Cheap Heat, page 2
“I will. They’re excited to meet you.”
Her mouth twisted a little, and her eyes were suddenly shrewd. “How many girls have you brought to Second Thanksgiving?”
“You’d be the first.” That was the true answer, and apparently the right one, since she stood up from her set, came around the table, and slid into my lap.
There was a kiss, then she laid her head on my chest.
The only sound on the deck was Townes Van Zandt’s plaintive voice singing “Close Your Eyes, I’ll be Here in The Morning.”
Chapter 3
When Gen left early the next morning—she had flexible enough hours to get in to work a little late—she leaned against me and kissed my cheek and murmured.
“I like your boat, and I like that you are on it, but it’s getting a little cold. See you tomorrow night.”
She was right. It hadn’t gotten any warmer since yesterday and riding It up Route 40 in another day of driving late fall rain did not have the same zing as it did yesterday. I couldn’t decide if that was because I was no longer tailing someone.
That did feel like the real PI stuff. I just needed there to be an inheritance at stake, or perhaps a complicated ownership situation involving some high-priced art that the two parties were trying to keep from one another for it to feel really right.
But ultimately it had been about a husband getting a handjob from a woman who wasn’t his wife in the front of an expensive car he’d just bought a month ago. It was midlife crisis bingo.
And now I had to go into the office and lay it out for an attorney and a wife and be a part of someone’s family dissolving.
I liked my job. I hated my job. It was the only thing I could do, unless I wanted to go sling hash in a chain restaurant. And that would be far worse.
I pulled It in between two of my coworker’s bland boxes and, as I thought of them that way, realized I was fighting a losing battle with the sneering biker mindset.
On into the offices of Dent-Clark Investigations I went. I’d been a little more common sight there lately; Jason had bugged me to come in to the office at least four times a week. I ignored him and made it two, and so far the unspoken compromise had worked.
I was used to attention in the office, since I was an uncommon sight, and also the only one who walked in wearing riding gear and carrying a helmet. But everyone’s attention was focused on one of my coworkers who was standing in the middle of the room with his shirt half-off.
Brock Diamante was back in the office after a nearly two-month long convalescence, and he had scars to share and a story to tell.
He was bent over showing off the livid round scar that a biker’s bullets had left in his shoulder. Bullets that had been meant for me. They were my fault, or at least partly my responsibility.
I sidled up and let him finish his moment.
“Mostly a clean through and through,” he was saying, as he displayed his shoulder—tattooed bicep subtly flexed, not that subtlety was a big part of Brock. “Little bit of secondary infection but I heal fast. Ain’t that some shit? A year in the Middle East and I never get a splinter. Home for a few months and I get shot.”
People around him assured him that it was, in fact, some shit. The crowd broke up—though one of our coworkers, a woman named Karen, took a long and lingering look at Brock’s arm as she went back to her desk.
“Brock,” I said, sticking out a hand. “Good to see you up and around.”
He took my hand and gave it a hard shake. “Jack. Hey, brother. Thanks for coming to see me in the hospital. And the MP3 player…I got a new phone now, so I can pay you back for that.”
He’d kept pumping my hand the entire time. Being laid on his back for as long as Brock had been had taken something out of him, but he could still give a hand a hard squeeze.
Whether it was his moment in the spotlight or not, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of letting go first, so we went on pumping arms a while.
Then I realized I’d only gone to see him for the first week he’d been in there, and had completely let it slip my mind since.
“No need to pay me back for anything, Brock. I should’ve had your back. I owe you one.”
“Then you’ll bring me along on whatever you’re doing next.”
“What I’m doing next, mostly, involves going to court. You want to come along with me, fine…but it’s not gonna be very exciting.”
“I meant your next real case.”
“Don’t know what that’ll be till I finish this one,” I said.
“And it’s time to get into the conference room and get on with it,” boomed a voice from the manager’s corridor.
Jason Clark, the managing partner of Dent-Clark Investigations, stood there in a dark brown houndstooth tweed, blue tweed waistcoat, and dark jeans. This was a casual look for him, and put together, it probably cost as much as my entire wardrobe. Rank has its privilege and pay grade is among them.
“Later, Brock,” I said. I followed Jason into his office. At the conference table in it sat Mrs. Jackson and her lawyer. The former was a woman nearing fifty years old. She had glossy dark hair, cut short but clearly well taken care of, a dark green suit, simple but tasteful makeup. Her lawyer was probably my age, also a woman, taller than I was in the black heels she wore with her blue pinstripes.
“Mrs. Jackson, Ms. Hanes, this is Jack Dixon. He’s been in the field on your behalf,” Jason said. I shook hands with the both of them. I felt underdressed but a thermal Henley and jeans was basically my cold weather uniform unless I’d gotten specific instructions to dress otherwise.
I could smell coffee. In fact, I had smelled it from the main office, and not the burnt, acidic swill that was brewed by the gallon in the breakroom. The smell of the good stuff. Carefully roasted beans. French press. It was on Jason’s sideboard.
“Can I get anyone coffee?” I put on the brightest voice and the most chipper smile I had—pretty low wattage, but eager to help—as I glided over to the sideboard.
“Two creams, no sugar,” Jason said. Mrs. Jackson and her lawyer demurred. I poured two mugs, carefully emptying three yellow packets of sweetener into mine, and carried them over. The wronged wife and the lawyer sat at one end of the conference table; Jason and I sat along the sides, across from one another.
“So.” Ms. Hanes took a leather portfolio from her briefcase and a fountain pen from a pocket. Given the fit and cut of her suit, the inlay on the pen, the fact that both briefcase and portfolio looked very much like real leather, I’d imagine her hourly rate was considerably north of mine.
Should’ve stayed in school.
“Can you describe Mr. Jackson’s behavior while you observed him yesterday?”
“Picked up a woman at a park and ride. They headed west-bound on route 40 towards the Hatem Bridge and Havre de Grace. Slightly before then is when, at a stop light, I slipped the tracking device onto the bumper per the client’s request.”
“And how would you describe the behavior of Mr. Jackson with the woman?”
Jubilant. “I, uh, would call it…infidelity.”
“You have visual confirmation of that?”
“I would say that, within a certain limited definition, yes. I do.”
“And Mr. Clark, the firm stands ready to provide surveillance photographs.”
“We do.” Jason set a flash drive down on the table. “I can display some of them,” he said, gesturing towards the pair of large screens that hung above his desk.
The lawyer looked to her client, who nodded.
Jason went to his desk and clicked the thumb drive into place. In moments, one of the screens began showing photos of Mr. Jackson and his companion—young, nubile, blonde—staggering into a roadside motel room. In his hand was a bottle of wine. His belt was hanging open before they got through the door.
“Time stamp has this at 2:33 p.m., yesterday afternoon. They left the motel at approximately 5:35,” Jason said. “The motel’s registry probably won’t help us much unless he used his own name and a credit card…”
“Or hers,” Mrs. Jackson said.
“We have not made any progress identifying the woman Mr. Jackson was seen with.”
The meeting droned on like this. I made the appropriate noises when asked and tried not to make too much eye contact with Mrs. Jackson. She was holding up pretty well from what I could see, but I got the sense that she was a woman who was used to holding a tight lid on her expressions.
I tuned back in when I heard Jason saying something that ended with “…any further services the firm can provide?”
Mrs. Jackson suddenly pointed at me. “Can I hire him to toss my hus…to toss Donald around like a ragdoll?”
“That’s a joke,” the lawyer said firmly before I could even muster a chuckle.
Mrs. Jackson looked straight at me and mouthed I’m not joking. I pretended not to understand her.
“I think our business is about done,” Ms. Hanes said. “Thank you, Mr. Clark and Mr. Dixon, for your professionalism and your discretion.”
I glanced at Jason. “Do we have business cards that say that? You’ll thank us for our professionalism and our discretion?”
Jason gave me the kind of forced chuckle that wasn’t really laughter at all and I sipped my coffee in a vain attempt to hide my smile. He escorted Ms. Hanes out but Mrs. Jackson indicated that she wanted to stay behind to talk to me.
“I wasn’t joking,” she began in a whisper, but I waved her away.
“Mrs. Jackson…”
“Katherine.”
“Katherine, I’m not for hire in that way.”
“Five hundred dollars.”
“I don’t like violence, Mrs. Jackson. I don’t like hurting people.”
“A thousand.”
“Could be a million, not going to change,” I said, though I wasn’t really entirely sure how much I meant that.
She heaved a sigh and went out after her lawyer, who would doubtless have been mortified to know that her client had just made a firm cash offer to have her husband beaten.
Jason exchanged end-of-case pleasantries, certainly slipping in a careful reminder about billing and payment. My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I saw the name of the sender and did a double-take. I clicked it open.
“Watch your office mail, bro! Sent you something. - Grant.”
It had been sent from an alumni email address from the university I’d attended—and ignominiously left.
“Stop using your phone on company time,” Jason said as he re-entered the room. I looked him in the eye for a moment and then re-read the email.
“I get any mail at the office lately?”
“You never get mail at the office. You haven’t started sending bills here to avoid collection, have you?”
“I don’t get any paper bills. That’s nineteenth century stuff, paper transactions. As obsolete as black powder weapons.”
“If I issued you a single-shot black powder pistol, would you carry that? Maybe a bandoleer of them? Would fit with your whole pirate thing.”
“I am not a pirate, as I do not seize property or prizes on the seas, high or otherwise, and I resent the implication. If anything, I have participated in the longtime war of the forces of justice and right against piracy.”
“Being a Navy cook and a short stint as a DNR cop don’t make you Robert Maynard, Jack.”
“Never said they did.” I slid my phone into my pocket, finally. “What’s next?”
Jason smiled broadly. “Paperwork. So much paperwork, as you close out all the details and expenses of this case.”
“You know, I was thinking that until Brock can get back out in the field, shouldn’t we just have him handling all the paperwork…”
He pointed to the door. “Finish the case file and close it out.”
I knew more or less exactly how far I could push my boss on most days, and I was within sight of the limit. I got up and went to find an empty desk.
Chapter 4
I was two stoplights away from the office when I picked up my not-at-all-subtle tail, a dark blue Audi I recognized from just two days before.
I wasn’t entirely sure how he’d known to follow me, but there was no question he was following me when, just to be sure, I blew through a yellow that had just gone red, and he actually pulled around another car to plow straight through the intersection.
Even that might have been coincidence—asshole drivers are everywhere—but for him leaning out of his window screaming obscenities at me. His face was bright red, a rictus of anger.
And he quickly made it apparent that he wasn’t so much interested in tailing me as in hitting me, or at least running me off the road.
Now, I’m not much of a car guy. I don’t know about horsepower or torque or acceleration beyond being aware that they exist and are important to some people. On a straightaway I’d bet that his shiny new Audi could outmuscle It any day.
But it wasn’t a straightaway, there was traffic, and I had a much easier time of ducking between other vehicles than he did. I dove into a gap between two trucks and then around them on the shoulder and back on to the road.
I could hear him honking behind me, and the trucks honking back. But I had one more stoplight, a left turn, and a winding road through an office park to the firm.
It was a good time to find out just what kind of speed I could coax out of It. Turned out to be plenty, and I was equal parts exhilarated and terrified when I slewed into the parking lot. I’d like to say I spun it around perfectly into a spot, but what I really did was come to a stop between rows of parked cars that almost threw me over the handlebars.
I got off the bike, but I left my helmet, gloves, and jacket on. I heard a tormented precision engine making its way up the drive. The Audi careered past the entrance to the firm. I heard brakes squeal and then the engine shut off then angry footsteps.
I sighed and slipped my helmet off. But I kept it clutched in one gloved hand as I walked to the entrance.
Donald Jackson, haggard, short of breath, was stomping like an angry rain cloud towards me. Once he registered me in his vision he let out an inarticulate noise of anger and charged, one fist upraised.
I had plenty of options. I was wearing Kevlar gloves; I could probably put him down with two-thirds of a punch. I could probably take the punch if it was aimed at my body, similarly Kevlared. I could have brought my helmet up to the side of his head and cracked his scalp wide open, but I had paid good money for the Blue Squadron X-Wing pilot customization and I wasn’t taking any chances with it.
I could, if I had both hands free, have slipped the punch, taken his wrist and his elbow with my hands, and put his arm up behind his back in a classic come-along.
Heck, I probably could’ve just tripped him.
As it was, I waited until he was pot-committed and just sidestepped. He went swinging into empty air and overbalanced so far that he almost went down.
“That’s a free one,” I said. “You’re lucky it didn’t land.”
“YOU,” he yelled. “You ruined my marriage.”
“You realize everyone who can hear you thinks that means I’m sleeping with your wife, right?”
He came at me again, arms outstretched, trying for a tackle. He had fifteen years on me, no wind, and no training. This was as unfair as a fight could be, and I had no real desire to hurt him.
But I decided just a little clarification of the facts would benefit both me and Mr. Jackson.
So I sidestepped again, but I threw my left boot out and tangled up his legs. He went down hard, hitting the asphalt with an oomph of lost breath.
“Are we done, or are you out to embarrass us both some more?”
“You ruined my marriage,” he yelled again, as he started to push himself up. I thought, briefly, of planting a boot on the small of his back, but that was more contact than I really wanted to engage in.
“I think you probably did that, Donny,” I said.
He found a burst of strength from somewhere and pushed up to his feet. This time I didn’t step aside or trip him. I let him smack straight into me. I had my feet set, years of grappling training, heavy-tread boots, and an armored jacket. He had dress shoes, no ability to focus his body strength, and what smelled like a three-martini lunch on his breath.
There wasn’t much of an impact. With my free hand, I caught his collar and tie and twisted them as hard as I could.
I had him, essentially, by the throat. And he quickly realized it. I pulled his face up close to mine.
“Couple of things, Donny,” I began calmly. “First, I really don’t appreciate you trying to run me down. Roads are hard enough for bikers as it is; I don’t need an asshole like you making it that much harder.”
He croaked something out. Couldn’t tell if it was an apology or a complaint or a request for air. For the moment, I didn’t much care. He wasn’t in danger of passing out.
Yet.
“Second. You need to rethink this ‘ruined my marriage’ thing and work on your goddamn character. Infidelity followed closely by trying to kill the man your wife hired to investigate it are not the actions of a blameless man. Are we clear?”
His face was nearing purple. I heard some noise behind me; we’d probably attracted a crowd from the office. Donald Jackson’s head bobbed quickly up and down.
I eased off the pressure on his collar, but I kept my grip on his tie. He began taking huge, heaving breaths. I was suddenly hit with a cloud of gin-and-feta-stuffed-olive breath.
“Thirdly,” I said. “Gimme your damn car keys.”
Tears popped into his eyes. He’d been found out, unmanned, and now he was going to cry.
“You can’t take my car, man, I just bought that, I put ten grand down…”
