Blast From The Past 3 Page 5

  I stepped out of the shower about thirty minutes after I stepped into it. I toweled myself off, ran a brush through my hair, and threw on my bathrobe. Time for that cappuccino, I told myself, a little crestfallen that it’d be cold.

  When I opened the bathroom door, I could tell from the silence in the place that J.R. was gone—and, when I looked around the room, a smile crept across my face, despite that fact.

  My bed was made, and my dirty clothes were in the laundry basket.

  ~ Chapter 11 ~

  Just passed a place called Burger Bistro, I texted from phone-1. Looks good, and I could really go for a burger! I’ll go there when I’m done with my errands. Meet me there when you’re done with work.

  I wasn’t, in fact, running any errands, and hadn’t just passed Burger Bistro—but I typed what needed to be typed to Tommy in order to get him where I needed him to be. It was after 4 p.m., and I’d just pulled into an over-priced parking lot downtown.

  Before I got out of my car, I took a moment to breathe and collect myself. I had no idea what would happen over the next couple of hours, but I knew that it had to happen. I looked in my rearview mirror, adjusted my hair, and made sure there was no lipstick on my teeth—then, I grabbed my bag and made my way toward destiny.

  I took my time walking to the joint, just in case anyone saw me. I didn’t want to look like I was on any type of mission, even though I was, and, instead, wanted to play it cool and casual. I gazed in store windows along the way, stopped to read a play bill of upcoming concerts, and generally maintained a leisurely pace in the busy city.

  By the time I arrived at Burger Bistro, it was 4:30. The place was already booming with customers, but none who I recognized…yet. I decided to take a seat at the end of the bar, near the door, so that I’d be just as obvious as the greeter to anyone who entered.

  I scanned the list of draft beers on the wall. In addition to noting the name, price, and location of origin, the list also detailed the alcohol content of each draft, and I was in search of the one that packed the greatest punch. I wasn’t looking to get drunk, mind you, but a little liquid courage never hurt anyone—and I figured it was safer to get a good, solid drink in me before Tommy got there and had the chance to drug me. Believe you me, I wasn’t going to leave any unguarded glass or plate around him, though.

  I found a draft that ruled the list with a 9.5 percent alcohol content, and I ordered it promptly, despite its silly name (which I forget now, though I remember it had something to do with lions, moose, or some other type of animal). When it arrived, I savored the taste of it. It wasn’t necessarily delicious, but it was definitely strong, and it tasted like it had something in common with bourbon.

  Every time the door opened, I did my best to eye who was entering without making it look like I was waiting for someone. Sure enough, I was waiting for someone—two people, actually, and I was anxious about who’d show first.

  Six or seven people had entered the restaurant, and I’d come up with a pretty good way of viewing them without turning. There was a mirror on the wall behind the bar across from where I was sitting, and, if I peered at it in just the right way, I could see the faces of patrons as they walked in…

  And when I saw her face, it was like seeing a still-life picture that was worth a thousand words.

  When Gretchen walked in to Burger Bistro, she immediately saw me sitting at the bar counter. I could see her eyes aimed right at me. She’d stopped dead in her tracks, and the door grazed her shoulder a little as it closed behind her. I don’t think she could tell that I knew she was looking at me—and, suddenly, that picture that was worth a thousand words was reduced to one.

  “You,” she said, loud enough to draw not only my attention but also that of the bartender and the lonely old soul sitting beside me.

  I turned and regarded her, acting somewhat shocked to see her.

  “Hi, Gretchen,” I said nonchalantly.

  “How dare you come here?” she said, walking over toward me. She’d lowered her volume significantly, though her tone was even more severe.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, turning and gesturing to the bartender that I’d like another. “I’m in town, meeting a friend for dinner—and I felt like a burger. You know how good this place is, so why shouldn’t I come here?”

  “After what you did at rEcore,” she replied, “you shouldn’t show your face anywhere in Pittsburgh, let alone somewhere I took you to… You have a lot of nerve coming somewhere I frequent.”

  “Come on now, Gretchen,” I shot back, surprised at my quickness and boldness, “you know I had nothing to do with what happened at rEcore.” My beer had arrived, and I reached around to take hold of it.

  “Really?” Gretchen asked, stepping closer. “You had nothing to do with that? You must think I’m an idiot. Your name was all over it… Yes, it was sloppy—but it was effective. Our timeline is really off-kilter now, and your little leak has gone viral. You may very well have destroyed rEcore’s competitive advantage… So, if you’re coming to me for sympathy or forgiveness, think again. Go back to whoever you’re working for, and tell them your sob story… I’m not gonna buy it. I’m here for food, not bullshit.”

  At that moment, I felt a coldness flow over me, and it wasn’t just coming from Gretchen’s cold shoulder.

  “Really, Gigi,” I said, placing my glass on the bar and taking on a more modest approach. “I had nothing to do with it.”

  If Gretchen was playing a part, she was doing it well—even better than I, on my best day, could have. The coldness I felt became even colder.

  “Whatever, Trish,” she said, turning around. “Enjoy your dinner.”

  Just then, the door shot open, and we both turned to see a familiar face enter…

  Gretchen’s skin went pale, as white as a ghost. As she stared directly at Tommy Ferguson, she asked quietly, without turning her head, “Please tell me that’s not the friend you’re meeting for dinner.”

  Maybe she didn’t ask it so much as she begged—and, if she was begging, it surely wasn’t for the answer she got.

  “It is,” I said, shivering from another burst of coldness. The motion of the door had sent a rush of air my way… Or had it?

  ~ Chapter 12 ~

  Tommy walked toward us the way a cowboy walks toward a troublesome scene in a movie. Think Clint Eastwood walking into a bar occupied by his opposing forces, be they sheriffs or scoundrels. Tommy sauntered toward us with that kind of slow, deliberate motion, and I could almost hear boots clicking on wooden floorboards.

  The look on his face was an Eastwood one too. He had a stern, immovable expression that was intimidating, yet, at the same time, pleasant to look at.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked as soon as he was within a suitable speaking distance. From the way he asked it, I couldn’t tell if he was just curious or was shocked, mad, or demanding information.

  If Tommy looked like he was plucked from a Western, I kid you not, Gretchen looked like a scream queen in a slasher flick even more. For real, she looked as if she’d seen a ghost, and she stumbled on her words before she was able to say them.

  “I don’t know what’s going on here,” she said, stating it more than answering Tommy’s question. “But, whatever it is, I want no part of it… If you two are working together—”

  Gretchen stopped midsentence, thought for a minute, and then continued, “I don’t care what’s going on, but, like I said, I want no part of it.” She turned and ran out of Burger Bistro as inconspicuously as she could. She looked back for a fleeting moment before disappearing into the crowd on the street—and, if I didn’t know better, I’d have said she looked genuinely worried or concerned.

  “What was that all about?” Tommy asked, sitting beside me at the bar. He looked completely unfazed and unflustered.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “You tell me. She was bitching at me about rEcore, and then, as soon as she saw you, she freaked… I know you guys ran a MUDD together a long
time ago, but, wow, what happened between you that made her act like that?”

  I was fishing for information at the same time I was processing it in my head. Gretchen’s words—and that look she gave me—were haunting me, a scary movie scene constantly replaying in my head. I was starting to think that maybe she wasn’t involved in all of this after all…which made me question everything else.

  I’m a computer geek, not an investigator, police officer, or even a research specialist. What the hell did I know about digging up dirt on anyone? My only allies were a billionaire who was proving to be pussy-whipped and a slutty music reporter. We were all just little fish in a really big pond, and we were tangled up in the algae right in front of us, with no idea of what else was really going on in the greater body around us.

  I started to wonder if I’d been wrong about Tommy, too—if we all had. Well, obviously, he was a douche and a scumbag, because he’d drugged me. Maybe he had just drugged me for some perverted purpose. Even if he hadn’t had sex with me, he still could have taken pictures of me naked or done other things to my body. Had I been too quick to assume that he’d drugged me because of something to do with rEcore?

  Tommy leaned forward and ordered a drink from the bartender. I took caution to hold my glass close to me.

  “Okay,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “Gretchen and I did more than run a MUDD together. We also dated for a while, and it didn’t go so well. That’s why I didn’t tell you about it before. It was one of those relationships that I’m not really too proud of… We both were at pivotal times in our careers, and had just taken big steps up the corporate ladder—and, for some reason, we thought that meant that we were entitled to live like rock stars.

  “We did a lot of partying—wild sex, lots of booze, and some drugs—and it eventually caught up with us in the end… Like I said, it wasn’t my finest hour, and I did some things I wasn’t too proud of—and I can see why Gretchen acted like she did when she saw me. I wasn’t exactly the world’s best boyfriend.”

  Tommy’s explanation answered a few questions, but raised several others. I wanted to ask him what specifically happened, and I wanted him to tell me about the party at rEcore. I also wanted to know why Gretchen would say something about us “working together.”

  I wanted to know more not just because I was curious, and not just because I wanted to gather more information for my failing investigation—I wanted to know more, mostly, because I wanted to find out if there was a reason for me to be curious. I wanted to know if I was being paranoid and hasty, or if there was more to this story.

  “She seemed scared,” I said. The words came out as if from out of nowhere, but I was pleased with them. They stated the obvious and also indicated my interest in further discussion.

  “I won’t get into all of the details,” Tommy went on with a sigh. “But when I say we tried to live like rock stars, I mean we tried to live like rock stars. We both did a lot of stupid things, and sometimes we got in trouble for it. We fought in public a few times, or got so wasted that one of us caused a scene somewhere. I even did that at one of her rEcore parties, come to think of it… But it wasn’t always me—sometimes, it was her, too… It got pretty ugly.”

  Tommy took a sip of his beer, and I momentarily felt a tiny tinge of relief. He’d explained away a lot of my concerns, except for the drug one. But, maybe even that had an explanation? I’d never stopped to ponder whether I’d been the only one drugged—maybe Tommy had been too? Sure, it was a longshot, but it wasn’t entirely impossible.

  “Of course,” Tommy said, placing his hand around the back of my bar stool and cocking his head toward me, “what’s that they say in the spy movies?”

  I looked back at Tommy, swallowed hard, and shrugged my shoulders.

  “Now that I’ve told you everything, I’m gonna have to kill you.”

  ~ Chapter 13 ~

  “Lighten up,” Tommy laughed.

  I knew I must have looked like I was about to faint when he said that.

  “Is that your idea of a joke?” I asked. “It really wasn’t that funny.”

  “Sorry,” Tommy said. “Guess I’ve got a kind of dark sense of humor… Anyway, you wanna actually get something to eat, or you wanna sit here and talk about the rest of my dating history?”

  The night was still young, I was hungry, and I still craved whatever other information I could get, toward whatever ends, and for whatever reason, so I agreed to get a table with Tommy, and we had the dinner we’d planned on having. I made it a point to never take my eyes off of my glass, or his, for too long, and also made it a point not to drink too much anyway—and, while I was making those points, Tommy was making his own, and they had nothing to do with Gretchen.

  He treated dinner very much like the social event it was probably supposed to be treated like, and spent a great deal of time talking about different things, from the recent changes in weather to the variety of beers on Burger Bistro’s taps. At one point, I felt something vibrating in my pocket, and I remembered that I’d placed phone-2 there, so as to have it on me but not confuse it with my other one in front of Tommy.

  I knew it had to be J.R. or Julie trying to get a hold of me, and, whichever one it was, they’d have to try again later. Even though I wasn’t entirely sure about the conclusions I’d reached about Tommy, I still didn’t want to leave my glass unattended near him, and I didn’t want to reach back out to either of my friends, lest they’d discover what I was up to.

  When the waitress came ‘round one last time, Tommy tried to convince me to stick around for another drink, but I was done with it all by that point. It was well after seven, and I hadn’t gotten any new information in hours. And, all told, if anything, I’d only made things more confusing for myself. I just wanted to go home and think things over. Really, I was starting to wonder if everything I’d done had been worthless.

  I declined Tommy’s extended invitation and politely thanked him when he picked up the bill. We hugged and parted ways, each headed off home, alone, in separate directions. I still didn’t know what to think of things. I knew Tommy was no good, but I wasn’t sure if he was involved with things at rEcore, and I was pretty certain Gretchen wasn’t… So, who else could have done this to me? How? And…why?

  I’d made my way back to the over-priced parking lot where I’d parked my car, and, just as I was about to reach for my keys, I heard my name and turned to see Tommy standing a few aisles away. The wind was blowing against him, and his hands were in his pockets.

  “Wait, Trish,” he said, gesturing for me to stop. “I have to tell you something.”

  Tommy ran across the lot and stopped beside me, shielding me from the cold night air.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t joking,” he answered, point blank.

  “Huh?” I asked, looking at him curiously.

  “Back in the restaurant,” he replied with a grin. “When I quoted those spy movies… Now that I’ve told you everything, I’m gonna have to kill you.”

  “That still isn’t funny,” I fired back as I turned to walk away.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be,” Tommy said in a roaring whisper. The next thing I knew, I felt one of his hands wrap around my waist, while the other went around my neck… then nothing.

  ~ Chapter 14 ~

  “Where the fuck am I?” I asked.

  This time, when I woke up from my imposed stupor, I didn’t have the luxury of being in a bed or a bedroom. From the looks of my surroundings, I was in a basement or garage somewhere, and, in the distance, I could hear heavy metal music.

  “Where the fuck am I?” I shouted, trying to raise my voice over what sounded like Axl Rose’s wailing. There was a nasty taste in my mouth, and my lips still tingled with numbness. I tried to lean forward, but realized that I couldn’t. My hands were tied to the back piece of the wooden chair in which I was sitting. If I’d watched more action/adventure movies, I might have known how to throw my body around and knoc
k the chair to the floor, thereby releasing me from my tether… But, alas, I was never a big fan of action/adventure movies.

  I looked around, desperately trying to better evaluate my surroundings and situation. Wherever I was, I knew I’d never been there before. The few people I knew in Pittsburgh lived in apartment buildings, no houses—and the room I was in was obviously part of a house.

  My head was pounding pretty badly, and the music really wasn’t helping. Nor was the scent of marijuana that was wafting my way. I focused on the direction from which the smoke was coming—and there was Tommy. He was standing there, smoking a joint, watching me as I came to my senses.

  “Welcome back, Trish,” he said, pinching the joint between his lips. “And I do mean that… Welcome back, Trish. Believe me, I’d like to still call you Patty, but I can’t—not anymore. If you were still Patty, we wouldn’t be in this mess. The shit hit the fan because you couldn’t just let it be; you threw it. Patty would have never done something like that.”

  By now, Tommy was walking toward me, and my eyes were continually readjusting and refocusing on his moving image.

  “Patty would have been the perfect fall guy,” he said, pulling up another chair and sitting in front of me. “I never expected you to have changed so much.”

  “Me?” I asked as Tommy’s face became clearer in my mind. I wanted to laugh but didn’t have the energy.

  Tommy sat and stared at me for a moment, with an unwholesome smile on his face. “You have two choices here, Trish,” he went on. “You can tell me who else knows about me, or you can suffer a very unfortunate accident. I said I’d kill you, and I will, if I have to…but no one’s saying I have to. If you cooperate, you could still walk out of this alive.”

  “You couldn’t kill anyone, Tommy,” I said, trying to lunge forward toward him. I wanted to insult him but, at the same time, talk common sense into him, but neither was working, given my condition.