Christine Rimmer - Ralphie's Wives

“Thanks.”

She gave an elaborate shrug of those smooth shoulders. “If I didn’t give it to you, you’d find it all out anyway, right?”

“See you later, Phoebe.” He stood from the stool and put on his shades. “It’s been educational.”

Phoebe watched him go. He had an excellent butt on him. But then, she could have guessed that by looking at the front of him. She wanted to despise the guy, though she knew she really didn’t. It was Ralphie she was mad at.

But not really even Ralphie. Uh-uh. When she thought of Ralphie, she only wanted to flee to the back again and indulge in a Darla Jo–sized crying jag.

That wasn’t an option. She had a bar to run. Tonight, just maybe, she could get away early. She could go home, throw herself across her bed and sob to her heart’s content.

Outside, Rio straddled his bike and started it up. The powerful engine rumbled and then roared.

Pointedly ignoring the twenty that still waited on the bar, Phoebe turned to her customers. “Everybody doing okay?”

“You like a man on a big bike?” asked Dewey, puffing on his cancer stick. “I can get myself one of those.”

Andy, to Dewey’s left, piped up. “Phoebe darlin’, for you, I will join the Hells Angels.”

“Now, I don’t know,” said Purvis, to Dewey’s right. “I’m not sure we approve of you goin’ out with a Hells Angel.”

Phoebe reached for the rack over her head and pulled down a wineglass. She grabbed a dry towel. “Purvis, that is no Hells Angel. And I’m not going out with him.” She put a strong emphasis on the not, partly because she personally needed to hear herself say it.

“But you said he could park that Harley-Davidson around back. And you gave him your phone number.” Dewey looked deeply wounded. “You never would give it to me.”

She said it again. “I’m not going out with him.”

“Well, then why’d you give him your number?” Andy demanded.

Phoebe polished that wineglass for all she was worth. “That’s my new partner.”

There was a moment of awestruck, disbelieving silence.

Andy broke it. “You’re shittin’ us.”

“No,” Phoebe said. “Unfortunately, I’m not.”

A Prairie Queen knows that most of a woman’s problems start with men. Think about it: MENtal illness, MENstrual cramps, MENtal breakdown, MENopause…

—from The Prairie Queen’s Guide to Life by Goddess Jacks

IF RIO HAD KNOWN HE WOULD have a job to do when he got to Oklahoma City, he would have come better prepared.

After he left the bar, he went to work. He made some calls. He got a haircut and bought a few clothes. Then he tracked down the accident report through the usual channels, paying a visit to police headquarters downtown, digging up the case number first, then trotting over to records to pick up the report.

After a quick study of the report, he talked to an OCPD public information officer. He left police headquarters and made a few more calls. Then he shopped some more. Got himself quality binoculars, a high mega-pixel digital camera and a video camera, also digital. He also needed a decent computer with high-speed Internet—and his motel had no Internet access, so he’d have to find one that did.

All in good time.

That night, he stretched out on the hard bed in his current motel room with the accident report and a map of Oklahoma City, and zeroed in on his target area, a ten-block radius from the spot where Ralphie had been hit. Most likely, the police would have covered that ground already, cruising the neighborhood, possibly even going door-to-door, looking for witnesses. But Rio would do it again. A lot of people didn’t like talking to the police, for any number of reasons. They would talk to a friend, though. And when he put his mind to it, Rio Navarro was very good at making friends.

And speaking of friends…

He needed one. Or at least, an ally. Not for doing the scene and the neighborhood around it. For that, he could dig up some recommendations and hire an assistant, a pro. But for getting information out of Ralphie’s friends and associates, he could use the help of an insider.

He already had his insider picked out. Phoebe Jacks.

The dead man himself recommended her. Ralphie had always said that Phoebe was a smart woman, a woman a man could count on. Plus, Rio had his own sense of her from that afternoon. She had pride. And cojones; she sure hadn’t taken any crap off him. Also, he kind of liked the way she’d attacked that ice machine.

And then there was what she’d said a moment later, the anger and the pain in it: I miss that sorry sleazeball, I truly do….

Yeah, Ralphie’s death had really gotten to her.

Rio wasn’t kidding himself. His sense of his new business partner had a little more to do with his dick than it should have.

Too bad. His dick aside, she struck him as the perfect choice.

Next step on the Phoebe front would be to make her see that she wanted answers, too.

DUE TO ALL THE UPHEAVAL in her mind and heart, Phoebe had managed to forget that the second Tuesday of every month was open-mike night. Open-mike night brought in the wannabe musicians and singers with their Sears keyboards and cheap acoustic guitars. The wannabes brought all their friends. It wasn’t a call-brand crowd. No pricey flavored martinis. They drank well liquor and a lot of beer. But cheap drinks added up if you sold enough of them. And on open-mike night, Ralphie’s Place was packed.

At seven, when the two extra cocktail waitresses and the second bartender came strolling in, Phoebe remembered what the night held in store. No way would she be going home early. Her crying jag would have to wait.

She worked without a break straight through till closing time and didn’t pull into the driveway of her little house in Mesta Park until almost 3:00 a.m.

By then, she was too tired to cry. She dropped her dress on the floor and crawled into bed without even bothering to brush her teeth.

The phone woke her at eight: her mother, Goddess Jacks.

“Listen to this. ‘Five tips for a woman. Number one. Find a man who helps you around the house and has a job. Number two. Get yourself a guy who makes you laugh. Number three. Don’t forget that a man you choose should be one you can count on, who doesn’t lie to you. Number four. You need a man who loves you and spoils you. Number five. It is important that these four men do not know each other.’” Goddess let out a musical laugh full of wicked delight. “So. You think?”

Phoebe thought her mother ought to try and remember not to call her before ten. She said, bleakly, “I love it.”

“Oh, hon. It’s going to be so good.”

Goddess Jacks was writing a self-help book: The Prairie Queen’s Guide to Life. Originally, she’d titled it The Prairie Goddess’s Guide to Life, after herself, since she was the one giving the advice. But then she’d decided that goddess, with an apostrophe and an s at the end, didn’t sound right. She’d settled on queen, in honor of Phoebe, Rose and Tiff—and the Prairie Queen Music Hall, long defunct and torn down.

“I’ve got more.” Goddess was on a roll. Phoebe tried to remind herself that at least the call wasn’t about one of her mother’s visions. Goddess had visions all the time. She swore she had second sight. Goddess said, “A good friend will come and bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting next to you in that cell saying, ‘Damn. That was fun!’”

“Mom.”

Goddess accused, “You are not laughing.”

“I got in at three.”

“Don’t whine, hon. Whinin’ makes those ugly little lines between your eyebrows—though I do know what’s got you down. It’s that will, isn’t it?” Goddess had received her copy the same day as Phoebe, Darla and the other Queens—and probably everyone else in central Oklahoma. “I still can’t believe he left me that foosball table. How could he have known I always wanted one of those? He was a genius that way, now wasn’t he?” Goddess paused to indulge in a long, sentimental sigh. “Ralphie. More faults than Swiss cheese has holes. But didn’t he always just know what a woman might want? Now, if I can only find somewhere to put the dang thing—and I know, I know. Figuring out where to put a foosball table doesn’t exactly stack up against discovering you’ve got a partner you’ve never even met. Any news on this Rio Navarro character?”