Hotter than Helen (The "Bobby's Diner" Series) (22 page)

“We’ll be right behind you.” Willy corrected her.

“We.” Georgette nodded quickly, keeping her eyes on Roberta as they closed the door of the ambulance, walking to remain in view until they finally closed and locked the door then she could see Roberta no longer.

She patted a flat hand on the window and yelled through the doors, “We’ll be right behind you!”

Georgette heard Roberta’s answer now muffled by the wall between them, as she yelled back, “I love you!”

40

As Georgette and Willy watched from a clubhouse window, the excavator with its saw tooth bucket dug up chunk after chunk of soil, starting at hole number one of the golf course. They watched in a sunny spot through the plate glass window. A sky like someone had thrown a bucket of robin’s egg blue paint across it could be seen well past the foothills, well past the rolling green mounds of the golf course.

Not a cloud was in sight. The days since the flood had played out a more typical fashion for Arizona, with days sunny, warm and with clear skies.

“You can use the driving range. We’re not doing anything to it.” Jeff, the pro, looked at them as he waited for their decision.

“Want to just hit some balls?”

“Sure.” Georgette smiled at Willy. “I don’t know if I could do a whole round of golf anyway.”

“Okay. We’ll take some tokens and a golf cart.”

“How many tokens you want?”

“Enough for five large buckets each.”

“That’ll be fifty dollars for the tokens and another fifteen for the cart.”

He fished in his pocket for the money, pulled out a stack of folded bills and flipped through, counting off twenty, forty, then sixty and eighty. “There you go.”

Jeff gave Willy fifteen dollars back in change and ten tokens. Willy turned to Georgette and counted off five tokens, dropping each in the palm of her hand.

“I’ll get your cart.” He walked past them and out the door. Georgette and Willy walked a few steps behind Jeff and stopped in the gravel lot where they would receive the golf cart. The scent of freshly dug earth hung heavy in the air.

“You can use my seven iron.”

“Okay.” She smiled at him.

“You okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Just not quite used to the thought of you and me. That’s all.”

“Well, missy,” he faked a John Wayne accent. “Get used to it.”

She giggled at his impersonation.

“Pretty good, huh?”

“Not really, Will. I’m giggling at you.”

He grabbed her around the waist, swung her around and kissed her. His tongue felt warm and soft. He kissed so nice.

They heard the buzz of the golf cart and the crunching of its tires on the gravel as it pulled off the paved road and onto the pebbled lot where they stood. Willy pulled back but leaned in quick once more and kissed her soft on the lips.

“Here. Let me get those for you.” Jeff grabbed Willy’s clubs and put them in the back of the cart. “You know where it is, right, Willy?”

“I certainly do, Jeff. Thanks.”

“Have fun you two.” Jeff saluted and turned back to go to the pro shop.

“Wanna drive?”

“No! I don’t know how to drive one of these things.”

“It’s easy. I’ll show you.”

He pressed the foot pedal and they started off with a jolt, bumping along the cart path toward the driving range some six hundred yards from the clubhouse. Georgette craned her neck to watch the excavator.

“That’s the hole, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but honey, I don’t see Tanner’s, or whatever the hell his name was, Taggert’s statements as being very credible. He went off the tomato truck after getting his unit fried into a tater tot.”

“Willy!”

“Well, what would you call it?”

“I’d call it a tragedy.” She meant everything that had happened.

“He went nuts, George.”

She measured out how she wanted to say the next words. “I know these were bad men and all, Willy, but everything that’s happened is really sad to me.” Georgette paused. “What happened to Roberta, of course, but also what happened to them, to Hawthorne. Tanner, too, I guess...” Her words trailed off. That’s when Willy spoke up.

“They were stone cold killers. If their plan had worked, your Biggs fellow would’ve married you, then killed you too.”

From his peripheral vision, he could see she was shaking her head. “It’s so freaky. It seems so impossible.”

“Well, it’s over now.” They neared the driving range. He depressed the small brake and the little cart came to a stop near the empty driving range. Willy never understood how, on such a beautiful day like this day, people never seemed to get out. “Here we are.”

“Hey, Willy?”

“Mm hmm.” He had jumped out and was pulling his golf bag out of the cart and walking over to the first two-man mesh enclosure for the shade shelter.

“Can we play golf on the cruise ship, you think?”

“Oh, absolutely!” He turned back and smiled at her. “Does Roberta know how to golf?”

“I think she has before, but I’m not sure how much.”

“What day are we leaving again, George? Did you say

June twelfth?”

“That’s right. Why? Is that too far into the future for you, Willy? Too much of a commitment?”

“Come here, you sweet woman and address the ball.” He held out a club for her.

“This the seven?”

“Yep.”

She looked down at the ball. “Ball, I’m going to hit you now.” She looked at Willy and beamed out a smile at him. “How’s that for addressing the ball?”

“Nice.”

She wiggled her rear as she stepped into place, angling the club down at the back of golf ball.

“Nice,” he repeated noticing her rump moving.

She wiggled again and poked her butt out more, taunting him.

“I’m gonna bite it if you do that again.”

“That wouldn’t be very sportsmanlike of you.” She put a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. “Okay. I’m not foolin’ around now.” She steadied her footing, looked out at the one-hundred-yard marker then back down at the ball. She pulled her arms in a nice even backstroke the way Jeff had taught her and swung down, hitting the ball square on the club’s sweet spot. It soared out past one hundred yards about twenty-five feet or so. She screamed and jumped up and down. “I hit it, Willy! I hit it!”

“Good lord, George. That was beautiful. Now do it again.”

“What say we call it good and go home? I mean. It can only go downhill from here.”

“You’re crazy, you know that?”

41

The four of them waved at people below on the boardwalk just like she had seen them do every week as a kid watching The Love Boat on TV.

Viewing the last few people boarding, walking up the gangplank, everyone looked like they were straight out of a yacht club. All sailor in their own right, playing parts.

A warm, coastal June air swept up and onto the deck where they stood. Feeling a muggy layer on her skin, she wiped her forearm. It felt cool and warm all at the same time. The sun felt hot on the tender skin of her chest. The dress she wore revealed her cleavage from its low scooping neckline. She had splurged on Saks.com, spending a small fortune on four special dresses, the chocolate-colored polka dot one she wore today and three others she intended to wear for special occasions on their one-week journey to Aruba.

As the four of them gazed out, Georgette focused on the colors of Port Everglades. Florida was pretty with its pink buildings and squat, feathery palm trees intermixed with tall Queens hovering over the land. She wondered which ones produced dates or if any did.

She thought how funny it was that the green brackish water she peered down into now had appeared blue from a distance, how the water could draw you closer with that blue oasis, but then how it showed its true identity close up, kind of like people.

She closed her eyes, soaking in the warmth. “Georgette! I can’t believe we’re doing this, just leaving the diner high and dry!” Roberta giggled out.

“Cammy knows what to do. Plus, she just thinks she’s died and gone to heaven since we promoted her to manager.”

“Yeah, well, she deserves it. She’s a natural.”

Georgette took in a long draw of fresh air. Ocean air had a smell she missed from when she lived near the west coast. A mix of fish and wet sand, of kelp and campfires that always took her back to the first time she’d ever seen the ocean, as a young woman working in the Bay Area in a crusty little bar. The place she left before heading south to Arizona. It was funny to her how she always thought she could never leave a place near water and now she felt she wouldn’t ever want to leave the desert.

They stood silently, still waving at people one hundred feet below the liner on the deck, at people waving back, at people they didn’t know.

“There are lots of stripes down there. Lots of white hats, sandals and stripes.”

“Beach fashion.” Roberta dropped her hand and turned to Georgette. “By the way. You look smashing in that sundress, George.” She looked straight at her chest, then whispered behind her hand, “Your boobs! They’re huge!” Her eye was still a little swollen but Roberta had done a great job with make-up to hide the residual bruising. Her lips would probably be forever scarred but it sort of looked pretty on her.

“Shut up!” The guys were in their own little world, not paying too much attention until Georgette screamed and laughed at Roberta.

“What’s that?” Willy smiled, finally looking over to Georgette.

“Well, Willy,” Roberta started, “I was just commenting on Georgette’s dress.”

“Okay. Okay.” She put her hand up to Roberta’s lips. “Don’t you dare.”

“Girl stuff, Willy.” Rick shrugged his shoulders and walked over to his wife.

“Honey, what do you say, we go get an adult refreshment?”

“Lovely, dear. Sounds lovely.” Rick put his hand on his wife’s back and guided her away. “We’ll meet you in the cocktail lounge?”

“Sure!” Willy chimed in before Georgette, who nodded and smiled.

The ship bellowed out a long honk of a foghorn, alerting people they were about to shove off.

“Shall we, dear?” Willy gestured with one arm in the direction of Roberta and Rick.

“Absolutely.” Georgette turned to pick up her big straw tote bag sitting next to her foot on the deck. She didn’t notice the man there all clad in platinum white—white jacket, white pants, white shoes and even a white hat, a felt trilby.

As they stepped out onto the deck, the white man clipped her elbow, knocking her hard into the starboard railing.

“Oh my!” She barely caught herself against the metal bar rail.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” He tipped his hat.

Recovering from the railing, she replied. “Not a problem. I must’ve stepped into you.”

“Hey, buddy.” Willy immediately got angry, stepping in toward the man.

“It was an accident, Willy.” She pulled his arm back into her. “It’s okay.”

“Only an accident. My apologies, ma’am.” His sharp black eyes danced between them and Georgette thought she recognized him.

“Do I know…” But before she could ask, he sauntered off, tipping his white hat again.

“The rude bastard.”

“Willy. He apologized. It was just an accident.”

“You okay?”

“Of course, Willy. It was just a bump.”

He grabbed the arm she fell on. As Willy checked Georgette, she looked over her shoulder to find the man who had, she thought, been looking in their direction, too. But, then, he disappeared among a throng of other passengers and she lost sight of him.

“Oh, honey. I’m fine. Let’s go find Rob and Rick.”

She picked up her bag and hooked her arm in Willy’s. They headed toward the cocktail lounge but really, they were headed into a new adventure.

43

“What’s this guy’s name again?”

“Melvin Taggert, AKA Martin Tanner.” Caimen rubbed a hand over the tiny pin curls of his hair. Specks of gray were beginning to betray him, giving away his age, about mid-forty, Pinzer figured.

“No, can’t say that I have ever heard of him.” It was true. He had never heard of anyone named Melvin Taggert, or any Martin Tanner, for that matter.

Pinzer sat back against the cool metal frame of the chair and crossed his legs, adjusting the pant leg of his government-issue orange overall and sliding the chair back a few inches in the process. The caged room echoed as the chair grated over the concrete floor. He stared across the faux marble table at Assistant District Attorney Clark Caimen, who looked two beats away from heart failure.

Pinzer held his manacled hands loosely in his lap and interlocked his fingers.

“He says you hired him.” Caimen adjusted his round wire-framed glasses pushing them up the bridge of his nose. A tell to Pinzer.

“News to me.” He looked over to his lawyer who shrugged.