Pocket-47 (A Nicholas Colt Thriller) (7 page)

When I opened the front door to get the newspaper, the alarm started wailing. I quickly punched in the code to silence it, heard scuffling noises coming from Brittney’s room. I walked in there and found her sleepy and confused, trying to escape through the closet. She was wading through a rack of clothes, desperately trying to find her way.

“Brittney. It’s okay. It was just the burglar alarm.”

She came out of the closet and looked around, her bottom lip trembling. She sat on the bed, folded her arms across her chest.

“I forgot where I was,” she said. She untied the pigtail and ruffled her hair into frizzy strands with her fingers, then pulled out
a brush from her backpack and vigorously stroked it into shape. “Usually nothing wakes me up. Leitha always says I’d sleep through a hurricane.”

“It’s all right. You can go back to sleep if you want.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“You drink coffee?”

She nodded. We walked to the kitchen, and I poured us each a cup. Brittney sat on a barstool, her bare feet dangling. I stood beside her.

“This coffee sucks,” she said. “When did you make it, last week?”

“It’s fresh. I like it strong.”

“I’ll say. You got something I can dilute it with, like a gallon of paint thinner maybe?”

“How about some milk? They say turpentine is bad for your health.”

“Milk would be nice. You got a cigarette?”

“Those things are
definitely
bad for your health.”

“Lots of things are.”

I couldn’t argue with that. We walked out to the back porch, and I gave her a little stainless steel pitcher of half-and-half for her coffee and a Marlboro. My fine Dominican Republic butt from last night was squashed and wet in the ashtray. I took the ashtray inside and wiped it clean, walked back out and sat beside Brittney in one of the deck chairs, lit a cigarette for myself.

The sky was aspirin white, a thin layer of benign clouds blocking the morning sun. The guy with the drum mallets had stopped beating so hard.

“Did you sleep okay?” I said.

“Like a fucking rock.”

I coughed out about three lungs worth of smoke. “Okay. Rule number one. Nice girls don’t say fuck.”

“Your girlfriend said it.” Brittney dribbled half her coffee onto the deck and replaced it with some of the cream.

“Yeah, well, who said she’s a nice girl? You heard that?”

“Uh-huh. Then I fell back to sleep.”

“Okay. Nice fifteen-year-old girls don’t say fuck.”

“She sounds mean. She doesn’t want me here.”

“Juliet’s not mean. She was surprised, that’s all. She was tired from working all night. You’ll see. She’s really a nice person. How’s your coffee now?”

“Why can’t I stay at your house?”

“My house is a seventeen-foot camper on a rental lot on the lake.”

“Sounds cool.”

“There’s only one bed, and it hurts my back to sleep on the couch.”

“I’ll take the couch,” Brittney said.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. Come on in and we’ll get some breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Then come on in and watch me eat some breakfast.”

I cracked a half-dozen eggs into a clear glass Pyrex mixing bowl, handed the bowl and a whisk to Brittney, told her to scramble the eggs for me.

“I don’t know how,” she said.

“You’ve never made scrambled eggs?”

“So? Have you ever read Dante’s
Inferno?
Can’t we just go to Burger King or something? This is stupid.”

I took the bowl and demonstrated. “Now you try,” I said. “It’s not stupid to learn how to take care of yourself.”

“Maybe, but Burger King has better coffee.”

After a while she got into a rhythm and mixed the eggs while I turned on the electric griddle and started laying out strips of bacon. Pretty soon the room smelled good and I was starving.

“You’re going to cook the eggs,” I said.

“I don’t know how to cook. Nobody ever showed me.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

I showed her how to set the stove and melt butter in a skillet. Once the butter started bubbling, I told her to gently pour in the
egg mixture. The eggs landed with a satisfying sizzle, and I showed her how to keep stirring and turning them with a spatula so they wouldn’t burn. I put four slices of whole wheat bread in the toaster.

“I don’t like brown bread,” she said.

“This is for me. You’re not hungry, remember?”

“Maybe I’m a little hungry.”

We sat at the table and ate bacon and scrambled eggs and toast.

“Wicked delicious,” Brittney said.

“Wicked
delicious?”

She smiled. “I knew a girl in school from Cape Cod. She was always saying wicked this and wicked that.”

“Oh. What was your friend’s name?”

Her smile disappeared. She shook her head slightly and didn’t say anything.

I filled our mugs, mine with coffee and hers with coffee-flavored milk. Brittney drank it and ate the wheat toast without further complaint.

It was strange having a teenager around. Strange in a good way. I’ve often wondered what my life would have been like if my baby had survived. Sitting at the table with Brittney made me think about what Harmony might have been like at fifteen. It made me sad.

After breakfast, we went outside and had another cigarette and some more coffee.

“Can’t I at least
see
your house?” she said.

“You like to fish?”

“Sure. Love to. Marlin is my fave.”

“You’ve never been, have you? Maybe you’ve read
Old Man and the Sea,
but I bet you’ve never been fishing.” I winked at her.

“It doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I live in a different world than you do, Mr. Colt.”

“Call me Nicholas. Since I taught you how to cook eggs, maybe I could teach you how to catch a bass.”

“You’re afraid of me, aren’t you? You’re afraid if I stay at your place, I’ll say you tried to rape me or something, huh?”

That caught me off guard. “I’m going to be straight-up with you. I’m afraid of a lot of things. I’m afraid the human race is going to fall flat on its ass any day now. I’ve dealt with a lot of teenage runaways, most with lives harder than yours. I’ve seen twelve-year-old mothers with crack babies. I’ve seen girls your age with two kids already and trying to have a third so they can get more money from the government. I’ve seen boys lying in the gutter with white shit coming out their mouths, so strung out they can’t remember their last meal. That’s where you’re headed, Brittney. Don’t think California is the land of milk and honey, either. I went all the way to Hollywood one time chasing a sixteen-year-old boy who thought he was going to be the next Tom Cruise. I found him in a motel room—”

“All right,” she said. “Jesus.”

I took a sip of coffee. It was lukewarm and bitter now, and I thought about going inside and topping it off with some of the Kentucky whiskey. “You hear what I’m saying, though? Running away from home is not the answer.”

“It is if someone’s trying to kill you.”

“Ah. Now there’s a good subject. Why don’t you tell me all about that.”

“Maybe. If you take me fishing.”

“Tell me first.”

“Take me fishing first.”

“Do you know the meaning of the word extortion?” I said.

She nodded.

“Figures,” I said.

I tiptoed into Juliet’s bedroom and got a pair of shorts and a T-shirt with Jacksonville Jaguars pictures on it for Brittney. I had nearly completed Operation Clandestine when the cell phone in my pocket trilled. Before I had a chance to answer the call, Juliet squinted my way and said, “Where the hell you going with my clothes?”

“Brittney needed something,” I said. “I think you guys are about the same size.”

“You could have asked first.”

“Didn’t want to wake you.”

“Well, guess what? I’m awake now.”

“Okay. May I please borrow this shirt and this pair of shorts for my poor runaway who doesn’t have anything to wear?”

“Of course. But put that shirt back. It’s a sleep shirt, three sizes too big. She’ll look like a bag lady. Get that cute peach-colored top. It will match the white shorts.”

I did as instructed, then walked to the bed and gave Juliet a kiss. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

There was a message on my phone from Leitha. I called her from the kitchen.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” I said. “The thing is, she doesn’t want to come back to your house. She thinks someone is trying to kill her.”

“That’s crazy. Let me talk to her.”

“She’s in the shower right now.”

“So who does she think is trying to kill her?”

“She won’t tell. Maybe if I can spend some time with her, I can get to the bottom of it.”

“I want her home with me.” Leitha said.

“I understand that. And I’ll bring her right now if you insist. But she’ll probably just run away again. I’d like to get to the root cause of why she ran away in the first place.”

Leitha’s voice quivered. “When do you think you’ll bring her home?”

“As soon as I can. I’m going to take her fishing in a little while. Maybe she’ll open up.”

“Will you have her call me as soon as she gets out of the shower?”

“Sure.”

We said goodbye. Juliet came into the kitchen wrapped in a fuzzy pink bathrobe and matching slippers. She didn’t say anything and poured herself a cup of coffee. Her hair was a mess from sleeping on it wet.

“Good morning,” I said.

She ignored me, took her coffee out to the back porch. I poured myself a cup. The bourbon was getting low, so I added half a shot of tequila and followed Juliet outside.

“Sorry if we woke you,” I said.

“Oh, no problem. I can make it on one fucking hour of sleep. I’m goddamn bionic, remember?”

“I just love it when your Irish half shines through,” I said. “We’ll be leaving soon, so you can go back to bed. You have to work tonight?”

“Think, Nicholas. Have you ever tried that? Just thinking for once? I took off tonight because you invited me to come along with you and Joe to your Thursday night pool game at Kelly’s. He’s bringing his wife, and we’re going to make a night of it. Any of that ring a bell?”

“Crap. I did forget this is Thursday.” I lit a cigarette.

“Yeah. So now you have that girl to worry about. I suppose that means the date is off?”

“This is my work, Jules. If it interferes with my social calendar—”

“This coffee is horrible.” She got up and walked to the railing, dumped the contents of her cup into the sand below. “You were hired to find her, not babysit or try to straighten out her life. How much are you charging for all that?”

“Doing it because I want to. If I have an opportunity to actually help a kid in trouble—”

“Just leave, okay? I’m really not very happy at the moment. I’m starting to think that I need more than you’re capable of giving, Nicholas.”

“What are you saying?”

She leaned, elbows on knees, hands over face, voice an octave higher. “I’m saying maybe we need a break.”

“You’re dumping me?”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“How else am I supposed to say it?” I drained the last of my tequila-spiked coffee. “Consider me gone, babe.”

I wasn’t too worried. Jules and I break up every couple months. We always end up back together.

My place on Lake Barkley is only seven miles from Juliet’s house. When we crossed the Shands Bridge, Brittney said, “Did you know the St. John’s is one of the only rivers in the United States that flows north?”

“Geography was never my best subject,” I said.

“What was your best subject?”

“Music. And nap time.”

We pulled into my drive around eleven. The cloud cover had dissipated, the sun high and hot now. I unlocked the door to my camper and we climbed inside. I switched on the air conditioner.

“This place is cool,” Brittney said. “It’s like living in a spaceship or a submarine or something.”

“Never thought about it that way,” I said. “Serves the purpose for now, I guess.”

“Will you play for me?” She pointed toward the guitar case propped against a bulkhead.

“I don’t play anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t.”

She scrunched her lips. “Okay. Can I get on your computer?”

She goofed around on the web while I rigged a couple of fishing rods. It wasn’t the best time of day for catching fish, but I figured I could teach her some things and then go out again in the evening when it got cooler. After I had everything ready, I dragged her away from the computer and we went outside.

“I’m going to teach you to cast from the bank first,” I said. “Then we’ll go out in the boat.”

“You have a boat?”

“It’s one of my landlord’s rentals. He lets me borrow it. In exchange, I provide some security around the campsites here. And I get a reduced rate on my lot. My landlord happens to be my best friend.”

“I think he should give you the lot for free.”

“I think you’re right. Maybe I’ll bring that up.”

We walked down the hill to the lake. I carried the rods, and Brittney toted my tackle box. I’d given her a cap to wear so her face wouldn’t get sunburned. She had her hair in a ponytail and looked cute as a girl going fishing for the first time possibly could.

“I don’t have to touch a worm or anything, do I?”

“Just a plastic one,” I said. “We’ll save the live bait lessons for another day.”

I took the rod with the spincast reel and demonstrated how to use it. Brittney tried, fumbled a few times, finally got the hang of it.

“Your thingy’s different than mine,” she said.

“This is called a baitcaster reel. It’s a little tricky. Once you get good enough with that one, I’ll teach you. Deal?”

“Okay.”

We’d been fishing for about an hour, with no luck, when Brittney said, “This is quite conducive to somnolence.”

“What?”

“It means I’m getting sleepy.”

“You always go around talking like the Professor on
Gilligan’s Island?”
I said.

“Who?”

“Never mind. Tell me something. Did your tennis coach ever make a pass at you?”

“Kent?”

“Yeah. Kent Clark.”