Stella, Get Your Gun Page 8

  Okay, I thought, two can play this game.

  “The police will sort out what happened to my uncle,” I continued. “I’m here about my aunt.”

  The smile had been slowly fading from Jake’s face as I spoke, replaced by an inscrutable mask of polite courtesy, the kind extended to strangers and customers.

  “What about Lucy?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

  The concern seemed genuine, and I marveled at his ability to seem so clueless.

  “What’s wrong?” I echoed. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I spent most of last night going over Uncle Benny’s papers and bank accounts. There’s barely enough money to pay for the funeral, let alone to support Aunt Lucy.” I was lying, looking for his reaction. I had no idea what money Aunt Lucy had, but it was a pretty safe bet old Jake had taken every last dime.

  Jake frowned and shook his head. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve thought he really cared. “Stella, that’s not right. That’s not how it is,” he murmured.

  “Really?” I pushed away from the cart and took a step toward him. “I find that somewhat hard to believe. After all, you took Uncle Benny’s retirement. He gave you everything he had in savings, and now I learn you’re the executor of his will and the administrator of his estate. What part of that equation is wrong? What am I not getting here?”

  I shook my head slowly, frowned as if I was puzzled and looked right into his baby blues. “I’ve just gotta wonder why anybody in their right mind would knowingly give all their money away without so much as a string attached. I mean, I could see him getting taken by someone he trusted…”

  I let my expression change to one of surprise. “Oh, I guess that’s what you want me to understand. He trusted you.”

  I waited another beat, saw his features soften almost imperceptibly and then moved in for the kill. “So tell me this, Jake, did my Uncle Benny trust you with his life, too?”

  Boom, there it was, the accusation had been laid on him with all the subtlety of a two-by-four upside the head.

  Jake’s face reddened. His eyes glowed with barely suppressed rage, and it wasn’t hard to imagine him as a killer.

  “I would never hurt your uncle, Stella. You know me better than that.”

  “You think?” I said. “Jake, I never knew you. I knew the guy you pretended to be, but I never knew you. I’m not my uncle, Jake. I won’t believe you just because you look me in the eye when you talk.”

  Jake attempted to speak but I raised my hand to stop any further attempts at an explanation. “What? You gonna say you didn’t know you were leaving my uncle penniless? Don’t waste your breath. The truth here is you didn’t think I’d find the signed agreement before you could steal it back.”

  “Stella, it’s not like that!” Jake moved a step closer. I tensed, ready to defend myself.

  “Let me explain,” he said. His voice was liquid silver, warm and smooth. His eyes met mine, and all I could see was his naked appeal. He could be so genuine. “I think it would make more sense if you understood the circumstances,” he said.

  I raised one eyebrow. “Understand this. I’m not the naive girl I was twelve years ago, not anymore.”

  Jake started to say something, but was interrupted by the loud clang of a bell, the result of a customer pulling up to a gas pump.

  “I’ve gotta go get that,” he said. “She needs to know about some repair work.”

  I looked out at the pumps and saw a knockout blonde slowly step from her BMW and smile in Jake’s direction. Some things never seem to change, I thought.

  “Can’t your mechanic do that?” I asked.

  Jake was already moving past me. “I don’t have a mechanic. This is a one-man operation.”

  “What, you fired the guy who fixed my tire yesterday?”

  Jake froze and spun on his heel. He faced me, so close I could’ve reached out and touched him, so close I could smell the lingering spicy scent of his aftershave. “What mechanic? What tire? The shop was closed for the funeral yesterday. Like I said, it’s just me here. That’s why your uncle was—”

  “Yoo-hoo, Jake!” the blonde called. She was peeking out over the top of her designer sunglasses and curving one well-manicured finger in a come-hither demand for immediate attention.

  “Damn!” Jake swore softly. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said to me. “I’ll be right back.” He stalked off into the brilliant late-afternoon sunlight. I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell from the blonde’s reaction that he was giving her a dose of the Carpenter charisma.

  “You gotta watch that guy,” I reminded myself in a whisper. “He could win an Oscar with that act.”

  Jake stood with one hand resting lightly on the frame of the blonde’s open car door, his head bent slightly as he flirted with his petite customer. She laughed, cooing up at him like a schoolgirl.

  I stared back out at Jake and sighed. Okay, so maybe I was a little jealous, even if I knew better than to still lust after him. What made me want a slime ball like him in the first place? Why hadn’t I seen him for what he was? For that matter, why hadn’t I seen Pete for who he really was? Why did I always pick the bad boys?

  I watched the way Jake dispatched his admiring customer. He patted her car door, closing it with a proprietary air, thus tucking the bimbo neatly back inside her vehicle and ensuring her departure. He even waved as she drove off, the smile never leaving his face although I knew he was irritated by the interruption.

  Of course, the smile vanished the moment he hit the garage and saw me still standing there. His look stiffened into a distant, defensive expression. The glow vanished from his eyes, and his lips tightened into a thin line. It was as if the room’s light dimmed by forty watts and the temperature dropped a good ten degrees.

  I shook myself mentally, throwing his attitude off. “Your office?” I said.

  He nodded, held the door for me and then stepped past me to lift the countertop. He gestured toward a coffeepot. “Want a cup?”

  I looked at the machine, sniffed and inhaled the acrid scent of a brew that had lingered in the pot for hours.

  “No, thanks,” I answered.

  From there, it was all business. We walked into the office, still piled high with papers, and sat across the large wooden desk from each other.

  “Before we get to your uncle’s financial arrangement with me,” he began, “I want to hear about what happened yesterday. You say you were here and there was a mechanic working?”

  I nodded.

  “Are you sure it was this shop and not Sheeler’s down the street? I mean, you’ve been away for a while. You could’ve been confused.”

  “I think I can tell the difference between old man Sheeler’s convenience store and your auto body shop. I only dyed my hair blond—I didn’t actually lose IQ points.”

  Jake’s lips twitched for a brief moment, then he was back to the questions. “What did this guy look like?”

  “Short, muscular, bald and mean.”

  Jake frowned. “And you say the shop was open?”

  “No. I had a blowout and he was sitting in here at the desk, working. Now can we get on with Uncle Benny’s business?”

  Jake stood up and walked to a tiny refrigerator that sat in the corner of his office. He stooped down, opened the door and pulled out a bottle of water.

  “Want one?” he asked.

  “No. I want you to write a check and sign over the execution of Uncle Benny’s estate to me—that’s all I want.”

  Jake stood and unscrewed the cap on the plastic bottle. He was staring at me, but his mind was stuck on the phantom-mechanic issue.

  “Maybe one of the guys you tried to get to cover for you changed his mind and decided to come in anyway,” I offered, hoping this would lay the matter to rest.

  Jake shook his head. “Nope. I know who it was. I just didn’t think he’d come back, that’s all.”

  “Okay, good. Now, about the money.”

  Jake sat down across from me and propped his
long legs up on the desk. He was wearing pointy-toed, worn-out leather cowboy boots, unusual footwear for a mechanic, I thought, and he was paying absolutely no attention to me. He sat drinking his bottled water and staring at a spot on the wall behind me, as if watching a movie.

  “Jake?”

  No response. I waited a minute, staring around the office. There were no pictures of kids or a wife; in fact there were no signs of a woman’s touch anywhere. I stared at his boots again, trying to pit this pair up against the ones I’d seen flying out my uncle’s window. Were they the same? I couldn’t tell.

  I tried again to get his attention.

  “Jake!”

  This time he jerked slightly and his eyes shifted to my face. He was momentarily disoriented. He pulled back into the here and now of his office with a sigh, put the bottle down, jerked his legs off the desk and straightened up in his chair. He rolled closer to the desk and closer to me.

  “Stella,” he said, “can we just call a truce here? I want to explain some things to you.”

  I looked into his eyes and felt something deep inside my heart begin to give. Against my better judgment, I nodded. “Go ahead,” I said, and leaned back in my chair to listen.

  Jake took a deep breath and smiled slightly. “Here goes,” he said. Another deep breath, then, “Your uncle and my dad were friends. When my dad died, your uncle kept coming around, just like he always did. I guess he was looking out for me for my dad.” Jake kept talking, his words coming faster and faster, as if he’d been waiting to tell his story for a very long time.

  “After it went bad between us and you moved off to Florida, I went kind of wild.”

  Went wild? He was wild enough before I left. I could only imagine what he had to do to become even more of a terror.

  Jake looked at me, his face reddening. “Stella, I wasn’t like everybody thought I was back in high school.”

  “You think you had to tell me that?” I said. I couldn’t help it.

  “No, I guess not.”

  He looked at me, and his eyes softened. For a brief second I thought perhaps I saw tears forming, but he turned away before I could be certain. When he met my gaze again, the control was once more in place.

  “What I mean is I had a reputation as this big ladies’ man.” His eyes met mine. “You thought I knew what I was doing. The truth is it was just a big show. Everybody assumed I slept with all those girls. They thought I was the big man, but I couldn’t do it, Stella. I wanted to, but when it came down to it, I always backed out.”

  My heart softened a little. I thought about how it had been for all of us, wanting to be popular, or “in” and never thinking we were good enough just as we were. It was so stupid.

  “After you left—”

  “After I left?” I sputtered. “I never…”

  Jake held up his hand. “That doesn’t matter now. Just let me say this. After…well, anyway, I started drinking. Everything just got worse and worse.” Jake took a deep breath. “I got busted. The judge cut me a break, I guess because I had been the star of the football team and he was a big booster club member. Anyway, he told me I could join the service and he’d wipe the slate clean.”

  Jake sighed and shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad, really. I mean, at that point college wasn’t an option. So I signed up.”

  “That’s not so bad. Sounds to me like you lucked out.”

  Jake’s eyes met mine. “That isn’t all. I mean, that’s not the worst of it.”

  I was having a hard time imagining what could’ve been worse without jail time attached, but I didn’t have long to wonder. Jake took a deep breath.

  “Stella, before I left for boot camp I got Donna Manello pregnant. I’m not proud of it. Hell, I don’t even remember it too well, but I did. She said I was the father and…” Jake stopped for a second. “Well, there was only one right thing to do. I married her, even though I don’t think she loved me and I know I didn’t love her. She was doing what her father wanted. It wasn’t like…”

  He stopped and looked at me, leaving the sentence unfinished. I knew with a deep certainty what he would have said, but I blocked that realization out with a forceful mental shove.

  “I heard you were in the service,” I said, trying to make it easier. “But I didn’t know you got married. Manello, like in the Mafia family run by Tony Manello? Is she related to him?”

  Jake nodded, looking sick. “His daughter.”

  I was trying to stay calm, but inside I was steaming. What nerve the guy had, coming on to me after Uncle Benny’s funeral and married to Donna Manello! Her father allegedly ran the biggest racket outside of south Philly. How could Jake involve himself in something like that? Furthermore, I wondered how Donna and her “esteemed” father would react if they knew Jake was flirting with someone other than his wife.

  Donna Manello had been the captain of the cheerleading team. She’d been everything I’d ever dreamed of being, tiny, cute, popular and big breasted. Next to her, I was a towering nerd with thick glasses, stringy, mouse-colored hair and no discernable sign of ever having reached puberty, unless you counted blemishes.

  Okay, so I was jealous. She won. I lost.

  “How many kids?” I asked, choking on the idea and trying to picture six little Godfathers all clustered around Jake and Donna’s dinner table.

  Jake looked up at me, his expression miserable. “We don’t have any kids. She lost the baby at four months. I was at Fort Bragg by then. I wasn’t even here. It really tore her up, Stel,” he said. Jake looked desperate, as if my forgiveness or understanding was crucial to him. “I was in training. I couldn’t even be there for her. She blamed me, said I was never there to help her, and she was right. When things got really bad, I asked her why she didn’t just leave.”

  “Why didn’t she?”

  Jake looked down at his hands. “She said she loved me, but I think her father made her stay. I think he wanted her off his hands.”

  I found myself suddenly feeling sorry for Donna Manello.

  “I heard rumors that she was running around, but I didn’t believe them. Donna was going through hell and it was my fault. I got her pregnant, and when she needed me it seemed I was always out on assignment. I sure wasn’t going to divorce her on top of that. I owed it to her to ignore the rumors. I figured if she wanted out she could tell me. Otherwise, I was going to do whatever it took to make things right when I got back home.”

  I nodded and my heart snapped right in two. Poor Donna and poor Jake. “Of course you couldn’t leave her.”

  His expression changed as I watched, hardening into a bitter, angry mask. “Well, it turns out I was wrong about her, but I won’t bore you with the details,” he said.

  His eyes met mine and seemed to be searching for some response from me. I didn’t know what to say. It sounded as if he had the same problem I did, falling for the sad stories and mistaking need for promise. Oh well.

  “The military was good for me. I reenlisted because they made me a hell of an offer. I thought it would help us start a life of our own. How was I supposed to know she wanted me to work with her father? I thought she knew me better than to think I’d follow in his footsteps.”

  I looked away, studying the traffic moving along Lancaster Avenue. Darkness had fallen in the short time we’d been inside, a sure sign of the approaching northern winter.

  “She was playing me the whole time,” he said. “I stayed in for six years, sending home money, coming home when I could or flying her to North Carolina when I was in the country. She wouldn’t move, and since I was gone a lot on…assignments, well, I didn’t press the issue. She did just enough to make me believe she was happy. But I was the one who didn’t question it.”

  “What happened?”

  Jake looked down at the papers on his desk and seemed to be watching old videotapes from his past.

  “When I got out,” he said, “I came home and opened the shop. She worked in the office doing the books, but eventually I could see she w
asn’t happy. She kept saying she wanted me to ‘be’ somebody. I told her I liked who I was, who we were.” Jake shook his head. “I was such a fool.”

  I nodded, waiting for the inevitable.

  “Turns out the guy who plugged your tire, Ron, wound up plugging Donna, too. He didn’t seem to have a problem working for Donna’s father. I don’t know if he started running numbers before or after he started here, but I know that’s what he was doing before he and Donna took off. I don’t know why he would come back unless he wanted something. Are you sure you didn’t see anyone else with him?”

  I shook my head. “He was the only one I saw. Do you think they’re still together? I mean maybe he was here looking for her.”

  “Donna must’ve given him her key. She wouldn’t be caught dead here. Before she up and disappeared, she cleaned out my bank accounts. She’d been siphoning off all the shop profits while I was working my ass off, too.” Jake shook his head in disgust. “That’s why I couldn’t ever get ahead. That’s why things were always a struggle. Hell, I lost almost everything I own. I live upstairs because Donna hadn’t paid the house note in six months. She was robbing me blind and I was too stupid to see it.”

  “Maybe you just trusted her to be as loyal as you were,” I said softly.

  Jake discarded that notion. “No,” he said, “I was a dumb ass, pure and simple. If it hadn’t been for your uncle’s help I’d be bankrupt by now. Benny was the one who had to tell me my wife had been keeping two sets of books—the ones she showed me and the ones she kept.”

  Oh, shit, my heart said, sinking with that here-we-go-again feeling. You idiot! my head scolded. I found myself believing Jake Carpenter’s story. Worse than that, I didn’t want to see him sink. I wanted to help.

  “So he lent you money?” I asked.

  Jake shook his head vigorously. “No way! He helped with the books. Your uncle was a smart guy, you know. He’s the one who figured out what she’d been doing.”

  “So why did my uncle give you the money?”

  Jake’s lips pressed into a tight line. “I can’t tell you that,” he said. “You don’t have to worry, though. I’ll see your aunt gets her money back.”