Her mouth formed a perfect circle. Pierce had lived with her for three years and believed he knew all her facial expressions. He doubted she could put a look on her face that he hadn't seen before. And that perfect circle of a mouth he had seen before. But it was not the shock of being found out. It was confusion.
"Henry, what are you talking about?"
It was too late. He had to go with it.
"You know what I'm talking about. You set me up. And I want to know why and I want to know for who. Bronson? Midas? Who? And did you know they were going to kill her, Nicole? Don't tell me you knew that."
Her eyes started to get the violet sparks that he knew signaled her anger. Or her tears. Or both.
"I have no idea what you are talking about. Set you up for what? Kill who?"
"Come on, Nicole. Are they here? Hey, is Elliot hiding in the house? When do I get the presentation from them? When do we make the trade? My life back for Proteus."
"Henry, I think something's happened to you. When they held you over the balcony and you hit the wall. I think —"
"Bullshit! You were the only one who knew the story about Isabelle. You were the only one I ever told. And then you used it to do this. How could you do that? For money? Or was it just to get back at me for messing things up so bad?"
He could see her starting to tremble, to weaken. Maybe he was cracking through. She raised her hands, fingers splayed, and backed away. She was moving back toward the hallway.
"Get out of here, Henry. You're crazy. If it wasn't hitting that wall, then it was too many hours in the lab. It finally made you snap. You better go check into a —"
"You're not getting it," he said calmly. "You're not getting Proteus. Before you even wake up tomorrow it will be registered. You understand that?"
"No, Henry, I don't."
"What I'd like to know is, who killed her? Was it you, or did you have Wentz do it for you? He took care of all the dirty work, didn't he?"
That stopped her. She turned and almost shrieked at him.
"What? What are you saying? Killed who? Can you even listen to yourself?"
He paused, hoping she would calm down. This wasn't going the way he had thought or hoped it would. He needed an admission from her. Instead, she was starting to cry.
"Nicole, I loved you. I don't know what is wrong with me, because, fuck it, I still do."
She composed herself, wiped her cheeks and folded her arms across her chest.
"Okay, will you do me one favor, Henry?" she asked quietly.
"Haven't you gotten enough from me? What more do you want?"
"Would you please sit down on that chair there and I'll sit over here."
She directed him to the chair and then she moved behind the one where she would sit.
"Just sit down and do me this favor. Tell me what has happened. Tell me as though I didn't know anything about it. I know you don't believe that but I want you to tell me like you do. Tell me it like a story. You can say whatever you want to say about me in the story, any bad thing, but just tell it. From the start. Okay, Henry?"
Pierce slowly sat down on the chair she had pointed him to. He stared at her the whole time, watched her eyes. When she stepped over and sat down across from him he began to tell the story.
"I guess you could say this started twenty years ago. On the night I found my sister in Hollywood. And I didn't tell my stepfather about it."
35
An hour later Pierce stood in the bedroom and saw that nothing had changed. Right down to the stack of books on the floor next to her side of the bed, nothing seemed different. He stepped over to look at the book that was opened and left on the pillow where he used to sleep. It was called Iguana Love and he wondered what it was about.
She came up behind him and lightly touched his shoulders with her fingers. He turned into her and she brought up her hands to hold his face while she studied the scars running across his nose to his eye.
"I'm sorry, baby," she said.
"I'm sorry for that downstairs. That I doubted you. I'm sorry for everything about this past year. I thought I could keep you and still work like —"
Her hands went behind his neck and she pulled him down into a kiss. He turned her and gently pushed her down onto the edge of the bed in a sitting position. He then slid down to his knees on the floor in front of her. With his hands he gently spread her knees and moved forward between them. He then leaned further into her and they kissed again. This time longer and harder. It seemed so long since he had felt the contours of her lips with his own.
He reached down to her hips and pulled her toward him. He didn't do it gently. Soon he felt one of her hands on the back of his neck and the other working the buttons of his shirt. They struggled with each other's clothing until finally they broke apart to work on their own clothes. Both knew without saying anything that it would be faster.
They worked with gathering momentum. When he pulled his shirt off she grimaced at the sight of the bruising on his chest and side. But then she leaned forward and kissed him there. And when they were finally naked they moved onto the bed and pulled each other together in an embrace that was fueled by equal parts carnal lust and tender longing. He realized that all the while he had missed her, missed her sense and the emotional makeup of their relationship, he had also missed her body. He had a flat-out craving for the touch and taste of her body.
He pushed his face down to her breasts and then slowly moved further down, pressing his nose into her skin, holding the gold ring that pierced her skin between his teeth for a moment and tugging it before moving down further. She had her neck back and her throat exposed and vulnerable. Her eyes were closed and the back of one hand was against her mouth, the knuckle of one finger between her teeth.
When she was ready and he was ready he moved up over her body and took her hand and brought it to his center so she could guide him. It had always been their way, their routine. She moved slowly, taking him to her place, her legs coming up his sides and crossing behind him. He opened his eyes to look down on her face. One time he had brought the goggles home and they had taken turns wearing them. He knew at this moment her face would register a wonderfully velvety purple on the vision field.
She stopped and opened her own eyes. He felt her let go of him.
"What?" he said.
She sighed.
"What?" he asked again.
"I can't."
"Can't what?"
"Henry, I am so sorry but I can't do this."
She unhooked her legs and dropped them to the bed. She then brought both her hands up to his chest and started to push him off. He resisted.
"Get off me, please."
"You're kidding, right?"
"No. Get off!"
He rolled onto his side, next to her. She immediately sat up on the edge of the bed, her back to him. She folded her arms and leaned over, as if huddling with herself, the points of her spine creating a beautiful ridge on her naked back. Pierce reached up and lightly touched her neck and then ran his thumb down her spine like he was moving it across the keys of a piano.
"What is it, Nicki? What's the matter?"
"I thought after what we talked about downstairs that this would be good. That it was something we needed. But it's not. We can't do this, Henry. It's not right. We're not together anymore and if we do this —I don't know. I just can't. I'm sorry."
Pierce smiled, though she could not see this with her back to him. He reached over and touched the tattoo on her right hip. It was small enough to go unseen most of the time. He only discovered it the first night they had made love. It intrigued him and turned him on in the same way the belly button ring had. She called it a kanji. It was fu, the Chinese character pictogram that meant "happiness." She had told him that it was a reminder that happiness came from within, not material things.
She turned and looked at him.
"Why are you smiling? I would think you'd be upset. Any other man would be."
He shr
ugged.
"I don't know. I guess I understand."
But slowly it dawned on her. What he had done. She stood up from the bed and turned to him. She reached over for a pillow and held it up in front of her, to cover herself. The message was clear. She no longer wanted to be naked with him.
"What?"
"You bastard."
"What are you talking about?"
He saw the sparks in her eyes but this time she wasn't crying.
"This was a test, wasn't it? Some sort of perverted test. You knew if I fucked you, then everything downstairs was a lie."
"Nicki, I don't think —"
"Get out."
"Nicole . . ."
"You and your goddamned tests and experiments. I said, Get out!"
Embarrassed now by what he had done, he stood up and started putting on his clothes, pulling on his underwear and jeans at the same time.
"Can I say something?"
"No. I don't want to hear you."
She turned and walked to the bathroom. She dropped the pillow and walked casually, showing him the back side of her body as if taunting him with it. Letting him understand that he would never see it again.
"I'm sorry, Nicole. I thought that —"
She closed the bathroom door loudly. She never looked back at him.
"Go," he heard her say from within.
Then he heard the shower come on and he knew she was washing away his touch for the final time.
Pierce finished dressing and went down the stairs. He sat on the bottom step and put on his shoes. He wondered how had he been so desperately wrong about her.
Before leaving, he went back into the living room and stood before her bookcase. The shelves were crowded. Hardcover books only. It was an altar to knowledge and experience and adventure. He remembered one time walking into the living room and finding her on the couch. She wasn't reading. She was just looking up at her books.
One of the shelves was completely dedicated to books about tattoos and graphic design.
He stepped over and let his finger tick along the spines of the books until he found the one he knew was there and pulled it out. It was a book about Chinese pictograms, the book from which she had chosen her tattoo. He turned the pages until he found fu and read the copy. It quoted Confucius.
With coarse rice to eat, with only water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow, I am happy.
He should have known. Pierce knew he should have known it wasn't her. The logic was wrong. The science was wrong. It had led him to doubt the one thing he should have been sure of.
He turned the pages of the book until he came to shu, the symbol of forgiveness.
" 'Forgiveness is the action of the heart,' " he read out loud.
He took the book to the coffee table and placed it down still open to the page displaying shu. He knew she would find it soon.
Locking the door, he pulled it closed behind him and went to his car. He sat behind the wheel thinking about what he had done, about his sins. He knew he got what he deserved.
Most people did.
He slid the key in and turned over the engine. The random access memory of his mind produced the image of the pizza delivery car he had seen earlier. A reminder that he was hungry.
And in that moment atoms smashed together to create a new element. He had an idea. A good one. He turned off the engine and got back out.
Nicole was either still in the shower or not answering the door. But he didn't care, because he still had a key. He unlocked the door and walked down the hallway toward the kitchen.
"Nicole," he called. "It's me. I just need to use the phone."
There was no response and he thought he could hear the sound of water running far off in the house. She was still in the shower.
On the kitchen phone he dialed Information for Venice and asked for the number for Domino's Pizza. There were two locations and he took both numbers, writing them down on a pad Nicole kept by the phone. He dialed the first number and while he waited he opened the cabinet above the phone and pulled out the Yellow Pages. He knew if Domino's didn't work, he would have to call every pizza delivery service in Venice to run out the idea.
"Domino's Pizza, can I help you?"
"I want to order a pizza."
"Phone number?"
From memory Pierce gave Lucy LaPorte's cell number. He heard it being typed into a computer. He waited and then the man on the other end said, "What is your address?"
"You mean I'm not on there?"
"No, sir."
"Sorry, I called the wrong one."
He hung up and called the second Domino's and went through the same routine, giving Lucy's number to the woman on the other end of the line.
"Nine oh nine Breeze?"
"Excuse me?"
"Is your address Nine-oh-nine Breeze? Name, LaPorte?"
"Uh, yeah, that's it."
He wrote the address down, feeling the spark of adrenaline dumping into his blood. It made his writing on the pad tight and jagged.
"What would you like?"
"Um, does your computer say what we got last time?"
"Regular size, onion, peppers and mushrooms."
"That's good. Same thing."
"Anything to drink? Garlic bread?"
"No, just the pizza."
"Okay, thirty minutes."
She hung up without saying good-bye or giving him the chance to say it. Pierce hung up the phone and turned to head to the door.
Nicole was standing there. Her hair was wet and she wore a white terrycloth robe. It had been his. She gave it to him as a present on their first Christmas together but he never wore it because he wasn't a bathrobe guy. She appropriated it and it was too big on her, and that made her look very sexy in it. She knew what seeing her in the robe did to him and she used it like a flag she would hang out. When she showered and put on the robe, it meant they were going to make love.
But not this time. No more. The look on her face was anything but provocative or sexy.
She glanced down at the Yellow Pages, open to the ads for pizza delivery.
"I can't believe you, Henry. After what just happened and what you did, you just come on down and order a pizza like it's nothing. I used to think you had a conscience."
She walked over to the refrigerator and opened it.
"I asked you to leave."
"I am. But it's not what you think, Nicole. I'm trying to find somebody and this is the only way."
She took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and started unscrewing the cap.
"I asked you to leave," she said again.
"All right, I'm leaving."
He made a move to squeeze between her and the kitchen's center island. But suddenly he changed course and moved into her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her toward him. He kissed her on the mouth. She quickly pushed him back, spilling water on both of them.
"Good-bye," he said before she could speak. "I still love you."
As he walked toward the door he slid the key to the house off his key ring. He dropped it on the small entry table under the mirror by the door. He turned and looked back at her as he opened the door. And she turned away.
36
Breeze was one of the Venice walk streets, which meant Pierce would have to get out of his car to get close to it. In several neighborhoods near the beach the small bungalows were built facing each other, with only a sidewalk between them. No streets. Narrow alleys ran behind the houses so owners had access to their garages. But the fronts of the homes bordered the shared sidewalk. It was a distinct plan in Venice, a design to promote neighborliness and at the same time put more homes on smaller parcels of land. Walk street houses were highly prized.
Pierce found a parking space at the curb on Ocean near the hand-painted war memorial and walked down to Breeze. It was nearly seven o'clock and the sky was beginning to acquire the burnt-orange color of a smoggy sunset. The address he had gotten from Domino's was halfway down the block.
Pierce strolled along the sidewalk like he was on his way to the beach for the sunset. As he passed 909 he nonchalantly took a look. It was a yellow bungalow, smaller than most of the others on the block, with a wide front porch with an old glider seat on it. Like most of the houses on the block, it had a white picket fence out front with a gate.
Chasing the Dime (2002) Page 30