Infamous (44 page)

“A.J.,” she started.

“Let’s do it again,” he said, cutting her off. “I’ll get Jamie back here. We can go into two different rooms, close the door. But okay. Maybe you think I’ve got my entire house wired with minicams or sensors. So we’ll go somewhere else. You get to decide where. We’ll just get in the truck and go. You can drive. Don’t tell me where we’re going, because that way there’s no chance I’ll call my dozens of minions and get that new location wired up. And when we get out of the truck, I’ll strip naked and put a bag on my head. And I’ll
still
be able to tell you what you’re reading, because I don’t need minicams and I don’t need to memorize the entire contents of the Library of Congress because
Jamie
will be reading it to me, whatever it is. Of course, maybe you’ll decide that you’re in the throes of a religious paroxysm, too. So we better bring a dozen witnesses and make sure they’re all atheists or at least agnostics.”

Okay. So much for keeping his frustration from showing. Alison was silent, just clutching Jamie’s Bible.

“If Jamie’s not real,” A.J. pointed out, trying to sound measured and calm, but failing because his voice actually shook, “then I’m crazy. You really like that possibility better? You like thinking that I set this all up? That I, what? Ran Hugh off the road myself, so I could wait for you to come ask me to help find him? What if you didn’t come when you did, Alison? What if he died?”

“I
don’t
like that possibility any better,” she said. “It’s all bad, all right?”

“So what are you doing, then?” he asked. “Here with me?”

She looked down at the Bible in her lap, and shook her head. “I have absolutely no clue,” she admitted softly. “I just …” She met his eyes. “I really like you, even though … I know that I shouldn’t.”

He spelled it out. “Even though I’m a potentially crazy alcoholic.”

“Recovering alcoholic,” she said.

“Yeah, but we both know what that means,” A.J. said tightly. “There are no guarantees.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Alison said, louder this time. “It scares me to death, A.J. How much I … care about you.”

And there they sat, in silence.

Until Alison spoke again. “This is what we were looking for, you know.” She held up the Bible. “There’s a sample of Jamie’s handwriting in the church records back in Philadelphia. About a month before he left, he was a witness at his cousin’s wedding. Not officially, because he was underage, but he signed the marriage documents anyway. So we have a sample of his handwriting. If it’s okay with you, I’ll send this out to have it analyzed and compared. They might be able to date it, too, from, I don’t know, maybe the ink. If Melody really did write her inscription back in 1944—”

“She did,” A.J. said.

“Well, then, we’ll try to prove that,” Alison said. “Maybe I’ll … take it, this Bible, myself, to Philadelphia. In the morning. I mean, as long as I have access to Henry’s jet. Of course, I’ll call him first …”

“In the morning,” A.J. said. He looked at her. “Damn it. I didn’t mean to chase you away.”

“Didn’t you?” she asked as she stood up.

He stood, too. “Alison …”

“No, see, you’re right,” she said. “All I’m doing here is playing a game of make-believe. That’s not fair to you.”

“Hope plus a lot of sex,” he reminded her. He forced a smile. “I’m doing okay.”

But she didn’t smile. “But I’m not,” she said. “I love it here,
A.J. I love the mountains and the ocean and the fresh air. I love this town, I love the people I’ve met, I love that everyone in that lovely, lovely restaurant with the stupid name knew you, and I
really
love the way that they all so obviously adore you. I love your house, and I love the carving on your mantel, and I love sitting in front of the fire in this beautiful room, and I love the idea that Jamie and Melody created all this, that they helped create
you
, and God damn it, I think I love you, even though I said I wouldn’t, that I couldn’t, but it doesn’t work that way, does it? And now I really,
really
don’t know what I’m going to do.”

She may not have known, but A.J. did.

Two steps brought him close enough to pull her into his arms and kiss her.

And Alison kissed him back, through the salt of her tears, as if her world were coming to an end.

So he swept her up into his arms and carried her into his bedroom.

Because hope wasn’t the only thing that went down a little better with a lot of sex. Sex could also temper fear. It could strengthen resolve. And when it wasn’t just sex but also a beautiful and tender physical expression of deep emotions, it could even turn
I think
into
I do love you
.

Gene’s phone finally rang.

I’d almost jumped away a few minutes earlier, because it was finally morning up in Alaska, and I was determined that today was the day that A.J. would talk to Alison and ask her about dead Wayne, and what she did or didn’t see on the day that he’d been murdered.

I also wanted to be there when Rose and Tom announced their plans to get hitched. They’d probably get the whole family together for a cookout, and I didn’t want to miss it.

Gene was snoring atop of his hooker friend when his cell phone erupted in an electronic version of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” which was kind of a strange ringtone for a man who wasn’t going anywhere even remotely good after he parted ways with his earthly remains.

He lurched awake and scrambled off the bed, pulling a huge-caliber handgun from a holster that must’ve been at the small of his back, fumbling it not once but twice.

I could’ve killed him six times over, but back in my day, we wore our weapons where everyone could see ’em, and where we could reach ’em easily. So he was at a disadvantage. That plus the brains-to-mush effect of whatever drug he’d been sucking down was another strike against him.

Luckily for the whore, he didn’t kill her, although I’m not sure she would’ve reacted even if he had. As it was, she just blinked at the barrel of the gun he’d shoved in her face,
and—amazing, she had a voice—she spoke for the first time. “It’s your phone, Gene, you asshole.”

Victory!

I was already over there, looking at the lit-up little screen. Hoping for an ID, but happy enough to settle for a number, which is what I got, starting with the main Los Angeles area code. The three-numbered exchange was easy enough to memorize—it was the twins’ single-digit birthday, followed by that of my eldest son, Jim. That left me the final four numbers, which were nine zero four four.

Nine zero four four. Ninety forty-four.

Not that I had the fingers to dial this number or the voice to ask
Hello, who the heck are you?
But A.J. could. Calling from a pay phone, while disguising his voice. Or maybe we could use the Internet and access some kind of reverse phone directory—kind of the way Baretta and Columbo always used to do when they were trying to solve a case. Except back then, they had to call a friend at the phone company.

Nine zero forty-four.

“Yo,” Gene said as he answered his phone. I had to move quickly, straight up in the air, to keep him from bumping into me. He was so stoned, he probably wouldn’t have noticed, but we’d both been waiting for this call for so long, I didn’t want to risk his dropping the phone in shock at our contact. “What’s the word?”

My word was nine oh four four, and bingo, I got it. Ninety plus four plus four equals ninety-eight, which was the year I met Mel. Los Angeles, and the twins and Jim, and ninety-eight. So what if I couldn’t carry a pen in order to write things down? My mind was a steel trap.

And I’d correctly IDed the man with the bald spot and bushy eyebrows as Gene.

I was having a good day.

“Uh-huh,” Gene was saying. “Uh-huh.” He laughed. “No shit? That’s like a gift, right? Because this bitch is fucking hard to kill, man.” He laughed again. “No, no, I’m just hanging.” A pause. “A few more days? No problem. In case she comes back. You’re paying, right?” More laughter.
“That’s my fee, Brian. Have a nice trip. And call me if you need me.”

Brian.

Another small victory. But where was Brian going?

I stayed close as Gene hung up his cell and put it back on the little table next to the bed. He got up, scratching his belly, and went into the bathroom to relieve himself noisily.

His girlfriend-slash-personal-hooker rolled off the bed, sat at the table, and picked up that pipe and the cheap red lighter that was nearby.

And when Gene came out of the bathroom, zipping up his pants, he said, “Get the fuck away from there!”

Which pretty much canceled out the possibility of her saying,
Hey, hon, was that your tall killer friend Brian on the phone? The one with the scar near his eye and the ponytail? How’s he doing? Who’s he hiring you to kill this time? And where exactly is he going on that trip he mentioned?

Instead she pouted and said, “Why? You got plenty.”

“Yeah, because I earned it,” he said. “Get the fuck out of here.”

She grabbed her shoes and flounced out the door, slamming it behind her.

“I’m getting the fuck out of here, too, Gene,” I said. “It’s been disgusting and horrific and thank God it’s finally time for me to go.”

And I popped off to Alaska to tell A.J. what I’d learned, and found him—happily for me—awake and dressed and having breakfast in his kitchen with Alison, Bev, and Rose.

“I knew back in fifth grade,” A.J.’s sister Bev told Alison, “that I was going to marry Charlie Fallingstar and that I was going to have babies and paint.” She laughed. “It took Charlie a little bit longer to come to that same realization.”

“Considering you were ten and he was thirteen,” Rose said dryly from across A.J.’s kitchen table, “that’s not too hard to understand.”

“But I was determined,” Bev said. “I finally managed to catch his eye—”

“It was the summer she turned sixteen,” Rose told Alison.

“We got married two months after my sixteenth birthday,” Bev said.

Alison looked from Bev to Rose. “Oh, dear.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Bev said. “I wasn’t pregnant. We hadn’t even …” She shook her head.

“She had my blessing,” Rose said serenely. “I knew Charlie well, and I liked him very much.”

“It was a unique situation,” Bev explained. “For years, I spent almost every afternoon hanging out at his uncle’s art supply store, painting and listening to music and talking to Charlie, who lived with his aunt and uncle when his father was out of town. The year I turned sixteen, he gave me the most beautiful earrings for my birthday. He’d picked them up in Juneau, and … I loved them and I threw myself at him to hug him and … Suddenly he was kissing me.” She smiled. “It scared the heck out of him, because the next day, he enlisted in the Air Force.”

“A month after that, he was back home,” Rose said. “A routine physical revealed that he had leukemia.”

“Oh, my God.” Cancer. Alison looked across the kitchen to find A.J. leaning against the counter, just watching her as he took a sip of coffee from his mug.

And suddenly she knew why he’d been so gung-ho to have Bev come over to talk. Although her bringing their mother along had been a slightly awkward surprise.

Especially since Alison had just—moments before Bev’s truck had pulled into the driveway—told A.J. that last night hadn’t changed her mind. In fact, it had made her more determined than ever to leave.

“A.J.,” she’d told him, “I know you think you’ve won something because I said … what I said. But just because I love you, that doesn’t mean I can or even should stay. I just don’t know how I can take that chance. I’m scared to death and … I have to walk away now, while I still can. I
need
to.”

Of course that was when the doorbell rang, which Alison, coward that she was, had been grateful for.