Uncorked

by Lois Greiman

  “And to tell you that I’m…” The word was stuck in my throat like an orange in a whisky bottle. “I’m concerned about your well-being.”

  “My well-being.”

  “And I… I’m…” For the life of me, I couldn’t cough up the word. “What happened? I mean…” I shook my head. “Why are you here?”

  “I think you know that one.”

  “I know you didn’t shoot Andrews.”

  He shrugged. Only one shoulder lifted. “Turns out there was an eyewitness.”

  My breath stopped in my throat. “A witness! Who? Where?”

  “That’s not something you need to worry about.”

  My lips moved of their own accord, fueled by outrage and terror and a dozen other emotions I wasn’t quite ready to own up to. “You’re being framed,” I barely breathed the words. “Set up. Who says they saw you? Why are you here? Why aren't you at least out on bail?"

  “Don’t get all riled up,” he warned.

  “Riled up?” I choked a laugh. “What the hell are you talking about? Have you spoken to the senator? Maybe if you apologize for…" I shrugged spasmodically. "…whatever, he can get you out."

  "Bail's set pretty high."

  "How much? I can get some money together, and if I ask Laney, she'll-"

  "Forget it," he said and sat perfectly motionless, eyes steady, body still as granite as he watched me.

  Wild emotions sluiced through me. I leaned closer to the glass. “Some people think you did it to save me,” I said.

  “Some people?”

  “But I know better.” Fear was cascading through me like water over a ledge. What if I was wrong and his father was right? What if he was here because of me? The senator seemed to intend to do nothing about Rivera’s incarceration. Was that because he had already determined there was nothing he could do? Was he simply cutting his losses? “You’re not that dumb.”

  His eyes were steaming, and through the smoke I envisioned two people going at it on a kitchen table that looked a lot like mine. “You sure?”

  I swallowed, pulled into his eyes, drawn under the memories. But I yanked myself off the slippery slope and shook my head.

  “You’re a pain in the ass, Rivera, but you’re not particularly stupid.”

  He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his right leg. His lips remained immobile, but there was a light of something in his dark devil eyes. “Gee, I’m so glad you stopped by,” he said. “We’ll have to do this again sometime.”

  I drew a fortifying breath, feeling better, but then I noticed the bruise on his left temple. I winced against my will. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Go home, McMullen,” he said. “This isn’t your problem.”

  “Not my problem? Are you kidding me?” The emotions were pouring in again though I tried to keep them wrangled up. “You’re rotting in here while—”

  “Take it easy.”

  I drew a deep breath, trying to do just that. “While the real perpetrator goes free.” I leaned forward, employing my very best self-control. “Who was it, Rivera? Another cop? Was it someone you know?”

  He jerked forward, all semblance of congeniality gone. “Don’t do this.”

  “I can help,” I said. My brain was storming through a half-dozen other cases in which I had been involved. “Let me help. I know you didn’t—”

  “I fucked her!”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “The woman you saw me with. It wasn’t the first time.”

  I sat absolutely still, mouth agape.

  “I’ve known her for years.”

  I could feel my heart beating a slow dirge in my chest, could feel the air passing into and out of my lungs. The world spun slowly on its axis.

  Maybe I was vaguely aware of the fact that Rivera rose and left. And eventually, I’m pretty sure, I did, too.

  “Mac?” Laney’s voice rang through the house as she slammed the front door. I intended to answer, but I had just thrust my head into the refrigerator for the eighty-ninth time that evening. “Mac!” There was already worry in her tone and fear in her eyes as she charged into the kitchen.

  “What?” I sounded unsteady even to myself as I straightened from the bowels of the fridge.

  She stopped in the doorway, brows furrowed then rising. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Drinking? No,” I said and stumbled toward the kitchen table. Atop its modest expanse was a gallon-sized Häagen Dazs tub, a crushed bag of chocolate chips and four empty cartons of Chinese leftovers.

  “Oh, no. Mac, tell me you didn’t eat all that.”

  “Me? No.” I made a generous swipe in the general direction of the detritus on the table. “Don’t be ridiculous. The ice cream was already half-gone.”

  She lifted the empty bucket, then set it gingerly aside. I had licked the rim. “What happened?”

  I would have answered immediately, but I was busy shoving potato chips into my mouth while simultaneously searching the cupboards. “Have you seen the salsa? I thought I bought—”

  “Mac!” she said. Grabbing my arm, she pulled me over to the table and nudged me none too gently into the nearest chair. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I’m celebrating.”

  “With potato chips and salsa?”

  “Potatoes in honor of my Irish antecedents. And salsa in deference to Lieutenant Jack Rivera.” I made a saluting motion with my right hand, which still held a soggy trio of chips.

  She blanched. “You went to see him?”

  “I did.”

  The room filled with quiet. My eyes filled with tears. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “Hot sauce always makes my eyes water,” I said.

  Apparently the lie wasn’t even good enough to be offensive. Possibly because I hadn't located the hot sauce yet. She ignored my ludicrous explanation.

  “He told you he slept with her,” she said. Her tone was flat and sure. I wasn’t even a little surprised at her knowledge.

  “Yeah, he did.” I grinned, then shoved the three chips into my mouth and washed them down with a swig of milk. Beer would have probably been a more appropriate option, but I hate beer.

  “Well…” She watched my face like another might study a hungry cougar, sensitive to any change. “I guess he’s on his own then, huh?”

  “Damn straight.” I shoved in another couple of chips. “He can become Bubba’s bitch for all I care.”

  “Bubba’s…” She gave me an uncertain look. “Oh, because he’ll go to prison.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you don’t care.”

  “I’d have to be an idiot,” I said, and filled the silence with more verbiage, lest she take that particular moment to jump into the fray. “And I guess you’re not always right after all.”

  She said nothing.

  “He did sleep with her,” I explained.

  “Oh. Yeah,” she said finally, and shifted her gaze toward the hallway. “I’m sorry.”

  I drew a deep breath, took another handful of chips and soldiered on. “It’s all right. You can’t know everything. I mean—”

  Our gazes met. A figment of truth slithered into my poly-saturated brain.

  “Yes, you can,” I said.

  She stared at me in silence, body tense.

  “And you are always right,” I said.

  “Mac—”

  “Fuck it.” I breathed the words.

  “Mac, don’t do this.”

  “He lied.” The truth came at me pretty hard.

  She winced. “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “But you do.”

  “No. Like you said, I don’t know everything.” She skittered her gaze away for a moment, then rushed it back, eyes pleading. “And think about it, why would he admit to cheating on you if it wasn’t true? You’re a scary person. You’re—”

  “For the same reason you would.”

  Her face looked pale and strained. “I don’t lie.”

 
; I took a deep breath. “But you would,” I said. “You would to keep me safe. He was framed.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “He lied about sleeping with her so I wouldn’t investigate.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” She laughed. I knew it was an act, but it wasn’t too badly done, not compared to the performances of her early years on film. “He’s not that brave. I mean, the chances of you killing him for having an affair are extremely high. Astronomically high. He must know that. He wouldn’t—” But I had quit listening. In fact, I was pacing.

  “Do you think he has an idea who did it?” I asked. “Do you think he’s protecting someone?”

  “Listen…”

  “I bet he does. He’s a good cop. A dumb ass and a liar.” I scowled at her. “But a good cop.”

  “Please…”

  “Coggins!” I stopped short. “The bullodog-faced cop. He said he’s been waiting for Rivera to screw up. He said—”

  “I’m pregnant!”

  I froze, numb to the core as her words seeped slowly into my fat-saturated system. “What?” I drew the word out, lest she answer too quickly and throw my life into a tailspin. “What’d you say?”

  She squeezed her hand into a fist near her heart, as if her emotions were a little too much to contain. “It’s a girl.”

  I shook my head, perhaps to deny the fact that a guy as nerdy as the Geek God could reproduce. “You’re just saying that so I don’t do anything stupid,” I said, but she shook her head. There were tears in her eyes, but I was still in denial. “Solberg wouldn’t have shifted two millimeters from your side if he knew you were—” But the truth came home to me in one fell swoop. I sank into the closest chair. “He doesn’t know.”

  She looked pale and beautiful and so happy it almost made me cry. “You’re the first person I’ve told.”

  “Which means…” I reasoned, mind spinning slowly. “You really did sleep with him.”

  She laughed. The noise sounded a little more like crying, and suddenly I saw it…that glow they talk about. It radiated from her eyes and shone from her freakishly perfect skin. I'd always assumed 'the glow' was a myth concocted by husbands who were trying to calm the fractious beast we know as gestating women.

  “Mac,” she said, settling into the chair beside me. “I want you to be a part of her life. I want you to teach her to be obdurate and irritating and wonderfully perverse. Please, please don’t get yourself killed.”

  Chapter 11

  The presence of a well-endowed woman can often make men butt heads even if they’ve previously been on the most congenial terms.

  —Dr. Candon, Chrissy’s psych professor

  The presence of a well-endowed woman can make men buttheads.

  —Chrissy

  “Officer Coggins?” I was dressed to maim in an eye-popping yellow blouse, a multi-tiered black skirt that just cleared my ass, and high-heeled sandals. Screw classy. I was going straight for mind-boggling skank. “Joel, isn’t it?” The ensemble would have been good for dancing, but far better for fornicating.

  The bulldog-faced cop seemed to notice. He turned toward me, nose misshapen and discolored from an overly aggressive elbow. It didn’t take a genius to realize he was three sheets to the wind. He stared at me, recognition dawning slowly behind his half-mast eyelids.

  “Christina McMullen,” I reminded him, and leaned in to shake his hand. My boobs, relatively unimpressive under their own steam, were improved by sixteen-gauge under-wire, a half a peck of padding and mankind’s best engineering feats. They loomed into view, as amicable as two bald-headed guys on a bender.

  I didn’t want to make the good officer think too hard.

  “Thanks for the dance,” Eddie said from behind me. His voice was low and manly, and he touched my arm lightly like men do when they’re infatuated. Eddie Friar was big and buff and beautiful. We had dated shortly after my arrival in California. It was something of a disappointment…perhaps for both of us, when he was discovered to be as gay as a tulip. But he wasn't averse to doing me a favor now and then. And he was aces at taking directions; he remembered his predetermined lines down to the letter. “Call me later?”

  “Sure,” I said, and dismissed him with faux confidence as I turned back toward Coggins. “What are you doing here?” I asked. As if I didn’t know he came to the Pain Reliever every Saturday and Wednesday without fail.

  He didn’t answer me right off. Instead, he watched me with beady canine eyes and a slight twist of his lips. “Rivera know you’re stepping out on him already?”

  “What?” I eased up beside him at the bar and nodded to the guy behind the rows of inverted glasses. He was as busy as a two-dollar hooker, but my boobs were on display and he took notice.

  “I’ll have a seven and seven,” I said.

  Coggins was still staring at me. “Rivera,” he said, “he ain’t the kind to share.”

  “Share what?” I asked, and taking a handful of nuts from the bowl on the counter, popped them into my mouth, casual as Fridays.

  “Women,” he said.

  I turned toward him, eyes wide, freshly glossed lips parted provocatively…in case the boobs weren’t in working order. “You think Rivera and I are a thing?”

  He snorted. “Shit! You about tore me a new one when we went to pick him up.”

  I shrugged and gave the bartender a ten as I took my drink. “It’s my job.”

  “What? Being a bitch?”

  I gave him a laugh and a coy over-the-shoulder smile, as if I was just discovering his sterling wit. Refraining from giving him a black eye wasn't quite as simple. “Some people might call it that.”

  He watched me as if thinking really hard. I hoped the process wouldn’t be fatal, at least until I learned what I had come for. “You saying you’re his shrink?”

  I bobbled my head in a noncommittal gesture. “Client confidentiality. You understand,” I said.

  His grin cranked up a little higher. “Rivera’s seeing a shrink?”

  I raised a haughty brow at him. “Turns out he needed more help than I could offer.”

  “Fuck,” he said, and laughed out loud before slamming down the rest of his whisky sour and staring at me. “If you ain’t into him, why’d you ’bout break my fucking nose?”

  I shrugged. “I’m Irish,” I said. “That’s how we say good morning.”

  He looked at me askance for an instant, then shook his head. “You got a thing for him,” he said. There was something like a snarl in his voice. My heart beat a little faster. “Damn wetback, I don’t know what women see in him.”

  The statement smacked of anger well blended with jealousy and a spritz of admiration. I threw back my drink. It was almost palatable.

  “A shithead?” I suggested.

  He gave me a puzzled look. I could see by the hazy cast to his eyes that I was going to have to speak slower.

  “They see a shithead,” I explained.

  He made a noise that was something between a snort and a grunt. “That’s not how you acted on Wednesday.”

  “Let’s just assume I’m better educated now,” I said.

  He watched me, then took his new drink from the bartender.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “You found out he was screwing your best friend.”

  I curled up my lip a little and propped my boobs onto my left arm where it rested on the bar. I’d practiced the move at home and could now almost do it while chewing gum. “Do I look like the kind of woman that men cheat on?”

  “You look like the kind of woman men cheat with.”

  “Damn straight,” I said, imbuing my tone with pride that some might call misplaced.

  “So the pretty boy…,” Coggins said, nodding toward Eddie. “Is he here to help you get over Rivera?”

  I didn’t bother to glance in my friend’s direction. Instead, I silently hoped he wasn’t hitting on some guy with boobs bigger than my own. I motioned toward Coggins’ empty glass. “Looks like it’s time to reloa
d.”

  “I probably had enough,” he said, which, in this particular situation, was a sure sign to the contrary.

  “It’s the least I can do,” I said, and nodding toward his bruised nose, signaled the bartender for a refill.

  In a minute, a fresh whisky sour was perspiring freely near Coggins’ Ballpark Franks fingers.

  “Rivera would get steamed if I even looked at another guy,” I said as he took his first sip. I let a little vitriol seep into my voice and took a swig myself. “And all along, he was sleeping with every skank from here to Albuquerque.”

  “The guy’s a prick from the ground up.”

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “What?”

  “I was his shrink, remember?”

  “I bet you got some shit on him, huh?”

  I shrugged. “Client privileges,” I said again. “But I wasn’t surprised to see that his behavior had caught up with him.”

  “Bout fuckin’ time,” he said, and finished his drink with impressive speed.

  I watched him with a crafty eye. “So what was her name?” I asked finally.

  “What the hell you talking about?” he asked, and I laughed.

  “The girl he stole from you.”

  “There wasn’t no girl.”

  I chuckled again, jolly as Saturday-morning cartoons. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. He’ll drop her fast enough.”

  “Like he did you?”

  I eyed him as if I was about to revisit his nose job, but then I drew a deep breath and snorted. “I’m lucky to be rid of him.”

  “Didn’t seem like you were feeling real fortunate Wednesday night.”

  “Like I said, I’ve been educated since then.”

  He thought about that for a second. I let him ruminate. It looked as if it was getting to be more painful by the second.

  “So you don’t mind pissing him off,” he reasoned.

  “I wouldn’t even mind pissing on him.”

  He chuckled. The sound wasn’t pretty. “You’re in luck then. ’Cause he’s going to be away for a long time.”

  I shook my head. “You must have forgotten who his father is.”