by Alan Lee
“Your bill has been paid, sir,” she said.
“The heck you say.”
“By the nice couple who left recently. They said you two needed some extra love tonight, whatever that means, sir.”
Ronnie buried her face into my shoulder and made a whimpering sound.
“Very good.” I pressed a few big bills into the server’s hand and moved towards the door.
Fat Susie joined us.
“Where we going,” he said.
“My spare bedroom,” I think.
“She drunk?”
“No! No’m fine.”
“More like sodden,” I said.
“What’s the difference?” asked Fat Susie.
“Sodden makes you sound erudite.”
We got Ronnie outside, where she threw up.
24
Friday morning bright and early I pulled into the miniature mountain range that was the macadam parking lot of Western Virginia Regional Jail.
I checked my gun, said hello to the same unhappy guards, and sat in the odoriferous conference room.
Grady Huff soon shuffled in, dressed in a fashionable orange jumpsuit and the season’s hottest cuffs.
“I figured out who you remind me of,” I said. “Did you ever see Toy Story 2? Remember the toy collector, the guy with glasses and goatee?”
“Shut up, fatty. Where’s Candice?” said Grady Huff.
“Too busy to be bothered, trying to save your ass. I’m meeting her for lunch, though, and I’ll convey your warmest salutations.”
“I got an idea. Put me on the stand. I’ll tell my story to those poor saps and be scot free.”
“But you said,” I reminded him, “that jurors would hate you because you’re rich.”
“Whatever, fatty.”
“Want to hear updates about our efforts to keep you from hanging by your neck until dead?” I said.
“What I want is a girl. Bring me some ass.”
I sighed, world-weary ronin that I was.
“Let’s talk Juanita Yates.”
He sagged a little. “The cleaning lady. Who cares about her.”
“You did.”
“Did not.”
“Would it surprise you to learn Juanita Yates wasn’t her real name?”
His eyebrows lifted and for the first time he looked directly at me.
He was surprised. I knew it. Mackenzie August, master sleuth.
“So,” he said. “I don’t care.”
“Did you know she was intimate with her other clients?”
“Intimate.”
“To use your phrase,” I said. “Screwing.”
“No she wasn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t. I don’t know, fatty. And I don’t care.”
“It would behoove you to admit you and Juanita were romantic,” I said.
“We weren’t…romantic. I was being kind to her. The stupid Mexican whore.”
“Admit the dalliance to the prosecution and it might lessen your sentence,” I said.
“Fuck you, Matt.”
“Mackenzie.”
“Whatever, both of you. Nothing happened between us,” he said, issuing spittle.
“Prove it.”
“Prove what?”
“Prove there was nothing romantic between you two.”
“How,” he said.
“Provide me with your Facebook password.”
He leaned backwards in his chair. Visibly surprised. “Why?”
“You two communicated that way, I’m guessing.”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No we didn’t,” he said.
“Prove it, with your password.”
“No.”
“This is a fun game. Why not?”
“Because,” he said. “Because…that’s how I communicate with all my friends. And they share important secrets that you can’t see. Because you’re poor.”
“You idiot,” I said. “You’re paying me a fortune. Let me help you.”
“Figure out another way, fatty.”
“What the hell happened on that dock, Grady? Why’d you shoot her?”
“I killed her,” he said and he looked as though proud of it. “I killed Juanita. That’s her real name, I’m sure of it. I shot Juanita with the wild west gun. Because that’s what guys like me and my friends do.”
“You don’t have any friends, Grady.”
“Hah, shows what you know, fatty. Why else would I be in here?”
I was struck with a realization as I watched him gloat, sailing cleanly past logic and reason. It was a realization I should have reached earlier.
Grady Huff liked being in prison. The incarceration and the upcoming trial and its insinuations filled him with self-importance. He felt like he was someone to be reckoned with, perhaps for the first time in his life. He felt like the friends he didn’t have were gossiping about him with overtones of approval.
“Oh crud,” I said.
“What?”
“My client is an ignoramus so broken he doesn’t even desire fixing.”
He frowned. “What? Who’s your client?”
“Never mind.”
Later that morning I parked in the Wells Fargo tower on the third deck and checked my phone.
Ronnie had texted.
>> I am mortified. And I feel like death.
>> I remember very little from last night.
>> I was shocked to wake up in your guest bed, and you already gone.
>> Please don’t hold it against me. We’ll have another first date. It’ll be perfect. And I will be a princess.
I grinned and replied.
Don’t feel bad. I had a good time. You were fun, including the upheaval.
Besides, I had to get you into bed. Which included removing your lovely red dress. And I witnessed your new lingerie.
I’m still glowing.
>> You’re sweet.
>> I’ll make it up to you.
>> Twice.
>> One of these days.
>> Sigh.
>> Talk soon. I’m racing for Va Beach.
Before getting out of the car I took a moment to luxuriate in the memory of her tiny lingerie. It had been a sight so powerful I already had nostalgia.
Lesser men would have cried.
Not Mackenzie August. I merely took the coldest shower of my life.
My basking over, I boarded the elevator to the fifteenth floor. A senior engineer named Joel Stevens met me at the doors of AECOM and gave me a brisk handshake. He had a gosh darn pocket protector, though otherwise Joel appeared to be a competent man in full. Decent head of brown hair, wireframe glasses, strong jaw.
We went to his office, which was more like a glorified cubicle. The carpet was a thin blue weave, and out his window I could see most of southern Roanoke, including Mill Mountain Star.
“Great view,” I said. “Our city is darling.”
“Star city of the south.”
He played jazz on his Bose speaker and set his chair close to mine.
“I am dismayed,” I said. “I don’t see a drafting table or protractor. No blue prints. Aren’t you an engineer?”
He grinned and nodded towards the three computer monitors. “I haven’t used a drafting table since college. Everything is digital. Instead of a protractor I use AutoCAD and SAFE and Navisworks.”
“Sometimes I feel like Rip Van Winkle,” I said. “We’re living in the future.”
“Times change so fast, these state of the art programs are already out of date. So, Alvin Bradley called me and said I should meet with you.”
“Alvin Bradley, the friendly neighborhood Miller salesman. Did he tell you why?”
“I have a guess,” said Joel.
“Questions about Carlotta.”
He nodded. Shifted uncomfortably. Reached to the Bose speaker and turned it up another notch, and scooted his chair closer to mine. “It is imperative this conversation be disc
reet.”
“Understood. Nothing will leave the cubicle without your permission.”
“I had an affair with Carlotta,” said Joel.
“Wow, you don’t beat around the bush.”
“I’m a busy man. Beating around the bush is superfluous. And Alvin said I can trust you. I’ve known him for twenty years,” he said.
“Carlotta is dead.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nuh uh.”
“How about that,” said Joel. He had the look of a man discovering he’d gotten the answer wrong on a complex math problem. “Alvin didn’t tell me.”
“Her killer confessed and he’s in jail.”
He tugged at his ear. “Sorry, you caught me by surprise. I’m a little speechless.”
“I’m trying to figure out what happened. The killer will be in jail a long time, no matter what. But I suspect it wasn’t an unprovoked homicide,” I said.
“What is it you do for a living? Police detective?”
“Private.”
“You’re massive,” he said. I received the impression he wanted to weigh and measure me.
“Very astute, Joel.”
“I have a theory about Carlotta. I might be way off, but it’s an educated guess.”
“I’m all ears. My guesses are uneducated and ignorant.”
“Perhaps the killer didn’t want to be extorted,” he said.
“Extorted,” I repeated.
“Carlotta was extorting me. Two thousand dollars a month.”
“Two thousand,” I whistled. A clue! I loved those. “She threatened to reveal the affair?”
“Correct,” said Joel. He was leaning towards me, our faces less than a foot apart, and talking in a hushed tone. “Carlotta cleaned my home for several months. She became sexually forthright. I complied. It went on a while and we both agreed it was purely recreational. Eventually I got engaged to another woman, my wife now, who wanted to wait until marriage for sex. She’s sweet but she’s a puritan. Carlotta told me she would never reveal the evidence of our tryst if I paid her two grand a month for one year.”
“Could she prove the tryst?”
“She could. Unbeknownst to me, her brother filmed us skinny dipping. I don’t know what I was thinking, very out of character for me. I lead a buttoned-up life. It was her idea. Anyway. I make decent money and didn’t want to horrify my fiancée, who is now my wife, and I figured it was a good investment.”
“Were Carlotta’s sexual services the reason you recommended her to Alvin?”
“No. I didn’t recommend her, per se. He came over once while she was there, saw her, and hired her on the spot. Carlotta is exceptionally pretty. Was pretty, I mean. And keep in mind, I wasn’t married or engaged when the tryst began. I thought we were just having some innocent fun.”
“Not so innocent.”
“No. How long ago was she murdered?”
“Approximately nine months,” I said.
“Damn. I wasted eighteen thousand. But I suppose her brothers might demand payment anyway.”
“Her two brothers. I heard about them,” I said.
“Nasty guys. Came here, to my office, the one time I was late on payment.”
“Deals with the devil are not without consequence,” I said.
“You bet. You’ll get no self-pity from me. I reaped what I sowed. So we can keep all this between us?”
“Absolutely.”
“Have I helped?” asked Joel.
“I’d like to meet these brothers.”
“Yeah?”
“Would you consider ceasing the blackmail payments and calling me if they show their faces?” I said.
“It would be my pleasure, Mr. August.”
Back in the parking lot I walked and I whistled.
I was learning things. Divining germane actualities.
Juanita/Carlotta’s primary business wasn’t cleaning houses, it was extortion. She carefully selected lonely and potentially stupid men, seduced them, and then began the bargaining process. You give me money and I’ll shut up. If her clients wouldn’t see reason, she’d call in her brothers. And possibly play the video tape.
She’d only started cleaning George’s house, the guy at the lake with the tan who drank White Russians in the morning. She hadn’t begun the seduction process with him yet, though he did think she had an ass like a butterball ham.
She’d seduced Alvin and gotten to the skinny dipping phase but then Sally caught them, ruining her bargaining power. Carlotta even called in the brothers, but to no effect because Sally had already thrown him out and Alvin had an army of big friends at the warehouse.
She’d seduced Joel and successfully extorted him.
She’d seduced Grady Huff and gotten shot.
I was closer to the truth but still hadn’t arrived. Grady Huff would never shoot Juanita/Carlotta to avoid blackmail. One thing he had in spades was expendable income. If she had threatened to expose their sexual congress then I bet Grady would have made her an even better offer—let’s keep screwing and I’ll pay you a fortune. Because one thing he didn’t have was affection and companionship. If Juanita/Carlotta had been after money then Grady was a gold mine.
He’d shot her for a different reason—not money. I was still walking in the dark but now possibly facing the right direction.
I still didn’t know what happened on that dock.
But…did I need to? I only needed enough to make Darren Robbins and the prosecution flinch.
How did I do that? Grady refused to talk. The dummy liked jail. I had essentially promised Joel and Alvin that I wouldn’t drag their dirty laundry into the light. They’d never consent to testimony on trial under oath.
Either way, Candice Hamilton would be pleased. And I liked it when she was pleased.
I neared my car.
A black sedan on my right roared to life. The lights flared and tires squealed, loud in the enclosed parking deck. The sedan surged forward to squash me.
I jumped in time to prevent the front bumper from destroying my knees.I landed hard on the hood and rolled up the windshield.
As I flailed helplessly like a idiot, I realized I’d seen this black sedan before. It had followed me from Claytor Lake.
Darren Robbins’s goons?
I hit the deck. Sometimes being tall and wide just meant it hurt when you fell over.
The black sedan clipped the rear bumper of a Porsche Boxster and stopped, fifteen feet away. I came up with my Kimber 1911 out of the clip at my side. Stayed in a kneeling position and took aim.
The black sedan’s brake lights ignited. The passenger door opened and a man started to emerge. I thumbed off the safety and squeezed. The Kimber kicked and popped.
I missed—blasted the interior handle of the door instead.
The guy yelled something, ducked back inside and the sedan lurched forward again. I fired another round, punching a hole in the rear windshield. Ineffective.
The black sedan squealed around the corner, quickly retreating down the parking deck. It had no rear plates, removed for the express purpose of stymieing my vast intelligence.
I climbed to my feet. Considered chasing. But by the time I got my keys out, slid behind the wheel, fired up the Honda and got it pointed in the right direction, they’d be home free.
“Not cool, Darren Robbins,” I said, examining the hole I’d ripped in my jeans.
25
Finally, at nine on Saturday night, I got Kix to sleep. Though he had nearly killed me via tantrum.
Dad! he screamed. What the HECK are you doing? You know I HATE sleeping. We should PARTY! I’m SO mad.
A little frazzled, I went to the fridge for a beer.
Timothy August was in the kitchen at the small breakfast nook table, sitting in the dark. Bifocals perched on his nose, scanning the news on his iPad.
“Your meeting is tonight?”
“Yes sir,” I said, twisting the top off a Yuengling.
“And you’ll come ho
me from it?”
“I’m gonna try.”
He leaned backwards in his chair and let out a breath through his nose. Took off the bifocals and squeezed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “You know I hate this.”
“I know.”
“This is hard for a father,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
“You have to do it?”
I sat across from him and set the drink down. “I do. I think I’m paying the price for a lifetime of accumulating questionable decision-making. Joining the LAPD. Becoming a violent man. Working homicide. Letting the violence have some authority in my life a few years. Moving here and trying to clean up. Making the conscious decision to pursue justice and mercy, even if it cost me. Getting involved with Ronnie. Refusing to get uninvolved with Ronnie. Making myself a target. It kinda all adds up to tonight. A contest of wills with other men like me to determine who gets to stay and who has to go.”
“The danger you’re in is extreme.”
“But it’s even worse for Ronnie,” I said.
“Why can’t you tell Stackhouse where this meeting is? Let her go in with a SWAT team and arrest everyone.”
“They’d kill her. If not tonight then very soon. And besides, I got myself into this mess,” I said and I drained most of the Yuengling.
Cheap but delicious. Like me.
“Have you considered the option of taking Ronnie and Kix and starting a new life somewhere else?”
“Same answer. I got myself into this mess. And at some point, you have to answer the question—who am I? And if I run then I don’t know,” I said.
The silence of the house sounded more profound than usual, residing between our words.
“I don’t want to raise Kix alone,” he said.
“I know.”
“He will need his father. His future is worth more than a temporary show of pride this evening.”
“If I thought the odds were too heavily stacked against me, I wouldn’t go. This is a calculated risk and I think it’ll work,” I said.
“I’m still nervous.”
“Makes two of us.”
I parked downtown in a lot open to the public on the weekends, near the poker room. A handful of romantic couples were wandering past on the sidewalk, heading to the live music and dancing near the market.