Prudence Couldn't Swim (18 page)

Red Eye carried on sweeping the glass away, attacking the counter with a sponge.

“The little pieces can get into your food,” he said, “they'll tear you up from the inside out.”

“Who did this?” I asked.

“Don't know,” he said, “they got away. But I did my job. If I wasn't here, homeboy, they'd have come through the front door.”

I wasn't convinced by Red Eye's self-important evaluation, but he was right. I wanted him there, late-night soccer, pizza boxes, the whole nine yards.

I expected the police to arrive, but the quiet through the rest of the night was only punctuated by two more Manchester United goals and Red Eye's slightly repressed reaction. I heard him mumble something about winning $500 from “those motherfuckers.”

The next morning a woman from the police phoned. They said they were following up a report of a “loud banging noise.”

“Our call is part of the ongoing process of evaluating police services,” she said.

“How did you find out about this incident?” I asked. “Did the pony express deliver the message?”

“I'm looking at a report,” said a Miss Francona. “Someone called at 1:46 a.m. A squad car arrived three minutes later. They reported that it was all quiet. I'm just doing a follow up. Trying to maintain a high level of communication with our clients.”

“Whatever,” I said. “I never saw any police but maybe they spoke to someone else. Who phoned in the report?”

“I'm not at liberty to divulge that information,” Miss Francona said.

“Have a nice day,” I said and hung up. Even when they were trying to do the right thing the police pissed me off. I would have let them know it too, if I didn't have so much to lose. I had a shot of Wild Turkey and decided I'd give Miss Francona a piece of my mind after all. I hit the call back button on my phone. I got a recording saying that the number I had reached was out of service. Miss Francona lucked out. She wasn't going to like what I would have said.

But the more I thought about that brick, the more I realized police weren't really the problem. I had been violated again. I had to fight back with everything I had or just keep getting punked until one day I ended up lying on my living room floor just like Prudence. I needed a little more firepower than that Walther could provide.

M
andisa phoned at seven the next morning. I slapped myself across the face to wake up before I picked up the phone. Said she wanted to talk, that she had some new information. The only information I wanted was where to get an AK-47. I told her to call back in a couple of days. Suddenly that Walther felt like a poor excuse for a weapon.

Once I'd downed a couple cups of coffee, my urge to feel that AK in my hands receded a little bit. I phoned Mandisa back and asked her if she could come over to my place that afternoon. She surprised me and agreed. I hoped Red Eye had cleaned up all the glass off the kitchen counter.

Before I could ask him about the cleanup or getting an AK, he told me he wanted to do a barbecue. He thought it might make me feel better.

“Being a bodyguard isn't just about security, homes,” he said. “It means keeping the boss's spirits up.”

I hadn't used my barbecue in months. Not many people grill steaks when they eat by themselves. While I drowned myself in more black coffee, Red Eye spent half an hour spraying oven cleaner on the bits of meat that were still stuck to the grid. Despite his determined efforts, flecks of black remained. I didn't want to think about how much residue from that oven cleaner I'd be swallowing with my dinner.

Red Eye bought three huge T-bone steaks and four pork chops. He made up his own marinade: ketchup, Worcestershire, Mrs. Butterworth's maple syrup and slices of those tiny green jalapenos—the extra hot ones.

“The hot will cook out,” he promised, “don't worry, bro.”

Red Eye didn't just buy meat. He felt the urge to be properly attired after he ran into a sale on aprons and chef's hats at Target. His sea of tattoos clashed with the Charlie Brown cartoon on his white apron. The one size-fits-all chef's hat didn't encompass his size. It sat like a shrunken derby atop his shaved head.

While I paced the yard looking for suspicious movement in the bushes and listening for cars driving past, Red Eye preached about the power of water and charcoal lighter to control the fire level.

“Can't just use any water,” he said. “It needs the right mineral balance.” He proudly set two quart bottles of Stream of the Gods next to the barbecue. Stream was the most expensive brand in the gourmet section at Safeway.

With the chops and steaks wallowing in the marinade on the kitchen counter, Red Eye focused on the fire. When the flames flared up too high from his pile of briquettes and newspaper, out came the Stream of the Gods. The water inevitably brought a cloud of smoke, prompting squirts of charcoal lighter to restore life to the fire. I just wanted it to be over. I hoped Mandisa wouldn't show up in the middle of this barbecue foolishness. She wouldn't be impressed. We were under attack and Red Eye was stressing over getting those briquettes a “perfect gray.”

“It's all ready,” he finally told me. “Just needs one more squirt.”

As I came out the back door holding the bowls of the marinated steaks and chops, I watched the flame back up the trail into the can, then blow it up like a little bomb. Red Eye flew back like Tommy Hearns caught him with a haymaker meant for Marvin Hagler. He kept his feet for a moment, then staggered three steps backwards. The third step landed him in the pool.

For some reason I decided to jump into the pool to rescue Red Eye. The chef's hat was floating in the deep end and I didn't see his head above water. I went in feet first and by the time I looked around Red Eye was striding toward the stairs, Charlie Brown's smile bobbing in and out of the water.

“That was a helluva bang,” he hollered. I'd never seen anyone laugh with singed eyebrows, beard, and arm hair. He started splashing me. As I jumped back to avoid the splash, slices of jalapeno floated to the
surface in a puddle of red sauce. I'd forgotten to let go of the meat before I leaped into the pool.

Red Eye submerged himself, came up with a chop in his mouth and threw it onto the pool deck. Just as the meat plopped on the concrete, Mandisa arrived at the gate. She took one look and beat a retreat.

“I'll come back later,” she said, rushing toward the front yard. I dragged myself out of the pool and sloshed after her, but I couldn't get up any speed in soaking wet jeans. By the time I got to the front yard she was driving away in a yellow Chevy. I stood there for a few seconds and watched her car turn left and disappear around the corner. Then a gold Jaguar with tinted windows cruised past and turned left at the same corner. I couldn't decide if Newman was tailing her or they were in this together.

T
hough I was beginning to doubt Jeffcoat was our man, the next morning Red Eye insisted we had to find out about Peter Margolis.

“Once we find out about him,” he said, “we can start putting the screws to Jeffcoat. If he didn't do it he can point us in the direction of who did.”

I was too crazed from the brick through the window and seeing Newman to disagree. I had become a passenger on Red Eye's bus. He decided that the starting point was Joaquin, a friend of his from the pen who needed a few bucks, had a car and no distinguishing features like a harelip or being sleeved up with everything from NLR to naked ladies performing lewd acts on smiling men.

Joaquin's task was simple. All he had to do was shadow Jeffcoat—find out his habits and his haunts. Red Eye said we needed a way to catch him out of his comfort zone, away from those panoramic views and pushbutton security guards.

“You can squeeze the balls of the high and mighty and they'll scream just like anybody else,” was how he put it. “You just need to get them to a place where you can get a good grip on their
huevos,”

It took no time at all for Joaquin to discover Jeffcoat's major haunt—the Cavalier Bar, an upmarket downtown joint that served those seven-dollar drinks with fancy names and parasols or bears carved from ginger sticking out of them. Jeffcoat went there every night after work. But the place was more than a watering hole. According to Joaquin, lots of aspiring young ladies frequented the place.

“They're not hookers,” he said, “just gold diggers.”

I wasn't sure there was a difference, but that wasn't the point. Joaquin assured us that Jeffcoat liked to buy the young ladies a few drinks.

“He's real friendly,” Joaquin said. He didn't need to explain any more. We already knew Jeffcoat's Achilles heel lay between his legs. If we could catch him with his pants down, he'd melt. All we needed was the right woman. Red Eye and I would handle the rest.

Olga took some convincing. Not that she was adverse to our scheme and she liked the sound of the new name on the drivers' license I'd gotten her, “Maria Kournikova.”

“They will think I'm the sister of the famous one,” she said. “So exciting.”

The problem was she couldn't quite comprehend that the attire for the Cavalier had to be understated. She was used to micro miniskirts and massive cleavage displays.

“These are wealthy gentlemen,” I told her. “They have the same desires but they require more discretion.”

Olga may have understood the dictionary definition of discretion, but she had a hard time applying the concept. It was more than a language problem.

“Let's go shopping,” I told her, “I'll show you.” She didn't require convincing about making a trip to the mall to shop for clothes. We started at a little boutique called The Eternal Rose.

I picked out a long pink skirt with a slight slit, reaching just above the knee.

“This is discretion,” I explained. “Still sexy but leaving something to the imagination. A little mystery.”

She pulled a black leather micro-mini off the rack and found some gold stiletto heels to match.

“Trust me,” I said, “that's not the ticket. We're going upmarket.”

A round-neck white blouse went perfectly with the pink skirt. No cleavage but a suggestive button to be left undone.

“You wear this, you'll catch him,” I said. “Wear one of those thin bras that give him a suggestion of your nipples. Like you're already hot. It'll drive him wild.”

“American men are crazy,” she said.

“I'm paying,” I said. “I call the shots.”

She pouted for a moment, then tried a sexy finger touch to my sensitive regions.

“You want my honey pot,” she said, “buy me black leather. I go animal.”

“Not today,” I said. “Today is all business. I'm paying you a flat rate. A thousand dollars plus clothes.” She was beginning to understand. “And you don't tell a soul about any of this.”

“That's not hard,” she said. “Olga may not speak good English but she knows how to keep a secret.”

We picked a Thursday night to strike. We were prepared for success. We'd paid a friend of Red Eye's who he called Jimmy the Geek, to use his San Leandro apartment for the evening. It took a lot of air freshener to get it ready. I even bought a new pink bedspread and some matching throw pillows, then added a couple landscape paintings for the wall. It wasn't a suite at the Hyatt, but plenty good enough to trap a scumbag millionaire. We bought some vodka for entertainment purposes, though we didn't want Jeffcoat too drunk to be scared.

Red Eye and I sat in the Volvo with Olga just down the street from the bar and waited. We listened to the Eagles and waited for Joaquin to give us the high sign.

Once he phoned us and said Jeffcoat had just gone into the Cavalier, we turned Olga loose in her tasteful round-necked blouse.

She phoned us in an hour and said she had Jeffcoat wrapped around her finger.

“He's horny but not bad-looking,” she told us as she got in the car. He was supposed to meet her at the apartment in about an hour. A married businessman couldn't be seen leaving a bar in the company of a strange woman with erect nipples. As I'd told Olga, discretion was currency.

As we headed off toward San Leandro, Olga started to complain.

“I can't make sex in these funny clothes,” she said, “and in a strange place. Not a good idea.” Everyone has their line in the sand. We'd found Olga's. I told her I'd throw in two hundred bucks more and she got back on point. We also promised her not to leave them together for too long. We got there before Jeffcoat, giving me enough time to fluff up the pillows and take the Oakland Raiders team photo off the wall. Don't know how I missed it the first time around. Red Eye was busy going through a little leather suitcase, making sure all our equipment was ready. It was going to be a long night. The only problem was that Jimmy's apartment was a studio—no place for us to hide. When Jeffcoat buzzed at
the downstairs door, Red Eye and I headed for the roof. We promised Olga we'd be back in ten minutes.

“Just long enough for you to get his pants off,” I said.

“No man has ever refused to let me take his pants off” she boasted.

We sat up on the roof and smoked a joint. Red Eye pulled the steam iron out of the suitcase and held it up in the air.

“This works every time,” he said. “The minute you plug it in, they start shaking.” I couldn't wait.

Jeffcoat was in his boxers when we barged in, guns drawn.

“Good evening,” I said. “Is this a bad time?” Olga quickly pulled her hand away from Jeffcoat's rapidly deflating manhood.

“What the hell is this?” he shouted as he reached for his pants. Red Eye got there first. He picked up Jeffcoat's black slacks and threw them across the room.

“Your dick seems to be getting you into all types of hot water lately,” I said. “Maybe you should learn where it belongs.”