The Wild Zone (3 page)

“And then what?”

“Haven’t decided. You?”

“Me?”

“What happens when the summer’s over?” she asked. “Must be a little crowded at your brother’s.”

All roads lead back to Jeff, Will thought. “A little. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go back to school. Maybe I’ll go to Europe. I’ve always wanted to see Germany.”

“Why Germany?”

“My thesis—it’s about this German philosopher. . . . Martin Heidegger.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever heard of him.”

“Not too many people have. He writes about death and dying.”

“Yeah, they kind of go together.” She smiled. “Sounds a little depressing.”

“People always say that. But it isn’t really. I mean, death is a fact of life. We’re all going to die sooner or later.”

“They teach you that at Princeton? Because if they do, I’m sure as hell not going there.”

Will laughed. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Are we talking about death now or Princeton?”

“Do you believe in God?” he asked, thinking of all the earnest undergraduate discussions he’d had on the subject, the arguments he’d had with Amy. . . .

Suzy shook her head. “No.”

“You sound very sure.”

“You seem surprised.”

“I guess I am. Most people are more circumspect.”

“Circumspect?”

“Cautious,” he said, although he sensed she knew exactly what he meant. “Guarded. They hedge their bets, say they don’t know, that they’d
like
to believe, or that they believe in some sort of a higher power, whether you want to call it God or a life force. . . .”

“I guess I’ve never been very good at circumspect.” Her eyes drifted toward the large ceiling fan whirring overhead.

“You look like you have very deep thoughts,” Will ventured.

Suzy laughed, her focus restored. “First time I’ve ever been accused of that.”

“It was meant as a compliment.”

“Then that’s how I’ll take it. You ever been married, Will?”

“No. You?”

“Yes. But let’s not talk about that, okay?”

“Fine by me.”

“Good.” She took another sip of her drink. “What do you say I finish this, then we get out of here?”

“Whatever you want.”

“My three favorite words.”

“You’re really very beautiful,” he told her, surprising them both. Until this moment, he hadn’t actually thought she was.

“No. I’m too skinny,” she said. “I know it’s all the rage, but I’ve always wanted curves. Like, what did you say her name was—Kristin?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty hot.”

“She doesn’t mind about your brother . . . ?”

“What about him?” Hadn’t he just told her she was beautiful? Why was she asking about Jeff again?

“Well, you said he instigated the bet. What if I’d picked him? She’d really have been okay with that?”

“I think they have a pretty open arrangement.”

“Really.” It was more statement than question.

“You finished that drink yet?” he asked, aware Suzy’s eyes had drifted back toward Jeff and standing up to block her line of sight.

Suzy took one last gulp, then lowered her now-empty glass to the table. “All gone. Lead the way, Dr. Rydell.”

Will tried not to enjoy the sound of that as he tucked a twenty-dollar bill beneath his beer glass and followed after Suzy as she zigzagged her way through the tables toward the front door. He saw her acknowledge Jeff and Tom with a sly nod, then wave good-bye to Kristin as she walked past.

“Shit,” he heard Tom mutter. “Can you believe that?”

Will waited for Jeff to say something, but there was only silence. When he reached the exit, he looked back, hoping for a thumbs-up from his brother. Instead Jeff stared right through him, as if he weren’t there. He was still staring when Will turned and followed Suzy into the night.

THREE

“S
HIT
,”
TOM SAID AGAIN
. “Did you see that stupid grin on his face? Like he just swallowed a goddamn canary. I’d like to bust that grin wide open, man.” He banged his fist against the marble countertop.

“Leave it be,” Jeff advised.

“You need something over there?” Kristin asked from the other end of the bar.

Jeff shook his head no.

“I mean, it’s one thing to win the bet, man,” Tom continued. “But you gotta be gracious about it. You can’t go walking around like you’re the Second Coming, for shit’s sake. The goddamn cock of the walk.”

Jeff almost laughed. What did Tom know about graciousness? Although he was strangely grateful for Tom’s anger. It spared him from feeling more of his own. “I think you’re mixing too many metaphors there, Tommy boy.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You trying to tell me you’re not pissed?”

“Hey, what’s done is done.”

“Well, we don’t exactly know that, do we?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we don’t know where they’re going or what they’re gonna do when they get there,” Tom explained. “Assuming they do anything. Suzy Pomegranate could be giving little brother the kiss-off right now, and how are we gonna prove otherwise? We’re just supposed to take his word that he scored?”

“You think he’d lie about it?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Wouldn’t have to,” Jeff said.

“Yeah? Well, she didn’t pick you, did she? So, I guess it’s a mute point.”

“I think you mean ‘moot,’” Jeff corrected him.

“Whatever,” Tom said, pushing himself away from the bar.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna follow them.”

“What? No. Get back here. Sit down. You’re drunk.”

“So what?”

“So, they’ll see you, that’s what.”

“No, they won’t. You don’t think I learned anything in Afghanistan?”

Jeff said nothing. The truth was he didn’t think Tom had learned a damn thing in Afghanistan.

“You coming?” Tom asked, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other.

Jeff shook his head. There was no way he was going to go chasing after his brother. No way he’d give the kid that kind of satisfaction. It was bad enough he’d been upstaged and humiliated by Will all through their formative years. But to have to relive it all over again now, here, on his own turf . . . I should never have let him back into my life, Jeff was thinking, signaling Kristin for another drink. He should have told Will to get lost when he’d first shown up on his doorstep ten days earlier. He should have slammed the door in his smiling, eager face.

Jeff recalled the joke he’d told earlier. “Make a wish,” the genie said. “Anything you want, you shall have.”

I want him gone, Jeff thought.

“Last chance,” Tom said, backing toward the exit.

“Go for it,” Jeff said quietly as Tom pushed open the door and vanished in an imaginary cloud of smoke.

T
HE
WARM, HUMID
air immediately wrapped itself around Tom’s body, clinging to his skin like Saran Wrap, as his eyes searched the busy sidewalk for signs of Will and Suzy. Where were they? How could they have disappeared so quickly? He looked across the street toward the ocean he could hear but not see in the dark, except for the occasional crest of moonlit wave careening restlessly toward the shore. Where the hell could they have gone so fast?

It was several seconds before he spotted them. They were standing on the corner of Ocean Drive and Tenth Street, in the middle of a group of Friday-night revelers, waiting for the traffic light to change. He propelled himself toward them, his gait unsteady, his footing unsure. Maybe Jeff was right, he was thinking, stumbling over his own feet and almost falling into a group of giggling teenage girls in thigh-high skirts and five-inch heels. Maybe he
was
too drunk to go after them. Where the hell were they going anyway?

He watched Suzy suddenly grab hold of Will’s sleeve to steady herself as she flipped off her sexy, black sling-back sandals. He saw Will’s hand reach for hers as she let go, saw her ignore it and dart from his side, running across the street toward the ocean, seemingly oblivious to the steady stream of moving cars around her. When she got to the other side of the road, she stopped and turned around, waiting for Will as he waited for a break in the traffic. The ocean breeze whipped several strands of long brown hair into her face, and as she brushed them aside, her eyes penetrated the darkness, stopping directly on Tom. Had she recognized him? Tom wondered, ducking behind a middle-aged couple, both wearing long shorts and flip-flops, who were walking arm in arm. He felt the ground suddenly lurch beneath him, as if he’d been dropped on a moving sidewalk, and lifted both arms out to waist height to steady himself.

When he looked back again, Will and Suzy were gone.

“Shit,” Tom swore, loud enough to draw a look of displeasure from several passersby, all of whom promptly picked up their pace, as if to put as much distance between them and Tom as they could. “Where the hell did you go now?” he demanded, stepping off the curb into the path of an approaching car.

The driver of the black Nissan screeched to a halt, honked his horn, and swore loudly as he lowered his front window to give Tom the finger.

Normally Tom would have sworn right back, maybe even jumped into the front seat beside the driver, given the asshole more than just his middle finger. But tonight he was on a mission, and he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted. Distraction could be deadly. Tom knew that all it took was one second when you weren’t paying attention. That’s when you stepped on a buried land mine, and
bam!
—your legs went flying through the air, no longer attached to your body.

This was a stupid idea, he decided now as his shoes sank into the dry sand. Ever since he’d come back from that godforsaken country, he’d hated sand. Lainey was always after him to take the kids to the beach. But he never would. He’d seen enough sand to last a lifetime.

And now, look at him. Not only was he up to his ankles in the goddamn stuff, he was going to ruin his brand-new high-topped black sneakers that cost almost three hundred bucks, or
would
have, had he actually paid for them instead of just walking out of the store wearing them. Tom executed a slow 360-degree turn, trying to locate Will and Suzy in the dark. Where were they? Had Suzy seen him, then confided her suspicion that he was tailing them to Will? Were they watching him right now from behind one of the giant palms that lined the beach like sentries, laughing at his ineptitude and waiting to see what he’d do next?

Should he give them something to see?

Tom chuckled as he reached for the small handgun tucked behind the silver buckle of his heavy, black leather belt and concealed by his checkered shirt. Jeff would have freaked if he knew he was carrying, but what the hell? Contrary to public opinion, he didn’t always do what Jeff told him to.

Tom had acquired four guns since returning from Afghanistan, none of them registered—two .44 Magnums, an H'R nine-shot .22, and an old Glock .23, which he rotated on a regular basis. His favorite was the .22, more a girl’s weapon really, because it was small, easy to hide, and relatively lightweight, although it never ceased to amaze him how heavy the damn thing actually was. He’d given it to Lainey on their first anniversary. Of course, she’d refused to touch it. Guns were a disaster waiting to happen, she’d lectured. He hadn’t argued. What was the point? Wasn’t Lainey convinced she was right about everything?

Tom left the weapon tucked into his belt, raised an invisible gun into the air instead, pulled its imaginary trigger.

That was when he saw them again.

They were skipping along the water’s edge about thirty yards down the beach, their bare toes playing hide-and-seek with the incoming waves. Tom quickly slipped off his sneakers, groaning as he felt the warm granules of sand worm their way between his toes.

“I can’t believe it’s still so warm out,” he heard Will say, the wind effortlessly transporting his voice along the shore.

“Can’t ever be too hot for me,” came Suzy’s reply.

Are they really talking about the weather? Tom wondered. What kind of morons do they admit to Princeton?

“It’s kind of weird to think that there’s a whole other world going on under there,” Suzy remarked, stopping to peer out at the ocean, seemingly unaware of Tom lurking nearby.

“Kind of neat, too,” Will said.

Jesus, Tom thought. This was pathetic.

Maybe Suzy thought so, too, Tom realized. Because she suddenly picked up her pace, her thin calves wobbling on the uneven ground. Will ran after her, forcing Tom to follow suit. Which was when Will abruptly stopped and turned around.

“Shit,” Tom said, dropping his sneakers to the sand and reaching for his gun as Will walked briskly back toward him.

“Dropped my sock,” Will called back to Suzy, falling to his knees and ferreting through the sand until he found it.

Suzy was laughing as Will returned to her side, holding the limp, sand-covered sock out in front of him as if it were a dead fish. “My hero,” she said, still laughing.

I
could have been her hero, Tom thought, deciding to go to Brooks Brothers the next morning and help himself to one of those preppy button-down shirts. He quickly retrieved his sneakers from the ground, slapping them against his sides to rid them of sand, and followed after them.

Will and Suzy continued along the beach for several more miles, mostly in silence, the waves chattering along beside them as they walked, Tom staying a discreet distance behind. Luckily, there were quite a few other people on the beach enjoying the warm night air, so his presence aroused no undue suspicion.

“Let’s go to a movie,” Suzy announced suddenly.

“Now?” Will asked.

A movie? At this hour? Were they crazy?

“Why not? It’ll be fun. There’s a theater just around the corner that’s open all night.”

You gotta be kidding me, Tom moaned silently. Instead of going to a motel, they were going to the movies? Lainey was going to be furious.

“Sure. I’m game,” Will said.

“Shit,” Tom muttered, trailing after them. Lainey would kill him for sure.

They stopped briefly at the road to put on their shoes, and Tom did the same. “Shit,” he said again as fresh sand from inside his sneakers attached itself to the underside of his toes, piercing his skin like hundreds of tiny daggers. God, he hated sand.

He followed them for several blocks, relishing the feel of the hard concrete beneath his rubber soles. Minutes later, he watched from the doorway of an ancient haberdashery store as they approached the box office of an old-fashioned neighborhood theater. Five minutes later, he bought his own ticket and went inside.

The previews were already under way, and the theater was surprisingly full, considering it was almost midnight. Tom stood at the back, waiting until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. After a few minutes, he located Suzy and Will three rows from the front. Only then did he settle into a free seat on the aisle in the very last row. He wondered what movie they were going to see and hoped it wasn’t a love story. He hated those.

Happily, the movie turned out to be a violent action flick starring Angelina Jolie. Could she be any hotter? he wondered as she flew across the screen, effortlessly emptying a round of submachine-gun fire at anything that moved. Tom patted the gun tucked inside his waistband in a gesture of solidarity, enjoying the movie so much, he almost forgot about Will and Suzy until he saw them heading up the aisle approximately an hour later. Where were they going? He hunkered down in his seat, hiding his face with his hand. Surely they weren’t leaving. Not before the movie was over.

Reluctantly, he edged himself out of his seat and slipped into the lobby, hoping to see them at the refreshment counter, loading up on popcorn. But no, they were actually leaving. “Too violent for me,” he heard Suzy say to the ticket taker on their way out the door.

“Shit,” Tom said, following after them, so pissed off he almost didn’t care whether or not they saw him. Where the hell were they going now?

“My car’s back at Ninth and Pennsylvania,” he heard Suzy say.

He considered turning around and admitting defeat, going back into the theater, enjoying the rest of the film before heading home. “Nah,” he said out loud. He couldn’t very well go back to Jeff with nothing. “Can’t do that.” He waited until they turned the corner before resuming his pursuit.

Twenty minutes later, they were back in the heart of South Beach.

“That’s my car,” Suzy said, pointing to a small, silver BMW parked on the other side of the road. The distinctive chirp of a car’s remote control echoed down the street, accompanied by the flash of headlights.

So, she’s got money, Tom thought as she and Will crossed the street on the diagonal. Suzy’s high heels clicked against the pavement, her hand outstretched, already reaching for the car door.

Two men in matching skintight white jeans strolled by, holding hands, and Tom used the opportunity to sneak across the street, then duck behind a black Mercedes.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” he heard Suzy say. “The end of the line.”

The end of the line? Tom repeated, having to restrain himself from shouting with glee. He knew it! No way was “little brother” going to score tonight.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Will protested weakly.

“Yeah, I’m afraid it does.” Suzy angled her face toward Will’s, held his gaze with her own, parting her lips in seeming anticipation. “I’m getting a stiff neck here,” she said after several more seconds.

And suddenly they were kissing. Shit. What did that mean? Couldn’t she have simply climbed into her car and driven off into the midnight sun?

“Okay, whoa,” Suzy said, pulling back.

Good girl, Tom thought. Now, get into your car.

“I’m sorry,” Will apologized immediately.

Pussy, Tom sneered.

“For what? Being such a great kisser? Trust me, no apologies necessary.”

You call that a great kiss? You picked the wrong guy, sweetheart. I’m the guy you should have picked.