Dying for Revenge (21 page)

“They’re pretty.”

“You paid for them, had them installed without talking to me.”

“I needed closets. You know I need closet space.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What’s the point of this conversation, Matthew? Just get to the point.”

“So in the end a seven-hundred-thousand-dollar house became damn near a million-dollar debt.”

She snapped, “Why did you marry me?”

He snapped, “Because I loved you.”

Silence.

He had said because I
loved
you, not because I
love
you. Past tense.

He said, “You know how many people I had to kill to pay for all that shit?”

“We.”

“You have worked, but your money hasn’t gone to the house or the cars.”

“You think I can’t survive without you?”

“You’d be on skid row if it wasn’t for me.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Your money ends up on your ass or on your feet.”

“I did jobs before you. I was working long before you got in this business.”

He ran his hand over his red hair, rubbed the stubble on his chin. “We met on the job.”

“The job we did at Disneyland. That time we killed that big-ass mouse.”

“Goofy.”

“Thought we did the mouse.”

“We did Goofy. We killed the mutt.”

“Either way, we had fun after. All the rides. We had a lot of fun after that job.”

Again silence.

She said, “I still want to have fun, Matthew. Just want to have a little fun.”

“We can have fun and I want to have fun, but we have to be realistic about where we are.”

She tightened her lips, stared at her wedding ring.

Matthew. Ten years younger than she. The Guy Ritchie to her Madonna. The Gabriel Aubrey to her Halle Berry. Talked to her like she was a goddamn child. Talked to her like he was her father.

She asked, “What do you think we should do?”

“Counseling and a financial planner.”

“Is that an option?”

“Not an option.” His eyes darkened. “And this time I expect you to make it to therapy.”

She rocked and pulled at her hair. Just the thought of meeting with a financial planner gave her angst. All that talk about hedge funds, twenty-five managers, oil stock, short the financial sector, net-worth requirements, buy and hold, shorting the marketplace, absolute return, S&P, Dow Jones, a share mutual fund, June and December no penalties, surrender penalties—all of that was gibberish to her.

He said, “No more shopping.”

“What do you mean no more shopping?”

“I mean you need to wear what you have. And we both sell one vehicle.”

She rocked faster, pulled her hair harder.

He asked, “How much did you drink tonight?”

She took a deep breath. “Not much. I was stressed. Somebody tried to kill me today.”

“Comes with the job.”

“I know. Was just saying. Had a bad day at work, that’s all.”

“I smell weed in your hair. And your eyes . . . your eyes are red. What else you take?”

She didn’t answer, sat there rubbing a dozen mosquito bites, all of them itching at once.

He said, “You rode a scooter from one side of the island to the other, loaded.”

Still no answer. Didn’t sound like he needed one.

He grunted. “Stupid. So fucking stupid.”

“Don’t call me stupid.”

“I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about me.”

He walked away from her, left shaking his head, went and stood on the balcony.

He chuckled. “I guess I’m the best investment you ever had.”

She sat on the bed, her leg bouncing, hands rubbing over her hair.

He said, “I’m a damn fool. A damn fool.”

She imagined poisoning him with antifreeze, watching him die a slow death, vomiting and diarrhea and stomachaches weakening him to the point of wishing he had been nicer to her.

She said, “You want a divorce?”

“For better or worse, fat or thin, sickness and health.”

“ ’Til death do us part.”

He nodded. “Until death.”

He said that as if there was no other option, no other way for the marriage to end.

That terrified her.

Again he stared at her, his eyes dark enough to make her want to run to the sea, swim away.

His cellular rang again. He answered and went outside.

He came back inside and said, “Time to go.”

She stood up, Matthew standing over her, staring, his face rigid, the look of death in his eyes. She was afraid. Trapped in a hotel room, no gun in her possession, a killer a few feet away.

Then her husband smiled, his grin small but so sweet and loving, so boyish.

He said, “You have a little dried-up come on the side of your mouth.”

Panic rose up inside her. At first she thought it was the young boy’s come on her lips.

She hadn’t tasted the young boy.

It was her husband’s flavor drying on the edge of her lips.

She went and washed her face, took her time, staring in the mirror, not blinking, her mind in another place. Weed, lager, and ecstasy still in her bloodstream. She remembered the first contract. A decade ago. A back alley in Tijuana, the sun going down on a day so hot it had felt like the sun was sitting on top of her skin, flies buzzing, taco smell in the darkening desert air, stench of mules, mules that were painted to look like zebras, the chatter of automobiles and motorcycles, drunken and horny tourists all over. Women and Corona, sex and alcohol, those were the reasons people went to Mexico. Streets lined with young women wearing short dresses, women stationed no more than every ten feet, leaning against concrete walls, offering insincere smiles and themselves for twenty dollars. In the background, on the same street punctuated with Spanish and broken English, strip clubs were on every corner, the women inside offering the same dispassionate sexual healing for twice, maybe three times the street price, as if what they had between their legs was so much better than what was being whored curbside. God bless third-world countries and their old-fashioned bartering. On a sunny day in Tijuana there were plenty of people around. At night there were ten times as many. She had followed the boy she’d been sent to handle. He was a young man. A man who met a bullet and didn’t live to get old.

You never forgot the first time. The fear. The rush. That first face never left you.

Like sex. Or adultery. You never forgot the first time.

Matthew was watching her, that dark and deadly look again; then the boyish grin followed.

She said, “What are you looking at?”

“The Assassin with Ass.”

She smiled.

“You have Betty Grable legs. Jayne Mansfield tits. Add that up and you’re a damn Bettie Page.”

She chuckled. “What do you want to call me now?”

“My beautiful wife. I want to call you my beautiful wife.”

He came over, kissed her on her neck, squeezed her breasts and backside, became hard.

She whispered, “Somebody’s tense.”

“Yeah.”

“Want another blow job?”

“We have an appointment.”

“Make that arrogant, stuck-up Detroit bitch wait.”

“Stop.”

“I want to please my husband.”

“What, you’re going to take it?”

“I want to suck my husband’s cock.”

She got on her knees, unzipped his pants, took his penis out again, smiled up at her husband. She wanted him depleted, didn’t want him to need sex later, wasn’t going to sleep with two men in a matter of a few hours. She wasn’t that kind of girl. Suck Matthew dry, no penetration, not today.

She took him in her mouth. Felt his hands in her hair, his penis at the back of her throat.

Again her husband grunted, pushed deeper as he came. Again he didn’t come enough.

She ran to the sink, gargled again, her mind on the same thoughts.

No shopping. Counseling. Neither of those was an option.

Women needed clothes, shoes, and jewelry.

Not just clothes, shoes, and jewelry, but
new
clothes,
new
shoes, and
new
jewelry.

New
hairstyles.
New
accessories.

A woman
needed
a husband. A woman
needed
a lover.

A lover on the side was the ultimate accessory.

Matthew had found out about the diamond mink eyelashes.

But he didn’t find out why she was buying them. He hadn’t found out that she was spending more than that to live out her
Sex and the City
fantasy. A want that would cost another twenty-four thousand dollars. Matthew wouldn’t understand. That it was a bargain to be able to spend ninety-six hours living out the existence of characters from the best show ever created, a show that had ended and sent her into depression, as it had done so many other cosmopolitan-sipping, Blahniks-wearing women. Spending that twenty-four thousand to live like Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda, a life filled with luxurious shoes and handbags, being pampered at luxury spas, and sipping cocktails at the same nightspots featured in the show, places where she might be able to sit in the same chairs the women from the show had sat in, ordering the same drinks; that was all the therapy she needed. Matthew would die if the people from Destination on Location ever called and left a message. Matthew didn’t understand the global phenomenon, didn’t understand that Blahniks were not shoes, that Blahniks were
Blahniks,
what Picasso and Rembrandt would’ve designed if they had not wasted so much time painting canvas and wall. Van Gogh didn’t have the brilliance of Manolo Blahnik, that was the real reason he cut off his ear, did it so he didn’t have to listen to the artistic sound Blahniks made when a woman sashayed across a tiled or wooden floor. Matthew wouldn’t understand why she was so angry when she hadn’t been the
first
to book her tour, how enraged she had become when a woman from Singapore had managed to book the tour
two minutes
before her, a bitch from another country was first in line, a bitch from a fucking third-world country where the show was banned. The bitch couldn’t watch the show and she was going to be known as the first. She had almost booked a flight to Singapore, would’ve if she could’ve vanished from her marriage for a few days, long enough to make sure her competition was no longer her competition, and she would be first in line, the first to be chauffeured to Saks, Barneys, and Patricia Field. She was dying to meet the designers and stylists whose imaginations gave birth to the creations the characters wore, clothes to die for, and if she had made it to Singapore, to kill for.

But if she had been number one, then there would have been a lot of attention, a lot of press, maybe interviews, things she didn’t need to chance Matthew seeing.

Not only that, that type of press could be bad for the business she was in.

Still.

Twenty-four thousand was nothing to be able to enjoy all of that and dine where the characters ate, Balthazar and Pastis, get chauffeured around and party at Bungalow 8, leave there and step across the velvet rope at all of the exclusive nightclubs, moving by people in her Blahniks, the envy of the world.

To top it off she would get to spend an afternoon pretending to be her favorite characters. She had it down to two: Charlotte and Samantha. If she chose Charlotte her spree would take her to Tiffany & Company, then a tour of some art galleries—galleries didn’t thrill her, never saw anything she would want to buy; if she chose Samantha her excursion would be Madison Avenue and a trip to a high-end sex shop, hopefully one that had some of the toys Samantha had owned.

So Samantha it was.

Samantha. The ultimate cougar.

And included in the twenty-four-thousand-dollar package was the chance to see the movie on opening night. She would walk on the same carpet, be in the same room, breathing the same air as the stars. She would witness history hours before the regular people lined up to see the film.

Not before the bootleggers sold it curbside in every ghetto in America. But bootleggers couldn’t get her seats next to Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha Jones, Charlotte York, and Miranda Hobbes. Bootleggers couldn’t get you in the same room as Mr. Big, Aleksandr Petrovsky, Aidan Shaw, Steve Brady, Harry Goldenblatt, Smith Jerrod, Jack Berger, Stanford Blatch, Anthony Marentino, Trey MacDougal, and Richard Wright.

Only twenty-four thousand dollars could get you to live that fantasy.

Only twenty-four thousand dollars could enable a woman who had grown up in foster care to be accepted by the upper echelon of society.

She was glad Matthew didn’t know about that. His understanding didn’t matter.

Nothing and no one was going to extinguish her chance to live out that fantasy.

Nothing was going to stop the woman who had endured everything from becoming one of them.

What mattered most was that she would be one of
them.

 

Fifteen minutes later.

She had on jeans and sandals, a sleeveless top, her body sprayed with more OFF!

They left their room and headed down the steep bricked walkway that led to the guard shack sitting on the main road. Matthew held her hand. Like husband and wife. Like lovers.

She took a breath. Matthew understood money but didn’t understand women. Most men didn’t. Men thought the fight was over, but the woman still held the grudge and remembered every fucking word that had been said. He was a leader. A control freak who talked like he was in the movie
Goodfellas.

He asked, “You have a gun?”

“I’m naked. Everything is in the Caribbean Sea.”

“I’m not naked.”

“You have a gun?”

“A blade.”

She swallowed. Matthew had a knife on him. She had no weapon. But he had a knife.