Southern Comfort - Fern Michaels [34]
“That’ll do. Lookie there, here comes Bird. Let’s see what he has to say.”
The parrot flew onto the porch, dipped his wings, then settled on the banister, his eyes bright. He made his laughing sound and ruffled his feathers again. He waited.
Tick looked at Pete. “See, this is the part I can’t figure out. Sometimes he just jabbers a mile a minute. Other times I think we’re having an actual conversation. I know he’s smart, I just don’t know how smart. I told him to spy on those women.
“So, what did you find out, Bird?”
“Put on your big-girl panties and deal with it.”
Pete looked at Tick, then at the parrot. “Did he just say what I think he said?”
“Yeah. Sometimes he says a whole sentence. Other times, just a word, or he repeats the same word over and over. He likes to cuss, too.”
“What are they dealing with, Bird?” Tick asked, leaning forward, his voice perfectly pitched so as not to throw off Bird, who was staring directly at him.
“Bullshit. All bullshit. Bang! Hello, Dolly!”
Tick shrugged. “What did you see, Bird?”
“Girls. Big-girl panties.”
Pete let loose with a loud guffaw. Tick grinned.
“Hot! Hot! No sleep. Sleep. Big boys sleep! Hey, Tick! Bang!”
Tick got up and opened the screen door. Bird flew in and went straight to the bathroom, where he perched on the shower rod. “He’s tired now. Maybe when he wakes up, he’ll talk some more. What do you think?”
“What I think is I’d like to see those big-girl panties.” Pete guffawed again as he brought the binoculars up to his eyes. “They’re getting out of the water. Both of them are damn fine-looking women. There are two of them, and there are two of us,” he said, lowering the binoculars and leering at his brother. “I think it’s time to decide how you want to play this. What say you, bro?”
Chapter 7
Los Angeles
Lawrence Tyler stared out the window at the twinkling lights that seemed to be coming to life, one by one. The parking lot, three floors down, was almost empty at that hour. He craned his neck to see the four corners of the lot. All he could see in the dusky evening was his bright red Porsche and a clunker of some kind that probably belonged either to the janitor or the cleaning lady. He should have left an hour ago, but the truth was, he had nowhere to go. Oh, he could go back to his town house, but then what? Watch the news? Get a rental video? Cook? Take a shower and go to bed? It wasn’t like he had a bushel of friends here in the city of angels. In the beginning, he rather thought he’d have starlets knocking on his door. Such a foolish notion on his part.
Tyler could see his reflection in the plate-glass window. He was still wearing his jacket, shirt, and tie. He should have shed the jacket hours ago, should have rolled up his sleeves and jerked his tie loose. Dress for success had always been his motto. No, that had been his father’s directive, which he followed because he always did what his father told him to do. It didn’t matter that he was almost forty-one. Forty years old with a receding hairline. His father had told him months ago to get hair plugs, then pointed to his own luxurious mane of silvery hair. He’d responded that he’d look into it. It would certainly give him something to do for a few weeks.
Lawrence Tyler, “never call me Larry,” walked back to his desk and sat down. His computer was still on, turned to his e-mail account. There were no new messages. Earlier in the day he’d sent out close to thirty e-mails, and so far, no one had responded to him. He’d suspected there would be no responses when he sent them out, but he’d done it anyway. It rankled that his father, of all people, hadn’t responded. The others he could understand. The others made no secret of their dislike for him, but his father was supposed to love him. Yeah, right? The old man didn’t know the meaning of the word love. Neither did his mother. He was just something they pulled out every so often