Dirtbags (15 page)

“Eight hundred, forty-five dollars,” the driver read from the invoice. “They said it’s due a few months now.”

“This is ridiculous! I have half a mind to take my business somewhere else. Get your supervisor on the phone.” The driver did, and London reassigned his self-righteous outrage. “I’ve paid my bills right as rain for five years now, and you people are pulling this on me!”

The dispatcher explained things nice as could be, but London demanded to be transferred to somebody else, then someone else yet again, all of who politely explained the balance had gone unpaid long enough and something would have to be done.

“You’d cut a guy off after only four delinquent notices?” London shouted. “I have a business to run. And on this week of all weeks. After my wife is killed? Your company has no heart.”

No one could argue that point and, taking the man’s bereaving into account, the representative on the phone told the driver to leave the seafood delivery, to maybe go easy on him for a while. Let the man get his feet back under him. Everyone involved expressed their deepest condolences and went about their business.

London wondered how much mileage he could get from Corrina’s untimely demise. His head spun with the possibilities. Reyna, ever demanding, gave him a break here and there around the house. After all, he’d just lost his first wife. Frankie, the Mexican working the grill, wanted the raise he’d been promised since they’d opened, but London couldn’t deal with that right now, what with all his grief and such. Even a dissatisfied customer retracted his complaint about an overcooked steak after London played the
dead-wife card
.

London had fancied himself good as scot-free for any possible sins in the foreseeable future and began to feel a touch of ease settling into him for the first time since the sheriff came to call, but quickly abandoned hope when word got out about him and Rhonda. London had no idea where it started but, honestly, it didn’t matter. Once it was out, there was no stuffing it back in there after he saw the text from his wife reading, “FIRE THE BITCH. NOW.”

London stared at that text, unable to move. There he was, on the line, steaks sizzling and setting to burn and Frankie ordering him to
muévete
,
muévete.
Frankie, bitter and one-handed, pushed his boss aside and resumed cooking while London stepped out the back door for a cigarette and to stare longer at the screen on his cell phone.

Once outside, he found another text: “WILL BE THERE IN 5 MIN SHE BETTER B GONE.”

London leaned against the wall and blew cigarette smoke into the stars. He felt the
dead wife card
slip from his grasp and never again considered playing it with Reyna. No, better to prepare for damage control.

Rhonda Cantrell stepped out the back door, gripping a clipboard. “There’s some guy out at table twenty-six who says his mashed potatoes are over-salted. Shall I send him a Key Lime pie?”

London muttered something, kept looking up at the sky.

“Is everything all right, Tom?”

“I’m afraid it isn’t,” London said slowly. He moved softly into her. Her arms received him, knew him well. Warmth passed between them. She held her breath as he lowered his lips to her ear and quietly said: “Reyna knows.”

Rhonda froze, as if unsure she completely understood what she’d just heard. The blood rushed from her face. She quickly jerked her hand, her arms, her everything from London.

Surprised by her reaction, he took a step closer to comfort her, but she took another step back.

“What’s she going to do?” she asked.

“She’s on her way here now,” London said. He reached for her again, only to be rebuked.

Rhonda turned on a heel and made for the office. London followed after and watched helplessly as she gathered her things quick as she could, stuffing what would fit into a purse and leaving what wouldn’t.

“You don’t have to go,” he said, despite knowing it to be untrue. He checked his watch. “Let me explain things to her.”

“I’ll be rooting for you,” Rhonda said as she headed for the back door. “I think it’s better if I’m not around when she gets here.” She stopped at the door and faced him. “Look, call me if this blows over. But it’s best if I clear out. Your wife . . . I’m scared of her.”

London moved in to kiss her goodbye, but she quickly turned and was out the door. No sooner had she gone than a waiter rushed to the back, asking where was the manager, where was this or that, and suddenly London realized he had lost more than just his mistress. Reyna never came and, throughout the dinner rush, he struggled with the urge to call Rhonda and beg her to help him through it just one last time.

“Why don’t we take Fritzie to the hospital?” Jason asked, lying there on the edge of that tobacco field, arms wrapped around the German shepherd. “Why can’t we get a doctor to make him better?”

London tousled his son’s bright, blond locks. “You remember how we used to take Fritz to the park? Remember how happy he was? Don’t you want Fritz to be happy?”

“Yes.”

“Of course you do. Imagine how happy he will be out here, with all this room to run around.”

Jason looked down at the dog, lying motionless except for his chest moving up and down, up and down, tongue lolling in the fresh soil. A slight whimper. Spasm occasionally in the otherwise still tail. Jason rubbed Fritz’s belly.

Reyna never came that night and was gone when he got home. He paid the sitter and poured himself a drink from a bottle of vodka he’d brought home from the restaurant. He waited at the table, writing out one of his lists detailing how much he loved her and revered her and didn’t deserve her, then soon poured another. He woke up, sitting at the table next to an empty vodka bottle and not so much as a call, text, or email from his wife.

Of course, he would be hearing from her soon enough. A woman like Reyna London didn’t leave much unsaid.

London reckoned the world chock full of goodbyes. That week, he’d seen his fair share and, the way things were shaping up, figured he would see quite a bit more. But London swore that if he could do any one single thing to prevent his son from the profound feeling of loss he now faced, he would see to it. No, London thought, it was time to stanch the bleeding.

Reyna hated the dog. When they started dating, she’d insisted the dog was depressing, sick and unable to move without limping. As she moved in, she’d pleaded with him to put it to sleep, put it out of its misery. He thought it more because Fritz had belonged to Corrina and she wanted all memories of the first wife gone: the car, the clothes, the carpet . . . the dog. But she kept at it, never caring that it was the only dog Jason had ever known.

“We’ll get him another one,” Reyna had repeated. “The second Fritz is out, I’ll have another one, younger and cuter.”

Now, London found himself in a quandary. He couldn’t lose Reyna. He’d gone and screwed things up pretty bad, and if it meant getting rid of Fritz to keep her, he consigned himself to it without question. He snatched up the leash and collar and picked Fritz up and loaded him into the car. He picked up his son from school. He drove miles upon miles out of town until he reached the edge of the tobacco field.

He only hoped it was not too late. He only hoped that with the dog gone, Reyna might take him and Jason back.

After a while, he asked his son to get back in the car. Jason held Fritz tight again. The dog, as though sensing the goodbye, lifted his head. A high-pitched whine came from his nose. Jason flattened the fur along his back and stood. He looked down at his dog.

“What will he eat?”

“You remember when Fritz caught that squirrel?”

Jason crinkled his nose. “Gross.”

“It’s nature,” London said. “We’re returning Fritz to nature.” London checked his watch. “Tell Fritzie goodbye, and let’s go home, see if Reyna came back yet.”

“Bye, Fritz,” Jason said. He came around to the car and waited patiently as his father opened the door, then helped him into the child’s seat. “Can we come back sometime to play with him?”

London thought of all the other promises he’d made. To Corrina, to Reyna, to Jason’s grandparents. Lots of promises. He reckoned if he played by the rules, he would be destined for hellfire, so what was the point in starting now?

“Sure we can,” he said. “We can come back anytime.”

He locked Jason in good and tight, then rounded the SUV for the driver’s seat. He glanced down at Fritz, lying prone at the edge of the field of knobby tobacco stalks, and quickly looked away. He had so many things he would say to him if he could but, in the end, knew it didn’t matter, so he climbed into the car and started the ignition.

After all, he was only a dog.

13

The Law Offices of J.B. Baird and Associates was modern back in its heyday. Heydays went south a while back. To be more specific, they went to India or China or some shit. Jobs don’t grow on trees, so folks ran short on money. One type of person survives when heydays move on; J.B. Baird was one of them. As his budget shifted, however, so did his priorities, and first thing to go was updating the office.

Starting with the receptionist. Tom London reckoned Miss Blakely once had a heyday as well, which probably coincided with those of the office. What stood in her place was a wrinkled, withered mess who’d given up manners along with her looks. He tried to imagine a beautiful woman in there, the type that a guy like J.B. Baird would chase after, just pounding away at the walls, screaming to be let out. London looked into the receptionist’s eyes and figured no, that woman’s best days were well behind her.

Some buck on the wall J.B. or his daddy shot back in the early Eighties. Ballpoint pens with ink gone dry, they were bought so long ago. Wood paneling. The office was like a calendar that folks kept forgetting to flip to the next month.

Even J.B.’s suits were a throwback. He bought off the rack now—who didn’t anymore?—and often in colors that London couldn’t quite identify. He came into the lobby with a bluish-green neon-colored thing and fiddled nervously with the ends of it as he addressed London.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” J.B. said. He looked this way and that. “I was on the phone with—I was on the phone and I . . . well, how are you, Tom?”

“Who was you on the phone with?” London asked. He stood and shook J.B.’s hand. J.B. stopped mid-shake and looked London in the eye.

“I don’t . . . I don’t think that’s . . . That’s private, Tom. You know that.”

“Come on, J.B.,” he said.

“No, it’s a matter of—”

“It was my wife, wasn’t it?” London let go of the lawyer’s hand. “It was Reyna.”

J.B. fiddled with his tie. “That’s right, Tom.”

“She ask you a bunch of advice, didn’t she?”

J.B. nodded.

“Tell you she was thinking of ditching Caleb, getting someone new to represent her against me?”

“Why don’t we step into my office?” J.B. glanced at Miss Blakely. She looked up from her magazine, but otherwise gave nary a shit. “Tom, please. This way.”

He led London into the office and offered a seat.

“I’ll stand, if it’s fine by you.”

“Tom,” J.B., insisted “please sit.”

Rather than stand there, looking at each other like idiots all day, London sat, and J.B. rounded the desk and opened a mini-fridge below his gun cabinet. He pulled out a longneck and offered it to London. London looked at it a minute before taking it, opening the screw top with his shirt tail, and having a swallow.

“This is bullshit, J.B.,” London said.

“I know.” J.B. took his chair across the desk from him. “It most certainly is. But I can’t represent you, Tom. Not after that phone call, I can’t. She’s already done sought legal advice and counsel from me, and I can’t do nothing for you now. It’s the law.”

“I know it’s the law,” London hissed. “You think this is the first time I heard this today? I heard the same spiel over at Copeland’s, over at Staszak’s and even over at the Jewish place. I know damn well it’s the law.”

J.B. frowned. “You mean I’m the fourth in line, even after the Jewish fella?”

“Fifth,” London muttered. “I also went to Sid’s, but he’s backed up to April. And he wouldn’t represent me anyway, on account of an issue he took with his steak a while back.”

J.B. rubbed the tip of his tie with thumb and forefinger. “I told you not to mess with this one,” he said. “I told you she was a humdinger. I told you, if you were going to be a dumb shit, you shouldn’t get involved with this one. Sure, I was laughing when I said it, but I said it all the same, and now look at you.”

“I don’t need a lecture.”

“I disagree.” J.B. pulled from the beer bottle and put it down hard on the desk. “That’s exactly what you need: a goddamned lecture. But unfortunately for you, I can’t give it to you legally and neither can anybody else in the county, because if John Simpson’s daughter says she’ll kick the snot out of you, the snot is getting kicked out of you good and solid. This is just the beginning, boy. If I were you, I’d head up to Richmond and get somebody good, because she’s going to hurt you either way.”

J.B. laughed to himself, then added: “And if she pulls Judge Menkin . . . That one has a hard-on for adultery. And him and John Simpson have been friends from the get-go. No, you better get some good help. And don’t skimp, either. Go to D.C. if you have to.”

London hung his head. He’d certainly been a dumb shit. Guilty as charged. But he’d been put in a pickle. He either got investigated for his involvement in Corrina’s death or he produced an alibi. He feared being connected with Phillip Krandall but, looking back, he now realized he feared the wrong fate. The cops didn’t scare him near as much as did Reyna.

There would be no painting this one as a junkie. Oh, her drinking was well documented—a DUI here, a public shouting match at a waitress there—but whose wasn’t in Lake Castor? One good thing about high society was that standards lowered during shaky times, and the occasional blowout was no big deal. Hell, it was practically required. There wouldn’t be a judge or twelve honest citizens in a hundred mile radius who would look unfavorably at a hard drinker, not even Grimm Menkin. No, J.B. was right: he’d picked the wrong one to screw around on.