Dark Sky (The Misadventures of Max Bowman Book 1) (6 page)

A waiter stopped by. Angela ordered a wine that I could neither pronounce nor afford. The waiter was impressed by her selection, so I joined in the general excitement. When he was gone, she went back to her menu and continued the cross-examination.

“What kind of crime are we talking about?”

“My first marriage.”

She peered over the top of the menu at me again.

“Who was the perpetrator?”

“I’ll leave that to a jury of my peers.”

She actually laughed and went back to the menu. “Well, that’s a trial I hope gets televised. Mine didn’t go so well either. And neither did the second one. And now at my advanced age, it’s tough finding guys like you. The roast chicken looks good.”

Wait, what did she say before the thing about the chicken? 

“Guys like me?” I asked. Shit, did my voice just go up an octave?

“Guys who are just…guys. Straight-shooters, like my dad. No bullshit.”

“You must have men lining up. You’re in good shape. And aren’t there a lot of big shots who’d just like to have the Davidson name attached?”

“Who the hell needs someone like that? They don’t give a shit about me or anything about me. I’ve been through that too many times. The first husband married me for my money. The second for my name. I’m not optimistic about there being a third.”

“So you’re not seeing anyone right now, I take it?”

“No, you?”

“There’s someone. A singer who can’t sing. It’s casual.”

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I didn’t have to take it out and look at it, I knew it was Jules. As usual, her fucking witch-like powers sensed a female encroaching on her territory.

“Does
she
know it’s casual?”

I shrugged like a guy would. She seemed to find that attractive.

The wine came and, as the waiter poured, we both ordered the roast chicken. A little later, the food came and then another bottle of wine. We became almost as roasted as the chicken. During all that, we talked a little about baseball, movies, a few other safe subjects. Too much was hanging in the air, so I decided it was finally time to push things and do some business.

“So this is nice and everything. But why did you want to come all this way to talk to me?”

“I was interested in what you were going to do. How you were going to approach it.”

“Well, I’m not anxious to share my plans with a tire assassin.”

That flustered her and she didn’t fluster easily.

“Look…I’m really sorry…really, really sorry…but you already seemed rattled and I thought…”

“You thought some unknown stalker taking out my tires would scare me off. And then you wouldn’t have to worry about what I was going to turn up.”

“I guess I underestimated you.”

“People often do, even though I’m usually not up to much.”

“Well, let me correct you on something. Again, I’m not scared of what you’re going to turn up. I’m scared about my father’s weird obsession getting out to the media.”

She was starting to hit that line a little too hard. And suddenly, I no longer believed her.

But I did have to try and get at least get some information out of this dinner about the Davidson brood, because I sure as hell didn’t get a lot of protein. The chicken was good but, as usual in these kinds of places, it was only enough to fill the belly of a small child, not a big doughy man who only had a club sandwich six hours ago and was expecting to devour Pancho’s Combo #3, two tacos and a burrito with rice and beans on the side. Goddamn, I was going to give myself phantom diarrhea.

“Your mother – she passed away?”

“Three years ago. She would’ve been able to talk Dad out of this crazy fucking shit.”

“Tell me about your brother. Your only sibling, right?”

She looked away. This wouldn’t be easy.

“Yes, and it doesn’t really matter about Robbie now, does it?”

“Your father alluded to some…conflict with him.”

“It makes no difference.” Now she was getting pissed.

“Your father seemed to think it did. I thought it was interesting he went into the Rangers program instead of West Point. Seems like that might have disappointed your dad.”

She finished her glass of wine. Her hand was shaking. She got up her nerve, pushed her head forward in my direction and made her pitch.

“Here’s why I really called you. I’m assuming my father is paying you very well to do what you’re doing. He’s not a cheap man and this is important to him.”

I didn’t say anything. She pulled back a little, let all that sink in, and then moved forward again for the kill.

“Well, I have some money too. And I will double what he’s paying you to just stop whatever you’re thinking of doing. Give it up. Again, report back to him with some credible information that he’ll buy. And then drop it. Forever.”

So that was it. Intimidation failed, now it was going to be bribery. I wasn’t anxious to find out what her third move would be, but I had no doubt it would be coming.

She went into her purse. It was a nice bag. Probably cost more than the payoff she was offering me. 

“I can write you a check for a deposit of sorts, if that…”

My turn to move forward as I waved off her offer.

“Angela, I think you’ve again underestimated me. I don’t do that kind of thing, ever. It’s the reason I have any kind of reputation at all. If I can’t be trusted, I don’t get hired. And besides…well, it just ain’t me.”

She turned and signaled the waiter with an almost violent gesture to get his immediate attention. Lots of heads turned. Members of the Washington elite like Angela didn’t spin their arms around in the air at a place like this. I got the hint.

“I guess it’s time for the check. You want me to handle it?”

She shook her head furiously and dug into her purse for her wallet. Eye contact was no longer in her repertoire. When the waiter came over, she shoved an American Express card at him and asked him to expedite the check, she had somewhere to be, a destination which was anywhere I was not.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I went on, kind of wanting her to like me again. I knew that what she was doing now had nothing to do with me. I just wanted the same thing to be true for the first part of the meal. I wanted her to not just have been greasing the wheels for the pay-off when she acted like I had a shot with her.

“You didn’t disappoint me. Life did.”

Oh, boy. That’s where we were.

We sat quietly for a minute or two, until the waiter returned with her AmEx card and the receipt for the meal. She scribbled on a generous tip and signed it. Then she got up and walked out, leaving me the poorest and most alone guy in the room.

That wouldn’t have been the case if Pancho was still making tacos.

The poorest part, anyway.

It was Tuesday morning.

I avoided the Jack – and the Jules – when I got back to the hotel the night before, and slept moderately well probably because I ducked both J’s.

Although I did keep thinking about Angela during the night. I was a man, so of course I pictured her naked a few times, but mostly I thought about what she was hiding. She seemed to erupt like an overheated volcano every time I mentioned her brother - she wouldn’t divulge even the most basic piece of information about him. She just wanted me gone and the whole thing forgotten. Not only that, she wanted it too badly, which meant there was a huge fucking skeleton in some closet somewhere whose bones kept rattling in her ear to the point where it hurt.

Anyway, I was done with the dead ends around here. It was time to hit the road.

And suddenly, I felt all balanced and Zen again, like I could just focus on the case and ignore all the
Sturm und Drang
and other bullshit surrounding it. Because I was finally getting the hell out of D.C. and leaving all the pain from my past in a crappy midrange hotel room.

Plus, I was beginning to believe all the danger of the Davidson case lay in the pain of their past.  Whatever they were all scared of, whatever they were worried I might stir up, it seemed to be all about things that had been, not things that were. If there was some scandal attached to Robert Davidson, it was old and moldy and there was no reason to drag it out into the light if I ever found out what it was. Frankly, I didn’t care what it was and wasn’t anxious to find out. I had a simple job, to prove the guy was dead, and that was my only obligation. If there was some nastiness lurking from days gone by, I’d leave it where it was.

But the idea of Robert Davidson still being alive? That was dumber than a dog barking at itself in the mirror.

So it was just a matter of what the ugly truth had been about the guy. Maybe Angela was just afraid if I uncovered it, I’d blackmail her or go right to the
National Enquirer
. In any event, the only real threat to me so far had been a teenager attacking my tires. I needed to relax about the whole fucking thing, again, it was just another job despite the involvement of living legend General Donald Davidson.

All of that self-manufactured reassurance put me in such an almost good mood that I was heading towards giddy as I prepared to pack up, check out and hit the road. As I gathered my luggage - the Banana Republic shopping bags, that is - I called Jules. I had waited until the last possible second to make sure she’d be at work, where she couldn’t scream obscenities at me. 

But, then again, if Angela consistently underestimated me, I consistently underestimated Jules, who, when she answered, immediately said in a pleasant and professional voice that she would call me back in a minute. Then, as I saw it in my head, she quietly got up from her desk, took quick, purposeful strides towards the elevator, rode it forty floors down to the ground level, walked out of the high-rise where she worked and ducked into a back alley where she knew she could scream as many obscenities at me as she damn well pleased.

“Where the FUCK have you been, Fuckhead?”

Only two fucks? That was hardly worth going down forty floors.

“I got drunk night before last. I bought a laptop. I researched. Last night, I had dinner with someone connected with my case.”

“Who is she?”

“Did I specify a gender?”

“Am I wrong?”

“Are you ever?”

A sigh.

“I just miss you.”

I was getting tenderness?

“Jules, we never see each other that much during the week anyway.”

“You’re not in the greater metropolitan area. I don’t like that.”

“I’m not having sex with other women. I’ve mostly just been freaked out, okay?”

“What the fuck is it with this case?” She sounded worried for the first time.

“You don’t want to know, but don’t get concerned. I think everything’s all right now.”

As we talked, I used the television remote in the room to check out of the hotel – and, of course, kept it all on my new Mr. Barry Filer-issued credit card. Very easy. Thanks to technology, we would soon never have to converse with any other humans again. Then we could all just stay home and comfortably drown in our own filth.

“Are you coming back today?” Jules said with more than a little urgency.

“No…I’m going to be gone probably a few more days.”

“FUCK WHAT FUCK FUCK FUCK???!!”

Okay, the alley was a good call.

“Look, I have shit to do. I don’t get mad when you go to work.”

“Goddammit. Where are you going?”

“I’m not on a secure line.”

“Oh, Jesus, really? After all this time, you’re going to pretend to be serious about what you’re doing?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

“I’ll blow you when you get home?”

“Still not talking.”

A pause. This was a strange conversation and I was about to find out why.

“I have enough.”

I stood still in the middle of the room.

“Enough? Enough what?”

She paused, then it all came out in a rush.

“Enough money, doofus. I made an appointment with the doctor, the one who does the vocal cord surgery. I think I can cover the deductible, the co-pay, whatever the fuck Obamacare is gonna make me cough up, and get the operation. I think…maybe I’ll be able to sing again.”

It sounded like those last two words made her cry a little.

Wow. No wonder she was so edgy.

She had been waiting for this day for years, ever since her singing voice went out in the middle of a gig. Back when she was 22 and just out of college, she left Kansas and came to New York to be a Broadway star, not to wait on dick lawyers who only saw her as a paperwork receptacle. Apparently, she had a genuine talent. Even had a write-up in
The
New York Times
back in 2009 about her cabaret act. I wouldn’t know. I only found her after she lost her singing voice. But I was curious what she really sounded like when digging into some Cole Porter.

“That’s great news, Jules.”

“Yeah. Except I won’t be able to talk for two weeks after surgery. At ALL.”

“That’s more great news, baby.”

“Ha ha, douchebag.” Another pause, then in a small voice. “Will you help take care of me?”

“Uh…yeah, nursing isn’t really in my skill-set, but you can crash at my place if you want.”

“I’ll do that thing you like me to do with my vagina.”

“So many great offers. This isn’t a Groupon, is it?

“Fuck off.”

“When are you seeing the doctor?”

“In two days. Wish me some fucking luck.”

“You got it. Now wish me some fucking luck.”

“You got it. Don’t get fucking killed.”

“What? How the hell would that happen?”

“I don’t know. It just popped in my head.”

An uncomfortable pause.

Jesus. I had to remember – she was a fucking witch. 

We acted like nothing had happened and said our goodbyes, then I made it out to the rental with my Banana Republic bags, feeling like Don Draper on his last televised road trip, and took off west for Kentucky. It would be an all-day drive, which left me too much time to think.

As Jan took me where I needed to go – Jan was the name I gave the helpfully-efficient female voice of my phone GPS - I couldn’t help but feel like a shit for allowing myself to get mind-fucked by the rich hotness of Angela Davidson. When she casually indicated a guy like me was in her wheelhouse, it made me a little weak in the knees and almost hard between the balls. I knew now that she was most likely just warming me up for the bribe and I let my dick do the thinking instead of my head, as men sometimes do.

I had to get better about this shit. Jules was going to need me and I should fucking be there for her. It didn’t feel good being alone out here and she seemed more and more like a good deal I shouldn’t pass up. I was suddenly more than ready to put her in my will, if I ever was fortunate enough to have anything to leave anybody.

Maybe we
should
get a goddam dog.

Enough with the Romantic Adventures of Max Fucking Bowman and on to where I was driving to – the residence of Colonel Curtis Allen, somewhere near beautiful Booneville, Kentucky, which, I had discovered when I looked it up, was named for Daniel Boone, noted frontiersman who, legend had it, had a run in with a bear at the tender age of three. Or - wait – that was Davy Crockett, wasn’t it? Which one had a coonskin cap? Maybe both of them? Didn’t the same guy play both of them on TV in the sixties? 

Did I mention history wasn’t my strong suit?

Anyway, Colonel Allen had literally put himself out to pasture, retiring with his wife to a modest home out in the middle of endless farmland, where I had managed to find him three years ago at the behest of (I now knew) General Davidson. Back then, I didn’t have to leave Roosevelt Island to find the guy, I just worked the internet, got a number and gave a call. He answered and my job was done. I just had to hand off his contact information to Howard and that was the end of it, I thought. Those were the days. Now I was headed to a town where, according to the last census, a staggering total of eighty-one people lived. I was pretty sure that added up to fewer bodies than were currently occupying the bottom floor of my apartment building.

Back then, when I did reach Colonel Allen on the phone, I recalled that he was polite but not all that friendly. I believe I even got the distinct impression he didn’t want to be found - which is why, I guess, they had to hire the likes of me to undertake the hunt. This time around, I dug a little harder but didn’t find out much more about him. He abruptly retired from the service seven years ago, a couple years after Robert Davidson’s death (or not-death, depending on what you believed). He had been Robert’s commanding officer, but he wasn’t in Afghanistan when whatever happened happened - he was in the midst of transferring from Kabul back to a desk job in the States. It wasn’t clear if he wanted out or they wanted him out.

Anyway, if he knew something, then he was worth the extra driving. And even if he didn’t know anything, he was at least on the way to Missouri, which was my next stop. That’s where my second potential lead was – Colonel Allen’s commanding officer, General John Kraemer, who I already didn’t like because his last name was a whole lot harder to spell than it needed to be.

Wednesday morning.

I had spent the night in Lexington to the north of Booneville. I had stopped there because I wanted to be sure I could find a motel where the rooms had doors on them. I woke up feeling sore and a little tense. I had talked myself into staying calm yesterday, now I had to reboot that dialogue, because I didn’t know what would happen when I actually started talking to my first lead.

It took about an hour and a half to get down to the Colonel’s neck of the woods. I passed through the towns of Richmond, Irvine and Waco and wondered if Kentucky stole all their town names from other states. Finally, I was on State Route 28, coming into Booneville, which looked pretty much as I expected it to look. A few scattered mobile homes, a lot of pick-ups, a Quick Mart and many, many more trees than people. The only thing that was unexpected was a huge ancient black-and-white photo of a major league baseball player that was hung on the outside of the courthouse. I didn’t recognize the guy, but I assumed he must have hailed from these parts. Either that or there was a judge in there who was a huge fan and had a lot of clout.

I had spent a lot of quality time with Jan, my GPS voice, over the past few days and I was starting to think we had the makings of a beautiful friendship. I found her calm efficiency sexy as hell. I kept imagining her making erotic suggestions to me in bed with the same flat emotionless tones she used when telling me when to stay to the right so I could take the next exit. At one point, I got so into it, I considered pulling over and jerking off, but thought better of it. I kept worrying about seeing a state cop’s face peering at me through the car window as I was just merging into Jan’s lane and didn’t think that would reflect well on me.

So it would remain platonic with Jan, who was telling me how to navigate Booneville at that moment. I was to take a right off the main highway, which I did, and, as I drove up the narrow but newly-paved road, I saw a clump of older, larger “classic” wood frame homes. Jan went on to tell me that my destination was two thousand feet ahead on the left. Did I detect disappointment in her cold commanding voice that I hadn’t yet consummated our relationship?

As Angela Davidson would say, “Hmmmm.”

I switched off my twisted imagination as I approached the clump of homes and refocused my brain back on business, wondering how I would broach the subject of Robert Davidson if it didn’t come up. Then I wondered which home was the Colonel’s, whether it was the big one in the middle or not.

And then all hell broke loose.

They say you experience these kinds of extreme moments in slow motion. And whoever “they” are, they seemed to be right. A second suddenly seemed like a minute, and all the moments that made up each one of those seconds stuck to my memory like stills shot by someone taking a burst of photos, one after the other after the other.