I answered my phone on the drive to Serenity.
“Haskell Investigations,” I was pretty sure I knew who it would be.
“Mister Devlin Haskell, please. This is Gordon Sweitzer, provost at the Serenity Center.
“Yes, Mister Sweitzer, I’m enroute to your facility now. Should be there within the next fifteen minutes,” I put a little cheer into my voice and tried to keep things positive.
“You do realize you are in gross violation of your sworn pledge.”
“Yeah, well something unexpected came up.”
“You may find this amusing, Mister Haskell, but I can assure you there is nothing funny about this situation. Mister Hobson is much like a fragile flower, and you’re responsible for leaving him out in the sun too long, far too long.”
“Believe me he wasn’t in the sun.”
“Excuse me?”
“No problem. See you shortly,” I said and hung up.
I drove on for a few more minutes when I heard Gary cough from the back seat and suddenly he sat up and breathed on me. I put down the window.
“Let’s stop for a drink,” he said, clearly having difficulty forming the words.
“I’d love to Gary, but I think we should probably take a pass on that tonight, I’ve got to drop you off, get home myself. Maybe some other time.”
“Then I better just get out here,” he said. At the moment we were in the center lane of I-94, doing a little over seventy-five.
“Tell you what, why don’t you just lie back down, rest your eyes. I’ll tell you when we get there.”
“You’ll tell me? Promise?” he said laying back down.
“I promise, Gary. Rest your eyes,” we were maybe five minutes away.
The remainder of the ride was uneventful. Gary snored in the back seat. I sort of toyed with how I was going to play the Serenity folks, decided there wasn’t much to say other than to hand Gary over and suggest that there might be a flaw or two in their after treatment approach. Then run like hell.
I pulled up in front of the facility. The front porch light was on, the porch uninhabited. The Serenity House looked to be in lock-down mode.
I turned off my car, looked into the back seat where Gary was snoring soundly.
“Rise and shine sleeping beauty,” I called, then shook him when I didn’t get a response.
Gary groaned and grunted, but eventually, with some vigorous shaking he sat up and leaned forward on the front seat.
“Are we there?”
“We are,” I answered.
Gary looked at me through bleary, bloodshot eyes and then threw up, all over me and the front seat of my car. Projectile vomiting, as they say, he even managed to get the inside of the windshield. I didn’t have a chance to recoil. I just sat there for a long moment as a lot of liquor and what looked like beef hash, slowly dripped off my dashboard.
“You finished?” I asked.
He threw up again, but this time on the back seat.
I got out of the car, opened the back door, pulled Gary out and half carried, half steered him toward the front porch. I more or less man handled him up the steps, leaned him against the wall, just below the brass plaque that said you are at a secure facility ring the bell for service. I did just that, rang the bell the bell for service, twice, as a matter of fact.
I was back at my car, standing with the driver’s door open, debating about getting back in, when they opened the front door. Gary had slithered off to the side, and was leaning against the door when it opened. He fell backward, I heard the thump from out on the street as his head bounced off the polished wood porch floor. He groaned, rolled sideways, and then threw up again.
I was going to yell something at the attendant, thought better of it, slid behind the wheel of my disgusting car and drove home.
Chapter Twenty-One
I stripped my clothes off out in my back yard in the dark and just tossed everything in the trash. I removed anything worthwhile from my wallet, then discarded that with the clothes. I took a very long shower, drank a very large Jameson and went to bed.
Kiki’s seven-thirty call the following morning woke me.
“What time are you planning to come over here and fix this major league fuck up?” she asked before I had a chance to answer hello.
“Who is this?” I groaned.
“How many homes have you ruined this week?”
“Oh, hi Kiki. Today?”
“Yes today. And just so you know, I have to leave for an investors meeting at K-R-A-Z no later than eleven-thirty.”
“Yeah, well, see I have to get my car cleaned.”
“Your car? You mean that wreck you drive around town takes precedence over the disaster you two idiots left in my bedroom?”
“But, I didn’t do anything,” I pleaded.
“Oh really? Well how in the hell did your friend find his way to my door. Your dreadful painter extraordinaire, as you called him. He didn’t just wander in and destroy my house on his own. You brought his ass in here, then left him here to ruin my bedroom, drink all my gin, perform sex acts with my leopard skin thong, pass out in my…”
“I get the point, Kiki, okay. We had a bit of an accident on the way home. I have to deal with that.”
“An accident. You didn’t let him drive, did you?”
“No, he just threw up all over me and the inside of my car, twice.”
“Serves you right.”
“Thanks.”
“So what time do you plan on being here, I’ve got a meeting that…”
“I know, a meeting that you have to leave for no later than eleven-thirty. I’ll be there before then, I’m not sure how long it will take to get my car cleaned out.”
“You let it sit, overnight, with, with all that blicky stuff all over?”
“I did.”
“Oh gross.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Just get over here and get this mess cleaned up,” then she hung up.
I rolled over and attempted to go back to sleep, it didn’t work.
I was ringing Kiki’s kitchen doorbell at eleven-fifteen.
“Come in. Thank you for coming,” she called from the far side of the kitchen counter and sounding like she didn’t mean one word of it.
“Yeah sure. Look which paint is the right one,” I said. There were two gallon cans on the kitchen floor, next to the door.
“Like I told that Gary person, yesterday, I’m not sure. Can’t you just put a little dot of it somewhere and see if it matches?” she said.
Actually that sounded like a pretty good idea, but I didn’t plan to let her know that.
“I’ll figure it out.”
“Well, I found some sandpaper in the basement, you’ll have to get all the drip marks off the wall before you even begin. Just for the record, I don’t want to see that psychotic Gary person over here or anywhere for that matter, ever again.”
“This may come as some surprise, but I sort of feel the same way.”
“What in the hell were you thinking?”
“Do you think I would have brought him over here, if I knew he was going to do an Amy Winehouse on you?” I said.
“Look, I have to get to this investors meeting, just get the problem taken care of. Can you do that much? Not make things in there any worse.”
I nodded then stared as she walked out the back door, across the yard and into her garage. Even mad at me and certifiable, she looked hot.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fortunately, the paint Gary had tossed on the wall was thick and relatively fresh, it literally peeled off in big sections. I had it all removed within a half hour, including the stuff on Kiki’s woodwork and hardwood floor. I rolled the wall, then rummaged around in the basement and found a can labeled bedroom trim that looked about right and tried it. It matched perfectly. By two-thirty the place looked great and you couldn’t see Gary’s mess or any telltale signs of my spray painting.
I put everything away in the basement, tossed her paint brush in the trash since I hated cleaning the things and opened a beer from Kiki’s refrigerator. I was sitting at her kitchen counter sipping it when she came in.