Monday 10:28 PM
It was the cleanest garage I had ever seen. It was empty, of course, with no cars in there at all; no grease, oil, or coolant, no hint of any automobile ever being in there. The floor was brick and sealed. The three heavy wooden garage doors all had blackout curtains secured in place. There was a heavy wooden workbench at the back wall with a single heavy vise attached to it. Still, like the rest of the space, it was void of anything resembling the vulgarity of automotive work. Recessed lighting in the wood-paneled ceiling lit up the area and gave it a warm, almost cozy feel.
Wolf-man and Joy stood opposite one another in the center of the empty garage. Sasha walked in ahead of me, and I locked the door behind me. All you could hear were the shuffling of our footsteps and the muted bumps and thumps of the music outside. We all met in the middle of the room. Nothing was said at first. Everyone just passed suspicious glances. Joy was stunning, but her eye and face were badly bruised, and the makeup no longer hid what it had earlier. When Sasha got a good look at her, I thought she would cry. She looked Joy over carefully, then glanced at me.
"I'm so sorry," Sasha's Eastern European accented words were the first spoken and seemed to fill the entire space with sound.
"I'm sorry he hurt you so badly. I did not ask him to do that, Joy."
Sasha reached for Joy, but Joy took a step back to avoid her touch. Still, she said nothing.
Sasha withdrew her hand and stared at Joy's strappy black high heels.
"Okay," I said, moving to the center of our small group.
"First, who hurt her?" I demanded flatly.
"Billy. Rage, they call him. I'm sorry, truly I am," she said again, tears filling her blue eyes and spilling down her face as she looked past me at Joy.
"Okay," I nodded with the information I needed.
I glanced back to Wolf-man, who pursed his lips and nodded slightly.
"We can get this sorted out, but first, we'll have a little honesty. All interested parties are here that need to be here, and between us, we will get this shit-show hashed out before we leave—all truth here and now too. Everything comes out in the open. I'll go first."
"Nick, please," Joy started, but I turned my hand to her.
I was having none of it. Right then, I was determined to have it my way. For once in our relationship, I was going to call the shot, and it would work.
"Now Joy and I are interested in one car, well, two really, one Aston Martin DB5 and one Maserati somethingorother. The Maserati belongs to Ms. Winters here. Joy and I nabbed it a few days ago. It was up for repossession; rather, it was coming up for repo. We just took it for safekeeping until the order came through. The DB5 is another issue altogether."
I walked a few steps to Joy and put my arm around her shoulders. She stood still, rigid and uncomfortable.
"When this little adventure ends, Joy is giving it all up and moving on to bigger and better things. She's getting out, but not before we take that DB5 and pass it to its rightful owner."
I released Joy and moved to stand in front of Sasha. She was really something. She was in dark purple latex, and boy-howdy, did it fit just like it should. In her high-heeled boots, she had to be six foot two. Her bright auburn hair was braided pigtail style and hung down her shoulders.
"So our deal Ms. Winters is that we get your car back since it was a gift, and when that is done, you will tell us where the missing DB5 is located."
I then turned to Wolf-man, who hadn't taken his eyes off Sahsa since she walked into the garage.
"This is where you come in, old pal of mine. You have her car, we know it, she knows it. So what gives?"
He and I had rehearsed what we would say, how I would give him an intro to take the floor, explain everything, and pour his heart out if he wanted. Did he remember any of that? No, not a chance. Of course, copious amounts of alcohol were consumed during that time, so it's entirely possible that I dreamed it all.
"You know what gives," he shot back to me with a frustrated glare.
I rolled my eyes at his lack of ability to take a clear cue, then just flatly stared at him.
"Yes, well, we all might need to hear it again," I said, slightly nodding in Sasha's direction.
"I don't want your car," he quickly said, turning to Sasha.
"I just wanted to see you, and I wanted to talk to you. And I took it, you know, to make sure you would talk to me."
Sasha smiled ever so slightly, closed her eyes, and held her hands out to him. And then it was like Joy, and I didn't exist in the room. Wolf-man turned to Sasha and gave her his best effort. He was eloquent, honest, and even humble, and I never thought it possible for him. He took one hand gently and led Sasha away a few steps.
For her part, Sasha did not recoil from his touch. She, in fact, seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say. They made a hell of a crazy-looking couple. For starters, she was at least a head and a half taller than he was. Some guys swing for the fence on every pitch. Wolf-man was one of those guys. Joy stared at the scene before her, dumbfounded. I moved just a little closer to her, hot and uncomfortable as hell in my dinner jacket, and stood with arms crossed.
Wolf-man had a low gravel-sounding tenor with just a hint of Chicano-ghetto. We couldn't hear exactly what he was saying. Still, thanks to Sasha's apparent inability to whisper, we could put it together. Wolf-man's hands danced rhythmically slow around one another as he tried his best to get his points across to Sasha. At times Sasha held his hands still as she spoke. I have to admit it was strange. It was like watching a high-school couple trying to hash out a difficult break-up.
"Have you seen any sign of the Peart?" Joy asked softly.
"Nope, we came here together, remember?" I shook my head.
"I doubt it's here. Where the hell would it be if it weren't in here?"
She shrugged and began to walk to the back of the garage to the built-in workbench, giving the sparring couple a little more space. I followed. When Joy reached the wooden workbench, she hopped up and sat, dangling her legs and swinging them like a nervous child and considering her dress not the most ladylike of poses.
I was feeling froggy. I put my hand on Joy's knee and looked into her eyes. It struck me then that I was just a simple fool groping around, strictly in the Biblical sense. They all knew each other, had pasts, laughs, fights, dealings, and knew more about each other than I would ever know about them. I didn't know where any of this was leading me. Joy was one of the most complicated people I had ever met. She was frustrating, even infuriating at times, and still, I couldn't seem to get enough of her. I wanted to love and protect her, and she seemed most times to want nothing of the sort; at other times, she craved whatever I had to offer.
My thoughts forced a smile; Joy noticed and focused on me, perplexed. I turned my back to her and began watching the couple on the other side of the garage. I felt a tinge of pity for Wolf-man. Baring your soul to a woman who can lift you up or crush you? Bards have written in sweet lament of that very situation for ages. It's a tense place to be. Yes, I felt for him.
I felt Joy's hands slip around my chest, then her legs gripped my waist as she slid herself forward and rested her chin on my right shoulder.
"What do you think they're talking about?" She whispered.
"What the hell do you mean? You heard what he said. The goober is in love with the vamp," I said.
"Yeah, but she is really taken with hip-hop Lurch. She's a tough one, though. No matter who she ends up with, you would have difficulty convincing me that she's not playing some angle."
"Still don't trust her?" I asked.
"Nope, not one damn bit. I don't care if I have to kill every motherfucker in this place. We're finding the Peart and leaving with it tonight. I've had about enough of this shit."
I had to spin around to look at her. She lifted her head, looked down, and then looked back at me as if in confession. Confession it was. She said it so calmly that it was almost frightening.
"I went to your trailer. You know that. I got these clothes," Joy said, rubbing her hands up the sleeves of my dinner jacket.
"I also found your guns. I brought them, one of them anyway. It's in the Jeep."
My mouth was agape. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"Look," she said defensively.
"I didn't know how the hell all this was going to go down. I didn't know how I would get you away from Wolf. I didn't know much, but I knew I couldn't just walk in there and ask politely. Packing one of those babies, though, I'd have commanded attention."
"One of what baby exactly, Joy?"
"I got an AK, a short one. It was kind of cool, cute."
She smiled real big, fighting back devilish laughter.
"It was actually bad-ass, and I loved it," she finished.
She was cold, serious. I thought the stress had gotten the best of her. It was gnawing at me for sure, but damn. She went into my trailer and brought one of my guns. If this wasn't out of hand already, and it was, if she walked into that party Aks on her hips blazing, we would have absolutely no hope of recovering that car. We could kiss that quarter-million goodbye and, more than likely, the rest of our lives.
"Look, we'll talk about that later, but you need to leave those fucking AKs alone, Joy. You're not a mercenary, and you aren't violent. Besides," I touched her swollen lip gently.
"I guarantee someone in that clown show is packing and high and drunk, and if they start firing guns, they're liable to shoot half the people in the house."
I chanced a soft and gentle kiss on mostly her upper lip, then her bruised temple, and finally her left earlobe. She didn't stop me.
"Let this play out like I said. It's going to be better for everyone."
Joy said nothing but rested her head on my shoulder as I turned my back to her again.
"You know Nick Adams, I could see myself falling for you," she said quietly.
I stared at the ceiling for a moment as her words sunk in. Could she be serious? Why was she consistently hitting me with this stuff out of nowhere?
I turned to look at her, look into her eyes. She lifted her head and smiled but offered nothing more. I honestly had been caught off guard and, at the moment, didn't feel she was serious, just verbalizing thoughts she was having. Not all of Joy's ideas were meant for action. That was a nice thing to hear, though, and it made me believe maybe there was a chance.
"Well, Joy, that's kinda been my plan all along."
"I thought your plan was to pack up and go out west for a while, run and hide from Sofia," she said.
She wasn't wrong; that was the plan, then I met her.
"Yeah, well, something came up. I have plenty of time to go out west. And you don't know enough about Sofia, so you can secure that shit. I had the chance to spend some time with Joy Nuvolari. I couldn't pass that up," I said as I watched the soft action of the two mismatched ex-lovers across the room.
"Nick," she whispered, "I was only kidding about the guns. I didn't mess with them. I was just surprised to see them, that's all. You just don't seem the type."
I spun back around to face her.
"Joy, there's a lot you don't know about me. You don't ever ask."
"I'm sorry, Nick," she whispered.
I turned back around. I felt her rubbing the back of my head with her nails, then she kissed me and rested her head against mine. Where was this woman all week? I liked her; I could deal with this woman. Her alter, the one who could give or take my presence, my help, my plans and ideas, my touch, not so much. But I couldn't let myself get caught up in any of that, not that night, not until the Peart was secured and we were the hell out of there, and I just knew it was going to be another long night.