“I don’t know an Alice Adams!” Jimmy wailed.
“Look,” I said impatiently, “cut it out. I’m telling you, it’s your daughter.”
Jimmy sat there, his face slack, while I avoided the temptation to snap my fingers in front of his eyes.
“What’s her name?” he finally asked. “My daughter.”
“Um…”
“Vicki,” Alan whispered.
“Vicki.”
He nodded, as if confirming that the name made sense. “What should I do?”
“Shower.”
He focused on me. “Huh?”
“Go take a shower. You don’t want to meet your daughter looking like that, do you?”
When Jimmy left the room, I turned the television on to see if I could find any good cartoons, but Alan wanted to talk.
“You know how angry Alice Blanchard is going to be over this?”
“I guess I do, yeah.”
“It doesn’t seem like you to meddle like this.”
I felt the blood rush to my face. “Is that what I’m doing, Alan? Meddling? This morning you told me the worst thing that Burby and Wexler did was rob you of time with your daughter, and now you want me to do that to my best friend?”
Alan couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
Jimmy came out of the shower looking as if he’d managed to wash all the color out of his cheeks. He trudged numbly after me outside, sliding into the truck and staring sightlessly through the windshield. Though it was a relatively mild day for that part of the country, he was dressed for an Arctic expedition, a parka pulled over a bulky sweater.
As I backed up, I had to brake a moment to let another vehicle go past, a gleaming SUV the color of midnight. The man behind the wheel gave me a quick glance and then looked away, but not before Alan and I both recognized him.
“That was Franklin Wexler,” Alan said tensely. “What’s he doing here?”
I decided to find out. Jimmy’s head snapped back as I put my foot into it, closing rapidly on the black SUV as it slowed for the town. The light ahead turned yellow and Wexler stopped. I eased up behind him, staring at his rearview mirror, but he didn’t raise his eyes. I tapped the horn, but Wexler remained resolutely focused on the road ahead.
Jimmy stirred. “Do you know that guy?”
“Yeah. We’re good friends.” I took my foot off the brake and crept forward. My front bumper kissed the back of the SUV, rocking it a little, but still no reaction from Wexler.
“What are you doing?” Alan asked, though I thought it was pretty obvious.
Still nestled up against the SUV, I tromped on the accelerator and my engine surged. Wexler’s vehicle, held fast by its own brakes, bounced up and down as my truck valiantly struggled to push it forward. With a low chugging sound, my motor died.
Finally, I had him. Wexler stared at me in his mirror, and I gazed back calmly, raising my eyebrows a little. Wanna play, big fella?
The light turned green and with a shriek his vehicle leaped ahead. I started my truck and took up pursuit, but Wexler drove without restraint, and I couldn’t bring myself to match his speed as we sailed past the Black Bear. The SUV was probably doing ninety as it rocketed out of sight. I followed at a sedate pace, chuckling.
Jimmy was wrestling with his demons and didn’t even ask me what that had been all about—I wondered if he’d even noticed. Halfway to Traverse City I pulled over and listened sympathetically as he vomited by the side of the road. “You going to be okay?” I asked, concerned.
His look indicated he honestly didn’t know. “Maybe we should get a toy or something,” he muttered when we were in town. I drove him to a Target and he spent an hour pondering his choice, eventually settling on a small stuffed rabbit with innocent, unaccusing eyes. He gripped the thing as if it was giving him strength as we cruised toward where the Blanchards lived.
“Will she be home?” Jimmy wondered.
“It’s Saturday.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“If she’s anything like her biological father, she’ll be watching cartoons,” Alan predicted.
Jimmy’s hands were shaking as he pulled open the door to the truck and followed me up to the Blanchards’ porch. I dropped the large brass knocker a few times, giving him a wink as the vibrations from within the house indicated someone’s approach.
When Alice Blanchard opened the door her anger at seeing the repo man turned to shock when she glanced at the person standing next to me. She raised a hand to her mouth.
“Oh, Alice,” Jimmy said in recognition.
As she had done before, Alice stepped out and pulled the door quickly shut behind her. She darted a look left and right around her yard, then glared at me with hot eyes.
“What do you think you are doing?”
“You can’t ask me to stand between a father and his child,” I lectured, feeling significantly less self-righteous than I had when I’d argued with Alan.
“His child?” she hissed.
“This was not the best idea,” Alan stated.
She raised her hand as if to strike me, then whirled on Jimmy. “What are you doing here?”
“Uh…” He half lifted the stuffed rabbit, then shrugged.
There was a sudden flurry of sound from the side of the house and little Vicki burst into view at a dead run—I got the feeling this was her standard method of getting from place to place. She stopped when she saw us, recognizing me, then switching her curious gaze to Jimmy, who had drawn in a sharp breath. When Vicki’s eyes found her mother’s, she sensed something, and looked back and forth between these two men, trying to figure out what was going on.
We stood there in the morning air for what seemed like a long time, though it might have been only an instant. I saw Jimmy try a trembling smile, for the first time in his life unsure of himself around a female.
“Vicki,” Mrs. Blanchard said. Her voice sounded distant. “Remember when I told you that your father had to go away, and he would never be back?”
Vicki blinked, processing this. Suddenly her eyes grew wide. She flung a panicked look at me, but before I could even shake my head she was staring at Jimmy, and I knew she had seen the rabbit.
“Hi,” Jimmy choked.
She was past us like an explosion, up the steps and to the door, which she threw open with such force that the recoil brought it back to a close. The three of us gazed after her, and then Mrs. Blanchard sighed.
“Okay?” She turned to me. “Okay now?”
“Maybe, I could like send money…” Jimmy stammered.
“No! I don’t need your money,” she snapped.
Jimmy turned pleading eyes to me, but I shrugged, helpless to assist him. He tried again. “Well for college, like a college fund? I’d like to do something.”
“Now? Now you’d like to do something?” Mrs. Blanchard repeated contemptuously.
“Alice, I didn’t know,” Jimmy begged.
“You said that you weren’t ready for a relationship,” she said, her voice bitter as she mocked Jimmy’s words. “‘Maybe things have gotten too serious too fast,’ you told me. And when I asked you if there was someone else, you said ‘just once.’ Just once.”
Jimmy swallowed. “Yeah, I’m…” He shook his head in self-loathing. “I’m sorry.…”
“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t say you’re sorry,” Mrs. Blanchard said furiously. “Don’t say anything, Jimmy.”
He hung his head.
“I got over you a long time ago. Please don’t insult me by pretending any of it matters now.”
We stood there for a bit, and there was the sense of waiting to see if there would be any more punishment. Finally she drew in a deep breath, looking toward the closed door. “It was a mistake for you to come here. Vicki doesn’t need you.”
“Okay,” Jimmy agreed.
We turned to leave, sort of slouching down the porch steps like whipped dogs. Jimmy was biting his lip, staring sightlessly ahead of us as we walked along the cem
ent path toward my truck.
“Wait!” came a call from behind.
We turned. Vicki was running down the sidewalk after us. She stopped, her face almost identical to Jimmy’s as it gazed up at us with an open innocence. “Want to see my pictures?”
They weren’t drawings, but photographs, each carefully mounted behind plastic in the small album in her hands. They sat down together on the curb and went through each one, Vicki chattering easily with her biological father, already miraculously okay with the situation. Jimmy hugged his knees, clinging to them for support, and kept staring at his daughter in disbelief.
I strolled away to give them some privacy, stopping to examine a swing set in the corner of the yard. From that vantage point, I could slide a sideways glance over to the front porch and see Alice Blanchard’s face as she watched Vicki and Jimmy sitting at the curb. There was none of the hostility I’d expected—if anything, her gaze seemed to contain a small measure of satisfaction.
“That’s why she did it. Not for revenge or anything complicated. She wanted Jimmy to find her. She couldn’t call him, her husband would never forgive that. But this way, he tracked her down,” Alan proclaimed. “Mr. Bank President might provide a house, but he refuses to truly accept Vicki as his own.”
“And every child needs a father,” I murmured.
“That’s right. She did it for her daughter.”
“Still a little subtle for me,” I confessed. I thought about what it must have taken for Alice Blanchard to decide that even though he had torn a hole in her heart, Jimmy was safe, even essential, for her daughter. He might be useless when it came to resisting the easy seductions of life, but no one who knew him could deny that he was anything but a gentle, caring person.
Alice’s eyes were completely unreadable as they settled on mine when we got into my truck. Vicki jumped up and down, waving, and Jimmy grinned and waved back, but Alice was going to have to deal with her husband over this, and that was going to take some strength. I wanted to raise my hand in some sort of a salute, but dismissed anything but a nod as being inappropriate. In all likelihood, Mrs. Blanchard still thought of me as despicable.
Alan fell asleep, and Jimmy was deep in his thoughts, so I had an uninterrupted opportunity to think about Katie Lottner for an hour—a very pleasant way to pass the time.
We went straight to the Bear so that Jimmy could be on time for the lunch shift. We walked in and Becky came across the floor and put her arms around me.
“Oh, Ruddy.” She sighed. “It’s a sex line.”
25
Those Psychic People Are Crazy
Financially choking on the bounces from the bank, Becky had finally figured out how to call the person who had been sending us the credit card numbers—not the contact number we’d been given, but the line the customers called. For a buck ninety-nine a minute, a breathy, sultry voice on the other end promised to discuss anything the caller wanted in the way of “hot, hot, hot sexy talk.”
“The operative word being hot,” Alan suggested, but I was not amused.
“What happens after that?” I asked.
“They want a credit card number.”
“Well, what about the contact number?”
“They called Kermit back once and told him they would send us more credit card numbers to process, but they haven’t responded to our messages since then.”
“Would that work, send us more numbers?”
“Well, maybe, but Ruddy, most of the numbers are bouncing! We didn’t know the cardholders were disputing the charges because it takes a full billing cycle for us to get the notice. We’d have to run a huge amount of business through our account to get out of this hole, and Kermit says the bank would shut us down before then. Ruddy, I … I was just going to put in new Caesarstone counters.” She turned and surveyed the Black Bear, no doubt seeing all of her planned improvements going away.
I called the number Becky gave me, impatiently tapping my foot as the recording moaned and whispered its way through the sales pitch. Finally a human voice picked up.
“Credit card number?” the woman asked, sounding less sexy than bored.
“You the person I’m going to be talking to?” I demanded.
“No, I just take the credit card. One of our models will be handling your call,” she responded.
“Sounds like she’s said that a few million times before,” Alan noted.
“Then you are the person I need to talk to. We’re getting all these bank inquiries. The business you’re sending us is crap, it all bounces.”
There was a long silence. “Who is this?” she finally asked.
“We’re the people who have been running your numbers.”
“Running numbers?” she repeated.
“Processing your credit card numbers. Swipe, nonswipe.” I put my hand over the phone. “Where’s Kermit?” I hissed at Becky. She gestured toward the kitchen and I jerked my head at her to go get him. “Hello? You there?” I asked into the phone.
“I’m here,” the woman responded reluctantly.
“Well, we have to do something about this. No one told us you were a sex line; we thought you were a psychic. Your transactions are bouncing all over the place.”
“I don’t talk to you.”
“What?”
“I don’t talk to you. You got problems, you take it up with Mr. Drake.”
“Mr. Drake? Who’s Mr. Drake?”
“He’s the business manager.”
“Well, put him on.”
“Oh, Drake’s not here,” she told me scornfully. “I’ll have to take a message.”
“I don’t think you understand me.”
“We finished, here?”
“Finished? You tell Mr. Drake that we’re not running any more numbers for you. You got a lot of transactions today? Well, you might as well tear them up, because I’m not putting a single one through the bank. What I am going to do is call my lawyer and the state district attorney and we’re going to get to the bottom of this!”
“Can’t do that.”
“What?”
“You can’t do that,” she repeated more distinctly. “We have a contract.”
“You have this number?” I looked over at Becky, who nodded. “You have this number. You tell Drake what I said. I’m going to wait ten minutes, then I’m calling the D.A.”
I hung up the phone. “Tell Kermit to get out here.”
“He’s making chili,” my sister replied. She stuck her chin out.
“Becky, this whole thing is his doing!”
“He didn’t know! He thought it was a psychic line.”
“Well, he should have known—it’s his business, for heaven’s sake. Kermit!” I bellowed. “Get the hell out here!”
Kermit peeked around the corner, wiping his hands on an apron. The phone rang and I snatched it up.
“Black Bear, Ruddy McCann speaking,” I said, just as my parents had taught me. I found myself wishing I’d come up with a tougher greeting, like, “Yeah?” or something.
“You wanted to talk to me?” Drake had done a much better job preparing himself to sound threatening.
“This Drake?”
“Yeah, and the first thing is, you don’t ever talk to my girls like that, got it? Some kinda problem, you deal with me. Otherwise, we have a little conversation.”
“That made no sense whatsoever,” Alan complained. “We are having a conversation.”
“Here’s what I understand, Drake. We were supposed to be running numbers for a psychic line, and instead you’ve got us doing sex talk.”
“So what? Lot more money than psychics. Those people are crazy.”
“So they don’t pay their bills, that’s so what. We have…” I looked at Becky and she mouthed “ten thousand,” which caused my eyes to bulge. “We have ten thousand dollars’ worth of bounces we have to refund.”
“Yeah,” Drake grunted. “Happens. Somebody steals a credit card number, first thing they wanna do is call a s
ex line. Customer sees the charge and denies it but by then it’s too late for us. Bane of my freakin’ existence.”
“Your existence? We’re the one getting the bounces!”
“Well come on, McCann. Did you really think you were going to get to keep all that money, just for entering numbers in a little machine? This is a tough racket.”
I decided I didn’t care about his business problems. “The point is, we’re shutting this down, and you need to send us ten thousand dollars.”
Drake laughed heavily. “That’s not going to happen. I’ve been through this before, friend, and let me tell you, the only way out is to grow through it. I’ll get you some more volume to process. I can get some Internet stuff, too.”
“Are you stupid? We can’t grow our way out of this, it’s a disaster!”
Drake was silent for a long time. “I’m going to ignore that little remark, friend, because we’ve got a business relationship.”
“Not anymore. We don’t want you to send us anything but the money to get out of this.”
“Don’t even think that. I’ve got an operation to run here and you’re my source for credit card processing. That’s the deal. Period.”
“No, the deal is, send us ten thousand dollars or we call the D.A. Period.”
“Oh, don’t even start with that. A deal is a deal. We’ve got a contract. You want me to come up there and enforce this contract?”
“Sure.”
“I have to tell you, friend, you do not want to see me in that little pissant town of yours.”
“Why, are you as ugly as you sound?”
He breathed into the phone. “Well maybe I will be paying you a visit.”
“Good idea. Bring your checkbook.”
“What I’m gonna bring is a world of pain.”
“Looking forward to it.” I hung up. “Kermit!”
“What did they say, Ruddy?” Becky asked anxiously.
“He said he’s going to come up here in the pain-mobile. Kermit!”
Kermit came out, looking fearful. Becky put a hand on my arm as if to keep me from hitting him. “Do you know how much this place means to me and my sister?” I seethed. “This is going to ruin us. Ten thousand dollars!”