Down and Dirty

by Taylor Holloway

  “You mean he’s corrupt?” I asked, frowning. Nicholas was going to make me lose faith in all of our nation’s public institutions at this rate. The police were already out since they were hunting Oliver who I knew was innocent. As were the military, who apparently dealt in chemical weapons. If Nicholas started in on how Durant Industries manipulated the postal service, there wouldn’t be much left.

  “Corrupt is too strong of a word,” Nicholas replied. “He’s too vacuous to be corrupt. He just does whatever my father and uncle Alexander tell him to do. He’s a puppet. Puppets can’t be corrupt… they lack free will.”

  “You talk about him like he’s an inanimate object. How can he not have free will?”

  “In around 1990 he traded it in for pile of Durant family money and a shot at the presidency.”

  “I voted for him,” I admitted, “I never should have voted for him. Ugh. I thought he was a good guy! He always seems nice on TV.”

  Nicholas took a sip of his coffee, and for the first time in too long, I saw humor in his eyes.

  “He’s not awful,” Nicholas replied with a shrug, “We’ve engineered him to be totally inoffensive. There are way worse guys in Washington than Tom Ellis.”

  “That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement,” I said grumpily. I bit into my toast and chewed it in irritation.

  “He’s a politician. They’re all someone’s pet,” Nicholas said, “Durant Industries is just an extra special interest.”

  He winked at me.

  “That’s revolting,” I told him, and he nodded in wholehearted agreement. It was obvious that Nicholas no longer supported anything his family was doing in the business or government sphere. “The fact that we can’t rely on our elected officials to protect us against freaking chemical weapons is pretty sad.”

  Nicholas shrugged. He didn’t look unconcerned by any stretch, just resigned to the inevitable status quo.

  “It is sad,” he agreed, “but that’s why Oliver and I didn’t go to Tom Ellis. He wouldn’t do anything. Or worse, he might sic Skylark on us through sheer incompetence. The only smart one in that family is his daughter Clara.”

  “Wait,” I interjected. “Senator Ellis is Angelica’s father, isn’t he? You know, your future stepmother?”

  “Yes, he is,” Nicholas confirmed with a comically sour expression on his handsome face. “Angelica got her winning personality and looks from her mother. Clara also got her mom’s looks, but I’m honestly not sure where she got her integrity because neither one of her parents have much.”

  “So, your family basically employs a US senator to keep their illegal activities on the down low, is what you’re telling me,” I asserted.

  “Yeah pretty much,” he replied, “I mean, technically we bankroll Ellis to keep our regulations manageable. Technically that isn’t even illegal. The fact that he might occasionally look the other way on any important unsavory things that we might do is more of a side benefit. It benefits him when things benefit us.”

  “And it benefits Durant Industries when they can do whatever the hell they want to do, no matter how illegal that might be. Including selling chemical weapons. Or letting their nasty military contractor buddies murder innocent Durant Industries employees and then frame other innocent employees for those murders.”

  “Well when you put it like that it doesn’t sound as good,” Nicholas said with a sardonic look on his face. “Look, I understand how fucked up it all is. I’ve spent the last five years hiding from the negative repercussions of such a messed-up system. If it were up to me, Durant Industries would get raided by the FBI and forcibly shut down. Who knows what other dirty secrets are lurking in those archives that we don’t even know about.”

  “That’s an encouraging thought,” I said. “If Durant Industries shot JFK I don’t want to know about it. I’m still trying to get over Theresa.”

  “Me too,” Nicholas said. I reached out to grab his hand to comfort him.

  “We’re going to figure this out somehow,” I promised him, “I’m more committed now than ever. We have to do this for Theresa. Otherwise her death won’t mean anything.”

  Nicholas nodded and then wrapped an arm around my towel-wrapped waist.

  “You know that you’re the reason I came back, don’t you?” Nicholas asked.

  “What do you mean?” I questioned. “Because I found you? You thought I’d get you caught?”

  “No, not that. I came back because I’d met you and realized that Durant Industries hadn’t gotten any better. I realized that I was a coward for running away in the first place.”

  He looked ashamed.

  “You left because your life was in danger,” I told him. “That isn’t cowardly. It’s reasonable. Anyone would have done what you did.”

  “Theresa didn’t,” Nicholas said, “she knew that she could be targeted, but she still did the right thing.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for what happened to her,” I told him firmly. It was clear from the look on his face that he was doing exactly that. I needed to put a stop to it immediately. That sort of thinking would drive him crazy.

  He just shook his head and stared into his coffee.

  “Nicholas, look at me,” I ordered, and he met my gaze with a reluctant expression. “You didn’t hurt Theresa. She chose to help you. She knew probably better than anyone how dangerous the Skylark people are. Hasn’t she known Ryan Quin and your father for like thirty years? The fact that she would stand up to do what she thought was right was very brave. You don’t get to blame yourself.

  Nicholas frowned but eventually nodded.

  “As does my father,” he said, “as far as I’m concerned, Theresa’s blood is on his hands.”

  36

  Nicholas

  The wine bar where Jenna and I were planning on meeting Oliver, didn’t allow pets, so we had to take Harley to doggy daycare. It was not a pleasant drop off.

  “And you’re sure she’s not a wolf?” the daycare employee, Tracey, asked Jenna for the third time. She looked at Harley skeptically, reaching out a hesitant hand to stroke the soft ruff of fur emerging from underneath Harley’s “cone of shame”.

  “We’re one hundred percent sure that she’s a dog,” Jenna replied with a grin. She pointed at the letter that the vet gave me earlier that week attesting to Harley’s health and vaccinations. “I know she looks scary, but trust me, she’s a baby. See, she’s had all of her shots and everything. She just needs to keep the cone on and be kept away from the other dogs, because she just got fixed.”

  “And we’ll be back in a couple of hours,” I added to Harley as much as Tracey. Harley was already getting wise to the fact that we were going to be leaving soon. She leaned heavily against my legs and tried to maneuver her cone so she could lock eyes with me, her doggy features looking anxious. I’m sure she could tell that something was up. She kept glancing at the door.

  “Don’t worry Harley, I’m not leaving you overnight this time. Nobody is going to do surgery on you, either,” I promised her.

  Of course, Harley had no idea what I was saying, but she looked even less convinced as I spoke. She wasn’t an idiot. She could tell this was a place that had dog crates and other dogs. You know what other place she’d been to recently with dog crates and other dogs? The vet. The evil, evil vet who stole her fallopian tubes and put the weird collar on her.

  “Ok, sounds good,” Tracey said with a shrug. “We’ll take good care of her. Come on Ms. Harley. Let’s get you settled. I’ve got some treats for you, too.”

  Tracey accepted the end of the leash from me and started to lead Harley into the back. Harley didn’t budge and continued to look at me—ignoring poor Tracey completely. Tracey, who was five foot nothing and maybe a hundred and two pounds soaking wet, didn’t stand a chance of taking Harley anywhere that Harley didn’t want to go. Unless Tracey was prepared to put a saddle on Harley and ride her into the back, Harley would need to change her mind.

  “Go on Harley,” I to
ld her. She whined at me in protest. “No back talk. Go on. Be good for Tracey.”

  Harley rose reluctantly and followed Tracey. She shot one last betrayed look at me before she rounded the corner.

  “God, I feel like a monster,” I complained to Jenna as we walked out of the doggy daycare center. “Did you see how she looked at me?”

  “She wouldn’t like the wine bar anyway,” Jenna told me reassuringly. “This is better for her. It’s good for you, too. The two of you are codependent.”

  “Yeah but Harley doesn’t know that,” I replied, “She probably thinks they’re going to cut her open and remove more of her organs. I hope she isn’t scared.”

  “I’m not sure that Harley thinks through things that thoroughly,” Jenna said. Her voice was soothing. “Harley doesn’t know she doesn’t have a uterus anymore either. Remember, Harley’s a dog. She’s a smart dog, but she’s still a dog. Harley just wants to hang out with you. She gives you that same look whenever you shut the door to the bathroom.”

  I sighed. Jenna was probably right, but it was hard not anthropomorphize Harley. She was a better person than most people I knew. Plus, I knew she liked Oliver. She would have enjoyed seeing him again.

  If he showed up, that is. Jenna and I arrived at the wine bar more than an hour before our planned rendezvous with Oliver, just in case. The place was busy, but we settled into a romantic little table in the back and ordered overpriced appetizers while we waited. Existential threats notwithstanding, this wasn’t a bad place for a date. There was even a band playing.

  “I don’t know anything about wine,” Jenna admitted while we looked over the large menu. “Do you?”

  I shrugged self-consciously.

  “I know the usual stuff, I guess,” I replied. Jenna raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  “What’s the usual stuff?” she asked skeptically. “All I know is that wine comes in two kinds. Red and white.”

  “It actually comes in other colors, too,” I corrected, and then bit my tongue. My native snobbery was showing through. The last thing I wanted to do was an unconscious impression of one of my cousins. I hadn’t even had wine in about five years. Alaska was more of a whisky type of place. Jenna just giggled at my pedantry.

  “Do tell,” Jenna urged, “teach me all about wine.”

  “What do you want to know?” I asked hesitantly. I was by no means a wine expert, but Jenna seemed to find my privileged upbringing endlessly entertaining. I’d explained the differences between English and Western horseback riding to her earlier that afternoon and she’d giggled the entire time. Jenna, despite being born in Oklahoma, had never been atop a horse and declared them ‘stinky and gross’. She wasn’t wrong.

  “What are the different colors of wine?” She asked in response.

  “Red and white are the big ones, but there’s also orange, gray, rose, tawny, and yellow. The color is just dependent on how the grapes are treated during the process. The same grapes can make different types of wine.”

  “Gray wine sounds disgusting,” Jenna commented, “what’s tawny?”

  “That’s actually the color of port, which are wines that have been aged. They’re graded by age too.”

  “And old wine is better, right?” Jenna said.

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “The age of the wine is only one of the characteristics that affect the value. Plus, better is very subjective. Super old wine turns into vinegar, which nobody likes to drink. You should just drink what you like.”

  “I’m glad that you think so,” Jenna replied with a mischievous smile. “Even though this place is a wine bar, they have a full liquor selection. I’m going to order a margarita.”

  I actually thought it was adorable that Jenna liked super-sweet drinks. Wine was overrated a lot of the time. It gave people with too much time and money an ostensibly classy hobby to conveniently disguise their alcoholism.

  The hour before we expected Oliver to arrive passed quickly as I chatted with Jenna. It was so easy to spend time with Jenna. It felt totally natural, like we’d been together for years instead of days. Even in the face of being hunted down by people that wanted to murder us, I couldn’t make myself feel the fear and despair I probably should be when sitting next to Jenna made me so thoroughly content. I could easily see myself spending my entire life by her side. If the world allowed it, that was exactly what I planned to do.

  “What are you thinking about?” Jenna asked me during a lull in our conversation.

  I must have been staring at her again.

  “I was just thinking about how beautiful you look tonight,” I told her.

  Jenna blushed. Over the past few days I’d discovered that she didn’t seem to understand exactly how gorgeous she was. She showed me a picture of her awkward teenage years and I think that in her mind she was still a knobby-kneed skinny ginger girl that couldn’t afford the expensive, brand name clothes that she saw on TV. The truth was far different. Everywhere we went, people looked at Jenna not because she didn’t fit in, but because she’d grown up into a striking, stylish woman. I’d made it my mission to compliment her until she got it.

  “He’s late,” Jenna said to change the subject. She looked at her watch with a frown. “He’s officially ten minutes late. Oliver is usually pretty punctual.”

  “Maybe he’s casing the joint,” I suggested, and she looked at me in confusion until I added, “you know, checking out the block to make sure it’s safe. Looking around to see if anyone followed him here or is paying attention to him. I’m sure he’s got to be concerned about Skylark. You know, casing the joint.”

  “That’s not the correct usage of that term,” she corrected. “I may not know about wine, but I’m from the shitty part of New Jersey. I know my crime terms.”

  It was now my turn to raise my eyebrows.

  “What’s the correct usage?” I asked her.

  “Casing the joint means you’re examining a place for weaknesses in preparation for robbing it or some other criminal activity,” she explained. She took a deep sip of her margarita before adding, “I’m pretty sure Oliver isn’t anticipating an armed robbery of a wine bar tonight.”

  “Good to know,” I replied before taking another sip of my serviceable but unspectacular pinot grigio, “I stand corrected. I’ll gladly defer to your much greater wisdom on that.”

  “Anytime,” she said with a grin.

  37

  Jenna

  “Hey y’all,” the new waiter drawled in greeting, sidling up to our table with a confident, swagger. He had a southern accent. “I’m Carl. Nicole’s shift just ended, so I’ll be taking over y’all’s table. Can I get you two anything right now?”

  There was something a bit weird about our new waiter, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. He was an older man but had longish jet-black hair under a blue, straw cowboy hat that didn’t look totally inappropriate in the eclectic décor of the wine bar, but definitely fought with the white, fringed leather jacket he wore or his camouflage cargo pants. It was the large, bushy brown mustache and rose-tinted glasses that really made him stand out.

  I’d seen stranger looking people in Philly (we had no shortage of weirdos), but this guy was unique. In such a busy bar his looks weren’t drawing any eyes, but one rarely saw older folks wear such colorful, loud clothes. My mom would have said ‘bless his heart, it looks like he got dressed in the dark’.

  “I’m fine,” Nicholas said with a small head shake, “Jenna, do you want anything?”

  “Sure. I’ll have another strawberry margarita,” I said. The waiter nodded and departed, and I noticed he was also wearing Doc Martens. The guy honestly looked like he’d taken a nosedive into a salvation army and thrown on the first clothes he found.

  “Did that guy seem a bit weird to you?” I asked Nicholas. He turned around to get a better look at the waiter, but he’d already vanished into the back.

  He shrugged and frowned.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention and I didn’t n
otice,” he admitted, “Why? Do you think we’re being watched or something? Do you see anything else suspicious?”

  “No, nothing like that. I definitely don’t think it’s anything Skylark related,” I replied, “I think I’m just getting paranoid because Oliver’s late. I’m really worried about him.”

  “I know. I am too,” Nicholas answered. He stroked the top of my hand comfortingly. “The good news is that if he’d been found by the police it would be all over the news. He must be ok.”

  I nodded nervously.

  Oliver had hired me at Durant Industries. He was the one who first got me interested in the company. I’d initially balked at the idea of working for a chemical conglomerate. As a vegan, any company that even touched on pesticides or drug development on animals, let alone smearing lipstick in rabbit’s eyes, usually sent me running for the hills.

  Something about the way Oliver talked about Durant Industries drew me in. He had a real passion for the job that he did and said that Durant Industries needed more people like me who were young, opinionated, and ambitious. He thought that the fact I disagreed with some of the company’s practices was a good thing. For a while, he’d been right.

  Everything changed for me the moment I met Nicholas, and again when I learned about the chemical weapons. Clearly, the chemical weapons program had been unacceptable to Oliver as well. I’d only spent a handful of years at Durant Industries, but Oliver had been there for decades. I wasn’t about to admit it to Nicholas, but a tiny piece of my heart wondered if he hadn’t gone a bit crazy when he learned the company he’d worked half his career for was crooked.

  “Ok little lady, here’s that margarita you wanted,” the waiter said, interrupting my inner turmoil to return with more strawberry booze, “bottoms up.”