After a good pee, Teuch made his way into the front room, where a wizened man in a security cap slept behind the desk. Teuch remembered the old-timer from his arrival the previous night. After the drunk with the peppermint schnapps found Teuch collapsed under a bridge, delirious from exhaustion and pain, he and a friend had carried Teuch to the shelter. The old guard had brought out a cardboard box full of old clothes. With the help of the drunk, the guard had changed Teuch before dropping him into bed. Now, with his mind at least partially cleared, Teuch needed to find a phone.
He slapped the old man's face, sending a stream of drool down his cheek as he blustered to life.
"A phone," Teuch said. "I need it."
The guard's eyes widened behind his thick glasses, and he swiped away the drool and collected his senses.
"When the nuns get here," he said, angling his head at the door halfway down the wall behind him. "Out that door. They got one. I ain't."
Teuch winced at a fresh wave of pain.
"When?" he said through gritted teeth.
The guard peered at him. "You oughta sit down."
"When?" Teuch said, growling from his throat.
"A couple minutes," the guard said, examining his watch. "No more."
Teuch staggered over to the door and began to hammer on it with the meat of his fist.
"No need for that," he heard the guard call from his desk.
The door flung inward and the powdery face of a bespectacled nun appeared with an angry scowl and her pale lips shaped into a perfect O.
"I need a phone."
"Your head is bloody," she said, stepping back, her face softening.
"I slept here," he said. "I need a phone."
The nun hustled him down a long hallway and into a barren office, where a phone rested silently on a scarred wooden desk. Teuch dialed, unconcerned with whether the nun heard him or not. He got his man and in Spanish directed him to drop everything and get to the shelter, to bring him a gun, clothes, money, and enough junk and needles to keep him high for a month.
"We don't allow trouble here," the nun said, her back rigid as he slouched past.
"Sometimes it just comes," he said, and he ambled back to the cot where he'd spent the night and lay down to wait.
CHAPTER 49
SHOULD I BE JEALOUS OF MANDY CHASE?" CASEY ASKED JOSe. She pulled her Mercedes up the driveway, following a long midnight-blue Bentley with glittering rims to the red carpet that welcomed patrons to Nick and Sam's.
"It wasn't like that," Jose said, climbing out and giving her a dirty look over the roof of the car.
"She didn't just charm you with her silicone?" Casey said, handing off her keys to a red-jacketed valet.
"Are you serious?" he said under his breath, taking her arm and walking her through the double doors of wood and beveled glass.
"An EPA agent pulled a gun on me today," Casey said, putting on a smile and waving to Paige.
Paige stood in a small group of others back by a dark wood bar lined with fat white candles in silver holders.
"That tells me anything's possible," Casey said.
They passed the hostess's stand and noise from the restaurant washed over them. Although it was early in the evening, the dining room didn't appear to have any empty tables and the dark, spacious bar area overflowed with men in tailored suits and women wearing high heels. On the back wall, facing the bar, a seventy-inch plasma screen flickered and glowed, its sound all but drowned in chatty laughter.
"Come on. This is what we wanted," Jose said, wearing a forced smile of his own, taking her arm, and marching toward Paige's group. "He'll crumble."
"I'm teasing you," she said, tugging him close, squeezing his hand, and brushing her lips against his ear. "We've got him. Tomorrow I unleash my depositions, my subpoenas, and I plaster him in the press. It's all so good, and I'm so happy you're with me for this."
Casey turned and embraced Paige, bussing her cheek, then Luddy's, before stepping back to receive introductions to two other couples, similarly wealthy. A small gathering, Paige had told her. The Golds and the Treemores, two very eligible philanthropists for her clinic.
"And this is Jose O'Brien," Casey said, turning to Jose. While his blue blazer and jeans appeared wilted next to the crisp suits and white shirts of the other men, he more than made up for it with his height, his posture, and his dangerous good looks.
Jose shook hands and looked hard into their eyes before he asked if anyone needed a drink. The rich men all rattled their ice and ordered Chivas Regals, thanking the ex-cop for his generosity. The ladies allowed their champagne glasses to be refilled from the bucket of Dom Perignon behind the bar. What Jose ordered, no one knew.
"That tequila?" Treemore asked, blinking behind his small, round glasses.
"Only when I want to go todo loco," Jose said sternly. Then his face softened. "No, it's vodka. Absolut. Straight up."
Treemore's pale cheeks went pink and he nodded.
"Well," Casey said, raising the champagne glass Jose offered her. "To friends, old and new."
As they raised their glasses, Paige's eyes passed over Casey's shoulder and the light in her face went out.
"Christ," she said, flicking her eyes at Casey before returning to the back wall, "you're on TV."
Paige pushed through their small group and the bigger crowd in the middle of the floor, making way for Casey and the rest to follow. As they did, the people craned their necks at Casey and the festive din subsided. Beside the newscaster's face was a blown-up publicity photo Lifetime had used of her when the movie was released.
"… Jordan has called a press conference of her own for tomorrow," the newscaster said, looking solemnly into the camera until the picture cut to Senator Chase at a podium in front of a dark blue curtain bearing the senate seal and flanked by flags of the United States and Texas.
"The accusations fabricated by Casey Jordan are outrageous and pathetic, but those who know this woman lawyer will not be surprised," Chase said, looking up from the podium to make his point. "The same Casey Jordan, a self-made character in the recent Lifetime movie, is being sued by her own husband for defamation, has recently threatened the Dallas district attorney with a gender-biased smear campaign evolving out of her role defending a murderer who signed a confession, and, incredibly, has been shut down by the EPA for operating a workplace where she knowingly exposed employees to toxic substances. This from a woman who claims to run a charity, but uses the money to pay herself a six-figure salary, drive a Mercedes-Benz, and do work for criminals connected to organized crime. Additionally, we have learned that ten thousand dollars was recently wired from her account to an unknown location in Mexico."
Chase looked up again. "If this woman's present grab for money and notoriety weren't so hurtful and destructive, I might have to laugh at its audacity."
Chase returned to his notes. "To attempt to capitalize on the tragedy that my family and the family of Elijandro Torres have had to recently endure is sick, and it won't surprise anyone to know that Casey Jordan has in fact undergone serious psychological treatment.
"Finally," Chase said, looking up one more time and sighing dramatically, "it is important to know that Casey Jordan has aligned herself with a disgraced police officer from the Dallas PD. Jose O'Brien, her investigator and boyfriend, is a dirty cop. O'Brien was linked to Mexican gang activity including the smuggling of narcotics, and human trafficking for a prostitution ring. Three years ago, O'Brien was discharged from duty as an officer without pay and without his pension."
Casey felt her mouth drop open. She turned to Jose and saw the ripple of muscles in his jaw. He wouldn't face her, and she dropped his hand from her own.
On the screen, Chase looked up and addressed the cameras with a practiced stare. "These are the people working against me. Before it became public, I wanted the people of this great state to know exactly what is afoot and to personally deny any wrongdoing on my part."