Center Courtship (39 page)

“Mae, whatever Phil is telling you, it's all a lie,” said Elsu as he put his hands on my shoulders and spoke into my ear.

I smiled, turned around and gave him a hug. “Mmmm,” I moaned into his chest. “Sweaty.”

“You're sick!” he laughed. “I'll be probably another half hour or so. I have to shower and get dressed and sharpen my sewing needles.” He winked at me and walked away.

“Dude's got it bad,” said Phil nonchalantly.

“I don't know about all that,” I said as I watched Elsu walk toward the locker room.

“I think it's funny you asked him if he showers in the locker room.” My ears started to burn with embarrassment.

“He told you that?”

“He tells me everything, I think I'm about the closest thing he has to a best friend. Well, I guess I'm going to have to take second place to that if my instincts are correct.”

“Mae!” I turned around to see M'Kaya and Tonesha walking toward me. They each gave me a hug. They looked from me to Phil and back again.

“Phil?” asked Tonesha. “Phil Handler?”

“That's me,” he said with a smile.

“Phil, this is M'Kaya and Tonesha. Two of the team members' wives. Ladies, this is apparently Elsu's best friend, Phil Handler.”

The girls got giddy and shook his hand. I was happy to see they weren't immune to being star struck. I was still amazed at my ability to keep from jumping on him myself.

“I see where I stand, he tells me about you but doesn't tell you about me,” he teased.

“I'm sure he was working his way up to it,” I giggled. “I don't know if I'd have believed him if he had told me. I'm a big fan.”
There, I finally said it.

“Thank you, Mae. I appreciate that.” He looked at his watch again.

“You have somewhere to be?” I asked.

“Yeah, I have a plane to catch in two hours. That damn power outage screwed everything up. I was hoping to get some time with Elsu. Maybe take him for a beer or something,” he said.

I nodded, I wanted to get some alone time with him myself.

Scott walked up and stopped to look at me and Phil. “Please Scott, don't blame me. It wasn't my doing.”

“First of all, Bart lost his job up in Independence. He was living up there far enough away that there was really no reason for you to come across him. Then accidentally you show up and somehow someone convinced his employer he shouldn't be working for them.”

“What? I had nothing to do with that!”

“Well, now he's living down here again, he needed a job, so I hired him for today and what do you know? He gets kicked out of his job here and I'm out an assistant. You need to get your fuck buddy under control, quick! Bart's trying to do right, but if this kind of shit keeps happening, I can't promise he's going to behave.”

Phil had stepped away, out of courtesy, when Scott first showed up, but I noticed he had stepped closer when he heard Scott's insult.

“I will talk to Elsu, but if Bart tries anything, he's going to seriously wish he hadn't.”

“Bart has Elsu's schedule. He knows when you won't have protection. Don't give him ultimatums.”

“You ok, Mae?” asked Phil.

“Now you've got movie stars backing your fat ass?”

I looked at Phil, did I?

“I don't know who you are, or what your beef is with Mae, but I would highly suggest leaving before a basketball gets shoved up your ass.”

“Stay out of this,” said Scott as he took a step away from Phil but slightly closer to me.

“Leave, Scott.” I said as I saw Millard and a freshly showered Elsu stand silently behind Scott.

“I am. But you need to stop this shit, now! Bart's on the warpath right now. He'll be after your fat, ugly, redneck ass and you know it. There's nothing I can do about it.”

“Oh, hell no!” grumbled Elsu. Scott spun around to see my savior staring him down. “First of all, you better apologize. NOW! Second of all you better do something about Bart, because if you like your job, you're going to stop him!”

“Well, first of all, I'm not apologizing for telling the truth. She's trash, Elsu. You'll learn. Second of all, now you're threatening
my
job? You're a bully, asshat!”

“No, I'm an overprotective boyfriend who will do anything in his power to keep his girlfriend safe. If a threat of losing a job is what it's going to take to make sure Bart stays away, that's what I'm going to do. If he shows up at the apartment, he'll wish he had forgotten the address and you'll be panhandling on the highway exit ramp.”

“I'm not Bart's keeper. I can't keep him tied down.”

“You better go get yourself some rope then,” said Elsu as he reached across for my hand and pulled me close to him. “Now get your ass out of here!”

With Phil, we walked out the player entrance followed close behind by Millard. The cool crisp November air had turned into bitter cold air in the last few hours. I could smell snow in the air. I shivered, cursing myself for leaving my coat in my truck. “I'd offer you my coat, but I don't have one either,” said Elsu as he warmed my arms with his hands.

“That's ok, it's not far from here to home and Little José has a working heater.” I tucked myself into Elsu's warm body.

“Hey, I'm going to drive Phil to the airport, but I hope you two got along, he'll probably be seat four for a lot of the games.”

I smiled at Phil, could life get any stranger? Or better?

“Ok, I'll see you back at the apartment.” I gave him a quick kiss and I started to walk away.

“Wait a minute, Mae?” said Elsu as he got my attention. “Take Millard with you.”

“What?”

“You alone in a dark parking lot? Might not be a good idea.”

I rolled my eyes. “I can see my truck from here! See?” I pointed to the deck where my truck was parked on the other side of the wall closest to us and we could make out its telltale roof.

Elsu walked to me and put his forehead on mine. “Please?”

“Who's going to protect you?” I asked.

Elsu sighed and looked at Millard. I could tell he had an opinion, but I wasn't really sure what it was. “I don't need the protection right now,” said Elsu.

“If something happened to you while I had your ‘assistant' I'd never be able to forgive myself. I'll take my chances. Just wait here, I'll wave to you from the deck, Ok?”

Elsu gritted his teeth but nodded. “Fine!”

I jogged to the parking deck and rode the elevator to the second level where Little José was parked. I went straight to the wall and waved over. “I'm here!” I yelled.

Elsu waved and the three men started walking toward the player parking area. I took a step toward Little José and heard glass crunch below my feet. I looked to the truck and my whole world dropped out from beneath me. All four tires were shredded, the body had been gouged with something sharp and when I fearfully walked around to the tailgate I saw ‘SLUT' spray painted over his name. There was no question in my mind who had done this. I just wanted to cry.

I quickly grabbed my phone and called Steve. “Mae? What's up?”

“I need you to bring the flatbed tow truck to the parking deck at Brothers Arena.” I started to cry.

“What? Why?” I could hear the worry in his voice. “Are you ok?”

“Physically, yes, mentally, no. Just come to the second level,” I hung up and immediately called the police station and asked for a detective to come and do what he needed to do. I then called Max.

“Mae, it's late! What do you want?” I could tell he must have been sleeping, he was always irritable when his beauty rest was disturbed.

“Someone trashed Little José. I'll send you some pictures. But I'm going to need help. There are cameras all over this place, he's not getting away with this.”

“Who isn't?” asked Max.

“I'd put every dollar I had on it being Bart,” I cried.

“Where's Elsu?” asked Max.

‘Taking a friend to the airport.”

“He sent you to the parking deck by yourself? What the hell, Mae? He's slipping! He should have sent that Millard with you!”
Argghh!

“What help would he have been? It was already done when I got here!” I yelled.

There was a long pause and a great sigh on the other end of the phone. “He's supposed to protect you. He promised!”

“What do you mean he promised?”

“When I talked to him about the apartment, I made him swear he'd take care of you.”

I couldn't believe it. When did I become so helpless? This explained why Elsu tried so hard to pawn Millard off on me.

“I can protect myself, Max. This isn't something that is attacking me now, the person who did this is probably long gone.” As the words came out of my mouth, I looked around at the mostly-empty deck. Yeah, I was probably alone.

“Did you call the cops?”

I was steaming. How stupid did he think I was? “The cops, big brother? Why, oh why would I do that?”

“Shut up, you're not helping your case. Did you call a tow truck?”

“Steve is coming,” I looked at the truck again and for the first time I noticed that the passenger side window was smashed in and the seats were in shreds, the steering wheel was hanging on by a lone wire, the dash was slashed and the carpeting had something nasty poured on it. “He killed him,” I couldn't look anymore. I walked away from the truck.

“Who?”

“Bart killed Little José! I'm afraid to even look under the hood!” I yelled.

As soon as I said it, I knew I couldn't not. I popped the hood and screamed. Some sort of toxic chemical had been poured on
the engine. A caustic odor billowed up and hit me in the face. A physical slap would have felt better than what I was feeling looking into the mangled abyss that was the heart of Little José. On top of the chemical abuse I could see that tubes had been cut, wires were ripped out, and black paint had been sprayed through the entire cavity. I couldn't look anymore, I was too upset. I left the hood up and saw the source of the original glass I had stepped in, the front headlights were shattered.

“He's totaled, Max.” I hung up on my brother without another word. I felt like I was declaring someone's death by the absence of a pulse. I looked beneath the truck and saw puddles of oil and gas that had dripped onto the ground.

The lights from a vehicle shown on me and I blinked hard to see who was blinding me. A police car had come to a stop behind Little José. The officer stepped from his cruiser and introduced himself as Detective Graven.

I waved my hand over the now-lifeless body of Little José and more tears came.

“I've seen this around town, but I didn't know who the owner was. My kids always yelled when you were near even if I hadn't seen you first, ‘Little José!'” He walked around the truck carefully stepping over the broken glass. He shook his head when he peered into the engine. “I'm sorry ma'am, any idea who did this?”

“Yeah, I have an idea,” I said angrily. “Bartholomew Bradford.”

“Bart?” he seemed shocked.
Damn this small town.

“Yes, Bart. If you don't believe me, you might as well call in a replacement detective. Or whatever you need to do.”

“What makes you think he would do something like this?”

“I could ask you the opposite question,” I scowled. “He's my ex, I put him in prison for 20 years and he got out in less than five and now I'm being blamed for him losing his job.” I tallied each infraction with an outstretched finger.

Not a minute later, I saw the flatbed tow truck pull up.

As soon as I saw Steve emerge from the cab, I ran to him and he held me tight as I poured my tears into his shoulder. I bawled until my tears ran dry. “Mae, it's ok, we can rebuild him.”

“No, we can't, he's totaled, Steve. Every inch of him is ruined. He's gone!” I wrapped my arms around his neck and tucked my head into his shoulder. No one would ever understand how important that stupid truck was to me. I didn't even understand it, I just knew it was part of my identity, part of my comfort, part of my soul.

“Move it, this is my job.” I heard a familiar voice and felt Steve being pulled from my grip. I didn't look up, I knew who it was. I tucked myself into Elsu and the tears began anew. His arms surrounded me and I felt like we were one. In that moment, I felt safe. This whole day hadn't happened, Little José was still in one piece, and
I
was still in one piece. “Who?” I heard him ask.

I looked up into his face. Concern apparent in his golden-brown eyes. I shrugged. “I can only think of one person.”

He nodded knowingly and pulled my head back into his chest. “How did you know to come back?” I asked without lifting my head.

“I took Phil by the shop to show him the cars and Steve was pulling in to get the flatbed when we were pulling out. He told me.”

I shook my head. “What about Phil? He needs to get to the airport.”

“I dropped him off at the apartment with my key. He's going to take a flight out in the morning. Can he stay in your spare bedroom tonight?”

I looked up at Elsu's face. “No, he can't. Magdalena moved in this evening. He can sleep in my bed, I'll sleep on the couch.”

“Damn, I forgot to tell you she might show up.” He sighed deeply as if in pain. “I'm sorry. I'm really sucking at this whole ‘be-a-good-boyfriend' thing. Millard, can you text Phil and let him know he can sleep on Mae's couch? No man is sleeping in your bed. With- or without you.” His words swarmed over my body like a million warm butterflies.

“Yes sir,” I heard replied but kept my face snug against Elsu.

“Do you need her for anything, detective?” I heard Elsu ask.

“Just fill this out and I'll bring paperwork over and ask questions in the morning.”