Move to Strike

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  Nikki almost skipped out to the car. “Come on, Daria, let’s see if the place fell down yet.”

  Nina got into the Bronco, took her shoes off, leaned the seat back and closed her eyes.

  She had lost an important early skirmish. Now Nikki would be arraigned and a preliminary hearing date would be set. Today was May 25. The prelim would be set for mid-June . . .

  A car door near her slammed and she jerked awake and jammed the Bronco into gear and pulled back out into the hectic world.

  CHAPTER 9

  IN THE END, Paul had allowed the hospital to call his sister in San Francisco. When he had regained consciousness, they had bedeviled him for answers to a series of arcane and irrelevant questions, including next of kin, and whom to notify in case of this or that. In his drug-weakened state, he had freely divulged a number of closely guarded secrets.

  He recalled a moment when they were inserting a pin in his right knee . . . the screaming, wrenching pain of the moment. However, raise hallelujahs for the miracles of modern medicine. He hurt but he didn’t give a damn!

  His sister came and moved briskly about the room, by her mere presence reminding him of things best forgotten. She, too, had questions for him, but by this time he had regained enough of his sensibility to refuse to incriminate himself. The less said about that, the better. The moment he came to his senses, he sent her back to the city. The folks needed her. He could get along.

  He left a message on Nina’s answering machine late at night that he wouldn’t be able to report in for a few days and would have to miss the transfer hearing. He did not call Dean. He called Susan and broke his date with her, not mentioning the leg.

  Truth to tell, he was ashamed about the leg. He didn’t want to talk about it.

  He spent five days in the hospital, the first in surgery, the next four in extremis. They had him up and hobbling on crutches, in excruciating “discomfort,” as they called it, within a day.

  “We don’t want any blood clots in your legs.”

  An alarming thought, which got him out of bed. Leaning on the railing along the hallway, passing frailer patients when he had the energy, he began getting used to his new physical state.

  “You got off easy,” the doctor had reported with cool interest. “A slight concussion, a simple leg fracture, a tear in the anterior cruciate ligament of the knee”—the bad knee, the one he had babied ever since he’d torn another ligament there playing high school football. He would need crutches for a while. The exact number of weeks or months involved was apparently one of the hospital’s closely guarded secrets.

  “Oh, I’ll take a rain check on that one,” the doctor had said, chuckling. “Don’t try to pin me down.”

  As they had pinned him, oh so neatly.

  On the fourth day he made more calls. He tried calling LeBlanc at work and at home and when he got no answer, spoke with LeBlanc’s building manager. He told Dean he’d have to hold the fort a little longer, because he’d had a little accident. Deano seemed awfully busy for a guy running a half-dead business. Well, he’d get around to Deano later.

  The man who had hit him came to visit him, bearing a huge vase of flowers. “I’m going to make sure my insurance company doesn’t give you any trouble. I’m afraid I went a little wild out there. I feel kind of guilty about all this . . .” In normal life, removed from the roads of horror, he was a meek supermarket cashier.

  “Don’t,” Paul said. “I was asking for it.”

  He’d been cruisin’ for a bruisin’, as though a stranger inside him wanted to take him down. He had the dream again, and woke drenched in sweat.

  And he thought, am I trying to kill myself? Is that what it’s about?

  On the fifth day, Dave LeBlanc’s apartment manager called the hospital.

  “You owe me a fifty for this,” he said.

  “I’ll judge that when I hear what you have to say.” He was lying in the hospital bed, nicely doped up, thinking about lunch. The case seemed far away.

  “You better pay me.”

  “Speak. Or I hang up and you get nothing.”

  “LeBlanc’s still missing. He hasn’t been at his place for four days. I went in with my key to make sure he wasn’t belly-up in there. No sign of him. Clothes in the closet, beer in the fridge. But gone.”

  “His wallet?”

  “No sign of it.”

  “Okay. I’ll be stopping by.” Paul hung up. His experienced guess was that LeBlanc was back in jail. He rang the bell, and when the nurse came in, asked for a phone book.

  When Nina told Bob that Nicole was back at home, he wanted to drop everything and run to see her.

  “Tonight we have dinner at Matt’s.”

  “We go there all the time. They won’t miss us. This is more important.”

  “Nicole needs some time with her mother. They have a lot to talk about.”

  “She doesn’t talk to her mother! She talks to her friends. She needs me, Mom.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  “She said she needed some time alone.” Sometimes, only a lie shut the battle down. Nina found dealing with Bob more wearing than dealing with adults. She argued all day and now, all night. Bob burst with energy and intensity and a persistence few adults could equal. He was testing his intellect and the strength of his will against hers like a lion cub tussling with its parent. Home was no longer a refuge.

  But once they arrived at Matt and Andrea’s, Bob disappeared into Troy’s bedroom with Hitchcock and his cousins and she sank down in front of the fire in blessed peace. Later, as the platters of lemony salmon and then blackberry pie circled the table and the air filled with chatter, she felt the iron band that held her together on many days loosen.

  After dinner, Bob organized the cleanup. From the dining room, sipping coffee with Matt and Andrea, she watched him order his two younger cousins around. He was firm but fair in doling out the chores. Tomorrow, when he was a man, he would reenact this scenario, only from the perspective of the dining-room table watching his own child. . . .

  “You look beat,” Andrea said. Her red hair was pulled back in a frizzy ponytail, and a booted foot was propped where the salmon had rested at dinner.

  “Just give me one more cup,” Nina said, pouring herself another. “I’ll show you zip. I’ll show you can-do.”

  Matt pushed blond hair off his forehead. It fell back down. He got up, opened a cupboard, and pulled out a bottle. “Irish whiskey,” he said. “Dad’s favorite, remember?”

  She remembered Harlan drinking it on the night he got the news their mother had died. A drink for mourning and celebration. Irish whiskey covered all bases. “Of course.” She held out her cup for a dribble.

  He poured liberally into her cup, gave her a spoonful of sugar, then went to the fridge and came back with a small bowl of whipped cream.

  “No, Matt, spare me. Alcohol, yes, sugar yes, but whipped cream—I’ll go to hell for sure.”

  “Relax.” He laid a big dollop on top of her drink.

  “I have to drive home . . .” she said, taking a long drink, which fell over her like a warm blanket on a cold night.

  “You can sleep here,” Matt said.

  Nina yawned, wishing she could sleep anywhere. “Say, Andrea, maybe you can help me with this problem I’m having.”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, I have a situation, a young girl I know . . .”

  “Her new client, Nicole Zack,” Matt interrupted. “Accused of killing her uncle, the plastic surgeon. Strange the way her cousin died in a plane crash that same night . . .”

  “How in the world . . .”

  “I get around. The newspapers don’t give her name, but the hints make it pretty obvious. And there are no secrets in South Lake Tahoe. And then, there’s Bob.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Don’t worry, I told him to shut his big mouth or he’d get a bad nickname,” Matt said.

  “Like what?”

  “Bob the
Blabbermouth.”

  Nina and Andrea laughed. “What were you going to ask me, Nina?” Andrea asked.

  “Well, this girl doesn’t seem willing to open up to me. I’ve tried being understanding. I’ve tried being tough. She knows whatever she tells me is completely confidential. Nothing works. You’ve studied psychology and you use it every day in your work. Any suggestions?”

  Andrea said, very seriously, “She is protecting a secret with her life. Either she is protecting herself, or someone she loves very much.”

  “Yes. I think it’s someone else.”

  “Note that she is being honest. She’s not lying, she’s just not revealing. That’s good. You just have to build trust.”

  “I’ll keep working on it.”

  “I saw Sandy at the post office today,” Andrea said, shifting her boot to the floor and pulling her chair in closer to the table.

  “What’s she up to?”

  “It’s amazing. You work with her every day, yet you come to me for the scuttlebutt.”

  “I sometimes think she’s afraid I’ll try to horn in on her life or something if she tells me anything really personal. Interfere with it the way she does mine.”

  Matt said, grinning, “Why, she couldn’t possibly think you’re a control freak or anything, could she?”

  “Hush,” Andrea said. “She got a job for Johnny Ellis. Your client, I believe?”

  “He was.”

  “That’s the one. He’s going to be the day manager at a motel in the casino district. Her niece had the job, but she’s pregnant with her fourth child and decided to quit.”

  “Wow.” So Johnny could quit the road work. The phantom pain might go away at last. And Sandy hadn’t said a word. “Sandy ought to go into social work. She’s got a knack.”

  “Not always,” said Andrea.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She and Joe have been trying to work with some at-risk Native American teens, trying to get them on track. One of them was arrested last week.”

  “What for?”

  “You know that series of robberies that’s been happening around the lake?”

  “The guys in a boat?”

  “That’s what for.”

  “Who was it?”

  “A kid named Scott Cabano. His family has been through a lot of turmoil. Scott spent time in foster homes. Anyway, he’s out on bail. Showed up at the ranch. He’d been staying there now and then. He got aggressive. Sandy and Joe had to disinvite him. Joe doesn’t seem worried.”

  Great, Nina thought. Another heap of trouble Nikki didn’t need. “You can’t save people,” Nina said. “They keep to their paths. Sometimes they decide to save themselves, though.”

  “I disagree,” Andrea said. “Look what Sandy did for Johnny Ellis.”

  “Sandy gave him a chance. But he has to decide he’s not sick and angry and ready to give up anymore. That’ll take some kind of inner revolution, not just a change in his outer circumstances.”

  “We wax philosophical,” Matt said. “So allow me to state that I am a self-protective, selfish son-of-a-gun who’s very busy keeping me and mine together. So I’m glad there are altruistic people out there willing to do what I won’t do.”

  “Your wife runs a women’s shelter! You do your share!”

  “That’s Andrea.”

  “It affects your family every day, too, Matt. You know you sacrifice a lot.”

  “Hey, I could be making good money working for the Man, honey,” said Andrea. “We could get a big house and new clothes and go to Hawaii every winter . . .”

  “Ha,” said Nina. “You wouldn’t last a day.”

  Matt put his arm around Andrea and stuck his nose in her neck. “So you’re saying that some of the magic rubs off on me,” he said to Nina. “That’s good. Unearned brownie points.”

  “Did someone say something about brownies?” said Troy, wiping wet hands on his jeans. “Because we’re still hungry.” He was joined by Bob on the left, half a foot taller, and Brianna on his right, a foot shorter. And Hitchcock, nearly as big as Brianna.

  “After all that pie?” asked Andrea.

  The three children nodded in unison, Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. “At our age, we require more calories due to an accelerated growth rate,” Bob said.

  “Well, then of course you must have some,” Andrea said. To Nina she whispered, “At my age, I require more alcohol.”

  “And I require more coffee,” Nina said, “the soft stuff.”

  “At this hour?” Andrea asked.

  “Coffee never affects my sleep.”

  Matt hopped up to make sure everybody got what they required.

  The minute Nikki arrived home, she ran to her room, shut the door tight, and picked up the phone. Her lifeline. God, how she had missed talking to her friends.

  She called Bob but there was no answer. Disappointment, big-time. His mother must have told him she was coming home! Why hadn’t he come over or called her?

  She was lying on her bed, phone in hand. Her room looked strange. The sheets on her mattress were fresh. The clothes she had left lying around were neatly folded in their drawers. The quartz crystals she collected on her hikes had been lined up in a corner by her mother, who had even put a coffee can full of flowers on the windowsill. She knew Daria meant well, cleaning her room, trying to show her how much she cared, but the order depressed her. This was how the world went on without her in it. Her personality drained out of her things. Bob forgot about her.

  Or had his mother told him to stay away?

  Outside, the sun shimmered. In the old days, she would be out there on her dad’s old mountain bike, riding the trails.

  She picked up the phone again, punching in some numbers. “Scott?”

  “Well, well, well. Look who’s back in business. When did they spring you?”

  “This afternoon. This is the first chance I got to call.”

  “I need to see you, baby.”

  A thrill tickled the small of her back. He could do that, just with his voice. So handsome and so rough. Just her type, and not her type at all. The way he drove too fast and did everything for the hell of it. He just didn’t care, and sometimes, when she was so mad she had to get out and do something crazy, he was just right.

  Too bad she couldn’t trust him. “That’s just it. I can’t go anywhere. I’m under house arrest. I’ve got this ankle thing that keeps track of where I go. I have to check in with someone every day, and be here in case they call.”

  “Huh. Well, lucky for you, I’ve got no such limitations.”

  “Why would you?”

  “You didn’t hear I was arrested?”

  Was that pride in his voice? “No! Why?”

  “I’m accused of ripping off those houses around the lake,” he said carefully. “I’m out on bail. My mother practically had to strangle the old man to get him to cough up the money.”

  “Good band name,” Nikki said. “Cough Up the Money.”

  He laughed.

  “Why do they think you did it?”

  “You tell me.”

  “But we never took anything valuable, Scott, and I never told anyone anything. Why would I?”

  “Nobody I know closer to the police than you lately, Nik. But nothing to worry about. I’ve got a great guy defending me. A real cutthroat named Riesner. He’ll get me off. Listen, if you can’t leave, I’ll come over.”

  “When?”

  “I can’t get there until later. Midnight.”

  “That’s too late, Scott. Anyway, my mother’s here.”

  “Get rid of her.”

  “She’s really upset about all this. I don’t think . . .”

  His tone changed. “I’m coming over, so get her out of there.”

  He ran around like a Sierra wildfire, she had thought once. Quick, turning anything that got in his way into dust. He scorched you if you turned your back. She had thought he was everything she ever wanted. But what was this about stealing? She thought back
to those nights. They had gone out two or three times . . . sprayed a few cans of paint, picked up throwaway things people left lying around outside. But they had never broken into anyone’s house.

  He could have gone back on his own. He probably had.

  But Scott was going to have to be her connection to the outside. He was the only one that might know how to do what she needed done. She couldn’t ask Bob. She didn’t want to involve him in this. Scott could take care of himself. She would have to trust him one more time, then maybe . . .

  Could she handle him? She would have to.

  Nina and Bob stayed to watch a movie but left Matt’s at midnight.

  Bob fell asleep on the way home. She looked at the few long hairs jutting from his chin and cheek and realized he needed a razor. He needed instruction in how to take care of himself as a young man.

  The dark rushed by. She hadn’t wanted to stay at Matt’s. If there was a hope of a good long rest, she felt she had a better chance of finding it at home under the soft comforter on her own pine four-poster bed. There she would fight the insomnia and win or sweep the kitchen, or get some work done, or listen to the late-night radio maniacs rail at the government. She had her choice of appealing alternatives.

  She was just turning off Pioneer Trail into the neighborhood of Indian-sounding names, Minniconjou, Hunkpapa and Kulow, her street, when she saw a car she recognized reflected in the rearview mirror. She reached up, tilting the glass for a better view.

  Headlight beams from a passing car illuminated the car and its driver. The old silver VW convertible she had seen in front of the Zack house, with Daria Zack driving. What in the world was she doing driving around at such an hour with her daughter under house arrest?

  CHAPTER 10

  NIKKI HAD GOTTEN her mother out of the house late at night by telling her she had an earache. When she was little, an earache had always meant an ear infection. Convinced it prevented more serious trouble, Daria developed the habit of dosing her with eardrops early on. Naturally, Nikki had flushed the eardrops first, insuring the need for a trip to the pharmacy.

  Before she would go, Daria fussed for a long time. She didn’t want to leave Nikki alone, like she had an idea something was up. Nikki said whatever she could think of to ease her mother’s suspicious mind, covered her skimpy house clothes with a jacket, and pushed her out with directions to the twenty-four-hour pharmacy.