explain this thing. And then I’m going to let him know that no matter what he’s done, I am still his friend.”
I shrugged. “Your choice.” I stood. “Good luck with the picture.”
It took Stockwell a couple of seconds to realize I was standing, but he got to his feet somehow and shook hands with me. He was a zombie. Like Kaufmann had been, walking out of that diner.
“Say goodbye to your wife for me,” I said.
“Uh…will do.”
I was almost out the door when he called, “Jack!.. Jack, what am I thinking? Thanks! I mean, after all, you… you did save my life.”
“You’re welcome. Get that money to me, as we agreed, or you’ll have a problem worse than the one I solved for you.”
For some reason that made him smile. “You’re not as bad as you pretend to be.”
I smiled back at him. “Art, you’re the one in the business of make-believe.”
I’d had enough of a morning to justify another shower. I made it a long, hot one. Then I got into my one remaining fresh change of clothes, a gray t-shirt and gray jeans. Since my running shoes were gray, I looked like a man with a plan.
In a way, I had one.
I knew-even if I had told Arthur Stockwell the real truth about poor troubled Jimmy Kaufmann-that the director would not have the stones to let me rid the world of that evil scumbag.
And I also knew that me short-circuiting Kaufmann’s attempt to have his “best friend” eliminated didn’t necessarily mean no further tries would be made. Maybe not on this movie, but on the next, or the next. That life insurance on Stockwell hadn’t been taken out for Kaufmann not to cash it in…
Very soon I would contact my new best friend Louis Licata and let him know every dirty detail of Kaufmann’s plan. Licata would not put up with a producer on a picture he was backing embezzling, much less planning to kill that picture’s director in a murder-for-insurance payoff scheme.
I didn’t have to kill Kaufmann because Licata would see to that happening when I was happily somewhere else. He had the resources. And I, of course, would suggest that another accidental death specialist, like Nick Varnos but maybe a little better, be brought in. I liked the street justice of Stockwell benefitting from Kaufmann’s demise.
I packed and soon was stowing my carry-on bag in the backseat of the Nova. Damn near climbed in front and drove off. But I guess I needed one last little fix.
She was in the hot tub, by herself. The half-dozen kids in the pool were too much for her.
I knelt beside her and she looked up at me, curious.
“Everything’s fine,” I said.
“You took care of the threat?”
I nodded.
“Did you see the paper today?” she asked.
“No.”
“Two men died. One right here in the hotel, just yesterday. The other one got run over out on some lonely road.”
All roads were lonely when you got run over on them.
She was saying, “They’re being called suspicious deaths. Do you know anything about them, Jack?”
“Why would I?”
“Does it have anything to do with the threat to Art?”
“What if it did?”
“Jack…Jack, who are you, anyway?”
I grinned at her. “Why, just your ever-loving ex.”
That made her laugh. “It was good to see you again. Maybe…maybe we settled a few things.”
“I don’t want to kill you anymore, if that’s progress.”
“What about…the other?”
“We did that already. It was okay.”
She laughed gently. “It was more than okay, Jack. It showed me what…what might have been.”
“Don’t go all sentimental on me, Joni. It spoils your image.”
Her dark wet hair, that deep tan, those big beautiful eyes, that slender shape, the long legs…just like on the beach, when we were babies…
“You saved my husband’s life, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Why, Jack? Why would you do that for me?”
“Who said it was for you? I did it for money.”
“You did it for money, huh?” Her wet hand reached up and grasped my dry forearm and clasped. “Why really, Jack?”
I plucked her hand off, kissed it, then stood.
I was walking away when I paused just long enough to glance back at her.
“Let’s just say I owed you one,” I said.
