Lucky Break

by Deborah Coonts

  “The firemen have cleared the building,” Romeo announced, as he shouldered through the crowd. He waved several small HD tapes. “The system also backs up to the cloud, for future reference. Glad the fire chief owes me one.”

  “You got enough strong-arm capital left to convince them to let me get my car out of the garage?” I asked, my mind coming back online but still pinging a bit randomly. More fire trucks screamed into the driveway, then disgorged their human cargo dressed in full protective gear. Men pointed and scrambled, unfurling hoses, joining the fight.

  “Doubtful. The chief is a tough nut. And I’m not sure I’d play my last card for that car.” Romeo didn’t sound all that hopeful. “I can’t believe out of everything you could’ve grabbed you took Teddie’s guitar and the keys to that rattle-trap that probably should be parted-out.”

  “Hard to explain.” My neck hurt, but, transfixed by the fire, I stared skyward. “It’s like you know you should grab something that has some value, especially something with emotional resonance that can’t be replaced. But you can’t think, so you just grab. In my defense, I didn’t grab my car keys. I leave them in the car.”

  This time I could feel his incredulous look; I didn’t have to see it. “You leave your keys in the car? In the car-theft capital of the universe?”

  “Car won’t start for anyone but me.” I met his smile with one of my own. “Loyalty. Priceless.” I gave him a quick hug. “Thank you.” Newton chose that precise moment to flutter to a landing on my shoulder.

  “Shit!” Romeo leapt back, then recovered.

  Newton gave me a look and said, “Bitch.” The word held a hint of ownership that made me laugh.

  “I can’t lose you,” Romeo whispered, then recovered. “You keep life interesting.”

  A kindred sufferer of emotional constipation. “Comic relief, my best thing.”

  “Weren’t you wearing those clothes yesterday?” he asked.

  “Yes, Detective, I was.”

  He glanced at the guitar as he chewed on his lip. “You going to tell me how you survived that?” His eyes once again shifted to the inferno leaping out of my bedroom window.

  “No,” I sighed. “Let’s just say it was a stroke of luck.”

  So, there I stood, with a guitar in one hand, my purse over one shoulder, a parrot on the other, and an arm around Romeo, both of us looking up as fire consumed everything I owned.

  Jean-Charles, in the middle of the late-night burger rush, had dropped everything and run from the Babylon to the Presidio. He’d been my first phone call. Out of breath and red-faced, he brushed the bird from my shoulder, handed the guitar to Romeo, then grabbed me tight, rocking back and forth. Sharing love, a heady thing.

  “You’re making me hungry,” I said into his neck, relishing his nearness, the feel of him, the emotion that vibrated through him into me.

  “Hungry? Why is this?” He didn’t loosen his hold to look at me as he usually did.

  “You smell like hamburgers.”

  He chuckled and still didn’t let go.

  I wiggled a bit, giving him a hint, and he reluctantly eased his hold on me. One arm remained around my waist as he stepped to the side and took in the crowd, the fire trucks, the men hauling hoses, the debris of my life floating down, swirling as the wind caught it. “How?” he started, then shook his head. “It is a miracle.”

  As he pulled me tight, I could feel him shaking. “Come, let me cook you something.” My chef considered food to be the panacea for all ills, a theory I heartily embraced.

  “Dear God in Heaven, you’re all right!”

  Jolted out of a deep sleep, I bolted upright. “Shit! I wish people would stop doing that.” I stared into the angry, worried, terrified face of Miss P. Finding her attitude no fun, I took a look around. My office. My couch. I remembered. Jean-Charles. Dinner. I left him at the Burger Palais handling some crisis. I couldn’t remember exactly what. He said he’d come get me.

  I fingered the blanket covering me. He must’ve come and decided not to awaken me. The thought warmed my heart, then the cold arrow of reality, of the fire, pierced it.

  “Why didn’t you call anybody?” Her eyes shot daggers. Not a good look.

  I gently eased her out of my face. “I called everybody. Romeo helped. Check your phone. When I called you it rolled to voicemail. I left a message.” Gently, I put my feet on the floor, but I didn’t have the energy to stand. “What time is it?”

  “Eight o’clock.” She punched at her phone, her brows crunched together.

  I took the offending device out of her hand. One look and I thrust it back to her. “This is my old phone. It was in your desk drawer.”

  “What?” She glared at the thing as if she could scare it into giving up its secrets. She bolted into her office, making scratching sounds as she rummaged in her desk.

  I tested my legs; they held. One hour of sleep, not counting the hours I’d slumbered in Teddie’s bed. To be honest, my sleep last night totaled more than my average, so I wasn’t feeling too bad. I wandered to the small bathroom in my old office. Searching the closet, I was a bit disappointed in my clothing options—I usually kept several changes of clothes there for exigent circumstances. “Is this all of my clothes?” I called to Miss P in the outer office.

  No answer. I peeked through the doorway.

  Miss P looked up, her grin a mile wide. “I found my phone. Voicemail full. Jeremy called.”

  “Of course he did. My clothes?”

  “I sent them out to be cleaned.” She stuck headphones in her ears, and was lost to me. “For that, you get to take care of the bird.” She didn’t hear me. And apparently she hadn’t noticed him in the small cage in the corner. They had a love/hate relationship.

  Ain’t love grand?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MY shrilling phone caught me just toweling off. I leaned out of the shower, retrieving it. I heard the bird shouting obscenities in the front office and someone slamming drawers.

  A glance at caller ID. A number I didn’t recognize … I almost didn’t answer. If I didn’t know them, I didn’t want to talk to them. Especially not today. Although I did have a lot of balls in the air. Curiosity killed self-preservation. “O’Toole.”

  “Squash Trenton here. You are coming to the bail hearing.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Of course.” I tried to sound functional, an impossibility without mainlining caffeine—next on my to-do list.

  “We’re on the docket in forty-five. Third on the list, so you’ve got some time. But, O’Toole, get a move on.”

  I started to ask why the hell my presence was so damned important, but he’d hung up. There was no time to indulge my irritation.

  Thirty minutes. A new record. Five hundred horses, light traffic, and unadulterated panic made short work of the trip to the courthouse. I didn’t need to go to the gym; my heart rate got a good workout just dealing with my life. The firemen wouldn’t let me have my car, doing me a favor, but they had let Forrest go inside and get the Ferrari keys. Today I was especially grateful for the Ferrari—functional, fast, and not at all temperamental.

  Security at the courthouse took time I hadn’t planned. I slipped into the courtroom and silenced my phone as the bailiff called Teddie’s case, “The People of the State of Nevada versus Theodore Kowalski.” A packed house. Not a good sign. Media, fans, the curiosity crowd that traveled from one public train wreck to another, packed in tight, giving off a charged vibe. An uneasy hush fell over the crowd, leaving a low-level crackle of salacious appetites needing to be fed. Even the glare of the judge and a threat of contempt couldn’t override the nervous excitement.

  Daniel, entrenched at the opposing counsel’s table, turned and scanned the crowd. Gauging sentiment, perhaps—lawyers, nothing more than actors in a bad farce playing to the crowd. The best actor, the cleverest storyteller, the meanest pit bull usually won. An American spin—he with the most money wins. Despite lawyers’ myopic belief in the system, all us folks
who counted on justice being served, yet rarely saw any, knew the system was broken.

  And Teddie’s life hung on the horn of this dilemma: play the game or cut your losses.

  Squash Trenton, in wavy hair, calm expression, and easy manner, sported a cowboy vibe in creased jeans, a white shirt, bolo tie, and fringed suede jacket that conjured either Wild West justice or a spaghetti western—a Champion of the Everyman. Daniel, all spit-and-polish in a three-piece suit, waged war on behalf of the government. In theory, justice was the goal, but I didn’t have a lot of confidence that anyone else saw it that way… only me.

  Thankfully, Teddie didn’t have to appear in jailhouse orange. In a sweater and button-down with the tie I’d given him last Christmas, and creased slacks, he looked like Teddie; yet he was somehow diminished, as if the music had stopped. Stress highlighted his large eyes and high cheekbones. His hands crossed in front of him, he tried to look solemn and not shatter under the pressure. I knew him as well as I knew myself, sometimes I thought perhaps better. I could read every nuance. Seeing him this way, in this situation, with iPhone photos being surreptitiously snapped, judgments being made, hurt me more than it did him.

  The judge pounded his gavel and scowled from on high. Judge Biggerstaff, a friend of my father’s since the both of them had been young and stupid enough to have big dreams that stepped on the toes of the Mob. They’d both lived through it, which said a lot. Not sure what, but I hoped it meant that Judge Bickerstaff knew bad when he saw it and knew bullshit when he stepped in it.

  “No cameras. No photographs in my courtroom.” He motioned for a policeman standing off to the side to remove a few who ignored his order, then got down to business.

  I half-listened as they went through all the preliminary stuff. Then we got to the juicy part. Squash stepped from behind the table and made an impassioned plea for bail. Powerful, strong, persuasive, yet collegial, no wonder he was considered the best. Everyone seemed to hang on his every word. Squash sat, and I resisted the urge to applaud, bad form in a courtroom where decorum reigned supreme. The crowd shifted and stirred. I held my breath.

  Daniel rose, buttoning his jacket. Would he or wouldn’t he?

  Oddly, he glanced back at me, stopping my heart. Icy and cold, I couldn’t read his expression.

  Then he faced the judge and said, “Your Honor, the People believe that Mr. Kowalski is not a flight risk at this time. While bail is not normally available in this circumstance, we feel, based on the evidence gathered so far, that the case warrants a consideration of bail.”

  Stunned murmuring.

  The judge silenced the crowd with a glare. “Mr. Kowalski, do you have someone who can speak for you?”

  Squash turned and stared straight at me. When he turned back to the judge, he said, “Lucky O’Toole will stand for the accused, your Honor.”

  Terrific. So nice they’d asked. Heads turned, necks craned.

  Awkward in the spotlight, I pressed down my slacks, an old pair of Dana Buchmans in soft bronze wool, and straightened my matching sweater over a metallic-threaded silk camisole. When I’d dressed I’d had work in mind, not a photo spread in People. Of course, I hadn’t had too many choices, piecing together this outfit from random pieces in my office closet. Too late, I realized I had on two different shoes, one leopard-print, one zebra, both flats. I resisted patting down my hair, too Hollywood, too self-indulgent. I didn’t matter here.

  Teddie, the flush of anger climbing his neck and face, leaned into Squash and whispered in his ear. Squash brushed him off.

  The bailiff called me to the stand. As if somnambulating, I walked up the aisle, through the little gate separating the gallery from the participants, then found myself swearing on a Bible and then speaking as a character witness for a man I wasn’t sure had much left, although I was pretty sure he wasn’t a murderer.

  I didn’t look at Teddie. I didn’t know what I would do. I stared straight ahead and pretended I was somewhere else.

  The judge turned to the bailiff. “I want a freeze on all Mr. Kowalski’s assets. Have him turn in his passport, and get an ankle bracelet on him.” Then he looked out over the courtroom. “Bail in the amount of a million dollars is granted.”

  My knees weakened. The crowd gasped. Some outraged murmurs, some relieved sighs. Teddie had his fans, too.

  Before he let me step down, he leaned in, putting a hand over his mic. “If he flies, I’m holding you personally responsible.” My heart leapt in my throat. My job was to stay out of the news and keep the hotel from being sullied through my association. And if he thought I had any control over Teddie, well, he was grossly misinformed, but the joke was apparently on me.

  “How’s your father?” he asked, switching gears and leaving me in the dust.

  “Okay,” I stammered.

  “Serious business, this,” he growled. “You get to the bottom of it before anything else happens, you hear?”

  “Yes, sir.” I sounded like a cowed schoolgirl.

  Why the hell did everyone think I had the cipher to this code?

  The media pressed around me, hurling loaded questions like Molotov cocktails. Squash caught me wading through the throng. He grabbed my elbow, “I see you know the drill; ignore them and keep moving.”

  “Early in my career, I stopped once.” I shot him a look as, shoulder-to-shoulder, we formed a human plow, carving a trough through the crowd. “I was lucky to get out alive.”

  “This is a rabid bunch. And equally divided from what I can tell.”

  Shouts to our left. A fight erupted, shifting some of the attention. We charged through the gap in the crowd’s attention. Bolting through the door, we both cringed against the assault of a new day. “I really get sick of the sun sometimes,” I admitted, apropos of nothing, but an interesting metaphor when I thought about it.

  “Glare of the spotlight; it never gets old.” Squash slowed only slightly, as if waiting for a steer. “Where’s your car?”

  “Why?”

  “I need you to post bail.”

  I yanked my elbow out of his grasp. I wasn’t really mad—desperate times and all of that—but I hated being railroaded. “If you just asked, this would go down a lot easier. We’re on the same side, and, whether you know this or not, Teddie is very dear to me. I’ll do what it takes, stay the course.”

  He gave me an appraising look, then throttled back. “Sorry. Sorta comes with the territory.”

  I didn’t want to think about his normal class of associates. “I bet. The car’s this way.” I led him through the parking lot.

  When he caught sight of the Ferrari, he smiled like he knew something I didn’t.

  “What?”

  “I play this game with myself,” he said as he opened the passenger door and settled inside. He waited until I’d gotten the horses under control. “I had you pegged as a fast car kind of gal.”

  “Sorry to disappoint. This is a loaner. My real car is a 911 that predates me and is far more unpredictable.”

  “Classy.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Have any relationships with any bail bondsmen?” he asked casually as if he thought I actually might.

  “Not since a rebellious college phase, but I would like to put the thumbscrews to Easy Eddy V.” I shot him a wicked smile.

  “Thumbscrews. I like your style. Eddie V it is.”

  Eddie V operated out of a cinderblock one-story building that he shared with a lawyer, Jesus Morales, also known as Freddy, who made most of his freight selling forged IDs and other documentation somewhere on North Rancho—he moved around, but was easy to find if you knew who to ask. He thought Jesus Morales had a classy ring to it and gave off sort of a saintly air, so he immortalized it on his business cards and painted it on his window. We all still called him Freddy and knew his invoking the Almighty wouldn’t come close to balancing his ledger when he arrived at the Pearly Gates. His mother, Mrs. Morales—no one dared refer to her by her first name, if she even had one—r
an not only her son’s shop, but Eddie V’s as well. And she pinched pennies so tight she made Lincoln scream. Just the person I wanted to have me over a monetary barrel. But, I had leverage.

  “How are you at negotiation?” I asked Squash as I wound through the maze of downtown. Eddy V’s wasn’t far. Like wolves encircling their prey, the bail bondsmen rented space as close to the courthouse as they could get without overdoing tacky. Okay, that was my take. From my few brushes with them, bondsmen never worried themselves over presentation.

  Squash pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m offended. They devote at least two years in law school to how to be an asshole and get what you want.”

  “Good to know. Explains a lot. But you are about to meet your match.”

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. Morales, Eddy V’s money man.”

  A happy look settled over Squash’s face as he hummed a snatch of a catchy tune. Silly man. Clearly he had never met Mrs. Morales.

  I hid the Ferrari around the corner. Even if I didn’t hold the pink slip, flashing that kind of bling wouldn’t help our side. Squash took the lead as we pushed through the glass door, a single bell announcing our presence. The front desk stood empty, as were the offices we could see. Cheap, mismatched furniture, two chairs, a square coffee table, and a fake plant so old the leaves were faded white decorated the waiting area.

  “No expense spared.”

  Squash ignored me, preferring to follow his nose. “Dear God, what is that smell?”

  We found Eddie V and Mrs. Morales seated at a round laminated table, the laminate so thin in spots the particleboard showed through. A fridge groaned and hissed in the corner, leaking Freon. A ptomaine breeding ground.

  Mrs. Morales was a large woman—so large that I couldn’t think of an adjective that sufficed, so I went with the catch-all. She glared at us from under a unibrow. Eddy glanced at us, a hopeful expression which flared as recognition dawned on his nondescript face. Eddy was one of those guys who just seemed like there was nothing at all distinguishing about him—sort of the wallpaper of life. He had slicked down hair and an oily manner to match. “You here to bail out your boyfriend?” a question that sounded like a statement of fact.