Hunter's Moon.htm (30 page)

Jocko wiped up the spray of whiskey from his prized bar top. When I didn't elaborate further, "And… ?"

I noticed that the person at the next stool was unusually interested in our conversation. He didn't look at us but he stared too studiously ahead and smelled anticipatory. I motioned with my eyes alone to Jocko that we were being overheard. He caught the look and without a word looked up and glanced around the bar.

He raised a huge arm and caught the eye of one of the waitresses. She moved through the crowd toward him. When she reached the bar she waited.

"Watch the bar, Marni, I've got business."

She nodded her head and moved behind the bar, sparing me a smile. I returned it with a nod.

We wound through the crowd. The smells and sounds were nearly overpowering. Not as bad as the casino but it didn't help my frayed nerves any. When we got to the edge of the dance floor, I almost laughed. Wall to wall people and my booth in the corner sat eerily empty.

We sat and I noticed for the first time that he had brought the bottle and two glasses. I must be really messed up.

He poured some whiskey in my glass and then in his own. He took a sip, but you could hardly tell the difference after. I knew Jocko. He could nurse a shotglass all night and nobody would know it was his first.

We sipped, me silently, him with a quiet slurp. He set the glass on the table in front of him and rested foreanns on the chipped and scarred wood. He smelled patient. There is no hurry to Jocko, no rushing. He's the perfect bartender. Wait long enough and you'll find out everything.

"Like I said, Bobby-boy dropped in." He nodded. He glanced at the crowd as I took another sip, watching for any signs of trouble. I didn't begrudge him. He's the boss. His eyes darted from group to group, picking out voices a little too loud, movements a little too sloppy. He lighted specifically on one group of boys just out of their teens. As we watched, one of the kids lifted a mixed drink from a neighboring table when the people left and started to sip it. Jocko stood. "Hold that thought."

He never took his eyes off the table as he wove through the throng like smoke. Quite a trick for someone his size. He reached the table and descended on them like a storm. Angry energy crackled around him, almost enough to see. He plucked the drink out of the kid's hand and spoke quietly enough for only that table and my wolf ears. "Out."

One of the boys started to argue. Jocko simply crossed his arms over his massive chest. Muscles strained and rippled under the short sleeved white T-shirt, the product of years of training.

No argument would be sufficient. He could lose the business, lose everything. He has no humor for that. The kids swallowed their pride before they started swallowing their teeth. The kid with the drink didn't even look at him. He just picked up his stuff and tried to slip out while his friends were blustering. Jocko reached out a beefy hand and tapped his shoulder. He froze and turned nervous eyes to Jocko.

Jocko studied his face for a moment. I knew he was committing every feature— the color of his eyes and the slope of his nose to permanent memory. "You're 86ed."

The boy opened his mouth but Jocko just turned away and walked back to my table. Trusted that they would leave as instructed. They did.

The people descended on the suddenly empty table like vultures. Hands reached for chairs almost before the bodies were completely out.

By the time Jocko returned to the table there was a new party in the same spot as though the previous group never existed.

"Sommers bothering you again?" he asked me like we were never interrupted.

I took another slug of whiskey. "He was investigating a grand theft."

Jocko leaned forward, eyes intent on me, his whole energy engrossed. "You don't steal and that's not his turf."

He's right. I don't steal. My next words were bitter. The anger returned full force. "Apparently, anything is his turf if it involves me."

"What happened?" Antifreeze seeped from his pores.

"Myra," I replied with biting intensity, as though the word was enough. It wasn't.

"Myra?" He paused. All of a sudden he thought he understood. I knew it from his smell. A new lady. A new problem. Partially right.

"Sue's mother." Then I realized that he doesn't even know about Sue. It felt like we'd been together years, but it had only been a little over a week. "The brunette I was in here with last."

Jocko nodded knowingly. Cloves drifted to my nose. Right again.

I told him the whole sordid story. How I got to Sue's house earlier to find Sommers' car. I didn't tell him about the panic that pounded my heart when I saw he and Myra in earnest conversation inside. If he had a search warrant, I was screwed. I'd slept down there at least two nights. He's never had any way to get my fingerprints or DNA before, and I wanted to keep it that way. Shit.

But he didn't have a warrant. He had merely intercepted a phone call. Myra was missing a brooch— a Tiffany's special. Compliments of Sue and the millions of gamblers in the state. Cost more money than my car, which made it grand theft. He heard my name mentioned when the call went out and dropped by himself. He'd sell a good chunk of his soul to get some samples.

Sommers isn't stupid, though. When I'd gotten there, he stepped back from the whole deal a bit. I could tell he was suspicious. Myra seemed to know too much about the crime.

"Do you mind if I have a look around down there?" he had asked Myra.

"I mind," I replied hotly. "There isn't any way that I could have gotten upstairs to get any brooch, Lieutenant. I come through a separate entrance in the back. I don't even have a key for the stairwell door." I'd made certain of that.

He turned to Myra. "Is that true, Mrs. Quentin?"

"Absolutely not! He comes and goes in this house as he damned well pleases, Detective. Don't believe him! I know he took my pin."

Sue spoke up, to my surprise— and certainly to Myra's. "It is true, Lieutenant. And I would appreciate it if you would address your questions to me. I'm the owner of this house and I'm the one who wrote the lease with Mr. Giodone."

Wow! I was surprised, but pleased, at the force of her words. One word had perked up Sommers' ears. His scent was suddenly a blend of odors. His face looked suspicious and frustrated. "Lease? I wasn't aware that the basement was a separate dwelling." That one word changed the whole complexion of the investigation.

I shrugged. "It didn't used to be before I hired on with Ms. Quentin to help her install some new security components. You can see the state of the fence outside, Lieutenant. She wanted the work done quickly and I've stayed a few nights to write up plans."

I thanked my lucky stars that Sue and I had written up a lease when we did the bodyguard agreement. Without permission from me, Sommers wouldn't touch the case. He once told me that if he ever caught me he wanted it so clean you could eat off it. He was ready to leave. Hat in hand.

But then I had a brilliant thought. I remembered the monitors. When my buddy Gary had come in to repair the fence, Sue had him change the tapes in the monitors. Just yesterday, I'd set up a machine in a back room to review the tapes. There had been nothing of interest, but that was before Myra called the cops. Every camera doesn't overlap perfectly, but there is one hidden right over the stairwell doorway.

Myra probably had never noticed it.

"Lieutenant, I think you might want to see something." I had led Bob to the room and shut the door behind him. Then I rewound the tapes for the day.

"What did they show?" Jocko asked. He was smiling wickedly as I related the story to him. Sweet thick antifreeze hung in the air and his eyes glittered with unconcealed glee.

The lights blacked out just then and my heart rose to my throat. The strobes began to flash, the glittering ball smoothly turned and the music slowed. The male lead's voice lowered to a seductive whisper, the stuff of frantic hearts and satin sheets.

I returned my gaze to Jocko and saw him in snatches and flashes through the darkness. Multi-colored light played across his face. The drumbeat was in time to the strobe. I felt each beat in my chest. I closed my eyes to block out the input. Everything became surreal. I started to speak, to answer his question. Then I was free-falling. I was weightless; breathless.

The channel changed. My voice was a thready alto and I was telling the same story all over again. As I opened my eyes I was staring at a ceiling. The colors were warm, the air smelled of cinnamon.

I heard John-Boy's voice. "How did it make you feel when your mother set up Tony?"

I knew the answer before the sound reached air but it wasn't my voice. They weren't my thoughts. "Horrible. Terrible. I was embarrassed, angry, guilty. You name it. She had no right!"

"Could she be worried about you? Worried that you've made a mistake by getting involved with him?" Always playing devil's advocate, huh, John?

Hell, no! But that wasn't what I said, what We said. "Maybe. I like to believe that sometimes she cares. But probably it's because she doesn't like Tony. He stands up to her. She can't bear that. She always has to be the strongest. Has to be the only. I spend time with him. That's not allowed. If I spend time with him, it's being taken away from her. They can't co-exist."

"So, what else did they show?" The warm tones and cinnamon were still there but John had Jocko's voice, a scratchy baritone. I felt an awareness. A knowledge of who and what we were. Then blackness again.

I was back in the bar. The lights were up, the song long over. Had I been speaking? I couldn't remember.

"What?" I asked hazily.

"The tapes, Tony. You said you rewound the tapes and showed them to Sommers. The tape showed Myra walking. You said it like it was a big deal. Then you just blanked out on me. You was there but you wasn't. Ya know?"

I tried to focus on him. Really. I wanted to tell him what was happening to me. I wanted to tell someone. Anyone.

No. Stick to the subject. Angry was better than confused right now. The tapes. Yeah.

The tapes showed Myra getting out of her chair. No surprise to me, but it was to Sommers. He was angry. I could see it, smell it. There was Myra, in living black and white, unlocking the door to the downstairs with a key. I wondered where the hell she got it. I heard a sound from Sommers that was amazingly like a growl as we rewound a second tape near the wet bar downstairs. It showed Myra's right side as she snuck into my bedroom and stashed the pin under my mattress. Oh, real smooth.

He gritted his teeth and I heard a slight grinding as he spoke. He grudgingly asked me whether I wanted to press charges. I could. Breaking and entering, false accusations. Sommers hated asking, hated that I was the good guy for a change. But he's right wing law and order. It's his job.

I declined gracefully, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching him dress Myra down on his way out. Threatened to prosecute her for false reporting. That's a crime too. The best part was, he'd never again believe her. That made me a little less pissed about the whole thing. Only a little.

"Damn!" Jocko let out a slow breath and finished his whiskey with a fast swallow. "You sure you want to get involved with that one?" He shook his head. "It's not starting out real well."

"Myra's been at my throat ever since I moved some stuff in." I tipped over the shot glass on the table and busied myself rolling it in circles. "I swear to God, if she ever pulls… "

"Whoa, whoa!" interrupted Jocko quickly, "Back up. Since you moved in?"

I tried to dismiss it quickly. "Moved some stuff in. I've still got my place. I just keep a few things over there."

"Even so… " He suddenly smelled a little worried and slightly happy. "You never even left a toothbrush at Linda's and you proposed to her."

I didn't know how to explain it. It's not like I had a choice. It sort of happened without much input from me. I can't just make the feelings go away. The need to be with Sue. A part of me doesn't want it to go away. I feel things I've never felt before and it's incredible! But it's scary and annoying and frustrating too. That much I told Jocko. He nodded sagely like he'd been there before.

Then it happened again. Free-falling; frozen in place. Again I was in two places at once. I could see Jocko. See the bar, feel the table under my hand— but I was somewhere else too. I felt happy. Heard a second heartbeat that wasn't my own. There were hands on my shoulders rubbing gently and it was nice. I saw light and polished wood superimposed over the bar. I heard a loud crash, like wood breaking but hard and fast. There was female laughter. I smelled Linda's signature perfume.

I looked around me. She wasn't anywhere close that I could see. Wherever Sue was, I was with her again. I felt her surprise when she felt me with her and the shock broke the connection. I was myself again. It was like a brick wall was suddenly constructed in my head, shutting out the sensations. The wall smelled like fur.

"You okay?" I heard Jocko ask as though in a dream. "You disappeared again."

I sounded as shaky as I felt. "Yeah. I'm fine."

I stayed at Nick's all night. Jocko let me stay in my booth even after he closed up. He did take the bottle away from me. It's the law.

I got back to Sue's place around dawn. She was still up.

When I walked in the door I could smell her. Soft and musky, worried and remorseful. She had fun but would rather have been with me. I wanted to hold her, touch her. But I knew that if I laid a single finger on her, all would be forgiven. I couldn't seem to help it. I didn't have to like it, though.

We went downstairs so we could have some privacy.

"Did you have fun?" I asked casually as I stripped off my shoes, emptied my pockets and checked my piece.

"You know I did." She gave an amused sniff that was not quite a chuckle. "You were there for part of it."

I couldn't acknowledge that. It was too weird. Way too weird. I kept moving, kept the hell away from her. "Where were you?"

"I saw John but you know that. He didn't think I should drive. So I called Linda. I couldn't think of anyone else. She came and got me. We bowled."