There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that, so I gave him my card, thanked him again, and turned to leave. I stopped, though, and asked, “When’s the wedding?”
“September,” he said.
“Well, good luck,” I told him.
“Hey, thanks, man,” he said, and he seemed sincere. “That’s damn nice of you.”
As I walked out of the restaurant, I thought, Yeah, that’s me. Damn nice Jeremy.
At least Ellen had a few months yet to reconsider.
Chapter 20
I had a lot to think about when I left Café Amante. I wasn’t any closer to knowing who killed Terry Pendleton, but I was closer to knowing that Terry had been unfaithful to his wife. Before I talked to Rachel about that, though, I wanted to confirm the affair with Dee-Dee, so I stopped at a pay telephone in the lobby of Fifth Avenue Place and looked up the number for The Joker’s Wild. I dialed the number, and, after several rings, a male voice answered.
“Joker’s Wild.”
“Hi, is Dee-Dee in yet?” I asked.
“Nah, she ain’t workin’ today. She’ll be in tomorrow night, seven to two.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said, and hung up.
As I walked back to my car, I thought about my conversation with Cameron. Just as Carson Wykcoff had assumed that, as a white person, I would share his racist views, Cameron had assumed that, as a male, I would share his attitude toward women. I was beginning to wonder if anyone, anywhere, thought I had viewpoints and opinions that were unique to me.
Since I couldn’t see Dee-Dee until the next night, the rest of the day stretched out in front of me like a blank canvas.
Jeez, I gotta spend less time around my kid brother.
Driving home, I thought about calling Dennis and seeing if he wanted to get together for dinner, but then I remembered that he’d said something about having to attend an evening community meeting in the Homewood-Brushton area. Then I thought about calling Angie and Simon, see if they wanted some company for a while. But this was a school night, so I knew Ang would be busy, and the kids probably had schoolwork to do. Maybe Simon would like to go out for a while. Just the two of us, hit some bars, chat up some chicks. Problem there was that neither one of us was big on bars, and Simon wasn’t into little diversions from his marriage.
I was home by this time, so I just went in and worked out for a while, then ordered a pizza for dinner, and spent the night watching reruns of old sitcoms. I wasn’t sure if that qualified as a fairly pathetic evening, and I didn’t want to know, anyway.
* * *
There were two goons waiting for me when I left the townhouse for my morning run the next day. They were both big, lots of overdeveloped muscle, both wearing slacks and open-necked shirts and sports coats. I spotted them right away as I walked down the steps. They were standing around near the big oak tree just up the street from my place. I usually head in that direction when I run, but this morning, I turned the other way and began to jog. It was then that I saw the other two goons, standing about thirty feet in front of me. So the goons weren’t as dumb as I’d thought. Before I had a chance to decide what to do, one of the guys in front of me pulled out a gun and held it down at this side.
“Hey,” he said, “don’t do nothin’ stupid, okay? We ain’t here to hurt you. If we were, you’d be hurt by now.”
I didn’t necessarily agree with that, but now was probably not the time to argue the point.
The guys behind me had walked up by now, and one of them said, “Somebody wants to talk with you.”
“Does somebody have a name?” I asked.
“Don’t be a wiseass,” he said, and then he motioned towards a black Cadillac limo that was parked across the street. “Let’s go.”
There were four of them, two with guns at their sides now. I thought about taking the gun away from the guy behind me, but there would still be the other gun. Besides, I believed them. If they’d wanted me dead, they’d have made their move by now. So I walked across the street, wearing my running clothes, and got into the limo. Two of the goons got in the front seat, and the other two stepped into the back with me. They sat on either side of me, opposite a guy who stared at me for a minute before speaking. I wasn’t too worried, since I didn’t figure this guy would want to shoot me and get blood all over his nice leather seats.
“I’m Manny,” he said, in a flat voice. “I don’t know you.”
“No need to be ashamed,” I told him. “You just need to get out more, is all.”
There was no reaction from him at all. He was about six feet tall and solidly built, very broad across the chest and shoulders. Dark eyes, more like slits in his face than like normal eyes, black hair slicked back over his head, deep tan, or maybe that was his natural complexion, I couldn’t tell. He was wearing a dark brown suit that fit him badly, and I could see that he had a shoulder holster under it.
“What you’re lookin’ into at the moment,” he said, “got nuthin’ to do with me, but there’s a chance that the way you’re muckin’ around, you could interfere with some of my business. That wouldn’t be good for you, you know?”
I assumed he meant the Pendleton murder, since it was the only case I had at the moment.
“Listen, Manny, I’m sure we can come to some agreement here.”
“We just did. Drop the thing you’re workin’ on.”
I gave him my
