The Crimes of Jordan Wise (22 page)

"I didn't blow it, not the way you mean. I spent it on essentials—food, rent, utilities."

"Johnson didn't keep you long, is that it?"

"He didn't keep me at all." She said it bitterly.

"How about giving you design work with his company? Or an intro into the fashion industry? That is why you ran off with him?"

"Yes, but he didn't keep any of his promises. He used me and then he dumped me."

"What did you do then? Find another sugar daddy?"

"I'm a bitch but not a whore, Richard. Though I don't blame you for thinking I'm both. I tried to find design work on my own. When I couldn't I gave up, finally admitted to myself that my designs really weren't very good and I was never going to make it in the industry."

"Big admission for you. Big letdown."

"Yes, it was."

"What did you do then?"

"Took a job selling lingerie in a department store. The money was running out and I had to pay the rent."

I said, "Sounds like a shitty job," and managed to keep the malice out of my voice.

"It was. But it's the only kind of work I had any experience with. I stuck it out for more than a year."

"What happened then?"

"They laid me off. Three weeks ago. No warning, they just decided to downsize the department. Two weeks' severance pay and out the door."

"You're being very candid about all this, Annalise—the mess you've made of your life the past two years. Why? What're you leading up to?"

"Jobs aren't that easy to come by up there," she said. "The kind that pay you a decent living wage. I just couldn't stay there any longer, I'd had enough. The airline ticket down here used up most of my severance pay."

"Answer my question. Why did you come back to St. Thomas? What do you want from me?"

"Another chance," she said.

I stared at her.

"That's all. Just another chance."

"Jesus Christ," I said, "you expect me to take you back? As if nothing ever happened?"

"No, not as if nothing ever happened. A chance to make amends, to prove how sorry I am and that I'll never do anything like that again. To be there for you the way I was before."

What gall the woman had! And how desperate she had to be to come crawling like this!

"It can be like it was for us in the beginning," she said. "Even better. A new beginning, a new commitment of trust I swear to God I'll never break."

I didn't say anything.

"If you ever feel I'm not living up to that promise, you can tell me to leave and I'll go, I won't argue, I won't even ask why."

I didn't say anything.

"You probably won't believe this," she said, "but I still care for you. I did what I did because I'm selfish, not because I stopped loving you."

"Bullshit, Annalise."

"It's true, I swear it. My feelings got lost in what I thought I wanted more than to be with you. I'm not that person anymore. What was important to me before isn't important to me now."

Sure it was. A free ride, that was what was important to her. Johnson hadn't given it to her and Cotler hadn't given it to her and however many there were after the mailman hadn't given it to her. The fashion industry and the Big Apple were shattered dreams. She'd reverted to what she was that night in Perry's: a half-alive bitch who felt as if she were running around and around like a hamster in a wheel. The difference was that then she'd had other options, and now the only one she had left was me. Her last reach for the brass ring. Her last chance to live on the edge, to feel alive again.

"You still have feelings for me, don't you?" she said. "Deep down? They can't all be gone?"

"Can't they?"

"I don't want to think so. Richard, it
can
be like it was for us in the beginning. It can, it
will"

Earnest throb in her voice. Pleading eyes. Oh, she had all the words and all the emotional manelivers down pat.

"You don't have to give me an answer right away," she said. "We can take it slowly. Get to know each other again. I can stay with JoEllen for a while—she said she wouldn't mind. Just think about it, that's all I ask. Will you do that?"

"Suppose I say no right now? Then what?"

" . . . I don't understand."

"What will you do? Try to use threats to force me into taking you back?"

"God, no! I wouldn't do something like that."

"Wouldn't you? You've got the perfect hold."

"Not without hurting myself, I don't. I'd never hurt either of us that way."

"Never tell anyone about Jordan Wise?"

"Of course not."

"You never let anything slip to anyone while you were in New York?"

"Never." Looking me straight in the eye. "I swear it."

I finished my beer. Put some money on the table and got to my feet.

"Richard?"

"I need to get back to my boat."

I turned and walked out. I knew she'd hurry up and join me; I hadn't given her a satisfactory answer and she wouldn't go away without getting one. When we reached
Windrunner,
I knew she would ask again to come aboard—beg for it this time if she had to—and what she had in mind. I knew her so well. In Perry's that night, she'd said she knew me and I didn't know her at all, and now the reverse was true. In some ways I knew her better than she knew herself.

So I let her come on board. She walked around topside, exclaiming over this and that. Then, as I knew she would, she asked if she could see the cabin. I said all right to that, too. There was something I needed to find out about myself and only one way to do it.

In the main cabin she did a slow pirouette and said, "Why, it's bigger than I remember. Cozy."

"You'd hate living here."

"No, I wouldn't. The studio apartment I had on Long Island wasn't much larger. I don't need a lot of space anymore."

I didn't say anything.

"The bed . . . or is it a bunk?"

"Bunk. Or berth."

"It's almost the same size as the one in our villa, isn't it?"

I didn't say anything.

"But I wouldn't have to sleep here if you didn't want me to. I could sleep in the smaller one up in the front."

"Bow," I said.

She nodded. Then she said, glancing around, "Oh, you still have the pirate's chest we bought on Tortola."

"That I bought. One of the few things you left me when you ran off."

"I'm so sorry, Richard. You'll never know how sorry I am."

I didn't say anything.

"Well, I'm glad you kept it," she said. "The chest, I mean. I like it there on that wall shelf."

"Bulkhead shelf."

"I don't know all those nautical terms, but I'll learn. I want to learn all about your boat, about sailing—"

"Yawl," I said.

"Yawl. I want to be a part of your life again." She moved closer, gazed up into my eyes. Hers glistened with yearning and sorrow, but those emotions had nothing to do with me. "If you'll just give me the chance."

I didn't say anything.

She put her palms flat against my chest, standing so that her breasts almost touched me. "Will you think about it, Richard? Please?"

"I'll think about it," I said.

She said, "Thank you," and kissed me. Quick and hard, as if with impulsive relief. I knew she would. I knew her so goddamn well.

She looked into my eyes. Wet her lips. Kissed me again. Lingeringly this time, fitting herself against me, her arms sliding up and around my neck, her fingers combing through my hair.

I just stood there.

Tongue sliding into my mouth, breath coming faster, loins making slow, sensuous motions against mine—all just as expected. But I'm not made of wood. No man can completely resist the sexual advances of a woman like Annalise, not for long and no matter how much he might want to. I let myself return the kiss. She gave a little cry. It was supposed to be a moan of pleasure, but it came out sounding exactly like what it was—the voice of triumph.

One hand began to tug at the buttons on my shirt, the other dipped inside the waistband of my trousers. She was breathing heavily now. The wet mouth was feverish on mine a few seconds longer, then she broke the kiss and drew back. The shirt and halter and shorts came off in quick, practiced movements. Like a stripper's. Like a prepaid whore's. I knew she wouldn't be wearing anything under the shorts, and she wasn't.

Long, motionless pose, showing off her nakedness. Her body was the same and not the same. Incipient fat roll at her middle, little pouches of fat forming on her hips, cellulite starting to show in her thighs. Too much liquor, too much bad food, too many wrong men. In ten or fifteen years, she would be fat. Once she stopped caring about her appearance, and I knew she would, she'd let herself go rapidly and utterly.

I let her undress me, not helping. When we were both naked, she pulled me down onto the bunk and twined herself around me, her hand moving expertly between my legs. Into my ear she breathed, "I've missed you, oh God, I've missed you so much, I've missed being with you like this."

Hot, moist, whispered lies.

Her caresses grew more insistent. Always before, the touch of her hands and the sweetness of her mouth and the feel of her bare flesh had fired my blood. No more. I felt nothing for her. Numb below the waist. Dead soldier down there. None of the manipulations of fingers, mouth, tongue produced so much as a twitch.

I'd found out what I wanted to know about myself.

After a while she sighed and gave up. Lay with her head on my belly, still stroking me but in a different way now. Absently, as if she were offering distracted comfort to a sick pet.

"Poor Richard," she said. "Did I do this to you?"

I said, "You broke my heart and my pecker both."

She laughed.

She thought I was making a joke. She thought it was funny.

Funny!

I found out just how much I hated her.

"Head," I said.

"Or I'll come see you again, if that's all right. Tomorrow or the next day, after you've had time to think it over."

I didn't say anything.

"If you let me come back, you'll never regret it. I promise I'll fix what I did to your pecker, too. It'll be just like it was before."

I didn't say anything.

"Think hard, Richard. One more chance."

She sounded so sincere. She
was
sincere, because she was fighting for her free ride. But the sincerity wouldn't last. She didn't love me, she didn't give a damn about me. The only thing she was sorry for was that her life hadn't worked out the way she wanted it to, the only thing she was ashamed of was that she'd had to come begging to me, the only person she cared about was herself.

If I took her back I knew exactly what would happen. For a while she would make an effort to live up to her promises. She'd be attentive, loving, deferential. She wouldn't argue or complain or make demands of any kind. She would curtail her drinking and her pill-popping. She would pretend to like living on a thirty-four-foot yawl, go out on cruises with me and pretend to enjoy herself. But in six months or so, boredom and restlessness would set in and she would regress—gradually at first, then not so gradually—into all her old habits and excesses. The bitch would take over. And the bitch was always hungry.