Sean said nothing.
“The idea bugged me so much, I went to your room to ask you about it.”
“Did you? That’s interesting.”
“Especially since you weren’t there.”
“No, I meant it was interesting that you visited my room, found me gone, and didn’t mention it to your partner. I’m sure he’d happily beat a confession out of me. So why didn’t you tell him?”
“It’s not against the law to leave your room. Even by the window. And...”
“And?”
She hesitated. “Maybe I owed you one. Payback. Because I didn’t like crashing your Christmas party. And because you aren’t quite as vile as I thought.”
“That’s all it was? Payback?”
She didn’t answer. Which, again, was an answer of a sort. “I have to call a cab.”
“Whoa up, lady. You don’t get off that easy.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were right on all counts. And maybe I was a jerk for wasting your time, but I did do exactly what you asked. I got your guy close to my brother.”
“After warning him.”
“Wrong. I said I wouldn’t warn him and I didn’t. Didn’t have to. That’s the part you didn’t get. Mike and I really are polar opposites. He’d never trust any stranger I brought home. The only stone-cold thing I did was lie to my mom. And since you forced me into that, you have to make it right.”
“Really? And how would I do that?”
“My mom really likes you. If you bail out now she’ll blame me and we’ll all have a miserable holiday. So since this charade was entirely your idea, it’s only fair that you see it through and pretend to like me for one more day.”
“What? Of all the incredible gall—”
“I know, I’ve already admitted I’m a jerk. But my mom’s not. And right now she’s probably in there baking your favorite pie. Lemon meringue, right? Or was that a fib, too?”
“No, that part was true.”
“Good. Then stay. Besides, if you hang around, maybe Iron Mike might say something incriminating.”
“You think?”
“Not a chance. Mom never lets us talk shop at home. But I promise you’ll have a good time anyway. What do you say?”
She didn’t say anything. Stood there, reading him like a news-paper. So he offered her his arm. And after a moment’s hesitation, she took it. And they strolled back down the glistening, picture-postcard street together.
“I like your mom’s house,” she said. “You really should look into that reverse mortgage business.”
“No problem, I’m sure it’ll work out.”
“Funny, I have a feeling it already has. This pie better be really special.”
“Oh, it will be. My mom’s a great cook. Besides, in case you hadn’t noticed, on Christmas Day everything tastes a little bit sweeter.”
Copyright ©2006 by Doug Allyn
“What we offer is ‘your own fault insurance.’ If anything happens to you, it’s your own fault!”
Out of Bounds
by Terry Barbieri
Texan Terry Barbieri is a five-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize for her short fiction. Her stories have appeared in many magazines, both in the United States and abroad. It is rare in the field of crime fiction for a woman author to write from the viewpoint of a male character, as Ms. Barbieri does in almost all of her stories. The following tale belongs to the private-eye genre; it is her third contribution to EQMM.
An assault on my back door lurches me out of a tequila-induced sleep. I pull on yesterday’s jeans, stumble into the kitchen, and peer through the peephole at the rickety stairway leading to the alley below. Marble Melendez, a muscular six-one in his shorts and tank top, stops pounding. “Jason, let me in.”
As I open the door, Marble sweeps past me to the darkened living room and parts the miniblinds. Stepping up beside him, I look out to see two men standing on either side of Marble’s black sedan, like a freeze frame from a KGB film. Only this is El Paso, Texas, perched on the edge of the Chihuahua Desert. I doubt any KGB agent has ever set foot here.
“What’s with the men in black?”
“Security guards. I’ve had two death threats in the last twenty-four hours.”
“What happened to the bald guy?” No matter how often I visit Sidewinder, Marble’s three-hundred-acre ranch, Mr. Potato Head asks to see my ID.
“Gardner? I let him go. He stole some balls I’d signed for local charities. He was auctioning them off on eBay.”
I wonder how much he got. Marble’s name became a household word two years ago, when he led the U.S. National Men’s Team to win its first World Cup. After scoring four goals in the final game, Marble appeared on the Today show, The Tonight Show, and David Letterman and hosted Saturday Night Live. Everyone across America recognized his hazelnut skin and closely cropped curls. He received so many e-mails and letters and phone calls, he had to hire a secretary to answer them. Physics students clocked his balls at seventy-five miles per hour. His aim was legendary.
While Marble and I played on the same team in high school, our home lives couldn’t have been more different. He lived with his Brazilian-born parents and his three brothers and sisters. An only child, I had four stepfathers in fifteen years.
In our junior year, Sports Illustrated named Marble America’s most promising teenage athlete. While he kicked his way into the spotlight, I retreated into the shadows. I dropped out of high school and took a job in construction to escape my most abusive stepfather to date. I spent my nights on eBay, bidding on an increasingly sophisticated array of spy ware, until I was ready to start my own detective agency. Jason Lightfoot, Private Eye.
Half a dozen cars pull up behind the sedan and reporters pour out. One aims a telephoto lens at my window. Marble releases the blinds and the slats snap into place. “They’ve been following me day and night. There are so many of them camped outside my ranch, it’s starting to look like Woodstock.”
I’m not surprised. Two days ago, an eighteen-year-old girl filed a lawsuit claiming Marble had seduced her three years earlier, when she visited his ranch. Last night the comedians who had once hosted Marble on their talk shows opened with monologues about him playing out of bounds, committing fouls with his hands, and scoring illegal goals.
I shove aside the change, keys, cell phone, and Beretta cluttering my dining table, turn on the overhead light, and pour two shots of Cuervo Gold. Taking a seat, Marble draws an eight-by-ten out of an envelope and slides it towards me. I study the photo of him standing behind the dozen foster children he had invited to Sidewinder.
“Which one is she?”
He points to a teenage girl with long blond hair whose pursed lips refuse to smile for the camera. Her eyes burn with the intensity of a child who has seen too much in too few years.
“What happened?”
“I was taking a walk late one night and found her on the path leading to the creek. She was supposed to leave the next morning and she said she couldn’t sleep. She told me Sidewinder was the first place she’d been able to breathe since the state had removed her from her mother and started placing her in foster homes.”
“Sounds like she wanted you to adopt her.”
“A bachelor in his twenties doesn’t adopt a teenage girl. I didn’t know what to say. I took her hand as we skidded down the bank. She was wearing flip-flops, which was stupid; there are snakes and scorpions everywhere out there. We froze as a couple of deer stepped out of the brush. Standing there, watching them drink, Lindsey looked like a little girl. Without thinking, I leaned down and kissed the top of her head. I knew I’d made a mistake when she raised her face towards mine. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to embarrass her. I took a step back and told her, ‘Lindsey, we can’t.’ She wouldn’t speak to me after that. All the way back to the house, she didn’t say a word.