The Manipulated (Joe Portugal Mysteries) (16 page)

Gina.

She was wearing a big shaggy sweater pulled tight against the chill from the rain. “I’m back,” she said.

“So I see.” I stepped up and sat in the other chair. “Going to stay awhile?”

“I think so.”

I shuffled my chair over next to hers. Flashed on what I had hidden away in my sock drawer. Took her hand.“Are we all right?”

She shook her head. “Not all right. But better.”

“I’m glad.”

She took her hand back, ran it through her hair, turned to me. “Not
all
better.”

“You know I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “Don’t say that anymore, okay? Of course I know you’re sorry. But—this sounds like fucking Joyce Brothers—a marriage is supposed to be built on trust, and if I can’t trust you to tell me everything like you told me everything when we were just friends—then maybe we shouldn’t be married.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I don’t know what I mean. What I do know is that, after spending a few days away from you, I’ve realized a lot of stuff is eating at me, and I’d better get it all out if this is going to have a chance of working.” Again she dragged her hand through her hair. “Remember, before we started having sex, we didn’t want to do it because we thought it would screw up what we had?”

I nodded.

“And it didn’t. Everything was the same, except we were sleeping together. We were still Gina and Joe, best friends, who shared everything. Then we got married. Why did we do that?”

“Ostensibly because you were moving in and you didn’t want your mother to think we were living in sin.”

“The right answer is, it was the next logical step. And that describes our relationship. The whole thing’s very logical. There’s no passion.”

“You’re saying—”

“I don’t mean physically. Emotionally.”

The rain took its cue and came down harder. There was a stream running past the driveway, like the one in front of Samantha’s and Carrie’s house. When I was little and it rained like that, I would build dams out of twigs and rocks right there, wearing soggy sneakers and my yellow slicker with the hood.

Gina said, “I thought it would be different somehow.”

“How?”

“Hell, I don’t know. More … spiritual, I guess.”

“You’re the least spiritual person I know.”

“Look, I’m reaching here. I’m trying to put into words stuff I can’t even get a handle on in my head.”

“We’re way beyond Ronnie here, aren’t we?”

She nodded. “At some point we should find out what happened. But if you can’t even remember, how can I be mad about it?”

I thought of Santini’s photo. Decided it could wait.

“No,” Gina said. “This is about our whole lives together.” Now it was her turn to take my hand. “While I was at my mother’s, I kind of boiled what I think our problems are down to two things. One was what I just said, about our whole relationship being kind of la-dee-dah, we’re together and we get a kick out of each other and the sex is good, but it’s lacking
something
. But I think maybe we can get around that, because it may be that I’m only feeling that way because of the other thing.”

“Which is?”

“I don’t want you to go all stupid about it, okay?”

“Kind of hard to guarantee not to go stupid if I don’t—”

“I’m starting not to like you.”

I wanted to find a boat and sail down the Madison Avenue River. Pick up Culver Boulevard Creek and follow it all the way to the wetlands. Live in a tidepool.

“I still love you,” she said. “I love you as much as I ever did. But something that was easy to ignore when we had our own places kind of snapped into focus when I moved in, and it’s making me not like being with you.”

“Going to tell me what it is?”

“You just go along.”

“You’re saying I’m too agreeable?”

She shook her head, fast, hard, like the way I took her comment was so wrong it needed to be flung away.“With life. You just go along with life. You just wait for stuff to happen to you. There’s nothing you really want to do. To accomplish. You go with the flow, and that’s fine to an extent, but not when it’s all you do and I have to live with you.”

I opened my mouth to offer a rebuttal. And shut it again. How could I argue? She was absolutely right.

“I know how it was that you never got around to telling me what happened with Ronnie. You kept waiting for an opportunity. Then you found a reason to disqualify every one that came along. You never just said, I’m going to get this done. And after a while it became less important. If Ronnie hadn’t opened her mouth, you never would have told me, would you?”

“Probably not.”

“And that’s what your life is about. You wait for stuff to happen. You don’t have anything that’s important enough for you to put any effort into. When I had my own place, it didn’t matter. We could hang out, and then I’d go home or you would, and I’d do my thing and you’d do yours and the next time I saw you we’d do something together. But now, I go off to see clients, and you’re lying around the house, and when I come home there you still are, and I know you haven’t done anything worthwhile in between, but just hung out and waited for stuff to happen to you.”

“I’m not any different than I ever was.”

“Did I say you were?” She looked me in the eye, touched my cheek, my chin. “While I was over at my mother’s, I decided I couldn’t put up with it anymore.”

My eyes welled up.

“But it would have been really chickenshit of me just to let us fall apart, and not tell you what was going on. So here I am. Shit, Portugal, don’t start crying on me.”

I blinked the tears away. “So now what?”

“So now I’m going to tell you something I should have told you a long time ago. Actually, I think I did once, but I should have been more assertive about it.”

“Go ahead. Tell me.”

“There’s only one thing I know of that gets you stirring. One thing you ever get proactive about. One situation where you seem to have any goal in your life.”

I hadn’t the slightest idea what she was talking about. Certainly nothing to do with acting. I didn’t care a whit about it, save maybe for the income. My plants? I’d lost interest. Music? I’d had a burst of inspiration, but it faded more swiftly than I could have imagined.

I could see disappointment brewing in her eyes. I started to say something, anything, just to break the silence, and the answer came.

“Solving murders,” I said.

Her eyes lit back up. “Murders, disappearances, all that stuff. When you were looking for Mike’s wife, I had a little hope. There was some life in you. But as soon as you found out it wasn’t her, you became the same old lump.”

“I’m a little old to become a policeman.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to hear any objections. No excuses. This is something that gets your blood going, and for some obscure reason you’re good at it. You need to figure out a way to make it part of your life.”

I thought about it.

I kept thinking about it.

We sat there for without a word for half an hour, until a Wagner riff erupted from her purse. She pulled out her cell phone, checked the screen, turned it off. “Well?”

“Do they have schools for this kind of thing?”

It was the biggest, most genuine smile I’d seen on her in a long time.“Maybe you can look in the Yellow Pages. Or find that guy that came over after we figured out who Aricela was, the one who tracks down lost kids.”

“Jack Liffey, he said his name was.”

“Yeah, him. See how he got started. I’m cold. You cold?”

“No.”

“I’m freezing my ass off. Come inside.”

“Think I’ll stay out here a while.”

She stood, found her key, bent to kiss me. She went inside and I sat there, thinking some more.

Then I went in and told her about the photo.

The phone woke me. Gina was nestled in my arms. We hadn’t made love. Neither of us was ready.

I craned my neck to see the clock. Quarter to twelve. Gina stretched, reached behind her, picked up the phone. She listened, frowned, handed it over.

“Joey-boy,” John Santini said. “Got to see you right now.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“Not where I come from.”

There was clearly no point to further protest. “Where?”

“Fabrini’s. You know it?”

“On Sepulveda.”

“That’s the place. Five minutes from your house. You’ll be in, out, back in bed with that cute little wife of yours in no time.”

“I’ll be there.”

I relayed Santini’s end of the conversation. “If you’re going,” Gina said, “that cute little wife of yours is coming with you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Why not?”

Good question. If it was because of danger, why was
I
even going? “You need your sleep.”

“That is so lame.” She pulled some clothes on. “You’re worried about me getting hurt. Babe, if you’re going to be a crimestopper, this kind of stuff is going to happen all the time. Might as well get used to it. Where’s that picture Santini gave you?”

“My sock drawer. Why—”

“Going to give it back to him.”

“You don’t want to see it?”

“Much as I’d like to see Ronnie naked, no, I don’t think either of us needs to see the picture.”

“I love you.”

“Me too,” she said. “You know where I put my keys?”

Fabrini’s was pretty much like any bar I never went to. Neon beer signs in the windows, a crooked happy-hour announcement. Inside it was red vinyl and battered wood and old-beer smell. There was a pool table where an oldster with a furry caterpillar of a moustache was beating himself at eight-ball. Two TVs, ESPN talking heads and a soccer game. The jukebox was playing “Something Stupid,” and Frank still sounded a lot better than Nancy.

John Santini sat alone at a table at the back. He stood when he saw us. He had a bottle of wine and three glasses set. One of the glasses was full, and as we walked back he poured wine into the other two. I introduced him to Gina. She offered a hand. I wondered if he’d kiss it, but he shook it like a nice boy.

We sat. Gina opened her purse, passed the envelope with the photo over to Santini.

“What’s this?” he said.

“We don’t need it,” she said.

He looked down at it, back at us. “Suit yourself.”

I gestured at the three glasses. “You were watching my house.”

“Please. Why would you say such a thing?”

“How else would you know I was bringing somebody?” A minute shrug. “Had a feeling.”

“Mr. Santini,” Gina said.

“John.”

“John. Three words. What the fuck?”

He stared at her, smiled, burst into laughter. “‘What the fuck?’ I love that. What a woman you got here, Joey-boy.”

“Answer her question, why don’t you?”

He looked at me, stopped laughing, kept the smile on. “Fair enough. You can stop looking for Alma’s daughter.”

“They found her?”

“She was never missing to begin with.”

My turn. “What the fuck?”

“Alma knows exactly where Valerie is. They get along just fine together. We made all that other stuff up, including the part about Valerie being my kid, which was kind of fun to invent, though I had a hell of a time convincing Alma to go along with it. It was a test, Joey-boy.”

“Explain, please, and for God’s sake don’t call me ‘Joey-boy.’”

“Had to see if your word was good.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Always got to see. You never know otherwise. I call in a favor, the guy doesn’t come through, who knows what could happen.”

“So I came through once. Doesn’t mean I would again. When—I’m assuming—you ask me to do something for real.”

“You would.”

“Mr. Santini,” Gina said.

“I told you, it’s John.”

“You’re a bastard, John.”

He looked her over, turned to me. “She’s a good one. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t even have a woman in on a business conversation. I’m old-fashioned that way. But I’m trying to change. Got to change with the times, you know?”

“John,” Gina said.

“Yes, doll?”

“When I said ‘What the fuck?’ before, I wasn’t talking about tonight. I was talking about the whole thing.”

“What whole thing is that?”

“You getting Joe mixed up in your shady business.”

“Joe,” he said. “I thought we had this conversation. I’m totally legit these days.”

“You’re about as legit,” Gina said, “as I am blond.”

“Little lady—”

“Don’t call me ‘little lady.’ Don’t call Joe ‘Joey-boy’ and don’t call me ‘little lady.’ Or ‘doll’ for that matter. Call me—”

“Gina,” Santini said, and someone else was sitting there. Not some jovial import-export business owner. Instead there was a man I’d never seen before. A man with eyes that had seen things I would never see and never wanted to. A man who knew not only where the bodies were buried, but how deep and what the soil composition was. A man who could eat the likes of Gina and me and all the bad people we’d run into over the last few years for breakfast and still have room for a waffle or two.

“Yes?” a very small girl in Gina’s body said.

“Enough with the tough girl act. It’s all very impressive, but you know and I know it means nothing.”

She stared at him. Under the table, her hand clutched mine, her fingernails dug into its back.

“That’s better,” he said. “Look, the two of you. I’m not gonna get either of you involved in anything dangerous or anything against the law. But you’re honest and you’re tough and sometimes I can use people like that. And the way things have worked in this city for a long time is that when I need people, I have them.”

I was certain Gina’s nails were drawing blood.

“So cut the shit,” Santini said,“and think about your place, and everything will be just fine. You got that?”

We both nodded.

“Say it. Say, ‘I got it, John.’”

“I got it, John.”

“I got it, John.” I wasn’t sure which of us said it first.

As quickly as he’d come, the scary man went away, replaced by my old buddy John Santini. “This is the part I like. Business is over. Have your wine.”

We had our wine. Quickly, and without tasting it. “One more thing,” Santini said.