“I dunno, sugar, we’ll work something out later I’m sure.” Roberta flicked eyelashes, and turned to her pickup. “This is the piece o’crap right here, think it’s something under the hood, but I don’t know much about cars.”
She walked, replicating the hip-swinging strut she had used before. Thankfully, she took after her mother in the caboose department. Despite the confidence she put out, it was impossible to fail to recognize her skin crawling as she heard Lewis exit his bolt hole and follow her, knowing where his eyes were. She reached the driver’s side of her vehicle, opened the door and leaned into the lifted pickup to pop the hood.
That’s right, get a good look, you pig.
Lewis wolf whistled, and Roberta managed a look of false modesty as she span around. Lewis was nearly on top of her, grasping. She slipped away.
“Wait on, sugar, we just met. You gotta do me a favor before I do you any, deal?” she said.
Lewis grunted unhappily and peered into the engine of the truck. Roberta used the moment to reach back into the foot well and over to the passenger’s side to pull her steel handcuffs out. Her breath tightened in her chest as for the briefest moment through the gap left at the bottom of the hood in its raised position she met Mike Lewis’ eyes.
“Couldya turn on the engine, huh?”
“Right on it!” she sang, sweetly. She got into the vehicle. This was not in the plan; in a few moments he would realize there was no fault with the engine at all. She fired up the engine, and left it idling.
“OK, rev it!” he said, raising his voice over the engine. She did so, and then quickly slipped out of the passenger side door while Lewis was examining the perfectly functional engine block. She slid round to the front of the pickup, handcuffs in her right hand. Lewis had both hands fiddling with parts of the vehicle. In a moment, it was done. Lewis tried to spring back at the sensation of cold steel closing on his wrist, but only succeeded in falling to the ground, cursing. Roberta had deftly slid the handcuffs around one wrist, and slammed the other cuff to hold onto the hole in the metal frame of the car where the hood usually latched on. Lewis bellowed his anger when he realized, running through an impressive, unforetold breadth of vocabulary of obscenities. Roberta just smiled at him, backing away from his flailing hand as he tried to grasp his captor.
“Calm down, Mike. The police will be right along to pick your stupid cracker ass up. If you were wondering who to thank for your free transport to jail, you can send flowers to R3 Recovery.”
Another one bites the dust, as the song goes.
Chapter Three
Riley
It was mid-morning, by the wet heat and the sunlight bombarding the window of the bedroom Riley had until very recently been asleep in.
The bed sheets were a stinking pool of sweat—hers and his—and other fluids of a more carnal nature. The sleeping man next to her in the double bed looked familiar, but Riley was damned if she could remember his name. She rubbed her eyes and felt the swelling in her brain tissue pound against the roof of her skull, tinnitus buzzing in her ears as a host of hornets. She ran her tongue over her dry lips and across the roof of her mouth as she scanned the untidy floor of the bedroom for water. Underneath her denim jeans and leather jacket there was a half can of beer. After taking a swig from it, she realized it had evidently been used as an ashtray at least once.
Gagging, Riley leapt from the bed, dodged the detritus of what had clearly been a reasonable-scale party or the lifetime habits of an unrepentant slob. Pizza boxes, ashtrays filled to overflowing, empty beer cans and wine bottles littered every available surface. As Riley emptied her stomach into the incongruously clean toilet, she resolved to firstly never drink again and secondly; improve her taste in men with immediate effect. There was a clear correlation that overindulgence in the former had a severe impact on the latter. She flushed the toilet, and rinsed her mouth out under the sputtering flow of cold water from the bathroom faucet, using her finger to massage a small amount of toothpaste into her teeth and gums. The minty taste was unsurprisingly nauseating, but anything was better than the flavor of stale beer and ashtray, especially since she was more of a Jack Daniels girl and a non-smoking one at that. She spat out the toothpaste and water, and cradled her head on her arms, balancing her elbows on the edge of the sink, still too weak it seemed to stand unassisted. What in hell had happened last night?
There had been a bike race, of that she knew. The pungent, homely smell of gasoline, dust and sweat was still caked on the inside of her nostrils. Something told her she had not won, this time. Riley hoped she had at least come second, but knowing her own history, it was a rare hangover, especially one with the ferocity this one had, that accompanied second place. This hangover felt like a fifth placer, or even worse. She knew she could beat the local riders anytime, anywhere, so why did this keep happening? Then it was like a Polaroid camera was printing out the memory in her mind’s eye. The bar. Of course there was a bar. She scolded herself for remembering irrelevant information. She really wanted to know where the hell she was, who the sleeping man was in that pit of a bedroom, and where she had left her motorbike. She gingerly stepped to the tub in the mildew encrusted bathroom and turned on the shower, leaving the hot water off. A cold shock was probably what she needed to shake the hangover; the stink and the grime that coated her skin could wait until she could find some soap as there was none to be found in this stranger’s bathroom.
Riley lost herself in the cold water, for how long she couldn’t be sure, but long enough for her previous night’s lover to wake up and inadvertently scare the seven hells out of her by leaving the bed at last and joining her in the shower. She didn’t hear him enter, but certainly felt his hands and one other part of his body as he climbed in with her.
“Damn, why you got it on so cold, Riley?” he said. His voice was hoarse, betraying that it was him that had filled at least some of the ashtrays in the room. Riley spun on the spot as quickly as she was able to, given the wet surface beneath her feet, and attempted to cover her naked body reflexively with her hands, and then felt a little foolish for it. Why did people do that? When really, they had already seen each other more than naked the night previously; the only difference being that alcohol had inebriated the senses and dulled the memories. Then Riley got a decent look at her partner from the night previous.
Goddamn it, Riley. Her elder sister Ricki’s voice always personified her most self-critical thoughts. It was the bartender from O’Malley’s Bar; a fake Irish pub with a bartender who had a reputation amongst the clientele for being a notorious womanizer. This bartender, whose name still escaped her, put his hands on her shoulders and moved in for a kiss. Riley blocked his lips with her right hand and pushed him away with her left, rotating their positions so he was pressed against the shower wall, and she could simply step out onto the bathroom floor.
“Listen… err… buddy, about last night, I guess it was… fun? Anyway, I have to go. Right now. So, thanks? I’ll see you around, I guess.”
She backed further away, still naked, until she felt a slice of pizza under her foot, and stopped as it squelched. Fantastic.
“It’s Steven, by the way,” the bartender… Steven, said. He didn’t appear overly hurt by Riley’s words or her clear failure to remember his name. Instead he propped one arm on the shower’s filthy clear plastic screen, which wobbled under his weight. Another part of him wobbled as well, and Riley found herself actually blushing. He raised an eyebrow at her. Damn it again. She gathered her clothes together as rapidly as she could, pulling on her panties and jeans first. Her vest was a more difficult item to locate until the bartender—no, she reminded herself, Steven—whistled, still naked in the adjoining bathroom and pointed to the wall mounted lamp above the bed. Her vest was hanging by a single strap from the lampshade; clearly she had flung it off in some display of bravado. She recovered it as gracefully as the conditions would allow, balancing on the broken springs of the mattress as she was. Her brassiere turned up i
n the bed itself, and fortunately she already knew where her jacket was stained with cigarette ash and beer, on the floor next to her boots. At least not naked anymore, she could meet the eye of Steven, who had mercifully gotten out of the shower and wrapped a towel around himself. He wasn’t actually too bad on the eyes now that Riley’s hangover had faded under the assault of cold water, embarrassment and the activity of getting dressed. Even so, the context of the situation, the events that led up to the night before were still a blur, and therefore had to be considered to have only have been one of the most embarrassing displays of slatternly behavior and immodesty that Savannah had ever borne witness to; no doubt her sisters would know the full details before she did, and then she would never hear the end of it.
Riley left the apartment, Steven calling after her in half-amused disappointment. The bartender’s rooms turned out to be right on top of O’Malley’s bar, accessible by a steel fire escape which was roughly painted a deep green in accordance with the faux-Irish theme of the bar. At least they were consistent in their commitment to the cause even this far south. Riley and her biker friends would often frequent O’Malley’s after a race meet, whether she raced or not, and there was without fail a never ending rotation of old Irish men, or old Irish men with bad accents, collecting coins for the ‘cause’ back home. The joke that Boston was roughly that-a-way never got tired, especially after the fourth round of drinks. The heels of her leather biker boots were reinforced with steel and clanged as she made her way down from the rooftop apartment. A passer-by spotted her and gave a curt nod. Great. No doubt a local who knew all about Steven’s night time proclivities and predilections. It was an elderly woman, which was unusual for Savannah at midday. Usually the geriatric sorts stayed in and caught up on their shows, waiting for the summer temperature to drop so that they might sit on the veranda instead come evening time.
Having completely forgotten about her motorcycle, Riley had the familiar swell of disappointment to realize that the motorcycle she walked past that was propped up on the side of the bar’s south wall was the one which she currently had the keys for. The bike itself wasn’t terrible, a 500cc Suzuki T500. The problem was that it wasn’t really hers; it was a replacement for the beautiful British racing green Triumph she had lost in a not quite legal street race a month previously. The Suzuki wasn’t in bad shape considering it was after all, nearly twenty years old, but it still didn’t quite suit her as well as the Triumph had. Damn that Darren Harper taking her on the last corner, forcing her into second place and missing out on a cool grand. Not having the cash to pay into the winner’s pot herself, she had to give up her pink slip.
She swung her leg over the seat of the Suzuki, and fished her key from the zippered pocket in her leather jacket. O’Malley’s, Steven and her regrets were soon left behind as the Savannah air flowed through her short hair and over her skull, and even on this hopefully temporary motorbike, the joy of freedom, the speed, the easy way she darted through lunchtime traffic always managed to improve Riley’s mood to no end. She weaved her way across town, heading for home—or, more accurately, her place of work which doubled as her home these days.
She slowed the bike gently as she passed Forsyth Park, taking in the verdant green park lands, then sped on quickly, doubling the speed limit for most of the route to East 49th Street, and the welcome sight of the decaying building that housed R3 Recovery. As she pulled up outside, a familiar pickup truck arrived, honking its horn. Riley dismounted as her sister Roberta opened the door and stepped from her vehicle.
“Sis, you look like hell. Rough night?” she asked.
“You might say that, but I’d rather not talk about it, ever, if you don’t mind,” Riley said, but despite her words she no longer felt embarrassed or glum about her indiscretions of the night before. Roberta smiled at her, kindly.
“Come on Riley, I’ll get the coffee on. I just got done taking in that jumper; Terry had to bring the police van out to collect him; I had the guy handcuffed to my own ride!” Roberta laughed as she relayed the tale of Mike Lewis, embellishing her own dramatic outsmarting of the criminal only a little.
“Nice work, we need all the cash we can get, huh? Hey, can’t your cop boyfriend help out a bit?” Riley said, accentuating the word ‘cop’ with a dash more venom than she had intended.
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that. He’s a good guy, and we’ve been together six months since yesterday, so get used to it. You’re just mad at him and the police in general, for writing you up with tickets, which I hasten to remind you wouldn’t happen if you didn’t break the limit every darn day.”
“Gee, thanks, Bertie,” Riley said, “tell your cop boyfriend I’ll try and keep it below a hundred or so in the future.” Roberta threw her hands up in mock horror, and turned toward the wood and glass door bearing the legend R3 Recovery—R., R., & R. Vaughan, Proprietors. Through the glass, both sisters could see their third sister behind the office desk. Ricki Vaughan stared frostily through the door at them while cradling a telephone against one ear and holding two separate pieces of paper in her hands. She did not look like she had had a good morning.
Riley and Roberta entered the office, sending the bell over the door jingling.
Chapter Four
Ricki
Ricki’s morning had not been anywhere near as exciting as either of her sisters, but if she was asked her opinion on the matter, it had been far more stressful than both Roberta’s and Riley’s combined.
The air conditioner gave out within fifteen minutes of being started up at eight in the morning when she arrived, and she was now reduced to the ignominy of employing a desk fan in a vain attempt to combat that unrelenting Savannah mid-summer heat. The hot air that was pushed over her skin felt only cooled by a degree and at most two, which made the torture of catching up on the paperwork that all of the Vaughan sisters had ignored for some weeks all the more arduous. In addition to this, Ricki had to cover her own secretarial and telephone answering services in Riley’s absence. Her youngest sister at twenty-two didn’t have Ricki’s experience in running the business, so when she wasn’t out chasing down vehicle repossessions, which was most of the time lately, Ricki press-ganged her into doing the menial office tasks.
How had they allowed it to get so bad? There were multiple invoices to pay, and dozens of letters to reply to, including several important looking ones bearing the seal of the local courthouse—no doubt regarding the bail bondsman license for R3 Recovery that was up for renewal. Ricki shuffled the most official looking letters to the bottom of the pile and attacked instead the letters bearing a handwritten address. In her experience, such missives were invariably pleas for assistance when the local police refused to help. This wasn’t to dismiss the validity of some of the cases, and it was true that one of R3’s biggest cases of the last three years (the recovery of the deeds to over a dozen condominiums that had been swindled) had been as a result of one of these unsolicited begging letters, but that was a rarity. The vast majority of the letters were pointless. Find my lost cat, my husband ran off with my jewels—value: fifty dollars. Still, even answering these non-starters was better than tackling the serious letters at the bottom of the pile. She knew it was irresponsible, and she likewise knew that eventually that she would have to deal with them; just not yet. It was far too hot, and her patience was far too short.
Ricki discarded her neckerchief at ten in the morning, and at eleven kicked off her shoes. Her stockings went at midday, fifteen minutes before Roberta and Riley had arrived. Despite growing up in Savannah, none of the three Vaughan sisters were particularly good at coping with the heat, almost in defiance of their mother who had blamed her daughter’s sun-shyness on their daddy’s white man’s blood. Their father had always agreed happily with his wife, but he was as comfortable in the blazing Savannah sun as she was. Ricki had no particular theory on the reason why, she just knew that she hated being stuck inside, with no air-con, while Roberta was off being an all action hero and Riley;
well, where the hell was Riley? She had been due to be in to help with this horrendous mess of paperwork at nine. Ricki was cursing her under her breath for what felt like the fortieth time that hour when she heard the thrumming engine of Riley’s bike, pulling up outside. The cavalry, at last.
The bell over the door rang as Roberta led Riley into the office. Neither of the girls took advantage of the cracked leather sofa in what served as a waiting area for the few visitors that R3 received in person. Ricki grunted a greeting, but felt her face break into the first smile of the day when Roberta dropped the receipt from the police department relating to the re-capture of Mike Lewis.
“Well done sis! That’s the first good news I’ve seen all day,” she said.
“It’s not much, Ricki. Guess it’ll pay for some new paperclips or something. Don’t we have anything a bit juicier to get my teeth into? I’m bored as hell.” Roberta twirled her finger through her hair. Roberta’s smile dropped instantly.
“Bored!” she spat. “Bored, are you? You could come and help me sort through all this rubbish and see if we can’t scrape a few more contracts out of them.” She leaned in her chair to eyeball Riley, who was, at a shade over five feet tall, comfortably hidden by Roberta’s frame. “And you, miss-can’t-get-out-of-bed-too-drunk, you should have been here hours ago. Why am I picking up after your screw ups, again?” Riley looked sheepish.
“C’mon, Ricki I-” she began, but Ricki silenced her with a raised finger, now in full flow.
“C’mon Ricki, nothing. We’re on our own here, ladies. We need to actually work as a team. At least Roberta gets the odd bounty, and I’ve pulled in three investigations across the county, this month alone. Riley, what exactly have you done for us lately? It’s two thousand and fourteen, and you’re acting like you’re waiting for Rock Hudson to walk off the set and carry you off into the sun. A woman has to make her own way these days, get it?” Ricki’s jaw was set, eyes feeling on fire. It felt good to have an enemy to fight, someone to blame, even though it wasn’t all Riley’s fault and she knew she’d feel bad about it later.
The Evil That Men Do Page 2