by Meg Gardiner
Lavonne’s mouth pinched. ‘‘Leave me to do the talking to the police.’’
She scuttled away. Jesse stared out the window at red tile roofs and the green swell of the mountains.
‘‘Ev, this Jakarta Rivera character.’’
‘‘Yeah?’’
‘‘Watch out. She has the stink of the real about her.’’
Kenny showed up at my house an hour later, lunchtime. I was out at the curb saying good-bye to the home-security salesman, telling him I wanted to buy the burglar alarm but how about throwing in booby traps and some artillery? Nothing big, maybe a twenty-millimeter Vulcan cannon, the kind the Navy puts in its F/A-18s.
He pulled up in the Porsche. He had the engine revving. ‘‘Get in.’’
When we drove away, Helen Potts, standing at her mailbox, scowled at us.
‘‘You’re trying to jam me up,’’ he said.
I saw nerves and anger, his mouth sour beneath the sunglasses, his hand goosing the gearshift back and forth.
I said, ‘‘You told Brand I had the minidisk, didn’t you?’’
‘‘He’s a pathological liar.’’
‘‘Even if he is, it isn’t my place to protect you from his lies.’’
‘‘Little Miss Semtex. Blowing crap in all directions, not caring who gets hit.’’
He rumbled up the street. My hair batted in the wind.
‘‘You shouldn’t mess with me, and neither should Blackburn,’’ he said.
‘‘You’re angry that I told your dad.’’
He upshifted. ‘‘You have no idea the pressure I’m under.’’
‘‘Daddy’s little boy.’’
‘‘Gimpy’s little bitch.’’
I glanced at him, disbelieving my ears. He raced up Laguna Street.
‘‘The rose garden’s up ahead,’’ I said. ‘‘Pull over; we’ll take a walk.’’
‘‘No.’’ He downshifted. ‘‘You need to see something.’’
We headed around corners and onto Santa Barbara Street.
He said, ‘‘You’re messing in places you shouldn’t. Don’t ever speak to my father about me again.’’
‘‘I’ll do what I need to, Kenny.’’
‘‘He doesn’t believe in me. No matter what I do, I can never live up to what he thinks I should be,’’ he said. ‘‘And he’s looking for an excuse to hang onto power at Mako. You’re giving it to him.’’
‘‘Sorry, but that’s not my problem.’’
We passed First Presbyterian and turned onto State Street.
‘‘You tell him I’m buddying with Brand? You tell him I’m a screwup yet again?’’ He adopted George’s brusque basso. ‘‘ ‘Kenny, get inside and entertain the guests. Kenny, get your finger out of your nose. Kenny, you can’t be a stunt man. You can’t race motocross; it’ll make the family look trashy. You can’t do anything.’ ’’
He ran a red light, looking at me. ‘‘How’d you like to grow up with that?’’
‘‘How’d you like to slow down?’’
We were weaving ever faster through the weekday traffic. I leaned back in the seat, holding on to the door. Kenny’s face, behind the even features and movie-star hair, was acidic.
‘‘But he forgets. My sainted father, Mr. Save the Nation, he forgets. I may have hired Frank, but Dad’s the one who promoted him to VP.’’ He screeched around the corner onto Hope. ‘‘Well, ha. After the hit-and-run, Dad had to face the fact that he backed the wrong horse.’’
We squealed into the driveway at Calvary Cemetery. Greenery arose along our left. The drive curved between silent lawns, trees shading the graves, the markers flat against the ground.
I said, ‘‘Anytime you want to tell me what we’re doing, I’m listening.’’
‘‘Here.’’
He pulled to the curb, killed the engine, and got out. Trying to regain my composure, I followed him up a rise. What had I been thinking, riding along with him? Anger and high-performance German engines were a bad combination.
He stopped near the top of the hill, under a spreading tree.
‘‘What do you think I have to do with Brand? Honestly. I want to know,’’ he said. ‘‘Give it to me right in the gut.’’
I tried to read his face.
‘‘Don’t try to figure out how to play it. Just tell me,’’ he said.
So I did. ‘‘I think you’re his majordomo,’’ I said. ‘‘I think you’re his errand boy. I think you’ve been in on the embezzlement scheme almost from the start.’’
‘‘Go on.’’
‘‘I think you’ve been trying to squelch Jesse from the moment he found out Brand was back. I think you’re the one who’s behind this computer harassment campaign against him.’’
"Is that all?"
‘‘I think you’re Franklin Brand’s toady.’’
He stared at me, his face pinched. ‘‘You read about Yvette. The girl who died.’’
‘‘Yes.’’
He pointed at the ground behind me. The gravestone had her name on it.
‘‘The driver was two times over the legal limit,’’ he said. ‘‘Yvette was thrown out and the car flipped over on her. Nearly cut her in half.’’
I read the name, putting it together. Yvette Vasquez.
‘‘She was Mari Diamond’s sister?’’
He nodded. ‘‘The driver ran, left her. She was seventeen. ’’
‘‘I’m sorry, Kenny.’’
He knelt next to the grave marker, rasping his fingers over the letters carved in the stone. ‘‘Brand deliberately ran over your lover. He smashed the Sandoval kid’s head like a melon. And he ran.’’ He looked up. ‘‘Do you think I would have anything more to do with a bastard like that?’’
I looked in his eyes, wondering if, in his crude way, he was talking truth.
He brushed off his hands and stood up. ‘‘You know I don’t hold any truck with your boyfriend. He turned the crash into his winning lotto ticket. But it doesn’t make what Frank did okay.’’
The wind brushed me. ‘‘You had me going there.’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘Until you started slagging Jesse off, you had me feeling sorry for you.’’
‘‘Wake up and smell the scam, sister. He uses his handicap as a stick to beat people with. He’s using you. You do everything for him, even argue.’’
I told myself not to mouth off, not with someone so angry and manipulative, but my own anger had reached boiling point. ‘‘It doesn’t bother you that Mari Diamond had an affair with Brand?’’
‘‘That’s sex. That’s different.’’
‘‘Pardon?’’
‘‘Did you ever get a good look at Cal Diamond? Banging Frank was probably the only thing that kept Mari sane.’’
I blinked. ‘‘My God, you’re low.’’
‘‘Mari’s head is screwed-up and has been since Yvette died. Marrying that geezer, that proved it. And she needs lots of sanity, constant infusions. She doesn’t need to apologize, and neither do her lovers.’’
‘‘You’re telling me that you—’’
‘‘Don’t say sloppy seconds. She’s too classy.’’
‘‘But you’re her lover, too?’’
‘‘Bull’s-eye for the crip fucker.’’
I slapped him in the face.
He flinched and drew a breath. ‘‘I’ve been waiting all week for you to do that.’’
‘‘You’re a pig, Kenny.’’
He smiled. ‘‘At last. Now at least I know you have some real emotion in there. You’re not just Blackburn’s lackey.’’
My hand was stinging. I wanted to hit him again.
‘‘I’m out of here.’’ I started to walk away.
He put a hand on my arm. ‘‘So you’re going to judge me for screwing Mari when you have your own kinky thing going on?’’
‘‘I cannot begin to dignify such garbage with a response. ’’
‘‘This is really getting you hot, isn’t it?’’
‘‘Let go.’’
‘‘Hang on. Why don’t you give me a shot? It would be fun.’’ His tongue tapped against his teeth. ‘‘You want, I could even pretend to be like him. I’d like to see you when you’re really turned on.’’
‘‘Stop.’’
I tried to twist away from him. He gripped me around the waist, and here came his thigh, nudging between my legs.
‘‘Come on,’’ he said. ‘‘You know we’d be awesome.’’
I pushed him away. My vision was thumping. I turned and ran down the hill, and heard him behind me by the grave, laughing. I reached the road and kept jogging toward the cemetery office. After a minute I heard the Porsche start up. Kenny cruised up alongside me and rolled down his window.
‘‘The invitation remains open,’’ he said. ‘‘But if you mention this, to anyone, Mari will have you for lunch. She’ll rip out your kidneys and serve them to her dogs.’’
He pulled away.
I got a cab, wanting nothing more than to get home and scrub myself with a hard brush. But when I opened the gate I saw my cousin Taylor sitting on the doorstep. She had applied so much hair spray that she should have been wearing a warning sticker: Keep away from open flame. She was sorting through my mail.
She held up an envelope. ‘‘I didn’t know you had a gold card.’’
I took it from her. ‘‘What’s going on?’’
She stood up, brushing dust from the seat of her shorts. ‘‘We’re having lunch today. Remember?’’
I drooped. ‘‘I’m sorry, I forgot. Give me a minute; I’ll go spruce myself up.’’
I took her to Café Orleans, on the promenade at Paseo Nuevo, and we sat outside having po’boy sandwiches and iced tea. I felt perturbed and dirty from Kenny’s come-on. But Taylor seemed oblivious, talking about her job, her blueberry eyes sparkling.
‘‘Countess Zara lingerie, you’ve heard of it. I rep for the Dazzling Delicates line. I settle in, I’ll gin it up here.’’ She gazed at passing shoppers. "Y’all could surely use some pizzazz. And underwiring.’’
I stared absently. What did Kenny want to accomplish with his cry-and-grab act? If he thought he would get either sympathy or sex out of the encounter, he was perverse. He had subverted himself. His behavior was self-sabotaging.
‘‘What?’’ I said.
‘‘This new book you’re writing, is it like the last one? Missiles and mutants?’’ She was fluffing herself, adjusting her watch and bracelets, checking her manicure. ‘‘ ’Cause you know what would be great? Fewer bomb runs, more love scenes.’’
‘‘In this one the heroine conducts a running gun battle up in the Rockies.’’
‘‘Oh. Mountains, well, heights are good. Cliff scenes scare the dickens out of me.’’
‘‘She’s not on a cliff; she’s in the tunnels at NORAD.’’
‘‘Heights are better. Could she climb up on a roof to escape? I’d read that, even with the mutants.’’
‘‘No. My heroine would never run up on a roof. Nobody runs up on a roof to escape. No roofs.’’
She frowned. She sipped her iced tea, and dabbed at her lips with a napkin.
‘‘Going back in time, then. She could meet a Highlander and have his baby.’’
I didn’t hear the rest. For all I know, she outlined an entire trilogy. I was sinking into despondency, picturing life with Taylor as my self-appointed muse. It so depressed me that after lunch I went on a minor shopping spree, replacing my stolen cell phone with a shiny, happy little model that promised me text and games and a global positioning system that could alert the fire department if I needed help. Then I bought a two-pound box of See’s chocolates.
She was driving me home, still talking about underwire or NORAD, when her own cell phone rang. I dug it from her purse and answered for her.
‘‘Who’s this?’’ The man had a twangy Oklahoma voice.
‘‘Ed Eugene? It’s Evan Delaney.’’
Silence lay there like raw liver. ‘‘Let me speak to my wife.’’
I remembered him: a stringy man with a bland face and a magpie’s quick, dark eyes.
‘‘She’s driving,’’ I said.
He made a noise known to parents of teenagers as the duh, stupid sound, and said, ‘‘Hold the phone up to her ear.’’
Sourly, I did it.
‘‘Hi, hon,’’ Taylor said. ‘‘She’s showing me around. . . . We’re by the beach; look, we’re waving at your platform . . .’’ turning to me, saying, ‘‘Wave.’’
I waved at the oil platforms in the channel.
She glanced at me. ‘‘He wants to say hi.’’
I said hi again, and he said, ‘‘So, who all went to lunch?’’
‘‘Taylor and I.’’
‘‘Really? You sure you didn’t introduce her to some of your men friends?’’
My God, he was checking up on her. Instantly, strangely, I felt protective toward her. ‘‘We’re doing girlie things.’’
But he had hung up. I looked at Taylor. She was keeping her eyes on the road.
She said, ‘‘Poor baby. He gets so lonesome out there, he’s desperate for every last detail.’’
Either she didn’t get it, or she was deliberately not getting it. ‘‘Everything all right?’’
‘‘Peachy keen.’’
But from that point she turned quiet. It wasn’t until she dropped me off that she said, ‘‘I almost forgot. While I was waiting for you to show up, a man came to see you.’’
‘‘Who?’’
‘‘An FBI agent.’’
I stared at her.
‘‘He showed me his badge and left a business card. Here.’’
She took it from her purse and handed it to me. Beneath the FBI seal it read, Dale Van Heusen, Special Agent.
She picked at a cuticle. ‘‘Why on earth would the FBI want to talk to you?’’
Why did the FBI want to talk to me? After Taylor dropped me off I stared at Dale Van Heusen’s card. I picked up my phone and dialed.
‘‘Jesse Blackburn.’’
‘‘Guess whose radar just painted me,’’ I said.
I told him, and he said, ‘‘Be a good citizen. Call and find out what he wants.’’
He said good-bye, and I dialed Van Heusen’s cell phone number. His voice mail kicked on. I was leaving a message when Nikki knocked on the door. I waved her in.
She said, ‘‘I met your cousin.’’
‘‘Sorry.’’
‘‘She wants to throw a bridal shower for you.’’
‘‘What? No.’’
‘‘Wants it to be a big surprise. She wanted the names of all your friends.’’
I was waving my hands. ‘‘Uh-uh. Noooo.’’
‘‘Wanted me to let her inside so she could check out your address book.’’
‘‘Oh, God. You didn’t, though.’’
‘‘But you did. I saw her coming out with you earlier, right?’’
I spun around, looking at the desk, where I kept the address book. I couldn’t see it. I scrounged on the desk, looking under papers and books. It wasn’t there.
Jesse couldn’t put it off any longer. It was nine thirty p.m. and the grocery store would be closing soon. He had no coffee, no milk, no eggs or oranges or shampoo or Raid bug spray to disperse the trail of ants that had been marching across his kitchen counter for the last two days. Mundane life demanded attention.
He backed into the parking space five minutes before closing time. He was the last customer in the store. He paid the lackadaisical checker and headed out into the darkness.
He turned down the curb cut and was unlocking his car when the silver Mercedes SUV pulled in and parked next to him. Right next to him, putting him between the two vehicles. A man got out. It was the fat man, Inflatable Sartre.
‘‘Told you we’d be back.’’
Jesse gauged it. The man stood in front of the SUV’s open door, blocking his path back toward the store. The Mercedes itself blocked the
view of the checker inside. Sartre hitched up his jeans and stepped toward him.
One-on-one, okay.
Jesse backed up toward open space behind the cars. Sartre strolled forward. He must have weighed two-fifty, but his arms had the muscle definition of french fries.
He said, ‘‘You’re in a tight spot, bucko.’’
Not that tight, Jesse thought, just a few more feet and I’ll have room to swing, room to move into sight of the checker in the store.
The Corvette drove into the parking lot, stopping right behind him. Mickey Yago got out. Jesse felt it, the vibe like a dog whistle or a feedback loop, painful and electric. Yago sauntered toward him, blond ringlets swinging in the breeze.
He said, ‘‘Going somewhere?’’
16
I was cleaning out the refrigerator when Jesse called.
‘‘Ev, I need a hand.’’ His voice sounded thin.
‘‘What’s wrong?’’
‘‘I’m, ah. Shit.’’
My hand squeezed the phone. ‘‘Where are you?’’
‘‘Parked in front of your house.’’
I threw the phone down and ran outside. The Audi had angled to the curb, facing against traffic. I opened the door and leaned in.
‘‘Jesus, you’re bleeding,’’ I said.
‘‘You’ll have to get the chair. My hand’s bunged up.’’
I looked at his wrist. Gingerly he turned it over, trying not to rotate the joint. When I reached to touch it, he shied away. The dirty scrapes on his palm and elbow matched those running down the side of his face.
‘‘You fell,’’ I said.
‘‘I met Mickey Yago.’’
I found it hard to breathe. Fear and anger wound themselves around my chest.
‘‘Is your wrist broken?’’ I said.
‘‘No. But putting weight on it hurts like hell.’’
I retrieved the wheelchair. Getting out of the car proved awkward for him, and when his hand hit the door frame he hissed through his teeth. His wrist was visibly swollen, sprained at the least.
I said, ‘‘How did you drive?’’
‘‘Screaming.’’
He tried to grip the push-rim and gave up. Tried to push with his left hand alone and veered to the right. He closed his eyes, took a couple of breaths.
‘‘You’re going to have to do it,’’ he said.