Authors: Daniel Price
Slick (61 page)
We need to talk ASAP. Will you meet me at Club Silence? It’s very important.
It was ten-thirty at night, my head was aching worse than ever, and I’d well exceeded my recommended daily allowance for drama. I was in no shape to take on the indomitable Jean Spelling. Still—
Okay.
—it was better than sitting here in the dark, thinking about my nascent cold and my bleak future. If anyone could get me out of the shadow of Harmony Prince, even briefly, it was Jean.
I gathered myself. After retrieving my flashlight from the junk drawer, I went upstairs to my bedroom, changed into clean clothes, and dug out my old eyeglasses. Technically, I was supposed to wear them whenever I drove at night, but they never seemed to make it into my A-squad of accessories. Tonight I definitely needed them. My naked eyes wouldn’t get me to Santa Monica alive.
The Third Street Promenade was dim and virtually deserted. All the stores were closed. Only a handful of souls wandered in and out of the restaurant/bars. At first I went down the wrong alley and up the wrong stairwell, but eventually I traced my way back to Club Silence.
On a late Tuesday night, the lack of noise was downright eerie. There were only six other people scattered throughout the establishment: an elderly couple by the boom box (gesturing), a young couple at the bar (kissing), a middle-aged bartender (signing something incomprehensible to me), and Jean.
She watched me from the far end of a laptop table. She wore a long black T-shirt over jeans. Silver hairband. No makeup or jewelry. The most striking difference, one that almost kept me from recognizing her, was her cat’s-eye glasses. They redefined her entire face. She could have passed for a college student, a wry and eclectic theater major who was into Brecht, Björk, herbal ecstasy, and Vertigo comics. I never wanted to get under her shirt more.
Clearly, the feelings weren’t reciprocated. The look she flashed me was cold and austere. I didn’t get it. Last night she was thumping her head against my chest, wondering what to do about her attraction to me. Now she glared at me like she’d just found child porn on my hard drive.
She tossed me a curt nod.
She winced at herself.
I wrote.
I tapped my glasses.
With an “as you please” shrug, I took them off, folded them, and dropped them in my shirt pocket.
She tilted her head, studying me.
Expressionless, she retrieved a money order from her purse and slid it across the table. It was $975.50, exactly a hundred dollars more than I’d paid for the Saturn repairs. I’d e-mailed her the final cost this afternoon, shortly before leaving for Ralph’s.
Miranda would have laughed her ass off.
That was mildly encouraging. In her mind, I was still the kind of man who was susceptible to random acts of charity. I was about to respond, but then she pulled an item from the floor: a fat stack of papers. I recognized it immediately as Alonso’s novel.
She plunked it down on the table, between our laptops. On the top page, covering the book’s dedication, was a single yellow sticky note, filled with Jean’s curvy handwriting.
GODSEND
a novel
by Harmony Prince’s lawyer
a novel
by Harmony Prince’s lawyer
With a droll stare, she raised her eyebrows at me.
See the problem now?
Of course. Of course it had to do with Harmony. Everything in the world, every problem in my life, came back to Harmony.
See the problem now?
Of course. Of course it had to do with Harmony. Everything in the world, every problem in my life, came back to Harmony.
Of course Alonso would be self-indulgent enough to finish his work with a lengthy explanation of what it meant to him. Loquacious prick.
By sheer reflex, my addled mind processed a weak dodge: I was simply studying the enemy. That’s the only reason I had the book. I was studying the mind of the enemy.
Shit. I was too sick to lie.
Damn it, Jean. Don’t do this to me. Don’t be all smart and sexy and weird tonight. I’m not strong enough to handle you.
She read my discomfort, then vented herself through a long, pensive breath.
“Jean...”
“Hold it!”
The remaining patrons watched me as I stood up and dragged my wooden chair around the table. I sat so close to Jean, my knees touched her thigh.
“I’m sorry,” I said with slow articulation. “I can’t type and look at you at the same time, and I need you to see me for this. I’m going to tell you two things that are absolutely, one hundred percent true. I want you to read me very carefully as I say them, all right? Read my lips. Read my face.”
Thrown by my intensity, Jean nodded. I took in a deep swath of air, then held up a finger.
“One: yes. You’re right. There’s more to this job than meets the eye. I’d explain the whole thing to you right now, but it would take an hour, and honestly, the details don’t matter. All you need to know...”
For a brief and disturbing moment, my inner teleprompter went dark. My words, my thoughts, became scrambled beyond recognition. I suddenly wished I was fluent in Sign, so I could chop through this goddamn jungle of rhetoric and cut right to the heart of the matter.
“I had a plan, Jean. I had a plan that would have channeled a nation’s idle rage off a man who didn’t deserve it and onto a bunch of people who didn’t exist. It was a crazy and ambitious plan, but it wasn’t a cruel one. I truly and honestly believed that this would benefit everybody. It just...Things took a bad turn. I know that’s small comfort to the people involved, but since you’re not involved, all you need to know is that I meant well. I screwed up, but I meant well. Did you get that?”
With wide and alert eyes, she nodded. Somewhere on the outskirts of my consciousness was the impulse to run my hands up her arms, up her sleeves, all the way to the peaks of her shoulders, which I’d madly caress with my thumbs for as long as she’d let me. Instead, I merely raised a second finger.
“Two: I have bent over backwards to protect Madison from the more complex aspects of this operation. That is the one thing I’ve done right. Your daughter is such a marvel to me. All I want to be is a positive force in her life. I want to help her process all the deceptive crap that’s floating around out there, but in a way that doesn’t make her more cynical. There are media literacy books that can help me. Websites. I’ll do whatever it takes. I just...”
I turned my head away. “Shit...”
Jean put her hand on my cheek, trying to turn it back, but I resisted her. This wasn’t what it looked like. I wasn’t about to cry. I was about to sneeze.
Finally, it came out. It was one of those full-body sneezes that shorts out the mind, forcing you to reboot. By the time I looked back at Jean, I was covering my lower face with both hands. She had a tissue waiting for me.
“Thank you.”
It was just as well that I sneezed. I was getting a little too maudlin for my own comfort. I took her tissue and whatever dignity I had left and wandered off to the men’s room to clean myself up. I made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror. I was a mess. The strain on my face was visible for everyone to see. The illusion of me was a mere flicker.
As I returned to the table, I dragged the chair back to its original spot, then sat down. Jean continued to watch me, expressionless.
On reading my words, Jean closed her eyes and let out a surrendering moan. She rose to her feet and made her way to me. I was about to stand up, but she pressed my shoulders down and slipped past me. From behind, she embraced me, wrapping herself around my neck like a mink stole.
I closed my eyes and rolled my head back, holding her forearm with both hands. I could feel her breath against my skin. She planted a quick, innocent kiss on my jaw, then rested her lips on my cheek. She kissed the same spot several times, rapidly, as if she were drilling her way into me. It was sweet and strange and almost painful in its potency. Wincing, I squeezed her wrists.
“God, I need this...”
Abruptly, the drilling kisses stopped. She pulled her right arm free of my grip. I could hear the sound of slow keystrokes.
Finally, I opened my eyes and looked at the screen.
I pecked the keys with my right index finger.
She held me tighter, kissing the side of my face. She smelled like lime. She must have worn a facial cream to bed and then washed it off. It smelled wonderful.
Jean signed her affections with a quick kiss and then pulled away from me. She straightened herself out and returned to her seat.
She sighed.
She grimaced sheepishly.
All I could do was blink at her as I put the pieces together.
She shrugged.
God. With that razor-sharp mind of hers, she could shred a man to pieces. And at the rate we were going, it would only be a matter of months, weeks, days, before she’d crack the flaws in my defenses. Soon enough, she’d have the power to break me with just one tap of the chisel.
The rage on her face made her an entirely different woman to me. Selfishly, I was relieved to be an innocent bystander, but the dark voice inside wondered how long it would take for me to earn my own share. Nine days was all it took to bring the hatred out of Harmony, and she wasn’t one who hated easily.
On reading my expression, Jean breathed out a quiet groan.
She briefly held up her left hand, flashing me her white-gold wedding band.
She rolled her eyes.
She shook her head at me, drowning me in her warm chagrin.
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