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  “Why did you say that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s an expression, you know. A figure of speech? Meaning, be careful? Stuff like that?”

  “You’ve never said it before,” I said.

  “Whatever, freak,” Darren said. “Hey, Danny – I hope you’re feeling lucky in a couple of hours. Like you said.”

  Don’t blow it, Darren. “Yup. Talk to you later,” I said. I hung up.

  And unless my brother was on a totally different planet than I was, he would be meeting me at Lucky’s Bar and Grill in two hours.

  11

  I went back into the restaurant to have another glass of wine and kill an hour. My foot was also hurting – the Tylenol Wanda had slipped me was wearing off, or wasn’t that strong to begin with. My salad was long finished, but I asked for another menu, along with another glass of wine. I figured I should have some protein, if I was going to go around beating people up. Or worse. I ordered a medium-rare cheeseburger and fries. The appetite was coming back, despite the couple of bumps of coke. I changed the chardonnay to a Shiraz and settled in. I debated becoming an alcoholic instead of a crack addict: it would be cheaper, and more socially acceptable. I was quite enjoying my little wine buzz.

  And it helped me put pain and fear and worry off to the side, and concentrate on what I had to do. Once my nephews were safely back with us, and Ginger’s killer or killers were dead, I could break down and mourn. Preferably with Gene, and a room full of crack. And not until then.

  I had been idly glancing through a copy of the Los Angeles Times that someone had left behind, but I put it down and looked at the women lunching around me. One of them caught my eye – she looked like I did, a few years ago. When I was fit and strong, and teaching a women’s self-defence class at my local Y, in addition to having six or seven clients that I trained every week. When I ran three or four miles every other day.

  Before my split from Jack, and the orgy of low living that had followed.

  I tried not to think about Jack, and I was pretty sure that he was doing his level best to not think about me, either. After I had left him, he stayed in Toronto for about a year before packing up and taking a job in Bermuda, then Grand Cayman, then back to Bermuda. He was a risk analyst for a very high-end hedge fund, the kind that you needed four or five million to get into. I had loved the contradiction of him: the street fighter with a Ph.D. in mathematics. He wasn’t pretty to look at, but that’s always been my thing. I’d take the late great James Gandolfini over the Brad Pitts of the world, any day of the week. Show me a barrel-chested guy with size-seventeen neck who reads good books in his spare time, and I’m on my back like a bug. Or I was, until my sex drive went the way of my bank account.

  Thinking about men made me think about Miller. Harry. What was happening there? The last days had been chaos and hell, but somehow my mind kept going back to Miller, the unexpected interlude in the hospital, the rumpled, vaguely sexy mess of him. And him a cop, no less. I knew it was a coping mechanism. I’d always been like that – even before drugs, I got through trauma by thinking about, and doing, totally random and inappropriate things.

  Then I remembered Gene. I motioned to the waitress that I’d be right back, and limped back to the payphone to try him. Note to self: buy a phone card.

  Again, I tried my place first, and Gene answered on the first ring. He sounded anxious. He must be waiting for D-Man, I thought.

  “It’s me,” I said. “Sorry. Nothing outside for you yet.”

  “Thank God,” Gene said. I heard the pop of his Zippo. He inhaled deeply on the other end of the line. “What the fuck is going on down there?”

  “Nothing much,” I said. “And by that I mean, someone I was partying with was murdered last night, while I was three feet away. Plus, someone drugged me, and not in a good way, if you know what I mean. Oh, and someone came out of my sister’s shower and knocked me unconscious. And today? I punched out a detective and left her in a ladies’ room.” I put my forehead against the cool phone. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

  “Oh, wow, you too,” Gene said. “I can’t really take in what you just said yet, but are you at this moment okay?”

  “I am, at this moment, okay. I am having a few glasses of wine and a cheeseburger, then I’m meeting Darren for drinks.” I neglected to mention that I was going back to the bar where some sinister female drug dealer had sold me poisoned crack.

  I filled him in, briefly, about Fred and the boys. I sounded remarkably calm.

  “Oh.” I could hear him smoking furiously. His manner of smoking always reflected his state of mind. Which, by the sound of it, was agitated. No wonder. “Danny. Something weird is going on here too. I don’t want to trouble you, but…”

  Oh fuck. “Gene. Tell me right now. Wait. Are you high?”

  “I was,” he said. “Our friend gave me credit. But I am very much not, right now.”

  “You okay?”

  “Danny, someone called here. A woman,” he said. “For a second I thought it was you.” I stopped breathing and waited for him to continue. “I was asleep. You know?”

  I knew. His sleeping was legendary. After a bender, he could sleep for thirty hours.

  “Anyway. She asked for Danielle. Not Danny. I said you weren’t home. Then she said she knew that, but she wanted to try anyway. She asked me to pass along a message to you. She made me write it down.” I could hear him leafing through what I was sure would be a holy mess on my coffee table. “She said, ‘Tell her I’m taking the twins on a trip.’ Then she said to tell you, ‘You’re it.’”

  “I’m it?”

  “You’re it,” he said. “Danny. I gotta go. D-Man is on the other line. Call me back, okay? Please. I’m not going anywhere.” And he hung up.

  The twins. Ginger’s boys. This was the woman who had kidnapped the boys.

  My mouth went dry and I kept my hand on the phone, trying to think past the pounding of blood in my ears. I fished around in my own wallet for Miller’s card. He had written his personal cell number on it. Surely he wouldn’t be able to trace where it was coming from, but even if he could, this was more important. I squinted at my own writing, but when I got through, it went straight to voicemail. Maybe he was catching up on sleep himself.

  “Miller,” I said. “Danny Cleary here. Tell Detective French I’m sorry. Really sorry. I just had to get out of there and take care of some things alone.” I told him exactly what Gene had said. “Tell the RCMP or the Toronto police or whoever that they have my permission to put a tap on my phone. Not that my permission is probably needed. But if you hear hints of any illegal activity not pertaining to this case, can you give it a pass? Or do whatever you have to do.

  “But please. Find that woman. Find the boys. I’ll be in touch.” I paused a minute. “And by the way, that was fun.” I’m such a romantic. I hung up. I quickly called my own number back to warn Gene, tell him to maybe go back to his own place for a bit until this all blew over. I got my own voice on voicemail. Gene must have run downstairs to pick up from Bruno. He couldn’t check my messages, he didn’t have my password. I would call him back.

  I went back inside, where the waitress was putting my food on the table. I wolfed it down as though it would be my last meal. I was kind of hoping that it wouldn’t be. I found myself wanting, more than anything else, to call Jack. I needed Jack. I missed Jack, especially after the thing with Miller the night before. I felt like I had betrayed Jack, despite separating so long ago. But when his head was on straight, when he wasn’t fighting his own demons, he was the best person in the world to help others fight theirs. But time wasn’t on my side; I had to keep calm, keep my wits about me and think.

  I kept my food down. This was a good thing, after all the shit that had been in and out of my system recently. The red wine and red meat seemed to perk me up, too. I could never understand how vegetarians had any energy whatsoever. Of course, not eating for days at a time while smoking crack had had the same effect.

&nbs
p; I limped through the mall and found a funky store which had relatively cheap, costume-y clothes in the window. Inside, I picked up a blonde wig and tried it on. It was the color of my natural hair, but it was long. I tried it on.

  “Wow,” the teenaged salesgirl said, smiling at me. “You rock that wig.” She played with her nose ring, which looked new. And sore.

  “Do I? Do I rock this wig?” I laughed. It was cheap, so I bought it. When the salesgirl put it in a bag, I stopped her. “Wait,” I said. “I’m going to wear it out of here. Freak out my girlfriends.”

  “Well, you look like a different person, that’s for sure,” she said, handing me my change.

  “That’s the idea,” I answered.

  I slowly made my way around the huge shopping centre, trying to figure out where there might be a cab stand. It was Southern California, though, so they were few and far between, when they did exist. I finally asked at a mall information booth, and they pointed me in the direction of the valet stand outside the restaurant where I’d just eaten. Figured.

  On my way there, I passed a kitchenware store. On an impulse, I entered and bought a knife. A small one, but sharp. It wasn’t meant for the purpose for which I might need it, but I figured it would do the trick. Having it in my purse made me feel a few degrees better. I knew I had to stop spending money, but a little peace of mind seemed like a good investment at the moment.

  “Do you know where the Sunny Jim motel is?” I asked the cab driver. He was a skinny white guy in a torn death metal t-shirt. I was pretty sure he’d know the general area.

  “Uh. Yeah,” he said. He turned right around and looked at me. “You sure you want to go there?”

  “Actually, I’m going up the street from there, but I lost the address,” I said. “I’m directing a photo shoot over there. I don’t know that neighborhood.”

  “I didn’t think so,” he said, clicking on the meter. We listened to Skid Row most of the way there, with one Metallica tune thrown in. I always did like James Hetfield’s voice. The driver was surprised when I sang along.

  “Women,” he said, smiling at me in the rear view. “They can always surprise you.”

  “Don’t you forget it, buddy,” I said, tough-girl friendly. I realized that I’d missed interacting with people, after all this time holed up with Gene doing crack. And another out-of-body moment: was I really conversing with a person, and smiling, and not screaming?

  The driver dropped me in front of Lucky’s. “You know this place?” I asked him.

  “Nah,” he said, making change for me. “The chick and I, we stay in and play video games mostly. I’m a recovering alcoholic,” he said.

  “Really? Well. Good luck with that. Working the Twelve Steps?”

  He nodded. “I’m on step eight. Making amends,” he said.

  “That would be a hard one.”

  “It is,” he said. “You have yourself a good day, miss.” Miss. Put on a blonde wig, and the ma’am was out the window.

  * * *

  Lucky’s was the same as it was the day before, but missing at the bar was one female drug dealer. And Dave wasn’t here, either. I was hoping he would be. I wondered if he knew about Dom yet. I wondered if anybody here knew about Dom.

  The bartender was the same, though. He was watching football, again, and barely glanced in my direction when I entered. Huh. And as far as I remembered, blondes had more fun.

  I scanned the room, my eyes adjusting to the dark after the bright sunshine outside. Still hadn’t bought shades, and I’d just spent a few hours at a mall. A guy in a baseball cap at the bar turned around. It was Darren.

  “Since when do you wear hats?” I said, sitting on a stool next to him.

  “Since when do you wear wigs?” he retorted. I ordered a cranberry and soda. Darren was drinking beer. He raised an eyebrow at my order, but looked pleased enough. I was a bit tired after my three glasses with lunch, and figured it was best to take it slow.

  “I’m practicing moderation,” I explained to him.

  The bartender showed no sign of recognizing me from the day before. He brought me my drink without a word and went back to the game. Chatty guy. I looked at the game for a minute. Pats and Jets. I hate football.

  “Is this where you got it?” Darren asked me quietly. I shook my head at him, and headed for a table at the back, near the pool tables. Where I’d hung out with Dom and Dave yesterday. It seemed like weeks ago.

  “Yes, this is where Dom got it. There was a chick here yesterday. Looked Latina. Mexican maybe, or Puerto Rican. I don’t know.” I took a long swallow of my drink. Cranberry juice without vodka. Who knew.

  Darren leaned over and gave me a hug. I was worried about my wig slipping, so I just patted him on the back and pushed him away.

  “Where did you tell the cops you were going?” I asked him.

  “For a drive,” he answered. “I’m not a prisoner. They couldn’t force me to stay in the house.” He looked at me more carefully. “How are you feeling, anyway?”

  “My foot hurts like a sonofabitch,” I said, holding out my bandaged right foot. “And look at my hand.” Darren admired the swelling and bruising, while I told him about punching Detective French.

  In my family, minor injuries were things to be admired in others. Nothing like wiping out while crossing the street and almost being hit by a car so that you could have a funny story to tell. When Darren leaned down to examine my foot closely, I saw something sticking out of the waistband of his jeans. He was wearing a leather jacket. It wasn’t the hottest day in Southern California, but for those of us from northern climes, it was positively balmy.

  Darren was wearing the jacket to hide a gun.

  “Where did you get that?” I said calmly and quietly.

  “Rosen,” he answered.

  “Ginger’s butler gave you a gun?” It wouldn’t be the oddest thing that had happened in the last days, I supposed.

  “Loaned,” he answered. “Yes. Actually, it turns out he’s more of a bodyguard. Former Israeli army. It’s a Desert Eagle,” he said. I looked at him. “The gun,” he whispered. “Israeli-designed, manufactured in the good old U.S. of A.” Whatever. He looked at my foot again. “You could use a pedicure.”

  “When was the last time you handled a gun?” I asked. Dad had taught us all to shoot when we were kids. Well, adolescents. Some families go to the movies together; the Clearys shot at cans in the gravel pit. I hadn’t touched one since, though I knew the boys had gone deer hunting with Dad sometimes.

  “Went to a range in South Carolina last month, on tour,” he said. “I go once every few months.”

  “Why do I not know this?” I said.

  Darren shrugged. “You telling me there aren’t things I don’t know about you?”

  Touché. “You’re not licensed to carry that thing,” I said. “You could get in big trouble.”

  “Uh. Danny? You punched a cop today and left her unconscious in a hospital bathroom. Who, exactly, do you think is in more trouble?”

  I told Darren about my phone call with Gene, and the woman who’d called with the messages for me. I told him about leaving a message for Miller.

  “I haven’t seen him,” Darren said, once he digested everything.

  “I still don’t believe it.” I took a sip of my drink. I felt tired, dehydrated and my buzz was slipping away. “Or maybe I do. Darren, I don’t know what to believe. But we just have to concentrate on getting the boys back for now.”

  I was about to excuse myself to the ladies’ room to feed myself another bump of coke when the bar door opened.

  It was the woman. The drug dealer. Chatting and laughing with Dave. Dave, who yesterday hadn’t even glanced in her direction. Who Dominic had wanted to hide his drug use from. I whipped my head back in Darren’s direction. I hoped they wouldn’t recognize me from body language in the dim light, but long blonde hair does tend to catch people’s eye. It’s one of the reasons I changed mine. I got tired of never being invisible.
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br />   “That’s her, isn’t it,” Darren said.

  “Yup.”

  I thought fast, trying to come up with a clever plan. I couldn’t think of one, so I got up and march-limped over to the bar.

  “Dave!” I said, kissing him on his cheek. “Nice to see you again.” Dave looked confused for half a second – why was this tall blonde chick kissing him? – but then he recognized me.

  “Hi,” he said. He glanced at the bartender. I turned to the woman.

  “We haven’t been formally introduced,” I said, sticking out my hand. “Danny Cleary. And you are…?”

  “Lola,” she said. She looked sort of bemused. Like she was enjoying the fool I was going to make of myself.

  “Lola,” I said. “Right.” She ignored my hand. Her voice surprised me – younger than I thought, and with precise, unaccented English. “I like the blonde. It suits you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “It’s my natural color.”

  Off to my left, I noticed the bartender giving the nod to the other two guys at the bar, who got up and left without a word. The bartender slowly came from around the bar and locked the door behind them, then walked back and looked at the TV again. I willed Darren to stay where he was. If he started flashing his gun around, Mr. Football Fan behind the bar would probably pull out a sawed-off shotgun and blast us all to pieces.

  Dave was looking nervously at the woman. “Lola,” he started to say, but she shut him up. I stared at them for a minute, then turned to the bartender.

  “I don’t know if you remember me from last night,” I said. “Danny Cleary.”

  “Lowell,” he responded. He didn’t offer me a handshake either. How rude. These people needed to be taught some manners.

  “Where are my nephews?” I asked, looking Lola in the eyes.

  “I have no idea,” she answered, eyebrows raised, as though talking to a slightly annoying, slow child.

  She couldn’t be the woman who had taken them. That woman was apparently my height and weight, and this one was about five feet tall.