Jennifer Crusie Bundle (89 page)

Grady shook his head. “Nope. I got myself into this. I'm ready.”

“Oh, Grady,” Allie said, but he'd already gone into the booth with Charlie.

Charlie plugged the news cassette in and she watched them as he gave Grady the chair and then leaned on the side of the booth to talk to him. Charlie looked like death, exhaustion and unhappiness making him haggard. For a moment, she relented because she loved him.

Then she went in to try one last time to convince him.

“You can't do this,” she said when she was in the booth with them. “I've tried and tried to think of a way around this, but I can't. Joe says a prison sentence is mandatory. You can't do this.”

Charlie closed his eyes against her. “It's the law. I know Grady did what he did because he loves his mother—”

“He saved her life,” Allie broke in. “She couldn't eat. He saved—”

“But the law is the law,” Charlie went on inexorably. “He broke it.”

Allie looked at Grady for help. “I don't believe this. The law is stupid. In fact, the law is
wrong—
”

“Listen to me,” Charlie said and the intensity in his voice stopped her in midsentence. “One of the biggest problems this country has is that people think a law is only a law if they agree with it. And if they don't, it's all right to kick guys like Joe out of the service and bomb abortion clinics because there's a
higher law
at work. And that's garbage, Allie. The law is the law. If you don't like it, change it. But don't break it and then start whining when there are consequences.”

“But they won't change it,” Allie snapped. “Politicians are such cowards when it comes to legalizing any drugs that they'd rather see people die than risk their careers. It's not going to change. And it's
wrong.
”

“The law is the law,” Charlie said. “You can't choose which part of it you like and which you're going to ignore. It's not a salad bar, Al. The whole thing stands, or the whole thing goes. And Grady broke the law.”

“And you're going to turn him in.” Allie stood there, her eyes blazing at him in contempt. “Good old by-the-book, my-way-is-law Charlie. I bet you look a whole lot like your father now.”

Charlie winced, and Grady stood up and said, “Wait a minute.” His voice was low and mild but it cut through her anger. “Thanks for the defense, Al. I appreciate it. But Charlie's right. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.” He turned to Charlie. “I'm only asking one favor.”

Charlie nodded.

“Don't turn me in until tomorrow morning. Let me finish the show and tell my mom and dad first.”

Charlie knew he was right, and he'd never felt worse in his life, knowing he was ruining Grady's life, knowing Allie would probably never speak to him again. It was a lot to pay for being right. “Of course I won't,” he told Grady.

Grady looked him in the eye. “I won't run.”

Charlie swallowed. “I know that. Oh, hell, Grady.” He cast around for something to say.

Grady sat back down in the console chair. “It's not your problem anymore,” he told Charlie as he picked up the headphones. “In fact, if I hadn't started doing this, you wouldn't have been here at all. So it's always been my problem. Sorry I dragged you into it.”

“I'm sorry you did, too,” Allie said.

Charlie looked at her. “I'm not sorry. I wouldn't trade these past weeks for anything.”

“Well, I would,” she said, and there were tears in her voice. “I'd trade them for Grady's freedom. You're going to send him to prison. Do you know how long he'll be there? Do you know how awful—”

“Allie, let it go,” Grady said. “I'm not a kid. Stop treating me like one. This isn't Charlie's fault.”

“Well, it sure looks that way to me,” Allie said and walked out of the booth, and Charlie felt all the warmth and air leave the room with her.

He was right. He knew he was right.

But being right without Allie was lousy. And that was going to be the story for the rest of his life.

Grady rubbed his forehead. “She'll calm down. She'll see there was nothing else you could do.”

“Will she?” Charlie sat on the edge of the console. “
I'm
not even sure there was nothing else I could do. You're not a criminal.”

“Well, yeah, I am,” Grady said. “I committed a crime. I'm pretty sure that makes me a criminal.”

“And she was right about something else.” Charlie looked unhappily at Grady. “I'm acting just like my father. And yours. Rigid.”

Grady shook his head. “My dad told me about your brother. Your father covered up your brother's crime. You're doing the opposite. You're on the side of the angels.”

“Pretty lousy angels.” Charlie tipped his head back. “I know I'm right. My dad knew he was right. Bill always knows he's right. I'm everything I never wanted to be. I've spent my whole life refusing to have anything to do with people so that I'd never try to control anybody. And now I'm alone and still controlling people. What I should do is just leave town now. I know you'll tell Bill, so my job's done.” He felt so tired his bones ached. “I should just go now.”

“And leave everybody?” Grady looked incredulous. “Not say goodbye to Harry or Joe or Karen? Or Allie?”

Charlie laughed shortly. “I don't think Allie will talk to me long enough to let me say goodbye.”

Grady watched him for a moment and then shrugged. “Then go. I'll tell them all you said so-long.” He straightened as the music stopped and leaned in to the mike to begin his show intro, and Charlie backed out of the booth as soundlessly as possible. He listened to Grady for a few minutes, talking about herbal teas this time, and then he picked up his coat and left.

A
LLIE DROVE
around for a while, trying to make sense of what had happened. Charlie's arguments sounded right, but there were Grady and Beattie and Mrs. Winthrop, and they weren't wrong. So how could Charlie be right? There should have been a simple answer, and there wasn't.

She stopped and picked up cashew chicken and pot stickers because she was unhappy and starving and because it was what she wanted, for some reason.

Then she went home, and turned on Grady's show, and thought about the mess some more.

She wanted to hate Charlie for what he was going to do to Grady, but she didn't. She loved him. And tomorrow was November and he was leaving, and she'd be alone again, picking up the pieces he'd left behind him.

Well, not alone. She had Joe. And Harry. And Karen and Marcia, and even Mark and Lisa weren't a complete loss. And Bill and Beattie and most of all Grady. She'd be working her butt off for Grady because he deserved it. She'd find a way to keep him out of jail.

And she'd get the drive-time show back. Mark would take her back in a heartbeat: the last thing he needed was her making some new bozo the flavor of the month the way she'd done with Charlie. He still didn't get it that she hadn't done it alone. That they'd been a team.

Allie closed her eyes for a moment because it hurt so much to remember that. In the background, Grady was playing some weird chanting music. Who would play the weird stuff while Grady was in prison?

The doorbell rang, and Allie went to get it, assuming Joe had forgotten his key and grateful he was home to comfort her.

But when she opened the door, Charlie said, “Can we please talk about this?”

Allie stood silent, staring at him as he filled her doorway. She blinked back tears and tried to breathe. The worst thing she could do would be to cry all over him; he was her problem, not her solution. But he stood there, tall and broad and solid and safe, and he sure looked like all her solutions for the rest of her life.

And tomorrow was November and Grady was going to jail.

He came in and closed the door and took her hand and pulled her over to the couch. Then he sat down beside her, and she held herself rigid so she wouldn't lean into him, trying not to collapse against him, furious with him for what he was doing to Grady, loving him so much she was paralyzed with it.

“I don't want to leave it like this,” Charlie said. “This is not the way we do things. Scream at me or something, but don't walk away from me.”

Allie swallowed, and her voice came out strained. “I don't know what to scream. I know you're right. And I know you're wrong. And I'm so tired, and you're leaving anyway.” She tipped her head back and stared at the cracks in the ceiling. One of the cracks curved around itself and looked vaguely like Australia so she concentrated on that. All her other thoughts hurt too much.

“My father got my brother off the hook on his drug charge,” Charlie said. “Bought off the witnesses and slung Ten's butt into a rehab center. He got Ten so buried, he couldn't even call his girlfriend. But he solved the problem. My mother was not embarrassed. My brother was not jailed. And the law, well, the law is for the little people.”

Allie turned at the pain in his voice. “Charlie, you don't have to—”

“Yeah, I do.”

She could see how seriously he was looking at her, and she was too tired to argue. “All right. Tell me.”

“He fixes everything the way he wants it.” Charlie said. “He wanted Ten to be a success and he was. Only Ten had to deal drugs to get it. And he wanted me to settle down, so he sent me here. Bill didn't give a damn about that letter. He was doing my dad a favor, give his son a job, make him settle down. That's what my dad told Bill. I know it.”

“Well, he didn't get what he wanted there,” Allie said. “You're leaving tomorrow. You—”

“And I'm doing the same thing,” Charlie went on. “I did what I was sent to do, fix Bill's little anonymous-letter problem.” He looked at Allie. “I know I'm right on this. But it feels wrong. It feels like my father. It feels lousy.”

“You're not your father.” Allie's voice was firm. “You refuse to take any responsibility for anything. You never tell anybody what to do.”

“Why does that sound so bad?” Charlie slumped back against the couch. “I thought it was a solution, but it's as bad as the problem.” He shook his head. “I packed my car tonight. I figured my job was done, and I hated what was happening so I thought I'd just leave. Let you play opera until you found another schmuck to make into a star.”

Allie latched on to his mistake. “I didn't make you a star. You did. Your personality and your brains and your talent.”

“We did.” He looked at her then. “We did it together.”

Allie closed her eyes because it hurt too much to look at him. “Don't. It's over. You're leaving.”

“No, I'm not,” he told her. “I can't. I can't leave you. I love you. I can leave Tuttle, but I can't leave you. I don't ever want to spend another day without you.” He leaned toward her, and his voice was taut. “I was going to leave this whole mess behind. I got in the car to go, and then I just sat there and thought, ‘Where the hell am I going?' Because without you, there isn't anyplace else to go. You're all there is.”

All the air had been sucked out of her lungs. Allie felt pain in her chest and heat behind her eyelids where tears pressed, and she couldn't move from all the emotion that was choking her.

When she didn't say anything, Charlie added, “Say something, please. I'm dying here.”

She tried to suck some air into her lungs. She was having trouble breathing. And speaking. “I…” The words died.

Charlie took her hand. “I love you, Al. It's not about sex or the bet or the show. I love you. I don't know, with what I've done, if that's enough, but I do love you.”

“It's enough,” she said, and her voice broke. “It's enough.” She swallowed. “I'm really mad at you, and I hate what you're doing to Grady…”

“I know.”

“But I love you,” she said, and as she said it, any doubts she had disappeared forever. “I love you so much sometimes I get dizzy when I look at you. I feel good when I'm with you. I feel right. I think you're wrong here, but I don't think I could stand life without you.”

He bent to kiss her, and she held her breath and felt his lips on hers, warm and gentle and everything he was, and she kissed him then, with all the love she had for him, memorizing him, breathing with him as his mouth grew hot on hers.

“Don't ever leave me,” he said against her lips, and she almost laughed because she wasn't the one with the need to leave, but then the chanting on the radio stopped and Grady's voice broke in.

“This will be my last show for a while, Tuttle,” he said, and they both turned to listen to him, their heads close. “I've been breaking the law, and tomorrow morning, I'm turning myself in. I had a long talk with a friend tonight, and he pointed out that the law is a fine thing, even when it's wrong. It's the only defense we have against anarchy, against the strong overwhelming the weak. And if it's wrong, well, then it's our job to change it. I've been giving away marijuana to chemotherapy patients because it helps them withstand the nausea the treatments cause, but it's against the law. I think it's time this law was changed, and tonight's the only night I have left to talk about it before I go to jail. If you're listening and you have an opinion, call in. The number is—”