At 1 P.M., Megan Burke made the call to Arjan, the Sikh taxi driver to whom she had promised the $100 tip. She had packed her bag, leaving space for a thousand hundred-dollar bills. She had no idea how big a package that would be, but there was plenty of room in her suitcase, since she had so few clothes left after her year of riding the ox in Hollywood.
She was surprised that she did not feel worse than she did. The joint pain from her opioid withdrawal was still severe, but the diarrhea had abated and she wasn’t vomiting as much. She looked in her pill container and saw that she had enough medication to get her home to Oregon, and from there it would be a few hours of hugs and kisses with her mother and brother and then she’d go directly into rehab.
She had spent the morning talking and crying with her mother on the phone, after which her mother phoned several Oregon rehab facilities until she found one close to home that would permit Megan to bring Cuddles with her to the ninety-day treatment program. Megan’s mother told her that she would go to the bank and see if she could take out a second mortgage to cover the $25,000 cost, but Megan told her not to worry about it, because she had won a big prize in the California lottery and she was paying for her own rehab.
The last thing Megan said to her astonished mother was that there would be $75,000 left from the prize money after taxes. She insisted that her mom take it all, along with profound apologies for having been such a miserable daughter.
Before they hung up, her mother said to Megan, “Honey, you could never be anything but a wonderful, loving daughter. I can’t wait to have you home. The only mistake you ever made in your life was going to Hollywood, California.”
Megan went to the bathroom to dry her tears and touch up her makeup and then called Nigel Wickland on his cell number. When he answered, she said, “I’ll be there at two o’clock. Are you ready for me?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve given my assistant the afternoon off. I’ll be here alone.”
“I won’t be alone,” she said.
“I don’t doubt that,” Nigel said, ending the conversation.
When Jonas Claymore arrived in court, he looked for Megan, but she wasn’t there. He was growing very concerned for his money. Thinking about it made him uncontrollably jittery. When he’d had his fill of waiting, he jumped up and told a bailiff that he demanded to speak to a public defender. He also demanded an own-recognizance release. He said he’d never been arrested before except once for DUI, so he deserved to be OR’ed as soon as possible. He said he wanted immediate access to counsel, any counsel. He said he’d even settle for one that advertises on bus benches and takes his orders from sleazy bail bondsmen.
The bailiff told Jonas if he was smart, he’d zip his lips.
Jonas Claymore was still sitting with other in-custody defendants when court convened after lunch. He had been able to speak with a harried public defender, who had verified that Jonas had only one arrest on his rap sheet, for DUI, and he agreed to represent Jonas and ask for an own-recognizance release. The judge, who was just as harried as the public defender, and who was looking at a roomful of miscreants and their friends and families, granted the OR release. Jonas was set free and his property was returned, which included a cheap wristwatch and a wallet containing the only hundred-dollar bill he had left. He used that money to call a taxi to take him to his car in the parking lot at Pablo’s Taco Shop, where he paid the driver and looked around in vain for someone he knew who might have some ox.
All the way to the apartment he thought of what he was going to say to Megan Burke, who had left him rotting in that filthy jail with smelly savages who’d terrified him. She hadn’t tried to post bail, she hadn’t come to his arraignment, and she hadn’t done shit to help him, despite all he had done for her during the year they’d been together. He had shared his life and everything he owned with that cunt! He had never laid an angry hand on her, but he thought that just might change when he got home. It would all depend on what she had to say for herself.
When he got home, he found out what she had to say for herself. It was on the note. And beside the note were his cell phone, her key, and $1,900. He read the note three times, his rage mounting. Her clothes and bag were gone and so was her cat.
He snatched the money off the table, put it in his pocket, and phoned Wilbur. He was jonesing bad and needed something to smooth him out so he could think. So he could do what he had to do. The bitch had robbed him and he was going to find her if he had to check every motel in Hollywood. He’d get her when she went to Pablo’s to score, or maybe when she called Wilbur for some ox. He’d slip Wilbur a President Grant to tip him off as to where she was staying with his fucking money.
When Jonas looked behind the sofa, he was shocked. The paintings were gone! She had even stolen his paintings. His outrage turned to fury. He felt like he might keel over in a faint. He wished she’d left her cat there so he could kill it.
There was only one thing she could have done with them. She must’ve kept her schoolgirl promise and returned them to the gallery owner. And now she was out there spending Jonas’s money. She’d probably already spent a few grand on ox and was holed up somewhere chasing dragons with some other stupid bastard who was dumb enough to take her in. Well, somebody was going to pay for how he’d been screwed. She’d pay dearly if and when he found her. But until then he wasn’t taking this like some screwed-over pussy. He was going out and getting what was coming to him.
Wilbur didn’t answer, so he got in his car and drove to the cybercafé, where he saw a guy named Beatle who he used to buy crystal meth from, back before Megan, back when he was a tweaker. Beatle used to run a chop shop and would do anything for meth. He was now so strung out, he’d kill you for your liver if he could find a buyer for it. He could slam a gram and think nothing of it.
Jonas gave Beatle a pair of Jacksons, and Beatle showed teeth like jagged licorice drops, and he said, “Dude, you bought yourself a meth run on my shit pipe. Follow me to my crib.”
They went to his nearby rat hole of an apartment, and Jonas smoked crystal meth once again. It was nothing like smoking ox, but it was better than nothing. He remembered how he used to love it, but now he hated it. After riding the ox, meth seemed like nothing but a lowlife drug smelling like cat piss. Nowadays he was way better than this. Still, it beat jonesing, so he smoked a lot of it. And when he was finished, he found that it made him feel agitated. It made him feel paranoid. It made him feel wild!
When he was about to leave Beatle’s apartment, the tweaker showed him eyes as empty as a haunted house and said, “Don’t trip, potato chip.”
It was just after 2 P.M. when Megan and her Sikh taxi driver walked from his parked taxi to the front door of the Wickland Gallery. Megan was wearing a long-sleeved red jersey, jeans, and tennis shoes, and was carrying a tattered suitcase in one hand and in the other hand an airline-approved cat carrier with Cuddles inside it. The tall, bearded Sikh wore a cobalt-blue turban, a guayabera shirt, khakis, and sandals, and carried the two blanket-wrapped paintings, one under each arm.
Megan opened the door and saw Nigel Wickland waiting at Ruth’s desk in the main room of the gallery. He was as elegant as ever in a double-breasted navy pinstripe, a white button-down shirt, and a rose-colored silk necktie. He looked very tense, and there was even a tic working the corner of his left eye.
Nigel stood and said to the Sikh, “You can lean those items against the wall.”