by Joel Travis
When Lori began to tell me what a fabulous lover Sergio was, I decided I’d heard enough for one day. I told her to save the rest of her report for later and signed off.
I was depressed and confused. Lori had executed the first steps of my plan with laser-like precision. Next thing I know, she’s naked. By going “past the end” Lori had ruined everything.
My plan merely called for her to flirt with Sergio and ask him about his work. When he told her he ran an investment business, she’d turn up her nose and tell him it sounded boring. She’d talk about the wild, younger guys she had dated, leading him to conclude that she was attracted to “bad boys” who led dangerous, exciting lives.
I figured Sergio’s ego would ride roughshod over his better judgment. In an effort to impress Lori and compete with the young studs, he’d show her that he was no stranger to danger. After all, he had a shady business and a dead partner to brag about if he wanted to. Lori’s job was to make him want to. In addition to being the sexiest girl in the universe, Lori was an expert at manipulating men. I was sure she could pull it off, but the only thing she’d pulled off was her clothing.
Cynthia came out of Enright’s room and saw me standing in the hall, staring into space. “What are you thinking about?” she asked.
I said I was thinking about her. I don’t like lying to my soulmate, but it was better than saying I was thinking about the plan where I set her husband up with a horny stripper.
“I enjoyed our date the other night,” she said.
“Yeah, me too. The food was incredible. I got pretty drunk on the wine, though. Did you ever get that big red stain out of your tablecloth?”
“It was an accident,” she said, waving it off. “I have a favor to ask you.”
She asked if I could stay over and help her host the reunion. All I’d have to do was mingle with the veterans and make sure they had a good time. I said I’d be happy to, except I didn’t bring a change of clothes. She said not to worry; her husband had left some things behind when he moved to the condo. I could help myself to anything in his closet.
Cynthia took me on a tour of the three-story house. She showed me the bathrooms, the guest room where I would be sleeping, and Sergio’s huge walk-in closet. She left me there to look through the clothes.
Sergio had some damn nice threads. They say the clothes make the man. If Cynthia saw me wearing her husband’s clothes, perhaps she’d start to think of me as a potential husband.
It doesn’t take long to make a few good selections from a wardrobe like the one Sergio had left behind. What takes time is going through all the pockets.
Chapter 19
The bed was too comfortable, the guest room too roomy, the silence deafening. Sleep eluded me. Just before I retired for the evening, Sheila had reached me on the cell phone. She wanted to know where the hell I was and when I’d be back. She said the whole team had been waiting all day long to receive instructions. I informed her that I’d be spending the night at Cynthia’s house, working on the case, gathering clues until tomorrow afternoon.
Most people would have commended me on my work ethic. Not Sheila. She lashed out at me, just as she had during our marriage whenever I called to explain that I needed to stay at the strip club past closing time to take a few bets from a few strippers. Anyone in my business knows that the best time to take bets from strippers is after closing time, when the girls are the richest and drunkest. But Sheila never understood my business and she made no effort to educate herself, choosing instead to lash out in ignorance.
Whether my insomnia was due to my new surroundings or the bothersome phone call from my ex, the result was the same. I glanced at the illuminated digits on the bedside clock: 2:52 A.M. I decided to take a stroll. Draping myself in a robe I had fished out of Sergio’s closet, I began to make my way down the long, dark hallway, groping the wall for a light switch.
My room was on the second floor, so I was careful to tread softly lest I awaken Cynthia or Andrea as I passed their rooms. Enright’s room was on the third floor, as were the guest rooms for his Army buddies. I thought I’d go upstairs and see if they were still up swapping war stories.
I gave up on locating the light switch. The important thing was to go slowly so I didn’t trip over a plant or one of Andrea’s toys and break my neck. I was almost to the staircase when I heard a door creak open at the end of the hall, only a few feet away. My heart skipped a beat or two. Who would be in that room at this time of night? I had already passed Cynthia’s room, as well as Andrea’s.
The mysterious door-creaker obviously preferred to remain in the dark, for the room’s interior emitted no light. I squinted, hoping to pick out a vague shape in the darkness, possibly a head sticking out of the doorway. Squinting works better in bright light than it does in the dark, so I saw nothing.
The door creaked again, which meant that it was either being shut or opened wider. Before I had a chance to form an opinion, a body collided into me. I could tell from the body’s build that its owner was a short, pudgy man, no doubt one of Enright’s buddies who’d lost his way in the unfamiliar house while trying to locate a bathroom.
“Sorry,” he said.
“My fault,” I said as he rushed by me.
Odd little fellow, I thought. In such a hurry in the middle of the night! I guess when your bladder is about to burst and you can’t find a bathroom, there’s no time to waste exchanging social amenities with strangers you bump into in the night.
I reached out for the banister rail and started to climb the stairs. I stopped in mid-stride, as if my brain had shut my body down until further notice. Usually when my brain shuts my body down it’s because my brain is soaked with alcohol and can no longer function at the level required to operate my body. I just pass out and there’s no problem until I wake up with a hangover the next morning. But this was different—this time the problem wouldn’t keep till morning. I leaped back down to the landing and dashed down the hallway in hot pursuit of the little man with the bloated bladder.
I had almost caught up to him when he ducked into a bathroom at the end of the hall. I turned the doorknob, only to find that he’d locked me out. I pounded on the door, telling him to open it or I’d bust it down with my shoulder.
He kept to himself. I guess he didn’t think I could break the door down with my shoulder. I backed up a few feet to get a running start and hurled myself into the obstruction. The instant I made contact, I knew he was right. I slumped to the floor, writhing in pain, crying out in agony.
I don’t know how you cry out in agony, but the way I do it my voice tends to carry. A door opened down the hall, a light came on, and I heard the patter of feet. A few seconds later Cynthia was standing over me in an aqua negligee. The look on her face was a mixture of consternation and puzzlement. Perhaps she was wondering why I was lying on the floor holding my shoulder and why I woke her up by crying out in the dead of the night like a mortally wounded nocturnal animal. Her arched eyebrows asked the unspoken question, “What’s going on here?”
“He won’t let me in,” I said.
“Into the bathroom?” She glanced at the door, avoiding eye contact. “There’s a bathroom in your room, Brit.”
Her nervous reaction confirmed my suspicions. She hadn’t said, “Who won’t let you in?” She knew as well as I who was hiding behind that door.
Call it a standoff. I wasn’t going anywhere until he came out and he wasn’t coming out until I went somewhere. Caught in the middle, Cynthia suggested that I wait downstairs in the kitchen while she coaxed him out. She promised they would join me there in a matter of minutes. When I didn’t budge, she assured me that it wasn’t like I thought it was. Her words had no effect. Like I said, I wasn’t going anywhere. My steely resolve hardened like the nipples I noticed protruding under her thin negligee.
I waited at the kitchen table for ten minutes, thinking mostly about the nipples. I got up and snatched a cold Heineken from the fridge. I heard muffled, conspiratorial vo
ices from around the corner. I eased back into my chair and took a swig from the bottle, ready to face the truth, or a pack of lies. However they wanted to play it.
#
Cynthia came around the corner alone and sat down next to me at the table. “He has a story to tell,” she said, “but he’s afraid to tell it.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure I can beat it out of him.”
She leaned forward and clutched my arm, cutting off vital circulation to my beer hand. “Listen to me,” she said. “He’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It’s a miracle you didn’t push him over the edge by chasing him down the hall.”
“He’s been here all along,” I said, feeling betrayed.
“No, he hasn’t. I didn’t know he was alive until he snuck into the house this afternoon. I told you, it’s not like you think it is. You’ll understand when he comes out and tells his story.”
“Let’s bring him on out.”
“Not till you promise you won’t hurt him.”
Why would I want to hurt him? Do you think I’d hurt your Uncle Melvin just because he set me up by placing that bogus hundred thousand dollar bet? Oh sure, I had to go behind Cesar’s back to accommodate your uncle’s insane wager, but it’s not like Cesar is the kind of boss who’d murder me without a second thought and dump my body in the Trinity River. So that can’t be it. Oh, I know! You think I’m holding a grudge because your uncle’s disappearing act made me the prime suspect in a homicide investigation. Please. The important thing is that he’s alive. I can’t wait to see him again. Let’s bring him on out.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “First he’s dead, now he’s alive. Shows up out of the blue after a year. Why now?” Before Cynthia could answer, an idea popped into my head. “Did he come back for the reunion to see his old Army friends?”
She shook her head. “Melvin didn’t know anything about the reunion. It was just rotten luck that he came back at the worst possible time, when the house was full of guests. That’s why I asked you to stay over and help me host the reunion. I knew I had to attend to him and keep him hidden from everyone.”
“Why does he need to be hidden? I’d have thought you’d be throwing him a big homecoming party.”
“He has to be hidden because his life is still in danger,” she said. “Wait till you hear his story. You won’t believe it.”
I tried to imagine a scenario that could explain why he had to be hidden from everyone. That’s a big group to hide from. Maybe he’d spent the past year on a crime spree, robbing banks or something. I pictured the elderly, bald Codger at a bank teller’s window, demanding in his mousey voice, “The money or your life!”
It didn’t ring true. The teller would be laughing too hard to hand over the cash.
#
It’s not often you get to sit down and have a chat with a dead man. The Codger finally came around the corner, cowering behind Cynthia. My attitude toward him softened somewhat, seeing that he respected me enough to cower.
Cynthia took her seat at the table again, exposing the Codger. He stood before me, wearing a robe much like the one I was wearing. “Hello, Brit,” he said nervously.
“So you’re not dead,” I said for an opener.
“Not yet,” he said, dropping onto a chair. “But I soon will be. My life isn’t worth two cents now.”
I’d never thought his life was worth much, yet even to me his estimate seemed on the low side. But Cynthia had said that his life was still in danger, whatever that meant. She’d also warned me that he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I sensed that there was indeed something different about him. His eyes, so sharp and alive when he was gawking at strippers, now seemed dead to the world. No longer was he the fun-loving loser I’d known. Here sat a man who’d lost all hope.
Cynthia went into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee, so I knew the Codger’s story would be one of those long, drawn out tales old men love to tell even if it keeps everyone up till dawn. I took a swig of beer and told him to get started. He glanced at Cynthia and she nodded, indicating that he could trust me.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know where to begin. It all seems so long ago. When I think back on it, it’s almost as if it happened to someone else. Like it happened long ago to someone who looks exactly like me and I’m watching a documentary about his life. You know what I mean?”
“No.”
Cynthia was standing over the coffee maker watching the coffee dribble into the pot.
“Melvin, just tell Brit what you told me. Start with the night you disappeared. The night you were walking to the meeting.”
“Yes, I was walking to the meeting,” he said. “It seems so long ago.”
“One year,” I said.
“Is that all? It seems longer than that. As if it all happened long ago to someone else.”
I sighed. “Okay, have it your way. What happened to this person?”
“What person?”
I slammed my beer bottle down on the table. “You, you old fool!”
“Brit!” Cynthia said.
“Sorry.”
Cynthia brought two steaming cups of coffee to the table, placing one in front of Melvin. She took the seat between us and blew into her cup.
“Where was I?” Melvin asked.
“You were telling Brit what happened on your way to the meeting. Someone jumped out of the bushes,” Cynthia said, coaxing him along. “They hit you over the head and—”
“Knocked me out cold,” he said, rubbing the back of his skull. “I woke up in Mexico.”
I shot Cynthia a sidelong glance. “This sounds made up.”
Cynthia said she didn’t think so. She knew the bushes he was referring to, a long line of them several blocks down the street. She said it would be easy to hide behind the bushes and ambush Melvin at nightfall as he passed by on the sidewalk.
“Only if you knew he’d be passing by at nightfall,” I said. I turned to the Codger. “Tell me about this meeting.”
“I never made it to the meeting. The blow knocked me out cold, just like in the movies. I always thought it was ridiculous how easily actors get knocked out, but it’s quite realistic.”
I ignored his evasive reply. “Who was your meeting with, Melvin? Who scheduled the meeting for eight o’clock?”
Hedgeway said the meeting was a confidential matter which, much as he’d like to, he couldn’t discuss.
“Your meeting was with Sergio at his condo, right here in the neighborhood,” I said. “Sergio knew the route you’d take. He scheduled the meeting for eight o’clock so that it would be dark when you passed by the bushes. He set you up, Melvin. Why are you protecting him?”
The Codger squirmed in his chair. Cynthia bailed him out. “That’s absurd, Brit,” she said. “You interviewed Sergio. You know he was at a basketball game with a friend the night of the meeting. The police confirmed it.”
“I’m not saying that Sergio leaped out from behind the bushes in one of his designer suits. He set up the meeting and an airtight alibi. Then he hired a professional bushwhacker to hide in the bushes and whack Melvin over the head.”
Cynthia shook her head. “My husband is not involved. He and Melvin were friends.”
“And Sergio took full advantage of the friendship, first by talking Melvin into working for him in his investment business, then by persuading him to keep it confidential. On Sergio’s instructions, Melvin moved out of this house—”
Cynthia told me to save the rest of my speech until Melvin had finished his story.
“Where was I?” Melvin asked.
“You woke up in Mexico.”
“I’d never been to Mexico,” he said. “I got a free trip, but I suffered at the hands of the cutthroats who held me captive.”
Suddenly one guy hiding in a bush had turned into a gang of cutthroats. I wondered if he was exaggerating the hardships of a free trip to Mexico. To the naked eye he hadn’t lost any weight. If anything, he looked fatter. Of course, when yo
u’re eating Mexican food everyday for a year it’s hard to keep your weight down, no matter how much stress you’re under.
“I woke up in a small room,” he said. “The room was bare, except for a cot and an upside down sombrero on the floor. A man with a Spanish accent spoke to me through the door in broken English. He said the sombrero was mine to keep, and also to go to the bathroom in.”
“No!”
“He was only kidding. There was a bathroom adjacent to my room. But this man, who I knew only as Pedro, was a very crude man with a warped sense of humor. One day he told me that a man from Brazil had offered one hundred American dollars to have sex with me.”
“His idea of a joke.”
“Oh, it was no joke. Pedro let the foreigner into my cell, but once he laid eyes on me, he left the room and demanded a full refund. Of course, Pedro held it against me, so I was treated like an animal for weeks. Then one day Pedro was gone and I had a new keeper. A man I knew only as Pedro.”
“I thought you said Pedro was gone.”
“He was. This was a different Pedro. I’m sure they wanted me to think it was the same man, but I knew it wasn’t. The new Pedro spoke perfect English.”
“You never saw any of these Pedros?”
“No, they were very careful about that. We only communicated through the door. When they blew the whistle I was required to go into the bathroom and shut the door before they would throw a meal into my cell. When I heard the whistle again, I was allowed to come out of the bathroom and eat off the floor.”
“Hey, what kind of food did they toss in there?” I asked.
“Tortillas mostly. On Christmas, Pedro threw an enchilada against the back wall. That was the only day I didn’t eat off the floor.”
I understood why Cynthia had said he was on the verge of nervous breakdown. He’d been through hell. I asked him how he’d managed to escape. He hesitated, glancing at Cynthia.
“Go ahead, tell him,” she said. “It’s your own fault, Melvin. You wouldn’t be in this situation if you’d stayed in your room like I told you to.”