Bad To The Bone (32 page)

I was hiking past an all-night coffee shop
when I saw them: the two men from the dark sedan, the ones who had
been following me in Tampa after staking out my ex in-law’s place.
They were hoping I would lead them to Jeff, I was sure of it.

They were seated in a front window booth.
There was no way I could mistake them. I'd been nose-to-nose with
them the first time I'd seen them and had stopped to ask for bogus
directions.

They had followed me all the way from
Florida. What a joke that must have been. A giant pink Cadillac
poking along an empty highway, stopping frequently for food and
fuel. They could have done it blindfolded. Why hadn't I spotted
them before we left the motel?

I had led them straight to Jeff.

But no, they must not know where he was, or
they'd have confronted him by now. And we had cruised all the motel
parking lots, not just his, so maybe he was still safe. Had they
seen me go into Tawny's room and assumed it was Jeff's? From where
the two men sat, they could spot any car leaving the complex,
heading north or south. And they had watched the pink Cadillac
drive by without following. Which meant they either knew I wasn't
inside—or didn't care.

I sat on a curb and thought it over. I had
to revise my original plan. As much as I loathed my ex-husband, I
pitied him more. I didn't want Jeff to be killed over something as
stupid as drugs. I wanted him to live to be a wrinkled old man who
can't get it up, one who gets rejected by the very girls he used to
torture me with.

There was only one thing I could do. I stood
up and walked straight toward the diner. They wouldn't kill me in
front of a dozen witnesses.

Or would they? The one facing the door
spotted me when I was halfway up the entrance stairs. He stopped
chewing in mid-bite. He was the one I'd spoken to through the car
window my first day in Tampa.

I was sitting beside him before he could
swallow. "How are the burgers?" I asked, helping myself to a French
fry. My heart pounded in my ears like a hurricane surf. I forced
myself to smile anyway, swallowing my fear along with a tasteless
French fry.

"They're okay," the second guy stammered,
his eyes sliding to his companion.

"Shut up, Denny," the first man said. He
turned to me and grinned in a parody of sincerity. "Your parents
get on the road okay?"

"I don't know those people. I just hitched a
ride north with them," I lied. "I didn't have enough money to keep
my rental car, so they made the offer. If I helped drive, I could
have a ride. They were picking up their granddaughter here and just
trying to do me a favor."

"That's good," the first man said in a flat
voice. "You could use some favors right now. You and that boyfriend
of yours are in a lot of trouble."

So Jeff had told them the same lame story
he'd foisted on me, the one about a girlfriend taking off with his
drugs. And they thought I was the girlfriend. I helped myself to
another fry. "I guess you think I'm meeting Jeff here to give him
back the stuff?"

The man named Denny looked around nervously
at the mention of drugs. I felt a swish against my leg as his
friend kicked him under the table. Nothing like having the respect
of your colleagues.

"I guess we wouldn't have bothered to follow
you for twelve goddamn hours if we'd had a joy ride in mind," the
first man said. "I don't know what you two have been trying to
pull, but the game is over. We know where Jones is staying, thanks
to you, and as soon as we get done eating, we're going to have a
little talk with him."

Maybe I could reason with them. "Let's speak
hypothetically," I said. "You do know what that means?"

"Let's not be patronizing," Number One
whispered back. "Or I'll blow your head off for dessert. You do
know what that means?"

"No need to get violent. It was just a
figure of speech." So much for reasoning.

"Well, figure this," Number One said. He
nodded toward his companion and Denny pulled his sports coat to one
side, revealing the butt of a gun tucked into his waistband.

I pretended to be scared. It wasn't hard.
"You won't need that," I promised. "You want your drugs back,
right?"

“That would be a good start," the first man
said. "Money is always good, too."

"If I get you the drugs, will you leave Jeff
alone?"

The two men exchanged glances. Both smiled
at nothing.

"Sure." Denny's smile widened. "He'll be as
safe as a babe in arms."

"What do you know about babes in arms?"
Number One asked. He stuck a toothpick in his mouth and stared at
the ceiling fan. "Return what belongs to us and then we'll
talk."

"He's switched rooms," I said. "It's
complicated. Give me an hour and I'll bring the stuff back to you.
Where can we meet?"

Denny laughed. It was an ugly sound that
made the waitress glance at us and quickly look away. "Aren't you
the woman in charge? What are you doing with a loser like
Jones?"

I'd asked myself the same question many a
time, but I didn't share my thoughts with him. "Wait here," I said.
"I'll be back in two hours."

"No." The first man took the toothpick from
his mouth and stabbed a French fry with it. "We'll meet you outside
the Red Burro. At half past one."

"That doesn't give me much time," I
protested.

"Just do it."

I nodded and got the hell out of
there. 

I was afraid Tawny might have gone straight
to Jeff's room, but he was alone, sitting on the edge of the bed,
watching television. I could see him through a slit in the
curtains. His gut spilled over the waistband of his boxer shorts.
He had a Budweiser in one hand and was scratching his crotch with
the other. He belched and the low rumble rose above the canned
laughter of some mindless sitcom. Heavens, how had I ever given up
such a gem for the single life?

I knocked on the door softly. "It's me," I
whispered. "Open up, sugar pie."

That man was dumber than a crab on a stick.
He unlocked the door, chain and all. I was inside his room before
he knew it.

"You moron," I said.

He dropped his beer. It splattered across
the carpet.

"Sit down and shut up," I told him. "And
don't give me any crap. I'm not in the mood."

He didn't move.

"You were expecting someone else?" I asked.
"Someone like Tawny Bledsoe?"

He stared at me and I could tell he was on
something. Downers, judging from the glazed look in his eyes and
the inability of his brain to react.

"You're in over your head, Jeff. Way over
your head. You're being set up. You're going to get killed. The two
men who sold you the coke are here. About half a mile away at a
diner."

That penetrated his pharmacological fog. He
sat back down on the edge of the bed and began to moan. I pulled a
chair up so I was knee-to-knee with him. God, but he looked awful.
His skin was the color of uncooked dough and mottled with red
pinpricks from some sort of rash. He hadn't shaved in a couple of
days and his eyes were rimmed in pink. His hair stuck out in clumps
and he smelled like a combination of sweat, tobacco and stale beer.
Mostly sweat.

"What the fuck is going on?" I asked. "This
is your last chance to tell me the truth. I'll try to save your
ass, but only if you tell me exactly what's going on."

Jeff isn't the kind of guy who can tell the
truth easily. But the mention of the two men in the diner had
scared him.

"How did they find me?" he asked.

I shrugged. I was admitting nothing. "Who
knows? Maybe Tawny told them."

He looked up. "No way. She doesn't even know
them."

“Talk," I ordered him.

"I'm only trying to help Tawny out," he said
miserably. "If we can unload the bump, she'll have some money to
start over with. So will I. Her husband beats her, her kid is
terrified of him. The courts won't help. She's a really nice
person, you know. She let me stay at her apartment in Raleigh."

"You mean her house."

"No, her apartment. Her husband got the
house."

Okay, so now I knew how Tawny had gotten him
to break into her house: by lying, of course. And I also now knew
she had a love nest. I didn't know why.

"Keep talking," I told him.

"Can I have a beer?" His eyes focused on a
cooler by the television set. He quivered all over as he eyed it,
like a hound dog who's spotted roast beef.

"Allow me." I dredged a cold one up from the
freezing sludge in the bottom of the cooler and popped it open for
him, then held it out of his reach. "What does Tawny have to do
with the blow and those two dealers? Why is she here?"

He shook his head. "You've got it wrong. She
has nothing to do with those guys. I didn't even know her at the
time I ripped them off."

"What time?" I handed him the beer.

He gulped it gratefully. "When I fucked up
and took the whiff."

“Tell me quick." I checked my watch. "I have
exactly forty-two minutes left to save your ass."

"I meant to sell the stuff, I really did. I
had a good record with them. Then I found out the cops were on to
them. I was sure they'd get busted, and I'd be home free, with
three kilos to sell just for myself."

"Whose 'them'?"

"Those guys." He evaded my eyes. He knew how
disgusted I was that he had graduated into being a full-blown
dealer. "And I did unload almost a third of it."

That would be nearly a kilo's worth, I
thought. He probably did have enough friends left to sell that much
coke, if you can call drug buddies "friends." I'd rather have
lunched with Jeffrey Dahmer than hung out with stone-cold
junkies.

"What about the rest of it?" I asked. "What
the hell happened?"

"Well, there was this ball game..." he
began.

"Oh, god, Jeff." I was disgusted. "You bet
it all on a basketball game?"

He was indignant. "The Jazz are really good
this year. It was a lock. There was no way they were going to—"

"Stop." I held up a hand. "How much did you
lose?"

“Twenty-five thousand dollars," he
whispered.

"Jesus, Jeff." I let out a long breath. That
was more than enough to kill someone over. "So you traded the
second kilo to your bookie to cover the debt?"

He nodded miserably.

"Why did you come to Raleigh to see me?"

"I knew I was in big trouble. I spent the
money from the first kilo, I don't really know where it went. Then
I traded away the second. All I had left was one kilo, and I owed
those guys sixty-six thousand dollars. I didn't know what else to
do. I thought you might be able to think of something." He looked
up, his old tricks rising to the surface. "You were always smarter
than me, Casey. And I figured I could stay with you until I got on
my feet and then maybe we could—"

"You thought the person that spent a year
and a half in prison because of you would welcome you with open
arms?" I asked. "And help sell your drugs?"

"Ah, Honey Bunny, you know you're an old
softie."

"Jeff," I said earnestly, putting my hand on
his knee. "If you call me Honey Bunny one more time, I'm going to
plug you myself."

He turned white at the joke. "They want to
kill me, right?"

"Yes. Slowly and with much pain. Now, how
did you meet Tawny and what does she have to do with the
drugs?"

"I met her outside your office that day. Her
car wouldn't start."

Yeah, right. She'd looked him over during
his pathetic pick-up attempt, known he was an easy mark and pounced
on him when he proved dumb enough to have hung around for her to
leave my office.

"What did you say to her when you first met
her at my front door? Think hard. It's very important."

He shrugged. "I asked her what the other guy
looked like. Remember, she was all beat up? And then she said I
didn't look so hot myself."

"And you said?"

"I said my ex-wife had just given me the
deep freeze, so I probably felt worse than she did."

So Tawny had known from the start that Jeff
was my ex-husband. It had been personal all along.

"What else?" I demanded.

"I told her I needed a place to stay, and
said that maybe we could help each other out. I offered to watch
her back, you know, keep the guy who had beat her up away from her,
in exchange for her giving me a place to stay. But she turned me
down. She said she could take of herself."

That was the understatement of the
century.

"What did you talk about when you were
fixing her car?"

"I told her again that I needed a place to
stay, and asked if she wouldn't think about changing her mind. I
didn't tell her why I needed a place, but I was low on cash and
afraid to stay at a motel and use a credit card. I knew those guys
were going to come after me. I didn't want to leave a trail."

"How clever. They parked themselves outside
your mother's house instead."

He looked down at the floor.

"That's right," I said, unwilling to let him
off the hook. "You pulled your own mother into your scummy drug
activity."

He didn't say anything.

"When did you tell Tawny about the
drugs?"

"After I'd been at her place for a couple of
days. She wasn't even staying there. Just stopping by. Sometimes
she'd ask me to leave for a couple of hours and I'd go shoot pool
or something. Once I got back to the apartment and she was still
there, in a really good mood. I could tell she'd been
partying."

Oh, yeah? I wondered to myself. Where the
hell was her kid while she was lounging around her love pad?

"And so you pulled out your remaining kilo
and generously offered her more?" I knew Jeff would never be able
to resist a chance to play the big man.

He nodded miserably. "I didn't show her how
much I really had, but she must have found out."