by Joanne Pence
But a buzz went through the reporters as they recognized Richie. They then rushed towards him and stuck microphones in his face. “Are you here because you’re also worried about attacks on the bachelors in the story?” one shouted.
He backed up. “I’m … no. I’m just here to see my friend, Moss.”
A cacophony of questions hit him as reporters and cameramen pushed and shoved to get closer.
A young reporter caught Rebecca’s eye and held out her microphone. “Hello. Are you here with Richie Amalfi?”
Rebecca squared her shoulders. “I’m with the police department.” That, she realized to her dismay, caused more questions to be shouted in her direction. She tried getting away from them. She wanted to talk to Brannigan, who had been left alone when the reporters charged Richie. But she didn’t see him anywhere.
o0o
Richie answered the reporters questions, doing his best to promote Big Caesar’s as he did so, but all the while he searched for Brannigan. Finally, he saw him hurrying off the pier, and wondered what in the world was going on. First the guy asked them on board, and now he was practically running away from them. Brannigan seemed to be looking at his cell phone, and Richie couldn’t help but wonder if he’d gotten some sort of important message on it.
Where was Rebecca? A reporter tossed another question his way. They were all the same, it seemed, and he could answer them with scarcely a thought. “No, I don’t know why we’re being targeted. No, nothing has happened to me or Big Caesar’s since it was firebombed, and it’s now re-opened and better than ever. Etc., etc.”
Something felt wrong. He had no idea why, but the sudden need struck to find Rebecca and get away from there. It worried him that he couldn’t see her—couldn’t be sure she was all right.
He shifted a few steps in one direction and then the other, finally spotted her walking along the pier towards the Celine. Why, he wondered, would she be going onto the boat when Brannigan wasn’t on it? Maybe she hadn’t seen him leave the dock.
He turned around, his back to the reporters in order to get away from them. As he did, he noticed Brannigan standing in front of the yacht club, just staring out at his ship, an odd expression on his face.
Richie hurried along the pier Rebecca walked down.
“Rebecca!” he called. But she was too far away to hear him.
He started to run towards her.
Without warning of any kind, an ear-splitting blast filled the air. The Celine burst into a red-yellow-and orange ball of fire at the same moment as Richie saw Rebecca flung into the air like a rag doll, and then land hard on wooden pier several feet back from where she’d been. He wanted to run to her, but had to stop, to cover his eyes with his arm as ash, burning embers and more rained over the pier, other ships, and the water. A second blast followed the first, and the entire pier shook from the force of it.
He dropped his arm. Black smoke was all around. His eyes stung, and the acrid, burning smell of fire filled his nose and mouth. But none of that mattered.
Near the Celine, on the pier and not moving, lay Rebecca.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rebecca felt someone’s hands on her face, her arms. She forced her eyes open. The smoke was so heavy she could scarcely see, but she recognized Richie.
She ached all over, but she could feel the heat of the fire. She remembered the blast, the force of it lifting her off her feet. She remembered feeling as if she, like the Celine, was being torn apart, and then hitting the wooden pier so hard it knocked the breath out of her.
She could see that Richie was talking to her, but her ears were so painful, their ringing so loud, she couldn’t begin to hear or respond. All she could think of was that they were in danger there—that they had to get away from the fire. She tried to sit up, and could see the relief on Richie’s face. He quickly helped her and then put his arms around her and lifted her to her feet. Waiting a moment, to be sure nothing was broken and that she could walk, he held her tight and led her off the pier.
As they reached an area with less smoke, she saw reporters gawking in disbelief while their cameramen filmed the disaster. Richie had her lie down on a bench near the Yacht Club, and soon others who had been hit by falling debris, burned, or knocked to the ground by the blast, came to the same area. From there, she could see the flames and a tall plume of black smoke billowing up from what had once been Brannigan’s cruiser.
Nearly all the injured had been on nearby boats or simply walking along the pier near the Celine. An emergency area was quickly set up, and the injured made to lie down, covered with blankets, until a doctor could see them. Rebecca didn’t want to wait, but the manager of the yacht harbor and Richie refused to let her do anything until she was looked over.
Rebecca rubbed her ears, indicating to Richie what was wrong. He nodded. She didn’t like how worried he looked.
“Moss …” she said, finding it weird that, although she knew inside her head that she was talking aloud, she couldn’t actually hear her own words. “He may have been on the boat.”
Richie shook his head. She couldn’t hear his answer, but his gestures told her Brannigan was away from the pier before the boat blew up.
She nodded.
If Rebecca thought the news media had gone crazy with its theories about some serial killer going after wealthy bachelors in San Francisco, it was nothing compared to madness after the Celine blew up on live TV. Richie left her side only to stop her from being bothered by the reporters circling around both him and Moss Brannigan and as more and more media came to realize that not only had the boat blown up, but two of the remaining bachelors were present at the scene. In fact, several had heard Moss invite Richie onto his cruiser, and reported that two more of the “enticing bachelors” had been mere seconds away from a quick and horrifying death.
Soon, the paramedics arrived. They went first to those who were bleeding or burned.
“Here she is.”
Rebecca hadn’t realized that her hearing had been coming back, or that the muffled roar she was hearing wasn’t in her head, but actually was coming from the din of humanity around her. She’d been lying down with her eyes shut, but she opened them to see Richie and a man holding a doctor’s bag. She blinked a few times and sat up.
“Can you hear me yet?” Richie asked.
“Yes—a little.”
He looked relieved. “This is Doctor Levinfeld. He’s a friend of mine. His house is just a couple of blocks away on Marina Boulevard, so I called, and fortunately, he was home and willing to come by to check you over.”
Rebecca was speechless.
“Look this way, please,” the doctor said, shining a light into her eyes and then spent a long time looking at her ears. He also listened to her heart, lungs, checked her balance, eye movements and so on, through the usual concussion protocol, then stood straight and said, “Miss Mayfield, you should be just fine. By tomorrow, the ringing in your ears should be gone completely. I see no sign of a concussion. There’s a bump where your head hit the wooden pier a little too quickly, but it’s not a concern. Be thankful you didn’t land on concrete. A couple of Motrin and bed rest should make you feel good as new.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” she said.
Levinfeld shook hands with Richie who thanked him profusely for coming by so quickly. “It’s all right. And since I’m here, I’ll see if others need me. Anyway, it’s good to see you worrying about someone besides yourself! Take care of her—and you, too, Richie. I hope the stories I’m hearing on the news are merely that—stories.”
“I hope so as well,” he said. Then the two said good-bye.
“I’m glad that’s done. Thank you, Richie,” Rebecca said, standing up. She put her hand in her pocket. “Oh, my God! My phone. It must have fallen out on the pier. I’ve got to try to find it. I must have been truly knocked silly if I didn’t even miss it until now.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got it.” He handed the phone to her.
Ten missed calls and frantic messages,
all from Courtney. She called her back, putting the phone on speaker not wanting anything close to her sore ears.
“Where have you been?” Courtney cried. “I’ve been worried sick. You’re all over the news!”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you with Richie?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Let me talk to him.”
Rebecca was surprised, but handed Richie the phone. His conversation consisted of a series of “yes” answers. Smart man. And then he said good-bye, ended the call, and handed the phone back to Rebecca. “She’s with Pierre and is staying with him unless you need her.”
“I don’t,” Rebecca said. “I’m going back to work.”
“You’re joking.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve just been knocked half way to hell and back, and you’re lucky your eardrums didn’t burst. You need to go home to rest, and that’s where I’m driving you.”
She frowned. “A boat has just blown up.”
“What, you’re part of CSI now? Or maybe you’re going to go scuba diving to see if you can find a detonation device? Forget it, Mayfield. Besides, all your potential victims are quite safe tonight—they’re all being hounded by the press.”
o0o
“Do you have anything at your house for dinner?” Richie asked.
“I’ll find something,” she muttered, not happy.
“There’s a McDonald’s up ahead. How about a Big Mac and fries—comfort food?”
Her unhappiness lessened. “Throw in a chocolate shake and it’s a deal.”
He bought enough for himself as well. As he headed towards Rebecca’s apartment, he got a call from Tommy Ginnetti. He switched on the “hands-free” speaker. “Tommy, what’s up?”
“People are already lining up to come inside,” Tommy said excitedly.
“What do you mean? It’s an hour before the club opens.”
“I know! That’s why I’m calling. I saw the news today, boss.”
“Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Richie said. “I’ve got a couple things to do first.”
“Actually, boss … I think, for now at least, it’ll be better if you aren’t here.”
“What?”
There was a long pause and then Tommy said, “I could be wrong, but maybe the club, rather than you, ought to be the center of attention tonight.”
Richie was stunned until he thought about it a moment. “I suspect you’re right,” he said. “Keep me posted if there’s any trouble.”
“Will do.”
Richie hung up. “Jeez, what a mess.”
“Well, at least now you don’t have to gobble down your dinner,” Rebecca said as they reached Mulford Alley. She unlocked the doors and let him inside.
Richie had her sit on the sofa, feet up, while he put her dinner on a tray. He sat on a chair facing her with his food on the coffee table. He’d bought himself a vanilla shake as opposed to her chocolate one. Spike jumped onto the sofa and curled up beside Rebecca.
The two ate in silence, almost as if without talking they could enjoy each other’s company, but if one of them said something, no matter what, the other was sure to argue about it.
“That hit the spot,” Richie said. “I guess I was more hungry than I thought.”
“Me, too,” Rebecca agreed. “And it does feel good to be home with Spike.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He said nothing for a long while. “Listen, I want to tell you about that article—”
“You owe me no explanation,” she said.
“I know. You ‘couldn’t care less.’” He used her words to him.
She shrugged and looked away. “It’s not important.”
“It’s important to me.” He waited until she looked back at him. “You’ve made it clear you think I’m no saint, but the love’em and leave’em story those two women told was bull.”
“It doesn’t—”
“Will you listen? One of them I dated twice, and then realized we were all wrong. I never called her again. That’s not love. And the other … I met her, first date, at a coffee shop. We planned to have coffee and then go to a movie. I no sooner sat down than she asks, ‘Can you see yourself married and a father by this time next year?’ I swear, I drank that coffee down and got out of there so fast, I burned my mouth. I never did see the movie. And she’s the one who cried when the reporter talked to her.”
Rebecca tried hard not to laugh, she really did, but the image of Richie’s reaction to his date’s question got to her. He probably looked like his hair was on fire as he ran out of the place.
When he saw her smile, he did as well. “Scout’s honor. It’s all true.”
She scooted as much as she could against the back of the sofa to make some room for him to sit beside her, then reached out her hand. He took it, and sat facing her.
“I haven’t told you yet, thank you for helping me today,” she said. “I realized that while everyone else ran away from the boat, you ran towards it. You didn’t know if the fire had already reached the gas tank, or if there might be another explosion and take the pier with it.”
“It didn’t.”
“Still, it was a foolish thing for you to do.”
“No.” He brushed his fingertips lightly over the side of her face. “It wasn’t.”
She felt a pressure behind her eyes at his simple words, and at how completely undeserving she felt of them. She couldn’t stop the feeling, nor could she stop how her heart filled just by looking into his dark eyes. She put a hand to his neck, then slid her fingers into his hair, to the back of his head, and pulled him toward her. “Richie …”
She didn’t have to say anything more.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Rebecca’s phone buzzed. It was Courtney asking her to open the door. It was already nine in the morning. If Courtney stayed with her much longer, she was going to have to give her a key … just as she’d given one to Richie.
Richie! Beside her, where Richie had been when she fell asleep, Spike now lay. He lifted his head to see what the disturbance was.
Rebecca put on her robe and slippers. Richie wasn’t in the bedroom, bathroom or main room, which meant he wasn’t in the apartment, and his clothes were gone. A part of her was glad not to have to face him this morning. They hadn’t talked much last night—not about anything seriously, in any case. They’d just shown how much they had missed each other.
She went out and let in Courtney. “How do you put up with all this tension?” Courtney asked as they walked to the apartment. “I’d be a complete basket case!”
“But you had a nice time with Pierre, I take it,” Rebecca said as she put on coffee.
“Yes, except he surely is nervous. Something’s very wrong. I think he knows a lot more about Diego Bosque and Shig Tanaka than he’s saying—and I don’t think their deaths had anything to do with a tabloid article.”
“Richie said much the same.” As Rebecca made coffee, Courtney put her jacket and purse in the bedroom. When she came back out, she was grinning strangely.
“What?” Rebecca asked.
“Both sides of your bed were used last night, and it wasn’t me. And the toilet seat was left up, and that wasn’t you. I think Richie took even better care of you than he promised me he would.”
Without a word, Rebecca put Courtney’s coffee on the table and went off to take her morning shower.
o0o
Richie had woken up that morning as the sunlight began to fill Rebecca’s bedroom. He sat up and looked at her peacefully sleeping. So much for his determination to have nothing more to do with her. She barely crooked her little finger and there he was.
He wondered what she would think of what had transpired between them. Yesterday, if she’d walked faster, if she’d been on that boat when it blew up, she would have been killed. That could be what had made her so emotional last evening, what had made her want to feel comfort and warmth from another person. Or, was it something more?
He knew he’d never forget how he felt as the blast knocked her a good five feet backwards, and when she’d landed so hard, and lay so still for what was probably seconds, but had seemed like hours.
The experience told him what he already knew about how he felt about her—and that it was crazy to feel that way. But as much as he cared, he couldn’t know her mind.
He decided it was best to leave and to let her work out her feelings alone, and so he quietly dressed and left the apartment.
He wasn’t normally up at this time of the morning, and was surprised at how busy the streets were. He felt hungry, and thought of the one place he knew where he could get a good breakfast. He’d been remiss in not going there already since he’d gotten a stream of phone messages telling him how worried she was.
It was time to visit his mother.
Carmela Amalfi lived in a small flat near the top of Russian Hill, the same place she’d lived when Richie was growing up. He told her he would buy her a bigger house in a neighborhood that wasn’t so crowded, but she refused to move, saying her friends were all nearby, and a bigger house meant more work to keep it clean. She refused any help along those lines. Once, Richie hired a cleaning lady for her. She would clean the house before the woman arrived (couldn’t let some stranger think she lived in a dirty house, after all), and then Carmela redid most of the woman’s work because she didn’t find it up to her standards.
When Richie realized his mother was working twice as hard with a cleaning lady than without one, he let her go.
In any case, when the owner of the building put it up for sale a few years back, he bought it.
He let himself in the main door, and then up the stairs to the top flat. He unlocked her door. “Ma, you home?”
“Richie, finally! Where you been? I been so worried!” She was still in a robe and slippers, with no make-up, but not a hair on her head was out of place. He knew why. She had it styled each week, and the beautician put so much spray on it, a pith helmet would have more chance of being damaged. “Come in the kitchen. What are you doing up so early? Did you eat yet?”