeting.
Then she went into the kitchen and dug around the cabinets for the coffee pot. Drew was a coffee addict, but she refused to make anything but decaf at night. She’d actually bought fresh beans at her last trip to the store and now ground them up for a pot. By the time he knocked, coffee was brewing and filling her place with its warm aroma. She heard Bert’s feet scrabbling around on the floor outside her front door. She peeked through the door hole and saw Drew out there looking down at Bert. She smiled and said in a low voice, “What’s the password?”
There was a momentary pause. Then Drew said, “Pig-headed.”
She laughed and unlocked the door, though her fingers weren’t as steady as usual. The night must have gotten cooler outside because his cheeks were red. “Ah. Methinks me smells nectar of the gods.” She took Bert’s lead from him and unhooked it.
Drew dumped his jacket on the back of the couch and went into the kitchen for a mug.
“You want some, too?” he offered her.
She shook her head, “I only like it if it’s about half milk. And soy milk isn’t quite cutting it.” She stood behind him watching him pour, watching him be totally at ease in her kitchen. With his height and thick shoulders, he filled the space up.
“No improvement since you stopped eating the milk stuff?” he said, stopping mid-pour to look at her. It was hard to stop watching his hands and focus on what he was asking. She recognized the doctorly line of questioning and realized that he probably wasn’t ever not at work. Or maybe slipping back into the doctor role was his comfort zone.
“No, not really. But the good news is, my stomach hasn’t gotten any worse. Even with all this going on.”
“Go ahead and reintroduce some milk stuff then,” he said. “Maybe we’ll sign you up for some allergy tests. If you want,” he added belatedly, probably realizing that he was sounding more authoritative than he’d meant to, standing in her kitchen with her dog leaning against him. He reached over and turned off the pot.
“You hungry or anything?” She rubbed the skin behind her ear. Then stopped self-consciously.
“No. I’m set. It’s getting pretty late.” He said, “I guess maybe I should turn in.”
“Oh. Okay.” She turned. “I’ll just go…brush my teeth.” She went into the bathroom and fished around in the drawers. A few minutes later, she went back out to the couch area. He was already spreading out the bedding and rearranging his pillow. His shoes were off and kicked under the coffee table. “Hey, I have a brand new toothbrush if you want to use it. Still in the package.” She held it out to him. He took it, and surprised her by following her when she turned to go back to the bathroom.
