6 Martini Regrets (14 page)

CHAPTER 27

It was two days later and the end of the luncheon trade was heading out the door when Willow walked into the Sunset. A communal gasp of pleasure rose from the drinkers still at the bar, a shared sigh of helpless adoration. You gotta love a woman who brings out the worst in men.

She was partially dressed, wearing impossibly high heels and miniscule white shorts below a halter top, an ensemble designed to rip the heart out of the weak. She gave me a little wave and a smile and slinked towards me in a long-legged-model walk that had the guys struggling for air. She dropped a giant leather shoulder bag on the counter and breathed, “Hello.”

“Good god, woman, the air conditioning is on. You’re going to catch your death.”

She laughed and lifted one nearly bare cheek onto a bar stool. The regulars were going to be fighting over that seat when she left. “How come no one ever says you’re going to catch your life?” she said.

I tilted my head and thought about it before throwing my hands up in defeat. “Too deep for me. But I do know if you plan on hanging out in the Sunset the natives are going to have to hike their blood-pressure medication. You can cause a lot of damage with shorts like those.” Her pupils told me she was already really high on something, but being a good bartender, I still asked, “What are you drinking?” She had a daiquiri and began charming the other patrons.

Between my serving people we chatted, as girls will, having a bit of a laugh. The laughter ended when Sasha came into the bar searching for her. I was delivering a tray of drinks to a table so he didn’t see me behind him, but I saw how cruelly his fingers dug into Willow’s arm as he jerked her towards him and hissed something in her ear.

When I was back behind the bar, he ordered me towards him with a crook of his finger. He ordered a scotch, but first he asked me some rather pointed questions. I kept it simple, explaining I had no idea how that black orchid had ended up at the Selby ball. His eyes drilled into mine, looking for the lie as I denied any knowledge of it.

His questions took a new tack. “Were you ever out to Ben’s nursery?”

I looked him straight in the eye and lied my ass off.

After he had considered my words, he gave a small jerk of his head. Either he was finally convinced I was as ignorant as I claimed, or he was willing to let it drop for the moment. He flicked a business card at me. “If you have an orchid to sell, call.” He grabbed Willow by the arm. I saw her wince, her body slumping towards him and her hand going to his fingers before he yanked her off the stool. He strode from the bar with Willow stumbling after him in her stilettos, trying to keep up.

An hour after they left, I got a call from Willow. She couldn’t talk, she said, but she wanted to meet me, needed to get together with me.

“I’m working; come here.”

“That isn’t a good idea. I need to meet you . . . somewhere we won’t be found.”

“Sorry, Willow, I can’t.”

“Please,” she said.

“Willow, it’s not happening. We’re busy and I’m short-staffed.”

“Please.” The pleading resonance in her voice couldn’t be created by anything but fear. “You’re my last chance.”

“Shit.” I’d let too many people down in the past to try rescuing anyone again. I said, “I don’t want to be anyone’s last chance.”

Silence stretched between us until she said softly, “Please, Sherri.”

“Okay.” It was a halfhearted and weak commitment. “Where?”

She told me about a bar, deep in ranch country, a half hour east of Jacaranda.

It was raining, bucketing down, when I pulled into the pot-holed parking lot and backed into the space closest to the exit. I wanted to be able to leave quickly if things went bad.

I stared out the window. All I could see were beat-up sedans and muscle trucks, none of which looked upscale enough for Willow. I wasn’t overly concerned that Willow wasn’t there. She wasn’t what I’d describe as a socially responsible person, and I was guessing that punctuality wasn’t something she concerned herself with. It was likely normal for Willow to be a half hour late or even change her mind and stand people up.

I huddled down in the truck, watching the potholes fill with rain. It was the last place I wanted to be. Sasha’s glare was still fresh in my memory, and I was sure Willow’s frightened state was linked to Sasha. He wasn’t to be messed with, and that’s exactly what I was doing if I helped Willow. But there was something in the way she’d said please that kept me there, staring through the wall of rain at the falling-down joint called Zizzler’s.

Why had she picked this place? Carved out of scrub on a back road to nowhere, it was rough and decrepit. You almost had to be a local to know it existed, and it sure didn’t match the face Willow showed the world.

Beside the passenger door a creaking sign swayed in the wind. Rain pounded on the roof. I worried about who might show up with Willow and decided that inside was a safer place to be than alone in the parking lot. I jumped over the rush of water running into the storm drain by the pickup and ran through the rain.

Outside the entrance to Zizzler’s, three smokers with cigarettes clamped between their lips clustered under the overhang. They watched me run towards them. Their shoulders were lifted to their ears to keep out the rain and their hands were stuffed in their pockets. When I reached the heavy funk of nicotine and the carpet of butts outside the entrance, one of the men reached out and opened the battered door.

Inside, the place felt familiar, although I’d never been through the door before. It was recognizable only because I’d been in a million dumps just like it. It smelled of beer, grease and the musk of male sweat.

Over the bar hung a picture of Ronald Reagan, the color fading to pastel-grayness. The picture likely had been new with the building.

Optimistically, Zizzler’s could be called a sports bar, although there wasn’t an athlete in sight—unless lifting a glass had become an Olympic event. Televisions hung off of every wall so there was no possibility of a diner doing something crazy like starting a conversation. Conversation was not encouraged in a place like this.

As the door shut behind me, the bubba-brained peckerhead behind the bar turned to see who had come in. The face he turned to the door said, “Please, give me a reason to boot your sorry ass back out,” but that quickly changed when he spied me. He had no plans to kick me out. No, ma’am. He planted both hands on the bar and bent forward. While his eyes crawled up and down my body, a reptilian tongue flicked over his dry lips.

Lust is an easy emotion to read. Like the tavern itself, he was all too familiar, the kind of guy I’d been evading and fighting off my whole life. I avoided meeting his eyes and checked out the rest of the place. There were two other men in the room. At the bar sat a guy wearing a yellowed button-down shirt, guaranteed wash and wear. His jowly hound-dog face lifted without hope at the sound of the door, and then he went back to studying the puddles of beer on the counter and rededicated himself to the serious business of drinking. The obese mess of a man sitting to the right of the tender was savagely attacking a plate of grease and barely noticed my arrival. There was no Willow, unless she was in the ladies’ doing a line. I was pretty sure she was too smart a girl to go back there alone.

I walked across the sticky floor and slid into a booth that also wanted to hold on to me as I worked my ass along it. When I’d settled, I pulled the gummy laminated menu out from behind the ketchup bottle. Everything edible, and a few items that weren’t, came encased in a batter guaranteed to leave an oily residue on everything it touched. I put the menu back and waited. Careful not to make eye contact with the barman, I fixed my gaze firmly on the parking lot.

Ignoring him didn’t keep Bubba away from me. When I heard the access to the counter bang open, I swung to face him. He ambled out from behind the bar, his flabby breasts jiggling beneath a black tee shirt that advertised a bottle of beer in front of mountains. While he might be out of shape, there were still some serious muscles behind the fat. Lifting tanks of beer and tossing around tons of frozen food kept him in the game enough that I wouldn’t think of wrestling him. My well-honed instincts told me that a certain kind of wrestling was just the type of pastime he had in mind. He strode towards me with his watery eyes focused on me like I was a piece of raw meat thrown to a starving carnivore.

“I’ll wait to order until my friend comes,” I said before he could ask.

He chewed on this for a moment. “How be I bring you a little drink on the house?”

“I’ll wait.” I tried to smile, hiding how much I wanted him gone.

He did something with his mouth, making it disappear and then reappear a couple of times in disapproval or annoyance. He wasn’t happy with my answer.

My grandma’s voice echoed in my head, saying, “You want to make friends with someone, don’t fart in their face first.” I tried out my drawl, always a winner with guys like this. “I surely do thank you for the offer, though.” I tried to smile.

He chewed on this some before he nodded and ambled reluctantly away.

I stared out the window and waited. With each passing second my apprehension ratcheted up a turn. A new and terrifying thought had just hit me. What if Willow was setting me up? I knew nothing about her except that she was totally under Sasha’s control. She’d betray me in a heartbeat and toss me to the wolves if Sasha ordered her to. It was a distinct possibility that she’d brought me out here to the boonies because this was where Sasha wanted me.

I so didn’t want to be here, not with these men and not with the man that might show up with Willow. So why was I hanging on? I owed her nothing, needed nothing from her. She was late. It would be her fault if I was gone when she came. Still, I waited.

The door opened and the smokers came trailing in one after another, each taking a good look at me to see what might be on offer. I looked away and fixed on the world outside the window as they passed my table. I heard whispers, could feel their eyes caressing me as they took their places at the counter.

I didn’t like the situation. Just me and six bottom feeders I trusted even less than I did Willow.

Outside, the neon from a beer sign shone on a slick of wet pavement. I watched it wink off and on as I waited. Country music wailed from the speakers. The Dixie Chicks were singing “Goodbye Earl.” When they got to the line that said Earl had to die, Bubba killed the music. In the silence, I turned my head to see what was happening. Bubba was hunched over the bar and staring at me, a hungry dog drooling over a steak.

That was it. “Goodbye Earl,” I whispered and scrambled out of the booth.

“Hey,” Bubba yelled, his arm flying up like he might reach out and stop me, but I ran out the door and splashed through the rain to the truck without looking back.

With the doors locked and the engine running, I still hesitated. I wouldn’t have hung around another second except for that
please
. She meant that . . . and Willow was never a girl who had to say please. But what if Sasha had been standing over her, making her beg me?

Clay was right: I had an overactive imagination. I turned on the radio, but the music was drowned out by the noise of the rain pounding on the roof. I switched it off and waited, my fingers tapping the steering wheel impatiently.

I didn’t wait long. I may be slow but I do catch up in the end. The thought that sent me blasting out onto the highway was, it might not be Sasha who showed up. No way I wanted to be alone in a parking lot when some dude with Russian prison tats showed up looking for me.

Speeding down the road I wondered why it had taken me so long to get out of there. I blamed it on Ruth Ann. My mother’s insistence that I put myself out for others was a real deterrent to my peaceful enjoyment of life.

The rain ended suddenly, a tap turning off on a typical Florida day. The bright sunshine had steam rising from the pavement in no time. When I hit Tamiami Trail just south of Venice, the first thing I noticed was a car dealership, Aiken Pontiac. I must have passed it hundreds of times, but the name never meant anything to me until now. The apron in front of the building was empty, and there was a For Sale sign out front. I wasn’t the only one struggling in this economy, but then, maybe Liz was one of the lucky ones who bailed long before the crash.

CHAPTER 28

I was grateful to be back in the sanctuary of the Sunset, although my delight in being safe didn’t last as long as happy hour. I kept watching the door, sure that Willow would sail into the bar, full of casual apologies. It didn’t happen. The possibilities for what had kept Willow from meeting me had me as jumpy as a meth addict in withdrawal. The longer I went without word from her, the more worried I got. It didn’t help that I couldn’t figure out why she’d organized the whole thing.

Liz came through the glass doors just when the regulars were settling in for the drink that would take them home. She was dressed in a white linen pantsuit worth one of my mortgage payments, with an Hermès scarf tied casually around her throat. Closing her dealerships hadn’t hit her too hard. No need to feel sorry for Liz.

She placed her quilted leather Chanel bag on the bar. “I’ve just left Clay,” she announced, settling herself on a stool in front of me.

“Are you trying to poach my guy?”

“I would if I could, and that’s the honest truth.” She threw back her head and gave a raucous roar of laughter and then said, “No, honey, I realize only too well my days of stealing a man are over.” She leaned forward and pointed a finger at me. “But there was a day I would have had you really worried.”

She took a smokeless cigarette out of her bag and rolled it between her fingers. “No, it’s practical matters I wanted to see Clay about. I want to sell Dancing Lady Island. That’s why I came to see him.” She clamped her teeth down on the metal cigarette and inhaled deeply. A thin stream of vapor dribbled through her half-open lips.

She was watching my face for a reaction. When she got it, she raised one eyebrow and nodded a yes.

Dollar signs danced in my head. How much was an island in the Gulf of Mexico worth, and what would Clay’s commission be?

She reached over and dug a couple of olives out of the garnish tray. “He’s down there right now, figuring out the asking price and a marketing plan. I thought I’d come up here and have a drink with you while I waited.”

“The drink is on the house. Maybe I’ll even stretch that to two if you’re very good; it’s time to celebrate.”

While we waited for Clay we slashed the reputations of the people we’d dined with, cutting and tearing the evening to bits. Liz had known everyone at the table and wasn’t above sharing their faults. “Nina Dystra is an acclaimed botanist. She’s written two books on orchids,” Liz told me.

“I didn’t know that, but Ethan said she could write a book on fifty shades of young lovers.”

“Oh, that too. Once, when we met at the Redlands show, she described how she liked to have them pierced.” Liz grimaced and reached for another olive. “Even told me how much she paid them to go have these very private piercings. It was a staggering amount. Nina was quite proud of her generosity.”

“Crazy comes in all sizes.” I pushed the tray towards Liz. “I’m a little worried about Willow.”

Liz sat perfectly still, an olive halfway to her mouth, and listened while I told her about Willow’s call and the way it made me feel.

“You don’t think it was just a moment’s . . .” She shrugged, unable to finish the thought.

“There was real desperation there, maybe even fear.”

“Jesus.” She stared at her glass of wine, her mind going somewhere I couldn’t follow.

I took a couple of orders and filled the bowls of nuts along the bar while Liz sat slumped over her folded hands, staring at nothing.

I went back to her and lightly touched her hand to get her attention. “Hey,” I said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She didn’t look up. “My husband beat me.” She concentrated on her hands.

I covered her hands with mine. “I’m sorry if I brought back bad memories. Ethan told me your husband abused you. I should have thought before I told you about Willow.”

She pulled her hands away and picked up her glass. Her eyes rose over the rim to find mine. “Did Ethan tell you about my arrest for Kurt’s murder?”

“Yup.”

She sipped her wine and set the glass carefully back on the center of the coaster.

I picked up the bottle of Merlot. “I would have done the same. I’m glad you got off.”

Her voice was strangely wistful as she said, “But it wasn’t true.”

My hand hesitated. Our eyes met over the tilted bottle.

“I didn’t kill Kurt.”