Unmanned (15 page)

19

If men weren’t necessary in the procreation process, they’d have gone the way of the dodo bird long ago.

—Cindy Peichel, environmental guru

“W
HAT THE HELL
are you doing?” Pete hissed, but the operator was already rattling off the number.

I wrote it down on a rumpled napkin, hung up the phone, and handed him the misshapen numerals. “Call him,” I said.

“What?”

“Call Petras.”

“And say what? ‘Shit, man, I’m sorry your old lady couldn’t keep her hands off me’?”

For a second I was tempted, almost uncontrollably, to knock him over the head with the phone. I’d tried it on others with favorable results.

“You’re going to call him,” I said, “and apologize.”

“You’re off your rocker ’bout a mile and a half.”

“You’re going to call him,” I said, “or I swear to God I’ll tell Rivera you stole the Corvette from—”

He snorted, but I raised my voice and continued.

“—from a man named Bill Springer, whom I will subsequently call to inform about the whereabouts of said beloved Corvette.”

He stared at me. “I don’t know how the hell you got so mean.”

“Think livestock,” I said, and dialed Petras’s number. The phone rang on the other end. I handed it to Pete.

He took the receiver grudgingly.

“Yeah.” I could hear Petras’s muffled voice on the far end of the line.

Pete shuffled his feet, shoved a hand in the back pocket of his jeans. “Hey, Joey,” he said.

There was a full five seconds of silence before the phone went dead. Pete glanced at the receiver, then handed it back to me.

I shook my head and hit
REDIAL
.

He stared at me and swore with impressive sentiment, but didn’t hang up.

The phone rang four times, then: “God damn it, McMullen, I should fucking kill you.”

I could hear Petras pretty clearly now.

Pete looked a little pale.

“Apologize,” I said, but Joey wasn’t giving him a lot of time. In fact, there wasn’t really a pause between the curse words and the threats of dismemberment, some of which were fairly creative. But I was merciless. I took the cell out of my purse, holding it up like a weapon of mass destruction. “I’ve got Rivera on speed dial,” I said.

Peter John gritted his teeth and ran splayed fingers through his hair. “You’re right,” he said, talking over Petras’s rant. “I’m a shit.”

There was a moment of silence, then, “And an asshole.”

Pete nodded, sighed. “Yeah. And a fucktard.” What? He already knew the word? Damn it! “Sorry.”

“And a damned head case. What the hell were you thinking? You know I come home for lunch.”

Peter dropped into the nearest chair. “Yeah.”

“Should have shot your damn balls off soon as I walked in the door.”

He sloughed lower. “I would have if she was my wife. She’s—”

I could hear the word “smoking” about to launch from his lips and poised my finger over my cell’s 4.

Pete’s mouth remained open for a moment, then, “…your wife,” he finished. “She’s your wife.” He exhaled. “You’d have had every right to smoke my—”

“Not anymore.”

“Huh?”

The sigh came from the other end of the line now. “I threw her out, and all her crap with her. Shoes, spider plant, and fucking eyelash curler.”

“No shit?” Pete sat up straight, eyes suddenly bright, mouth starting to quirk at the corners. “So she’s single?”

I stared at him. The initial grin suggested I was going to need more firepower than a cell phone and an idle threat. I reached out and slapped him on the side of the head.

Pete’s brows lowered. His mouth turned down. “I mean…” He sloughed back again. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Well, you sure as hell should be. Girl has an ass like a time bomb. Second Chico hired her, I couldn’t think of nothing else. Shoulda known she’d bag every loose bastard that came along.”

“Loose…There were others?”

He snorted. “Goddamn amazing you could get mattress time.”

Pete looked peeved. “She told me she was only doing me ’cuz I was so—”

I laid the gun carefully on my lap.

He opened his mouth, closed it, glanced out the window. “Listen, Joey, I’m sorry. I ain’t been much of a friend.”

“No shit!”

He looked at the gun in my lap, scowled, and sighed. “But my sister ain’t got nothing to do with this.”

There was a moment of silence, then, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“She’s a royal pain in the ass,” he explained, scowling at me, “holds a grudge like a damned pit bull, but—”

“Have you been sparring without headgear again?”

“You want to take a shot at me, man, you got a right, but leave Christopher out of this.”

Petras laughed, long and satisfied, before pausing. I could imagine him smiling on the other end of the phone. “So someone’s finally punching you full of holes, huh, McMullen?”

“Call off your dogs,” he said. “I’ll meet you—”

“It wasn’t me.”

“It ain’t going to look good when the LAPD finds out your bouncers are taking potshots at the locals.”

“Bouncers…” He paused, managing to put two and two together. “Pop sold the L.A. clubs.”

“What’s that?”

“Too hard to manage them from here. Sold them to some developer in Inglewood. Gonna be some spa where they give mud baths and facials and shit.”

Pete made a face. “No kidding?”

Silence stretched out for a second.

“So you’re in L.A., huh?”

For a moment I thought Pete might give him the address and possibly directions, but apparently even reason-challenged dimwits can think if they’re shot at enough times.

“Hiding out at your sister’s,” Joey said, and chuckled. “Bob said you were headed down there. Hey, how’s she doing? They still call her Pork Chop?”

“Naw,” Peter said, and glanced at me, seeming to think. “Now they call her Dirty Harry.”

“I like the sound of that. She married?”

Pete snorted. I wondered what it would cost to get a silencer for the Glock.

“Shacking up?”

“Hang up the phone,” I said, and after a few more bean-headed comments, he did.

I stared at him. He shook his head. “Can’t believe he kicked her out. Charlene…” He said her name with some reverence. “When things get slow at the station, we pin her picture up in the can. Shit.” He slouched back again, stretching out his legs. “Joey’s right; she’s got an ass could make a boob man reconsider his—”

“Who was it, then?” I snapped.

He narrowed his eyes by way of question, drawn from his intellectual ponderings.

“Besides stealing a Corvette and cuckolding a friend,” I said, “who did you screw over?”

“Cuckolding?” He grinned.

I gave him a dry look. “It’s amazing you’ve survived this long.”

“You’ve got to loosen up, sis.”

“Who else?”

He shook his head, but the movement bobbled to a halt. His expression became a little pained.

“What?”

“Some guys don’t have no sort of sense of humor whatsoever.”

I braced myself. “What specifically do they fail to find amusing?”

“Shit!” He leaned forward, his eager expression reminding me a little of Harlequin, without the sloppy-jowled charm. “It was the funniest thing. See, Dehn’s got this ’71 Camaro Z28. Rally wheels, Detroit locker rear end. Chrome center caps with—”

“Dehn?”

“Name’s actually Daryl. Daryl Dehn. He was a bowling buddy.”

“Of course.”

“Oh!” He shook his head and gave me a disapproving look. “Don’t go getting all snotty. When we was kids you woulda given up dessert for some guy to take you bowling. Anyhow, he’s got this car he’s always bragging about. Like he built it himself from scrap metal and a rubber tree. Fucking Henry Ford or something. Truth is, he don’t know shit about engines. But he’s got to act like some Harley stud. Steroids, pumping iron, the works. Overcompensation’s what it is.”

I think I looked at him as if he’d just sprouted an extra head.

“I watched
Frasier,
” he said, then, “anyway, I guess he was a scrawny little runt when he was a kid. Asthma or something. So he’s always saying how his Camaro is better than my Mustang. And fuck, everyone knows the Mustang’s got twice the—”

I held up a weary hand. “I haven’t had a cigarette for three days, you’re an ass, and I have a gun.”

He stopped, mouth open, then shut it and grinned.

Which may be the only reason he’s still alive today. It’s hard to kill a guy who thinks everything’s funny. “Okay, the kicker is, I tucked a little smoke bomb under his hood. Stuffed it under the coil wire by the distributor cap.”

I stared, uncomprehending.

“See, it doesn’t do no damage, just smokes like hell on fire. But Daryl…” He chuckled. “…he thinks his engine is about to blow, so he pulls off on the shoulder like a pussy, gets it hauled to the shop, and damn—here’s the funniest part—them geniuses at AutoMart can’t figure it out, neither.” He shook his head. “Bunch of college boys sitting around scratching their asses. Can’t let nobody think they don’t know a carburetor from a lug nut, so they tear the whole damn engine apart, only to find my little bomb tucked up tighter than a freshman’s—”

“You ruined his car?”

“Ruined it? Hell, no.” He waved a hand at me. “It’s fine.” He chuckled. “It just cost him a thousand bucks to figure that out.”

“And he knew you were to blame?”

He thought about that for a second. Either that or he had indigestion. “Could be he guessed.”

“It seems a little drastic for him to try to kill you over it.”

“Yeah, well…” He squirmed a little. “…there was that other part.”

I felt old and kind of crunchy. “What other part?”

He cleared his throat. “See, he was so damned worried about his car, he told the mechanics to call soon as they learned something. Day or night, didn’t make no difference.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Only, old Daryl doesn’t always spend his nights at home.”

I shook my head.

“He gave them his contact numbers…home, cell, work, stupid sidekicks, girlfriend.” He had to stop and laugh. “Anyway, they got the numbers screwed up and asked for Kimmie instead of Daphne when they called his house.”

“So his wife found out.”

“Other girlfriend, actually. Daphne. Chick’s got legs up to her eyeballs. And…” He paused without me even threatening him. “Anyhow, she was way too good for old Daryl. And she’s got herself a temper. Still…” He looked almost serious, almost sad. “…. don’t know how she could bust out his windows like she did. Even a Chevy don’t deserve that.”

“Tell me, Peter, have you ever heard the expression ‘Water will seek its own level’?”

He glanced impatiently toward the kitchen. “If this little lecture is going to be as god-awful boring as I think it is, I’m going to get myself another drink. You want anything?”

“I want you out of my house.”

“Yeah, well, I wanna win the lottery,” he said, and disappeared from sight.

I dialed 411 again, made my request, and wrote down the number.

Pete stopped short, drink in hand as he headed out of the kitchen. “What the hell now?”

“Daryl,” I said. “You’re going to call him, tell him you’re putting the check in the mail today.”

“What check?”

“For the damage to his car.”

“There wasn’t no damage.”

“Well, there’s going to be a good deal of damage,” I said, “if you don’t make things right. And if I remember my anatomy correctly, the patella doesn’t mend very well.”

“Fuck,” he said, taking the phone. “I should have smothered you soon as you first come home from the hospital.” He dialed. “Ugly little shit anyway.”

I smiled. “I hope your daughter’s just like you,” I said.

He blanched a little at the suggestion.

On the other end of the line a woman answered the phone.

He jerked his gaze from me. “Yeah, hi. Is Daryl there?”

I heard a mumbling but nothing distinct.

He thought about that for a second. “Is this…” He waited, possibly thinking. “Kimmie?”

More mumbling.

He paced closer. “Pete. Pete McMullen.”

“Petey?” The volume was rising.

“Yeah.” He relaxed a little, maybe because she wasn’t swearing at him yet. It had to be an unexpected relief. “How you doing?”

“Good. Good.” Silence. “Daryl’s pretty steamed at you, Petey.”

“Yeah, sorry. That’s why I called. You know where he is?”

“He just…he just stepped out for a few minutes.” Another pause, long and uncomfortable. “For cigarettes or something.”

“You know when he’ll be back?”

The volume was dropping again.

“Can you tell him I called?” Another pause, then: “Thanks,” Pete said, and glanced at me as he hung up. “He’s not there.”

I scowled. “Does Daryl have a criminal record?”

“Daryl? Naw. Well, nothing serious. He likes to act tough, but he’s really just a white-collar pansy. Might have busted up a bar once, though. Some guys can’t hold their liquor.”

“Uh-huh. And you thought he was a prime candidate for a little leg-pulling, did you?”

“He was being an ass.”

I nodded. “So he went out for cigarettes?”

He shrugged. “Guess so.”

“Is Daryl dumber than, say…” I glanced around, looking for a point of reference. “…my couch?”

“What the hell are you talking about now?”

“You said he had asthma as a child. How stupid would he have to be to smoke after spending his childhood with an inhaler shoved in his esophagus?”

He was thinking again. I hoped he didn’t hurt himself. Kind of. “You think Kimmie’s lying?”

“Was she jealous of Daphne?”

“Huh?”

I thought for a second. “What’s Daphne’s last name?”

“Leifer.”

“How about Kimmie?”

He shook his head. “No idea.”

“So her legs weren’t good enough to ensure her a surname.”

“Do I want to know what the hell you’re talking about?”

“I think Kimmie is worried that Daryl left her.”

“What?”

“He cheated on Daphne with her. Maybe she thinks he’s cheating on her with Daphne.” I squinted into the distance. “Maybe she’s right.”

He made a face that suggested he saw my logic.