The Last Maharajan (Romantic Thriller/Women's Fiction) (9 page)

“Cut it out!”

“’And over here, in my kitchen, a car bomb has exploded, leaving a cabbage dead and hundreds of eggs injured.’”

“It’s not like that anymore. I’m much neater.”

“Right.”

“Really.”

“Uh huh. You’ve changed. You used to be this tidy, neat-as-a-pin person and now, you don’t care about that.”

“Not true. I do care. But, there’s not much I can do about it. I’m super busy these days what with mother and everybody, it seems as though dying and obits are constant. Cleaning is about the last thing I can get to. That and dinners.”

“Ohmygod. The gourmet chef cooks no longer?”

“Will you give it a rest?”

“We all change, Eu. It’s no big thing. I love everything just so. I used to be a slob. Big deal. There are many ‘used to be's’ in the world. What really matters is who we are today. Are we kind? Are we loving? That’s all that really matters. Did we love?”

“I suppose.” She used her standard answer when she didn’t have a good comeback for her sister.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

After dinner, Euly waved her sister goodbye from inside the lobby entrance. She couldn’t help but laugh when the valet brought around Enaya’s Mercedes. She watched her tip the boy. Enaya stood like Vanna White, winked at her and with a flip of her head she got into her sleek car. Euly laughed and rolled her eyes and they both blew a kiss goodnight to each other, Euly through a glass door of a hotel and Enaya through her glass window.

A full day of traveling made her eyes heavy as she watched Enaya’s car drive out of sight. She smiled and turned to go to her room.

Once there, she figured it was time she call her husband. After kicking off her shoes she sidled up onto the bed and leaned against her pillows. She dialed Geoff. After the third ring, she figured he would pick up. After the sixth, she hung up. She tried the number again thinking she dialed wrong and let the phone ring ten times before giving up.

Geoff hadn’t mentioned he wouldn’t be home, had he? She racked her brain trying to remember what he had said before she got onto the plane but couldn’t remember him saying anything – not if he was going out, not anything. She only remembered their spat before leaving for Belle’s, about the car door, and how anxious she’d felt. Geoff could’ve been the bellboy for all she remembered of that morning. She remembered her cell phone.

The display on her cell showed she had one message. Punching in the code she listened. Her face got hot in anger. From what he’d said, he had been trying her most of the day but she had forgotten to turn on the phone. Barely ever using it made it easy for her to forget about the thing. Their home sat in a crater of a dead zone and most often she used her land line. It was rare she bothered with the cell. It was meant for emergencies, really, and travel. It slipped her mind.

When he was finished firing angry remarks at her, he hung up. She saw the phone in the room was blinking. There was a message there too. It was a similar hateful tirade that she needed to call him fast.

“Okay. So, I’m calling you back. Where are you this time? And, why isn’t the answering machine picking up?” The words bounced onto the empty walls of her room and fell onto the floor unanswered. It was close to eleven. She was exhausted and would deal with him in the morning.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“I can’t believe you forgot to turn your phone on again. How difficult is it, Euly.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand so he wouldn’t say anything he regretted into his cell. He breathed out hard, “Call me when you get this message.”

His feet pounded against the concrete walkway outside Belle’s window. He paced in front and gazed in at her watching the doctors and nurses aspirate her lungs. This wasn’t good. She was beginning to go through that suffering-stage the doctors had warned them about before. And, where was his wife? She should be here with her mother not somewhere off in Phoenix for God knows what.

He jammed the cell phone into his pocket and held it there in his left hand.

He bent forward to look through the window as his mother-in-law. Her convulsive cough seemed exaggerated to him as he witnessed the nurse insert a tube into her trachea and withdraw any excess fluids that were in her lungs. At one point, she looked as if she were going heave. He felt an automatic reaction to gag when he saw her choke and gasp. Geoff held his hand up to his mouth and looked away. He loved Belle. It wasn’t easy to see her this way.

The smell of diesel floated in. It hung on the trail of a garbage truck that drove into the parking lot near the dumpster. It seemed late in the day to be picking up garbage. He looked down the walkway where an old man walked his wheelchair with his feet in front as he sat. He looked like a decrepit toddler in some oversized stroller. He smiled a toothless closed grin that sunk into his face. Geoff tipped his head up in recognition.

“Hello young fella.”

“Good evening, sir.”

“Cool tonight.”

“Yep.” He rubbed his arms across his body using both hands. “Better go in. Night.”

“Night.” The man rolled slowly off past Belle’s window making his way on his usual route around the building and most likely back to his room.

Geoff rubbed his hands together. It was cold this afternoon. He headed back in and resolved to stay with Belle. She needed him tonight. It was too cold to be alone.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Mr. Jenkins isn’t in at the moment. He said he had an appointment.” The receptionist at Clive Jenkin’s office looked at Euly with an unconcerned air about her. The busy tapping of typewriters behind her filtered through the room and gave a hurried pace to the small card company’s office.

“Shoot. I’m in town for only a few days and I need to speak with him.” She paused to see if the overly made-up buxom young red-head would respond. When she only looked with a blank stare back, Euly continued. “Do you know when he might be back?” Euly tried to smile but it felt forced.

“No. Maybe you can check back around two.” She sat with slumped shoulders. Her low-cut tight jersey top revealed the girl’s smashed cleavage.

They looked like oversized water balloons and were ready to pop. Euly wondered about her IQ.

“Okay, here.” Fumbling in her purse she pulled out a card and handed to the receptionist. “Can you give this to Mr. Jenkins, Clive? It’s my business card. It’s rather important.” She hoped the girl would see how much she needed to speak with Clive.

“You can call, you know.”

The girl’s comment stopped Euly in her tracks. She felt a surge of heat rise up and into her face but she caught herself when she sensed her body press forward. She wanted to reach out and grab the girl’s blouse, twist it hard and get eye-to- eye with her but, instead, she said, “Okay. Thanks.

I’ll check back later.” When she turned to leave, Euly rolled her eyes and pushed out though the door.

“Yes. I came by earlier looking for Mr. Jenkins.” Euly’s voice trailed off into the phone and she paused expecting more disappointment but this time when she got legitimate helpful information she was happily caught off guard. “Oh! Oh, well, great. Where is that again?” Euly scratched the address onto a scrap of paper the hotel provided for its guests. “Great. Thank you.” She looked at the address again and the name of the establishment where she could find Clive. It was Benny’s.

She closed the door of the rented car. Euly could make out a faint trail of cigar smoke seeping out the seams of Benny’s. Spotty gravel that covered the bar’s parking lot crushed under Euly’s boots. She walked forward on her toes to avoid abrading the leather heels. Between the concrete doorstep and the gravel weeds grew up in dry yellow clumps. There were cigarette butts and wrapping papers strewn about outside of the door. A concrete pad showed the shape of an etched-in fan on it from years of sustained use. The name of the bar was hand painted on its iodine metal door in black marker. Nothing looked different. Low on the heavy metal door was a dent. Directly next to the dent on the block outside were new bricks where old ones had been replaced. Two high windows in the front were painted out in light yellow which gave an eerie strobe-like effect on the inside. Euly yanked at the door and when it opened it scraped hard against the pad adding another moment in time to the fan in the concrete. Euly noticed the stench first – a farrago made up of urine and vomit, beer, whiskey and tobacco. As if protecting herself, she raised her hand to her mouth.

The dim insides made it feel like walking into a crypt. She realized she’d stopped breathing. The temperature was at least twenty degrees cooler than outside and she felt her nipples knot almost instantly. She pulled her purse strap over her shoulder in an attempt to hide her chest. She hadn’t worn a sweater over her red-striped jersey shirt and she hoped the red striping concealed her tightening breasts. The days in Phoenix were still reaching close to the 90s and being from the northwest, she didn’t expect to be cold there but she was never prepared for Benny’s.

While her eyes adjusted, voices that had once been talking slowed and stopped as people inside the place took note of her. She made out the bar to the right and several grizzly men gathered at the far end, a couple sitting around Formica tables and a few more bodies standing near a solitary pool table.

“It’s like seeing a ghost.”

She barely remembered the smoky voice that spoke but looked in the direction it came from and asked, “Clive?”

“Who else, kid?”

“I can barely see you.”

“We like it that way. Come on over to the bar and sit down.”

She could still turn around and leave. No one in there but Clive knew her. She could still get away.

Clive was one of the group of men at the end of the bar.

She tugged at the hem of her blouse pausing for a mere second then stepped forward and walked over to him. His hair was still the curled mess she remembered but the gray had completely confiscated the black it used to be. He looked his age and Euly figured he must now be in his late sixties. Still he was the first to comment.

“You sure got old.”

“Gee, Clive. You still look the same.”

He chuckled at her apparent sarcasm. “Want a drink?” Euly nodded she did. “What’ll it be?”

“Dalwhinny’s.” She needed to appear sure of herself and ordering the expensive scotch was the first thing that came to mind.

“Damn. Your father taught you right. One Dalwhinny’s for the lady, and I’ll have another.” Euly wondered how many “another” was for Clive but he seemed to be holding his own. The man could drink she remembered that about him.