Call Me! (16 page)

“JEREDITH,” I SAY, “This is…”

Dillon gives me a look.

“This is what?” Jeredith says.

“Captain Spaceship,” I say.

Dillon bows.

“You’re a captain?”

“That’s right,” Dillon says. “Captain Spaceship.”

“What branch of the military?”

Dillon sneers. “What do you mean,
branch
?”

Jeredith frowns. “I’d cut that hair off if you were in my barracks, mister. And I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about your rank, neither. I’d do it in the middle of the night. Put some bars of lye soap in a burlap bag, and smack you in the head, and knock your ass out. Then I’d cut that nasty hair off your filthy head!”

“You got any Lucky Charms?” Dillon says.

Jeredith looks at me and says, “Is he retarded?”

“Dillon likes to eat sugary cereal while he works.”

“I’m a tweaker, man,” he says.

“You’ll fire up no crystal meth in
my
house,” Jeredith says. “Nor snort it.”

Dillon and I look at her in total confusion.

She says, “I know what tweeking is. I watch cop shows on TV.”

I look at Dillon.

He says, “That’s tweeker with two e’s. I’m a tweaker with an a.”

Jeredith gives me a look.

“He’s brilliant,” I say. “He just loves his sugar.”

“You,” she says to Dillon, giving him a wary look.

“What?”

“Stay out of my pantry. I won’t be a party to your addiction.”

She stands aside to let us enter the house. To our left is a small dining room. To our right, an office.

“Is that Burt’s computer?” I say.

“Try not to leave evidence,” she says.

Dillon parks himself in Burt’s chair and fires up the computer. Jeredith and I head to her kitchen to chat. We sit at her table and talk a few minutes.

At one point she asks, “Where are your people from?”

Before I finish answering, Dillon joins us, holding a sheet of paper in his hand. In a very matter-of-fact voice, he says, “Burt’s fucking Amy.”

I glare at him while saying, “Jeredith, I have to apologize for Dillon’s lack of tact.”

She says nothing.

“Do you know an Amy?” I say.

“Only Amy I know is his Aunt Amy. But she’s eighty-two.”

Dillon says, “Amy Lattimore?”

Jeredith frowns. “That’d be Aunt Amy.”

To Dillon I say, “You’re sure?”

“They’re at her place right now.”

“They’re probably just visiting,” I say.

Dillon starts to read from the page he’s printed from Burt’s computer:

Amy, I can’t wait to see you today! Do you have any lube left? I hope so, because I’m going to pork you six ways to Sunday! Just make sure your teeth are out before you—”

“Thanks, Dillon!” I say. “We’ve heard enough.”

I ask Jeredith if she wants to confront Aunt Amy and her husband.

“A’ course I do!”

“Would you like us to be there?”

“You’ll
have
to be there,” she says. “I don’t have a car.”

“We can drive you,” I say.

“Go start the car,” she says. “I’ll get my shotgun.”

“JEREDITH! YOU CAN’T bring a weapon!”

“What?”

“You can’t bring a weapon!”

“Well, how the hell am I supposed to kill ’em without a weapon?”

“You don’t
kill
them, you divorce
him
.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard! You’d have me give what little money we got to a damn
attorney
?”

Dillon says, “Can I get paid now?”

I look at Jeredith. “If you kill them, you’ll go to prison.”

She says, “If you won’t let me take the shotgun, I reckon I’ll have to quietly poison him when he gets home.”

I hold up my hand. “Why would you say that to me?”

“Are you going to tell?”

“Yes, of course!”

She frowns. “How much do I owe you?”

“How does a hundred sound?”

“Like ninety dollars too much.”

“Make it sixty,” I say.

“Fifty-five,” she says. “And a box of Sugar Smacks for the kid.”

I look at Dillon.

“I don’t know what that is,” he says, “but I like the sound of it.”

Jeredith counts out fifty-five dollars, hands it to me, and heads to the pantry. I pass the money to Dillon.

Now in the car, I check my phone and see three voice mail messages. Sometimes I go a whole day without getting three. I put my ear buds in and listen to them. Then see Dillon staring at me.

“What?”

He says, “Is it all about sex?”

“What are you talking about?”

“PI work.”

“Yeah, pretty much. For me, at least.”

“Do you ever get paid?”

“Not for PI work.”

He stares at the crumpled bills in his hand like he’s making a major decision. Finally he says, “I’ll give you fifty for a blow job.”

I laugh, try to stop, then laugh some more.

“What’s so funny?

“Eat your cereal, Dillon.”

THE FIRST TWO voice messages are from Sophie. I’d called her on my way to pick up Dillon, but she’d been working on a song and didn’t hear the phone. When she got my voice message she could tell I’d been crying, and wanted to console me. Hell of a friend, Sophie. The third message was from Janice Uvula, an attorney who said we met at a wedding reception a few months ago. I don’t remember Janice, but she said I made a good impression. She also said she left a subpoena with her secretary, if I want to deliver it.

I call the secretary.

“Conner, Palate, Tonsil, and Uvula. This is Donna. How may I help you today?”

I tell her.

Donna gives me the address and says she’ll supply the details when I come to her office. I punch the address into my GPS and realize how close I am.

“I can be there in five minutes,” I say.

We hang up. Dillon groans.

“Quit griping. You’re still on the clock.”

“That’s bogus!”

“Bogus? What does
that
mean?”

“It means I’ve been paid. Which means my job is done.”

I start the car and ease out of the driveway, so my GPS system can guide me to Janice’s office. “You’re free to walk home,” I say. “It’s only what, twelve miles? Otherwise, indulge me.”

“How long?”

“Five minutes to the attorney’s office, five more inside. I’ll have you home in thirty minutes, tops.”

He frowns.

“Look,” I say. “This might be an actual PI job.”

“Not related to sex?”

“Possibly not. Anyway, it’s my first job for an attorney. If I don’t screw it up, I might get some regular work.”

“This could be your big break?”

“Not even close. But it could be
something
.”

Within minutes I’m pulling in the parking lot.

Dillon says, “You getting paid?”

“I am.”

“How much?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Uh huh.”

He breaks open the Sugar Smacks and starts eating.

I wince, then ask, “What’s the sugar content of that cereal?”

“I dunno. Why?”

“The smell makes my teeth itch!”

“Want some?”

I shake my head, put the car in park.

“Stay here,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”

“Five minutes,” he says. “Or I’ll come in and embarrass you.”

I flip him the finger and exit the car.

Janice Uvula’s office is on the ground floor of the Kotter-Banks Legal & Medical Center, a four-story concrete structure featuring a large, airy lobby and a beautiful turquoise-blue brick floor. The bricks have some sort of shiny glaze on them, which seems insane, since anyone in black, silver-studded ankle boots with four-inch heels, like I’m wearing, could slip, take a nasty tumble, and crawl in any direction to be treated for the injury, then limp in any other direction to file the lawsuit. But though my narrow heels click and reverberate through the lobby as I walk, the surface has adequate traction, and I arrive at Janice’s office without incident.

After I introduce myself, Donna has me fill out some paperwork. When I hand it back to her she says, “We pay seventy-five dollars for service of process.”

“That seems fair,” I say.

She gives me one of those all-encompassing looks where her eyes go from my face to my body to my ankle boots and back up to my face again. I get the feeling my wardrobe is telling her something about me.

She says, “Have you ever served a subpoena before?”

“Only in PI school.”

“PI school?”

“I took a training class.”

She nods, but looks skeptical. “You’re aware there are two types?”

“One is for people, the other’s for physical evidence, right?”

She looks at me the way my ninth-grade geometry teacher, Mrs. Moody, used to look at me when I got the answer right but couldn’t recite the formula.

“That’s essentially accurate,” Donna says.

Mrs. Moody said I’d never survive in the real world without a thorough understanding of geometry, so I spent hours every night studying, and wound up getting an A. That summer, when Colin Tyler Hicks chloroformed me, threw me in his van, and locked me in the basement of his farm house, I learned the hard way Mrs. Moody was full of shit. Geometry had nothing to do with my survival.