When I awoke, I had no regrets. No pangs of conscience. My only worry was making my one o’clock practice. Being late would cost me $500 and enhance the possibility of finishing my career with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Krista found a white dress shirt in my closet. She wore that and nothing else and padded off to the kitchen, where she tried making French toast, creating a lake of egg yolks on the counter. Getting all domestic after one night of play.
My head ached from the booze. She was already talking about how we might spend the weekend.
“How old are you?” I asked. “Really.”
“Twenty.”
“Bullshit.”
It took some persuading, but she finally admitted the truth. “Almost eighteen.”
Shit. Jailbait.
“You gotta go now, kid.”
“Whadaya mean?”
“I’ll drive you to your place.”
“I wanna stay with you.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“The stuff I did last night. I can do even better.”
Her eyes brimmed. I felt sorry for her, just as she supposed I would. Still …
“Get dressed Krista. We gotta go.”
“Asshole!” She tore off my shirt, popping all the buttons. She stamped into the bedroom. Fifteen minutes later, I was driving west on 36th Street through a frog-strangler of a storm, thunder rattling the windows of my old Camaro. When I pulled up to the curb, I saw a man standing under the awning of Krista’s apartment building, smoking a cigar. Blocky build. Blue jeans and a brown suede jacket, an urban cowboy look. Thinning hair with a bad comb-over. He tossed the cigar into the bushes as we pulled up.
“Shit, it’s Charlie,” Krista said.
The guy’s hands were balled into fists at his sides.
I did the semi-chivalrous thing. Double-parked next to a puddle and said, “see ya,” as she got out of the car. The guy she called “Charlie” stayed under the awning, the rain drilling the canvas like gunshots.
“In the car, babe.” He gestured toward a lobster red Porsche, the water beading on its waxy finish.
“I gotta get cleaned up, Charlie.”
“Now! You’re late and you’re costing me money.”
“You gonna be okay, kid?” I called through the window.
“Fuck you, asshole.” She shot me the bird and headed for the Porsche.
Charlie stepped off the curb and splashed toward my door. He sized me up and didn’t seem impressed. “Have fun, stud?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Lemme guess. Best you ever had.”
“Fuck off.”
“Hell, she’s the best I ever had, and I’ve had a helluva lot more than you.”
“I don’t keep score,” I said.
“We all keep score. Even Boy Scouts like you.”
From the Porsche, Krista yelled, “You coming, Charlie? Thought we were late.”
He ignored her and looked at me with a mirthless smile. “Did you play rough? That’s the way she likes it, you know.”
“This how you get off? Talking to guys about fucking.”
“You didn’t leave any bruises, did you, stud?”
“Fuck you.”
“If you did, it’ll cost you.”
“Who are you, her pimp?”
The guy laughed. “Pimp. Manager. Fuck buddy. Man for all seasons. But you, stud? You’re just a john.”
4 People Change
I have no excuses, other than being 23, with more sex drive than brain power. I seem to remember rationalizing my conduct: Hey, she was a stripper. It’s not like I deflowered her after catechism class.
But the truth is that I didn’t care about her. I simply took what was offered and gave nothing in return, except some crumpled twenty-dollar bills.
That was then. And now?
I didn’t want to get involved in Amy’s life, either. All I needed was to convince her that I wasn’t the last person to see her sister alive. There was “Charlie.” Problem was, my story of a rainy day and a mystery guy with a comb-over would sound like bullshit. The truth often does. If I could find Charlie’s last name, I’d have something solid to give Amy. Then I would bid her good-bye, good luck, and have a nice life.
Jake Lassiter, still the escape artist.
Fifteen minutes after leaving the Justice Building with my DUI jury out, I was cruising across the MacArthur Causeway, headed toward my office on South Beach. It was a crystalline clear, breezy afternoon, the sun bursting into diamonds on the bay. To my right, one of the big cruise ships was steaming out Government Cut, headed to the islands.
I tried calling my old teammate Rusty MacLean. Back in the day, he’d known a lot of sleazebags. Maybe he could pin a last name on “Charlie.” Rusty’s voicemail promised he’d ring me right back, if he wasn’t fishing, riding his horse, or coaching his daughters’ field hockey team.
With the top down, my car attracts whistles, horn toots, and tail-fin envy. It’s a 1984 Caddy convertible that’s gone to the moon, according to the odometer.
The Biarritz Eldorado was my fee from Stan (Strings) Hendricks, a Key West piano tuner, who was picked up on the Overseas Highway with three hundred pounds of Acapulco Gold in the trunk. If I didn’t win the case, Strings would do a dime for trafficking, and I’d get squat.
The sheriff’s deputy testified that he had kept pace with the Caddy, which was supposedly speeding. After the stop, the cop said he smelled marijuana, giving him probable cause to search the car. But I subpoenaed the cruiser’s videotape, and by counting the seconds between a clearly visible bridge and a gas station, I proved that Strings was going only 43 mph. Search quashed, marijuana excluded. My client went free, and I got his cream-colored Biarritz Eldorado with red velour pillowed upholstery. The car looked like a Bourbon Street brothel on wheels, and naturally, I loved it.
My cell rang just as I passed the Fisher Island ferry port.
“Jake, you worthless SOB,” Rusty greeted me. “Where you been hiding out?”
“Unlike some people, I have to work for a living.”
“Screw that. C’mon down to the Keys and let’s chase some bonefish.”
When he wasn’t at his house-on-stilts in Islamorada, Rusty lived on thirty acres of what used to be mango orchards in the Redlands. He’d married a lovely woman and fathered twin girls. In his spare time, of which he had plenty, Rusty ran a foundation that kept at-risk kids in school and out of trouble. After Rusty the Reprobate retired from the game, he had changed. I respected him for that.
We swapped insults, and then I asked Rusty what he remembered about the night at Bozo’s.
“I don’t wanna revisit that shit,” Rusty said. “I was a total dog back then.”
“One hundred percent pussy hound,” I agreed. “But it’s important, okay?”
“I’ve pretty much erased the nineties from my memory bank. Except for ’91 when I made the Pro Bowl.”
I could have said, “As an injury replacement,” but that would have been unkind.
“Let me refresh your recollection, Rusty,” I said, as if cross-examining a hostile witness. “You got rough with the girl, she stabbed you, and a friendly doc in Hialeah stitched you up under a tequila anesthetic.”
“Yeah, still got the scar. All right, what do you want to know?”
“The girl ever mention a guy named Charlie?”
“Who the hell can remember?”
“Try, okay?”
“You got a last name?”
“That’s what I’m looking for.”
“Can’t help you. Sorry.”
“Ever see the girl again?”
“Why would I? What’s this about, anyway?”
I told him about my meeting with Amy Larkin.
“Bummer,” Rusty said, reaching back decades for the word. “But don’t blame yourself, Jake. Jeez, compared to me, you were a gentleman.”
“Compared to you, the Marquis de Sade was a gentleman.”
“You want my advice, let it go.”
“I intend to. But I’d like to give the sister a lead, some nudge in the right direction. Then I’m done.”
“Wish I could help you, Jake.”
“What about the other stripper?” I asked. “Sonia something.”