Miami Burn (Titus Book 1)

by John D. Patten

  I put on the t-shirt and moved to the cabinet in the tiny kitchen where I took down the bottle of bourbon, which I hadn’t touched since before Eddie Corrado’s boot said hello to my nose. But there’s nothing like the lip-loosening effects of alcohol to make words fall out of mouths—words that might help me. I poured some into two red plastic cups.

  “Here’s to me,” I said, raising one. “I found you. Again.”

  She picked up the other one and sipped without a flinch. Her voice went sultry and low.

  “Uh-huh,” she said, moving around the counter to me. “And it also looks like I—,” her hand moved under the t-shirt running up my chest, “—found you.”

  Her eyes had the quality of a vamp from an old movie. They flickered just the right way in the soft glow from the lone lamp on the table. The hard rain and silhouettes of palm fronds dancing in the windows only added to the effect.

  But it wasn’t real. Not like Bri and Sash at all. This was a calculated performance. I’m much too versed in the art of female hoodwinkery to fall for it.

  “Sorry, Allie,” I said, removing her hand from me. “Probably works on every guy who sees your show, but not me.”

  “So you are gay,” she said.

  “No. Allie, what’s going on?”

  She leaned in and hooked her right foot onto the back of my left calf. Same move that shoots fireworks in me when Jenny does it, but I got nothing.

  “Allie,” I said, “stop—just stop.”

  “I don’t think you really want me to stop.” Her voice was desperate now. She’s not used to rejection.

  I reached down and removed her leg while slightly backing away. “Yes, Allie. I want you to stop. You’re going to stop right now.”

  We stared each other down. She glanced away, then tried the seductive look one more time, stupefied that it wasn’t having its usual effect. I nodded no with a calmness that she recognized as genuine. She was good, this one. She sees shit others don’t see. She knows how to hit the hot spots, make men swoon and bow to her.

  I’d bet tears next.

  Sure enough, I watched the change as it happened. They started in a faint tremble. Not gushing, not overdone. A tiny crack opening up in the eggshell persona.

  She spun away from me and sobbed uncontrollably, or so it would sound to most people. I let her run with it for a minute as I watched and listened. When she turned, her eyes were perfectly forlorn as they peeked at me for a reaction.

  “Also not going to work,” I said. “Not only can I tell the difference between real seduction and fake seduction, I can also tell the difference between real tears and fake tears.”

  The real Allie popped out with an angry blare.

  “Asshole!” she shouted, her face red, her hands clenched into fists.

  “I’d bet threat of suicide next,” I said. “Don’t bother. I’ll let you slash your wrists and watch, then call the ambulance. They’ll call your mom and dad and then you’re back at Gables Estates.”

  I wasn’t serious about that, but I knew it would have the effect I wanted. She fumed, drifted momentarily into a Linda Blair impersonation, and then turned away from me, biting her nail.

  “Okay, asshole,” she said, “I need a place to stay for the night.”

  “Now that’s the most truthful thing you’ve said to me yet.”

  She made a sound like a cornered rat.

  “I thought you were living with Jake Preston in a place paid for by your father,” I said, not mentioning I’ve seen Jake in his current condition. “Why not go there?”

  “Because Jake Fucking Preston is another fucking asshole. I fucking hate men.”

  Yep, the real Allie is in.

  “Then why did you come here?” I said. “I’m a man.”

  No answer. My phone vibrated with an incoming text. It was from JoJo Burley:

  I’m back in town. Call me. I have news.

  I ignored it.

  “Did Jake hurt you, Allie?” I said.

  She shook her head.

  “He bring in too many other girls for your taste?” I said.

  “I could give a shit about that,” she said, turning to face me. “I’m bi. I liked some of them, too. Jake is just like Rexford J. Fucking Hayes, and just like every other fucking man I’ve ever known. He wants me to fucking play along as he manipulates.”

  “Manipulates who?”

  “Everyone. And the goddamned irony is that I fucking goddamned taught him how to do it. He was lame—useless without me. Before I came along, he was all pickup lines and hands in all the wrong places. I taught him how to go collect ten girls and bring them home to share.”

  “Nice to have a solid family life at home.”

  I sipped my bourbon. Ouch, it had been a while. What used to go down smooth nearly made me cough.

  “Fuck you,” she said. “You don’t get it. You don’t understand our lifestyle.”

  “You’re right about that,” I said, “nor do I want to. So if you haven’t been with Jake, where have you been living lately?”

  She stared at me and gritted her teeth. “I shouldn’t have come here. You’re all Mr. Questions. I’m leaving.”

  I had been trying to like her as she spoke—even just a little. It might be easier to like mosquitoes.

  “Allie,” I said, “it’s okay. I’m on your side. I’m not going to call your parents, not that they would take my call anyway. Help me to figure some things out and I’ll help you. How’s that?”

  She glared at me for another eternity, breaking the silence with:

  “I want to hire you to protect me. I can pay you.”

  “With whose money?” I said.

  She walked across the room and picked up the manila envelope.

  “Let’s start with this,” she said and threw it at me. I leaned to my right and it crashed into the air conditioner behind me, landing on the linoleum. I just can’t give this money away, can I?

  “And besides that,” she said, “I have my own money. More money than you know, asshole.”

  “Money from blackmailing your dad?”

  Her eyes narrowed. She went to her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes. She lit one without asking if it bothered me.

  “No,” she said, “that was Jake. He was the one who got Big Daddy Rex to pay and he spent every last penny of it. It’s all gone. Testarossa, my fucking ass.”

  “Oh,” I said, “now I get it. Jake used you to blackmail your dad, spent all the money, and then tossed you aside.”

  She puffed out some smoke. It drifted toward me in long lovely wisps, triggering a craving I felt all the way down to my toenails. I gripped the countertop.

  “But I did him one better,” she said. “I figured out another way to get a ton of my own money. Fuck Jake Preston and his Testarossa. Thinks he’s God.”

  “He does, doesn’t he?” I said.

  She laughed. “So you’ve met him, then?”

  “Yeah, one night at Sinz.”

  “You—you were at Sinz?” She laughed hysterically.

  “Yeah, I was looking for you. I met Jake and had a run-in with a guy named Eddie Corrado.”

  She froze, her face pale. She swallowed, stubbed out her cigarette, tossed it in the trash, and resumed her previous pose.

  “So you work for Pam Hayes,” she said, “who’s a psychopath, but you won’t work for me?”

  “Do you know Eddie Corrado?” I said.

  She shrugged. “I think I’ve heard the name. Are you going to answer my question? Will you protect me if I hire you?”

  “Protect you from who?”

  “From Big Daddy Rex, from Pam Hayes, from the police.”

  “Why do you call your mother Pam Hayes?”

  “Because—”, she made a sound like a wounded wolf, “—Pam Hayes is a psychopath.”

  “Allie, I’ve met your mother. She doesn’t strike me as the killer type.”

  “I told you. She tried to kill me. Her arms were around my throat. That’s when I kick
ed her and got the fuck out of there.”

  “Why would your mother want to kill you?”

  “Because I wouldn’t marry this stupid rich kid she found for me. Joke’s on her. He’s really gay and just needs a ‘beard’ so his rich family doesn’t find out. When her hands were around my throat, the gig was up.”

  “Gig?” I said. “What gig?”

  “My gig as Allie Fucking Hayes,” she said, “sweet blissful college girl who gets good grades and never does anything wrong so her daddy can be a big powerful pompous ass Senator.”

  “So after Pam Hayes tried to kill you, that’s when you ran to Jake Preston, a guy you had dated before?”

  She leaned on the counter and stared at the bourbon. She took a sip and looked down.

  “Yes,” she said. “I had nowhere else to go.”

  “And your father found you?” I said.

  “Big Daddy Rex found me, begged me to come back, but no way. No fucking way. He insisted, but Jake came up with a plan—and surprise surprise—it was a good plan for once.”

  “The blackmail?”

  “Yeah. He figured something out and used it against Big Daddy Rex, who paid. He paid big time.”

  She finished the bourbon and held it out to me like Zelda Fitzgerald to a busboy. I gritted my teeth, took it, poured another, and handed it back to her while trying my damndest to not throw it in her face.

  “Your father seems to like tossing money around,” I said. “Why not just ask him for it instead of blackmailing him?”

  “Because he wouldn’t give it to me unless I moved back into that absurd mansion,” she said, blowing smoke toward me. “I need to be fucking free. I need to be me, to do what I fucking want to do. To do my shows, to be with my people.”

  “So you go along with Jake in this blackmail scheme against your dad. Why?”

  “Duh, asshole. For the money. Haven’t you been fucking listening?”

  I felt the joy I would get from picking her up and throwing her into the street. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  “You know,” I said, “calling me ‘asshole’ every two seconds and being condescending is not making me look forward to having you here all night.”

  She sipped and shrugged. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve had a stressful day, okay?”

  I sipped my bourbon and thought. “What I don’t get, Allie, is why did your father keep your love nest with Jake Preston from your mother?”

  “God, how dumb are you? Because she tried to kill me!”

  “And Rex knows this?”

  “You better believe he does. Look, can we get some food?”

  “Sure.” I thought about Z’s chiseled smile out there somewhere in his silver Audi. “Do you mind delivery? It’s a bad night out there with the rain.”

  “Don’t you have anything here?”

  “Stove and refrigerator don’t work.” I took out my phone and scanned for delivery.

  “Why don’t you get them fixed?”

  “Because I’m not here long.”

  “You’re weird.”

  I gripped the counter tighter.

  “Pizza?” I said.

  “Anything as long as we don’t have to go out,” she said.

  “What do you want on yours?”

  “Whatever, I don’t care.”

  I dialed.

  “Wait,” she said. “No onions. No peppers. I hate peppers. No meat. Not too much sauce.”

  I called Primo Pizza and ordered a large cheese pizza for delivery.

  Allie sat at the table and I joined her, bringing over the bourbon. She still had some left in her glass. I finished mine and poured another, reminding myself to be careful.

  “So you don’t mind if I spend the night here?” she said.

  “No,” I lied. “As long as it’s just tonight.”

  She looked directly at me and finished her drink. I refilled it. She kept on looking at me. I began to feel violated.

  “You are different,” she said. “I’ve never met a man like you.”

  “Different?” I said.

  “Yeah, you’re so—quiet. You don’t talk much. Most guys babble on forever at me. You listen. Nobody ever listens to me.”

  I nodded.

  “See?” she said. “You just nodded. Most guys would take that and start proving they’re not quiet. You just nod.”

  I nodded. She laughed.

  “You’re funny,” she said. “I think I might actually like you.”

  Time for a subject change.

  “So you really hate Jake, huh?” I said.

  “Oh God, more questions.” She sipped. “Yes, he’s a prick.”

  “How would you feel if he were, uh, no longer with us?”

  Her eyes popped. She sat back in the chair. “You know, don’t you? I didn’t do it. I swear I didn’t do it.”

  “Allie,” I said, “I believe you. How did you know?”

  “After Hinraker’s last night, I went there—to his house—our house, what a joke—to get something. And somebody had shot him.”

  “You saw him dead?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t seem bothered at all.

  “What did you do?”

  “What do you think I did? I got the fuck out of there, that’s what I did. What would you do? They’re going to try to pin it on me. They’ve been looking for me to ask me questions. I cancelled my shows and decided to go to L.A.”

  “So you haven’t been staying at Hinraker’s?” I said.

  “No,” she said. “I could anytime, but I’ve been staying with—”

  “With who?”

  “A friend.” Her eyes narrowed and she lit another cigarette. “You wouldn’t turn me in, would you?”

  “Turn you in for what?” I said. “You say you didn’t do anything. What would be the harm in talking to the police and telling them everything? They’d run a check on your gun and see it wasn’t the one that killed Jake Preston and you’d be in the clear.”

  “Oh, you’re so goddamned naïve. None of that shit matters. The police work for Big Daddy Rex and every other goddamned rich asshole in Miami. They’ll pin it on me and force me back there. Then, Pam Hayes will kill me.”

  “Allie, that’s not true.”

  “Yes, it goddamned is.”

  I heard a car pull up and my gun was out. I went to the side of the door and peered out the window. It was a kid in a delivery hat.

  I opened the door before he had a chance to knock. I paid him and took the pizza box over to the table.

  “I don’t have any plates,” I said.

  “Of course not,” she said as she grabbed a slice and chomped into it like a bear to a trash bag. “That would be normal.”

  I inhaled, held it for a long moment, and let it out. I took a slice of pizza and ate.

  “What makes you think the police will do the bidding of your father?” I said.

  “Because they always do. They’re in deep with him, all the local politicians—oh, and that fucking bitch in Washington D.C. who is the devil herself.”

  “Who?”

  “Kelly Alves. She’s a rich bitch who gets my dad out of trouble. Looks like an icicle with a face. If she gets anywhere near me, I’ll be sent to an asylum and they’ll give me a lobotomy.”

  “Kelly Alves?” I said. “I’ve never heard of her.”

  “She’s a ‘fixer.’ An attorney in the pocket of everybody in D.C. Like Alicia Kope on that TV show Disgraced. You know Disgraced, right?”

  “I don’t watch TV.” I took another bite.

  “God, you’re weirder than I thought.”

  We ate some pizza.

  “So where are you from?” she said.

  I froze, the question so oddly out of place.

  “Did you just ask a question about me?” I said. “I’m shocked.”

  “Fuck you,” she said. “But seriously, you’re not from here, are you?”

  “I was born in Georgia but I went to Boston when I was twelve, right after my mothe
r died.”

  “Why did you go there?”

  “To find my father.”

  I ate some pizza. She stopped mid-chew.

  “Well . . .” she said.

  “Well what?” I said.

  “Did you find him?”

  “Yeah. He didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

  “Wow, that sucks.”

  “Then, I was passed from foster home to foster home until finally my older brother took me in. He was at Harvard.”

  “What’s his name?” she said.

  I took a deep breath, shocked that I’m actually talking about him without exploding into anger.

  “Cassius,” I said.

  She laughed and almost choked on her slice of pizza. “Cassius? Seriously? And you’re Titus?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “My dad had a weird sense of humor.”

  “So did Cassius help you?” she said.

  “Yeah. He was like my mentor. Helped me to clean up my act.”

  “I had somebody like that.”

  “Who?”

  Her face drifted away. I could tell she was visiting a memory, lost in time.

  “Bumble. She was—this person—I knew . . .”

  “Bumble? That’s a weird name.”

  “That was my nickname for her. She called me her little Bug-boo. Her real name is Hayley. She’s my big—uh—friend.”

  She smiled and looked at me for the first time. I started to almost like her. Didn’t think it was possible, but I dug up a tiny fragment of something likable buried in there.

  The pizza box was empty. I took it, got up, threw it in the trash, and sat back down. Allie was still a million miles away.

  “So who was this Hayley?” I said.

  I watched as the door slammed shut. She had begun to relax and open up, but I struck something that hit a nerve. She downed the rest of her drink.

  “Fuck you,” she said. I saw real tears begin for a brief second, but she squashed them down and shut everything off.

  She stood up, took her dress off like I wasn’t even there, threw it over the back of her chair, and plopped onto my airbed in her bra and panties, curled up in a ball facing away from me.

  Sweet dreams to you too, sweetheart.

  I sipped my drink. I need to learn to be more subtle. Although, I thought I was being subtle. Wasn’t I subtle?