Flamethrower (15 page)

Ruby wanted to remind The Crone that, as Jody’s patient, it wasn’t really Ruby’s job to make her psychiatrist face reality. Instead, she smiled.

“It was nice to meet you, toots,” The Crone said. “Good luck with this.”

“You too,” Ruby said. “And thanks for all your help.”

“Not a problem.” The Crone winked one last time, then closed the door after Ruby.

Ruby went down the stairs two at a time. She needed air. Badly.

It was humid outside and low-slung gray clouds crowded the sky. Ruby stood at the top of the stoop for a few seconds, gulping in air, but there really wasn’t anything to gulp. She felt woozy. She debated between a cigarette and a Fireball, decided on the latter, and fished one from her pocket. She popped the candy into her mouth and started walking toward her car. And then felt something. A little shiver down her back. She turned around and saw a black-haired man walking a few feet behind her. Ruby looked right at the guy and registered something intensely familiar. Not good familiar. She stopped in her tracks. The guy kept his eyes down as he walked right past her. Ruby watched him disappear around a corner. She slowly walked to her car. She looked left and right then unlocked the Mustang and got in.

It took her a good five minutes, but Ruby was finally pulling out of the parking spot when she heard a squealing sound and her car lurched unnaturally forward. Ruby’s chest banged into the steering wheel, winding her. She gasped for air then looked into her rearview mirror, where she saw a blue Honda with a dark-haired man at the wheel. Ruby opened her door to get out, saw the Honda backing up, and realized it was going to try running her over. She jumped onto the sidewalk
in time to see the Honda plow into the spot where she’d been standing, nicking her car door in the process.

“Hey, motherfucker!” some girl yelled on Ruby’s behalf.

Ruby glanced at the license plate as the blue Honda sped away, but her eyesight wasn’t the greatest and all she saw were the first two letters, BK.

“Did you see that shit?” A young woman, the one who’d called Ruby’s attacker a motherfucker, had rushed over to Ruby’s side. “That fucking guy was trying to hit you!”

Ruby was flooded with adrenaline. She collapsed onto the lip of the sidewalk, held her head between her hands for a moment, and took a few deep breaths.

“You okay?” The girl had come to sit next to Ruby.

She glanced at the tough-looking young girl. The girl was wearing a muscle-T showing skinny arms.

“Yeah, I’m all right,” Ruby said. She put one hand to her breastbone. She still felt a little funny there, but not as though anything was broken or pierced.

“I’m calling the cops.” The girl had fished a cell phone from her pocket and was dialing.

“Thanks,” Ruby said.

As Ruby listened to the girl reporting the incident, she tried to make sense of what had happened.

“I’m Victoria,” the girl said after she’d closed her phone.

“Ruby. Thanks for calling the cops.” She shook Victoria’s hand.

“They should get here sometime next week.” Victoria smirked. “What was that all about? Someone trying to take you out?”

“It looked that way, didn’t it?” Ruby said. “But I don’t know why. I didn’t realize anyone had it in for me.”

“You piss off an ex-boyfriend or something?” Victoria asked. “I had one come after me in a car one time,” she added without waiting for Ruby’s answer. “Motherfucker didn’t even know how to drive. Got his auntie’s car and tried to run me down but hit a parked car instead. And all I’d done was tell him he wasn’t getting no pussy no more.”

“Some men don’t take that well,” Ruby said.

“No shit.” Victoria shook her head. Her long silky dreadlocks moved.

Normally, Ruby thought dreadlocks looked stupid on white people. In spite of being blond, Victoria somehow pulled it off.

Victoria didn’t seem to have anything better to do, and she hung around as Ruby inspected the Mustang. It had a serious dent but seemed structurally intact, as far as Ruby could tell.

The cops showed up after about fifteen minutes, by which time Ruby had heard most of Victoria’s sexual history. And it wasn’t pretty.

Ruby popped a Fireball, and one of the cops, a young Spanish guy with a spindly mustache, stared at Ruby’s mouth as she sucked the candy. Ruby spit the Fireball out. Both she and the cop watched it roll away into the gutter.

It was a long half hour while Ruby answered the cops’ questions and filled out forms. She knew she should mention that this wasn’t the first time she’d seen the blue Honda, but she didn’t. It would have led to too many additional questions
she didn’t want to answer. When the police were done with her, they left her there, alone with Victoria, who didn’t seem to have anything better to do than hang around rubbernecking. Other passersby had come and gone, but Victoria hadn’t found a reason to leave and was sitting on the sidewalk near Ruby’s car.

“I guess I’m gonna get going,” Ruby told her.

Victoria shrugged. “Yeah. Well. Watch yourself, girl.”

“I will. Thanks for your help,” Ruby said. “You need a ride somewhere?” Ruby added, not expecting to be taken up on it.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Victoria said. “I’m late for work.”

“Oh.” Ruby couldn’t help expressing her surprise. “Where should I drop you?”

Victoria gave Ruby an address in the West Fifties. “I’m a stripper,” she added.

This was basically the last occupation Ruby would have pegged on the skinny, flat-chested woman.

“Good money,” Ruby said.

“You done it?”

“For about five minutes. I’m not much of an exhibitionist. I just felt naked.”

Victoria laughed.

“Yeah. Well I like it,” she said. “Gets me off taking those shit-heels’ money.”

They were in the car now, Ruby marveling over the fact that she was about to drive into the hideousness of Midtown traffic.

Victoria prattled on about men, stripping, and drinking,
apparently her three favorite topics. This successfully kept Ruby from worrying so much about traffic. In twenty minutes, she was dropping Victoria outside the strip club.

“You ever want to come in, just ask for me. I’ll give you a free lap dance,” Victoria said.

“Oh,” Ruby said. “Thank you.” She wasn’t really sure how to interpret that one.

“My dancing name is Dazzle,” Victoria added before shutting the Mustang’s passenger door.

Ruby took a deep breath, then drove downtown.

Ruby circled Jody’s block on Charles Street for twenty minutes before finally getting a parking spot. She was tired, her head was throbbing, and she felt right at the edge of hysterics. She closed her eyes, rubbed her eyelids, then got out and locked the car.

Jody’s block was tree lined and packed with good-looking brownstones. It was very quiet, expensive quiet.

Ruby took out the keys The Crone had given her then tried two before getting the front door open. Jody occupied the two bottom floors, with a tenant at the top. Ruby entered through the garden-level door. The huge apartment was as beautiful as Ruby had expected. The ceilings were high, even on the lower floor. The dark wood floors were gorgeous; the furniture was tasteful and timeless. Even the carefully selected antique light fixtures were perfect. Ruby wanted to move in. To assume the lovely life that went with it. Only that life didn’t appear to be quite as lovely as Ruby had once thought.

Ruby went into the bathroom, threw water on her face, and peed. She still felt horrible, and when her explorations of the apartment led her to the bedroom, she sprawled out on the immense bed. It was soft, very soft.

Ruby came to abruptly a half hour later. She’d been dreaming about Ed. He’d been walking down a busy street ahead of Ruby, not waiting for her. She kept trying to catch up with him but never did.

Ruby went into the bathroom again, splashed more water on her face, then started rooting through the apartment. There were immense closets filled with well-made clothes and shoes. There was a lovely kitchen, an expensive-looking stereo and TV and walls lined with hardcover books. Ruby couldn’t find a computer though. She knew Jody had a laptop, had seen it at The Psychiatrist’s office, so she assumed Jody had taken it with her. Ruby didn’t find anything useful in the desk drawers in the study.

She went to sit in the dining room and put her face in her hands, trying to empty her mind. She was vaguely expecting some revelation, some sense of her psychiatrist, anything. But no. All she got was a headache and the idea to check with the tenant upstairs.

A tall, fortyish man with a mustache answered Ruby’s knock.

“Yeah?” he scowled down at Ruby. He was wearing a black silk robe, and his long hair hung past his shoulders. He looked like a medieval king recently back from conquest.

“Hi. I’m trying to find Jody Ray,” Ruby said simply.

“Well she ain’t in here,” he said as though Ruby had just accused him of harboring the fugitive psychiatrist.

“I was wondering if you’d seen her lately and if she said anything to you. I’m a friend of her husband’s. She’s missing.”

“Oh,” the guy said, softening. “You want to come in?”

Ruby had the feeling the guy might eat her for dinner. But maybe he knew something. “Sure, thanks,” she said.

The apartment was similar to Jody’s, though the ceilings weren’t quite as high and the many windows were covered in heavy curtains. An enormous computer monitor sat on top of a mahogany desk. The screen was filled with dense, tiny strings of text.

“Code,” the guy said, noticing that Ruby was looking. “I’m a programmer. Name’s Paul, by the way.”

Ruby told him her name and suddenly felt tongue-tied. Paul was standing a bit too close to her, making her nervous.

“When was the last time you saw Jody?” she asked.

“Sit down,” Paul said, motioning to a dark green couch.

Ruby sat.

“About a week ago,” Paul said. He was still standing and had folded his arms over his chest. He looked like a prosecutor about to go in for the kill.

“Saw her leaving the building when I was coming home. She was with some guy. Not the husband. Young guy. You don’t expect me to believe you’re a cop do you?”

“No,” Ruby shook her head, “just a friend. Did Jody say anything when you saw her?”

“‘Good morning’ maybe. Some pleasantry like that. It’s not like we were in the habit of having heart to hearts.”

“What did the young guy look like?”

Paul frowned. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe mid-twenties. Brown hair. Skinny. Shorter than me. The hair was kind of long. All one length.”

Now it was Ruby’s turn to frown. The description seemed familiar somehow. Even though she couldn’t think of anyone fitting it.

“How did she act toward the guy?”

“I don’t know. The guy was carrying stuff. Maybe suitcases. Yeah, that’s right.” Paul’s face became animated. “I remember I wondered if he was some sort of hired help or if she was running off with him. I haven’t seen the husband in a while.”

“They’re separated,” Ruby said.

“Too bad,” Paul said, though he didn’t seem worked up about it. “How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“Are you separated?”

“What?”

“I mean are you single?”

“No, I’m not single,” Ruby said more severely than she’d intended.

“No offense,” Paul said. “Had to take a shot.” He grinned.

“No offense taken,” Ruby said. “And thanks for your help.” She rose from the couch and made a beeline for the door.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Paul said.

“No, it’s fine. I just have to go.” She looked up at him. He was cute in a towering-ogre sort of way.

“Thanks for your help, Paul.”

“Anytime,” he said.

Ruby walked into the hall and down the steps two at a time. She got into her car and immediately lit a cigarette. It made her feel worse. She turned the radio on and played with the dial until she hit pay dirt, an Elliott Smith song, “Pictures of Me,” on one of the college stations. Ruby loved the song, even though listening to Elliott Smith always made her angry at the guy for killing himself. When the song ended, Ruby moved the dial over to WKCR Beethoven’s cheerful, pathologically optimistic Sixth. Always a pleasure.

Ruby took her phone out of her pocket to make sure no one had called. No one had. Ruby called her bank’s automated phone number, punched in her account number, and discovered that Tobias had kept his word. Ruby’s balance was up by a thousand bucks.

Ruby nosed the car into traffic. She was putting Tobias and Jody on hold and going to Belmont to try talking to Ed again. She had to do it.

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER
, Ruby pulled her car into a spot at the end of Ed’s shed row. She popped a Fireball in her mouth and got out of the car.

Nicky the groom was leading Bend Sinister, an older gray gelding, toward his stall. Nicky nodded at Ruby.

“Seen Ed?” she asked.

“Right there.” Nicky pointed to Juan the Bullet’s stall just as Ed emerged from it.

At first, Ed reacted naturally: He smiled. Then the smile froze, and he looked uncomfortable.

Ruby had thought words would come easily. Or that maybe that she wouldn’t need words, that Ed would throw his arms around her and the whole unpleasant mess would be history.