Normally I wasn’t.
“I liked you better with the beard, by the way,” she said. She got up and collected her jeans jacket and laid it over a chair, and picked up her little suitcase and put it next to the same chair.
“It was your sister’s idea,” I said. “She shaved me.”
She glanced at me, smirky but not unfriendly. “I bet she did…You okay?”
“Peachy.”
Over the years, in my business, I’d run into lots of things, many of them disgusting or creepy or downright evil. A father hiring a hitman to take out his own daughter had just rocketed to the top of my personal chart.
With a bullet.
Twelve
Julie Green and I sat in her sister’s tiny kitchen where the girl had a turkey sandwich and chips and a Diet Coke; I just had a Diet Coke, my appetite dulled somehow. She filled me in, chapter and verse, on the Green family fortune and how it impacted Daddy and his daughters.
Seemed Green’s media empire had started when he married money-that money belonging to the late mother of Janet and Julie.
“It’s a trust fund deal,” Julie was saying, nibbling at the white bread and white turkey meat. She could wear hip-hop clothes all she wanted-this kid was Caucasian. “Jan’s gonna be thirty next month, and she’ll get a pile.”
“What about you?”
She grinned as she chewed. “Oh, I will, too, when I’m her age…I still got a few years of youthful abandon left.”
I was squinting again, but this time things were coming into focus. “And if something bad happened to Janet-before the trust fund money came available to her-your father inherits…?”
“Yeah. Sure. Who else?”
One aspect remained fuzzy, however, so I asked, “But why would that matter to a mogul like Jonah Green? He’s loaded…”
She snorted a laugh, and the nose ring jiggled. “He was, before his second wife’s settlement…and before he invested in fucking Enron. He’s riding on fumes, my clean-shaven friend. Hope you enjoyed your hundred K for rescuing me, ’cause the bastard made me give him an I.O.U. for it!”
I leaned back in the hard kitchen chair. Sipped my Coke and mulled this new information.
Julie sat forward. “Okay, what wheels are turning in that fucked-up skull of yours?…Quarry, are you trying figure out a way to make a buck again? Squeeze Daddy over Janet?”
I flicked her a little frown.
Her eyes went big and her smile was big, too. “Don’t tell me…don’t tell me you really fell for my dowdy ol’ big sis…? The degenerate hardass and the maiden librarian…Didn’t I see that on Lifetime?”
“I’m going to help her,” I said.
She didn’t seem to be sure whether to be amused by that or not, and just asked, “Help her where Daddy’s concerned? How the fuck?”
“Will you help me do it?”
She smirked. “Sure. Do what? ”
“ Will…you…help? ”
She shrugged magnanimously. “Sure-why the fuck not? My sister is the only relative on the planet that I give two shits about, and anything that gives Daddy a bad day is my idea of a good time.”
“Swell.” I rose. “I’m going to call her at the library.”
“Okay.” She watched me go to the kitchen’s wall phone. “You want privacy?”
“No.”
The library was on a short list of numbers posted by the phone (Rick’s had a line through it; mine at the motel was added on) and I dialed.
“Homewood Public Library,” Janet’s voice said pleasantly. “Help Desk, this is Ms. Wright, how may I help you?”
“Like you did last night,” I said, “is just fine.”
Her voice warmed up. “Hi, Jack.”
“Listen,” I said lightly. “Your sister dropped by the apartment, and we’re getting along famously.”
“Oh! Completely forgot about Jules! I should’ve mentioned her, Jack, sorry…but she didn’t say when exactly she was coming. She’s kind of a…you know, free spirit.”
I glanced over at Julie. She was standing next to the kitchen table, now, slipping out of the t-shirt. She tossed it on the table and stood there grinning at me, fists Superman-style on her hips, the nice little pierced-nippled breasts bare and perky and proud.
My dick twitched.
“Free spirit, huh?” I said to the girl’s sister. “I noticed…How about after work the three of us meet for a drink, grab a bite together?”
“Great! I’ll go straight to Sneaky Pete’s, unless you’re sick of it.”
“No, that’s fine. See you there.”
We exchanged ’byes, I hung up, and the little topless punkette was right there, right on me, wrapping her arms around me, pushing me to the wall, cornering me like she had at Harry and Louis’s cabin.
“I’m not on the rag now,” she said with a wicked smile and a single arched eyebrow. “You finally ready for that reward?”
I put my hands on her hips, held her away from me at arm’s length, and took a long, leering look at her and she grinned, pleased with herself.
Then I pushed her away. “Get your shirt on before your nipple rings rust.”
She backed off and appraised me, frowning; now I finally could see the resemblance between the sisters-the tips of Julie’s breasts were long, too.
“Turning me down again, Quarry?”
“I seem to be.”
I wasn’t sure if that had been a test or if she was just a little cockhound.
Maybe the former, because after she slipped the black t-shirt on, she winked at me and said, “Okay. Okay. Maybe you really do like my big sis.”
Thirteen
Monday night at Sneaky Pete’s was slow, the singles crowd modest and the laughter and conversation lessened, which only made the country western schlock on the jukebox all the more noticeable. I did my best to control the situation by plowing quarters in and selecting the Patsy Cline, Hank Williams and Willie Nelson numbers, trying to hold the crap at bay.
I had thought Janet chose the bar because it had somehow become “our” place; but I soon realized she’d made the choice to accommodate her sister, who drank more than she ate. Our burgers hadn’t even arrived yet, and Julie was already on her second Scotch rocks.
Janet was on my side of the booth, looking fondly at her sister and me and back again, working a little too hard to get a family vibe going.
“So,” she asked, “you two already know each other? How is that possible?”
Julie shrugged, glugged Scotch, and said, “He got me out of a jam, a while back.”
Janet cocked her head, eyes flicking from her sister to me to her sister. “What kind of jam, Jules?”
Julie shrugged again. “Some assholes kidnapped me.”
At that Janet laughed. Then, studying the dark-haired, nose-pierced girl, asked, “You’re…not kidding, are you?”
Julie shook her head. “No. Some assholes grabbed me to squeeze ransom money out of Daddy. Our, uh, mutual friend Jack, here, got me away from the bad guys. You, uh…probably don’t want to hear the details. Wasn’t strictly legal. Jack, she doesn’t want to hear the details, does she?”
“No,” I said.
Janet looked from Julie to me. Her expression tried for trusting and came off wary. “Jack…you don’t…you don’t work for my father, do you?”
“Yes,” I said.
The wary expression turned withering, and her nostrils flared, and her teeth were bared when she said, “Let me out,” and tried to rise and push by me.
But she was sitting on the inside of the booth and I wouldn’t let her, gripping her wrist, making her eyes meet mine.
“Hear me out,” I said.
“Why should I?”
“So you’ll know what’s going on, and can make an informed decision.”
Her upper lip curled back. “Don’t patronize me!”
Across the way Julie was chewing ice from her drink, faintly disgusted. “Oh, brother, Sis…”
“Hear me out,” I said, “and I’ll let you out.”
Still half up, Janet drew in a deep breath, exhaled melodramatically, and settled back in the booth, getting as far away from me as she could, short of knocking a hole through the wall.