Secrets and Fries at the Starlight Diner

by Helen Cox

  ‘Anyone ever tell you you’re a terrible liar?’ Nick said. ‘I wasn’t supposed to kill you just yet. If you’d put on a better show maybe I’d have taken you on a real date. Smothered you with a kiss instead of this,’ he said, picking up a cushion off the sofa. ‘Least you’d have died happy.’

  For a second I just stood there wide-eyed, but then anger, not just at his betrayal but at his cruelty, overtook me. I don’t know where I found the guts – I guess if I was going to die I didn’t want to go down without a fight – but I scowled him and said, ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

  Nick laughed. It was light years away from the small chuckles I’d heard from him before. It was hollow and hard and mean. ‘You weren’t saying that when I was flirting with you at the diner.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that was before I knew you were planning to kill me. Probably feeding information to Frankie and…’ I trailed off, looking at him. ‘You were the shooter. It was you.’

  ‘Of course it was,’ Nick said, smirking as I shook my head in disbelief.

  ‘And then you brought me Chinese food at the diner, after you tried to shoot me?’

  ‘I had to make nice,’ Nick said with a shrug. ‘I didn’t want you suspecting me. I was getting paid a pretty penny to stay close to you.’

  ‘You’re sick, you know that?’ I said, but then he took a couple of steps closer. Not for the first time, I took in his height and the muscles in his biceps. Aggravating this guy probably wasn’t improving my chances of survival.

  ‘I have to admit, I thought you’d figure it all out sooner,’ said Nick. ‘I mean, you went to Princeton, right?’

  ‘How did you—’

  ‘Oh, there’s very little I don’t know about you,’ Nick said. ‘But I just happen to saunter into your life the day you make bail. Did that never strike you as convenient?’

  ‘Just thought my luck was changing,’ I replied, as a sinking feeling settled in my stomach.

  ‘Oh, Bonnie, it was. Just not for the better. I’m doing you a favour, really,’ he said. ‘Nobody’s going to miss you.’

  Nick’s features had sharpened as he’d been talking. He was a big guy and I guess he was enjoying the cat-and-mouse element of this situation. That last comment had likely been designed to make me crumble, but instead it’d just angered me further. Six months ago that statement might have been right, but not anymore. Not now I had Bernie and Esther and Mona and Jack. And Jimmy. I opened my mouth to scream back at him. To tell him just how wrong he was. But before I got any of the words out, Nick lunged around the sofa, moving quicker than I’ve ever seen anybody move, and closed his hand around my throat in one swift movement.

  I hadn’t had time to take in a breath and his hand squeezed mercilessly around my airway. I tried to claw at his grip but it wasn’t loosening. Holding my neck in one hand and the cushion in the other, he lowered my body down to the floor. His movements were those of an expert, almost robotic in their precision. I convulsed and kicked in desperation but he was just too strong.

  With hardly any effort at all, Nick held me against the floor, sat astride me and, removing his hand from my throat for just a moment, pushed the cushion down hard over my face. I wanted to scream but it was coming out all muffled. No matter which way I squirmed or how hard I pushed, the pillow stayed exactly where it was.

  And then I heard it. A voice somewhere, far away.

  ‘Bonnie?’ It was Jimmy.

  The door rattled. Jimmy was clearly trying to break it in.

  ‘Bonnie!’ Jimmy screamed again.

  My lungs burned and my eyes teared as Nick increased the pressure. No doubt trying to finish me off before Jimmy could get to me. And in that moment, I knew. I knew I was going to die with Jimmy on the other side of the door. Unable to get to me. Everything felt darker. Colder. Quieter.

  Then suddenly the cushion was wrenched away from my face.

  I coughed and spluttered, trying to take in oxygen.

  I could hear Jimmy shouting my name.

  I tried to move but my arms and legs felt heavy, like they were trapped under an invisible weight. My eyes jolted open and, in an instant, took in a mish-mash of images and impressions. The door to Esther’s apartment was wide open. Nick and Jimmy were wrestling on the floor. Nick grabbing a red-faced Jimmy by the throat. Jimmy pounding at Nick with his fists, to very little effect.

  Nick was going to kill Jimmy and then finish me, unless I moved.

  Crying out as a horrible stinging sensation pulsed through every vein, I threw myself at Nick, pulling on his hair and scratching at his face again. Holding Jimmy with one arm, he swatted at me with the other. He was still holding Jimmy down, but only just. I knew I was too weak to punch, but I had to try, and jabbed Nick in the solar plexus as hard as I could, like my self-defence instructor had showed me all those years ago. Nick groaned and took one hand off Jimmy to grab hold of me. He was trying to put his hand over my mouth to stop me screaming out.

  That was a mistake.

  I was ready for him this time.

  I immediately took one of his fingers between my teeth and bit down as hard as I could, so hard that I tasted the metallic tang of his blood. He cried out but it didn’t stop him in his tracks as I thought it might. He shoved me to the floor.

  ‘You little bitch,’ Nick shouted and squeezed both hands around my neck. Nick’s snarling, sweating face filled my vision. Then, without warning, Nick’s body went reeling backwards. Alan had arrived and not a moment too soon. Together, he and Jimmy dragged Nick away from me and then threw him down on the floor.

  Alan aimed his gun at Nick, who growled but didn’t move.

  Panting with fear and exhaustion, I slumped my head back against the carpet and tried to catch my breath.

  ‘Place your hands on your head,’ I heard Alan saying to Nick. And then Jimmy’s face came into my line of sight. He had a cut across his left eyebrow and he looked understandably overheated after the struggle.

  ‘Bonnie, hey, come on. We need to get you outta here,’ Jimmy said, wrapping his arms around me to sit me up.

  ‘I feel dizzy,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, well, losing consciousness will do that to you. We gotta get you checked out,’ he said.

  Looping my arms around Jimmy’s neck for support, I eased onto my feet, took a breath and wobbled towards the door. I could hear Alan, who still had his gun raised, reading Nick his Miranda rights. I didn’t look over to watch. I could feel Nick’s beady eyes on me in my peripheral vision but if I could help it, I didn’t want to look at him ever again.

  I turned towards Jimmy and the next thing I heard was Alan screaming ‘No!’ A large bang sounded out and something pounded against my back, knocking me forward into Jimmy. Looking up at Jimmy, I cried out as the throb spread through my veins. It was hard to understand anything that happened after that but I do know another bang sounded out somewhere behind me and a loud thud followed.

  ‘Bonnie,’ Jimmy said with a note of disbelief as I slumped to the floor. He put his arms on my shoulders and I looked down to see blood. Staring back up at Jimmy, I could feel my eyes getting wider and wider. ‘Bonnie, no, don’t pass out. Come on, listen to my voice,’ Jimmy said to me. In the background I could hear Alan’s voice calling for an ambulance. All I could see was Jimmy’s face. The tears in his eyes as he looked at me.

  ‘Jimmy,’ I managed to say. ‘Thank you.’

  And the second those words left my lips the world went dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  They say you forget the reality of being shot. That the force of a bullet obliterates all memory.

  But I remember…

  The searing heat of the wound. The needles stabbed into me by frantic paramedics. And the shouting. Everybody yelling at one another. So angry and desperate and scared. You roll in and out of consciousness. Tuning in and out.

  Until you black out, completely.

  Things were quiet and dark for a long time.

  But then there was music
.

  For a while, what rational part there was left of me thought I was imagining it. When I was awake and sane and sober I’d sometimes hear music even when there wasn’t any playing. I couldn’t put names to them, not right then, but even through the darkness I recognised the melodies. I don’t know how long I was listening to the music before I started to make out other sounds. A heart monitor beeping. The scuffling of feet. A deep voice that was all muffled.

  Next came the smell of antiseptic. Then a soreness crept in. My whole body ached. And then a croaky voice was shouting the name ‘Nick’.

  ‘Nick, no!’ the voice said.

  And then I realised: it was my voice.

  Slowly, I forced my eyes open and Jimmy’s face came into focus. He was standing by my bedside, holding my hand. My eyes darted across to where the music was coming from. A record player, which I recognised as Jimmy’s, had been hooked up and was playing ‘What a Wonderful World’ by Sam Cooke. I looked back at Jimmy and sighed, relief flooding through me.

  ‘Can’t you even lie unconscious in a peaceful manner?’ He tried to smile as he said this but there were tears in his eyes.

  ‘Jimmy,’ I said, also trying a smile on for size but then, frowning. ‘What happened?’

  ‘You’ve been shot. Nick pulled a gun when Alan was trying to arrest him. He would’ve shot Alan too, but Alan got to him first.’ Jimmy kissed my hand.

  ‘God… I can’t feel anything… Why do I feel so relaxed?’ I asked.

  ‘That’ll be the morphine, Blue…’

  ‘You know, you’ve been calling me that, but my hair isn’t blue any more,’ I said. I might’ve known Jimmy Boyle was the kinda guy to sass a lady even after she’d been shot.

  He enclosed a second hand around mine. ‘Well, now, I never said I called you Blue because of your hair.’

  ‘Why else would you call me Blue?’ And how was I already dancing round in silly conversational circles with Jimmy again mere seconds after waking up from surgery?

  ‘Maybe I think there’s something sorta sad about you.’

  I glared at him. ‘You really know how to cheer a gal up when she’s been shot.’

  Jimmy leaned forward. ‘Well, alright, how about this instead?’ He pressed his lips against mine, but gently, so gently. My shoulders loosened as his tongue brushed against mine and though even a kiss from him couldn’t take away the memory of a bullet striking into me, the pain of it felt further away in that moment.

  Nudging my nose with his, he withdrew a few inches so he could look into my eyes as he spoke. ‘I was so scared you weren’t gonna make it. The doctor said the only reason you’re still here is that the bullet ricocheted off of your ribcage.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good,’ I said with a frown.

  ‘No, it is – well, in a way. Alan said Nick’s gun was pretty cheap. The ammo wasn’t high quality and it hit you at just the right angle. You were lucky,’ Jimmy said, squeezing my hand. ‘Very lucky. And, you know, it’s not OK to give your boyfriend a fright like that.’

  A small smirk formed on my lips but I tried to hold it in. ‘Duly noted,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Jimmy scrunched his mouth up and then said, ‘Oh, alright. I get it. It’s because I said “boyfriend” isn’t it?’

  I giggled and pushed some of the stray, golden hairs out of his face. ‘Yeah, sorta.’

  ‘What are you, fourteen?’

  ‘Nope, I’m almost twenty-eight and I’m on a whole lotta morphine,’ I said, giggling again. ‘C’mon, I just got shot. Aren’t I allowed a little bit of fun?’

  ‘I guess so.’ A smile crept over Jimmy’s lips. ‘But don’t think you can go using this whole “I got shot” excuse ad infinitum. I think we need to establish some sort of expiry date on that.’

  ‘How long do you think?’

  ‘Six months.’

  I looked down at the white cotton sheets on the bed and then back up at Jimmy. ‘You planning on keeping me around that long?’

  Jimmy frowned. ‘Oh yeah, a lot longer than that. But I’m still new at this; I don’t really know what I’m doing here, remember? I’m probably not going to be the easiest guy to date.’

  ‘No kidding,’ I chuckled. Jimmy’s face, however, looked quite serious. ‘Hey…’ I beckoned him close and whispered into his ear. ‘It’s alright. We’re together now.’

  Turning his head, Jimmy gave me a soft, slow kiss.

  ‘Mmm…’ I said in a dreamy voice. ‘How long was I unconscious?’

  ‘Only a few hours. But that was long enough,’ Jimmy said, and then with mock seriousness in his tone added. ‘No more going unconscious for you, thank you very much.’

  I looked into Jimmy’s eyes. ‘Did Nick… make it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ I frowned, feeling more relief over that fact than I would’ve liked to. ‘He told me he was behind the shooting at Jack’s apartment.’

  ‘Did he?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Rivera will be pleased. She couldn’t find any prints there to link the crime to Nick, but she also thinks he was responsible for the death of an MTA guard earlier in the month. The guy had been suffocated. The victim from the apartment block opposite Jack and Esther’s also had marks around the neck and face that suggested he’d been suffocated before he was thrown in the river. The MO matches. I guess he killed the MTA guy for his uniform or something.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ I looked up at Jimmy. ‘I know about that MTA guy. Walt read the story out of the newspaper – to Nick. And he just sat there and pretended that the guy was one of his work colleagues. We didn’t suspect a thing.’ I shook my head. ‘And he did it to get to me. He killed those people because of me.’

  Jimmy cupped my cheeks in his palms and I swallowed hard as I looked at him. ‘Now don’t look like that, Blue. Come on. You can’t blame yourself. From what Rivera has dug up about the guy, he’s a professional. There’s no way any of us could have known. I only ran that background check because, well, I’m just cynical like that.’

  ‘You saved me.’ I reached my hand up to his cheek and traced my fingernail along it.

  ‘No,’ Jimmy said, running a hand through my hair. ‘You’ve saved me, actually.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘While you were lying there I got thinking about all sorts of things. Choices I’ve made. When you have the kind of childhood I had, you know what it’s like to be desperate and you know there are people like that all over. Everywhere. I left the bar because I didn’t think I was making a difference to those people. To me the system was all crooked and I thought there was a greater chance of getting to the truth of things as a reporter.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, unsure where this was going.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t ever have stepped back into a courtroom. Being an attorney again, it reminded me of the difference I could make. And how important it is for me to keep fighting the system rather than just watching it get worse.’

  ‘So in summary…’ I teased.

  ‘Hey, I’m opening up here.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been shot through the chest and I’m on a lot of drugs.’

  ‘Oh, that excuse again,’ Jimmy said, shaking his head at me. ‘People like you, people who’ve got the odds stacked against them, they need a lawyer like me.’

  ‘Jimmy, are you telling me that you’re going to go back to being a lawyer?’

  ‘Bingo. Do you think it’s the right decision?’ he asked, scratching his head.

  ‘I believe you can do anything you put your mind to.’

  ‘See, that’s why I love ya,’ Jimmy said. His eyes widened. I gasped and pointed a finger at him. ‘No. No. No,’ he said.

  ‘You said you loved me,’ I laughed, a warmth rushing through me that I was ninety-nine per cent sure had nothing to do with the morphine.

  ‘No. It’s been a very long day, emotions are running high, and under that kinda pressure a guy can wind up saying things—
’

  ‘Jimmy,’ I cut him off. ‘I love you too.’

  Jimmy went very quiet and very still and stared at me. ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do.’

  Jimmy leaned in close again and squinted at me. ‘You’re not screwing around with me? You’re clearly high as a kite on painkillers here.’

  I stared back into his hazel eyes. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you, Blue,’ he said, kissing me again. When he drew back he had an expression on his face I’d seen once or twice since I’d met him – and it tended to spell trouble.

  ‘What?’ I asked. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You said you love me. I’d like to remind you, you can’t take that back.’

  ‘Oh God, what did you do?’ I said, shaking my head at him.

  ‘Nothing much,’ Jimmy said, standing up straight and shoving his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘I may have called your parents and told them you got shot. And they may be on their way here from Detroit. Like right now.’

  I stared at him. ‘Can I go through any kind of crisis without you thinking it’s a good idea to call my folks?’

  ‘C’mon. I didn’t know if you were going to make it. I didn’t want to have to put a phone call through to tell them you were dead. I’d much prefer one of the nurses here took that burden off my shoulders,’ Jimmy said, giving me the wickedest grin I’d ever seen on him.

  ‘You are terrible,’ I said, ‘I hope you know that.’

  ‘Yes, I am terrible,’ said Jimmy. ‘But that’s why you love me.’

  A silence fell between us as we gazed into each other’s eyes but a moment later a nurse breezed through the door, clipboard in hand. She was a roundish woman with grey hair tied back in a neat bun

  ‘Well, well, we’re awake,’ said the nurse before looking over at Jimmy. ‘Maybe it was the music that did the trick?’

  Jimmy gave her a sort of coy look and then walked over to the record player. He unhooked the needle and put the Sam Cooke record back in its sleeve.

  ‘Your heart rate is steady,’ said the nurse, looking first at the monitor and then smirking over at Jimmy. ‘Well, maybe a little elevated.’