For Blood or Money
16. If This Be a Dream, Sleep On and Wake Me Not
I WOKE UP IN A STRANGE BED in a strange city. The sounds were not my sounds, the smells were not my smells. The warm soft body lying next to me was not my body.
Damn!
I sat up straight pulling the covers off the waking, naked form of Peg beside me. She opened her eyes and pulled me back down onto the pillow.
“How did I get here?” I asked.
“That’s an improvement,” she answered. “Last time it was ‘who are you?’ Remember anything?”
“Last time? How long have I been here?”
“No, you have to answer one to get one.”
“I remember…” Drowning. That’s what I remembered. Being knocked into the river and drowning, knowing I’d never see the light of day again. “…being pushed into the river.” I finished lamely.
“More like being catapulted,” she said. “There was no mistaking that the incredible hulk intended to kill you.”
“Intended to,” I repeated. “I’m not dead then?”
I don’t know what I expected, but the kiss she planted on me was not it. In fact it was like nothing I’d experienced in a long time. I didn’t make a move to break it and neither did she. After while she pulled away and asked softly, “Do you feel dead?” I most certainly did not.
“Have we been… I mean did we…?” I felt like an idiot.
“No. You haven’t been up to it so far. I haven’t given up hope, though.” She threw that off as if it was just a saying.
“How long have I been here?” I asked. She looked at her clock. It was nearly ten. I wasn’t sure if it was morning or night.
“About 34 hours,” she said calculating. “It’s Wednesday morning.”
“My God,” I said. “I need to check in. Riley will be panicked.”
“Don’t tell me Riley is your wife,” Peg moaned.
“No, my partner,” I answered.
“Thank goodness,” she said and rolled on top of me with another kiss. “I did not haul your ass out of that river and thaw your freezing body with my own for someone else.”
I blame it on the pollution in the Chicago River affecting my brain. I couldn’t for the life of me sort out my priorities just then. In fact, it was about half an hour before I could think at all.
Eventually the reality of my situation dawned on me and I struggled to separate myself from the warm and willing woman still nestled in my arms.
“I really need to make that call,” I said. “Where are my clothes?”
“You need clothes to make a phone call?” she handed me a bedside phone.
“I was going to use my cell phone and not call on your home line.”
“Only if it’s waterproof,” she answered. She slid out of bed and padded naked to the dressing table and picked up my cell phone. She brought it back and noted that I hadn’t begun to dial. I was simply staring. She smiled and pirouetted in place so I could see her from all sides. “I hope you like,” she said as she handed me my waterlogged device and slid back in under the covers. It didn’t take long to realize that the phone was ruined. I got up and dialed the office on Peg’s landline.
When she answered, I could tell she had been crying by the catch in her voice. “Riley, it’s me,” I said.
“Dag?” she sounded stunned. “Really? Is it you?”
“It’s me, Riley,” I repeated. “I’m fine. I wanted to let you know.” I wasn’t prepared for the stifled sobs I heard at the other end of the line.
“Your GPS blanked out in the Chicago River. I didn’t know until I came in yesterday. I thought you were dead,” she said through the choked voice that meant she was crying. “I called Jordan and he’s on his way to Chicago.” The calm control of her words belied the emotion I could hear in her voice. I don’t remember anyone caring about me like that.
“I wasn’t conscious,” I said. “I came to my senses enough to call you just now. Really, I’m okay now, but apparently I’ve been out of it for a day.”
“Thirty-five hours,” Riley whispered softly. “Dag, I thought I’d lost you.”
“Not this time,” I said. “But it was a close call. The big guy who brought the laptop to our office decided he wanted my computer in trade. He grabbed my laptop and dumped me in the river. Kiddo, I thought I was done for, too.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m with a friend who hauled me out of the river and nursed me through the fever,” I said looking at Peg. It was not necessary to get into the details with Riley.
“Jordan is going to land this afternoon. He’ll want to see you.”
“As soon as he calls you, tell him that I’ve been found. I’ll see him tonight.”
Peg whispered to me. “Not unless you want to see him naked. Your clothes are at the cleaners.”
“Uhhh. Make that tomorrow morning, Riley. I’ll call him with directions. My cell is dead after being dunked. I suppose the GPS transmitter is too.”
“Yes. The signal went dark at 12:21 Central time yesterday morning. Dag, I thought…”
“I know Riley. I thought so too. You know Lars’s old saying about opening the floodgates?”
“You have to be ready to wade in the water?”
“Well, it seems we should take it literally.”
“I’m so glad you are okay, Dag. I’m just so glad.”
“Do me a favor, would you Riley? Get me on a flight back home tomorrow, okay?” I said. “This was really more adventure than I’d planned.”
Somehow we managed to get through a good-bye.
I looked around for the first time rather than just looking at Peg. It was a nice apartment. I went into the bath off the bedroom and I could see through the open door that it was a nicely furnished modern apartment. I’m not too self-conscious, but I wasn’t used to parading around naked in front of a woman. I grabbed a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around me before I returned to the bedroom.
“Formal attire?” Peg asked. “Does that mean you want me to get dressed, too?” She threw off the covers and stood up. It could be that she was really that good looking, or it could be that I simply had not seen anything like her up close for a long time. I wasn’t finding any fault with her body or reason to want her to cover it.
“Don’t dress on my account,” I answered. “I just thought perhaps I should make myself useful. Kitchen through there?”
She crossed toward me and wrapped her arms around me for another kiss. “I found you useful,” she cooed.
“If you are thinking that I can do that again now,” I said, “don’t get your expectations up too high. I’ve got a heart condition and speaking of that, I should take a pill.”
“Not until noon,” she answered. I looked at her. “I found your pill bottles in your pockets when I emptied them to send your suit to the cleaners. I’ve been shoving one down your throat on a regular schedule.”
“Are you a nurse?” I asked.
“Not anymore. Now I’m a bartender,” she said. “I manage Alex’s. You remember?”
“You are the manager? I thought you were a customer.”
“No, but I work there because it’s fun,” she smiled. “Grandpa said to take care of you when you came in. When I saw you weren’t dancing, I decided to take matters into my own hands, so to speak. I didn’t intend to have to fish you out of the river in order to get you up to my place, though.”
“Grandpa? Earl Schwarz is your grandfather? He told you to seduce me?”
“Pretty accusatory,” she snapped. “No, I wasn’t ordered to seduce you. I just found you to be a nice, attractive man, and frankly it’s been a long dry spell. It was all spur of the moment. I wish we hadn’t gone down by the river, though. I’m really sorry about that.”
“Did you report it?” I asked.
“No,” she answered bluntly. “Grandpa told me that he was in the police station when he called and that you had warned him that they were coming. I was afraid that if Grandpa was in trouble and you were discovered in or near the river, it would be assumed that he set you up. I’ve stayed clear of the import company ever since the big holding company bought it a few years ago.”
“Seems like an awfully big place for one old guy to run,” I speculated.
“Grandpa got a call almost three weeks ago now. Apparently, some guy from the holding company told him there was trouble with shipments that were being sent to him without ever getting there. He told him to exercise his own discretion regarding keeping the business open any longer. Grandpa’s discretion said to fire everyone who worked for him and sit there by himself until they dragged him away. He doesn’t own it anymore, but I don’t think that message ever reached his brain.”
All the time she was telling me this, she was setting things up to brew an espresso in a countertop machine. I leaned on the countertop and thought about nude baristas. For some reason, that made it really hard to concentrate. She handed me a freshly pulled shot in a demitasse. The aroma broke my train of distraction.
“There’s cream and sugar if you want them,” she said motioning toward the refrigerator. I shook my head silently and raised the tiny cup to my lips. A long slow, tongue-scalding sip. Where had this woman been all my life? She watched me as I focused on the coffee. Sex and coffee in one day.
Damn.
I finished and set the espresso cup down to see her still watching me and smiling. I was a little embarrassed about being watched so closely.
“Nice place you have here, for a bartender,” I commented.
“Compliments of my ex-husband,” she said frankly. I decided it was best not to pursue that line. I went to the window and looked northward toward the John Hancock building. I felt her presence before I felt her touch.
“You really shouldn’t be up for too long,” she said. Her arms slipped around my waist and she rested her cheek against my back. “Come on,” she said, pulling me back toward the bedroom. “Let’s get you back into bed so you can rest.”
Somewhere along the way, I lost the towel again.
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