The Bright Spot Page 20

  Dee turned and left the bar, doing her best Indian Princess stately stride, Stan beside her like a walking hemlock from the forest primeval. The goons were at a loss. Their boss was going down ugly, but there was nobody to shoot. He spotted them looking embarrassed and barked at them to get the hell out to the car and wait. They scurried out, and Lu stood.

  I stayed seated. “I’ll just finish my drinks,” I said with a lopsided grin, like a true lush.

  “Not again,” she said with a roll of her eyes, a whine in her voice. “Don’t expect me to wait up for you this time.” Then she left too, in a convincing huff.

  Bless her, she always picked up a cue.

  I wanted to talk to Trey Kennemeyer—asshole, ’ware tycoon, and murder suspect. I thought he knew things. Rich people usually do. That’s how they got to be rich. Once they’re rich, they buy more information to keep them that way. Maybe after the recent unpleasantness with Dee he wouldn’t mind knocking back a few with a harmless, whipped lush like me, for a little misogynistic man talk. It was no surprise I’d tactlessly remained behind. After all, I was the guy who ordered two doubles. I had them sitting before me. I took my first sip, and it was good. “Tough break,” I said.

  He took a tug at his, but there was nothing left but ice. “She didn’t have to do that,” he said.

  I nodded. What he said was undoubtedly true. As much as I personally enjoyed it, she didn’t have to do it. It was classier she hadn’t gotten physical, though I regretted not seeing her actually spit in his eye.

  “When I met her, she was just a fucking dancer,” he said.

  “Vegas?”

  “Yes. I have interests there.”

  “I thought so when I met her—about her being a Vegas dancer, I mean. She’s got the moves. She’s tall. Beautiful, of course. And those legs. She must look great with the high headdresses and everything. I’m curious. If you think so little of dancers, how come you married one?”

  “You’re awfully smart on my Scotch.”

  “It was a gift, remember? It’s mine now. You wouldn’t want to be an Indian giver, would you? I believe the term was coined around here somewhere by white men selling Indian land to each other. But I can’t drink two at once. I can afford to be generous.”

  I slid my second drink to him, and he took it, took a proprietary belt. I sipped. We talked. He gulped, and ordered more. It wasn’t so hard to bring the conversation staggering around to Uncle Ed and his old pal Jimmy Dumfries. After all, Trey was practically looking at him. James Dumfries was clearly one of his ghosts, and here I was showing up to haunt him, Ed barely in the ground. The news loop had rolled around, and we watched the “Pool of Hate” story together.

  He didn’t look like he believed it any more than I did. He looked at me, took a pull at a fresh Scotch, double number three. “You know, when I saw who you look like, I figured you did it. A love nest gone bad deal. Something like that. What did Ed pay you to make yourself look like the ‘love of his life’?”

  “You’ve got it wrong, I’m afraid. This is how I look. I’m an actor. I was tapped to play James Allen Dumfries in a postwar bio, and I talked to Ed about him, the one and only time we met. Then someone murdered him.”

  “Uh-huh. What did he tell you?”

  “Nothing. Nobody will talk to me about Jimmy Dumfries. Everyone’s too scared. What about you, Trey? You scared?”

  Trey rose to the bait like those cloned marlins you can pay to catch in the Keys, if it’s too much trouble to open a can of tuna and you have a few thousand bucks to blow on some Hemingwayish manhood. And all he had to do was talk. He was pretty drunk, but he could still talk okay. He’d been loaded at some fine schools where one learned to keep talking in more or less complete sentences, practically until one passed out. Trey had whole paragraphs left in him yet.

  “I can tell you plenty about James Dumfries,” he said. “Him and Ed. My parents’d leave me with Ed when they traveled, which they did a lot, spending my inheritance.” He chuckled. I was supposed to chuckle too. I did, though I’m not much on parent jokes. “Jimmy showed up at Ed’s every other night for a quick boink before hurrying home to the wife. Ed always lived as close as he could to the guy. It was pathetic, really. Jimmy was never going to divorce his wife and make an honest queen of him. I made myself scarce when Jimmy showed, and they’d be at it in no time. They thought I didn’t know what was going on, that I was just a dumb kid. They even took me sailing on Jimmy’s boat once. They were down below for like an hour.” He smirked. “Making sandwiches.”

  His smug, drunken smile hinted at a story that might be coaxed out of him. He’d shown the old fags he wasn’t so dumb in the end—watched them too, I wagered. He liked to watch.

  “That must’ve been some interesting pillow talk,” I said. “Inventor of the ’ware and its most outspoken critic—two of the most brilliant men of the time.”

  Trey snorted. A good, manly, drunken snort. “Those two? They were idiots. Smart, but idiots. Dumfries invents this incredible thing and thinks he can just put it back in the box? ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to’? Come on! Ed thinks people’s consciences are going to stop them when there are trillions to be made off of it? This is Planet fucking Earth here. They were so smart a thirteen-year-old kid could outsmart them is how smart they were.” He took another gulp, though he didn’t need it. This chemical imbalance registered on his face almost immediately, and he took a moment to pull himself and the room together. It looked like he might have a few pieces left over. He was telling a story, he recalled. He took on a conspiratorial air, leaned across the table. One false move and his face would fall on it. “Wanna know how stupid the great James Dumfries was?”

  I noted the past tense, but didn’t make anything of it. Trey was doing his own time-traveling, and he was as close to thirteen as downing three double Scotches could get him. The James Dumfries he was talking about was about my age, long, long ago. The three of me nodded our encouragement. He wasn’t sure which one to focus on. He leaned in closer. I slid his glass out of his way, so he wouldn’t knock it over. “I’ll tell you how stupid: He had this ancient laptop he’d had since college or something, lugged it with him everywhere. It had everything on it, all his research, his notes, tons of ’ware code. Unsecured. Pretty stupid, huh? I mean, anyone could come along while they were fucking, steal his hard drive, swap it out with a busted one—takes five minutes.” He held up five fingers even if he couldn’t have counted them himself. “He wouldn’t suspect a thing! They’d jus’ think Jimmy’s old laptop had finally crashed! Time to get a new one! Too bad they don’t make them anymore!” He sputtered laughter. “It didn’t even occur to them how much the fucking thing was worth. You might say I owe my substantial wealth to James Dumfries, a fucking idiot.” He found his drink—I hadn’t moved it far enough—and toasted James with the last of it, probably not a good idea. He swallowed and blinked. He didn’t have much longer.

  “What about Galatea Ritsa? Did she help you out too?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “A woman James Dumfries had an affair with after the war, also went by the name of Lenore Chapell.”

  Trey smirked, wagged his finger at me. “I knew you were a spook! Showing up looking like Jimmy right after Uncle Ed gets killed. Actor! You had me going for a minute. If you weren’t fucking him, you were playing him, right? I told you guys already I don’t know anything about it, have no idea who did it. Fucking crazy is what it was. The guy was totally on ice. A fucking philosophy professor. Didn’t know a goddamn thing except he missed his sweet Jimmy. Poor sick fuck. Now we got this shit to deal with.” He waved a hand at the television.

  “How do you know Galatea Ritsa?”

  “Hadn’t heard the name before. Didn’t know I’d need it. She must be the babe in the video some of your buddies played for Ed back then to show him what his true love was up to, am I right? Jimmy and this woman fucking like rabbits. I couldn’t get a good look at her face, but she had a body on her.” His hands h
eld air tits. The memory seemed to revive him. His eyes gleamed with lust.

  “What did they say about her back then?”

  “I couldn’t hear, but it looked like they had Ed right where they wanted him, crying like a baby. He would’ve given up his own mother, looked like. That was the last time I saw the great James Dumfries—in that recording, banging away. Ed watching.”

  “I’m curious. How did you see it? Were you in the room?”

  “Oh hell no. You could see into Ed’s office out my bathroom window. With good binoculars.”

  I’m sure he had the best. He liked to watch. The whole country did, apparently. Behind him on the TV, the news loop had rolled around to the damn Pool of Hate logo again. The top story of the hour here in the homeland. There must’ve been a hero shortage that day. Maybe they could do another of their “Richest Men in America” stories. Those were always good on a slow day. Gave the little people something to aspire to. He might even buy them some of the good Scotch, share some of the secrets of his success.

  “Tell me something, Trey, you ever stand outside and watch your wife running naked?”

  “Outside? No. The cameras pick her up from three different angles.”

  “I hope you saved the recordings. I don’t think you’ll be seeing her again—except in virtuals, like everyone else. She’s going to be a star, Trey. You just wait and see. Losing you could be the best thing ever happened to her. She’s already made the adjustment to running outside in the real world with clothes on. You should see her and Stan together—like a couple of gazelles. It’s a shame about your wife, Trey, but now that you’ve had your answer, I suggest you back off. You’ve stumbled onto something out of your league here. National security interests are at stake. You wouldn’t want to compromise the good relationship you have with the Administration, would you, Trey? You’re crowding us here. It’s time for you and your boys to move on down the road. Thanks for the Scotch.”

  I finished my drink, though it’d gotten pretty watery by then, and left before I saw whether he bought it or not. He was just drunk enough. I’d be lucky if he remembered any of it. By the time I hit the door, he was headed for the bathroom.

  I found the goons shivering outside by Dee’s car. I told them to give their boss a couple of minutes, then find a bucket to carry him back to The Lakes at Llewellyn and toss him in. They smiled.

  “Tonight ain’t over,” one of them said.

  The other one nodded his agreement, then wagged his big head back and forth. “Dee shouldn’t’ve shot off her mouth like that. It’s gonna be ugly. Does he have another clean suit?”

  “Shut up,” the other one said. “Here he comes.”

  When I turned and saw him, I knew I’d overplayed it, not hard to do with a cliché. I let my dislike of the guy push me too far. He came lurching out the door, made a little gesture with his fingers. The goons took a step closer to me and lost their friendly way. I thought it prudent not to do anything to annoy them, like move a muscle or take a breath until their boss arrived, swaying back and forth in front of me, his frosty breath smelling like Scotch and vomit. He wiped his mouth on his jacket sleeve. “The current Administration, Nick, are a bunch of fucking weenies, and you can tell them I said so, if you ever meet any of them. We haven’t had a decent President since the war. You’re not a spook, or you’d know there’s nothing out of my league. You’re the help. Galatea Ritsa, huh? Must be more there than I thought.

  “When I saw you, after I threw out the toy-boy idea, I said to myself, I just bet he knows Jesse Salvador. Excuse me. Knew Jesse Salvador. Ed couldn’t afford a toy boy. He didn’t have a dime. Jesse, however, had vast resources at his disposal. He approached me a while back with an offer concerning some very interesting technology. Most of my interests are in technology. Would you know anything about that, Nick?”

  “I have no interests, interesting or otherwise, that would interest you. I’m just an actor in a small-time virtual.”

  “Cute. And I’m a successful businessman. God, I’m starved. Aren’t you? Let’s go for a ride, have some dinner, refresh your memory. I understand old Jimmy’s had some memory problems lately too. But I haven’t had the opportunity to speak with him yet.” He grinned like a shark. He might be drunk, but he was a drunk shark, and there was blood in the water. “Let’s take Dee’s little pussy palace here, shall we? Step right in, Nick.”

  One of the goons opened the door to Dee’s car. The other one put his hand inside his jacket.

  “I really need to be turning in. Lu’s waiting up for me. She’ll be worried.”

  “She said she wouldn’t this time, remember? She can come along if you like, keep us all company—so she won’t have to worry about you. Or she can stay here, so you won’t have to worry about her. Which will it be?”

  I got in the car.

  A FINAL MESSAGE

  18

  When you are entertaining, try not to feel that something unusual is expected of you as a hostess. It isn’t. Just be yourself.

  —IRMA S. ROMBAUER, Joy of Cooking

  ONE OF THE GOONS WENT RIGHT FOR THE SECURITY panel and started playing with it. The other was assigned to the fridge. “There’s nothing here but plain yogurt and wheat germ.”

  “Stupid bitch,” Trey said. “Find us a decent restaurant around here,” he said to the one at the security panel. “What’s the wrestler’s name?”

  “Stanton Wetherell,” the goon said, restaurants scrolling before his eyes. They had star ratings. He tapped the screen, the riffraff vanished, so only the four-stars remained.

  “Arrange to send him a message, will you?” Trey said.

  “Is this a final message?”

  Trey thought a moment. “No. I think a clear message will do for now.” All this time, he’d been changing out of his funky suit into a clean one just like it, like a snake shedding its skin. He popped a couple of capsules, took a deep breath. Good as new. “So. Mr. Nicholas Bainbridge. Talk to me.”

  I shrugged. “Salvador hired me to scam Dumfries with a phony time-travel number. I never got paid. End of story.”

  “No. Beginning of story. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so closely watched.” He smiled the shark smile again. He was having a good time. He was in his element. “We clean yet?” he asked the security goon.

  “Yeah. All clean.”

  “Restaurants?”

  “The closest is a World Palate at the next exit.”

  “Perfect. I have an interest in those places, never tried one. We’ll see what my money’s up to these days. And you, Nick, you can tell me why your DNA is identical to Jimmy Dumfries’. I find that very, very interesting.”

  I didn’t ask him how he knew that. I’d been leaving my DNA carelessly strewn about all evening. “This would be Jimmy Dumfries the fucking idiot?”

  “Yeah. Exactly.”

  The World Palate was for gourmets on the move who liked to watch their food prepared by expert chefs with an extra dollop of flashy in their style. Anyone could do it, with the help of Trey’s latest ’ware. They might not be able to boil a hot dog when they got home, but here they could do it all—chop, flame, knead, toss, fondue, flip, fillet—without the temperament or the salary, preparing any cuisine you could imagine or sell. There was a whole platoon of them in trim white outfits throughout the dining room; tiny spotlights would find them at the climactic moments of their culinary performances. It was like a mass audition for a food movie. Mostly Babette’s Tortilla Soup or something. Dough soared and thumped. Knives slithered, chopped, sliced, and clanked. Woks sizzled and sighed clouds of garlic steam. Flames shot into the air from mesquite fires and flaming desserts. Diners oohed, ahed, ate, and paid. A lot.

  My dinner with Trey.

  The surveillance system pegged Trey Kennemeyer on the premises, and the manager, one of the few employees not running ’ware, was all over us in an instant. Loaded up to his eyeballs with obsequious toady, he didn’t need ’ware. He couldn’t do enough to ensure Trey’s happine
ss now and forevermore. He would be honored, his very verb, to make a selection of their finest dishes for Trey and his guest. I considered telling him I was no guest, but a kidnap victim, then thought better of it. As Trey most charmingly put it, this was Planet fucking Earth here. This guy would gladly serve me for dinner if Trey asked him to.

  In no time we had a corner of the dining room to ourselves, Trey and I, with the goons flanking it like lawn lions. He watched the show for a while. “Kind of tacky, isn’t it? Incredibly profitable, though. Labor costs are nothing, but people still pay for the show. Not unlike what you do, huh?”

  “Not unlike.”

  “What’s the old guy up to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Like fuck you don’t know. But we’ll have something to eat first. I want to get the taste of that shitbag motel out of my mouth. How do you live like that?”

  “It’s only temporary. The rock I was living under is being remodeled.”

  The wine steward had personally selected a trio of wines for our dinner from the database of Trey’s preferences and was pouring the first. He didn’t spill a drop. The towel over his arm probably lasted him a whole week. He only had one expression. Pleasant. They could’ve given him a range, but the fixed expression reassured the diner this wasn’t a person standing here so close, but service, distilled down to its essence and planted in his soul, up his ass. He filled my glass and withdrew as if he were on wires. Trey offered a toast.