Christine looked at Pauline and laughed. "Nosmo King was the biggest asshole in Greensboro, maybe even in North Carolina. What did you think you had with him, a marriage?" Her laugh rang out like a harsh bark that bounced off the walls and echoed in my head. Pauline covered her ears, tears rolling down her cheeks.
"He loved me," she said softly. "And I loved him."
"Pauline, wake up! I was screwing him whenever he was here and you weren't. That's how it was, honey. Business, through and through. I paid the price, I got my promotions, and finally, I got what I wanted, everything. The three million was just a little extra something that fell into my lap."
A thick, guttural scream of pure rage came from Pauline, as she lunged from her chair, across the room toward her former best friend.
Christine's face never moved. Her finger tightened on the trigger, the gun went off, and Pauline dropped to the ground. Bess had jumped up, moving toward Christine, but stopped when Christine turned the gun back on her.
"You want to be next?" she asked. "I have no problem with making you next."
Before she could answer, the front door opened and Archer VanScoy stepped into the room. His hand was in his coat pocket, wrapped around a bulge that had to be a gun.
"Hey," he said. "I'm just in time, huh?"
"Well, it's about damned time!" I said. "I'd almost given up on you!"
"Huh?" Archer VanScoy turned and stared at me as if I was a crazy woman.
"What is she talking about?" Christine said.
I stood up and walked toward Archer, a big smile on my face and my arms open wide, blocking his view of Christine. "Tell her, sug," I said.
"Tell her what?" he said.
"Yeah, tell me what?" Christine asked. She stood slowly, looking at Archer with one eyebrow raised.
Pauline moaned and in that same moment I heard a sound behind me as Bess flew off the couch and into Christine. Christine grunted and flew sideways with Bess on top of her. The gun skittered out of her hand, flying across the floor. I rammed VanScoy, knocking him off balance momentarily, and grabbed a large white marble stone that looked like a bowling ball as he struggled to regain his balance.
I lifted it up over my head, bringing it down sharply on the side of his neck. VanScoy dropped like a load of bricks and shots rang out behind me. A woman screamed and I turned to look, the smooth stone still in my hands.
Pauline Conrad sat on the floor, Christine's gun in her hand. Christine lay sprawled backward on the floor, an ugly red stain blooming across her chest. But it was Bess who most concerned me. She was leaning against the wall behind Christine, her shoulder covered in blood, and the color completely drained from her face. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be unconscious.
I dropped to my knees, reached into VanScoy's pocket, and pulled his hand away from the gun that I'd known was there. With it in my hand, I turned back to Pauline.
"Honey," I said, "put the gun down."
Pauline didn't even look at me. She was staring at her dead friend, tears rolling down her face, blood staining the right side of her pale pink pajamas. She lay the gun down on the floor at her side, and closed her eyes.
The room was completely silent for a minute. I sat there, holding Archer VanScoy's gun and trying to make my brain work. Then Bess moaned and I moved to her side, pulling her shirt aside and looking at the wound which seemed to bubble up with blood.
"Nine-one-one," I said. Bess's eyes opened.
"Good plan," she whispered. "Better call them. They don't read minds."
Pauline had collapsed onto the floor again. I grabbed Christine's gun and stepped over to the white cordless phone that was lying on an end table.
Bess sighed and touched her shoulder.
"Blood is so damn hard to get out of a white carpet," she murmured.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Marshall Weathers arrived with the ambulances. I saw him walking through the EMTs and police officers, weaving his way over to where I stood. At first he just stared at me, looking at me as if he'd maybe never seen me before, as if I were a stranger, and then he smiled. But it wasn't a happy smile, it was tight and controlled, as if he were making an effort. He looked at his watch and then back at me.
"This isn't exactly how I expected to meet up with you," he said. "If you'd maybe clued me in, I could've saved you some trouble."
I pushed my hair out of my face and looked up at him. "You could've saved me some trouble?"
"I've had a tail on Christine Razuki for three days now. When I saw her with VanScoy, I was beginning to put it together. I knew Christine was taking over for Nosmo. I knew Archer VanScoy was talking about expanding his business. They would've both benefited with King out of the way. I was very close." He sighed.
"I went back and talked to Vernell some more," he said.
"He told me about his new business plan, how he'd pulled all of his money out of the bank to do this one big deal. That's when it started coming together for me. VanScoy set him up. If Vernell had succeeded, VanScoy would've been ruined."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Marshall had his cop face on. "I didn't get Vernell to talk until tonight. Before that I didn't want to get your hopes up. I wanted to be sure."
"Well, I guess we're sure."
Marshall sighed and looked around the devastated living room. "Well, it was a hell of a way to find out," he said. "I thought you were safe."
"I am safe, Marshall."
Weathers couldn't hold it in any longer. "They would've killed you, Maggie. They would've killed all three of you. Don't you understand that Christine Razuki has been working with the Redneck Mafia for years? That she grew up in this organization? It's not just some little ragtag gang of construction scam artists anymore, Mag, they're bigger than that now." He sighed and looked at me.
"It was nothing for Christine to order VanScoy to kill Nosmo King. She owned VanScoy. She had the money and the power to make or break VanScoy. Nosmo King was all set to back Vernell. What else could VanScoy do but play ball with Christine? And this was her big opportunity to take over."
"So it got a little out of hand."
Weathers shook his head and reached out for me, pulling me close to him and sighing. "Maggie, what am I going to do about you?"
"Marshall?" Tracy the cadet had materialized out of thin air to stand beside us and come between us.
Instantly, Marshall was all cop. "Yes?"
"The captain's here. She wants a report."
Weathers let go of me and looked from Tracy to me. "I'll be right back," he said. "I need to take care of this." He turned, took a step, and looked back. "Don't go anywhere," he said.
I smiled and watched him walk away before I noticed Tracy the Nose Basher studying my every move.
"He feels sorry for you," she said.
"What?" Marshall Weathers felt sorry for me? No way.
"Uh-huh," she said. She looked right at me, her face full of concern. "He told me that you're a single mom and that he tries to help you out because there's no one else to look out for you. You know, kind of like a big brother."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I stared at her, trying to gauge her honesty, and all I saw was pity.
"If there's ever anything I can do to help out, let me know," she said, and reached into her pocket for a business card. "Marsh and I really care about the people we work for. It's not just nine to five with us. It's a calling."
I looked across the room. He stood with his back to me, talking to his captain. As if he felt my eyes upon him, he turned, but he was looking for Tracy. He beckoned her and she put a hand out to touch my shoulder.
"I'll be right back," she said. "Will you be okay?"
"I'm fine," I said, shaking her off. "I'm going into the kitchen and get a glass of water."
"Okie-doke," she said, her voice overly cheery. I watched her cross the room and place her hand on Marshall's arm. That's when I turned away.
"What is it?" I muttered. "Do I just mis
read the world? Are my picker genes so bad that I find loser men on every street corner?"
I wandered into the kitchen, reached for a glass, and turned on the tap. It would all be in the paper tomorrow, how my alcoholic ex-husband got his gun stolen while he ate breakfast with a known criminal. How Vernell's rival shot Nosmo King and made it look like Vernell was the murderer and how Vernell was too blind drunk to know or even remember.
But what wouldn't be in the paper was how big a fool I'd been, traipsing all over trying to prove Vernell an innocent man, falling for a cop who only felt sorry for me, and bumbling in on a police investigation that might've eventually led to Vernell's release anyway.
I drained my glass dry and placed it carefully in the sink, looked over at the back door, and then back into the living room. Weathers was blocked from view by other police officers and crime scene technicians. I checked my watch and found it closing in on one a.m.
Mama used to quote her own passage from Proverbs when I was a young girl. "Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without good sense." Well, what kind of sense did it make for me to hang around mooning up after Marshall Weathers, or anyone else for that matter?
"Bye," I whispered, as I walked to the back door, unlocked it, and let myself out into a narrow hallway that led to the service elevator. In three minutes I had left the building, skirted the police vehicles, and driven out of the parking lot on my way to High Point Road and the Golden Stallion.
As soon as I hit Elm Street I started to have regrets. What was I doing running away? I remembered the way Marshall had kissed me on the steps at the Stallion Club and felt stupid all over again. Was that the kiss of someone who feels pity? No, it couldn't be.
Just as quickly I remembered the way Tony Carlucci had kissed me, and the things he'd said about me and about Marshall Weathers. Where was the truth in all of this? Was I just scared? Or was Carlucci wrong and Weathers right?
I was so confused. The VW seemed to find its own way back to the club while I steered on autopilot. I pulled into the parking lot, weaving my way around pickups and vans, until I reached the spot where the employees parked. I guided my car into a slot right next to Jack's restored Karmen Ghia, put on the brake, and leaned back against my headrest.
I closed my eyes and tried to envision the old home place as it had been years ago when I was a child and life was so much simpler.
"I thought you said I'd know when it was right, Mama," I whispered, and felt a tear slide down my cheek. "Why aren't you here to help me?"
The passenger-side door opened, startling me, and I looked over to see Harmonica Jack sliding into the seat beside me.
"Hey," he said, reaching over and wiping the tear away with his index finger. "What's so terrible you gotta sit out here in your car crying?"
I couldn't answer him. The tears choked my voice, and before I could say much of anything, I was sobbing on his shoulder, and he was wrapping his arm around me and chuckling to himself.
"Why are you laughing at me?" I muttered, my voice muffled by his warm flannel shirt.
"Maggie, you are such a bundle of nerves and energy. It just amuses me, that's all." He handed me a handkerchief from his pocket and sat with me while I snuffled to a stop. He didn't say another word until I finally sat up, blew my nose, and looked at him.
"I hate men," I said.
Jack threw back his head and laughed. "No, you don't. That's your whole problem, Magpie, you don't hate them at all. You just put too much stock in 'em and not enough in yourself."
Jack looked away then, out the window at the few customers who straggled out looking for their cars.
I wanted to say something, something that would come right to the heart of things, something that would make it all right between us, but I didn't have the first clue.
"Thank you for being here," I said, finally.
He looked back at me and smiled. "Maggie, it's just not our time. That's not to say there won't be a time, or that I'm not just as much here for you as I always am. It's just not now for us, you know? And you don't need to feel bad about it or explain it or apologize for it. Some things are the way they are. Let it go, Magpie. Breathe."
I stretched out my hand and he slipped his into mine and we sat there, breathing, for a long time, until I knew we could sit there no longer.
"Sheila's due here any minute," I said.
"Mummm…" he said, deep into his relaxed state of New Age meditation. He sighed. "Guess we should go inside then."
I reached over and opened my door. The cold night air blew in and brought Jack back to the present reality.
"Okay, let's go."
We walked in through the back door with five minutes to spare, but it didn't really matter, because at that exact moment Tony Carlucci, Sheila, and Marshall Weathers all arrived at the front door, their eyes locking on me like homing pigeons sensing their home roost.
"Jeez," Jack whistled softly. "Better you than me."
I stood there, watching and waiting, as they walked toward me. My heart was in my throat, my mouth was dry, and my palms were starting to sweat. It was decision time, and there was no doubt about that.
"You ready?" Tony asked.
"Maggie, I need to talk to you," Marshall said. "Why did you leave?"
"Mama!" Sheila said. "What's going on?"
"Breathe," I heard Jack saying in my head. "You're terrified, aren't you?" I heard Tony ask. And then Marshall: "Don't think I'm walking away from you."
My heart pounded louder and louder, filling my head, and rushing through my ears.
I stepped up to them, stretched out my hand and reached for my daughter, pulling her close to me.
"It's late," I said. "Really, really late, and I need to sleep." I looked at Tony and Marshall, and then over at Jack, who stood just behind me, listening.
"Mama always said a tired mind makes for foolish decisions. So how about you call me sometime tomorrow morning, late, and we'll talk."
Tony and Marshall stared at each other, frowning.
"Who, Maggie?" Tony asked. "Who do you want to call?"
I looked at them and smiled.
I turned around, gripping Sheila's hand, and walked out the door, my heart fairly bursting with the uncertainty and tension of it all. What if no one called me? What if they thought I was just too far above my raisings to deserve a call from either one?
We made it all the way to the car and halfway out of the parking lot before Sheila decided to put in her two cents' worth.
"Mama," she said, "do you, like, get what you just did back there?"
"Sheila," I said, "I think, like, totally. I, like, totally get it."
"Awesome." she sighed. "Damn, I wish I could do that with the guys I know! That is, like, so totally evolved."
I turned onto High Point Road and headed home.
"Whatever," I said.
I made it home, so tired I could barely remove my clothes before my head hit the pillow, and I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep that seemed to go on and on and on-right up until the bright sunlight of late morning streamed through the curtains of my bedroom window and the phone began to ring.
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Stand By Your Man mr-2 Page 21