Chapter Four

 

4a

Still pissed, Sharon rolled into the center of Lafayette, parked and walked the three blocks to Geno’s. She needed all three blocks to kill a cigarette. She breathed in heavily and blew the last blue smoke into the night air outside the best bar in the county. The electric whine of a BART train, its tracks high above the village, cut through the damp late summer air; she didn’t know which way it was going, she also didn’t care. She pushed open the door as two politicians spilled out. They were well known, but more for the other spousal company they kept. Sharon watched them hugging and squeezing as they walked down the street; all she could do was shake her head.

“O’Mara, I see you, get your butt in here,” a voice called from deep inside the bar. “And my God, don’t you look good. I knew there was a woman under that stuff you usually wear.”

The ten or so patrons, evenly split between male and female, looked toward Sharon. The women watched in mild unease, the men in awe. One woman smacked her husband across the back of his head.

“Hi Gina, thanks. Been quite a night. The usual, please,” Sharon said.

“Already pouring, babe, the ice is in the glass.”

Gina Cavelli owned Geno’s, or at least held it in trust for her family and their reputation. Gina, known for her wild black hair, which was beginning to look like a salt and pepper fight, had inherited the bar from her father after he passed on to one of the better barstools in heaven where great bartenders are served forever. She still carried herself like the love child of Sophia Loren but with the humor of Gina Lollobrigida. She joked about their common names and the fellows admired the physical similarities. But the locals knew that she could recite Giant’s baseball stats all night and they also knew the old Louisville Slugger under the bar hit a pop fly more than once on someone’s head who thought the bar was a bank.

“What’s your trouble girl, you look bothered, out of sorts,” Gina said.

“I just had a wonderful date, and …”

“You had a date, with whom? I knew you would breakdown and join some dating service, I just knew it. Which one, Date Watchers Anonymous?”

Sharon looked at Gina as she sipped her Johnny Walker. “You don’t think I can get a date on my own?”

“For you, taking Basil for a walk and getting ice cream is a date. You never date. You never go out. You spend too many lonely nights here. I was almost sure that someday you would look like my spinster great-aunt: old, bitter, wearing nothing but black, smoking cheap cigarettes, gun in your lap, drinking red wine wrapped in a basket.”

“Screw you, Gina Cavelli. Yes it was a date with a hunk of a Frenchman, he’s single and he’s rich. We had a wonderful dinner at Compton Place, took a romantic walk about town, and, to my own shock, I turned down his request for a nightcap in his room. For my penance I got run off Highway 24, the Jag had its butt kicked in, and Mr. Kevin Bryan was on my car phone the whole damn time.”

“During your date, too?”

“Funny but no, not during the date. He called Santinni and it was Tony who caught up with me when I was forced off the road.”

“Anthony Carmine Santinni, this only gets better. And then what my dear?” Gina said, hardly controlling herself.

“I came here to be abused and underappreciated.” Sharon said.

“Au contraire, you are always appreciated here even if there is some abuse, but you do give what you get,” Gina said as she moved down the bar, pulling two beers from the ice. “Hold your horses, Duane, I’m coming.”

Sharon took another sip and watched the tumbler shake as she held it. She sat the glass next to the two other rings she had left on the mahogany surface. Shit, that asshole could have killed me. The car spinning flashed in her mind like a strobe light. Red taillights flashed to headlights, then back to red. Her mind suddenly grabbed an image; it hung there like a black and white photo. BMW 650i, it was a 650, no mistaking that side silhouette, nothing else like it. Two in one night, now that’s just a little too coincidental and I don’t believe in coincidences.

“Did you say something?” a deep male voice said from somewhere over her head.

She looked in the bar mirror and smiled. The head floated above her red hair, his black hair tousled and twisted like he had just gotten out of bed. He towered over almost everyone in the bar.

“Hi Kev, knew you would show up,” she said.

“Don’t I always,” Kevin Bryan said.

“Yes you do, you always do.”

“The usual, Kevin?” Gina asked as she headed toward the pair.

“No, not tonight, working. Wanted to see how Sharon was doing, looks okay. You okay?”

“I’m fine, just pissed. I always get pissed when my car gets dented.”

“As often as your cars have been busted up, shot and blown up, now I know why you’re in this perpetual dark mood.”

“What is it tonight? Pick on Sharon O’Mara night! Anymore of this and I’ll go home to my dog. He, unlike all of you, understands me. I will be consoled there,” Sharon said twirling the ice in the almost empty glass.

“It’s only because he knows that you feed him, other than that, and he’s told me, he’d rather have male company.”

“It’s just that when you take care of him,” Sharon answered, “he gets the chance to roll around in the exotic smells of your little bachelor cottage. He’s told me the aromas are just divine, unlike anything he could ever find at my house. Something about old socks and underwear, but please, I don’t want to go there.”

“Stop it you two, you’re driving the customers out, even I’m disgusted, old socks, please Sharon,” Gina said standing across the bar from the two Bickersons. “You two better keep it down, there’s some here who might think you’re married.”

Kevin leaned over and kissed Sharon on the cheek; she squeezed his hand. Their relationship was extremely complicated. In a way, they loved each other like a sister and brother, yet were often thrown into the roles of comrades in arms, more often through her own complicated devices and adventures. More than once, Bryan had shown up in the nick of time. She also helped him with some police matters especially when dealing with kids. Kids were the main reason why Kevin Bryan left the Oakland police force, escaped through the tunnel and landed in Lafayette. He had been first on the scene for too many injured and or shot children in Oakland; it was killing his soul. Now, at least, on this richer side of the hills, most of his murders were committed for jealousy and money. He hadn’t been to a good revenge killing in years.

 

 

4b

Sharon parked the Jaguar on the short driveway that paralleled her stucco cottage in Walnut Creek. The one car garage’s single door slowly climbed into the old rafters, the grinding of the garage door motor could wake the dead. At this moment she didn’t care. She leaned against the car, Basil stood silently in the window facing the driveway, he was patient; his mistress was home. She smiled at the Rottweiler-Shepherd mix and waved, the dog smiled back. She lit another Marlboro and blew smoke into the black sky; the stars fought for attention, each one screamed, “Look at me, at me! Make a stupid wish!”

The moon was in its crescent phase, one large star hung just out of its reach, to the right. She hated that crescent shape. All the other phases of the moon played their part in her life. Full, half, waxing or waning, even the dark of the moon, held secrets, desert secrets. But it was this crescent, this Islamic moon, that she hated. It was, to her, the death moon.

 

**********

Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq, 2005

“Lieutenant, there’s an old man here to see you, says he met you three days ago. He’s agitated and upset. I think it took everything for him to come here,” the corporal added. “Scared shitless, I think.”

“Where is he?” O’Mara asked.

“We have him in the trailer; he said he couldn’t go in the main building. But the trailer was okay.”

“Know what he wants?”

“No, said he would only talk to the Lieutenant woman and he meant you.”

“Did you frisk him?”

“He’s clean, stinks a bit, but they all do here.”

“Corporal, some days you’re no joy to be around either.” She stood, strapped on her service pistol, adjusted her uniform and strolled out into the yard. The trailer stood off to one side just inside the gate. Every Iraqi ass squeezed tighter when they walked up to this gate, scared to go in and even more scared to be seen going in.

The corporal opened the door of the trailer, the old man stood in the center of the room. Sergeant Sanchez stood beside the door, armed. She could see the old man was agitated, the aroma of a Turkish cigarette hung in the room. Sharon looked at Sanchez.

“Said he could smoke sir, seemed to need it.”

“That’s okay, did he say anything else?”

“No sir. He kept repeating that he wanted to see the Army woman, the one who came to see him.”

Sharon turned to the man, “Asalaamu alaikum.” She tilted her head at the man.

“Wa alaikum assalaam, Lieutenant,” the man said.

“Your name?”

“Hakim al-Jamil.”

“Mr. Jamil, please sit. Corporal, coffee please,” Sharon said.

“Yes sir, will you be alright?” the corporal asked.

Sharon looked at the man with a withering glance. Never reduce my stature in such a meeting, it said.

“Yes, sir.”

After the corporal left, Sanchez adjusted his position in the room, she turned to Jamil. “What may I help you with, Hakim al-Jamil? After the other day, I would have thought I would never see you again since we walked into that ambush you helped to create.” She offered al-Jamil another cigarette, he took the Marlboro; as he held the butt in his shaking hand, she lit it. She lit one for herself. He took a drag, it seemed to calm him.

“Lieutenant, they made us do it. Three al-Qaeda forced us into setting the trap. After they told us what to do, five or six more showed up. We have seen too much death in the last twenty years, we did what they wanted.”

“How old are you?”

“Lieutenant, I am seventy-eight years old. I lost one son in Saddam’s war against Iran; I lost another in the war with Kuwait, a suicide bomb in the village market killed my eldest daughter’s son three years ago. My heart has been torn apart so much that it was all I could do not to give in to these scum. But I had no choice.”

The door opened and the corporal sat two cups of coffee on the table, the Starbucks green logo was obvious.

“You always have a choice.”

“Yes, to live or die, those are my choices. I can make that choice but my family can’t. I must protect what I have left.”

Sharon paused for a moment and sipped the coffee, “You speak English very well.”

“Thank you, before Saddam, I was an engineer with an American oil company. I was trained in Houston and Saudi Arabia. But my home and family called me back just after Saddam took power. I now raise beans and chickpeas.”

“A farmer, nothing better.”

“Yes, if you love poverty, farming is great.”

“Why are you here and what can I do for you? I would think those men would have left by now. They knew we would be back for them, and soon.”

“Yes, they did leave, but they took something more precious than my life. They said that they would remain hostages for the time being, in case we collaborated further with the Americans.”

“They, who?” Sharon said.

“Those foreign scum took my twin granddaughters; they are only seven years old. My daughter is inconsolable, she cries all day. You must help me. They are all my family has left.”

“Took a lot for you to come here.”

Sharon looked at the man, he desperately fingered his beads, he took furtive drags on his cigarette, quick, nervous drags; he could barely stay seated in the metal chair.

“Hakim al-Jamil, what would you have us do?”

“Find my granddaughters and bring them back to their mother. They are all she has now; she is the youngest of my daughters. Her husband is in the army and is stuck in a base on the Jordanian border. He knows they have been taken but cannot leave his post.”

“I understand, if he were allowed to leave, thousands would leave for home as well,” Sharon said. She turned to the sergeant. “Get Major Simpson’s aide on the horn; tell him I want to talk with the Major. Tell him it’s an opportunity.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr. al-Jamil, I will be talking with my superiors, alerting them of the situation. We’ll see what we can do. Do you have pictures of the girls?”

Hakim al-Jamil reached into his rough and torn black sport coat and slowly drew out two photographs, one was of a family gathering, the other a close-up of two incredibly beautiful young girls, their straight black hair glistened in the sun; their soft faces carried smiles that only seven-year olds could wear in this forsaken country. Their eyes were as blue as the desert sky. The child on the right held up a drawing of the crescent moon and star.

 

**********

Sharon closed the garage door and walked through the kitchen, Basil nudged her butt as if he knew something was wrong. She found a bone in the bone jar; Basil took it and curled up on his bed in the corner of the kitchen, watching his mistress. She poured a cold glass of water from the refrigerator and took two Oreo cookies from the stash she had hidden from herself in the cupboard. She sat, took a deep breath and bit into the chocolate brown cookie, the filling squeezed out of the layers. She licked at the white frosting and sighed.

“What the hell am I doing? One minute I’m happy, the next I’m getting run off the road. Again I’m caught up with a band of crazies. This time, rich crazies, rich bitchy crazies, shit. Hell, there has to be something better in this life than helping a bunch of excessively rich over-achievers figure out a way to one-up another. Who the hell cares anyway?”

Basil put his huge head in Sharon’s lap, his eyebrows flicked from left to right, left to right. It was his turn to sigh.

“I know, I know, we got to make a living. You need a roof over your head. I think I have this facilitating bit down but, good Lord, why can’t they at least be simple reasonable people with simple problems. High tech sailboats, billionaires, Frenchmen, world travelers and now someone who wants to play brinksmanship with automobiles. Basil, old boy, one bad spin and you would be at Kevin’s about now. And I wouldn’t want that for anyone. Outside one more time and then to bed, I’m exhausted. Life in the fast lane will kill me yet.”

 

 

4c

The next morning Sharon took BART into San Francisco. An hour earlier she’d met with Reginald, her Jaguar mechanic; it went well. At least he didn’t cry like the last time she’d brought in her car. He was hardened when he took her calls; he was prepared when she drove into his shop now.

“Well, the damage isn’t too bad, dearie. You have done much worse, much worse,” his Cockney accent hung in the oil fumes of the garage like the odor of fish-and-chips. “Will take a couple of days, but I can make it look as good as new, the paint’s in good shape and it will be easy to match. May even have some left from last time.”

“I know you’ll be kind to me and I can deal without it for a couple of days. I can work around it.”

“Good, you can take my Vauxhall if you like.”

“No, once was enough. I’ll manage; can it be ready by Friday?” she said hopefully, not in a demanding tone.

“No problem, Friday at noon. See you then.”

She walked the three blocks to the Walnut Creek BART station and took a cab from the San Francisco City Center station to Alain Dumont’s mansion on upper Broadway. Peter Brass, his assistant and personal medic, opened the door. After a brief kiss on the cheek, Brass took Sharon into the study. Alain Dumont, now ninety plus, sat in his wheelchair, smiling. He put his hand up to stop them both, pointed to the huge black man and pointed at the door. Brass smiled and left the room. He pointed at Sharon and twirled his finger. Sharon did a slow pirouette; Dumont put his hand over his heart.

“You’re still a letch, you old fraud. Is that all I mean to you; cheap thrills so you won’t have to change the batteries in your pace-maker?”

“Sharon, my dear, you have no idea how you manage to keep me alive,” Alain Dumont said. “Your visits just keep me going, what more can I say.”

“You can give me a kiss and tell me what you know,” she answered.

“Claudette tells me that you are working with JF Voss, he’s one of the good guys. I’ve known his family a long time.”

“You’ve known everyone a long time,” she quipped.

“So true, outlived a bunch to boot as well. Catherine was a rarity, smart, good-looking, an adventuress, well-educated - such a loss.”

“Yes, would have liked to have met her, now I’m trying to find out why she died and or who may have killed her, all over a boat and a race. It’s such a tragedy.”

“Drink?”

“It’s eleven in the morning, Alain.”

“It’s eight in the evening in Paris and the weather is delightful there, I miss it. The offer still stands.”

“Pass for now. Do you know anything about the America’s Cup?”

“Sharon, my dear, the America’s Cup is one of the silliest international races conceived by man, actually by rich men, very rich men with huge egos. I can have Peter make you a cocktail.”

“No,” she said, emphatically.

“I seldom take no for an answer, so I’ll ask again in a few minutes. Anyway, since its inception in 1851, when the schooner America won a hundred British pounds in a race around the Isle of Wright, beating a fleet of British vessels, it’s been a race of challengers and losers and for 132 years no one bested an American boat. These men have spied, stolen and even, now this is a rumor my dear, killed to take the Cup and to keep it.”

Dumont took a deep breath, the oxygen nose prongs fed him an enriched oxygen mixture; he took another measured breath and visibly relaxed.

“I put a couple of million into the damn race maybe thirty years ago, a silent partner then. I was talked into it by some friends from the San Francisco yachting crowd, had to keep up with the Jones, as they say. . . was fun, some great parties and even prettier women. There is a reason they are all females.”

“The boats?”

“Yes dear, the boats. They all have great lines with great full sails and they cost a lot of money. Yes, woman and boats have a lot in common.”

“Incorrigible,” Sharon said.

“Ain’t it the truth?” Alain said. “Anyway, for years the race was held off the East Coast, mostly focused on Newport, Rhode Island. Then the Aussies won the damn thing and off it went, Down Under. You would have thought that they had stolen the Holy Grail or something. Well, young Dennis Conner won it back and moved it to San Diego for a couple of races, then New Zealand took it and held it twice down there about ten years ago. Then, of all things, a Swiss group out of Lake Geneva won it and took it to the Mediterranean, it was right about then that the traditional mono-hulls were unceremoniously dropped and faster catamarans and trimarans came to the starting line.”

“Two hulls are always better than one,” Sharon said with a smirk.

“Don’t interrupt!” Alain said. “These weren’t your fun little Hobie Cats, these were honest to God monsters that grew into multi-hulled giants when Larry Ellison caught the bug, big ninety-foot boats that could tear the heart out of the ocean. He blew away the Swiss. Now it’s moved to the big time with international preliminary bouts and billions being sent all over the world. Ain’t it fun watching the rich at play?”

“You old cynic!”

“Don’t I have a right? Don’t all my years allow me a little room to laugh at all this? But I’ll tell you the technology in these boats makes my heart jump with joy, all the sensors and information gathered, just amazing. My first sail, back in the thirties, was in a twenty-foot wood-hulled dream, I busted her up on the rocks, got lost in the fog somewhere off Maine. She was my first and last sailboat, only dabbled with them from then on.”

“Millions spent in the America’s Cup isn’t dabbling,” Sharon admonished.

“Tisk, tisk, Sharon, boys and their toys. Hand me that glass, please.”

Peter walked into the room, “Mr. Dumont, pill time.”

“I’m ahead of you, already got it,” Sharon handed him the glass; he swallowed a blue pill.

“Was that what I thought it was?”

The old man smiled, “And what do you think it was, my dear?”

“That looked like a Viagra!” Sharon said.

“Oh that, yes it was, I knew you were coming so there you are.”

“Oh please, you are an irredeemable letch, what more can I say?”

“The pill has other uses besides the advertised one; the docs say it’s good for my heart. But it does surprise me sometimes and I get real light-headed.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised, all that loss of blood to the brain.”

“Ain’t it the truth, ain’t it the truth.”

Peter served an early lunch. Sharon watched Dumont slowly eat a plate of the most disgusting ground-up food she’d ever seen.

“The old stomach has troubles dear; you eat for both of us. Peter certainly does.”

Lunch was crab salad sandwiches; Peter joined the two in the sunroom that overlooked the Bay. One of Dumont’s own Sancerre’s was served. The discussion was light; it revolved around seaside villages they had been to and which one was their favorite. After an hour, the host won out with Positano - it was the food, always the food.

As Sharon left, she asked Peter how Alain was really doing.

“He’s waiting to die, actually he’s quite happy about it, not that he wants to rush it, he just wants to move on. He feels trapped and handcuffed. Once in a while one of his tech friends stops by to say hello, most have moved on or died. He barely understands this new world and all that’s going on and he knows it and bitches about it.”

“You’re good for him, thank you.”

“It’s you girls visiting that really brightens him up, he was beside himself when Claudette stayed here. She is more than the love of his life; right now she is his life. And by the way, he likes you too.”