Jake's 8 (8 page)

Her mother spoke up.

“Is there no way?”

“No.”

“What if we reported the bonds stolen or lost? Could they re-issue them?”

“Are they stolen or lost?”

“He could have lost them. They could have been stolen. Maybe that’s why he won’t turn them over to me.”

“If they are lost or stolen he would have to sign an affidavit and the Treasury Department would re-issue them in the same way—with him as custodian.”

“What if we said he’s dead,” Ms. Nichols said. Her voice betrayed a desperation.

Mr. Carmichael didn’t answer her.

“What if we just signed his name to that affidavit?”

He still didn’t talk. The room was still. Ms. Nichols started to speak to fill the void when Mr. Carmichael cut her off.

“I’m not sure what Mr. Gibb has told you we can do for you, but we’re not criminals.”

“I didn’t mean,” she started.

“Maybe if we try a different approach,” he said. “You’ve talked to him?”

“Several times,” she said.

“Let’s take some of the emotion out of it. Instead of you speaking to your ex-husband why doesn’t Mr. Gibb here visit with him. Perhaps Mr. Nichols isn’t saying no to turning over the bonds, but no to turning over the bonds to you. Maybe Mr. Gibb can reason with him.”

I sighed a second time that day.

“Would you?” asked Ms. Nichols looking to me. She leaned in and put her hand on top of mine and left it there. “He won’t speak to me,” she said. “His family doesn’t speak to us anymore. They won’t help. He doesn’t have friends who can reason with him.”

Her hand was still on mine. Her thumb was lightly stroking the back of my hand. I scanned the room. Yep, Mr. Carmichael and the girls were eyeballing the intimate contact.

“Give me the address,” I said taking my hand back and pulling out a pen. “His name is Austin Nichols?”

“Yes. Here’s his address, such as it is.” She pulled out a piece of paper from her purse and pushed it across the table to me.

I opened it up. You know you’re in trouble when a woman you slept with asks you to go talk to her ex- about his daughter’s money and she doesn’t give you a street address but GPS coordinates.

“He calls it living off the grid,” said Ms. Nichols. “He lives in a camper out in Grant County in Kentucky. He hasn’t a phone.”

“Mr. Gibb will visit with him on Wednesday,” said Mr. Carmichael. “I have some meetings I need him for today and tomorrow. He’ll keep you updated. I assume he already knows how to reach you.”

“I don’t,” I said. Mr. Carmichael’s face took on a confused, disappointed look. She gave me her number.

Mr. Carmichael stood and walked out of the room. The girls stood and I held the door for them. Ms. Nichols thanked me again and shook my hand holding it longer and standing closer than a client would usually do then left. Her girls followed. The first daughter stopped and said, “Thank you, Mr. Gibb.” She then gave me a hug that was a bit too firm, a bit too close and lingered a bit too long. She took a deep breath that pushed her breasts against my chest, blew it out across my neck then she let go slowly. The second daughter passed without looking me in the eye. The strawberry blonde pig nosed one just giggled as she went through the door.

When they left Mrs. Johnson said Mr. Carmichael needed a word with me. I stuck my head in his office.

“Austin Nichols?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I know him. At least I know of him.”

“Really?”

“Be careful.”

“Okay.”

“He’s excitable.”

“Okay.”

“He was a talented chef, but was arrested a number of times. I remember once he assaulted one of his patrons.”

“Okay. He’s excitable.”

“No. He’s explosive.”

“Okay.”

“One more thing.”

“Yes.”

“Resolve this quickly. It’s a powder keg.”

“Yes, sir.”

I walked back to my office. As I took my chair, Sheila walked in and closed the door.

“Where are the girls?” I asked.

“I sent them down the street for some brunch. You think you can get my husband to turn over those bonds?”

“I have no idea. I’ll try.”

“It’s just that she’s worked so hard to get into college. It wasn’t easy—three girls and an absent father.”

She started to break down, she rallied herself then let it go and slobbered into her hands sitting in the chair across from my desk. I was touched.

I got up and came to her side of the desk, sat on the companion chair and told her something along the lines of ‘Now, now it would be okay. Things would look brighter. Tomorrow is a new day. It’s always darkest before the dawn.’ That was the last of my clichés. She cried more.

“How much she need?” I asked her. “What’s the first installment?”

“Twenty-five hundred.”

“That’s it?”

“For me, that’s a lot.”

I chuckled, stood and went over to my desk. I pulled out my checkbook. I wrote out the damned check to the damned bursar’s office at the damned university.

“You can pay me back when we get those bonds,” I said.

She brightened. Her mood shifted.

“Thanks so much, Jake.” I nodded a welcome.

“How about I take care of you,” she said. She did that thing where she smiled then ran her tongue over her teeth. “I can take the edge off this Monday for you. Right here. Right now.”

It would take the edge off, but a flicker of thought to how I felt a year ago when I was pulling in forty k a year and how I feel now when I’m pulling down one hundred and twenty k of Mr. Carmichael’s cash ran through my head.

“No. Not here. Not now. I have a meeting at ten.”

“Really?”

“Really,” I said. “You free later today?”

“Yes.”

“Meet me at Japp’s at five. We’ll have a drink then head to my place.”

I got through the day sporting some excitement knowing I’d be having another acrobatic evening. I hit the door at four, on Mr. Carmichael and Mrs. Johnson’s heels, and grabbed a shower at my place, put on some casual clothes and swaggered down to Japps.

I found her in the back at our table behind the partial wall again. She was in the same pants suit she wore that morning with nothing in front of her but a clean table.

“You’ve not ordered?”

“I figure I’d wait for you.”

“I’ll get you something,” I said.

“No. You’ve worked all day. Sit. Let me take care of you. Except I left my purse in the car.”

What man doesn’t like being catered to? I whipped out my plastic and handed it to her. I caught Molly’s eye and gave her the high sign. She looked at Sheila and gave me the eye roll. I shrugged back.

Sheila waited at the bar while Molly mixed the drinks. I sat back satisfied knowing what the evening held.

Sheila brought back two Sazeracs. She laid a napkin down in front of me and placed my drink on it, ran her hand across my shoulder then down my arm, then she sat and took a long sip. We stared at each other, both wondering what regard to give to decorum. Should we stay and talk and get to know each other or skip it and get on with what we both knew we were there for? She decided there would be some chatter.

“So how long have you and Mr. Carmichael worked together?”

“We don’t work together,” I said. “I work for him. Almost a year.”

“He didn’t seem too helpful today.”

“Mr. Carmichael is big into trust. He wants to inspire trust in his clients and in potential clients. But he also only works with people he trusts.”

“He doesn’t trust me?”

“He senses you’re trouble.”

“I’m not.”

I nodded.

“I’m not.”

I nodded again.

I guess she saw this conversation was going nowhere because she said, “This conversation is going nowhere. I say we down these drinks and get back to your place.”

“You don’t just down a Molly Wellmann-crafted cocktail,” I teased. “She puts care and thought into making these.”

I felt her bare, delicate right foot stroke the inseam of my Dockers.

I downed my Molly Wellmann-crafted cocktail. “Let’s go,” I said.

I led the way and she followed. I gave a goodbye nod to Molly. She was cashing out a hipster holding his credit card between the third and fourth finger of her right hand.

I snapped my fingers. “My card,” I said looking back to Sheila.

“Oh, yeah,” she said and pulled it out of her pocket.

We didn’t talk on the walk to my place. We walked without a word down the sidewalk, up the stairs, through my door and into the bedroom. Friday night had been a drunken free-for-all. This was a sober affair. Focused intention replaced carefree fun. We both knew what we needed. She needed someone to take the reins and I needed someone to submit to the reins. I did what I wanted. I hurt her a bit. She took it, then said thank you.

At nine thirty, we called it a night and I walked her to her car. I gave her a hard kiss standing in the middle of Twelfth Street across from Neon’s Unplugged, put her in her car then watched her taillights turn left onto Sycamore. I walked back to my place feeling strong. I like this woman, I thought.

I woke up on Tuesday apprehensive about Wednesday. I got through it, but the next day was scratching at my mind. What did Mr. Carmichael say about Austin Nichols? He was ‘excitable.’ I called Sheila at noon asking her to fill me in on what she knew about her ex-hubby's excitability. No answer. Voicemail. Then I called her at four. Same. She said she would be busy today catching up at work from missing that half day on Monday, but I was the guy driving to see the excitable ex-, the least she could do is give me a call. I left the office late, putting in the hours, making sure I wouldn’t be missed. I ate a pizza alone at the counter in front of the oven at A Tavola reading over some reports.

Wednesday morning came and I let myself sleep in. I was hiding. I didn’t want to deal with this and I cursed Mr. Carmichael for suggesting it. I popped up at eight thirty, turned on
Sports Center
to drown out my thoughts and got ready.

After a shower, I threw on some jeans, my Doc Marten’s and a shirt I didn’t mind fouling up. I had no idea what kind of place Austin Nichols lived in or in what condition it was. In my mind I was expecting a rural, right-wing-nutzo, fortified compound. Nothing but mud and dirt and razor wire and Bibles.

I finally manned up and headed down to the garage to fire up my car and get going. My ride, which I’d inherited in my less pecuniary days from an uncle, hadn’t been turned over in a month. I’d gotten too used to living in the city. I’d become a walker. If I had to drive somewhere, I’d usually end up skipping it. But it started and I was a bit disappointed that this time an American car did what it was supposed to do. I pulled out my GPS and punched in the coordinates that Sheila had given me. I hit ‘MAP IT’ and submitted to the commands of the slightly sexy female electronic voice.

My directional dominatrix got me out of town and then across the four-lane Big Mac Bridge into Kentucky. I drove those four lanes down I-471 for five miles until it narrowed to the two lanes of US-27 then at some point I was in a single lane, heading into the heart of Kentucky to meet the off-the-grid Austin Nichols whose ex-wife I’d enjoyed repeatedly and at multiple angles and whose eighteen year old daughter I’d had a brief impure thought about.

And I wanted my twenty-five hundred bucks back.

After driving for about an hour and fifteen minutes, the electronic dom suddenly said, “Turn Left in five hundred yards.” I prepared to turn left. She then said, “Turn left in one hundred yards.” I was still prepared. We finally got to her saying, “Turn left now,” and I said, “Oh, yeah?”

There was no place to turn. On the left side was a thick stand of trees that rustled a wonderful whoosh when the wind blew in from the right. On the right was open space. I could see some distance over the rolling hills that defined this part of the Bluegrass. But there still wasn’t a place to turn left.

I asked myself if I was still man enough to do this and answered myself with a ‘meh.’ I gave some thought to another tussle with Sheila and wondered how good that would be when she put a hundred and fifty grand of appreciation behind it. That won the argument. I pulled my beater of Detroit metal over to the shoulder of the road, got out, locked it, then started into the woods.

Yeah, that’s what I did. I hadn’t been made this dumb by a doll since sophomore year of college when I proposed marriage to a needy little minx with a wicked tongue and a bucketful of daddy issues. I’d bought her a ring and I’m guessing you can figure how that turned out.

My traipse through the woods wasn’t hard going and after about ten yards I stepped into a clearing. I looked to my left and saw a gravel road about fifteen yards disappear into the trees I’d just come from.

I went to look at it. It didn’t disappear. It came to a gate that had been camouflaged from the road with camo netting and potted trees.