I was running a little late; it was 10:35 and I hadn’t had time to change my clothes and was still wearing the black windbreaker, turtleneck and slacks. The holstered nine-millimeter and the stun gun and such were in the Sunbird’s trunk. I might have smelled a little raunchy, too-I’m not particularly nervous by nature, but I do sweat, particularly when I storm citadels.
But storming that citadel and briefing its potentate had taken all evening, and when I picked her up at the Embers, where she was sitting at the bar with an empty martini glass in front of her, pretty legs crossed, now all in white, Angela Jordan was a little irritated and marginally pie-eyed. She lifted an eyebrow at the young blond bartender and played with her martini glass, then looked at me and smirked and said, “What’s this? A ninja?”
The bar was still doing some business and people out in the dining area were lingering over meals. The fish from the Amazon was still travelling back and forth in his little kingdom, nibbling goldfish.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “Fell asleep back at the hotel.”
And that was all the explanation it took.
“Aw, no problem,” she said, and smiled without smirkiness. “Sorry I greeted ya with a smartass remark.” She was a good-natured kid. She slid off the stool and I gave her my arm. She needed a little steadying. She wasn’t sloshed, but just the same I said, “Why don’t we take my car?”
“Good idea. Let’s see how she runs.”
“She runs fine,” I said, as we strolled out into the brisk night air. “You wouldn’t sell me a lemon, would you?”
She hugged my arm. “Not to you,” she said, like we were old pals. Lovers, even.
I didn’t know if I was game for that. I hadn’t made this little rendezvous because I was looking to get laid. I supposed someday sex would interest me again, but with Linda gone, the thought of it seemed pretty abstract right now.
But I needed to get close to this lovely, lonely divorcee. She knew all the principals: Best, Freed, and (having worked for Freed) presumably Ridge, even the late Mr. Werner. I might get some information. I might get some insights. It was my best option right now.
“Sorry I look so informal,” I said, behind the wheel, exiting the Embers’ lot.
“I don’t mind,” she said, settled comfortably in the bucket seat.
“Would you like to get a bite to eat?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Something to drink?”
“That’d be nice. How ’bout my place?”
“Your place?”
“My house. The girls are with my mom. She takes ’em on the weekend, Friday and Saturday nights, that is. Between the restaurant and the car lot, I work most of the weekend. It’s better for the girls.”
“That’d be nice. If I’m not imposing.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said.
“You’ll have to guide me. I don’t know my way around the Cities all that well.”
“Head over to Davenport and go up Brady Street. It’s a housing addition way out past the shopping malls and everything.”
“Okay,” I said, and pretty soon I looked over and she was slumped against the door, sleeping. Snoring a bit.
I didn’t figure it was that she’d had all that much to drink. More that she was just bone tired, working two jobs to support her little family. It sort of pissed me off that her husband wasn’t paying his share. There’s a lot of lowlifes in this world.
We’d just glided past a shopping center called Brady Eighty, with signs signaling Interstate 80 up ahead, when I nudged her awake.
She sat up with a start and was immediately embarrassed. “Oh, Jack, I’m sorry… really…”
“Don’t worry about it. You work hard. You get tired. You’re entitled.”
She rubbed one eye with the heel of a hand, smiled in a crinkly fashion. “You’re really very nice.”
“Yeah, I hear that all the time.”
“It’s right up here.”
“What?”
“The Hastings addition. Where I live. Just to your right.”
I made a turn into well-lit, well-tended, split-level suburbia. The houses were good size, but fairly close together. It took money to live in this neighborhood, but these people weren’t wealthy. Not, say, in the Victor Werner sense. Of course these people were alive, which is something they had over Werner.
She directed me into the driveway of a two-tone green split-level and I parked, got out, opened her door, gave her my arm and walked her up the curving sidewalk with its occasional steps. She wasn’t drunk by any means; but she was tired, and she’d had a few. She fumbled for her keys and then we were inside.
The entryway was a landing between floors; the lower floor, from what I could see of it, seemed to be a family room. I followed her up the open stairs half a flight into the plush living room. This was definitely the home of somebody who grew up lower middle-class and came into a little money. It had that would-be classy look of an above-average motel. Lots of massive Mediterranean furniture, drapes gathered with tassels, sofas and chairs of green and red with crushed velvet cushions, sculptured green carpet. Coats of arms and reproductions of Rembrandts and such on the walls. It was the home of somebody who used to bowl but now golfs.
I followed her through the living room into a smaller, stone-and-brick room; it had a warm look, lots of rusts and golds and browns.
“You know how to make a fire?” she asked, getting behind the bar.
I looked over at the stone fireplace. “Sure. You don’t have any wood, though.”
“You’ll have to go outside and get some.”
“Uh, chop it or…”
“No, silly,” she said, stirring a pitcher of martinis, “it’s piled just outside on the patio. Through those glass doors.”
I went outside into the chilly night. I breathed deep. Closed my eyes. Swallowed. Then I picked up an armload of firewood and went in and made a fire.
“What would you like?” she asked, as she poured herself a martini.
“Do you have a Coke? Diet, preferably.”
“Do I have to drink alone?”
“I don’t drink.”
That seemed to disappoint her. “Oh?”
“I got nothing against it. It’s just not a habit I picked up. You have whatever you want, however much you want. You’re a hardworking girl. You got it coming.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You’re a sweetie.” Actually, if she got a little drunker, I might get more information out of her.
She came over, in her nyloned stocking feet, the belt of the white dress gone now, and handed me a tall, icy glass of Coke.
“It’s Diet,” she said.
“Good,” I said, sipping it. “I’m trying to take some weight off.”
“That why you wear black?”
“It is slimming, isn’t it?”
“You don’t look heavy to me. Your face looks… well, actually it looks a little drawn.”
“I haven’t had much of an appetite the last few days.”
“Oh, I see.” she said, as if she did. “You make a nice fire.”
“I’ve had some experience.”
“Want to sit in front of it?”
I said nothing.
“I said, want to…”
“Sure,” I said.
She tossed some cushions on the floor-it was a shag carpet in here, very homey-and we lay on them and watched the fire.
“You must think I’m terrible,” she said.
“Why would I think that? Which I don’t.”
“Inviting a strange man to my home.”
“I’m not a strange man. I’m a good customer.”
She almost did a spit take with her martini. “Geez, that sounds even worse…”
I smiled at her. “I didn’t mean it to. I like you. I like being around you.”
It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t the reason I was here, but it wasn’t a lie.
“I’ve had kind of a… rough time of it lately,” she said. “I wanted some company tonight.”
“Glad to oblige. Why a rough time?”
“My boss… Lonny…” Shook her head. “He’s making things tough…”
“How so?”
“I like Lonny. We were friends for years, or anyway he and Bob and Laureen-that’s Lonny’s wife, ex-wife now-well, we were all friends. Socially, and involved with the party.”
“Democratic Action party, you mean?”
“Right. And, anyway, Lonny’s been really sweet, giving me this job and all. But he’s been, well, pressuring me.”
“He getting ‘handsy,’ too?”
“I wish it were that simple. He’s asked me out. We’ve been out. I’ve… let him kiss me a few times.” She made a face. “Damn, this sounds so, so high school. I’ve never slept with him. I just don’t.. don’t feel that way about him.”
She sipped her martini.
“But he’s serious about you,” I said.
She nodded. “I know now that he only gave me that job to be close to me.”
“Afraid if you tell him you’re not interested in him you’ll lose your job?”
“That’s not it, exactly. I’m good at what I do. I sell a lot of cars. I could go elsewhere, I really could. I was a good student, you know-or I was till my senior year, when dad died. I got pregnant in junior college, and was already involved with that Born Again bull, and my life sort of got away from me. Then working for Preston Freed I realized I still had brains, that I could go out in the business world and make something of myself, without Bob’s help, screw him if he doesn’t want to help his own kids… well, one of ’em’s his, anyway.”
“Then what’s the big deal with telling Lonny how you feel? You’re not afraid for your job, after all.”
“I know,” she said, rim of the martini glass near her lower lip, “but I like him. He’s been sweet. I just don’t want to hurt him.”
“You afraid of hurting your ex-husband, too?”
“Bob? Why, what do you mean?”
“If he isn’t paying his child support and alimony, throw his butt in jail.”
She shook her head wearily. “It isn’t that simple. Bob… that’s something else that’s been a little rough on me lately. Sorry if I sound like I’m feeling sorry for myself…”
“It’s okay. Bob.”
“Bob,” she said. “You see, he wants me back. He says he’s not going to run around anymore. Learned his lesson and all that garbage. He apologized for that time he didn’t buy what I said about, you know, Freed getting ‘friendly.’ He… he wants his family back.”
“Do you want him back?”
“No. I loved him once, but he’s too smothering. He’d never let me work; this house was my world. And since the split I found out I like to work. Anyway, he’s been coming around a lot… it’s hard, it really is. See, he’s holding back on what he’s supposed to pay, knowing that for me to do anything about it I have to take him to court.”
“Have you done that?”
“Yes. I saw an attorney six months ago. And faced with that, Bob paid up, four months worth. Now he’s pulled the same thing-three months behind. I’ll have to go through the same damn rigmarole.”
“Unless you take him back.”
“Unless I take him back.”
“Which is in the no-way-in-hell category, I’d guess.”
“Sure is. Even though he’s trying to work on me through the girls.”
She stopped, something catching in her throat; she had tears in her eyes. She finished the martini and got up and got herself another one. I sat up and poked at the fire while she did that.
Then she settled herself on the cushion again, on her stomach, ankles crossed behind her, white dress hiked up, and said, “Why do you ask so many questions?”
“I’m interested in you.”
“Why?”
“You got a nice smile.”
“Is that all?”
“You got nice just about everything.”
She gave me a kiss; even the alcohol on her breath didn’t take anything away from it. Slow, kind of wet, very sweet. I liked it.
“You don’t know me,” I warned her, wondering why I was warning her.
“I don’t want to know anybody right now,” she said, smiled and sipped her martini. “Just want some company. Okay? Just be company.”
“Fine.”
We listened to the fire crackle.
Then I said, “Somehow I can’t picture you getting caught up with this Freed character.”
“Then you’ve never heard him speak. He’s something. Those eyes really hold you. Charmed the pants off many a girl.”
“You said as much earlier. He really fools around with a lot of those pretty young things on his staff?”
“He sure does. I was almost one of ’em, remember? But you know what I heard?”
“What did you hear?”
Giggled, sipped her martini. “I heard the damnedest rumor. Thing of it is, I think I believe it.”
“Which is?”
“Well, you know he has this TV ‘news’ show, told you about. In fact, I used to be sort of involved with it-if you call carting-the-tape-every-Monday-night-to-the-little-cable- outfit-that-does-his-uplinks being involved. He has a small but pretty elaborate studio at his house. Actually it’s more than a house, it’s kind of a mansion. Anyway, he tapes his weekly show right there.”
“Yeah. So?”
“They say that’s not all he tapes there. They say he’s got a video-tape library, of all his ‘conquests.’”
“You mean, his sexual conquests?”
“Yeah, yeah. There’s this mirror over his bed, they say, and there’s a camera behind it. He tapes himself doing it with these girls.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I heard it on good authority. From a girl who found out and was pissed off, man, really pissed.”
“So he doesn’t tell them, then?”
“Hell, no! He just takes ’em into his bedroom and has his way with ’em and watches the replays to his heart’s content.”
There was a mirror over Freed’s bed. And the bedroom had been well lit. And the candidate was a narcissistic son-of-a-bitch. It made a perverse sort of sense.
“And none of these girls knew, at the time at least, they were on camera. Can you imagine?”
If the Democrat Action party’s presidential candidate had been taping tonight, I’d been on camera, too. Stunning the stunning behind of Freed’s latest conquest. I didn’t like the thought of that. Leaving my image on tape, no, that I couldn’t allow. I’d have to check this out.
“Angela, what’s the deal with Best and Freed? Why did Best drop out of the party? Did he get fed up with Freed’s excesses-political and/or sexual?”
“Hey, this home porno-movie deal isn’t well known, not at all. I don’t think Lonny or anybody knows. I shouldn’t have told you. If I wasn’t who-knows-how-many- sheets-to-the-wind, I wouldn’t’ve.”
“So it was a political rift, then?”
“What?”
“That split up Best and Freed.”
“I don’t think so. Frankly, I think Lonny still believes in what Freed stands for. But as a businessman, visible in the community, Lonny doesn’t want to be associated with somebody controversial like Freed.”
“Well, is Lonny active with any other political group?”
“He’s a Republican. He gives ’em some money.”
“But he’s never been really active in politics since splitting with Freed.”
“No. Not nearly. Why are you so interested in this?”
I’d gone too far with my questions. Time for a strategy shift.
I leaned close to her. “Well, frankly… can you keep a secret?”
She grinned, very crinkly. “Judging by the way I’ve been spilling things tonight, no. But I’m willing to try to learn.”
“Good. I’m not really in the auto parts business. I’m in security work.”
“You mean you’re a detective?”
“No. Security. I was approached by Preston Freed to help him train and prepare his security team for the upcoming primary campaign.”
That perked her up. “Oh, yeah?”
“I haven’t taken the job yet. I knew Freed was something of a nut, and I didn’t know if I wanted to get involved with him, professionally speaking. So I needed to check him and some of his friends out.”
“Is that why you hit on me?”
There was no expression in her face. Her eyes, deep blue, were unreadable as they fixed upon me.
“Yes,” I said.
She smiled sadly, looked into her martini.
“That,” I said, “and your smile, and I wasn’t lying about liking you.”
“You came to the car lot looking for me, then?”
“No! That was a coincidence.”
“A coincidence?”
“Well, I was there to check Best out. I didn’t know anything about you. Just that you were a pretty woman in red, white, and blue-and I’m as patriotic as the next guy.”
She smiled one-sidedly and touched my cheek. “I guess I don’t take it back. That you’re a nice guy.”
“I didn’t mean to take advantage of your good nature.”
“Frankly,” she said, “I wish you would.”
She kissed me again; another slow, sweet, sticky kiss. She rolled over on top of me and my arms slipped around her, my hand settling on her ass, dress hiked up over pantyhose and panties; nice shape to her ass, soft yet firm. Something stirred in me, below the belt. She kept kissing and I kissed back. The fire was warm on us. I rolled over on top of her, felt her breasts through her dress; she reached behind and unzipped it and brought it down over her breasts in a wispy bra that she slipped down and my hands went onto her cool flesh, warming to my touch and the glow of the fire. Her nipples were hard under my fingertips and I put my mouth on her breasts, suckled, and she moved my hand to her pantyhose, inside her panties, in front, and I pulled away, like my fingers had touched fire, not soft curly hair.
I was breathing hard. Blinking. Something was wrong.
“Jack… Jack, what’s wrong?”
She was sitting next to me, looking lovely if disheveled in the fire’s glow, and I tried to say something but my tongue was thick. My dick wasn’t.
“Jack, what is it? You’re…”
“What?” I managed to say.
“You’re crying.”
I touched my face. I’ll be damned if I wasn’t.
“What is it, Jack?”
“I… I’m sorry, Angela. I just can’t.”
She smiled wryly, but sympathetically, her arm around my shoulder. “You were doing fine. Just fine.”
“Can’t.”
She dabbed my face with the cloth of her dress. “What is it, Jack?”
“I lost my wife not long ago.”
“Oh, Jack…”
“I… haven’t been with a woman since.”
She swallowed. Patted my shoulder. “How long has it been?”
“A year.” It seemed like a year. And it seemed like a moment ago.
“I guess I’m just not ready,” I said.
“Oh, Jack, I understand.”
“I feel funny.”
“What is it?”
“The oddest feeling.”
“Are you sick?”
“I don’t know.”
“You… you want some aspirin or something?”
“No. It’ll be all right. Let me catch my breath.” What was this feeling?
“It’s natural to feel a little guilty,” she said.
Was that it? Guilt? Of all things.
“Why don’t you stay here tonight,” she said. “You can sleep out on the couch, if you like. We can just be there for each other. I think maybe we can both use some company tonight.”
I nodded.
We walked back through the living room and down a hallway. Several family photographs in frames lined the wall. I stopped at one.
“Your girls?” I asked.
“Yes. Taken a few years ago.”
“They look like you. They’re going to be beauties.”
She hugged my arm.
I envied her a little; even without a partner, she had something here. Kids and a house and a life. Mediterranean furniture or not, I could almost see myself here. In this house with this woman and her family and her life.
We moved to the next picture, a larger family portrait, and I stopped short.
“Your, uh, ex?” I asked.
“I should take it down, I know,” she said. “But to the girls he’s still dad.”
“What’s Bob doing for a living these days?” I asked her, studying the portrait.
“Are you okay, Jack?”
“What’s he doing for a living?”
“He works for George Ridge now. Real estate counseling, I guess you’d call it.”
I said nothing.
“Yeah,” she went on, “he’s making good money, too, flitting around. In Canada this weekend, some fancy deal.”
“Is that right,” I said. “I… I don’t think I can stay tonight, Angela.”
The dark blue eyes were very wide as she searched my face. “Why not?”
“I’d like to. But I just can’t.”
“The guilt,” she said, nodding sympathetically, eyes narrowing.
I said nothing. I just kissed her, briefly, and let her walk me out to my car.
And I drove away from there, from that house, from the family picture that included the round, pasty face, several facial moles and all, of the man who had come into my house and killed my wife, and my wife’s brother, and who had in turn been killed by me.