Nina Wright: Whiskey with a Twist

“Forget about it,” Kori said, cracking her gum. “I was going this way, anyhow.”

As was always the case at our reunions, Abra showed no interest in my presence although she did wag her tail at Jenx. But that was probably because she associated Jenx with Brady and Brady with Roscoe. Abra was always hot for Roscoe.

Where were my manners?

“Uh, let me introduce you two. Chief Jenkins, meet-“

“Kori Davies.” Jenx finished the sentence herself and extended her hand.

“How did you know?” I asked.

“I know how she knew,” Kori said. “Ya looked me up on NCIC. Right?”

“Right,” Jenx said. “You have an impressive criminal record. For your age and parole status.”

“Thanks.”

I wondered if there was more to Kori than car theft and vehicular homicide. If there was, I decided I’d rather not know about it. Accepting Abra’s leash, I said, “Where did you find her?”

“Route 20. Not far from that shithole motel. I pulled over, and she jumped in. I took her back to your room, but you’d already checked out. I was just dicking around Amish Country, so she was my excuse to come see Big Mac.”

“’Big Mac’?”

“That’s what I call MacArthur.”

Kori tilted her pelvis provocatively. I gave thanks that Chester was nowhere nearby.

“I thought you’d gone back to Chicago…”

“I’m never going back there,” Kori said. “You think Abra’s a bitch? Try living with my aunt Susan. Uncle Liam’s going to help me make my dreams come true. He’s sending me to school in Vegas.”

“UNLV?” I asked.

“Bartending school. I’m a natural.”

“I know it’s none of my business, but aren’t you in a twelve-step program?”

“I am,” Kori said proudly. “Not AA, though. I’m addicted to sex. Speaking of which, where’s Big Mac? I can’t wait to surprise him!”

Jenx and I exchanged glances; I caught a twinkle in the chief’s eye. She was leaving this one for me.

I cleared my throat. “Uh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news-”

“Don’t tell me!” she said. “He’s in jail.”

“No. Why would you guess that?”

“It happens. So what’s the bad news?”

“MacArthur’s gone,” I said. “He bugged out last night.”

She stopped chewing her gum and stared. “Are you shitting me?”

“No. Sorry. I am not shitting you. He packed up and left.”

Kori guffawed so hard that her gum flew across the room and stuck to the glass of my front door.

“You think that’s funny?” I said.

“Oh yeah. That’s what Big Mac said he was gonna do, and I didn’t believe him!”

She was still laughing.

“You’re not mad at him?” I said.

“Why the hell would I be mad at him? The guy did what he said he was gonna do. That, like, almost never happens!”

“Ya hear that, Whiskey?” Jenx said meaningfully. “’That, like, almost never happens.’”

“Let me get this straight,” I told Kori. “Where did Big Mac-I mean, MacArthur-say he was going?”

“Oh, he didn’t say where. He just said it was time to move on down the road. He’s a rolling stone, that one.”

Abra farted, and I laughed. I couldn’t imagine why; dog farts had never amused me before. Then Kori took a cell phone call from another boyfriend, somebody named Lance. She promised to “jump his bones” in two hours. They were synchronizing watches as she walked out the door with nary a backward glance.

I couldn’t help but admire Kori. She was an awesome Bad Example. If the economy were better, she’d make one hell of a Realtor.

Jenx said, “What a bitch.”

Stretched out across two chairs in my lobby, Abra snored.

“I’m talking to you,” Jenx said, getting in my face. “Jeb loves you. Why give him a hard time?”

“Because he’s acting like… Jeb always ends up acting,” I whined.

“Meaning what?”

“He loves the ladies and his music more than he can ever love me.”

Jenx plopped down in Tina’s reception desk chair. She put her steel-toe booted feet, one at a time, on the counter and leaned way back.

“You know what your problem is, Whiskey?”

“I have a strange feeling you’re going to tell me.”

There’s no stopping the law, especially when it takes the form of somebody you grew up with. Somebody who knows you better than your own mother.

Jenx said, “Jeb would do anything he could for you. Anything you’d let him do. Your problem is you don’t know a good thing when it wants to move in with you.”

“I know my ex-husband! He never grew up. If he hadn’t connected with Fleggers and cut that Animal Lullabies CD, he’d still be living out of his old Nissan Van Wagon-and liking it!”

“You’re right,” Jenx said. “It doesn’t take much to make Jeb happy. What the hell’s your problem?”

“This is about Jeb’s problems!”

I recited my usual and customary laundry list of Jeb’s faults, starting with his easy attraction to other women. Jenx’s eyes glazed over, but I kept talking, building my case against my ex-husband. When the chief’s cell phone rang, she stood up.

“Hold that thought,” she told me. “Hold it cuz nobody wants to hear it.”

She stepped away to take the call. A moment later she was grinning at me.

“Fleggers to the rescue! That was Deely. They found Silverado and Ramona.”

True to their word, Deely and Dr. David had watched for black Cadillacs all the way home from Nappanee. While filling their tank at a Shell station near Union Pier, they spotted an unattended black Seville parked at an adjacent pump and asked the cashier where the driver had gone.

He pointed toward the woods behind the station. “She’s chasing her big gray dog. It got out when she opened her door.”

In other circumstances, Dr. David and Deely might have cheered Silverado’s run for freedom. But they recognized a felony in progress and notified local authorities. Within fifteen minutes, deputies had retrieved and busted Ramona. It took less time for Deely and Dr. David to secure Silverado.

“He came right to us when we called for him,” Deely told Jenx.

Dr. David added, “Animals instinctively know that Fleggers are on their side.”

Maybe some animals. My Bad Example bitch wouldn’t care. Watching her snooze, I doubted she gave a damn about anybody.

If Abra had a heart, it belonged to one human-Leo-and one dog- Norman the Golden, father of Prince Harry the Pee Master. Sure, she’d looked happy loping along Route 20 with Silverado, but Norman was her real mate. Her soulmate.

I explained that to Jenx.

“Remind you of anybody?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I had to dash to the john to barf again.

Afterwards I put the lid down on the toilet and sat there, head in my hands, telling myself that everything was all right. Or would be eventually. Before I could convince myself, however, the cell phone I’d been looking for earlier rang inside my purse. I scooped my bag from the floor, accidentally dumping half the contents.

“Have you finished searching for Abra?” Odette inquired when I answered. “And please note that I’m not asking whether you found her.”

“Duly noted. The answer is yes. You’ll be pleased to know I’m back at the office.”

“Excellent! Anything new at Mattimoe Realty?”

“Aside from the fact that Tina doesn’t work here anymore because she was an accessory to her husband, who killed two people and also shot me? Nah. Nothing new.”

“I see,” Odette said. “Well, I have news from Chicago.”

Part of me wanted to make sure she’d understood my news. But a bigger part of me needed to know what was happening on her end, so I listened.