by K A Kron
“What are you talking about?” She looked puzzled, her turn to be caught off balance.
“Tommy was on the news, going bonkers. They took him away. I thought he was on the phone with you at the time, the way they showed him ranting and raving at someone.”
Ali started laughing. “And you didn’t tell me? This I’ve gotta see.” She first took out her phone and found that the voice mail was full, putting it on speaker for both of us to listen to Tommy’s escalating pleas and threats to both of us. We listened in silence, neither of us finding it funny, as these were obviously from a seriously disturbed person and should be taken seriously. When he was sprung, it would be a whole new ball game. Next she pulled out her laptop and checked for the story, finding it online and streaming it live. I hoped I wasn’t in any of the footage. “Holy shit. He really did lose it, didn’t he?” She played it again. “I wonder how long they’ll keep him.”
She studied me. “Well, I figured Tommy was either going to take me out or take himself out, or both. It wouldn’t be pretty, but now it looks like I’m getting a break, for a little while. Maybe my luck’s changing.”
I was thinking that it was Tommy’s luck that was changing, and not for the good. I knew that I had to keep close tabs on Tommy and not underestimate him. Tommy had apparently been doing his homework, as some of the information he left on his voice mails could only have been obtained by watching us.
Chapter 22
“Damn it, Riley! Where the fuck have you been?”
Shit, shit, shit, I thought, flying into the bar. Adam was madder than I expected, and his bellow was carrying across the room. It wasn’t lost on either of us that the regular customers barely looked up from their various activities and that it was becoming a familiar scene for all of them. I figured that wasn’t going to work in my favor.
“Adam. I am so sorry. I really mean it, too. I overslept, and I know I’m late, but I tried to call and…,” my words died in my throat as I looked at his expression.
He stared at me from his place behind the bar without moving, and I knew Adam was beyond angry. I was over an hour late, and Oliver was scurrying to keep up with an unusually large and growing crowd by himself. Oliver sidestepped Adam to take an order from a customer, giving both of us a wide berth. Although I had left Oliver in a lurch without any help, and he had every right to be furious, he instead blew me a kiss while passing behind Adam. I loved Oliver to his core at that moment.
“You’re fired, Riley. I’ll mail you a final check,” Adam said and turned to take a beer order without another word.
The surprise on my face was evident, although it shouldn’t have been. Deep down, I knew Adam was only going to indulge my tardiness for so long, so I sighed heavily and turned to leave. I really liked working at the bar and would miss everyone. I also knew that arguing with Adam when he was so angry would be useless, and I decided to take the path of least resistance. Unfortunately, Oliver wasn’t of the same mind-set.
“No, Adam! We need her here! Don’t fucking do that to me! How the fuck do you think that’s going to help, especially right now? Do you see this motherfucking crowd‽ What is your fucking problem, you douche?” Oliver had squared off with Adam behind the bar, an action that our crowd rarely saw performed by a gay man, apparently, gauging their collective reaction. Adam, in contrast, wasn’t a stranger to threats or confrontations and dismissed Oliver with a scowl and a shake of his furry head. It was high drama, and the bar was suddenly quiet, the air having been sucked from the room, all because I couldn’t seem to use a standard clock efficiently.
I lunged across the bar and grabbed both of their upper arms. Oliver, now clearly in over his head, looked at me with wide eyes while Adam merely raised his eyebrows in my general direction and cocked his head.
“Oliver, no. Adam is right…this is my fault. I’m sorry I let you down today.” I turned and pushed my way through the crowd to the door, knowing that everyone in the place was watching me go. I hoped I was leaving with at least a little dignity and given credit for not escalating the situation when the story was retold later. I had been present in many bars when staff had been fired and had watched grown adults make complete fools of themselves during and after being terminated. One waitress in Chicago, in particular, had found it necessary to throw glassware at everyone and anything present while she left the establishment. Of course, now that I understood the process and the accompanying public humiliation, I was starting to appreciate her point.
I hit the door without looking back and found myself standing in the afternoon gloom without a plan for a free afternoon.
“Hey, you okay?” Chris stepped in front of me, and I realized I must look weird, standing motionless in the middle of the sidewalk. I forced a smile and shrugged.
“Yes, I’m good. That was embarrassing, but Adam is right. I was late one too many times and left Oliver without any backup. It’s no wonder he’s mad. It will be okay, but thanks for asking.”
Chris ran her hand across her short hair, a habit I had noticed during our time together in the bar. “I don’t think it’s over, if you want the truth. Oliver is in a full queen meltdown in there, and Adam is getting a lot of shit from the customers for letting you go, especially like that. It’s a train wreck. You handled that well, and he already looks a bit sheepish.”
I felt a little hope. Maybe I could grovel and get the job back when Adam calmed down. It wasn’t that I needed the money by any means, but I was grounded by the people who surrounded me each shift. Besides, I rationalized, Adam needed me to keep his weekly debauchery events in line and his other staff out of jail and detox.
I remembered that I had planned to investigate Chris’s conflict with her neighbor before being derailed by Tommy’s arrest. Feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline that came with the hunt, I knew how I would fill my afternoon. With a quick hug and a promise to talk later, I left Chris and made my way toward her apartment, singing an off-key version of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” I smiled to myself. The day was looking up.
Chapter 23
I drove through Chris’s Highlands neighborhood and noticed the similarities to my own. Highlands was a new “it” place to live, and the rapid neighborhood transformation was being driven by investors and the tragically hip want-to-be’s. I parallel parked in a narrow space on the first try, another sign of good luck. I grabbed another baseball cap, along with my sunglasses, and wrapped a bright scarf around my neck, reminding myself to work on the disguise before the next time. I stopped and watched the car door swing closed with a click. The fact that my mind had just made the leap from now to “next time” was both concerning and somehow exciting. I frowned at the window reflection and then gave myself a shit-eating grin. This was crazy, I thought.
The snow that had been falling steadily the night before was slowing and I picked my way down the sidewalk. I found myself walking past Chris’s house within a few minutes. The houses on her block were a mix of overpriced “investment” homes that looked like dilapidated shacks and beautifully restored Victorians. Clearly, the urban renewal was a work in progress.
Chris seemed to be on the positive side of the movement, and I admired her professionally renovated bungalow home from across the street. It was difficult to loiter in the area without being obvious, so I started walking again while intently peering into people’s yards.
“Sparkles! Here, Sparkles,” I called. Yes, it was ridiculous, but it was the first name that popped into my head. “Come here, girl! Sparkles!” I wandered down the block, now taking my time to survey the area. Chris’s house was quiet, and the only movement on the block was in the front yard of the evil neighbor’s house. I took a second to thank my continued fortune and slowly made my way down the sidewalk, calling for the phantom Sparkles.
I watched out of the corner of my eye as a teenage boy shoveling snow in front of Chris’s neighbor’s house paused to peer at me. The computer records told me that the owner of the house was Jennifer Hernandez and
that she was forty-six years old and worked in an urgent care clinic as a nurse. Hernandez was the only person associated with the address; there had been no mention of a younger male in the records. The boy, who by my untrained eye looked about thirteen years old, leaned against the snow shovel as he removed the white iPod ear buds and turned in my direction. I continued down the block, now unable to see him, and kept walking until I was sure I was out of his sight. Taking a chance, I ducked into a yard with a snow covered bush near the sidewalk.
The boy had dismissed me and returned to the driveway, probably hoping to finish quickly and spend the rest of a cold day doing something more enjoyable. Chris hadn’t mentioned a boy at the crazy neighbor’s, and I wondered if he’d been hired to clear the snow, or if he lived at the house, which was small and had been renovated recently. An older Honda Accord was parked in front, and an American flag hung from the porch awning, along with a Tibetan prayer flag. Despite Chris’s story, it didn’t look like a vindictive, homophobic woman lived there.
From the shelter of the bush, I watched the boy toss the snow into the street and wondered if I would ever have a house. I tried to envision summer days working in the yard with Ali, planting and caring for our shared space, or clearing the snow so she would be safe coming in the front door. It was a nice vision. I brought myself back to reality and focused again on the kid.
He had stopped to at the top of the driveway and took the time to fiddle with the ear buds. I could see the boy moving his head to the music and laughed as he danced his way down the driveway, oblivious to my attention. A moonwalk across the driveway that would have made Michael Jackson roll in his grave finished the performance, and the boy unceremoniously, dropped the shovel onto the snowy lawn. With a pop of his foot, the shovel was in the boy’s hand again, and he headed back up the drive.
It was about then that the snowball hit me in the back of the head.
Startled, I spun in the direction of the assault and only succeeded in slipping and falling into the bush. Furious, I struggled to my feet, only to again slip and fall, this time sliding halfway under the shrubbery.
“Hey!” I yelled from the ground. I used the bush to pull myself into a standing position and held onto it for support, as I waddled back onto the apparent safety of the icy sidewalk.
“Hey, yourself, young lady. What are you doing in my bush?” An elderly woman in a plush green track suit held another snowball at the ready, in case I dared to step back onto her property.
“Sorry! Geesh, lady! I was just looking for my cat. I didn’t mean to get in your bush!” I tried to appear indignant while feeling ridiculous arguing with an eighty-year-old in a velvet track suit. In any other situation, my immaturity would have taken over, and I would have found the “bush” comment hilarious. But the bat was feisty, and I was mad. Plus, I was wet and filthy, and I was conscious that I was wearing a tight exercise shirt and had put on the wrong bra for a wet T-shirt contest. Or maybe the right bra, depending on your perspective.
“Get out of my yard, you! There’s no cat in the damn bush, you fool!” She waved the snowball in my direction again, and I took the opportunity to start back up the block with a final wave.
“Thanks! I appreciate the help! Tell Sparkles to call home, if you see her.” I walked back toward the boy and his shovel. He had stopped to watch the exchange.
“Sparkles! Here, Sparkles!” My cover had been blown, but I still felt compelled to keep up the act, if only for my pride. I made a show of still looking in the yards, calling every few steps. The boy was now openly watching me and called to me as I neared his house.
“Did you lose your dog?” The boy was older than I had thought originally, and I put him at closer to sixteen. His baby features were giving way to those of an adult man, and the hint of a beard told me I had misjudged his age. The teenager’s dark skin glowed, even in the dead of winter, and he gave me a half smile as his eyes slid toward my chest.
“Nope, my cat. Have you seen her?”
“Lots of cats in the neighborhood. It’s filled with lesbians. What does she look like?”
He didn’t seem to be making a judgment with the lesbian comment and instead was making a statement of fact, at least in his mind. I felt myself warming to the kid, despite myself. Where was the crazy bitch of a neighbor, I thought.
“She’s, um, orangeish, with stripes. And some black…and white. But mostly orange.” I reminded myself to come up with a better disguise and a better cover story next time.
“So you lost a tiger? Named Sparkles?”
He was definitely screwing with me, judging by the open smirk on his face. His eyes again wandered to my breasts, and I cursed my thin bra.
“No, smart ass. It’s a cat. Have you seen her or not? And stop looking at my chest. I know what you’re thinking, so stop it.”
The kid at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “Sorry…I’m sixteen. I can’t help but think about it. Cripes, it’s all I think about,” he said with a wistful sigh.
“Cat?” I asked, tearing him back to reality.
“I’m Jordan,” he said, offering his hand.
“Sarah,” I lied, offering my standard alias.
“Sarah, there’s no cat. Even I’m not fooled by that, and you can bet old Mrs. Sheenbergen didn’t believe you, either. You’re lucky she hit you with a snowball and not a shotgun.” He laughed. “So what are you doing here?” He slid me an excited look. “Bounty hunter? Like Dog?” he asked, referring to the lunatics who track down people who jump bail. “Who are you looking for?”
“Do you live here?” He was making it too easy, and I hoped the luck pendulum was swinging back toward my side. Luck was feeling a little fickle today.
“Yeah, me and my mom. We’ve lived here a long time, so if you need help finding someone in the neighborhood, I can probably help.” Jordan looked eager and seemed to genuinely want to help me. I don’t know if the wet shirt had tipped the scales, but I wasn’t going to question it. I wasn’t getting the impression that he was the maladjusted son of a homophobic lunatic. Since the stealthy method had been a fiasco, I decided to be more direct.
“You mentioned that a lot of lesbians live here. How do you know that?”
Jordan grinned. “You’re kidding, right? Look around and see for yourself. There’s a pretty diverse group of people who live in the neighborhood. Oldsters like Mrs. Sheenbergen, a bunch of Hispanic people who bought here when it was the only area they could afford, and now younger people. A lot of them are gay.” He shrugged. “It’s cool.”
“It sounds like the area is changing. Sometimes that makes people angry. Have you ever heard of any problems around here?” I made a wide sweeping gesture with my arm, indicating the whole neighborhood, but my eyes settled on Chris’s house.
Jordan followed my gaze, and his mouth set in an angry line. I watched a scowl cross his face, and he shook his head before looking back at me. A dog barked on the block behind us, and I waited for Jordan to answer.
“Problem would be an understatement. Ever since that lady moved in last year, we have had problems. I wish that bitch would move.”
Bingo. I was pushing the right buttons and kept going, feeling the first signs of regret, since I liked Jordan—he seemed fairly normal. It was too bad his mom was making Chris’s life hell for her gay lifestyle.
“Wow. That’s pretty harsh. What’s her deal?” I tried to sound shocked, but Jordan didn’t need any more prompting.
“She’s a fucking drug dealer, that’s what. Sorry.”
I dismissed it with a shake of my head. I tried not to look shocked, but I doubt I succeeded. This was news and, if true, changed the scenario.
“There are people coming at all hours of the day and night, running in and out of the house getting their shit from her,” he said. “She’s selling to little kids, old people…whoever comes by. She and my mom have gotten into it a few times, and we’ve called the cops, but they don’t care. It’s total bullshit.”
&nb
sp; I needed more than that. The revelation was confusing and not what I had expected. Chris and I were not close friends, but I assumed that I would have noticed if she was using or selling drugs. “So is she the only one who lives there? Have you actually seen her selling drugs?”
“Yep, she lives alone. Short woman with even shorter hair. And I have seen her dealing drugs in the front yard—she’s that bold.” His eyes darkened, and Jordan shook his head in anger. “She’s selling that shit to kids. Kids who have no idea what they’re getting themselves into. The final straw was when she offered me an eight ball of coke a few weeks ago right here in our yard.” Jordan laughed. “That’s when my mom had a fit. I told her when she got home from work, and she marched over there, ready to brawl.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“It was a major letdown. The bitch wasn’t home, so my mom left a note on the door and called the cops. They didn’t do anything, of course.”
“Is she gay?”
Jordan was stopped by the sudden shift in the conversation and gave me an odd look. I didn’t blame him. It was turning out to be a strange encounter for both of us.
“Yeah, so what? What does that have to do with it?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t have anything to do with it.”
I left Jordan to his shoveling and made my way home, in a funk. The day was turning out to be epic in the crap department, and I wanted a quiet evening to myself. Beer, macaroni and cheese, and a Seinfeld marathon seemed to be in order.
As I drove back toward my apartment, I reviewed the last twenty-four hours. I had been publicly fired from a job I had really liked. The woman I was starting to have real feelings for was being stalked by a lunatic that I had temporarily disposed of, and I almost took out a nice boy and his mother because I had been fooled by a drug dealer.
“Bad Romance” came on the radio station, and I stabbed the radio off with my index finger. “Fuck you, Lady Gaga.”
