Curse It (A Peg Darrow Novel Book 1), page 14
"The worst kind," I agreed.
The waiter came with the bill, and I was grateful I had my credit card with me. How one white wine spritzer, salmon, hot tea, and a cup of soup could come out to ninety bucks was beyond me. I handed over my credit card with a wince. "What was his full name?"
"Ronnie Merola."
"Any other magic you can think of?"
"Candle tricks at parties. She helped a freshman clear up her acne for a dance."
"Great." The waiter brought back the check, and I left him his twenty percent, since he would have to to deal with Jessica after I left. After carefully replacing the card and the receipt in my wallet, I stood. Jessica still had a decent amount of food left, but there was no point in pretending we were enjoying our lunch. "I'd say it was a pleasure to meet you, but honestly, it wasn't. Thank you for the information."
Her mouth drew into a prissy line, but she nodded. I strode out the door, looking forward to letting my teeth chatter freely and blasting the heat.
In the Jeep, I inhaled deeply and let it out. The restaurant had felt like a fish bowl, and I had been the minnow surrounded by exotic tropical fish. Normally the tropical fish would be the ones watched, but being the odd fish out meant the opposite. It wasn’t as though I couldn't fit in, if I’d been prepared. My mood wasn’t improved by the fact that I felt as though I had trekked the arctic in a bikini. My layers weren’t doing jack squat.
I turned the key in the ignition and my engine turned over with a grumbled purr particular to older vehicles. I wanted to blast the heat, but it would need a minute to warm up. In the meantime, I pulled out my phone, my teeth chattering at will, and did a simple search for Ronnie Merola. Gods, I needed a hot bath.
He was all over social media. Given his current occupation as a mixologist—his description, not mine—that wasn’t surprising. Ronnie was kind enough to leave his Facebook public, and announced he was working the outdoor bar at a local roadhouse in Chandler tonight.
Gila Monster's was fairly well known. I’d been there a couple of times with Bruce. I could go alone but decided to be social and give him an invite. Bruce's chipper voicemail informed me he was either working, sleeping, or two-stepping with some fine young thing. I would have left a message, but in my current state, didn't feel up to competing with some fine young thing.
Enough time passed, and I turned the heater on full blast, carefully pulling out of my parking space, hyper aware of the expensive machines surrounding me. My insurance policy was decent, but I doubted it would cover damage to a vehicle that could be safely labeled as midlife crisis. I considered the hot bath again, but if I went home, I wouldn't be able to force myself back out of the house. Coffee would have to cut it. I briefly debated going to Bump and Grind, its Tempe location halfway between here and Chandler, but some little voice in my head told me not to. Maybe because I had no desire to tell Pammy about mystical goblin safes that doubled as stairways to freezers.
I also didn't think Deval would appreciate me telling her about my little adventure. Why I didn't want to betray his trust, or lack thereof, was beyond me, but I needed to hear him out before I gave away state secrets. So, I went to another of the many independent coffee shops. This one was called Squaw Perk, a pun regarding a popular hiking peak nearby.
The barista eyed me speculatively when I came in but offered a small smile when I came to the counter. "Come on now, it's not that cold," she offered, her smile widening.
Lord, she had no idea. "What can I say? I'm a native, my blood’s pretty thin."
"I hear ya. My dad's from Boston. Maybe I built up a tolerance from all those Christmases visiting grandma."
"Must have," I agreed, and ordered an extra-large coffee, requesting it as hot as possible. Coffee in hand, I headed over to an armchair sitting in front of an electric fireplace. The building was in a strip mall and too modern to have the genuine article, but the fake logs, with their synthetic orange glow, mimicked the coziness of a real fire. Blessedly, it gave off heat.
I meant to do a little more research on the cursed boyfriend angle, but I fell asleep. The barista woke me by clearing her throat and asking if I wanted anything else before she cleaned the machines. Fishing out my phone from my purse, I checked the time. It was almost eight. Good lord, I slept for hours.
Deval never called. If I had to make Bruce deliver the safe to the bottom of the Superstition Mountain to get the goblin to take it back, I would. I ordered an extra-large mocha latte to go. The chill was still hanging around, and according to my impromptu nap, apparently I needed caffeine. Taking a few minutes to stretch out the crick in my neck due to sleeping in the chair, I walked to the counter where my latte waited. I paid the woman and after leaving a five in the tip jar, I headed back out. Time to visit a monster.
Gila Monster's was packed for a weeknight, unsurprising given its location in a suburban area. All the locals would stop by on their way home from work. It was one of those bars where the action could be as wild or as subdued as you wanted it to be. If it turned into a wild night, you could walk a couple of miles home or pay a ten-dollar cab ride. Arizona, as a whole, enforced strict DUI laws. Many nights spent visiting other such bars, I heard waitresses warn their drunk patrons that a twenty-dollar cab ride was cheaper than a ten thousand dollar DUI and summer camp. Summer camp being the nickname for those idiots stupid enough to ignore the waitresses’ kind advice and end up spending a few weeks in Tent City.
I didn't bother going inside because Ronnie's post said he would be at the outdoor bar. Given the chill in the air, I wasn’t looking forward sitting on the patio until I noticed all of the propane heaters lining it. There were even a few electric ones hanging overhead, making the chill bearable. So, I edged up to the cement bar decorated with some haphazard southwest inlay. I didn't study the decor too much. Like most Roadhouses, it had kitsch down to a science. I sat on the sturdy cushioned stool and waited patiently for a bartender, hopefully Ronnie, to appear.
Two young women had decided to put on a show at the other end of the bar, performing body shots off one another. I’d probably be waiting a while. One lay prone on the bar, her pert breasts on display, while her friend drank tequila from her belly button. Turning away, I studied the beer selection from a menu left on the bar. I wasn’t a prude, but my days of body shots were definitely in the past. I perked up when I found they carried one of my favorite beers from a brewery out of New Orleans. A Hot Toddy would be a better option but the price point was significantly higher, and I wanted to be in and out. The crowd roared. Glancing up, I caught the finale of the body shot. The friend took the lime out of her friend’s mouth in a move I would call a little drunk and sloppy, but based on the average leer, the surrounding men would label sexy. With a shrug I went back to reviewing the beer menu.
"Hey there, hope you haven't been waiting long. What can I get you?"
I looked up to a lopsided grin displaying a dimple on a very attractive man. Swallowing, I found my voice, "Uh, an Abita Purple Haze."
"Aw, that's one of my favorites. Ever been to New Orleans?"
I nodded mutely and waited for my brain to re-engage. Which took longer than usual. I blamed the cold. The bartender didn't bat an eye at my sudden loss of voice and turned around to the horse trough doubling as a beer cooler and returned with my drink.
Thankfully, my brain caught up with my mouth. "Yep, New Orleans is a lot of fun. I didn't catch your name."
The dimple was back. "Ronnie, and you are?" He extended his hand, quite the gentleman, or a trained bartender who knew how to rake in the cash. I extended my hand and he shook it, his grip strong, not trying to prove anything by maiming me. His warm grip felt nice on my cold hand.
"Whooee girl, cold hands, warm heart?" he said with a grin. He pulled out two shot glasses and poured from a bottle of Fireball that appeared out of nowhere. He handed over one of the shots and lifted one himself. "I gotta try and warm you up somehow, don't I?" He gave me a devilish wink before raising his glass.
I raised mine, and we clinked glasses before taking our shots. He took my empty shot glass and showed me another hint of his dimple before turning back to other customers. Damned if I wasn't smitten. No wonder he never stopped bar tending, he was perfect for it. Handsome, friendly, with the right hint of sexual innuendo for the ladies, and enough manliness to be able to talk shop with the boys. Scanning at the bar, I didn’t doubt that he would make a killing tonight.
Unfortunately his luck was my problem. He was the only bartender on at the moment, which made it difficult for me to talk to him long. I had his attention for a minute, and I wasted it by falling for his sexy bartender shtick. Oh well, because of the shot, I needed at least an hour to burn the alcohol off before getting behind the wheel. I watched Ronnie work his magic.
He was a chameleon, being whatever the patron needed him to be: Italian heart breaker, good old boy, music expert, therapist. What did that say about me? Probably that I looked down on my luck and needed a little pick-me-up from a handsome stranger. That was fine, I did need the pick-me-up. I sipped lazily at the Purple Haze, it would be my only one tonight, and waited patiently for the bar crowd to die out. Over the next hour, Ronnie only had time to give me the perfunctory “need another?”
Around nine-thirty, the patio started to clear out. If it had been the weekend, I would have been screwed, but people had jobs and the steadily dropping temperature made everyone's cozy beds that much more appealing.
I needed to leave soon. Deval warned me to stay warm, and I was anything but; however, when Ronnie made eye contact on his latest round, I called him over. "Hey, Ronnie, you got a minute?"
"For you? Sure thing. Need another one?"
"No thanks, I have to drive. I actually came here to speak with you tonight."
He gave me a once over, which should have been offensive, but the boyish grin he gave made it hard to get mad. "Well now, I won't be off ‘til two."
I rolled my eyes. "I didn't come to have sex with you. I’d have dressed up if I was trying to take someone home tonight," I answered peevishly, wanting to hit myself for feeling a little flattered.
"Oh my bad, but you look cute, like you're out camping."
"At least someone gets my fashion choices," I answered dryly.
"Sorry, I get hit on a lot. I'm single, so I take the bait." He winked.
"Okay, but as we've established that this is not sexual in nature, stop winking at me."
That only made his smile wider.
"I'm here because I'm looking into something for a friend. Did you know Violet Williams?"
The color drained from his face, and he took a step back. "Hey now, Violet and I are on good terms now. I haven't done anything to piss her off. Hell, I haven't even seen her in over a year."
"I'm not saying that you've pissed her off. You said you were on good terms? Jessica Wright mentioned Violet might have performed some magic on you." Not that Jessica struck me as reliable.
He lowered his hands, but his face still lacked the healthy warm tone of someone of Italian descent. "Yeah, last year she came in here. Met some tall looking Nordic fucker. He was a scary looking guy. We get some guys in here that are a little rough around the edges, but this guy had a look in his eyes like he would gladly murder puppies. I saw her out with him and a few of his friends when we were in college. I even told her I thought she should stay away from them, but she laughed it off. Told me she knew exactly what he was, whatever that meant."
Hmm, sounded like Violet was running with the vampires for quite some time and the likelihood of her having a resistance to glamour increased. It didn’t sound like she was listlessly following order. It’d be odd for a vampire play thing to last that long, and that was exactly what I thought she’d been, a plaything, only later turning into a convenient business partner. "I think I know the guy you're talking about. You're right; he's no one to mess with. So, what exactly did Violet do to you?"
He blushed, color returning to his skin. "She cursed my ass."
"Uh huh, but more specifically?"
"No really, she cursed my ass. I had boils the size of quarters covering it. I would have reported her to the dean, but witches scare me. At least they do now, and besides she came over the next week to reverse it."
"You apologized to her?"
"I apologized for hurting her friend.”
I sipped on my bottle of Abita wondering what could have been so awful. "What exactly did you do to Jessica Wright?" I didn’t want to take anything Jessica said at face value.
A man called Ronnie's name from the other end of the bar and held up his empty glass. Ronnie went about refilling it and checked on his other patrons before returning to me. "Jessica and I had a thing in college. We both worked at Stacks. I was a bartender and she was a waitress. It wasn't anything serious. I thought she knew that."
Stacks was a library-themed bar on Mill Avenue where the waitresses dressed in Catholic-school-girl skirts with white button-ups tied to display their “stacks” and midriff. Fake glasses added the final piece to the costume. The guys were shirtless with ties and the same empty frames. The bar was still legendary to students and alumni trying to recapture their glory days.
"What, she found out she wasn't the only girl?"
"That was common knowledge she chose to ignore, until she walked in on me with a new waitress bent over the bar. It was a quickie, only my ass was out. Jessica thought it was poetic justice to have her witch lackey perform a curse on it,” He grimaced, then grabbed a rag and wiped at the bar aggressively, not making eye contact. “Sorry, I shouldn't call her lackey, but freshman and sophomore year Violet followed Jessica around like a puppy, until she wised up and realized what a bitch she was. Violet's pretty cool, even if she did maim me." He met my eyes again.
Maim seemed a little strong since his ass looked just fine to me. "You don't have any lingering resentments toward her?"
He gave the question some actual thought. "Fact is, she scarred me. I wish she hadn't done it, but a lot of people make stupid choices in college."
"Do you know if she continued to make stupid choices in college?"
"If she did, she was much quieter about them. That's part of the reason I forgave her. Right after that, she stopped talking to Jessica. Maybe she realized that all the people surrounding her were looking at her like the token spooky friend. She may be a witch, but she’s a good person."
I wondered what he would think about her latest career choice. "Is there anything else you could tell me?"
"Uh, I didn't know her all that well. She drank a few times at a couple of bars I've worked at, but we didn’t keep in touch."
Opening my purse, I took out my wallet and handed him my credit card. He took it and went to settle up my tab. When he brought back the check for me to sign, I handed him my business card. "If you remember anything else about Violet in college or after, boyfriends, friends, enemies, can you please call or email me? It would be very helpful."
He looked at my card and his eyebrows rose in surprise. "A Fortune? Holy shit, I didn't think you guys were real."
The corner of my mouth twitched trying to go into a smile. For some reason humans often thought that Fortunes were urban legends. "Yep, we're real all right."
"What did Violet do to have the witch police chase her down? This can't be about my ass. I don't want to press charges."
"Nope, this has nothing to do with your ass. Violet is dead."
His mouth opened like a guppy before snapping shut. He gave me a quick nod and turned back to his patrons. Standing up, I regarded my half full beer bottle wistfully. I wanted to down it. It cost me five bucks, but I was driving and a shot and half plus a beer was all I could consume tonight, safety first. Slinging my purse over my shoulder, I headed for the Jeep. The cold hounded me as soon as I left the comfort of the various heaters.
Exhaustion made a comeback, much like it had every waking hour of the past few days. Screw a tropical vacation. When I solved this murder, I would indulge in a staycation, only leaving my bed to brush my teeth twice a day and to answer the door for Barro's, Venezia's, and Burrito Express. Variety was the spice of life.
Almost to my car, I didn't hear the footsteps behind me until a figure suddenly appeared in front of me, standing in a median filled with gravel and a bush directly under a halogen light. My magic roared through my chest and instantly flew to my palms. Well, hot damn, I hadn't been this charged in I didn't know how long, and for a blessed moment warmth actually returned to my body.
Ronnie nearly fell over when my glowing palms extended toward him. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, lady. I'm not stupid enough to try to hurt you. I wanted to know if you might be able to help me.”
I kept my hand up but put the metaphorical safety on my power, and the glow dimmed. Unfortunately, the chill returned.
Before I could consider what that meant, Ronnie turned around and dropped trough, thrusting his butt in my general direction. What I saw conflicted with what I imagined of the Italian Stallion. Under the yellow glow of the halogen lights, his ass looked like the moon, no pun intended. There were craters of scar tissue the size of quarters all over it. Poor guy, his butt was firm, but I doubted he kept the lights on during more intimate moments these past few years.
"Okay, Ronnie, I see the problem. Care to put your pants back on?"
He pulled his pants up quickly, which was none too soon as a police cruiser pulled into the parking lot. Typical, they tended to cruise bar parking lots later in the evening. He waved at the police officer, who he obviously knew, before turning to me.
His face was red. "I'm sorry I did that; it was impulsive. I've been living with those scars for years. Violet said she wasn't powerful enough to fix them. I realized, as a Fortune, you must be. Can you please help me?"
Oy, I didn't have time for this. Violet should have asked someone if she couldn't fix her own problem. I shook my head. It became fairly obvious that Violet didn't have a strong support system of either humans or witches to turn to for these problems.
