Although the weather was unusually warm and sunny, I spent the next few days in a fog. My bruises would disappear, but there were lingering scars invisible to the eye. In time, perhaps they would fade as well.
The week after Thanksgiving, Pookie called. She and Bruce had decided to extend their stay in Maui until after New Year’s. As it turned out, Bruce was living on a comfortable trust left to him by a grandfather who’d made his money in cement. Go figure. Muldoon and I missed her, but she sounded happier than she’d been in a long while. That was enough for us. As for Eric, he and I were on speaking terms, but it didn’t feel the same. Not yet.
I’d missed my scheduled appointment with Sheldon Greenblatt at the Riviera that Sunday following my dip in the Bay, but we connected at his tennis club during the next week. Shelly agreed to represent me in the Whitener matter. He also held my hand through an unpleasant prehearing meeting with my aunt Sylvia and her lawyers. It was too early to say if she’d be successful in reopening probate on my house, but stay tuned. That Sylvia’s no quitter. As for the identity of the man who answered my aunt’s door, that was still a mystery. If he was a new boyfriend, he certainly hadn’t mellowed her any.
Most of Mo Whitener’s eleven million dollars turned up intact in several bank accounts Polk had opened for that purpose. The money was quietly returned to investors. Whatever shortfall there was, Mona made it up to the group with her proceeds from the sale of NeuroMed and Polk’s private practice, plus the life insurance payoff. I should have had more faith in Mona. In the end, she’d taken charge of her life and been a stand-up person. I hoped that she and A-r-r-r-r-r-mando would find true happiness.
I heard that Kenny had taken out a loan against his machine shop to pay Francine’s lawyer, who was trying to arrange for her to make restitution to keep her out of prison. There was an arrest warrant out for Irene Borodin and her brother, Anton Maslansky. Turns out, he was the guy who attacked me and killed Roy Trebeau for ratting him out to Bernie Cole over the missing warehouse equipment.
As for Covington, the night I ran into him at NeuroMed, he wasn’t stealing Teresa García’s medical chart as I’d suspected. He already had that. He was looking for the original NeuroMed file for Gordon.
A short time after I turned over Teresa García’s file to the police, I read in the paper that Covington’s lawyers surrendered him to the Colorado authorities under pressure from the girl’s uncle and the Mexican government. Apparently, the uncle had been pushing for action all along. I half wondered if he’d been the one stalking Covington.
I still wasn’t sure how Polk had gotten the original NeuroMed documents out of my office. Gordon continued to deny any part in that. Maybe Polk took them, or maybe it had been Richard Hastings. If it was Hastings, he wasn’t about to admit it. As the newest partner at Aames & Associates, he had a much higher-profile ass to cover.
Naturally, I’d resigned from the firm. For a long time, I’d wanted to be with Aames & Associates forever, but sometimes the price of making your dreams come true is just too high. Too bad Milton Polk hadn’t come to that same conclusion. He might still be alive.
Oh—and I hadn’t heard from Joe Deegan again.
In December, Venus’s cousin Waddell invited us both to Pacific’s employee holiday party. It was a family affair at a hotel in Marina del Rey and lots of fun, I guess. I danced a few times and grazed at the buffet. Deegan wasn’t there, but Duane Kleinman was, and with a woman I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. Men.
The DJ took a break, and I needed one, too. I was sitting alone on a couch in the hotel lobby, lamenting my empty champagne glass, when Venus sashayed over and sat down next to me.
“Why aren’t you mingling?” she said.
“Guess I should have invited Steve, the rescue swimmer. I think he had a crush on me.”
She rolled her eyes and spoke in that huffy, authoritarian voice she uses whenever we discuss my failings with men. “Heard from him recently?” She paused for a moment. “Uh-huh, I didn’t think so. Here’s how it is, honey: They lose interest if you don’t show some, too.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,” I said. “What’s happening at the office without Gordon?”
“The partners are scrambling for business. Hastings comes in every day looking like Godzilla’s on his ass. I sure wish you’d change your mind and come back.”
“No way,” I said. “I’m thinking maybe I’ll start my own consulting practice. Sinclair and Associates. Does that sound like strategic thinking?”
“Sounds more like wishful thinking,” she said.
“Maybe you and Eugene could come work with me?”
“You know me, Tucker. I don’t mind being the last one to turn out the lights, but I don’t want to pay the electric bill.”
Venus hailed a waiter carrying a fresh tray of champagne and grabbed a glass for each of us.
“What do you suppose is going to happen to Gordon?” she said.
I shrugged. It was a question I’d asked myself many times in the past few weeks, but I had mixed feelings about the answer. Gordon had committed the worst sorts of crimes, and for that, someone besides me would determine his punishment.
We wandered back inside the ballroom, where I made a halfhearted effort to be sociable. At half past nine, I was gathering my things to leave when Joe Deegan came through the door with a gorgeous young honey blonde. I hated myself, but I felt a twinge of jealousy. They sat with a group of people who greeted them both warmly, as if they went way back. I could almost see the wedding picture sitting on their mantel at home. I chatted a bit longer, but I’d lost interest in the evening. I was saying my good-byes when I felt heat behind me and heard a voice whisper in my ear.
“Let’s dance.”
Over my shoulder I said, “I don’t think your wife will approve.”
He turned me around and looked into my eyes, as if he was having impure thoughts and saw no reason to apologize for them.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Claudia won’t mind. She knows how I am.”
What an arrogant shithead, I thought, but I couldn’t protest without making a scene. One dance—what could that hurt? His wife was right in the room. The DJ was playing Willie Nelson’s “You Were Always on My Mind.” It was slow and schmaltzy, and I was a sucker for both. Deegan pressed his hand into the small of my back and guided me to the dance floor. The lights dimmed.
“So, I guess you’ve been pretty busy lately?” I said.
“Mm-hm.” He pulled me gently into his body, close. Too close. I started to feel like the Hershey part of a s’more.
“All done with your investigation?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Nice party.”
“Mm-hm.”
He inhaled deeply and slowly laced the fingers of his left hand with my right, a gesture that seemed way too intimate under the circumstances. I shook it off. He looked at me with that grin of his but kept dancing. This time his lips were pressed gently to my ear. They felt soft.
But Deegan was wrong. Claudia did mind. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her heading our way with a very determined look on her face. My heart started to pound. As she marched across the dance floor toward us, I prepared for a skirmish.
“Joe, I’m going home,” she said. “I miss the baby. Hope you don’t mind.”
“You’ll be okay alone?”
She smiled. “Yeah, I think so.”
He put his hands protectively on her upper arms and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. “Kiss the rookie for me.”
Her smile included both of us. “Sorry to interrupt.”
Well, I thought, that was generous. After she left, Deegan started with the octopus routine again, but I squirmed out of his reach and started walking to my table. He caught my arm and pulled me back toward him.
“What’s your problem now?” he said.
“I’ll tell you what my problem is. I don’t play footsie with married men.”
He grinned. “Footsie?”
<
br /> “You know what I mean.”
“I’m not married.”
“That’s even worse. You’re living with somebody, and you have a baby.”
He did that pouty thing with his mouth again, but it didn’t look as appealing this time.
“You’re pretty curious about my personal life,” he said. “I didn’t know you cared.”
“I don’t care. I’m just making conversation.”
“Not that it’s any of your business,” he said softly, “but Claudia’s my sister. Her husband’s out of town, and she’s staying with me because she doesn’t like to be alone. Anything else you want to know?”
I felt embarrassed, because there were things I wanted to know and because now he knew I wanted to know them. Life was so complicated.
“No, that’ll do for now.”
“Good, let’s dance.”
“You lied to me,” I said.
He frowned as if baffled by my accusation. “How do you figure?”
“You said we’d talk about Roy Trebeau later, but you weren’t there.”
He rolled his eyes and started dancing again. “I’ll watch myself now that I know it’s one of your pet peeves.”
“So, that’s your sister.”
“Yup.” His hand started to wander slowly down my back.
“If that hand gets anywhere near my butt, you’re a dead man.”
He breathed a half sigh, half groan into my ear that came out sounding like “hmmm,” but who could be sure.
At least I was finally getting an idea just what kind of trouble Joe Deegan was.
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