by J. R. Rain
I looked at my watch. It was well past the ten minutes he allotted me each night. “Can I please speak to my children now?”
“Sorry, Sam. Your time for tonight is up.” And he hung up.
Chapter Thirteen
Fresh off my infuriating phone call with Danny, I soon found myself sitting outside Rembrandt’s in Brea. I was drinking a glass of white wine. The woman sitting across from me was drinking a lemonade. Yes, a lemonade. Her name was Monica Collins and she was a mess.
We were sitting under a string of white lights next to a sort of makeshift fence that separated us from the heavily trafficked path to the 24-Hour Fitness behind us. While we drank, a steady parade of physical active types, all wearing tight black shorts, tank tops or tee shirts, streamed past our table and looked down at us gluttons with scorn. Most carried a gym bag of some sort, a water bottle, and a towel. Half had white speaker cords hanging from their ears. There was a sameness to their diversity.
This wine was hurting my stomach and so I mostly ignored it. White wine, water and blood were the only items I could safely consume without vomiting within minutes. Wine, however, rarely settled well, but I put up with it, especially when meeting new clients. I doubted a glass of chilled hemoglobin would make them feel very comfortable.
Monica was on her second glass of lemonade. Correction, third. She raised her hand and signaled the waiter over, who promptly responded, filling her glass again with a pitcher of the sweet stuff. She looked relieved.
Monica was a bit of a mystery to me. She was a full grown woman who acted as if she was precisely fourteen years old. She had to be around thirty, certainly, but you would never guess it by the way she popped her gum, swung her legs in her seat, giggled, and drank lemonade as if it was going out of style. Her giggling was a nervous habit, I noticed, not because she actually thought anything was funny. There was also something screwy about her right eye. It didn’t track with the left eye, as if it had a sort of minor delay to it. It also seemed to focus somewhere over my shoulder, as if at an imaginary pet parrot.
She had been telling me in graphic detail the many incidents in which her husband of twelve years (now ex-husband) had beaten the unholy shit out of her. I didn’t say much as she spoke. Mostly I watched her...and the steady procession of humanity coming and going to the gym.
Monica spoke in a small, child-like voice. She spoke without passion and without inflection. There was no weight to her voice. No strength. Often she spoke with her head and eyes down. She had suffered great abuse, perhaps for most of her life. Women who were abused as children often found themselves in abusive relationships as adults. No surprise there.
She stopped talking when she reached the bottom of the lemonade. She next proceeded to slurp up the remnants loudly. People looked at her, and then at me. I shrugged. Monica didn’t seem to care that people were looking at her, and if she didn’t care, why the hell should I?
When she was done slurping, she then asked me if she could go to the bathroom.
Yes, asked me.
I told her that, uh, sure, that would be fine. She smiled brightly, popped her gum, and left. A few minutes later she returned...and promptly ordered another lemonade.
She went on. After she had left her husband, he had made it his life’s purpose to kill her. She got a restraining order. Apparently he didn’t think much of restraining orders. His first attempt to kill her occurred when she was living alone in an apartment in Anaheim.
As she paused to fish out a strawberry, I tried to wrap my brain around the thought of Monica living on her own, doing big girl things, doing adult things, and couldn’t. Although thirty-something, she clearly seemed stunted and unprepared for adult life. I reflected on this as she continued her story.
He was waiting for her in her kitchen. After throwing her around a bit, he had proceeded to beat her into a bloody mess with a pipe wrench, cracking her head open, and leaving her for dead.
Except she didn’t die. Doctors rebuilt her, using steel plates and pins and screws. Today she still suffered from trauma-induced seizures and had lost the use of her right eye. That explained the eye. It was, in fact, blind.
After the attack, her husband had been caught within hours. But something strange happened on the way to prison. His attorney, who had apparently been damn good, had somehow gotten him out of jail within a few weeks, convincing a judge that her ex was no longer a threat to Monica.
Her ex-husband attacked again that night.
Still recovering from the first attack, Monica had been staying with her parents when her ex-husband broke into their home, this time wielding a hammer. I was beginning to suspect someone had given the man a gift card to Home Depot. I kept my suspicions to myself.
Anyway, her ex went on to kill her father and to permanently cripple her mother. And if not for the family Rottweiler, Monica would have been dead, too. Yes, the dog survived.
Monica grew silent. In the parking lot in front of us, an older white Cadillac drove slowly by. The windows were tinted. The Caddy seemed to slow as it went by. She played with the straw. I told her I was sorry about her father. She nodded and kept playing with the straw. I waited. There was more to the story. There was a reason, after all, why she had called me this evening.
She pushed her glass aside. Apparently, she had reached her lemonade limit.
She said, “He was caught trying to hire someone to kill me.”
“Who caught him?”
“The people at the prison.”
“Prison officials?”
“Yes, them. But he wasn’t, you know, successful.” Nervous giggles.
I said, “You’re scared.”
She nodded; tears welled up in her eyes. “Why does he want to hurt me so much? Hasn’t he done enough?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“He’s horrible,” she said. “He’s so mean.”
As she spoke her voice grew tinier and her lower lip shook. Her hands were shaking, too, and my heart went out to this little girl in a woman’s body. Why anyone would want to hurt such a harmless person, I had no clue. Maybe there was more to the story, but I doubted it. I think her assessment was right. He was just mean. Damn mean.
She spoke again, “So I talked to Detective Sherbet. He is so nice to me. He always helps me. I love him.” She smiled at the thought of the good detective, a man I had grown quite fond of myself. “He told me to see you. That you were tougher than you looked, but I don’t understand what he means. He said you would protect me.”
I said, “In the state of California, a private investigator’s license also doubles as a bodyguard license.”
“So you are a bodyguard, too?” I heard awe in her voice. She smiled brightly. Tears still gleamed wetly in her eyes.
“I am,” I said, perhaps a little more boastful than I had intended.
She clapped. “Do you carry a gun?”
“When I need to.”
She continued smiling, but then grew somber. She looked at me closely with her good eye, not so closely with her bad eye. “I don’t have money to pay you. I haven’t been able to work at the bakery since he hurt me, but maybe my momma can help pay you. Detective Sherbet said that you know what the right thing to do is, but I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
I smiled and shook my head and reached out and took her hand, feeling its warmth despite its clamminess. She flinched slightly at my own icy touch. I held her gaze, and she held mine as best as she could.
I said, “Don’t worry about money, sweetie. I won’t let anything happen to you, ever. You’re safe now. I promise.”
And that’s when she started crying.
Chapter Fourteen
We were in my hotel suite.
Monica was walking around my spartan room as if it were more interesting than it really was. I sensed some of her anxiety departing. In the least, she was giggling less, which I considered a good thing.
Finally she sat on the corner of the bed, near where I was sitting
in the surprisingly comfortable desk chair. My laptop was next to me, closed. Somewhere, in there, was Fang. I wondered what he was doing tonight. I wondered what he did every night. I found myself wondering a lot about him.
And what about Kingsley? I wondered about him, too, but he was a little easier to wonder about, since I knew where he lived and I knew he had the hots for me.
On the round table near me was the pad of paper that contained my conversation with...something. At least, the beginning of a conversation.
“You really live here?” asked Monica.
“For now, yes.”
“And your husband just kicked you out?”
“Something like that.”
She shook her head and smiled some more, but it was a nervous smile. I sensed her about to giggle, but she somehow held it in check.
“I had the opposite problem,” she said.
“As in, he never wanted you to leave.”
“Yes, exactly.” And now she did giggle. Sigh. As she sat there on the corner of the bed, her dangling feet didn’t quite touch the carpeted floor. She was so small and cute. And innocent. And sweet. And clueless. In the wrong hands, in the wrong relationship, I could see a brute of a man thinking she was his. A trophy. A little trophy. Something to possess and own. In the right hands, she would have been protected and loved and cherished.
She had found herself in the wrong hands.
Monica asked, “So why did he kick you out, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“I mind,” I said.
She giggled, turned red, and looked away. “I’m so sorry.”
I reached out and touched her knee. I had to be gentle with this one. Her social savvy wasn’t quite up to par, either.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just a very fresh wound that I don’t want to talk about right now. You did nothing wrong.”
She nodded vigorously. I patted her knee. She looked at me, nodded again, then looked down. She was so unsure of herself. So lost. So helpless. How could anyone hurt this girl? God, I already hated her ex-husband with a fucking passion.
“Sam, can I ask you a question?”
I smiled. “Sure, sweetie.”
“Can I, you know, ask how you’re going to protect me?” Nervous giggle. “Is that okay to ask?”
“It’s okay,” I said, patting her knee reassuring, much as I would my own daughter. And the thought of my daughter—and the possibility of not seeing her or Anthony this Saturday night—nearly brought me to tears. I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and said, “You are either going to be with me, or with someone I trust. You will always be protected.”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. She pursed her lips. “Who are your friends?”
“Good men. Honorable men. I trust them with my life. They will protect you when I’m not around.”
“Why would you not be around?”
“Sometimes I have...business to attend to.”
She nodded. She understood business. “And one of your friends is coming over now?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Because you are going out?”
“Right. I have work to do.”
“And I can’t come?” She sounded like a child asking her mother if she could go grocery shopping with her.
“Not this time,” I said.
“Okay.” Petulant. She didn’t like the idea of me leaving her so soon. I didn’t either, but what I had to do tonight she had no business seeing or being a part of.
“Chad is a good man,” I said. “You will like him.”
She nodded again. “Will you be back tonight?”
“Yes.”
She smiled and kicked her feet out again. She was wearing white shorts. Her legs were thin and tan. They were also crisscrossed with scars. I didn’t ask her about the scars, but I suspected she had been beaten badly with a belt.
“So how long will you protect me?”
“As long as it takes,” I said. Mercifully, she had no children and, apparently, was on extended leave at her baking job, which I discovered was a donut shop. No wonder why Detective Sherbet liked her so much.
There was a knock on my hotel door. Three rapid knocks, a pause, and then a fourth. It was Chad, using the coded knock we had been trained to use.
“That’s my ex-partner,” I said. I sat forward and patted her knee again. “You’re in good hands, I promise.”
She smiled and popped her gum. “I believe you,” she said.
Chapter Fifteen
I was sitting with Stuart Young three floors up on his balcony, overlooking a sliver of Balboa Beach. Stuart didn’t quite have a water view from his balcony, but what I could see gleamed brightly under the waxing crescent moon.
Stuart offered me some wine, but my stomach was still upset from the wine I had earlier. I accepted some water instead, and now we sat together overlooking a mostly quiet street. The street ran between more condos. The condos all looked the same. Row after row, street after street, of identical condos. How I found Stuart’s condo was still a mystery, especially with my dismal sense of direction.
But I knew the answer. I sensed his building, and I sensed his apartment. My psychic abilities were gathering strength.
Anyway, Stuart looked like he had recently been crying. No surprise there. He also didn’t seem to care that he looked like he had been crying and made no apologies for it. His eyes were red and swollen. His nose was red and swollen. A light film of sweat coated his perfect bald head. The sweat could have been from the alcohol, since the weather is always perfect. Which is why, water view or no water view, this condo probably cost a small fortune.
Stuart was drinking light beer that he had poured into a frosted glass. Beer was the one thing I didn’t miss. Blech. Give me wine any day.
“How you holding up?” I asked.
“Couldn’t be worse,” he said, and actually smiled.
I sipped my water and leaned slightly to the right to get a better view of the tiny sliver of ocean.
“If you look hard enough, you’ll find it,” said Stuart. “Believe it or not, I paid for that tiny speck of ocean you can see. Probably cost me another fifty grand.”
“It’s a nice speck,” I said.
He chuckled and drank his beer. He seemed to be enjoying it. Go figure.
“I have it on good word,” I said without looking at him, “that, unofficially, your wife’s plane was sabotaged.”
He stopped drinking.
I went on, “And if it was sabotaged, which appears likely, then that means your wife, along with everyone else on board, was murdered.”
He sat back, stared down into his frosted mug. He didn’t have much of a reaction. Then again, I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know or suspect.
I continued, “We all know who stood to benefit from that plane going down. Jerry Blum has not only escaped prosecution, he is now a free man. With no witnesses and no case, all charges have been dropped against him.”
Stuart nodded; his jawline rippled slightly.
“The plane crash investigation is still ongoing,” I said after a few minutes. “The investigation could take years. Even if the authorities do find out who took it down, or sabotaged it, I suspect there will be very little evidence linking the attack to Jerry Blum.”
He set his frosted glass down on the dusty, round glass table that sat between us, and turned and looked at me.
Stuart said, “And even if evidence is found indicating Jerry Blum was responsible for my wife’s crash, who’s to say that the next batch of witnesses won’t be killed as well.”
“It’s a sick Catch-22,” I said.
“This could go on forever.”
I nodded.
“I may never see justice,” he added. “Ever.”
“There is still a chance they could find damning evidence linking Jerry Blum to the downed aircraft,” I said.
“Or not,” said Stuart.
I nodded. “Or not.”
“More t
han likely he’s going to get off, again, and meanwhile my wife....” Stuart’s voice trailed off and he suddenly broke down, sobbing hard into his hands. I reached over and patted his shoulder and made sympathetic noises. He continued crying, and I continued patting.
When he finally got control of himself, he said, “I have something I want you to listen to.”
Chapter Sixteen
Stuart got up and went through the sliding glass door. He came back a moment later holding a Blackberry phone. He sat next to me again and pushed a few buttons on the phone. A moment later, the phone was ringing loudly on speaker mode. An electronic voice answered and asked Stuart if he wanted to listen to his voice mail. Stuart pressed a button. I assumed his answer was yes. The voice then asked if Stuart wanted to listen to his archive. He pressed another button, and he held the phone out between us, face up, above the round table and above his beer.
“Stu!” came a woman’s frantic voice. “Stu, listen to me. Something very, very bad is happening. Oh, God! Stu, the plane is having problems. Serious problems. I heard an explosion. It happened right outside my window. On the wing. It blew up. I can see it now. Flapping, burning, on fire. This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening. Oh, God, Stu!” The voice stopped. From somewhere nearby, I heard a woman screaming in the background. A horrible, gut-wrenching scream. “Stu, sweet Jesus, the plane is going to crash. Everyone knows it. The pilot can’t get...can’t get control of it.” Another pause. A voice crackled loudly over a speaker. It was the pilot. He was telling everyone to sit in their seats, to buckle up, to remain calm. And then he told them to prepare for a crash landing. “Jesus, Stu. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Oh, good Christ. I wish I was talking to you, baby. I need you so bad. I need your voice. Baby, I’m so scared. So scared. This isn’t happening.” Someone screamed bloody murder in the background. “I heard your voice, Stu. I heard it when I got your voice mail. At least I heard it one last—one more time. I love your voice, baby. I love you, baby. I love you so much. I’m going to die now.” Someone spoke to her rapidly, hysterically, but the woman on the phone didn’t respond. “Everyone’s losing it, Stu. Everyone’s freaking. Stu, the explosion. Something blew this plane up. Something blew the wing up. It’s Jerry Blum, Stu. I know it. He did this, baby. Somehow. Somehow he got to us all. The motherfucker. Oh, God....” and now she broke down in sobs, briefly regained her composure, and into the phone, “I love you, baby. Forever.”