“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.
Janet folded her arms and looked straight ahead. “My father is a monster. Anybody who does his bidding-”
Julie laughed and said, “Does his bidding! Jesus, library lady, cut the guy a break.”
The older sister-without looking at me-said, “All right. I’ll give you one minute, Jack, and then you either let me out of this booth or I start screaming.”
Julie craned her neck out of the booth. “Can I get another Scotch rocks, please? Thank you…”
I said to Janet, “Your father hired me to keep an eye on you.”
She couldn’t help herself; she had to look at me. “Why, in heaven’s name?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Is that why…you…with Rick…?”
I was halfway turned in the booth, to face her, and I did my best to keep my words simple, my tone earnest. “I was just supposed to keep track of you. But when that asshole got physical, I-”
“Blew your cover?” she asked bitterly.
“Or,” Julie said with a nasty little smile, “maybe climbed under yours, huh, Sis?”
“You be quiet,” Janet said.
“You asked about the gun,” I said. “This is why.”
She was shaking her head, grappling with all this. “You’re a, a what…bodyguard? Why would he do that? Why would my father hire someone to protect me? He doesn’t care enough about me to-”
“I’ve come to that same opinion,” I said. “Which is why I think you may be at risk.”
Janet didn’t seem to hear my last statement, asking, “What…what kind of work do you generally do for my father?”
I shrugged. “Troubleshooter.”
“Well…that’s certainly vague.”
“Right.”
“I…I really should hate you.”
“Probably.”
Her chin started quivering and her eyes were getting moist. “You… goddamn you. Goddamn me — I let you into my life.”
I nodded. “I know the feeling-I let you into mine.”
We looked at each other…
…and suddenly it was fine between us.
Or I was pretty sure it was, and held my hand out.
She gave me her hand and I squeezed it, and Julie, said, “I’m gonna need way more Scotch…”
Our food came soon, and neither Janet nor I did much more than nibble at it. Julie ate about half of hers, but was downing the booze like a pro.
“What did you mean,” Janet said, pushing her plate away, “I’m at…risk?”
I pushed my plate away, too. “You’re coming into a lot of money, soon, aren’t you?”
“Yes…”
Julie, chewing cheeseburger, said, “And if you flat-line, sister dear, guess who gets the gold?”
Janet frowned and then it turned into a smile of disbelief. “Oh, come on…you can’t think…our own father? Even he wouldn’t… would he?”
“He would,” I said. “It’s…a problem.”
Janet’s eyebrows went up. “A problem?”
“And I know just what to do about it,” Julie said. She grabbed the passing waitress and said, “Scotch rocks, double-my sissy sis’ll no doubt want a mar-garita…and how about you, big boy?”
“Coke,” I said.
“Give him a twist of line,” Julie said, “and let him live dangerously…and keep ’em comin’.”
When the waitress had departed, Janet leaned across the booth and took some of the stress out on her sister, saying bitchily, “That’s always your solution, isn’t it? Getting drunk!”
“Or stoned,” Julie said, “or laid. But this? This I think calls for drunk.”
That was when I noticed someone at the bar, his back to us, as he watched us in the mirror-a brawny big- shouldered guy in gray sweats in his twenties with a close-cropped blonde haircut.
“Excuse me, ladies,” I said, and slipped out of the booth.
I sat on the stool next to the guy.
“Hello, DeWayne,” I said.
Jonah Green’s flunky, his sweatshirt labeled usmc, sipped his beer and said, “Don’t talk to me. Are you crazy?”
“That’s a matter of opinion. Why are you here, DeWayne? What are you up to?”
DeWayne didn’t look at me. He whispered: “Mr. Green has me following that crazy cunt.”
“Julie?”
He forgot to whisper this time, saying, “You see any other crazy cunt around here? Mr. Green was afraid she’d screw things up. With the…you know, job.”
“ My job, you mean,” I said.
Now he looked at me.
The close-set sky-blue eyes in the oval Clutch Cargo-ish face stared at me unblinkingly; his upper lip approximated a sneer. This was apparently his menacing expression.
“Your job,” he said nastily, “which apparently includes hangin’ out in public with the intended? What are you doin’, making contact with-”
I put my hand on his sleeve, and smiled pleasantly. “Leave, DeWayne. Go home. Right now.”
“You can’t-”
“Do you want to die, DeWayne?”
That stopped him. But then he managed, “You don’t-”
“Leave, DeWayne. Or die. Those are the options. Choose.”
DeWayne turned away and looked at himself in the mirror. He was bigger than me and younger and he didn’t like taking this from a geezer like me-he was trembling, whether with rage or fear or some combo, I couldn’t say.
But take it from me he did. He finished the beer, threw a crumpled five-spot on the bar, and headed out the door almost at a trot.
I joined the sisters at the booth.
“Who was that?” Janet asked.
I looked sharply at Julie and shook my head; she, of course, knew who DeWayne was, but she nodded back, almost imperceptibly, and I told her sister, “Nobody, really. Just somebody I thought I knew, but didn’t.”
“Well, that’s funny…” Janet’s eyes narrowed, watching where DeWayne had gone. “…I’m pretty sure he was at the library today, just hanging around.”
I said nothing.
We spent several hours in the bar, and I asked Janet and Julie lots of questions about their father, about his business, his private and public life. I was fairly subtle about it, and both young women were drinking enough to make my information-gathering relatively inconspicuous. By the time the evening was over, I had plenty of information on Jonah Green and his whereabouts and his patterns.
When it was time to go, I drove Janet home in my rental Ford-she’d had way too many margaritas-while Julie drove her sister’s Geo. Julie was pretty drunk, too, but she was used to it, and could navigate well enough. Still, I followed her, to make sure she stayed on the road.
No one tailed us, by the way-just as there’d been no sign of DeWayne in Sneaky Pete’s parking lot. Maybe
