The Righteous Kill
- Jenean Mcbrearty
- Apr 16
- 20 min read
Brock Harding, erstwhile art critic and gallery owner, heated his last can of tomato soup. Nobody in Los Angeles in 1953 bought Van Gogh knockoffs, no matter what the city's economic development department said. “Come to dinner,” his sister, Edna, had said, “We’re having meatloaf.” He’d eat pride instead.
But his brother-in-law, Rodney—a real piece of work ̶ offered him more than baked hamburger meat. “I need an assistant since Edna gave me the ultimatum: get rid of 38-26-26 Gigi, who typed ten words a minute, or you’ll never see your kids. You won’t have to type, and I've got a connection that’ll let me hire a real secretary real soon. I need somebody who can think straight.”
“What would I have to do?” Brock asked. “Better yet, what will you be doing while I’m thinking? I hope you don’t want me to join the spy game.”
“Naw. Although that’s a great racket.” Rod fished around in his desk drawer and found a stapled stack of FBI flyers he’d copped from the post office. He handed it to Brock. “This is a list of the FBI’s ten most wanted, and every one of them has a price on his head. All you have to do is bring in the heads. We’ll still have our share of domestic bliss gone awry, but we can have a share of post-war prosperity, too. I tell you, there’s money to be made workin’ for the guv-ment.”
Brock read down the list of state sinners, three to a page, with photos and descriptions. “You want me to bounty hunt while you sit safe in a car watching cheating spouses? Nope. These guys are most wanted for a reason. I have bills to pay, not a death wish.”
“Okay, Okay.” Rod checked the outer office. Empty. He closed the door. “It ain’t gonna be as tough as you think. I got a mole inside the FBI. We get the latest low-down on where these guys are, and she gets a kick-back when we collect. One quarter, we split the other seventy-five percent fifty-fifty.” Rod sank back in his chair and lit a cigarette. “Well?”
“Where’d you meet what’s-her-name?”
“Special Agent Marney Wilkes. When you see her, you’ll understand why she’s special. She was born to be admired, if you get my drift. But it’s strictly hands off for me.”
“Sure it is. You got anything for the thirsty around here?”
Three shots of Johnny Walker later, and Brock was warming to the idea. He’d done some fast math and figured it would take three kills to get the gallery open again. Inventory was going to be a problem. It always was for people without capital.
“You know, Brock, you being into all that artsy stuff, you probably have a good eye for detail. That’s important.”
Marney Wilkes assured Brock she’d be waiting for him at the Beverley Boulevard El Coyote bar at eight o’clock sharp. He was prompt. She wasn’t. He forgave her when she entered the room, spotted him, and walked towards him wearing a million-dollar smile and a tight gold lame cocktail dress.
“Rod told me to look for the most attractive man in the room. That’ll be Brock.” She slid into the booth across from him.
“Funny, Rod told me to look for the most beautiful girl in Los Angeles, and here you are. Are we officially part of the jet set?”
“This isn’t New York. It makes us big fish in a tinsel pond.” She got her cigarettes from her purse and waited for him to give her a light.
“What else did Rod say?” Brock said.
“That you know the difference between art nouveau and art deco. He must have thought it would impress me.”
“Does it?” She touched the frayed cuff of his shirt. “Ars gratis ars,” he said, “Who’s our first target?” If she had real class, she would have been above the fray.
“A Bulgarian named Boris Samuelson.” She pulled a mug shot out of her purse and handed it to him. “Number seven on the list. He’s hiding in Calexico, doing quality control for the Matamoros Cartel. When the heat’s on, he beats feet into Mexicali. Matamoros was big in the ‘30s with alcohol. When Prohibition ended, he turned to other enterprises, mostly prostitution. Boris runs a stable in the States. I hear he was good to his mother. Visits her grave every Sunday. He killed her when he caught her pilfering money from his cash stash.”
It wasn’t as if Boris would be difficult to identify. Beneath his name on the mug shot was “Bozo-nose” in parentheses. No one could miss the red, round bulb on the end of his nose. He might have been handsome when he was young, but something happened to him on the way to infamy. “How do you know this guy’s in Calexico?”
Marney smiled. “Official files. And I have eyes and ears on the street.”
“And these eyes and ears can’t apprehend him?
A lilting laugh escaped her mouth. “There’s no money in that. I don’t want him apprehended. I want him dead. It will save the taxpayers scads of money down the road.”
Beauty. Wit. Taste. Good teeth and a good citizen. Brock was in love. From a distance. “The flyer says dead or alive. Guess that means a license to kill.”
“Can you do it?”
“I dropped out of USC to fight the good fight. Yeah, I can do it. Money’s money.”
He felt a hand pressing on his thigh. “I have a special affection for war heroes who like money as much as I do,” Marney said.
He pried off her hand. “Business before pleasure.” She had told him what Rod was reluctant to admit. The job was murder for hire, only legal.
During the war, the reward for killing was a piece of tin attached to a ribbon. The reward now was twenty-five grand. Nine thousand and change for him.
Alone in his loft above the gallery with thirty paintings, mostly by southwest artists who captured cacti, cattle, and cowboys, and a hundred prints of the Old Masters, Brock contemplated his cache of weapons arrayed on a blanket. What does the well-armed bounty hunter use for his maiden kill? Nothing too big or too small. A.45. As for wardrobe, khaki shorts and white cotton sports shirt would be the uniform of the day. Calexico meant sweltering heat and lots of dust. Indeed, the geography and the climate over the hill reminded him of the Operation Torch landing in North Africa.
“What’s the temperature in Calexico this time of year?” he asked the limping man pumping his gas at the last filling station before the descent into the Imperial Valley.
“One hundred and three. You better fill both those canteens and a watering can in case this bag of bolts overheats.”
The Plymouth Brock bought in ’36 was already two years old. He’d named it Gertie and stored it at his mother’s house while he was in the army. Allegedly, Edna only drove it on Sunday to take their mother to church. The odometer testified otherwise. How many of the twenty thousand miles were Rodney miles? Another question that didn’t have an answer. Like, when did Rodney become color blind to get a draft exemption?
At least the desk clerk at Hotel Baja had plenty of answers, even before Brock asked questions. “The Havana West Café has American-style breakfasts. El Toro Cantina serves the best hooch and has the cleanest girls. You want to relax? I know someone who can get you weed.”
“I’m looking for a business man named Bozo,” Brock said.
“Que?”
“The man with the big nose. I want to buy something from him.”
“Oh, Si, si. You want the good stuff.” The clerk held one side of his nose and breathed in deeply. “I know a guy…”
“No. I buy only from Bozo. I represent customers in Hollywood. You comprende?” Brock laid a hundred-dollar bill next to the register.
“Si, I tell him you’re here. He’ll find you. Wait in the bar.”
Two days later, Brock had heard every song on the bar’s jukebox a dozen times. Marney hadn’t said that Bozo sold drugs as a side gig, but where there was a stable, there were drugs. Brock went to the desk. “The cigarette machine is empty. Got any Chesterfields?”
“I got Camels. Pall-malls. Try the mercado down the street to your right. Angelo has everything and high prices. Camels are just as good.”
“No thanks. I need a walk.”
Once outside, Brock sucked in the hot humid air filled with the scent of fertilizer that floated in from fields of lettuce and carrots. He turned south towards the blinking yellow sign that advertised ANGELOS. When he reached the alley, he noticed half a shadow of a man cast by the light of a second-story window. He stepped up on the sidewalk and quickly turned right into the first recessed doorway. The man couldn’t see him in the darkness; he walked past, stopped, and turned.
“Looking for someone?” Brock said, and gripped the forty-five hiding in his pocket.
“It’s about time you left the hotel. You’re one lousy tourist.” The man was thick, like he was wearing an overcoat under his skin.
“Do you know where I can find Bozo Samuelson?”
“I’ll find him.”
“I heard he has connections that deal in white powder. The expensive kind.”
“Heard from who?” he said.
“Dago South Easties below Broadway.”
“Well, you heard wrong.”
“How about Nazi contraband?” There was a long pause. Brock had hit a nerve. “I have plenty of customers who are in the market for originals. War memorabilia. My connections said I should hunt down a Slav named Boris Samuelson. They’re interested in WW II artifacts coming up from Argentina.”
“Then you aren’t interested in the drug trade?”
Brock nodded. “Sure. Mostly, I need formerly owned art. The Feds are fussier about stolen Jewish paintings than they are about drug users, especially rich ones who think cocaine is chic. I deal in fleeting pleasures for the nose and the eyes. Gotta be careful you know?”
“Let’s get out of this heat,” the man said. “What room are you in?”
“207. I gotta get a pack of Chesterfields …”
“You go on up. I’ll bring them to you.”
Brock put a five in his hand, and ten minutes after he got to his room Bozo knocked on the door with four packs and handed him the change. He’d also copped two glasses from the bar and brought a bottle of Chivas ̶ his contribution to the negotiations. “What are you interested in?” Bozo asked as he poured them each a glass. “Schiele? Klimt? I can put in an order.” He searched his pockets for a pen and paper. “You the guy that had the gallery on Wilshire Blvd?”
“Yep. I changed my business model. Why carry overhead when my best customers want rare stuff?”
The search was a ruse exaggeration. He drained his glass, grabbed the Chivas, and headed for the door. “Wait! Where are you going?” Brock said.
Bozo stifled a laugh as he turned around. “I’ve heard some bullshit stories in my time, but yours is the stupidest. Who the hell are you? You ain’t a cop, that’s for sure. Nazi art? In Calexico?”
“You sound as if you know the art market’s doing well since the war, depending on who’s buying and who’s selling.”
Bozo had delayed his departure for all of fifteen seconds, and that’s all it took for Brock to get off two rounds. In an instant, Bozo lay dead against the door, his chest oozing blood like a faucet.
Brock hadn’t appeared threatening. More like a frat boy lookin’ for his first hooker. But Bozo didn’t look like a clown anymore. “How did you know it was Boris Samuelson? He doesn’t look like the guy on the poster.” Calexico Police Captain Alvarez stared at the fingerprint card in front of him. “But it’s him, alright. I called the FBI. No question, you’re the one who bagged him. Twenty-five grand makes the trip worth it, doesn’t it?”
“He was a bad hombre, Captain. Friendly, but bad. The plastic surgeon did a great job, but I make my living selling visual merchandise. Brush strokes and pigment. Bozo used make-up to cover the scars around the nose and lips. They’ve faded, but a sun tan makes those white lines pop. Last night, the humidity was heavy, and he wiped the sweat from his face too often. I saw the scars and the streaked make-up in the indoor lighting.”
Alvarez slipped the fingerprint card into a file folder and slid it into his desk drawer. “That answers all my questions, Señor Harding. You’re free to go.”
Despite Rod’s comment that he could afford ‘decent digs’ when they met at Union Bank to divvy up the reward, Brock had no intention of moving. He opened a savings account with his share. And, sitting at the table under his window that overlooked the street, he felt a satisfaction he hadn’t felt in over a year. His bills were paid, and there was more to eat than just soup and peanut butter sandwiches. Killing Bozo wasn’t as difficult as he’d imagined, either.
He tapped his 3-minute egg with his fork and scanned the most wanted list. A big black ‘X’ blotted out most of Bozo’s once-behemoth nose. Below his picture was that of a thin, blond-haired man with bad teeth that protruded from under his thin upper lip: Thomas O’Malley. Wanted for human trafficking, murder and rape. Marney had scrawled ‘Derby’s Junkyard,’ Las Vegas. Last seen gambling at the Silver Slipper Casino.
Low-rent district. Low profile. Lower still if he’d heard about Bozo’s demise. And that it wasn’t the Feds that got him. O’Malley should be suspicious of any stranger. Brock finished his egg and toast. The second performance had to be as good as the first.
He holstered his .45 and laid it next to his honed and sheathed hunting knife in his suitcase. It had been three years since his last hand-to-hand battle for life. Killing up close was messy. He’d need an extra change of clothes.
Vegas was in real desert country. Hot and windy, but without Calexico’s humidity. He kept his windows rolled up to keep out the dust as he sped along 62-E through the Mojave and pulled into Sin City around two a.m. Now the job was to find a room. It was a needless worry. The casinos were running on all twelve cylinders. He registered at the Thunderbird, the newest and one of the biggest, with 79 rooms, and liked the prices. Complimentary meals, drinks, and five dollars’ worth of chips for the roulette wheel. He opted to sleep after the six-hour drive, and woke at eight a.m. to empty streets and seats at the gambling tables.
He ambled into the restaurant, registration verification in hand, and sat at the counter. A waitress, whose name tag read Lily, folded her newspaper, stopped to fill a coffee pot, and put on her smiley face. “Good morning, what can I get you? You don’t look hungover, so I’m guessing no raw egg in milk.”
“Coffee. Cream. Toast and directions to Derby’s Junkyard,” Brock said amiably.
“Oh … you want to sell your car. Lady luck screwed you, right?” She set his cup upright and poured him freshly made joe.
“Nope. I want to buy some tires. I got a Pontiac that could use two with better tread.”
She leaned over the counter. “You wouldn’t believe how many people get the gambling fever and sell all they have for a stake.”
“Not me. I’m on my way to Montana. Got a job waiting for me on a ranch.” Brock stirred in fresh cream as she fluttered her eyelashes.
“Ohhh. A cowboy. Is your wife going too?”
He shook his head no, slowly. “She was killed in the Philippines. Army nurse.”
Lily’s hand found his, and she patted it gently. “I lost my brother on Guadalcanal.”
“I’ve heard a lot of stories like that,” Brock said. “Too bad.”
She poured herself a cup of coffee. “I know the guys out at Derby’s. How about I give them a heads-up and tell ‘em to give you a good deal?”
“Tom still working there?”
“You know Crazy O’Malley? He owns the place now. What a character. Still carries a derringer, too. A tiny little gun that couldn’t wound a fly.”
“I want to surprise him. I ain’t seen since the old days.”
“Well, he’ll be easy enough to find. Just follow the strip out of town; Derby’s is on the left. Don’t mind the dog. He barks, but he’s blind.”
With Lily’s phone number in his pocket and a lie on his lips that he’d see her at six, Brock drove north. He found a guy sipping a beer in a shack with a sign over the door that read: OFFICE. He was sitting in a wooden chair, leaning back with his feet on the desk. They landed on the floor with a hard thud! when Brock entered. “What’cha need?”
“Tires. Lily said to talk to a guy named O’Malley.”
“That’s me. What kind of tires?” O’Malley was giving him the once-over three times.
“Rubber. With thick tread.” Brock said.
“For what kind of car?”
“That old bag of Pontiac bolts.”
The man went to the window and looked through the grimy curtains. “That blue clunker?” His voice had softened. He was buying the story.
“That’s it. It’s got to take me to Montana.”
“It’ll be twenty dollars and you mount ‘em yourself.” O’Malley sat down and started to write up an invoice.
“How about fifteen dollars and five in chips. You like to gamble, right?” Brock reached into his pocket.
O’Malley was bent over a tin box full of file cards when droplets of blood fell onto the desk. He brought a fist to his throat, his mouth opening and closing like a fish sucking in water. He fell backwards into the chair, his eyes rolling back into their sockets, then fixing into a stare.
Brock phoned the Sheriff. “I’m at Derby’s Junkyard. I bagged number four on the FBI’s ten most wanted,” he explained. “Better bring a meat wagon and a mop.”
Once again, everyone was paid off a month after Brock returned from Vegas. So why weren’t his business partners elated? Rod gingerly took the cash from Brock’s hand. Marney waited for him to lay her share on the table.
“Don’t tell me you guys are getting cold feet. This was your idea, Rod.”
Rod was fastening his bills with a money clip. “Four men dead in four days? That’s got to be a bounty hunter’s record of some kind.”
“Impressive,” Marney said, “and scary.”
“I killed more men than that every day for three years,” Brock said. Was he bragging or defending himself? Maybe they expected him to cry.
“But a hunting knife? Must have been messy.” Marney had taken her coffee cup to the sink where Brock’s knife was soaking in a mild bleach solution. Businesslike, he transferred the eight-inch blade to a towel on the drainboard and covered it with a dishtowel.
“You said you wanted them dead,” he said as he returned to the table. “My plan is for them to die, not me.”
Rod interrupted. “You ready, Marney?”
She left and was walking down the stairs as Rod tarried in the doorway.
“If you want me to quit, just say the word,” Brock said as Rod paused at the front door.
“Hell, no. I’ll calm her down. She likes to think she’s real tough,” Rod whispered and winked. Yeah, Rod was screwing her. Maybe Edna didn’t mind now that he was bringing home the steak. Rod bought her a used car ̶ not a great idea if he had a thing going with Marney.
Brock checked the wanted list taped to the refrigerator. Who was closest? His eyes settled on Rodrigo Morales. Wanted for armored car robbery, murder, drug smuggling, and human trafficking. Last seen in Los Angeles. Marney had scrawled ‘likes the ponies at Del Mar’ under his name. He perked a fresh pot of coffee, found pen and paper, and settled in for the night. He’d need a plan. Morales wouldn’t be unguarded now that the nightly news reported the public was two times safer.
Barbara Kaufman, the wealthy widow of Isadore Kaufman, the real estate mogul, was known as a maven of plein air paintings, especially when the landscapes were painted by well-toned artists who wore skimpy trunks and sleeveless t-shirts if anything at all. Her second love was sleek equine racers she kept at her farm east of Del Mar.
Brock met her in Frisco at a showing of San Diego artist Edward Temple, and she ‘just loved his technique.’ Did he have a Temple to peddle? He perused his collection of canvases leaning against the wall in back of his sofa, his eyes zeroing in on an 11 X 14 inch seascape bearing Temple’s distinctive signature: just his last name. It would be his ticket to Kaufman’s gated mansion. Now all he needed was a no-cost nag. He’d borrow one from her.
“You remember Temple. Six-foot, blond. Painted nude in Ensenada and got arrested.” Barbara made wicked martinis, and Brock’s head was already light after drinking half a glass. She was still sitting upright after three.
“Such a sturdy, strong young man, yet so sensitive,” she said. The maid brought goose pate sandwiches cut into small triangles.
“He didn’t mind expressing his feminine side,” Brock said. “I found this canvas at an estate sale, and instantly thought of you. He’s going to be in great demand soon.”
“Ohhhh. How did he die?”
“He didn’t. He went to Florence. Italy.”
“To study the masters.” Her eyes looked heavenward. “I understand.” Brock unwrapped the painting and leaned it against the back of the sofa. “Yes. Yes,” Barbara gushed. “I can smell the salt air and feel the sand beneath my feet.” She waltzed to her writing desk and returned with her checkbook. “How much?”
“Two grand, but suppose I look over your investment stock and repay you some of that cash?”
“You’re a sensitive man yourself, Brock Harding. I’ve got a filly whose bloodlines are as blue as mine. Tell Sullivan I sent you.”
If Morales were a track denizen, Sullivan would know where to find him.
Barbara had steered him right. The filly known as Pretty Dancer was lovely, a strawberry blond coat with four white socks and a mane soft as silk thread. “Don’t sell her short,” Sullivan warned. “She can run like a woman who knows she's gorgeous.”
The remark jogged Brock’s memory. Sullivan was at least seventy and had been with Barbara for at least fifty years, her three husbands and countless lovers. It almost seemed her duty to take care of him like he had taken care of her. “Are you buying into her career?”
“I’m considering it. You know a guy named Rodrigo Morales? I’d like to hear what the real experts think.”
Sullivan got the horse’s feed bag. “Morales is a common name for Mexican guys. How old is your Morales?”
“Forty-two … maybe forty-three.”
"Ricardo Morales is about that age. He was exercising a horse back in ’38 and took a bad fall. Been in a wheelchair ever since. Broke his back. He runs a flophouse for migrants called the Bunkhouse, and a pool hall called Christine’s in Oceanside.”
Christine’s was crowded with jockeys, riders, groomsmen and stablemen who played 8-ball on one side of the room, with the Leucadia flower farmers of the other ̶ mostly small, dark men who played with as much intense attention as the gamblers in Vegas, everyone hoping for the big payoff. The players put quarters on the rim. The real money was in side bets. Brock waded through players and bettors to the bar, and a large German woman barkeep yelled over the noise, “What’ll you have, Bub?”
“You have Pabst on tap?”
“Yah.”
“Then that’s what I’ll have.” She was rude, but the beer was cold.
“Are you from immigration? Everybody here has papers.” He felt the eyes and the ears of the crowd paying attention to him, now, waiting for his answer.
“I’m looking for Ricardo Morales. I’m buying into Pretty Dancer … well, maybe, depending on what he advises,” Brock said.
She nodded to a huge bouncer who Brock had mistaken for a granite sculpture. “Tell Ricardo there’s a guy who wants to talk business.”
The crowd parted for Morales’ wheelchair. “I’m here about Kaufman’s horse …”
“Not in here. Follow me.”
Morales led him through a door labeled PRIVATE to an office. Once inside, it was as quiet as a church. Reinforced doors like the ones the Nazis used. Ricardo ditched the chair and walked to the desk. Whatever his reason for the pretense, there was only one reason why he would let a stranger in on the act.
“Stop right there, Rodrigo!” Brock commanded when Morales opened the desk drawer. No doubt he had a silent alarm. He moves towards the corner so he could see both Morales and the door. “Hands up where I can see them.” His .45 was aimed directly at the man’s heart. “I won’t miss.”
“News travels fast in my circles, Señor Harding.”
“Yeah, you’re just one big happy crime family.”
“Who has lost two middle managers, thanks to you. I’m strictly legit. Think of me as part temporary labor service and part planner.”
“With connections in Calexico and Vegas,” Brock said.
“Can I put my hands down?”
“Step away from the desk, first. And get back in the wheelchair.”
Morales moved slowly to the chair and sat down. “My Tio, the first Ricardo, left me his business and his identity when he died. You’d be amazed at the way people accepted me as him. It proves they never actually looked at him. Sad, no?”
“My heart’s breaking. Does one of those doors lead to the alley?”
“Yes, but before we part company, let’s talk a little business. The desk clerk in Calexico said you wanted to buy Coke. How much? There’s a lot of drug money to be made, especially by men who have rich connections. You want money, but for what? I hope you’re not going to all this trouble to blow it on Special Agent Wilkes. She isn’t worth it. I know.”
“Tell me what else you know,” Brock demanded.
“It’s funny how the FBI has spent years looking for us old timers, and could never catch us. We were always one step ahead. We had eyes and ears everywhere.
“I’ve heard that helps.”
“Then Marney got burned on one tiny business deal. She lost, what, thirty grand? And she decides it’s time to clean house. She’s tied up with some married mutt. Maybe you know Rod? Women! You’re her type. Clean-cut. Handsome. Let me guess. You’re a college boy. She likes the middle-class ones. Dreams about the gold band and the white picket fence. But you’re too good for her.”
Morales was a sweet-talker just like Marney. Different lyrics, but it was the same ol’ tune called Blowing Smoke… until he got to the third act.
“I guarantee there’s one person on the list she gave you who’s the innocent bystander who you’re going to kill, and the reward will be a trip to the gas chamber. She gets you to do her dirty work, and when she’s through, Uncle Sam will clean up after her. You’ll know you’re the fall guy the day she screws you.”
He needed three more kills. So, why was Morales still breathing? “You got a better deal?” Brock said.
“Why would I trust you?”
“Let me open my safe, and I’ll show you fifty thousand reasons why.”
Brock motioned him to the big black standing safe that, like the bouncer, he thought was a decoration. Morales opened the safe and turned to face him. Over his chest, he held a painting that Brock instantly recognized as one of Degas’ ballerina pictures. “I like pretty dancers, too,” Morales said. He laid the painting on his desk, and went back to the safe. This time, he held out a stack of rubber-banded bills. “Twenty-five grand and the Degas now, and twenty-five grand when Marney Wilkes is dead.”
Morales was a consummate businessman. He gave people what they wanted most. Bozo got a nose job; O’Malley his own business in the land of show girls and roulette wheels. They died content. But that wasn’t good enough. Brock wanted to live to enjoy his heart’s desire. “How do I know you won’t have me whacked?”
“Why would I do that? Bozo and O’Malley were small fish who believed they could live straight without paying for their sins. They were wanted, and they know bounty hunters are in the business to make money.” Brock thumbed through the bills. Not to count them, but to feel the paper. Nothing feels like money. “I’d be a fool to kill a man with the instincts of a shark when he has friends like Barbara Kaufman,” Morales said. “Customers who like to buy originals without worrying where they came from. Don’t you like owning a gallery on Wilshire Boulevard? You could expand your client list to the big names. Eddie Robinson’s into art big time. Old Blue Eyes paints. What else is there to do in Palm Springs in summer except play golf? ”
Marney and Rod believed Rodrigo Morales was dead because they got their cut of the bounty. Brock made the divvy at El Coyote; he’d rented a room, too.
“Why the fancy feast?” Rod asked.
“I have an announcement to make. We’re celebrating the end of my public service,” Brock said.
“Are you nuts?” was Rod’s response. “You’re gonna quit? You’ve got almost seventy-five grand sittin’ in the bank … why not make it a hundred?”
“Lower your voice, you fool,” Marney said. “He hasn’t told us what he’s got in the works.”
“I know what he’s got in the work. It’s that stupid art gallery of his.” Rod threw his napkin on the table. “You’ll be broke again in three months. Guaranteed. Dumb ass,” he spat at Brock.
Marney laid her hand on Rod’s arm. “You go home and cool off. I've got business to discuss with Mr. Harding.” Rod huffed and puffed for a few seconds, then understood her message. Brock needed some tender loving care. TLC. Or CLT: Cash-loving talk. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
When she returned, she sat beside Brock and ordered them champagne cocktails. Three in a row. “Maybe we should take our relationship to the next level,” he said as she fondled his crotch under the table. “Unless you and Rod have a thing going, maybe it’s time you traded up.”
“Married men can’t keep respectable hours.” She said and blew him a kiss. “Rod’s history.”
Yes, Rod was history, but he was a liability. Maybe it was like Morales said: she preferred dependable men with assets. It didn’t matter. Morales was right. She was lousy in the sack. But that didn’t mean it was going to be easy. She was a beautiful woman and the first he’d had in forever. They rooted like mad at the USC football game, and stopped off at Barbara Kaufman’s for martinis. Barbara said they made the perfect couple. Brock bought fifty percent of Pretty Dancer, and Barbara bought the Degas. Sullivan promised to hang it for her in her newly remodeled bathroom. It appeared that Sullivan finally got his heart’s desire.
Marney, on the other hand, had insatiable desires. “I can’t believe a man with your talent is retiring so soon,” she said as they rode along the beach and watched the sunset. “I’ve become accustomed to a better lifestyle. You can always moonlight, you know.”
“Not a chance, Baby. Why should I risk everything when I have everything I want?” He reached for her hand as they rode. On her third finger was a large marquise diamond engagement ring. “I’ve got working capital and I’ve solved my wartime supply-chain problem.”
That was the night Marney Wilkes suffered a massive head injury when she was thrown from one of Barbara’s favorite mares and died shortly thereafter. Her ring was gone. Brock had given it to Edna. She’d always wanted a big sparkler on her hand. For what she put up with, she deserved it.
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