“Reagan,” put in Garrett.
Johnson nodded. “Nick’s fiancé sends Mr. Actor Man here, and suddenly everybody’s connected by six degrees of their own butts in the frying pan.”
“Nick called me,” said Reagan after a moment. “Before I texted him for Ju’an’s number, not long after the telegram was supposed to have been delivered. He said something had come up and he’d be working late. I told him it was okay, that I’d sent Garrett on a call to Century Tower and I was still waiting for him to get back.”
“Wait,” said Marin. “All this happened back at the Tower?”
Garrett looked at her sourly. “While you were busy painting your toenails I was getting roofied, having handguns shoved in my face, and—evidently—being screwed over by the world’s Two Biggest Pricks.” He glared at Nick and Sonny.
“Um,” said Marin. “Yeah. About that. Look, since eveything’s out in the open anyway, I wasn’t home painting my nails. What? Don’t look at me that way,” she admonished.
What Johnson had been implying finally clicked.
It wasn’t that she’d cheated on him. Of course she cheated on him. Garrett expected it. But of all the hundreds of thousands of people in the city, she would have to pick the one man already planning to steal away his best friend, too.
Marin continued calmly, “I’m trying to be adult about this. You need to learn to admit when something has run its course.”
“I need?” repeated Garrett dumbly. “I need?”
“Both of you need,” said Marin.
Nick’s smile disappeared as her meaning became apparent. “Now, wait just goddamn a minute,” he said.
Marin shrugged. “Nothing personal.”
Nick’s eyes got the same look they’d had when he took a swing at the private eye a moment before, but this time he managed to swallow his anger. He turned to Reagan. “Baby,” he said, spreading his arms wide.
In the silence that followed, the only sound was the tinkling of Reagan’s engagement ring as it came to a rest on the ground at Nick’s feet. Marin eyed the ring, her glance covetous. Garrett wondered if she was having second thoughts.
“But the baby,” said Nick. “Our baby,” he amended, as if he were trying out the words for the first time. “What the hell do you plan on doing about my fucking kid?”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Reagan.
Nick stepped forward threateningly. “This is my son we’re talking about.”
Reagan reached into her handbag and took out the weapon her former fiancé had given her. Nick narrowed his eyes, trying to decide if she was serious.
“He’s a she by the way,” said Reagan. “I was going to tell you on our anniversary, but now you can just stay the hell away from both of us. I wouldn’t have cared if you were penniless. I thought we were building a life together.”
Nick bent down, picked up the ring, and polished it on his shirt before slipping it into his pocket with as much dignity as he could muster. “Maybe you should try paying attention here and there instead of thinking so much. Maybe then you’d see that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do here, building our life. But no, all you see is what your hormones want you to see.” He spat in disgust, as if the whole thing had been her fault. Then he held out his hand. “If you’re going to give me my ring back, gimmie my fucking gun, too.”
Garrett heard footsteps. Pickle had walked out to join them. The old hippie was licking his self-rolled cigarette closed between his lips. He was carrying a lighter in the shape of a pistol, but instead of holding it up to the cigarette, he leveled it at Reagan.
“Mexican standoff,” Pickle giggled. “Naw, man, don’t worry.” He held up the lighter and blew across the end of the barrel. “I’ve been shooting blanks for years.”
Suddenly self-conscious, Reagan shoved the pistol back once more in her handbag. She looked meaningfully at Nick’s outreached hand.
“Go to hell,” she said. Then, for Marin’s benefit, “You’ve got plenty more guns at home.”
Garrett wondered at how quickly their lives had been upended in the space of a scant handful of minutes, and how little he cared. Losing Marin, when he got right down to it, was a relief. Although there would be withdrawals without her, and there was also the slight problem of being suddenly homeless. The Tower apartment was hers after all. But it was the least of his troubles at the moment.
“So all of this is their fault?” Garrett asked, pointing to Nick and Sonny.
“Nice try.” Nick stabbed a finger at Garrett. “You’re every bit as mixed up in this as we are.” Seeing Johnson frown, he said, “Oh-ho, mister big-shot private dick doesn’t know? Tell him, go on. Tell him what my ex-bitch said, about how you swapped out your phone for Bill Silverman’s when nobody was looking. Tell him how you kept the blackmail photos, how that’s why the Russians and God knows who else are after you. Which brings us back to the fact that you still have the photos,” said Nick smoothly. He licked his lips and moved a bit closer to his friend Sonny, trying to present a united front. “Hand them over and we can all just go our separate ways.” Nick took his own cell phone from his pants pocket. “Or we could call the police and tell them that you were the last person to see Bill Silverman alive, that you had plenty of reason to kill him because you were partners in a blackmail scheme. And we’ll tell them exactly where they can find you.”
“You can’t be serious,” said Reagan.
“With Bill Silverman dead there’s nothing to tie us to any of it. Whoever killed him did us a favor. Give us the photos.”
Garrett recalled the casual way that the man with the nerd glasses had beat up Nick’s cabbie friends. “He’ll come after you for them.”
“Do I look like I care? You’re the only one tied to any of this, you and my ex-bitch over there. Whoever this guy is, he doesn’t know who we are.” Nick smiled. “So you play ball right here, right now, and everybody wins.”
While they were talking, Sonny had been surreptitiously moving around the outside of the circle formed by the others. As he moved behind Reagan, he tried to snatch the purse from her arm, but she clung to it and he was unable to pry it from her. He gave up finally and backed away, but then Garrett saw that it hadn’t been the purse he’d been after at all. It had been the revolver inside.
“Still think you’re all so friggin’ smart?” said Sonny, brandishing the weapon. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Nicky-baby, give Actor Man your phone.” He pointed the pistol at Garrett and cocked the hammer. “You’re going to log in to your email and forward us those photographs, and for your sake you’d better hope that you didn’t cock up sending the attachment to yourself when you ditched Silverman’s phone, or my finger might decide to get twitchy.”
Garrett swallowed, feeling his scalp crawl. As much as he hated having the gun pointed his way, it was better than Sonny threatening Reagan. But if they tried to explain what had really happened, there was no telling what Nick’s impulsive friend might do.
Johnson stood unmoving, watching, perhaps thinking something along the same lines, perhaps merely content to watch everything play out. Garrett wished he would do something, but before anybody could do anything, Pickle, who had been standing quietly, listening, leveled his lighter at Sonny. “He’s a paying customer, man. Put that away, or I’ll torch you.”
Sonny looked amused. “Crazy fucking pothead. Go away, Real Men are doing business.”
“Bang,” said Pickle. He giggled and pulled the trigger, but instead of a producing a flame, the end of small lighter exploded with a pop.
The shot went wide, grazing Nick even though Pickle had been aiming toward Sonny. Clutching his arm as if expecting to find it missing from the elbow down, Nick sank to his knees. Wrongly ascribing some kind of intent behind Pickle’s actions, Sonny said, “Fuck this,” set Reagan’s gun on the ground, and kicked it away. It clattered across the blacktop, coming to rest at Garrett’s feet.
Pickle stared at his lighter that wasn’t a lighter a
t all. “Hey, wow, man. Is everybody okay?”
Garrett bent down and scooped up Reagan’s revolver. Its hammer was still cocked. Although he had seen it done on TV, he had no idea how to lower the hammer properly so he left it alone, pointed it at the ground, and watched Sonny and Nick warily.
Nick’s arm wasn’t even bleeding. The old hippie’s bullet had barely even given him a friction burn in passing, and with his short sleeves, it hadn’t even ruined his shirt. Realizing he was being overdramatic, Nick got back to his feet.
Marin had lost interest and was looking at her phone.
“Give me that,” said Johnson, sounding annoyed. The private eye took the firearm from Garrett, thumbed the hammer down, flicked the safety on, and then walked over and handed it back to Reagan butt-first.
“I want you to take your friend and go,” she told Nick. “And I never want to see either of you again.”
“We could still call the police,” said Sonny.
Reagan swung out and hit her ex-fiancé’s friend across the face with her handbag. With the added weight of the gun, it connected soundly and Sonny reeled.
Reagan held her arm out, pointing wordlessly toward Nick’s Mercedes.
Nick tried to stare her down but failed.
“You and your stupid plan,” Nick said to Sonny. “This is the last time I ask for your help.”
Turing his back on everyone, Nick marched across the lot to where he had parked. Sonny gave Reagan a dirty look and then followed, and the two men climbed in and slammed their doors. The engine came to life, but the car sat there idling, lights on, not pulling out.
“Why don’t they just go?” said Garrett.
Nobody answered. Reagan was shivering in her lightweight blouse. Slipping out of his tux jacket, Garrett went and gently wrapped it around her, holding it in place with one arm across her shoulders. He made no move to lower his arm and she didn’t pull away, and they stood there together, breathing in the chilly night air and watching the Mercedes idle.
The sky was clearer in Oakland than it had been in San Francisco. Overhead, stars winked at them like celestial lovers. The lamp mounted high on the corner of the office flickered. Garrett looked at his watch. It was nearly midnight, but he felt alive and alert enough to make another pot of coffee and stay up until morning.
“If you hadn’t taken the phone, none of this would have happened,” said Reagan.
“Are you sorry I did?”
She glanced at him. Their faces were only inches apart.
“Christ, Garrett, what kind of question is that?”
He shrugged. “Well, are you? Are you sorry all of this happened?”
She didn’t answer.
Nick’s reverse lights finally came on. Garrett could never understand the appeal of owning a Mercedes-Benz. They glided along like pompous tugboats in smooth water, but they were all sound and fury. And terribly pretentious, kind of like Nick himself, he thought.
Sonny rolled down his window and flipped them off on the way past. The Mercedes’ rear bottomed out in the dip from the parking lot to the road, but Nick only stepped harder on the gas in response. One of the rear tail-lights was out, Garrett noticed, and it cheered him up considerably to think of Nick getting a ticket on top of being shot at twice, not to mention already suffering from some kind of broken finger.
“Hey, anybody got a light?” asked Pickle.
Garrett stared after the departed Mercedes. It was crazy to think that Douchebag Nick Polito had been behind the blackmail scheme from the start. Nick had endangered Reagan and poked a hornets’ nest of unknown proportions, but the fact remained that when Garrett had had the choice to take Silverman’s phone or leave it, he hadn’t chosen any more wisely. Still, he told himself, a whim was less serious than actually planning blackmail.
“How did you find us?” Garrett asked Tiny Johnson. “Are we safe? Who’s after the photographs? Who killed Bill Silverman, and are they working for Michelle Lyon? Why is she trying so hard to cover up the fact that she bats for the other team?” Once he started, the questions flowed like he’d taken a laxative of the mouth, but he didn’t care. If Johnson could help them, they needed to know.
“Here’s the thing about answering questions for a living,” said Johnson. “Don’t do it for free.”
Marin snorted but didn’t look up from her phone.
“Does that mean you don’t know?”
“It means we can’t afford to ask,” said Reagan sourly.
“I’m self-employed,” Johnson told Garrett. “You know what that means. You’re an actor, right? It means I’m not gonna ask you to do a call for me free of charge. Just like I wouldn’t ask a photographer to do a bar mitzvah pro bono, or have a fisherman take me out on his day off.”
“We get the idea.”
“A bar mitzvah?” asked Marin, who had been lost in her phone so completely that Garrett had almost forgotten she was there. “You’re Jewish?”
“Yes, I’m Jewish. That’s why I’ve still got my foreskin and tip twenty percent at dinner. You want to hire me to look into something for you, call my office, leave a message, and I’ll get back to you in the morning.”
Garrett could feel himself getting frustrated. “We’re not asking you to investigate anything. We’re asking, in the course of your previous investigation for Reagan’s parents, if you found out anything that might help keep their daughter alive for the next twenty-four hours.”
Johnson yawned. “It’s late. Stay here and you’ll be fine. You need a ride somewhere?” he asked Marin.
She smiled coyly.
Johnson turned back to Garrett. “You really think I’m such a prick I wouldn’t tell you if I knew something? I’m not. But don’t expect me to throw in with you and yours just because you’re in a jam.”
“If we’re so safe here, how did you find us?”
Johnson shrugged. “I followed Polito and his friend. Then I went and got a hamburger. When I came back, out of the goodness of my heart, I decided to put the kibosh on any bullshit those two might be spoon-feeding you about their involvement in everything. No, I don’t know why Michelle Lyon wants to stay in the closet. It doesn’t make any sense, but hey, the why of things seldom does. Whoever’s after you probably killed Silverman, and you can bet it probably has something to do with what’s in those photographs he took.”
Garrett said, “We looked at the photos. The only thing going on in them is exactly what you might expect.”
“What you might expect, maybe. Find out what’s there worth killing over and you might be able to stay one step ahead of whoever’s pulling the strings. Or not.” He shrugged. “Sometimes you poke the bear, he bends you over and ass-fucks you with your own stick. Bad men can be a force of nature.”
“What if we paid you?” Garrett asked. “What then?”
“Goodnight, Miss Gaitskill,” said Johnson, inclining his head. He walked around his van to the passenger side door, opened it, and left it open. It was all the invitation Marin needed to jump in. Its engine chattering pleasantly at idle, the big private eye buckled himself in and released the brake. Garrett half-expected to see Marin look back at him for a final goodbye as the camper van putted past, but she didn’t.
Garrett and Reagan stood outside the open door to their room. Pickle was shuffling back to his office and Garrett wondered if, come morning, he would remember anything that had happened. Garrett hoped he would at least remember not to use his “lighter” on the next joint he rolled.
“So that’s it?”
Reagan hugged herself inside his jacket and didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry about,” Garrett couldn’t bring himself to say Nick’s name, or Marin’s for that matter, “about all of it. We’ll figure things out, we’ll come up with a way to—”
“Just shut up, would you?” Reagan said, and then she stepped up to him and mashed her lips to his.
It took Garrett a moment to realize they were kissing. Then it became him kissing her instead of the o
ther way around. His tongue found hers and her body pressed against his. Finally, they broke off, out of breath. Reagan was still trembling but no longer from the cold. Wordlessly, she took him by the hand and led him inside.
Out on the street, a white panel van with its lights off pulled silently up to the curb near the mouth of the motel’s parking lot. Its driver watched Reagan and Garrett disappear into their room. Their door shut and the light behind their curtains went out.
Adjusting his glasses, the driver put his van back into gear, made a u-turn, and wheeled away in the direction Tiny Johnson had driven off moments before.
XXIII: ASS OVER TEA KETTLE
Tiny Johnson and Marin didn’t make it as far as the Century Tower, or even back to the city at all before Johnson felt Marin’s hands reach across and begin unzipping his pants.
“Stop that.”
Foregoing the onramp back to San Francsico, Johnson found a residential block and parked.
“I said stop.”
Marin sat back up. She wiped the lipsticked O of her lips with the back of her hand and smiled like she didn’t believe him.
Johnson didn’t smile back. Marin pretended to pout.
“I don’t have any condoms,” he said, not knowing why he felt the need to make excuses.
“I’m okay with anal,” said Marin, pulling her tank top over her head. “Or,” she slipped two fingers into her bra and lifted out a condom of her own, “you could put your fate in my hands, or my mouth, or anywhere else you might want.” The motion of taking out the plastic square made both of her nipples stand at attention beneath their sheer fabric. “I’m bored, you’re kind of cute, and this is exciting. Don’t you want me to be excited?”
Before he could stop her, she had wriggled out of her pants and underwear and slipped into the back of the camper van. She drew the curtains and stretched out on her back on the long couch seat bolted to the lefthand side. With her knees in the air, she put her index finger into her mouth and began to suck on it like it was a popsicle she was trying to get all of the sweet out of. She arched her back, making the muscles in her calves stand out. Below the waist she was hairless as the day she was born, and she gazed at him like she had just flung open the gates of heaven and invited him inside, no (harp) strings attached.
Usuality Page 11