by D. A. Bale
After wrap-up, Reggie told Han to ride along with the crew to the store. For the next half hour, easy conversation flowed between Mom and Reggie – like I wished we could have – while I redid my hair in a simple long ponytail, freshened my make-up for evening activities, then changed for work into a form-fitting, deep green sheath. To make Mom happy, I slipped on my new pearl gray platforms.
Reggie fussed over me when I came out of the bedroom, while Mom glanced approvingly at my shoes – and little else. Guess Bobby was right. You couldn’t stop a mom from being a mother. When Reggie saw she wasn’t going to leave before me, he pecked my cheeks at the door and offered a wide-eyed stare of concern. I wiggled my phone where Mom couldn’t see, and he lifted his chin in acknowledgement of our clandestine plan before heading down the stairwell.
I turned around to Mom – and she was nowhere to be found. A peek into the bedroom revealed her rearranging the enormous mound of pillows across the thick down comforter. She must’ve plotted with Han behind Reggie’s back to have included so many.
“Hey, Mom?” I called. “I hate to run you off, but I really need to get in a few hours of my shift tonight.”
“Of course, dear. Give me five minutes to touch up a bit.”
Fifteen minutes later, my patience had dissolved and the foot tapping began. At this rate, I’d never get a chance to talk to Reggie, much less earn any money to start that life of living within my own means.
“Seriously, Mom. It’s fine. I’ve got to get to work.”
A final fluff and Mom surveyed her work with a critical eye before giving me a hug and strutting from my apartment. I sure hoped I hadn’t hurt her feelings. Maybe after a night of sleeping on it, she’d understand everything I’d tried to explain and realize the need for our relationship to, as Bobby so eloquently put it, mature.
As Slinky launched onto the bed and tiptoed around Pillow Mountain, I tapped out a text to Reggie on my new phone, then dropped it in the purse sprawled across the sofa. Hopefully, Reggie hadn’t gotten too impatient waiting for Mom to leave and instead left for home.
When the knock came a couple of minutes later, I realized he must’ve blended in among the building’s residents. I could hardly wait to tell him about my visit with Switch and the lingering suspicions about Lorraine. If it wasn’t her, I had nothing else to add to the equation, and would have to admit once and for all that I’d failed.
For the second time that night, I was surprised to see how mistaken my assumptions were when I opened the door to the wrong person. Like a lightning bolt from Heaven, everything coalesced together like the voices of a choir of angels.
But this time they weren’t singing the Hallelujah Chorus.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Han?” I flustered. “I uh…was just getting ready to…um…leave for work.”
Reggie’s assistant shoved his foot against the door and pushed his way into my apartment, closing the door behind him. My Sig may as well have been twenty miles away instead of twenty steps to the bedroom closet. I really needed to start carrying it again if friends kept asking for my help. I was tired of getting caught with my proverbial panties down around my ankles.
Han swiped a hand across his perspiring brow – and I doubted it was strictly from the heat.
“I understand there was a problem with pillows,” Han replied.
The weighted bulge in his jacket pocket near where his hand hovered told me I’d better fudge my way out of there right quick. “Pillows? Nope, no pillow problems. I really have to get going. I’m already late for work.”
Han glanced down at his phone. “Then what was this text you sent a few moments ago?”
“What text?”
“It said your mom was gone and it was safe to return.”
“I didn’t send that text to you,” I murmured. “It was to Reggie.” The truth dawned on me further when Han’s eyes narrowed and a smile tipped his lips. “You cloned Reggie’s phone.”
The pea shooter materialized from his pocket right before another knock thudded against the door.
“Back up,” he whispered. “And don’t even think about warning him off, or I’ll shoot.”
The way the gun in his hand wavered, I wondered if the coming shooting would be classified as purposeful or accidental. I felt again the memory sensation of the pistol muzzle sizzling against my neck when Bud had tried to take me down two months ago, and I slowly walked backward until the kitchen island pressed against my spine.
Without taking his eyes off me, Han tugged open the door then leveled the gun at Reggie. The designer’s mouth formed around his standard greeting then died on his lips before he could get out anything more than mmm. Delight drooped into disorientation before falling all the way down into dread as Reggie’s eyes widened and took in the gun pointed at him – and who held it.
“Han?”
“Get inside,” Han commanded, slamming the door shut behind Reggie and motioning him to stand with me.
The weapon leveled again between us and shook in Han’s fist until he gripped it with both hands.
“And don’t get any ideas about rushing me,” Han continued. “I’ve been taking lessons for a month now and know perfectly well how to handle a gun.”
Yeah, and the pope is – I really didn’t know his nationality. Not Catholic, remember? But give me a chance to fetch my gun and fifty paces, and then we’d see which denomination bubbled to the surface when the best shooter won.
Fear churned into fury when Reggie clenched his fists. The accent not only slipped but disappeared entirely. “It was you? You’re the one who’s been blackmailing me?”
Han’s face scrunched up in frustration, and his eyes disappeared into slits. “Don’t pretend you hadn’t figured it out. Your little girlfriend here was about to reveal it to you.”
I wisely kept my mouth shut and just shrugged when Reggie glanced my way. As my grandmother used to say, well glory be. There were probably more people than she who’d be pretty impressed that I’d finally learned to control my tongue.
At least for a few seconds.
“I had someone else pegged,” I admitted.
Reggie leaned my way. “Switch was involved?”
“Nah,” I muttered.
The hand went to his hip and Reggie pivoted my direction so fast I felt the resultant breeze. “Then who?”
“My money was on Lorraine Padget.”
“From the Summers account?”
“That’s the one.”
“But why would she…”
“Apparently she didn’t,” I interrupted.
“Hey!” Han shouted.
Reggie’s attention returned to Han. “Why, Han? If you were having financial problems, you could’ve come to me. I’d have helped you. Given you a raise. Something besides seeing you resort to blackmail. You’ve been my right hand for more than ten years.”
“Exactly,” Han cried. “For years I’ve been your whipping boy and done everything you asked while left in the shadows. And what have I gotten for my efforts? Lies and treachery.”
“Lies and treachery? What on earth are you talking about?”
“I found out about your retirement plans…about your decision to sell the business to some big corporation instead of me.”
“If you’d wanted to buy the business, why didn’t you say so?”
“Because you never asked.”
While the two bickered it out, I cautiously glanced around the room for a weapon – anything I could use to distract Bonnie from Clyde long enough to disarm the wayward sidekick.
“No contracts have been signed. It’s all been talk and negotiation at this point,” Reggie said, his voice oozing into the placating tone he used on clients. “If you’ve got the money, you’d be the perfect candidate to take over the business.”
“That’s the problem,” Han whined. “I don’t have the money.”
Reggie gave me a desperate look that said I’m out of ideas, what about you?
Keep Han talking my eyes
returned, but Reggie apparently didn’t get that subliminal message. The silence stretched toward discomforting proportions. Some people just didn’t respond well under pressure.
Thank God I wasn’t one of them.
“So Han,” I started. “How did you find out about Reggie’s plans? His past and all that?”
“Yes,” Reggie said, picking up on my train of thought. “I’d kept that information a closely guarded secret from everyone.”
I shook my head. “Not everyone.”
Reggie’s head jerked toward me so fast, I thought a concussive whiplash would take him down sooner than a gunshot wound. “What do you mean, not everyone?”
“Well, I was gonna tell you tonight that Switch has known for years.”
Reggie’s voice pitched up about two octaves. “You talked directly to him?”
“Went to see him actually,” I admitted. “He’s got a great place, though it doesn’t really fit the gangster image, but he mentioned he’d bought it for his mother.”
“Really? Where’s he living?”
“You know that old fashioned Victorian development on the edge of…”
“Enough!” Han interrupted, shoving the gun out at arm’s length.
Reggie and I both raised our hands at the same time as if we were surrendering the Alamo, Reggie’s blue-faced TAG Heuer directly in my line of sight. I’d never noticed the slight violet tinge in the color.
Then it dawned on me with a zing to my brain instead of my nether regions – my rainbow-hued Sig Sauer wasn’t tucked away in the closet. The other night Zeke had slipped it into the top drawer of the kitchen island just around the corner from where I stood.
Now if only Reggie could gather his wits and keep Han occupied.
Han took up the spill-thy-guts mantle again as if we were the confessors of the Inquisition. “All I ever really wanted was for us to be a team. To be partners in every sense of the word.”
“But you were,” Reggie coaxed and cooed. “You were like a partner to me.”
“Not in the way it mattered.”
Were those tears in Han’s eyes? I didn’t spend too much time worrying about ‘em. My focus was on the gun’s movement as I took a shuffled step to the left while Han remained focused on Reggie. Then another tiny slide and step.
“Han,” Reggie continued in a soothing voice. “I’ve told you before. With disease and the AIDS scare, I chose celibacy years ago.”
“But that didn’t mean we couldn’t…”
“Mixing business with pleasure is never a good idea. It would’ve been unfair to you.”
Where have I heard that one before? Oh yeah – the bar.
“But other couples have made it work,” Han whined.
The gun in the assistant’s quivering hands drooped a little more with each shuffle of my feet until the counter corner poked into my back. Reggie and I had both lowered our hands, his to his sides and mine to the cold, smooth cement countertop as I edged around the corner to give space to the love triangle confession. Or maybe this was more a circle. Seems Han had spent his life spinning on the hamster wheel to nowhere.
Kinda like me and bartending. Maybe Zeke and Bobby were right and it was time to reconsider my career options – or lack thereof.
Reggie continued, “But now you can own the business outright.”
“I can’t. All my money went to that crooked private investigator.”
A private investigator? So that’s how Reggie’s secret had been discovered. But then where’d the PI get his information? Perhaps he was plugged into Switch and Company too.
“I know,” Reggie said brightening. “I’ll sell it to you on contract. You can make a payment from profits every month.”
“What about the money in the PO box?” I piped up, then bit my tongue when Han’s eyes narrowed and the gun targeted my way. I was getting pretty damn tired of spending the summer with weapons trained at my head.
“I can’t get it,” Han admitted. “For some reason, my key doesn’t work. They must’ve mixed up the keys somehow.”
“Yeah.” I snorted, channeling the sperm donor. “Government, right? Can’t do anything without screwing it up.” Someone get me a shower and industrial-strength disinfectant to clean my mouth – stat.
Han nodded. “And I couldn’t ask one of the workers to open it for me because they’d see what was in there. It’s technically illegal for cash to go through the postal system.”
And it was definitely illegal to blackmail someone too – and hold them at gunpoint – but I didn’t think debating technicalities would help the current situation. I bit down a little harder on my tongue to ensure the thought stayed firmly lodged in my brain without spilling out of my disease-ridden mouth.
The brand new cell phone in my purse buzzed shortly before the report of Han’s weapon silenced it. Everyone jumped. Han’s hands shook even more as we stared at the smoking hole in the leather, bits of floating paper accompanying a spit, signaling a second death not only for the animal that gave its hide to Coach, but for my checkbook and cell phone as well.
Good thing I’d spent money on the phone warranty this time. It better the hell cover gunshot wounds.
My purse wasn’t the only thing smoking. It appeared the bullet had made a through-and-through and come to rest inside a sofa pillow.
Han glanced at me and broke the silence. “I can fix that.”
“Hey,” Reggie interrupted, pulling attention his way. “The key you sent me for the postal box worked.”
“Do you have it with you?” Han asked.
“It’s at home,” Reggie admitted. “But we can go over to my house together and get it. That way we can discuss the terms of the sale on our way over and then pick up the cash that way.”
His assistant actually seemed to consider it until another knock reverberated against the door, sending Han into a pirouette rivaling a prima donna and blasting a second bullet through my thick and heavy door. The resultant cry revealed Han’s bullet had wounded something more than an inanimate object this time.
It was all the distraction I needed.
In the confusion after the first gun report, I’d successfully slid around the corner to open the applicable cabinet drawer. My Sig gleamed under the pendant lights. With the second shot, I grabbed my weapon, flicked off the safety, and sighted the shooter in one smooth motion.
“Duck!” I yelled to Reggie as Han swung around toward me.
I didn’t think about pillows, sofas, or what Mom would say about what we’d done to the new décor. My only concerns were for my friend, my kitty, and my own sorry carcass as my finger flexed around metal, and I squeezed the trigger.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I’d gone and gotten someone shot – again.
Jimmy-the-Super lay sprawled and bleeding on the hallway floor, clutching his healing arm from the previous gunshot wound and cussing a streak so blue from the new gunshot wound it’d make a blue-stater blush. The profanity-laced tirade continued for a full ten minutes until the police descended on my apartment like it was the last donut shop in Dallas.
At least this time Jimmy was conscious for the aftermath, until he was whisked away in an ambulance. I think it’d take more than a plate of barely edible cookies before Jimmy would forgive me again, you think?
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
But at least he was still alive and cussing – unlike Han.
Taking a life isn’t something to laugh about or consider lightly. Fact of the matter, I’d aimed for Han’s shoulder – and instead got him right between the eyes. Zeke’s warning about firing under extreme duress echoed through my gray matter a little too late for Han. Guess that meant it was time to start hitting the shooting range again.
Numbness settled in my brain, and unlike the rest of the body, I doubted it would send out little pinprick signals when feeling returned. With my thoughts so dull, I had to be in somewhat of a state of shock. At the moment, I was too busy near the second ambulance to consider wha
t I’d feel come morning. I couldn’t even remember walking down from my apartment after they’d carted Jimmy away – or what had happened with my gun.
The blue and red strobe effect of the police lights might’ve helped scramble my senses as well. How many times in as many months had the police shown up at my apartment to handle a dead body? Two? First Amy. Then Bud. No, Han made it three.
Like my mom always said, Lord have mercy, I’m going to need therapy when I wake up from this nightmare. I didn’t have much time to ponder the implications of what had happened when a familiar face rounded the rear fender of the ambulance where I perched on the bumper.
“Aw shit. Is that you again, Nancy Drew?”
“Aw shit,” I quipped in response. “Is that you, Sherlock?”
“Let’s get this over with,” Duncan said, sitting on the bumper beside me. “Who shot the vic?”
“Actually, I’m the vic here.”
“Come again?”
“Han pushed his way into my apartment and started waving his gun around like a maniac,” I said with a flutter of my hands. “He shot my purse, my phone, a perfectly good pillow, and somehow managed to puncture that ridiculous door to shoot Jimmy in the same arm as last time. I only acted in self-defense.”
The detective flipped over a fresh page in his notebook and furiously jotted. “So you admit you shot the vic?”
“In self-defense after he shot Jimmy,” I reiterated.
“I’m gonna need to swipe your hands for GSR.”
“What’s GSR?”
“It’s a fancy acronym real investigators use for gunshot residue.”
“Oh.”
He pulled out a vial and swiped my trembling hands with a moist Q-tip before dropping it into a bag, sealing and writing on it, then passing the bag off to another tech like a scene out of a crime show. The reality of the situation leaked into my dulled brain like awakening in a fog from a bad dream – or in this case a real-life nightmare. With awakening came freaked-out concern.
“Where’s Reggie?” I asked, standing and throwing off the blanket to search the area. A chill washed over me like it was twenty degrees instead of a hundred and twenty.