Slow Kill - Michael Mcgarrity [125]
Earlier in the day, realizing there was no way he could face driving Brenda back to Denver, Johnny had sent her off window-shopping on the pretext that he had to make some confidential phone calls to clients. When she got back to the hotel room, he greeted her with a worried look and a tale that his father had just suffered a stroke at his ranch on the Bootheel. In fact, except for being eighty-three years old, there was nothing wrong with his father, other than a recent hip replacement.
“I’m so sorry,” Brenda stepped close and hugged Johnny. “Will he be all right?”
Johnny shook his head gravely. “We don’t know, but I have to get down there right away.”
“Of course, family comes first.” Brenda drew her head back, looked up at Johnny, and bit her lip. “But you’re not going to leave me stranded here, are you?”
Johnny smiled. “I wouldn’t do that to you. You’re booked on a flight to Denver this afternoon. I’ll take you to the airport.”
Brenda’s expression lightened. “Thank you.”
“Sorry to interrupt our plans,” Johnny said.
Brenda shook her curly locks. “It’s not your fault. What is the Bootheel, anyway?”
“It’s a strip of land in the southwest corner of the state that intrudes into Mexico. It’s shaped like the heel of a boot.”
“And your father owns it?” Brenda asked with great interest.
Johnny laughed. “Not all of it by a long shot, but a pretty fair chunk.”
“What time is my flight?”
“Five-thirty.”
Brenda pressed hard against him and her hand found his crotch. “That’s hours from now. Is there anything I can do to ease your worries?”
Johnny responded by slipping his hand down the front of her blouse, and Brenda spent the next half hour consoling him with her mouth and body.
At the airport, Brenda’s flight had been delayed because of the snowstorm, so Johnny forced himself to sit with her outside the boarding area, even though she protested that she would be fine on her own. He’d learned a long time ago to leave women feeling happy and cared about, especially if you had no intention of ever seeing them again. It caused much less trouble that way.
Because the Santa Fe airport served only turboprop commercial carriers and private airplanes, the terminal was small. In the public area, a space with high beamed ceilings, tile floors, and hand-carved southwestern chairs, about twenty passengers along with a few spouses and friends waited for the last flight out to Denver.
From where Johnny sat with Brenda, he could see the tarmac. The inbound flight from Denver had just taxied to the ramp area. Soon he’d be shed of her, and the thought made him want to smile, but he stifled the impulse. When the gate agent announced that boarding would begin in a few minutes, Johnny stood, bent over, and gave Brenda a kiss.
“Thanks for being so understanding,” he said.
“You’ve been so quiet,” Brenda said, kissing him back.
Johnny gave her a solemn look. “You know, just thinking about my father.” In truth, he’d used the fabricated family catastrophe to tune Brenda out. Actually, his only worry was whether or not over dinner he’d be able to talk Kevin Kerney into participating in a deal he’d just sewn up. Kerney had been an obstinate, straitlaced kid back in the old days on the Jornada, who’d occasionally dressed him down for his fun-loving adolescent ways. But what Johnny had in mind shouldn’t get Kerney’s ire up. It was a straight business deal with some good money built into it.
Brenda stood, kissed him again, patted his arm, and nodded understandingly.
“I’ll call when I can,” he said.
She buzzed his cheek with her lips and pranced toward the boarding area, looking pert and yummy in her tight jeans. She threw him a smile over her shoulder, and Johnny smiled back, thinking it was a real pity that she liked to talk as much as she liked to party.
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