Catch Her If You Can (8 page)

“No problem. I’ll get dressed and meet you there.”

He strapped on his utility belt with its various accoutrements, dropped a quick kiss on my nose, and departed.

With the absence of the two well-built males who’d occupied it, my tiny apartment seemed suddenly empty and sterile. Except for the scattered magazines and mail, of course, and the dust motes floating on the sunbeams that slanted through the windows.

I swallowed a slug of coffee and carried the mug with me into the bedroom. My sweatpants and tank joined the ABUs on the floor. I shimmied into jeans, a once-blue USAF T-shirt, and flip-flops before giving my hair another few swipes with a brush. Didn’t help. The chlorine had done a real number on it. I crammed on a Texas Rangers baseball cap, pulled the springy auburn mass through the back opening, and headed out.

The Ysleta Border Patrol Station consists of a cluster of stucco buildings in what was once flat farmland. The station’s fenced yard was large enough to house a fleet of vehicles, most of which were out on patrol when I pulled up at the entry point.

The Border Patrol’s primary mission used to be to deter illegals and smugglers. After 9/11, priority shifted to apprehending terrorists attempting to enter the United States. Not an easy task, as I’ve learned during my association with Mitch these past months. On a typical day, Customs and Border Patrol personnel process some 1.13 million passengers and pedestrians entering the U.S.; 70,000 truck, rail, and sea containers; and $88 million in fees, duties, and tariffs. They also apprehend 2,400 folks and seize more than 7,000 pounds of narcotics.

The statistics went a long way to explaining the tired lines cut into Mitch’s face when he slid into the convertible’s passenger seat. Worry for his daughter explained the rest. I could have told him most teenage girls felt obligated to rebel against their mothers on a more or less regular basis. I certainly did. Then again, I didn’t have a father on the bad side of a vicious criminal.

“Call me when you get to Seattle,” I made him promise after we’d pulled up at the airport.

Nodding, he gave me a semi-distracted kiss before levering out of the convertible. I watched him disappear inside the terminal. Then I cut into the airport traffic stream and tried to decide what to do with the rest of my day.

The mall beckoned. Ten days out at Dry Springs with my team always left me with an insatiable Macy’s craving. Unfortunately, it also left me with piles of test reports to synthesize and a stack of new submissions to review. I supposed I could go out to Fort Bliss and use the quiet hours of a Saturday morning to make a dent in the stack.

Or I could craft a carefully worded email to Dr. J inquiring about the propriety of accepting the reward. Macy’s would certainly be a lot more fun with a big chunk of change jingling in my pockets.

Hmmm. Tough choice. Shopping with my present limited resources. Or waiting until I could enjoy a more extravagant incursion.

Just about everyone who knows me will confirm I’m not into delayed gratification. Or hard logic. Took me all of ten seconds to decide this was just too pretty a morning to be stuck in an office building (as opposed to an enclosed, windowless mall).

Since I was already headed north toward the base and the mall lay in the opposite direction, I had to cut across two lanes of traffic to exit Airport Road. The drivers behind me didn’t take kindly to my emergency maneuvers. One laid on his horn. Another flipped me the bird. I mouthed an apology to the rearview mirror but felt somewhat vindicated when a gray Chevy two cars back executed the same abrupt exit.

Five minutes later my cell phone warbled out a slightly X-rated version of “The Eyes of Texas” and I had to change directions again. Very reluctantly, I might add. Charlie, it turns out, hadn’t even reached the outskirts of town before his pickup wheezed and died. He’d had it towed to a Ford dealership but was stuck in El Paso until a part got shipped in.

“Damned part’s manufactured in Singapore or India or someplace like that,” he groused when I pulled into the dealership and he folded his long length into the Sebring. “They said they couldn’t get one in until Tuesday.”

“I hope you don’t think you’re going to stay at my place until then,” I huffed. “I’ll take you to a motel but that’s as far as we go.”

“Com’on, Sam. I can’t afford three nights in a motel.”

“I beg to differ. Didn’t Mitch just loan you a thousand dollars?”

“I wired that to Brenda before I broke down. She used to work for the guy we borrowed from, so she knew just where to . . .”

“Wait a minute. She worked for the Mob?”

“She didn’t know Richie was in the business.”

“Yeah, right.”

The cynical remark rolled off his Teflon-coated conscience. Shrugging, he popped in a stick of Big Red. “Brenda and me thought Rich might be more agreeable if she took the thousand in and asked for an extension.”

Especially with her newly refurbished boobs and butt, I thought nastily. I managed to bite back that comment but couldn’t refrain from an acid reminder.

“Your problems are
not
my concern, buddy boy.”

“You say that, but you gotta think of the fallout if Brenda doesn’t talk Richie into another grace period.”

“Fallout?”

“You already made the news with this severed head thing. I turn up dead, too, and the cops are gonna wonder if there’s a connection.”

“Dammit, Charlie, I don’t appreciate being dragged into your mess.”

“I know, babe.”

That little boy whine seeped into his voice. I couldn’t believe I used to think it was cute. Now it made my lips pull back.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I really am. Just put me up until they fix my truck. Soon’s they do, I’m out of here. I promise.”

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel and weighed the options. I could leave him here at the dealership. Or dump him at the nearest motel with best wishes for a nice life. Or . . .

Or if I was really, really honest, I might be forced to admit Charlie did me a favor when he got it on with Brenda Baby. I didn’t think so at the time, of course. But catching him in the act riled me so much I chucked him along with my dead-end job and marched into an Air Force recruiter’s office. And despite my own and my entire family’s expectations to the contrary, I’m still in uniform and actually doing something productive with my life.

I wasn’t about to share these profound revelations with Charlie, however. Instead, I merely sighed and put the car in gear.

“Okay, okay. But you stay at my place
only
until Tuesday. If the part’s not in by then, you sleep on the dealer’s couch instead of mine.”

WISH I could tell you Charlie was my only annoying visitor that weekend.

No such luck. When I pulled into my assigned parking space at my apartment complex, a car door opened two slots over. I was barely out of the convertible before a thin, fox-faced type in a shiny green suit, white shirt, and a string tie hurried over.

“Lieutenant Spade?”

I had no intention of confirming my identity until I found out who he was and what he wanted.

Charlie was every bit as gun-shy. With good reason! He was the one with the Mob after him. “Who wants to know?” he asked suspiciously.

“My name’s Nowatny. Jim Nowatny.” Fox Face palmed a card in my direction. “I believe your brother, Don, spoke to you about me, Lieutenant.”

Recognition dawned. “You’re the lawyer who got Don out of paying back taxes.”

I hadn’t intended it as a compliment but Nowatny preened. “That’s right. Saved him close to twenty thousand.”

Charlie’s blue eyes lit up. The light blinked out again when I pointed out that those savings were all on paper. Except for Lawyer Nowatny’s hefty fee, of course.

“Donny had to fork that over,” I told my disappointed ex as we retreated toward my apartment.

“This is different.” Nowatny dogged our heels. “I would take your case on a contingency basis. You don’t get paid, I don’t get paid.”

“I don’t have a case. Besides, your card lists an address in California. Are you even licensed to practice in Texas?”

“No, but I have a colleague who is.”

Surprise, surprise. I could visualize his colleague’s office. Two musty rooms in some strip mall down close to the Rio Grande, the better to snare clients coming over or being escorted back across the border.

“Sorry, I don’t need legal representation.”

“Yeah, babe, you do.”

Leave it to Charlie to add his one and a half cent’s worth.

“You said this agency you work for has all kinds of rules and regulations. They might get in the way of you collecting your fair share of the reward. I bet this guy . . . What’s your name again?”

“Nowatny. Jim Nowatny.”

“I bet Jim here could help you cut through the red tape.”

I had a momentary vision of Fox Face descending on poor, unsuspecting Dr. J. Shuddering, I keyed my front door.

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll work this out myself.”

I shut the door firmly in Nowatny’s face. Fished my cell phone out of my purse. Started counting. “One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand . . .”

“What are you doing?” Charlie asked curiously.

“Seeing how long it takes the ambulance chaser outside to get Don to call me.”

I resumed counting and got all the way to seventeen seconds before “The Eyes of Texas” belted out. Charlie broke out in a grin at the irreverent first stanza. Halfway through the second, he got impatient.

“Aren’t you going to answer it?”

“Nope.”

I let the call go to voice mail and put the phone to my ear. My mouth twisting sardonically, I listened to Don’s attempt to come on all big-brotherly.

“You need to protect your interests, Sam. Make sure those other guys don’t stiff you out of your share of the reward. Talk to Nowatny. Let him work this for you.”

“No way in hell,” I muttered.

 

THE voice mails piled up after that. Lawyer Nowatny. Don again. My mother. My cousin Deb, who’d evidently used Fox Face’s legal expertise to resolve the little matter of a false worker’s comp claim. Cub Reporter DeWayne, hoping to follow up on his big news break. My uncle Alex, who I hadn’t heard from in ten years but wanted to congratulate me on hitting the jackpot, and oh, by the way, could I float him a small loan to cover the cost of the backyard in-ground pool his kids were hassling him about? The aboveground just wasn’t hacking it anymore.

I got so tired of it all that I didn’t bother to check caller ID when the phone rang late that afternoon. But the first chord’s of Mitch’s special ringtone had me grabbing for the instrument.

“What’s the word on Jenny?” I asked anxiously.

“I found her.”

I didn’t ask how he’d accomplished that so quickly. As I’ve learned from my encounters with law enforcement types, they have access to sources not available to ordinary mortals. They also tend to close ranks. I’ve seen the steel jaws snap shut more than once, leaving me on the outside looking in. Mitch is better than most of his ilk. He’ll tell me what he can, when he can. I didn’t need to hear the nuts and bolts right now, though. Just knowing his daughter was safe relieved the worst of my fears.

His, too. I could hear it in his voice—along with a fair amount of exasperation. “She didn’t want to go home. Says her mother just doesn’t get it. “

“Think the two of them can work things out?”

“They have to. I promised to stay another couple of days and referee. I want the time with Jenny, but negotiating with Margo is going to max out my fun meter,” he admitted wryly. “Twenty minutes with her and I was biting my tongue so hard I tasted blood.”

That relieved a lesser worry. I hadn’t really expected sparks to reignite when he connected with his ex again, but you never now about these things.

“Speaking of having to bite your tongue . . .”

My glance went to the shimmering turquoise pool visible through the sliding glass doors.
My
ex lay stretched out on a lounger, shirtless, balancing a beer bottle on his navel while he scarfed down the pizza he’d cajoled me into ordering. The jerk was soaking up rays as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Charlie’s truck died on his way out of town,” I told Mitch. “He’s here, mooching off me until they fly in a part from Indonesia or somewhere.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh is right. If he mentions Brenda’s boob reduction one more time, he might not make it back to Vegas with all
his
working parts.”

“We’ll trade horror stories when I get home.”

The smile in Mitch’s voice told me he wasn’t worried about sparks reigniting, either. That’s the great thing about falling for a guy with smarts and maturity. He doesn’t sweat the small stuff. Although . . .

I might not have bridled at a
teeny
show of jealousy before he murmured his standard good-bye.