Thomas Prescott Superpack (7 page)

Chapter 11

The ‘Ol brothers, Alcoh and Tylen, were starting to get along and when Alex said dinner was on, I didn’t feel half bad. I followed her into the living room and saw the bar was set rather than the table. I thought about this for a moment and decided the bar was at the most desirable height for my present situation. The two of us sidled up to opposite sides of the bar, Alex playing bartender and me in the role of drunken patron, or soon to be drunken patron, that is.

I took in the food, it looked amazing. There was a medley of grilled vegetables: mushrooms, baby tomatoes, green peppers, red peppers, and onions, surrounding a steaming filet of salmon. All were sitting on a bed of dirty rice, garnished with a sprig of parsley and two lemons. I wondered if Alex was trying to impress me or if she’d had an internship with Wolfgang Puck after college.

Alex had the bottle of wine open and breathing, and while she poured us both a glass I took the time to focus on the message I wanted to convey to this woman. I desperately wanted to scold her for writing the book, but could I blame her, it was a hell of a story and she was paid a substantial amount for the trade.

Alex pushed a full glass of scarlet Cabernet Sauvignon in front of me and said, “Let’s clear the air. You first.”

Here went nothing. I cleared my throat and said, “The man who killed those eight women is still out there.”

Alex sat in stunned silence, obliviously popping a mushroom in her mouth and garbled, “All right, let’s hear it.”

I replayed the events that transpired on that fateful day almost a year ago, Alex soaking up each detail like a thirsty sponge. She was a journalist at heart and I could see she was twitching to run and grab a pen and pad. I finished with a tirade of sorts, hitting a high with, “
Eight in October
is a death trophy to Tristen Grayer.”

In my conclusion, Alex asked one of the few questions I hadn’t seen on the night’s docket, “Can I see the scars?”

I showed her the nickel sized scar on my left shoulder and said, “The other one isn’t as easily accessible.”

“I thought the second bullet shattered your femur?”

“It did. High femur.” I raised my eyebrows. “High—inner—femur.”

A pained expression blanketed her face and she covered her mouth, “Did it nick the old twig and berries?”

Did I hear her correctly? Did an acclaimed investigative journalist just use the phrase, “Old twig and berries?”

I tried valiantly to hide a smile and as if reading my mind, Alex said, “Sorry, cock and balls.”

I laughed, and said, “It’s your turn.”

Alex shook her head, “Let’s take a twenty.” She tapped her shoulders with her fingertips twice, indicating a time-out. “For the next twenty minutes this is a date.”

“A date? Why not a prune? Or a raisin?”

She rolled her eyes at me, “Are you always like this?”

No, only when I’m in the presence of a beautiful woman, tipsy, and am wearing Maxi-pads. “Okay, it’s a date. And by the way, tapping your shoulders is the signal for a full time-out, not a twenty.”

We argued over a couple referee calls (by the way, she was right about the time-out), until I ejected her from the conversation, which she thought was hilarious. The way to a woman’s heart is through her funny bone and I was having an inner strife whether I wanted to tickle Alex’s. I decided to tone it down a bit and said, “So, two cowboys are on the edge of a cliff when they hear the sound of war drums. One cowboy looks at the other and says, I don’t like the sound of those war drums. From below they hear someone shout, He’s not our regular drummer.”

When I pulled my hands away from my mouth (I’d cupped them to give an echoing effect), Alex was crumpled behind the bar. I was a third of the way into my salmon when Alex popped up wiping tears from her eyes, “That is the stupidest joke I’ve ever heard.”

We ate and traded jokes—for the record, hers were much dirtier than mine—for the next twenty minutes. We moved onto sailing. Turns out, Alex was an avid sailor and offered to give me a lesson sometime. After we finished the meal and the bottle, Alex disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a large slice of cheesecake. The two of us devoured the rich, creamy, almond swirled cheesecake, and I’d be fibbing if I said the orgasmic tremor at the end of my fork was the only one on my mind.

After we’d licked the plate clean, I looked at my watch, it was close to ten, and I said, “Dates over, babe.”

She threw me a look daring me to call her babe again, then after clearing her throat, said, “Now it’s my turn. I believe you. I believe every word. I wish you would have told me all this ten months ago so I could have written the truth in my book. There, I’m done. Now back to the date. Where did you grow up?”

“No, no, no, unacceptable. I went on a tirade, now it’s your turn to tirade.”

“I don’t tirade. I get to the point. I believe you. Everything you said makes sense. Case closed. Did you have any pets growing up?”

“You can’t play the high-and-mighty card. I threatened your life for crying out loud. This is your chance to get even.”

Her emerald eyes penetrated mine as she said, “You were shot twice. You careened off a cliff into the Atlantic. You were in a coma for two weeks and a wheelchair for eight. Not to mention that at this very moment you’re wearing maxi-pads. Honey, I think we’re even.”

Alex carried the dishes into the kitchen and left me to sit in my own abashment. On her exit she’d said, this is a verbatim quote mind you, “Well Max, do you think you can make us some after dinner drinks.”

To which I’d piously replied, “I’ll wing it.” Guffaws all around.

I grabbed two Bud bottles from the bar fridge. Done. Alex reappeared from the kitchen, her right arm drooping under the weight of an enormous spotlight. She walked over to the bar and grabbed the beer with her free hand. I asked, “Looking for life on Mars?”

“Oh, this thing. This is for spotting wildlife.”

“Like chimpanzees and elephants?”

She shot me an appraising glance. “Are you qualified to have an adult conversation?”

“I passed all the tests. They said my diploma was in the mail.”

Alex shook her head as I followed her through a small stateroom and onto a small terrace overlooking a large lake feeding into thick woods. The reflection under the full moon made it hard to distinguish where the lake ended and the forest began. The tall pines afraid to move, lest they were only a reflection. There was a short gray brick wall surrounding the concrete terrace and I leaned against it for support. Alex nestled up to me and put her hand on my shoulder, “That’s Lake Wesserunsett.”

She flipped on the spotlight and began scanning the horizon back and forth. The spotlight appeared to be a smidgen less powerful than the moon, and I said, “Are you on call if one of the lighthouses ever breaks down?”

She laughed, then yelled, “Look.”

Within its beam the spotlight held an imposing moose at the edge of the forest. It shook its head, thrusting its horns around like the fearful beast it was and I said, “I think
it’s Rocky that likes the spotlight, not Bullwinkle.”

She laughed and turned towards me, unintentionally blinding me with the one million watt bulb. When my sight came back, Alex had her hands around me in a rather intimate position. In hindsight she may have blinded me intentionally.

I could feel my breath reeling off her forehead and my stomach dropped like an elevator headed for BB2.

I slowly pushed her away and said, “I can’t.”

I glanced around for the ventriloquist hiding behind the terrace wall, but it turns out I actually said these words. In truth, I couldn’t shake Caitlin from mind’s eye. I hadn’t given her a chance, and I had fundamentally screwed her over. I owed her another shot. Scratch that, I owed us another shot. I’d loved her, possibly still loved her, and if it wasn’t for my unrelenting stubborn streak we would still be together.

As for Alex, she threw me an inquisitive glance that might as well have asked me if I were gay out loud. When she opened her mouth, I expected her to ask if I were into ice-skating as a young lad, but instead she said, “How did your parents die?”

She added, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. It’s just something I stumbled on while I was doing research for the book.”

Surprisingly, I kept my composure and said, “An airplane crash.”

“Where?”

“Near the California-Oregon border.”

“How old were you?”

“Twenty-six, it was my first year as a detective with the Seattle Police Department. I did the funeral thing then moved back in with my little sister Lacy.” I wisely skipped the part about the monumental inheritance.

“Then you up and moved to New York?”

“A couple years later, Lacy got a swimming scholarship to Temple and I decided to tag along. She was the only family I had left and I couldn’t imagine not seeing her every day. Plus, I’d spent my entire life in Washington; I was ready for a change.”

“Then you started with the Philadelphia Police Department?”

“Not exactly. I was more or less thrown off the force in Seattle and didn’t think I could follow the protocols of another department.”

She nodded.

I continued, “I had an old friend from college who was a Philly homicide detective and he would ask for my opinion on cases every so often. I broke a couple of his cases and pretty soon the department had hired me on as a consultant. And then a year ago, the FBI came a knocking.”

Everything I’d just recounted Alex knew verbatim, but I didn’t feel like impeding the conversation. I saw an opening and swiftly asked, “Considering I thought you were a man until about eight hours ago, why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”

She shrieked, “You thought I was a guy?”

“Well the name doesn’t leave much room for imagination.”

“Yeah, well if I said I didn’t do it on purpose, I’d be lying.”

No shit? Why not just go by Façade Tooms, Hoax Tooms, or False Pretense Tooms. I asked, “So you started going by Alex instead of Alexandria?”

“Nope. Alex is my given name. My parents were convinced they were having a boy.”

“So I guess you’re lucky your name isn’t Jack or Fred.”

“Oh, I don’t think they would have been that cruel. Although I think they’re convinced they made me into a lesbian as it is.”

I laughed. “Why would they ever think that?”

She ran her hands through her shoulder length, beaver brown hair. “Up until about a year ago my hair was always really short, like Demi Moore’s.”

“Demi Moore, Ghost? Or Demi Moore, G. I. Jane?”

She looked at me like I’d caught the short bus to her house and said, “I want to see that diploma.”

Alex was indulging me with a little background information when I heard a rustling near the terrace wall. I grabbed the spotlight, illuminating the wild beast, a bunny-wabbit. Maybe he was a friend of the guy who beat up Baxter and came to gloat. I also didn’t rule out Bigwig, Fiver, Pipkin, Blueberry, or Hazel.

Alex started back up, “I was up to college. I got a scholarship to Boston College for cross-country and studied journalism.”

Cross-country. That explained the figure. I remarked on this, “You look like a runner.”

She smirked. “I opted against the traditional method of binge and purge for the less conventional, binge and run.” She looked at me and said, “You look like a runner too.”

To a woman this is an incredible compliment; to a man it’s an incredulous insult. “Thanks. I went on a lead-based diet.”

“You mean bread?”

“No, I mean bullets.”

She covered her mouth, “Oh, I forgot. But aren’t you supposed to gain weight when you’re in a wheelchair?”

I patted my stomach. “Good metabolism.” There are no two words in the English language that anger a woman more when combined than
good
and
metabolism
.

Alex shook her head. “I hate people like you. If I don’t go running tomorrow morning there will be a cheesecake shaped fat pocket in my ass.”

I didn’t believe that for a second. “How far of a run?”

She counted on her fingers. “Eight miles.”

“How did you come up with eight?”

“One mile for each drink. Four miles for the cheesecake.”

I wondered how many hours of sex that converted into. She studied my face and said, “Eight hours. One mile of running is equal to one hour of sex.”

We both stood there for an unpolished Humpy Dumpty and if I said the thoughts running through my head were PG-13, I’d be lying. I heard a faint ringing in the background of the X-rated movie playing in my head, and the lead actress, Xela, said, “I think your cell phone is ringing.”

The ringing was indeed coming from my pocket and I extracted my phone. I checked the caller ID, it was Lacy. If it’d been anyone else, I would have clicked on my voice mail. I flipped the phone open, “What’s up?”

“I just called to tell you that you’re the master. You got me
sooo
good.”