Bad To The Bone (31 page)

"Oh, yeah, sure," Tawny answered
sarcastically. She scuttled back against the bed pillows, stretched
out her legs and glared at me.

"It doesn't have to be a big deal," I lied.
At that point I would have done anything to get the kid away from
the broken human being that lay splayed on the bed, oblivious to
all but her own impulses. "We want the same thing."

"Oh, really?" Tawny asked nastily. She
hunched over, wrapping her skinny arms around her body. "Somehow I
doubt that. You hate my guts. Think I don't know that? You'll never
give it up. You're crazy."

I was crazy? Wasn't that the sociopathic
slut calling the kettle black? Tiffany was watching with wide eyes.
She had started to suck her thumb furiously.

"They say hate is the closest emotion to
love," I said, acutely aware I was verbally tap dancing. I was
talking too quickly and could only hope that Tawny was far enough
gone to miss my nervousness. "Only a heartbeat separates the two
emotions." I forced myself to smile. It was a painful process. It
felt like my lips were peeling back from my teeth in a slow
grimace.

Tawny was too plowed to care. Empty
miniature rum bottles were lined up on the bedside table beside a
row of crumpled Coke cans. She'd had to drink herself down from her
drug high. She leered at me, let the thin strap of her teddy slide
down one shoulder, then leaned forward, licking her lips.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.
"You're telling me this is all about you and me?"

God almighty, not in a thousand years. If I
was going to walk on the wild side, it sure as hell would not be
with the people-eating, used condom of a human being sniveling in
front of me. But all I had to work with was Tawny's self-obsession,
her belief that the whole world wanted to sleep with her—and her
assumption that I was a closet dyke. A small mind and a big ego can
blind a person. I could use it against her.

"You might say it's between you and me," I
said, easing a step toward Tiffany. If I could get close enough,
I'd grab her and head for the door.

"I thought I smelled that on you the first
time we met." She smiled slyly at me and I resisted the temptation
to pistol-whip the smirk off her face. "You were looking at me a
little too much, know what I mean? I get that a lot, you know?"
Tawny leaned back and opened her legs slightly. It was amazing, in
a truly disgusting way. Her own daughter was watching and she was
going to play the sex kitten. "You're not exactly my type, though,"
she added coyly.

Why not? I wondered to myself. Is it because
I have an aversion to diseased swamp coots? So far, everything
short of the family dog had been her type.

"What is your type?" I asked her, forcing
myself to smile back. I had once given Bobby D. mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation, I reminded myself, which meant I could do
anything—including flirt with someone who made my skin crawl.

"Let's just say you're a little too macho
for my tastes." Her giggle was ghastly, a parody of Scarlett O'Hara
at the barbecue.

"Really?" I asked, inching toward Tiffany.
"I thought you went in for macho. Haven't you been married four
times? Or is it five?" When her face clouded over, I added quickly:
"Maybe it's time you tried something different?"

"Like you?" she asked, running a hand
through her hair, unconsciously rearranging it for me. Her tongue
darted out to wet her lips.

"Maybe." I nodded toward Tiffany. The child
was standing silently, perplexed, staring between me and her
mother. "It's not something I think we should go into detail about.
Maybe after the kid is gone?" I tried out my cover story. "Come on.
Let me take her. Her father's family is giving me a lot of money to
find her and bring her back. I'll split it with you, if you let her
go."

"How much?" Tawny asked, her eyes darting
back and forth between me and Tiffany. She'd definitely been doing
coke earlier in the evening, that much was evident in her jerky
movements and frequent sniffles.

"Fifty thousand dollars," I said. "You can
have half."

She thought it over. "That's if I sleep with
you, right?"

The very thought made me want to reach for
the penicillin, but I had to play the part. I shrugged. "It would
certainly make me more inclined to view your case favorably."

She laughed. "You sound like a lawyer. Hey,
remember that time you were hiding in the bushes at the beach,
watching that loser Boomer beat up my ex?" Her face flushed, the
memory exciting to her. "I passed by you in the car. Just inches
away. Remember?"

"I remember."

"I could tell you wanted me then. I saw it
in your eyes. You wanted to be the one kissing me, not Boomer.
That's what this is all about."

I was almost close enough to grab the child.
"If you want something, you have to go for it," I said. "Life's too
short to pretend."

"Exactly." She leaned forward earnestly and
gestured to her daughter. "Come here, honey. Let me kiss you
goodbye. This nice lady is going to take you home to your
father."

"No," I shouted as the child darted toward
Tawny.

I was too late. Tawny grabbed her daughter
and pulled her onto the bed, then reached beneath a pillow and took
out a cheap handgun. It was a Raven, probably bought off some
lowlife in one of the Tampa dive bars.

"How stupid do you think I am?" she asked,
her forearm locked against Tiffany's throat. The girl had gone mute
with terror. "You'd fuck me and turn me in. You'd keep the money.
You're no different than anyone else."

"Put the gun down," I said. "You win. I'll
let you walk out of here right now."

"You're goddamn right you will."

Then she held the gun to her own daughter's
head.

Panic clutched at my guts and I felt dizzy
with overwhelming guilt. This was all my fault. I had misjudged
Tawny's hatred and underestimated how much her addiction had
poisoned her mind. And all of these mistakes had led us to this
moment, face-to-face with this horror.

Please god, I prayed silently, don't let
this little girl's death be on me.

It isn't often that I pray, god knows. But
in that instant, the memories of a childhood spent on my knees in a
country church emerged to rescue me from my panic. The room seemed
to grow still. Time stopped. Tawny and Tiffany froze in a silent
tableau. I could feel my mother's touch on my shoulders, steadying
me as I knelt on a roughhewn pew, reminding me to pay attention to
the preacher man. And, feeling my mother's touch across the years
since, I prayed like I had never prayed before. A calm rose in me,
a cooling balm. I closed my eyes, welcoming the strength, and when
I opened them again, I knew what to say.

"All I want is the girl," I told Tawny. My
voice was low and soothing. "I'm going to sit down on that chair
over there while you pack. Take everything you need. Clothes.
Money. Car keys. Take my keys, too. So I can't follow you."

I had them on me, where were they? My jeans
pocket. That was it. It held the keys to my apartment and my
Porsche. She wouldn't know my car was two hundred miles away. "I'm
going to reach into my back pocket," I explained. "And give you my
car keys. That means I can't follow you. You'll be free. I'll have
no way of knowing which way you went. Just leave the girl with
me."

"She's my daughter," Tawny said angrily, the
gun hovering inches from Tiffany's head. "I'll take her with me if
I want to."

“Think of what you're
saying. If you take her, you'll never be able to disappear. She's a
beautiful child. Half black. Half white. She'll stand out anywhere.
She'll make
it easy for people to find
you. The cops, the FBI, whoever. You'll never get far with her. But
leave her with me and you get a free walk."

"A free walk?" Tawny repeated, hesitating.
"You mean it? You'll sit there and let me pack and just drive away?
You won't tell anyone where we met?"

"Yes," I promised. "All I want is the
girl."

She pushed Tiffany face down on the bed and
my heart stopped. "Don't look up," she told her daughter. "Don't
move until I've left the room."

Oh, god. I'd thought she was getting ready
to shoot her. I took a slow breath and spoke again. My knees were
wobbly. "Can I sit down in that chair?" I asked.

"Wait until I get closer," Tawny ordered,
determined to show she was back in control. She crab walked off the
bed. "Sit down," she ordered, waving her gun.

I sat obediently. Bill's gun was tucked into
the back of my jeans. If she looked away for long enough, I could
grab it.

"Don't move," she warned. I froze.

Tawny pulled her suitcase from the closet
with one hand, keeping the gun trained on me the entire time. No, I
couldn't go for my gun. I couldn't risk gunfire in such a small
room, not with Tiffany lying on the bed.

"It's too bad," Tawny said. She pulled a
button-down shirt from the suitcase and slipped it over her teddy,
one arm at a time. Her eyes never left me and the gun held steady.
Coke jitters or not, she was determined to get away.

"What's too bad?" I knew that the only thing
keeping her calm was her belief that she was in control.

"It's too bad we have to be enemies like
this." She unconsciously ran her pointed tongue over her lips,
wetting her contrived smile until it glistened. It reminded me of a
snake flicking its tongue in warning. "We could have had some fun."
She paused. "Even if only for a few hours."

Yeah, right. Until the hidden camera ran out
of film. I didn't know what to say so I kept silent as she pulled
on jeans and slipped her feet into a pair of flats.

Tiffany was still lying facedown on the bed.
She was too scared to cry. But a stain spread across the sheets
beneath her. The poor kid had wet the bed.

"Give me your keys," Tawny ordered. She
stuck the gun in my face. "Don't try anything funny."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd seen that late-night
movie, too. I reached into my back pocket with one hand and gave
them to her without comment.

"Remember," Tawny said, slipping the keys
into her pocketbook, "you owe me half of what you're getting for
Tiffany. I intend to collect it one day. I know where you live.
Cheat me and my friends will come after you."

What a load of grandiose coke-fueled
bullshit. But I only nodded, her obedient servant. Just get her out
of there so the kid would be all right.

"Count to one hundred," she ordered. She
grabbed her suitcase with one hand, then held the gun high in the
air and leaned in toward me. I flinched.

She kissed me full on the mouth and held it,
the pressure hard though her lips were unexpectedly soft. I kept my
mouth clamped shut, unwilling to let that darting tongue inside
me.

She pulled away and laughed. "Just so you
know what you're missing."

She was still laughing as she walked out the
door.

I spit the taste of her onto the rug. I
didn't want her poison inside me.

"Is she gone?" Tiffany asked, her voice a
whisper.

"Yes." I picked the child up off the bed.
She was so light it felt as if she might float away. I sat down and
placed her in my lap, cuddling her, hoping to let her know that she
was safe. She was wet and trembling, still too frightened to
cry.

"Will she stay gone?" the child asked in a
barely audible voice.

"Yes," I said. "And you'll never have to see
her again if you don't want to."

"You did what?" Bobby was furious. "I told
you not to go in alone."

"Keep it down, will you?" Fanny was in the
backseat fussing over Tiffany. I'd had to fetch her from the car to
change the girl's clothes. When the person I'm dealing with is
under four feet tall, I'm in over my head and I know it.

Fanny had arrived in a burst of
lilac-scented cooing, an experienced grandmother in full battle
cry. Tiffany was washed and changed in a flurry of soft sounds
while Bobby and I waited glumly. I'd had to change clothes myself,
into a pair of none-too-clean pants. Despite that, I still smelled
faintly like a wet diaper.

"Look," I pleaded in response to Bobby's
angry silence. "Just take the girl to her aunt and tell her what
happened, so she can get the kid professional help if needed. Leave
me the recording equipment and the cell phone. I'll do the
rest."

"Bad idea."

"She held a gun to her own daughter's head,"
I said. "What does that tell you about her? She'll do anything now
to get her way. How many more people need to be hurt before someone
puts her out of commission?"

"You won't even have a car if I leave,"
Bobby pointed out sensibly.

"I'll take Jeff's."

"What's he going to say about that?"

"Nothing. He won't get the chance. Now go,
please. Get the kid out of here. She's been through enough. Fanny
will know what to do."

I glanced at the backseat, where Tiffany was
nestled against Fanny's huge bosom, listening to some incredibly
insipid story about a teeny-weeny mouse and a teeny-weeny
paintbrush. It was making me just a teeny-weeny bit nauseous.

Had I ever been a kid? It sure didn't feel
like it at that moment.

"I don't like your plan," Bobby said. "It
stinks."

"For godsakes, Robert," Fanny interrupted.
"Just get us out of here."

A command from his beloved was all it took.
Bobby started the car. "Where to?" he grumbled.

"Drop me off at a corner near Jeff's
motel."

"It's your funeral," he said grimly.

A few minutes later, I was standing near the
entrance to South of the Border, knapsack nestled on my back and
the Strayer-Voigt tucked into my waistband. There are certain
advantages to tight pants. The Mexican carry is one of them.

I waved good-bye as the Cadillac turned onto
the I-95 ramp. I knew no one was looking back at me, but I felt
unexpectedly abandoned to see them go. Now I was really on my own.
But the thought of dealing with Jeff calmed me. If I couldn't take
on that no-good piss weasel man-to-man, then I had no business
being in the business.