Unmanned

by Lois Greiman

  “The fuckers smelled like shit.”

  “What?” Rivera said.

  “What?” I repeated.

  “The night I was grabbed. The three of ’em smelled like cow shit.”

  The house went quiet. “Grabbed you?” Rivera’s voice was as deep and dark as the night outside my window.

  I opened my mouth to explain, but nothing came out.

  “We’d just come back from getting groceries,” Pete explained. “Hell. It was all I could do to drag Chrissy out of there. Ever see her in the snack aisle? She’s a Twinkie’s worst nightmare. Anyway, we was carrying stuff out of the car, and all of a sudden some asshole clonks me on the head and starts dragging me off.”

  Rivera turned his slow-burn gaze toward me. “So many threats on your life that you forgot this little episode, McMullen?”

  “We thought we had taken care of it,” Peter said.

  “Yeah?”

  I shot my gaze toward Pete. Or rather, I shot Pete with my gaze. He scratched the side of his neck.

  “I been having some girl trouble,” Peter said. “Thought that was the problem. But we got that cleared up and then this shit happened.”

  “How?”

  “What?”

  “How did you clear it up?”

  Pete shrugged, glanced at me again. “Just called and apologized.”

  If Rivera was buying it, you couldn’t see it in his eyes.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be getting married?”

  “Almost two weeks,” he said. “At—”

  “What’s her name?”

  Pete narrowed his eyes a little. “Holly,” he said. “Holly Oldman. We met—”

  “She know someone’s taking potshots at you?”

  “I don’t want to worry her. She hates violence. Even a scuffle makes her nervous. She’s expecting a baby in—” he began, then stopped, mouth still open as we saw the trap in tandem.

  “So you were shot at.” Rivera’s words fell dismally into the silence. He turned toward me.

  I opened my mouth, hoping something intelligent would fall out. No such luck. I’d been struck dumb. Or maybe I’d always been dumb.

  “And you didn’t report it,” he said. “Not to the department. Not to me.”

  “Back off,” Pete said. “She’s had a shitty week.”

  Rivera speared him with a glare and jerked to his feet. “And you! What the hell are you doing endangering your sister?”

  “He didn’t know he was—” I began.

  “God damn it,” he said, rounding on me, “why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

  “You’re not my father, Rivera.”

  “If I were, I’d get a damned vasectomy and put you over my knee twice a week just for—”

  Maybe sleep deprivation and terror were conniving against me, because I think I said, “Just try it, Rivera. You won’t need a vasectomy if you so much as—”

  “Shit.” Pete rustled to his feet, still scowling. “Maybe you two can get on with the foreplay after we’re done here, huh? I think someone’s trying to kill me.”

  Rivera drew a deep breath and turned back toward him with stiff composure. “What day was this?”

  “The shooting?”

  A muscle jumped in Rivera’s jaw. He nodded.

  “Thursday.”

  “You think there were three of them?”

  Pete nodded. “One was dragging me. One had a gun. There was someone by the van. I could hear him talking.”

  “What color was the van?”

  “Don’t know. White or silver. Maybe tan.”

  “Make?”

  “Ford. Least the assholes buy American.”

  “Model?”

  “Maybe a Windstar, ’02.”

  I stared. I wasn’t sure Pete could name the president, but he damned sure could tell the make and model of a car in the dark.

  “Does Dehn own a van?” Rivera asked.

  Pete shook his head. “Not as far as I know. Just that dumb-ass Camero. You know it has a 350 engine?”

  Rivera glanced at me. I shrugged, not sure which of them I hated more. He turned back toward Pete.

  “How about his buddies? One of them have a van?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Did you recognize their voices?”

  Pete touched his head, made a face. “Felt like they hit me with their damned Peterbilt. I was pretty out of it.”

  Anger flashed in Rivera’s eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was the thought of crime or the thought of me hiding the crime that caused it. It’s a common problem.

  “When you were accosted on your doorstep,” he said, looking at me, “did you smell anything unusual?”

  I thought back, shook my head.

  “Were there any strange cars parked on your street?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How about the cross streets?”

  I gave him a look.

  A muscle jumped in his jaw. “How about you?” he asked, glancing at Peter. “Did you notice anything unusual?”

  “Like I said before, I was watching—”

  “Do you think your assailant was alone?” he asked me, cutting Pete off at the pass.

  “What?” Once he got rolling, it was hard to keep up.

  “Did you hear anyone else? See anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Think back.”

  I was tired of thinking back. And just plain tired. “I don’t remember anything.”

  “Maybe a car starting as he was running away.”

  “I thought you had a witness.”

  “Didn’t pan out. What do you remember?”

  “A guy had just attacked me on my front stoop, Rivera.

  Mrs. Blanchard fired a gun in my ear. I might not have been at the top of my investigative game.”

  He stared at me for a moment, then, “I’ll need names, spellings, and phone numbers.”

  I looked at Pete. He nodded, found a scrap of paper on the counter, and started copying numbers from the napkin near the phone.

  “What else can you tell me?” Rivera asked, voice hard.

  “I’m tired of being shot at?”

  He snorted as he scanned the list Pete handed over.

  “Is that a one or a seven?”

  Pete leaned down. “It’s a zero.”

  The muscle in Rivera’s jaw was getting a workout. He looked a little like he wanted to slap someone upside the head. I hoped it was Pete.

  “What’s Nick’s last name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “First name Nicholas?”

  Pete shrugged. “Maybe. I’ve heard him called Claus.”

  Rivera stared.

  “Belly like a bowl full of jelly.”

  Rivera stood up. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Pete shrugged. The motion was stiff. “That’s all I got.”

  Rivera turned toward me. “How about you?”

  I cleared my throat, remembering D and his female entourage. “If I think of anything, I’ll call.”

  A softer expression flickered in Rivera’s eyes and for a moment I thought he might say something decent, might even reach out and touch me, but the moment passed. “I want you to lock your doors, arm your system, and stay in the damned house.”

  I considered arguing, but his eyes were already burning like Satan’s. Not that I’ve ever actually seen Satan, but it felt like I was in hell. “Sure,” I said.

  He stabbed me with a glare for another few seconds, then lifted his gaze to Pete. “Can you keep her here?”

  Peter shrugged. “Depends how much ice cream we got.”

  I thought about calling him a dork-faced perv, but resisted.

  Rivera straightened, stalked over to Peter, and leaned close.

  Their conversation was short. I didn’t hear a word of it until Rivera pulled back.

  “Got it?” he asked.

  Pete nodded. He looked shaken. It takes a lot to shake up Pete, so it could be I was wrong. Could als
o be that I didn’t hate Rivera quite as much as I thought I did.

  I followed him to the door, where he turned.

  “What’d you say to him?” I asked, needing rather desperately to know that someone had gotten under my stupid brother’s skin.

  The muscle again. “The senator’s in D.C.,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The old man always leaves town when he’s got something planned.”

  “Something planned? You can’t seriously believe your father wants me dead.”

  He stared at me.

  “I just told you about Nick and Dick and—”

  “I don’t want you seeing Manderos.”

  I laughed. Actually laughed. “Because he’s good-looking or because—”

  “Because he’s got a fucking gun!”

  I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it demurely.

  The tic danced in his jaw. “Just stay in the damned house and keep your legs together until I get this worked out, then you and Manderos can have a fucking orgy.”

  “Bite me,” I suggested. Not quite so demure.

  “Not until I’m done wooing you,” he said, and left.

  21

  Maybe knowledge is power, but it ain’t nearly as satisfying as punching some smart-ass in the chops.

  —One of the McMullen troglodytes…it doesn’t really matter which one

  I WOKE UP AT FOUR in the morning. My head was stuffy. My eyes felt as if they’d been scrubbed with lye and left in the sun to think about what they’d done wrong. I rubbed them, sat up, thought of the previous night and wanted rather desperately to crawl under my bed. Harlequin raised his flop-eared head and gazed at me. His eyes didn’t look a whole lot better than mine felt.

  Maybe he’d been dreaming of masked guys dragging him into the shadows, too. More likely he’d been dreaming about pork chops, though. He’d stolen two off the counter three weeks ago and had looked kind of dreamy ever since. My own nocturnal meanderings hadn’t been nearly so enjoyable.

  Slipping out of bed, I used the bathroom, then wandered groggily into my atom-sized office.

  Closing the door quietly behind me, I popped onto the Internet and googled Daryl Dehn. The image that finally appeared was a complete surprise. He wasn’t the flat-faced goon I had expected, but a relatively handsome Caucasian in his late thirties. He had a neatly cropped head of dusky blond hair, was wearing a pale blue dress shirt with dark pants, and accepting an award for high automobile sales. He worked at a dealership called Stiller Chevrolet.

  But it was the other pictures that truly fascinated me. The pictures of Daryl harnessed to a truck. Daryl Dehn, it said, was competing in Sheboygan’s Regional Strongman Championship.

  He was wearing a gray, ribbed wife-beater and straining against a rope that attached him to a large, cherry red vehicle with rounded fenders. Behind him, a crowd cheered. But it was difficult to notice anything besides the muscle. It bulged out of his shirt, past his baggy shorts, and up his straining neck.

  There were more pictures. Some of him flipping tractor tires, some doing what was called the farmer’s walk. One of him holding a trophy while his buddies beamed and dumped liquids on his head. I couldn’t look away, Was this the guy who had dragged Pete into the darkness? Who had grabbed me by my front door?

  Or had one of the Heads accosted me?

  I did a new search but found nothing about the Heads.

  And that was the extent of my investigative skills. So after a few seconds of intense soul-searching, I clicked off the Internet and dialed the phone.

  J. D. Solberg answered on the first ring, sharp-toned and instantly alert.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I scowled at the receiver. It was 4:53 in the morning. “Solberg?”

  “Is Laney okay?”

  “What?” My stomach twisted, my heart went wild. “What’s going on?” Had I somehow endangered her by asking for the loan? Had D made the connection between us? It seemed unlikely, but not so long ago my own tortured existence had involved Laney in a dangerous plot. In that moment I had realized her life was worth a couple of mine.

  “I haven’t heard from her,” Solberg said. “Do you think I should fly out there?”

  A hundred nasty scenarios skimmed through my head…crazed strongmen, irate husbands, moronic brothers. “What happened? When was the last time you spoke to her?”

  “Last night. I think I should fly out there. I could be there by noon if I don’t pack—”

  “Is she in trouble? Why didn’t you call me?”

  “She’s still filming in the mountains, but if I took a cab straight from the airport—”

  “Wait a minute.” My heart rate slowed a little. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, remembered who I was talking to. This was Solberg. And Solberg wasn’t always the most stable of nutcases. “When did you speak to her last night?”

  There was a moment of silence that somehow managed to sound defensive, then: “Anything could have happened in the last six hours, Chrissy.”

  I stared numbly at my computer monitor. A picture of Laney and me graced the screen. We were in the lobby of the Actors Guild Theatre, just about ready to view the premiere of some movie I’d forgotten long ago. Behind us a dozen glamorous stars-in-training preened in their finery. Laney was wearing blue jeans and a tank top. She shone like a meteorite.

  There was a reason the Geekster was obsessed. Still, I didn’t feel quite ready for his paranoia.

  “Solberg…” I closed my eyes again and rubbed them. I was tired and maybe a little bit cranky. “Do you have some shred of a reason to believe Elaine’s in trouble?”

  “They’ve got her riding a horse.” He sounded whiny and a little nuts. Well, join the fricking freak show. “Did you know that? Did you know they’re risking her life? Big monster of an animal. What if he gets hungry?”

  “Horses are not carnivorous, Solberg.”

  “Okay. What if he bucks her off? He’s big as—”

  “It’s a gelding?”

  “What?”

  “The horse, is it male?”

  “Yeah. I guess so. Why?”

  I leaned into my chair. Things were back in perspective. “No self-respecting male would hurt Laney, Solberg.”

  “It’s a horse.”

  “You think Laney’s appeal stops at Homo sapiens?” Maybe I meant it as a joke, but Harlequin couldn’t look at her without getting a loopy look in his eyes. Of course, the pork chops had had something of the same effect.

  Another pause, long and agonized. “She’s out there with all those men, Chrissy.” His voice was little more than a murmur now. “Good-looking, young, muscley guys with teeth and hair and…” He stalled, the line went cold with his dread. “Do you think she’s met someone else?”

  I smiled at the wallpaper on my screen. Laney smiled back. “Since last night?”

  “This isn’t funny, Chrissy.”

  I sighed. “Lots of things aren’t. Did she say she met someone else, Solberg?”

  A pause. It might have been pregnant. I’ve never been sure how to tell if a silence has conceived or not. “No.”

  “What did she say?”

  I could hear him squirming in his chair and tried not to imagine his scrawny ass plopped down in his office amidst a thousand pictures of my best friend. It just so happens I had broken into his house once. Had even gone through his underwear drawer. I’ve sanitized my hands with bleach since, but the memory remains.

  He drew a deep breath. “She said she misses me.”

  I dropped my head back and thought of the inconsistencies of the cosmos: The sun looks like a pinpoint of light, yet it’s bigger than the earth; something as inspiring as a hot fudge brownie volcano can actually be considered detrimental to your health; and Brainy Laney Butterfield had fallen for the Geek God. “Tell me the truth,” I said, “did you make some kind of pact with the devil?”

  He paused, sighed. “I know I’m a lucky son of a—Sorry.” He halted, reworded. “I kno
w I’m the luckiest bugger that ever lived. I know it. That’s why it’s so difficult.”

  I nodded, making my chair rock a little. “You know you can swear if you like, Solberg,” I said. “I won’t tell Laney.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then, “But if she knew, she’d be disappointed.”

  And there it was—the beating, pulsing, aching heart of the matter. He had given up swearing, drinking, and acting like a…well, like himself. And he’d done it all for her. He was, in short, her knight in shining armor. So what if he was half her height, balding, myopic, and psychotic. He was hers. My eyes felt kind of wet suddenly. Funny, L.A. isn’t usually humid, but it couldn’t have been tears. I’m not the sentimental type.

  “I’m going to tell you something, Solberg,” I said, “and after I say it, you’ll never hear it from my lips again, and if you repeat it, I’ll have to call a hit man, and I’ve got him on speed dial.” I took a deep breath. “Are you ready?”

  There was dead air for a second, but he pulled himself together enough to answer in the affirmative.

  “Laney loves you,” I said, knowing it was as true as it was unlikely. “She loves you, and when Laney loves, it’s forever.”

  I think I could hear his heart beating on the other end of the line before he spoke. “It was with God,” he said finally, his voice barely a whisper.

  “What?”

  “The pact,” he said. “It was with God. I promised to do everything in my power to make her happy for as long as I live.”

  And suddenly my cheeks felt wet. Damned humidity. I swallowed and wiped the condensation off my face with my knuckles. I’d been considerably more comfortable when Solberg had been a cocky little chicken-legged perv. “Well, you’d better,” I said. “So that’s why you haven’t already raced out there, huh?”

  “This is her dream. I think she needs to live it alone. At least for a while.”

  “Could be you’re not such a bad egg, Solberg,” I said, and cleared my throat.

  He might have misunderstood my emotion, though, because his tone softened. “What’s going on, babekins?”

  I sniffled a little. “Maybe I miss Laney, too.”

  “That why you called me at 4:47 in the morning?”

  “I was awake.”

  “Me, too.”

  I smiled a little, feeling wobbly. Solberg and I on the same track. Terrifying. “I could use a favor.”