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Chapter One

 

“We both know where this is going.”

Taryn Crawford glanced up at the man standing by her table and ignored the rush of anticipation when she saw who he was. He was tall, with broad shoulders and gray eyes. But the most compelling feature—the one she would guess people pretended didn’t exist—was the scar on his neck. As if someone had once tried to slit his throat. Taryn idly wondered what had happened to the person who failed.

She supposed there were plenty of women who would be intimidated by the man in front of her. The sheer volume of muscle he had might make someone apprehensive. Not her, of course. When in doubt she put on a power suit and killer heels. If those failed her, she would simply work harder than anyone else. Whatever it took to win. Sure, there was a price, but she was okay with that.

Which was why she was able to stare coolly back and ask, “Do we?”

One former of his mouth curved slightly in a sort of half smile.

“Sure, but if you’re more comfortable pretending we don’t, I can make that work, too.”

“A challenge. Intriguing. You don’t expect that to be enough to make me defensive so I start saying more than I had planned, do you?” She made sure she was plenty relaxed in her chair. She would guess the man was paying as much attention to her body language as her words. Maybe more. She hoped he wouldn’t make things easy.  She was tired of easy.

“I would hate for you to be disappointed,” she murmured.

The smile turned genuine.  “I’d hate that, too.” He pulled out the chair opposite hers. “May I?”

She nodded. He sat.

It was barely after ten on a Tuesday morning. Brew-haha, the local coffee place she’d escaped to for a few minutes of solitude before she returned to the current chaos at her office, was relatively quiet. She’d ordered a latte and had pulled out her tablet to catch up on the latest financial news. Until she’d been interrupted. Nice to know this was going to be a good day.

She studied the man across from her. He was older than the boys, she thought. The three men she worked with—Jack, Sam and Kenny, aka “the boys” –were all in their early to mid-thirties. Her guest was nearer to forty. Just old enough to have the experience to make things intriguing, she thought.

“We’ve never been introduced,” she said.

“You know who I am.”

A statement, not a question. “Do I?”

One dark eyebrow rose. “Angel Whittaker. I work at CDS.”

Otherwise known as the bodyguard school, she reminded herself.

For a small town, Fool’s Gold had its share of unusual businesses.

“Taryn Crawford.”

She waited, but he didn’t make a move.

“We’re not shaking hands?” she asked, then picked up her latte with both hers. Just to be difficult, because being difficult would make things more fun.

“I figured we’d save the touching for later. I find it’s better when that sort of thing happens in private.”

Taryn had opened Score, her PR firm, eight years ago. She’d had to deal with unwelcome passes, assumptions she was an idiot, being asked who the boss was, pats on her butt and people presuming that if she worked with three ex-football players, she must have gotten her job by sleeping with them. She was used to staying calm, keeping her opinions to herself and gaining victory through the unanticipated side run.

This time Angel had been the one to put the first points on the board. He was good, she thought, intrigued and only slightly miffed.

“Are you coming on to me, Mr. Whittaker? Because it’s still a little early in the morning for that sort of thing.”

“You’ll know when I’m making my move,” he informed her. “Right now I’m simply telling you how things are.”

“Which takes us back to your comment that we both know where this is going. I’ll admit to being confused. Perhaps you have me mixed up with someone else.”

She uncrossed, then recrossed her long legs. She wasn’t trying to be provocative, but if Angel got distracted, it was hardly her fault.

For a second she allowed herself to wonder how she would have been different if she’d been able to grow up in a more traditional home. One with the requisite 2.5 children and somewhat normal parents. She certainly wouldn’t be as driven. Or as tough. Sometimes she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

He leaned toward her. “I hadn’t taken you for the type to play games.”

“We all play games,” she told him.

“Fair enough. Then I’ll be blunt.”

She sipped her coffee, then swallowed. “Please.”

“I saw you last fall.”

“How nice,” she murmured.

When she’d been scouting locations. Moving a company required time and effort. They’d only truly settled in Fool’s Gold a couple of months ago. But she had been in town the previous fall, and yes, she’d seen Angel, as well. Found out who he was and had wondered about…possibilities. Not that she was going to admit that to him.

“I watched you,” he continued.

“Should I be concerned you’re a stalker?”

“Not when you were watching me right back.”

He’d noticed? Damn. She’d tried to be subtle. She thought about lying but decided to simply stay silent. After a second, he continued.

“So we’ve finished sizing each other up,” he said. “Now it’s time to move on to the next phase of the game.”

“We have plenty of time for you to tell me your secrets. And I can tell you mine. You don’t have to bear every burden all by yourself, you know.”

He wanted to believe that most of all, so he didn’t move. He didn’t try to leave her. He didn’t open the door and walk away. He sat there and let her seal the deal with a kiss. She leaned over the console and touched her soft lips to his. The kiss started out tentatively, as if she was testing him to see what he might do.

He should have pushed her away like the other times.

But her kiss was like a healing balm. It seemed to work its way into all the endlessly aching places in his soul. It filled him up with something golden and pure, like some miraculous elixir. And so he fell into the kiss as hard as he’d ever fallen into a kiss. He opened his mouth and she moved in and blew all his good intentions and deep fears to smithereens.

***

Jenny unlocked the two locks on The Jonquil House’s front door. Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t breathe. This was it. She was taking charge, but holy God she didn’t have the first idea how to actually do that.

It was still kind of amazing that Gabe was here, coming back to the inn knowing that they were not going to say good night and go to their separate bedrooms. And really, she was starting to have a tiny bit of performance anxiety. It had been one hell of a long time since she’d gotten intimate with a man.

More important, if she was crazy enough to buy into what Savannah Randall had suggested earlier in the evening, then there was a boatload riding on this moment. Like her heart and her future. Which explained why her hands were shaking so badly that she was fumbling with the keys.

It seemed to take an eternity to get the door open. She was running out of time to think of something hot and sultry to say that would get him up to her bedroom.

Then, as the door swung inward, Bear came flying down the hall and knocked her back into Gabe’s waiting arms. The dog was probably ruining her green dress with his paws up on her chest, but he was giving her lots and lots of sloppy dog kisses, and somehow that seemed exactly right for the moment.

Because it made Gabe laugh. He was right behind her, holding her up. And he’d used the moment to sneak his big manly hands around her waist while he propped her up against his sturdy chest and hips, where she discovered that Gabe was turned on.

Evidently, he didn’t need any sultry lines. The kisses they’d shared in the car had done the trick. They were some first-class kisses.

His heat penetrated her being and wormed its way into every cell of her body, melting her so that she kind of settled back into him with a vocal sigh.

“Bear. Down. Now.” Gabe could be commanding when he chose to be.

The dog obeyed. And she found herself back on her own two feet while Gabe shut and locked the door.

“He needs to be walked,” she said, suddenly realizing that a dog complicated things. And then something else occurred to her. “You were going to leave Bear behind? With me?”

He turned away from the door and aimed his gaze on her. His eyes seemed even darker, and his look lit a fire in her. “He’s your dog,” he said.

She shook her head. “No, I think he’s our dog.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. She wanted to kiss it and wondered why the heck she was holding back. She needed to break free of these restraints that she’d imposed on herself for all these years.

But before she could act on the impulse, he was striding down the hall toward the kitchen.

“Wait.” She followed after him.

He pulled the dog’s leash down from the hook by the back door. “I’ll walk the dog.”

She didn’t want him to leave her. If he did, she’d lose her nerve. Or maybe he’d talk himself out of it.

She shook her head. “No, we’ll walk the dog after.” And she took a couple of steps toward him, snaked her arms around his neck, and pulled him down for the kiss she’d wanted to give him a moment before.

His mouth met hers, his lips firm and moist and gentle. When he opened the seam of her lips, his tongue proved to be exceptionally talented.

She ran her fingers up into his hair, and he made a noise that made her feel powerful in a way she had never felt before.

His mouth left hers and trailed a string of kisses and half bites along her jaw and down into the hollow of her neck.

Her insides melted, as if some warm being had breathed spring into the desolate, cold places that she’d been guarding. The walls came down. She stopped worrying. She stopped thinking.

She simply was. Alive.

If he was smart he’d follow her suggestion. Get the hell out of here, go home, and take a cold shower. But he’d never been smart about Ree, and it was hot. Summer in Texas hot. And her swimming pool was just sitting there waiting to be of some use. He put his tools away and headed for the bath house. An odd assortment of suits hung from hooks on the wall, and he picked a pair that looked like long plaid walking shorts. They fit just fine, so he grabbed a towel and walked out to the pool.
Ree must have still been in the house, but he didn’t wait for her. He dove into the deep end of the pool, letting the cool water shock his system. He stayed under water, swimming with his eyes open until he reached the shallow end of the pool, and then he turned around without surfacing and swam the other direction. His lungs were burning from a lack of oxygen, so he was finally forced to come up for air. Good God. The sight before him nearly knocked the breath out of him all over again.
Wearing a purple bikini and nothing more, Ree walked out of the back door gliding toward him like a model on one of his fantasy runways.
**
Irene walked out the door just as Theo was rising from the water like a sleek water god. Neptune’s warrior. Or some mythical creature. His black hair was slicked back from his face. Water cascaded down his bulging arms, across his broad chest, and ran over his flat stomach. He’d gained more muscle since she’d first known him and the result was extraordinary. Unfortunately for her peace of mind, he was gorgeous. Absolutely. Undeniably the epitome of male perfection. A beautiful boy grown into the manliest of men. Damn it all and a box of rocks.
She put her eyeballs back in their sockets and tried to act casual. If she didn’t want to make a fool of herself she’d have to keep things light –act unaffected. Working with him this afternoon had already put her into a state of unbridled ditziness. She kept sneaking peeks at the way the muscles in his arms bunched as he swung the hammer, or the way he used his long legs, lifting the thick boards over his head before putting them in place. The hot Texas sun must have baked her brain because he suddenly seemed even more attractive than usual. She was supposed to be immune. But the way his dark hair artfully curled around the top of his ears seemed designed to make her blood thicken with need. Those eyes. Cool blue and watching her, calculating her responses, but she’d lost track of what he wanted from her years ago, and the time she’d spent with him the last few days had done nothing to clarify anything at all. Especially what and how she felt about this man.
It had taken her way too long to decide what bathing suit to wear. Like it mattered. It wasn’t like she was going on a date, for goodness sakes, but his remark about her not wearing a suit made her self-conscious, and resentful, and turned on all at the same time. She was letting the man screw with her head, and that was the one thing she’d promised she wouldn’t do. First she started to put on a black one piece racing suit that covered as much skin as possible, but it felt like she was being manipulated into wearing it. Like she was ashamed that he’d seen her naked on his arrival into town. Then she grabbed a two piece that had a little skirt. Modest, but showing a little more flesh. She held it up in the mirror and frowned at the polka dot design. It looked like something a clown might wear. To hell with it. She picked up her favorite purple bikini, slipped it on, and marched outside with her head held high.
The impact of seeing him all wet and bare-chested was like taking a shot of tequila on an empty stomach. Hot quivers ran through her veins. Intoxicating. She’d been without a man for much too long if he could make her feel so out of control just by taking his shirt off. It took all of her mighty concentration not to stop and gawk. But she was proud of herself. She made it to the side of the pool, but then stopped having no idea what to do next. Conversation was way beyond her power. As a kid she’d always liked to make a splashy entrance, so she let out a yell and executed the perfect cannon ball, rocking the pool, and hoping he might be gone when she surfaced for air.

Those legs were way too good for a cemetery. Long and well-sculpted, with just enough curves to get lost in without getting dizzy. Sexy, but elegant enough to avoid provocation. Those pins were about as fitting in that place as a hooker at a wedding.

A real waste.

Either way, the girl didn’t seem to bear any relation to the family of the deceased. Her presence was strictly physical. More body than soul. Not so much accompanying the mourners as scrutinizing them, and without making much of an effort to hide it.

It wasn’t hard to make out the friends from the relatives who were pretty thin on the ground, dressed in black, and maintaining a respectful silence. They seemed out of place among the buddies, old-time crocks in Hawaiian shirts who all seemed to arrive in groups and wouldn’t stop whispering – probably about the prospects for the post-funeral canapés. There was no hiding the fact they were Hollywood veterans. Maybe one or two had known the dead guy, perhaps even worked with him, but most of them had probably just turned up after seeing his obituary in Variety.

They sure were a special kind of wildlife these people. They didn’t want to admit the good times were now the old days and spent the best part of their time looking each other up to swap stories in which most of them probably never took part. But that was always the way in Hollywood, the stuff of legend.

No, that girl definitely didn’t look like she belonged to Lingwood G. Dunn’s usual crowd. A special effects director on movies like Citizen Kane, West Side Story and 2001, A Space Odyssey according to his obituary in the newspaper, he was still just an unknown technician for most people. An unknown who had chosen the worst possible day to buy his last one-way ticket.

I don’t know if he had been lucky in life, but death sure dealt him a bum hand. He had died of cancer the previous morning, May 15, 1998, and he had no other choice than to accept the burial today. The very same day the whole twentieth century show business world went into mourning meltdown. That May 16, Frank Sinatra died.

That’s why it was so surprising to see the girl. The way she looked, moved and acted it was clear she was a reporter. I’ve known more than a few. And that day the story was elsewhere.

Another time I would have gone over to find out what she was up to, the lady deserved it. But I was working and I needed to be prepared to act at any moment. When you’re past 70 it’s not good to be caught off guard.

So I went back to watching the other side of the street. The green sedan was still parked in front of the bar. I was beginning to get tired of sitting in my old Volvo and I was thirsty. I made my way through the traffic, leaned on the car I was watching, and pretended to be adjusting the turn-ups on my trousers. Then I went into the bar.

It was early, but more people were drinking beer than coffee. I sat at the bar and ordered a strong coffee and some donuts. In the mirror opposite, behind the bottles, I could keep an eye on pretty much everything in the joint. My man was at a table in the back, sitting in the same state of boxed-in nervousness I had left him in minutes before. His name was Benjamin O’Connors, a twenty-something from a good family. Well educated, but keeping bad company. He was wearing a red bomber jacket, perfect for doing exactly what he was hoping to avoid: drawing attention to himself.

I sipped my coffee and cursed as I burnt my tongue. Patience isn’t one of my virtues. While I got bored waiting I grabbed a handful of pistachios that had been left almost untouched by the suit who had just left. I put the nuts in my jacket pocket. The barman gave me a disapproving look. For my cockatoo, I said. It was true. I had a cockatoo, two fish, and a cat that was too lazy to try eating his flatmates. Then the door opened and there she was. She was silhouetted against the light, but those legs were unmistakable. She breezed over to the center of the bar and sat down. She swung her hair to one side and I thought how unusual it was to see a cut like that these days. She reminded me of Veronica Lake in those films I’ve learned to love over the years; learning to like Veronica Lake didn’t take so long. She asked for a coffee and got out a notebook. I wasn’t wrong about her profession.

I looked for the red bomber jacket in the mirror and saw that Benjamin O’Connors was still in the corner with his eyes glued to the door. So I grabbed my cup and moved a couple of stools down the bar, next to the girl.

“You got an interest in has-beens?”

She looked at me and smiled. She had too much experience to take the bait from a stranger first time of asking.

“I met Lingwood in ’55,” I said, “when he made that film with John Wayne.”

“You an actor?” She said without looking up from her notepad.

“No.”

“Screenwriter?”

“No.”

She looked up at me.

“A fellow technician?”

I shook my head.

“Just knew the guy,” I said.

“Listen Grandpa, if you really knew him maybe you could help me,” she said, rattled. When you’ve done a heap of shitty jobs in your life the attitude is easy to recognize.

“The guy was a friend of my editor-in-chief and he wants me to do something more than just short filler about his death. But those guys have only told me black and white stories of former glories without much of a spark. I think most of them are a bit…you know.”

“Old is the word,” I answered. “And don’t worry; I’m not bothered you called me Grandpa. I don’t happen to be one, but I guess I could be.”

“Okay. Listen up. Sir, today the greatest artist of the twentieth century died,” she put sugar in her coffee and began to stir, “and they got me covering the funeral of this guy who might’ve been a great guy to hit the town with, but frankly, I don’t give a damn.” She sipped her coffee. “So, if you don’t mind, I just want to get this business over with as fast as possible.”

She emphasized her displeasure with a grimace.

I went back to my coffee and stayed quiet for a while.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” she said after a few minutes, putting her hand on my arm. “Sometimes it drives me nuts covering these news fillers. I can get a bit problematic, you get my drift? And occasionally they give me these crappy jobs as a punishment.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I replied.

She gave me a pretty smile.

“And let me tell you, for a grandpa, like you said, you look pretty good. You gotta be older than my pa, but you look fitter than my last boyfriend.”

“Baby,” I said, “you just made my year.”

I winked and gave her a friendly pinch on the cheek. Call it golden-ager’s license. Afterward we both got back to our business.

Sincerely made up, I got lost in the reflection of my thin and wrinkled face in the mirror, my ash gray hair, which I luckily still had a lot of, and those eyes which seemed to sink further down every day.

I thought about forty years back and another reporter who’d managed steal my heart. And for the hundredth time I got a scare about how the years go by real quick. It was pretty clear I didn’t have long left and I didn”t like thinking that I might be taking what had happened back then as extra baggage.

“I think I got a good story for you,” I said without taking my eyes off the mirror.

She turned round with an air of irritation. I didn’t let her speak.

“It’s a story about Lingwood Dunn by the way, but I’m betting you’re going to be hooked.”

She looked at me with tenderness, her eyes getting ready to apologize.

“Are you serious? I mean I don’t wanna be rude, Sir, but I already told you,” she said, flashing her notepad. “So if it’s just another story about a golden glory…”

“I can guarantee you won’t have heard a story like this one. And stop calling me Sir. The pretty ladies call me Eddie.”

“Okay, Eddie, she replied with a smile that was more friendly than flirty. “In that case, if you…”

To be honest I was dying to know what she was going to say, but my sudden and unexpected movement made her instantly shut up. A ray of light told me the bar door was opening and I reckoned it was the man I was waiting for.

I don’t know if the girl was still looking at me, surprised by my sudden lack of friendliness, or whether she decided to tell me to go to hell and carry on with what she was doing. All my attention was focused on a long-haired guy in a black leather overcoat who was now walking through the bar behind me without taking off his sunglasses. He had an arrogant swagger totally out of key with his mediocrity. God, how I hate those kind of guys.

He walked toward the bathroom without changing his pace or deviating until he got to the last table, Benjamin O’Connors’. Then, in a surprisingly clumsy move, he put out his hand to take the envelope O’Connors had put on the edge of the table and hid it in his pocket. About as subtle as a drunk priest’s sermon. Then he carried on toward the bathroom.

I don’t think anyone in the bar had seen the operation, but not because it had been particularly discreet. They simply couldn’t give a damn.

I waited a few seconds before getting up.

“Back in a minute,” I said to the girl. I don’t know if she was listening.

My friend in the red bomber jacket was a lot more nervous now. He was looking around the whole while and couldn’t stop his legs from twitching. He looked at me, but could only hold the gaze an instant before fixing his eyes back on the beer he had in front of him. I guess he would see me again when I went past.

I went into the men’s room. Cleaner than I expected. Dirtier than I’d have liked. Two sinks, four urinals and three cubicles. Two were open. Under the third door I could see my man’s feet.

I looked at the others and noted that they all had two rolls of paper on the cistern.

I knocked on the door of the third.

“Busy!”

I knocked again.

“Busy, Goddamn it! Use a different one!”

“Young man, would you be so kind as to pass me a roll of toilet paper. I have a medical urgency due to an operation of…”

“Shit!” I heard the lock turning, “I don’t wanna know your life story, man.”

The guy opened the door and passed me a roll.

“Take it, and enjoy the show.”

It was time to be quick and effective.

With one hand I pushed the door open and with the other I grabbed the long-haired guy’s wrist and pulled it toward me, trapping it between the door and the frame.

“What the fuck!” he shouted from the other side.

Then with as much strength as I could, I smashed his forearm over and over again with the door.

He yelled and fought, but I’d caught him so unawares he couldn’t coordinate his movements. Then I went into the cubicle.

I pushed him against the end wall and before he fell and hit the toilet bowl, I put my hand between his legs. I squeezed hard. Luckily, he was dressed, so the move wasn’t so gross.

He groaned. I squeezed again.

He started to groan louder, but I shut him up by putting my free hand on his windpipe and forcing his head against the tiles. I let the hand go and caught my breath. Then a right hook to the nose. His head bounced and the tiles crunched. I hit him again and the blood stained my knuckles. Now the tiles were messed up too. Meanwhile, I squeezed the other hand and it seemed like something was crunching down there too. By now the guy didn’t have the strength to moan.

He was ready to talk.

I got him by the neck again.

“The gig’s over, buddy.” I said. From now on, you want money, you get a job.

I let go of the hand I had on his balls and checked his pockets. That made him change his expression and he tried turning to relieve some of the pain. I found the envelope stuffed with cash, and another one with the usual photos. But just the photos.

I got out a notebook and a pencil.

“Now you’re going to write down the address where I can go and get me the negatives.”

I grabbed his balls again. He gave a start.

He wrote it as fast as I forget my new friends’ names. He didn’t even look at the paper. For a minute I thought he was going to throw up.

Maybe I had squeezed too hard.

I know that sometimes I go overboard, but when you get to my age it’s better to take these guys by surprise because if I gave them a chance I could live to regret it. That said, it was clear I could get away with it because this was the nineties, and tough guys weren’t as tough as they used to be. Not even close.

I took him by the chin and shook his head so he would open his eyes and look at me.

“Remember this. If one day you go into a bar, a hotel or a disco and you realize that Benjamin O’Connors is in the same city, you get in your car and drive until you’re a 100 miles away. You hearing me? Otherwise, next time I’ll turn these – I squeezed lightly between his legs – into a cute decoration to hang from your rear-view mirror.”

I think he nodded, or at least tried to with what strength he had left. I didn’t get to see because right then the bathroom door opened and Benjamin O’Connors appeared, first with an expression of confusion and then one of fear.

“Shit!” was the only thing he said before he started running.

I let go of the guy and tried to get out of the cubicle as fast as I could, which wasn’t all that fast. It’s those moments I wonder whether I’m getting too old for the job.

“Take care, son.” I said by way of a goodbye.

I had time before I left to see him slide down awkwardly onto the toilet with both hands between his legs, trying to get some relief.

“Hey, Grandpa. What’s going on in there?” The waiter shouted from the bar.

“Nothing buddy, there’s a guy in here that seems to have eaten some bad scrambled eggs.”

The reporter, still on the stool, turned to look at me. Her smile evaporated when she saw the blood on my hands.

For a moment I thought I was going to say something but then there was a small explosion outside in the street.

“Be with you in a moment,” I said, as I passed her by.

The back wheel of the sedan had burst as it drove over the tacks I’d left to prevent my client driving off. I went up to the car and opened the side door.

Between the shock of the men’s room and the blowout, O’Connors was about to have a coronary.

“You can breathe easy. It’s all over.”

“He’s going to kill me,” he whispered.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything to you.”

“Not you, my Pa!”, he shouted, annoyed by my error. “If he sent someone it’s because he already knows everything. And if he knows, he’s going to kill me.”

“Relax, son. Your old man just knows that this friend of yours wasn’t exactly a saint and that he was squeezing you for dimes by taking advantage of the good family name. But from the little he told me, he thinks you were being blackmailed so he wouldn’t tell your beautiful young wife about some lover you might have stashed away somewhere. What Daddy didn’t know is that the lover was the long-haired guy.”

“Please! Please..!”

I leaned inside the car so I could settle the matter in the most discreet way possible in the middle of the street.

“I told you to relax. Here,” I gave him the envelope, “get rid of these photos. I’ll find the negatives and you can forget about this business.”

“Can I… Can I trust you?”

“Do you wanna talk about your options?”

He shook his head.

“Forget about it. I swear I don’t give a damn about high society gossip.”

I took out the envelope with the money and took my fee for the job.

“Here, give this to your old man and tell him I already got paid.”

“Thanks.”

“And be careful about your friends. Or what you do with them.”

“It’s not what you think,” he whispered.

“You can be sure about that,” I replied as I got into the car. “When I saw you on all fours like a carthorse I tried to think about something else.”

As I closed the car door I noticed that all the clients of the bar were crowded round the windows and the door of the bar to get a good view of the scene. The guy in the black overcoat came out. He held a bloody tissue to his nose. He was stumbling with his head high but his legs slightly bent. Some of the people tried to help him, but he rejected their goodwill with violent shoves.

As he turned the corner, he looked back at me. I winked and then lost sight of him.

“Hey, guys!” I shouted as I went back in the bar. This guy has had a blowout; do you think you could lend him a hand changing the wheel?”

“Yeah, sure,” a couple of the customers said helpfully.

“I’d do it,” I said as they walked past, “but I’m too old.”

I climbed back on my stool at the bar. The barman went back to his place on the other side.

“A beer?”

It wasn’t so long ago when I didn’t have to think twice before answering that question.

“No thanks, another coffee please.”

I turned towards the girl who was sitting down slowly, with a frown. I guess she was wondering what kind of old crock would put on such a show.

“You wanna tell me what happened?” she said as she sat down.

“Don’t think so.”

“Really?”

“No,” I repeated, but it was the friendliest no I could manage.

“Before, you said you wanted to tell me a story and now you’re not talking.”

“That was a different story.”

“I thought you were a guy who liked to tell stories.”

“Well, actually, I’m the kind of guy who lives them.”

She thought for a moment and inclined her head so all her hair fell to one side. Maybe it was bothering her, though I suspect she was just using her female charm to get an old guy nervous.

She got close enough to whisper.

“Who were those guys?”

“Oh, just some guys with too much free time.”

She realized she was going to get nothing out of me and gave up, though she was still curious.

And then I saw a glimmer in her eyes that woke up an old itch. For the first time, she wasn’t looking at me all patronizing like most young girls look at older guys. So many women had looked at me that way during my life that it was impossible not to pick up on that spark one more time.

“Who are you, Eddie?”

“The one and the same: Eddie. You said it, gorgeous. And I’m real sorry to have interrupted our conversation before.”

Now it was me who was getting up close. “If I remember right, you were about to tell me something fascinating.”

“Me?” She answered, putting on an air of Miss Interested 1990. “Hmm, let me think. If I’m not wrong, I was going to say that if you gave me a good story for my article, I’d invite you to lunch.”

“Baby, when I tell you this story you’re going to want to invite me to bed.”

By five thirty Thursday morning, Dinah had eaten a light breakfast, dressed, and packed. At 5:45, Tom, Jonathan’s driver, picked her up in the Lincoln Town Car. Tom would drive her to the DDD&W office in the Fry building, wait while she made a final check of last night’s installations, then take her to the airport in time for the nine a.m. flight to Los Angeles.

They dropped Baker at his vet’s for the weekend and were on their way uptown by a few minutes past six. Dinah mentally checked everything she should have done. Her suitcase and carry-on bag were in the trunk, and she was dressed in a favorite travel outfit, a navy blue pantsuit and a crisp white shirt. Her ticket was in her bag, as were her sunglasses, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and cash in small bills to buy newspapers or magazines, and for tips. She’d remove the jacket when the plane arrived in warm LA. The New York weather was typical for March: cold, damp, and overcast. She smiled. In a few hours she’d be in sunshine, surrounded by the beautiful Bel Air gardens, enjoying a loving welcome from Jonathan. Making up after a quarrel could be fun.

At the Fry building, she took the elevator to the thirty-third floor. She paused to admire the prints in the reception area, then hurried toward the dining area. But before she reached it, she noticed the door to the anteroom of the managing director’s suite was open. Hunt Frederick must be in. She’d invite him to join her for a tour.

The door to his office was ajar. Dinah called his name but got no reply. Maybe he was on the telephone and couldn’t hear her? She tapped on the door and pushed it open. The carnage jumped up at her, a vision in a nightmare, and the smell was horrific—blood, urine, feces, and—oh, God—a whiff of Jungle Gardenia. The heavily carved bookshelves on the left had pulled away from the wall, and shelving and books lay all over the floor. Beneath the jumble of dark wood, red leather, and white pages splattered with blood: a body—and more blood, black against the red carpet. Blonde hair soaked in blood. A blood-stained beige platform shoe. A hand with purple painted nails.

Dinah tiptoed into the room, avoiding the blood, and touched a white wrist: no pulse, and the skin was cool. Nothing could help the poor woman.

Fighting nausea, she backed into the corridor and called 911 on her cell phone. “There’s b-been a f-fatal accident,” she said.

Saigon Laundry was owned and operated by the Trung family. They had come to America in two waves after the end of the Vietnam War. The first contingent of the family arrived shortly after the fall of Saigon

in April 1975 with Colonel Bao Van Trung, who served in the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam. He had been politically connected throughout the U.S. involvement in the war, and that qualified him to evacuate with the U.S. forces. With him came his wife, who adopted the name Minny to better fit into to their new home in America, their four children, and Colonel Trung’s mother, Madame Trung. The second wave of Trungs—made up of the Colonel’s brother, Banda, his wife and children, and several cousins—were granted admission to the U.S. in the early 1980s as part of the Orderly Departure Program. That’s how Muerce first came to know, and eventually become part of, the extended Trung family. They, in turn, saw him as their guardian angel in a new, strange, and sometimes hostile land. For the Trung family, Jack Muerce didn’t just walk on water—he turned it into wine.

Muerce was fresh out of law school, working for a prestigious law firm, when he was assigned a pro bono case to help a Vietnamese refugee family navigate the bureaucratic confusion of immigration and commercial commerce laws. He had no idea what he was doing, but jumped into the work with all he had, partly to impress his superiors, partly because of the way he was raised, but mostly because he could help people. He liked how it made him feel. Helping people who needed it the most became more than a compulsion for Muerce. It was his duty, and it was chivalrous.

While working with the Trung family, Muerce learned how to leverage the resources he had been given by birth to get things done. He was intel

ligent, handsome, charming, and pragmatic. It also helped that his family was socially and politically connected, and very rich. The Trungs also opened a world to Muerce to which he had never been exposed—the world where people struggled each day to survive, whether it was putting food in their stomachs or a roof over their heads. It was a world where warm clothes and dignity were, too often, scarce commodities. What Muerce admired the Trungs for the most, was that they managed daily life with grace.

He also came to know the Trung family at a time in his life when there was a developing relationship with a young woman who would shape Muerce for the rest of his life—whether that was a good thing or a bad thing was something he struggled with daily. Its ending, and the circumstances around it, left Muerce off-¬balance, and feeling incomplete for a long time.

The heav y rain abated. Now just a few intermittent sprays were blown by rising winds that typically followed a storm to dry everything off. Muerce liked to think of it as Nature’s Car Wash where he imagined God and the angels as a crew of minimum wage earners toweling off the Cadillac Escalades, and their chrome rims, like the guys at the Suds Barn just down Canary Street.

He pulled the Mercedes to the curb in front of Saigon Laundry, and turned the engine off. For a moment, Muerce was lost in the silence of the car. He recalled her face, what her voice sounded like. Even though it had been a long time, all of it was as fresh as the rain. He became frustrated when his thoughts kept wandering back to Ashley’s face smiling at him from the bed not more than an hour ago.

The Mercedes door closed with a whong. Saigon Laundry was his office, and it was time to go to work.

Saigon Laundry was many things besides a two-¬story business front. The facade of the building was made of light ocher brick, and ornately carved limestone corners and arches. It sat on half a city block. The second floor, which was comprised of a dozen apartments, housed the extended family, and visiting Trung relatives. Over the years, Colonel Trung had purchased the large Victorian home behind the building, which had once been an upscale residential neighborhood. That was before the suburbs exploded, and the term “White Flight” was coined.

The front of the 1920s era building was plain except for a large neon sign Colonel Trung had installed in the late 1980s. The sign proclaimed “Saigon Laundry”, which was formed with an elaborate script, and painted in bright yellow with red trim. Within the letters, pink fluorescent

tubing spelled out the name of the business when night came. It was, Muerce thought when Colonel Trung first had it installed, a gaudy waste of money. Time had proved Muerce wrong, and the Colonel right. The sign did its job. It brought in business, and the business, like the Trung family, thrived.

Saigon Laundry was actually three businesses. The door to the far right—as you faced the neon sign—led to a large self-¬service laundromat. It had twenty-¬two coin-¬operated washers and dryers lined against pale green walls, and large, faded Formica-¬covered folding tables in the middle. There were soft drink, snack and laundry supply vending machines as well. What wasn’t provided in the Laundromat was seating. The Trungs learned early on that seating became territorial for customers, who would literally fight for their space. The seating went, and the rules sign went up. Rule No. 1: No sitting on the folding tables. Rule No. 2: Bring your own chair, and take it with you when you leave. Rule No. 3: No outside business (which meant no pimps, drug dealers or solicitations of any kind—even Girl Scout cookies—allowed). The rest of the rules were general housekeeping, and common courtesy.

Over the years, and under the Trungs, the laundromat had become the unofficial community center for the neighborhood. On the front wall next to the entrance were large bulletin boards that served as a community information center, and informal mail post. A flyer from the nearby Catholic Church announced a Friday fish fry, tacked next to it was a photo-¬copy of a missing young girl with a handwritten note from her family pleading for her to return. There were items for sale, as well as the names of bail bondsmen, and posters for various social service agencies. Four times a year, the city health department set up a small table for childhood inoculations. In the fall, flu shots were provided for infants, and the elderly. On Friday afternoons, the local food pantry truck parked outside to distribute meals and food packages to families in need.

Anyone and everyone was welcome at the laundromat, as long as they followed the rules. And anyone and everyone could be found there. It drew saints and sinners alike: from the nuns that ministered at the parish during the day, to the prostitutes who worked the bars on lower Canary Street at night.

The middle door entrance to Saigon Laundry, which was framed by the simple limestone trim, and situated below the neon sign, was the main entrance. It was the second of the Trung businesses—a dry cleaning operation, and tailoring service. The tailoring was done by Minny, who had worked as a seamstress in Saigon before she met and married the Colonel.

It had not been an arranged marriage, or one that was at first accepted by the Colonel’s parents or extended family. The Trungs had been very much woven into the fabric of Colonial French culture. The Colonel was educated in Paris, as were his parents. They had a lucrative business in the bamboo and rubber industries, part of which was a specialty subsidiary that produced the finest split-¬bamboo fly fishing rods in the world. Some of those rods made in the 1950s, now fetched upwards of ten-¬thousand dollars at auction houses in the United States. Minny, however, came from a poor family that lived in the Cholon District of Saigon. She had met the Colonel while fitting him for a uniform. They fell in love. They still were very much in love, which Muerce admired, and which Madame Trung had begrudgingly learned to accept over the years.

As you entered the dry cleaners portion of the Trung business dynasty, there was a large, arched opening to the right that led into the Laundromat. Along the wall next to the entrance was a long counter with a cash register, and hanging racks of plastic-¬covered dry cleaning. The dry cleaning itself was done in another building that was connected by a back alley, and located behind the Trung’s house. For tailoring, Minny had customers come to a nicely appointed room in the back. That the dry cleaning, pressing, and such were done off site was a concession Muerce had to have the Trungs concede to so they could get the proper licensing for their third business.

Benny Trung was Banda Trung’s son. Banda died of lung cancer two years after arriving in the U.S. There was a shrine for him on the wall behind the cash register that was maintained by daily offerings of food and flowers, and the burning of incense. Benny ran the third Trung enterprise on Canary Street. While you were visually greeted by the Colonel’s garish sign on the front of the building, and deafened by the constant drumming of washing machines, dryers and loud talk in the laundromat, it was Benny’s operation that stopped you where you stood as you entered. The smells made you close your eyes, and anticipate mellifluous, tart, savory, and exotic flavors.

Benny was the chef at Saigon Laundry. The restaurant was accessed through the smaller arched entry to the left, just passed the cash register and his father’s shrine. A dark, beaded curtain separated the restaurant from the rest of the business, and most of the gastronomic world.

The bell tinkled when Muerce walked through the front door. One of the Trung grand-¬daughters was working the dry cleaning cash register. She was immersed in a college physics textbook, her notes spread out on the counter. A white plastic string fell from each of her ears and merged

into one that was plugged into the iPhone laying flat next to her notes. Muerce closed his eyes and inhaled. There was the fresh aroma of baked goods, and dark coffee. Surely, this is what heaven smells like.

When he opened his eyes the grand-¬daughter was holding one of the ear buds in her right hand, and looking at him with amusement.

“ÔNG ỎÐÂU mãy nôm nay? ” she said, a hint of inquisition in her voice. “BÂN VIÊC, Tôi lā ngǚð i danh tiêńg,” Muerce said. The grand-¬daughter smiled at Muerce after chastising him for being tardy, and had a wicked thought of what it would be like to be occupied with him.

“Well, you’re late and she’s on the warpath, giving Uncle Benny a hard time,” the grand-¬daughter said, with perfect American pitch and tone. The sound of a breaking dish came from the kitchen in the back, followed by the voices of a man and woman arguing in Vietnamese.

“C’est la vie,” Muerce said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Si dedaigneux pendant qut nous soufrons de votre ralentissmento,” the grand-¬daughter said, plugging the ear bud back in, and returning her attention to the textbook. She lifted her swan-¬like right arm, holding her hand horizontal before waving him with three quick motions toward the beaded doorway that led to the dining area. Muerce liked her sassiness, though if Madame Trung had observed the interaction she would have interpreted her grand-daughter’s behavior as disrespectful to her elder, and lacking the appropriate filial piety for the family. Muerce winced when he thought of himself as the attractive young coed’s elder, and as a possible lover. Enough. She is family, and too young.

Saigon Laundry, the restaurant, wasn’t particularly big. It wasn’t located in any of the ritzy or fashionably hip parts of town, meaning it took real effort, and for some diners, a strong sense of adventure and courage, to journey there to eat. It was more than just the best French-¬Indochine cuisine you could find. Benny had taken Saigon Laundry to a new culinary level, earning rankings as one of the best restaurants in the world by a number of prestigious gastronomic associations, and publications. With a scant four, four-¬top tables at which only dinner was served, and a prix fixe menu at that (Benny prepared only what he wanted to serve over seven courses), made Saigon Laundry one of the toughest eateries in the world to get a seat. If dinner reservations were a commodity, getting a table at Saigon Laundry was like scoring a moon rock. Friday and Saturday nights were booked a year—sometimes two years for holidays—in advance. Weekday dinner reservations were full for up to eight months, depending on the day of the week.

Compounding the scarcity and exclusiveness of Saigon Laundry was that it was closed every Sunday and Monday—which Benny used to plan and shop for his menu for the week ahead. And there was only one seating per table per night; sixteen meals, eighty total for the week. All dinner reservations were for eight o’clock in the evening, starting with aperitifs and light hors d’oeuvres. Dinner service generally lasted until eleven o’clock with dessert or cheese and champagne. Diners had no choice in what spirits they were served. Benny matched cocktails and wines with the food. There were no substitutes, save for food allergies, which were addressed when the reservation was accepted, and again when a confirmation call was made the week before the assigned night. If a party cancelled, or did not show within twenty minutes of their reservation, there was a long waiting list of people willing to throw down whatever they were doing, and race to Saigon Laundry for dinner. Muerce couldn’t remember the last time he saw an empty chair at dinner, and he would know because he ate there almost every night.

For his relationship with the Trungs, and the legal and financial efforts he had put in on their behalf over the years—including loaning Benny the money to attend both Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York—the lone two-¬topper table wedged against the far wall was exclusively his. It included breakfast, lunch and dinner. He was the only person other than members of the Trung family, to be fed from Benny’s kitchen during the day. The two-¬topper also served as Muerce’s tacit place of business.

For what Muerce did, he only needed a phone, a roof over his head, and a good cup of coffee. He had long ago given up working inside the boundaries of a law firm.

The squabbling in the kitchen ceased. Muerce, now sitting at his crisp, white linen-¬covered table, prepared to be chastened by Madame Trung. She approached him from the kitchen with a silver tray that held a full French press, coffee cup and saucer, and a plate of beignets fresh from the oven.

Madame Trung was the third most remarkable woman Muerce had ever met in his life. There was his mother, certainly, and the woman he did not talk about.

Though the Colonel was the Trung patriarch, there was no doubt as to who had the final say in all family matters. Although eighty, Madame Trung looked like she was in her early sixties. Her features, attractive and intact, were ageless. She was medium height, still thin, and the few lines on her face did not hint at her age; the harsh black tint of her dyed hair, however, could not go unnoticed.

Madame Trung wore a dark purple ao dai. The right sleeve of the traditional garment was folded and pinned to her shoulder with an antique Tiffany brooch. Madame Trung lost the arm in an automobile accident in France when she was attending university in the early 1950s. She spoke little of it other than to refer to the incident as “The Tragedy.” The only details she had ever given to Muerce was that she had been riding in a delightfully sporting automobile, and the driver, a man, a poet, was killed in the crash. She only spoke of it to Muerce once, many years back, when she had consoled him through his own tragedy. He never forgot the sadness in her voice, or his own sadness.

Madame Trung set the tray on the table with an ease that was impressive for someone of her age and impairment. She had compensated for the lost limb with a grace of movement that made one forget what was missing. She smiled as she plunged the French press to the bottom of the glass container, then poured the hot, dark liquid into the cup. As she bent down, he noticed the large, crudely swathed black cross adorning her forehead. She was a true French Colonial. A devout Catholic. Madame Trung had gone to early Mass for ashes.

“Bonjour Madame Trung, merci beaucoup,” Muerce said, as she finished pouring the coffee.

“Bonsoir Monsieur Muerce,” she replied, dryly and emphasizing the greeting for the latter part of the day. And so it begins.

“Pardonnez, s’il vous plait, mes offenses,” Muerce said. “It was an active evening, and I did not get much sleep.”

Madame Trung arched an eyebrow, and gave a speculative look at Muerce before putting her one hand on his left shoulder, patting him softly.

“Et ne nous soumets pas a la tentation,” she said. Temptation was Muerce’s favorite distraction. He lifted the cup to his face and absorbed the aroma of the coffee and the beignets, which held the promise of a hint of maple syrup goodness. The coffee was Trung Nguyen. Dark and strong. The first two sips cleared away what remained of the champagne fog. He closed his eyes and savored another sip before biting into one of the warm pastries sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. There was the distinctive maple sweetness that merged with the airiness of the pastry, and made a subtle crunch when he chewed. Perfection.

“Vietnam style, no chicory,” Madame Trung said of the coffee, her hand still on Muerce’s shoulder as she turned to address the kitchen, and began yelling. “~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~”

“You go to ashes?” she said, returning her attention to Muerce. “Noon Mass with my mother at the Cathedral,” Muerce said. At Madame Trung’s barked command, Benny appeared in an instant

with a crisp, white linen napkin he placed on the table. “~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~” Benny said. Madame Trung removed her hand from Muerce’s shoulder, waved it in

the air at Benny in a dismissive gesture, and began muttering in Vietnamese as she returned to the kitchen.

“~~~~~~~” Muerce said to Madame Trung as she departed.

Benny clasped his hands together, as if in prayer, and bent down slightly to greet Muerce.

“How is it, Jack?” he said.

Muerce looked up at Benny, rolled his eyes and contorted his face to mimic a moment depicting the peak of sexual passion, and emphasized the gesture with a moan. Seriously Benny, what do you expect?

“Excellent, will you be with us for dinner?” Benny said. “Yes, early though Benny,” Muerce said. “What’s on the menu?” “Seafood all this week. The presentation will be a surprise.” “Sounds wonderful,” Muerce said, biting into another pastry. “We missed you last night,” Benny said. “Did you find a better place to eat?” “Not possible, and you know that,” Muerce said. “Mardi Gras party. I was obligated to attend.” “Good gumbo?” “Awful gumbo. But lots of pretty girls who drink too much.” Benny winked at Muerce. “What time tonight?” “Early, say six if that’s okay,” Muerce said. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.” “Yes, that was the speculation when you weren’t here… at your regular time,” Benny said, looking toward the kitchen. “Six is good.” Some kind of ruckus had begun in the kitchen, and Madame Trung was yelling in Vietnamese. Benny put his hand on Muerce’s shoulder, and gave him a look of exasperation. “I’ve got to go. She’s been at it all morning,” he said. “More beignets?” “Yes. Sorry for being late.” Muerce said, chagrined that his intimate conquests were part of Trung family conversations. That’s how families are.

Muerce savored the coffee, the beignets, and the sudden quiet that settled in the dining space with Madame Trung and Benny back in the kitchen. There was only the gentle drumming of the machines coming from the Laundromat.

He surveyed his surroundings. It amused Muerce, that the restaurant side of the business was in such contrast to the rest of Saigon Laundry. While the décor of the laundromat, dry cleaners and tailoring was well suited for the rundown part of the city—although close in proximity to Downtown—the design of the dining room was high-¬end French Colonial Vietnam. Paris on the Mekong. It exuded a feeling of expensive and ornate furniture slowly decaying in the fetid heat and humidity of Southeast Asia. Two large ceiling fans circulated the air, which was warmed by the busy nature of the laundromat, and the ovens and stoves in the kitchen. It really was a small space. Two of the four-¬top tables were tucked toward the back of the room with the opening archway leading to the kitchen. Benny liked that the kitchen was somewhat open for viewing. It enhanced the dining experience, allowing customers to see, smell and hear their food being prepared. That way, Benny believed, all of their senses were heightened when the food arrived at their table.

The other pair of tables were nestled partly into each of the two bay windows at the front of the building. Benny had sealed off what used to be an entrance. Along the front window and where the door used to be, was an elaborate collection of plants and flowers that included some of Madame Trung’s finicky orchids. In the fall she would swap out some of the containers for mums. In the spring there would be tulips and daffodils. There were also pots of different herbs like basil, rosemary, thyme, lemon grass and mint.

Large colonial shutters framed the front windows. The floor had been renovated with an ornate parquet pattern that squeaked when you walked on it. On the walls were gilt-¬framed antique street maps of Paris, and what was now Ho Chi Minh City. On the wall above Muerce’s table was a framed linen napkin. On the napkin was a drawing of an abstract likeness of a young Madame Trung. It was signed by Picasso. Madame Trung delighted in never telling the full story of the napkin, only saying how upset her father was with the friends she had made attending university. Who, Muerce knew, included the dead poet. Madame Trung, Muerce liked to believe, was very wild in her youth.

She was now, however, immune to Muerce’s attempts to flirt with her. Nonetheless, he made efforts to on occasion. When he did, she would smile, and dismissively pat him on the head with her one hand.

Briefly lost in his thoughts, Muerce snapped back to reality when he remembered he had a voicemail waiting for him. He pulled the phone from the pocket of his suit coat that he had draped over the back of his chair. He fingered the bottom button that brought the black screen alive with various colored icons, and navigated his way to voicemail with his index finger.

The drawl was unfamiliar, but the name was not. The call was from Tyler B. Squire, the chief executive officer and chairman of the board of what was now referred to in business parlance as one the largest “healthcare systems” in the county. To Muerce they were still hospitals. Just a lot of them under one publicly traded umbrella. You went there if you were sick, or dying. Otherwise, you avoided them as best as possible. Tyler B. Squire was originally from somewhere in the South—Texas or Alabama, or something like that. Muerce wasn’t sure. As is the custom in the South, the health care executive’s name had been shortened to T.B. Squire. Muerce rolled the humor around in his head. Was there irony in a man in charge of a national chain of hospitals being saddled with the name T.B., or was it just a cruel coincidence?

Distracted with the inane amusement, Muerce missed the point of the message and replayed it, this time intent on listening. He had never given T.B. Squire one of his business cards. That the man had his mobile number meant that either someone of some influence had provided it to him, or someone to whom Muerce was indebted had.

T.B. Squire’s message was polite, brief and to the point. Would Mr. Muerce please return his call at his earliest convenience as it was a personal matter involving his son. T.B Squire ended the message saying he was giving Muerce his own private mobile number, and not his work mobile number, and that he would be monitoring for his call as to not miss him.

Muerce contemplated the information, and tone of the message. T.B. Squire had a son in trouble. A son he apparently cared about because his voice was heav y with concern, if not a little fear. If T.B. Squire didn’t care about his son, Muerce would have picked up on anger beget from annoyance. If that had been the case, Muerce would politely return Mr. T.B. Squire’s call, and without asking what the problem was, say he was unable to be of any help. Muerce shied away from favors having to do with spoiled rich kids. He had done enough of those to know that, in most cases, the kid was better off learning from the consequences than being bailed out by Mommy and Daddy. That, and the return favor was rarely honored.

It was unlikely, though, that Mr. T.B. Squire’s troubled son was facing a drunk driving or drug possession charge. Either of those could be han

dled by an army of attorney’s the CEO had at his disposal. Muerce also factored in that the call had come very early in the morning—the memory of Ashley naked in his bed flashed in his head again—and the man had gone to the trouble to find an alternative solution to his problem. Muerce was the alternative people turned to before they had to come face-¬to-¬face with the last resort—reality. Anyone who knew Jack Muerce knew that you did not share his mobile number freely. Muerce’s business card was as rare a commodity as a dinner reservation at Saigon Laundry. You treated either as a divine gift. Nothing goes down on this, Muerce thought, until I know who gave out my number.

He poured the last cup of coffee from the press, and took several sips. It was time to go to work. He thumbed the button that returned T.B. Squire’s phone call. It rang only twice before it was answered.

“Mister Murse?”

“It’s pronounced mercy,” Muerce said, disappointed that T.B. Squire hadn’t done all of his homework.

“I apologize Mister Muerce.” There was a moment of pregnant silence between them. “I’m returning your call, Mister Squire,” Muerce said. “Ah, yes. I’m sorry Mister Muerce. I’m not sure how this works.” “How what works, Mister Squire?” “Well, frankly, as I said in my message, how I go about asking you to, perhaps, help my son,” Squire said. “It’s Jack isn’t it. May I call you Jack?”

Time to set some boundaries.

“My friends call me Jack, Mister Squire. Are we friends? Have I ever been invited to your home for dinner?”

A few fleeting seconds of awkward silence followed. “I understand Mister Muerce,” Squire said. Good. “Can you help me, Mister Muerce?” Squire said, subtly pleading. “I don’t know, Mister Squire, can I?” Muerce said. “How was it you came to get my name and number?” T.B. Squire hesitated. He was a man used to making important, and very expensive decisions at a moment’s notice. He knew when to heal a decision, and when to unleash one quickly. This one involved his only child, his son, so he went with honesty.

“Detective Trumbley,” Squire said, pausing. “He asked that I not use his name, Mister Muerce. I wanted to respect that request, but I also want to respect yours as well. Although we’ve never been formally introduced, I have heard of your family, and your… reputation.”

Right answer, though you should have asked about proper pronunciation if you say you know of my family.

“I appreciate that Mister Squire,” Muerce said. “There will be no repercussions for disclosing Detective Trumbley’s identity.”

Muerce knew Trumbley well. Nick Trumbley could call him Jack. He could call Jack anything he wanted, and get away with it. Few people could do that. Trumbley was a good man, and an honest vice cop who wouldn’t hand out Muerce’s name on a whim. He wouldn’t refer T.B. Squire to him unless it was a sensitive, or nearly impossible problem. It was Trumbley asking for a favor, and Muerce would do the best he could to fulfill the request, and find out why later.

“All right Mister Squire,” Muerce said. “How time sensitive is the problem with your son?”

T.B. Squire felt like he had been holding his breath beyond his capacity. His chest was heavy. He exhaled and took in fresh air that gave him a positive outlook.

“I’m not sure what you mean by time sensitive?” he said.

“I’d rather not talk about particulars over the phone Mister Squire,” Muerce said. “Especially cell phones. I’d like to meet, so we can be… properly introduced.”

“Ah, yes, I see,” Squire said. “There’s a little time, a few days.”

“Good,” Muerce said, reviewing his schedule for the next twentyfour hours, and realizing that he could only fit T.B. Squire in at dinner. “Six o’clock, Mister Squire. Six Twenty Five Canary. Park out front. Go through the middle door. Ask for me. I’ll see you tonight”

Muerce pressed his thumb on the red icon that ended the call.

T.B. Squire scribbled the information on a fluorescent orange Post-¬It note without giving the address any thought. He was a transplant to the city, and was still unfamiliar with street addresses. Particularly addresses in the part of town where Saigon Laundry was located. Given the discourse with Muerce, T.B. Squire was savvy enough to know that he was to come alone. He would have anyway. The trouble his son, Travis, had gotten into was something he wanted as few people as possible to know about. Not for his own sake, but for his son’s.

Muerce placed the phone on the table, and rubbed his hands over his face in a massaging motion. Despite the strong coffee, he was still groggy from too much champagne, and too little sleep. He hoped the vigorous motion might alleviate the faint throbbing in his head. Some of the night before started to return to him. He and Ashley had gone at it, rather loudly, for some time. He didn’t think they fell asleep until three

o’clock that morning. He also began to realize that his pelvic bone was sore. The duration of their carnal activities, and the soreness it left, made him smile. His headache abated some.

Swiveling in his chair, Muerce lifted the empty press up so Benny could see him. Benny acknowledged with the wave of one finger and spoke to Madame Trung, who reacted with a barrage of Vietnamese that Muerce could not make out. Several minutes later, Madame Trung was at Muerce’s table with a fresh press of coffee, and another plate of beignets.

“Merci, merci beaucoup,” he said. “Vous vous etes top rejouis hier soir,” Madame Trung said. “Yes, too much fun last night,” he said. “I’m sore, every where.” Madame Trung frowned and pressed too hard on the plunger. A spurt of coffee and grounds was ejected from the lip of the container, staining the white, linen table cloth. She shook her head in disapproval, not at the mess she had made but at what she guessed to be Muerce’s activities the previous night.

“Good thing Lent come,” she said, in broken English. “You no so young no more.”

Muerce screwed up his face in a dramatic wince.

“~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~,” she said. “Old Vietnamese proverb.”

“It’s an old Greek proverb,” he retorted. “The Romans translated it as, Modus omnibus in rebus.”

“Vietnam older than Greeks,” she said. “You older than Greeks, I think.”

“~~~~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~,” Muerce said, clutching his right hand to his chest as if he’d been shot.

“You hurt self. You get ashes with your mother. You start atone.”

That last word landed like a lance, and the past spilled into his thoughts like the coffee staining the table cloth. The memories were granular, dark, hot, and messy. Her face was as clear as if she were sitting across the table from him. He felt like his flesh was being torn from his body.

A loud commotion erupted in the laundromat, and the face disappeared. Madame Trung and Muerce went to see what it was about.

“You can’t leave that baby here,” said the Trung grand-¬daughter, the white cords of her ear buds dangled from her shoulders.

She was addressing a short, pasty-¬skinned woman with dark hair cropped very close to her head. The woman wore heavy, black eye makeup, which complimented her black, leather mini-¬skirt. Her outfit was accented by a tight pink blouse hidden under a white, faux fur jacket. She teetered on pink stiletto heels. Her wardrobe left no doubt that she was dressed for work, and the look of desperation on her face indicated she was late. Her boss would not be happy, or understanding.

“It’s not my baby,” the woman said, with a defiant and heavy SerboCroation accent. “Is Redzil’s. I was just watching it for a few days while she… was away. For work.”

“So?” the grand-¬daughter said. “You’re responsible. You can’t just leave a baby here. This isn’t daycare drop off.”

The crying baby was wrapped in an assortment of dingy blankets, and had been placed inside a dilapidated wicker basket. Muerce guessed the infant was, maybe, three months old.

“Red. Redzil, will be here soon,” the woman said, her voice becoming more anxious and desperate than defiant. She kept looking toward the front window at a car idling outside. “She promised to meet me here. Just watch it for a little bit. I have to go. I have to go!”

A white Cadillac Escalade with a cascade of gaudy gold trim and gold rims was parked behind Muerce’s Mercedes. The drumming of the washing machines and dryers was interrupted by a series of aggressive honks from the waiting car.

The darkly tinted passenger window slid down, and a pale hand covered with gold jewelry that matched the trim of the Escalade aggressively motioned for the woman to hurry.

Madame Trung frowned, and looked at Muerce. Fine, he thought, I’ll take care of it.

“Nobody go any where,” he said, looking directly at the pink and black dressed woman. “I’ll be right back.”

The bell on the front door of the laundromat tinkled behind Muerce as he stepped outside and approached the open window of the waiting car. The wind had picked up, lifting his tie over his right shoulder, and the temperature had dropped a good ten degrees.

The ostentatious car belonged to Mikal Delic, who liked to call himself “Pimp Deluxe”. He was also known as “Micky D” for his fondness of the Golden Arches. Mikal was in his late thirties and had come to the U.S. in the mid-¬nineties after fleeing the hostilities and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-¬Herzogovina. There was, at that time, and again in the early 2000s, a flow of immigrants, mostly Muslim, into the city, along with a few Christians. The ethnic cleansing from the “old country” spilled over onto American soil in the form of gang warfare. A lot of it played out along the Canary Street corridor. It had been no different for previous waves of immigrants—Nigerians, Vietnamese, Hmong, Jamaican, Cuban,

along with the original settlers of the city; the Irish, Italians, and Germans. Most of them, however, had long ago climbed up the economic ladder, and out of the now worn and squalid neighborhoods that made up Canary Street.

Muerce rested his arms on the open window of the Escalade, and leaned inside.

“Micky D, what shakes?” he said.

Mikal flashed a hip-¬hop smile. His top left, front tooth was encased in gold. A one-¬carat diamond was set in the middle of the tooth. He reached across from the driver’s seat with an open hand, palm up.

“Jock Mur-¬see, what it is, my man,” he said, smiling, his Serb-¬Croat accent thicker than the pink and black girl’s mascara. Mikal’s gold chains made a metallic rustling sound as he leaned over. He wore a purple, velour track suit, and a white “wife-¬beater” t-¬shirt.

“What it is, Deluxe,” Muerce said, slapping Mikal’s hand.

“Stock market good,” Mikal said. “Bidness been booming. Girls busy for Deluxe. Think economic finally looking up.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, move everything out of treasuries. Yields crap,” Mikal said. “More opportunity in equities. Deluxe not need to be so liquid. You should talk to my broker.”

“Smooth, my man.” “How you do Jock?” “Business is good,” Muerce said, pausing to look back into the laun

dromat, then back at Mikal. “What’s the four-¬one-¬one inside?” “Beech is late for work,” Mikal said, agitated. “The baby, Micky D,” Muerce said. “What time your girl shows up for work is none of my business.” Mikal pushed his lower lip up his face and made a slight nodding motion with his head, indicating he understood. Mikal respected Muerce. If you didn’t, he knew all too well, you could get burned in a way you had never thought of before. Muerce was fair. He knew what was, was, and what is, is. It was better to work with Muerce than against him. You don’t fuck with the man who’s armor shines brightest.

“Belong to Redzil, Redzil Hadzic,” Mikal said. “She belong to you?” Mikal nodded his head that she did. “You know her Jock?” Mikal said. “Maybe she please you sometime?

The tall red-¬head. Pretty face, big lips, long legs. You like the long legs, Jock, yes?”

The description registered with Muerce. He had seen her in the laundromat before. She was pretty, and she did have the kind of long legs he liked, though she, like all the working girls that frequented Saigon Laundry, were, of his own accord, strictly off limits. Don’t blur boundaries.

“Your girl, your responsibility,” Muerce said. Mikal rolled his eyes. “I Pimp Deluxe not Montessori,” he said. “Besides, it deal Redzil make

with beech inside. I not baby daddy.” “The one inside, she got a name?” Muerce said, his voice rising. “Mirsad. I lose respect fucking around babysit beech’s kids.” “You lose street cred too if you don’t take good care of your girls, Mi

kal,” Muerce said. “No more Pimp Deluxe. They’ll go to someone else, or start freelancing.”

Mikal gripped the leather wrapped steering wheel. His knuckles turned white.

“Look, Jock, you do me favor I do you favor?”

“You still owe me favor, Mikal, lots of favor. I want to know what is going on. Now.”

“Da, da, da,” Mikal said. “Beech inside—Mirsad—say other beech— Redzil—have side deal she not tell me about. Freelancing, like you say. Piss me off. She give baby to Mirsad take care of while she go for weekend. Weekend come and go, no Redzil. I tell beech inside got to get back to work. Fuck Redzil. Fuck beech’s baby.”

“Mirsad just volunteered that information, did she?” Muerce said.

“I convince her a little,” Mikal said. “Not hurt her bad. Just help get to truth faster.”

“Maybe I help Pimp Deluxe get to the truth a little faster,” Muerce said. “Does this look like an orphanage Mikal? You just drop the kid off in a basket, and that’s it?”

“Like I said, Jock. You do Deluxe favor, he do you favor.”

Muerce was losing his patience when he felt a tug on the back of his shirt. It was Mirsad. She wanted past him, and into the Escalade. There was no baby in her arms. Muerce glanced back into the laundromat to see Madame Trung holding the baby in her one arm. It had been decided, not by him, that Muerce would grant a favor. But it wouldn’t be for Pimp Deluxe, it would be for the baby. Not so much for the baby’s mother, Redzil Hadzic, wherever she was. Muerce opened the car door for Mirsad. As she passed he could see bruising on the back of her neck.

“Look at me Mikal,” Muerce said, leaning back into the open window as Mirsad fumbled with the seat belt. “When I call, and I will call, you get one ring. If I hear two, I’ll hang up. And then I’m going to start twisting you. Very hard. No more treasuries, no more equities, no more liquidity, no more beeches for you.”

Mikal smiled his pimp smile, and nodded.

“I have a special dentist who owes me a favor,” Muerce said. “Maybe you pay what you owe me in gold.”

Mikal’s smile disappeared.

“When your girl turns up, tell her the kid is in the system,” Muerce said.

Mikal put the car in gear, pressed down hard on the accelerator and sped off, kicking up a dirty spray from the wet streets that soiled the back panel of the pearl white SUV. Muerce stepped back from the car as it bolted away, his hands in the air, feeling like he’d just been robbed at gunpoint despite his threat.

The hot, humid air of the laundromat enveloped Muerce like a blanket. He fixed his tie, frowned at Madame Trung, and reached in his pocket for his phone. The baby was quieter in her arm.

“Miriam, it’s Jack Muerce,” he said into the phone. He reached voicemail, and left a short message. “I need a favor…”

Half an hour later a black-¬and-¬white was parked outside. Muerce gave the two patrolmen what little information he had about the child when Miriam Estrada walked in. She was carrying an infant car seat, and a large diaper bag that she tossed onto the laundry table. She waved her Family Welfare credentials at the patrolmen without looking at either them. Her eyes were fixed on Muerce.

Miriam was a welcome sight, and not just because it meant the cops, Muerce and the Trungs could beg out of dealing with an abandoned child. The Welfare Lady, as Miriam was commonly referred to, was a handsome woman in her late thirties. She was tall with dominant Aztec features: dark skin, high cheekbones, and emerald green eyes. She and Muerce had a brief history, once, years earlier. At the time, she was separated. Her husband had been a good cop with a bad problem. He and Trumbley were partners. Miriam’s husband was a drinker. A big drinker. When his liver gave out, Miriam took him back, and nursed him until the end. She called it off with Muerce, who understood her decision. Muerce did everything he could, from a distance, to help her care for her dying husband. After he passed, they decided to remain friends, and only friends.

Still, her eyes twinkled whenever she saw Jack Muerce. 28

“Been awhile Mister Muerce,” she said, addressing him in front of the patrolmen. She turned to the senior cop. “You guys got all you need? I can take it from here.”

All business.

“Yes ma’am,” the cop said, glad they could get on with their day, but disappointed they couldn’t linger to gawk at Miriam a moment or two longer.

“I’m sure you two have more important things to do than change diapers,” she said, in a tone used to usher them on their way.

When she heard the tinkling of the bell above the laundromat door as they left, Miriam retrieved the child from Madame Trung’s arm, turned to Muerce and smiled.

“You look good Jack,” she said, holding the baby in her arms. Her eyes smiled in a way that Muerce thought might indicate a change in their agreement to be friends, and just friends.

“Not as good as you look Miriam,” he said. The memory of her soft dark skin, and the dimples at the small of her back came to him easily.

“I drop everything to run down here and that’s the best line you have, Jack, really?” she said.

Madame Trung barked an order in Vietnamese for her grand-¬daughter to get back to the dry cleaning counter, and then excused herself. The handful of customers in the laundromat returned to their wash, gossip, and magazines. Miriam turned her attention from Muerce. Cradling the baby in one arm, she spread out a disposable paper blanket on the laundry table, and went about giving the child a cursory examination for any indications of abuse, or poor health.

“Seems healthy, fairly clean and well-¬cared for,” she said, removing the soaked disposable diaper. “Male. Hmm…”

Miriam looked at the child’s irregular facial features. “Not the prettiest baby I’ve ever seen,” Muerce said. “As if you’ve ever seen many babies,” Miriam said, still examining the

infant, who was, she guessed, about three months old. “I’ve seen enough of them,” Muerce said. “You mean you’ve dated enough of them,” she said. “And I thought you were happy to see me,” Muerce said. “So, is some

thing wrong with it?” “Don’t know. Could be fetal alcohol syndrome, crack baby, or any other number of congenital or genetic tags,” Miriam said. “Or just plain and simple FLK syndrome.”

“FLK syndrome?” Muerce said. 29

“Funny Looking Kid,” Miriam said. “It’s not a real term, Jack. He got a name?”

“Mother is a prostitute, Bosnian, I think, goes by the name Redzil,” Muerce said. “I forget the name but I can try. Her street name is Red. She dumped the kid off with a… co-¬worker slash friend… for a weekend special, and hasn’t shown up. The friend got behind on her work hours taking care of the kid, and decided to drop him off at Madame Trung’s Orphanage.”

Miriam looked around the room. “This is as good a place as any, if not better. Hell, it’s cleaner than any of the fire stations, or police precincts.

“So, he’s a John Doe? Or should we call him Jack Doe?” “Not funny, Miriam,” Muerce said. She put a fresh diaper on Baby John Doe Redzil, and gleefully handed

Muerce the old one before dressing the infant in a floral one-¬piece cotton jumper that was too big. Muerce held the soiled diaper as if it were nuclear waste.

“What do you want me to do with this?” he said.

“Are you really that clueless, Jack?” she said, pulling a wet wipe from a container, and handing it to Muerce. She placed the child in the infant car seat, and secured the straps.

“Throw it in the trash,” she said. “You can flush the wipe if you want when you’re done.”

Muerce dropped the diaper in the trash can next to him, wiped his hands with the wet wipe, and disposed of it with the diaper. Miriam jumped up to sit on the folding table next to the baby, who was sucking on a small formula bottle she had produced from the diaper bag. Some of the customers in the laundromat frowned at her. Rule No. 1: No sitting on the folding tables. But nobody was going to mess with the Welfare Lady, and she knew it.

“Baby Jack is hungry,” she said.

“Yes he is,” Muerce said. Miriam either ignored or missed his inflection, so he changed the subject. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Nah, too much already,” she said. Muerce could make out the faint smear of ashes on her forehead. A good Catholic girl.

Miriam had a girlish smile. She averted her eyes from Muerce’s, and looked through the archway that led toward the restaurant.

“Last time I was here was for dinner,” she said. Muerce didn’t say anything.

“I miss that,” she said, wistfully. “Miss what?”

“Going out to dinner.”

“It’s been, what, two years?” he said, opting to drop the “death” part from the rhetorical nature of the question. “You’re an attractive woman.”

“With two teenage boys, Jack,” she interjected. “You want to go down that road? Get real.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t go out to dinner every once in awhile,” he said.

There was a loud sucking sound that indicated Baby Jack Doe Redzil had finished his bottle. Miriam turned her attention to the child, which let out a loud burp. She slung the diaper bag over her shoulder, and picked up the infant seat holding the baby. As she turned to head toward the door, Muerce stepped in front of her.

“Do you want to have dinner sometime?” he said. “With you?” she said. “Dinner with Jack Muerce is never just a meal.” “Is that a yes or a no?” The tension in her face eased, and Muerce thought he saw a hint of

coquet as she batted her eyelashes a few times without looking directly at him.

“Maybe,” she said, slightly embarrassed. Then she walked straight out the door, secured the infant seat in her car, and drove away. Definitely call Miriam.

Madame Trung stood in the archway, Muerce’s suit jacket and raincoat draped across her arm.

“You going to be late for ashes,” she said. “You hurry.”

He looked at his watch. Now it was his mother who was going to be pissed.