Rolling Thunder

24

“She a friend of yours?” Sam demands.

Inside my Jeep, Marny’s eyes go all Bambi-in-the-headlights on me.

“You gotta help me, Danny!” she says, her voice soft and shaky. “I need you!”

That doesn’t help.

“Who is this person?” says Sam.

If Sam were still a cop, I’d tell her.

But she isn’t.

“A friend,” is all I say.

Sam’s been sizing Marny up. Checking out her barely legal top and shorts combo. Diapers cover more.

“When were you going to tell me?” she asks.

“What?”

“That you already had a hot new girlfriend even before I drank two Mojitos and one Cosmo just so I could be brave enough to break up with you because I really used to like you and now I think I’m starting to like Richard and, anyway, my mother is right about you-why buy a cow when the horse is free?”

Yeah. Sam’s drunk. She usually doesn’t mangle her metaphors.

“Problems over there, officer?”

Great. Mr. Ceepak just showed up. He’s leaning against his pickup and sneering at me.

“Came out to catch a smoke. Didn’t know there’d be a floor show.”

“You’re that horrible man,” says Samantha, trying to point, teetering sideways on her heels. “Mr. Sixpack! Joe Sixpack.”

Mr. Ceepak’s eyes crawl all over Sam’s body as he sucks down a deep drag on his cigarette. “That’s what my friends call me, sweetheart. You wanna be my friend? I know I’d sure like to be yours.”

“Gross!” Sam totters backward. I simultaneously break her fall and butt-bounce the passenger side door shut behind me so Mr. Ceepak doesn’t see Marny and start hitting on her, too.

“Hang on, Sam,” I mumble.

“Leggo. You’re grosser than him. You got a girlfriend with gigantic boobs that look fake. Are they fake?”

Mr. Ceepak is laughing a wheezy laugh as wet as the slurped end of a milkshake.

“Don’t they need you inside?” I say.

“I’m on my break. Hey, Officer Boyle-has Johnny come to his senses yet?”

“You mean is he going to tell you where his mother is?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? Has hell frozen over?”

“Cute, Boyle. I forgot-you’re the funny one.”

“Hey, Ceepak!” It’s Bud the bartender, yelling out the back door. “College kid just puked all over the dance floor.”

My turn to smile. “Duty calls.”

Mr. Ceepak grinds his cigarette butt out under his boot toe.

“Tell soldier boy he hasn’t heard the last from me.”

“Right. But if he sees you, you’re going straight to jail. That restraining order stuff-it really works. Especially if the person you’re supposed to stay away from is a cop.”

“Fuck you, Boyle.” Mr. Ceepak strolls back to the club.

I grab the cell phone off my belt. I could call the house; organize police protection for Marny while I drive Sam home.

But then Santucci might find out where she is from one of his friends. He has a few. Well, Officer Mark Malloy. That’s one. There might be another. One of the guys still bitter about John Ceepak cracking so many big cases while they write speeding tickets in school zones.

So I call a friend of mine’s taxi company to haul Sam home.

When she’s safely inside the cab, I climb into my Jeep.

“Is everything okay?” Marny asks.

“Yeah.”

“Who was that girl?”

“That’s Samantha Starky. My ex-girlfriend.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.”

“My boobs aren’t fake.”

“Okay.” Good to know.

Marny relaxes slightly. I think because my jacket got all bollixed up when I buckled my seat belt and she saw the pistol strapped to my chest.

“So, how you doin’, Marny?”

“Terrible. I haven’t slept since they killed Gail.”

“They?”

She nods. Her kinky hair bounces like a golden Slinky convention.

“The guys who rent the house on Tangerine Street?” I ask.

“You know about that?”

“Yeah. I’m a cop now, remember?”

“That’s why I followed you here. I waited in the parking lot at the police station until you came out. I was afraid to go in on account of Dominic.”

“Officer Santucci?”

“He runs security for Mr. Mazzilli and Mr. O’Malley at the house.”

“Did you drive over here?” I ask.

“Yeah.” She gestures toward the sporty red Miata parked in the space to next to me.

“Does Santucci know your car?”

She puts two dainty fingers over her “uh-oh-SpaghettiOs” expression.

“He might,” she says in a frightened whisper.

“Okay,” I say. “We need to get you out of here.”

I crank the ignition.

“Can we go to your place?” she asks. “I think they’re watching mine.”

Again with the “they.”

“Yeah,” I say. “No problem.”

I pilot my vehicle through the parking lot, head around the side of the building.

Santucci comes out a side door.

I reach over, put my hand on top of Marny’s coiled hair, shove her down below the dashboard.

“Stay down for a second, okay?”

“Okay. And Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

I don’t say anything because Santucci is staring straight at me now.

I put on a big smile.

Santucci looks hyped up. Maybe Mr. Ceepak caught a glimpse of Marny and went inside to tell the guy who had offered to buy him a beer if he spotted the curly-haired girl in the photograph he was shoving under everybody’s nose.

“Boyle?” Santucci shouts. “Pull over!”

I give Santucci a two-finger salute off the brim of my invisible cop cap and keep on driving. He angrily signals for me to “pull over to the side of the road, sir.” I ignore him. Right now, I’m the cop. Santucci’s just the douche bag making more money than me.

I don’t think he saw Marny.

As I pull out of the parking lot, I glance up to my rearview mirror and see him stomping toward the Dumpster and Marny’s red-hot Miata.

Time for Ms. Minsky to be put in protective custody.

My apartment building used to be a motel until the owners realized they wouldn’t have to clean the toilets if they turned it into rental units.

They filled in the swimming pool in the central courtyard, unplugged the vacancy sign, got rid of the ice maker, and sold all their sheets and towels in a yard sale.

Inside my unit, it still looks like a motel. You open the door, you see the bed. You also see ugly maple paneling. Beyond the bed, I have a tiny kitchenette with a mini fridge and one of those two-cup coffee makers. They sold it to me at that yard sale. I do have a brand-new plasma-screen TV that takes up most of one wall (HBO is no longer free). I set up a lumpy recliner against the wall on the opposite side of the room. It’s where I watch football and where I’ll be sleeping tonight.

“You need the bathroom or anything?” I say to Marny.

“Thanks, Danny. Do I look awful?”

That would be impossible. Marny is built like the proverbial brick house. However, I note goosebumps on her thighs just below her cutoffs and, not that I’m looking, two Purdue pop-up indicators signaling extreme chilliness.

“You look cold,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“There’s a robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door. I washed it two days ago.” I raise my right arm. “Scout’s honor.”

She smiles. “Thanks, Danny.”

“Go grab it. I’m going to call my partner.”

“Is he a cop?”

“Yes, but he’s one of the good guys.”

Actually, he’s the goodiest guy of all.

“I think you made the right call, Danny,” says Ceepak.

I’m on my cell phone. Marny’s still in the bathroom. I hear the shower running.

“Thanks,” I say. “She’s extremely creeped out by Santucci and, well, other cops.”

“To be expected.”

“But, we knew each other in high school … so she …”

“As I stated Danny, you made a very prudent decision. FYI, Chief Baines will soon request that Officer Santucci resign his position with the force. If he refuses, the chief will file the necessary paperwork to initiate the termination process.”

“Cool. So, what should I do with Marny?”

“Talk to her if she feels like talking tonight. Let her sleep. Then transport her to the Bagel Lagoon at six hundred hours.”

Ceepak lives in an apartment above the bagel restaurant.

“Rita and T.J. will look after her until you and I bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.”

Great. I wonder when that might happen.

“How go the warrants?” I ask.

“Officer Diego and I are going through Mr. O’Malley’s phone records now …”

I glance at the Sony Dream Machine on my bedside table, a holdover from the apartment’s days as a motel room, and only fifty cents at the yard sale. It’s after midnight.

“… Judge Rasmussen assures us we’ll have what we need to search inside the Tangerine Street home by nine thirty A.M.”

“You might tell Rita that Marny needs clothes.”

There is a moment of silence. “Come again?”

Great. Now Ceepak thinks I have a naked female witness in my bedroom.

“I mean, she has clothes, but, well, they’re kind of grungy and, uh, not enough.”

“I see. Any idea as to size?”

“Petite. Except … you know … up top.”

“Roger that,” says Ceepak without a hint of adolescent mammary fascination. That’s my department. “Rita will know how to handle it.”

“Thanks. Oh-I saw your dad again tonight. At the club.”

“Did he ask after me?”

“Yeah.”

“How thoughtful.” And that, my friends, is Ceepak being sarcastic.

The bathroom door pops open with a push and a warble. It always does that after a shower; the steam warps the wood. Marny comes out in my bathrobe, which goes down to her toes; her hair is wrapped up in my Mussel Beach Motel towel, which I borrowed from my friend Becca’s place and mean to take back. Tomorrow.

She’s carrying her shorts and shirt, not to mention her bra and panties.

All she has on under my robe are her flip-flops.

“See you in six hours,” I say to Ceepak.

I close up my cell.

“Who was that?” Marny asks.

“John Ceepak. My partner.”

“Hey-is he the guy who was with you when you ran me and that doctor dude off the road?”

“Yeah.”

“That was hysterical! When we wrecked into all those bikes.”

Yeah. A regular laugh riot. If you forget the part about how I thought I was going to die.

“That’s kind of when it started,” she mumbles.

She goes to bed, sits on the edge. I take the recliner.

“He was my first, you know, older married guy.”

I nod. Let her talk.

“I got Gail into it.”

“How?”

“I told her about this great group of rich guys I’d been hanging with. One of them bought me the Miata and it wasn’t even my birthday.”

“Mr. Mazzilli?”

Marny shakes her head. “Mr. Johnson. He was my first. The first one to take me to the house on Tangerine Street.”

“What goes on there?”

She gives me a look. “You know …”

“Yeah. So, Gail Baker was with Mr. O’Malley?”

“For about three months.”

“When Mrs. O’Malley died, did she want to marry him?”

“I hope not. He’s, you know … old.”

“And rich.”

“True. But we didn’t need to marry them for their money. They had wives for that.”

Okay. It makes sense. Sort of.

“But,” says Marny, “I think Gail told too many people about what was going on. She even wore that silly T-shirt.”

“The one with ‘Sugar Babies’ on it?”

“Yeah. We were supposed to be, you know, discreet. Classy. She was kind of broadcasting it. I know she told her personal trainer. That is so against the rules.”

“There are rules?”

“Sure. Like, we can never call our guy. Text messages only. And we never went anywhere our man might be with his wife and family. We weren’t supposed to rub any noses the wrong way in it, you know?”

“Sure,” I say, because I’ve known Marny long enough to know what she’s trying to say even when she says it wrong.

“That’s why they killed her like that, left her in a public place. To warn the rest of us.” She shivers. “I think I need to leave town, Danny. They’ll come after me next.”

“Why?”

“Because Gail and I were close and Mr. Mazzilli wanted us to do this, you know, thing with him and Gail said no and that really torqued Bruno off so if he had them do that to her they’ll do something worse to me because I laughed.”

“What?”

“He wanted a three-way. Grabbed Gail. Squeezed her ass. Sucked on her neck. She pushed away and said, ‘Sorry, there’s no way two girls can share three inches.’”

I smile.

“Yeah,” says Marny. “That’s what I did, too. Only I laughed. And Mr. Mazzilli heard me.”

“He can’t get you here,” I say. “Grab some sleep. First thing in the morning, I’m taking you to my partner’s place. You’re in protective custody now, okay?”

“Okay.” She pulls back my blankets. Fluffs up a pillow. Turns to me and says, very shyly, like we’re cousins on a camp-out, “You want half the bed?”

“Nah. I’m not really sleeping tonight. I’m on guard duty. Gotta keep one eye open at all times.”

I give her a wink and sit in my chair.

She pulls up the covers. Yawns.

“Remember Ms. Fabricius’s math class?”

“Marny?”

“Yeah?”

“Go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

She yawns one more time, flops sideways, and, I swear, conks out on command.

I take off my holster. Lay the Glock in my lap.

I’ll wake it up if I need it.