Justice Rain (Chris Seely Vigilante Justice Book 11) Page 5

  “No,” Lucy said.

  “Right,” Chris said, “not enough. I think I’m gonna go with him zeroing in on the sub-human who raped his sister, and has gotten away with it for several decades.”

  Lucy thought about that one. “That’s better,” she said. “As the reader, I’d probably buy in.”

  “Thanks. I mean it could still change, but that’s the ballpark.”

  “So what does June say?”

  “Well they’re in this little roadside cafe in Rachel, Nevada, in the vicinity of Area 51. In fact Chris has been telling her to watch for UFO’s as they’ve been driving, because he can’t, since there are warning signs for cattle in the road . . . Bottom line, she processes it, where he’s going in his head, and suggests they drive to Nova Scotia first.”

  “Long way, and you typically take the ferry to get there, I believe.”

  “That’s it. Or they’ll have to go around, up through Newfoundland. Weather can be a factor as well, slow you down quite a bit.”

  “So . . . he agrees? And then passes away, on the road?”

  “Wow, that’s pretty brutal. Hadn’t thought of that. Could be, though.”

  “What was your ending then? He still acts on settling the old score?”

  “Hard to say. I’m at the point -- still in the scene in the cafe, they’re having dessert -- where he questions her motivation -- but doesn’t say no exactly, either.”

  “That’s nice. They sound like a sweet couple actually.”

  “Remains to be seen . . . but hey, you’re a heckofa good sport. Not only did you not fall asleep from boredom, you may have jumpstarted my plot line, in more than one spot.”

  Lucy took a moment. “I saw one of those myself,” she said.

  There was a serious tone to it, and Chris didn’t say anything.

  “With my dad,” she said, her voice cracking just a bit. “I was four.”

  Chris waited a bit, in case there was a punch line, and there wasn’t . . . and he took her hand, and she was good with it.

  A story he was going to tell her earlier, but it still applied: When they were on the subject of being the odd man out, Chris remembered one time having that happen and heading home from a party, but running into someone else on the way and shifting gears, nothing romantic, but having the night work out okay after all.

  No, you weren’t going to tell Lucy that now, but tonight reminded him of it.

  Chapter 6

  The next morning Chris was swimming some laps in the main pool. And one more thing first-class in this place, a full-length 50 meter one, just like in the Olympics.

  With the diving blocks and all . . . and there was a local junior swim team that came in after school and worked out here with a coach, and the Rancho Villas donated the pool time, as a good will gesture to the families in the Eclipse community.

  The side pools weren’t bad either, 2 of those, 25-yarders with the lane lines painted on the bottom, and one of the them doubling as a diving pool, featuring both 1 meter and 3 meter springboards, where you adjusted the tension with that wheel using your foot . . . Not that he himself partook, but people did.

  Then you had the family rec pool, not sure of the dimensions there but pretty dang huge, half of it shallow, half of it deep.

  You combine it with the 4 hot tub spas -- and Chris was educated on those now -- and a fitness center that rivals most fancy health clubs -- this was a darn sweet layout, no doubt about it.

  Chris finished up his laps and saw McBride sitting there watching.

  “What?” Chris said. “No comment?”

  McBride was laughing. “You require one?”

  “Nah,” Chris said, wrapping himself in a towel -- that was another thing, they furnished you these stacks of unlimited plush, extra large towels, all with the green and gold Rancho Villas monogram in the middle. “But I mean if you want to summarize, sure, I won’t object.”

  “Not much to tell,” McBride said. “It’s been a bit of routine for a while. One or two of the faces may change, but normally it’s the crew you met last night.”

  “They’re solid then,” Chris said, “reliable.”

  “You should have stuck around. You could have judged for yourself.”

  “Well, it was looking more and more there, like 7’s a crowd. Among other issues.”

  “An odd number’s never a crowd,” McBride said, “I mean, as the evening progresses it’s not a factor . . . What were the other issues?”

  “Mainly,” Chris said, lowering his voice, even though no one was around, except some real old guy, out of earshot anyway, kicking his feet and holding on to some floatation device, “that would be Jeez, I don’t want to be . . . visible . . . in front of a bunch of people.”

  McBride was smiling right along. “Jeff, keep in mind, this is Arizona, the desert. Things are more spiritual, if you don’t resist them . . . plus, you never messed around like that, even one iota? Not sure I’m buying it.”

  “Pretty much, no,” Chris said, actually trying to think back a bit. There had been that one incident in the sophomore dorm room, the details pretty fuzzy other than there’d been a good dose of marijuana involved, someone with a water pipe, but the activity was quite limited, was his guess, certainly a whole different animal than the full monte on display there last night.

  “Any-hoo,” McBride said, “I saw you doing your due diligence in the water. I’m on my way inside to hop on the eliptical -- I figured I’d throw you a bone, nothing major, but in case you’re interested.”

  Chris said, “I was telling someone recently, when a person’s on their way to work out, you can normally stall ‘em and talk their ear off, because they’re looking to procrastinate.”

  “I hear you. I gotta find me a sport. Chase something, or someone. Then I don’t realize I’m exercising.”

  “Wait, isn’t that what that was about last night? The pickleball round robin.”

  McBride looked at him funny and said, “You’re kidding, right?”

  Chris said, “Separately -- that came out by accident, wasn’t trying to be clever. But that how it worked?”

  “Okay my friend,” McBride said, “now you got me twisted around. Which round robin are you referring to?”

  “Distinguishing them -- I’m hearing the pickleball’s not enough exercise, so currently you’re headed to a machine. Forget that . . . Part two would be, a more direct question, was it a complete round robin? Back at Waylon’s?”

  “Partial,” McBride said. “Let’s not get sidetracked with trivialities. Reason I stopped to talk to you, Reba was disappointed you didn’t stick around.

  “Wow, really,” Chris said, and he had think which one that even was, and then he had it clear, that Amy was the more talkative one . . . and Karolina was an entity all to herself.

  So Reba . . . hmm.

  “What,” Chris said, “she said something? How’d that work?”

  “When, you mean? Well, when we were wrapping things up, she looks around, and she says hey what happened to that other dude? He was kinda interesting.”

  “Hunh.”

  “I go: you should have expressed that to him earlier. She goes: well if you run into him, tell him I said hello.”

  Chris said, “And . . . that’s what you’re doing now, then . . . I gotta tell ya, this is like outer space. Everyone so matter of fact . . . You guys all . . . been swinging . . . in your pre-Rancho Villas lives? Or it’s something that just came together here, under the influence of the high desert air and red rock.”

  “Mix of both, would be my guess,” McBride said. “Listen, you have a good one. Maybe I’ll see you on the courts.”

  Chris said you too . . . and told McBride he did enjoy meeting Dale, I see what you mean, nice guy . . . though to himself Chris hoped it would stay simple, having a cop right in your face who you socialized with.

  The Reba part and the rest of it though . . . this was a first, not your typical early morning small talk when you exit a lap pool and ar
e slipping on your flip flops and drying off, on your way to pick up a morning paper or otherwise start your day in innocuous fashion.

  Though if you gave it a little perspective . . . Last time you were here, you were mostly running around trying to do away with the baseball idiot -- not to mention dealing with the fallout from the road rage guy, plus that dumb ring business, which got unnecessarily intense there as well . . . So don’t over-think it.

  ***

  Sorrentino’s was the grand-daddy of Eclipse, Arizona, restaurants, which wasn’t saying much.

  Eclipse, Chris had learned, had been first acknowledged as an official incorporated town in 1982. At that point the ‘town’ consisted of a strip mall that paralleled I-17, a condo complex that pre-dated the Rancho Villas called Arroyo Grande, and 1200 tract houses spread over 4 neighborhoods that were so dizzyingly alike that if you entered the wrong one of the four neighborhoods you’d end up trying to get your key to work in someone else’s house that you thought was yours.

  Anyhow, Sorrentino’s had been the anchor resident of the strip mall, and a few years later they paved a main drag around it, creating an official 3-block downtown, and then you had a multiplex cinema and a bowling alley and mini golf thing, and by the mid-90’s when the Rancho Villas Phase 1 was up and running, they added a real shopping center that included a smallish Target and in Chris’s view, all the related garbage stores and fast-food joints we don’t need.

  If it was the intent of the planners at that point to make Eclipse a travelers’ destination off the interstate, they were successful, and it was now one of the couple of key stops between Phoenix and Flagstaff.

  Which Chris didn’t like either, and he recognized that he was essentially a grumpy old man who mostly wasn’t a fan of any change . . . but when he arrived here and was looking for a part-time gig, he figured if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, and he applied at the convenience store in the Pilot Gas and Truckers’ Complex off the I-17 exit, but he never heard back.

  He wouldn’t have minded working there, as he did like that kind of atmosphere, people passing through from every which way, having a few adventures. No two days alike, always a tad of interesting conversation possible when you rang someone up.

  Tonight though he was sitting in Sorrentino’s with Reba, enjoying a glass of red wine that tasted a bit watered down but that was fine, and some bread sticks you dipped in the olive oil mixture while you waited for the entrees.

  Chris said, “My first time here. Thanks for suggesting it. And for treating me.”

  Reba started to say something and hesitated. Chris said, “Took a sec to sink in. I’m fooling with you. When I go out, I try to pay, period.”

  “A traditional man then,” Reba said. “My father was that way. Even if it took half his paycheck. He was a proud Irishman.”

  “From over there? Really? Or an American-styled one.”

  “Pittsburgh,” she said. “That’s where we grew up, me and my four sisters. He always wanted a son, my dad was an athlete -- or as much of one as you could be, when you laid bricks all day.”

  “Well,” Chris said, debating . . . should he go this direction at all tonight, or stay out of it entirely . . . but why not, and he added “you found one of those in Waylon then maybe.”

  She was cool, you had to give her credit. “Dads you mean? Father figures?”

  “I was thinking of it less complicated,” Chris said. “The athlete card.”

  “Well certainly,” Reba said, “that was part of the initial attraction. I wanted to be a cheerleader in high school, but I had bad skin and wore glasses.”

  “How was your dancing ability?” Chris said. “Bad too?”

  The food came and it looked good, authentic. Chris ordered the cannelloni, which you didn’t see on a lot of Italian restaurant menus these days. Of course Reba ordered a dumb salad with a side order of something, but you couldn’t direct people how to eat.

  She said, “I was -- am -- a pretty good dancer. But are you always a forward ass by nature, or do you instigate it on purpose?”

  “Like an act?” Chris said. “Probably. Someone else asked me the same thing recently. I like to gain the upper hand from the get-go . . . I have a friend, Bakersfield where I used to live? He’s a popular guy, someone you envy, always upbeat and in charge, decent looking fellow, seems to have it all going on -- then he tells me he’s been seeing a therapist. I mean not heavy-duty, but for a session here and there.”

  “Are you going to ask me a question?” Reba said.

  “Like call on you for a prediction, you mean? I wasn’t planning on it . . . but fine, what does the therapist tell him?”

  “He tells him -- perhaps not tells him directly, but urges it out of him, your friend--”

  “It’s a she, by the way. The therapist. And she’s voluptuous as well, which makes it more complicated. My friend, I’m guessing, had to wrestle with whether he was attracted to her, or just kind of struck by her, that she was making a physical impact on him.”

  “Either way, he’s distracted, what I’m hearing. In that case, the therapy won’t be as effective, he needs a male. But I suspect what you’re driving at, whether it was discovered or not in your friend’s treatment -- he’s lacking in self-esteem, which he disguises with an outwardly ebullient and aggressive personality presentation.”

  “Jesus. It sounds like you’ve had some training. I picked the wrong person.”

  “To have dinner with?”

  “Not that, probably. But have you?”

  “I started off in an MFCC program but dropped out. So I’m just conjecturing . . . It might be fun to meet your friend though. See for myself. Is he around here ever?”

  “He’s not. So far. He might have to show up one day and bail me out of some situation.”

  “Mystery men then,” she said. “Was there a problem last night?” Here we go, the inevitable abrupt shift of gears. And that’s true, it was only last night. Chris hadn’t fooled around after McBride told him this morning about Reba wondering where he’d gone, and he tracked her down after lunch and asked her to have dinner in a couple hours.

  Chris said, “Like I was telling McBride -- and what the heck’s his first name anyway, this is getting ridiculous?”

  “He told us to call him Mac,” Reba said. “No one questioned it beyond that.”

  “Yeah right, whatever. I told him,” leaning in quieter, “as I projected it forward, I didn’t think I’d be comfortable stark naked, or close to it, around a group of individuals. Well-meaning as everyone apparently was.”

  “You were over-conceptualizing,” she said. “We all have our shortcomings.”

  “Jeez. I wasn’t volunteering any of mine.”

  “So I’m putting words in your mouth?”

  “I’m not saying that either,” Chris said. “But to adjust the subject slightly -- is what you all were practicing . . . is that a modern-day take on swingers? I mean the swinging lifestyle?”

  Reba actually gave it a bit of thought, like it was an important distinction she needed to make. “I don’t feel it’s what we’re all about, no. However, you say a modern take . . . my understanding is old-fashioned swinging is alive and well.”

  Chris said, “Well, you never know I guess. There was this couple one time, husband and wife, I met them at an art class. This was up in Marin County.”

  “See? It didn’t take much, and you have a story.”

  “No, they didn’t swing. That I know of. But one of them’s parents did, I can’t remember which . . . I shoulda prefaced it, they were Mormons.”

  Reba said, “I have a bit of LDS in my family tree, if you dig deep enough. Jeffrey, take it from me, you need to stay clear of those maniacs.”

  “Right,” Chris said, “what I’m getting to, this couple left the church and moved to the Bay Area with their kids. The story they told, he or she, was when they were kids the parents left them with an uncle and aunt every weekend . . . and they found out later, as adults, that t
he parents were part of a swingers deal in Vegas.”

  “Hmm,” Reba said, “that could make sense. Utah to Las Vegas is closer than people think.”

  “You’re missing my point, whatever it was.”

  “I’m with you. I believe you were simply confirming my contention that the lifestyle continues to attract its fans.”

  “Yeah. And hopefully this couple, they’re better off. They did say they lost half their friends when they announced they were leaving the church.”

  Reba said, “The way you tell stuff, and jump around without completing the first thing, I’m getting confused. Whether your friends swung, and that’s why they wanted to leave the church? It’s not worth clarifying, I get the thrust.”

  “Not really my friends, these people. I did have to admire them for breaking away.”

  “Following their convictions. What you seem to be judging us for. Back at Waylon’s . . . But do you paint, or what?”

  “Me? No way. And I’m not judging you, per se . . . But the art class, it was a colleague of mine teaching it.”

  “Another unfinished byte,” Reba said. “Like a tease, where I have to ask what’s coming next.”

  “Ah.”

  “Which is fine. We can pick up some rocky road ice cream, and put up coffee at your place. You can expand the story, if there is one.”

  She had a point, they’d been finished for a while. Chris said, “Up or on?”

  “It means, start a pot of coffee. Gee Whiz.”

  “I know, but put it up -- that’s an idiomatic expression, likely a regional one. Don’t tell me where you’re from, let me guess.”

  “I already did.”

  “Oh yeah, Pittsburgh . . . How about where you’re from later, before you ended up here. I’ll try to pinpoint that one.”

  Reba said, “People under about 60 don’t say put coffee on anymore either. I’d be in the minority both ways.”

  “Kansas City,” he said. “The Kansas side not the Missouri one.”

  “I do like the division there. I feel like the Kansas side is more blue collar and down to earth . . . But nope. Seattle.”