Medium Well (9781101599648) (4 page)

“Evening,” he growled, blinking into the spotlights. “Y'all know me—I'm Tico. We got a good show tonight. Shorty's new CD's out next week. Gonna start it off before that with somebody new, the Chalk Creek Changelings. You'll like 'em. Go for it, kids.”

Behind Tico, Danny could see several shadowy figures moving around the stage, and then a guitarist stepped toward the row of mikes at the front. “Kid” was right—he looked to be around sixteen or so. Probably thrash rock or something. He glanced at Brenda's stony face and felt like moaning.
So not good.

The lights caught a guy sitting at the piano on the side of the stage. His hair puffed out in a huge corona, sort of like Sideshow Bob on
The Simpsons
. The guitarist was playing now, a muted rhythm line, fast and funky. The pianist picked up the melody, the sound tinkling around the rhythm, in between the guitar notes, kind of jazzy but not exactly. The drummer at the side echoed the rhythm on his snare. Behind them, somewhere on the darkened stage, a bass thumped—sounded like an upright.

Okay, not thrash rock—at least the gods were smiling slightly.

Another figure stepped to the front of the stage beside the guitarist, a woman in a blue satin dress that slanted across her curves like something out of a thirties movie. Her head was turned away from Danny's table toward the guitarist, showing a fall of silver blond hair. She tucked a violin under her chin and began to play.

The crowd came to attention.

Her violin sounded like it was smiling. Danny had no idea why he thought so, but he did. Somehow the smiling violin drew the other instruments together into a single, lilting line, the guitars, the piano, the bass all following her, moving around her like a mosaic that had finally fallen into place.
Oh, yes.

The lead guitar player began to sing, something about traveling the road with his baby. After a moment, the violinist leaned into the mike beside him and harmonized on the chorus, her voice light and high, bubbling along the tops of the words.

The carriage house abruptly disappeared from Danny's brain, as did everything else that had happened that day. All he heard, all he felt, was the music.

“They're pretty good,” Brenda muttered.

“Yeah,” he breathed, eyes on the stage.

The violinist moved over to the pianist, her fiddle back beneath her chin. Sideshow Bob's hair bounced wildly around his face as he played, grinning. The violinist picked up his melody, playing harmony in and around the line as she leaned closer. Then she turned back to the mike again, singing with the teenage guitarist.

The words burbled out through the mike: “Traveling, wandering, my baby's so fine, yes, yes.” Danny found himself drumming his fingers on the table in time with the bass thumps in the background.

The violinist held her bow straight up in the air, shimmering in the stage lights like a golden arrow. A signal to the band, last chorus.

They all swung together, then, one more time, the guitar laying down melody, piano doing variations, bass and drums thumping out the rhythm line, and the violin skipping over it all, flying like some happy bird.

And then they were done, and the crowd yelled, stomped, clapped. Danny joined in, whistling over his front teeth in a way he hadn't done since he was in middle school.

“Danny?” Brenda stared at him.

He took a breath.
Okay, time to cool it.
“Good.” He gestured toward the band. “They did a good job.”

She nodded slowly, her eyes wary. “Right. I noticed.”

He gave her his most reassuring, seductive smile. At least he thought that's what it was. She didn't look convinced.

The band swung easily into another song, one Danny recognized. The violinist moved forward to the mike, the spotlight outlining her profile.

“Grab your coat, and get your hat . . .”

Behind her the bass thrummed while the piano moved up and down the line. They tossed the melody back and forth between them.

The violinist seemed to wrap the syllables of the lyrics around her tongue, like she was tasting them. She sounded lazy and happy and pleased with life. When she stepped back from the mike and began to play, her violin picked up the melody, sliding easily from note to note. Her eyes were closed until they reached the final verse: “If I never have a cent . . .”

Sideshow Bob played a riff behind her, his hair swinging wildly. The violinist threw back her head and laughed, then picked up her violin again.

Familiar.
She looked very familiar. Danny narrowed his eyes. She must have been in some other band he'd seen, but he couldn't remember her offhand.

The crowd roared its approval again as the last notes sounded. The violinist grinned happily, bobbing her head in thanks, her silvery hair dancing around her cheekbones. Then she and the guitarist raised their instruments again, watching each other closely.

The song started with an incredible series of runs by the violinist, guitarist and pianist, all playing the same notes in perfect unison. People in the audience whooped, clapped and whistled. The violinist and guitarist leaned into the mike again, singing a series of quick lines while Sideshow Bob hammered on the keys behind them.

Danny discovered he was holding onto the edge of the table, leaning forward to see if they could make it through the whole chorus without flubbing a line.

They could. He joined the cheers with another whistle. Beside him, Brenda rolled her eyes.

The next three numbers went by in a haze of notes, with the crowd cheering solos and standing up at the end. After the final chorus, the band slipped offstage with a last shy grin from the violinist. But the crowd went on cheering, pounding on their tables and roaring for more. Danny cheered along with them. Brenda seemed to be pretending she'd never seen him before.

A moment later they were back. The guitarist grinned so widely he looked like he had some extra teeth.

“Hey y'all, thanks!” he cried, waving at the crowd. “We'll do one more and then we'll get out of here so Shorty can get set up. In case you didn't hear, we're the Chalk Creek Changelings. I'm Skip, that's Rob on guitar, Yaz on bass, Steve on drums, Gordy on the piano, and, of course, the one and only Biddy on violin.”

It took a couple of moments for the words to sink in before Danny stopped clapping and stared. “Biddy?” he blurted into the relative silence before the song began.

The violinist turned in his direction, her eyes wide, before she whipped her head back and tucked her violin under her chin, maybe half a beat behind where she should be.

Danny narrowed his eyes, studying her. It had to be a coincidence. His Biddy didn't wear satin. His Biddy didn't grin. His Biddy didn't dance. His Biddy ran into things and stuttered.

His
Biddy?

His jaw tightened. Suddenly, he remembered just who had been talking about Tico's Taqueria.

He should wait outside for the band to come out, talk to her, find out what the hell was going on.

“Danny?”

Shit.
He'd managed to forget all about Brenda. Luscious Brenda with the legs and the breasts and the ability to have wild monkey sex and then go home afterward without even thinking about staying over. The perfect woman. Sort of. Perfect for this evening, anyway.

Danny tried the seductive smile again, remembering just why he'd taken Brenda out in the first place. “Ready to go?”

“Now?” Her eyebrow went up again. “Before the main act?”

He shrugged. “Not who I came to see, babe. But we can stay if you want to.”

She pouted for a moment then shrugged. “All right. You owe me dinner, anyway.”

Dinner. Right. Then a couple of hours of mattress wrestling. Just what the doctor ordered. Somehow, though, he didn't feel quite as enthusiastic about it as he had an hour ago.

Danny helped her drape her wrap around her shoulders, his eyes straying back to the stage where the members of the Chalk Creek Changelings were clearing away their instruments. Correction.
Most
of the members were clearing stuff away. One of them was conspicuously absent.

He moved through the tables toward the door, watching Brenda's undulating body in front of him. Oh well, he had other plans for the evening anyway.

On Monday, however, he and Ms. Biddy were going to have a nice long talk.

Chapter 4

At the office on Monday, Biddy still rode a wave of euphoria so strong she thought she could sail over anything. Even the nagging suspicion that Danny Ramos had been there at Tico's Friday night.

Tico had offered them another gig. A guy in the audience who owned a club outside Boerne wanted to book them. Shorty Gonzalez had told them they were sensational and promised to ask for them to open the next time he played Tico's.

Biddy hummed “Chattanooga Choo Choo” as she tripped down the hall. She really needed to get Skip to listen to some Andrews Sisters CDs. Just a little bit of tweaking and they'd be good to go.

Still humming, she turned toward her cubicle and froze. Danny Ramos stood in the doorway to his office.

“Biddy, we need to talk.” His voice dropped the temperature in the office by ten degrees. His eyes probably dropped it another five.

“Of course, Mr. Ramos, just let me put my things away.”

Biddy scurried into her cubicle, tossing her purse underneath her desk. Sighing, she smoothed the wrinkles that had already developed in her linen skirt. One of these days she needed to buy some good office clothes at someplace like Ann Taylor or Banana Republic rather than the lower-end discount stores she was hitting right now. Of course, right now she needed to spend most of her money on vintage evening gowns and BCBG minis.

She took a deep breath, wishing she had a mirror to fix her hair. He really couldn't fire her. She hadn't done anything wrong. On the other hand, he could ask that she be assigned to someone else, which would make Araceli ask why. Then Danny would tell her all about Biddy and the Chalk Creek Changelings.

So not good.

She pasted on her brightest smile and strolled into his office. “Yes, Mr. Ramos?”

He stood turned away from her, checking something on his computer. “Close the door, Biddy.”

Her stomach clenched.
Steady, steady.
She reached behind her to close the door as he looked up.

God, he was gorgeous. The light from the window behind him brought out the gold flecks in his light brown hair, making his eyes glow darker, closer to emerald. A diamond earring would look really great. Just a single diamond stud.

“That was you at that club Friday night, wasn't it?” He raised his eyebrows, not smiling.

Biddy considered lying, but she doubted she'd be able to pull it off. “You mean at Tico's Taqueria? Yeah. That's my band. Is that a problem?” She raised her own eyebrows slightly.
Loose. Just stay loose.

He stared at her for a moment longer, then his lips spread in a small grin. “No. No problem. You were great.”

Biddy felt as if her knees had suddenly turned to Jell-O. “Do you mind if I sit down?” she murmured, collapsing into the chair beside the desk.

“Sit away.”

He still grinned, and she realized for the first time that he had a slight dimple in his left cheek. How had she managed to miss that? Maybe she wasn't as obsessed with him as she'd thought.

“So why work a desk job when you can be out playing with a band like that?” He leaned back in his chair. “You guys must have shows every night.”

She shrugged. “We've only been together for a couple of months. Right now, we're lucky if we get a gig once or twice a week.”

“But that'll change, right? The way the crowd acted last night . . .”

Her cheeks grew warm. “That was a really good crowd.
Really
good. It's not always like that.”

His forehead furrowed. “Your band is terrific. I mean it, Biddy. And you didn't answer my question. Why are you working here?”

She ignored the warm glow around her heart, staring at a slightly worn spot on the carpet so she wouldn't have to meet his eyes. “A girl's gotta eat, Mr. Ramos.”

“Right. Look, you saw me upchuck in a sink Friday. I think you can call me Danny.”

“Um . . . about that . . .” Biddy stole a quick look. He still smiled, but his eyes looked a lot cooler. Maybe not the time to talk about what had happened at the carriage house.

“So your sister offered you this job to help out until the band gets going?”

Biddy swallowed. “Well, it does help.”

“Uh-huh.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “Does she know, Biddy?”

She considered saying
Know what
but not even she could get away with that. “No. She doesn't know I'm in a band.”

“Why not?”

“Because she thinks I've moved beyond my interest in music. She doesn't . . . she feels music isn't much of a career.” Which was putting it mildly. If Araceli found out she had a band, she'd shift into crisis mode. She'd lay on the guilt, talk about what Mom had wanted, remind her of their deal until Biddy promised to quit.

Not that Biddy had any intention of doing that. Ever. No matter how much Araceli griped about the future earning potential of musicians.

Danny frowned again, leaning forward on the desk. “Maybe music isn't a full-time career for a lot of musicians, but I'd say for you it's a real possibility.”

Her cheeks grew warm again and she shifted in the chair. “Thank you. We're trying.”

“So what about—” The in-house line on the phone buzzed abruptly. He raised a hand to hold her in place and turned to pick it up. “Ramos.”

Biddy watched his face slide into a grimace, lips tight.

“Right. Okay. I'll be right down.” Danny turned back to her again, his eyes bleak. “Your sister wants to talk to me. Looks like somebody else wants to see the carriage house.”

***

Araceli wore another of her Texas power suits, in hot pink, with a cream-colored shell underneath. Danny figured if she were in Chicago, the suit would probably be black, but this was San Antonio, y'all.

“I want some assurances from you,” she snapped.

“What kind of assurances? I can't promise we'll sell the thing in a day. Remember the shape it's in right now.”

“That's not what I mean.” She paused to draw a breath. “And you know it. I want some assurances you won't go all flaky on me, Danny.”

His lips tightened. Being lectured by Cruella De Vil was no way to start the day. “I didn't ‘go flaky,' Araceli. I had the flu.”

She waved a hand, dismissively. “Whatever. I want assurances that it won't happen again. If you have any more problems, I'll have to report it to Big Al. And I might have to take over the sale myself.”

Danny gritted his teeth until his jaws began to ache. Once, he could have shrugged off any threat from Araceli—Big Al would back him up regardless. Now, since he'd taken a step toward becoming a first-class nut job, Big Al's support wasn't such a sure thing.

“There won't be any problems,” he said stiffly. “I've never had any before. I won't have any now.”

Araceli nodded. “Good. I want this thing taken care of. Clark Henderson spoke to me last night at Club Girard. He wants to look around the place.”

Danny frowned. “It's not Henderson's usual kind of investment.”

“Maybe he's moving in another direction. It's not our job to figure out why he wants what he wants. Just sell him the damn carriage house.”

“I'll do my best.” Danny rubbed his jaw, trying to ease his aching muscles.

Araceli nodded in dismissal. “Good. Give him a call. He's expecting to hear from you.”

“Right.” He turned toward the door. If he moved fast enough, he could end this conversation.

“Danny?”

He turned around reluctantly. “Yep?”

Her eyes were like glacial ice. “Don't screw up this time.”

He walked back to his office, longing to put his fist through one of the cheap plasterboard walls.
Don't screw up. Yeah, right.

He would sell that freakin' carriage house to freakin' Henderson and get the biggest goddamn commission of the year. And then he would be free of the place.
Free of the carriage house.
The ache in his jaw eased marginally. If only he didn't have to set foot there now.

Biddy sat at the desk in her cubicle, doing whatever the hell she did in the morning. He still had trouble connecting the silvery blonde from last night with the slightly mousy blonde currently checking a listing. Then she raised her turquoise eyes to his and he had no trouble at all.
Oh yeah, definitely time to cool it.

“What's up?”

“New prospect for the carriage house.” He tried to make his voice sound casual. “Clark Henderson. I'll give him a call, see if we can set something up for this afternoon.”

Her eyes widened. “So soon? We haven't had time to get it cleaned up. Are you sure?”

“Sure about what?” He pressed his lips together again.
Not going to have this conversation.

“Nothing.” She took a breath. “Forget it. Your schedule's clear after two.”

“Right.”

Actually, he'd have much preferred showing the carriage house in the morning. The place might look better then. Besides, he'd get it over with instead of waiting all day for the axe to fall.

But he already had morning appointments with clients who might make up for any disasters later in the day. Not that there were going to be any disasters. Not this time.

Danny looked down at his hands, frowning at the slight trembling of his fingers.
Pull it together. You can do this.
Of course he could. So what if he felt like he'd be throwing up breakfast before he got any lunch?

***

Clark Henderson made Biddy's skin crawl. Nothing new there. Several of her sister's clients gave her the creeps. Henderson was typical. A rich man who wanted to be a lot richer and didn't exactly care how he got what he wanted. He didn't strike her as particularly interesting, not even with his thousand-dollar shoes and his European tailoring. They came with his sleazeball personality.

Henderson had given her a brief and faintly insulting once-over and then ignored her, muttering into his cell phone as he paced around the yard outside the carriage house until Danny arrived.

Biddy might not have cared about Henderson, but she cared a lot about Danny Ramos. At the moment, he looked like he might shatter on impact. Every muscle in his body seemed clenched, most especially his jaw. If he tried to smile, he'd probably break something.

Whenever she looked at him, Biddy felt like trying to help. Like patting his hand. Like telling him everything would be okay. Doing some idiotic thing that would make the whole situation a lot worse than it already was.

Not that Clark Henderson noticed anything. Henderson hadn't even acknowledged Danny's arrival beyond a brief nod. To Henderson, they were about as important as a pair of pigeons.

Right now he was inspecting the cracks in the stucco on the outer walls. “Structural report?” He raised an eyebrow in Danny's general direction.

“The structure's sound. We have the report whenever you'd like to see it.”

Henderson went back to ignoring them as he walked the length of the front wall, ending up at the door to the house. “Open it,” he grunted, glancing at Danny.

Danny's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing as he reached into his pocket for the key.

Biddy considered calling Henderson an arrogant asshole, but she really wanted him to buy the damn carriage house. If he did, she wouldn't have to come here anymore. More importantly, neither would Danny.

She followed the two men into the lower story, rubbing her arms against the instant chill. It hadn't escaped her notice that she was the only one who seemed to feel cold in the place. Something bad had happened here at least once. She knew that, although she didn't know exactly how she knew it. She also knew it was a place where bad things could easily happen again.

Henderson surveyed the downstairs area, his expression blank. “Needs a lot of work.”

Danny nodded. “Lots of possibilities, but yeah, it needs work. Still, with the right renovation . . .”

Henderson grimaced. “Not as many buyers out there as there used to be.”

“There never are.” Danny managed to summon up something that looked a little like his old salesman's smile. “But they'll come back when the economy improves. This neighborhood's not going to lose value.”

Henderson grunted again, then started for the stairs. Biddy took a deep breath, watching Danny's shoulders stiffen.

He unlocked the apartment door, then stepped back to let Henderson and Biddy go through before him. Henderson walked to the center of the room and stared around the walls, his eyes narrowing. “Low ceiling.”

Danny walked to the side away from the kitchen door. “Not that low. Nobody will have to stoop up here unless they play forward for the Spurs.”

One corner of Henderson's mouth edged up. “Spurs forwards make a lot of money, Ramos. You don't want to make them unhappy.” He surveyed the room slowly, then nodded toward the kitchen door. “What's that?”

Biddy glanced at Danny, who seemed rooted on the far side of the room. She stepped forward quickly. “That's just the kitchen, Mr. Henderson. There's not much in there. It's kind of a mess.” She opened the door, standing so that her body blocked Danny's view.

Henderson stepped through the doorway behind her, glancing around. “Damn right. Place will have to be gutted. Getting that stove out's gonna be a bitch.”

“It might be valuable, though,” Biddy babbled, careful not to look at Danny. “It looks like original equipment.”

Henderson made a rude sound, then turned away. “Not valuable enough.” He wandered back into the main room again, scuffing his shoe across the floor. “Place is filthy.”

“Filth can be cleaned.”

Danny's voice sounded oddly choked. She swiveled to look back at him. In the dim light filtering through the leaded glass windows, his face looked the color of skim milk. His body had gone rigid as he stared at the far wall beyond where Henderson paced across the floor.