Gecko

by Ken Douglas

  Hugh laughed, stood erect.

  “ There,” she said, “finished, a perfect Windsor.” Then with both her tiny hands, she grabbed the tie in two balled fists and forced Washington to look straight into her eyes. She didn’t blink when she said. “You are going to find out who killed those people and show that jerk up for what he is, aren’t you?”

  “ That’s just what I’m going to do.” He smiled.

  “ Behind you.” She jumped back, startled, releasing the tie.

  Washington spun around and saw a gecko scurry up the wall and disappear behind the television set.

  “ It’s only a gecko.”

  “ I know.” She regained her composure, “It’s just that we don’t have them in California.”

  “ It must be somebody’s pet. A kid, visiting his mother or father probably snuck it in and it got away.”

  “ Probably,” she said.

  “ Some places they’re regarded as a good luck sign.”

  “ And some places they’re a portent of evil,” she said.

  “ My luck has been too bad to get any worse. I’ll accept it as a good luck sign,” he said.

  “ Me too.” She smiled wide, showing off her teeth.

  “ Now I’d like to talk to my partner, if that’s possible?”

  “ He’s in ICU.”

  “ What’s he doing in intensive care?”

  “ He’s okay. He was shot, remember? It’s standard procedure.”

  “ Can I see him?”

  “ Sure, down the hall, turn left. Follow the signs.”

  “ Thanks.” He started to go.

  “ Hugh Washington,” she said.

  He turned. “Yes?”

  “ After you catch your killer, come back and buy me dinner. Okay?”

  “ Count on it.”

  He went through the swinging doors of the ICU and approached the nurse’s station.

  “ I’m looking for Ron Walker,” he asked the nurse on duty.

  “ Five-eleven, that way.” She pointed. “You’ll have to wait, only two visitors at a time. He’s already one over.”

  “ Is it okay if I go in now?” He showed her his badge.

  “ Five-eleven, that way.” She pointed again. “I’m sorry. You look more like a patient than you do a policeman.”

  “ I feel more like a patient,” he said. Then added. “How is he?”

  “ He’ll be out of ICU tonight.”

  “ That’s good.”

  “ But his arm will never be the same.”

  “ Oh no.”

  “ He was lucky,” she said.

  “ I hope he sees it that way.”

  “ I think he does. He’s taking it very well.”

  “ Thanks for telling me.” He returned her smile, then pointed, “Five-eleven, that way.”

  “ That’s right.” She pointed for the third time.

  He followed her finger and found Walker in his room, an IV in his arm, feeding him a clear, gluey looking substance.

  “ They’ve got you hooked up like an astronaut,” he said, looking at the monitors.

  “ Yeah,” Walker said. “I keep checking the heart rate to make sure I’m still alive.”

  “ I’m Hugh Washington,” he said to the pretty woman and the two young girls. “You must be the lovely Carol I’ve heard so much about.” Smiling at the two girls, he added, “And you two pretty ladies must be Denise and Dianne.”

  “ We meet at last,” Carol Walker said. “I only wish it could have been under better circumstances.”

  “ I’m sorry I got him into this,” Washington said. “It was my fault. I was pigheaded and bent the rules and this is the result.”

  “ It’s not your fault. You didn’t put a gun to Ron’s head. It’s just bad luck. You pay your money and you take your chances.”

  “ Honey, could I talk to Hugh alone for a few minutes?”

  “ Come on girls, let’s see if we can find the cafeteria.” She kissed her husband. “We’ll be back in about forty-five minutes.”

  “ Thanks,” Walker said.

  “ I love you,” she said, leading the girls out of the room.

  “ I love you too,” he called after her.

  “ I’m sorry it wound up this way, Walker,” Washington said after she was gone. “I really didn’t count on Monday being a killer. Go figure.”

  “ He’s not. I know it. Not him.”

  “ You heard about what happened?”

  “ I know Monday escaped. That a cop and two lawyers are dead, but I still don’t think he’s a killer,” Walker said.

  “ Rich guy like that, hard for me to believe, but everything seems to be pointing to him.”

  “ You said yourself that it looked like whoever killed Askew was waiting, that you thought it was murder.”

  “ I could have been wrong.”

  “ Not you.”

  “ Even I make mistakes.”

  “ Then what about those shots in the alley?”

  “ Could be coincidence.”

  “ And the Pope could be a Methodist, but he’s not.”

  “ Look, Walker, I know you admire the guy.”

  “ I don’t admire him, I respect him and everything I’ve learned about him tells me he wouldn’t kill anyone. Not unless he had a very good reason.”

  “ Maybe he had a reason,” Washington said.

  “ Not for killing a cop to escape from city jail.”

  “ Maybe getting out of jail was all the reason he needed.”

  “ The man spent four years in a North Vietnamese POW camp and he didn’t crack. A few days in our jail would be like the Hilton to him and you don’t kill to get out of the Hilton.”

  “ People change.”

  “ You’re forgetting that he didn’t have to be there. He asked for it. He wanted the time to get his head straight, remember?”

  “ Yeah,” Washington said, thinking. “You’re right.”

  “ Somebody is setting him up and doing a damn good job.”

  “ Could be.” Washington rubbed his jaw.

  “ Listen, Hugh, I’m finished with the department, my arm will never be right. I know that. Carol and I have just been talking about it. When I get out of here I’m going to set up my own practice. There could be a place for you there.”

  “ I’m not finished yet.”

  “ You will be if you keep pursuing this thing. It’s not your case. In fact, I’ll bet that’s what that bastard Hart was doing here. He didn’t come to see how we were getting on, did he? He came to tell you to lay off. Didn’t he?”

  “ He told me to lay off.”

  “ Are you going to?”

  “ No.”

  “ See, you’re finished too. You’re all alone now. I can’t help you, but what I can do is make sure you have a job when this thing is all over. If you want to go back to school and cram for the bar, then there will be a place for you in my firm. If not, then you can do our PI work.”

  “ You’re counting your chickens before they’re hatched.”

  “ No, I’m not. I can never go back on the streets again, even if my arm healed right, Carol couldn’t live with it. I have money. A lot. I can buy my own building if I want. I can hire hotshots right out of law school and I can advertise. I can be all over TV and radio. I can be in your car, your living room and your newspaper. I’ll do fine. We’ll do fine.”

  “ Why do you want me?”

  “ Because you’re the best. You’ll be able to find out if our clients are honest with us. You’ll be able to track down the missing husband or the missing bank account or the missing cash, because you look where no one else thinks of looking, because there isn’t a man on this planet as good as you at what you do. To be successful, really successful, and quickly, I need quick results. I need you.”

  “ And what about Jim Monday?”

  “ He’s my first client, only he doesn’t know it yet. And your first job is to clear him. Find out who killed David Askew, help me keep our client out of
jail. Do we have a deal?”

  “ We do.”

  “ And Hugh, in case you’re wondering if I can afford this, you know about the money I inherited.”

  “ Yeah.”

  “ It grew. It grew a lot.”

  “ So why be a cop?

  “ My father always said that you had a responsibility to give something back. And I liked it.”

  “ I did too.”

  “ You get out of here and clear Monday and while you’re doing that, I’ll find us a nice big office with a view. It’s about time Long Beach had some good attorneys for a change.”

  “ Okay.” He turned to leave, then at the door he turned back. “Just how much money you got?”

  “ About seventy-five million dollars.”

  Washington whistled. Then he stopped to avoid stepping on the gecko that scurried across the floor and disappeared under the bathroom door. Must be a plague of the things, he thought, then he put it out of his mind.

  Chapter Six

  Jim Monday slipped his shoes off, massaged his tired and sore feet, then stretched out on the bed, fully clothed, too tired to undress. He closed his eyes, was about to fall into a dark sleep, when he heard the tapping on the connecting door.

  He sighed, got up and opened it. Roma was on the other side.

  “ I’m sorry, I thought I could sleep alone,” she said, “but I can’t, not with you in the next room.”

  “ Are you okay?” he asked.

  “ I don’t know if this is right, but I know it’s what I need,” she said, as her fingers moved to unbutton her blouse, allowing him to see a skimpy bra and ample cleavage. He couldn’t help comparing her with Julia. They were alike, but different. Julia was demure and modest. Roma was brazen and direct. Julia, even after years of marriage, would never undress in front of him. Roma was doing it.

  She balled her hands into the blouse, pulled it from the tight fitting Levi’s, took it off, dropped it on the floor. She looked him in the eyes, stretched her arms behind her back and undid the clasp while shrugging her shoulders forward. The bra fell at her feet.

  “ I need you, Jimmy. Even if we’re both sorry tomorrow. Even if it’s only for tonight.”

  “ My God, what’s going on here?” Donna thought. “She’s getting naked right in front of us.” Then she moaned in his head. “What’s this, what’s happening, I’ve never felt like this. My lord, this is what it feels like for a man. This is what it feels like when it gets hard. Oh, oh, oh!”

  The aerobics and the daily jogging paid off in small ways. Roma’s breasts were more firm, more pointed, more youthful than Julia’s and her waist, a touch thinner than her twin’s.

  She half smiled, turned and drew the curtains, plunging the room into a surreal twilight. The curtains were designed to keep out the light, but enough came through to bask the room in late evening bronze, reminding Jim of a red sunset on a Southeast Asian beach.

  He was swimming in a sea of confusion. She had his wife’s fluid movements, the same strong back, the same dishwater blond hair. For an instant he was at ease with the familiarity, but the ease left when she turned to face him again. A shiver rippled through him as she worked the top button on her Levi’s. She popped the button open, then she stopped and smiled at him.

  “ You should have visited me in Florida.” She crossed her arms in front of her breasts.

  “ You know I don’t fly,” he said. He never admitted to being afraid. He preferred to say he didn’t fly.

  “ I didn’t back then. I might not have gone had I known,” she said.

  “ Editorial writer for the Miami Herald, the job was too good to refuse. You had to go. I couldn’t hold you back.”

  “ So you married my sister instead.”

  “ You were gone. I thought I’d never see you again. I fell in love with Julia.”

  “ Did you fall out of love with me?”

  “ No.”

  “ Why didn’t you tell me about your fear of flying?”

  “ I was ashamed. I broke down on the flight back from Vietnam, went crazy, shouting, screaming. It took several men to restrain me. Until that moment I thought I came through it okay, but only hours from home I fell apart.” He paused to catch his breath. “For years it was all I could think about, going home. Then when it finally happened, I snapped.”

  “ And you don’t know why?” She relaxed her arms, once again baring her breasts, but her voice was so full of concern that Jim knew she wasn’t conscious of her nudity. Her only care was for him.

  “ No. I was okay after we touched down, but I was so humiliated, that I swore I’d never get on another plane. I don’t know if it would happen again, but I can’t afford to take the chance.”

  “ I’m sorry. Did you ever consider professional help?”

  “ No, but I should have,” he said. “I know that now.” He looked back into her gaze. Admitting he was wrong about something, anything, was hard for him. He sought her approval and understanding. “I’ve missed out on a lot. There’s a whole world out there and it’s been denied me, because I’ve been afraid to get on an airplane. I should have gotten help right away, instead I tried to bury the problem, always finding excuses to stay put.”

  “ And now?” She met his eyes.

  “ And now, if we get out of this in one piece, I’m going straight to the nearest head doctor and get my head shrunk.” He laughed and she laughed with him.

  “ I was terrified when you shot those two men.” She moved to the armchair opposite the bed and sat down. “It was the most afraid I’ve ever been, but I knew if you didn’t do it, they would kill us. I wanted to run away, but I was too scared to move,” she said.

  “ Everybody’s afraid. The only difference between a hero and a coward is that for a few seconds the hero is able to overcome his fear. Then he goes back to being afraid again, like anybody else.”

  “ Were you afraid like that in Vietnam?”

  “ Everyday.”

  “ And in the POW camp, were you afraid then?”

  “ Everyday.”

  “ But you overcame your fear.”

  “ No, I learned to live with it, but I never overcame it.”

  “ What’s the most afraid you ever were? Was it when you were in combat or in the camp?” She seemed to be obsessed with the idea of fear.

  “ Oh my God!” She jumped out of the chair. “It’s a spider,” She hopped onto the bed, a mass of goosebumps and jiggling breasts. “Spider,” she said again, pointing to a common garden spider making its way across the bureau next to the chair.

  “ Stay here.” He laughed, got off the bed, went into the bathroom and got a water glass.

  “ Aren’t you going to kill it?”

  “ What for? It doesn’t mean us harm.” He smiled at her, made a show of sneaking up on the spider and, with a flourish, covered it with the glass. “Now we need a piece of paper,” he said. “Check the nightstand.”

  “ Lots easier to kill it.” She scooted across the bed, opened the drawer, took out a tablet of hotel stationery, tore off a sheet and handed it to him.

  “ I never kill spiders. They eat the bad bugs.”

  “ What bad bugs?”

  “ Mosquitoes, fleas, flies-the bad bugs.” He slid the paper under the glass and, with the spider safely enclosed, picked it up, one hand on the glass, the other holding the paper securely underneath. “Would you get the door?”

  She hopped off the bed, opened the door and watched as he pulled the paper away, flinging the spider out into the night.

  “ Good riddance.” She took her place in the armchair once again.

  He smiled and closed the door.

  “ You didn’t answer my question,” she said.

  “ What question?”

  “ What’s the most afraid you ever were?”

  He was quiet for a few seconds, then said. “When I was little, I used to play cowboys and Indians with the neighborhood kids. I was always the sheriff and David was always the Indian chief. The
goal was to capture and tie up the enemy. Usually to the clothesline.”

  “ Clothesline?” she interrupted.

  “ Yeah, the clothesline. You don’t see them like you used to now that everybody has a dryer, but in the neighborhood where we grew up we all had them, two poles cemented into the ground with a tee on top and four lines running between.”

  “ I know what a clothesline is, I just can’t imaging tying someone to the line.”

  “ Not the line, the poles. There were generally five or six kids per side, but there could be as many as ten. We would travel the block in twos or threes, searching out the enemy. If we could find and overpower them, we would take them to David’s or my backyard and tie them up. Once bound you were out of action for the rest of the game, or until you were freed by your side.”

  “ Wouldn’t your team just untie you right away?” She asked.

  “ If they could, but once you had captives you left a guard.”

  “ Oh.”

  “ The last day of summer, before we entered the sixth grade, we were playing the game. We were down by five, with one to go. Two boys were tied to the poles, three more were tied hands and feet, wriggling on the grass like giant worms. I was one of the three. It was a hot September day, probably in the high nineties, so a lot of us were playing without shirts. As you can imagine, it gets pretty hot laying on the grass, baking in the sun.”

  “ Didn’t you get sunburned?” She asked.

  “ A little,” he said, as his mind took him back.

  Jerry Delawarean and his younger brother, Little Bobby, were tied to the clothesline poles. Little Bobby was crying, he was only seven and not used to the game. Ricky Stewart, John Morgan and himself, were tied with their hands behind their backs. Their feet were tied too.

  “ Shut up Bobby.” His brother was the only one that didn’t call him Little Bobby.

  “ I don’t wanna play anymore. I wanna go home.”

  “ You been bugging us to play and we finally let you and now ya wanna quit,” his brother said.

  “ I didn’t wanna get tied up,” he wailed.

  “ What did the little shit think was gonna happen?” John Morgan said. He was the only kid on the block that swore. “He’s too little to capture anybody by himself and too slow to get away, ’course he was gonna get caught first thing. Happened to me too when I was a kid, but I didn’t whine about it when I got caught.” John Morgan, at twelve, was the oldest kid in the game and it took three kids to capture and hold him. Even with the no hitting rule, there were no two he couldn’t get away from.