Small Steps Read online

  “You dog! If you end up marrying that chick, you owe me at least a half a million dollars.”

  The phone rang the second he hung up with X-Ray.

  “Okay, I just want to warn you that you’re going to get a really, really dumb letter, so don’t read it. Don’t even open the envelope. Just take a match to it.”

  When he told her he’d already read it, Kaira screamed so loud he had to hold the phone away from his ear.

  Then she complained about the unreliability of the U.S. Postal Service. “I thought they were supposed to be slow! You must think I’m a total lamebrain.”

  “I liked the letter.”

  “You did?”

  “I liked it a lot. It made me feel good inside. Not all goosey, kind of ducklike.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I was just trying to make a joke.”

  “So what do all your friends think about you having a famous rock star for a girlfriend?”

  He didn’t know she was his girlfriend, but he was glad she thought she was.

  “I haven’t really told anyone.”

  “You are so . . . I don’t know. Other guys would be all braggy about it. You’re just so real. So down-to-earth. I feel like a big phony whenever I talk to you.”

  “I don’t think you’re phony.”

  Kaira forced a laugh. “That’s because you don’t know me. I’m so fake I can’t even tell when I’m being honest or not. Like you know when I told you to burn the letter? I was lying. I was hoping you’d read it. I just didn’t want you to know I wanted that.”

  “I figured as much.”

  “You did?”

  “Well, I mean, if you really wanted me to burn the letter you wouldn’t have waited a few days to call me.”

  “You are so smart. You see right through me.”

  That might have been the first time anyone had ever told him he was smart.

  “Okay,” Kaira said, “you’ve got to tell me something embarrassing about you now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wrote an embarrassing letter to you.”

  “I didn’t ask you to write it.”

  “You have to,” said Kaira. “That way we’ll be even. Otherwise I’ll never be able to look at you again.”

  “All right,” Armpit agreed. He thought a moment. “All right, you know that song ‘Damsel in Distress’?”

  “Uh, yeah, I think I’ve heard of it,” Kaira said sarcastically.

  “Well, yeah, I know you know the song. What are the words after ‘this something, this something, this dress. You would never guess . . .’—then what comes next?”

  “Why?”

  “Because every time I hear the song it sounds like you’re singing something, but I know it can’t be that.”

  “What does it sound like?”

  “Okay, this is really embarrassing, but you asked for it. Every time I hear the song, it sounds like you’re singing, ‘Armpit. Save me, Armpit. A damsel in distress.’ ”

  Kaira laughed. “‘Save me, Armpit’!” she exclaimed. “Why would I sing ‘Save me, Armpit’? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know!”

  “I didn’t even know that was your name! I didn’t even know you when I recorded the song!”

  “I know! I know you weren’t really singing that. I already told you that.”

  “God, you’re even worse than me. I just wrote you a dumb letter. You’re delusional!”

  “So are you going to tell me the real words or not?”

  “I didn’t know there was anybody in the world named Armpit!”

  “Will you humor me and tell me the words?”

  Kaira recited the words. “‘These shoes, these jewels, this dress. A perfect picture of success. You would never guess . . .’ ” She paused and said the next two words slowly and clearly. “‘I’m but a damsel in distress. Save me. I’m but a damsel in distress.’ ”

  “Well, that makes more sense,” Armpit agreed.

  “You are so funny,” said Kaira. “Just hearing your voice. You don’t know how much I miss you.”

  “Me too.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I really do. I tried not to miss you too much, because I never thought I’d ever hear from you again, but once I got your letter, and now hearing you . . . It’s like your voice cuts right to my heart.”

  “Aw, you are so sweet. You know what we should do? We’re going to be staying in San Francisco for three days this weekend. I’ll be doing a show there, a show in Marin, and one in Berkeley. You should come visit me!”

  “Yeah, right, I’ll just hop on my private jet.”

  “We fly people in all the time. A guitar player gets sick or something.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “I am serious. We’ll arrange everything. A limo will pick you up at your house and take you to the airport.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Three days in San Francisco. Just you and me. What do you say?”

  It was incomprehensible to him. She might as well have asked him if he wanted to fly to the moon. Which was probably why he said what he said.

  “Sure, why not?”

  25

  “You have to t-tell your p-parents,” said Ginny.

  “Why?”

  “Because. They’re your parents.”

  They were taking their daily walk.

  “Think about it, Ginny,” said Armpit. “Do you really think I’m going to San Francisco? Look around. Do you really think a limo is going to come driving up this street and park in our driveway?”

  “Yes.”

  Armpit stared off in the distance. “San Franciso,” he said.

  “San Francisco,” Ginny repeated.

  “I’m scared of earthquakes,” he told her.

  A woman named Aileen called him on Tuesday and asked him for his United Airlines frequent flyer number. When he told her he didn’t have one, she said United was the only airline that flew nonstop from Austin to San Francisco, and she suggested he enroll in their frequent flyer program when he got to the airport since he’d be getting double miles for flying first class.

  She sounded incredibly efficient. She rattled off several departure and arrival times as he struggled to keep up. She suggested he take the 11:55 flight, which got into San Franciso at 1:10, because the only other nonstop would get him in at 6:21, which might make it difficult to make the eight o’clock show in Berkeley, depending on traffic, unless he wanted to fly into Oakland, in which case he would fly American, but there would be a layover in Dallas.

  He went with her first suggestion.

  “The eleven-fifty-five?”

  “Whatever you said.”

  It wasn’t until after he hung up that it occurred to him he’d miss his economics final. That was, if he really went.

  Aileen sat at an antique desk looking over the hills of Santa Barbara and out to the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately, what the hotel offered in charm and serenity, it lacked in modern technology, such as in-room Internet connections. She’d had to connect her laptop to her cell phone but kept losing reception. Which meant she still hadn’t booked Theodore Johnson’s ticket.

  She heard the click of her door being unlocked, and then Jerome Paisley poked his large head into the room. “Have you made the arrangements?”

  She lazily glanced his way. “I just have to book the flight.”

  “Wait till you hear this?” he said, coming up behind her. “You won’t believe it!”

  “Tell me.”

  Jerome massaged the back of her neck as he spoke. “Fred ran a background check. The kid’s got a criminal record. Assault and battery!”

  Aileen turned around to look at him.

  “Am I a genius or am I a genius?”

  She rose from her chair, then stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “You’re a genius,” she whispered.

  “See, genius isn’t all about intelligence,” he explained. “There are a lot of smart people in the world.
Smarter than me. It’s about recognizing your opportunities. It’s about letting your opportunities come to you. Sometimes all you have to do is open the door and opportunity walks right in. It takes a genius to know when to open the door.”

  Aileen knew a thing or two herself about recognizing opportunities. She had recognized Jerome Paisley as a weak, insecure man who was constantly trying to impress everybody. She let herself be impressed.

  So far, with the help of Jerome, she had managed to extract nearly three million dollars from Kaira’s trust account. Even he didn’t know the extent of her embezzlement.

  Jerome began to pace. “Now’s the time. Now’s the time,” he said, talking more to himself than to Aileen. “She’ll be eighteen in two months. Now’s the time to act. Opportunity is knocking. I’ve got no choice. Now’s the time to open the door.”

  He was rambling. Aileen could hear the fear in his voice. She could see it in his eyes.

  Kaira had said many times that she planned to fire him when she turned eighteen. If that happened, then whoever took his place would certainly discover the embezzlement. However, if, for example, somebody like Billy Boy killed Kaira before she turned eighteen, then her mother would inherit all her money. Jerome, her mother’s husband, would continue to oversee all the financial matters.

  “She’s not a golden goose!” he declared. “I’m the golden goose. She’d still be singing in her church choir if it weren’t for me. I made her who she is, and I can find someone else just as easily.”

  His plan was to stay with Kaira’s mother for a couple of years to avoid suspicion, then divorce her and live with Aileen. But those weren’t Aileen’s plans. She had no intention of sharing her money or her life with that self-absorbed maniac.

  Which was why in addition to needing to book a ticket for Theodore Johnson, she planned to book one for herself: first to Portland, then to Costa Rica. The name on her passport was Denise Linaria.

  One thing for certain. She did not want to be anywhere near San Francisco when Theodore Johnson got there.

  The concert that night was in an outside amphitheater, nestled in the foothills. Kaira waited on a patio offstage. The ocean air was cool and foggy. She could smell the flowers that bloomed around the Santa Barbara Mission.

  She couldn’t believe she’d be seeing Theodore again in just three days. Aileen had booked the ticket. It almost made her like Aileen again.

  More than once she had thought about telling her mother about Aileen, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It wasn’t just that she didn’t want to hurt her mother. As much as she hated to admit it, the sad truth was that she, Kaira, needed El Genius. Despite all her bluster, deep down she knew there was no way she would ever fire him. She’d be lost without him.

  Once the concert started she was able to shut out all thoughts about her mother and El Genius and just disappear into the music. Out in the open air, her voice seemed to float all the way up to the stars. And nobody noticed, not the band, not the audience, when this time she really did sing:

  “Save me, Armpit!

  A damsel in distress.”

  26

  Uncharacteristically, Jack Dunlevy wore a jacket and tie. Armpit told him he looked sharp, but Jack just grumbled something about not having enough neck room. He had to go to some kind of meeting at the mayor’s office.

  They were at a house where two months earlier they’d installed a sprinkler system. Now there was a leak. “It’s somewhere on the right side of the front yard,” his boss told him.

  “My right, or the house’s right?” Armpit asked.

  “What?”

  “I mean, is it on the right when I’m standing in the street facing the house, or when I’m standing at the front door facing the street?”

  “Just find the damn leak and fix it!”

  He was edgy about the meeting and his clothes made him uncomfortable. Plus the homeowner wouldn’t be paying him for this, no matter what caused the leak, but he still had to pay Armpit.

  He left for his meeting, and Armpit looked over the area. There was no easy way to find a leak. He would just have to dig along every inch of pipe.

  And he was just about to do that when a mountain laurel planted near the corner of the house caught his attention. He hadn’t remembered that mountain laurel being there the last time.

  He realized, of course, that he’d worked at forty houses, at least, and couldn’t remember every plant in every yard. Still, he had to start digging somewhere, so he started there.

  It took him less than twenty minutes to find the leak. Whoever had planted the mountain laurel had cut a gash into the sprinkler line with a shovel.

  He sawed off a two-foot section of the damaged pipe, then attached a new piece. He had to let the glue dry before he could test it, so he was sitting in the shade when a car pulled up.

  He assumed it was someone coming to see the homeowner, so it took a moment for his brain to register that the guy getting out of the driver’s seat was Felix and the guy in the cowboy hat was Moses.

  Moses pulled a third person out of the back seat—X-Ray. X-Ray had a large bruise on his right cheek, and he wasn’t wearing his glasses. His shirt was ripped.

  Armpit rose to his feet. “Are you all right? What’s going on?”

  “Everything’s cool,” X-Ray said as Moses shoved him along. “They just want to talk to you.”

  There was something wrong with X-Ray’s mouth, and he spoke with a little bit of a lisp.

  “Where are his glasses?” Armpit asked.

  Moses pulled X-Ray’s glasses out of his front shirt pocket, held them a moment, then dropped them on the lawn.

  “Have you heard?” asked Felix. “Somebody’s been selling counterfeit tickets. This lady cop came to talk to me about it. To me? I never sold a phony ticket in my life. I explain it’s bad for business. Sure, I might make a quick buck, but then I’d never sell another ticket. See, my business is based on trust.”

  “I told you. She doesn’t think it was you,” said X-Ray.

  Moses whacked him on the side of his head. “And I told you to shut up,” he said in his unusually high voice.

  “Have you read the newspapers lately?” asked Felix. “The mayor’s all charged up. Got to stop all the counterfeit ticket sales! What do you think that does to my business?”

  “People trust you, Felix,” said X-Ray. “You’re known all around town. Every hotel concierge and—”

  “Shut up!” said Moses.

  Felix continued. “Now they’re even talking about passing a law to make ticket scalping illegal.”

  “They can’t do that,” X-Ray said. “It’s unconstitutional.”

  Moses whacked him again. “Man, what does it take?” He turned back to Armpit. “How do you put up with him?”

  “You know what the cop asks me?” Felix asked. “You want to know her number-one question? ‘Where’s Armpit?’ That’s her question. ‘Where does he live? What’s his phone number?’ And all I’m thinking is: Who the hell is Armpit? But then it comes to me. I remember those two dudes I met at the Lonestar. I kinda liked those guys. They seemed cool. So I tell her I never heard of nobody named Armpit.”

  “We appreciate that,” said X-Ray.

  “Shut up!”

  “But you know what happens when there’s a loss of trust? People are afraid to buy tickets. Demand goes down. Prices drop. Way I figure it, Armpit, your two little phony tickets have cost me about two thousand dollars so far.”

  “Armpit didn’t know anything about it!” said X-Ray.

  Moses was about to hit X-Ray again, but Armpit took a step toward him. “Don’t touch him.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Moses, challenging him. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Settle down,” said Felix. “Here’s the thing, Armpit. I could tell Detective Cutie-pie everything I know, but how does that help me?”

  “It doesn’t,” said X-Ray.

  “It doesn’t,” Felix agreed. “The damage is alre
ady done. But maybe there’s a way we could help each other. You help me make my money back, and even make some money for yourself while you’re at it.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Armpit asked, his eyes on Moses.

  “Kaira DeLeon’s letter. I’ll pay you a hundred and fifty dollars for it.”

  “It’s not for sale,” Armpit said firmly as he shot a glance at X-Ray.

  Felix smiled. He turned to Moses. “What do you know? Our friend X-Ray wasn’t lying.”

  “Hey, I’ve never lied to you,” X-Ray said. “You just got to understand where I’m coming from.”

  A pickup truck pulled up behind Felix’s car.

  “Look, here’s the deal, Armpit. You sell me the letter or else I talk to Detective Cutie-pie. Your choice. Everybody wins, or everybody loses.”

  Jack Dunlevy got out of the truck. He no longer wore his jacket and tie.

  “You got twenty-four hours,” Felix said, then handed Armpit a business card with his phone number on it. “By the way, is your real name Habib?”

  Armpit didn’t answer.

  The heel of Moses’s boot came down on X-Ray’s glasses; then he and Felix headed back to their car, crossing paths with Jack Dunlevy coming the other way.

  “Sorry, man,” X-Ray said. “I’m really sorry. The only reason I told him about the letter was because I was trying to explain how no one got hurt by the phony tickets.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes you talk too much,” said Armpit.

  “I do,” X-Ray agreed. “I do talk too much.”

  Armpit picked up X-Ray’s glasses. The frames were bent and a lens had popped out, but there was nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

  “Well, you just do what you think is right,” X-Ray said. “Don’t worry about me. If I go to jail, it’s my own fault.”

  Jack Dunlevy came toward them. “I’m not paying you to stand around and talk to your friends,” he said, but didn’t sound especially angry.

  “I fixed the leak,” Armpit told him. “I was just waiting for it to dry so I could test it.”

  His boss looked around at the relatively undisturbed lawn.