The Ten-Ounce Siesta Page 5

  “Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro.

  Jack snatched his change from the checker and exited the market posthaste, Bobby’s trembling vibrato relentlessly trailing him until the automatic doors shushed closed at his heels.

  Jack opened the trunk of his battered ’76 Toyota Celica and tossed the grocery bags inside. He didn’t need to pay a fistful of twenties for the privilege of hearing a maudlin love song, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start thinking about Kate Benteen as a result. He’d suffered enough for one day, thank you very much.

  Jack climbed into the Toyota, keyed the engine, and turned on the radio.

  Ricky Nelson sang “Poor Little Fool.”

  Jack changed the station. Righteous Brothers. “(You’ve Lost That) Lovin’ Feeling.” He changed it again and heard Little Anthony goin’ out of his head. Changed it one last time, only to find Sinatra “Learnin’ the Blues.”

  That was it.

  Jack punched a cassette into the tape deck and zooma-zoomaed into the night to the sound of Louis Prima’s blissfully unromantic wail.

  ***

  About a year ago, the Celica was about two tanks of unleaded short of the junkyard. Then Jack put some of the money he earned from the Pipeline Beach job into the car. Some semi-serious change, but the mechanic had done a great job. Jack hadn’t had a lick of trouble with the Toy since.

  He figured that the Celica was destined to be a classic— the Mustang of the seventies. He was sure car collectors would see the light one of these days, and when that happened he’d score big bucks for the car he’d bought new in 1976. Then again, Jack was a man who in his time had predicted a bright future for 8-track players, Sony Betamaxes, and Apple computers.

  The only thing the Toyota lacked was some bodywork. Root beer foam brown in color, its smooth features were blemished by several dented rust spots that glowed like pools of dark Jamaican rum when the neon lights of Vegas shone just right. Jack liked the idea of pools of rum, especially under a neon glow. He also liked the idea that the Celica was a little dinged up, because he was a little dinged up, too. So the bumps and bruises would stay until he decided to sell the Toy.

  He pulled into his parking space behind the Agua Caliente condominium complex. Agua Caliente was Spanish for “hot water.” Apart from the fact that every condo in the complex was indeed supplied with hot water, Jack had never uncovered another explanation for the name apart from the fact that real estate developers liked the way those south of the border phrases sounded almost as much as they liked undocumented workers.

  The swimming pool looked inviting as he passed by. Empty, peaceful, illuminated with cool blue light. While he walked. Jack’s evening became clear in his mind. He’d feed the dog, have a couple White Castles while he read about the Bat Boy’s latest escapades, and then he’d blow up his air mattress and float away his troubles on a chlorinated sea.

  It seemed like the perfect idea, so perfect that he made a deal with himself—tonight he’d forget everything. The kidnapped Chihuahua. Angel Gemignani. Freddy G and his wise guy minions.

  Everything. Even Kate Benteen.

  The path to Jack’s condo was lined with tiki torches that flickered pleasantly in the evening light. He turned the last sharp corner of the walkway, ready to set down the grocery bags and dig into his jeans pocket for his keys.

  He saw that he wouldn’t need them.

  The door to his condo was already open.

  ***

  Jack Baddalach owned a gun—a Colt Python that he’d bought after his first job for Freddy G. He’d come up short in the shooting department during that bad bit of business down in Pipeline Beach, Arizona, and he had the scar tissue on his left forearm to prove it.

  Jack was pretty good with the Python. He belonged to a shooting range and everything. But the pistol was in his condo, so it didn’t do him a hell of a lot of good at the moment

  Still, he wasn’t going to turn tail. He’d fucked up enough for one day. Maybe this would be his chance to set things right

  Jack set the grocery bags to one side of the door and entered the condo. Inside it was dark, and quiet. He stopped in the hallway, listening, his hands balled into fists, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  The Venetian blinds were open in the living room. Slashes of ash-colored light painted the carpet and furniture. Jack scanned the room, searching for any sign of movement. He listened for the slightest sound.

  Nothing.

  Then he saw it. Underneath the coffee table. Something stirred.

  Something that panted, then whined.

  Jack flicked on the light switch.

  The string of tiki lights that rimmed the ceiling glowed yellow and green and white and red, illuminating a condo decorated in thrift store chic.

  From beneath the coffee table. Jack’s geriatric bulldog stared up at him.

  “I know,” Jack said. “We had company.”

  ***

  The bulldog’s name was Frankenstein, and Frankenstein had had a rough time of it until he fell in with Jack Baddalach. The dog had the scars to show for it. But just like the dings on Jack’s Celica, the scars gave Frankenstein a strong connection to his master. Occasionally, Jack was tempted to get all misty-eyed about it, scratch Frankie behind one battered ear and say. Like father, like son.

  Jack unfastened Frankenstein’s leash from its collar and then untied the leash from the coffee table leg. Whoever had broken into his place had taken care that the dog wouldn’t wander out through the open door. America really was a kinder, gentler place these days. Even the crooks were courteous.

  The culprit hadn’t trashed Jack’s place, either. His light-heavyweight championship belt still hung on one wall, bookended on each side by the boxing gloves he’d worn in his first and last pro fights. The bar that separated the kitchen from the living room hadn’t been disturbed; the Sneaky Tiki glassware that had served up Singapore Slings and Relaxers at Harvey’s Tahoe back in the fifties stood waiting and ready. The drawers to Jack’s desk were closed and the desktop seemed undisturbed—the photo of Kate Benteen he’d clipped from an old issue of Vanity Fair stood in a silver frame, Kate appearing to look down her nose at a stack of old suspense paperbacks Jack had sifted through before choosing the Dan J. Marlowe book for his Palm Springs trip. The television, VCR, and stereo hadn’t been touched, either, and a cursory glance at his record collection assured Jack that his Dean Martin records were still in alphabetical order by title.

  If the burglars had left Dino alone, they probably hadn’t messed with anyone else. Jack was about ready to check out the bedroom when he spotted the folded note propped near his telephone. He picked it up and unfolded it. The note was computer generated, and it had a handwritten postscript, and enclosed with it was a five-dollar bill:

  Jack held the five-dollar bill in his hands and stared at it until Abraham Lincoln’s self-assured expression really started to piss him off.

  He planted the dead president in the center of the page and refolded the note. Jack’s heart was pounding like he was in the ring again, ready to go to war, listening to the referee give the final instructions before the bell sounded for round one. He was that hyped up. Because it didn’t take a straw to break this camel’s back. What it took was a five-dollar bill.

  Okay. He’d have to call Freddy, give him the note. And then he’d have to figure out why the dognappers had delivered it to him.

  Simple explanation—they thought that Jack was dead. Sure. So they delivered the note to his place instead of the Casbah. Because with Jack dead, his condo would be empty. They wouldn’t have to risk being caught on videotape by a security camera. They could phone Freddy when they were ready. He’d get the note. And he’d know that this crew had done their homework, right down to casing his favorite gofer.

  Jack thought it over. Maybe one of the neighbors had seen someone snooping around. He could do a little door knocking, check that out. His next-door neighbor was a retired keno runner who was deaf as a post,
but maybe she’d seen something. If Jack was lucky, maybe he’d get a quick lead and—

  Frankenstein rubbed against Jack’s ankle. Then the dog sauntered into the kitchen, nudged his empty bowl, and looked at Jack.

  “Okay,” Jack said. “Not that you deserve it, because you’re no kind of watchdog.”

  He went back to the front door and got the grocery bags. Shit. The other bags were still in the Toy, and it was a hot night. His White Castle Hamburgers were probably thawed and mushy by now.

  Well, if they were wrecked, they were wrecked. He’d get them in a minute. He cradled the bag and gave the front door a shove with his foot, but it didn’t close all the way. Didn’t matter. He’d have to check the lock. The jamb, too. Make sure the dognappers hadn’t broken them.

  He opened a can of dog food and scooped half of it into Frankenstein’s bowl. He might as well have scooped it directly into Frankie’s mouth, the way the dog went after it.

  Jack’s stomach rumbled. Man. He was hungry too. He hadn’t had a thing since breakfast. He’d get those White Castles from the Toy, nuke a couple in the microwave and—

  The set of Sneaky Tiki glasses exploded behind him, and blue shrapnel slapped his backside.

  Jack whirled.

  Two guys holding Louisville Sluggers stood in his living room.

  And Angel Gemignani stood between them.

  JACK STARED AT THE TWO GUYS WITH THE BALL BATS. For the first time in his life, he knew just what a pinata felt like.

  Angel smiled. Even with a couple of troll escorts, she looked damn good. She was still wearing the Sweet Cherry Love tee she’d worn that morning in Palm Springs, along with torn black jeans, Doc Martens, and Calvin Klein’s Obsession.

  She’s a rebel. Jack thought. A punker with a gold card.

  Under other circumstances, the perfume might have brightened up Jack’s place. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman around. But all too soon the sweet aroma was eclipsed by the stink of beer and marijuana and fatboy sweat that accompanied her companions.

  It wasn’t hard to figure out where Angel had picked them up. The barroom shine in her eyes gave that away. No beer and dope for her, though. Uh-uh. Jack was sure Angel Gemignani wasn’t a beer-and-a-joint kind of woman. She’d sip Sweet Cherry Love drinks—a pink lady, or maybe a cosmopolitan.

  Jack wondered if Angel had ever had a mai tai served in a vintage Sneaky Tiki glass. He knew it was a completely inappropriate concern at the moment. But Angel’s sparkling green eyes were way past alluring, and he couldn’t help wondering.

  Jack held tight to the open can of dog food. “You’re not thinking straight, Angel.”

  “Sure I am. I’m thinking that you’re a smartass. And that’s okay, because I kind of like smartasses. I’m a smartass myself. But I’m thinking that you’re also a chickenshit, and I don’t like chickenshits.”

  “Look, I’m really sorry about your dog. I feel pretty awful about the whole thing. But it was a setup. The people who snatched Spike knew that I was coming. They had guns. They locked me up with a rattlesnake, for Christ-sakes—”

  “A setup.” She nodded. “Sure. And how do I know you weren’t in on it?”

  “You’ve just got to trust me on that one, Angel.”

  “Trust you.” She laughed, sharp and hard and bitter. “I don’t trust guys who fuck up. I learned that from my granddaddy. You know what he always says about guys who fuck up.”

  “Yeah: He who fucks up gets fucked up.”

  “It’s a simple rule, Jack.”

  Jack nodded. “And you just broke it.”

  ***

  The two guys had to be twin brothers. They were both huge bordering on humongous, and they had the kind of faces that would definitely keep them from making it through airport metal detectors on the first trip.

  Which meant they were definite pierce-aholics. They’d gone the whole twin route with that particular obsession, too. Identical earrings looped through their earlobes, bejeweled studs dotting the harder cartilage tissue above. Their bristling Neanderthal eyebrows were set off by a startling array of dainty silver loops. They wore nose studs, and an obligatory rod pierced the pouting hollow beneath their lower lips.

  Jack figured he’d see identical tongue studs as soon as the twins opened their mouths. The only way he could tell them apart was by their rock ’n’ roll T-shirts. Your basic black Gen X-wear, oversized and overpriced, featuring the darlings of sludge lovers everywhere—Mudhoney on the left, and Garbage on the right.

  Jack stood up, still holding the can of dog food. “You boys are making a big mistake. This is your chance to back out.”

  Mudhoney smiled like a jack-o’-lantern, full and yellow, his only answer the percussive beat of a tongue stud against his front teeth.

  Jack thought. Surprise, surprise.

  “Last warning,” he said. “I used to be the light-heavyweight champion of the world.”

  Mudhoney laughed. “We seen you get knocked out. And by a nigger, too.”

  “We had money on your white ass,” Garbage said. “You let down your race, man.”

  “Yeah. We got us a score of our own to settle with you.”

  Mudhoney stepped into the kitchen. Garbage backing him up. Jack angled in front of Frankenstein, who had wedged his cowardly ass in the comer where the refrigerator met the wall. There wasn’t much room between Mudhoney and Jack. Maybe five feet. Not enough room to throw the can of dog food Jack held in his hand. But throwing it wouldn’t do any good anyway—these two behemoths weighed two-fifty a piece at least. A can of dog food wasn’t going to slow them down. Unless—

  Jack lashed out with the can, open end aimed at the two men. One sharp sucking sound, and a slick gob of Meaty Treaty flew across the room and splattered Mudhoney from his yellow smile to his eyes.

  He dropped his bat and fell back a step, wiping his eyes and blinking furiously.

  “You shithouse rat!” Garbage started forward, his bat cocked over his right shoulder. “You’re dead.”

  The kitchen was tiny. In cramped quarters, a baseball bat was hardly an ideal weapon. Garbage had maybe one swing. If Jack could elude the punker’s first strike, then he could get his licks in.

  Garbage grunted. Batter up.

  Jack took a quick step forward, careful to keep Frankenstein behind him, then backed off just as fast, hoping to draw Garbage off balance.

  But Garbage followed the move beautifully. Jack saw that right away.

  The bat rushed toward his head. He watched it come . . .

  . . . and heard Garbage’s Doc Martens squeal across the linoleum as the punker slipped on the same lump of dog food that had struck Mudhoney in the face.

  Garbage went down hard. Jack grinned at the moron. He’d dropped his bat. In a second Jack would have it and then he’d take care of business.

  Jack reached for the bat and ran into Mudhoney’s knee, which slammed him against the refrigerator. The big punker laid into him before he could recover, fists banging Jack’s belly, a dog food-slathered smile on his ugly face, little bits of brown gelatin clinging to the silver rings pinned to his eyebrows.

  Jack grabbed a handful of rings and pulled. Mudhoney’s scream tore the air like a Guns N’ Roses guitar solo—long and loud, covering several octaves. He stumbled back and Jack followed him, eager to get hold of Mudhoney’s bat and finish things.

  Jack got the bat, but not where he wanted it. It came up from below and smacked him between the legs, not hard but certainly hard enough, and he dropped to his knees and his right fist opened and silver rings rained down on the tiled floor.

  Garbage and Mudhoney towered over Jack, not looking at him, looking toward the refrigerator instead. They didn’t say a word, but Jack could hear what they were thinking.

  Let’s mash the fucker’s dog.

  Frankenstein could hear them, too. The geriatric bulldog was wedged into the corner, scarred from too many beatings, scared straight through to the bone.

  But not too s
cared to fight back. Bulldog lips curled back over teeth just as yellow as Mudhoney’s.

  Frankenstein started to growl.

  “No!” The word split Jack’s lips as Garbage’s bat arced down. Jack barely got under it, shielding Frankenstein from the blow. The bat caught him on the left shoulder as his hands closed over Frankenstein. He clutched the dog against his belly, and Mudhoney’s bat came crashing down against his left leg as he tried to get up and his foot went out from under him, twisting the wrong way and suddenly he was on his ass.

  “Let me have him,” Mudhoney said, blood gushing from his tom eyebrow.

  “Okay.” Garbage nodded, wheezing hard. “But I get the dog.”

  “You sick bastards,” Angel Gemignani said. “That’s enough.”

  Mudhoney and Garbage didn’t particularly want to listen to her.

  They didn’t want to leave Jack’s condo, either.

  But they did both those things.

  Because they had a couple of baseball bats.

  And Angel Gemignani had a gun.

  ***

  Angel smiled. “I never figured you for a dog lover.”

  “I’m full of surprises,” Jack said. “And so are you. Freddy said you carried a gun, but I thought he was kidding. I never guessed that anyone who wore a Sweet Cherry Love T-shirt would pack a .45.”

  “A girl’s gotta accessorize, Jack.”

  Jack nodded. They were sitting in the hot tub near the condo swimming pool. The whole thing was crazy. One minute Freddy’s granddaughter was thirsty for his blood, the next they’re deep into a witty repartee kind of thing. All because Jack had a soft spot for dogs.

  And he was letting Angel get away with it. That was the really crazy thing. But there was something about her. Jack had tangoed with a couple of poor little rich girls in his time. He’d been run through the slap slap kiss kiss mill by experts. The whole big-money-breeds-big-emotions routine.