by Dan Taylor
I raise an eyebrow. “Yet here you are, signed in as Hayley Toothridge, making small talk before you tell me what it is you’re really here to talk about.”
“Toss me the ball. We should hit it around as we talk.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary.” I turn around, start walking out. “I’ll go and tell reception my ten o’clock canceled.”
She waits until I get to the door before saying, “Jake, don’t leave.”
It’s my turn to look at her with peripheral vision. I can’t see her, but I maintain the pretense. “‘You never could keep your eyes off my ass.’”
She sighs. “I admit it…”
I make a celebratory power fist, utter a quiet, “Yes!”
“Not that, you pompous ass. I admit I’m not here to shoot the breeze.”
It’s my turn to turn around and fix her with an ice-cold stare.
She says, “Are you trying to fix me with an ice-cold stare?”
“I am…doing it, I mean.”
“You look like you’re having a seizure.”
I raise an eyebrow, go to cross my arms, but the racket gets in the way, so I put my hands on my hips.
She says, “Toss the ball over.”
I do.
“Best of three?”
I go to the opposite side of the court, and then go to say, “Do you want me to take it easy on—”
But she interrupts me by smashing the ball off the wall and to the back of the court with what I can only describe as a super-smash power serve. I’m unable to return it, and I’m ungraceful in not doing so.
As she goes to pick up the ball, she says, “There’s no need.”
We swap sides. “Are you ready this time?”
Steeped in pettiness, I say, “Who says I wasn’t last time?”
Same result, more or less. She smashes it against the wall and it bounces over my head.
“How’ve you gotten away with masquerading as a pro?”
“I tend to rely on Wikipedia and coaching clichés I remember from high school. And I’m feigning a hands-off coaching technique, as well.”
She picks up the ball, starts squeezing it in her hand. “Does that go for your students’ asses, too?”
“Only the guys.”
She serves again. I at least manage to get my racket on it this time.
She smiles, says, “You’re a quick learner.”
“Is that a forehanded compliment?”
“You’re rusty; does that go for investigating, too?”
“Give me a break…of service.”
“Ouch!”
“It wasn’t that bad, was it?”
“It’s like your mom’s writing your jokes, now.”
I roll my eyes.
She serves, taking it easy on me this time. We manage to get a rally going. I think I’m doing well until she plays a lob over my head, making the ball bounce into the corner of the court. I try to hit it back with force, but I just end up smashing my racket into the wall. I hate this game.
She says, “That’s not the first thing to go over your head.”
“That’s not the first thing to go over your head…”
“You’re so obvious, Jake.”
“How so?”
“As soon as you’re beaten, you just repeat what the other person said in a petulant tone.”
“‘In a petulant tone…’”
“See!”
She serves and we get another rally going. When she’s beaten me again, she says, “How do you fancy a vacation, Jake?”
I cross my arms. “No, no way.”
Six months ago the Agency got compromised by a trio of dimwitted but dangerous criminals who kidnapped my sister and her son in order to try and force me to get back an African drug lord’s fortune. He had tried to launder it by making it part of a deceased white relative’s estate, which he would then inherit. The money was stolen by my ex-wife’s fiancé at the time, a colleague of the African drug lord.
Anyway, I managed to get my sister and nephew back, and the bad guys arrested and locked up.
“You haven’t heard where it is, yet.”
“Doesn’t matter. Last time I worked for you guys, Mary and Randy got kidnapped.”
“Your sister and nephew’s abduction had nothing to do with us.”
“That’s not the way I remember it.”
“The bad guys were your ex-wife’s fiancé’s doing.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m out of the game, now.”
She looks around the court, then raises an eyebrow. “And into another? I gotta say, this racket doesn’t suit you.”
“It isn’t all bad.”
“You get dental?”
“I’m only protected against work-related injuries. Like if someone hits me in the face with a racket.”
“You better start flossing.”
“Twice a day.”
She bends down and tosses the ball over to me. “Anyway, it’s been nice catching up, Jake.” As she walks out, in that painfully elegant way she does—painful for me, at least after a three-week drought—she hands me her business card.
As she goes through the door, I say, “New phone number, too.”
She stops. “It’s regulation every three months, you know that.”
Then she’s gone.
I sigh, then start hitting the ball around. I may as well get at least half-competent at this game if it’s to be my career.
Mid-rally, my boss comes in carrying a racket, says, “I think it’s time we had a game, Jake, buddy.”
I sigh, look up at the ceiling.
He picks up the ball, a knowing look on his face. As he expertly warms up the ball, smashing it accurately and precisely against the wall, he asks, “And did you call Stephanie Lockyear candy pants?”
3.
I WALK OUT OF the squash club, look up and down the street for a bar, but don’t see one. Out of nowhere, though not surprising to me—if that makes any sense—a pain burns in my chest. It doubles me over.
This isn’t the first time it’s happened. It started a couple weeks ago. After the first time, I explored various medical avenues with a number of medical practitioners: my shrink, who said it might be psychosomatic; my dentist, who said it might be a pain originating in a cavity; my chiropractor, who tried to upsell a pair of goofy shoes that were good for my lower back and knees; my shaman, who said it’s someone important from the spirit world trying to contact me in the best way she knows how; and finally my GP.
I hate flashbacks, but this one’s kind of important. Or at least that’s what I tried to tell my GP, not about the flashback, but about the problem. But you knew that.
My appointment with my GP started the way most of them have lately, with him snapping on a latex glove and telling me to bend over the gurney in the corner of the office. He thought I was there for a prostate exam.
He’s getting on a bit, so I took it easy on him. “Dr. Jennings, that’s not why I’m here.”
The old boy looked a bit flustered. “Oh, sorry, Jake, I just figured with you approaching forty, that’s why you booked an appointment.” He thought a second. “Pull your pants and briefs down and hop on the gurney, then.”
“And I’m not here for a testicle exam, either.”
“Oh.” He went over to a set of drawers, in which he stores various medical supplies and pulled out an extra-long cotton swab.
“I don’t know what the hell you use that for, but I don’t think you need that, either. Look, can we stop with the guessing game and get on with you asking what my problem is?”
He took a seat at his desk and invited me to sit in the one next to his. “So, Jake, what seems to be the problem?”
“A pain in my chest. It started a week ago. Hurts like a son of a bitch.”
“Ah, I see. Take off your shirt and I’ll have a listen to your chest.”
“You can say heart. I won’t get panicked.”
I did as he said and he listened to various parts of
my thorax with a stethoscope as we caught up.
“So, how’s the daughter?”
“She’s still dropped out of college.”
“Bummer. How old are you now, Dr. Jennings? You must be close to retirement age.”
“Much younger than you’ll be before you retire, but you’re right. I only have a month left.”
“What are you going to do with all that free time?”
“Move somewhere, drink cocktails every evening until I can’t stand up.”
“Wow, I never expected a medical practitioner to be so candid.”
“That’s not the half of it. I’m going to pick up where I left off with the soft drugs habit I had to put on hold when I graduated medical school.”
“Where you thinking of moving? Florida, Mexico, maybe Spain?”
“Tunisia.”
“Tunisia?”
For a bird-thin doctor with horn-rimmed glasses and a mole on his neck that’s one hairy mother, Dr. Jennings’s a pretty hip dude. “Don’t be so ignorant, Jake, have you seen the chicks there?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“They’re all ass and impossibly long legs. And heartburn.”
“They all have heartburn?”
He took the stethoscope away from my chest. “No, you dummy. You’ve got heartburn.”
“Really? It’s not something manlier, like angina? That would’ve been cooler.”
“No.” He took out his prescription pad. “I’m going to prescribe you antacids.”
“Do you think they’ll do the trick?”
He looked at me over his horned rims. “Do you think I just write these things for the fun of it?”
“I guess not.”
So back to now, and you’ve probably guessed already that what I’m suffering isn’t heartburn, as I’m still doubled over, clutching my chest, despite having taken copious amounts of antacids in hope that Dr. Jennings is right.
I went back to Dr. Jennings, and he referred me to a specialist. I have no idea which, but I endured a whole host of diagnostic machines and procedures shortened to frustrating acronyms. An MRI, an ECG, something called a BTEGF, to name but a few.
The last one was particularly…well, let me just say that it tested the depths of my endurance.
I’m waiting for a call from Dr. Jennings on the results. Until I receive them, I’m going to assume it is heartburn and just get on with things as usual.
The pain stops. So I take out my cell and the business card I was given, thinking about the medical they offer, and dial the number. “Okay, I’m in.”
“I saw your boss storming towards the court, racket in hand. Did you get your pink slip?”
“I was on a probationary period.”
“I have to say, Jake, if you get back into this thing, I want it to be because you want to, not just because you need the payday.”
I sigh. “This isn’t how this conversation’s supposed to go. Ten minutes ago you were begging to have me back.”
It’s her turn to sigh. “You’re stupid at times, and not nearly as charming as you think you are, and your mustache doesn’t suit you—”
“You noticed it?”
When I quit the Agency, I got bored, so I decided to grow a handlebar mustache.
“Of course I did. It looks like a snail lost its shell and decided to use your lip instead. Anyway, where was I?”
“You were telling me how brilliant I am and you were just getting on to offering me a raise and extra perks.”
“Goodbye, Jake.”
I think about the cost of an operation to cure angina. “Wait!”
She sighs again. “You going to play ball, now, Jake?”
“I think we can quit it with the sports puns.”
“Jake!”
“Okay, no more messing around.”
“I need a couple of promises before you can start booking your overdue dental checkup.”
“Shoot.”
“No drinking on the job.”
“What if I go undercover as an alcoholic…or as a James Bond-type character? You know, shaken, not stirred.”
“Then you can drink a mocktail.”
I cross my fingers. “I can manage that. What’s the next promise?”
“If—and this is a big if—you happen to be working alongside or for an attractive female, you don’t jump into bed with her the first opportunity you get.”
“That’s not always my fault.”
“Jake!”
“Okay, I promise. Doesn’t matter, anyway, I’m deep into a dry patch.”
She laughs. “Really?”
I sigh. “I have calluses covering most of my hands.”
“Too much information, Jake.”
“Sorry.”
“And the third one…”
I wait with bated breath.
“You need to lose the mustache. The Civil War’s long over.”
“Is that all? I thought you were going to ask me to not max out the expense account.”
“That too.”
“No fair. You promised three.”
“I didn’t. I said a couple.”
“Aha!”
“As in a small, vague number.”
“We can argue about that later.”
“No we won’t. I need your word.”
“You got it.”
“And Jake, don’t let me down.”
“I promise I’ll try my best not to.”
“Good. Anyway, we’ve said promise too many times. This is getting repetitive. ”
“And Gerry—”
“You don’t get to ‘And Gerry’ me. I’m your boss.”
“I was going to pay you a compliment.”
“Save it. And Jake, it’s time for you to meet Andre.”
“Holy cow!”
4.
“THAT’S NOT REALLY YOUR style.”
“What isn’t?”
“‘Holy Cow.’”
“Oh boy!”
“That’s better.”
“This is huge. Why does he want to meet me? No one from the Agency has ever met him, right?”
“That’s not really true. I’ve met him—”
“But still…”
“And one time, Joe, the groundskeeper of Headquarters, once stumbled into his office when he thought he wasn’t there.”
“But still…”
“And Cole Baxter.”
“Cole Baxter?”
Cole is another P.I. who works for the Agency. You could say my rival, though I hadn’t met him or even known about him until he got himself abducted—though I like to say kidnapped to Gerry—and I got him rescued. One-zero to Old Hancock.
“Yeah, before his latest mission.”
“How’s Cole doing, anyway? All recovered after his kidnapping?”
“That’s what Andre wants to talk to you about.”
“About how Cole’s managing with his PTSD?”
“He never had that, Jake. They treated him well while he was held captive, even let him condition his hair. I was implying something I couldn’t say over the telephone.”
I think about what Gerry said back at the squash court. How do you fancy a vacation, Jake? “You don’t want me to rescue him again, do you?”
“Jake, we’re not going to discuss this over the phone.”
“That’s a yes.”
“It wasn’t.”
“It totally was. I don’t know. This sounds a lot like the last one.”
“Last what?”
“A lot like my last job for you guys. Which I still haven’t been paid for, by the way.”
“You did that in your spare time.”
“I drink Belgian beer and flirt with women way too young for me in my free time. What I don’t do is outthink a criminal mastermind so that I can get a colleague I couldn’t care less about rescued.”
“If we agree to pay you for it, will you stop your whining?”
“Consider it done. So when do I get to meet the big guy?”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Okay, when do I get to meet Big Chief?”
“Or that.”
“Okay, when do I get to meet Andre?”
“Go get cleaned up. There’ll be a car waiting outside your apartment building in two hours’ time. You still live in the same place?”
“The one and only.”
“Okay. And Jake—”
“Yes, Gerry?”
“I feel silly for saying it, but it’s good to have you aboard again.”
I start to say, “There’s no need to feel silly,” but she’s already hung up.
5.
AS I RIDE IN THE cab to my apartment building, which is a twelfth-story condo on and overlooking Hollywood Boulevard—I know…—I think about the women I was last involved with.
I should probably get you up to speed, anyway.
Remember Jane Berrygood, the one who had the two lazy eyes but who had them fixed? We carried on dating when life settled down after Mary and Randy’s abduction. We had a hell of a time, but then she found out about June, the waitress from Denny’s, who was my hot little number on the side. I don’t know why she got so angry about that—Jane, I mean. We never declared exclusivity and I avoided the R word, the L word, and the M word—oh, and the C word. So there was no reason for her to get all upset when she stumbled into my apartment, surprising me for our one-month anniversary—her words—to find June blitzing up a second round of margaritas. Doesn’t sound that bad? I could’ve gotten away with it by saying she was just a friend, you say? Instead of putting the lime juice and salt on the rims of the glasses, June thought it would be a good idea to put it on her nipples, instead.
So that was that.
I even lost June in the chaos that ensued, which I think was really unfair. June thought we were dating exclusively, too. What can I say, I like variety. There’s some lazy cliché about it being the spice of life, but I’ll save you the eye-rolling.
“Here we are, guy,” the cab driver says, interrupting my thoughts.
I wipe the drool off my chin and pay the guy. I have no idea why, but all that squash has made me thirsty for margaritas.
I take the elevator up to my apartment, go down the hall, and find it unlocked.
Frowning as I stand in the doorway, I say, “June, is that you?”
I get no reply.