A Better Goodbye Page 23

  “I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I didn’t think he was going to, either.”

  “Really? Because I was like this is crazy, he’s totally going to turn his dog loose.”

  “No, he looks to me like the kind of guy that takes things right up to the edge, then pulls back after he sees how you react. If you’re scared or weak, something like that, then he’s dangerous.”

  Jenny hoped she didn’t look as surprised as she felt. She’d never heard Nick string that many words together. More than that, he was practically analytical.

  “Wow, you’ve really thought about him, haven’t you?”

  “You fight for a living, that’s what you learn to do. You don’t want to get your clock cleaned because you didn’t study the other guy. If he’s better than you, hey, more power to him. But if you were lazy, you deserve a beating.”

  “I hope you never have to fight him,” Jenny said.

  “Guess we’ll just have to see,” Nick said.

  He stared off into the distance. Jenny waited for him to come back and tell her what he saw, but he just said he was going downstairs to check the laundry. The only sound in the living room after that came from the pages Jenny turned in The Way We Live Now. Its author, Anthony Trollope, was a genius and everything—he’d finish writing a novel in the morning and start a new one in the afternoon—but he couldn’t keep Jenny from thinking about Nick.

  The silence wasn’t broken until Sierra came out of her only session of the day, a doctor from Cedars. “What a douche,” she told Jenny. “Never smiled, hardly said anything besides ‘Take off your clothes,’ and then he expects full service. Practically orders it. I told him maybe that works with his nurses, but not me. And I’ve got a fucking car payment coming up.”

  Sierra picked up her cell phone and started texting, then stopped.

  “Oh, yeah. Barry called.”

  Jenny tried not to look too happy about it. “I didn’t see anything written down,” she said.

  “It’s around here someplace,” Sierra said. “Anyway, he wants to see you tomorrow, at seven. You’re working then, right?”

  “Yeah,” Jenny said. “Did he leave a number?”

  Sierra smiled. “You mean you don’t have it by now?”

  “Somewhere in my backpack, I guess.”

  “Don’t worry, I got it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sierra busied herself loading her outsized purse for the trip home, striding confidently on the high heels she wore off-duty and on. She shouldered her purse and opened the door to leave, then stopped and walked back toward Jenny.

  “Did he say anything about Friday?” Sierra asked.

  “Who?” Jenny said.

  “Nick. You’re the only one he talks to.”

  Right, Jenny thought, because I’m the only one who doesn’t turn around and blab it to all the other girls. But she said, “He hasn’t brought it up, actually.”

  “I thought you guys were, like, closer than that,” Sierra said, smiling as if she imagined their soiled sheets.

  “Well, we’re not,” Jenny said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Look, just because I treat him like a human being doesn’t—”

  “He’s an animal,” Sierra said.

  “He is not.”

  “Yeah? Well, what would you call someone who kills a guy in a fight?”

  Sierra looked smug and mean. No way Jenny could let the bitch one-up her. “I’d call him unlucky,” Jenny said. “He could just as easily be the one that died, you know. It wasn’t like Nick had this dirty trick that made the other guy fall and break his neck. It was a freak accident. Nick knocked the guy down and the guy hit his head on the rope and—”

  Sierra couldn’t hide her surprise.

  “You don’t know what happened, do you?” Jenny said. “You just thought—no, you didn’t think anything. You never do. You heard Nick killed some guy when they were fighting, and instead of checking it out, you decided he was, I don’t know, an animal, like you just said. Or a monster. And that really sucks, you know that, Sierra? And it’s really stupid. And . . . and . . . ”

  “No wonder you’re sleeping with him,” Sierra said. “He’s got control of your mind.”

  “I am not sleeping with him.”

  “Right.”

  Sierra turned and marched out the door.

  “But I’d rather sleep with him than Scott,” Jenny shouted after her. “Do you have to watch Scott’s old TV shows too? Do you, Sierra? Do you?”

  Jenny was angry. Jenny was laughing. Jenny was being pulled in so many directions by her emotions that she had to sit down before she fell down. The front door Sierra had left open would have to stay that way for a moment. Jenny had other things to think about, like what she was going to say to Nick, or if she was going to say anything at all.

  “I should have told you,” Nick said.

  Jenny looked up, as if she’d forgotten he’d be back so soon. When she started to say something, he cut her off.

  “I was out in the hall when you two were yelling at each other.”

  “I think I was the one doing all the yelling.”

  Nick grinned. “I didn’t know you had a temper. From the looks of Sierra, I don’t think she did either.”

  “Did she see you?”

  “No, she was too busy escaping.”

  Nick and Jenny looked at each other, uncertain of where to take the conversation next.

  “I’m sorry,” Jenny said at last.

  “For what?”

  “For . . . I don’t know . . . ”

  Nick watched Jenny shrug uncomfortably.

  “I don’t want your pity if that’s what it is,” he said. “I don’t feel sorry for myself, so there’s no way in hell you should feel sorry for me. What happened in that fight is for me to deal with. I know it’s gonna stay with me until the day I die—I can’t change that. I used to think I could at least make up for it. The guy had a family and I took him away from them, and how do I make that right? I’ve lost a lot of sleep trying to figure that one out. I can’t do it, can’t even come close.”

  “Is that why you work here?” Jenny asked. “Like protecting us is some kind of penance?”

  “No, I need to make my rent,” he said with a small, sad smile.

  She smiled back at him. “Tell me about it. I’ve got a lawyer to pay.”

  “So you know how it is. You put one foot in front of the other and do the best you can—although I’ve got to admit I never thought I’d end up in a place like this.”

  “We need you,” Jenny said. “The girls, I mean. I don’t know if any of them have ever told you, but you’re the one reason we feel safe.”

  “Hearing it from you is enough,” he said.

  “But you made it sound like you hate it here.”

  “Not when you’re around.”

  Nick kissed her, and Jenny let him know she liked it with her tongue. They kissed wet and hard and deep, and then he slid off her negligee as if it were a rumor. The buttons on his shirt were a struggle for her, so he yanked them loose himself. When they were both naked, his first impulse was to carry her into the master bedroom, but fuck it—too far to travel.

  The train they were riding wasn’t going any farther than the sofa. He made a mouthful of each of her breasts, his tongue teasing her lush, dark nipples until they were erect, then worked his way past her stomach until he could bury his face between her legs. She was clean and smooth down there, and he heard her moan as he tasted her for the first time. She grabbed his hair and bucked and writhed, and when she came, she screamed.

  He raised his head and saw her smiling at him, her eyes gleaming with pleasure, her lustrous hair fanned out on the sofa’s cushions. She looked more beautiful than ever when he mounted her and she took his stiff cock in her right hand. But even passion couldn't blind him to her size, her fragility, so he rolled the two of them until she was on top of him. She seemed surprised at first, and then pleased as he entered her
creamy sex and she began to ride him, up and down, slowly at first, then faster and faster, back and forth, round and round. For an instant, nothing more, he would notice that her hair framed her face now and her lips and breasts were there for him to kiss. Then she would throw back her head and say, “Fuck me, fuck my pussy,” and he would pump harder and harder.

  They found a rhythm they didn’t lose even when they tumbled onto the floor in slow motion. Now he was atop her, trying to go deeper and deeper until he touched her heart. He knew she was ready to explode when he heard a catch in her breath and she grabbed his arms. She came a heartbeat later, and then he did too, both of them with cries that had their origins in primordial ooze. But his cry was louder, like that of an explorer who had just made the discovery of a lifetime.

  Later, as they sat on the floor, still naked, their backs against the sofa, she smiled at him and said, “By the way, my real name is Jenny.”

  “Jenny.”

  He said it as if it were something to savor.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Jenny.”

  26

  DuPree rang the bell and didn’t get an answer. Rang it again. Still nothing. He knew the old man had to be around somewhere. His Ford Taurus was in the driveway, needing a wash as usual, and Onus DuPree Sr. never went anywhere unless it was in his ride. DuPree thought the old man should take up walking, fat as he was getting, but he didn’t even run his fucking car all the way into the garage, just parked so it was a shorter trip to his front door.

  DuPree stepped off the front porch and walked across the lawn to the driveway that led to the backyard. Halfway there, he heard the old man saying, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, you a motherfuckin’ ball hawk, that’s what you are.” He sounded like a younger version of himself, the one who had his name in the newspaper, a wife who loved and scolded him, and a son who had yet to bring him shame. DuPree didn’t think about those days very often—no money for him in the past—but when he got to the wooden fence that separated the backyard from the driveway, he couldn’t help it. He saw the old man throwing a torn, dirty baseball toward the cinderblock wall at the rear of the yard and Blanco chasing after it, past the Chinese elm and across the patchy grass that was still damp from the weekend’s rain.

  The old man laughed as he forced himself into a squat and waited for the dog to return so he could wrestle the ball out of its mouth, pet its scarred head, and rough up the stubs of its ears. Then he slowly stood and drew back his arm to do it all again, the years falling away to a time when the white paint on the fence wasn’t chipped, the roses weren’t dead or in need of tending, and Onus DuPree Jr. was the one chasing down the ball.

  “Hey,” DuPree said, staying on the driveway.

  When Onus Sr. looked over and saw who it was, the joy vanished from his face.

  “What you want?” he said.

  “My dog,” DuPree said.

  “Shit, he just got here,” the old man said.

  Blanco was by his feet now, looking up at him expectantly, waiting for another wrestling match over the ball.

  “It’s only until tomorrow,” DuPree said.

  “What for?” Onus Sr. asked, his yellow eyes narrowing with suspicion.

  “Maybe I miss him. You ever stop to think of that, you selfish old motherfucker?”

  “You never missed nothing, boy. Not another living creature, anyway.”

  DuPree nodded, his mouth twisting into something resembling a smile. “You must not have heard there’s a first time for everything.”

  Onus Sr. didn’t respond as he squatted to take the ball from Blanco’s mouth. The dog was ready to go again in an instant, but this time the old man kept the ball by his side when he stood.

  “I’d like to know what the hell you’re up to,” he said.

  “I told you you’ll have the dog back tomorrow,” DuPree said. “That’s all you got to know.”

  “No, it ain’t. But come on in while I get his leash.”

  “Just bring it out front. I’ll meet you there.”

  DuPree headed back down the driveway without waiting for a reply. The old man watched him go, then walked to the back door and opened it for Blanco. “Come on, you got a road trip,” he said. After the dog padded into the house, the old man turned around and heaved the ball, trying to get it over the cinderblock wall and falling two bounces short. “Shit,” he said, and followed the dog inside.

  The fucking carbs were going to kill him. Scott knew it even as he shoveled another fork full of warmed-up Pink Dot pasta Alfredo into his mouth. He told himself the only reason he was eating this shit was to make sure he had fuel in the tank. He’d be venturing into the unknown when he and DuPree saddled up, making the kind of move that could land him in the headlines next to that pussy-addled moron Robert Blake, and he didn’t know when he’d get his next shot at food. Chewing thoughtfully, wondering if he should eat that cold piece of garlic toast too, he was starting to convince himself everything would be cool.

  He had scored a .38 Smith & Wesson detective special from a props guy he used to drink with. It was a cold piece of blue steel with a snub nose and no serial number, and it made him forget about McQueen and feel more like Robert Mitchum or Lee Marvin back when film noir had hair on its ass. To go with the gat—a great fucking word even though DuPree probably hated it—he had butterflies, the kind he used to get before auditions and on his first day on the set. Butterflies were good. They told him he cared.

  Showtime was 7 P.M. Sierra had said Barry was coming to see Coco then. Right on top of things, that Sierra, surprising Scott by calling as soon as she found out, giving Scott and DuPree almost a whole day to get ready. They’d grab Barry when he came back outside, all relaxed after getting off, not thinking about anything except the girl. Scott worried that she’d be with him. That was the only thing about DuPree’s plan that hung him up: Coco might convince Barry to turn their session into some kind of a date. Coco looked to Scott like she could be pretty fucking convincing. But DuPree didn’t seem to give a shit about her, thinking she was one of those responsible girls who would finish her shift before she reconnected with Barry. If she didn’t, if she decided to play hooky with Barry, then they’d just roll with it. Scott could get her out of the way by acting like he needed to talk to her before she took off. And if she actually climbed in the Rolls with Barry, then fuck it, the surprise would just have to be on her.

  Every time Scott arrived at that part of the plan, the part where Coco would undoubtedly see their faces, he got something worse than butterflies. He started wondering what DuPree would do then, and whether it would be ugly, and if he wanted to be in a movie like that. Naturally DuPree had said there was nothing to worry about, just thieves robbing another thief, the kind of thing that happened all the time and never got reported to the police. He’d even told Scott a story about how he had robbed a drug dealer who made house calls. It never made the news, and those sorry TV motherfuckers had their noses open for anything to fill the time when they weren’t showing car chases.

  Scott crumpled the container his pasta had come in and lobbed it at his kitchen’s overflowing wastebasket. He missed and didn’t care. That was how good a mood he was in, twenty past four, getting ready to head to his meet with DuPree. Then Sierra spoiled it by calling to say Coco hadn’t shown up for work.

  “You got to be fucking kidding me,” Scott said.

  “And she’s not picking up when I call her,” Sierra said.

  “That fucking cunt. You leave a message?”

  “Yes. I’m not stupid.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “Well, I never liked her,” Sierra said, relegating Coco to the past tense. “It was you guys that were so fucking hot for her, and she just thought you were a bunch of rice chasers.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Hey, fuck you. I’m trying to help, okay? I don’t get why you’re so interested in Coco and this Barry guy anyway. Are you, like, jealous or something?”

  Sierra wasn’t in on t
he plan. DuPree had made sure of that, warning Scott that if she became anything more than their spy, he’d fuck her up good. At the time, it was the last thing Scott wanted—Sierra was always agreeable about banging the boss—but now he wanted to kill her himself.

  “Analyze me some other time, okay?” he said. “Where’s she live?”

  “I don’t know,” Sierra said.

  “You’re serious? You really don’t?”

  “It’s not like we were friends, you know.”

  “Then what fucking good are you?” Scott said, and heaved his cell phone against the living room wall.

  He stood there seething, blind to the dent he had put in the wall—what the hell, he’d dented it before—and then he moved to pick it up as fast as the pasta in his belly would let him. He needed the goddamn phone to call DuPree and break the bad news. Okay, it was in one piece. He started to dial, then stopped. He had to throw up.

  “First thing I need to ask you,” DuPree said on the phone, “before we get down to any of this shit you’re telling me: You’re going to hang onto your nuts, aren’t you?”

  He was already convinced there was no way Scottie could do it. Scottie was a fucking actor, all the time growing stubble on his chin and talking tough so those Hollywood fools would think he was some kind of badass white boy. It wouldn’t be any different now that DuPree had posed the question. Scottie would give him the only answer he could under the circumstances. Scottie would put on his act.

  “Fuck yes I am,” he said. “Don’t worry about me, man. I’m your dawg—you know that. Shit, you ought to see this fucking gun I got. It is so fucking cool. A snub-nosed .38, you believe that?”

  DuPree wanted to say he bet it shot real bullets and shit. He restrained himself.

  “It’s just that now I’m worried I got it for nothing,” Scott said. “I mean, if Coco’s not there and Barry calls and finds out—you know, if he doesn’t show—we’re shit out of luck, it seems to me.”

  “No, man, we aren’t at all,” DuPree said.

  “You sure?”

  “Hell, yes. It just got more interesting, that’s all.”