No Gun Intended (8 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Tipsy Mom fell all over Mickey when he opened the door for her, Dad, and Luis. Dad gave him a man hug, and Luis held him like a long-lost brother. I was happier than the ending of an awful, sappy Hallmark movie. Name one, any one, if you can. It doesn't matter.

I had sobered up considerably, having, um, exercised with Mickey, followed by gulping down three espressos from my parents' machine. So I didn't allow for much greeting time. “Hey, boys, it's time to go play some pool. Let's
vamos
.”

Luis laughed. “
Amiga
, you speak just like a native.”

I knew he was kidding. “
Bueno
. Chop chop.”

“Annabelle, darling, what is your hurry? That place will be open for at least another couple of hours, and, holy crap, Mickey just got here, and I think we should all chat for bit, don't you, Mickey?” Mom squeezed his hand.

“Sylvia, there's nothing I would rather do than sit and chat, but my partners here, it's their case, and they're in charge. We'll have lots of time tomorrow.” He kissed her hand.

“He's a keeper, Bea.” Mom beamed at me, and then back at Mickey. It was enough to make me hurl.

“Um, Mom, I know. I live with him, remember?” I traded glances with Dad, who smiled his usual calm, it's-all-okay smile. “Really, Mickey, Luis, let's get out of here.” I picked up Dad's car keys from the counter and jingled them. “Okay with you, Dad?”

He nodded. “Be careful, have fun, maybe Mickey should drive? You've had a couple?”

I considered this, then tossed the keys to Mickey. “Sure. I'll navigate.
Hasta la vista!”

Mickey disengaged from Mom, Luis shook Dad's hand, and I hustled out. I heard Luis say, “Thank you, Jeff. We will take good care of the car and of your daughter,” and Mickey echo him with, “Yes, we will. No worries there.”

I was ruffled.
Do I want my friends to take care of me?
I thought.
Sure, and I hope they think I take care of them, too. But if I'm a partner in this operation, then why is it that I am the one everyone assumes needs to be taken care of? I mean, I have acted swiftly in situations that have called for it. I'm nervy and strong and I can run fast, and I fired a gun once when I had to, and while I don't want to ever do that again, I would if I had to. So what is this taking care of the little missus thing because…?

“Annabelle?”

“Huh?”

“You're mumbling to yourself.” Mickey was waiting for me to get in the passenger side of the car.

I opened the door and got in. Then I turned to face him and Luis, who was in the backseat. “Look, I love you both, and you both love me, right?”

They nodded.

“And we're partners?”

They nodded again.

“And we take care of each other, right?”

More nodding.

“So you don't have to tell my father that you will take care of me.”

“Babe, it's just a nice thing to say to your father. No big deal.” Mickey stuck the key into the ignition.

Luis leaned forward. “Annabelle, we trust you and we depend on you.”

“I'm not a little girl.”

Mickey laughed. “I should hope not.”

“You know what I mean, Mickey. I don't want to be condescended to.”

He reached over and patted my knee. “Okay. I get it.”

“I'm an equal partner.”

“
Sí,
” said Luis.

I looked at Mickey, expecting a response. He paused. “You will be an equal partner, once you have more experience and get a license. Come on, Annabelle, you haven't been trained as a police officer. You don't know very much about detective work. You have good instincts, and you're gutsy. That's more than half the battle, but you still need experience. And partners protect each other, and Luis and I will always protect you.”

“Okay. I get that. And I'll prove my worth to both of you, you'll see.”

Mickey put his hand behind my neck and pulled me toward him. “Hon, you already have. Really, this is not an issue.” He kissed me. “Let's go find out if so-called Hank Howard was a regular at the Uptown Billiards Club. Do you have a picture of Claudia?”

“Yup.” I patted my purse. “Let's
vamos
.”

Luis chuckled.

***

The Uptown Billiards Club is located on the edge of the Pearl District. It's another Portland night spot with an old-fashioned feel that's authentic and cool. A small dining room offers seating for a couple dozen patrons, while a long bar lines a big room with several pool tables. The place was hopping when we got there.

We didn't start asking questions right away. Instead, because it was late, we saw a free table and I racked up the balls. Mickey and Luis were about to discover that I have a suppressed pool-shark alter ego. I like to call her “Ripley,” after Sigourney Weaver's lead character in
Alien.
Ellen Ripley could kick anyone's ass, even disgusting out-of-space monsters that can hatch in humans' stomachs.

Come to think of it, maybe that movie had something to do with me not wanting babies.

Luis chalked his cue and broke, got one in and missed on his next shot. Then Mickey hit one in and missed on his second shot. And then, wow, it was one of the best moments of my life. I ran the table. I was on fire, so much so that other people took notice and watched. Mickey couldn't take his eyes off me. I figured he was about to get down on his knees and ask me to marry him, the way he was looking so in awe. Luis grinned and chatted with the bystanders.

After I gently nudged the eight ball into the far corner pocket, I threw my arms straight up in the air and laughed. A biker-type dude came up to me and asked me if I'd play him. He was a little drunk, and he got too close to me. I saw Mickey start toward me as I graciously declined. “No. Back off, now, or your nuts will find their way to your Adam's apple.” Biker dude sneered at me and turned away, just as Mickey got to me.

I put my hands on my hips and smiled. “Coming to my rescue?”

“Yes, and not ashamed to say it. What did you say to him?”

“Not important. Want to play another game?” I put my arm around his waist and grinned.

“Several more games, all kinds of games, all the time. But let's have a drink now, see what we can learn, Minnesota Fats.”

“Call me Ripley.”

We made our way to the bar and ordered three beers. The bartender plopped the bottles down in front of us. “Nice shooting, sister,” she said. She was small—petite, even—but wiry-strong and multi-tattooed with rose branches snaking up and down her arms.

“Thanks.” I tipped my bottle toward her and took a swig. “Nice place here. We're from New York and Las Vegas.”

“Come back anytime. It's fun to have good women players in here.”

“What's your name?” asked Mickey.

“Greta.”

We introduced ourselves, and then clinked glasses while Greta left to wait on other customers.

“Annabelle, you have many hidden talents, is what I think,” said Luis.

“Well, I just exposed the best one.”

“I'm not so sure about that.” Mickey whispered in my ear, then kissed it with just a touch of tongue. I shivered down to my toes.

“Get a room,” said a deep voice behind us.

We turned around to see Biker Dude, too close, again. Before either of us could respond, he grabbed the top of each of our shoulders and pushed us down on the bar. Greta got to us quickly, but Luis was even faster. In a second he was off his bar stool and on the gorilla's back, pulling him off of us. Like he was a bouncer for the place, Luis shoved Biker Dude's right arm in a hammerlock and ushered him toward the door. People made a path for him, and I could hear him say, “Do you understand what I am saying to you? You should not come back tonight, because if you do, you will have many damaging things done to you, things I do not even want to talk about, they scare me too much.” Someone opened the door, and Luis shoved the guy outside.

Luis sat back down after shaking a few hands, and swallowed some beer while Mickey and I smiled broadly.

Greta brought us all another round. “I owe you, mister. Julius there, he's a little, uh…overwrought. Thanks.”

After a while the bar thinned out and Greta came to our end to chat a bit. This was the opportunity to find out what we had come there for in the first place. I pulled out the picture of Claudia. “Greta, do you know this girl? She's mixed up in something, and we're trying to help her.”

“Cops? Really?”

Mickey shrugged. “Yes and no. Used to be cops. Now we're PIs.”

She raised her eyebrows in a way that showed she was impressed. “No kidding? Never met a PI before.” She studied the picture, then flicked her finger against it. “Nope, sorry. I don't recognize her.”

“What about Howard Hanks?” I asked.

“You mean Hank Howard,” Mickey corrected me.

Greta froze. “You know about Hank?”

“It looks like you do, too,” said Mickey.

“He was murdered.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who did it?” Greta's voice wavered.

“No.”

“Were you friends?” I asked.

Greta smoothed her short blond hair and grabbed a rag to start wiping the bar. “He was my ex-boyfriend. I told the police all about him.”

Luis rested his hand on Greta's, which was furiously rubbing at a spot. “We are very sorry about your loss. We do not mean to distress you in any way. Can you tell us, though, if Hank ever talked about someone named Claudia?”

She stared at him. “Huh? No.” She backed up, away from the bar. “Hank wasn't all bad. He had drug problems back East. He was trying to go straight. We were talking about getting back together…What's this all about, with this Claudia chick?”

“She was mugged. There was a mix-up with a gun, it ended up with me by mistake…”

Mickey interrupted me. “Just one more question. Do you know a Wesley Young or Loren Scranton?”

Greta shook her head. “No. Look, I have to clean up here. You guys want anything else?”

“No. Thanks, Greta. We're sorry, really.” I pulled out one of my business cards and tossed it on the bar. “We'll be in town for a few more days, in case you think of anything that might help us.”

“Sure thing. “ She didn't look at us.

Mickey dropped some cash for Greta, and we stood to go. I glanced over my shoulder as we were leaving to see her talking on her cell phone. It looked like she was reading my card to someone on the other end.

Chapter Sixteen

Mickey drove us home, with the help of my phone's GPS. There are about a half dozen bridges in Portland, linking the east and west sides of the Willamette River, and out-of-towners like us needed directions.

“Remember when we used fold-up maps?” I was watching us, the blue dot on my screen, move across the Burnside Bridge. “I could never refold them right.”

“Damn it.” Mickey got to the other side of the bridge and slowed down.

“What?”

“Police. Behind us. Pulling me over.”

Luis and I turned around to see the blinking lights of a police car. “AGAIN? What the…?”

“Ssshh,
amiga
. Stay cool.”

“How many beers did you have, Mickey?”

“Two. I'm fine.” He got us across the bridge, pulled over, and put the car in park. We waited for the cop to approach, and Mickey rolled down his window. “What's the problem, Officer?”

“License and registration, please.”

I dug the registration out of the glove compartment while Mickey dug in his wallet for his license. The policeman shined his flashlight in the car at all of us. I handed the registration to Mickey, and he passed it along to the cop with his license.

“Mr. Paxton?”

“Yes.”

“Are you aware that you were driving erratically back there?”

“No, I wasn't aware of that.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Two beers in two hours.”

“Would you get out of the car, please?”

Mickey paused, patted my knee, and got out. I turned to Luis. “What the fuck, Luis?”

He held his finger to his lips to shush me again, then rolled down his window so that we could hear better what was going on.

The policeman asked why Mickey was driving a car registered to Jeffrey Starkey, and then put him through the drunk driving test moves: following the officer's pen with his eyes, standing on one leg, walking in a straight line heel to toe. Mickey did just fine. The cop handed the documents back to him and said, “Drive carefully.”

“Can you tell me what I did wrong?”

“Started to make a turn a couple of times, and then didn't.”

“I'm visiting Portland. I wasn't sure which way to go.”

“Sorry for the bother, Mr. Paxton. You and Beatrice have a good night.”

Mickey froze. I knew because he had started to get into the car, but his hand stopped on the door handle. He let go and turned to face the policeman. “Beatrice? You know that's her name because…?”

The cop took a moment before answering. “The registration is listed under Starkey.”

“And?”

“Listen, Mr. Paxton, I think it's best if you move along now. If you have any questions about this traffic stop, don't hesitate to contact my superiors.” And with that, he turned and walked back to his squad car.

Mickey got in and pulled the door shut. “They're watching you.”

“They think I'm involved.”

“Or they think someone else is watching you, and they're protecting you.”

“Which do you think?”

He turned the key in the ignition. “We'll meet with Dawson and Monroe tomorrow and find out.”

Luis leaned forward between our front seats. “We do not want the police to be against us. We are police, we understand police. We knew two disreputable police in San Francisco and Las Vegas. But we cannot make assumptions that the new ones we meet, here or anywhere, are crooked.”

I shrugged. “Either way, I don't like being followed.”

Mickey pulled out onto the street to head home. I twisted around and watched the lights of the police car follow us for a block and then turn off.

“Babe, back there at the bar?”

“What?”

“Too much information, what you were telling Greta.”

I took a breath and told myself that I had to learn to take criticism. “What, exactly?”

“I cut you off before you said any more about the gun. All she knows now is that you were in a mix-up with it. That alone might be too much. We know she was in a relationship with Hanks. We need to be careful about sharing information.”

“So you want me to hold things closer to my chest.”

Mickey smiled. “Sometimes, yes. Me included.”

“Like
Señor
Julius said, get a room, you two,” piped up Luis from the backseat.

***

Mickey and I were sitting up in bed together, rehashing the week's events. This much we knew: Claudia was supposed to be the recipient of the backpack with the gun in it. The gun was used to murder Hank Howard. I mean Howard Hanks. Whatever. Greta used to be his girlfriend. Claudia had a boyfriend named Wesley Young. Claudia's father is a jerk. Loren Scranton may or may not be involved. Police have put some sort of APB out to keep track of me.

“We really need to talk to Claudia. I wish she would wake up.”

Mickey yawned. “That would be good. In the meantime, like I said, let's meet with the police, see where things stand with you, and then try to find this Wesley Young kid.”

I leaned over and kissed him. “Go to sleep. I'm going downstairs to have some herbal tea. I'm all wound up like a pitcher in a batting cage.”

Mickey snorted. “You and your convoluted sports metaphors.”

I got out of bed. “Just throwing some curve balls to see if you can catch them.”

“Stop it, please.”

I slipped into my sweats. “Well, all right, but don't blame me if I make it around second while you're covering first.”

Mickey hurled a pillow at me as I hustled out of the room.

***

I was sitting at the dining room table, leafing through a restaurant supply catalog and noting which pages had their corners turned down. Mom and Dad must have been shopping for stuff for the bakery. I saw cute little bistro tables and chairs circled with red ink. There was another page with flatware and one with dishes. This bakery thing was real. It still felt surreal to me.

The house was so quiet. I felt comfortable and at ease, now that both Mickey and Luis were with me. I was confident that together we'd find our way out of this quagmire. I washed my mug in the sink and cleaned Dusty's dish. Dusty. She was a good protector, too, sound asleep in my parents' bedroom.

I stretched and turned to head upstairs, when I stopped short.

I heard the back door open quietly behind me.

In the split second it took me to formulate the thought that the door wasn't locked, someone clapped a hand over my mouth and wrapped an arm around my chest and started dragging me to the door.

I struggled, but I couldn't release the grip.

Whoever it was held me so tightly I couldn't make enough noise to wake even Luis in the den.

In the backyard, another pair of hands grabbed my feet from behind and I was carried to the street and into the back of a van. They tossed me stomach-first onto a smelly mattress. One abductor positioned a blindfold over my eyes and duct-taped my hands behind my back.

I remembered to cross my wrists.

Then he rolled me over and held me while his partner slapped a strip of tape over my mouth, and bound my ankles together.

I saw no faces.

My kidnappers spoke not a word.

They drove the van east, while I tried to control my breathing.

I concentrated on Mickey, bringing his face clearly to my mind.
He would find me,
I thought.
Mickey and Luis. Liam Neeson has nothing on them in those
Taken
movies. Except a Roman nose.

I was trying to fake myself out with false bravery. In reality, I was more frightened than a shortstop without a helmet.