Of course, other than those two little glints of luck, I was screwed. My name, Camden McQueen was out there, in the paper. And perhaps I was even on the news, being pumped into the minds of every citizen of this fair fucking country.
Camden McQueen. Wife-beater. Thief. The worst of the worst.
My mind reeled back to seeing Audrey the other day. She would have put two and two together really fast. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was calling the news now to tell them about her escape from Camden McQueen, the bad, bad man who tattooed asses and kidnapped wives and children.
As if on cue, my phone rang. I looked at the display and sucked in my breath. It wasn’t Audrey. It was my father.
He knew.
My father knew I was a wanted criminal. That could be the only reason he was calling.
I expected to feel ashamed or guilty or something along those lines. But for some sick and twisted reason, I felt defiant. Like I’d actually committed it and I did it to prove a point. I secretly felt that way during the whole money laundering operation, like somehow I was sticking it to the jackass. Now, I wasn’t just sticking it, I was driving in a stake like the biggest fuck you.
Too bad none of it was true.
Too bad I knew my father would not accept this without a fight. And that was something I couldn’t even let myself think about, not at this stage.
So, obviously I didn’t answer it. I just watched it ring and ring and ring again. Then I put it on silent and continued cruising up the coast until the idyllic shores of Pismo Beach appeared.
Gus’s house was a little ways from the beach, down a winding road that barely had room to fit one car. It was a lush and strangely idyllic area, as pretty as I thought it would be and not really fitting for the man I was about to meet.
His house was small, the size of a cottage, but well-kept. The garden in the front was overgrown but still tidy, like organized chaos. It was like he could bully the plants into behaving even though he probably weeded the place once a year. My rock garden was easy to maintain but it didn’t have the same kind of beauty. I think I’d been in the desert for too long.
I rapped on the door and could hear a shuffling on the other side. I knew he was peering through the peephole which was one step better than I thought he’d do. After I’d picked up the newspaper I was so damn certain that he’d pull out of the whole deal. I think he thought I wanted Connor’s social security numbers and that alone was aiding and abetting a known felon.
In fact, the longer I stood there on his steps, a young girl on a pink bike peddling cheerily past his slat-wood fence, the more I thought about what a mistake this was. This was an ex-cop. I was a fugitive. I was a lovesick idiot and a sitting duck.
Before I could change my mind and head back to the car, the door opened a crack and I got a glimpse of a wary eye, grey beard, heavy jowls.
“Camden McQueen?” he sounded even gruffer in person.
What was the use in lying now?
I nodded. “Hello, Gus.”
He grunted and then opened the door. “You better get in here before someone sees you.”
I swallowed and walked in. The carpeting underfoot was worn but soft, the house smelled like a cabin. It was dark. The TV was playing in the background, a movie from the 1940’s. I picked out Peter Lorre’s voice though it wasn’t Casablanca.
He shut the door behind him and set about locking the many deadbolts he had before finally sliding the chain across.
“Tough neighborhood?” I asked. “I saw a girl on a My Little Pony bike outside, she looked kind of nasty.”
He didn’t laugh. In fact he looked the opposite of amused. He leaned back against the door and folded his arms across his wide chest, his beer gut sticking out to infinity. His gaze leveled me.
“Something tells me this isn’t the time to be making jokes,” he said. “Now, I don’t know if you realize it or not, but I’m not here to be your friend. I’m not here to give you advice. I’m here to give you what you need because I made a promise to Ellie once and it seems by you being here she’s calling in on that promise. I’ll help you if you understand that I’m not doing it to be nice. I’m not doing it to be good. I’ve got my own life that I’ve sliced out for myself here and if I can avoid putting it through the burner, I will.”
I was biting my own lip without knowing it. He was waiting for me to say something.
“I appreciate that, Gus,” was the best I could come up with. Talking to him was a bit like talking to my dad and though I’d like to think Gus wouldn’t suddenly slap me in the face or call me a faggot, there was always the chance that he would. He was unpredictable and completely detached and that combination was a bit frightening.
“How about you go sit down and tell me what the hell is going on,” he said, gesturing to the couch.
I nodded, feeling more stupid by the minute and took a seat on his grey leather couch while he disappeared into his kitchen. I watched the movie on TV for a few seconds and recognized it as Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant until Gus came back in the room with a beer. For himself.
He sat down on the recliner across from me and cracked the top of the can, chugging down half of it before slamming it on the coffee table in either annoyance or exuberance. Foam fell down the sides.
“You. Talk.”
I took a deep, calming breath and got into it again, rehashing the story, telling him everything I told him before.
“Why didn’t you tell me about being wanted by the LAPD?” he interrupted.
And here it came. I eyed the window, expecting to see a squadron pull in right through his garden, squashing the gardenia.
“I thought you wouldn’t help me,” I admitted. “And I need you to help me. To help Ellie.”
“How long did you say you knew Ellie for?” he asked.
“I went to high school with her.”
“And?”
“And she came back into my life two weeks ago.”
“And?” His eyes were steel as he drank the rest of his beer, slower this time.
“And, well, she was trying to rob me. I was on to her. We struck a deal, I’d ignore her attempt to steal from me if she’d help me escape my old life. She agreed. We took the money and ran.”
He rolled his eyes.
“We laundered the money in the casinos,” I went on. “We got caught.”
“By the police?” he asked, looking confused.
“No, by Javier,” I said. “You do know who that is, don’t you?”
He raised his hand dismissively. “I’m very aware of who that is. I just don’t know why the cops are after you now.”
With a pained sigh, I went into my side of things. The after story.
“But,” I finished off, “that really has nothing to do with the problem at hand. Javier has Ellie and I don’t know where or what he’s doing to her.”
I almost saw a smile on his face but it looked like it was sucked up by his beard.
“It has everything to do with the problem at hand if you’re wanted by the police,” he said like I was a moron. “Trying to track down Ellie just got a little bit harder with your fuck up.”
Fuck up, huh. You know, I was having a real hard time figuring out why the hell Ellie would send me to this guy. So far he was a steaming pile of dickshit. Still, I bit my lip purposely, to keep myself from blowing up and saying something I’d regret. My old friend rage had been welcomed in the shootout yesterday, but not today. Today I needed to suck it up and behave and quit making things worse for myself.
“So will you help me track her?”
He pursed his lips. “And why do you want to find her so bad?”
I gave him an incredulous look. “Because she’s in danger. If you know who Javier is, then you know he’s a bad man. He shot her uncle in the head.”
Gus shook his head. “Poor Jim.” And I realized that maybe he knew him too. I was about to apologize when Gus continued, “She is in danger of some kind, that is certain. The man she’s with is not the man he was and the man he was … well, let’s just say he went from bad to worse. That still doesn’t explain why you care?”
“Why I care?”
“You should be hightailing it to Canada. Get your fake numbers and go. You should be creating your new life, your escape, not heading after Ellie. Why is that?”
“Because …” how did I even explain it.
“Do you love her?” he asked. “Are you in love with her?”
I guess that explained it.
I nodded. No hesitation. All cards on the table. “Yes, to both.” I almost said some bullshit like “We’re in love,” but I couldn’t even say if that was true. All I knew is what I felt. And that the woman that I loved, that I always loved, had sacrificed herself for me. There was no getting past that. She’d embedded herself in my skin, like a tattoo I could never give myself.
“Well that certainly makes things messy, don’t you think?” he asked leaning back in the chair. The hostility on his face was replaced with pity. I wasn’t sure which one I liked better.
“Love is messy,” I said. Another greeting card worthy sentiment.
“So you’re a tattoo artist?” he said, getting out of the chair and changing the subject. He went into the kitchen and came out again, this time with two beers. He handed me one, which I thanked with a nod. I fucking needed this.
I took a long swig before I answered. “I am. I used to work at a shop in LA before I opened up Sins & Needles.”
“The front,” he filled in.
“Yes,” I said hesitantly. “But I did actual work there. I had steady clientele. It really was enough to live on.”
“Then why bother with money laundering?”
My mouth flapped open and closed. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice. I get the feeling that you don’t know how to say no.”
I glared at him. “I’m pretty sure I said no when I stole the money.”
“And look where that got you. The best way to say no is before you start. Say no now, not later.”
“Wise words,” I muttered, gulping more of the beer down. “You having second thoughts?”
“I haven’t agreed to anything, now have I? I’m just hearing you out.”
This was getting ridiculous. All this talk and he still wasn’t sold.
“Maybe I’m wasting my time then,” I said, standing up. I felt better standing. I was a tall guy and I liked to remind people of that. If they couldn’t take me and my tattoos seriously then they at least took my height and muscle.
I started for the door. “I just thought maybe you cared about Ellie since she seemed to care about you … that you cared whether an innocent woman lived or died.”
And at that, he laughed. Maybe I was being a little bit dramatic but it seemed the only way I could get his attention.
“Innocent?” he sputtered out. “First of all, we both know that Ellie Watt is the furthest thing from innocent.”
The funny thing was, although that was technically true, that Ellie thieved and lied and charmed her way through life, I still saw an innocence in her. When I tattooed her, I saw it all over her leg and swimming in her eyes. For all she’d done, for the heartless, cruel, selfish person she could be, there was an innocence deep inside – there was still a ten-year old girl who’d lost everything, who never learned to love without repercussions, who never let her real self be free. That was the Ellie I had seen all through high school, the one who hid behind jeans and a tough attitude. The real her, the purity, was never allowed to come out. She had her soul on a very tight leash.