by Chris Wiltz
Jack grinned. “Nothing sinister, babes. Let’s just say he wants Ramon’s woman and his movie.”
“For Christ sake, what does that mean? How about you don’t say anything to anyone for the time being. You don’t need to manipulate every situation, you know.”
“I don’t know, sugarpie. Solo’s still looking to me for that money. It’s my neck, right? Well, it’s my tongue. Yours too, by the way.”
“There you go again, being disgusting.”
“Me? Look I’ve actually seen Ernesto’s special sandpaper glove, you know, to hold the tongue while he…”
“Stop!”
“Anyhoo, he’s not beating it back to Miami any time soon.”
“Whether they leave or not, you could leave.”
“Why would I do that, sweetface, and throw you to the perros?” He reached up to stroke her cheek.
She moved her head to the side. His hand followed. “That’s good of you, Jack. Why don’t we give this some thought tonight and pick it up tomorrow? You’re in a hurry, I know.”
“Don’t stall out too long, babykins. If you want to keep that money, you better figure something out fast, and that’s the kind of figuring ole Jack is pretty good at.” A few long-legged strides and he was gone.
Karen sat down on the sofa, her hand on her forehead. She’d go take a bath, that would help. No, she better call LaDonna. LaDonna should not be fooling around with Solo Fontova. He got nasty when women rejected him. She was going to reject him, wasn’t she?
LaDonna yelled into her phone. “We’re at the Boom Boom Room. Great band, Honeycutt, come on over...You need me, girl?… Louder!”
Three times and finally LaDonna repeated her. “Okay, tomorrow.”
Karen rubbed her temples. She was on her way to draw a bath when she remembered something Jack had said that first night he was in town. She slung her purse over her shoulder and headed to La Costa Brava. Jack wasn’t the only one who could manipulate a situation. She closed herself up in LaDonna’s office and spent a couple of hours on the computer.
***
Raynie asked Jimmy Johnpier to drop her off at the apartment after dinner. He’d spent nearly three hours telling her all the reasons why marrying him was a good deal. He said he didn’t mean to sound crass framing it that way but he was a realist and he knew she didn’t love him the way he loved her.
When Karen got home she found Raynie sitting in the dark, staring out into the courtyard through the open French doors.
“Hey,” she said, “you all right?”
She switched on a lamp. Raynie had trouble pulling herself back from wherever she’d been.
“Fine. The peace and quiet. It’s nice.”
Karen flopped in the big chair, one leg over its arm. “That’s because there’s not much of it around. Did Peter leave?”
“This morning. I think our sordid activity involving the young Mr. Legendre scared him off. He’s gone back home to get married, settle down into a more predictable way of life.”
“Whenever you’ve been hanging out with Jimmy Johnpier you start saying things like sordid. The young Mr. Legendre. Did he ask you to marry him yet?”
Raynie nearly jumped. “What?”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Pascal told me Jimmy wants to marry you.”
“Pascal? When did you see Pascal?”
“A little while ago. Actually, I had dinner with him.”
“Dinner? Wait, I thought you and Luc had this hot thing going.”
“We sort of did. Maybe we still do. The guy is great in bed, I mean unbelievable but there’s not a lot of, um, I don’t know—substance? That’s not right. He’s not an airhead. He just doesn’t think about much other than the next party or a new yo-yo trick…”
Raynie laughed. “He’s not too complicated, huh?”
“You know what? I don’t know and I have a feeling I’m not going to get to know. I’m not so sure Peter was the only one scared off last night. That’s why he didn’t come with us. To be fair, I don’t think he liked it from the beginning but when Jack showed up and put himself in the middle of everything, the way Jack does, that did it. Now Luc and I are playing Who Can Hold Out the Longest.”
“I have to say, Jack isn’t my favorite person either. But Pascal. How did that happen?”
“Jack goes down as my big mistake and I hope I don’t make any more like that.” She shook her head. “Big, big mistake. It won’t be easy cleaning up after him.”
“Pascal, Karen.”
“Pascal.” She let out a long breath. “I went to the restaurant to see you.” When Raynie arched her eyebrows, she said, “Nothing important. I just felt like talking. I brought Avery’s hat with me—he left it in the bar last night. I’m not sure but I think Pascal knows I drugged Avery or had something to do with it.” She reconstructed as best she could what Pascal had said.
“So he’s okay with it? Is that what you think?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” Karen said. “He asked me to go out tomorrow night. Maybe he’s going to dope me with truth serum. He kissed me when we parted ways.” She closed her eyes remembering. “Now, that one. He’s complicated.”
Raynie was smiling at her. “You’re ready to jump in.”
“Hm, I don’t know. He’s got something about him that makes me go weak. I’ve learned this much: when someone’s that attractive that fast, in that way, I should take off running in the opposite direction.”
“So…are you?”
“I’m not sure I’ve learned that much.”
Raynie laughed. “That’s as helpless as I’ve ever seen you look.” She rearranged herself on the sofa, pulling her legs up under her. “But given what you just said about running from men like that…well, I’m going to marry Jimmy.”
“No way!”
“I’ve been sitting here thinking about it.” Her eyes drifted out to the courtyard. “I don’t see a down side.”
Karen pulled herself out of her slouch. “You don’t? Oh, fuck, this is bad. Why don’t we start with this—would you marry him if he wasn’t filthy rich?”
“Of course not. That’s why I’m marrying him. And he’s marrying me because I’m young.”
“And beautiful. Raynie, the man’s uglier than a toad.” She waved away Raynie’s protest. “We’ll get back to that. Pascal says he’s in love with you. Does he know you’re marrying him for his money?”
“We talked half the day about it. He said I could look at it as a business proposal instead of a marriage proposal, if I found that more attractive. Karen, the man talks straight. As for love, my mother told me that if a man is good to you, you can grow to love him.”
“Oh, boy,” Karen said, “this is going to come back and bite you on the ass.”
“Look, Karen, there are plenty of reasons to marry a person. Love doesn’t have to be the only one. What we’ve just been talking about—half the time people get married based on the kind of attraction you have to Pascal, when they ought to be running away. Or because they’re great in bed. Right? Don’t tell me you haven’t heard marriage compared to a partnership, a sort of business arrangement. My mother can’t be the only mother who said stuff like that.”
“I don’t know. My mother said things like pure motives, pure mind.”
“My motives are pure. Jimmy’s lonely and I’ll be happy to keep him company. I don’t want to be poor the rest of my life, working in a restaurant, on my feet…”
“For Christ sake, you’re, what, twenty-two years old? This isn’t the rest of your life. Maybe being poor for a while is a good thing. It makes you work harder, makes you look for opportunity, provide for yourself, be independent. It’s about learning experiences…shit, I sound exactly like my mother. The point is you didn’t even think you were poor until we went to her fucking money club.”
Raynie reached over, put her hand on Karen’s forearm. “Isn’t everything a learning experience? This will be too. Look at it this way—I am providing for myself and marrying Jim
my isn’t the rest of my life either. He’s a lot older than me.”
“He could live for thirty more years. You could end up being his nurse. You’re Catholic, right? I know about Catholics and divorce. Especially if he’s sick. Rest of your life guilt trip. I’m telling you, Raynie, we couldn’t sit here and think of the ways this could bite you on the ass.”
“Fuck, Karen, life bites you on the ass all the time. Life is just one big old mouthful of sharp teeth waiting to bite.”
“You just said fuck.”
“Jimmy will be a good influence. He never says fuck.”
“There’s the best reason you’ve come up with so far. But what happens if you don’t grow to love him, like your mother said? What if you grow to detest him? He’s going to want you to sleep with him, isn’t he? What if you just can’t do it?”
“Jimmy’s asking me to commit to three months. That’s all. I’m out if I want out after that.”
Karen put both hands on her head and ran them through her hair. “This is wild, I mean wild. Pre-nup?”
“No, three months and he’ll give me whatever I think is fair.”
“Even if fair is half of everything?”
Raynie shook her head. “I’d be fair.”
“He doesn’t know that. This man isn’t just in love, he’s crazy in love. Three months—why bother to get married?”
“He’s never been married. He just wants to.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this. He’s the luckiest son-of-a-bitch alive.”
Raynie nodded. “He is. So am I. Here’s the good thing, really good—we can talk about anything and we make each other laugh.”
Karen got up, her hands on her hips. “I sure as shit can’t argue with a laugh. Especially if it doesn’t come cheap.”
Twenty-two
Pascal reached for the phone. He lay back in the comfortable depression his head had made in the pillow without saying hello.
“Pascal, are you there?”
“Jimmy? What the fuck?” The time projected onto the ceiling was six fifty. He’d worked until the restaurant had closed at midnight then in his office until after two.
“Chop-chop, my friend. You’re going to have to replace Raynie who will be the first and only Mrs. James Willeford Johnpier at four o’clock this afternoon Vegas time. We’re flying out in an hour.”
“Congratulations.”
“Tut-tut, Pascal, you don’t sound as excited as I hoped you’d be. It’s understandable, though. Raynie will be hard to replace and I realize this is very short notice. I must say, I did not expect to win this bet. Now that I have…tell me again, what color is that antique Eldo?”
“Gold.”
“Mahvelous! Would you have it parked in the front drive by tomorrow evening for Mrs. Johnpier? I trust you remember the code on the gate.”
“I do.”
“And I’ll pick up LaDonna’s papers when I see you.”
“You’re rubbing it in.”
“Maybe a little. I’ll desist. After all, I’m the happiest man alive at the moment.”
***
He still looked good to her, standing behind the bar, his dark hair long on the back of his neck, curling in the humidity. He was cutting lemons and limes and every time he made a slice, the lower half of his body moved, like a little body English into each cut. She stared at him as she stood just inside the big room. His arm slowed and he turned. She walked toward him. He moved to the middle of the long side of the bar, drying his hands on the towel hanging from his belt. With his hands on the scarred wood bar top and his arms straight, he both leaned in and stood back, the way he did.
“Hey you,” she said, something she never said.
“Hey you too.”
She angled in between two chairs and rested on her elbows, her midriff against the bar. She let her hand fall softly to one of his. He lifted it and threaded his long fingers through hers.
“Are we avoiding each other, trying to make it look like we’re not?” she asked.
“You tell me.”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
La Costa Brava was having a few moments of morning quiet before opening its doors for lunch. Luc hadn’t put on music yet; no sounds came from upstairs. Only the floor creaked as she shifted her weight. Until someone in the kitchen dropped what could have been a whole stack of plates and LaDonna came flying from the top of the stairs yelling, “What the fuck is going on down here?”
Luc and Karen pulled their hands away.
“You think you two could move?”
“No point now, is there,” Karen said and LaDonna gave her an evil look as she breezed through the room.
Luc took her hand again. “You’re the only person I know that can get away with talking to LaDonna like that.”
“Just stating the obvious.”
He smiled. “Somehow that’s not what it sounds like.”
They could hear someone sweeping up broken dishes as LaDonna gave them the business, loud.
“What does it sound like?”
Luc said, “I’m not sure. It’s not like you’re giving it back to her. It’s pretty matter-of-fact but…I don’t know what it sounds like ’cause I don’t think I ever heard it before.”
“LaDonna and I have known each other a long time. That’s all it is.”
“No it’s not. You use it on other people too.”
“And you don’t much like it, do you.”
“See, there it is.”
Their hands were still together but only touching now, no charge between them.
“I don’t know what I can do about it,” Karen said.
“It’s just you.” He squeezed her hand, friendly. “You remember that first night, we were sitting out in your courtyard? I asked you if it was going to get scary?”
Karen drew her eyebrows together. “If what was going to get scary?”
Luc shrugged. “We were talking about Jack and Solo Fontova.”
LaDonna came from the dining room, her feet pounding on the floor. “Upstairs, Honeycutt.”
“In a minute.”
LaDonna kept going. Karen waited until she went through the door at the top of the stairs.
“Why does Jack bother you, Luc? I have nothing for him any more, no feelings. He aggravates me.”
“I know and I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about you. You got scary the other night.”
Karen took her hand from him, traced the bottom of her lower lip with her index finger then folded her arms together on the edge of the bar.
“I couldn’t let it go, Luc, not once we knew it was Avery.”
“What you did was dangerous.”
“Because we could have overdosed Avery? Because we might have been caught? That wasn’t going to happen, not if I could help it, and if we didn’t do something, nothing was going to happen to Avery. That was worth a certain amount of risk.”
“The thing is, you might not have been able to stop something going wrong.” She looked at him hard but said nothing. He said, “I told you I’d let you know if it got too scary. It got too scary.”
Their eyes held a moment longer.
“Fair enough,” Karen said and headed for the stairs. No guts, no glory, she thought.
***
“Where’s Ramon?” Karen dropped her purse on the floor and flopped onto one end of the sofa.
“Shooting in the 9.”
“Good. We need to talk.”
“What’s going on with you and hot-shit down there?”
“Nothing. That’s not what we need to talk about.” Karen massaged her forehead just above her eyebrows, her eyes closed.
LaDonna had been about to sit behind the desk. She walked over and sat on the other end of the sofa. “What’s bothering you, Honeycutt?”
“In order of importance—you, Solo Fontova and Jack.”
“All right, in order of importance, why am I bothering you?”
Karen let her hands fall into her lap and turned t
o LaDonna. “Jack told me Solo’s investing in the film because he has the hots for you. Jack’s words.”
“Don’t let that bother you. Ramon and I are out of money. My belief is ask and you shall receive. I told Ramon we needed an investor and voilá, Solo shows up.”
“LaDonna, Solo Fontova is a gangster. Okay, I’ve never seen him kill anyone but I don’t know that he hasn’t. I’ve seen a woman he beat up because she didn’t want to see him any more. The end of that story, according to Jack, is he kept her a prisoner in his house until he decided to throw her out. Then he told her she had ten minutes to bounce or he was going to let Ernesto work out on her face with a razor blade. Now Jack tells me he lets Ernesto cut out their tongues. If you let him invest he’s going to assume…let’s just say he figures he’s buying you.”
“Shit, girl. That’s not a pretty story. Jack told you that? But Jack’s a pathological liar.”
“I wouldn’t say pathological. He likes to exaggerate.”
“I already told Solo this is strictly a business arrangement. I said if he couldn’t live with that he needed to walk away.”
“And you trust that he will? I don’t.”
“We need this money, Karen.”
“How much?”
“He said fifty up front and there was another fifty if we needed it.”
“Yeah, well there’s Jack exaggerating again. He says Solo told him a quarter mil.”
LaDonna threw her head back and laughed. “We probably won’t need a hundred. Quarter mil?” She laughed some more.
Karen frowned. “I don’t know. I think Solo would like to see Ramon out of the movie too. Maybe he thinks he can buy him out.”
“What’s he think? He can direct it? It still isn’t a quarter million dollar movie. Fuck, Honeycutt, these men are worse than a bunch of tongue-waggin women. You know what they waggin.”
“I know but I don’t find that exactly reassuring. Look, LaDonna, here’s the thing.” She took a deep breath. “I stole something around fifty thou from Jack, which Jack stole from one of Solo’s rigged poker games. Solo wants it back. He wanted it back anyway but now I think it’s for your movie.”
“And what? You don’t have it?”
“No, I have it. It’s in a safe deposit box. See, I told Jack I’d give it to him but he won’t take it. He says Solo keeps raising the amount on him. He wants me to give it to Solo, the fifty that’s left.”