by Lou Berney
“Give me a break,” he said. He sat down across the table from her. “You’re not from Dorchester, you know. You’re from the mean streets of Cambridge.”
“I’m from Brookline.”
“Oh, sorry. The mean streets of Brookline.”
“You’re from San Diego,” she said. “What do you know about it?”
“I know you’d be the first mixed-race daughter of Episcopalian college professors in the history of Dorchester.”
She giggled and wiggled her toes at him again, insistently. He obeyed and massaged her foot. The warmth of her skin, the pulse of the vein beneath his thumb—Wyatt would have been happy to sit there forever, till his body turned to bone and leather and dust, just looking across the table at her, at the stars glittering along the ragged edge of the darkening mountains.
“This is what I’m thinking,” he said. “India. India or Thailand, somewhere like that. We get married on the beach, under a full moon, with a shaman to perform the ceremony. Shaman? Is that what they’re called in India? On the beach with lemurs chattering in the coconut palms.”
She took another sip of gin, then set her glass down. She gazed at him across the table. Laurie was usually easy to read, her face guilelessly expressive, each thought and feeling like a bubble bursting to the surface. Except—like now—every once in a while.
Wyatt moved his hand to her other foot, started squeezing, and the moment passed.
“You’re wicked good at that,” she said, and burst out giggling again.
WYATT’S OFFICE WAS on Harmon, on the second floor of an open-air shopping and professional plaza. A strip mall, in other words, but at least at the upscale end of the spectrum, with freshly painted peach stucco, no check-cashing or massage joints, and a mom-and-pop restaurant that served the best Burmese noodles in town. Wyatt’s office, between an optometrist and an H&R Block, was a former bakery that had gone bust a few years ago. It still smelled like cake frosting.
Wyatt could have worked from home—a lot of freelance investigators did—but rent in Vegas was cheap, and he liked having his own office. The space, the routine, the . . . what was the opposite of solitude? Whatever it was, he liked that, too. The front of Wyatt’s office was glass. The H&R Block accountants always waved to him when they stepped outside to make personal calls on their cell phones.
When Wyatt first moved in, he’d scraped the popcorn finish off the ceiling, troweled on drywall compound for texture, and repainted. He’d torn up the cheap tile floor and replaced it with quality Berber carpet. He’d purchased good furniture, good fixtures for the bathroom. Every Wednesday a sweetly spacey ex-stripper in a van delivered fresh flowers—the name of her business was Flower Child—and carted the old ones off.
Some clients were surprised when they came by for the first time. They expected a PI to have a seedy office above a seedy bar, to wear a stained trench coat, to keep a .38 and a bottle of cheap booze in the bottom drawer of the desk.
Wyatt didn’t own a gun. In the bottom drawer of his desk, he kept a spare cell phone charger and a box of memory cards for his Nikon DSLR.
His office, this morning, smelled like cake frosting and the fresh frangipani blossoms, floating in a bowl of water, that the Flower Child had dropped off yesterday. Wyatt popped his laptop open and finished writing up the Bledsoe report. He always felt a little edgy when he wrapped a case. Ants in the pants. The same feeling he’d had, back in his newspaper days, when he turned in a story. The great thing about daily journalism was that there had always been another story—you never had time to breathe. That was the great thing about private investigating, too.
Two potential new clients had called earlier in the week: A husband suspected that his wife was cheating on him, and a wife suspected that her husband was cheating on her. Wyatt wondered what the odds were, that the one wife was cheating with the other husband. Ten thousand to one? He made a mental note to run the proposition past his buddy at the Luxor sports book. In Vegas you could get odds on anything.
He’d just picked up the phone to call the suspicious husband back when the office door opened. Gavin stood there. Wyatt almost fell out of his chair.
“Whoa,” he said.
Gavin ran security and surveillance for the Mirage. He was the one who’d given Wyatt the Bledsoe job, and a dozen other jobs over the past couple of years. But usually when Gavin had work for Wyatt—no, always—Wyatt came to Gavin, not the reverse.
Gavin looked around the office. “Not what I pictured.”
“You pictured seedy,” Wyatt said. “A bottle of cheap booze in the desk drawer.”
“I pictured paintings.” Gavin dropped his bulk into the chair across from Wyatt. “Pretentious fruity shit. French impressionists, parasols in the park.”
“Says the guy wearing a tie with unicorns on it.”
Gavin picked up the end of his tie and looked at it. “They’re racehorses.”
“Some fruity-looking racehorses.”
Gavin considered. “Yeah.” He dropped his tie. “My daughter gave it to me. I’ve got a favor to ask you.”
“Let’s hear it,” Wyatt said.
“Don’t be a smart-ass.”
Don’t be a smart-ass? Wyatt shook his head in disbelief. It was, truly, the central mystery of his life. “Tell me how ‘Let’s hear it’ makes me a smart-ass?”
“The favor’s a job,” Gavin said. He glanced again at his tie. “Double your usual rate and my undying gratitude.”
“For the Mirage?”
“For me.” He grimaced.
“I like the look of that,” Wyatt said.
“Smart-ass. It’s a piece of cake. I’m doing you the favor.”
Wyatt just smiled pleasantly at Gavin and waited until Gavin grimaced again.
“This girl—my wife’s niece or cousin, I don’t know—she’s convinced she needs a PI. She has convinced my wife that she needs a PI. My wife has convinced me to get her a PI. You see where this is going? She’s kind of a piece of work, the girl, I should tell you up front.”
“Well, in that case how soon can I start?”
“And she lives in Omaha. My wife’s niece does.”
“You want me to go to Omaha?”
“Just for a day or two. Meet the girl. Listen sympathetically to her. Do . . . whatever. Make a few calls, poke around. If there’s anything worth poking around in, which is doubtful. But, see, you’re the good-faith gesture. You’re the good-faith gesture that gets her off my wife’s back and my wife off my back.”
“They don’t have private investigators in Omaha?”
“Have you been listening?”
“All right, all right.” Wyatt said. Yes, he’d been listening. He just enjoyed watching Gavin squirm and shift and grunt with irritation. He’d never seen it before and doubted he’d see it again.
“The girl’s name is Candace,” Gavin said. “Candace Kilkenny. She’s from here in Vegas. A couple months ago, she’s at work, running cocktails at the Wynn, and she gets a call. Out of the blue, some lawyer. He tells her she’s inherited some live-music club in Omaha.”
Wyatt, taking notes in the spiral-bound reporter’s pad he always carried in his back pocket, lifted an eyebrow.
“Which part of that surprises you?” Gavin said.
“Every part of it.”
Gavin nodded. “Yeah. The girl was surprised, too. An inheritance? A live-music club? Omaha? She thought it had to be a scam, but no, turns out it’s all legit. A regular of hers, an old guy that flew out a few times a year to play ten-dollar blackjack. You know the type. Turns out he put her in his will.”
“At the top or the bottom of it?” Wyatt asked.
It was a more-or-less sincere question, but Gavin just glared at him and ignored it. “Now, you understand that Candace doesn’t know a so
ul in Omaha,” he went on. “She’s got a five-year-old kid. She’s never worked in a live-music club, let alone run one. So guess what she does? She moves to Omaha to run a live-music club.”
“Why does she need an investigator?”
“She’s got it in her head that some mysterious someone is mysteriously harassing her.”
“Harassing her how?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. My suspicion, the girl has an overactive imagination. You know what I care about?”
“It’s coming to me. Just give me a second.”
“I care about getting my wife off my back.”
“That’s it.” Wyatt pretended to write it down, slowly and carefully, then flipped his notebook shut.
Omaha wasn’t exactly on his bucket list, and he hated being apart from Laurie, even if it was just for a couple of days. But Gavin sent a lot of business Wyatt’s way, and he was a good guy. Maybe, Wyatt considered, he might be able to convince Laurie to come with him to Omaha. An exotic romantic getaway.
“Anything else?” Wyatt said.
“Her kid’s a cutie-pie, according to my wife. Candace’s kid is.” Gavin took a folded sheet of paper out of his suit coat pocket and shook it open. He tucked in his chin and lifted his glasses off his nose. “I can’t believe I need bifocals. I refuse to believe it. The kid’s name is Lily. And wait. It’s Oklahoma, not Omaha. Oklahoma City. I don’t have the name of the club, but I have complete faith you’ll be able to solve that mystery.”
“Have you heard that old joke?” Wyatt said. “About steaks in Omaha?”
“I’ve got a feeling I’m going to.”
“If you insist.” Wyatt stood up. “Give me one sec, will you?”
He went into the office bathroom and shut the door behind him. He could feel the room spinning. But slowly, as if in the thirty seconds after that first carousel jolt of movement—Oklahoma City, not Omaha—everything around him had only moved a fraction of an inch to the left. Slow-motion motion sickness.
Wyatt had known a surfer once, right after he’d moved to San Diego, who after a few beers would go on and on about the crushing, elemental power of the ocean, about how you had to respect that, dude. Good advice, sure—but you know what was an even better idea? Respect the power of the ocean by staying out of the water in the first place.
That was Wyatt’s philosophy when it came to the past: Stay out of it. By doing so he had lived a happy life. A life undrowned, unbroken on the rocks, unswept toward an empty horizon.
You caught a whiff of a certain perfume as you walked across the casino floor at the Bellagio and you kept walking. You caught a few bars of “If She Knew What She Wants” by the Bangles on the radio and you changed the station. You lived in the present tense, where the past has no power.
But Wyatt had already told Gavin that he’d do the favor for him. If he tried to back out now, Gavin would want to know why.
Wyatt ran through the lies he could tell. He knew that Gavin would buy none of them.
Wyatt’s mouth tasted stale from the coffee he’d had with breakfast, so he scooped water from the faucet and rinsed his mouth. He returned to his desk and sat back down.
“So a guy from Omaha goes on a business trip to New York City,” he said. “The guy he’s meeting takes him out to dinner. They have a couple of steaks. Amazing steaks. Prime porterhouses, dry-aged. But expensive—this is New York City after all.”
Gavin finished writing a check and tore it out of the book. “This is for a week, double your rate plus expenses. Don’t say you never did nothing for me.”
“The guy from Omaha says, ‘You know, if we were in Omaha right now, these steaks would only cost ten bucks.’ The guy from New York City just looks at him and says, ‘Yeah, but we’d be in Omaha.’ ”
“That’s why you’re going, not me.” Gavin stood. “Oklahoma. Shit. What’s in Oklahoma? The wind sweeping down the plains. Have a nice trip.”
Genevieve
September 1986
Genevieve stood, sweating, and watched the guy make Indian tacos. After every third or fourth taco, he’d pause, pop a zit, and then sniff his fingertips.
That pretty much captured it, Genevieve’s definition of hell: stuck baby-sitting your little sister at the Oklahoma State Fair, a thousand degrees in the shade, the funk of cow shit fuming out from the livestock pens so thick you could taste it, and the Indian taco guy popping zits like they were going out of style.
Oh, and all that while totally straight. You know, just in case hell wasn’t hellish enough.
No drugs. No drugs?
Genevieve was sweaty, her hair dead on her shoulders, her mascara melting. She watched Mr. Indian Taco pop another zit. Genevieve wished someone would remind her, please, why she had chosen today of all days to take Nancy Reagan’s advice.
No, drugs!
Genevieve, hey, can’t we talk about this?
No!
Genevieve’s little sister, Julianna, had reached the front of the taco line. She glanced back at Genevieve and grinned. And waited. What was the little goofball waiting for? It took Genevieve a second to realize that her sister was wearing Genevieve’s favorite shades, her wood-framed Vuarnets.
Brat!
Genevieve gave her the finger. Julianna lowered the Vuarnets and lifted one eyebrow like Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Genevieve refused to smile, but, God, the little goofball could crack her up. Even when Julianna was being a total pain in the ass. Especially when she was being a total pain in the ass.
That was kind of a genius gift, Genevieve supposed. An even more useful survival skill, probably, than being pretty or smart or whatever.
Genevieve studied Julianna as she paid for her Indian taco and tried to guess if her sister would ever be pretty. Right now, age twelve, five years younger than Genevieve, Julianna just looked like the goofball twelve-year-old she was. Sort of cute, Genevieve supposed, but—all those awkward angles and mismatched parts—like a cute pterodactyl. There were times when Genevieve would glance at Julianna and think, You never know, maybe she’ll grow into those legs someday and turn a few heads. And then other times Genevieve would think, No, get ready world, for a gawky, horse-faced girl who cracks everyone up and marries a sweet dull guy three inches shorter than she is.
Genevieve had always been pretty, but she hadn’t turned pretty pretty until the summer before high school. Nick of time, and what a welcome relief that had been. Because Genevieve wasn’t smart, and she didn’t have a genius gift for cracking people up. At least nobody but her goofball little sister.
Who laughed like a spaz when Genevieve leaned over and studied the Indian taco and said, “Does Indian taste like chicken?”
“After this,” Julianna said when she finished laughing, “I want to go see the freaks.”
Yeah, Genevieve thought, like that was gonna happen when she wasn’t on drugs. “You’re the freak. Give me back my sunglasses.”
“Oooh,” Julianna said. “I’m so sexy. Everybody look at me. You can’t take your eyes off me. I’m Genevieve.”
With a French accent and a flirty little cock of her hips. Genevieve refused to smile. She grabbed back her Vuarnets and put them on. With—a second later, just when Julianna was about to bite into her taco—a flirty little cock of her hips that made her sister laugh again like a spaz.
Two preppy college guys in Izods were scoping Genevieve out, from over by the freshwater taffy. She took off her Vuarnets again and held that thing between her teeth—the arm of the sunglasses or whatever it was called—while she pulled her hair back through a scrunchie. Just to watch the two college guys watching her. See? Genevieve had a genius gift, too.
College guys often had good drugs. Too bad that Genevieve was not, today, on speaking terms with drugs.
No! Can’t hear you, drugs! Lalalalalala!
“Your mouth is too big for your head,” Genevieve told her sister. “You better hope your head grows, or you’re gonna look like one of those snakes that can unhinge their jaws to eat an antelope or whatever.”
“Then I can join the freak show. Do you remember Dad and Stan?”
Stan was the world’s smallest man, barely three feet tall but perfectly proportioned, a perfect little doll man. He sat inside a tent, on a tiny chair, in the center of a roped-off sawdust ring. People stood at the rope and stared at him. Genevieve and Julianna’s dad had taken them to see Stan once. Their dad shared his popcorn with Stan and asked him what he thought about Gerald Ford.
Their aunt used to say, about their dad, that he never met a stranger.
But no way did Julianna remember any of that. Genevieve had been barely nine when their dad was killed in a car wreck, which meant Julianna would have been barely four.
“You don’t remember Stan. You were too little.”
“I wasn’t. I remember that Dad and Stan talked about politics.”
“You just remember me telling you that.”
“I don’t! I remember Dad—”
“Shut up!” Genevieve said. She felt a slash of rage, white hot, blowing up out of nowhere. Here one second and then gone again so quickly that she was just a spectator, too close to a train that rushed past and sucked the breath out of her lungs.
She glanced at Julianna and felt bad. She wanted to explain: It’s not you. Well, mostly it’s not you. It’s you and it’s not you. It’s you, yes, because you’re twelve years old and you shouldn’t need a baby-sitter to take you to the fair. Genevieve, when she was her sister’s age, was running wild on the midway with her friends. Buying plastic barrels of root beer and spiking them with cheap rum. But Julianna was their mother’s precious baby, and—especially after what had happened last month at that movie theater across town—she wouldn’t let Julianna out of the house without a police escort. My precious baby, Julianna, if anything like that ever happened to her, I would just et cetera, et cetera.