What he really was, more than anything, was scared. His inner devil reared his head yet again: what the hell did he have to offer her?
There was nothing he could do about that now, so he tried to force himself to put those thoughts out of his mind and enjoy the moment. He knew that wouldn’t be easy.
She was the one who brought his circumstances up, after they had brushed their teeth and climbed into bed for the night. After setting her cell phone alarm for six a.m., she propped herself up on an elbow and stared him in the face.
‘I work with dying patients every day, Wycliff. You learn early in your training that it happens and you can’t stop it. You do your best, but you can’t let it tear you apart.’
He winced, hearing it put this directly. ‘I know.’
‘What’s going to happen after Billy dies? He isn’t going to live much longer, even under the best of circumstances. I live with life and death every day. I’ve seen more than enough of my share of dying people to know that his time is about up. What’s going to happen to you when that happens? Are you going to stay here? Are you going to live here?’
He forced himself not to look away. ‘I don’t know how to answer those questions. I’ve been thinking about them, but I don’t know about any of it yet.’ He stared up at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to feel. I’ve never been in this position. I’ll find out when it happens, I guess.’
‘Don’t close yourself off. That’s vital.’
‘Another lesson they teach you in nursing school?’ He didn’t want to talk about this, not now, not while they were lying in each other’s arms. He didn’t want to talk about it ever.
She wasn’t going to let him put her off. ‘No, it’s what I’ve learned in real life,’ she replied calmly. ‘Watching people die and seeing how those who survive cope with it.’ She kissed his neck. ‘I’ll be right back. Don’t go away.’
She got up and softly padded naked into the kitchen, returning with two glasses of wine. They sat against the headboard, their glasses cradled on their bellies. With a pang like a fist to his chest Wycliff realized he had not felt so vulnerable since he was a kid, if even then.
‘So if it’s just you and him, does that mean you inherit his estate?’ she asked. She wasn’t going to let him duck this. ‘Have you talked about that?’
‘No, we haven’t talked about it,’ he answered tightly.
‘But you’re going to. Aren’t you?’
Wycliff shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Why not?’ she asked, puzzled but still insistent.
He groaned. ‘Do we have to talk about this now?’
‘Not if you don’t want to. But I do think you need to. What are you afraid of?’
‘Everything. Shit, babe, it’s so fucking complicated. I feel like a dog chasing his tail.’
She stroked his chest. ‘Tell me,’ she coaxed him. ‘You can trust me.’
It all came gushing out, a verbal tsunami. Two half-brothers, a couple of years apart in age, both abandoned by their different mothers virtually at birth, raised by an abusive, insensitive father, each finding his own damaged way to deal with their shitty young lives. The older one – him – became physically strong and emotionally shut down, a street-smart ass-kicker, little interest in school, no interest in anything society considers proper, right, moral. Drifting from place to place, lame jobs, no emotional attachments of any duration, because if you don’t get attached to anyone you can’t get hurt. Without embellishment or self-pity he told her about his time in jail, his petty crimes, his lack of focus or long-range planning. Almost everything – not all the details, he didn’t remember some of them anymore – but the broad strokes.
What he didn’t tell her about was his recent history. The past was the past, he could rationalize it away, buried under layers of denial. But his current situation couldn’t be excused as youthful immaturity and callousness. It was right now, a set of circumstances he was not only indulging in, but embracing. Charlotte, for all her craziness, was exciting to be with, and the danger that was an essential part of her was too alluring to turn away from. But she was way too risky to count on. He had to come up with anther way to make money, on his own.
‘Then I found out he was dying and I thought this could be my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. So what if we hated each other like forever, I’m his only blood, at the end of the day he can’t deny me. Right?’
Wrong. Billy could. There was going to be nothing left to him. He would be shut out, another dead end. Any delusions he’d had about getting a piece of the action had been stopped cold by Billy’s lawyer’s chilly attitude.
‘So why have you stayed on?’ she asked. ‘Why have you become his caretaker? Even more, his lifeline.’
Wycliff shook his head in bafflement. ‘That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I’ve been asking it myself, but I haven’t come up with an answer.’
‘Maybe it’s because …’ She hesitated.
‘What?’
‘You’re not such a bad guy after all. What you’ve told me about your past is upsetting, but that’s not the man I know.’
There were dreams, and then there was the real world. ‘Thanks, but how well do you really know me, Amelia?’
She sat up and faced him. ‘Not as well as I want to, but good enough to know that you are a decent and kind man. Anyone who would do what you’ve done, knowing there’s no reward in it, is not a bad person, he’s a good person.’
That’s what she wants to believe, dude, because she’s falling for you. Like you are for her.
He could never cop to that in a million years. ‘Maybe it’s an act,’ he said instead. ‘Maybe I’m pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes.’
She laughed. ‘Then you’ve landed in the right town, because you’re giving an Academy Award performance.’
Amelia slept easily, but he couldn’t. His internal clock woke him up every two hours so he could check on Billy to make sure he was breathing easily, that the humidifier he needed to keep his lungs and throat clear was running smoothly, that everything was working as it was supposed to. Normally when he was alone he would go outside and have a cigarette, but with Amelia here, he couldn’t. She thought he had quit, and he wasn’t going to let on that he hadn’t. He slipped back into bed, trying not to disturb her, but she was awake, enfolding him to her body.
In the morning she was up before him, showering and dressing, turning the coffee machine on, setting the breakfast table. He woke up to the smell of bacon frying. He shuffled into the kitchen. A cup of hot coffee was on the table, a glass of fresh orange juice next to it. Silverware laid out, a cloth napkin. They ate breakfast comfortably, not feeling the need to talk, just enjoying being with each other.
‘I have to work tomorrow night,’ she reminded him, ‘so I won’t see you. I’ll call.’
Billy woke up as she was about to leave. They watched the Today show for a few minutes. Billy took Amelia’s hand and squeezed it. He didn’t have much strength in his grip, it was like holding a baby’s hand, all softness, no muscle. She kissed him goodbye and promised to come back soon.
Wycliff walked her outside to her car. ‘Have a good one,’ he told her.
‘You, too.’ She buried her head in his chest. ‘I miss you already.’
‘Me, too.’
He watched until she drove away, then went back inside.
SEVENTEEN
There was chump change, and then there was real money. Chump change came from boosting cars or stealing television sets from the back of a truck, like he had had done in his wild and crazy youth and was too old for now. Real money was what Charlotte and her friends had, like that financial guy he’d met at the party. Not a thousand here and a thousand there, but hundreds of thousands, millions. He had seen the movie about the guy who invented Facebook. The scene that had really struck him was the one where Justin Timberlake said a million isn’t cool, what’s cool is a billion. A billion dollars was ludicrous,
so out of his orbit it would be like flying into the sun. But a million, that sounded sweet. You could buy a cherry house for a million, with plenty left over in the bank to live on very nicely for the rest of your life.
Too damn soon he was going to be back on the street, closer to the gutter than the sidewalk. That was a reality he couldn’t sweep under the rug like last night’s dinner crumbs. He had a few thousand dollars in his pocket. Chump change. If he was going to have the life he’d always wanted, he needed real money.
After Raquel arrived to start her shift, Wycliff drove to Beverly Hills and made a call from a pay phone. He didn’t know whether cell phone calls could be traced, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
If the woman was surprised to hear from him, she didn’t let on. She suggested they meet for lunch at a restaurant in Marina Del Ray, where the odds were good no one would know them.
The restaurant was an updated knockoff of the old Trader Vic’s franchise – classic surfboards and fishing nets festooned the walls, along with boat accessories – old-fashioned life-preservers, wooden tillers, large nautical compasses. Outside, seen through the floor-to-ceiling windows, boats bobbed on the water in the harbor. The woman was already there, waiting in a booth in the back. A deliberate calculation on her part, Wycliff assumed, to make sure no prying eyes or ears would eavesdrop on them. A smart move. He slid in across from her.
The woman looked better than when he had met her. No smeared mascara around her eyes, and the rest of the package was also more attractive, more age appropriate. Her attire, blouse and skirt, was modestly conservative, and her hairdo was stylishly casual. A tropical drink with a little paper umbrella perched on top nestled on her placemat.
‘It’s nice to see you again,’ she said, her smile dazzlingly white. ‘Even after you called, I wasn’t sure you would come.’
A waiter in a Jimmy Buffet-style shirt glided over and handed Wycliff a laminated menu embossed with pictures of 60s’ era beach movie starlets in bikinis. ‘Virgin Mary,’ Wycliff ordered. ‘Easy on the heat.’ He was here on serious business, he wanted his head to be clear: no booze.
‘You’re not drinking?’ the woman asked, leaning forward and sipping her own concoction from a straw.
‘Maybe later,’ he answered. ‘After we’ve talked.’
She glanced at her own menu and put it aside. ‘You’ve been thinking about our last conversation.’
‘Yes.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Good!’
‘Thinking,’ he repeated. ‘Not deciding, not yet. There are basic things I need to know. For openers, who you are. Name, address, phone number, etc. The business card you gave me doesn’t count, anyone can make a business card. I mean real physical proof.’
‘Like what? A driver’s license?’
‘If it’s legit.’
She grimaced. ‘It is. I promise.’ She took her wallet out of her purse, removed her license, and handed it to him. California, current. Expiration date two years down the road. The same name as on her business card. So that part, at least, was real.
‘The address is in Bel Air,’ she pointed out. ‘Off Stone Canyon, if you know the area.’
He knew where Bel Air was. The air up there was way too rarified for peons like him. Only serious money need apply.
The woman winced as Wycliff read over her license. ‘I don’t live at that address anymore. They kicked me out. I have a small apartment in Beverly Hills. Below Wilshire,’ she added, as if to emphasize how far she had fallen. Her laugh was harsh, self-mocking. ‘I can barely make the rent.’
Wycliff looked at her more carefully. Her license listed her age as forty-three, a few years older than he had guessed. Par for the course for women like her. Rich women in LA work hard to stay young. They pay good money to help make that happen.
He flicked at the license with a fingernail. ‘The last time I saw you, you asked me if I was a cop. I told you I wasn’t, which is true. I need to know the same thing about you. I don’t want to walk out of here and find the police waiting to slap the cuffs on me because a pretty cop entrapped me.’
‘I am not a cop in any way.’ She smiled. ‘No one has ever asked me that one before.’
‘You never propositioned anyone like you did me before, have you?’
‘No,’ she answered, quickly serious. ‘Definitely not.’
‘If I do this,’ he continued, ‘that’s if, not will, I’m going to need solid information about the target. There’s nothing more serious than what you’re asking me to do. I have to make sure I’m protected in every way I can think of.’
She nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘You’d damn well better,’ he warned her. He palmed her license as the waiter arrived with his drink.
‘I do, absolutely.’ To the waiter, she said, ‘I think we can order. Are you ready?’ she asked Wycliff.
‘You decide.’
She ordered a large appetizer platter for two. The waiter freshened their water glasses and left. ‘Tell me whatever you need to know, and I’ll do my best to find it for you,’ she told Wycliff.
‘I’ll make a list. If I do it. We’re still on if.’ He leaned back, looking at her eyes, not blinking. ‘First things first,’ he said. ‘Let’s firm up the price.’
The woman looked confused. ‘A hundred thousand dollars. Don’t you remember?’
‘That was your number. I never agreed to it.’
She sat back. ‘I don’t like hearing that. That sounds like …’
‘Blackmail?’ He waggled her driver’s license in front of her face. ‘Anyone who lived in a Bel Air mansion and drives a Porsche isn’t scrounging in dumpsters for tonight’s dinner. That rock on your finger is worth a fortune and there’s got to be plenty more swag where it came from.’ He palmed her license again. ‘Two hundred thousand.’
She started to say something in rebuttal, exhaled heavily. ‘I don’t have that kind of money. I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel for a hundred thousand.’
‘Scrape deeper.’
She started shaking, visibly. ‘I’ll try. I don’t know if I can.’
‘You’ll find a way,’ he told her. ‘You’ve got too much to lose not to.’
She buried her face in her hands. When she looked at him again, she said, ‘All right. Two hundred thousand. You have to promise me you won’t hold me up for more.’
‘I won’t. You have my word.’
She almost choked. ‘Your word? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?’
‘It’s the best you’re going to get.’
‘Honor among thieves. There is none, right?’
‘Sometimes. You never know till it’s over.’
The waiter set their lunch platter on the table. ‘Looks good,’ Wycliff said, forking an egg roll and some ribs onto his plate. ‘Didn’t realize I was so hungry.’
‘A hundred up front, the rest when the job is finished.’
The woman wasn’t eating. She seemed to have lost her appetite. ‘That’s going to be difficult,’ she said, toying with her cocktail umbrella. ‘I don’t know if I can get my hands on that much cash at short notice. Can we work out a payment schedule?’
‘You’re not buying a dress on layaway,’ he told her. ‘When you have the money, let me know. In the meantime, you can start collecting the information I’ll need.’
‘I can do that,’ she said, ‘but the money, I don’t know when I’ll be able to.’
He licked his fingers from a greasy rib. ‘You should have figured out how to get it before you hit on me back then. This isn’t a walk in the park, this is serious.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ll get it.’
‘All of it. All two hundred.’
‘Wait a second!’ She reared up, then looked around to see if anyone was listening in. They were out of earshot of the other customers, so she continued, her voice lowered, ‘You just gave me your word you wouldn’t change the rules, and now you are.’
‘No,’ he corrected her.
‘Not changing, just protecting. You give me the first hundred up front and hold onto the rest. I need to be sure it’ll be there. You have to look at this deal from my side of the table. You could pull the rug out from under me and I’d be standing in the corner with my thumb up my ass.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ she vowed, ‘I promise.’
‘So there is honor among thieves after all?’ he mocked her. He shook his head no. ‘The only way this can work is for neither of us to trust the other. I perform a service, you pay me. Strictly business.’
She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I guess I have to. You leave me no choice.’
‘Not true.’ He sucked on a rib bone. ‘You could find someone else.’
She couldn’t. They both knew that.
She paid the bill in cash. She was being exceedingly cautious; she wasn’t going to leave a paper trail. Like Charlotte. Birds of a feather.
The young parking valet brought her car to the curb, giving her the once-over as he handed her the keys. Like I would have done not long ago, Wycliff thought. How times had changed.
‘I’ll call when I have some information for you,’ she told Wycliff.
‘Okay,’ he answered. ‘But don’t lag coming up with the money, I don’t want to be putting in time and effort and then find out you can’t raise it.’
‘I’ll get your damn money,’ she said, tight lipped. She stuck out her hand palm up, the one with the big diamond on the third finger. ‘You forgot to give me my license back.’
‘I didn’t forget to give it back. I’m hanging on to it.’
The woman looked like she was going to have a panic attack right there. ‘Why?’
‘Insurance, against you. If this blows up, you could claim deniability. Who would believe a working stiff against a rich society dame? Think of your license as my get out of jail free card. When it’s all over and we’ve settled up, I’ll give it back. And that’s a promise I will keep.’
Whether she believed that or not, he didn’t know and didn’t care.
Turn Left at Doheny--A tough-edged crime novel set in Los Angeles Page 15