‘You didn’t ask her, did you?’
Small but hard fists had assumed their habitual position on Charlotte’s hips. Max stopped jumping up, his animal instincts picking up on the impending meltdown. Kyle stopped trying to twist Evan’s arm. He watched, spellbound, as his mantra was proved right once again.
Never a dull moment with Uncle Evan around.
‘She’s working.’
‘Did you ask her?’
Evan tried to step around her. She stepped to the side to block him.
‘You didn’t, did you?’
It was time to say something stupid.
‘Maybe I didn’t want to subject her to an in-depth conversation on how much time she’s got left on her biological clock. I seem to remember we had that conversation last time.’
‘Don’t be stupid. I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Followed by a quick wink and a nod upstairs as if to say, make sure you straighten the sheets again when you’ve finished.’
Charlotte’s mouth dropped open. A strange choking sound was coming from her throat. Evan expected to see foam on her lips at any second, to feel a blinding pain in his shin to go with it.
‘Hey Evan, you want a beer?’
Charlotte’s husband, Mitch, walked out of the sitting room towards the kitchen. The laugh in his voice and the grin on his face that he was doing nothing to hide made Evan think he’d been deliberately waiting for as long as possible. To give Charlotte time to spear him with her question-cum-accusations. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he called over his shoulder, ‘You on your own?’
‘That’s not funny, Mitch,’ Charlotte called, turning towards the kitchen. ‘I bought an extra large roast.’
‘What, in case Kate’s eating for two?’ drifted down the hallway from the kitchen.
Evan bit his tongue, tried not to laugh, even if he was the butt of the joke. He hated to think what Guillory would think if she knew her future was being mapped out by his sister.
‘Maybe I wouldn’t have to say anything if he’d stop moping’—her favorite expression—‘around after Sarah. He’s got that silly tattoo on his leg. Jammy something. He’s lucky to have a woman like Kath take an interest in him at all. Sure as hell doesn’t deserve . . .’
Charlotte was settling into a well-worn groove. Evan had barely noticed Sarah was missing before Charlotte was telling him to move on, get a life. He was used to it by now, her words like water off a duck’s back. But it wasn’t fair to subject Guillory to it. He promised himself then that it didn’t matter how many beers he drank that evening, he would not let slip his plans for inviting her to Baltimore.
They were still discussing him as if he wasn’t there.
‘Give him a break, Charlotte,’ Mitch called wearily. ‘You’re like a stuck record.’
Evan thought about using the distraction to make a quick bolt for freedom. But he needed to be a lot quicker off the mark if he thought he was going to get away from his sister. Charlotte somehow saw the thought flit across his face through the back of her head. She turned back to him and grabbed him by the elbow, propelled him towards the kitchen. He felt like he was six years old. I’m not finished with you yet was written all over her face.
Mitch was still grinning when Evan got into the kitchen. He passed Evan a bottle of beer.
‘C’mon, let’s go in here,’ he said, slapping a hand on Evan’s shoulder, leading him into the garage that led off from the kitchen. ‘You can tell me all about your trip to upstate New York. You took Gina, didn’t you?’
As you’d expect, the name Gina was spoken much louder than the other words, certainly loud enough for Charlotte to hear standing behind them. It was also accompanied by a lewd wink. Mitch was a big fan of Gina even though he’d only seen a photograph.
Evan pulled his head down into his shoulders, expecting to feel the smack of a full beer bottle on the back of it. Mitch’s face was going to split in two any minute.
‘Then we can look at the new plans I’ve had drawn up for the remodeling.’
‘Don’t forget to show him the kitchen I like in that Veranda magazine.’
Evan was eyeing up the distance to the garage side door, the door to freedom, when his phone rang. He couldn’t think when he’d heard a sweeter sound. He pulled it out, looked at the display.
‘Is that Kath?’ Charlotte called from the kitchen. Evan heard her put a pan down on the counter. Eager footsteps approached the garage. ‘Let me talk to her.’
It wasn’t of course. It was the last number Evan had called returning the call. Arturo Rivera. He slipped out of the garage to take it, thinking maybe he’d sneak down to his car and get the hell out of there before Charlotte and Mitch noticed he’d gone.
‘Evan! Come back here. Evan!’
The sound of Charlotte’s voice faded mercifully away as he walked briskly down the driveway.
‘Who is this?’ a faintly querulous voice with more than a hint of alcohol behind it said. ‘You called me.’
Evan explained who he was, said he’d like to meet up.
Tonight would be perfect.
‘Where’d you get my number? Did that bitch give it to you?’
Evan smiled to himself. Arturo’s question saved him from having to ask how Arturo felt about his estranged wife, which made it more likely he’d be prepared to tell him the things he was sure Eva was hiding from him.
‘You’re not working for her, are you?’
‘No.’ Then, on a whim ‘Are you kidding me?’
It worked. He smelled Arturo’s beery grin all the way from the other end of the line. That was exactly the kind of language Arturo wanted to hear. Music to his ears.
‘Sounds like you met her.’
Evan laughed along with Arturo, really put his heart and soul into it. However, he did stop short of burping loudly with him. He didn’t need to bond that closely, not yet anyway.
‘Yeah. I had that pleasure this morning. After church.’
Another loud burst of laughter, followed by a bout of wheezing.
‘Oooh.’ He sounded like someone punched him in the gut. ‘You got her at her holier-than-thou best. Poor guy.’
There was a sudden loud burst of noise in the background at the other end of the line. Music on a jukebox, men’s voices and women’s laughter, the clink of glass against glass. Arturo must have gone outside to make the call and now he’d come back inside.
Evan looked up at Charlotte’s house. He imagined how the conversation would somehow drift, although drift wasn’t an accurate word for Charlotte’s laser-guided meddling, back to his romantic and parental prospects as they sat around the dinner table. The bar sounded a lot more fun.
Should he meet with Arturo tonight? It sounded as if the guy had been on the juice all day. There wasn’t a peep coming from him at the moment. Evan got a mental picture of him standing there, his shoes stuck to the sticky barroom floor, phone clamped to his ear, as he swayed back and forth, eyes glazing over.
‘Hello?’
‘Still here,’ Arturo mumbled.
‘Where are you?’
Arturo told him the name of the place. Bar Coyote. Evan knew it. He couldn’t fault the guy’s taste.
‘Will you be there tomorrow? Around six?’
Arturo said yessir, indeed he would. Evan got the impression he’d be hard pressed to pick a time when Arturo wouldn’t be there. Arturo said how much he was looking forward to having a beer with such a like-minded fellow. He was saying it a second time when Evan ended the call.
He put his phone away, looked back at the house again. His heart sank. He checked his watch. It was going to be a long evening.
‘Evan! Evan!’
It sounded like a pair of angry seagulls fighting over fish heads in a dumpster. And it was getting louder, closer. Charlotte was on the prowl. He felt the tip of the lariat curling around his neck already.
It was a no-brainer.
He ran the rest of the way to his car, jumped in and got the he
ll out of there. He stepped so hard on the gas it made his exit from Eva Rivera’s house look like a funeral cortege. He didn’t even like Charlotte’s pot roast.
Despite his arrangement to meet Arturo the next day, he took a drive past Bar Coyote anyway. He suddenly had a free evening after all. He pulled into the parking lot, then sat staring at his phone for five minutes trying to decide whether to call Guillory or not. He knew she wasn’t working. That was just a little white lie he told Charlotte.
He called her and it went straight to voicemail. So much for that idea.
He got out of the car and went inside anyway. The place was only half full. It was Sunday night after all. Miranda Lambert’s Another Vice was playing on the jukebox. It was the same song he’d heard in the background talking to Arturo. He took a seat up at the bar and ordered a beer.
‘Is Arturo Rivera in tonight?’ he said to the bartender as he put his beer in front of him.
‘Art? He was here earlier.’ The bartender lifted his chin, looked past Evan’s shoulder. ‘He’s at a table over there.’
Evan turned, looked at where the bartender was pointing, nodded his thanks.
‘No problem. But I don’t think you’ll get much sense out of him now. He’s been in all day.’
Looking at Arturo Rivera, Evan knew he’d made the right choice to wait until the following day to talk to him. Arturo was slumped back in his chair, his chin resting on his chest. He looked like he was asleep. A bottle of beer lay on its side in front of him, the last of its contents dripping off the edge of the table into his lap. Evan hoped he was going to put on fresh jeans before their meeting tomorrow. If he even remembered their arrangement.
The bartender hadn’t moved away yet.
‘You a friend of his?’
‘Not really. I arranged to meet him but I got my days mixed up. Seeing him like that I think I’m going to wait until tomorrow. Why do you ask?’
‘I thought maybe you wanted to take him home. We usually put him in a cab when he gets like this.’
‘Does he do it often?’
The bartender shrugged, then laughed.
‘Let’s say he’s done it before. Trouble is, sometimes he spends all his money, doesn’t have anything left for the cab. Then he starts looking for his car keys’—the bartender put his hand under the counter and brought out a set of keys, jangled them—‘so we end up having to pay for the cab.’
‘He’s a good customer. He can’t spend any money if he’s in jail or six feet under.’
The bartender dropped the keys back on the shelf under the counter.
‘Hey, don’t get me wrong. We still come out a long way ahead. But I was thinking, I don’t know how many you were planning on having, but if you fancied another one on the house before taking him home, everyone’s happy.’
The words came out so fast and smooth Evan figured it wasn’t the first time he’d suggested it.
‘How far does he live?’
‘A couple miles.’
‘How does he get in if you’ve got his keys?’
‘He keeps a spare key to the house under the doormat but I can give you his car keys.’
It seemed the bartender had an answer to everything. He’d definitely done this before.
Evan was wavering. There was a chance Arturo might let something slip in his drunken stupor, thinking he was shooting the breeze with a cab driver. The comfort of strangers, deeply personal information shared with a person you’ll never see again. And if Arturo needed a helping hand getting him safely into the house, who knows what Evan might see?
As it turned out, the decision as to whether Evan got a free beer that night was taken out of his hands. The door to the bar opened behind him. He was about to look around when the bartender’s face stopped him.
‘Uh-oh. Looks like you missed the boat on the free beers.’
‘What?’
‘It’s his wife.’
Evan kept his eyes front, watched in the mirror behind the bar as Eva Rivera marched across the room towards her estranged—and as yet blissfully unaware—husband.
‘You know her?’ Evan said.
‘Yeah. She used to come in a lot with him. I haven’t seen her now for, must be . . . five years or so.’
‘They get divorced?’
The bartender shook his head. He leaned forward, resting his arms on the bar top so that he was hidden behind Evan’s body.
‘Nope. Separated. She’s real churchy nowadays. Her lot don’t allow divorce. Bet she’ll have to go to confession just for walking through the door and breathing the beer fumes. Didn’t used to be that way.’
A loud slap rang out across the room.
In the mirror, Evan saw Arturo jerk forward as the flat of his wife’s palm connected solidly with the back of his head.
Guillory would’ve been proud of that slap. She’d have given Eva a round of applause, maybe asked for pointers on her technique. Evan could have told her. Practice, then more practice.
Eva had one hand under Arturo’s armpit now, hauling him to his feet. Arturo was still woozy from the booze, from being so rudely woken up. And his whole head was ringing from the slap, of course. He gazed around the bar, not taking anything in. Then he caught sight of who it was had hold of his arm. His whole body jerked backwards as if he’d just seen the grim reaper standing at the bottom of his bed.
‘Do you think that’s why they separated? Evan said. ‘Because of his drinking.’
The bartender didn’t answer immediately, his attention on the Riveras as Eva tried to hustle Arturo out of the bar. Eva had leaned in close and was hissing something in Arturo’s ear. Evan couldn’t catch what it was from where he sat. Arturo wasn’t very happy about it, whatever it was. The bartender relaxed again as Arturo stopped fighting so hard against Eva’s grip, allowed himself to be led towards the door.
Most of the other guys in the room watched them make their jerky way across the floor, Arturo struggling to keep up with the route-march pace set by Eva. A common thought bound the drinkers together. There but for the grace of God, go I.
‘Sorry, what did you say?’ the bartender said.
‘Was his drinking the problem?’
The bartender laughed like he’d never heard anything so ridiculous.
‘Not likely. She knocked it back as good as anyone. Sometimes I reckoned the problem was because he snuck in here early and got a head start on her.’
On the other side of the room the door slammed shut as Eva managed to get Arturo outside. The sounds of raised voices—hers more than his—could be heard through the door, gradually fading away as she dragged him towards her car. Where she was going to take him, God only knew.
‘Sounds like they were made for each other,’ Evan said. ‘I wonder why they split up?’
He held his breath, praying to the god of gossip. The bartender bit. He leaned forward again, dropped his voice even though the jukebox had started up again. A different Miranda Lambert song this time, Mama’s Broken Heart.
‘They were a strange family.’
Evan leaned in closer, close enough to kiss.
‘Yeah?’
‘And it was real sad when the daughter died.’
‘Died?’
‘Yeah. Car crash.’ He looked up and down the bar. ‘Burned to death. They say you could hear her screams five miles away.’
‘No.’
‘No word of a lie. I heard she—’
The conversation was about to go further into the realms of urban myth and barroom gossip as the bartender found his rhythm and a willing ear.
‘I know it’s really sad,’ Evan cut in, ‘but why’d you say they were strange?’
The bartender looked disappointed to be interrupted mid-flow.
‘Well, Art’s okay. Apart from his girl dying like that, you know, burning slowly to death in her own car, the one they bought her for her birthday.’
‘Yeah, yeah, apart from that.’
‘It really hit him hard, that’s all
I’m saying. He started to drink more heavily after that.’
‘I can see how you would. It must be terrible. What about her?’
The bartender blew a rush of air out of his nose. If you didn’t keep interrupting . . .
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s her side of the family that’s weird.’
‘What do you mean weird?’
‘Well, you know.’ Once again, he glanced both ways. ‘But what do you expect from people like—’
‘Hey Lenny,’ an irritated voice called from down the bar, ‘do I have to come around there and serve myself?’
Lenny stood up, his face a picture of irritation. He shook his head as if to say damn customers and walked down to the impatient drinker who was banging his glass on the bar top by now.
Evan waited while he served the guy. A second ago, the bar had been empty. Now, as soon as the bartender finished serving the first guy, another one came up to the bar. Didn’t anybody know it was Sunday night? Work tomorrow, rise and shine. Then the door opened again. Without looking around, Evan knew it wasn’t Arturo coming back in. The noise told him as a bunch of guys made their way laughing and joking towards the bar.
There was no way he was going to get another chance to talk to the bartender now. Hopefully he’d be on duty tomorrow night when Evan came back to meet with Arturo—if Eva hadn’t killed him or put him in the hospital first.
Chapter 30
‘I’M ON MY WAY to talk to David Eckert,’ Evan said to Levi, when Levi called him first thing Monday morning.
‘Who’s he?’
‘The guy Lauren worked for. Her father’s business partner.’
Levi snorted, a derisive sound.
‘Oh, him. What do you want to talk to him about? Why he wouldn’t give Lauren a raise.’
Evan slowed as he came to a junction in the perimeter road that ran around the airfield where David Eckert’s business was based. He made a right turn and stopped in front of a gate that led to the private hangar area. Next to the gate was a card reader on a post.
‘No. I was hoping to get an idea of whether Lauren’s father is around.’
Resurrection Blues Page 17