Home Free (18 page)

On the other hand, at least I wasn’t home
alone like a loser for a second time this weekend.

“I said I wasn’t going to shoot you. Relax.”
We walked to his apartment and went inside.

It was clean, but almost empty of furniture.
There was a dining room table and four mismatched chairs in the
dining area. A couch that I was pretty sure I’d had sex on in high
school and a TV occupied the living room. That was it. No chairs,
coffee tables, stereo systems. I guessed it was hard to buy
everything all at once when he’d gotten out of jail. But then I
wondered about the Cadillac.

His eyes followed mine around the room.
“You’re making assumptions again,” he said. “Maybe that’s my fault.
Let’s start over.” He extended his hand and spoke in a snotty,
pretentious voice. “Hello, I’m Junior Salazar of the Minter
Salazars, it’s so nice to meet you.” He smiled, and I couldn’t help
smiling back. It was that kind of smile.

I shook his hand. “Alex Jordan.” I considered
him for a minute. “You don’t look like a Junior to me.”

“What does a Junior look like?”

I shrugged. “I guess maybe a two hundred and
fifty-pound bouncer at a strip club.”

“You been spending a lot of time at strip
clubs, have you?”

“I like Mikey better.”

“Suit yourself.” He went to the kitchen and
opened the fridge. “Beer or soda?”

“Beer.” Beer had been growing on me over the
past week, to the point where now it actually sounded good. I
mentally groaned and wondered if a perm could be far behind.

He brought a six-pack to the dining room
table, and we sat. “My brother was a professional baseball player
for a few years. He made good money, and he bought me the car as a
homecoming present. End of story.”

I hadn’t asked about the car. He was starting
to creep me out with the mind-reading thing.

“I’m not a mind reader. When you’re an
ex-con, you get used to people thinking certain things about you. I
watched you when you came in, and I could see the wheels turning.”
He looked at me again now. “By the way, what is this outfit you’re
wearing? Somebody die?”

I looked down at my all-black ensemble. “It’s
my breaking and entering outfit.”

Mikey laughed out loud. “Did you go to the
mall and buy it special?”

“Okay, what about this?” I asked. We’d
finally gotten back to the subject of the arson, and I was wracking
my brain to come up with something, anything really, that I could
go to Jimmy C with so he’d lay off Kevin and Danny. I’d ruled out
alien invasions and terrorism, but everything else was still on the
table. “Rumor has it the gravel yard’s gone legit.” I tried not to
sound skeptical. “What if the mob people didn’t like that idea, and
so they torched Jenkins’ place, not as a message to him, but as a
message to you. You know, that they could frame you for it and
you’d be right back in the slammer unless you went along and let
them continue to run things.”

He nodded. “You’re not as bad at this as you
think you are. Well, nobody calls it ‘the slammer.’ But that’s a
good thought. Only the mob has been out of the gravel yard for
about five years now. They never were real big here, you know, just
some small-time numbers and loan sharking stuff, plus the
knee-cap-breaking that goes along with that. When the Mexican gangs
started moving into Minter, things got messy. They were dealing a
lot more drugs, and the violence was more random and, well,
violent. The gangs aren’t just breaking fingers to remind you to
pay your vig. They’ll kill each other for wearing the wrong colors.
The climate changed, and finally Casaletto just pulled his
operation out. Told my father and uncles they were even and that
was that.”

“So you really are legit.”

“Yep.”

“Shit.”

Mikey smiled. “I think that myself all the
time.”

“What about Jenkins? Supposedly, he’s the one
who called Danny out there that night, said he wanted to talk to
him about you. You have any idea why? Maybe he has an axe to grind
with Danny, and he framed him?”

“Jenkins is a nice guy, and nobody ever has
an axe to grind with Danny. I think he just wanted to know if I
really am the fine, upstanding citizen I claim to be. I guess he’d
be worried about making a deal with me if he thought that meant he
was making a deal with the mob. Danny’s a local hero, baseball
player, fire captain. I guess Jenkins wanted to hear from him that
I was okay.”

I had an unpleasant thought. “Why do you
think he’s disappeared? You don’t think he’s dead, do you?”

“Nah, I think he was probably on his way to
meet Danny and saw the flames and figured me and my mob buddies had
lit the place up when I heard he was checking on me. Probably
scared the shit out of him, and he took off.”

“Hunh.” I hadn’t thought of that. I yawned.
It was getting late and it had been a long day and the beer was
having an effect.

“Let’s go back to your way of looking at it,”
Mikey said, ignoring the hint. “Let’s assume the arson was after
the fact, to cover up the murder. Or at least confuse the issue.
Who would want Chambers dead?”

“Well, Sherry is an obvious choice. He
evidently used her as a punching bag.”

Mikey shook his head. “I doubt it. Trust me.
She might have eventually worked up the courage to leave him, but
most abused women don’t fight back.”

I thunked my head on the table. “I’m sorry. I
wasn’t thinking about your parents.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. I just don’t
think it was her. What do you know about my parents?”

“I grew up in the house behind them. My
parents still live there. Your brother and mine were friends and
teammates, and sometimes your mom would come into Baskin Robbins
with a black eye and I would sell her a gallon of Rocky Road.”

He nodded, his mind already back to Chambers.
“Who else would want him dead?”

“Well, even if they were small time, I guess
it could have been a bad drug deal.”

“Yeah, or Chambers could have been skimming
from whoever he was working for.”

“True.”

Mikey nodded, and I yawned again. The six
pack was gone, and he went to get another one.

“Tell me your story, Alex,” he said, popping
open two more cans and pushing one towards me. “I’m surprised I
don’t remember you, growing up right under my nose and all.”

“Hunh. Well, I grew up here, went away to
college, got a job and got married. You know, the usual. Then my
husband left me a few months ago for someone named Raoul, and I
couldn’t afford to keep living in southern California, so I moved
back here. I bought a fixer upper and hired a contractor to work on
it for me, and now everyone thinks I’m screwing him. The only
member of my family who actually likes me might go to jail. And
technically I’m a graphic designer, but lately I seem to be making
a career out of misjudging people.”

“Just so we’re clear, you’re not screwing the
contractor?”

“Hunh-uh. Well, you know, just the one time.”
Crap, why did I say that? Damn beer.

Mikey’s dark eyes were twinkling, and a smile
was starting in the corners of his mouth. “So you’re not seeing
anybody?”

Uh-oh. This couldn’t be good. “I can’t,
Mikey, it’s complicated.”

His face clouded over and he nodded, his
smile tight now, the twinkle gone. “I see.”

“No, you don’t see. Now you’re the one
jumping to conclusions. It has nothing to do with you, or the fact
that you’re an ex-con. There is somebody. Your brother, actually.
We’re not together, but it’s complicated and I need to sort it
out.” I banged the can down on the table for emphasis.

“Okay, okay, I believe you. Don’t beat up my
furniture. It may be crap, but it’s all I have.” His face was
relaxed again, and I could see he did believe me.

We drank our beers in silence, and I wondered
about something else.

“What’s it like? Prison, I mean?”

“It’s not a nice place, Alex. You don’t want
your brother to go there, and I don’t want mine to, either. And I
sure as hell don’t want to go back.” He was thoughtful for a
minute. “You know, this will be a two-strikes crime, the murder and
the arson, two felonies. If I’m convicted, it’ll be my third
strike, and I’ll go away forever.” He grimaced. “Unless they go for
special circumstances.”

“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it
up that way.” I’d opened another beer, way past my limit. “Hey, I
noticed your letterhead when I was in your office - ”

“When you broke into my office.”

“Whatever. Anyway, your logo is really
outdated. If you want, I could design you something new and more
sophisticated, and do new letterhead and envelopes and stuff.”

He threw his head back and laughed, soft and
deep. “I’m talking about the death penalty here, and you want to
redo my office papers? Tell you what. If we all get out of this
without a prison sentence, you can have the job.”

I woke up when somebody started
jack-hammering inside my head. I squinted and looked around,
confused. Little bits and pieces started coming back to me. Mikey,
a gun, and beer. Lots of beer. Shit. I was on the couch. I peeked
under the blanket. Whew, fully dressed. That was always a good
sign. I kicked the blanket off and sat up, slowly, pressing my
palms hard against the sides of my head so it wouldn’t explode.

“Not a big drinker, huh?” Mikey was leaning
against the doorjamb, wearing nothing but jeans, brushing his
teeth.

“Shit.”

“Uh-hunh.” He disappeared and I heard the
water running. He came back and handed me a glass and three
aspirin. He was about six feet tall, the same as Danny, but built a
little more solid, more bulk, less definition. His black hair was
straight instead of curly, his eyes were nearly black and his
coloring was more mocha-y than bronze. I noticed a scar running
horizontally along the right side of his abdomen, just above the
waistband of his jeans.

“Appendicitis,” he said. This ESP thing was
damned annoying.

“I have to go.” Something was nagging at my
brain, but the jackhammers were making it hard for me to figure it
out. I gave my head a smack, which was a decidedly stupid idea, and
I groaned in pain as the jackhammers retaliated. Suddenly, it came
to me. “Fuck, I’m such an idiot.” My voice sounded far away.

“Not following.”

“That expensive car. I have the license plate
number.”

“You
what
?”

“Yeah, this girl I know borrowed my digital
camera, and she saw the car over at Sherry’s and took a picture for
me. I totally forgot last night, what with the breaking in and the
gun and the decomposition and all the damn beer.”

“Decomposition?”

“I thought you might kill me and leave my
body outside in the heat. I figured it’s hot enough, I’d be all
decomposed in a couple hours and no one would ever find me because
you live in a weird maze.”

“Did you think this before or after the
beer?”

“Before.”

His lips twitched, and it didn’t take psychic
powers to know he was laughing at me. I would have been pissed if I
could have formed a coherent thought.

“You need to tell this girl to be careful. If
expensive car guy is the guy who shot Chambers, she shouldn’t mess
with him. Do you have anybody who’ll run the plate for you?”

I thought about Jimmy C. It was a long shot,
but a possibility. “I don’t know. Probably not on a Sunday, but
maybe tomorrow. I’ll call you. Oh, I don’t have your phone
number.”

He wrote several numbers on a pad, home,
work, cell, then tore the top sheet off and handed it to me, and I
left.

I found the Element on my third lap around
the parking labyrinth, and by then I was sweating and panting in my
breaking and entering outfit. The car went on autopilot to
Starbucks, and I took my decaf latte and raspberry scone home to
eat in peace, forgetting that I lived at Grand Central Station.
Jack was in the living room, uncoiling a long roll of electrical
wire. He gave me a look when I walked in.

“You just getting home?”

I grunted and gulped my coffee and threw my
purse in the direction of the coffee table.

“Danny’s a lucky guy.”

“Wasn’t with Danny.” I ignored the raised
eyebrow and went to the kitchen to eat in peace. Kevin and Pauline
were sitting at the counter.

“Shit.”

“You just getting home?”

“How long have you been here?”

“About twenty minutes. I was just going to
wake you up.” Pauline was practically jumping off the barstool,
dying to ask where I’d been, not wanting to in front of my
brother.

“Yes, I’m just getting home. I left the
barbecue yesterday, came home and changed into this ridiculous
outfit, broke into Junior Salazar’s office, and then spent the
night with him. I’m doing my best to ruin Brian’s chances of being
elected. I’m going to take a shower now. Please go away.” They were
gaping at me, not sure how much, if any, of the story to
believe.

I stood in the shower until the hot water
started to run low. The jackhammers were gone, replaced by a dull
thud. It was manageable but still annoying. I combed my hair out
straight and pulled on denim shorts and a Cal State Long Beach
t-shirt, then went in search of my intruders. Pauline was watching
TV in the living room. I didn’t see Kevin or Jack. I flopped on the
couch and threw my legs up on the coffee table next to Pauline’s
coffee cup.

“So was that true, about last night? You and
Junior?”

“You think I’d sleep with Danny’s
brother
? Really?” Evidently Brian was right about my
reputation.

She considered it. “I guess I hadn’t thought
of it that way. I’m still not used to the idea of you and Danny,
you know, doing it.”

Welcome to the club. “Paul, I don’t mean to
be rude, but what the hell are you and Kevin doing at my house at
the crack of dawn on a freaking Sunday?”