Down and Out in Beverly Heels

by Kathryn Leigh Scott

  “The bag on my front steps?”

  “Yeah,” she breathes, radiating Bambi-eyed wonderment. “I honestly couldn’t believe you’d fall for something like that. The only call Paul could make was to you—and he had to somehow alert Proznorov. I was shocked when I picked up that bag and saw what was in it. Even the Cartier pin I gave you for your thirtieth birthday. How could you? Jesus. All of it just dumped in a crummy Safeway grocery bag—”

  “Obviously, he knew me better than you did. I would’ve done anything to save Paul.”

  “Don’t get ratty on me,” she says, her voice harsh. “I was sick with worry. I just wish I could’ve been the one to pick up Paul that night instead of Lucy. He should have called me!”

  How ironic that while I sat waiting for the kidnapper’s call, a tug–of-war was going on between Lucy and Carol about which one would pick up Paul in La Paz. I swallow hard, recalling that I told Jack how sorry I was that it hadn’t been me picking him up. What was I thinking? I watch Carol stroll to the bar, confident and back in control. She’s right. I missed all the warning signals. But even now, with so much explained, I’m not surprised I behaved as I did. I loved Paul. I would never have believed he would betray me like this.

  Carol flips a switch next to the bar. Gelled lamps glow around the dock, resetting the scene. Fairy lights bloom in the bougainvillea, illuminating the patio like a stage set. It strikes me that I missed all the warning signs in Carol, too. When we were both studio contract players, I knew she was making a play for Dirck, and I brushed it off. She was too obvious to take seriously. No matter how outrageously she behaved, I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

  She sets two wineglasses on the bar, humming to herself. Then, her manner girlish and confiding, she says, “All the poor guy ever needed was someone to believe in him. I do. I love him, Meg. I’ve loved him since the first time I laid eyes on him. We’re so good together. Listen, I even got his cholesterol down. No more gravy biscuits, you know?” She laughs. “God love ’em, Kentucky boys love their ham and grits.”

  “You mean West Virginia boy, don’t you?”

  “What? Man, you really didn’t know him at all, did you?” Her laughter rings across the patio. “He’s Louisville, Kentucky, darlin’—born and bred.”

  “No, Carol. Whatever he told you, he’s from West Virginia.”

  “Kentucky!” Carol thumps her hands on the bar and grins. “What the hell, we’ll ask him when he gets here. Want to lay a bet?”

  “Sure. Name it.”

  “Okay, but what? You don’t have any money—and I already have Paul.”

  “So it appears. You’re just going to run off with him?”

  “Actually, I already did. But I went back. It was Paul’s idea that I keep a lid on Sid for a while so he wouldn’t spill everything. But I managed to visit my mother a lot.” She winks. “Okay, that’s the bad part out of the way. I hope you’re okay with it. To tell you the truth, I probably saved Sid’s life. These Russkies don’t have a lot of patience. They’d kill as soon as look at you.” She sighs and reaches into the cooler for the bottle of Pinot Grigio. “There’s a lot I’d just as soon not know. Let’s drink to getting all this behind us.”

  I pull a stool away from the bar and perch on the edge. “It’s hard to keep up with you, Carol. One minute you hate me; the next you’re my best friend.”

  “You just can’t move on, can you?” she snaps. “I said I was sorry.” She grips the bottle, her eyes frosty. “It’s not that I hate you, but you do get on my nerves sometimes. You really do. If those stupid earrings mean that much to you, I could try to get them back from Lucy. How’s that?”

  “You’ve seen her lately?”

  “None of your damn business.”

  “Sorry, I heard she’d disappeared.”

  “She tried to rat out Paul. So did Erica.” Carol eyes me coldly. “You know, I don’t expect any gratitude from you, but I probably saved your life, too. I don’t know why I bothered.”

  A deep-throated burble sounds in the distance. Carol’s eyes flick toward the bay. “He’ll be here soon.”

  I slide off the bar stool, turning to look across the water, shimmering in the last slivers of sunlight. Squinting into the glare, I barely make out what appears to be a cabin cruiser.

  Behind me, Carol’s voice is low, distant. “He’s mine now, Meg. I just wish I could trust you.”

  I turn back, a chill crawling up my neck. I catch a flash of Carol’s arm swooping high, her hand gripping the neck of the bottle like a tennis racquet. In the instant it takes me to duck, her powerful stroke smashes the bottle against the wooden sign before it can hit my head. I turn away, wine and shards of glass raining on my back.

  Above the bar, the heavy sign creaks and twists off its hooks. I blink, thrusting myself sideways, barely glimpsing Carol’s wine-spattered face before the thick plank shudders loose and slams into her forehead. She screams and falls backward. I twist away, my hands flying to protect my head from the falling chain and broken bamboo.

  I straighten up and glance down at Carol. Blood oozes from the wound on her forehead and seeps into her tangled hair. I heave the wooden sign from her chest, then grab a bar towel and press it to the bleeding gash. I dip another towel into the chilled water that remains in the overturned ice bucket, then mop the crimson flow pooling in her eyes and ears.

  Once again I hear the deep burble of the cruiser’s horn. I glance over my shoulder at the bay, silken and calm. Lavender hues have already crept into the deep crevices in the cliffs and the wilderness beyond. The day is coming to a close. What a strange place for friends of thirty years to discover how little they know each other.

  “My God! You killed her!”

  My eyes swing up to the boulder. Donna, wearing her smart St. John pantsuit with the shiny buttons, stares down at me. Her face looks bleached, her eyes horror-stricken.

  “It was an accident. She’s still alive, Donna. Can you give me a hand?”

  “Be right there.” She stoops to pick up my shoulder bag and jacket, then disappears from view. I sit back on my heels, struck by my own cold, dead calm. Was that really my voice sounding so detached? It seems like such a long time ago that I watched Carol, barefoot and humming, hosing down the flagstones. A disjointed sequence flashes through my mind, as jarring as images fragmented in disco lights, and ends with Carol’s terrible scream and a shower of glass. Now, in a grotesque scene of fairy lights and gaudy bougainvillea, Carol lies in a pool of blood.

  I hear Donna scrambling down the steps, hurrying across the flagstones. She wraps the fleece jacket around my shoulders and takes my hands in hers.

  “You’re icy cold, Meg. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Can you help Carol?”

  “Is that who this is? I heard the scream.” She leans over Carol, lifting her head slightly. I grab more bar towels and hand one to Donna, who slips it under Carol’s head. Her fingers move deftly, taking her pulse. “We have to get help or she’s not going to make it.”

  “I know. There’s a motor boat pulling in, but—”

  “I saw it. Maybe someone aboard has first-aid equipment. Or can call for help.”

  “It’s Paul.”

  Her head whips around. “No! You’re sure?”

  I nod and stand up. “Carol was waiting for him. I know it’s him. I’m going down there.”

  “You can’t! When he sees what’s happened—we have to get out of here!”

  “You go, Donna. Please, let me handle this. I need to.” I look into her anxious eyes, regretting more than ever involving her in this. “I’m so sorry. Please go. You can call for help on your cell phone. I’ll look for you back at the motel.”

  “Meg, stop!”

  I run across the flagstones, ignoring Donna’s pleas, and conceal myself under a thick arch of bougainvillea. I touch my sticky hair, not daring to run my fingers through the silt of wine and shards. Tipping my head over, I gently shake the damp tangle of hair, then my legs and a
rms to dislodge flakes of glass from my T-shirt and jeans. Shivering, I push my arms through the sleeves of the fleece jacket, zipping it up to cover spatters of darkening red blood on my shirt.

  For all my cold calm, a sense of urgency surges through me. The cabin cruiser, its engines throbbing, looms closer, shrouded in hazy twilight. I can’t see Paul, but he could spot me limned in the glow of the gelled floodlights. He’ll know it’s not Carol, with her long legs and broad shoulders.

  I squat down in the shadows, my eyes on the cabin cruiser. My stomach muscles twitch. It’s a moment before I realize it’s my cell phone throbbing on my waistband. I flip it open. Before I can say a word I hear Jack’s voice, low and urgent.

  “Meg? You’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. Sorry I didn’t call—”

  “Cut it. I know where you are.”

  “How?”

  “Your cell phone. Easy to track.”

  “Great. I’m carrying around my own homing device.” One more thing Jinx didn’t have to worry about.

  “This isn’t funny. You have to get out of there. You see the dirt road behind you, to your left?”

  “Hang on, you’re here?”

  “We just pulled in at the top of the road. You’ve got minutes to get out of there before Stephens returns.”

  “You mean Frank Cooper, don’t you?” The abrupt silence gives me satisfaction. “You know, the Coop? You’ve been looking out for him all along, haven’t you, Jack? Even before I met him you had him in some sort of witness protection, right? Trying to get him to turn on Proznorov? That’s the only thing I can figure—”

  “Meg, for God’s sake! There’s a lot more to it. We’re working with the Mexican authorities here to take him in along with the whole syndicate—it’s a lot bigger than just Cooper.”

  “Great, just swell. And then Paul gets another new identity, is that how it works? Come on, Jack. You play games, and innocent people lose everything.”

  “He’ll pay, I promise you. Stephens was leading two lives. By the time we got onto it, he was hooked up with Proznorov. Meg? Can you hear me? Get the hell out of there. This is a big operation!”

  “I’ve got one of my own to tend to.” I glance over my shoulder, taking in the grisly scene on the patio. “Sorry, Jack. You couldn’t even level with me about Carol. She’s here, as I’m sure you know. She’s got a bad head injury that needs medical attention. My friend Donna is with her up on the patio. They’re the ones you need to get out of here.”

  “What happened?”

  “No time, Jack. Got to go.” I edge out from behind the rock, staying in shadow, and creep along a grassy verge toward the shoreline, the phone pressed to my ear. I hear Jack breathing hard as though he’s running.

  “Meg, what’re you up to? Stay away from Stephens!”

  “Too late for that. This is what I came here for.”

  I shut the phone and reattach it to my waistband. Huddling deep into shadow, I wait, my heart banging. The ghostly white cabin cruiser pulls into the dock and cuts its engines. A sour fug of diesel clouds suffocatingly around me.

  “Hey, baby, you there?” Paul’s voice, with its velvety twang, hangs in the air. I see him, his powerful shoulders visible in the wheel room. His hair, windblown and sun bleached, gleams in the light of an overhead globe. He turns toward me, his faded blue shirt pale against bronzed skin. “Carol? C’mon, baby! Give me a hand here!”

  By now Carol would have waved and called out a greeting. She would be reaching for the ropes to tie up, as I would have done in another time and place.

  “Carol, for chrissake!” The shadow of his head falls across the dock, touching the edges of my own patch of darkness. For a heart-stopping moment, we share the inky space. I hang back, holding my breath. He moves away. I reach out, securing the ropes, then ease myself aboard. Without a second thought, I fly up the steps in two quick bounds, my hands barely touching the rails. The moment my foot lands on the top deck, Paul whips around.

  “Sorry. Carol couldn’t make it.” My chest heaves with the exertion, my lungs filling with diesel fumes.

  “No?” His look of surprise doesn’t linger. He smiles, his body easing against a teak panel. “Well, look who’s here. Relax, baby. Welcome aboard. Catch your breath.”

  My eyes lock into the deep blue of his. I take in the weathered creases, the sunburned folds. He looks rugged, more raw-boned than I remember. The softness under his chin has vanished. A year on the lam has been kind to Paul—maybe because Carol got his cholesterol down? Too bad I slipped up when it came to his LDL levels.

  “You were expecting me?”

  “You might say.” He folds his arms and tilts his head, his smile a sly pout. It’s the face of the devil I fell in love with. I breathe in his salty warmth, marveling at how natural it feels to be near him again. In my dreams and most of my waking hours I’ve wondered how I would react to seeing Paul again. Now I know, and I’m relieved. I see him for what he is. He’s playing me, but it’s not working. My heart doesn’t turn over. The butterflies are DOA. Paul looks confused. Did he imagine I would leap into his arms, lock lips, and maybe shed a few tears of happiness to be back in his embrace? It’s not happening. He laughs, a big, boisterous, face-saving laugh that carries no mirth.

  “Something funny?”

  “Sure is, baby.” He laughs again, even louder. “You’re something else! You made poor ol’ Greg hotwire his car, then got him traipsing off to a landfill for no good reason. Not knowin’ what to do, he calls Lucy’s cell phone—so I came up with a little change of plan.” Paul chuckles and kicks the teak panel. His Top-Siders are unlaced, and altogether too familiar. “Now, come on, baby. Doesn’t knowing that you sent Greg off to poke around in a city dump tickle you just a little? C’mon, where’s that smile?”

  I hate myself for it, but a smile tugs at my cheeks. “How did he manage to track me down again?”

  “It wasn’t hard to figure out where you’d be going, baby. Even driving a rental, Greg spotted you.”

  “So you had him stick a homing device on my car? Why?”

  “Because I can. Because I have something he wants.” He nods his head toward the bank of equipment in the wheel room. “I like keeping track, knowing where all the fish are. Besides, someone was riling you up, baby, just when things were settling down for me.”

  Regret clouds his eyes, seeps into his voice—but not regret for what he did to me. Regret that I was getting in his way and he couldn’t seem to do anything about it.

  I flinch as my cell phone begins to throb against my stomach. I double over, brushing my arm across my waist in an effort to flip the lid on the phone under my fleece jacket. Please, God, let it be Jack!

  “What’s the matter, baby? You going to be sick?”

  I straighten up and look into the eyes of the man I once loved. “Sick? What do you think, Paul? You robbed me of everything, including our life together. How could you do something like that to me?”

  “Pipe down, sugar. I hear ya loud and clear. You’re steamed. I don’t blame you.” He shakes his head, his voice a purr. “I just didn’t have much choice. I’d have made good on everything if I’d had a chance. You know it. My heart and soul was into that development up there. That was for you, baby.” His eyes grow moist. He sucks his lower lip. “I would have been back for you as soon as I got things straightened out. You know I would, baby.”

  “I believed in you, Paul. You knew that. I think if you’d come into my life as Frankie Cooper, I’d have believed in you, too. And been there for you.”

  The muscles in his jaw tighten, but there’s only the faintest shift in his eyes. “What do you know about Frank Cooper?”

  I raise my voice, hoping Jack can hear. “A kid from West Virginia, known as the Coop. I talked to your ma—and Dorrie.”

  “You been doin’ more snoopin’ than I figured.”

  I shrug. “Just chance. What happened to you, anyway? How did you end up like this?”

  Paul slings
his arm across the wheel, a smile playing on his lips. “You want to know? I was running numbers back in Baltimore, and a mob guy caught me skimming. Bad move on my part, but I was too green to know better. The feds offered me a deal. I took it and testified, thinking I could use a fresh start. So they sent me to the boonies with six hundred a month and a job selling shoes. Can you see me doing that, baby? Living in some Sioux City tract house with a lawn to mow?”

  He shakes his head. “Then I came up with a chance at some real money. Only every time I showed some enterprise, got a good deal going somewhere, they busted me. I don’t think you would’ve bought in to that kind of life.” He smiles lazily. “You’re a class act, sugar. I think it’s better you didn’t get to know me back then. Besides, there’s a lot of folks out there looking for the Coop, and that gets real tiresome.”

  “I’ll just bet it does. I think I might’ve heard from one or two of them. What about Carol? Doesn’t sound like something she’d sign up for, either. Did you bother to tell her any of this?” A look of confusion plays across Paul’s face. “C’mon, Paul! Carol? Weren’t you running off with her?”

  He shrugs. “Yeah. So?”

  I suck in air, trying not to dredge up my last gruesome sight of her. “Paul, this is crazy! She left Sid to run off with you.”

  “She told you that?” He looks at me with injured eyes. “If she and Sid hadn’t gone off the rails, I could have been sitting pretty right now. The banks wouldn’t have been any the wiser, and the law wouldn’t be breathing down my neck. It’s Sid who messed things up. I had everyone turning on me. Where the hell is Carol, anyway?”

  I stare at him in disbelief. “The bar. She’s in the bar.”

  A knowing smile plays on his lips. “Okay, got it. You two had it out. Man, it all comes down to a catfight, right?” He slaps his hand on the instrument panel, his voice taking on an edge. “No one’s bringing me down again.”

  “So, what happens if someone does get in the way? I’m not familiar with this side of you.”