Heads You Lose - Lisa Lutz [65]
“Lito. How’s it goin’?”
“Hey, man. Hangin’ in there, I guess,” Lito said, giving him a weary fist bump. “Look, my dad’s on the line. He wants to say hello. Make peace, you know? He feels bad about Marv and everything.” He handed Paul the phone.
“Hello?” said Paul.
“Paul. Jay Babalato. Look, I just wanted to say how sorry I am about your loss. Terry was a good man. We’re going to miss him a lot around here.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Also, I want to personally apologize for my brother’s actions. He was way out of line. He gets a little passionate sometimes. He doesn’t mean any harm.”
“I appreciate that. Thanks.”
“Look, I’d really like to buy you lunch. How about noon tomorrow at Verducci’s?”
“Uh . . .”
“It’ll be worth your time, I promise. Just you and me, no Marv, no strings attached. I have an opportunity that might interest you. If not, no harm done.”
“Okay.”
“Perfect. See you then, Paul.”
Paul handed the phone back to Lito. “Dad?” Lito said into the phone, but Jay had already hung up.
“Thanks, bro,” Lito said as he started toward the Timberline’s entrance.
“Hang on a sec,” said Paul.
“Yeah?”
“I was just thinking. You know what’s weird? We saw that plane explode and then we never talked about it again.”
Lito shrugged. “Shit happens,” he said, and entered the bar.
On the drive home Paul called Brandy to tell her about the lunch with Jay so he’d at least have a witness if something went wrong.
“Just be careful, baby,” she said.
When Paul finally pulled into his driveway, Irving came running up to the truck without the usual beak or squirrel elbow. Instead he gave Paul a blank look. Lacey’s car was gone, but that wasn’t so strange.
The front door was locked, and inside the house everything looked fine. Paul went downstairs to check on the plants. When he opened the sealed door to the grow room, he was blasted with light. Paul checked his watch in a panic. It should have been dark in there.
One of the first things Terry had taught him was that too much light during the plants’ dark cycle would cause them to hermaphroditize, rendering them useless. “Dude looks like a lay-day,” Terry had sung, by way of explanation. “Sometimes ‘she’s got it all’ ain’t a compliment.” Paul checked the timer. The settings had been reversed. A quick examination of the plants confirmed that it was too late.
Paul unplugged the lights and sat in his newly decorative herb garden. He was a man in the dark. In a few weeks, when the last of the finished product was sold, he’d be a man without an income. He wondered how Lacey would take the news. Then he had an ugly thought.
NOTES:
Lisa,
I’ll be brief. If you can continue to resist your murderous urges, I can keep playing nice.
Dave
P.S. I hope Paul’s admission about his college degree didn’t touch a nerve.
Dave,
So nice to see Irving again. That’s one smart cat. I wonder if he turned on the lights.
Amusing dig about my absent bachelor’s degree. With an MFA in creative writing I can’t imagine how many books I’d have published by now. Maybe zero.
I’ll play nice, too. I think I like what you’re doing with Paul’s investigation into his parents’ death. It’s a little off-point, but at least he’s doing something other than listening to Bach with Brandy.
Lisa
P.S. To answer your previous note, I suspect there are a few people who would work with me. I wouldn’t have them start from scratch—we’d just excise your chapters and they’d figure out how to fill in the gaps.
CHAPTER 21
When Lacey returned home that night, the house was aglow, but not in the usual TV blue. Paul stared at the flames in the fireplace in stony silence.
“Paul,” Lacey said. “Are you all right?”
“Check the grow room,” he replied without turning away from the flames.
Lacey headed down to the basement, opened the door, and was blinded by the glare of the lights. Once her eyes adjusted, she recognized the sabotage at once. As she cycled through the possible suspects, she also felt relief.