Cracked (17 page)

The bartender was the same, though. He was watching football, again, and barely glanced in my direction when I entered. Huh. And as far as I remembered, blondes had more fun.

I scanned the room, my eyes adjusting to the dark after the bright sunshine outside. Still hadn’t bought shades, and I’d just spent a few hours at a mall. A guy in a baseball cap at the bar turned around. It was Darren.

“Since when do you wear hats?” I said, sitting on a stool next to him.

“Since when do you wear wigs?” he retorted. I ordered a cranberry and soda. Darren was drinking beer. He raised an eyebrow at my order, but looked pleased enough. I was a bit tired after my three glasses with lunch, and figured it was best to take it slow.

“I’m practicing moderation,” I explained to him.

The bartender showed no sign of recognizing me from the day before. He brought me my drink without a word and went back to the game. Chatty guy. I looked at the game for a minute. Pats and Jets. I hate football.

“Is this where you got it?” Darren asked me quietly. I shook my head at him, and headed for a table at the back, near the pool tables. Where I’d hung out with Dom and Dave yesterday. It seemed like weeks ago.

“Yes, this is where Dom got it. There was a chick here yesterday. Looked Latina. Mexican maybe, or Puerto Rican. I don’t know.” I took a long swallow of my drink. Cranberry juice without vodka. Who knew.

Darren leaned over and gave me a hug. I was worried about my wig slipping, so I just patted him on the back and pushed him away.

“Where did you tell the cops you were going?” I asked him.

“For a drive,” he answered. “I’m not a prisoner. They couldn’t force me to stay in the house.” He looked at me more carefully. “How are you feeling, anyway?”

“My foot hurts like a sonofabitch,” I said, holding out my bandaged right foot. “And look at my hand.” Darren admired the swelling and bruising, while I told him about punching Detective French.

In my family, minor injuries were things to be admired in others. Nothing like wiping out while crossing the street and almost being hit by a car so that you could have a funny story to tell. When Darren leaned down to examine my foot closely, I saw something sticking out of the waistband of his jeans. He was wearing a leather jacket. It wasn’t the hottest day in Southern California, but for those of us from northern climes, it was positively balmy.

Darren was wearing the jacket to hide a gun.

“Where did you get that?” I said calmly and quietly.

“Rosen,” he answered.

“Ginger’s butler gave you a gun?” It wouldn’t be the oddest thing that had happened in the last days, I supposed.

“Loaned,” he answered. “Yes. Actually, it turns out he’s more of a bodyguard. Former Israeli army. It’s a Desert Eagle,” he said. I looked at him. “The gun,” he whispered. “Israeli-designed, manufactured in the good old U.S. of A.” Whatever. He looked at my foot again. “You could use a pedicure.”

“When was the last time you handled a gun?” I asked. Dad had taught us all to shoot when we were kids. Well, adolescents. Some families go to the movies together; the Clearys shot at cans in the gravel pit. I hadn’t touched one since, though I knew the boys had gone deer hunting with Dad sometimes.

“Went to a range in South Carolina last month, on tour,” he said. “I go once every few months.”

“Why do I not know this?” I said.

Darren shrugged. “You telling me there aren’t things I don’t know about you?”

Touché. “You’re not licensed to carry that thing,” I said. “You could get in big trouble.”

“Uh. Danny? You punched a cop today and left her unconscious in a hospital bathroom. Who, exactly, do you think is in more trouble?”

I told Darren about my phone call with Gene, and the woman who’d called with the messages for me. I told him about leaving a message for Miller.

“I haven’t seen him,” Darren said, once he digested everything.

“I still don’t believe it.” I took a sip of my drink. I felt tired, dehydrated and my buzz was slipping away. “Or maybe I do. Darren, I don’t know what to believe. But we just have to concentrate on getting the boys back for now.”

I was about to excuse myself to the ladies’ room to feed myself another bump of coke when the bar door opened.

It was the woman. The drug dealer. Chatting and laughing with Dave. Dave, who yesterday hadn’t even glanced in her direction. Who Dominic had wanted to hide his drug use from. I whipped my head back in Darren’s direction. I hoped they wouldn’t recognize me from body language in the dim light, but long blonde hair does tend to catch people’s eye. It’s one of the reasons I changed mine. I got tired of never being invisible.

“That’s her, isn’t it,” Darren said.

“Yup.”

I thought fast, trying to come up with a clever plan. I couldn’t think of one, so I got up and march-limped over to the bar.

“Dave!” I said, kissing him on his cheek. “Nice to see you again.” Dave looked confused for half a second – why was this tall blonde chick kissing him? – but then he recognized me.

“Hi,” he said. He glanced at the bartender. I turned to the woman.

“We haven’t been formally introduced,” I said, sticking out my hand. “Danny Cleary. And you are…?”

“Lola,” she said. She looked sort of bemused. Like she was enjoying the fool I was going to make of myself.

“Lola,” I said. “Right.” She ignored my hand. Her voice surprised me – younger than I thought, and with precise, unaccented English. “I like the blonde. It suits you.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It’s my natural color.”

Off to my left, I noticed the bartender giving the nod to the other two guys at the bar, who got up and left without a word. The bartender slowly came from around the bar and locked the door behind them, then walked back and looked at the TV again. I willed Darren to stay where he was. If he started flashing his gun around, Mr. Football Fan behind the bar would probably pull out a sawed-off shotgun and blast us all to pieces.

Dave was looking nervously at the woman. “Lola,” he started to say, but she shut him up. I stared at them for a minute, then turned to the bartender.

“I don’t know if you remember me from last night,” I said. “Danny Cleary.”

“Lowell,” he responded. He didn’t offer me a handshake either. How rude. These people needed to be taught some manners.

“Where are my nephews?” I asked, looking Lola in the eyes.

“I have no idea,” she answered, eyebrows raised, as though talking to a slightly annoying, slow child.

She couldn’t be the woman who had taken them. That woman was apparently my height and weight, and this one was about five feet tall.

“Why did you dose us? Why did you kill Dom?” I said. I could hear Darren slowly getting out of his chair. “Did you kill Ginger too? Do you know where my nephews are?” Lowell put his hands up suddenly. Without looking back, I knew Darren had drawn down on him. Lowell looked pissed off, but not like he was going to do anything stupid just yet. He didn’t want a nervous-looking pretty boy getting all trigger-happy.

“Dom’s dead?” Dave said. He looked at the woman. “Lola. What the fuck?”

“Shut up, idiot,” she hissed at him.

Then quickly and suddenly, Lola reached across the bar, obviously to grab a gun or weapon behind it. Before she could finish her reach, I grabbed the back of her head and slammed her face into the bar. Hard. As hard as I could, which was pretty hard. Three times. Blood poured out of her face. Her nose was broken. I hoped it hurt. A lot. I held onto her head. My blood was pounding.

“Dave,” I said, not taking my eyes off Lola, “do not move. Do you hear me? You stay right the fuck where you are, or my brother will shoot you in your stupid head.” I glanced at the bartender, whose mouth hung open as he looked at Lola. “That goes double for you, meathead,” I said to him. “Sorry. I mean, Lowell.” I got the impression Lola was the alpha dog around here. He was used to taking orders from women.

I twisted Lola’s arm behind her back, almost at breaking point. She grunted.

“Are you behind all of this?” I asked her. I pushed her arm a little bit further. There was a rush of blood to my head, a pounding of rage and adrenaline.

I had never felt better in my life.

“Bitch, you’d better say something,” I said, “or I am going to break your arm, and then my brother is going to shoot off your kneecap. Then how will you blow the big bad dealers in the alley for your crack supply?”

Lola spat blood into my face. I jerked her arm up further, and the sound of it breaking was like a branch snapping off a tree in a dry forest. She screamed. We were all silent for a minute. It wildly occurred to me that there might be someone in the kitchen, but I saw the sign on the bar that said “No Food To-Day.”

“Danny?” Dave was speaking off to my left, very quietly. I glanced at him quickly. Both of his hands were gripping the bar, and his eyes were wet.

“Yes, Dave,” I said calmly.

“Is Dom really dead?”

In a couple of sentences, I told Dave what had happened the night before. I believed that he didn’t know anything. He wasn’t smart enough to be that good an actor. And being in grief myself, I recognized the real thing in him.

He nodded, crying. “You bitch. You bitch,” he was screaming at Lola, who I was still holding by her hair. She was moaning and trying to rock back and forth, but I held her head tight. I wanted to rip her hair out of her head.

“Danny,” Darren said behind me. “I’m going to ask Lowell here a question.”

“Shoot,” I said. I smiled at the bartender. “Whoops. Sorry, meathead. Didn’t mean that literally.”

“You know why we’re here, don’t you,” Darren said. “Did you know my sister?”

“Tall bitch? Looked a bit like that one?”

I could hear Darren breathing. Even Lola was silent.

“Yeah, I knew her,” he said slowly. “How could I forget her? That bitch gave me the best head I’ve ever had.” Before the last word was out of his mouth his hand had moved below the bar.

“Darren, gun,” I yelled. In the same moment that Lowell managed to get the sawed-off shotgun from under the bar and point it, Darren fired.

Lowell slammed back into the bottles behind him, the top of his head spraying onto the mirror.

I looked at Darren. He was still holding the gun as though he expected more bartenders to pop up behind the bar like ducks at a fair.

The big man disappeared behind the bar, which was now red and slick with his blood. I threw Lola to the ground, where she screamed as her broken arm made contact with the floor.

“Darren. The back door. Quickly. You too, Dave,” I said, pulling Dave up by the back of his shirt. Darren grabbed him and handed me his gun.

“I don’t need it,” I said, waving him off. I picked up my purse and pulled the knife from it. Lola tried to kick at me from the floor. I kicked her kneecap as hard as I could, and leaned down, the tip of the blade at her throat.

She looked at me, knowing it was her last moment to live.

“You’ll regret this,” she said. “They will get you.”

I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t be sure how involved she was. I wanted to kill her, I wanted to slice her throat, I wanted to punch her until every bone in her face was broken. But she could be a pawn. She could be just a low-life pawn. I couldn’t be sure.

“They’ve already gotten me,” I said. “They killed my sister.”

Instead of cutting her, I kicked her in the stomach. With my bad foot. Then I threw the knife back into my purse and hobbled after the boys.

I hopped, skipped and ran to the car. Darren had thoughtfully parked in the alley behind the bar. He was driving a vintage red Fiat Spider convertible. He’d shoved Dave into the miniscule backseat.

“Get in!” Darren yelled.

“Shut up,” I said. I hopped over the passenger door and slid into my seat as Darren pulled away.

“Observe every fucking road rule, Darren,” I said.

“No shit,” he said. He was shaking. “Light me a cigarette.”

He didn’t smoke, but I didn’t comment. I lit two, difficult in a convertible, handing one to Darren and one to Dave, who was cowering in the backseat. If you can’t start smoking after killing somebody, when can you?

“Unobtrusive car,” I commented. My ears were ringing, but my hands were surprisingly steady. Everything seemed too bright.

“It’s Southern California,” he said. I could tell by his voice that Darren was feeling the exact same way. Shock.

“Rental?” My voice sounded high and unnatural.

“Nope.”

“You bought it?”

“Yup.”

“With cash?”

“Of course,” Darren said.

“Wish I was a rock star,” I said. Everything seemed too vivid. I hoped I wouldn’t pass out. The wind would help. Darren laughed, too loudly.

Dave, emboldened by the cigarette gesture, piped up from the back. “Where are we going?”

We all pondered this. “Do we have a plan?” I asked Darren.

“I was hoping you would,” he said. “I plan on getting drunk, myself.”

I nodded. It was as good a plan as any, and I said so. We needed to regroup.

“But we need to find somewhere to stay,” I said. “Probably not wise to go back to the house.”

“No,” Darren said. He looked in the rear view. “Dave? You there?”

Dave looked petrified of Darren. “Yes,” he said.

“Feel like going to Palm Springs?”

“Never been,” Dave said. “I’m supposed to be back to work.”

“Sorry, pal,” Darren said. He threw his cigarette overboard. “I think you might be taking a sick day.”

I pulled off my wig and stuffed it into my purse. And we cruised down to Palm Springs.

* * *

The scenery on the way from Orange County to the desert is breathtaking. Red rocks, mountains, acres of windmills. And traffic.

“Rush hour,” Dave called from the backseat. He was probably getting bugs in his mouth. Convertibles are overrated, if you ask me. I kept turning around to see if anybody was following us, but with the amount of traffic, it was an impossible task. I’d never tried to see if anyone was tailing me before. Except maybe keeping an eye out for police when I was scoring, and even then, I was pretty foolhardy.

Darren had been silent for most of the trip. He had his sunglasses on, so I couldn’t see his eyes. I wondered how he was feeling. It was his first time killing someone. At least, as far as I knew. He handled it well enough that I was starting to have my doubts. But me? I was feeling just fine, other than the obvious injuries, and for the fact that Ginger was really dead. But as for regret about what had happened at Lucky’s?