Chapter 10

I turned in and spent the next morning getting ready. I dug my cash out of my luggage where I’d stashed it in case I’d decided to hire a working girl. I went down to breakfast and ate by myself. I suspected Ganju had found himself a reason to like Vegas and I wasn’t about to take him away from that for the sake of an early breakfast. So long as he was here by ten, we were good.

I went back to my room and packed my bathroom kit, took a careful look around the room and then closed my luggage and locked it. I was twenty minutes early, so I sat in the lobby and read the morning newspaper. There was no real news there. Politicians were assholes, terrorists were bigger assholes, celebrities were rich assholes and the world kept turning.

Ganju appeared, bleary-eyed and half-conscious with a minute to spare by my watch. He was barely conversant and we checked out together before taking the hotel shuttle to the airport. Ganju slept in the shuttle, insisted on coffee, napped until lunch, dozed while we waited for our food, groggily wolfed down his food and then wanted to get to the gate so we could relax until it was time to board.

We were processed through security and were among the first to board. Ganju immediately went to sleep, making me wonder if he’d partied the whole time we were there once the fight ended.

Our flight was only an hour, so we were back in LA by mid-afternoon. Ganju shook my hand, seeming refreshed and took off, his luggage consisting of a particularly large carry-on. Easy for him. He hadn’t fought and his clothes were all tiny compared to mine. I watched him saunter off into the crowd and I shook my head. He was soon swallowed up in the foot traffic and I went to baggage claim to get my bag.

I wandered out to the line of cabs and hired one to take me back to Cecilia’s where I’d parked my car last week. I turned on my phone and had three messages. The first one was a generic congratulations on my fight and details of the Christmas party for my office. It was next weekend, just before Christmas, so I’d attend Barb’s this weekend and that next weekend. The second message was from Otto, oddly enough. We’d made arrangements to get together after the holidays, but he had something he wanted to discuss with me urgently. That worried me some. The third message was from Barb, asking me to call when I landed and she’d come get me.

I called Otto back right away and he told me he’d meet me in an hour at my place. I waited for a little while until we were closer to my car and then called Barb back.

“Hi!” she gushed. “You landed? I’ll come get you.”

“Relax,” I told her. “I was already in a cab when I got your message. I’m on my way to get my car now.”

“Oh,” she said, crestfallen. “Can I meet you somewhere? You promised we could talk when you got back,” she reminded me.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, wondering what was going on. “Is everything okay? You seem tense.”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I just want to talk to you about things,” she promised. “Where can I meet you?”

“I’m meeting a friend of mine from the gym to talk about something urgent,” I told her. “Once I finish with that, I’ll call you and we’ll figure it out.”

“Okay,” she said, sounding disappointed again. “You think it’ll be a long meeting?”

“Probably not,” I admitted. “Things are pretty cut and dried with him. He just wants my input most likely.”

“Is he a client?” she asked.

“No, he’s a friend from the gym,” I reminded her. “He’s recently started a new routine and probably wants me to give him some advice on how to proceed.”

“That sounds like it can wait,” she said lightly.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t you order dinner and meet me back at the house. I shouldn’t be too long.”

“Which house?” she asked agreeably.

“Our house,” I said immediately. “I shouldn’t be long. By the time you get dinner picked up, I should be back there.”

“Alright. Pizza okay?” she asked.

“Not tonight,” I said, thinking that pizza was quick and she’d order it with pineapple. “Chinese.”

“Alright. I’ll see you at home. I love you.”

“I love you too,” I lied. I didn’t love her at all, after seeing her and Brad in bed together.

I hung up and sighed, paying the fare and getting my luggage out of the trunk and carrying it to my trunk and loading it up in there. I called Cecilia and started toward my place.

“How’s my favorite warrior?” she asked when she picked up her phone.

“Your favorite warrior suspects that something’s up,” I admitted and talked to her about the call I’d gotten from Barb.

“Well, I know she was out on showings all day,” she said. “I’ve been in the office all day with paperwork again and she hasn’t been here. Neither has her lover.”

“Well, I think something’s up. I’m suspicious.”

“I can get out of work early, if you want,” she said. “I’m just about done anyway.”

“No, go home to Marty. I’ll call you if I need you,” I told her. “Thanks for offering, but I think I need to pass this hurdle myself. I just wondered if you’d seen or heard anything today.”

“Not a peep,” she said. “Wish I could give you better news.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her, pulling into my driveway. “I’ve gotta go though. I have another meeting before I get to Barb.”

“Alright. Call me later and let me know how it goes.”

We said goodbye and I got out, bringing my luggage inside and taking it up to the bedroom. The bed was gone, so I wasn’t sleeping here tonight. The bed in the guest room was still there. I could make that work in a pinch. I was about to take a more detailed tour when I heard Otto knock.

I went to let him in and he wasn’t alone. I was surprised and a little wary of the woman he led into the house. She was heavy-set with red hair and green eyes. She looked tired, like she wasn’t sleeping well and I wondered what was going on.

I led them upstairs to the living room. “I’d offer you both something to drink, but I just got back to town, so I don’t have anything in the house for entertaining.”

“That’s okay, thanks,” the woman said quietly.

We all sat down and I waited for Otto to explain. “Sorry to spring this on you,” he said apologetically in his German accent. “This young woman came to me today, asking me to start an investigation. She suspected her husband of carrying on an affair and wants me to find out who he’s cheating on her with and for how long. When she gave me the details, I refused to take her money and called you right away. Fortunately, you got back to me while she was still with me, in the office.”

“Okay,” I said, confused. “What does this have to do with me? I’m not sleeping with her...” I trailed off as it hit me. I turned to look at her closely. “Doris?” I asked.

She gaped at me blankly. “How do you know my name?” she asked, as wary now as I was.

“Shit!” I swore ardently. “Mrs. Davis, my name is John Hooker. I’m ... familiar with your husband. He’s my wife’s lover. He’s been making my life a living Hell.”

Her eyes widened. “You mean he IS cheating on me?!!?”

I nodded and gave Otto a dirty look for making me deliver this news. “Their affair started a year and a half ago. My wife told me about it this summer. She told me that she had no intention of stopping and that I could go get a mistress of my own or not, but she was rewriting our wedding vows and I didn’t get a say.”

She started crying softly. This was the first time that she’d known that her worst fears were realized. I moved to the sofa where she was sitting and pulled her into a hug, offering her my shoulder. She wept bitter, broken tears as reality crashed in on her. “I’m sorry,” I told her, rubbing her back slowly. “I felt the same way when I found out.”

She slowly pulled herself together and I gave her a tissue to dry her eyes and blow her nose. “I’m sorry,” she said, embarrassed by her outburst.

I hugged her again. “Don’t you apologize!” I told her firmly. “You haven’t done anything wrong. You gave him a son and raise him practically by yourself. You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

She nodded and sniffled miserably. “I more meant that I’m sorry that he’s ruined your marriage too,” she said in a weak voice.

“That’s not your fault,” I said firmly. “Do you have any idea what you’re going to do now that you know?”

“I ... I don’t know,” she admitted. “I depend on him to support us,” she said. “I can’t divorce him. I can’t go back to work until little Brad’s old enough to go to school. That’s three years!”

I nodded. “Do you think that you can keep this hidden from him for a little while?” I asked her. “I intend to do something about him and my wife and I’d LOVE to have your help. It would make it a lot easier and a lot more satisfying to have you involved.”

She looked at me and nodded. “Brad barely pays any attention to me. I’m already in bed when he comes home most nights and me crying isn’t exactly new to him.” She hung her head with that admission.

“Doris, we’re gonna make you a new woman. That’s an important part of anything we’re doing. Crying is going to be a thing of the past for you and you won’t have to do it alone from now on. I’m gonna give you my phone number so you can reach me any time. You have your phone with you?”

She bit her lip and shook her head. “I don’t have a cellphone. Brad said I didn’t need one.”

I nodded. Great guy, that Brad. Chain his wife to the house and then act like he’s single. “When do you have to be home?” I asked.

“Soon,” she admitted. “I have a neighbor watching little Brad, but I don’t want to be away too long.”

“Okay, hang on a sec.” I said and got up. I went into the office, hoping that Barb had put some sort of pad in here. I was in luck. There was a block of Post-It notes on the desk. I wrote down my name and number and brought it to her. “Take this and make sure he doesn’t find it. Tomorrow, when you’re ready to leave the house for the day, call me. Do you have a car seat for your son?”

She nodded, confused. “I do, but where are we going?”

“We have a lot of planning to do,” I told her. “Our spouses are treating us like shit. There’s things I’ll want to show you and tell you and I think it’s time we got you a phone you can use to keep in touch with me and anyone else you can count on for help.”

“I can’t afford that,” she told me, worriedly.

“Let me worry about that,” I said. “Besides, Otto just saved you a bunch of money by bringing you to me.”

She nodded and sighed. “What do I have to do?” she asked.

“For now, just go home and love your son,” I told her. “I was planning on reaching out to you at some point anyway. This just puts us in touch a little sooner.”

She looked at me curiously. “What are you planning?” she wanted to know.

“I was actually planning on a number of things,” I told her. “One thing that I thought about was helping you quite a bit. Dr. Elliot MacDonald told me that he thought Brad loved you, but that you never got your figure back after the baby was born, so he lost interest. Part of my plan was to help you get back to that point.”

She looked at me skeptically and gestured to herself. “HOW?!!?” she blurted. “Brad can’t afford the surgeries to put me back together. Even Dr. MacDonald said it would be expensive.”

I smiled. “Surgery isn’t the only way to get you back in shape,” I told her and got up, gesturing for her to come with me. She and Otto both followed me downstairs, where I showed her the gym. “You can bring your son here with you and I’ll teach you how to use the machines and the weights. I’ll help put together an exercise program for you.”

“You’d be okay with a toddler in the house?” she asked, uncertain.

“Sure,” I said dismissively. “There’s a TV upstairs or you can have him down here with you. We can get him a playpen so that he doesn’t wander over and get his hands caught in the machines and baby gates for upstairs so he doesn’t fall over the stairs or discover the stove on his own.”

“I wouldn’t be able to pay you for this,” she said sheepishly. “Brad’s always saying we don’t have a lot of money.”

“I wouldn’t take your money,” I told her. “With what’s going on, we’re practically family. We need to lean on each other.”

“You’re SURE it wouldn’t irritate you to have us underfoot?” she asked delicately.

“I’d be delighted to have you around,” I told her. “For a long time, they did whatever they wanted and left me powerless to fight back. Helping you take back your life is something I can do to hurt them.”

“How does that hurt them?” she asked, not understanding.

I looked at her with a smile. “When you have your life back and your body looks like you want it to, are you likely to devote yourself to Brad again and let him have another chance to treat you like this?” I asked.

“No!” she said angrily.

I nodded. “You’re actually going to kick him out of your life except for the bare minimum visitation for his son that the divorce requires you to give him, right?”

She nodded. “Exactly!”

I nodded. “THAT will hurt Brad,” I told her. “I have similar plans for Barb.”

That made her think. “I don’t think it WOULD hurt Brad all that much. He seems to resent every dollar we spend.”

“He’ll resent it more when you divorce him. You’d get the house and child support, alimony and the satisfaction of knowing that he has to get a little shit-box apartment.”

“We don’t actually own the house,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t think I’d get enough money to afford the bills.”

“I think you’ll do surprisingly well after the divorce,” I predicted with a smile. “We’ll talk about it later though. For now, you just need to know that you’re not alone and that I’ll help you as much as possible.”

“Why though?” she asked softly.

“Because neither of us deserved this,” I said. “I’ve kind of felt alone in all of this for a while and I’ve felt powerless to do something to fight back. Helping you is a way to hurt him. Sure, I could walk up to him and punch him in the mouth, but then I’d go to jail and he’d get the freedom to do whatever he wanted. As satisfying as that would be, I’d be handing him the keys to my life.” I shook my head at the thought of doing that. “You and I are practically family. Your husband and my wife are playing house. We’ve been pushed to the side by both of them, so we might as well lean on each other. We know we can’t depend on them.”

She nodded, seeming to accept that. “Okay. I’ll call you in the morning when he leaves for work, John,” she said softly.

“Good,” I said with a smile. “We’ll go shopping and start you on the road to your recovery.”

“Thank you for telling me what’s been going on between them. I’ve known something was wrong between us for a very long time, but I never knew what it was exactly. Now that I do, things make more sense.”

I nodded. “At least you were prepared for it,” I said with a sigh. “I was totally in the dark until she told me. We can talk about it more tomorrow though.”

Otto had floated to the background during our talk. “So you’re NOT going to kill me for this, right?”

“No, Otto,” I said with a shake of my head. “You get a free pass on this one.”

They left, not long after that and I decided to check the recordings to see what had happened this morning and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I logged out of the computer, locked up the house and left to drive back to what had been my home.

Barb was waiting for me with her eyes full of enthusiasm. That boded not well for me, I thought.

“Hi,” I said when I saw her waiting at the top of the stairs.

“Hi,” she chirped. “How was your flight?”

“Pretty boring actually,” I admitted. “I think the next time I’m fighting in Vegas, I’ll just drive. With security screening and flight time and baggage claim, it’s really not that much less time to just drive,” I told her as I climbed the stairs. She wrapped her arms around me in an affectionate hug. It set my teeth on edge, but I hugged her back rather than push her away. I needed to stick to the plan and part of that was for her to feel like everything was fine, just like I had before we started this joy-ride.

“Is it really that much of a pain?” she asked.

“Well, the flight time is only about an hour,” I told her. “You have to be there at least two hours early and then there’s airport traffic on both ends and baggage claim. I don’t think I saved a minute by flying. If the guys are coming with me, then I’ll just rent an SUV and we’ll drive.”

That lit her eyes up like Christmas trees. “Well, that’s an option,” she said carefully.

I chuckled and looked at the living room. She had it decorated for the holidays. She always had a service come in and do the decorating. We never hung an ornament. “Looks nice this year,” I lied again. It was all red and silver. It was an attempt at a themed Christmas look. It had no heart. I remember Christmas as a child being a time when we decorated as a family and the decorations were all over the place. Some were treasured heirlooms that had been passed down from generation to generation and others were purchased each year and disposed of with the turkey bones. The whole house felt welcoming and warm and filled with soul. This looked like a page out of a catalog. All it needed was a pair of generic children playing with a prominently displayed toy and a price and the ad was complete.

“Thanks. I wanted to go with a more modern feel,” she said, thinking I was sincere. “We can look at the decorations later though. Let’s eat.”

She led me to the table and we dug in. The food was okay, though it would have tasted better with more enjoyable company. She was looking at me nervously through the whole meal, chatting about inconsequential subjects until I pinned her down at the end of the meal.