18. Grayson
CHAPTER 18
Grayson
C lementine’s felon father Harvey jabbed his fork into my panang curry, spearing the biggest piece of chicken for himself.
Clementine was looking mockingly at me.
“You know, you don’t have to stay here, Grayson,” she said innocently. “Don’t feel obliged to stay on my account. You can take a night off.”
“Nope,” I said, “I’m fine.”
My former father-in-law eye me sourly.
Our first meeting had not gone very smoothly.
When we parked I recognized him immediately. The con man I’d spent over two years trying to put into prison was in his early 60s, only a few inches taller than Clementine, with wild white hair and a droopy long moustache. Despite his lack of inches, he had a big, perhaps oversize, personality.
“Oh, Dad!” Clementine squealed, racing from the car to embrace him.
I followed behind, scanning the street and nearby bushes. Harvey Adler wasn’t dangerous, but he had run with some dangerous people, and I didn’t want them anywhere around Clementine.
“Hi, sweet pea,” he said, embracing her.
Then he fell back dramatically when he saw me walk up with the takeaway food.
“My dear child, you told me you were no longer with this snitch!” he demanded indignantly.
“I’m not with him,” Clementine said impatiently. “He’s just sleeping on the couch for a few weeks.”
“Honey, I thought I taught you better than that,” Harvey said. “I taught you to stay out of low company, and there’s nothing lower than a man who eats your food and bread and marries your daughter and then turns you into the FBI.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “for any inconvenience you experienced. I was. . . very zealous.”
Harvey glared at me as we went inside.
“I have some very important things to say to you,” he told Clementine, eyeing me with distrust. “But I can’t with this ogre lurking about.”
“You can talk in front of him,” Clementine said serenely. “Maybe that’ll scare him away.”
But Harvey seemed reluctant to, which made me very nervous.
What did he have up his sleeve?
“What’s up with you, dear child?” he asked.
“Oh, just thinking about talking with a journalist. . . there’s someone who wants to do a story on us,” she said casually, as if daring me to object.
But I was more convinced than ever that Clementine had a right to tell her story, should tell her story if she wanted, no matter what it meant for me.
“Clementine, I want you to talk to that journalist,” I said.
“Why? You could get in trouble.”
“I don’t care. You deserve to be able to tell the truth about what happened. I will make sure you are able to tell it.”
I couldn’t interpret the expression in her eyes, and there was a brief moment of silence punctuated by the enthusiastic slurps of Harvey eating.
“I don’t know about talking to journalists, my dear,” he said reflectively. “It might bring undue attention to your poor aged father.”
Clementine’s eyes suddenly lit up with laughter.
“What are you up to now, Dad?” she asked. “You just got released from prison.”
“I’m not going to allow you to involve Clementine in any of your schemes,” I put in, and they both glared at me.
“What right do you have to object?” Harvey snorted, his mustache bristling. “And I wouldn’t say involved ,” he added. “Not ‘involved,’ per se.”
“Anything Clementine is involved with, I will be too,” I said firmly.
“You may regret that, Agent Bentley,” Clementine said, those gorgeous pink lips twisting up in an intoxicating smile.
“Never,” I said.
“There’s merely the matter of my $50 million dollars,” Harvey said, coughing delicately.
“ Yours ?” I barked.
“You didn’t think I’d do jail time out of the goodness of my heart do you?” he asked indignantly. “What kind of a fool do you take me for? No, I promised Rocky Mariano that I would keep my mouth shut in exchange for $50 million when I got out. But that rat fink hasn’t been answering my calls.”
“So you see how inviting a reporter over here might draw attention to your dear old Pops that might not be so complimentary.”
Clementine bubbled over with laughter. “All right, Dad. I have other ways of getting what I want, after all.”
Well, that definitely made me nervous.
“What are your other plans now that you’re out?” she asked as I fought my heart palpitations at the idea of Clementine wanting to get involved with any of these schemes.
“Your uncle Sebastian has a little job on his yacht he would like some help with, and apparently he needs my expertise.”
Uncle Sebastian? I fought down my panic at the idea of more felonious relatives I would have to protect Clementine from.
“He has a yacht now? Did he steal that yacht?” she asked eagerly.
“I don’t believe there are any current disputes on ownership of the yacht,” Harvey clarified, and they began to go back and forth about yachts and boats of the past, and which ones had been the result of some creative card-playing.
I was profoundly disturbed by the entire conversation, but there was one thing I was determined on, more than ever. Where Clementine went, I would go. She was my girl, my love, and mine to protect.
I just had to make her see it.