The Heartbreak Lounge (7 page)

Authors: Wallace Stroby

BOOK: The Heartbreak Lounge

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“Here,” he said. He took cash from his jacket pocket, pulled off a hundred-dollar bill. He folded the bill tight, slipped it inside the matchbook, held it out.

“There's a number you can reach me,” he said. “I won't be
there but they'll know where to find me. I'll get your message.”

She looked at the money, not touching it.

“Take it,” he said.

When she didn't respond, he slipped the matchbook and bill into the visor above her.

“There it is,” he said. “You can use it or not, I don't care. But keep that number.”

He opened his door. In the glow from the dome light he could see the streaked mascara on her face. She was looking straight ahead.

“Johnny.”

“What?”

“Please don't come back here.”

He looked at her.

“If you want me to come to wherever you're staying, do things for you, I'll do it. But please don't come back here.”

“You afraid I'll run into your boyfriend?”

“Please, Johnny.”

He got out of the car, shut the door, leaned slightly through the window, his hands on the lip.

“Fair enough,” he said. “But you should know this too. If she is around here, if you know where she is and you're not telling me, the last thing you want to do is tell her about this conversation, give her the chance to go somewhere else. If you do that and I find out about itâand I willâI'll hold you responsible. If she calls you, if you hear from her at all, the first thing you do is call that number, right?”

She didn't answer, didn't look at him.

“I keep my promises, Sherry. I pay my debts. Help me out with this and you'll be glad you did. But at some point you're going to have to choose a side, one way or another. It can't be helped. So choose carefully.”

He looked at her, half-lit in shadow, saw she was sobbing softly, trying to hide it from him.

“You're thinking it's not fair,” he said. “And you're right. But it's just the way it is. One side or the other.”

He took his hands away.

“Safe home, Sherry,” he said. “I'll see you soon.”

When Ray answered the phone, Harry said, “I feel bad.”

“You should.”

Harry looked out the kitchen window to the backyard. The willows moved in the wind, sunlight glinting off the creek beyond.

“I want to try to reach her.”

“Why?”

“I was out of line. I guess I need to tell her that.”

“Call. You still have that cell number, right?”

“I tried. Three times today. The first time she answered, hung up on me. The second and third times that guy's voice mail picked up. I left a message with my phone number. No response.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“She leave you any other numbers? An address? Anything?”

“No. She called that first time, I talked to her and she gave me that cell number. That's how I called her back. Never got any further than that, thanks to you.”

“So you don't know where she's living? Or who picked her up? Or whose cell that is?”

“All I know is what I told you.”

“Your building still have that security camera outside? At the entrance?”

“What about it?”

“Could be it got the license number of the car she drove away in. You said it was a Blazer?”

“Yeah, a Blazer. I'm not sure about the camera. I'd have to check.”

“And you still have that Red Line to DMV, right? If you can read the plates on the tape, we can find out who it's registered to, where. It's a lead.”

“Maybe you should consider a career in law enforcement.”

“No, thanks. Too much politics.”

“I'll see what I can find out. What prompted this change of heart?”

“Like I said, I was out of line. You were right. I was wrong. I shouldn't have sent her off like that. And maybe there's something we can do to help after all.”

“So, how long have you been dealing with this multiple personality disorder?”

“What?”

“Sometimes I feel like I need a psychic to predict your moods. They don't have any logical progression.”

“I know.”

“You home?”

“Yeah.”

“I'll let you know if I come up with anything,” Ray said and hung up.

There was a fifty-pound bag of birdseed in a black plastic container near the refrigerator. He got the sawed-off plastic jug, scooped some up. He opened the back door, went into the yard and tossed the seed in a series of splashes on top of the hard ground. Birds swooped downâstarlings, blackbirds, the occasional crow. He went back inside, closed the seed up, watched through the kitchen window as more birds arrived, the yard full of them now.

An hour later he was out by the barn, quartering split logs into firewood, when he heard the phone ring inside. He set the ax against the barn wall, went back in.

“Yeah?” he said, still breathing heavy.

“After I hung up I went down to the security desk,” Ray said. “They pulled that tape, fast-forwarded it. It's all time-coded, so it was easier than it sounds.”

“The Blazer?”

“Got it. It was on-camera long enough to get a pretty good shot of it.”

“Hang on,” Harry said. He opened a drawer by the sink, found a pen. There was a newspaper on the table and he tore off a corner of it.

“Go,” he said.

“Jersey plates. KMC-13K.”

He wrote it down.

“Good,” he said. “Now all we have to do is run it with DMV.”

“Did that. What, do you think I sit around here all day, waiting for your guidance?”

“Sorry. What did you get?”

“This address, it's in Ocean Grove.” He read it off and Harry scribbled it onto the paper.

“And the name?” he said.

“William Clancy Matthews. DOB eleven-fourteen-seventy. It's a new registration, less than a year.”

“Phone number?”

“None listed. I called Directory Assistance too. No one with that name and that address. What are you going to do?”

“Try the cell again. If no luck, stop by, try and talk to her. Apologize.”

“And if all she has to say is âGo fuck yourself' again?”

“I'll take the chance. I figure I owe it to you, to take it that far at least.”

“You're right, you do. If you talk to her, see if you can get her back here for another sit-down. Maybe we can start all over again.”

“It's probably too late for that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ray said. “It almost always is.”

Ocean Grove was only one square mile, the streets lined with Victorian houses on narrow lots. It had been founded as a Methodist camp meeting center in the 1860s, and the Methodists still controlled it, owned the land. When a house was bought here, the homeowner had to take out a renewable ninety-nine-year lease on the lot itself. Houses could be sold, or new ones built, but the land belonged to God.

He drove down Ocean Avenue, the beach to his right. The
waves rolled in thick and heavy, spray leaping up through the boards of the fishing pier. At the far end of the pier, an American flag snapped atop a pole.

He remembered the last time he'd been here. He and Cristina had come to this beach often during that first summer, because there was less chance of running into anyone they knew. They'd been as careful as possible and it had still gone bad.

One-way streets here. He turned left, went up three blocks and came back down Bath Avenue, which ran west to east, ended at the ocean. He slowed, watching house numbers. Some of the houses had been converted into bed-and-breakfasts, most of them closed for the season.

He almost missed it. It was a classic Victorian, crisp green and white, freshly painted. A blue Blazer was parked directly in front. He braked when he saw it, rolled by slowly. The plate number matched. A rainbow-flag bumper sticker on the back read,
Hate is not a family value.

He went down to the ocean, swung around onto a parallel street, came back to make another pass. He pulled to the curb a half block from the house, left the engine running. Lights were going on behind windows up and down the street. The day was growing grayer, the night coming fast.

He took the container of take-out coffee from the console, folded the plastic lid back. He'd come all this way but he still wasn't sure what his approach would be, why he was even here.

He sipped sweet coffee, watched the house. A few minutes later, the front door opened and a slim man with feathered blond hair came out, wearing a waist-length jacket, green scarf, matching gloves. Harry watched him unlock the Blazer, climb behind the wheel. He started the engine, idled there at the curb. Harry could see him talking on a cell phone. After a moment, he pulled away.

Harry drank coffee, looked at the house. After about five minutes, the door opened again and a man in a yellow warm-up suit and wide headband came out. He was big, over six feet, with the V torso of a weight lifter. He hit the sidewalk,
turned in Harry's direction and started jogging. Harry looked straight ahead as he ran past the Mustang.

He watched the windows of the house, saw no movement inside. In his rearview, he saw the jogger thump down to the end of the street, turn left.

He'd call first, he decided, find a pay phone, dial the cell again. Tell whoever answered who he was, where he was, why he was calling. Try to get her on the phone. If there was no answer, he'd come back, knock.

He pulled away from the curb, drove past the house and back down to Ocean Avenue. He parked near the fishing pier. Out on the water, the wind was shearing the tops off the waves.

He looked out at the beach, pictured it in the middle of summer, a long stretch of umbrellas and blankets, radios playing, children laughing. He remembered swimming with her out past the breakers, kissing her as the swells gently lifted them together. He thought about the touch of her skin, the lilac smell of her perfume.

Full dark now, his the only car on the entire length of Ocean Avenue. He saw movement from the corner of his eye, turned, and then the jogger was standing by his window, lit by a single streetlight.

Harry looked up at him. He had light crew-cut hair and a wide jaw, arms that hung away from his body. He made a circular motion with his right hand.

Harry rolled down his window.

“Yeah?” he said and the jogger leaned in, reached for the ignition, switched it off. When he pulled his hand back the keys were in it.

Harry yanked up on the door latch. The jogger dropped the keys into a warm-up pocket, put both hands on the lip of the door, leaning into it, pushing it shut again, holding it there. His hands and wrists were thick with veins.

Harry let go of the latch.

“What are you doing around here?” the jogger said.

Harry met his eyes. He reached behind the passenger seat with his right hand, found the long aluminum flashlight there.

“And what would it be to you?” he said.

“You'll tell me unless you want me to drag you out of that car, break both your arms.”

Harry looked through the windshield, let his breath out.

“My name is Harry Rane,” he said. “I work for RW Security. I drove out here to talk to Nicole Ellis.”

“About what?”

“That would be between us, wouldn't it?”

“Answer the question.”

“I just did.”

“You got any ID?”

“I do,” Harry said. “And a couple minutes ago, I would have shown it to you. But now you're just pissing me off. You want to give me my keys back?”

“I'm pissing
you
off? Tough shit.”

“I guess that's a no.”

He brought the flashlight up, pressed the button, shone the bright halon beam full into the jogger's eyes, blinding him. The jogger's left hand came up to block the beam and Harry reversed the flashlight, cracked the base of it across the hand still on the door.

The jogger pulled his hand away and Harry shoved the door open, drove him back. He got out, the flashlight at his side.

“And don't touch the fucking car,” he said.

He saw what was going to happen, knew there was no way around it. The jogger recovered his balance, swung at him, a big, strong right, and Harry dropped, let it pass over him, snapped the heavy flashlight hard against the point of the jogger's right knee.

Harry had learned the move years ago from a veteran trooper, practiced it with a baton until he could do it without thinking. He had taken down angry drunks with it, men twice his size, because the pain it produced was sudden and intense, in a place they hadn't expected. You could disable a man immediately or, if you weren't careful, break his kneecap into so many pieces he'd walk with a limp for the rest of his life.

The jogger cried out, grabbed at his knee, fell heavily onto his side, hugging his leg. Harry leaned over him quickly, batted one of his hands away, reached into the warm-up pocket and came out with the keys. He stepped away, trained the flashlight beam on the jogger's face. The jogger squinted up at him.

“I don't know who you are,” Harry said. “And at this point, I don't really give a fuck. But I guarantee you I'm not who you think I am.”

He turned the flashlight off.

“You broke my knee.”

“Probably not. I will next time, though. I promise you that. Is she home?”

“Who?”

“Give it up. You did your duty. You can lay there all night or we can drive back, talk to her.”

The jogger looked away, his shoulders rising and falling as his breathing settled.

“I need you to help me up,” he said after a moment.

“No chance. Now, you can ride with me or walk. I don't care. Up to you.”

“Don't hit me again,” the jogger said.

Harry had to smile.

“Come on,” he said. “Get in the car.”