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Pretty Like an Ugly Girl (Baer Creighton Book 3)

Page 17

by Clayton Lindemuth

He’d wondered about that. Other girls thrilled at the idea of dating a man wealthy enough, and confident enough, to send a limo to pick up his date. But Claudia had demurred, saying she’d be coming from—she’d jumbled the words together and he hadn’t understood—so she may as well just drop by the club.

  Maybe she wanted to hide where she lived.

  Maybe.

  Wayman had been troubled each time he thought of her since the moment he’d told her he intended to marry her.

  Even a small passage of time increased the ease of walking back the statement. I was joking. You were looking so good I spoke without thinking ... We don’t even know each other.

  If he didn’t mention it again, she’d never bring it up. Women were smart about that. Women know not to believe a man feels something until he says it a hundred times—and then they doubt it forever. The ephemeral could never be absolute.

  But he didn’t want to walk it back.

  Wayman didn’t love her. He didn’t know what love was or how to do it. He was attracted to her in a way that perplexed his understanding, as if a physical string tethered his eyes to her face.

  In thinking of her, he didn’t see a future with them cuddled up before the fireplace whispering their deepest secrets. He wasn’t stupid. That future wasn’t available to him, ever. One, he was a man, and two, no woman would be cool with the shit buried in his soul. Not after he’d learned he could take whatever he wanted from the girls upstairs, zero risk.

  But Wayman could see Claudia with their children, raising them right, respectful, square-shouldered and strong. He saw her as a potential partner in creating a home, bearing sons to pass the business to.

  Would she ever work beside him?

  Wayman’s mother had assisted his father early in their marriage when the meat business grew, and Luke often said she was critical to their success when the second phase kicked in. His mother spoke Spanish, and taught Wayman and Cephus. Luke had always refused to lower himself, so Caroline Graves negotiated the first truckloads of girls, then oversaw the fledgling operation in Salt Lake City until Wayman promoted Amy out of the ranks to do it instead.

  Would Claudia take to the business the way his mother did? Claudia wouldn’t have to participate, but she needed to believe in the cause, or building a household would be impossible. It wasn’t like the old days, when a man could correct a woman. Not with fucking iPhones everywhere. And he wanted harmony in the household, not strife. A woman strong enough to submit, but without cowering or groveling.

  Wayman shook his head. He hated brooding moods.

  He stood at the mirrored window, surveyed the dance floor, and saw Claudia alone by a pillar, looking up at the glass, but not where he stood. The effect was strange, as if she looked past him, the two of them not connecting.

  Wayman left the room, locking the door behind him. He joined Claudia on the dance floor, took her hand, let his hips move with the beat, spun her, led her to the door. The motion cheered him.

  On the sidewalk he led her away from the line and said, “Would you like to go to another place, or have dinner at my place?”

  “Here. I’m on a keto diet, so I can eat meat all night.”

  “Ah.”

  She punched him.

  “Let’s go.”

  They walked another twenty feet to the entrance for the restaurant side of the Butcher Shop. He opened the door, allowing her to lead him inside.

  The Maître D’ wore a black tuxedo; his shoes looked like polished onyx.

  “Will you have a private booth, this evening, Mister Graves?”

  “That will be fine. But don’t kick anyone out.”

  The man nodded and led them.

  “He wouldn’t really tell someone to move would he?”

  Wayman smiled.

  They sat in a booth that offered both size and seclusion. The walls extended to the ceiling—as did all the booths—and the front, open now, would be closed by a curtain when the waiter brought their dishes.

  “Oh good,” Claudia said. “The menus are in English. I hate places that use other languages. Like English isn’t good enough.”

  Wayman nodded, studied her. “Yeah. Like I want to press one to speak my own language. You want to come here, talk like the people who live here.”

  “Well, that’s the way it is. Nothing’s going to change it.” She held up the menu. “So what’s good?”

  “Anything. You might like the elk. Wait, the pronghorn is a sweet meat—add to that, the chef makes it in a white wine sauce with truffles, rosemary and black pepper. Or you could have good old beef and A1 sauce.”

  “They both sound delicious. I feel like I haven’t eaten in weeks.”

  “You know what? We have a chef’s special. I just remembered. It’s a sausage combining our most exotic meats. We only make it every now and again. I promise, it’ll be the sweetest, most tender meat you’ve ever had.”

  “Sausage?”

  “Yeah. It’s not like a bratwurst or something. This is the real deal. Tell you what, I’ll have the sausage and give you a taste.”

  “I didn’t think it was legal to sell wild game at a restaurant.”

  “It isn’t. We can only sell farm raised animals that were slaughtered and inspected by the meat folks. It sucks for freedom, you know. Can’t do anything without big brother’s permission. I resent the hell out of that. But in the end, it works better anyway. When you buy meat killed by a hunter, there’s no telling what he did to the animal. Gut shot, let it run a mile, pumping adrenaline. It’s better to give an animal a quick death. You can taste panic.”

  “That’s so interesting.”

  “Yeah, but it’s another case of the government forcing everyone to do something, when the market would police it better. If I served meat that tasted like it was fried in cat whiz, I’d be out of business. Government doesn’t need to participate.”

  “Well, that’s the nanny state.”

  “Only problem is nanny states turn into dictatorships. Countries never evolve to more freedom.”

  “You know more about it than I do. I can see your passion.”

  “You can have security, or you can have freedom. You can’t have both. Ben Franklin said that. Or somebody.”

  The busboy entered, followed by their waiter. The busboy set the table and poured water into their glasses.

  Claudia ordered the pronghorn and Wayman, the sausage.

  Again alone, Claudia said, “Was that busboy Mexican?”

  “No, I don’t hire Mexicans. That guy’s Croatian. Gets a lot of sun I guess. Why?”

  “No real reason.”

  “Tell me.”

  She inhaled. Let it out. “It isn’t polite.”

  He leaned. “Tell me.”

  “I hate them.”

  “Why?”

  She looked at the curtain, still open, and the other people dining. Then met his eyes.

  “I was in high school. Nineteen ninety-five. Coming home from school. I was born in Texas and lived outside El Paso, and I thought the Mexicans were like everybody else. They fit in. They’d been there so long, they had the same beliefs. Later my dad’s company transferred him—us—to San Francisco. One day I was walking home from play practice after school ...”

  Wayman placed his arm across the table, hand open. Claudia stared off, eyes glassy.

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “No. I don’t, but this is why I hate Hispanic people. Because three of them cornered me. Two held me down while the other raped me. And then they switched. And every time I fought they punched me in the stomach so hard I couldn’t resist. They kept talking to each other, across me. Think of that. Think of being held down, and they’re talking to each other in that gibberish language.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “Nothing. They were gang members. Their parents came from El Salvador in the eighties. There was a civil war there and a lot of them came here instead of fighting for their own damn country. San Francisco declar
ed itself a sanctuary city in 1985. Well, the kids they brought up became the gangbangers that raped me. And it wasn’t just me. There were others I heard about. But because they were protected, no one went after them. And there’s all these assholes out there who like to say sanctuary cities have less violent crime. I don’t get it.”

  “You see, that’s the kind of story that just pisses me off. These fuckin’ people.”

  “And here’s the thing. I’m supposed to be the racist. Three thugs see a little white girl and rape her. I’m the racist? I understand judging each person by his actions. Personal responsibility, fair justice for all. But when you have a class of people who all behave the same way, you have to judge them by the class, because they have a power as a class that they don’t have as an individual. As a class, they can overwhelm you. That’s my brain speaking. My heart? I’ll cross the street to avoid them. I’ll leave a party if I see one there. They make my skin crawl. In fear.”

  Claudia placed her hand in Wayman’s. “So you don’t think I’m crazy? An ugly hearted hater?”

  He shook his head. “It’s a shitty deal. The only response is to allow it to make us stronger. Otherwise ...”

  “Yeah.” She smiled. “But I don’t dwell on it. I can’t. There’s only so much room in your mind. You either dwell on the stuff that hurts you, or on the stuff that makes you happy. It’s a choice. So I try to not think about those days.”

  “I’m glad you told me. I was thinking about showing you something. A surprise.”

  “Really?”

  “Wait till you see what I’ve got upstairs. You’re going to love it. Oh, our food’s arriving. You have to try this sausage. Trust me. You’ll love it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Finch sat in the dark with the engine running and the headlights off but the parking lights on. Windows down. He wanted the clarity that came with cold air.

  At night, truckers pulled over on whatever exit found them tired; in the west, vehicles parked at exits were common.

  An FBI agent growing stiff in the trunk, less so …

  After all the action of the last couple of days, his brother’s death, his participation in the grotesqueness of the family business, and his two killings, Finch found he desired nothing more than a few hits off a fat joint, a couple shots of house whiskey, and bed.

  Eyes closed, he pressed his head to the headrest and realized an hour before—a half hour?—Lou Rivers’s head had been where his was now, her eyes shattering as he choked her. Right where he lay his head, closed his eyes, and rested.

  What a cosmic joke.

  A vehicle rumbled over the potholes on the intersection behind him. Only a handful of people lived back that way, his father one of them.

  Finch opened his eyes. Checked the mirror, then turned in the seat.

  Through the dark, he recognized the vehicle by its reflected shape in the moonlight. It was the Isuzu refrigerated truck.

  He looked at the clock. Five minutes. He’d been sitting, thinking, only five minutes.

  The tunnel vision and acute hearing that had overwhelmed his senses when he killed—in self-defense—the hit man in Salt Lake City had not occurred when he killed Lou Rivers.

  He’d been in a different zone, but without warped senses.

  With Lou Rivers, he’d plotted. He knew her destination, knew the route. Identified a method of attack, weighed the best time, given the risks the violence would create. He could have throttled her with the handcuff chain while the car raced down the interstate at seventy-five miles per hour, but that would have resulted in a wreck, likely killing them both. Instead, he’d waited until she came to a stop at an untraveled intersection.

  He’d had more time to think things through. In the back seat of the Impala, he was a different man: Someone who already had experienced killing.

  A voice in the back of his mind yipped, you’ve got a body in the trunk! You killed an FBI agent!

  But the rest of him was calm like throwing out junk mail. He lived in the same world as a day ago, populated with the same evil, but in his own estimation, he’d grown, he commanded his fate and who he would choose to be. The values he would choose to enforce.

  He didn’t have to run. Didn’t have to be a victim of family pressure. He had balls.

  Fact.

  On the bus ride from Salt Lake City, right after he’d boarded, he was too jittery from caffeine, sugar, and adrenaline to sleep. Finch had removed the newspaper he’d taken from the night before, and had stowed under his jacket, and opened it. His father had been looking at the paper on the drive to Salt Lake City. On a rest stop, Finch had noticed the interview section his father had been reading.

  A fellow named Nat Cinder—easy enough name to remember—had a year ago managed to have half of the Arizona government removed on various charges ranging from conspiracy to murder. Now it seemed the grassroots wanted him to run for governor.

  Finch could give a shit about politics. But he’d noticed a couple words on the folded paper.

  Nat Cinder was on a mission to end human trafficking in Arizona.

  And from what Finch understood of how he brought down the governor, there was a chance Nat Cinder was the one guy in Arizona who might have both the stones to take on Wayman Graves, and the decency to not already be in his grasp.

  Finch resolved to find Nat Cinder.

  But first, work.

  He pressed the trunk release and stepped out of the vehicle. At the back, he lifted the lid, unfastened Lou Rivers’s belt, and dragged it clean of her body. Her holstered pistol fell aside. Finch grabbed it. The holster had a compartment for a spare magazine. He withdrew it, held it to the trunk light. Thirteen rounds. Next, he withdrew the pistol, a Glock 21, .45 automatic.

  A lot of gun for a hundred-pound woman.

  He released the magazine, saw it full, slipped it back in. Pulled back the slide and observed brass.

  Ready to go.

  Finch sat in the driver’s seat, checked his rearview, put the car in reverse. He slowed at the intersection and, seeing no lights, backed onto the road.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Claudia let Wayman take her hand as they exited the restaurant through the kitchen. She paid her compliments to the chef—the pronghorn was not what she expected, but she didn’t tell the chef. The sausage she sampled from Wayman’s dish was much better.

  They entered a hall and, after a couple turns, stood waiting at an elevator.

  “So what’s the surprise?”

  “I’m going to show you something that will maybe make you feel better.”

  “I feel fine. About what?”

  “What happened to you. What you told me.”

  “Oh—see, like I said. I don’t think about it.”

  The elevator door opened. Wayman blocked if from closing with his foot.

  “You do think about it. All the time. It’s built into who you are. That’s why you feel what you feel toward certain people.”

  “Again, you’re right.”

  “You’re going to appreciate this.”

  They entered the elevator. The door closed, and she was alone with him. He’d never indicated the capacity for violence toward her, but below his surface boiled the kind of passion that, confined by the rigidity of his belief system, could easily churn itself into viciousness. She sensed it was a constant struggle with him, keeping the froth of emotion closed off around those who would judge him. An act of survival he longed to cast off. He spoke of freedom because he was not free.

  The elevator chime rang. The silver doors parted.

  “Are these real?”

  “They are real paintings. But they’re not worth millions. Tens of thousands.”

  “Beautiful. Is this what you wanted to show me?”

  “Nope.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ve only got a couple of minutes.” Wayman led down the hall. Stood before a door, and it opened without his knocking.

  “Claudia, this is Amy. She’s my floor manager.” />
  Amy nodded one time. Stepped back. Wayman led inside the room. A desktop similar to a kitchen counter top spanned one wall, with file drawers underneath, and what must have been twenty video monitors above, stacked four high, across the entire wall. Several screens were black. Some of the screens showed people having sex.

  Older men. Younger girls.

  Claudia was still, sensing much depended on how she framed her expression, and the words she chose.

  “What on earth?”

  She forced herself to step closer.

  A cell phone buzzed. Wayman sighed. He pulled the phone from his pocket.

  “My dad.”

  He swiped. Answered.

  “I’m tied up. What’s up? ... What’s he look like? ... You should back away. Regroup ...” Wayman caught Claudia’s eye. He turned away and exited the room.

  Claudia noticed Amy raking her up and down.

  “What is this?” Claudia said.

  “Whores. You never see whores?”

  They were children. Claudia fought the tightness in her stomach, closing in around the meal she just ate, wanting to expel it.

  “I just noticed they’re all, I don’t know. Like you. Are they from Mexico?”

  “All over. Panama, and up.”

  Wayman entered the room. “I’m sorry. That was my father.”

  “Is everything all right? Sounded like—”

  “Yeah, he’s all right. He’s negotiating a contract. There’s always something.” Wayman nodded at the video wall. “What do you think?”

  “It’s like, what? Live porn? Is this for the Internet?”

  “That’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought of that. No, this is live, just for the sake of live. Notice anything about the girls?”

  “Yeah. They’re all like her.”

  “I wanted you to meet one of them.”

  Claudia heard his foot scrape on the floor. Saw him turn as if in slow motion. She opened her mouth and closed it, dry.

  “I need some water or something. That wine sauce.” She pressed her hands to her pants to dry them.

  “I’m sorry. You’re not enjoying this?” He moved to a small refrigerator. Gave her a bottle of water.

  She drank.

 

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