by A. R. Case
“Shut up.”
“Seriously? Thirty?”
“Twenty-nine and three quarters. Go ahead and laugh, Mr. Forty.”
“Thirty and still dying your hair blue. Amazing.”
“I’ll have you know a woman can dye her hair at any age for any reason.”
“Sure, but blue?”
“It’s a pretty color.” She mumbled something under her breath.
“What was the last part?” He nudged her with a cracker.
“I said, it looks better on me than black.”
“You were one of those?”
“Those who?”
“You know, dress like vampires and wear fake fangs and shit.”
“No, although I have some really cool contacts that make my eyes glow in the dark.”
“They make those? Isn’t that dangerous for your eyes?”
“No more dangerous than regular contacts.”
“Huh.”
“And no, no fake fangs. Black was a cheap hair color.”
“What’s wrong with your normal hair color?”
“Brown?”
“My hair is brown.”
“No, it’s not, it’s more blonde than brown. You have amazing highlights.”
So he’d been told by Vi’s hairdresser. Followed by a jealously hissed question about who had the pleasure to dye his hair. When he answered it wasn’t dyed, there were a few disbelieving clucks and a few nods between the staff. Whatever. The girl at the mall did a better job with his hair than those overpriced jerks.
“Yours isn’t all blue.” The bright blue and subtler aqua streaks fascinated him. “It looks like water.”
“Thanks. A friend does it. She’s pretty good with it.”
The tips were almost blonde. He shook his head and stifled a yawn. The wind rattled the windows. He glanced outside. “It’s really coming down now.”
“Wow, almost five inches already.” She stared out the window. “I’m glad I’m not still out in that. You could die out there.”
“Change your mind about staying?”
“I think so.” She shuddered and pulled his jacket around her. He hadn’t noticed she’d changed into it until now. It looked natural on her. Much more of a fit with her hair and attitude than it did on him anymore.
“Do you want the guest room or the couch? I’m not sure how warm the fireplace will keep you, but when I shut things down for the night, it will get cold quickly.”
She sighed. “There’s nothing moving tonight, is there?”
He shook his head. “Sorry. Nothing is going to go anywhere until it stops. You’d have to be insane to drive in this shit.”
“Don’t worry about it. I don’t have any place to be. I just…”
“What?”
“Well, this sounds stupid, but I feel bad I’m horning in on your birthday weekend. As odd as it seems to be holed up somewhere with all this good food and no one to share it with.”
“Well, if it eases your guilt, you can help me share breakfast tomorrow, and maybe lunch if the roads aren’t cleared.”
“No ulterior motives?”
“It’s better than spending my birthday alone.”
“But I’m a stranger.”
“So is my girlfriend.”
“Ah, that’s who was supposed to share this with you. Why…I mean…never mind, it’s none of my business.”
Chris took a long time to answer. “She wanted to be in New York City instead of here.”
Alexis stared at him. “She dumped you on your birthday?” Her voice had a small edge of anger.
“Not dumped, technically. Just stranded, I guess.”
“Join the club. What happened?”
He hit the highlights of the day before asking, “And how did you get stranded?”
“Ah, it started with a fire-breathing dragon and ended with an epic battle. I was victorious but left adrift in my solo triumph. It went down like this…” The story expanded and was embellished by her showmanship. She made huge circles with her arms and bowed at the very end.
He couldn’t help it. Her grandiose lie struck him as hilarious. The edges of his eyes had tears and he was hard-pressed to stop, but he finally managed. “Was I supposed to laugh?” he wheezed.
“Yes. Thank you.” She beamed, but there was something shadowed in her eyes.
“You going to be okay?”
She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”
Chapter 3 — Whitehead
Longport, NJ
Conrad Whitehead struggled to tie down the small yacht. The storm had made it next to impossible to navigate into the marina and the dock was slick. But he knew this place. His own slip, well, the one he used to own, was less than a half-mile away. The houses here were a mixture of privately owned and corporate rentals. Nearer to the horn, it was all private, and once was his playground. He was a mogul. He owned this area. Nothing was beyond his reach. But a single stupid snoop screwed it all up and he wasn’t that man anymore.
He missed it. The weekend getaways, the women, the money. The money was his biggest regret. He should have moved more of it to the Caymans. Then he wouldn’t be here in the middle of a storm, trying to sneak back into this upscale marina so he could access the pool of money he was entitled to as boss of Atlantic City.
Life on the lam sounded good. It was, at first. He no longer had to report to a day job to look legitimate on paper. The boat he used was his home. But it was lonely, and there were just so many illiterate island girls you can fuck before it becomes boring. He missed the money and the power, and the class.
A shadowy figure waited in the blowing snow. There was a truck idling nearby with another man in it.
“You’re late. I froze my ass off waiting for you.”
“It wasn’t easy getting here. The current and storm kept trying to force me offshore.”
The man walked into the meager light of the little lamps on the dock. Those lamps had been out for hours. Without them, Whitehead wouldn’t have tried making the landing. He had state of the art instruments on-board but landing a craft in the dark is asking to lose everything. Since the boat was near the last of his possessions, he wasn’t going to squander it on the fickle sand of the Atlantic coast. Deal or not, it didn’t matter if he followed through on this if he was dead. Conrad Whitehead needed to stay alive long enough to be back on top again. If this was what it took, he did it. He didn’t have to enjoy it, though, or be stupid about it. Bosses are never stupid.
“It’s fucking cold out here,” he said.
“Then you should have worn a warmer coat.” The motorcycle jacket the man wore looked like it had seen better days more than a decade ago. Strangely, this wasn’t the typical jacket with lettering broadcasting status or the other symbols Whitehead expected to see on the coat. There was a small patch on the right side and a couple more on the sleeves. When he turned to signal the guy in the truck, the back was empty. Didn’t all bikers go around broadcasting their gang colors?
“It isn’t any of your business what the fuck I wear. You got the shipment?”
Whitehead did. He’d been reduced to running drugs for cash. “You got my hundred grand?”
“When I see your shit.”
“You know, with another two hundred grand, you wouldn’t have to deal with me. I could set you up with this guy who runs a good circle out of the Virgin Islands. I know you don’t like me.”
“Fuck off. This is the way the big man wants it. You fucked up, killing that snitch. You need to get back in his good graces.”
“I didn’t kill him, your guy did. And if anyone fucked up, it was him, dumping the body where it would be found and not searching it thoroughly first. I mean, how hard is it to find a fucking flash drive?” Whitehead fired back.
“You’re talking out of your ass. That site was goo
d for years. It was dealing with your shit and the fucking blackmail that put you and I in this position in the first place.”
Whitehead stiffened. “I never blackmailed anyone. If you don’t understand insurance policies, it’s not my fault.”
“Insurance, blackmail, kinky photos, whatever, makes no fucking difference. Where’s the shit?”
Whitehead sighed. He led the biker onto his boat. It was rocking violently and pulling at the moorings. Despite living as long as he had on the ocean, it was still trying to toss him into the walls every seventh wave. He braced against the galley and pulled up a recessed panel where he’d stored the shipment. There were five thousand strips of white pills, shrink-wrapped and packaged in small cardboard boxes for easy movement. The biker handed off each box to his associate, this one wearing a more sensible parka and face covering. He hid each box under the other contents of the truck and in fake side panels. When it was completely concealed, they pulled out the duffel bag.
“Let’s take this on-board, so I can count it out of the wind.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
The biker followed him. The boat rocked harder, throwing them both into the walls as they moved out of the wind.
Whitehead didn’t want to admit it, but having this guy behind him made him nervous, so he talked to cover it up. “Next shipment, you should consider taking me up on the offer I made. I make a much better manager than smuggler.”
“You done?”
Whitehead glared at the man behind him. “It wasn’t personal. It’s just good business. I never wanted it to blowback on you.”
The man pulled out a knife and stabbed him.
Whitehead gasped for air. The blood he was lying in was warm. The boat rocked and he slid into a colder patch. His murderer leaned over him and whispered in his ear.
“This wasn’t personal either. You never should have created your creepy insurance policy. That’s why he needed you to make this delivery. You should have known it was a set-up.”
The killer wiped off the knife, then he checked all Whitehead’s pockets for any incriminating details. The boat rocked him into the wall more than once while he was clearing the ship. When he was done, he untied the boat and let it drift away. The wind and current pulled it out quickly. It disappeared into the darkness.
When he put the duffel bag of money back into the truck, he noticed a smudge of blood on his jacket. He walked to a snowbank and rubbed it away. It wasn’t the first blood that had gotten on the coat.
Headlights swung into the marina parking lot. His driver motioned for him to get in. Instead, the killer stood his ground, going as far as to approach the car.
It was a police vehicle. He walked up to the car, hands out, phone in hand and lit up.
“Hey, can you tell us which way it is to the JFK Bridge? My phone isn’t working right. I thought maybe I’d get better reception out of the truck.”
“They closed it. You’re going to have to go up to Margate to cross.”
“That’s…” the killer pointed in the wrong direction.
“Naw.” The officer inside proceeded to give him directions. Police were so helpful until they weren’t.
Chapter 4 — Truth or Lies
The next morning
“Did you sleep well?” Chris was in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. It smelled divine. The jacket she’d worn for a while last night was draped over a chair.
Alexis stretched. “Very. It got toasty after a while so the extra blankets with the coat were overkill.” She patted the coat. “Thanks for letting me wear it. I hope I didn’t drool on it too much…Wait. Did the power come back on?” Her eyes opened wide.
“About four a.m. Good thing, too. The stove has an electronic pilot, so I’m not sure we would have had breakfast otherwise.”
“Excellent! What’s for breakfast, quiche or something fancy like that?”
“Just eggs and bacon.”
“Ah, the breakfast of the proletariat.”
Chris laughed. “That’s me.”
“Me too, I guess.”
“There’s coffee, too.” He pointed to the coffee maker.
Alexis made a sound of ecstasy and fixed herself a cup.
“Scrambled okay?”
“Perfect. Although I’m not one of those who have a preference, but certainly not Eggs Benedict,” she answered between sips.
“Let me guess, you watched Runaway Bride when you were little.”
Alexis feigned surprise. “OMG, you watched Runaway Bride?”
“My cousin, Lisa, was hooked on it, and almost everything else with ‘Bride’ in the title. I was forced to participate in her addiction whenever I had to watch her and Gio. Tony was supposed to help, but as soon as she dug out the DVDs, he’d disappear.” He shrugged. “But Gio liked them. He thought they were funny. Since I wasn’t paid to watch Tony, I had to stay and get tortured. Although I do a mean Inigo Montoya impression.”
“How many cousins do you have?”
“Too many, but my dad and his brother, Lisa’s dad, were close.”
“So Gio and Tony are your brothers?”
He was quiet. “Tony. Gio’s dead.”
“Oh.” She looked at her feet, feeling lost. It was odd, finding someone in her age group who had lost someone close to them. Sure, there were occasional mentions of this friend or that one who overdosed, or worse. She envied how casually others talked about the loss. However, the pain in his voice was just as real, maybe even more real than her own. “I apologize for asking. I didn’t want to remind you of…” She trailed off.
Chris looked at her. “You didn’t cause it.”
“If you need to talk, I worked as a bartender and can do a mean listen.”
He blinked, and a small, crooked smile quirked up for a second before falling back into a line. It almost triggered the dimple in his left cheek but was gone too soon. “It’s okay. God, it’s been over twenty years. I’m over twice as old as I was when it happened.” He shook his head. “You look like you understand a bit, though.”
“I’d tell you a huge lie about it, but the real story is just about as Shakespearean as you can get.”
“Murdered fathers and suicide?”
“Suicide. Evil fathers.”
The confession stopped him dead, mid-whisk. It was broken by the beep of the stove. Chris set down the bowl of eggs and checked on the bacon he’d put in the oven. “How do you like your bacon?”
“Still floppy in spots but crunchy.”
“Okay.” He pulled the tray out and covered it with paper towels. Then he got busy heating up the eggs.
“I suppose I should explain the real story to you before you go somewhere crazy with it.”
“Not great breakfast talk.”
“It’s not great talk, ever. Short story, my best friend committed suicide. I still blame her father for it.”
“Why’s that?” Although, in Chris’s experience, fathers could be blamed for a whole hell of a lot.
“He sent her through conversion therapy.”
“As in the brainwashing they do to make gays straight?”
“Got it in one.”
He was quiet.
“You don’t believe in that shit, do you?” she asked.
He shook his head quickly. “Not at all. I mean, you love who you love, you know? But…”
Alexis’s tone turned defensive. “But you think parents know best? Or you think kids might not know what they feel?”
“No, not anything like that. I was thinking about my own asshole father and his bullshit.”
“And?”
“And, I can see how easy it would be to get steamrolled by someone who has a screwed-up value system.”
“That sounds like the voice of experience.”
Alexis waited to see what else he’d say. He changed subjects when it came to his past almost as much as she did. But he seemed to be dealing with his better.
“So, was she your girlfriend or something?” he asked.
“Best friend. I knew since we were like ten or so that she was gay. We were planning our futures. She wanted to marry someone like me, but with curly hair and much sweeter. I was too much of a flight risk, she said.”
“When did she die?”
“A week after her seventeenth birthday. Two months after she got shoved back into the closet.” Alexis wanted to add more about the pain she’d felt, but that was her issue, not her friend’s. Barb had pushed her away, claiming she wasn’t a good friend by accepting ‘sinful’ thinking. She’d died early on a Sunday morning. She’d gone to prom, with a boy, while Alexis had stayed home in ill-timed protest. Chris didn’t need to know she blamed herself almost as much as she blamed Barb’s father. If only she’d gone to prom and been a proper wingman for her friend, maybe things would have turned out differently.
“What future did you plan for yourself?”
Alexis was grateful he changed the subject. “I wanted to be a rock star and be adored by the baddest of the bad boys. I’d use and abuse him, then dump his ass for a stockbroker or movie mogul who’d croak and leave me his fortune. Then I’d spend it traveling the world, adopting and molding little, future rock stars. After that, I’d come back home, where Barb and her curly-haired wife lived, and buy them a cute chalet in the mountains. We’d let all the kids run wild with the wolves and they’d grow up to be whatever they wanted to be. What about you? What did you want to be when you were a kid?”
His face fell. “I wanted to be a biker like my father.”
She had to fill the silence somehow, so she grasped at any thread she could. “Are you better off not doing that now?”
It did the trick. The dimple got deep. “Much better off. I got everything I didn’t know I wanted. Now I make custom signs. It’s challenging, fun, a bit dangerous, and pays well. You hang out with the uber-rich and they need your expertise. It’s good. Especially when you’re the boss, and the best part is I can write off the schmoozing as business expenses. It puts food on the table, literally.”