Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella Page 2

  When Lou saw her, he waved her over to him. "She just walked in," he said into the phone as she approached. "Let me see if I can catch her."

  He covered the receiver with his hand, and said, "This is that guy with the Vega, the one you put back together with stop leak."

  She reached for the phone. "Is it still overheating?"

  "No, he wants to rent your limo tonight."

  "Great. What was his name?"

  "Ward, Raleigh Ward."

  She took the phone. "Mr. Ward?"

  "Yeah." The man's tense voice conjured up images of his heavy build and nervous eyes. She also remembered the odor of peppermints that had pervaded his car and person, an odor that didn't quite mask the undertones of something alcoholic. "Listen, honey, I know this is short notice—"

  "No, that's fine. Let me check our schedule." She waved to Lou to bring her a clipboard. "When do you need the car?"

  "Six."

  "Uh-huh. And how many in your party?"

  "I'm not sure yet. Does that matter?"

  "Well, the car seats six comfortably. Eight, if two people don't mind riding in the trunk."

  He didn't laugh. "There won't be that many. Maybe three or four, tops."

  "And how long do you need the car for? Our minimum on the weekend is three hours."

  "Oh, jeez, honey. I don't know. At least until two A.M."

  Her heart was pounding now. Six to two in the morning was eight hours. Eight times forty dollars plus the fifteen per-cent gratuity. . . She forced herself to sound calm. "And will that be cash or charge?"

  "Cash."

  "We'll need a hundred in advance. Company policy."

  "No problem."

  "You're in luck, Mr. Ward. I have a car available."

  "You sure it's no trouble?"

  "Not at all." She took down his address and phone number, hung up the phone, and said a silent prayer of thanks. She heard Lou asking someone if he could help them. By his earnest tone she knew that someone had to be a woman—no doubt a young and attractive one.

  "No, thank you, sugar," a woman's voice answered. "I am waiting for that little gal right over there." The woman's cadence was as unmistakable as it was unforgettable.

  Munch turned and faced her old friend.

  Ellen seemed reasonably healthy. She was blond today. Her clothes fit, and her complexion was clear. She had lost that drawn look, and there seemed to be genuine color on her high cheekbones. Jail does that for some people.

  "Hey," Munch said. "Here you are."

  "Yep, this is me. Well, don't you look great," Ellen said.

  "I was just thinking about you. How are you?"

  "I don't know. It is weird, being out in the world. I suppose I will ad-just." Ellen spaced each syllable as if it were a separate word.

  "You mind tagging along while I work? I've got to get out of here early, and these people are going to want their cars back for the weekend."

  "I don't mind a bit," Ellen said, following Munch to her toolbox. "Lord, are all these yours?"

  Munch patted her four-foot roll-away Craftsman toolbox with pride. "You'd be surprised how much money sticks to you when you're not spending it on drugs." She let that sink in for a moment while she selected a few wrenches. "Are you getting along all right? "

  "You are probably more interested in what I have not been doing."

  "Well?"

  "Sixteen days of voluntary sobriety." She said "sobriety" like it was four different words. The pride in her tone certainly sounded sincere. Munch had explained in her weekly letters that Ellen should be prepared to change everything about herself—that good habits were the easiest ones to break. After not seeing Ellen for years, Munch had gone to the local woman's prison last Thanksgiving as part of an A.A. panel.

  Ever since getting sober and off drugs seven years ago, Munch felt it only fitting that she celebrate the holiday by reminding herself that but for the grace of God she would be dead, in jail, or insane.

  She had walked into that room of plastic chairs and cold linoleum at the California Institution for Women at Frontera and, lo and behold, there was Ellen. They had to cool their enthusiasm lest the guards think this chance meeting was some sort of conspiracy. And truth be told Munch hadn't been completely at ease with her old friend. Munch had changed so much since getting clean and joining society. Seeing Ellen put her in a momentary quandary. There was an awkward pause while she fought the urge to be hip, slick, cool, and talk the talk or just blast her friend to a safe distance with Program rhetoric.

  Then Ellen grinned, and the years between them fell away. Munch felt a surge of relief and wondered why she always had to make such a big deal about things. This was Ellen. The woman with whom she'd spent her formative teenage years. Hadn't the two of them figured out life and men and how the world worked? Hadn't they revealed all to each other as their lives exploded around them? It was suddenly absolutely natural that Munch be the one to guide Ellen through this latest leg of the adventure. Drugs were out. God was in. Grow or go. Munch spoke about the joy of being self-supporting, and the return of self-esteem, but she had really gotten through when she said, "Ellen, you're almost thirty. You can't tell me you're still having fun." Taking due note of the prison surrounding them and the fact that after the panel Munch was free to leave in her own car, Ellen had been receptive. She even said she was willing to do whatever it took. Munch told her not to bother coming around if she weren't.

  "Follow me," Munch said, now walking to the far end of the lot. "I have to put the steering column back together on this Camaro." She stopped at a red Rally Sport and slid into the driver's seat. Ellen came around to the other side of the Chevy, sat in the passenger seat, and watched as Munch pressed the steering wheel back in place over the splined shaft. "What have you been doing?" Munch asked.

  "I had to go to one of those halfway houses for a short spell."

  "That's where you got your sixteen days?" Munch asked. Ellen nodded. "They still count."

  "Have you been to see your mama yet?"

  "Yeah. I stopped by to say hey It went about as you would expect. A couple of hours is about all I can take of her and all that."

  Munch nodded sympathetically. The stepfather was the real problem, but the two of them knew each other well enough to be able to leave certain things unsaid.

  "Since I've been back in these parts, I've spent much of my time looking for work. Apparently my résumé is not impressing anyone."

  "You got a place?"

  Ellen looked out the window on her side. "I am staying with Russ for the moment."

  "Roofer Russ?" Russ the roofer lived in Venice. Pushing sixty, he was good for a place to stay and a little spending cash. It was also understood that the price of admission included sharing his bed. He wasn't so bad, if you could get past the smell of tar.

  "I am hoping that it will be a temporary arrangement?

  Ellen said. "Soon as I can get a job I'll get my own place."

  Munch was quiet as she hooked up the wires for the horn pad. The Program made all sorts of promises about how your life would improve once you gave up the booze and dope and turned to God. That was true as far as it went. God would put out the fire, but someone still had to run with the hose. "You got a driver's license?" Munch asked. "Any tickets lately?"

  "Not lately—not for twenty-eight months, for sure. Why?"

  "I've got a limousine service. I could put you on my insurance. It's not full-time work, just weekends mostly. Pays ten bucks an hour plus tips. "

  Ellen's face grew still, even cautious, as if she wasn't quite sure what she was hearing.

  "I'm offering you a job."

  Ellen gave off a little squeal of pleasure and squeezed Munch's arm. Lou looked their way.

  "You won't get rich," Munch said. "But it's something? Ellen blinked back tears and wiped a finger carefully under her eye. "Sounds just perfect."

  "I've got a run tonight, that's why I've got to hustle." She handed Ellen a business card. "Gi
ve me your driver's license number. I'll call the insurance company Monday morning and put you on the policy."

  "You will not regret this. I swear."

  "Hey, don't worry about it. A lot of people helped me out when I was getting started."

  Munch turned back to her work feeling proud and a little nervous. But could Ellen do any worse than the driver that had come back from a high-school homecoming run drunker than the kids?

  * * *

  After Ellen left, Munch finished with the Camaro and two other jobs. She left the shop by four-fifteen and was at her daughter's school by half past the hour. She spotted Asia playing tether ball in the elementary school's still-busy playground. The six-year-old's collar-length brown curls clung close to her head as she spun and slammed her fist into the yellow ball. Asia wanted to work at Sea World when she grew up, training dolphins, or maybe be a ballerina. Munch asked her why not go for both.

  "Asia," she yelled as she pulled up to the curb. "C'mon. Let's go."

  "Five minutes," Asia yelled back.

  "Where's your coat?"

  Asia looked down at her torso and shrugged.

  Shit, Munch thought, slamming her car into park and shutting off the engine. She got out of her Pontiac and headed for the cloakroom. "We've got to hurry, honey," she said. "We've got a run tonight, and I need to get home and get the car ready."

  "Are you driving?" Asia asked, missing the ball.

  "No."

  "Yippee."

  Munch went inside the school building and sifted through a pile of coats until she found Asia's wrinkled down-filled jacket. The front was damp. She shook it out and called for Asia once more.

  "Four minutes," Asia implored.

  "Now."

  Asia slumped her little shoulders and reluctantly left the playground. Munch threw Asia's lunch box in the backseat and strapped the little girl into her seat.

  The first-graders were learning how to read. On the drive home, Asia recited every word she could think of that began with sl and sh. Munch was glad she didn't know them all.

  CHAPTER 2

  At twenty after five, Munch realized that the driver wasn't going to show. That was the trouble with part-time help: anybody who really had their shit together would have a full-time job. She only had a short list of drivers to call on and none that were any good at responding on short notice. She never dreamed it would be so difficult to find a person with a clean driving record, some semblance of a suit, and a desire to earn some extra cash on mostly weekend nights. Yet the reality was that the limo business brought out all varieties of flakes—drivers and customers included. She'd hoped this latest guy, a wanna-be actor, would be a keeper. Obviously not, especially when he didn't even have the decency to call and offer some feeble excuse.

  Now she was left to the all-too-familiar last-minute panic that seemed to be an integral part of the livery business and no time to dwell on Mr. I'm-going-to-be-a-star's lack of a work ethic. All she knew was that if the car wasn't rolling out the driveway in the next five minutes, it wasn't going to make it to the pickup in time. She left Asia in the kitchen eating her McDonald's Happy Meal and called, regrettably, the one person she knew would come right over, her ex-lover, Derek.

  "Hi, it's me," Munch said as she laid out her chauffeur costume: black slacks and heels, a white blouse, and thin driving gloves to cover the stains on her hands. She heard the volume of his television being lowered.

  "What's up?" he asked.

  "I'm in a jam. My driver didn't show up. Could you come over and watch Asia?"

  "Tonight?"

  "Right now. She's had dinner. I just need you to watch TV with her until bedtime."

  "All right."

  "Thanks, you're a lifesaver." Now all she had to do was explain to Asia. She clasped a wide red belt around her waist, found Asia planted in front of the television, and explained the situation.

  "But why can't Derek drive the run?" Asia asked, watching her mother fit a red-enamel hoop into each ear.

  "Don't whine. I told you before. I couldn't put Derek on the insurance because of his driving record. You know I'd rather stay home with you. This is an emergency."

  "It's always an emergency. "

  "No, it's not. I tell you what. After dance class tomorrow, we'll go do something special together. just you and me."

  "Couldn't I just go with you?"

  "You'd be bored to death, believe me." She bent down and kissed her. "Be good tonight."

  "You, too," Asia said, her large brown eyes solemn. "Remember, let's be careful out there."

  Munch laughed. "Silly goose. What could happen?"

  * * *

  Raleigh Ward bolted from his cramped studio apartment, leaving dishes in the sink and dirty clothes on the bathroom floor. Usually he made some attempt to tidy up before going out. Not that he'd be entertaining later. The only female that came around was a marmalade tabby who loved him for his tuna fish. He named her Cassandra and vowed unconvincingly that if she got knocked up, he was putting her out on her ass. He locked the door before the phone could ring again and foul his mood even further. Although that last call would be tough to match for sheer ball-busting.

  As soon as he'd heard the voice of his first ex-wife, he should have known the evening was shot. He should have prepped himself—asked what she wanted now. She only called when she wanted something. Never just to see how he was. And yet the sound of her voice never failed to raise an expectant thrill in his stomach—a feeling he used to identify as love. Now he wasn't sure what to call it.

  By the time he'd hung up the phone, he was five hundred dollars poorer: She wouldn't be calling if she didn't have to, she said. The kid needed orthodontia. What choice did he have? Be a prick or a sap? He pulled a tin of Altoids from his pockets and slipped one of the powerful peppermints under his tongue.

  It wasn't that money itself was so important to him, but there was a limit. Would there ever be an end to the demands? Or would it be up to him to draw the line?

  The source of his well-documented, perpetual state of economic crisis could be summed up in three words: Community Fucking Property.

  Even his own dear mother had asked him if he had to marry both of them

  What could he say? The stupid truth was that with each marriage he'd had the expectation that she would be the one. And wasn't it amazing that he could maintain that level of optimism despite all? Surely that spoke to something in his character. His unions always ended the same way. just when his hopes were raised that he was finally getting a handle on things, becoming the winner he always believed he could be, the level of effort required to hold a marriage together would prove too much. He blamed these failures on the calls that always seemed to come in the middle of the night and the absences he was forbidden to explain. Such was the price he paid to serve his country and the agency that employed him. He still loved his exes, each in her own way, carrying the image of each woman inside him—wraithlike. Lately, though, the burden of their disapproving, disappointed, and disenfranchised talking heads was weighing heavy on him. There was that.

  And then there was the mailing of the two separate alimony checks that reduced his salary each month to a joke. It tended to make a guy bitter, living hand to fucking mouth, while all the sleazy fucks like Victor Draicu, the Romanian diplomatic time bomb he was baby-sitting for the evening, grew fat. Especially with everything else he had to cope with—like keeping the world safe from despots. Years of covert operations in Iron Curtain countries had given him glimpses of the world few others in America were privy to. He'd seen firsthand the "threat from the East."

  He snorted derisively. Not that Romania was such a threat. One forty-watt bulb per room, fuel rationing, power outages, Securitate agents at every turn. Still, the prevailing wisdom was that it never hurt to develop sources in the enemy's camp. Turning Victor Draicu would be child's play, especially with the man's taste for Western entertainment.

  He'd reached the bottom of the stairs and began patti
ng his pockets. The feeling that he'd forgotten something nagged at him.

  "Shit," he said out loud, remembering that he hadn't left the window open for Cassandra. He checked his watch, then ran back upstairs to give the little fleabag easy access to his life.

  * * *

  At exactly five minutes to six, Munch pulled in front of the apartment building in Culver City that Raleigh Ward had given as the pickup address. He was already on the sidewalk. She would have rather seen him emerge from one of the apartments. Just in case. She took some comfort in the memory that she had reached him by phone when they had repaired his car, so he couldn't be that much of a flake. If only she could figure out a diplomatic way to collect all the money up front instead of having to wait until she was already out the time and the service.

  He didn't wait for her to get out and open the door for him, but waved his hand as if to guy, "Don't bother and climbed into the back with surprising fluidity for his bulk.

  "Where to?" she asked.

  "The Beverly Wilshire. You got a phone in this thing?"

  "It's a dollar a minute," she told him.

  "Yeah, fine."

  "It's in a compartment in the center armrest," she said, "If you hand it to me, I'll unlock it."

  He found the telephone and handed it forward. The coiled cord stretched across the expanse of seats as she zeroed the minute counter and punched in the codes that would enable him to call out.

  "All right then, sir," she told him as she handed him back the mobile phone, 'We're all set. The buttons over your head operate the moon roof and privacy partition. You'll find ice and mixers in the compartment on the right. Help yourself to a drink."

  "Thanks," he said. "After the Beverly Wilshire we need to make a stop in West Hollywood. He handed her a slip of paper with an address on North Gower written on it and a hundred-dollar bill. "Can you find it okay?"

  "No problem."

  "Great" The privacy partition slid up. As soon as it did, she heard the tape recorder under her seat click and whir. Microphones were strategically placed throughout the passenger section. It probably wasn't legal, but it was her best defense against the teenagers who rented the limo for proms. The tape recorder was activated whenever the thick upholstered panel separated her from her passengers. It had been her experience that whenever teenagers put the partition up they were about to break the no-drinking rule. The mikes fed to the tape recorder under her seat; another led directly to an earpiece. She slipped the earpiece into her left ear. The system was functioning properly. Raleigh-baby was on the phone.