Smith's Monthly #25 Read online

  “That he was. And I must say, it was a pleasure taking him for every penny.”

  “It almost makes taking orders from the idiot for four years worth it.”

  “Sixty-seven million?” Bill said, laughing. “I’d say that was worth it. You got us access to everything the man owned, every password, every account. And the guy let you.” Bill shook his head at the craziness of it all.

  Grant laughed, his big frame shaking. “Sure hope those two nice cops from Seattle got out of that firefight alive. She was a looker.”

  “I’m sure they did,” Bill said. “They were smart enough to save the Senator, they’re smart enough to get out of Robins’ house, I’m sure.”

  “I sure wanted to tell old Robins about Senator Knight being just fine in Washington, D.C.,” Grant said, laughing.

  “If he doesn’t know by now,” Bill said, “he will shortly.”

  The two men laughed again and climbed out of the limo.

  Bill looked at the two planes. One jet waited for him, the other for Grant. They were headed in two different directions.

  In a matter of hours they would both be far out of the reach of Charles Robins and the FBI. In a matter of days they would both have new identities and enough money to last a very long time.

  “Well, friend,” Grant said, shaking his hand. “When will I see you again?”

  “Oh, a year or so. As soon as I find another sucker like Robins. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Take your time,” Grant said. “I think I’ve got enough to last for a few years.”

  The man who had been called Bill laughed.

  They let go of the handshake and turned for their jets.

  It was the third time they had done this to a stupid, greedy businessman like Robins. They both knew it wouldn’t be the last. They enjoyed the score too much. It made life worth living for both of them.

  Bill’s jet left the runway first, followed a minute later by Grant’s.

  In the air one jet turned west, the other south.

  EPILOGUE

  Friday, April 14th

  10:12 p.m.

  MONDAY HAD TURNED into a day from hell for both of them. Bonnie could not remember a day like it before. They had had no sleep and millions of questions to answer, forms to fill out, details to go over.

  And all while trying to understand that Maxwell had been killed.

  Bonnie found his death almost impossible to believe for some reason. The guy seemed like he always had everything under control. But clearly he had made one mistake, and that was walking into the line of fire of that estate’s front gate.

  Hagar had told them that he was lucky to get back when the firing started.

  Bonnie still hadn’t believed Maxwell was dead until the funeral on Thursday. Then finally she had allowed herself to cry for the man she had only known a short time.

  By six in the evening on Monday they had been allowed to return to their hotel room for a shower and change of clothes.

  But Hagar had had a car bring them right back to the station.

  By midnight Monday they had finished almost everything that needed to be done immediately, and were allowed to go back to the hotel to sleep.

  By eight the next morning they were back at the station.

  The hearings and interviews seemed to stretch forever. Over and over again, both together and separately, Bonnie and Craig had answered questions about what had happened the entire weekend.

  All day Tuesday, all day Wednesday, after Maxwell’s funeral on Thursday, and then even more questions on Friday morning.

  Finally, Friday afternoon they had been set free. Bonnie had felt numb and more tired than she had felt in years.

  On Wednesday, Charles Robins had been arraigned on more counts than Bonnie believed was possible to charge one man with. And fifty-six of his men were under charges of attempted murder, murder, and so on. Besides Maxwell, ten others had died, all Robins’ men. Ten cops and two FBI agents had been wounded, but only one seriously.

  The firefight, combined with Senator Knight’s sudden appearance in Washington, made all the national news and created a massive media stir around the police headquarters in Scottsdale that didn’t die off until Thursday.

  Somewhere in the middle of Monday afternoon, Bonnie remembered talking to her boss in Seattle, telling her they wouldn’t be back for at least a week. Her boss completely understood.

  Now it was Friday again. One week after they had first arrived for a weekend golf tournament. They had both taken naps in the afternoon and got out on the putting green and practiced for a few hours after dinner. But neither of their hearts were into playing golf.

  As it was getting dark, Craig had suggested they go for a walk.

  One week from the time they went for that first walk and overheard a conversation that changed a lot of lives.

  “You sure you want to?” Bonnie asked, smiling at her husband. “You remember what happened last time we did that?”

  “Sex?” he asked. “I remember sex on warm grass under bright stars.”

  She took his hand. “I think there’s a rock out there with our name on it.”

  They strolled silently along the dark path.

  She forced herself to not think about the events of the week. It was almost impossible to do, but somehow she wanted to get back to that feeling of just walking in the dark, enjoying Craig’s company, and thinking about making love.

  He held her hand and every so often would squeeze it.

  But he said nothing either.

  Seemingly, much faster than the first time they had made the walk in the dark, they reached the big rock.

  Bonnie pulled him off the path and out onto the grass of the fairway.

  She let go of his hand, kicked her shoes off, and laid down, enjoying the feeling of the warm grass against her skin.

  They were both numb and she knew it, but somehow they had to come back to what they had together, put the week behind them and start new again.

  She watched as he stood over her, his shape outlined against the stars.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked, her voice sounding louder than she had expected in the night.

  “Just how beautiful you are,” he said.

  “Really?” she asked, smiling up at him.

  “Really,” he said.

  “And nothing else?” she asked.

  “Just that you have too many clothes on for such a warm night.”

  She laughed, raised her hips and slid her shorts down and off her legs.

  “How’s that?”

  “Better,” he said, still just standing over her.

  She sat up slightly and pulled her top over her head.

  “Better,” he said again.

  She unhooked her bra and took it off.

  “Getting close,” he said.

  She slid her panties off her legs and tossed them away.

  “Perfect,” he said.

  She stood and gave him a long, hard kiss, then pushed him down onto the ground. “Now who has too many clothes on?”

  They went through the same routine until he was nude and lying under her spread feet.

  “I love this view,” he said, staring up at her.

  “Things don’t look so bad from here,” she said.

  They stayed like that for a moment, then slowly she eased down on top of him, letting him hold her, letting him make love to her.

  Finally, things were again right in the world.

  They were together and that was all that mattered.

  A perfect wife. A perfect home. A not-so-perfect husband.

  What possibly could go wrong?

  As a trial lawyer, Craig could face any situation and make it work. But facing his controlling wife and her lover (while they drank wine in his bed) turned out to need more than just a good plan.

  Craig needed to believe in his actions, every action, no matter how small.

  Or large.

  CALL ME UNFIXABLE

  A Bryant S
treet Story

  ACT ONE

  I sat in my brand-new green Lexus on the hot pavement of Bryant Street and stared at the front door of my home across the lush and expensive green lawn, always perfectly kept, of course.

  The car’s engine idled almost silently and the air conditioning blew cold.

  Before any rough day in court, as a major trial lawyer, I always sat in my car and made sure I was completely in character. The worst thing I could do in a courtroom was to have sudden doubts, or fall out of my belief system.

  I thought of it as going on stage. I had to be completely in my character, completely submerged in the part I needed to play.

  And that’s what I had to do now. I had to stay in the part, in character. I couldn’t let a stray thought break my concentration.

  I again stared at the house. Right now the state-of-the-art sprinkler system was giving the lawn “just a taste” to keep it fresh looking even in the August heat. Most of the watering was done at night.

  That stupid piece of green lawn had been taken out and replaced four times because Salina, my wife, wanted it to look better. Four different times it had been carefully rolled into place, carefully cut, carefully everything. And “carefully” meant expensive.

  The brick planters along the front of the house always had to be perfect as well, present the perfect picture to the world of a happy, perfect home in our little subdivision. The perfect flowers had to be planted carefully in each planter for each of Portland, Oregon’s seasons. Those flowers got replaced every two months, even if some of the old ones were still blooming.

  And even worse, I had spent more money than I could ever imagine on slug poison because Salina had read an article about how slugs were bad in this part of the country.

  Our lawn and planters, plus parts of the garage and the basement, were pure death to any poor slug that happened to wander into the yard. And who knew what all that poison was doing to other animals unlucky enough to venture across the line into Salina’s perfect point-four acres in the suburbs.

  Salina had loved her home, her yard, her plants, her furniture, her clothes, her dishes, her kitchen, everything she touched. She had tried to make everything perfect.

  Even me.

  But I was the one thing she could never make perfect, or convince to spend enough of my own money on myself to become what she considered perfect.

  I was the one flaw in her perfectly ordered and maintained life.

  She could spend my money on everything else, but I had drawn the line with changing myself.

  And that had become our biggest problem. I just didn’t care enough to be perfect. I kind of liked myself the way I was. I stood six-two, worked out so I had no excess weight at thirty-three, unlike most of my friends and co-workers in the law firm. And I had a smile that many said lit up a room.

  But Salina said my nose was crooked and it needed to be fixed. It was crooked, slightly, because of a skiing accident up on Mount Hood when I was twenty-four, a year after I married Salina. But I liked it. I thought it gave my face character.

  Salina saw it as an imperfection.

  And she was big into yoga, but no chance in hell I was going to do that. I ran in the gym down near the office and played golf in the summer and skied in the winter. No way I was going to sit and try to get my damned leg over my head.

  Salina was into fine wines and had me spend a fortune for a wine cellar dug under the house. That cellar had been one of our biggest fights. Of course, she won.

  The wine cellar was tighter than most bank vaults and controlled with its own environmental system. Expensive didn’t begin to describe that room.

  I hated most wines. I liked a good micro-brew and had a fridge in the perfectly clean garage that kept my beer.

  And she had wanted me to learn to like the cultural stuff around Portland, but all I had wanted to attend was a University of Oregon Ducks football game.

  So after years of marriage, I had become an abomination to Salina. She wouldn’t allow me to touch her and she seldom talked to me unless she wanted something from me or wanted to criticize something I was doing, eating, or watching.

  So today, as planned, I would end it.

  If the plan worked as set out, Salina’s little perfect world would come crashing down around her head.

  I was in perfect form, ready to go on stage and play my part. It felt good to do this preparation time again.

  I glanced up the street at the deep-blue convertible Cadillac parked like it belonged to the house three doors away. But Jimmy, my private detective and best friend, told me it belonged to Percy Samuels.

  Salina and Percy.

  Such a perfect-sounding couple.

  Percy owned what seemed like a swank health spa in the Pearl District downtown, but Jimmy told me he was completely broke. Percy lived in a sloppy apartment littered with Coors beer cans and was within one month of having that fancy blue car repossessed.

  On top of that, the IRS had liens on his business and were about to strike, a source told me.

  That source, of course, was Jimmy.

  Everything I knew about Salina and Percy came though Jimmy.

  Jimmy and I had been friends since college and he knew how to dig out information in both legal and illegal ways. We skied together in the winter and played golf together every Saturday.

  And now, with everything, we spent almost all our time together.

  He only stood five-four, but was the most powerful small man I had ever met. I might be ten inches taller and weigh more, but not a chance in the world would I ever want to take him on in a fight.

  Jimmy often found me information for a client I couldn’t legally use, but that illegal information usually pointed to something I could use.

  Way back when I asked him to look into what Salina was doing, all he did was laugh. Then he said, “I was wondering when the sex was going to turn bad and you were going to grow a pair in dealing with her.”

  So Jimmy did his best and found all sorts of information that would allow me to kick Salina down the road and not pay her a cent.

  Salina and Percy had been lovers now for six months. Usually in the afternoons when they knew I was going to be in court.

  I had to admit, that was smart.

  Of course, that backfired on them, all their careful planning.

  And Salina had been stashing some cash away, which I had managed to make vanish out of her accounts.

  Jimmy managed to get all our joint accounts locked down tight and all her credit cards cancelled.

  Salina was as broke as her lover Percy.

  I looked out over the perfect green lawn saturated in snail bait. It was time for me to play this game, walk on this stage, and go into that house once again. I already had a wonderful condominium downtown, only blocks from my office. And I liked it, had furnished it the way I wanted a place furnished, including the biggest screen one of the rooms could handle.

  Percy and Salina were in their perfect world. They just didn’t know it.

  I almost felt sorry for him. Her, I never would have a moment’s regret.

  My cell phone in my pocket was on and open, connected to my best friend. “You there, Jimmy?”

  “Waiting just around the corner as usual, Craig,” Jimmy’s deep voice came back strong. “Just leave the line open and I’ll make sure I get everything. I’ll come running if there is an ounce of trouble.”

  “Thanks, buddy,” I said.

  Jimmy played his part in our little play perfectly. You couldn’t ask for a better friend.

  Leaving the connection open in my pocket so that Jimmy could hear, I moved from the car and out into the sun.

  For Portland, the day was warm, promising to top out in the mid-nineties.

  Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, just as I did when going into court, I moved up my front walk, my leather dress shoes making faint clicking sounds on the concrete that sounded like it echoed up and down the street.

  I wasn’t actually su
re they made any sound, but I sure hoped they did, at least a little. In this play, I wanted them to make the noise.

  Then, moving as silently as I could, I went through the front door and stood just inside. It felt like I was sweating slightly in the sudden coolness of the air. I wasn’t sure if I actually was or if I just wanted to believe I was.

  I had done it. I was inside.

  I stayed very still to try to discover what I could hear.

  Of course, there was nothing. I had done so much build-up to this, like planning a major court case, my nerves were almost out of control.

  It made me feel alive, which I loved.

  “You okay, Craig?” Jimmy’s voice came faintly from my phone in my pocket.

  I whispered. “Inside the house. Give me a minute.”

  The play continued.

  I started down the hallway toward our master bedroom, working hard to make as little noise as possible.

  No one there.

  The huge room was in perfect condition, the bed made, the blinds open, the summer light filling the pink and orange space that was Salina’s idea of a perfect master bedroom.

  I felt dizzy, so I made myself take a couple deep breaths until the swirling passed. I couldn’t let the images of anything but today come into my mind. I had to stay firmly in character or this would not work yet again.

  After a moment, I went back to the game of searching for my wife and her lover, making sure I stayed right on the script Jimmy and I had worked out.

  That was critical.

  Of course I found nothing.

  The house was empty.

  I carefully opened a cabinet and took one of my old coffee mugs out and placed it on the counter, just where it wasn’t supposed to be.

  I stared at it for a moment, almost stunned, but again working to keep myself in character, acting as if what I had just done was perfectly normal.

  Salina would have never allowed that to happen. It was something out of place, something not perfect, so if I left the mug there, she would have cleaned it up.

  And then I would have heard about it for an hour.