Justice Rain (Chris Seely Vigilante Justice Book 11) Page 8

  Chris had a weakness for bacon, as well as for waffles, though he didn’t think you want them wholly together like that -- but this worked. The guy got on the little PA and announced happily that there were limited seconds available, and Chris didn’t want to be a pig so he waited . . . but only a couple folks straggled back up there, so he couldn’t let the opportunity go to waste.

  Now he was on a bike. A balloon tire one-speed heavy-duty job, something he should have had all along at Manhattan Beach but never quite committed to. The Rancho Villas offered them for free, parked at different stations around the complex, and you punched in your key code and you were off and running.

  And he could have walked to the bank, would have typically, it was maybe a mile off the Rancho Villas grounds, but the bike helped you digest better this morning, plus he was a little worried about the bank closing at noon.

  Red Valley Savings was on Main Street in Eclipse, the 3-block section that sprung up out of a strip mall in the 80’s, anchored by Sorrentino’s, the restaurant. And no, the Saturday hours on the glass doors said 9-5 like normal, Chris thinking you saw a lot of that around here didn’t you -- not with the retiree crowd at the Ranchos . . . or the slowed down crowd like himself and McBride . . . but among the typical working folk up this way, they put in an honest day’s work, gave you the full 6 days, and rarely seemed to complain about it.

  More as less as Chris pictured it, there was a center console where customers took care of business, then the wall of teller windows directly in your face, and the managers’ desks off to the left.

  The art was hanging on the perimeter walls, an impressive output, maybe 25 paintings, most of them in gold frames, with a few fake-distressed wooden ones mixed in.

  In the far corner was a laminated card stuck to the wall which Chris figured was an About The Artist type deal, so he started with that, and there was a short bio -- Reba had gotten a graphics art degree at Washington State University . . . which would fit, her pointing out the other night that she was from the Seattle area, after starting off in Pittsburgh or whatever the story was.

  The rest of it was an artist’s statement, and Chris started to read it but he couldn’t get through it -- those things all seemed the same, the artist explaining how their life experience translates to the emotional balance projected out from their works. Chris had helped Joyce several years ago, up in Petaluma, when she dabbled in studio art and joined the various open studios events, and he tried to re-write her artist statement so that it sounded human -- condensing it into one concrete sentence -- but she said who do you think you are, and he didn’t bring it up again.

  But now Reba’s artwork . . . hmm.

  McBride had tactfully put it correctly . . . he’ll be curious to see what Chris (Jeff) thinks.

  First of all the colors were too strong, solid, nothing muted, and you were wondering if she was skilled in actually mixing paints . . . but you did have famous artists who intentionally employed a limited pallette, so you couldn’t crucify the woman for that alone.

  But the landscape scenes she chose . . . there was no life to them, no focal point -- and worse, no beauty whatsoever.

  Again, some famous artists, he supposed, strived for the no-beauty look . . . but not here, highly doubtful that was Reba’s intent.

  Chris went from painting to painting, giving it his best open-minded shot, and you hated to be cruel or clicheed . . . but if these were 5 bucks each, frames included, there’d still be no way.

  There was a middle-aged woman filling out a deposit slip at one of the high counters and Chris said, “Hi there. How’s the art? In your opinion?”

  The woman first looked at Chris, like where did that come from out of the blue, but soon enough glanced at the group of paintings closest to the counter. She said, “I try to give all the artists their just do. My friend, this is the worst of the bunch. Hands down.”

  “Bunch?” Chris said.

  “Why yes. Red Valley rotates artists bi-monthly. I try to attend each opening, my husband and I value the arts, believe me . . . but this particular showing lowers the bar substantially.”

  “Interesting, thank you for that perspective . . . What’s wrong with it, specifically?”

  “Specifically? The artist would need to start over,” the woman said. “The rudiments. Color, texture, shape . . . space, tone, line . . . not to mention brush technique . . . and of course composition, that goes without saying.”

  “Kind of what I was afraid of concluding,” Chris said. “I sort of know the artist, I think. Socially. Somebody warned me.”

  “In that case I wholeheartedly apologize for my barebones assessment,” the woman said.

  “Nonsense. I’m a fan of barebones assessments . . . in fact life in general, we need more of those.”

  “You’re kind. And you’re also diplomatic. My husband, he would say you could be on the bomb squad.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “One of his lines.”

  “Ah. Meaning, when he thinks someone could diffuse a situation?”

  “Exactly . . . See the third from the end, for example? The tree, directly in the center. Why on earth would someone put it there?”

  Chris studied that one, but it didn’t take long, and he had to cringe and say, “Gee, yeah, I see your point. If you can’t move it, at least stand off to the side more, when you paint the darn thing.”

  “I can’t disagree . . . please enjoy the rest of your weekend,” the woman said, and Chris said you as well, and gave the art one more run through, and ambled back outside, and half got on the bicycle, thinking is there anything else I can do downtown, to justify the rare venture off the Rancho Villas grounds . . . and it wasn’t bad, you had a hobby shop which you rarely saw anymore, you had the ubiquitous couple of coffee places, a western wear store, a thrift shop, a gift knick-knack place or two, and whatever else . . . and there was an old guy on a bench with a cane across his lap, and Chris was tempted to join that guy for a minute, you never know what stories he might have in him to spin.

  But then . . . Shit!

  The pickleball lesson he’d booked the other night with Karolina . . . that was for Saturday at 11. Today. Damn it!

  Now he used the old guy to ask what time it was, and of course the guy sensibly is wearing a regular Timex wrist watch and it says 11:12.

  Chris thanks him and jumps on the bike and peddles like a bat out of hell to the end of the downtown stretch and across Sunscape Road, and then the entry drive to the Rancho Villas, where he had to dodge a couple idiots in an out of control golf cart, but Jeez, also a delivery truck pulling out of the place as well, the guy clearly not paying attention, and where’d he learn to drive?

  When he got to the courts is was more like 11:20, and Karolina was on the bench of the designated teaching court, fiddling with her phone, a couple guys talking to her -- and what else was new, no gold lamee top at the moment but Karolina did still present an impressive picture, including the subtle stuff like how she naturally arched her back just right -- and all manner of doofuses gravitated to her, Chris assumed.

  “Hey,” he said, pretty darn out of breath, no disguising it. “Please don’t say anything. If I told you it’s unlike me, you wouldn’t believe it anyway.”

  Karolina gave him the extended demonstrative sneer, though she was smiling pretty quickly, and said, “No one’s late for a pickleball lesson. This would be a first, in this complex . . . And you of all people, weren’t you whining about your apartment being right on top of the courts?”

  Chris said, “A little south of the main ones. But yeah, what I’ve learned now are courts 9 and 10, they stare me right in the face.”

  Karolina was wearing a one-piece tennis outfit, and from what Chris could tell without being a total unceremonious ass, there didn’t appear to be a bra involved in today’s attire either.

  Not that it was required, the surgical intervention apparently squaring everything away just right, yielding what you couldn’t deny was a spl
endid angle of protrusion.

  The two hangers-on guys left and Chris almost asked, but he caught himself -- but the simple question would have been: how bad off were you before you had the work done? Meaning the Estonia liberation bit . . . no one admired you back then, the way they do now? He wasn’t trying to judge, he was genuinely curious if everything wasn’t okay before too.

  Karolina said, “You keep standing there. Maybe you shouldn’t have booked the lesson for today, if your thoughts are elsewhere. Meanwhile the clock continues to tick.”

  “Good point,” Chris said. “What do we got? 15 minutes or so?”

  “13.”

  “Right,” he said, picking up one of the loaner paddles and getting loose. “Tell you what. No instruction, how bout. Just run my rear end all over the place, the time we got left.” Which unfortunately was down to 12 minutes and counting at this point.

  Karolina didn’t argue, and dang, the gal was a pretty strong player, crushing balls when she felt like it, especially on the forehand, and jerking him all over the court.

  He hadn’t factored that in before, that likely she’d played herself some college varsity tennis somewhere along the line, before she gravitated to this sort of non-sport. Though Chris conceded pickleball had its place, just look at Lucy and Gertrude running around for example.

  At any rate, Chris was trying hard, and the abbreviated 12 minute lesson turned into the best workout he’d had in quite a while . . . especially combined with the bike sprint just to get here, he forgot about that for a second too.

  After one particularly long rally, where she’d drawn him in to the net a couple times with drop shots, and then sent him back deep, he had to stick his paddle vertical on the ground and lean on it for a moment to recover.

  A little bell sounded, signifying the end of the lesson. Chris said, “Man, you throw out the casual appearance, anything goes, but then you’re cold-blooded on the time.”

  “We can go longer,” she said, “you’re my last student of the morning session.”

  “I’m pulling your leg. I’m revved up at the moment, but once I sit down and everything tightens up, I’ll need a couple hot tubs, rest of the day.”

  “You don’t recover properly,” she said. “There’s a good chance then, that your electrolyte levels are unbalanced.”

  “You offer any treatment for that?” Chris said, slightly giddy from the workout, having a little fun.

  “I do not,” she said, “but my husband does. He incorporates mind-body into his training regimens. You met him, have you not? Victor?”

  Hmm. More weird stuff being introduced, the husband, la-did-da, like they were the prototypical all-American couple, straight out of the old TV show Ozzie and Harriet. Chris said, “Let’s take a seat for minute. Awkward discussing recovery procedures over the net.”

  Karolina produced a cold 32 ounce Gatorade, and dang, yeah, that looked awful good, and Chris drained half of it right off the bat, and the rest didn’t last long either, and he said, “You’all do your thing then? Independent? You and Vic? . . . and then you crawl into bed together and watch Jimmy Fallon?”

  “It’s Victor,” she said. “And we prefer Jimmy Kimmell these days. He goes toe to toe with Trump.”

  “Oh please,” Chris said. “No politics. That’s part of why I like it here . . . Did you know, I was reading a book by a guy, can’t remember his name . . . but the 4 hour work week?”

  “Yes I’ve heard of it.”

  “Not his main point, but it supports his other approaches -- the guy hasn’t read a paper in 15 years.”

  “That’s actually what Victor says too. If it’s really important, you’ll hear about it anyway.”

  “Right. And since I’ve been down here, a new leaf in the mornings with the newspaper, I try to eliminate knowledge of anything but sports, with a little entertainment news spiced in there.”

  “I see . . . I’m guessing in the 4 hour workweeker’s case, he’s using the unwasted time and energy to build multi-million-dollar businesses . . . You?”

  “Kind of an abrupt question, directed my way. You were making sense there, about the guy.”

  Karolina said, “Did you now that Mac was once on that path? I doubt I’m telling you anything, you two seem to have become tight.”

  Chris said, “I did hear that. It’s an interesting story. The kind that builds character, for sure.”

  “Including a bit of prison time,” she said. And Chris watched her carefully, was she leading up to something here, and he couldn’t tell.

  He said, “One thing, not reading the main part of the newspaper -- not online either -- someone said there’s a scandal going on, back where I was living, USC. Stanford too. Other prominent institutions . . . underhanded shit.”

  “What do you mean?” Karolina said.

  Oh boy. Was she playing it coy? Or was Reba feeding him a line of manure? Or . . . maybe Karolina had simply encountered a glitch, in that regard, but took care of it.

  Chris said, “Good then. You’re not involved . . . That way I can check off the erroneous information that was floating around -- that I probably mis-interpreted anyway -- and get on with my positive lifestyle around here . . . I was even thinking of breaking down and springing for a serious of personal training sessions, the machines at the rec center. You have any thoughts on that?”

  “All right,” Karlolina said. “When I asked what you meant -- okay now I think I understand it.” And now she too, with the face in the hands . . . and what was going on around here with these people . . . was it something in the water?

  Unlike with Lucy out on McBride’s mini-deck last night, you weren’t going to make physical contact now with Karolina . . . were you? That would be awkward for a number of reasons. So Chris said, “Can I get you a Gatorade or something? Out of your kiosk deal?”

  He was referring to the hut behind the bleachers, likely one of those sheds from Home Depot that they display in the parking lots sometimes, where a racquets pro could store equipment, and apparently plug in a little cooler.

  Karolina brought out some Kleenex and waved him off. She said, “I only mentioned this to a few people. One of them was Reba. Did you fuck each other?”

  “Ho-ly T0-le-do,” Chris said.

  “Well? Is that such a bizarre question, Jeffrey? The others I’ve mentioned it to -- and not even my husband -- they don’t live around here.”

  Chris said, “No, we didn’t, since you want to be nosy.”

  “And I didn’t realize she had such a big mouth.”

  “Hold on. We had a respectable evening. We’re sort of on the same page, some ways. She’s worried about you, is all.”

  “Uhh . . . and she told you my private business, because?”

  “No idea. But did it ever occur to you, you lay something heavy on someone, they may be uncomfortable and want to pass it off on someone else? That they didn’t seek it out?”

  Karolina thought about it. “You could have a point . . . I tend to think only of myself, I really do, don’t I? . . . You’re absolutely right.” She started with the face in the palm again, and Chris wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic this time, and putting on an act . . . but one thing for sure, this was a roller coaster ride he didn’t need either, just like what he said about Reba not needing it on her plate.

  Chris said, “Do me a favor. Let’s don’t worry about who shouldn’t have said what, and which of us may have personality defects -- and I put myself right in there too -- but the other thing she said, was I might have an idea.”

  “You just said, you didn’t know why she told you.”

  “God dang it. I just thought of it, replaying the conversation. We were in a restaurant for Gosh sakes, I was enjoying myself, distracted.” He realized it might not have been there, it was more likely back in the apartment, after they’d enjoyed a round of high school-style making out . . . but same difference. Either way, Reba had told him he struck her as a fixer of sorts, and that jarred him, more now actuall
y, that it was registering -- like, am I acting a certain way to give off that impression? And could Dale the cop for example, pick up some crazy vibe I’m emitting?

  “Okay I’m sorry,” Karolina said. “Do you? Have an idea?”

  “Not yet. I mean, if ever. But I’d need more information . . . to offer an opinion. Or a recommendation.”

  “Fine then . . . In a nutshell, my daughter Sabrina . . . she’s currently a freshman at UCLA.”

  “Good. Great institution. One of the best public schools in the country, along with Cal.”

  “What’s Cal?”

  “Berkeley. Keep going. She’s a freshman out there . . . how.”

  “She’s a good kid. We sent her to Brookfield, all four years.”

  “Is that, like a prep school then?”

  “Not technically, there’s not the residential element. But it’s in that league scholastically. All-girls. In Scottsdale.”

  “Ah.”

  Meanwhile -- shifting gears momentarily to the other business -- there were questions you weren’t going to ask her, and they didn’t belong being asked . . . but Chris couldn’t help wonder how it worked -- the swinging lifestyle, when you’re a parent for Gosh sakes . . . and the husband, identified now as Victor . . . what the heck was his story, did he have his own thing going too?

  But with it all, they apparently produce a ‘good kid’ as Karolina puts it, who’s on a solid track, beginning at UCLA.

  Maybe.

  “So . . . what can I say,” she said, “my daughter -- studies-wise -- she was an average student at best . . . Yes, many colleges place weight on the quality of a student’s high school itself . . . but suffice it to say, Sabrina was junior college material.”

  “Gee,” Chris said. “Not even Northern Arizona? Flagstaff? When I was looking myself -- this was years ago -- but that place sounded appealing. And it was a no-brainer to get in, they almost rolled out the red carpet.”