Bite Me (Devlin Haskell 3) (7 page)

In between
spells stretched
out on the couch I stood in the shower with my face about four inches from the shower head. It pretty much did the trick. The next morning I actually used soap in the shower, although not on my face just to stay on the safe side.

I found a
skin cream some long forgotten date must have left behind and smeared that on my face, it stung a little but seemed to help. My skin was still red and puffy around the eyes, but the swelling on my cheeks had gone down, more or less.

I got dressed and decided I could be bored at the office just as well as at home. My car wasn’t in the driveway. It dawned on me that
St. Paul’s finest had given me a ride home. Instead, a silver Audi was parked on the street in front of my house Kiki leaned against the door, smiling, looking gorgeous and sipping from a Starbucks cup.

“Jesus, what the hell happened to you?”

“Hi, Kiki. Here to comfort the afflicted?”

“Hunh? What happened to your face, you look all blotchy and
well, shitty?”

“Long story.”

“Tell me, here, I brought you a coffee. I wasn’t sure how you like it so I added cream and sugar.”

“I usually take it black.”

“Then you can go inside and make some, I guess.”

“Cream and sugar will be fine.”

“I brought you some croissants, too. So tell me what happened.”

I gave her a sanitized version.
I didn’t mention the stupid letter to her brother and that fat ass Thompson Barkwell. I stuck to the white lie about forgetting to enclose my check in a bill payment. I skipped over the part about drinking a couple of beers beforehand in The Spot. I sort of neglected to mention the potential assault on a Federal employee charge or Timmy’s disorderly conduct citation. Then closed with, “So, one of my pals at the police department warned me that I was likely to see a bill from the city because the paramedics had to be called. I mean, can you believe it?”

“Wow, that seems so unfair,” she sounded genuine.

“Yeah, you’re telling me. I mean, it’s like suddenly I’m the criminal here.”

Kiki
sipped her coffee. After a long moment I said, “Hey, could I hit you up for a lift down to my office. One of the cops was nice enough to give me a lift home yesterday, said it was the least he could do, you know, under the circumstances.”

“Yeah, sure, another croissant? Or anything else you want?”

I didn’t touch that last line. “No, thanks, but I’ve got some meetings and I like to be prepared, really appreciate the coffee and the ride.”

“You and your meetings, we’ll have to cure you of that. Come on
, hop in.”

I gave her directions to my office. Mercifully
, she didn’t mention a thing about KRAZ until we had pulled up in front of the pet shop on the first floor of my building.

“Hey, about
that KRAZ,” she said.

“Not to worry, Barkwell gave me a check, said he’d get the rest to me in a couple of days, after the board meeting or something.”

“Yeah, whatever. No I meant, you know, the KRAZ you sort of left on my bedroom wall. Remember, the red spray paint?”

“Oh yeah, that.”

“You had some guy or something, no rush, but you know I’d like to get it taken care of, doesn’t really go with the rest of the décor in there.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a call into him, I’ll check
as soon as I’m in the office, see if he got back to me.”

“Do that, thanks, you’ll let me know?”

“I will.”

S
he drove off before I had a chance to swallow my mouthful of croissant and thank her.

I thought about painting the wall myself, I mean, how hard could it be? Then remembered the difficulties I’d encountered at an ex-wife’s, splattering paint on some heirloom antique I’d never liked in the first place. I knew the guy to call.

Gary Hobson was one of those guys who never held a job and knew how to do everything. There was a lot of family money from somewhere, though I’d never learned where. He could fix the brakes on your car, put a new roof on your garage, wire a light, paint a room, do a thousand different things. I don’t think I’d seen him for the better part of six months. I looked up his number in my rolodex and called.

“The number you have reached, six one two, blah, blah, blah, has been temporarily disconnected at the customers request. Calls
are being taking by, blah, blah, blah.”

I phoned the new number.

“Serenity Center.”

“Sorry, I think I misdialed.”

“Are you calling for one of our residents?”

“No, trying to reach a pal, Gary Hobson. I think…”

“Please hold, I’ll have Mister Hobson in a moment.”

After about three minutes and a number of clicks on the phone
a tentative voice came on.

“This is
Gary.”

“
Gary? Dev, Dev Haskell. How are you, man?”

“Just fine Dev,
gee been a couple of years, hasn’t it. I’m in an after treatment facility, sort of fell off the wagon, again, you know I just…”

Actually I never knew
Gary had been on the wagon, he could hit it pretty hard.

“… eight months and now I’m here.”

“Can you get out?” I asked.

“What for?” he sounded cautious.

“Just a minor painting job, probably take longer to tell you about it than to do the damn thing. One wall in a bedroom, a little touch up of some minor blemishes,” I said visualizing the four foot red letters I’d spray painted across Kiki’s wall, ‘KRAZ SUCKS’.

“Yeah I could do that, you’d have to sign a pass for me. They’re pretty tight on times and stuff. You know, don’t want us wandering into the wrong place or ending up back with the wrong crowd.”

“I can do that. What are we looking at time wise?” I asked.

“Whenever you want.”

“Tomorrow too soon?”

“No, that’ll work fine, not like I’m busy. Just sit around and go to meeting
s all day, listen to how we all screwed up. Tomorrow works for me.”

“Nine o’clock?”

“Yeah, just bring a picture I.D. you know, they’ll run a quick check on you. They need to have a pretty tight return time, but it only takes a couple of minutes to sign out.”

“See you tomorrow at nine.”

“I’ll look for you Dev, and thanks, going kinda stir crazy here,” he whispered, then he gave me the address and hung up.

Serenity
Center looked pleasant
enough. A converted three story Victorian sort of place, neatly clipped lawn, trimmed hedge, a flower garden, birds chirping, lots of white wicker furniture on the front porch. I guess it was running Gary’s trust fund five to eight grand a month to straighten him out here. The brass plaque next to the doorbell informed you it was a secure facility and instructed to please ring the bell for service. I did.

A white uniformed guy answered the door, then showed me into a reception area. The place was like a surgery unit, you could have eaten off the floor it was so clean. The large vase of lilies on a side table almost
, but not quite, covered the scent of disinfectant. Everything was white and gleaming.

I filled out a short form, actually a five by seven card, signed and dated the thing, then handed it to the receptionist. She was a black woman wearing
a nurse’s uniform.

“Mister Haskell is it?”
she asked. I could sense her staring at my still slightly red and puffy face, compliments of the federal government and my tax dollars.

“Yes Ma
’am.”

“May I see some I.D.,
please, a driver’s license or something?”

I handed her my license.

“Thank you,” she said, and then jotted down my license number on a form just below the bold line labeled ‘Serenity Center”. She wrote her initials next to that and handed back my license and said, “Here you are, sir. I’ll have Mister Hobson brought down in just a moment. If you’d care to take a seat,” she indicated a series of white chairs against the far wall.

“Thanks,” I smiled.

There were four or five different Serenity Center brochures to read, but not so much as a dog eared copy of People magazine. I took a pass, then counted different white wall paper patterns on the opposite wall and waited. Gary Hobson arrived through a secure door about five minutes later. He looked better than I’d seen him in years, fit, clear eyed, shaved, clean and steady.

“Gary, man you look fantastic. You really do.”

He beamed a smile.

“Thanks Dev, good to see you, just getting things back together,
finally, you know, one day at a time.”

“Man, I should check into this joint,” I joked.

“Yeah, you probably should, Dev.” Gary looked serene but serious.

“Let’s go,”
I said and we walked out the door.

As I drove, we caught up
on “whatever happened to” sorts of things. It really was over two years since I’d seen him last. He kept looking left and right as we drove over to Kiki’s.

“God, great to be out, D
ev. I’ve been under wraps, sort of, for almost a year.” He turned round completely in his seat to stare at two young women walking down the sidewalk.

“Forget that stuff, it’ll only get you in trouble,” I joked.

“Yeah, trouble,” Gary said wistfully and nodded.

“So look, here’s the deal. You just cover up this shit on
Kiki’s bedroom wall, shouldn’t take but a minute, then maybe we’ll go grab something to eat. Sound okay?”

“Tell me what’s with the wall, I feel like I’m not getting the full story here.”

“Oh, I don’t know…”

“Don’t bullshit me, Dev. We’ve know
n each other too long. You screw something up? What, kick a hole in the wall? ‘Cause that’ll take some sheet rock and taping compound, gonna be more than just a few minutes, stuff has to dry overnight, then….”

“No, nothing like that, just, well there might be a little spray paint.”

“Yeah, I knew it was something. You?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, I think you just answered my question, you did it, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Should be honest with yourself, Dev. You did it, not, you guess.”

I glanced over at him.

“There, see it’s over. Was it so hard? No, of course not. Simple, if only you follow the rules and are honest with yourself.”

“You know me, Gary, I’ve never followed the rules,” I laughed.

Gary sat straight faced and looked at me.

“Yeah, well. Okay, here’s what I’ll have to do. If it’s just one wall I have to paint it corner to corner, otherwise you get some tonal difference and it will look like shit. What’s the girl
’s name, Kathy?”

“
Kiki.”

“She got the paint?”

“Told me she has everything, paint, tray, roller, the works.” I didn’t mention the dog leash.

“
Okay, shouldn’t take that long, we’ll see, but I’m guessing two coats. I can do them both today but it’s gonna take at least an hour between coats to sort of dry, hope it’s latex. Is it?”

“Latex?”

“The paint, oh Christ, it doesn’t matter. Just good to be out, God I haven’t really been out in the world for the better part of a year. Jesus, the women.” He said turning around in the seat again staring at a teenager riding past on a bike. “God, you see that? Man, I’ve been living like a damn monk for forever.”

I pulled into the alley and parked behind
Kiki’s house. We entered through the back gate, then climbed up onto her back porch and rang the doorbell.

“Nice shack?”
Gary said looking around.

“Hi g
uys,” Kiki answered the kitchen door, thankfully she was dressed.

“
Kiki, Gary. Gary, Kiki. Gary is one hell of a painter extraordinaire, he’ll get that bedroom taken care of. That the paint there?” I pointed my chin at three different gallon cans sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter.

“Yeah, do you think it’s enough to do the job?” she asked.

Gary looked at the cans.

“These are all different colors?”

“Yeah, I couldn’t remember which one we used in the bedroom. They’re all similar but I was hoping maybe you could decide.” She sort of shrugged her shoulders, then bounced her breasts as an added incentive.

“I’m sure we can figure it out
. Why don’t you show me the wall,” Gary said.

“Sure, come on. Y
ou stay here, Dev. I don’t want you to see my bedroom,” she giggled.

I shook my head but remained in the kitchen.
Gary followed Kiki like a little child. I hope he knew what he was in for. I could hear the tone of their conversation coming from her bedroom, but I couldn’t make out what, exactly, was being said. Eventually they returned to the kitchen.

“So I got a drop cloth, tray, roller, roller covers, rag to wipe up drips, masking tape, brush, your choice of paint. You’re good to go. You want a drink or anything?”

“A drink?” Gary asked.

“Yeah, I got a couple different beers in the fridge, a w
hite wine, red wine over in the cabinet there. A full bar in the dining room, if you’re into the hard stuff, you know.”

“No, probably shouldn’t,”
Gary said.

“Suit yourself, I’d be drinking all the time if I had to hang around with this character,” she said pointing at me.

“I know what you mean,” Gary said.

“Look,
Gary, I’m going to talk Dev into going with me to the store so I can get a few things. You got everything you need?” she asked.

“Yeah, you kids get the hell out of here,”
Gary shooed us out the back door with his hands.

“Why do I
have to take you to the store?”

“Because,”
she smiled.