Unmanned

by Lois Greiman

  “My apologies to the Hershey Company.”

  “I should think so.”

  “In fact, I have a recipe for a kick-ass fondue.”

  Rivera is a spectacular cook. It’s one of the things about life that makes me think maybe God is up there laughing his head off about the world at large. Rivera looks about as much like your typical chef as I look like lobster bisque. And I hardly ever do.

  “Messy,” he said, “but what you can’t lick off will usually come clean in the shower.”

  I blinked. I actually was feeling flushed now. “Good Lord,” I said, and he chuckled, low and quiet.

  “See you tomorrow night.”

  “Umm, Pete came to visit for a few days.”

  “Your brother?” His voice had already roughened toward suspicious. He knew my familial history pretty well. “Why?”

  I ran a few possible scenarios through my head about overly protective brothers and discarded them out of hand. “He’s probably planning a few days of L.A. debauchery before the big day. But I’ll try to get rid of him by tomorrow.”

  He thought about that for a second, then: “Don’t worry about it. You can come to my place. My shower’s bigger anyway,” he said, and hung up.

  Grouchy-looking clouds were boiling over the San Gabriels when I headed home. I made a stop at Yum Yum for Tuesday’s breakfast, ate a small donut hole, then remembered no one was currently threatening my life and added a fritter to the celebratory menu. Darkness was just settling in by the time I reached home, but I was still happy. The Corvette was nowhere in sight. I skipped up my crumbling walkway and inserted my key.

  I didn’t hear a thing until an instant before I was grabbed from behind and yanked backward.

  I tried to scream, but a hand crushed my mouth. Terror shot through me like an electrical current.

  The man behind me snarled something, but I couldn’t understand, couldn’t think. I tried to shake my head.

  “Unlock it!” he gritted, and crowded close against me. He was big, hard. Terror choked me as much as his hand, but my mind was clattering along nonstop. What if I let him inside? Whatever he was going to do would be that much more likely to get me killed. I tried to shake my head again, but he was cutting off my air.

  “Open up,” he snarled, and shoved me forward. I felt something solid nudge my spine. “It’s hard as hell getting blood out of linen.”

  My hand shook on the key, but I tried to turn it, tried to save myself.

  “Hey,” called a voice from the street. “Is everything all right there?”

  “Fuck it!” he said, and dropped his arm around my shoulder. “Get rid of her,” he ordered, and twisted toward the street, turning me with him.

  An elderly woman stood on the sidewalk. She was wearing a dented straw hat, long blue shorts, and a red sleeveless shirt. “You okay?” she asked.

  He squeezed my arm hard.

  “Everything’s fine.” My voice cracked. I tried to swallow, tried to think. “Mrs…. Mrs. Fischer, isn’t it?”

  “What? No. I’m Doris. Doris Blanchard. From down the street.” She cocked her head to the left. “House with the blue shutters.”

  “Oh. Sure. Hello.” I lifted my hand in a stiff-fingered wave. He squeezed my arm. “I’m Christina and this is…” I paused, desperate, terrified. I didn’t want to die. There was chocolate fondue. And showers.

  “Don’t try anything stupid,” he growled, but I’m terrible at taking orders.

  “What was your name again?” I asked him. My voice sounded rusty. My knees were frozen.

  Doris was squinting. “Are you the fellow that lives on Ruby Street? The one with the dog that looks like Gentle Ben?”

  I could feel his attention shifting from me, and in that instant I swung my hand up over my shoulder, stabbing with my keys.

  Sheer luck landed it in his eye. He stumbled back, cursing, but I was already running, sprinting toward the street and screaming bloody murder.

  “Run! Run!” I shrieked, but Doris remained as she was, probably frozen with fear.

  I shot up to the gate, but I couldn’t get it open. My hands were out of control. Something sounded behind me. I spun around, ready to fight, but just then a gun fired. I screamed, waiting for the pain, but it didn’t come. I jerked my gaze toward my house just in time to see my attacker race around the corner and out of sight.

  Another shot popped off practically in my ear. I jerked back toward Doris. She stood, jaw jutted forward, gun smoking.

  “Holy shit,” I said, and collapsed, dragging my hand down the black bars and falling in a wilted heap on my decrepit walkway.

  16

  Tact is for people with too much damned time on their hands.

  —Lieutenant Jack Rivera

  “CAN YOU DESCRIBE your attacker?” The officer who asked the question was tall and sparse. His partner looked a little like a young Michael J. Fox. Short, cute, blond. I was sitting on my couch, feeling discombobulated and kind of dented. I think I shook my head.

  “He was a yellow belly,” said Doris Blanchard. She was still standing, apparently unimpressed by fleeing banditos and smoking guns. “Run off soon as I snapped off a shot.”

  The cute officer shook his head in disbelief, but apparently the gun was legally registered in Doris’s name. That had already been determined. The same couldn’t be said for much else.

  Across the room, Pete stared at me, eyes hollow, mouth turned down. He’d been in the house the whole time, coming out moments after the second shot, to find me in a misty heap on my disintegrating concrete. Apparently, the Vette was in my garage.

  He’d thought it might be best not to call the police, but Mrs. Blanchard wasn’t one to fool around. Armed with six-shooter, dagger-sharp wits, and a cell phone, she’d dialed 911 before I’d managed to hobble shakily into my living room.

  “Any idea what he was after?” asked Slim.

  I stared at Pete. He disconnected our gazes and paced. I tried another head shake. It was easier now that I’d had a little practice. Harlequin laid his head on my knee and sighed.

  “Do you keep any valuables in the house?”

  “Valuables?” I was trying to think. Really I was. But mostly I was thinking that I’d just spent three hundred and eleven dollars on a plane ticket to meet with the mob, and men were still accosting me at my front door. The idea made me kind of angry, in a hazy sort of way.

  “High-end items,” Slim continued, and glanced around. “Stereo systems, computers, that sort of thing.”

  Pete had disappeared into the kitchen.

  “I have a nice blender,” I said.

  Both officers were staring at me.

  “Makes great smoothies.” Life is complicated. Smoothies make it simpler. “I like mine with bananas.”

  The officers glanced at each other.

  “Did you hit your head when you fell, Ms. McMullen?”

  “What happened?”

  I turned my head at the question. Rivera was just striding into the living room, eyes dark as hell, brows low.

  “Lieutenant,” Slim said. “Seems there was another incident.”

  Rivera sat down beside me. “You okay?”

  I was becoming aces at nodding.

  “I couldn’t see exactly what was happening on account of my cataracts and the bad light, but when she come galloping toward me shrieking like a scalded cat, I snapped a shot off at the perp. Thought I might of winged him, but they say there ain’t no blood.” Doris shook her head, mourning.

  Rivera stared at her an instant, then shifted his hawkish gaze toward the other officers.

  “Mrs. Doris Blanchard,” said Cutie. “Said she was out for her evening walk.”

  “Osteoporosis,” she said. “It’s a bear-cat. Use it or lose it, but I don’t go unarmed no more.”

  “Ruger P85 9mm,” said Slim, lifting the pistol.

  Rivera looked like he was about to masticate nails, but when he spoke, he was all business. “Did you get a description of th
e bastard?” Okay, maybe not all business.

  Cutie shook his head, but Doris spoke up.

  “Like I says, it was already getting dark and my eyesight ain’t what it used to be.”

  Rivera snapped his gaze back toward me. I shook my head. “He was behind me.” My throat was closing up again. “All of a sudden. I didn’t see him.” Maybe I should have. Maybe I would have, if I’d been careful. The thought prompted strange fragments of guilt. “He just…” I swallowed, nerves jittery. “…grabbed me. Out of nowhere.”

  A muscle jumped in Rivera’s jaw. “How long ago was that?”

  “Twenty-seven minutes,” Doris said. He glanced at her. “I keep a pretty tight schedule. Gladys always knows my whereabouts, case something happens to me. I gotta get home in time for Gunsmoke.”

  Rivera turned toward Slim. “Have you gotten a statement from Ms….”

  “Miss,” she corrected. “Miss Blanchard. I ain’t never married. But not for lack of offers, if you know what I mean. I was a looker in my day.”

  “We just got here a couple of minutes ago,” Slim said. “Made sure the victim was safe, took a look around the backyard.”

  “And?”

  Slim shook his head. It was the size of a small cantaloupe. The muscle jumped in Rivera’s jaw again. “Officer Williams, take Miss Blanchard home. Make sure she’s safe, then—”

  “I can find my own way home,” she countered, tone roughening. “Ain’t dead yet.”

  He shifted his gaze from Slim to Doris. “I’m afraid we’ll need a formal statement,” he said, “if you’re not too upset.”

  “Upset!” She scoffed. “Ain’t no yellow-belly sidewinder gonna upset me. Come on,” she said, eyeing Slim and jerking her head toward the door. “I’ll tell you about the time I shot my cousin in the hinder.”

  The door slammed behind them.

  “You need anything?” Rivera asked. Had his eyes not been hard-ass cop, I might have fallen into his lap. Instead, I lifted my chin and drew a deep breath.

  “No.” My hand shook a little on Harlequin’s head. “I’m fine.”

  He narrowed his eyes. My ninny-headed brother shuffled back into the living room. Rivera glanced at him. “Get her something to drink.”

  Pete nodded, disappeared. Seems even dumb-ass practical-joking brothers are compliant when a couple shots are fired.

  In a moment, Pete returned with two tumblers. He tucked one of them into my hand. It was full of whiskey. Whiskey tastes something like battery acid to me. I drank half a glass. Pete did the same.

  “Tell me what happened,” Rivera said.

  “He grabbed me.” The glass shook. If I chugged the whole thing, how long would it take before I slid under the couch in a blessedly catatonic state? Nyquil might be a shorter route.

  “Start at the beginning,” Rivera said.

  I tried another fortifying breath, nodded once, and thought about calling D. His business card was in my purse, tucked in my wallet between twelve thousand receipts and two five-dollar bills. When I’d heard it wasn’t safe to carry a lot of cash, I had taken it to heart.

  “I had a full day of clients. I left shortly after I spoke to you.”

  “You came straight home?” he asked.

  I nodded, intentionally neglecting to tell him about Yum Yum’s.

  “Anybody follow you?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so.”

  He didn’t like my answer. Rivera’s kind prefers a circuitous course home. Something resembling Celtic knot work. Just in case. If I listened to him, I would have to allow four hours a day to commute. Of course, maybe I’d be unscathed when I arrived at my door…if I arrived at my door.

  “You didn’t look behind you?” he asked.

  “I didn’t think—” I began, tone already defensive, but he stopped me.

  “Were there any unknown vehicles on your street?”

  I shook my head. But there might have been a herd of pachyderms hobbled in my driveway. I wouldn’t have necessarily noticed. The Vette was gone. I’d been euphoric.

  “Okay. Go on.”

  “I exited my vehicle and proceeded up my walkway.”

  He gave me a strange look for my phraseology, but sometimes I feel better if I use educated language. Turns out, I could have employed the word “sesquipedalian” juxtaposed beside “somnambulism” and I would have still felt like crap. But it was worth a try. “Did you notice anything unusual?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Was your gate open? Was the security light off?”

  I shook my head. His scowl deepened.

  “Go on.”

  “I had just inserted my key into the lock when he…” My voice shook. I took another drink to cover it, but I’m afraid it didn’t work very well, ’cuz my hand was still shaking, too. “He grabbed me,” I said.

  “How?”

  “From behind.”

  “Show me.” He stood up. I stared at him, lost.

  “Come on.” He took my drink, set it on the end table, and pulled me to my feet. “This’ll be over in a minute.”

  I nodded numbly.

  “Grab me,” he said.

  “He…he put his hand over my mouth.”

  “Do it.”

  I thought for a moment, then reached up and covered his lips. They were warm, a little chapped. He remained motionless, head tilted toward me, then reached up and pulled my fingers from his face.

  “Where was his other hand?”

  I swallowed and poked him in the back.

  “Like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Positive?”

  I scowled, tired. “Yes.”

  He exchanged glances with the other officer.

  “Left-handed,” Cutie said. “Only one-in-ten chance.”

  Rivera nodded once. “Okay. Good. What happened next?”

  “He told me to open the door. I—”

  “How did he say it?”

  I thought again. It made my head hurt. “He said something initially that I couldn’t understand. I tried to shake my head.” I did the same thing now. “But his grip was too tight.” I swallowed.

  “It’s okay,” Rivera said, voice softening, eyes unreadable. “You’re doing good.”

  “Then he said, ‘Unlock it.’”

  “Here.” He pulled away, moved around behind me. “We’ll reenact it. I’m like this, right?” He put his right hand over my mouth, his left against my back. I tried not to throw up.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You’re positive.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. You have your keys out?”

  “In the lock.”

  He nodded. “So he told you to unlock it. What’d you do?”

  I had frozen. Frozen like a Popsicle. Not shot him in the balls like I wish to hell I had. “I didn’t…” I drew a shaky breath. “…I didn’t want to go inside. I mean, it seemed safer out where people might see. Where…” My voice failed me. “But then he threatened me.”

  His hand tightened almost imperceptibly against my mouth, but he eased up in an instant. “What’d he say?”

  I cleared my throat. “Said something…something about how hard it is to get blood out of clothes. And I thought, ‘He’s going to kill me.’ But maybe he wouldn’t know I had a security system. If I didn’t unman it, maybe the cops would come.”

  He seemed tense. “What did you do?”

  “I tried to open the door.” I jiggled my right hand, imagining, remembering. “But it was stuck. That’s when Doris showed up.”

  “Doris Blanchard.”

  “She asked if everything was all right. He swore, put his arm around my shoulders and…” It was playing through my mind in hazy slow motion. “He turned me toward her.” I pivoted. Rivera went with me, playing along. “I didn’t know what to do. But I thought, maybe if I kept her talking…She introduced herself, so I told her my name and…” I faltered. Fear was
trying to eat its way through my esophagus.

  “What?”

  “I asked him what his name was.”

  He swore very softly under his breath. “Then what?”

  “He told me not to do anything stupid.”

  For a moment I thought Rivera might comment on the unlikelihood of that scenario, but he didn’t.

  “Doris said hi and waved and he…I thought I felt his hand lift from my shoulder for a second so I…” My heart was pounding dully in my constricted chest. I licked my lips. They were parched. “I still had my keys in my hand.”

  He waited.

  “So I stabbed him.”

  “Did you make contact?”

  I managed a nod. “In his eye, I think.”

  His mouth quirked a little. Maybe he was smiling.

  Maybe he was snarling. Damned if I know. “And then?”

  “Then I ran.”

  He released his hold. “Did he follow?”

  “No. But I thought he would. I couldn’t get the gate open. Couldn’t…” It was hard to breathe. “But when I turned he was already running away.” I fell silent, remembering.

  “What was he wearing?”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t noticed anything except that all my body parts were still intact and nothing seemed to be bleeding profusely.

  “Think back.”

  “I am.”

  “Think harder. What color skin?”

  “White, I think white.”

  “Because of his voice or because you saw him?”

  I shook my head. “Just an impression. But I don’t think his hair was dark.”

  “Okay. Where was he when you saw him.”

  “Running away. I only saw his back.”

  He nodded, took my hand, and tugged me toward the front door.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Just outside. It’ll be okay.” He led me down my walkway and deposited me by my front gate. “You were here?”

  “Yes. About here.”

  “Okay. Stay there,” he ordered, and strode back to my stoop. “Where was he?”

  I shook my head. It was difficult. I felt like there were eyes staring at me from behind every bush, every rock. Officer Cutie stepped outside, watching. Pete followed. Harlequin peeked past his thigh.

  “He was running away,” Rivera urged.