Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella (3 page)

Munch nodded sympathetically. The stepfather was the
real problem, but the two of them knew each other well enough to be
able to leave certain things unsaid.

"
Since I've been back in these parts, I've spent
much of my time looking for work. Apparently my résumé is not
impressing anyone."

"You got a place?"

Ellen looked out the window on her side. "I am
staying with Russ for the moment."

"
Roofer Russ?" Russ the roofer lived in
Venice. Pushing sixty, he was good for a place to stay and a little
spending cash. It was also understood that the price of admission
included sharing his bed. He wasn't so bad, if you could get past the
smell of tar.

"
I am hoping that it will be a temporary
arrangement?

Ellen said. "Soon as I can get a job I'll get my
own place."

Munch was quiet as she hooked up the wires for the
horn pad. The Program made all sorts of promises about how your life
would improve once you gave up the booze and dope and turned to God.
That was true as far as it went. God would put out the fire, but
someone still had to run with the hose. "You got a driver's
license?" Munch asked. "Any tickets lately?"

"
Not lately—not for twenty-eight months, for
sure. Why?"

"
I've got a limousine service. I could put you
on my insurance. It's not full-time work, just weekends mostly. Pays
ten bucks an hour plus tips. "

Ellen's face grew still, even cautious, as if she
wasn't quite sure what she was hearing.

"I'm offering you a job."

Ellen gave off a little squeal of pleasure and
squeezed Munch's arm. Lou looked their way.

"You won't get rich," Munch said. "But
it's something? Ellen blinked back tears and wiped a finger carefully
under her eye. "Sounds just perfect."

"I've got a run tonight, that's why I've got to
hustle." She handed Ellen a business card. "Give me your
driver's license number. I'll call the insurance company Monday
morning and put you on the policy."

"
You will not regret this. I swear."

"Hey, don't worry about it. A lot of people
helped me out when I was getting started."

Munch turned back to her
work feeling proud and a little nervous. But could Ellen do any worse
than the driver that had come back from a high-school homecoming run
drunker than the kids?

* * *

After Ellen left, Munch finished with the Camaro and
two other jobs. She left the shop by four-fifteen and was at her
daughter's school by half past the hour. She spotted Asia playing
tether ball in the elementary school's still-busy playground. The
six-year-old's collar-length brown curls clung close to her head as
she spun and slammed her fist into the yellow ball. Asia wanted to
work at Sea World when she grew up, training dolphins, or maybe be a
ballerina. Munch asked her why not go for both.

"Asia," she yelled as she pulled up to the
curb. "C'mon. Let's go."

"
Five minutes," Asia yelled back.

"Where's your coat?"

Asia looked down at her torso and shrugged.

Shit, Munch thought, slamming her car into park and
shutting off the engine. She got out of her Pontiac and headed for
the cloakroom. "We've got to hurry, honey," she said.
"We've got a run tonight, and I need to get home and get the car
ready."

"
Are you driving?" Asia asked, missing the
ball.

"
No."

"
Yippee."

Munch went inside the school building and sifted
through a pile of coats until she found Asia's wrinkled down-filled
jacket. The front was damp. She shook it out and called for Asia once
more.

"Four minutes," Asia implored.

"
Now."

Asia slumped her little shoulders and reluctantly
left the playground. Munch threw Asia's lunch box in the backseat and
strapped the little girl into her seat.

The first-graders were learning how to read. On the
drive home, Asia recited every word she could think of that began
with sl and sh. Munch was glad she didn't know them all.
 
 

CHAPTER 2

At twenty after five, Munch realized that the driver
wasn't going to show. That was the trouble with part-time help:
anybody who really had their shit together would have a full-time
job. She only had a short list of drivers to call on and none that
were any good at responding on short notice. She never dreamed it
would be so difficult to find a person with a clean driving record,
some semblance of a suit, and a desire to earn some extra cash on
mostly weekend nights. Yet the reality was that the limo business
brought out all varieties of flakes—drivers and customers included.
She'd hoped this latest guy, a wanna-be actor, would be a keeper.
Obviously not, especially when he didn't even have the decency to
call and offer some feeble excuse.

Now she was left to the all-too-familiar last-minute
panic that seemed to be an integral part of the livery business and
no time to dwell on Mr. I'm-going-to-be-a-star's lack of a work
ethic. All she knew was that if the car wasn't rolling out the
driveway in the next five minutes, it wasn't going to make it to the
pickup in time. She left Asia in the kitchen eating her McDonald's
Happy Meal and called, regrettably, the one person she knew would
come right over, her ex-lover, Derek.

"
Hi, it's me," Munch said as she laid out
her chauffeur costume: black slacks and heels, a white blouse, and
thin driving gloves to cover the stains on her hands. She heard the
volume of his television being lowered.

"
What's up?" he asked.

"
I'm in a jam. My driver didn't show up. Could
you come over and watch Asia?"

"
Tonight?"

"
Right now. She's had dinner. I just need you to
watch TV with her until bedtime."

"
All right."

"Thanks, you're a lifesaver." Now all she
had to do was explain to Asia. She clasped a wide red belt around her
waist, found Asia planted in front of the television, and explained
the situation.

"But why can't Derek drive the run?" Asia
asked, watching her mother fit a red-enamel hoop into each ear.

"
Don't whine. I told you before. I couldn't put
Derek on the insurance because of his driving record. You know I'd
rather stay home with you. This is an emergency."

"
It's always an emergency. "

"No, it's not. I tell you what. After dance
class tomorrow, we'll go do something special together. just you and
me."

"Couldn't I just go with you?"

"You'd be bored to death, believe me." She
bent down and kissed her. "Be good tonight."

"You, too," Asia said, her large brown eyes
solemn. "Remember, let's be careful out there."

Munch laughed. "Silly
goose. What could happen?"

* * *

Raleigh Ward bolted from his cramped studio
apartment, leaving dishes in the sink and dirty clothes on the
bathroom floor. Usually he made some attempt to tidy up before going
out. Not that he'd be entertaining later. The only female that came
around was a marmalade tabby who loved him for his tuna fish. He
named her Cassandra and vowed unconvincingly that if she got knocked
up, he was putting her out on her ass. He locked the door before the
phone could ring again and foul his mood even further. Although that
last call would be tough to match for sheer ball-busting.

As soon as he'd heard the voice of his first ex-wife,
he should have known the evening was shot. He should have prepped
himself—asked what she wanted now. She only called when she wanted
something. Never just to see how he was. And yet the sound of her
voice never failed to raise an expectant thrill in his stomach—a
feeling he used to identify as love. Now he wasn't sure what to call
it.

By the time he'd hung up the phone, he was five
hundred dollars poorer: She wouldn't be calling if she didn't have
to,  she said. The kid needed orthodontia. What choice did he
have? Be a prick or a sap? He pulled a tin of Altoids from his
pockets and slipped one of the powerful peppermints under his tongue.

It wasn't that money itself was so important to him,
but there was a limit. Would there ever be an end to the demands? Or
would it be up to him to draw the line?

The source of his well-documented, perpetual state of
economic crisis could be summed up in three words: Community Fucking
Property.

Even his own dear mother had asked him if he had to
marry both of them

What could he say? The stupid truth was that with
each marriage he'd had the expectation that she would be the one. And
wasn't it amazing that he could maintain that level of optimism
despite all? Surely that spoke to something in his character. His
unions always ended the same way. just when his hopes were raised
that he was finally getting a handle on things, becoming the winner
he always believed he could be, the level of effort required to hold
a marriage together would prove too much. He blamed these failures on
the calls that always seemed to come in the middle of the night and
the absences he was forbidden to explain. Such was the price he paid
to serve his country and the agency that employed him. He still loved
his exes, each in her own way, carrying the image of each woman
inside him—wraithlike. Lately, though, the burden of their
disapproving, disappointed, and disenfranchised talking heads was
weighing heavy on him. There was that.

And then there was the mailing of the two separate
alimony checks that reduced his salary each month to a joke. It
tended to make a guy bitter, living hand to fucking mouth, while all
the sleazy fucks like Victor Draicu, the Romanian diplomatic time
bomb he was baby-sitting for the evening, grew fat. Especially with
everything else he had to cope with—like keeping the world safe
from despots. Years of covert operations in Iron Curtain countries
had given him glimpses of the world few others in America were privy
to. He'd seen firsthand the "threat from the East."

He snorted derisively. Not that Romania was such a
threat. One forty-watt bulb per room, fuel rationing, power outages,
Securitate agents at every turn. Still, the prevailing wisdom was
that it never hurt to develop sources in the enemy's camp. Turning
Victor Draicu would be child's play, especially with the man's taste
for Western entertainment.

He'd reached the bottom of the stairs and began
patting his pockets. The feeling that he'd forgotten something nagged
at him.

"
Shit," he said
out loud, remembering that he hadn't left the window open for
Cassandra. He checked his watch, then ran back upstairs to give the
little fleabag easy access to his life.

* * *

At exactly five minutes to six, Munch pulled in front
of the apartment building in Culver City that Raleigh Ward had given
as the pickup address. He was already on the sidewalk. She would have
rather seen him emerge from one of the apartments. Just in case. She
took some comfort in the memory that she had reached him by phone
when they had repaired his car, so he couldn't be that much of a
flake. If only she could figure out a diplomatic way to collect all
the money up front instead of having to wait until she was already
out the time and the service.

He didn't wait for her to get out and open the door
for him, but waved his hand as if to guy, "Don't bother and
climbed into the back with surprising fluidity for his bulk.

"
Where to?" she asked.

"
The Beverly Wilshire. You got a phone in this
thing?"

"
It's a dollar a minute," she told him.

"Yeah, fine."

"
It's in a compartment in the center armrest,"
she said, "If you hand it to me, I'll unlock it."

He found the telephone and handed it forward. The
coiled cord stretched across the expanse of seats as she zeroed the
minute counter and punched in the codes that would enable him to call
out.

"
All right then, sir," she told him as she
handed him back the mobile phone, 'We're all set. The buttons over
your head operate the moon roof and privacy partition. You'll find
ice and mixers in the compartment on the right. Help yourself to a
drink."

"
Thanks," he said. "After the Beverly
Wilshire we need to make a stop in West Hollywood. He handed her a
slip of paper with an address on North Gower written on it and a
hundred-dollar bill. "Can you find it okay?"

"No problem."

"
Great" The privacy partition slid up. As
soon as it did, she heard the tape recorder under her seat click and
whir. Microphones were strategically placed throughout the passenger
section. It probably wasn't legal, but it was her best defense
against the teenagers who rented the limo for proms. The tape
recorder was activated whenever the thick upholstered panel separated
her from her passengers. It had been her experience that whenever
teenagers put the partition up they were about to break the
no-drinking rule. The mikes fed to the tape recorder under her seat;
another led directly to an earpiece. She slipped the earpiece into
her left ear. The system was functioning properly. Raleigh-baby was
on the phone.