"That motherfucker doesn't know the three-foot rule," Blaine says, face still stretched tight, mouth a thin line. He is breathing fast.
"Let me be the judge of that," she says, her mouth tightening up as well. "You know what our rule is." She looks at the crowd swirling around them. Somebody has turned the music up and the sounds of Landslide fill the room. She has to lean close to him to make herself heard.
"Awright," he says. "Awright," still looking toward the bar at the big man, who raises one eyebrow a touch as if to say "What?" If he winks, Blaine thinks, I will be on him like that cheap suit. But he doesn't. He looks the other way.
"God damn it, stop it," Renee says. She had seen the entire exchange.
"Okay, Okay" he mutters, and she takes him by the arm and they move back toward the table, where Todd is nursing his beer. She deposits him back in his seat and gives him a kiss, leaning down, still balancing the tray. Blaine looks back at the bar. Big man is watching. Motherfucker. Good.
"You acting out again," says Todd after Renee walks off.
"That's why I don't like to come down here," Blaine says. "Some jerk-off is always putting hands all over her."
"You think it's not going on when you're not here? You want to stop that stuff you need to pull her out of this job."
"All a question of money, isn't it?" Blaine says, sipping his beer, looking at everything around them except back at the bar. Isn't it always? It does make the world go round.
"You ever think of applying for an operator spot in some of those plants you work shutdowns at?"
"Sure," Blaine says, putting the beer back on the table, wiping his mouth, "I've thought about it, but those plant jobs always turn out to involve a lot of overtime. It's the nature of the deal. I wouldn't be able to write."
Todd looks at him, hesitates a minute, says "Maybe it's time you moved on from that, man. I mean it's been quite a time you've been putting stuff out there and really haven't made any headway." He sees the look on Blaine's face, raises his hands, "Or do it part-time, in your time off, that's all I'm saying. In your stories, the good guy might always win the girl, but in real life you need to come with something to get her. In the real world."
Blaine almost says something about divorced people not being the best advisors on love issues but bites his tongue. If he starts in on the divorce things will go south in a hurry, and he doesn't want that. A few weeks back it wouldn't have been an issue. He had been successfully broken up from Renee and focused on the writing. It was the accident that had changed that, he thinks. She never would have sought me out if it hadn't been for that. And he wouldn't have looked for her either. Now it seems like he is right back in the soup again. And they're not even living together. Yet. He sighs and looks across at his brother, salutes him with the Heineken. They tap bottles and he takes another swallow. Todd may be just trying to look after him, but still, he can be irritating.
"Random acts of kindness" is a phrase that comes to his mind. He is thinking about plain old random acts like the motorcycle accident. If he hadn't had the wreck, no telling what he would be doing right this second. Not this, that was almost certain. The bar has started the lights flashing, the different colors making the dancers and people's motions look jerky and disjointed. The music has gotten louder yet.
So we spend most of our lives, he thinks, scheming and planning to take control, make things go a certain way, and in one second all of that is ripped out of your hands. He fools with the beer and the cocktail napkin, wipes a damp spot on the table. Todd gets up and asks a good-looking, dark-haired girl to dance and Blaine sits there watching the strobe effect highlight them as they move. He looks over at the bar but doesn't see the big man any longer. Motherfucker. Todd is right about the money and the women, he thinks. They may say they love you and stay for a while, but at some point you've got to produce something or they're going to walk away. He wonders if that is why he let Renee go the first time. Maybe inside he knew he was not going to be able to give her the things she deserves and took the easy way out. Maybe Todd is right. She is too good for him. The song ends, and his brother holds the dark-haired girl's hand for a second, chatting her up, then she goes the other direction and he heads for the table. Blaine gets up and stands waiting for him. Time to go, he thinks. Glances at the far corner of the bar. Holed up there are Mandy and Doug. She has a flower-print dress on, and he has what is probably his dress blue jean jacket. She has her hair done up fancy, diamonds glinting on her ears, looking good. They are both sipping exotic-looking drinks in big glasses from straws. Well, well, Blaine thinks, momentarily distracted, small world. But it really isn't that huge a coincidence. You could count the night spots in Galveston that were upscale like this one on the fingers of one hand. The rest of them were dives or neighborhood bars, or the places on the sand with the really loud music.
Chapter 16
They get out of there and go cruising down the beach. Todd is looking out the window at the whitecaps rolling in under a full moon. They pass the new amusement park that the richest folks in town had built out of the old Flagship Hotel. It had been the only hotel on the island that actually jutted out over the water, with a T- head at the end for fishing. Now it is all bright-hued lights plastered over Ferris wheels and other rides. Blaine is thinking about the writing game and following his muse and all that entails. Maybe Todd is right. Maybe life is passing him by while he tries to be creative, and he will wake up one day an old man wondering where it all went. He's in his thirties now, and most of the guys he knew in school were settled into careers with wives and kids. Chasing the dream.
People are strolling along on the seawall: holding hands, joggers with headphones, even though it is starting to get late. They head to IHOP to get something to eat.
IHOP is not that crowded. It's not even midnight, and the place really starts hopping a lot of nights after the bars close at two. All the displaced drunks trying to get some food in their bellies. They take a booth by the window next to three elderly black women who are talking about some sales program they belong to, one of those deals where you sell to all your friends, recruit them, then make money off what they sell and you sell. One of those pyramid deals. They are enthused, pumped up, talking big money and power walking. Todd has his back to them but he's listening, and after a minute he rolls his eyes at Blaine as if to say how so many times done all that stuff is. The ladies are good-sized and excited, and every once in a while Blaine can feel the booth shift when they move.
That makes him think about movie theatres, and how he hates to have anybody real close when he's watching a movie. He always picks a seat with empty spaces in front and in the seats on the sides. He doesn't like to be watching over somebody's head. Of course, invariably, after the previews a latecomer will then plop right down in front of him. He usually varies between resting his foot on the back of that chair, crossing his legs, and the feet-flat-on-the-ground posture, and so the guy in front of him has messed him up. They can always feel your foot in the back, and then they start shifting around like you're bothering them. Very annoying. He usually moves.
They order some omelets and toast and coffee from an anorexic redhead who licks her pencil before she writes. They are both a little buzzed, but not drunk. Todd smiles at her when she brings the coffee, and says thanks.
"I have a rule," he says, leaning over the tabletop to get closer to Blaine. "It's never piss off the server before they bring you your meal." Blaine shrugs his shoulders. No argument from him there. Their dad used to say never piss off the cook.
"I don't want to make anybody mad, anyway," he says. "Live and let live is what I believe."
"Except when they're hitting on your woman," Todd says smiling.
"Yep, I would say that is the exception to the rule." He had gotten hot about that, more so than was good. "That's why I don't carry my gun when I drink. I don't want any doubts about my judgment if I need to pull that thing."
The omelets come, steaming hot, with toast and pota
toes on the side, and the brothers eat in silence for a while except for the chewing noises.
"Thank God Dad never carried one," Blaine says, and they both laugh. The old man liked the booze every now and then, and he got quick-tempered after a few beers. Even after the esophageal cancer got him he would drink one every once in a while. His dying had been slow and painful to watch. Neither of them smoked. Back in the old man's day nobody even knew it was bad for you. That was one reason Blaine didn't trust doctors. They always seemed to be one step behind the curve. Prescribing this and that the drug companies were pushing, and then finding out the next year that the side effects were epileptic seizures and heart failure.
Todd is chewing away, shoveling that omelet and the potatoes in together in huge spoonsful. They are both running on fumes after the surfing and beer. He finally reaches the end of it all, sops up the mixture left on the plate with his last piece of toast, dabs a napkin to his mouth.
"Maybe I was out of line on the writing thing," he says. "I don't want to trample on your dream."
"Don't worry about it," Blaine says.
His brother is studying him over his coffee cup as he drinks. "No," he says, "But you know what the difference is between a dream and a goal?"
"What?"
"A game plan," his brother says. "A set of steps designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. That's what you ought to be thinking about if you're that serious. Why aren't you where you want to be? What do you need to do every day to help get there? What do you need to change?"
The ladies in the next booth have stopped talking, and Blaine can tell by the tilt of their heads they are listening. This stuff is right up their alley. Probably play Tony Robbins CDs while they sleep. Still, his brother is right.
"You're right," he says. "I have a plan, but it really doesn't seem to be working. Maybe it's time I revisited it and came up with something different."
Todd is nodding his head. "Couldn't hurt," he says. "Desire by itself just won't always do it. I tell you what," he says, "I think this accident has changed you, made you a bit edgier, more decisive or something. I can't quite put my finger on it, but you're different. Like you know something you didn't before." He has leaned back in the booth, done with the dinner, and taken one of the toothpicks he likes to carry to clean his teeth. He likes to brush right after eating but when he can't he uses the picks. Sometimes he forgets they are there and they dance around in his mouth like this one is doing now.
What Blaine forgets sometimes is how good his brother is at what he does. He has taken their earlier disagreement and filed the edges off it: changed it to something less sharp and dangerous and more something they can talk about. Added some insight that showed he thinks a solution to this problem is possible. And that is what he does on the deals he makes. He overcomes the problems by restating them in terms that make them something to work on, overcome. Analysis that shows some thought. He is the kind of guy you never count out, a dangerous man in his way. Blaine remembers one time on a big mountain in the winter a storm had blown in while they were over 12,000 feet up. The conditions had quickly become almost whiteout. The storm had been unpredicted by anybody, blown over the top of the mountain and was on them with no warning. Despite the lack of visibility, Blaine had thought he knew the way down well enough to get them out of there. They had a heated argument right on the slope with the wind and snow whistling around them. Todd thought the visibility was too poor to try and get down and wanted to shelter-in-place right where they were and wait it out.
In the end they did it Todd's way, mostly because Blaine could see by the look on his face that he wasn't going to give in. They dug a hole, a snow cave, and huddled in that thing overnight. In the morning they were very cold, but the snow had stopped, the wind had died, and they were able to head down the mountain. They trudged on downwards, and Blaine could see the path he had been about to use to get off when the snow had been blowing. It led right to the edge of a 300 foot, sheer cliff.
They stopped and stared at it for a moment, looking at one another and back at the drop. Suddenly, Todd reached out and popped him on the shoulder and smiled. He had smiled back like a drowning man who had gotten hold of a float. They didn't talk much about it but sometimes Blaine would look at him and just know he was thinking about that night up on the hill and the cliff. He would smile that same smile.
Chapter 17
The pounding is not just his head: it is the door, and Blaine struggles up out of bed to go answer, morning sunlight streaming in. His brother is farther away, in the back bedroom, probably doesn't hear it. His head is pounding, too, as he throws on a pair of shorts and a Tee.
He's thinking he will go off on them if it is a reporter, and when the door swings open, that's what he thinks it is. A man about his size but heavier, with brown eyes and wavy brown hair, charcoal gray suit and tie on. Maybe 50 years old. A woman in her thirties: a thin, shoulder-length blonde, with good features, wearing a nice blue business suit dress that matches her eyes.
"Look," Blaine says, "I don't have anything else to say about the accident, really. You guys need to find another story."
They both look interested. "What accident?" the guy says.
"You guys aren't reporters?" Blaine asks.
"No, sir," the man says, reaching into his back pocket. He flips his wallet open and shows Blaine a gold shield, "I'm Detective Nielson and this is my partner, Detective Winslow."
"What's this about?" Blaine asks.
"Like to talk about it inside, if we can," says Nielson, glancing at the houses to the sides of him, back at Blaine.
"No problem," Blaine says. He opens the door wider and gives them a come-on-in wave with his other hand. They walk into the living room, but he notices their eyes and attention are still focused on him.
"Anybody else here?" Nielson asks.
"My brother's asleep in the back," Blaine says.
"If you don't mind, could you holler for him," Nielson says. He is looking around at the house but his eyes never seem to leave Blaine for very long.
"Are we in some kind of trouble?" Blaine says.
"Why would you think that?" Nielson asks back, politely, eyes on Blaine's.
"I don't," Blaine says. "I just never have had any of you guys come to the house like this." Todd appears in the doorway, disheveled, half-awake. He looks at Blaine, at the two detectives.
"What's going on?"
"Let's all sit down in here," says the woman detective, Winslow, speaking for the first time, gesturing towards the living room. Blaine is beginning to have a bad feeling about all this. Something is very wrong.
They sit, the two detectives taking the couch, Todd the other end of it, and Blaine the cushion chair so he can face them. Nielson clears his throat.
"You date a woman named Renee Wilcox?" he asks. Right away Blaine knows something terrible has happened. Police don't come to your house to see who you're dating. His pulse starts pounding in his skull. Nielson's eyes haven't left his for a second.
"Yes, I do," he says.
"She lived with you at one time?"
"Yes."
"I regret to have to tell you this, Mr. Hadrock, but Renee Wilcox is dead."
Even though Blaine had that terrible feeling, he is still not in any way ready for this. Time seems to stop. He feels like he can't breathe. He feels like suddenly things have become unreal. It seems to him that if he could just make the detective take that last statement back, maybe he could get back into the real world again.
"That can't be right," he says. "We just saw her a few hours ago."
"No, sir, I am afraid that it is correct."
"How?" says Blaine. He is thinking that the police don't come to your house for accidents or natural deaths.
"She was murdered," Nielson says. "I don't know of any nice way to put it. I am sorry for your loss, and I hate to be the one to tell you. I need to ask you a few questions if I can." Tears have begun to come down Blaine's face, a few at
a time, reluctantly, as he struggles to maintain his composure.
"How did she die?"
"She was strangled," Nielson says. "Out on the beach, on the east end. Some college kids, who probably had been partying most of the night, found the body this morning. Purse and money still there, nothing missing. Some info on the job in it, so we've woken the manager there and spoken to several of her friends early this morning. I'm surprised somebody didn't call you."
"Turn the phone off when I'm trying to sleep," Blaine says. "They could have called already. You guys sure it's her?"
"We got a positive identification from someone close to her," the woman says. "You guys were in the bar last night, weren't you?"
"Yeah," Todd says. "Listen, do you guys think we can cut this short? I think my brother needs some time, here, you know what I mean?"
"Just a couple more things we'll be done," the woman says. "When was the last time you guys saw her?"
"At the bar," Todd says. "We left about 10:30, 11:00 or so, went to eat some breakfast at IHOP. Then we came straight home here, went to bed. We had been surfing all day and we were beat."
"Both of you were in for the night?" Nielson says, nodding at Todd. He is jotting things down.
"Yes."
"Did you have some sort of disagreement with her before you left?" Nielson asks, turning back to Blaine. He is looking down at a small pad where it looks like he has some notes jotted.
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