The Zen Man (32 page)

I was jolted out of my reverie by the arrival of our drinks. Laura downed two shots, then wiped the back of her hand carefully across her top lip, not mussing that glossy-red-lipstick one iota.

“Okay, this time we mean it. No more talk about problems or business. Just what feels fun and good to you and me.”

We kept to it this time. As we downed burgers and fries, we talked about whether Jerry was a great guitar player or just a dude who played the pentatonic scale, a report she’d done in college on the painter Munch and spiritualism, and what we’d like to do to each other after we got home.

We were engrossed in a particularly interesting detail about the latter when a gravelly voice barked, “You downtown yuppie piece of shit!”

Rat’s-ass-ponytail, his scrawny arm pulled back with a knuckle sandwich at the end, stood over Quinn, a half-eaten sandwich in one hand.

“Can’t even get a decent drink down here,” yelled Rat’s Ass, “without pussies like you in my face!”

While Rat’s Ass barked more obscenities at Quinn, one of the over-the-hill tie-dyed gang picked up the table candle with both hands, and with the help of his friends, stood with it. For a moment, I thought he was going to throw the damn thing, setting the federal government and a citizen on fire.

As Rat’s Ass brought down his fist, Quinn raised his hands, the sandwich flying, and in a lightning-strobe movement forced Ratty’s craggy face to the table. While Rat looked stunned to be viewing the world sideways, Quinn leaned down and whispered something in his ear.

“I’m sorry,” Rat blubbered loudly.

Quinn whispered something else.

“Happy New Year to you, too,” he whimpered, blinking back tears.

The candle-wielding vigilante, ready to lob fire, stepped closer. “Need help, brother?”

“I’m fine,” said Quinn easily, “go back to your table, enjoy your meal.” Looking over at us, he smiled politely as though his elbow wasn’t grinding a dude’s head to the table. “You two ready to call it an evening?”

“Well, you know Tom, I’m no health nut.”
—Jerry Garcia to Tom Snyder

A
round ten-thirty, Laura and I ambled back into our kitchen as Quinn headed up to his cabin. We’d driven in separate cars tonight—Laura and I in her Durango, Quinn in a black Ford Edge.

Laura peered out the window. “Maybe we should’ve put Quinn and his special agent buddy in another cabin.”

“No, the one next to Garrett and Zig’s is perfect. It’s like yin and yang. Complementary opposites that interact within a greater whole.”

“Oh, I hope not. I’m afraid yin might get yanged.”

Laura laughed, the sound throaty, carefree, as she crossed to the butcher block table and leaned against it, casting me a look that reeled me in like a big, stupid fish. I glided across the floor, the muscles in my belly contracting, my blood churning with need. Closer to her, I lunged, captured her hands in mine.

Startled, she cried out.

I tumbled her back against the table, pushed open her legs with my thigh. “You’re in trouble, lady,” I murmured.

“What kind of trouble?” she asked breathlessly.

“The worst kind. Quadruple yin.” I leaned down and kissed her exposed white shoulder, slid my lips over to the pulsing hollow of her neck, relishing the salty sweetness of her skin.

“Are you going to carry me up to bed,” she whispered, writhing against me, “and have your way with me?”

I leaned back, took in the sassy angle of her chin, the unrepentant smile on her full lips. “How about we walk up there,
then
I have my way with you?”

She tugged my shirt out of my pants. “How about we forget walking altogether and do it right—”

A violent pounding on the door drowned out the rest of that wanton thought.

“Dammit.” I glanced over my shoulder at the door.

Laura fumbled with the zipper on my pants. “Let’s ignore them.”

“If it’s a fed, he’ll just break down the door if we don’t answer.” I extricated myself from her embrace. “If it’s yin, half of the universe will be temporarily plunged into darkness.” Tucking my shirt back in, I headed to the door with a throbbing hard-on—not an easy task—and threw open the door with an unwelcoming scowl.

But instead of a fed or a stoner, there stood a blond number in a low-cut, tight black dress, her flushed face contorted with fury.

“Damn you, bitch!” she screamed over my shoulder, “you got me fucking fired!”

Blondie shoved past me, staggered a few feet before losing her balance, then fell with a loud shriek onto the linoleum floor where she thrashed about screaming obscenities, most of which were prefaced with “Laura, you bitch!”

“What’s going on here,” demanded a male voice.

Quinn and his fed-associate, dressed in jeans and a gray sweatshirt, walked in and stood over the flailing, cursing woman who kicked off one of her high heels in her frenzy. His buddy put his hands over her, but didn’t touch her, as though he could contain her with an invisible force field. Considering they were government agents, maybe they could.

“Lady,” Quinn snapped, “calm down.”

She stopped, panting for air. Swiping her hair out of her eyes, she glared up at the two men. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m sure that the police can be here in three minutes,” Quinn said evenly, “but I’m giving you ten seconds to calm down.”

Frowning, she shoved herself to a sitting position, adjusted her dress so it almost covered her thighs, then rolled her gaze from Quinn to me to Laura, toward whom she energetically stuck out her tongue.

“Who is she?” Quinn asked.

“Cathy Jessup,” answered Laura, ignoring a finger-flip, “Mr. Dixon’s assistant at TeleForce.”

“Yeah,” said Cathy, “the fucker who, with that bitch’s help,
fired
me today. Called me outta the blue, and
dumped
my ass.” She accepted the other fed’s hand, who helped her to her feet. As she crammed a foot back into a high-heel, Quinn spoke.

“Laura, make some coffee. Let’s all sit down and have a chat.”

As I pulled out a stool, Quinn pointed at me. “Not you.”

“I might be an important source of information, and I can help you with your witness—”

“Five minutes, Levine, then upstairs and watch the ball fall.”

I knew better than to argue with a special agent. I quietly joined everyone at the table while Laura made coffee. Within minutes, the room filled with the scent of roasted java while Cathy, patting and stroking her mess of hair, fixed a laser-death-ray stare at Laura.

“You lying cunt,” Cathy muttered under her breath.

“Let’s keep it civil,” Quinn said. “Now tell me, Ms. Jessup, what’s the problem?”

With an indignant huff, she straightened. “I told Walt that HR had done a lousy job on Laura’s background check ‘cause I found, in an online criminal background check that
I
paid for, that she’d been up on, like,
murder charges
back in California, tried to kill some guy, but did Walt listen? No, cuz he likes the ladies. He told me to keep it to myself, but I’m talking now!”

As Laura calmly walked several cups of coffee to the table, Cathy leaned forward on her elbows, her breasts straining to fight their way out of her dress. Amazingly enough, Quinn and his cohort didn’t lower their gazes once to those puppies.

“Him and me got along swell until she came along. I know she said things to him—lies about me—cuz he…no longer…wanted me. Fired me.” A sob broke loose. “I loved that guy,” she cried, black goo running down her face, “gave him my best, and I get this in return?”

“Where is Mr. Dixon?” asked Quinn.

She swerved to him with a loud sniff. “What’s it to you, asshole?”

“Let’s just say I’m an interested party.”

“Party.” She narrowed her black gooey eyes at Laura, who’d returned to the table with cream, sugar, and spoons that she set in the center of the table. “Laura Switchblade here snorted up a half gram of my holiday coke on Christmas Eve and then stabbed me in the back with my boss. When’d you get so pure, you knife-slinging cunt?”

When you’ve represented killers and drug dealers, and investigated everything from drunk-driving to murder, not much about human behavior catches you by surprise. But at that moment, as my mind was warping around “knife-slinging,” “Laura Switchblade,” and “murder charges,” my dearly beloved was surprising the crap out of me.

Heading back to the coffee pot, she’d stopped and turned, her sweater hanging vampishly off one bare shoulder. With those tight jean-clad legs spread wide, her dark, mussed hair framing her face like an ominous halo, and those Grace-Slick-seen-it-all eyes, she looked like a bad-girl star in a low-budget B flick titled
Pick-Up on Plunder Road
.

“I’m a lot purer than that stepped-on crap you call hundred-percent Peruvian,” she said like a tough-knocks dame who’d just as soon grind your face with her heel as say hello.

“Laura?” I croaked, wondering when the noir pods had taken over her body.

“Your five minutes are up,” Quinn said, barely suppressing a smile, “time to watch the ball drop upstairs.”

“We don’t have a television upstairs,” I said absently, rising from my seat, “I’ll, uh…” I picked my laptop off the table, put it under my arm. “Take this into the other room, check out Times Square on Ustream.”

I shuffled out of the room, realizing the one secret I’d been giving myself grief for hiding was nothing compared to the stash Laura had been holding.

“We are in reality a group of misfits, crazy people, who have voluntarily come together to work this stuff out and do the best we can and try to be as fair as we possibly can with each other, and just struggle through life.”
—Jerry Garcia

I
wandered into the dark dining room, weaving my way around the shadowed table and chairs. After setting up the laptop on the bar, I punched its power button. As the screen came to life, it cast an eerie blue light into the gloom. I looked out the windows at the night. The stars and moon had disappeared behind a blanket of clouds, and I recalled hearing snow was expected tonight, but half-heartedly believed it. Colorado gave a shit about weather reports—it did its own thing.

Seemed Laura had been doing her own thing, too. Did I really know her? What I’d just heard kept careening through my mind like a drunk on a joy ride…knife-wielding…cocaine…murder charges…she’d been the one who’d found Wicked’s body that night…or had Wicked still been alive when Laura had found her? My insides shrank at the crazy thought. Please, God, not Laura.

The overhead lights blasted on, made me wince. I turned, saw Quinn standing in the doorway.

“Awfully moody for a Deadhead, Levine.”

“Cut me some slack,
Quinn
. What I heard and saw in there wasn’t easy, man.”

“And you’re thinking the worst of your lady friend, is that it?”

I didn’t answer.

“Look, Rick, we do backgrounds on our witnesses, too, and Laura walked on that attempted first-degree back in ninety-three. Seems the guy who’d made the charges changed his mind after he sobered up. It’s old news. We don’t care, and neither should you. As far as these cougars on coke, I didn’t hear anything that could be corroborated by physical evidence. I also don’t have either the PC or the desire to go looking for controlled substances. She doesn’t act like Lindsey Lohan, so why don’t you go with the flow.”

PC. Probable Cause. “The only law enforcement types that care about the constitution have been to law school. Let me guess—Notre Dame.”

“No. De Paul. And I suppose you went to Yeshiva University.”

“Similarly incorrect, counselor. Boalt Hall, Berkeley.”

“Boalt. Nice library.” He scanned the room, returned his gaze to me. “No booze in here, right?”

“What’s it to you?”

He glanced over his shoulder, flashed me the biggest smile I’d ever seen crack his face. “Love to stay and chat, but I need to get back to the interview.”

The Mighty Quinn split, and I went back to the wall switch and flipped it off, submerging the room in shadows again. Which was how this moody Deadhead liked it tonight, thank you very fucking much. Headed back to the bar, tapped in a few commands on the keyboard, watched the screen light up with hundreds of crazies in Times Square screaming and yelling. The ball wasn’t falling for another forty-five minutes.

I tapped in more commands, looked up some of my favorite Dead tunes, listened to an eighty-nine recording of “Ship of Fools.” A sad song about betrayal, cruelty, and emptiness, but this particular version was worsened by the band’s inability to stay in tune. I’d wanted to wallow in my self-pitying misery, not immerse myself in a vat of off-key depression, so I looked for other tunes, chanced on the seventies classic “Night Fever” by the Bee Gees.

The song reeled me back to disco era, to this very room the night Wicked was murdered. I almost felt the throbbing mass of gyrating bodies, heard the squeals of drunken laughter, saw the spinning disco ball splattering the room with dots of light. Recalled how out of place I’d felt, how relieved I’d been when Laura had asked me to go into the kitchen and chop veggies.

Shame I left. The killer had been in this very room, watching Wicked, waiting to make his—her?—move. I thought back to the ugly confrontation in the kitchen, Iris ushering out a sniveling, sobbing Wicked. I flashed back on Iris saying she’d taken Wicked directly to the bathroom off this very dining room.

I walked to that bathroom, stared at its closed door. Iris claimed she’d spent ten or so minutes in there with Wicked while she pulled herself together.

I opened the door, flipped the switch. The bathroom had been built to accommodate guests in the dining hall. Several sinks along the mirrored right wall, a basket of plastic flowers on the counter, a framed picture of a long-necked Apatosaurus on the left wall. Beyond the sinks, two stalls. I headed down to the first one, looked at the porcelain toilet, the metal walls. The second toilet was larger, against the back white-tiled wall with a sliding window.