Who Kissed Charlie Fine?

Chapter 11 (Part Two)

When they were once again more or less alone, Calvin just stared at Charlie, shaking his head and chuckling. "Where do you put it all and what the hell do you do with it?" he asked.

"With what?"

"The everything you know about everything."

"Think of it as my sticker collection."

"Yeah, but what can you use it for? You're already rich!"

"I'm not going to be on Forbes' list anytime soon, believe me. You're the one making history."

"As the second youngest mayor in Messengers history?"

"Exactly!"

Calvin shook his head. "You know that feeling when you're falling asleep and you picture yourself trip or fall off a cliff and it wakes you?"

"That's called a hypnic jerk."

"You're a hypnic jerk. Why do you know that?" Calvin laughed.

"A girl I dated once worked at a sleep lab. She said it happens when a person falls asleep in a bad position for blood circulation. It's the brain's way of tricking the body into moving. There are also some theories about it being a primitive safety mechanism to keep sleeping monkeys from falling out of trees."

"That last one's me. I get that sensation almost every time someone addresses me a 'Mayor Lucas'. Honestly, I don't know how we pulled that off. There I was working with community sports services and then people sort of pushed me into running for town council. I thought I could maybe get more done as mayor so I just decided to try. I never thought I'd get in."

"But you did by a landslide."

"Almost literally. Negotiating the end to the sanitation workers' strike was my big push, and I'd like to think that cracking down on puppy mills set me over the edge, but Opal pretty much greased every club member into donating to the campaign and voting so, it probably has more to do with her popularity than mine."

"Greased?"

"I mean buttered up. Nothing illegal. I know you said you're into fraud but you can snoop around all you want. My books are clean. I'm a man of integrity."

"No doubt, Calvin. Not many men would give their wives the credit."

"Opal is...Opal. She's a force. Everything she does is for us," Calvin said, now a touch sombrely. He stared down at his glass and twisted it several times.

The change of tone set Charlie's antennae into exploration mode. Was he sensing a feeling of inferiority? Some sort of guilt? What sacrifices might Opal have personally made so the couple could succeed as a unit? Before Charlie could ask, Calvin made an abrupt about-face, shaking the seriousness off. "So come on, tell me," he said, a wily look in his eye. "What are some of the craziest cases you've been involved with? Got anything Dateline NBC-ish?"

It was classic misdirection, but Charlie understood a few drinks between old friends did not automatically earn him the role of confidant.

"There are always a lot of real-estate scams, but they're not too exciting. Some golden visa lawyers, which is a dirty business, but again nothing big enough to take down a whole firm or anything like that. I suppose I find the lonely hearts swindlers the worst. Caught a black-widower once. That was pretty satisfying."

"What do you mean? Like he killed his wife?"

"Wives, we suspect. The previous two before my client but they could only get him on one."

"Is your client dead?!"

"No, but she came close. Her husband was going to knock her out with a spiked drink and drown her in the bathtub."