He turned and walked out of the cubicle. I stared at the place where he was standing. Bryant rubbed me the wrong way. He was despicable. I was wondering, though, if my pissing off Manning would get Naomi killed.
Right at the moment, I needed to be anywhere but here. Some fresh air to clear my head. I pushed away from the desk and walked out of the building.
13
The taxi that I called from the reception desk at the substation arrived 25 minutes later and drove me back to the Preservation. Before I could get the lobby doors even barely open, I heard my name being called.
Angela was strutting down the sidewalk, carrying a bag with two bottles of wine prairie-dogging out of the top.
“Max,” she stopped and took a good look at me. “You look terrible.”
Taking a look at myself, I realized that I had mud and some dried green goo that I was afraid to identify caked on my pants. My shoes were coated in mud that had already dried in the summer heat. My shirt was torn and bloodied after my escape from the crumpled Hyundai.
“I look worse than I am,” I lied. My ribs were bruised, if not cracked. Not to mention, my socks were still damp.
“Is this still about your friend?” she asked as I held the door for her.
“Yeah, and I don’t have anything to show for it.”
“What happened?” she asked as we approached the elevator.
“Someone ran me off the road and tried to kill me.”
Her eyes widened, and she sucked in a breath. “Oh, Max, that’s horrible. Did the police catch them?”
“They haven’t yet,” I said as the doors opened.
“Can I do anything for you?” she offered.
“No,” I assured her. “I’m fine. I need a shower most likely.”
She offered a nod as she curled her nose in jest.
After a second, I asked, “But, do you have plans for dinner?”
“Tonight?” Her tone jumped up a notch.
“Yes, but I know it’s last minute.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. I was just surprised.”
“Would you like to go to dinner then?”
She nodded. “I would love to.”
“I promise I’ll try to smell better,” I added.
She smirked.
“I lost my phone today, so I’ll come by in about an hour. If that’s not too late.”
The elevator dinged as it stopped on Angela’s floor.
She said, “That’s perfect.”
She stepped off the elevator and looked back, “Just be sure to get that smell off you, and you can tell me all about it later.”
When the doors closed again, I felt my cheeks lift before I did a little twirl. I know, childish, but I had a long day. I was more than a little excited.
My apartment door swung open before I could key in my code. Leo stood in the doorway staring at me. His eyes studied me for a second.
“You look awfully happy for someone that smells like that,” he said. “Where have you been? You aren’t answering your phone.”
Pushing past him, I said, “I lost it. I gotta get a shower, I have a date.”
“Just a minute.”
Turning back to look at him, I waited for his question.
“What happened to you?” he asked, waving his hand over me. “You look like hell.”
Leo got the five-minute briefing while I started shedding the mud and unknown green goo coated pants and shoes.
“You think it was Manning’s guys?” he asked.
“They didn’t look like your biker friends, and I don’t think we’ve pissed off anyone else this week.”
Leo grinned. “Speak for yourself.”
“I’m taking a shower,” I told him. “You can talk to me there, or you can wait until I get out.”
The master bathroom in my apartment is one of my favorite features. The shower is large enough to hold a party of six, horizontally. Not that I’ve had the opportunity nor the stamina to try that.
“Just so I can understand,” Leo started to ask after I had gotten into the shower, “you want to go on a date tonight after someone almost killed you?”
“I do.”
“Is this the girl from the other night?”
“Angela, yeah.”
“Max, I’m not going to let you go out alone tonight.”
Lathering up, I said, “I’m not taking a third wheel.”
“No, I have a date too.”
My shampoo covered head popped out of the shower and looked at him. He was smiling and nodding as if to assure me that he was speaking the truth. I stared a second longer waiting for an answer to the question I hadn’t asked him yet.
“Mama,” he said boastfully.
“Mama?”
His head bounced up and down with too much pride for my taste.
“The madam?” I asked. “You want to bring a madam on a double date with me?”
“Someone needs to watch your back. I don’t think this Angela is up to the task.”
I pulled my head back into the shower and rinsed the shampoo.
“No,” I said. “You are not coming with me. I want to try and really get to know Angela.”
“I feel the same way about Alice,” he said. “Did you know she has a Master's degree in Psychology?”
Turning the water off, I grabbed a towel from the rack. “How do you know that?”
“We’ve been texting all day.”
Wrapping the towel around my waist, I stepped out. “No double date,” I told him flatly.
He shrugged as if he had surrendered and left the bathroom.
Mama and Leo, I thought, shaking my head. The concept was hard to wrap my head around.
Twenty minutes later, I was rapping on Angela’s door. She opened the door wearing a short, green dress with spaghetti straps that showed off the curve of her neck and shoulders.
“You look beautiful,” I breathed out.
Her eyes glittered as she thanked me.
“My car had some…trouble today. I ordered a cab. I hope that’s okay.”
“Your car and your phone?” she asked.
“It was, kind of, a simultaneous issue.”
“A cab is fine with me. Or I can drive if you want.”
“A cab means we can have a bit more to drink,” I pointed out.
She kissed my cheek. “That’s the way to my heart.”
The taxi was at the curb, and we were walking into Claret’s ten minutes later. The hostess sat us by the picture window that gave us a view of South Main. A trolley jingled past as we sat down.
“This is great,” Angela said. “Can I ask what prompted this?”
“I like you,” I said.
She touched my hand. “I like you, too.”
A distinctively raspy voice said, “Max Sawyer.”
Looking up, I saw Mama and Leo approach our table. I sighed, louder than I intended.
“Alice, Leo. What a surprise.”
Leo grinned at me before extending his hand to Angela. “Hi, I’m Leo. I’ve been staying with Max lately. This is Alice…”
“Hawking,” she finished the thought that had obviously escaped him.
“Nice to meet both of you,” Angela said.
Mama said, “We were just about to have dinner. Would you two like to make it a foursome.”
Angela looked at me with a willing smile. My eyes cut to Leo before I gave a shrug like it was perfect. The two of them took the other chairs. Ever vigilant, the server swooped in with extra plate settings followed by taking an order for a bottle of wine.
Dinner turned out to be pleasant. Mama was engaging and entertaining. The subject of her occupation remained unraised. When the check arrived, Leo even grabbed the bill, a somewhat unheard of occurrence.
“Why don’t I drive us home?’ Leo suggested when I asked the server to call a taxi. “I can drop the two of you at the Preservation before I take…Alice home.”
I conceded. Taxis were hit or miss. Sometimes they
were nice, and other times the vomit in the backseat costs extra.
When he dropped us at the Preservation, Angela thanked him for dinner. She hugged Mama who told her how great it was to meet her.
She took me by the hand as Leo pulled away from the curb.
“Thank you, Max,” she beamed. “I had a lot of fun.”
“I did too. I was hoping to have you to myself, but it was enjoyable.”
“Why don’t we try again,” she suggested. “Just the two of us.”
Kissing her cheek, I agreed. “How about tomorrow night? We could catch a ballgame.”
She cocked half her mouth up in a mischievous smile. “My company has a box at the first base.”
We rode up the elevator quietly. Our fingers were intertwined, and elation washed over me. When we got to her door, she gave me a leer. I leaned in and kissed her softly.
“Do you want to come in?” she asked as she unlocked her door.
One of her neighbors came down the hallway, and I lowered my voice. “I’d love to but I kind of want to skip upstairs like a teenager.”
Her face lit up.
“No,” someone said, “why don’t we go inside?”
I felt the barrel of a gun press hard against my head. Angela’s face morphed into terror. She was about to scream.
“Don’t do it, lady,” the gunman ordered. “Or his brains will be all over you. Right before I kill you too.”
He pushed me into the apartment. Angela stepped backward ahead of me. There was little I could do to calm her down at the moment. I needed to get her out of here somehow, but I was at a loss.
The irony was that the first thing that ran through my head was that Leo was right. The second thing was trying to estimate if I could disarm him before he shot me. That came up as a big negative. Angela was too much collateral.
“Don’t worry,” he said scornfully. “I’ll be gone before your backup gets back.”
“Do you work for Manning?” I asked. “Because after today, I promise you the detectives will look at him first.”
“I don’t work for Manning,” he said, “and I don’t care if the entire force comes down on him.”
I nodded and turned slowly to face him and the barrel. My first real look at him confirmed that he didn’t look like one of Manning’s men. He was white, blond, and in his 30’s. He wore a blazer and shirt that cost more than the sedan the shooters were driving earlier.
A string of curses ran through my head. He had the same hard eyes I had seen in Leo before. He was a professional. Which meant, we were in trouble.
“Look,” I said, “I don’t actually care about the girl. We can call it square.”
He cocked his head at an angle, staring at me. “I want to know what you know,” he said, “before I kill you.”
“I don’t…” I stopped talking. His eyes narrowed to little slits.
Angela was behind me, trying to muffle the whimper she wanted to let out.
“What?” he asked.
“Let her go,” I said. “We can go somewhere. I’ll tell you everything that I know. Then you can kill me.”
He smiled. “You don’t know anything, but that’s damned noble of you.”
I shrugged. “I know that Lieutenant Bryant is involved.”
He stared at me for what I counted to be eleven seconds.
“Leave her here. Lock her in a closet. Then we can go. My apartment’s empty.”
He took a breath. “No, tell me now. Or I can shoot you, and take her with me. She might like to keep the girl company.”
“No!” Angela screamed.
A crack exploded from the door as it flew open. The gunman swiveled his head. Throwing myself backward, I hit Angela and knocked her down. I landed on her. The blond head exploded in the corner of my eye. My arms covered Angela’s face.
“Max, you good?” Leo barked.
“Yes,” I answered as I tried to examine Angela.
“Are you hit?” I asked her.
The tears exploded out of her. Her head bobbed as I asked her again.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” I kept telling her.
Over my shoulder, I saw Leo check the body. He knew the man was down before the bullet hit, but Leo wasn’t going to leave anything to chance.
Lifting Angela up, I helped her to her feet. I gestured to the body, hoping Leo would cover the bloody mess.
“What happened?” she asked when I got her into the bedroom and sat her on the bed.
“I’m so sorry, Angela.”
“Who was that man? Was that Leo?’ Her eyes darted around, looking at nothing.
“Yes, it was Leo. I can explain it all. Just take a minute. You are in shock.”
A knock on the bedroom door turned my attention. Leo stood in the doorway holding a tumbler of brown liquor. Bourbon, I determined from a quick whiff.
“Angela, here have a drink.”
She took the glass and swallowed two big gulps. Leo was back in the other room.
“Who was that?” she asked as her senses began to come back to her.
“I’m not sure. He wanted me to stop looking for my friend’s daughter.”
Turning the glass up, she drained the rest of the glass.
“He was going to kill us?” she asked.
I nodded. She handed the glass back to me.
“And Leo?’ she asked.
“I’m not sure why he came back, but Leo’s a good guy.”
She tapped her finger on the rim of the glass.
“Be right back,” I told her.
Leo was propping the door closed so no nosy neighbors wandered in. The gun he fired sat on the kitchen bar. A suppressor was on the end.
“How did you get back so fast?” I asked.
“I saw him cross the street behind us. He wanted to be inconspicuous. I figured you would drop Angela off first. I guess, he figured the same thing.”
Grabbing the bottle of bourbon, I refilled Angela’s glass. “What are we going to do?” I asked him.
“I’m hoping that she doesn’t want to call the police. I can get this cleaned up.”
The couch was covered in blood and pieces of this guy. “Let me see what she can handle.”
Angela had regained her poise. She sat straight on the edge of the bed.
“Here,” I handed her the bourbon.
She took a much more controlled sip.
“Do you and Leo do this a lot?”
“Not a lot. At least, I don’t.”
She looked at me. “Do you know where the girl is?”
I shook my head.
“You know something,” she said.
“I have a guess.”
“You said that there’s a lieutenant something involved.”
Sitting next to her, I said, “I took a stab in the dark. Something they said.”
“Are the police coming?” she asked.
“That’s up to you,” I said. “We can clean up everything like it never happened.”
She cut her eyes to me. “I don’t think I’ll be staying here anymore.”
“That’s okay,” I conceded.
“Can you find the girl?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Can you take me somewhere?” she asked.
I helped her to her feet. “Yes, we can get you into a hotel. Maybe take a couple of days off until we can get you a new place to live.”
“You and Leo need to find her.”
14
“What makes you think this cop is involved?” Leo asked, his voice muffled by the sausage biscuit he was still chewing. The air conditioning in his truck was blowing full blast. If the air slowed at all, then the sunlight beaming through the windshield would begin to turn the cab into an oven.
There was no sign of wear on Leo’s face. If I didn’t know any better, I would think he had a solid night’s rest last night.
Blood and Roses Page 9