3 A Brewski for the Old Man (6 page)

“And maybe there’s something else stopping you. Maybe you need Clay to forget your past as well.” I jerked up straight. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He lifted a shoulder. “You tell me. Seems to me you’re always worrying about what he thinks. Like you’re not good enough for him just the way you are.”

“Clay has a lot of money in the Sunset. I don’t want to lose his money.” I rapped my knuckles on the desk to emphasize my words. “If I don’t make it, if the Sunset can’t turn a profit the way it is, Clay will have the building knocked down and then he will put up more condos. That was the condition he came into it with me. He’s already told me this isn’t a charity.” I rubbed a tiny ache beginning to nibble away at my brain. “It’s a sore point between Clay and me, me wanting to keep everything the way it is and Clay wanting to make several more fortunes. The two aren’t compatible.” Some days I didn’t think we were either.

“Have you told Clay what Ray John did to you?”

“Shit, no.”

“Maybe you should.”

“No.”

“Why?”

Now there was a question. The big one.

“Tell him,” Styles urged.

“He doesn’t need to know.”

“You can’t charge Ray John and not tell Clay. That’s why you aren’t charging Leenders, isn’t it?”

Clay knew most of the baggage I carried around but just when he thought he’d heard it all, and he’d come to terms with it, there’s one more secret to tell, one more ghost to exorcize, one more confession. How much could I tell him before he’d heard enough? My life before him, my ragtag upbringing, was chaotic and nothing like his clean, well-organized, controlled life. I was embarrassed by my past, ashamed of my family and of my own mistakes. There was already enough stuff driving us apart, leaving our relationship teetering on the edge of oblivion, without adding to the pile. How much more shit would it take to push it over? I didn’t want him to walk out on me, didn’t want to lose him, never mind that if he left so would my investment and even my home. But most of all I didn’t want to lose Clay.

“This is about Rena and Lacey, not Clay and me.”

“Isn’t it?” He leaned towards me, elbows planted on knees and said, “I know how hard you want to fit in, to be part of his world.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, you mean to tell me the differences between you don’t matter? You’re the one always pointing them out.”

“Well, Clay comes from an old Florida family while I come from an old trailer park. My former mother-in-law so charmingly calls me trash. She has a lot of descriptive adjectives to go along with that but it gives me indigestion to think about them.”

“Do you really think it matters to Clay?”

“It matters to me.”

“Why?”

“Clay is part of the establishment. I wait on them, wait on the social register, with a tray in my hand. It matters.” Styles added, “Not to mention he’s a lot older than you.” “Only about twelve years older.” I was guessing at the number because he kept all his documents well away from my greedy little eyes. Even the filing drawers in his den were locked, I know ’cause I’d tried them all, so you see our relationship had a few cracks in the wall of love.

“Not the best arrangement, is it?” Styles asked.

“Why don’t we talk about you for a while?”

“Because I’m trying to make you see sense.” I threw the pen I’d been twirling between my fingers at the desk. It hit the wooden surface and then bounced off onto the floor. “Oh, is that what you’re doing?” “You have to stop Leenders.”

“Ray John has caused me enough trouble. I won’t let him ruin the one good thing in my life.” “How good is it if you’re hiding things?”

I’d had enough. “I should have shot the son of a bitch at thirteen when I had the chance.” “I thought you were sixteen.”

“That’s what my mother told the sheriff.”

“Why?” He seemed really curious about this, as though he really couldn’t see what difference my age might make.

“She thought the cops might take me away or something if I was really young.”

“Oh, yes,” he said with a nod, “I remember your family’s feelings about us.”

“The point is, if I’d shot Ray John back then it would be all over by now, and it would have saved others a lot of pain.” I pushed away from the desk. “I couldn’t sleep last night wondering how many other kids he has done this to. I always thought it was only me, don’t know why, but I did. It wasn’t just me, was it?”

Styles leaned sideways to pick up the pen. “I’m pretty sure there will be a lot more out there.” He set the pen down carefully on the desk. “I’ll starting looking for them.”

“Can you find them?” I leaned forward both hands flat on the desk. “Maybe one of them will charge him.”

“You mean maybe someone else will do what you haven’t got the guts to do?”

“Thanks for your understanding.”

“My job isn’t to make you feel good.”

“No, that’s what friends are for.” He got to his feet. The visit was over and maybe something else too.

“Good bye, Ms. Travis.” He closed the door softly behind him while I slumped down at the desk and buried my head in my folded arms. I just couldn’t turn my life upside-down again. In the last two years I’d been accused of murder and I’d been kidnapped by a psychopath, which had nearly destroyed my sanity. After I was freed I spent months running from shadows. And I still woke screaming from nightmares and needing Clay to hold me in his arms until the shaking stopped. This was the first time he’d left me alone since Gina’s murder. Part of his going away was to prove to me I didn’t need him there every hour of the day, to prove I could stay alone at night, could sleep in the dark, could forget.

No one understood I still had serious issues and no one knew how close I still was to a breakdown. Clay kept telling me I was stronger than I knew but he was wrong. He and Styles were both wrong. I was nowhere near being the brassy, gutsy girl I pretended to be. Inside was a shivering, quivering wreck. Each day, I secretly promised myself if it became too much to handle I’d just check myself into a really good rest home and go ahead and break down, let it all hang out, get it off my chest and purge myself, give in to all the terror and the fears and surrender to my dark side. Tomorrow, I promised myself, I’d do it tomorrow. Every day I told myself I’d give up tomorrow. I’d just get through the next twenty-four hours and the nice crackup I’d been promising myself was mine. I’d never been closer to throwing myself wholeheartedly into insanity than I was when Styles walked out of my office. He was right; I didn’t have the guts to shoot Ray John — or to charge him.

Now there was one more thing to worry about besides shadows and financial ruin…Ray John. I hadn’t told Styles that Ray John had tried to kill me. Hadn’t told Styles that I’d held Ray John off with an unregistered Beretta.

The phone rang. I wiped my nose with a knuckle and picked up the phone. A supplier told me my bill was sixty days past due and if I didn’t show up with a check immediately the meat order for that night wouldn’t be delivered. I begged him to make the normal delivery, promised to have a check for him in the kitchen. He agreed but told me from now on his deliveries were strictly C.O.D.

Rena was busy with customers but she gave me a “Hi” and a bright smile. She was wearing a silk spaghetti-strapped top with sequins in a vee down the front and tight jeans with embroidery along the outside of the legs. She looked terrific. Not a care in the world.

The store was busy for an out-of-season weekday. I checked out her new stock. Thong bikinis were given a big display area at the front of the store. Quite a few of them were being displayed on the beach as well, shocking our older tourists and a few of us natives. Beach Road ran right along the sand, sixty yards from the Gulf of Mexico, and traffic screeched to a halt every time a driver spotted a bare ass. Heads swiveled and fingers were pointed. On Sunday mornings, more than one sermon was directed to this abomination.

I held a raspberry pink thong swimming suit up and considered it but at $79.95 for about six square inches of material, I felt cheated. I’m the kind of customer who expects a whole outfit for that price, including shoes and bag. Thank heavens I wasn’t the average consumer. Not everyone was as tight with their money as me; shoppers were keeping both Rena and I afloat. The rent from the two stores was a godsend for me and I needed it desperately to meet the mortgage payments.

I was on to the surfer shorts when Rena came to join me.

“For you I have a special discount,” Rena told me, pulling out a pair of shorts in a black-and-white floral Hawaiian print.

“That’s good to know.” I looked at the other customers.

“The store seems busy.”

“I’ve passed my target for September already and there’s still ten days to go.” She clenched her fist and gave a little jab in triumph.

“You and Lacey have worked hard.”

“I couldn’t have done it, couldn’t have even started this store without RJ’s help. He put a lot of money into it. I want to make it work for him.”

Crazy was looking more and more attractive now that my own success depended on the investment of my abuser, the man who was also abusing Lacey. Maybe I should just go check into some nice nuthouse and give it all up. Admitting defeat and rolling up like a fetus with my thumb in my mouth was becoming my primary goal in life.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve a man like him.” Rena’s whole being shone with happiness when she talked about Ray John. “I sure hope he doesn’t find out that he can do a whole lot better.” Rena gave a nervous little giggle but it wasn’t a joke. She really was scared to death he’d leave her, terrified he’d find someone new. The dread was there in the green eyes. She was begging to have her fears denied while I wanted to tell her it was the best thing that could happen to her and her daughter.

“I saw him this morning,” I told her. “I went over to Blossom Avenue to talk to him.”

“What?” Confusion and then anger showed on her face.

“RJ? Did you wake him? You shouldn’t have done that. He works shifts, you know. Works all the time, like fourteen hours a day, he’s so devoted to his job. Those people out there don’t know what they’ve got.”

Yeah, a child abuser and woman basher…lucky them. Maybe I should tell them. It was a thought and one I’d be sure and share with Ray John if I ran into him again.

“You shouldn’t have woken him.” She started to wring her hands in apprehension, drifting sideways towards the phone. She stopped and said, “He needs his sleep,” but still her eyes were on the phone sitting on the counter wanting to reassure him that she had nothing to do with me waking him and yet scared of doing the wrong thing. I read the story all too clearly, had seen Ruth Ann do the same things, protecting her new man and doing everything she could to keep him happy even at the expense of her own feelings.

“It’s all right,” I reassured her. “He’s fine. And fine with Lacey staying with me for a while. I hate to be alone and she’s good company, like a younger sister really, and she’ll have fun on the beach and in the pool. There’s a gym too.” I almost threw in a facial and a body wrap, a true spa experience, to encourage Rena to agree.

Her face softened. “Lacey’s been going through a bad time. The teenage years are hard.”

“I remember. When did RJ move in?”

“Four years ago. Lacey was twelve.”

“How did Lacey take to that?”

“She was fine at first but then…well, you know kids, she went right off him and started acting up. Wanted to go live with her dad in Alabama. No way I was going to let her live with that deadbeat; besides, he really doesn’t want her although I wasn’t going to tell Lacey that.”

“Well, this will be a good time-out for everyone. And then later,” I hunted for tact, not something I had in abundance. “Well, is there anyone else she could stay with, grandparents perhaps?

“Why?” She was too polite to tell me to mind my own business, but indignation at my suggestion pinched her features. “She doesn’t need to stay with anyone. She’s just being silly and after RJ has been so good to her. He’s teaching her to drive and even paid for the Driver’s Ed course.” She paused. “Besides, even if there was a reason, we haven’t any family.”

How now brown cow?

At two-thirty I headed to the concrete bunker where I’d gone to high school to pick Lacey up. It looked like a factory, a factory where they manufactured flawed adults. It brought back a flood of memories. Unlike most people, I wanted to be in school. You’ll never catch me whining about how horrible it was, the bad stuff happened when I wasn’t at school. School was a safe place for me.

I was worried about finding Lacey in the crush of kids coming out of the building but it wasn’t hard to spot Lace. She walked all alone, head down, bookbag clutched to her chest, her body language saying stay away from me. I got out of the pickup to go and meet her.

“Lacey,” RJ roared behind me. I swung to face him. He didn’t even know I was there, his eyes were fixed on Lacey. “Get over here,” he ordered. He was parked two cars behind me, standing up in the open driver’s door with his thick arms folded on the roof. It had the effect of making him look even larger and more powerful, looming over his boss truck at her. How could you refuse a man that could overshadow that piece of machinery?

Lacey froze. I jolted into action, racing forward and grabbing her by the forearm. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.” Pulling her along, I added, “You don’t have to go with him.”

RJ jumped down from his perch and exploded forward. Big but fast, he was between us and my little red pickup. Red veins in his neck bulged; his face pulsed with blood as if his head was about to explode.

“You don’t have to go with him,” I repeated, holding on tightly to her.

Lacey was making a low keening distress sound and pulling back from me to get away from Ray John. I tried to pull her to the right to step around him but he moved to cut us off. He smiled, evil and smarmy, and leaned his huge bulk against the passenger door of the red pickup.

“Get away from the door, Ray John,” I hissed. “Lacey isn’t going anywhere with you unless you want the biggest scene you’ve ever seen in your life.” Lacey slid behind me, tight to my body.

He pointed a forefinger at my fanny pack with the Beretta. “You think a little pea shooter is going to save your ass, bitch?”

“It sure made you back off this morning. Now, get out of my way or I’ll tell every one of these kids what you are — besides being an asshole. Someone will call the cops for sure. Besides, I have Rena’s permission to take Lacey with me.”

Anger contorted his face, his lips pursed and chewed as if there was something he couldn’t swallow and wanted to hawk and spit. He didn’t move from the truck.

“I’ve already told the police about you, told them what you did to me and if you try and take Lacey I’ll call them again and have you arrested for kidnapping. Move!”

His fists clenched. He glared down at me, trying to decide if he could bully me aside.

“Go away.” My voice was loud. With keen spectator instincts of someone else’s disaster, a crowd was starting to form, making us the center of attention.

Ray John looked around, trying to judge if he could take Lacey away without interference.

“If you don’t back off right now, I’ll go to Rena and tell her the whole truth.”

This got his attention. He was afraid of losing his soft landing. He pointed at me. “It’s not over, not by a long shot.” He swung away and stalked back to his truck.

“Get in the truck,” I pushed Lacey forward and ran around to the driver’s side. My hands were shaking so hard it took two tries to fit the key in the ignition. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” I said over and over, trying to reassure myself as much as Lacey. I jerked away from the curb without checking my mirror. A horn blared and a car swerved around us.

Lacey turned and watched out the back window. “He’s following us.”

“Let him.” But I reached up and adjusted the rearview. He was only inches off our bumper. “He can’t do anything.” Intimidating us with size and closeness, he shadowed us. I punched in Styles’ number. He was at the police station so I told him what was happening and that’s where I headed.

“He’ll never let me go.” Lacey’s voice spoke of defeat and resignation.

I stopped for a red light. “You’re not alone in this. Remember that.” The hulking piece of steel hit our bumper, rocking the truck but not pushing us forward. “Oh,” Lacey said, startled, “sorry.”

“Why?” I looked over at her. Tears were running down her cheeks. “Why are you sorry, you’re not the idiot that’s causing all this, you haven’t hurt anyone.”

“Have you really got a gun?” She pointed at the pouch.

“Yeah, but we don’t need it.”

“Good,” she said. “Good.” She gave a determined nod of her head and stared straight ahead. “I’m glad you’ve got a gun in your pouch.”

I thought maybe she was hoping I’d shoot Ray John and get it over with. The truth was much worse.