“Haskell Investigations,” I said, turning down the computer volume.
“Dev, have I caught you at a bad time?” it was Sunnie.
“No, just watching a news report on the retail market.” The Girls Gone Wild at Mardi Gras were way past being content with just a cheap beaded necklace.
“Do you want to give me a call when it’s over?”
That would be about ten hours from now, if I wasn’t interrupted.
“No, nothing I haven’t seen before. How you doing? And by the way, thanks for the tutoring session it…”
“That’s why I’m calling, actually,” she sounded tentative.
“It really helped me out. I’m getting pretty good at this Internet researching.”
I remained focused on the sexy figures gyrating across the laptop screen.
“Well, look, I may have come off the wrong way the other night. Lately, I’ve just been, I don’t know, I feel I’ve just been pulled so many different ways…”
That’s exactly what was happening to the two girls currently going wild at Mardi Gras, I hit pause.
“… take it all out on you. Not that you don’t deserve it. But, I’m sorry if I might have come across as oh, I don’t know, maybe a little touchy or something.”
This was the place where I was supposed to say, you weren’t touchy. I admit I held onto her laptop six months longer than I promised. I know you’re busy. I know you’re a single parent. I’m aware I usually call you when I need something and I expect you to drop everything and solve my problems. But, there was a limit to what anyone, especially me, should have to take.
“Look, first of all, you weren’t bitchy, I mean touchy. Second, if it’s okay, I’m still doing some research using your laptop, but if nothing else I’m convinced I should get one of these things. Soon as I do, I promise I’ll return yours, I’m just in the middle of a case right now, and…”
“Don’t worry about getting it back, I just wanted…”
Studying the paused screen I became convinced the Mardi Gras girls had implants, not that I was bothered.
“Dev, you there?”
“Oh yeah, sure, let me ask again, are you okay? Is there something bothering you?”
“It’s nothing, in fact it’s silly, forget it.”
Sometimes it’s like pulling teeth.
“You sure, you seemed upset and you’re never like that.”
“No really.”
“Is there something I can help with? God knows I owe you, Sunnie, you’ve always been there for me.”
“Oh, you’re sweet, … sometimes. But no, it’s nothing.”
“Well, something’s clearly bothering you. You want to just talk? I could tell you how screwed up my life is and then you can think, gee, thank God I’m not Dev. Your life will start to look about a thousand percent better.”
“No, I need to work through this.”
“You’re sure? This isn’t like you, Sunnie.” Liar, liar, liar. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing, really.”
“Good, then you can tell me and we can move on.”
“It’s just that it’s so silly, so stupid.”
“Doesn’t sound like it’s silly to me, whatever it is, it’s upsetting you. Maybe I can help.”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Try me.” Jesus, I wanted to get back to the Mardi Gras, I’d asked a half dozen times, a dozen different ways. “Come on, what’s the matter?”
“Well it’s Josh.”
“Josh? Is he okay?” Sunnie’s son, I liked the kid. We’d developed a sort of wink and a nod relationship over the years. His straight shooting, successful, educated, hard working mom dispensed common sense advice which I tempered with my street-smart, loser input. He was a good kid, just doing normal idiot guy stuff.
“He’s okay at the moment, but he’s hanging around with a bad crowd.”
“Bad crowd?”
“Well, one person in particular.”
“Some guy into drugs or something?”
“No, worse, a girl,” she sneered.
“What’s she been doing?”
“Well, they’re always together. Her hair is ridiculous. Her language is about as colorful as yours. She’s simply falling out of the few, inappropriate clothes she wears. She’s tattooed and for the past month and a half seems to be physically attached to my son. He’d rather spend time with her than study or be with me.”
That’s my boy.
“Is her hair one of those colors not found in nature? You know, pink or blue?”
“Worse, it’s this hideous curly, blonde mop.”
“She wearing old hippy clothes, flannel shirts, bib overalls, work boots, that sort of stuff?” I’d just described Sunnie at a young age, except I’d left out braless.
“Worse, nothing’s left to the imagination. Not that you’d need any imagination, she’s falling out everywhere. She wears a thong the size of a postage stamp, how can that possibly be comfortable?”
“You saw her in her underwear?”
“You can’t help but see. When she’s sitting at the kitchen counter wearing those low cut jeans her bright colored, silky thong what there is of it rides right up her rear end. Her jeans are too tight to even be remotely comfortable. God if she was my daughter…”
“You said she was tattooed?”
“Yes, some dreadful lacy thing across the small of her back. Imagine how that’ll look when she’s thirty-five?”
I was trying to, it sounded pretty good. So far I was on Josh’s side.
“What’s her name?”
“Amanda, but she insists on being called Mandy,” she groaned.
This from a woman christened Bernice who insisted on being called Sunnie since she was in Kindergarten.
“How’d he meet her?”
“He met her at school, they’re in the same classes.”
“The U, doesn’t he take advanced classes?”
“Look, I know where you’re going, yes he does, and yes she does. I’m just saying she seems more than a little too advanced for Josh, right now, that’s all. And, Jesus Christ, do they have to be together twenty-four-seven. I mean give it a rest.”
“You want me to talk to him?”
“Oh sure, that would smooth things over. Mommy’s bum friend can tell him what not to do… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, Dev. You know how I get once in a while.”
I was now solidly on Josh’s side.
Chapter Forty
I was wasting my time hanging around at the University of Minnesota, waiting for a Chemistry lab to finish. I was on the third floor of Smith Hall, leaning against a beige wall just around the corner from some sort of laboratory room. I was probably the dumbest person for two-hundred yards in any direction and the only one without a backpack.
There were more than a few things wrong with the situation I found myself in. I could start with my offer to speak with Josh. Go from there, to me pretending to innocently run into him in the third floor hallway of the Chemistry building. I’d had to pay fifteen dollars or whatever the consult fee was to amend my schedule with fat old Muriel at Sentinel Monitoring. The whole thing was another one of those examples of someone like Sunnie, who doesn’t do what I do, knowing exactly how I should conduct myself. The only thing dumber was me agreeing to everything in the first place.
After about ten minutes a pair of heavy double doors flew open and three guys strolled out, each weighed about a hundred and thirty pounds, stood about six-one and had Adams apples the size of golf balls. They all wore Star Wars t-shirts. A moment behind them came a pack of kids, more than a few attractive co-eds and toward the end of the pack there was Josh. I presumed the infamous Mandy was the gorgeous young blonde woman walking next to him holding his hand.
She was just as Sunnie had described, curly blonde hair, fantastic figure, an outfit leaving nothing to the imagination and surgically attached to Josh. Who could blame the boy?
I pushed off the wall before they rounded the corner in an effort to make my appearance look unintended.
“Hey Josh, how’s it going?”
“Oh God, my Mom sent you, didn’t she?” he half chuckled. Mandy seemed to somehow get even closer to him and climb inside his pocket.