The Wild Zone (23 page)

Asshole, Jeff thought, turning it on and quickly increasing its speed from level one to level four. “I understand you were at the Wild Zone last night,” he said, upping the speed to level five, and then six.

“Just thought I’d drop by, check the place out,” Dave acknowledged, jogging along easily.

“Did that include checking out my girlfriend?”

Dave looked genuinely surprised. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m sure you do.”

Dave brought his eyebrows together at the bridge of his nose, as if trying to figure things out. “The bartender is your girlfriend? I had no idea.”

Jeff increased the treadmill’s speed to level seven. “Thought you were a happily married man.”

“Oh, I am,” Dave said. “Very happy.”

“Happily married men don’t usually go around hitting on other women.”

“Is that what she told you? That I was hitting on her? I’m sorry I gave her that impression. I honestly wasn’t,” Dave said as Jeff took the speed to level eight. “As I remember the conversation, she told me she did some modeling,” he continued, picking up his pace, still breathing with relative ease. “I happen to know this guy who’s a big-shot photographer. Shoots all the top fashion models. His pictures are in all the magazines. I offered to put the two of them in touch. That’s all.”

“Uh-huh. How are you managing at this speed?” Jeff asked.

“Walk in the park,” Dave said.

“Think you can handle a little more?”

“Bring it on.”

Jeff increased the speed from level eight to level nine and then quickly to level ten, so that Dave was now running a brisk, six-minute mile. After two minutes, Dave was starting to breathe a little harder. That’s it, you miserable prick, you can huff and puff until your heart gives out. Jeff let him continue running in place for another two minutes, watching as Dave’s face turned from pink to red and perspiration started forming along the line of his scalp. He pushed the Off button only when he saw Larry watching him from the other end of the room. “Twenty push-ups,” he said, pointing to the floor.

Dave smiled and instantly obliged, stretching his legs out behind him and bending his arms at the elbows, pushing himself off the floor with the palms of his hands.

“Slower,” Jeff said, placing a forty-five-pound weight plate on Dave’s back. If Dave wanted him to “bring it on,” he’d be more than happy to oblige. What are you doing here, asshole? You think I’m as easy to intimidate as a woman half my size and weight? You think I’m gonna be impressed because you can do a few push-ups? You can impress me in hell, you conceited piece of crap, he continued silently. “Come down a little lower,” he said out loud. “Okay, grab these,” he said when Dave had finished his final push-up. The perspiration was dripping from Dave’s hairline down his cheeks as Jeff thrust a pair of thirty-pound dumbbells into his hands, then instructed him to do two minutes of walking lunges. “This is great for the heart rate, Doc. Not to mention the thighs,” he told him, noting Larry’s look of concern as Dave lunged by.

“Okay, on your back,” Jeff instructed at the end of the two minutes, grabbing a stability ball and placing it between Dave’s feet. “You’re gonna do a set of a hundred crunches, transferring the ball from your feet to your hands.”

“A hundred?”

“Too much for you?”

“Nah,” Dave said, lifting his legs and torso into the air simultaneously and transferring the ball from his feet to his hands. “Piece of cake.”

“Good. This’ll get that stomach nice and flat. I’m noticing a bit of flab. I’m sure you want to keep middle-age spread at bay for as long as you can.”

“I think I’m doing a pretty good job of that.”

“Not bad,” Jeff said. “And speaking of jobs, how is it a busy doctor like yourself gets to take time off in the middle of the day?”

“I’m skipping lunch.”

“Probably not a bad idea. Go slower. Come up a little higher. Keep that chin tucked in.” You motherfucker. “That’s better.”

“What else you got for me?” Dave asked when he was done with the crunches.

“Set of barbell dead lifts, ten reps,” Jeff said, adding four plates to an already heavy steel bar, for a total of 225 pounds. “This should work your entire body.” If it doesn’t kill you first, Jeff thought. “How’s that? You okay with this?”

“I can handle anything you dish out,” Dave said, grunting with the strain of his exertion, his ruby-red face now bathed in sweat. At the end of the ten repetitions, he grabbed his knees and doubled over, breathing hard.

“Grab some water and follow me,” Jeff told him, scooping a twenty-pound medicine ball off the floor. The game’s not so much fun now, is it, asshole?

Dave filled a conical paper cup with ice-cold water from the cooler by the side window and gulped it down. “Where are we going?”

“Stairs.” Jeff tossed him the medicine ball as they exited the gym. “Up and down. Five minutes.”

“Five minutes?”

“Unless that’s too much.”

Dave smiled, took a deep breath, and began jogging down the stairs. “Something smells good,” he said, then laughed. “And I don’t think it’s me.”

“There’s a bakery on the ground floor.”

“So I noticed. Maybe I’ll stop in when I’m done here, pick up some fresh pastries, surprise my wife with breakfast in bed tomorrow morning. Think she’d like that?”

I think she’d like to see you dangling from an alligator’s jaws, Jeff thought. “Never been a big fan of pastry myself.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Dave said with a wink.

“Three more minutes,” Jeff told him. “Is that as fast as you can go?”

“You want faster, you’ll get faster,” Dave said, although he was almost crawling by the time he reached the top of the landing at the end of the five minutes. “Okay. What next?”

Jeff led him back inside, pointed to a high bar. “A set of twelve chin-ups.”

“That’s a pretty strenuous workout,” Larry commented under his breath to Jeff as Dave began swinging wildly back and forth on the bar after the sixth chin-up. “How are you doing?” he asked Dave. “Jeff’s not making you work too hard?”

“I’m fine,” Dave spat out, trying to regain control of his legs.

“Maybe you should go a little easy,” Larry whispered to Jeff.

“Larry thinks I should take it down a notch,” Jeff said, starting to really enjoy himself. “What do you think?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

You’re a piece of shit, Jeff thought, smiling over at Larry as Dave all but collapsed in a sweaty heap at the conclusion of the exercise. “Okay. Two sets of dumbbell squats. You can manage fifty pounds, can’t you?” He thrust one fifty-pound weight in Dave’s right hand, joined immediately by a fifty-pound weight in the other. “How’s that?”

“It’s good.”

“Atta boy. Keep that back straight. Come down a little lower.”

As soon as Dave finished the thirty squats, Jeff led him over to a nearby bench for two sets of fifty bench dips with two forty-five-pound plates resting on the tops of his legs, then had him ride a stationary bicycle all-out for five minutes at level fifteen.

“I think that’s enough,” Dave managed to spit out at the conclusion of the exercise, his legs wobbling like Jell-O as Jeff led him to another bench at the far end of the room. “I should probably be getting back to work.”

Jeff checked his watch. “We still have time left,” he said dismissively. “How about we do some negative presses? We’ll start with ten reps at two hundred pounds. Unless you don’t think you can manage it. . . .”

Dave sank down on the bench, put his head between his still-wobbly knees, began gasping for breath.

“You all right?”

“I just need a minute.”

“Take as long as you need.”

“Everything all right here?” Larry asked, appearing at Dave’s side.

Dave raised his head, sweat pouring from his forehead to his thighs as if from a pitcher. He looked as if he was about to pass out.

“Get him some water,” Larry barked at Jeff.

In the next second, Dave was on his feet and staggering toward the bathroom. The violent sound of his repeated retching soon filled the gym, competing with the rock music blaring from the speakers.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Larry demanded of Jeff.

“He wanted a killer workout. I was just giving it to him.”

“You were giving it to him, all right. What was that all about?”

“You heard him—he insisted he could handle it.”

“You’re the one who’s supposed to be the judge of that. Shit. Listen to him in there. We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t sue our asses.”

“He’s not going to sue.”

“He’s in there puking his guts out.” Larry began pacing back and forth in frustration. “What are you smirking about?”

“I’m not smirking.”

“Look. I can’t deal with any more of your bullshit.”

“I’m not smirking,” Jeff repeated, trying to stop his smile from spreading. Serves the bastard right, he was thinking. With any luck, he’d have a heart attack and die before the day was through.

“You’re sarcastic with clients,” Larry was saying. “You call in sick when you’re obviously as healthy as a horse, you almost kill a guy because . . . what? You don’t like doctors?”

“I can explain.”

“Don’t bother. You’re finished here.”

“What?”

“You heard me. You’re fired. Now get out of here. I’ll send you a check for whatever it is I owe you. But I don’t want to see you around here ever again.”

“Come on, Larry. You don’t think you’re overreacting?”

“Just get out of here.”

Shit, Jeff thought, standing for a minute in silence before walking toward the door.

“Bye, Jeff,” Melissa whispered. “Call me sometime.”

As Jeff turned back, he saw Dave come out of the bathroom. The doctor raised his hand slowly into the air and waved with his fingers. “Bye-bye,” he mouthed silently, then blew Jeff a kiss.

TWENTY-THREE

T
OM
WAS COUNTING DOWN
the minutes until closing time when he saw Carter talking to a man near the front door of the store. The man was young, which wasn’t unusual in a place like the Gap, and wearing a suit and tie, which was. Tom pegged him as a wannabe–can’t be—wannabe be young, hip, with-it, cool; can’t be any of the above. The last thing Tom wanted was to get roped into a late-day makeover. He tried to disappear behind a floating rack of sleeveless summer dresses, but Carter’s eye proved too quick.

“That’s him,” he heard Carter say, directing the man to where Tom was crouching.

“Can I help you with something?” Tom asked, surfacing reluctantly and glaring at the young man, whose dishwater-blond hair was noticeably thinning on top. Wannabe-can’t-be-no-chance-in-hell, Tom thought.

“Tom Whitman?” the man asked.

Tom’s body stiffened. Since when had a potential customer called him by his name? “Yeah?”

The man pulled a large manila envelope out of his brown suit jacket. “For you,” he said, then turned and walked away.

“What the hell is this?” Tom called after him.

The man quickly disappeared out the store’s front entrance.

“Who was that?” Carter asked, approaching cautiously.

Tom tore open the envelope, his eyes perusing its contents, flitting from one sentence to the next, unable to settle on any one phrase in particular.

“Is that a restraining order?” Carter asked, leaning in closer.

“That stupid bitch.”

“Your wife took out a restraining order against you?”

“She’s gonna be so sorry.”

“According to this,” Carter said, adjusting his glasses as he pressed even tighter into Tom’s side, “you’re not allowed within three hundred yards of Elaine Whitman, her parents, or her children.”

“
My
children,” Tom corrected.

“Yeah, well, whosever they are, you can’t go within three hundred yards of them.”

“The hell I can’t.”

“If you do, you get arrested.”

“That stupid cow.”

“Hey, hey. Keep it down,” Carter cautioned, glancing warily around the still-crowded store. Several shoppers had stopped their browsing and were hovering nearby. “You don’t want the customers thinking you’re referring to any of them.”

Tom crumpled the letter in his fist, then threw it angrily to the floor. “She’s not going to get away with this.”

Immediately Carter scooped the paper up and began smoothing out the creases with his fingers. “Throwing things away doesn’t make them
go
away,” he advised Tom, returning the letter to his hands. “You have to be smart about this. You have to think everything through very carefully.”

Tom reached into his back pocket for his cell phone, called Jeff at work. “What are you still doing here, jerk-off?” he asked Carter angrily.

Carter took several steps back. “Just trying to help,” he said, managing to sound wounded and superior at the same time.

“You want to help somebody? Help her.” Tom pointed to a teenage girl struggling with an armful of blouses. Carter immediately rushed to her rescue.

“Elite Fitness,” a young woman’s voice announced in Tom’s ear.

“Put Jeff on. It’s an emergency.”

“I’m afraid Jeff doesn’t work here anymore.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Tom demanded. Had the whole world gone crazy? What was going on?

“Jeff no longer works here,” the voice repeated.

“You mean he’s not working
today
?”

“I mean he’s no longer working at Elite Fitness.”

“Since when?”

“Since a few hours ago.”

“He quit?”

“I’m afraid you’d have to ask him about that.”

“Well, I’m afraid you don’t know fuck-all, do you?” Tom snapped, instantly severing their connection. “Shit!” Wouldn’t you know it? Just when he really needed to talk to Jeff, Jeff was conveniently unavailable. He punched in the numbers for Jeff’s cell, was transferred immediately to voice mail. He left a short message—“Where the hell are you?”—before trying Jeff’s apartment. That call was answered on the third ring.

“Hello?” Kristin asked on the other end of the line.

“I need to speak to Jeff,” Tom announced without preamble.

“Tom?”

“Is Jeff around?”

“He’s at work.”

“Exactly what work would that be?”

“What are you talking about?” Kristin asked.

“Apparently Jeff no longer works at Elite Fitness.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course he does.”

“I just called there. They said otherwise.”

“I don’t understand,” Kristin said again.

“Welcome to the club.” He hung up before Kristin could say anything else.

“
SOMETHING WRONG
?” Will asked as Kristin came out of the bedroom, her long blond hair cascading past her shoulders, her makeup artfully applied, a pair of black stilettos dangling from her left hand, the buttons of her leopard-print blouse undone, her breasts spilling out of her black push-up bra.

“I think Jeff’s been fired,” she said, leaning forward to slip on her shoes.

Will said nothing.

“You don’t seem too surprised.”

Will hesitated, trying to decide the best way to tell Kristin that Jeff hadn’t gone to work this morning.

“I know Jeff wasn’t at work this morning,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. “He came home when he realized he’d forgotten his wallet.” She related the details of their conversation.

“He told you he was with Tom?” Will repeated when she was through.

A pause. “You don’t believe him?”

“Do you?”

Another pause. “I don’t know.” She shrugged, the shrug causing her breasts to lift up and down. “Obviously his boss didn’t believe him.” Then, absently fluffing her hair, “You’re the philosopher. Tell me, Will, why do men lie? And don’t say ‘Because they can.’”

Will wished she’d do up her blouse so he could concentrate. Was she being deliberately provocative, he couldn’t help but wonder, displaying her body to him in such a seemingly casual, offhand way? Or was she honestly unaware of the effect such a display might have on him? Was he as sexless, as inconsequential, to her—to all women—as a piece of furniture? “I guess men lie for the same reasons women do,” he said finally.

“Are we talking about any woman in particular?”

“I don’t know. Are we?”

There was a moment’s silence.

“Where’d you go after you found out Jeff wasn’t at work?” Kristin asked.

“Nowhere special.”

“You’ve been gone all day.”

“Just wandering around,” Will said.

“That’s a lot of wandering.”

“There’s a lot to see.”

“I take it you didn’t see Jeff.”

Will shook his head.

“So where do you think he is? We know he’s not with Tom now.”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think he’s with Suzy?” Kristin asked plainly.

Another silence, longer than all the others.

“Is that what
you
think?” Will asked, throwing the question back at her. Clearly they’d both been giving this possibility a great deal of thought. Even more clearly, they’d reached the same conclusion.

Kristin brought the two halves of her blouse together, began buttoning it from the bottom up. “I don’t know what to think anymore,” she said, tucking it inside her short, tight skirt and grabbing her purse from the floor.

“How would you feel about it if it were true?”

“I don’t know. How would
you
feel?”

Will shrugged, shook his head.

“Well, I don’t have time to worry about it now. I have to get to work. You gonna stop by the Wild Zone later?”

“You want me to?”

“Always.”

“Then I’ll be there.”

“Good.” Kristin leaned forward, her breasts spilling toward Will as she kissed him softly on the cheek. “See you later, alligator.”

He smiled in spite of himself. “In a while, crocodile.”

“
SO,” DAVE SAID
as he stepped into the front foyer of his home at approximately half past six that evening. “It looks as if your boyfriend got himself fired.”

Suzy fought to keep her face a blank screen. It was important not to betray any emotion, to keep from revealing any potentially harmful information. It was important she stay calm and focused, that she not overreact. Whatever her reply, her voice had to remain steady, her hands still. While a certain amount of curiosity would be tolerated, even expected, she couldn’t appear too eager. She had to tread carefully. One wrong inflection could spell disaster. “What are you talking about?” she asked over the loud pounding of her heart. Could he hear it? she wondered. Could he see it beating wildly in her chest?

“Jeff Rydell,” Dave said, lobbing the name at her as if it were a football he expected her to catch and run with.

Suzy pushed her features into an expression of confusion. She shrugged, as if the name meant so little it didn’t bear repeating.

“The guy in the car on Sunday, looking for Miracle Mile,” Dave elaborated, studying her face for the slightest flicker of recognition. “The one holding the map.”

“I don’t remember.”

“’Course you do. The good-looking one in the passenger seat. Heavy on muscles, short on brains. How could you not remember him?”

“I wasn’t really paying attention. . . .”

“No,” Dave said, pushing past her into the living room. “You were just trying to be helpful.”

Suzy followed after him, her mind rushing off in four different directions at once, as if she were being drawn and quartered. Why was he talking about Jeff, and how did he know his name? Had he followed her this morning? Had he seen the two of them at the coffee shop? Had he watched them enter the motel room together? What did he mean when he said her boyfriend had been fired? What was he talking about? How much did he know? “Would you like a drink before dinner?” she asked.

“That would be nice.” He sat down on the cream-colored sofa, crossed one leg over the other, undid his tie, and waited to be served. “Vodka, rocks.”

Suzy hurried into their square eat-in kitchen, painted the sunny yellows and deep blues of Provence. She threw a handful of ice cubes in a glass, then retrieved the vodka from the freezer and poured her husband a tall drink, trying to control the telltale trembling of her hands. Stay calm, she told herself as she practiced holding out the drink in front of her, as if offering it to Dave, then repeated the gesture several times in an effort to bring her shaking fingers under control. Show no fear, she told herself, taking a series of deep breaths before returning to the living room.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I know he got fired?” Dave said as she approached. He held out his hand.

Suzy quickly handed him his drink, said nothing.

“I know because I was there.”

“I don’t understand,” Suzy said truthfully. What was Dave talking about?

“Remember he told us he was a personal trainer, that he worked at Elite Fitness on Northwest Fortieth over in Wynwood?”

“I don’t remember,” Suzy lied. Did he believe her? He always claimed to know when she wasn’t being truthful.

“Well, anyway,” Dave continued, patting the cushion beside him, silently directing her to sit down, “I got to thinking. The guy had some pretty impressive-looking biceps. And I’m not getting any younger. Maybe I should start working out, get myself in better shape. Can’t afford to get too complacent.”

Suzy sank into the deep, down-filled seat, glancing at the lamp on the cloverleaf table next to her, its dented shade a cruel reminder of how Dave dealt with liars. “What are you talking about? You look terrific.”

He put his arm around her, drew her close, kissed her hard on her cheek. “Well, thank you, sweetheart. A man always appreciates a vote of confidence from his beautiful wife.” He took a sip of his drink. “Especially one who mixes drinks as good as this one. You been taking lessons from your friend?”

“What?”

“That bartender from the Wild Zone. What was her name again?”

“Kristin,” Suzy whispered, feeling her pulse quicken. He was playing with her, the way a cat taunts its prey before moving in for the kill.

“Kristin. Right. You speak to her this week?”

“No.”

“No? How come? I thought you two had become such good friends.”

“Not really.”

“That’s good.” He took another sip of his drink, leaned back against the cushion, closed his eyes.

“So, aren’t you going to finish your story?” Suzy asked in spite of herself.

Dave opened his eyes. “Not much left to tell. I called Elite Fitness, made an appointment for a private session, and went over there this afternoon.”

“You went over there?”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, of course not. I’m just surprised you’d go all the way over to Wynwood when there are a million gyms right around here.”

“It wasn’t that far. Although I certainly won’t be going there again.”

“What happened?”

Dave shrugged. “Turns out our Jeff isn’t much of a trainer, and his boss was smart enough to realize it.”

“You were there when he fired him?”

“It’s like I’m always telling you, sweetheart. Bad things happen to people who get on my bad side.”

Suzy felt a shiver travel from the base of her spine to the top of her neck. She shuddered.

“What’s the matter, babe?” he asked. “You cold?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not upset he got fired, are you?”

“Why would I be upset?”

“Good.” He reached over and patted her knees. “Now, what’s for dinner? All that exercise seems to have given me quite an appetite.”