Chore Whore (21 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you remember the scrapes your brother got into when he was Blaise's age?”

“I remember he drank a bottle of lighter fluid on a dare and had to be rushed to the hospital.”

“And?”

“There was the time he and his friends somehow got a beehive in the back of his teacher's hatchback.”

“And?”

“The time he and his friends decided to see if you could really dig a hole to China and the hole collapsed on one of them.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I get your point, Mr. Barba.”

“Mrs. Brown, Blaise is an exceptionally intelligent boy, but he is still a child. The portion of the brain that controls making logical decisions is not fully formed in males until about age thirty-four. There will be more calls, broken bones and stitches and you'll get through them just like you got through the last one.”

“Promise?”

Mr. Barba smiles and pats me on the back. “He needs a strong mother, especially since his father isn't around. Blaise thrives on extra attention. He needs to be needed. He needs to have chores and know that without his help, the household wouldn't run smoothly. A lot of times single mothers . . .”

“I'm not a single mother, Mr. Barba,” I interrupt. “I'm a widow.”

“Pardon me, I should have said that a lot of times when a mother doesn't have a husband, she tends to do too much for the male children. Eventually, the boy doesn't feel integral to the family. He becomes needy and feels that his mother fulfilling his every need is equivalent to love. It makes it impossible for the little boy to ever become a man.”

I walk away feeling comforted and disturbed by Mr. Barba's words. I now know that somehow, someway, I will make it through, but I also think of how many times Blaise has asked me to change a channel on the television for him, and I did it. Mr. Barba ushers me out of his office with a promise solicited from me that anytime I need to talk his is an open door.

“Hey, Corki, it's Hubert.
I spoke with Jock and he said you'd pay me. When can we make the exchange? Call me on the cell phone.”

He leaves the exact same number Tree called in Jock's office the morning she appeared half-naked.

Pondering Hubert's audacity, I think of the years he spent observing Jock's affinity for young girls. As a money-hungry graduate from USC without a speck of morals, he obviously found this to be an opportunity he couldn't pass up. Hubert provided the setup and Jock fell for it with his pants down and his libido up. I'm surprised it took him this long.

I return Hubert's phone call and tell him I'd like to meet at Clafouti's on Sunset Boulevard on Friday at twelve noon. He agrees to the date and time, but not the place. He balks and wants to meet somewhere more private.

“Look, Hubert, I'm doing you a favor. It's my way or the highway. You could wait for Jock to come home in three months. I have a lot to do and this is what works for me.”

Reluctantly, he agrees, but I can feel in my bones that he's up to something. I hang up and make another hour's worth of calls.

· · ·

I go to the safe
in my bedroom, open it and sit on the floor in front of my closet and count the last of my cash. The six thousand Jock gave me was gone within an hour after I paid two months' rent and past-due bills. I balance my checkbook and figure out how much room I have left on my credit cards. My situation is embarrassing and pathetic. I'm forty years old and about to call my mama to hit her up for money. Of course, she only has her monthly Social Security check, so how much can she help me?

Thinking about how Hubert might try to trick me, I feel the need to go to Jock's house to get the money sooner rather than later.

Meandering slowly through Hollywood Hills' narrow roads to where there is a remote, little-known and seldom-used back entrance to Jock's house, I park at the back of the property. I descend a small wooden staircase, precariously perched on the side of the hill where Tito the gardener has planted tropical foliage so densely that I'm reminded of a trek through Jamaica's Blue Mountains.

Letting myself into the guesthouse and locking the door behind me, I realize how paranoid I'm being. My hands are trembling, my stomach is rumbling, and I can't seem to breathe deeply. I know my loss of breath is not from climbing down a hill. I'm scared, despite the fact that it's daylight and I'm right where I'm supposed to be, where I've been a hundred times before. I'm not trespassing; I'm carrying out Jock's request. Fumbling through my purse, I bring out my .38 and put some ammunition in it.

Maybe what my mom says is true. I watched too much television as a teenager. In crime dramas and soap operas, everyone is suspect and most people have an ulterior motive.

Going upstairs to the bedroom and running my fingers along the underside of the bed frame, I feel the key taped to the leg of the bed. Pocketing it, I let myself out, reset the alarm and enter the main house through the kitchen. Disarming the main alarm, I hesitate for a moment and watch the activities of the house through a monitor on the tile counter. Cars pass on the street outside. Sprinkler heads pop up for a midday watering. A lone man approaches the gate and sticks a direct-advertising mailer in the front gate, then disappears down the street.

Punching “Command Eight” to engage the alarm and have it protect the perimeter of the house, I go into the meditation room and descend the stairs to the range.

I practice breathing deeply trying desperately to calm my frazzled nerves. With shaking hands I turn the pop-out button with the key—the first part of entering the safe—but I'll never be able to enter the proper combination with the accuracy needed to do it on the first or second try. This specific safe will shut down after three consecutive unsuccessful attempts at entering the code. Then I'll have to wait another twenty-four hours before trying again.

I blow it on the first and second attempts. A safecracker I'm not! Having sixty seconds to attempt the code one last time, I breathe deeply, blow out my breath hard, then enter the code. I pull the handle down and the heavy steel door opens smoothly.

There isn't a hundred thousand dollars in here . . . there's seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Here I insisted that he have a thousand measly dollars in small bills for his earthquake kit. No wonder he always told me not to worry about it. There are also forty-three DVDs like the one that disappeared. They are filed and categorized by name: Angie, Bibi, Cissy, Deidre, Ellie, Farrah, etc. I was thinking that Tree was the first when she was actually number twenty in the alphabet.

· · ·

As I hike back up
the hill I feel a little self-conscious about carrying my gun. I haven't thought about my weapon since I took the bullets out and stored it out of sight a few days after Blaise was born. Now I'm huffing up the hill with a loaded pistol and a shitload of money and I start to laugh. I stop halfway up the hill, panting slightly, and realize how terribly out of shape I am. I remind myself that when I don't have work I also don't have an excuse not to exercise. I sit on a stone bench at the top of the hill and rest a moment, wondering how I got myself into this situation.

After safely securing my loaded gun and the money in the glove compartment, I back Betty out of the single parking space. If Hubert is waiting out front for me, and I have a feeling he is, he'll be waiting a very long time. Driving down Laurel Canyon Boulevard and heading toward home, I notice a police car pull in behind me. It stays with me whether I slow down or speed up.

Shit. My paranoia is peaking. I don't have any outstanding parking tickets, my registration is current, there are no burned-out taillights and I'm going the speed limit.

Go away!

As soon as I see an opportunity, I use my blinker and safely switch to the faster lane. The police cruiser switches right behind me. At a stop sign, I watch through my rearview mirror and see the officer in the passenger seat entering information into the computer on his dashboard. I get in the left-hand lane, using my blinker for certain, and they follow along. God, if they stop me and I have to open my glove compartment for my registration . . . do I have my CCW in my wallet? Of course I do . . . breathe.

I pull out into the intersection, waiting for the traffic to clear so I can make a left turn. The traffic thins, the light turns yellow, then red. Already out in the intersection, I cautiously start my left turn. It's a standard way of making a left turn in Los Angeles, and it will surely help me lose the cops behind me. Thank God for red lights!

Suddenly, a driver speeds through the red light and slams hard into my passenger side. My perception goes into slow motion as my head and body jerk forward, then back, while my SUV flips over. The seatbelt locks and the force pushes Betty sideways, smashing me violently into the police cruiser that had been following. After hitting two parked cars, Betty and I come to a rest on her side, rocking precariously. Through a huge gaping hole where my windshield is now crushed and ripped from the frame, I see the driver who hit me try to drive his crumpled blue Chevy away. His front wheels are caved in and his car is so crippled that the police catch up to it on foot.

I am hanging in my seatbelt like a parachutist braced by her harness. I unlatch myself and fall down onto my driver's-side window, my knees buckled underneath me. Besides the windshield being gone, my rearview mirror is missing and the contents of my truck are strewn everywhere. I try to push myself up but when I do so, the SUV wobbles unsteadily.

“Ma'am, are you hurt?” a man's voice calls out.

“No, I don't think so,” I yell. “But if I move, it feels like the truck is going to flip over again.” I hear fire engines in the background and suddenly remember the money and my gun.

Taking the key out of the ignition, I stretch to unlock the glove compartment. The truck rocks.

“Ma'am, don't move. What is your name?”

“Corki.”

“Corki, I'm Officer Bill Roberts with the Los Angeles Police Department. You're going to have to hold still until the fire department can get here to secure your car so we can get you out of there.” He is kneeling down on the street, not two feet away from me.

“It's not going to catch fire, is it? I just filled it with gas,” I say, panicking.

“Corki, you're fine. Gas isn't leaking. Are you hurt anywhere?”

“I'm not hurting, but I'm shaking and I can't seem to stop.”

Officer Bill reaches through the windshield and holds my hand. Just as he takes it, a thick stream of blood rolls out of my hairline, down my forehead and down the ridge of my nose. I pull my hand away and wipe at the warm wetness streaming down my face.

“I'm bleeding from my head.”

“Corki, I see it. The ambulance is pulling up right now.”

“I don't want to go to the hospital. I have to pick up my son from school.”

“Slow down, Corki. We need to get you out of here first and then we'll get your son situated. L.A. schools don't let out for another hour and a half. Your son's fine.”

“Officer Bob, I have a CCW, sir.”

“Corki, calm down.”

“Please, Bob, listen to me.”

“It's Bill, and I'm listening, but you need to calm down and not move around so much. Did you have your seatbelt on when you were hit?”

“Yes. Please, listen to me before anyone else walks over here. I have a CCW and a loaded weapon in my glove compartment. I also have other things in there that could have jammed against the gun. I don't want anyone to get shot. Do you hear me?”

He pats my hand.

“Okay, Corki, hold on and do not try to open the glove compartment. Hold still while I go talk to my partner.”

I sit as still as I can.

Half an hour later, a handsome fireman leans his face close to my windshield. I smile at him and wonder if it's a requirement for the Los Angeles Fire Department trainees to be gorgeous as well as skilled. I can't recall ever seeing an ugly one in Los Angeles.

“Hi, Corki,” he says.

“Hi. I'm getting cramped in here. Can I get out soon?” I ask.

“Can you move your limbs? I see a laceration on your scalp, but are you hurt anywhere else? Any numbness?” he asks.

“My legs are starting to fall asleep, but it's just from being in the same position for so long. I can move. I'm not hurt.”

“Corki, tomorrow you may feel pain in your neck and other places in your muscles, so I'd refrain from making statements saying that you're not hurt,” Gorgeous offers.

Legal and medical advice. I shut up.

“Okay, Corki, we have the truck supported. Do you have the ignition key?”

I hold up my hand with the key in it.

“Okay, I want you to put it in and turn the key on, but not the car. Don't turn over the engine.”

I do so and my dashboard lights spring to life.

“Now, push the button on your console between the seats and see if it will roll down the rear window.”