Just Add Water (1) (22 page)

41

Jan called from Tucson, El Paso,
and San Antonio. By Monday night, I’d gotten a road report on a goodly portion
of Interstate 10. With each call came advice. I was
not
to get involved with the British guy, Alan, or do anything to
piss Jenks off. I
was
to call
Martinez immediately and tell him about the Key Note Club key. During her last
call to my hotel room, I told Jan I’d brushed my teeth, said my prayers, and
locked my door, so she could relax.

“Sorry, Hetta. I miss you and you
know how careless you are sometimes.”’

“I’m fine, quit worrying. And drive
safely, okay? Say ‘hi’ to Lars.” It was the best I could do. What I really
wanted to say to Lars wasn’t fit for delicate ears. I hung up and called Jenks
like he’d asked me to.

“Your brother, the best-friend stealer,
is in Texas already.”

“Great, thanks for letting me know.
Got a pencil? I have a surprise for you.”

Jenks gave me a set of explicit
instructions, which I jotted down carefully on the hotel notepad by my bed.
After I hung up with him, I spent the next few minutes accessing the Internet.
Then, on a special website he’d provided the URL for, I registered and entered
my own secret set of ID numbers. Jenks had warned me not to use my birth date,
social security number, or the like in my password. And, he also told me,
“Don’t ever, ever, tell anyone your code. Even me.” I used Raymond Johnson. A return
e-mail confirmed my password, and I was ready to go. I called Jenks back.

“All done, sir. Now what? What’s my
surprise?”

“You’ll see. Get back on the Net,
go to the website again, go to the section called YOU ARE SECURE, put in your
e-mail address and password, then sit back and watch.

“Uh, this isn’t gonna be something
kinky, is it?”

He chuckled. “Nope. Just do what I
told you and you’ll see. Don’t bother calling me back, I’m shutting down and
going to bed now. Sweet dreams.” Click.

Sweet dreams? I cannot remember the
last time someone said that to me. Especially a man. A little quaver ran
through my stomach. Well, actually a little lower.

I accessed the Website, put in my
password and waited. After a brief pause, my computer screen lit up in a four-way
split screen. In each quadrant was a live image of a different cabin on
Sea Cock
. “Wow.”

I followed the instructions at the
bottom of the screen and turned up the sound. Water lapped against my boat’s
hull and my ship’s clock rang seven bells. Seven thirty. In the lower left
quadrant I spotted something in the main saloon, zoomed on it and saw a hand
lettered sign leaning against the settee. I read it out loud. “ ‘How’s this for
secure? Dinner Friday? Jenks.’”

“Double wow.” That little quaver
down low threatened to become an earthquake.

* * *

Dinner?

Friday?

What did it mean? For starters, it
probably meant dinner, Friday.

But love, lust, or whatever you
want to call it is, for me, a many splintered thing. Not unlike my thought
processes when I’m in it. Every word, every gesture must be analyzed,
ad nauseam
, in search of hidden
rejection. Surges of noxious anxiety emanate from what I call brain farts and
travel like sewer gas to my stomach. Tums have their work cut out for them.

Most of Tuesday I spent eating calcium and
obsessing over two words. Dinner. Friday. Staving off the onset of osteoporosis
is small consolation when one has no one to obsess to. Who? Who? I could almost
hear my father’s voice saying, “Your feet don’t fit no limb.”

Jan was out of the question. She
was sleeping in the enemy camp, probably in Florida.

Mom? Nah, no use getting her
carefully pressed Hanes crinkled over a possible love match.

My sister? Too easy. Six years
younger, much prettier, and the kind of gal men trip over, she’d never
understand my trepidation. Besides, she was the marrying kind. Like the Gabors,
she believed in one true love and intended to keep marrying until she found it.

I considered unloading on
Craigosaurus, but hell, he has more insecurities than
moi
. He once had a mental meltdown when Raoul forgot how he liked
his eggs cooked.

It’s lonely at the bottom of the
amour pond.

After I returned from La, and about
two seconds after I got to the boat, I dialed up Jenks to tell him how much I
liked my new security system. Sure I did. I
really
called to ferret out what he meant by Dinner Friday? He wasn’t in. I left a
message. He didn’t call back. I sent e-mail. He didn’t e-me. By Wednesday
morning, I was hyperventilating. I hate love.

Poor Allison made the mistake of
calling while I was breathing into a paper bag. She listened so silently to my
angsty whining I wondered if she was racking up billable hours. When I finally
paused for oxygen, she spoke.

“Hetta,” she said, “have you lost
your friggin’ mind? A man has simply asked you out to D-I-N-N-E-R. It’s an old
American custom where one sits at a table and eats food.”

“Allison, that sounds suspiciously
like a date. I don’t date. I hate dates. The last date I had left me with an
empty bank account. And all I have to show for it is a lousy bar key and a ruby
I bought myself as a consolation prize.”

“Speaking of which, have you told
the police about the key?”

“I will, damn it. When I get a
chance. Quit changing the subject. We’re talking about men here and how I
screwed up with the last one.”

“That was years ago,” she said.

“Some things never change.”

“Then say no,” she said reasonably.

“You’re fired,” I said
unreasonably.

“Good, because you don’t need a
lawyer, you need a nanny. Someone to give you warm milk and burp you. Calm
down, get rational. A stretch for you, I know.”

“I’m trying. You know how I am.”

“All too well. How about some good
news? Then you can fire me.”

Allison outlined the final deal
she’d cut with the Seattle group, one that was fair to both the client and me.
She’d returned the buy-off check to the maker and I was free to go back to work
ASAP.

“So Hetta, go forth and multiply,
or whatever you engineers do, for our business is concluded. I cheerfully
accept my sacking in this matter and that little murder thing as well. Since
you no longer seem to be a suspect in the offing of old Hudson, we can both get
back to our real jobs.”

This bit of good news temporarily
sidetracked me from my romantic dilemma. “Hallelujah! I’ll go up to Seattle
next week, really get down to brass tacks. Thanks, Allison. Not all lawyers are
shits. ”

“Gee, thanks. And speaking of
lawyers, lawsuits and the like, have you heard from Garrison? He must know it
was you who arranged for his Morgan to go snorkeling.”

Didn’t I just fire her? Lawyers,
always looking for a case.

“Allison, how do you know about
that, uh, unfortunate accident. Do you legal types have a So Sue Me Hotline?”

“I never reveal my sources. Boy, I
wish I’d ’a been there to see the show. You never let me in on the good stuff,
only your corporate crap and murder. Is Garrison still hanging around?”

“Haven’t seen him. I heard he moved
in with some gal from the Berkeley Yacht Club.”

“Good, he was a flea.”

“Does that make me the dog?”

She laughed. “No silly, you de dame.
Say, when do I get to see your boat?”

“How about tonight? I’ll be busy
soaking myself in gasoline the rest of the week, in the event I get stood up
Friday. Not that it’s a date or anything.”

“I’ll come tonight then. I’m
hydrocarbon intolerant. Can I bring someone?”

Allison never dated either, so I
wondered aloud, “Any old someone, or someone
someone
?”

“Someone
someone
,” she said.

“Well, day-yam. Of course. Want to
give me a clue who?”

“Nope.”

I hung up and felt a tug of
jealousy. Our old maids club was disintegrating. All of my friends suddenly
coming up with
someone
. But, I
reminded myself, someone had invited me
to
dinner. Friday.

To my THINGS YOU CAN’T LET SLIDE
LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO list, I added: Buy gasoline.

I was ensconced on a yacht club barstool
late that afternoon when, to my stupefaction, my ex-Beemer, driven by Allison,
screeched to halt in Garrison’s ill-fated parking spot. More astounding than
Allison at the wheel was her passenger: the Trob.

Fidel Wontrobski’s black clad form
unfolded from the car like a carpenter’s rule. He rounded the car, opened
Allison’s door with a flourish and flapped towards the club with three long
strides before he realized she wasn’t next to him. Allison caught up, took his
hand, and I almost dropped my drink. Her someone was the Trob? This had to be
the most unlikely match in the history of the world. Several worlds. Pluto came
to mind.

What I had originally envisioned as
a girlie gripe session turned into a threesome, with me as the extra
some
. Most of the time I sat, boggled,
while the lovebirds cooed.

Well, Allison cooed. Trob, even in
the throes of passion, still looked like he should be sitting on top of a
cactus waiting for something to die. It only proved one thing to me. The old
adage, “there’s someone for everyone” is true. Maybe even for me.

Which brought me back to Friday’s
looming dinner. It’s not like I hadn’t broken bread with Jenks before. We’d
shared many meals, drinks and the like, but by accident, not on purpose.

Complexifying my concern was the
fact that I still hadn’t heard from him. By Friday morning I was considering
leaving town, maybe scooting on down to Cabo for a few days. Yessiree
,
that would be a truly mature way to
face my problem, one I’d employed successfully many times over. When in love or
trouble, blow town. Before I could make airline reservations, Jan called.

“I hate Florida,” she said.
Actually, she whined.

“Told you so,” I singsonged.

“It’s full of Yankees and bugs.”

“Yup.”

“Nahner-nahner to you too. Thanks
for your characteristic compassion.”

“Sorry. So come back.”

“I can’t leave Lars here. I love
him.”

“Speaking
of love, wait until I tell you…” I related the Allison and Trob story. Jan was
as amazed as I was.

“Wow, that’s beyond belief,” she
said. “She looks like a miniature fashion model and he favors a large carrion
eater. Scary, Hetta, very scary. What’s the attraction do you figure?”

“Damned if I know, but they are one
hot item. He gave her my Beemer, for cryin’ out loud. We know for sure Allison
can’t be bought, so it’s not that. Godiva chocolates would’a sufficed from the
looks of them.”

“Seems love is in the air. Speaking
of, I understand you’re having dinner with Jenks tonight.”

What?
How in the hell did she know that?

“What? How in the hell do you know
that?” I demanded.

“He called us from Vegas. Said he’d
asked you to dinner and had gotten an e-mail ‘yes’ from you. Where are you
going?”

“Gee, why don’t you tell me? Since
you know so much.”

“What’s wrong with you? Why are you
so grouchy?”

Why am I so grouchy
? “I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. Oh! My! God! You
really do have the hots for Jenks!”

“Do not.”

“Oh, yes, you do. I know the
symptoms. Does Jenks have
any
idea
how much trouble he’s in?”

* * *

“Am I in trouble?” Jenks asked when
he called ten minutes after Jan and I talked. Was there something telegraphing
through the ozone layer I didn’t know about?

“What do you mean?” When in doubt,
deliberate denseness always works for me.

“The system. I put more features on
your security system than I originally planned, but I won’t charge you full
freight. I’d like to use your boat as a model. Didn’t you get my note?”

Note. Note. I looked around, saw
nothing. “What note?”

“On my website. I sent you more
instructions. Tuesday.”

“Sorry, I haven’t logged onto your
system since Monday night.”

“That’s okay, I’ll show you what I
did when I pick you up for dinner tonight. Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

Was he kidding? Gosh, now I could
put away the matches, and pour the gasoline into my VW’s tank. “What time will
you be here?”

“Five okay?”

“Sure,” I said casually. I hope I
sounded casual, anyway. “We can have a drink here on the boat before we go
out.” I tried visualizing his glass at the yacht club, but only came up with
ice cubes. And something darkish. Damn, Paul wasn’t on duty until six tonight,
so I couldn’t ask him what Jenks drank. “Uh, what do you drink, Jenks?”

“Scotch. See you at five.”

He hung up and I raced to a nearby
liquor store. By five, my liquor cabinet held Chivas Regal, Glenfidditch,
Glenlivet, Johnnie Walker Red, Johnnie Walker Black, Cutty Sark, Haig and Haig,
and several others.
 
Luckily for my
credit limit, it was a smallish liquor store. And that Jenks didn’t say,
“Beer.”

And it would have been way too easy
for me to ask Jenks something further, like, “Where are we going?” Nope, not my
style.

Since he didn’t ask what color my
dress was so he could bring a matching corsage, I got to go through my entire
wardrobe, guessing what to wear. Too dressy, too eager. Too casual, too
uninterested. I settled for semi-uninterested, donning slacks, silk shirt,
blazer. It didn’t matter, for I could have worn a muumuu and gone unnoticed. He
took me to The Willows, a gambling establishment faraway in distance, décor,
and dress from Casino Royale.