Uncorked

by Lois Greiman

  “At eleven o’clock at night?”

  “You’re a wild one, aren’t you, Doc?”

  “I can be.” I’d gone from pissy to defensive…with maybe just a little raw terror left over for good measure.

  “How you holding up?”

  “Me? I’m doing okay. Why?”

  “No one giving you any trouble?"

  “No, why do you ask?” My heart rate tripped up a couple beats. I glanced at Harley. Still sleeping like an inebriated infant. Not that my parents had ever spiked our bottles or anything. What kind of under-educated rednecks would do that to their own children? “What have you heard?”

  “Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were all right."

  I tried to relax. Not so much.

  “I’ve been thinking about that car wash shit,” he added after a moment.

  “Yeah.” I took a deep breath. “Me, too.”

  “I was thinking it probably doesn’t have anything to do with Andrews.”

  “What do you mean?” I remembered the weird light in Andrews's eyes with heart-palpitating clarity, but didn't bother to tell Micky I had gone to visit him. Sometimes people yell at me when they think I take dumb ass risks. I wasn't up to being yelled at.

  “There are a butt load of crazies in this burg. No reason to think it wasn’t just someone out of the pile.”

  I would have liked to believe that. “He said my name.”

  “Oh. Well, hell.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, it’s not like you work with the best and brightest, is it? Look at me. Give me fifty bucks, I’d do practically anything."

  “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t you.”

  “Golly, I feel special. Maybe it was one of your other clients.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “Does it?”

  “No.”

  He chuckled. Compared to his usual grimness, he was Mr. Giggles tonight. I wondered vaguely if he had been drinking. I also wondered if I should start. “Listen, Doc, I think maybe you should get some protection.”

  I scowled into the darkness. “Like a gun?” Harlequin paddled weakly on the bed and whimpered a little.

  “I’m not talking about condoms.”

  “That’s good. Because they’re only about ninety percent effective,” I said, glancing at my purse, where Shirley’s Glock resided.

  “I could hook you up.”

  I drew a deep breath. “Thanks Micky, but I’m not really comfortable with firearms.”

  “That’s too bad, 'cause I’m thinking the car wash son of a bitch might not be so squeamish about them.”

  I felt the shiver start at my clavicle, but contained it before it got to my toenails. It was at that second that my mind kicked in. I drew a cautious breath. “You know something, don’t you?” I said.

  “What?”

  “It’s Andrews, after all, isn't it? He’s gunning for me.”

  “Gunning for you? Hell, woman, have you been out branding cattle or something?”

  “I just…” I felt weak. “What do you know?”

  “Me? Nothing. And I think you should just let it go.”

  “Let what go?”

  “Don't go poking into this, Doc. Please. Leave Andrews alone. Leave Lavonn alone.”

  I remained silent for a moment, letting the facts click slowly into place. “You found her.”

  I could almost hear his scowl. “You know that shit-pile of crazies we talked about? She could be at the top of the damn heap.”

  “Where is she?”

  “You’re not listening.”

  I had heard that sentiment quoted since I was old enough to not listen. “I just want to talk to her.”

  “You might be the pushiest woman I ever met.”

  “It’s possible. Do you have her phone number?”

  He sighed. “I got an address. Don’t know if it’s current, though.”

  “What is it?”

  After a little more pushiness on my part, he rattled off digits and words while I found a pen between Francois and a brightly colored novel called One Night With a Knight. I scribbled down the address and swallowed. “Westlake?” My voice sounded a little raspy. “That’s not necessarily the best part of town.”

  “Shit,” he said. “It’s not even the best part of hell.”

  I tried to laugh but my face was frozen.

  “I don’t want you going there alone.”

  “No,” I said. “Of course not.”

  “I mean it,” he said. “Lavonn used to be real sweet when she was a kid. Had a crush on me for a while I think. But she was gone for a few years and when she came back she got mixed up with Andrews. I’ve got the feeling that maybe she’s a little tougher now.”

  “Are you just saying that because she tried to kill you?”

  “Listen,” he said. “She’s been through some bad shit. Half of it's my fault…what with her sister and all." He cleared his throat. I could sense his gut-gnawing guilt. I'd spent the first several months of his therapy trying to convince him not to take his own life. "I don’t want to make things any harder for her.”

  “I don’t plan on—”

  “And I sure don’t want to be telling my son that his aunt killed some crazy-ass chick who didn’t know when to leave things alone.”

  I sat there with my mouth open for a couple seconds, then closed it and scowled. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.”

  He laughed quietly. He did that more than he used to, despite the fact that he was raising a child alone and professed every day that he needed a lobotomy because of it. I’d have to analyze that sometime when I wasn’t worried about getting dead.

  “I mean it, Doc. I said I’d find her for you and I did, but I don’t want you going there alone.”

  “I won’t,” I promised.

  It wasn’t that I lied…exactly. On the other hand, I didn’t exactly inform Micky about my impending sojourn to Westlake. It’s not that I didn’t want his company. I did, but I had once thought that he and Lavonn simply hated each other’s guts. After my conversation with him, however, I was beginning to believe he wanted to protect her almost as much as he wanted to protect me. Maybe their relationship was a little more complicated than I had realized. And I really didn’t need more complications. So after a good deal of agonizing, I slipped Shirley’s Glock into my purse and drove south on Sunland Boulevard.

  Lavonn lived in a two-story house built somewhere around the turn of the century. Several of the windows were broken. At least two of them were boarded up.

  I sat in my Saturn for five minutes, waiting for courage to find me. But it seemed to have gone the way of the dodo bird. Finally, though, I cranked myself up and got out of the car.

  A dog barked as I clattered up the sidewalk. The sound was deep throated and serious. I could see him through the torn screen door. He looked to be half as big as Harley and twice as mean. Cropped ears were laid back against his square head. Serious-looking canine teeth were showing above crinkled-up lips.

  I slowed my pace as I neared the stoop. Cujo fell silent, a condition twice as terrifying as the barking. His hackles were raised from his shoulder blades to his tail. And then he lunged. His paws struck the screen like wooden mallets. I screeched and jumped back.

  “What you want?”

  By the time my life was done flashing before my eyes, a woman had appeared beside the dog. Dark skinned, tall, and pretty, she looked vaguely familiar.

  I screwed up my courage. “Lavonn?”

  She scowled, etching a single crease between her brows. “Who are you?”

  I cleared my throat. This is where it could get tricky. “I’m um…my name is Christina McMullen.” I waited for the name to sink in. Nothing registered on her smooth-skinned features. “I’m a psychologist from Eagle Rock.” Reaching into my purse, I pulled out a business card and thrust it carefully in between her door and the jamb. “We met ahh…once.”

  She cocked her head
a little.

  I searched for words that wouldn’t make her let the dog eat me. “I’m a friend of—” I began, grappling weakly, but at that second a phone rang from the bowels of the house.

  “Shit! Now what does he want?” she said, and turned from the door. The dog remained where he was. “Come in if you wanna.”

  I stared at the dog. He stared at me. Turns out I didn’t wanna. I really didn’t wanna. And Cujo looked like he wanted me to even less. But I was dying (maybe literally) to find out why someone had attacked me in a car wash.

  “Ahh,” I spoke a little louder. “What about…” My voice failed me for a second. I cleared my throat. “What about your dog?”

  “Charlie! Come here,” she said, and was gone.

  In a second the dog left, too, clicking across the floor after her and leaving me to stare at the screen that had been mutilated earlier, probably during Chuck’s last visitor attack.

  It took me a full thirty seconds to ramp up enough courage to put my hand on the doorknob. When it wasn’t ripped off by a rabid dog, I turned it cautiously and stepped inside.

  The foyer was as neat as a pin, devoid of a single speck of dust. I walked into the interior like I was stepping on glass, waiting to be brought down like a weakened wildebeest, but the coast was clear.

  Lavonn was in the kitchen. A drawer beside the sink was open, exposing a couple dozen neatly aligned cleaning products: liquids on one side, powders in the middle, rubber gloves rubbing elbows with a half a dozen scrub brushes of varying sizes. She had a cell phone clasped between her shoulder and her cheek. A rag was clutched in her hand, though I hadn’t seen a rogue dust mote since my arrival. “I was just about to clean the toilets,” she said. “Yeah. You know I will. Okay,” she said, and snapping the phone shut, stared out the window. Charlie stood immobile, head lowered as if contemplating whether to swallow me whole or enjoy me at his leisure.

  Lavonn’s expression was unreadable, but there was something in her eyes that made my heart ache, and in that instant I thought, Micky was right; she had seen enough shit. I glanced out the window to see what had snagged her attention. Two kids were playing in the front yard. One wore nothing but a pair of blue socks. The other wore considerably less.

  “Hey!” she said suddenly.

  I stabbed my gaze back to her and noticed that the heartbreak was gone from her eyes, replaced by something grittier and far more dangerous, but I had very little time to contemplate the sudden mood swing because in that instant the dog growled. I jerked my attention to him. His hackles were rising.

  A double threat. The truth was, I felt like I had a decent chance of beating Lavonn to the door should the need arise, but I didn’t feel so great about Charlie. Charlie looked like he could bring down a Hummer.

  “Hey,” she said again, eyes narrowing. “Ain’t you Micky’s bitch!”

  My heart hammered one hard beat in my chest and threatened to stop dead. “What?”

  She turned in my direction, and in that instant it occurred to me that she looked exceptionally fit. Maybe my chances weren’t so good with her after all. “You’re the little shit that got Jackson put away.”

  “No, I—”

  “The hell you ain’t,” she said, and the dog lunged.

  Chapter 21

  Sometimes even dogs can’t make up for the crap life shovels at you. And if that's the case you might as well pack it in, 'cause you're up shit creek and you ain't got no paddle.

  —Lavonn Amelia Blount, owner of Charlie the pit bull

  “No!” I said, and jerked backward. My shoulders slammed against the wall. Charlie hit me in the chest and snapped at my ear. I tried to scream, but before the sound left my paralyzed throat he had me pinned, forepaws on each side of my body, crazy-Cujo gaze holding mine.

  I waited for him to tear out my larynx, but he remained where he was, demonic rumblings issuing from his throat. “Call him off,” I whispered.

  Lavonn stood a few yards behind him. I was pretty sure of that, though I didn’t have the nerve to shift my gaze from her killer dog. “Why should I?” she asked.

  A thousand possible answers whirled through my mind. I pulled one from the maelstrom. “So Jamel won’t be embarrassed.”

  The room went silent. Even the dog was frozen.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  I refrained from closing my eyes. I didn’t want to pass out. I was afraid if I became unconscious Charlie would tear out my gizzard before I hit the floor. “How do you think Jamel will feel if his aunt gets put away for murder?”

  “I ain’t gonna murder you,” she said. “Charlie is.”

  “Involuntary manslaughter,” I said. “Ten to life.”

  “What?”

  I had no idea what I was yammering about, but the fact that I could still yammer made me feel a little better. “Jamel needs a mother figure. You’re the closest thing he’s got.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “You too good for a little black kid with pokey-out ears?”

  That gave me pause. I thought for a second. It was probably about time. “You think Micky and I are together?” I remembered, a little belatedly, maybe, that she had shown signs of jealousy in the past. Perhaps coming here hadn’t been the best idea I’d ever had. And let me tell you, that is saying something.

  “When he called you that night, you come running like a greyhound on the track. Why do that if you wasn’t his bitch?”

  “I was his therapist.” That sounded weird even to me. I mean, really, is that in the job description of a licensed psychologist?

  She laughed out loud, maybe thinking the same.

  “I haven’t seen him in months,” I said.

  She snorted, the dog growled. I swallowed.

  “I mean, before yesterday I hadn’t seen him for…” I took a deep breath, trying to rejuvenate my brain cells. “I’m not his bitch.” I was stammering a little. “Not that there’s anything wrong with bitches,” I whispered, and dared to eyeball the dog. It might, after all, be female, though I wasn’t entirely sure if demon dogs had gender.

  “Why you here, then?” she asked. “Haven’t you done enough? Look around you, girl; I ain’t got nothing left. Even this shit hole ain't mine.”

  I raised my eyes to hers. She laughed and indicated the empty walls, the threadbare carpet. “It’s all gone. The house, the car. My pretty rosewood. All ’cause of you. There ain’t nothing else to take, so why you here?” she asked again. It wasn’t until that moment that I noticed the bruises under her left eye.

  The world slowed to the speed of a dirge. Thoughts tumbled quietly into place. “Because I’ve been hit, too,” I said.

  She stared at me for a full seven seconds before she pulled her gaze away. “I don’t got no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Who hit you?”

  “Nobody hit me,” she said. “Do I look like the kind of woman that’d let herself get knocked around?”

  I took a deep breath. The dog was still standing guard between us.

  “Was it Andrews?” I asked.

  "Andrews! He's found Jesus. Haven't you heard?" She snorted. "Why the hell do you care what happens to me, anyway?"

  “I don’t,” I said. “But I care about Jamel and he cares about you.”

  When she turned around, her expression was defiant but her eyes were suspiciously shiny. “Yeah, well, I don’t have no time to worry about somebody else’s kid.”

  “Because you’re too worried about how to keep him from hurting your own?”

  Her eyes snapped to mine. “He wouldn’t hurt no kid,” she said, but her tone was tight.

  “Just you, then,” I said.

  She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Get out of here,” she ordered.

  “I would,” I admitted, and nodded cautiously toward the dog.

  “Down, Charlie.” Her voice was little more than a grunt, but the dog dropped almost gratefully to all fours.

  “Kennel,” she sai
d, and he padded away, quiet as a lamb. “No reason for you to stay now.”

  I had to agree, and yet I remained. Sometimes I’m not known for my stellar ability to think things through. “Who hit you?” I asked again.

  Tears filled her eyes, but she held them back. “I didn’t say no one hit me.”

  “Girls usually don’t,” I said. “They just show up at the morgue.”

  Our gazes met.

  “You don’t have to take that, Lavonn.” My own voice had gone soft, almost steady.

  Hers was practically inaudible. “Where would I go?”

  “There are shelters, homes—” I began, but she coughed a laugh.

  “You think he wouldn’t find me there?”

  “He’s not all-powerful. He might think he is, but he’s not.”

  She smiled dismally. “Even Jackson was scared of him.”

  My mind was spinning, but I didn't want to look too curious. Didn't want to frighten her off. “They know each other?”

  “He worked for Jackson."

  "Where?"

  She shrugged. "Took care of his cars and stuff."

  “At his chop…" I stopped myself, though my heart was thumping with excitement. Or maybe it was terror. "At his car repair shop?"

  She shifted her eyes away. They were full of guilt and more. “I don’t know. He don't work there no more anyway and he’s real private about what he does. He don’t like no one messing in his business.”

  “Even you?”

  “Especially me. He don’t trust nobody.” An edge of frustration sharpened her tone, and she shifted her attention momentarily to the cabinet with the cleaning products.

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  She zipped her gaze to the door as if she might conjure him up by speaking his name. “They call him Drag. He don't live here all the time. Just when he wants. But I gotta make sure it’s spotless twenty-four/sever or…” She swallowed. “He got high standards. Likes his clothes press just so and such. Nothing wrong with that.”