No Such Thing as a Secret: A Brandy Alexander Mystery (No Such Thing As...A Brandy Alexander Mystery) (26 page)

“Not exactly. Turns out the guy is a big game hunter. He had deer heads and bears; you name it, all staring down at me from the walls. It was bizarre.”

“Any chance he had the back end of a goat there?”

“Huh. I hadn’t thought of that.” Bobby shook his head, dismissing the notion. “Nah, too easy. Not worth his while.”

Wow. I thought back to the picture of Gruber in the goofy golf attire. He looked like your standard issue nerd. The guy was really starting to creep me out. “So what did he say about Williams?”

Our pizza arrived and we took a minute to each grab a slice. Bobby dug into his right away, while I patted the grease off mine with a paper napkin. Some of the napkin ended up sticking to the cheese but I was too hungry to care.

“Well, I told him the police were looking for one of his employees in connection with an ongoing investigation. He acted all shocked and said that Williams hadn’t been to work in several days, and he hoped he wasn’t in any serious trouble.”

“Did you believe him?”

Bobby shrugged and helped himself to another slice of pizza. “I don’t know. If he’s lying he’s damn good at it.” He drained his beer and signaled to the waitress for two more. She almost broke her neck trying to get to our table and gave him a look that said she didn’t move that fast for just anyone.

“Can I get you anything else?” She addressed this to Bobby even though I was the only one looking directly at her.

“No thanks,” he said, barely looking up.

“Are you sure?” The poor thing was positively wistful.

I took in this little scene with amusement tinged with something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The waitress left reluctantly. “She’s cute,” I announced, testing the waters.

“Who?”

“Oh, come on. The waitress! She was practically sitting in you lap. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”

Bobby cracked a smile. “Jealous?”

“What! Pfft. Get over yourself, DiCarlo.
I did
a long time ago!”

“Is that so?” he asked softly. He leaned across the table on his elbows, until he was so close our foreheads practically touched. I tried to scoot back, but he took my wrist gently in his, forcing me to stay where I was. My mouth got really dry and I licked my lips in nervous anticipation. He gazed longingly into my eyes and reached his other hand out to me. “You gonna eat that?” he asked seductively.

I looked down to where he was pointing. A slice of pizza sat untouched on my plate. I had zero appetite. Slowly I picked up the pizza, my eyes never leaving his, and shoved the entire slice into my mouth.

Bobby sat back. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

We talked for hours. At first we restricted our conversation to the purely professional, going over what he’d learned—or more specifically—didn’t learn at Gruber’s house. Trying to figure out where to go from here. But three beers later, and I don’t know about him, but I was ready to move on to subjects of a more personal nature.

“Bobby, why did you threaten that guy Chuckie tonight?”

Bobby slumped down in his seat, stretching his legs out under the table. They came to rest against mine. I let myself enjoy the sensation for a moment before moving away.

“The guy’s an asshole.” He didn’t seem inclined to elaborate so I pushed.

“Is that the only reason?

He stared at me, not answering, the muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching reflexively. “Ask me another question,” he said finally.

“Why did you leave me?”
Shit! I know I said that out loud, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why.
“I’m sorry.” Quickly I jumped to my feet. Too quickly. The beer had relaxed me to the point where I had trouble standing up. I stumbled as a wave of dizziness swept over me.

Bobby leaped up and caught me before I reeled backwards. He eased me down into my seat. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I groaned inwardly. But to Bobby I just gave a humiliated nod. When he didn’t say anything I added, “I don’t know why I said that.”

“Yes you do.” The noise inside DiVinci’s was deafening and for a brief moment I thought he’d said, “Yes, you Jew.”

“What?”

Bobby stood up and threw some money on the table. Then he reached his arm out and pulled me up from the booth. We were standing very close. Mere inches apart. He leaned into me and the air around us stopped moving. “I said, ‘yes, you do.’ Come on.”

We walked along Penn’s Landing. The fog coming in off the river had a haunting effect as it rolled across the water. My jacket was buttoned up to my neck, but still I shivered in the damp air. I’ve always been overly sensitive to the cold, and I guess Bobby remembered this about me, because he stopped and took off his scarf and wrapped it around my neck. I stood there like a three year old and let him take care of me.

We hadn’t spoken a word since we’d left DiVinci’s. How could I have shot off my mouth like that? Four years ago I’d sworn on the old
and
the New Testament that he would never know how much he’d hurt me. Four years of denial right down the friggin’ drain.

Bobby stopped walking and leaned against the guardrail. I stopped too and looked out over the water. There was something very soothing about the water lapping against the big ships in the shipyard. He turned to face me but I couldn’t look at him. I just kept staring out over the river.

“Brandy, four years ago you wouldn’t have this conversation with me. We’ve got to have it now. It’s long overdue.”

“I’m listening.”

“Well, do you think you could
look
at me? I’m not
that
hard on the eyes, am I?”

I knew he was attempting a joke, trying to relax me, so I responded by lifting my eyes to him. Encouraged, he heaved a big sigh and continued. “I guess you know I never had much of a childhood. When I met you I was so screwed up. My mother had just died and I was living with a stranger. A stranger who didn’t even like me. My aunt was bound by family obligation to raise me, but she didn’t have a clue what I was going through.”

“I know. I was there. Remember? Your aunt was a total bitch, by the way.”

He cracked a smile at that; a brief respite before it turned serious again. “Listen, I know I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. And I swear I’m not looking for excuses.”

“What
are
you looking for, Bobby? Absolution? You got it.” I hated that I couldn’t control the sarcastic bitterness in my voice. I hated even more that he knew with such clarity how I still felt, after all these years. I turned away again, but not before my eyes welled with tears. He spun me around, forcing me back into the guardrail, demanding that I meet his gaze. I had nowhere to go except into the river, so I opted for dry land.

“You trusted me and I fucked up, and if I could take it back I would in a heartbeat.”

His words reverberated in my head, until suddenly, I was struck with the mother of all epiphanies, and the reason for all the anger and hurt of the past four years became crystal clear to me.
It was never a question of love. It was a question of trust
. I knew Bobby loved me and he always would. I would always love him too. I also knew that when he said he would “take it back if he could,” he didn’t mean the part about breaking up with me. We were so young when we’d started out, breaking up was inevitable. I could have forgiven him for wanting to be with other people. I would have forgiven him anything, if only he’d had the guts to tell me the truth in the first place. Because for me the real loss wasn’t the sex. It was the loss of our friendship. A friendship built on complete trust. Okay, so I missed the sex part too, but why quibble in the middle of an epiphany.

The anger I’d been carrying around with me for so long seemed to drift away in the harbor fog. Suddenly, I smiled. It was the first completely genuine, pain free smile he’d seen on my face in four years. It took him by surprise.

“Want to let me in on it?”

I put my hand up to his cheek. It felt cold to my touch. He reached up and placed his hand over mine.

“Bobby,” I said, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

I got home at around eleven. Bobby insisted on following me to my house. I could have tried to talk him out of it, but the truth is that since Halloween Night I’d been living in a perpetual state of fear. The thought was never far from my mind that at any given moment some hatchet-wielding maniac could jump out of the bushes and chop me into tiny bite sized pieces. So when Bobby told me what he planned to do, I made the obligatory “that’s not necessary” noises before I gave in and let him follow me home.

He checked all the doors and windows and even took a cursory walk around the outside of the house, and when he was satisfied that all was secure he left, issuing the standard warning to be careful.

It was too quiet in the house so I f lipped on the t.v. “Rocky” was on. While the “Italian Stallion” beat up a side of beef I ran into the kitchen to get a snack. Just then the phone rang. My stomach lurched as I reached for the receiver and said a tentative hello. It was only Franny.

“Hey Fran, what’s up?” I grabbed some Fruit Loops from the cupboard and ate them dry out of the box.

“Eddie and I just had a fight about whether we should let his crazy uncle Nuncio make a speech at the wedding, and I told Eddie he wasn’t even invited to the wedding, so now Eddie’s mad and he’s in the bedroom watching ‘Rocky.’”

“Me, too,” I said, hoping she’d take the hint. It’s not that I didn’t want to hear all about Uncle Nuncio. I just really wanted to see “Rocky.” I’ve seen the movie a hundred times, but I still get really worried that he’s not going to be able to “go the distance” without me there to cheer him on.

“Hey, speaking of boxing, is it true that Bobby took out Chuckie T tonight? Eddie’s friend ‘Jimmy the Tuna’ was at the gym and said Frankie had to break them up. Something to do with some girl.”

“That would be me,” I sighed.

“I
knew
it! Franny yelled. “Tell me and don’t leave out a thing!”

I sighed. Rocky would just have to go the distance without me.

“So you forgave him and now you’re friends again.”

“Basically, yeah.”

“And that’s all you want. Friendship.”

I paused for a minute, thinking about this. “Yeah. That’s all. He’s married Fran, and I don’t do married men.”

“Unhappily married.”

“I don’t do unhappily married men, either. And before you ask me how I’d feel if he weren’t married, I think I’d feel the same. At least for now. Ask me if I’m still attracted to Bobby. Fuck, yes. But we’re different than when we started out all those years ago. Things change. Bobby used to complete me. Now I complete myself.”

I woke up early and had an inexplicable urge to go to Sunday mass. I hadn’t been in years, but I figured with all that’s been going on lately it couldn’t hurt. Afterwards, I stopped by Paul’s and brought him bagels and cream cheese. He’d heard about the incident at the gym from Frankie and wanted all the details.

“Jesus Christ!” I yelled, forgetting I’d just spent an hour and a half in church exacting penance on myself for, among other things, taking the Lord’s name in vain. “Should I take out an ad?”

Paul settled for the abbreviated version and an onion bagel.

I was back home by eleven after making a pit stop at Starbucks for a “redeye.” I was going to devote the day to working on the whole Maitlin-Williams-Mayor connection, but I needed a jumpstart. I settled in with my coffee and drummed my fingers on the table. I came up with nothing. “Okay, then.”

I wandered into the living room and put on some music, the soundtrack from “Cats.” My parents are seriously in need of an update on their CD collection. When the phone rang I grabbed it absently and said hello.

“Is this Brandy Alexander?” The unfamiliar male voice was low and rough and panic surged through me.

“Who wants to know?” I growled, trying to sound tough, although it was hard to pull off with “Jenny Anydots” blaring in the background.

He brushed off the question. “Not important. Look, I know you’ve been investigating the mayor, and I have some information you may be interested in.”

“Why would you think that?” I was stalling for time, trying to get my thoughts straight, and he knew it.

“I don’t have time to play games.” Something in his voice told me he was more scared than threatening. “I want to meet you somewhere.”

Between the caffeine and the adrenalin my heart was pumping so hard I thought it would pop right out of my chest. “Where?”

“Thirtieth Street Station.”

“What’s in it for you?”

He went quiet for a minute and I thought he’d hung up. When he spoke again what he said surprised the crap out of me. “Hopefully, my life.” He gave a sardonic laugh and a chill ran through me. I should have hung up, but I never seem to be able to do the things I should. I was too fascinated.

“When do you want to meet?”

“Tonight at eight. I’ll meet you on the southwest corner of the station, in front of the newsstand.”

Good. Lots of people. Lots of witnesses in case he turned out to be Hatchet Man. If he hacked me up and stuffed me in one of those little station lockers, someone would be bound to notice. This isn’t New York, after all.

“Okay,” I said. I could always change my mind.
Was changing my mind as we spoke, as a matter of fact.
“How will I recognize you?”

“I’ll recognize you.” Well, that was creepy. “Oh, and I know you’re friends with that cop, DiCarlo. No cops or the deal’s off.”

What else did this guy know about me? There was no way I was going to meet him alone. What if my mystery date turned out to be Thurman Williams? I already knew how things turned out whenever he was around. I couldn’t call Bobby. He fell into the cop category. Frankie? Paul? No, I would not involve them in something that could get them killed. Why was it again that I agreed to meet this guy?

“I have one more question,” I said. “Why me?”

“I trust you.”
Shit.

The phone rang four times and I was just about to hang up when a woman’s voice answered. She sounded sleepy and annoyed. I panicked and hung up, not sure if I’d dialed correctly, praying that I hadn’t. I tried again. Same woman, only this time she just sounded annoyed.