Bad To The Bone (30 page)

Bobby parked the Cadillac in a dark spot
between two street lights. We were outside a bar and I could hear
the dampened roar of laughter inside. Ah, people with no worries on
their minds. What was it like to be one of them?

The Cadillac's trunk was crammed full of
Fanny's matching tapestry suitcases. She'd packed enough to clothe
an entire Weight Watchers' chapter for the next ten years. "I
assume your gizmos are in here somewhere?" I asked.

Bobby grunted and dug around, emerging with
a Frisbee-shaped black device that had a small antenna, several
dials, a plug-in set of headphones and a mini-cassette
recorder.

"This is what you want," he said.
"Directional microphone is here." He waggled a triangular
protrusion of black wire at me. "You should be able to pick up
what's going on in all five rooms with little interference, all
from the same spot."

"Excellent. G. Gordon Liddy would be proud."
I took the device, held it up to my ear and shook it.

"Watch it." Bobby grabbed it away from me.
"It's delicate. A little respect for the circuitry would be
nice."

"Sorry," I said. "Habit." I considered
electronic devices to have a life of their own until proven
otherwise.

Bobby explained the controls, checked to
make sure a blank tape was in the recording compartment and
promised to keep Fanny well out of the way.

"She's a nice person," I warned him. "I
don't want anything to happen to her."

"Agreed. We'll wait for you over there.
Behind the main building." He pointed across the road toward a
darkened structure. Someone's dream had gone belly up. The front
doors and windows were boarded with plywood.

"Don't go in that dame's room alone," Bobby
warned me. "If she's there, come back and we'll discuss how to
approach her."

"Sure," I lied. "No problem." There was no
way I'd be able to surprise her with Bobby and Fanny along.

The owners had trucked in crushed seashells
to fill in the vacant lot bordering the rear of the motel. I
crunched like a classroom of kids eating cereal as I made my way
behind the rooms. I followed a narrow concrete foundation that was
crumbling along its edge. Scraggly weeds and bramble bushes had
pushed up through the shells and scratched my ankles as I made my
way toward a heap of junk piled in the center of the lot. I could
hide in the shadows and still have unimpeded access to most of the
motel wing.

The back of the concrete block building was
pure utilitarian. Rows of bathroom windows and smaller ventilation
openings were my only audio access to the rooms. Bobby had promised
that his device could penetrate the Pentagon. This would be a good
test of its range.

I found a dark spot, thanked the lord the
night was cloudy, turned on the device and leaned against a
discarded velour lounger while I fiddled with the dials. At first,
all I got was static. But, gradually, the sounds of different lives
began to filter through the background buzz. It was eerie, like
eavesdropping across space: static, hollow voices, echoes and more
static. I adjusted the antenna. That was better. I picked up the
first room clearly.

Monitoring those motel rooms was a
micro-journey through the human condition. The first room was
filled with teeth-rattling snores that nearly drowned out the
competing strains of a radio left on for the night. The second room
contained a pair of battling honeymooners, no doubt on their way to
Florida. They were arguing about which family had disgraced
themselves more at the reception. I gave the marriage a year, at
most. The third room was temporary home to a sad sack-sounding guy
who was whispering into the phone. A few minutes of listening told
me that he was racking up a whopper of a bill to a sex line. The
girl's name on the other end was Lureena, and the man kept begging
her to call him a cockroach and crush him beneath her spike heels.
I wondered how much Lureena was making an hour to put up with such
a depressing parade of self-hating men, then turned my attention to
the next room.

It was silent. No television. No voices. No
snoring. Ditto for the fifth room in the wing. Tawny had to be in
one of the two, judging from where she had parked her car. There
was no place else to go, except for someone else's motel room, I
suspected, or one of the local bars. But it was late—after
eleven—and she must have been driving for days. She'd be exhausted.
And she'd have a cranky four- year-old on her hands. If this was
her room, she was there.

I settled back to wait. A long forty-five
minutes later, a phone rang in the fourth room. I adjusted the
antenna and pressed the recorder. You never knew.

"Hello?" A woman answered quickly, like
she'd been waiting for the call. The hair on the back of my neck
prickled. It sounded like Tawny.

"This afternoon," she was saying. "I had to
stop for the night north of Savannah. The kid is being a real pain
in the ass. What about you?"

When she laughed at the answer, I knew it
was Tawny. I gritted my teeth in triumph. She was not going to get
away from me.

"God, I miss you," she said. I was
surprised—she sounded absolutely sincere. How could anyone feel
that way about Jeff? He was a human version of the Titanic and
sinking fast.

"It's all set up," Tawny was promising.
There was a silence. "Yeah, I know. But I got out before then. God,
she's a bitch, isn't she? She hates my guts. What did I ever do to
her? But I'm not worried. She has no idea who she's up
against."

Oh, yeah? A hot, red rage rose in my gut. I
knew damn well what I was up against. But did she?

"We'll be on our way to L.A. by then. No one
will know." She paused. "I want to drop her off with a guy I know
who lives in Phoenix. So we can spend some quality time alone
together." She giggled, but stopped abruptly as a small voice
interrupted, piping up from another room.

"Mommy," the voice wailed. "It's dark in
here."

Tawny's voice grew harsh. "Of course it's
dark. It's nighttime. Lie down and go back to sleep or I'll come in
and smack you to sleep." People will talk to their kids in ways you
would not believe when they think no one else can hear them.

"I'm thirsty," Tiffany insisted, her little
girl's voice sounding desperate as she searched for a way to be
comforted.

"No. You'll wet the bed. Lie down and go to
sleep or you'll be sorry. I mean it." Tawny turned her attention
back to the phone. "We might have to rethink part of this," she
said. "We could do a lot with the money from the you-know-what."
She was silent. "No, more like fifty thousand." She was quiet
again. "You could always visit a lot. Your mother won't care."

If she was talking about my ex-mother-in-law
Clarissa, as I suspected she was, she was in for an unpleasant
surprise. Clarissa didn’t like competition.

"I don't think it is," Tawny said. Her voice
had an edge to it. "I'm tired of listening to her whine. And I'm
tired of hearing about her fucking father. He's a loser, he always
has been. I've had my share of that shit from her. It's all she
talks about. I've done the mother bit. Now it's my turn to cut
loose."

Yeah, poor old Tawny. Working her fingers to
the bone taking care of her kids. Spreading maternal love
throughout the world.

I'd seen cowbirds who were better
mothers.

"Of course," she said. "That's up to you. I
can live with it." She began to murmur into the phone, but a
coughing spell from another room interfered with the signal. I
could only catch snatches of her words, but I heard enough to know
that she was most definitely planning to jump Jeff's bones the
second he walked in the motel room.

"No," Tawny suddenly said loudly. I winced
as the sound cut through the headphones. "We have to wait until
we're absolutely certain everything clears the bank. Besides, I
still have to put the backup plan in place." She paused. "One more
night will be worth it. It's all worked out now. Just stay where
you are. I'll call as soon as it's ready. We'll be together
tomorrow. I promise." She was quiet again. "I know. But it will all
be over soon."

I was surprised she was being cautious. How
very unlike Tawny. Was she afraid of me? Or the cops? I felt a
spark of pride. She might slam me, but she feared me. Even if just
a little.

"Mommy!" Tiffany's wail cut through the
motel room like the scream of a banshee. I jumped, turned the
volume down and waited.

"What!" Tawny screamed back, the phone
forgotten, any pretense at softness gone. "Go back to sleep or I'll
beat the shit out of you." She lowered her voice and whispered into
the phone. "I'll call you in the morning."

"I want Daddy!" The child began to cry in
earnest. "I'm scared."

"Forget your goddamn father," Tawny yelled.
It sounded like she wasn't even bothering to get her ass out of
bed. Child abuse while lounging. "Your father will be lucky if he
ever gets out of jail again. They've thrown away the key. I'm all
you've got. So you better get used to it. And you better start
liking it."

Tiffany began to sob even louder.

"That's it," Tawny hollered at the top of
her lungs, not caring who heard her. Her carelessness, I knew, was
probably caused by cocaine and lack of sleep. "I'm sick to death of
this shit. I warned you." I could hear the sounds of a chair being
knocked over as she leaped from the bed.

I switched off the recorder, checked to make
sure the Strayer-Voigt was properly loaded, then rolled the muscles
in my shoulders to loosen them up. It was time to go in and get the
girl. I had heard enough.

I reached the motel room in less than a
minute. Tiffany was crying loudly on the other side of the door.
Lights were flickering on in nearby rooms. The newly married couple
had ceased their own argument long enough to eavesdrop on the one
down the hall. I pounded loudly on Tawny's door. The crying
stopped.

"Manager," I called out in a deep voice.

There was silence. I stepped back, away from
the front window. When no one answered, I knocked again. There was
a scrambling sound on the other side of the door and a light leaked
through the gap in the curtains.

"Sorry about the noise," Tawny apologized
from behind the door, her voice dripping peaches-and-cream. "My
little girl's just having a nightmare. She's gone back to
sleep."

But Tiffany was not cooperating in her
mother's cover story. She resumed her crying. Loudly.

"Open up, miss," I bellowed, simultaneously
knocking to disguise my voice.

"Oh, for godsakes," Tawny complained
impatiently. The lock clicked and the door opened slightly. She
spoke through a small opening, the deadbolt chain still firmly
fastened. "Haven't you ever had kids stay here before?"

I shifted my weight, dipped my left shoulder
and bulled my way inside with one hard push. The chain broke
easily. Tawny was thrown back into the room. She stumbled over the
chair and fell on the bed. I reached behind me, shut the door
against prying eyes, and called out to Tiffany. "It's okay, honey.
You can come out here. I'm going to take you home to your
father."

The crying stopped abruptly.

Tawny lay on the bed, staring at me, her
mouth hanging open. Her ivory negligee had less fabric than a
handkerchief and she did nothing to cover herself.

"Hello there," I said pleasantly. "Fancy us
meeting again like this."

"Fuck you." She kicked out a leg, even
though I was at least six feet away. A spoiled brat throwing a
hissy fit. "You don't have anything on me. What the fuck is your
problem?"

Her hair was falling out
of a loose ponytail piled on top of her head and she hadn't
bothered to remove her makeup before going to bed. Mascara leaked
in dark rivulets beneath her puffy eyes and her lipstick was
smeared. She looked like a skinny version of Bette Davis in
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

"Over here, honey," I said, gesturing for
Tiffany to join me. She had appeared in the doorway that linked her
room with her mother's. Her face was solemn. "It's okay. I know
your father. He's a friend of mine."

"Don't go near her," her mother screeched.
"She'll hurt you, Tiff. She hates little girls. She'll shoot you. I
know her. She's a bad woman."

The little girl stood in the doorway,
frozen. I was struck again by her beauty. She was small for her
age, almost ethereal, her face a tiny sculpted doll face, perfect
in every way. Her skin was a pale gold that glowed in the dim
lamplight. How could such an exquisite child have come from the
body of an ungrateful bitch like Tawny Bledsoe?

"Your Mommy is sick," I explained to
Tiffany. I kept my voice calm and resisted the temptation to pull
my gun. It would only terrify her. "She needs help. If you come
with me, I'll make sure some good people take care of your mommy.
Your father would want you to come with me."

"Don't move," Tawny ordered when her
daughter took a tentative step my way. "She's lying. Look at her.
Does she look like a nice lady to you?"

Excuse me? So I wasn't exactly Glinda the
Good Witch. Surely my size wasn't all that imposing to a child.

Tiffany took a step back, resuming her place
in the doorway.

"It's over, Tawny," I said. "Let the kid go.
You're sick. You're way into the coke. Look at you. You look like
shit."

"You're one to talk," she snapped back, but
her eyes slid to the mirror. She ran the back of her hand under her
nose and sniffed, smearing her lipstick further in the process.
"Why the fuck won't you leave me alone? What's it to you?"

Oh, just a small matter of
using me to put an innocent man on death row,
I thought,
by taking advantage of my
sense of fairness.

"I'm not going to discuss why I'm here in
front of your daughter," I said out loud. "Just let me take her."
When she didn't respond, I made a fast decision. Tawny was in worse
shape than I thought. That meant she wouldn't be hard to find
again. "If you let me take the girl, I'll let you go," I
offered.