It took a while to get the scene cleared. While John still felt some residual anger, it was fading away every time he took a look in the back of the police car. A couple more cops showed up, but the action was now over with.

Of course, it took a good twenty minutes to get John’s story down; he told it time after time. It wasn’t really relevant; after all, the arrest was going to be for assault on an officer, not attempted car theft or something a little closer to the root cause, but John really didn’t mind. He was just damn glad the guy was getting his, no matter how he got it. The Fred’s Towing driver was a witness to the assault on the officer, so he had to give his story a few times too.

“Well, I guess that’s about that,” the officer finally said. “You can go ahead and get the car out of here, but you ought to know you might be called as a witness.”

“Don’t mind in the slightest,” John told him. “They never should have let that joker out of a cage in the first place. Be damn careful when you take him out of the car, and run a drug test. In my opinion as an EMT, he acts like he’s flying on something, and if I had to bet, I’d bet meth.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest,” the cop smiled. “You about have to be flying on something to take a swing at a cop, and meth will do that to you. Now, if you don’t mind my asking, what’s the hair you have up your butt about these guys?”

“Bunch of fucking rip-off artists,” John replied, his anger coming back to the surface. “A friend of mine had her car wrecked the other day. Greenleaf towed it to the impound yard, and these guys later claimed they were entitled to the contents after the car was released out of there. She’s as broke as you can be, but I didn’t think she deserved to have what little she had left taken away from her. They’ve been bugging the shit out of her, wanting quote their end quote stuff back.”

“I’ve heard that story before,” the cop nodded, “and I don’t know why no one has looked into it. I don’t know if anything will come of my passing the story around, but it might.”

“It would be appreciated,” John told him.

The cop turned to the Fred’s Towing driver. “Got a little problem,” he said. “I’ve got a tow truck there that needs to be taken out of here. You want to take care of it?”

“Sure, can do,” the guy smiled. “Just as soon as I get this guy’s car towed a couple miles. I ought to be back in ten minutes or so. The impound yard, right?”

“Sure,” the cop grinned. “Seems like it’s the right thing to do, doesn’t it? I think maybe we’ll want to hold on to it long enough to have a drug dog go through it, and maybe take a look at a few things while we’re at it.”

“If you really want to make it fun,” John smiled, “why don’t you go ahead and tow the truck off first so that asshole can sit in the back of the cruiser and watch you hook it up? I’m darn sure I can wait a few more minutes just to watch the fireworks.”

“That’s a pretty good haul across town,” the driver said. “It’d be easier if I hauled your car first.”

“Well, all right,” John shook his head. “You’re the guy with the truck, after all.”

It only took a couple minutes to have the Jaguar dangling from the back of the tow truck. John got in with the driver, and they started for his office. “Well,” the driver said, “that shows all the signs of perking up what otherwise would have been a pretty dull morning.”

“You’ve had trouble like that with those guys before, I take it?” John smiled.

“Shit, everybody in the business has,” the guy replied. “The hell of it is, they seem to be able to get away with it. I don’t know from nothing, but if I had to bet I’d bet there’s someone on the take somewhere.”

“Almost has to be,” John agreed, “but knowing it and proving it are two different things.”

“Yeah, that’s the way life works, isn’t it?”

It didn’t take long to get to the office. John opened the garage door and backed the van out, then helped the driver back the Jaguar into the garage, not that he needed any help; he obviously knew what he was doing. It only took a couple minutes for the sleek green car to be parked in the back of the garage.

“OK, now for the fun part,” the driver said. “I really shouldn’t charge you for this just because of the treat of watching that bozo get arrested, but Fred might have something to say about it.”

“No problem on my part,” John said, almost cheerfully as he pulled out his wallet and reached for a credit card.

The driver took it and started making out the slip. “You’re still going to need a tow on Monday, right?”

“Probably,” John told him. “I need to contact the shop and make sure they can get it in. If they can’t, it may have to sit here for a while, so I’ll call when I need the tow. And I’ll make damn sure it’s you guys I call. Thanks much for the tow, and thanks for showing up just in time.”

“Sorry, I got held up a little,” the guy told him. “Shit happens, you know.”

“Boy, do I ever know it,” John said. “That’s been the story of my life these last few days.”

Once the tow truck was headed back to perform what John considered a public service, he covered the Jag, closed the garage door and went into the office. The building was quiet, as it usually was on Saturdays; they didn’t work on weekends unless they needed to. He sat down at his desk and flipped on his computer, glad to hear it making the usual starting-up sounds. OK, he thought, first things first, and the Tomtucknee Regional bid has to be the first thing . . .

The computer hadn’t even gotten all the way booted up yet when the phone rang. He let it ring a couple times before he realized Annamaria wasn’t there to answer it. God, he thought as he reached out to pick it up, I sure hope this isn’t some other goddamn interruption . . . “Suncoast Medical Supply,” he said.

“John, this is Mandy,” he heard her say. “We’ve got a problem,”

“What now?” he groaned.

“Raul was here to work on the garbage disposal. He says you didn’t get the right one.”

“Oh, shit,” John replied. “I didn’t know there was more than one kind.”

“He says that if you want that model, you need one with an ‘L’ at the end of the model number. You got an ‘R.’”

“Well, shit,” he said. “Have him take that one back and exchange it. The sales slip is taped to the box.”

“It would be fine, except he’s gone already,” Mandy told him. “He’s going to call later to see if you have the right model. John, we’ve been calling you every ten minutes for the last hour. Where have you been?”

“Car trouble with the Jag, naturally,” he sighed. “The damn thing is nothing but trouble. Look, there’s a spare set of keys to my car in the cupboard next to the sink. Why don’t you toss that damn garbage disposal in the back seat, and then come pick me up.”

“Sure, I can do that,” she told him. “My car is a little too full of my stuff to get you anyway.”

“All right, see you in a few,” he said.

He hung up the phone and glanced at the computer screen. The computer was fully booted up, now, but he hadn’t even moved to open the program he needed to work on the Tomtucknee Regional bid. Well, there was no choice in the matter now; he’d just about get to studying it and he’d have to give it up to go with Mandy. There was no point in getting started. Let’s see, he thought. What with everything, including maybe lunch at this hour, it’d be a couple hours before I can get back here, and something else seems bound to come up the way things have been going. This morning has been a waste of time all around, but maybe this afternoon . . . and, the way things have been going, maybe not, too.

He was waiting outside a few minutes later when Mandy pulled up in the Toyota. “So what happened with the Jag?” she asked as soon as he got in on the right side.

“Fuck if I know,” he said. “Damn thing just quit on me. That was when the fun started. The wrong tow truck showed up, and the cops got involved before it was over with.”

“Oh, boy,” she shook her head as she pulled away. “This sounds like one of those deals.”

“The bastards ran true to form, I’ll tell you that,” he said, giving her a thumbnail sketch of what had happened. “The heck of it is, it’s got to be more than one guy who’s rotten in this thing, although stupidity seems to run rampant.”

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

“I don’t know what I can do,” he told her. “The one thing I do know is that I’ve got to quit dicking around and get an attorney involved in this. The right one might have some idea of what to do, but somehow I don’t think I’ve heard the last of those bastards.”

“Well, maybe it’s for the best, at least in one way,” she said. “John, I told you last night we needed to talk, just you and me. It looks like this might be a good time.”

“Might be, but if it’s trouble I’m not in the mood for it, not after this morning.”

“I don’t think it’s trouble, at least not that kind of trouble. Look, John, I was real surprised to see Sally Hanson, of all people, in your house when I got there last night. That was about the last thing I expected. How serious is this thing between you and her?”

“Thing?” he said. “What thing? There is no thing. She had trouble, I offered to help. Mostly I didn’t want to hear what Emily would say if she found out I’d passed up the opportunity to help out someone from our class who’s in trouble.”

“So she isn’t, uh, living with you?”

“‘Living with me’ living with me, no. Hell, you saw it last night. She and Teresa slept in the spare bedroom, you slept on the couch, and I slept alone.”

“I thought you might be doing it for my sake,” she said.

“No way,” he snorted. “Hell, if you’d looked in the spare bedroom, you’d see two beds and their stuff all over the place. I don’t know how long she’s going to be there. I’m guessing till Teresa gets her casts off, maybe not that long. This has all come down so quickly I haven’t even tried to think the whole thing through yet. About all I can tell you is at this point I don’t think I want her there permanently.”

“Why not?” she asked. “She seems pretty nice.”

“Well, yeah, she really is pretty nice in one sense, but I don’t think she’s the woman I want a permanent relationship with, if I even want one at all. I’ve gotten along pretty well the last few years without a woman in my life in a major way, and it seems to be working just fine.”

“John,” she sighed, “I’ve told you I’m sorry I did that to you. It’s something I shouldn’t have done, and I’ve kicked myself about it ever since.”

“You were only the first in line,” he said. “It was Lisa and Susan and Julie who really did the damage. After Julie, I decided there was no point in beating a dead horse, so I’d better get used to it. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of it.”

“So there’s nobody in your life right now?”

“Not really,” he said, “and I think I’ve come to like it like that. The only woman in my life I really care for is Annamaria.”

“Annamaria?” she said in surprise. You and she . . . ”

“Oh, no, hell no, not like that,” he said quickly. “Annamaria sort of represents to me what my life would have been like if I hadn’t made a series of mistakes, but that’s about it. She means a hell of a lot to me, Mandy. I couldn’t run Suncoast without her help. Shit, she knows more about it than I do, and she’s been there longer.”

“You’re telling me there’s nothing going on between the two of you?”

“Hell, no,” he said. “Have you ever met Julio, that bull she calls her husband? I may be stupid, but I’m not that stupid. I’ll tell you the truth, even if he were to drop over dead right now, I still wouldn’t dare even think of starting anything with her. We get along just fine the way it is, but that’s because when the end of the day comes we go our separate ways. I can’t imagine what it would be like if we were together full time. I need her in the business too badly to want to fuck it up by doing something stupid on a personal level, especially with my track record.”

It didn’t take John much to figure out where this was going – and it was the same place their discussion the night before had gone. She was looking for an opening to get back together with him, and trying to not look desperate about it. While he still liked Mandy, still felt he shared a few things with her that weren’t there with his other wives and lovers, he wasn’t sure he wanted to have to risk dealing with her again. Not that it didn’t bear careful consideration, preferably over a long period, but it certainly wasn’t something he wanted to make a snap judgment about. In any case, he didn’t even want to begin to consider it until she was legally rid of her husband, and Sally and Teresa had moved on to wherever the hell it was they would go next. Then it wasn’t a decision to be made in days, but years.

“I can’t believe you don’t have somebody,” she said. “John, last Christmas, well, it wasn’t the happiest Christmas I ever had, not by a long shot. Joe was drunk and acting like a real ass, and I couldn’t help but think of the nice holidays you and I had together, even when we were living in that crappy apartment of yours over by Wayne State.”

“We did have some good times,” he agreed with a touch of sentimentality.

“We sure did,” she smiled. “But John, I couldn’t help but think I was still having a better holiday with my drunken ass of a husband than you were having down here by yourself.”

“Actually, I had a great Christmas,” he grinned. “Annamaria had me over to her place. My God, she has more relatives than there are lies in a politician’s heart. I mean, it was a major fiesta, a huge party, more food than you can imagine. I don’t speak much Spanish beyond what we learned in high school in Bradford, and the place was full of it, but enough people spoke English that I could get along. A hell of a good time was had by all. No, I didn’t get laid, but that’s not what Christmas is for, anyway.”

“God damn it, that’s not what I meant, and you know it,” she snorted. “John, doesn’t it get a little lonely once in a while?”

“Oh, there are quiet times when I think about it,” he admitted, “but not very often. Like I said, I’ve gotten used to it.”

“John,” she said quietly, “are you trying to tell me there’s no hope for us?”

“Not quite,” he admitted. “What I am trying to tell you is to not get your hopes up, and for sure don’t pin all your plans on it. There might be a chance, maybe, someday, but now for sure is not the right time. I’m not sure the right time will ever come along, but if it does I don’t think it’ll come soon.”

Mandy soon pulled into the parking lot of the big-box General Hardware Retailers store he’d been at earlier in the morning. It didn’t take long to exchange the garbage disposal and get heading back toward home, now with John driving. However, the conversation soon picked back up not far from where it had left off. “Look, Mandy,” he said, “I’m willing to take you in for a few days, like I am with Sally, but when you get right down to it, that’s one more person than the house is capable of comfortably handling for any long period. What plans do you have?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I want to get out to Las Vegas and get the divorce proceedings under way. The sooner I have Joe out of my life, the better I’ll like it. But that doesn’t mean I have to be pounding the pavement this afternoon. I can’t get over the feeling he’s going to be coming for me sooner or later, probably sooner, and until that dies down I’d just as soon be someplace he doesn’t know about. I don’t think he’ll come looking for me at your place. In fact, I don’t think he’d think of you at all. We, uh, didn’t get into that part of my history very much.”

“I’m just a name to him, right?”

“Pretty much,” she admitted. “I’m sure he’ll come looking at my dad’s place, and Dad will be able to tell him he hasn’t seen me. He’ll be more convincing if he hasn’t. That’s part of the reason I decided to not go to Las Vegas just yet. I might be a little easier to find there.”

“Yeah, it wouldn’t take much to track you down through court records,” he said. “But you know, there are other places in Nevada to go than Las Vegas. Go to some damn little town no one has ever heard of before. He probably won’t be up to checking the divorce filings in every damn courthouse in the state.”

“That might work,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that one. But I still think it would be best to give it a little time.”

“It’s your choice, but like I said last night, nothing may happen with us, but it’s for damn sure nothing is going to happen while you’re still legally married to him.”

“So what are you going to do about Sally?” she persisted.

“I don’t know,” John said. “The big problem is Teresa, not Sally. I thought about trying to find a place where they could stay, a trailer or something like we used to live in, but that opens up a world of problems, again mostly involving Teresa. The big thing is that Sally has no money to speak of. I mean, she and Teresa were living in their car and stealing gas to get where they were going. No money, now no car – well, they’re stuck. I thought about giving them a few days to settle in, and then seeing if I could come up with a part-time evening job for Sally so she could get her feet under her. I could look after Teresa in the evenings to help her out with that, but it still gets life a little too complicated. Right now, I sort of think I’m just going to let them stay there until Teresa gets on her feet again, and then try to set them up someplace. Sally may want to move on, I don’t know. She’s pretty good at moving on when the time has come to go someplace else, I’ve learned that from what I’ve heard of her story.”

“Yeah, I got a hint of that last night. I can see why you’d feel uncomfortable with that.”

“Just look in the mirror on that one, Mandy,” he told her. “I haven’t kept close track, but I know you’ve picked up and moved quite a bit yourself in the last few years. When you get right down to it, you don’t have a much better track record with it than Sally does.”

“I haven’t wanted to move, at least some of the times,” she protested. “It’s just that when the funding runs out on a program, it runs out, and I have to go get something else. I really didn’t want to have to leave DC for just that reason – there’s always a lot of something else around.”

“So same difference,” he snorted. “It’s just that you keep getting jobs that are a little higher level. Sally cleans hotel rooms and works in nursing homes. You work in private sector social service agencies.”

“Yeah, that’s one thing I want to change when I can,” she said. “I’d like to get involved with something that’s not just funded through the end of the year, but I haven’t figured out what it is.”

“Still, you know you can pick up and move about as easily as she can. That’s something that makes me leery about both of you.”

They rode on silently until they were almost back to the house before she spoke up. “John,” she said, “is it really all right if I stay with you for a while? I promise I won’t pitch a bitch about having to sleep on the couch.”

“Stay as long as you like, so long as you don’t read anything into it,” he told her. “What do you have in mind?”

“I need to rest up and get my head together. You’ve got some valid complaints, and I guess I was dreaming that I could fall into your open arms. It might not be the right solution anyway, but I need a while to depressurize. Besides, maybe I can help watch Teresa for a while so Sally can go out and get a job or something.”

John could still see an ulterior motive in her statement – the quicker Sally got on her feet again, the sooner she could be out of the way. But still, it had the potential of helping to solve the knotty problem of getting Sally to the point where she and Teresa weren’t dependent on him, and having each one of them there would help him to keep from getting involved in the other one. It would be a delicate balancing act, but at least it bought him a little time. A day at a time was about the best he could hope for anyway.

“I guess,” he told her, “we can give it a try. But if it doesn’t work out, if we start having hen fights, and you and Sally getting on each other’s nerves, you’re going to have to be the one to go first, if only because you have some alternatives, and she doesn’t.”

“I’ll try,” she replied. “I still can’t believe she’s the Sally Hanson we knew in school. God, I always thought of her as a stuck-up God-boxer. I never dreamed she was going through that sort of shit with her parents. I wish I’d been a little more sensitive to her back then. I don’t know if it would have made a difference, but at least I would feel a little better about the way I acted toward her back then. That pool party she was talking about last night, John – I really was an asshole toward her. Maybe I can make up for it, at least a little bit.”

“I thought there had to be more to it than I heard,” he said quietly.

“Oh, there was, and I was being a nasty little shit who wanted to rub her nose in who she was.”

“Kids are cruel, Mandy. We may think that our class pretty much consists of a bunch of good kids, but we had our share of assholes, too. Not all of them were guys.”

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