“A letch, you mean. Dirty old man.”
She smiled, maybe a tad embarrassed; she forked some salad. “He’s a wonderful, talented writer, and I’m glad to have a relationship with him. He’s mature but young at heart. Anyway, I’m not looking for a…a husband, or any kind of serious relationship. He’s a virile, charismatic man, and I’m single right now, and we are very close, very, very close friends, so…what’s the harm?”
“Nothing, I’d say. You have your eyes open, anyway.”
“Yeah, but…” She shook her head yet again, and those big brown eyes really were open-wide. “…tonight, out of nowhere, his wife showed up. God, she’s a crazy person. A shrew. Just a horrible monster.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Oh, we’ve never met. But K.J. has told me about her.”
“Oh.” I sipped iced tea. “Listen, I’m interested in this non-fiction novel concept. I’ve fooled with writing since I was in grade school. I mean, I know I’m not in your league, but I am interested in pursuing it.”
She shrugged. “Glad to help, if I can.” Another bite of salad. Her lips were very full and quite beautiful; female lips that stay beautiful while chewing food are to be treasured. “What can I tell you?”
“You’re writing your own story-of your own life.”
Eager nod. “Yes.”
“And the professor isn’t doing any of the writing. He’s just guiding you.”
“That’s right.”
“Well…how old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Okay. Isn’t twenty-two a little young to have a life story to write? I mean, don’t people do their memoirs right before they croak, generally?”
She laughed and it was musical, contrasting with faint Muzak piped in. “I had an unusual childhood. An unusual life all the way around.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “My father is someone…famous. Or infamous.”
“Oh. So it’s a celebrity story. What it’s like to be the kid of a celebrity. Cool.”
She frowned, shook her head. “Not so cool. My father…you’ve heard of Lou Girardelli?”
“You mean…Sinatra’s pal?”
That caught her off-guard and she laughed again. “Yes. Yes, Sinatra’s pal.”
“You mean you’ve met Sinatra?”
“Oh yes. He’s charming, most of the time. The nicest manic depressive I know.”
I thought, I bet he’s mature but young at heart, too…
I asked, “Isn’t that a dangerous story to write?”
She leaned forward, her eyes earnest. “You mean, wouldn’t my father be displeased? Yes, he will. But I’m his daughter. He’ll dismiss my story, in public, as a drug-addled fantasy from an estranged daughter, trying to make a fast buck by writing a ‘tell-all.’ You see, I don’t know any of the criminal details of his life. I only know the home life. But that’s enough. Really enough.”
“You said ‘drug-addled.’…You don’t seem very drug-addled to me.”
Her eyebrows lifted and she looked down at her mostly eaten salad. “I was into pot and pills in high school. It did get bad, I won’t deny it, and I had to be hospitalized for a while. But I’m fine now.”
“You seem awfully well-adjusted, for all you’ve been through.”
She brightened. “Thanks. And K.J., Professor Byron, he’s helping me throw off the…the final shackles of my past.”
I nodded. “Write about it, and get it out of your system, you mean?”
“Exactly. Exorcize the demons. Everyone has them. I just happened to have one as a father.”
I had a drink of tea, then I asked, “So now that Mrs. Professor has shown up, what’s your plan?”
She sighed. “I guess I’ll burrow into my little apartment and work by myself till I hear from K.J. In any event, I won’t work any more tonight. I can use some sleep.”
She reached for her check but I touched her hand.
“Let me get it,” I said. “You’re a cheap enough date.”
With a laugh, she said, “Thanks,” and slid out of the booth.
“See you, Jack. You’re easy to talk to.”
“You are, too.”
Then she was gone.
The iced tea had run through me, so I went back to the men’s room, thinking that since I knew Annette would not be returning to the professor’s until she was summoned, I could wait till tomorrow before my next step. After Dorrie Byron left the prof’s pad to take her meeting with me, and pick up those photos, I wouldn’t show up, being busy back at the cobblestone cottage, killing her straying husband and destroying his manuscript.
Because my theory now was that this wasn’t about the manuscript Annette had carried out of the prof’s at all. No. The prof was writing his own in-depth book about Lou Girardelli, and Annette was just one phase of his research. He was encouraging her, building her up, to get more out of her, and not just blowjobs. I was convinced the prof had a book in progress that Annette knew nothing about.
And that was the manuscript I’d been sent to destroy.
I paid the check and was coming around the building when I spotted those two black guys again, the supercool dudes in the threads and pimp hats. They were at the rear of what I assumed was their car, a Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado like the Broker’s, except bright red with white sidewalls, and they were stuffing something into the trunk.
Annette Girard.
EIGHT
The good news was the girl wasn’t dead. The bad news was everything else.
Well, maybe some more good news at that: they hadn’t seen me. Coming around the side of the restaurant like I had, I’d been able to slip behind some snowy bushes, and plaster myself against the stucco wall and peek around.
The two black guys, whose presence at Sambo’s seemed ever less comical, were in their dark leather coats and had just completed dropping Annette into the trunk like a big golf bag that took both their best efforts. Since the girl probably weighed 130 pounds, those efforts had been expended in part by subduing her, though not knocking her out or chloroforming her (even these guys didn’t know where to get chloroform), just slapping some duct tape over her mouth, a slash of it covering much of her lower face, her eyes wide and wild above, and very much conscious. Her wrists were also duct-taped and so were her ankles. She wasn’t struggling now, fairly paralyzed with fear, I’d say.
Then the one in the red hat, who was a little bigger than his partner, held up a palm toward the one in the green hat, who gave him, I shit you not, a high five. The slap rang in the chill night like a gunshot, and they both chuckled, the bigger one’s voice higher, the slightly smaller one having more of a low growly laugh.
They seemed pretty proud of overcoming a coed in a Sambo’s parking lot. Some fucking people.
I watched like an Indian behind a tree, scouting a cowboy campfire, as the red Fleetwood roared to life, the red-hat kidnapper behind the wheel (apparently color-coordinating). The driver made more noise revving up his engine than I would have, had I just thrown a live girl in my trunk (or a dead one for that matter), but no one noticed except me. Then they backed out of their space and drove out of the lot, turning left toward the Coralville strip.
I knew where they were heading, or was at least pretty sure, and by “knew” I mean what city, which since the city was Chicago maybe was a little vague at that.
Anyway, I got into the Maverick and went after them. I was fond of Annette, but that wasn’t why I took what I guess you’d call pursuit. Even on my first job, I knew this was not standard operating procedure; but I had inadvertently learned that her father was our client, and this was after all our client’s daughter being driven away to
