The Remake (18 page)

She pursed her lips. “I guess I’ve been thinking, R.J. And I just wonder where we’re going.”

“We’re not going anywhere if you’re dead, Casey.”

She brushed that away with the back of her hand. “We have two separate careers, and right now they’re on opposite coasts. So I think it’s a valid question, R.J. What am I to you?”

He felt his mouth open but nothing came out. Casey’s
beeper went off again and she got up quickly, leaving R.J. with a bad case of dangling jaw.

She was gone for five minutes and R.J. used the time to regroup. A lot of slow, calm breaths, so he could get rid of the idea that he needed to smash some plates, break a little furniture, yell something that would wilt the orchid in the middle of the table. Because that wouldn’t help this make sense, but it probably would close the door on Casey for good, the way she was talking now.

When Casey came back and sat down again, R.J. had managed to make himself look calm. “Why do you think you might not want protection, Casey?” he said.

She looked down at the table. She took a bite of her salad, maybe the third bite she’d taken. “I guess I’m at some kind of a crossroads, R.J. What they call a cusp out here.”

“Christ, you’re picking that crap up fast.” It just slipped out, but lucky for him, she let it go.

“The last six months in New York, I felt like everything was closing in on me. The job was going nowhere, and my life in general—” She shrugged. “So when this chance came up, it felt like something I really needed to do.”

“I’m not fighting that one, Casey,” R.J. said wearily. “Do the damn job. Just give me a shot at keeping you alive while you do it, all right?”

“R.J., damn it, you’re smothering me. I need a chance on my own. I can’t just go back to being your girlfriend and grinding out TV, I
need
this. Don’t you understand? I have to do this—on my own—or I’m not worth a damn. I have to do it without you here to fight all the hard battles for me. It makes me feel so little girly. Which I don’t like. Why can’t you fight your own battles for a change? Instead of mine. Because I have to make it here without you taking over when it gets a little tough.”

“Murder is more than a little tough, Casey.”

“It happens. I can deal with it. I’m asking you to understand.”

“I don’t understand, goddammit. All I want is to save your life and you’re acting like that makes me Saddam Hussein.”

The bodybuilder leaned over. “Can you folks keep it down?” he said, glaring at R.J. “We’re trying to eat here.”

“Keep trying, pal, I know you’ll figure it out.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?” he snarled. He put his hand over into Casey’s plate and tipped it over, resting his knuckle on the table and looking at R.J. with a come-get-me sneer.

R.J. jammed his fork into the back of the bodybuilder’s hand. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s hilarious. I’ll explain it to you when you evolve out of the Stone Age.” The bodybuilder stared at the fork sticking out of his hand and opened his mouth to scream, but only a whimper came out. He yanked back his hand and the bimbo pulled out the fork and wrapped a napkin around the wound.

R.J. turned back to Casey. She was standing up. “Casey—”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” she said. “You fight everybody’s battles but your own.”

And before he could figure that one out, she was gone.

R.J. shoveled some money onto the table without counting it and hurried out after her. He got out the door just in time to see the valet parking attendant close Casey’s car door.

“Casey!” he yelled.

She put her car in gear and drove away.

R.J. stood and swore for a minute but it didn’t bring her back. He decided he might as well go back in and call Uncle Hank for a lift. But as he turned around he ran right into a wall.

A wall of muscle.

“Say your prayers, asshole,” the bodybuilder said, lifting a fist the size of a Thanksgiving turkey.

“Sure thing,” R.J. said. He brought his hands together in front of his face and clasped them like he was about to pray. The bodybuilder hesitated for a second, trying to figure that one out.

The second was all R.J. needed. He jammed both hands
under the bodybuilder’s chin. It took him right in the Adam’s apple. While the guy was still making gagging noises, R.J. jammed his hands in again, right into the solar plexus.

The big guy had had enough. He bent double and fell to one knee. R.J. pulled back his foot, thinking about one last kick, but he was interrupted by a screeching noise as the bimbo raced over to protect her boy.

“Not his face! For God’s sake, leave his face alone, you asshole, he has an audition this afternoon!” She crouched in front of him with her long red nails cocked, and R.J. stepped back. He wanted to laugh at the sight of the hulk with all the perfect-looking muscles, gasping in the arms of the fierce pin-up. But all the laughter he had was driving away down Ventura Boulevard in a rented convertible.

R.J. felt tired and sour and old. He turned away, went back inside, and called Henry Portillo for a ride.

While he was waiting he made another call. It rang until he was about to hang up. Then he heard the click on the far end and Mary Kelley picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Mary, it’s me, R.J.”

A pause. “Where are you?”

“Los Angeles.”

Another pause. He heard her breathing. “R.J., they found Daddy. He’s—dead.”

“I know it, doll. I just heard.”

“I—the funeral is tomorrow and it’s—I don’t know what…”

She broke off and took a few more breaths. R.J. could almost feel her fighting the tears. “I’m on my way, Mary. I’ll be there tonight.”

“I’m not coming home,” she said.

“All right.”

“No matter what Mother says.” She put a bitter emphasis on the word
mother.
“So don’t try to talk me into it.”

“I wasn’t going to,” R.J. protested. “But why not? It’d be a lot easier on you for a while.”

“Because
she
did this, I know she did.”

“Did what, Mary?”

“She had him killed, R.J.” And now the tears came. “I know she did, she had him killed, just when I was about to find him again.”

R.J. let her cry for a minute while he thought about that. Janine Wright could get rid of an embarrassing past and a threatening future all at the same time. R.J. knew she wouldn’t have any moral hesitation about knocking off anybody.

It was a good solution for Wright, and if it was true and he could prove it, it would solve a lot of R.J.’s problems, too. If Janine was in jail there would be no remake.

The crying was getting worse. “Take it easy now, kid,” he finally said.

“I know I’m right,” Mary sobbed. “I know she did it.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” R.J. told her, and she got quiet for a minute, “but we’ll never prove it if she finds out we think so.”

“You…think we can prove it?”

“If she did it, I can prove it.” He sounded too cocky, even to himself, but Mary didn’t seem to mind. “We’ll find something and we’ll pin it on her, Mary. If that’s what you want.”

“I think—That’s what I want,” she sniffled. “I can pay you. Just—It will be with her money.”

R.J. felt his face tighten into a grin. “That’s the beauty part,” he said.

CHAPTER 21

The flight back to New York was a lot worse than the one the way out had been. R.J. had too much to think about and nothing to do to keep him from thinking about it. And this time he didn’t sleep. He just stared out the window while all the ugly suspicions churned around in his brain.

R.J. knew he should have been concentrating on a plan to corner Janine Wright. He should have been making lists of things to do, ways to connect her to her ex-husband’s death, tricks to get to phone company records. Instead, he just sat and played over in his head that last scene with Casey.

He kept remembering what she had said, “What am I to you?” and trying to figure out what that meant. For Christ’s sake, it should have been clear to her, should have been clear to anybody. He had been seeing her for over six months, hadn’t even
looked
at anybody else in all that time. She knew that. Didn’t that tell her something? Anything? What was he supposed to do, draw up a position paper and submit it to the head of her delegation?

What in the hell does she want from me?

And then he had another thought, even worse: What if she doesn’t want anything from me?

He didn’t even know for sure which end was up anymore.

He had thought all along that she wasn’t going to hold him up for a ring. She was different. She was a strong, stubborn, independent woman and he was sure she didn’t need that kind of talk, didn’t
want
to hear it. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe she wanted to talk about commitment. He had always thought it was a load of crap, and he had thought she felt the same way. They were together, there was nobody else, that was that.

Now he wasn’t so sure. Maybe she thought they had gone past that and she needed to hear it from him. And maybe hearing it would be the last straw for her, make her think R.J. was trying to hold her down, trap her into something she couldn’t walk away from. Goddammit, there had to be something else, something in between loneliness and uncertainty on the one hand and total commitment on the other.

But he landed in New York with no answers. Feeling sour and impatient, R.J. took a cab instead of the train. The driver took him for a tourist and tried to head for Long Beach. R.J. snarled at him to turn around, for Christ’s sake, and the driver headed up toward the Triboro Bridge.

“What the hell are you doing?” R.J. asked.

“Very fast. Very scenery,” the driver said in broken English. “Very nice.”

“Very no,” said R.J. “Midtown Tunnel.”

The driver sulked the rest of the way into the city and up to the street in front of R.J.’s office, but he drove fast, so R.J. tipped him anyway. The driver took the tip, and then yelled a curse at him in Farsi as he drove away.

Stepping onto the sidewalk in front of his office, R.J. got thumped from behind by a large maniac pushing a rack of clothing. The guy glared at him and kept going. His back throbbed, but R.J. had to grin.

He was home.

Back in Manhattan, where he belonged.

No more palm trees, or low IQ sex kittens of either gender, no high-powered baby Hitlers in spike heels. Just plain, honest, hostile aggression.

The grin lasted all the way upstairs to his office. As he hit the door, Wanda started on him.

“Boss,” she said, rising from her desk with a stack of papers. “Lieutenant Kates wants you in his office the moment you land.”

“He blew it. I’ve been down over an hour now.”

She ignored him. “A Captain Davis in L.A. says you’d better call him pronto, or else. I’ve got a slew of calls from reporters, and that poor Mary Kelley is practically going crazy from it all.”

“Where’s Mary Kelley staying?”

She held up an address on a slip of paper. “A friend’s apartment on East Seventy-second.”

R.J. grabbed the address and walked his garment bag into his office.

“R.J.,” Wanda went on. “This is serious stuff, boss.”

He unzipped the bag and took out his dark suit. “Sure it is. It’s always serious. Otherwise I’d have to do something else.”

He shook the suit out. It looked all right. He hadn’t worn it since that last New York date with Casey. It would do.

He hung the suit on the coat rack behind the door and stepped over to his desk, grabbing the telephone and dialing as he sat.

Hookshot answered on the third ring. The only word R.J. could make out was “news.”

“It’s RJ,” he said.

“You owe me big-time, man,” Hookshot said mournfully.

“For what?”

“Waste my time, chasing some dead guy’s ass.”

“I didn’t know he was dead, Hookshot,” R.J. said.

“Well, he is. They got him at some farm town over there. Torrington. Horses in the street and shit.”

“Sure, I know,” R.J. said. “They don’t even take money. You probably had to pay for everything in corn.”

“Cost me five bushels for lunch,” Hookshot said, cackling.

“Sounds like a nice lunch,” R.J. said. “Anyway, I guess that’s all over, so thanks.”

“Thanks don’t cut it, man,” Hookshot said.

“It never does,” R.J. said. “I’ll stop by and settle up when I have the time.”

“What happened in L.A, R.J.?”

“It’s not over. I have to go back. But first I got a funeral.” He looked at his watch. “And I’m running out of time to make it.”

“He’ll wait, bubbe, believe me. That’s ’bout all he’s good at now.”

“I gotta go, Hookshot.”

“You look after that Casey, hear me?”

“Easier said than done,” R.J. said as he hung up.

He changed quickly, listening to Wanda grumbling in the next room about being too old to look for a new job if her damn boss couldn’t keep himself out of jail.