When I came down out of Tiffany’s trailer around noon, I could see that the fight scene over at the diner’s gas pumps-maybe a hundred yards away-was still shooting. The lights, reflectors and camera had all moved considerably, but it was the same fight.
What had I learned this morning? Movie-making was fucking slow. That was one thing. Nick Varnos was not on set posing as an onlooker or infiltrating the crew or pretending to be a Teamster. That was another. Mobster Louis Licata definitely had a more than casual involvement with Tiffany Goodwin. And that was about it.
Still standing there at the bottom of the little Winnebago steps, I had just decided to head over to my car and not waste any more time here, when I realized I’d left out a group when I was considering where Nick Varnos wasn’t.
He wasn’t pretending to be an aging biker.
These guys weren’t pretending either, but their fierce expressions were so ridiculous they might as well have been. They were clinking over my way-the chains and other metal doodads on their black leathers and boots made a little gypsy dance noise-having been…well, somewhere. Walking the periphery performing their idea of security. Ginger was better at it.
They deposited themselves on either side of me, coming to a jingling stop. Both six footers easy, not towering over me, but good-size.
The one on my left, in your regulation black leather jacket, had a bandana over what I would bet was thinning reddish-blond hair; he had a scraggly reddish beard, a bulbous vein-shot nose, tiny dark blue eyes hiding in pouches, and a pale complexion, meaning he spent more time in bars playing at biker than actually riding in the sunshine. Other than a beer belly, he wasn’t fat, exactly, more like beefy.
The one at my left, bony in a black-leather vest, had long greasy salt-and-pepper hair ponytailed back and little black shark eyes that went just fine with a tobacco-stained wolfish grin. Skinny, even skeletal, with a Fu Manchu beard and dark-lensed granny glasses and a gold earring, he smelled like beer. No. He smelled like beer puke.
So the scarecrow was grinning at me, and the beefy bandana fucker was glowering at me. It was the worst rendition of the classic tragedy and comedy masks ever.
“Hi fellas,” I said, wondering which would turn out to be the leader. Traditionally it would be the guy on the right, but I didn’t see much going on in the bandana boy’s bleary blues. So I was betting on the one at my left.
And I was right, because it was the scarecrow who first spoke: “What the fuck you doin’, man?”
“Just standing here. Why?”
Bandana boy said, “What the fuck you doin’ in Miss Goodwin’s trailer, asshole?”
Scarecrow said, “You was in there forty-five minutes, man. That’s a loooong fuckin’ time, man.”
Making no sudden moves, I edged forward and turned, so that I was facing them. No, I was not preparing to execute a Billy Jack karate kick. I was just tired of swinging my head left and right to talk to these dipshits.
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
Bandana boy was frowning stupidly. This conversation had taken a bizarre and unexpected turn, as he saw it. “There could be! There could be… ass — hole!”
“Easy, Juke,” the scarecrow said, patting the air with a leather riding gloved hand. “Be polite. We ain’t heard his explanation yet.”
“Okay, Skull, okay-but I don’t like his fuckin’ face.”
I’m afraid I laughed. “Skull,” as a biker nickname, had been so on the nose, it made me smile. And now Juke-as Skull’s bandana-sporting compadre was apparently known-was bitching about other people’s faces. I mean.
Skull’s eyes popped-even so, they still were pretty small-and he got right in my face, the wolfish yellow teeth exposed but no longer smiling. He was shaking, like a Hell’s Angel version of Barney Fife. Maybe a touch scarier.
“Okay, laughing boy-you explain yourself or we stop askin’ and start walin’. ”
Waling? Really?
I just looked at him and he backed away and crossed his skinny tattooed arms and jutted his pointy chin.
I summoned as genuine a smile as I could muster. “What’s the problem here, gents? I assume you’re security. I’m Jack Reynolds, unit publicist. Just started today. You can check with any P.A. I’m supposed to grab interviews with the stars for publicity purposes. What was I doing in Miss Goodwin’s trailer? I have been interviewing her. What do you think I was doing? Getting blown?”
They both stood there with slitty eyes, processing that for maybe ten seconds. Naturally the scarecrow’s circuits cleared first, and he said, “You’re a PR guy?”
“Right.”
He took a deep breath, let it out, reassembled himself and his dignity. “Okay. Well. See, we been told to make sure nobody bothers Miss Goodwin.”
“Particularly men,” bandana boy put in.
“I wasn’t bothering her,” I said. “Who are you working for-Mr. Licata?”
They glanced at each other, obviously disturbed that I possessed that information. Even the smarter one wasn’t sure how to respond.
So I saved them the trouble: “Listen, guys, where Miss Goodwin is concerned, I’m no threat to Mr. Licata or anybody else. I’m one of those show biz types you hear about-boys who like boys?”
Bandana boy blurted, “You’re a fuckin’ queer?”
His partner slapped his arm. “Be nice.”
I wondered who they were in their daily lives, when they weren’t out playing road-company Bowery Boys. Nobody was a biker for a living, and they sure didn’t do security work as a fulltime gig. Being an eternal juvie in a biker gang did not pay well, unless they were running dope or something. Which I supposed was possible. Might be the Licata connection at that.
The scarecrow hauled his pal off by the arm, the guy taking it but not liking it, and called back, “Sorry, man! You’re cool. We’re cool…”
I was just standing there, chuckling to myself, when I realized somebody else was standing next to me.
Eric Conrad.
He was so handsome close up, he might have been his own exhibit in a Hollywood Wax Museum-chiseled features, cleft jaw, roman nose, bright brown eyes.
Short, though-I’d give it five seven at best. Close up, that bronze tan had the telltale touch of orange that meant the sun hadn’t had anything thing to do with it. He was in a black dressing gown belted at the waist.
“So you’re Jack Reynolds,” he said.
His voice had that radio-announcer mellowness lots of leading men possess.
“Yeah,” I said. “Did Art mention me? That I’d like to interview you for PR purposes?”
“No, Ginger alerted me you were on set.” He nodded over toward where they were still prepping the next angle on the fight. “Man, I wish they’d let me do my own stunts. Back on my series, the first year, I did all of them. Then I pulled a hamstring and they went ballistic. The star goes down, the whole company goes down.” He shrugged fatalistically. “ C’est la vie.”
I nodded toward the two bikers who were stalking along the highway now, trying to look important. “Did you see those jackasses?”
“Yeah. I was in my trailer. I heard it all. I’d have come out and kicked ass if you’d got in a scrape. I liked how you handled those idiots.” He put a hand on my shoulder and gave me half a dazzling grin. “You weren’t afraid at all.”
“No,” I admitted.
He shook his head, smirked over toward the gas-pump sequence about to start shooting again. “That’s one of my big action scenes and I’m barely in it. It’s a crock…I’ll be free for at least an hour. Want to grab that interview?”
“Sure,” I said. “Not an interview, really, just want to get to know you a little. Strictly prelim. I won’t take notes or anything.”
The interior of his Winnebago was near the twin of Tiffany’s-her sofas and comfy chair had been green upholstered, his were brown, though the pattern was the same. I took the comfy chair and he settled on the couch. When he crossed his legs, there was a flash of pubic hair and dick, and I experienced the worst case of dйjа vu ever.
“Where should I start?” he asked. “I grew up on the east coast. My dad was a cop. Three brothers. We are big jocks-well, I’m not tall big, but I was a wrestler. Got a full ride scholarship at…”
But I had stopped listening. Just going through the motions. I did not see any way Eric Conrad played a meaningful role in the murder plot against his director. He was not Tiffany Goodwin’s lover, unless he was bisexual. Because, as my old man used to say, this guy was queer as a three-dollar bill.
Eric talked about himself for five minutes straight, or anyway for five minutes, and his eyes were all over my face like a teenage boy’s fingers under his date’s sweater. When he’d got past his acting classes and early film and TV roles, and up to landing his series, I raised a hand.
“This is great stuff,” I said, “good background. We’ll schedule a full interview and I’ll take notes.”
He said, “Fine,” and stood, and dropped the robe.
He was fully erect. And in this physical aspect, he was not short.
“I heard you tell those clowns you were gay,” he said. “That took strength. You don’t know how I wish I could be more open…Just tell me how you like it, Jack.” He gave me the other half of the dazzling grin. “I’m more versatile an actor than you might think-I can catch, I can pitch. You want me on my knees? I’m on my knees…”
I don’t know exactly what I said next. It had something to do with thanking him (thanking him!) but insisting that I needed to maintain professional boundaries, and anyway, I was in a serious relationship with a wonderful guy (wonderful guy!) and he told me if I changed my mind and wanted to see him that he was staying at the Four Jacks and somehow I got out of there.
And down the steps and walked briskly to my car.
Well, that was one more thing I could add to my list of things I’d learned on the Hard Wheels 2 shoot.
Getting blow job action on a B-movie set did not seem to be that tricky.
I had two problems.
First, I didn’t really have a fix on Nick Varnos. Yes, I knew Nick Varnos was checked in at the Spur, but I didn’t know under what name.
Second, if Varnos followed the usual pattern, for a Broker-bred hit team anyway, the kill would go down either today or tomorrow. Generally within forty-eight hours after the back-up man’s work had been done. And Jerry’s work was done, all right.
After several hours on location, I had pretty much ruled out the film set for where the accident would go down. Despite the wealth of ways a fatal accident could occur on set, there’d been no sign of Varnos there. If he’d planned to infiltrate, as I had, he probably would have done it by now. Still possible, but my gut said no.
After all, Nick Varnos had checked into the Spur, where his target was staying. Why? It’s generally risky to maintain that close a proximity to the mark… unless that proximity is key to how you are planning to take that mark out.
It seemed likely that Varnos would provide the director with an accidental death at the hotel. And that it would almost certainly go down in Stockwell’s hotel room. That gave me an odd, unexpected twinge, knowing Joni was possibly at risk as well. An accident that befell Stockwell- a fire in the room, say-would take her out, too.
Joni was a definite factor in this-that she was bunking in with her hubby on this trip meant that if the kill indeed was scheduled to occur in the motel room itself, it would either have to happen when she was away…did she swim every night? (hadn’t been in Jerry’s notes)…or that she would indeed be collateral damage.
Did I care?
Varnos wouldn’t. Generally collateral damage is frowned upon in the murder business, but sometimes it could make a hit seem more like an accident. Less focused. Also, Varnos was a free agent, wasn’t working through a broker. He might not give a shit who got hurt. Not everybody has scruples.
Anyway, trying to avoid Joni as collateral damage really would limit the accidental death options. How did you fake a guy slipping in the bathroom and cracking open his head on the edge of the toilet bowl with his wife in the room? Or tumbling off his balcony, or getting electrocuted in the tub, or going out a suicide?
But what if Joni herself was behind the contract? What if she was an active participant here? Had hired Varnos directly and was abetting him? I’d already established that Nick and Jerry varied from the standard procedures the Broker had laid down.
With Joni onboard as a collaborator, setting up an accidental death in a hotel room would be a snap.
So I had a lot to think about.
Before driving out to the set this morning, I’d gone down to the Spur’s restaurant for breakfast. I’d been up quite early, despite my long day previous, and had started off with a swim.
Swimming relaxes me. It was my sport as a kid and it’s been my salvation as a grown-up. Helps me think, if that’s what I need. Helps me not think, if that is.
My early morning swim had been as solitary as Joni’s the night before. And swimming in that desert clime is special. It has an entirely different flavor-no humidity gives it at once a crisp reality and a dream-like quality.
During the swim, I had decided there was no reason to go out to the set immediately. That my time initially would be better spent sitting in the restaurant, hoping that Nick Varnos would come down for breakfast and that I could then tail him, and get this thing over with.
Even that was dodgy, though-what if I tailed him, and got him off somewhere and disposed of him… when he’d already put the accident in motion? If he’d rigged something to take Stockwell out, killing Varnos without a conversation first would be a bad idea.
This was fairly distasteful, because I am no fucking sadist. Cutting off somebody’s fingers or shooting them in the kneecap, trying to make them talk, it’s messy and it’s inefficient. And you have to keep them alive, in case the first thing they tell you isn’t true, requiring you to go back and cut off another finger or shoot another kneecap or something.
Torture is a whole different arena. Requires training that I never got. You never know when somebody is going to pass out or even die on you. And then where are you?
On the other hand, part of what I liked about using the Broker’s list to find, and protect, clients was the improvisational, on-the-fly, think-on-your feet nature of it. You can get numb in my line of work, and living alone like I do can sort of lull you into a waking sleep. This work was lively. It had a nice edge. Made me feel alive.
Anyway, I had breakfast and several glasses of iced tea and read various newspapers, sitting in a booth situated to see the rest of the modern-looking restaurant, another example of the Spur not bothering with much if any western-style trappings. A couple of framed desert landscapes was all that separated this from a Ramada Inn in Who Farted, West Virginia.
By nine-thirty, Varnos hadn’t shown, and I went out to the film set for a couple of hours. I’ve told you about that. What I haven’t told you is that when I got back to the Spur, the first thing I did was return to that same restaurant for lunch.
Not that the breakfast had been so fabulous that I felt compelled to come back for more; but on the off chance that somebody like Nick, staying in the motel, might just be lazy enough to take lunch there.
Of course, even so, it was a quarter to one and he may well have already eaten. I’d have to get lucky again.
And I was.
He was just sitting down to a table when I was ushered to a booth.
Nick Varnos was a small man, almost as small as Eric Conrad. He was pale and he had dark, dark eyes, dark eyebrows, medium-length well-barbered dark hair with long sideburns and a Tom Selleck mustache. He wore a gray button-down short-sleeve shirt, no sport coat, and a tie with Necco Wafer-colored stripes. His slacks were a darker, dirty gray, very stylish, his belt western-looking. It was an odd combo of casual and dressy.
He ate light-soup and salad.
I ate even lighter, just soup (a hearty chili, though), because I’d put away a good breakfast on my earlier restaurant stakeout.
The guy seemed quite composed. Cool. He was pleasant with the waitress, who was cute enough for flirting, but he didn’t flirt. He was in a good mood, apparently, but selfcontained.
After lunch, I followed him to his room and discovered he was not only on the same floor as Stockwell and me, but the same wing-in 319. Same side of the hall as Stockwell, too, but not next door (the director was in 313, you’ll remember, and I was in 316).
In my room, I pulled up a chair, cracked the door and sat and monitored Stockwell’s room across the way. It seemed endless, but was only maybe an hour, because around three o’clock, Varnos left his room and went down to the lobby. Then he went to the parking lot and got into the blue Buick Century he’d bought specifically for this job.
I followed him in my Nova into downtown Boot Heel. He parked in the Four Jacks lot. So did I. He went into the Four Jacks casino. So did I. He gambled for an hour or so. So did I.
Varnos was a real gambler, though-he played blackjack and roulette, and routinely bet fifty or more dollars. I was strictly a poker-machine amateur, never more than a buck a throw, but I was always able to find a machine in nice view of what Varnos was up to.
Around five, Varnos left the casino, going out one of the half-dozen doors onto Main Street. He walked two blocks to a movie theater that had four films playing: The Gong Show Movie; The Empire Strikes Back; The Shining; and The Long Riders. He bought a ticket for The Long Riders, a western. So did I. He bought no food. I did-Christ, what’s the point, without popcorn and a Coke? This, and that healthy lunch, he was starting to irritate my ass.
Having him in that movie theater, which was underattended (people didn’t go to a casino town like Boot Heel to go to the movies, and anyway this was a five-fifteen show), did provide a potential opportunity to remove him. I had my nine millimeter in my waistband, noise suppressor in my sportcoat pocket. I also had a retractable knife, a stiletto, which I didn’t love using, but there were appropriate times and places for the thing…
But again-what if something was rigged already to take Stockwell out in his room?
I considered putting the gun in Nick’s back on the way out of the theater, after the movie was over, and walking him somewhere for a talk and a bullet; but the lobby was full-it was a Friday night, which kicked the shit out of my nobody-goes-to-the-movies-in-a-casino-town theory.
So I wound up just following him again.
Back to the Four Jacks. It would be just my luck if I ran into Eric Conrad, with him thinking I’d had a change of heart. Or hard. But I didn’t.
Anyway, Varnos gambled another hour. He had lost this afternoon, but this time he cashed in way more chips than he’d bought. He played nothing but blackjack, and seemed to have a nice rapport with a pretty brunette dealer.
Around nine he went out into the parking lot and smoked a cigarette, standing by his Buick. So he wasn’t a complete health nut, then. Fifteen minutes or so passed, and the little brunette dealer came running out and took his hand. Apparently he’d hit it off with her and she was off work, and they got in the Buick and drove back to the Spur.
Here’s when I started to get really pissed at this guy: he takes her to the Spur for a romantic late supper. All the decent places to eat in a casino town like this, and he makes it so that I have to eat in that same boring hotel restaurant again.
They talk quietly. She does most of the talking. First date, but this woman is in her mid-thirties (Varnos is maybe forty) and, like a lot of Boot Heel gals, this is not her first time at the rodeo. He buys her lobster and has a chef’s salad himself, fucking rabbit. I eat a rare filet that is not terrible with a baked potato that also isn’t bad.
By ten he has taken her up to his room.
Back in my room, I try to dope it out. Is this what it seems to be on the face of it? Has Varnos just had a day off, gambling, movies, dining, picking up a babe for the night? Maybe relaxing before the big day tomorrow when he does his thing, and then hits the road?
Or is he setting up an alibi with some local girl, just in case he needs it?
Or has he already rigged that room for a kill?
I went across the hall to Stockwell’s room and knocked. It was ten-thirty and maybe my client was back from the set. Or maybe Joni was. At this point, I’d settle for her. Shit! What an idiot I’d been, not asking the director for a key to his room-I really needed to get in there and look around.
No answer.
So he wasn’t back yet.
Or he was dead in there, having fallen for some trap that Varnos set.
Back in my room, I was frustrated, kicking things, since I wasn’t limber enough to kick myself. Maybe I could figure out a way to scam a room key off the girl at the desk. Maybe it would be that nice kid Tina down there again tonight.
I went out onto the balcony into a balmy desert breeze, to think about it, to come up with some way to con Stockwell’s room key out of whoever was on duty. I leaned against the railing, then backed off, remembering how Varnos liked to make balconies go bye-bye.
That was when I noticed the lovely woman in the bikini swimming below, a silhouette again in the under-lit pool.
I wore my sport coat down there. The night wasn’t cool enough to warrant it-the whisper of wind carried warmth-but I was taking the nine millimeter with me, in my waistband, and I didn’t want it showing.
She was swimming lengths, her long dark hair streaming free, her bikini tonight a red skimpy thing. I pulled up a deck chair and sat near the shallow end. Again it was past legal pool hours and we had no company. Few lights were on in the windows facing the courtyard-this was Friday night in Boot Heel. Nobody was in their hotel room.
She stood in the shallow to catch her breath, water lapping at her hips, the light from the pool’s floor highlighting the edges of her, but most of her in shadow. Then she noticed me and looked up. Eyes wide, the whites popping out of the darkness.
“Jack,” she said.
“You suggested we talk. We probably should.”
She pushed through the water, and it sloshed gently around her tan body. She leaned against the edge of the pool, just a tiny bit out of breath, face beautifully pearled. “Water’s nice, Jack. Cool but not cold. You still like to swim?”
“Yeah. But no beaches near where I live.”
“Where do you live?”
“Where it gets cold.”
She didn’t press for more. She gestured to the expanse of water. “Care to join me?”
“I already swam today.”
She smiled. “Don’t pout. Go on up and get your trunks and come back down.”
I stood. I unbuttoned the sport coat and took the gun out of my waistband. Her eyes grew large and she seemed to be trying to decide whether to be afraid or not. I wasn’t leveling it at her, but it was there.
“What are you doing, Jack?”
“Making a point.”
Part of me wanted her to think I’d come to kill her. The rest just wanted her to understand that she was in the middle of something serious. Really, deadly serious.
“Your husband is in trouble,” I said, “and I’m helping him.”
“Because of me?”
“For money.”
“Are you some kind of…security person now? Rent-a-cop? Bodyguard?”
“There’s no word for it. But it’s life or death.” I put the nine mil back in my waistband and buttoned the sport coat over it. “Still want me to join you?”
“Yes.”
“I show you a gun and you still want me to go get my swimsuit?”
“You had your chance to kill me, Jack, a long time ago.”
So I went up and got my suit.
We swam together, not racing, just doing lengths, easy, gliding freestyle under the sky with its slightly more generous slice of moon tonight and enough stars to matter.
In the shallow end, we sat on the edge of the pool together, dripping.
“That was pretty melodramatic,” she said. When I said nothing, she prompted me: “Before? The gun?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Why are you here?”
“There have been threats against your husband’s life. I’m looking into it.”
“So I was right about what you are.”
“Joni, what I do is way off the radar. Nothing near legal, understand?”
“More melodrama, Jack?”
“No. It’s real and it’s rough. That’s part of why I waved that gun at you.”
“You didn’t wave it at me. You pointed it down. I wasn’t scared.”
“Really? Because the other part of why I waved it was to scare you.”
“To get back at me?”
Yes.
“No,” I said. “Just warning you about what you’re in the middle of. Watch yourself. Don’t trust anybody you don’t know. And maybe some you do know.”
“Should I trust you?”
“Sure. Joni, we really do need to talk. I need to ask you some things.”
“All right. Give me a second.” She got up and dripped over and got her towel and dried her hair and face off a little. Then she trotted back and sat next to me, feet and most of her legs in the water. Like mine were.
I asked, “Is there anybody you can think of who’d want your husband dead?”
Her response was immediate and damn near casual: “Sure. You know who Lou Licata is?”
“I know who he is.”
“Well, that bimbo Tiffany is Licata’s girlfriend. Never mind that the Godfather has a wife and four kids, Miss Goodwin is his property.” She shrugged. “And Art was fucking her for a while. How’s that for stupid? Fucking a mob boss’ mistress.”
“It’s not smart. How did that make you feel?”
“It didn’t. Art’s fooled around before. He’ll fool around again.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“No. I was his ‘this year’s model’ a long, long time ago. Enough of one to get a wedding ring out of him. Any love or passion is long gone. We’re still friendly. We like each other. Let me answer the question in your eyes, Jack-yes we still have sex. Once or twice a month.”
“You’re okay with this.”
“Fine with it. Jack, you know what kind of background I come from. Now I live in the Hollywood Hills. In a house that’s damn near a mansion. With a pool bigger than this.”
“Your husband isn’t exactly the hottest ticket in Tinsel Town.”
“No. Some would say he’s on the way down. But on the way up, he made a lot of money, and invested well. He likes to work, so he takes gigs wherever he can-TV mostly. And that pays just fine. Me, I’ve had a good career, too, but I’m almost over the hill. Thirty-six, Jack. Two, three more years, I’m an unemployable hag in Hollywood terms. Meantime, it’s a comfortable life. And will continue to be.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“And this silly picture we’re making? The first Hard Wheels was enough of a minor success to put Art back on the map, at least as a genre filmmaker.”
“What does that mean, genre filmmaker?”
“Action stuff. Sex and violence. Horror. Sci-fi. He’ll keep working. And he’ll use me in his movies, and he’ll never leave me for anybody, because he’s not looking for a new wife, just an occasional starlet to bang. Don’t you dare look at me like you feel sorry for me, Jack. I am happy. I have everything I want.”
Which of us was she trying to convince?
“Joni…none of my business, but…how the hell did you become an actress, anyway?”
“Oh, it was Art. Art my husband, not art the pursuit of which. He discovered me. I was working at Disneyland… not in one of those fucking suits! You should see them pour the sweat out of those things at the end of the day…I was a waitress in a German-theme joint and I guess he liked the way I looked in a peasant blouse. Gave me a screen test.”
“And you passed the audition.”
She was kicking in the water. “You ever think about me, Jack?”
I didn’t lie. “Sometimes.”
“I loved you in my way, Jack. I didn’t want you to die over there. I really didn’t want any of you boys to die.”
“All three of us?”
She shook her head, smirking humorlessly. “So I married three times. And got the benefits. If you feel like looking at me like you feel sorry for me, do it because of that. Do it because my life was such a hopeless dead-end that the best I could come up with was to go after a serviceman’s crappy monthly check.”
And benefits. Three times. But I didn’t rub it in.
Her gaze was at once sweet and patronizing. “Jack, you were a nice kid. Naive. You didn’t understand that sometimes people do things, to survive, that look crazy or immoral to other people. Maybe you can understand better now, how a young girl could get fucked-up enough to-”
I held a hand up. Shook my head. “You don’t owe me explanations. It was a long time ago. We’re different people now.”
“Jack, maybe it helps to finally air this out…”
This shit was getting old. I flat out asked her, hoping maybe, just maybe, her eyes would tell me something. “Do you want your husband dead?”
“What?”
“If you had a choice between me stopping something fatal happening to your husband, and-”
She gripped my arm. Other than when we shook hands, it was the first time she’d touched me.
“ No,” she said. “Help him.”
“Did you sign a prenup?”
“What?”
“Do you stand to benefit if he dies?”
She just looked at me. “I don’t remember you being such a prick.”
“ Do you benefit? It’s not like it’s a foreign concept to you. Maybe you’re taking it to a new level.”
“That’s fucking cruel…”
I put a hand on her shoulder. Tight but not enough to hurt. “I don’t like being near you, Joni. It stirs things up in me, none of it good. You need to understand something-you need to believe me: if you are behind this, I don’t give a shit.”
“What?”
“If you want him dead, I’ll walk away. I wouldn’t kill him for you, but I’d walk away.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I’m fairly well-balanced, considering. I’m giving you an out. Tell me to go and I’ll go. If I stay, I can probably save him.”
“ Stay! Stay.” She stroked my face. It was like pleasant razor blades. “ Please. If you have even one tiny memory of me that you cherish…stay.”
“You didn’t answer me. Would you benefit if he died?”
She sighed. Turned away from me and stared into the gentle ripple of the pool where she’d been absently kicking. “There was no prenup. But, Jack-we live in California. Community property. I get half anyway, if I ever decide to bail on him.”
“Maybe you want it all.”
She set those big brown eyes loose on my face. “All I want is the life I have right now, Jack. It’s the kind of life I dreamed about as a young woman-a really nice house, swimming pool and everything, no kids, plenty of money, a husband who is nice to me but gives me lots of space. I was never looking for a white knight, Jack. Just a life of comfort. A life that didn’t suck. And I fought to get that life.”
“Tell me about it.”
Her upper lip curled a little. “You know what your problem is, Jack? You don’t know whether you want to fuck me or kill me.”
I got out of the pool. To dry off a little, I had to dump the nine millimeter out of the towel, and it bounced on the deck chair webbing. Got her attention.
“Is there an all-of-the-above?” I asked her.
And I gathered my gun and went up to my room.