Always a Kicker

by Jeff Zwagerman

  There was a young man behind the desk.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m here by invitation.” Zander held up the room key.

  “What is the room number please?”

  Zander had to smile to himself. When did the hotel add this extra security? It certainly wasn’t there when he had visited Lilly. Zander looked at the young man. He must be new and trying to follow protocol. He would give him six months and he would lose his enthusiasm or he would move on.

  He gave him the room number and the young man called the room.

  “Miss Grafton, I have a gentleman who says you’ve invited him to your room. I see, very well. “

  He turned to Zander.

  “Thank you for your patience. We’ve had some complaints of late about unauthorized people coming and going all hours of the night. You are free to go on up.”

  Zander smiled at the boy. Maybe the complaints had come when he visited Lilly. They were, after all, quite loud.

  *****

  Zander knew the way up to the room but the boy insisted telling him anyway telling him he could use the elevator but the stairs might be quicker and more convenient. Zander thanked him and used the stairs.

  He paused outside the door. When he knocked it would be a commitment. He rapped his knuckles on the door twice and it opened immediately almost as if she were waiting right there at the door for him.

  When he first saw her there was a small pang of disappointment. He wondered what he had expected, but Jayne was fully clothed and still in the clothing she had worn at the bar.

  “Zander, your food should be here in a few minutes. I’m sorry but there wasn’t much left on the menu this time of night. The chef said he would make you a sausage and black olive pizza. He said it’s one of his specialties and you wouldn’t be disappointed. “

  “Anything is fine.”

  “Let’s have drink while we’re waiting. The bar is fully stocked. What will you have?”

  “A beer would be fine, especially with the pizza.”

  “We’re going to need more than one to get through this evening,” Jayne said and Zander thought he could detect a hint of sadness there.

  “What kind of beer do you have, barkeep?” Zander asked lightly.

  “It looks like Coors or Avalanche.”

  “Give me an Avalanche.”

  Jayne took out the beer. It was a full quart bottle. Zander liked big beers. Jayne poured herself another glass of wine. Zander could see that she must have had a few drinks before and would need to open another bottle soon.

  They had just sat down at the bar when there was a knock on the door.

  “That must be your pizza,” Jayne said almost sprinting for the door.

  She signed the bill and brought in the white cloth covered tray. Zander was hungry and wasted no time pulling the pizza apart. It was hot and smelled terrific. He inhaled two pieced before Jayne had time to sit down.

  “Best pizza I’ve ever eaten,” he said with his mouth full.

  Jayne laughed. “Apparently.”

  “Have some. Don’t make me eat alone.”

  “I’ve already eaten but I suppose I could try some. You seem to think so highly of it,” Jayne said and took a small bite of the piece closest to her. “You’re right. This might be the best pizza I’ve ever had.”

  “Maybe it’s just the company,” Zander added.

  “Without a doubt,” she said simply.

  After Zander had eaten his fill and Jayne almost finished one piece, she put the remaining pieces back on the tray and put the cloth back over it.

  “Would you be a dear and put this in the hallway? I hate the smell of leftover food, especially pizza.”

  Zander did as she asked and stopped off at the bathroom to wash his face and hands. When he returned, Jayne was sitting on the couch.

  “If we are going to have some serious discussion, I prefer to do it with you on one side of the bar and me on the other,” Zander said trying to show he was in control.

  Jayne got up and moved back to the bar.

  “Need to be in your element?”

  “Something like that,” Zander replied.

  “Let’s get this out of the way,” Jayne said with some uneasiness in her voice.

  “You first.”

  “No I’ve got too much to say. I want to hear about what you’ve been doing for the past twenty years. It is important to me.”

  Zander looked at her for an uncomfortably long time. She finally had to drop her eyes. He meant to say something glib but thought better of it.

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  “Right from the last time we saw each other.”

  “Well I don’t remember much after the piece of concrete took me out. But I do remember the black Mustang coming out of the ally and that one thing has haunted me all these years.”

  “Me too,” was all Jayne could say but Zander knew she meant it.

  *****

  The next forty-five minutes had Zander explaining his life from the time he woke up in the hospital until he moved to the mountains. He let it all out. He told her of his feelings after the accident or whatever it was. He told her how angry he got and how lost he felt. He told her about his college years and his teaching stint. It was the only time Jayne interrupted him.

  “I heard you sing at The Bridge. You’re good, Zander, and I’ll wager you were an excellent music teacher as well.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I was, but I just needed a change.”

  “Why? It seems like a good way to make a living especially if you enjoy sharing your love of music.”

  “You remember Davey?”

  “Oh yeah. I haven’t thought of him in years. He dated that bozo a year younger. What was her name?”

  “Peggy.”

  “That was it. What ever happened to them?”

  “They got married and then Davey killed himself but not before he killed the guy Peggy was screwing in their own bed.”

  “What a terrible thing! I’m sorry, Zander. I know he was your friend.”

  “I felt like there were a lot of terrible things happening to me. I had the burning desire to put Peggy down for what she did to Davey so I needed to get out of there and since then I haven’t looked back. Until now.”

  They took a bathroom break then. Both of them needed to regroup for the next round of confessions. Zander found another beer and opened a bottle of wine before Jayne returned.

  She came back into the room wearing a long silky black robe and what looked like a black lacey teddy underneath. She was beautiful and Zander found himself staring.

  “You’ve had a long day. Before we go any further, why don’t you hop into the shower? There’s a robe and some boxers in the bathroom if you want to get out of those things,” Jayne said and for the first time Zander saw just a bit of twinkle in her eyes.

  “That might be the best idea of the night.”

  Zander stood up and went right over to the shower and soon he was standing naked in the hot water with body wash completely covering all his parts. He didn’t see Jayne steal into the bathroom and pick up his clothes. She had called down to the desk and before Zander was out of the shower someone picked up the clothes and promised to have them back to the room laundered by 8:00 the following morning.

  Zander came out of the bathroom in the black boxers with the robe opened in the front.

  “What happened to my clothes?” he asked not trying to sound peeved.

  “I hope you don’t mind, I figured you needed some clean clothes tomorrow and you don’t have any with you. We certainly can’t go out and buy any at this time of the night.”

  “Tomorrow? Who said I was staying tonight?”

  Jayne walked quickly to the window and opened the blinds.

  “That says so,” she said pointing out at the weather.

  She was right. There would be no travel tonight. He would be staying the night. That had been his plan all along but he wasn’
t about to let her know it.

  “You wanted to know all about what I’ve been doing since we last saw each other. Now you know. It’s not much but I’m pretty comfortable with things. It’s your turn now and don’t leave anything out.”

  They sat in their places and both took a drink. Jayne looked at Zander for a moment and then everything just gushed out of her. It was like it had been pent up for all those years just waiting for someone to let it out.

  “When we left Hospers, we headed south spending some time in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. We never settled anywhere because Marty didn’t like it down there. There were too many old people for what he had planned.”

  Zander stopped her, “Wait just a minute. You need to explain why you almost burned the entire main street down.”

  Jayne took a large sip of her wine before proceeding.

  “That was Marty’s idea. He said we needed a big diversion so people wouldn’t notice us leaving. He broke into all the businesses next to the café and loosened some fitting on the gas lines that went to the water heaters. The drug store had an electric heater so he loosened something on the gas furnace. I didn’t understand all that stuff but that’s what he said.”

  Zander interrupted, “How did you manage to light the place up without getting burned yourself?”

  “I want you to understand that this was not my doing. I had nothing to do with what happened.”

  “But you provided the cover and you went along with it all.”

  “I know and that’s haunted me ever since.”

  “So how did Rooster manage to blow everything up?”

  “He had one of those remote control toy cars, you know the kind with the batteries. I think he said it was radio controlled and it had those back wheels that threw off sparks. He hung those wheels off a piece of wood so it wouldn’t move but the wheels would spin making some sparks and eventually causing the gas to ignite.”

  “So when I came into the café, it was Rooster I heard in the basement?”

  Jayne nodded, “We sat in the car later and Marty pushed the remote until the place finally blew and then we just took off. That’s when I saw you go down. I wanted to go back but Marty said it was too late and you were just a casualty. I hated him for saying that.”

  “But you never came back.”

  “What could I do? I was in big trouble and so I thought there would be no way I could ever return. Truth be known, I didn’t really want to come back. I needed to get out of there. I couldn’t see myself stuck in that little town for the rest of my life and that’s just what would have happened. Marty was my ticket out. You were the only obstacle and I’ve carried that guilt ever since.”

  “Didn’t you think there could have been some future for the two of us?”

  “Zander, we were only fifteen. The odds of us staying together were slim at best and I couldn’t accept the idea of marrying someone locally and settling down and raising a bunch of kids. I wanted more. I wanted to see things and not be caught in that endless cycle.”

  “I understand that. I guess I felt the same way but not until after you were gone. I thought you were dead but in my heart I always knew you weren’t. It really screwed me up. Maybe I’m still screwed up.”

  “I am so sorry, Zander. I never meant to hurt you.”

  “But you did. Hurt a lot of other people too.”

  “I know,” Jayne said and her voice gave way.

  “What about the body in the basement?”

  “That was Marty’s doing. He had me reading the obituaries from the Sioux City Journal. There was a girl who got hit by a car crossing a street. I gave him all the information and on his way to get me he dug up the body in the middle of the night. That was who burned up in the fire. I don’t even remember her name. Somewhere in a cemetery in Sioux City there is an empty grave.”

  “And in Hospers there is one with your name on it,” Zander retorted.

  “Yes. But don’t you see, it was just a cheap trick. No one really got hurt.”

  “HOW CAN YOU EVEN THINK THAT?”

  Zander hadn’t planned to raise his voice but he couldn’t let her get by with such blatant irrational thinking.

  “You know what I meant,” Jayne said trying to sound in control.

  “You burned half of Main Street down, robbed a grave, and left a whole community thinking you were dead, including your family. That doesn’t even include the pain you caused me.”

  Jayne took a sip of her wine. “You are right of course but a fifteen year old doesn’t see the result of her impulsive behaviors until much later in life. Maybe if you hear the rest of the story you might not judge me quite as harshly.”

  “I’m still listening.”

  “Like I said, we didn’t settle anywhere the first few years. We were nomads just moving from place to place. Marty knew a guy in Dallas who made us fake identifications. We had driver’s licenses, passports, and even birth certificates. That’s when I took the name Jayne Grafton. Marty had at least three sets of documents made for him. I didn’t understand why he would do that until later. He would find a job here and there so we could buy food and a place to stay. I was totally bored and Marty could see that type of life was going nowhere. That’s when we went to Colorado Springs. I was seventeen and Marty made me get my GED and then sent me to a community college to study business. I finished my BA degree at the University of Colorado.”

  Zander realized this was sounding quite familiar. His mind wondered off for a moment thinking about Lilly and wondering if she was all right.

  Jayne continued on with her story, “All this time Marty was building this tanning and massage business. He started with one salon in Denver and then expanded bit by bit when he would have money to start another site. He was calling himself Van by now and he would lease space. We don’t own any property. We just own the furnishings and equipment.”

  Jayne paused for a moment looking at Zander. Zander looked back at her.

  “What else do you want to know?” she asked.

  “All of it. When did you get into the illegitimate side of the business?”

  Jayne looked shaken.

  “I told you before that you shouldn’t assume that I don’t know your secrets. I just want you to connect the dots,” Zander said and then waited for Jayne’s response.

  She was slow to start and Zander thought she was trying to pick the right words to either tell the truth or make up something she thought would placate him.

  “I want you know one thing. He never made me take part in that side of the business. I was his girl and my job would be to take care of the business and finances.”

  “So he didn’t pimp you out. Mighty nice of him,” Zander said. “So where did he get the girls to stock these enterprises?”

  “Runaways mostly. He would pick up girls in Denver at first. He liked them young. Fourteen and fifteen year-olds were his targets. He wouldn’t involve them in other side of the business until they were older. They were to take care of the tanning beds and make appointments. The girls on the other side of the massage business took care of their own appointments so these girls never really knew that anything illegal was going on. Van paid them well and found them places to stay. The only thing he required was that they have sex with him.”

  Zander looked at her.

  “And you allowed that?”

  “I didn’t have much choice. You need to know that when I turned twenty, there was no more sex between Marty and me. He likes them young and I guess I was too old. So I became his business partner and have been so ever since.”

  “So where does he keep getting these girls? There can’t be that many runaways to be able to staff all these places.”

  “He goes to a lot of major cities. I take care of the business side and he takes care of the girls so I don’t know the details of what he does.”

  “There is one thing I don’t understand. If he doesn’t pimp these girls out until they are older where does he get the underage girls especially
the under twelve year olds?”

  Jayne stared at him, “How do you know about that?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I suppose it was Lilly. She will have to be dealt with when I see her next,” Jayne said not looking at Zander.

  Zander figured that was her first lie.

  “So where does he get these young girls?”

  “Mexico. He goes to a number of places down there a couple times a month. I don’t go with him so that’s all I know.”

  “I assume this is a profitable business.”

  “You wouldn’t believe how much money we make. I think it’s been in the tens of millions over the last fifteen years.”

  “What do you do with it? You can’t put it in the bank without drawing some red flags, right?”

  “The legitimate business is handled through the banks close to each salon. We push some of the dirty money through those businesses. They all have a very healthy bottom line. Probably higher than similar businesses would normally have but we are paying taxes so no one looks too closely.”

  “What about the rest of the money?”

  “Off shore accounts all in my name.”

  “I don’t understand that. Why wouldn’t Rooster keep the money in his name.”

  “He’s become quite paranoid. He doesn’t really exist. He has all those fake identifications and they are the best money can buy but he’s not ready to take the responsibility in case the true nature of the business is discovered. He’s also still listed as A.W.O.L. from the Army. So he’s just a ghost that no one else knows but me and now you.”

  “You could take the money and run.”

  “It would be hard to spend any of it because I would be dead. He’s a very dangerous man, Zander.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  Jayne looked at him for a long time.

  “I feel there is something you are not telling me.”

  “All in good time.”

  Jayne looked just slightly irritated for a moment. Apparently she wasn’t used to being put off. Jayne was someone who got what she wanted. Zander thought it might be a good time to play his high card.

  “You need to call your sister.”