by James Hayman
He let the irritation go when Zoe and the rest of the cast stepped in front of the curtain to take their bows. He stood with the audience and applauded as loudly as, if not more so than, anyone else in the theater. Took the overchewed ball of gum from his mouth and whistled loudly. Of course, Tyler’s applause was only for Zoe. His gaze fixed only on her. Her dark and penetrating eyes. Her glorious smile. The slender perfection of her figure. At last, when the curtain calls were finally finished and the actors gone from the stage, Tyler slung his pack around one shoulder and walked out, once again practically the last to leave the theater. For the first time, his mind was finally and truly made up. He could wait no longer. He pulled a crushable Aussie outback hat from his backpack and put it on. Kind of goofy-looking, but what with all the damned surveillance cameras on the streets these days, the wide brim did a good job of hiding his face. And on a cold, drizzly night like this, it wouldn’t even attract much attention. Tyler left the theater by a side exit, crossed the street and stood in the shadows of a darkened computer repair shop, waiting for Zoe to emerge from the stage door dressed in her own street clothes.
When she finally walked out, she wasn’t alone. She was with Randall Carter, the big black dude who played Othello. They stood together on the sidewalk talking. Tyler felt rage once again building as they talked. Especially when Carter leaned down and kissed Zoe on the lips. Nothing passionate. Nothing sexy. But still. The woman Tyler considered his own kissing some hotshot Hollywood bastard? A black hotshot Hollywood bastard no less, which made it even harder to take. Tyler could barely keep his rage from roaring back, barely restrain himself from rushing across the street and kicking the shit out of Carter. While he stood there seething, a black Lincoln SUV pulled up. Randall Carter got in. Zoe waved. The car drove off. Zoe pulled up the hood on her rain jacket and started walking by herself along the street. Tyler watched and waited until she was a little ahead before following.
Chapter 1
The Laughing Toad on Rivington was regarded by most hip young New Yorkers as one of the places to see and be seen, not just on the Lower East Side but anywhere in the city. For this reason, even late on a cold, drizzly Sunday night in early October, the Toad was jammed. Tyler Bradshaw, having followed Zoe all the way from the theater, watched his beautiful Desdemona, even more beautiful without her wig and stage makeup, push her way through a pair of double glass doors and disappear inside. For ten minutes he stood waiting in the dark on the other side of the street and debated whether to follow or just wait there until she left. If he did go in, people would see and possibly remember him. But unless by some unlucky chance he ran into someone he knew, he didn’t think that would matter.
Besides, what did it matter if he did run into one of his few old friends? Or even an old enemy like Roger Kroner, the guy he’d slugged at the law firm. Why would anyone think twice about seeing him in the Toad? And with hundreds of people in there, why would anyone connect him to Zoe? Wasn’t he just another cool New York kind of guy who might want to grab a drink at one of the hottest and most crowded places in town? Damned right he was. No. No more waiting in the shadows. He wanted to see Zoe in her natural setting. He’d been looking forward to this night for far too long to put it off any longer.
That having been settled, Tyler crossed the street and entered the Laughing Toad.
Once inside he pulled his hat off, stuffed it in his pack and stood by the door, scanning the fluid mass of beautiful faces and perfect bodies that filled the bar space and spilled over into the dining area. He could see no sign of Zoe. Still, he was sure she was here. Had to be unless she’d run out the back or climbed out through the ladies’ room window. He imagined her slender body wedged halfway in and halfway out of an undersized restroom window, legs and arms flapping helplessly on either side. The idea made him laugh. It was nice to laugh. People said he didn’t laugh enough and they were probably right. Still, he was sure she wasn’t stuck in any window. The scene was too slapstick, and there was no way the script Tyler had created for himself and his co-star would ever work as comedy. The love story of Tyler and Zoe was far too sophisticated, sensual and sexy—Tyler took some minor pleasure from the ease with which he came up with three S words in a row, though none was an SL—to allow for comic pratfalls. He was sure his true love was here. She was somewhere in this room. Just waiting to be discovered by her last and final lover.
“Hi there,” a slightly nasal female voice called from behind Tyler’s left shoulder. Not Zoe’s voice. Someone else’s that was far less silken. He turned and nodded at the young hostess who’d arrived unseen.
“Do you have a rez? Or can I help you find your party?”
He forced a smile. A sophisticated New York kind of smile, he thought. “No thanks. I’m just going to grab a drink at the bar.”
“Hey, if you can manage to get to the bar, go for it,” she said, returning the smile.
“Is this the way it always is in here?”
“Yup. Pretty much. Anyway, a big guy like you should be able to squeeze through no problem.”
It took him a second to realize she was flirting Sometimes he was slow to recognize when a woman found him attractive. Though he was sure many did. “Yeah. No problem,” he told her. She was okay in a slightly plump kind of way but she wasn’t who he was looking for. Certainly not tonight. Probably not ever.
Tyler plunged into the crowd, looking every which way for Zoe’s face and not seeing it, murmuring excuse me’s and sorry’s and offering what he was sure were appropriately apologetic smiles to those he jostled. Most people ignored him. A few women returned the smile. One, wearing a pair of very tight black leggings, turned and glared at him after he let his hand slide kind of, sort of accidentally across her ass. Yes, he knew it was a mistake to draw attention to himself like that, but it was a nice ass. Not Zoe nice. But nice enough for an accidental slide. He moved on, immensely pleased with himself.
Tyler continued threading his way through the crowd toward the end of the bar when he looked to his left and, through an opening, saw Zoe. There she was. Just nineteen feet away at one of the Toad’s coveted corner tables, sipping a glass of white wine, smiling and talking animatedly with some guy. Tyler stood, watching both of them, but mostly watching her. His breathing quickened. His heart began beating faster now that the game was definitely on.
There you are, Zoe. There you are, my sweet Desdemona.
He knew it was stupid to keep looking directly at her but he found it next to impossible to tear his eyes away. His gaze traced the slender oval of her face. Her lovely slim body. Her dark nearly black hair cut short to expose the elegant curve of her neck. Her long, graceful hands gesturing as she made a point to the man she was with. The bones of her wrists so thin he knew it would take almost no torque at all between the reciprocating components before he would hear the sound of them cracking within his grasp.
Her reviews in the off-off-Broadway production of Othello had been raves. A star is born, cooed an amateur reviewer from an online journal called the Lower East Side Patch, apparently unembarrassed to offer such a stupid cliché. Many more juicy roles ahead for this young Desdemona wrote the more respected reviewer from New Yorker. Though Zoe didn’t know it yet, her particular star would soon be shining very brightly on a different stage, in a very different sort of role—one he had written just for her.
Tyler kept looking. Zoe seemed too engaged in conversation to notice him, her eyes focused only on her companion, a young man who was at least as tall as Tyler, maybe even a little taller, with dark curly hair, a muscular body and the ubiquitous two-day growth of beard every male with even the slightest pretense of cool seemed to be sporting these days. Was this the latest boyfriend? Were they lovers? Tyler had never seen the guy before, so maybe not. He knew she’d broken up with the man she’d been living with. A surgical resident up at New York Presbyterian. It had been barely two weeks since he’d watched the former boyfriend start moving his shit out of the apartment he shared with Zoe
into one of those pint-sized U-Haul trucks.
Could she have taken up with somebody else so soon? It didn’t seem her style. At least not what he was sure her style would be. So maybe this new guy was just a friend. Maybe another actor in the play. Though he’d seen Othello a dozen times, he’d never really focused on anyone but Zoe. Not even Randall Carter, who played the title role, the guy who’d kissed her on the street and who, it was rumored, was thinking of taking the production uptown to the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center. Good for him if he managed it. But such a shame he’d have to have to find a new Desdemona. This one was taken.
Zoe laughed at something the man said. Then he said something else and she laughed again. Irritated, Tyler wondered what it was she found so funny. Maybe he could get her to share the joke with him. Maybe it would make him laugh as well. But probably not. Tyler wasn’t much of a laugher. His father used to get pissed off when Tyler didn’t laugh at his stupid jokes. He usually accused Tyler of not getting them. Of not even understanding what a joke was. Beat the crap out of Tyler when he answered back. Once Tyler told the bastard he sure as hell knew what a joke was. As a matter of fact, he was looking at one. That’s when the old man punched him in the gut, picked him up, and tossed him headfirst into the shallow end of the fucking pool. Landed him in the hospital for over a week with a severe concussion. Of course, his father lied about what he’d done to his fourteen-year-old son. Told the doctors the two of them were playing Frisbee and his stupid kid had made a leaping dive trying to catch one and landed on his head in the pool.
Amazingly, the jerks bought it. Probably because his old man was rich. Big donor to the local hospital. Still, it was only a couple of years before Tyler grew big enough and angry enough that his old man didn’t try that kind of shit anymore. He remembered the two of them, faces just inches apart, screaming and swearing at each other, and he remembered how good it felt the first time, after he’d been punched hard in the face, when he’d punched his father right back. He remembered the blood pouring out of the bastard’s nose as the old man backed off. Christ, what a zoo it all was. But not anymore. Tyler had taken care of it and was done with that shit once and for all.
His mind returned to the moment, his eyes still fixed on Zoe and her companion. He felt a surge of anger at how engaged in their conversation they seemed to be. He felt sure the guy was a fellow actor. He had that studied look-at-me, aren’t-I-wonderful attitude all actors seemed to have. No, it wasn’t just an attitude. It was an absolute need that actors had to be the center of attention. Zoe had some of that too but at least she deserved it. It’d be hard for anyone not to look at Zoe McCabe. Tyler wondered if the guy was one of Zoe’s classmates from Juilliard. Maybe. Maybe not. Who cared? Whoever he was, he hoped Mr. Curly-Top wasn’t going to add an unneeded and unwanted complication to tonight’s festivities. Take it one step at a time, Tyler told himself. If he had to get rid of the guy to take possession of his prize, so be it. He just hadn’t planned to take out some random guy tonight, and doing so might require some change of plans. Still, Tyler appreciated the literary touch it added to the plot. The hero slays the rival. Takes possession of the queen. Rides off into the sunset. The audience stands and cheers.
Tyler felt himself getting excited. Too excited. He closed his eyes, and he wasn’t in the Toad anymore. He was standing under a waterfall on a hot summer day with a naked Zoe pressed up against him. Would she ever love him back the way he loved her? He was convinced she would if he handled it right. She would. She was going to. She had to. If she didn’t, well, he didn’t want to think now about what he’d have to do then. Suddenly Tyler’s mind was running at a thousand miles an hour. Flashes and lines began shooting out from his brain in every direction. More flashes and lines wrapping themselves above, below and around Zoe. Until her face and eyes and legs and breasts and laugh became part of the lines and he thought he would explode into a million pieces if he couldn’t make the shooting lines go away. He shut his eyes as tightly as he could. Clenched his teeth until they surely must be near breaking. Balled his hands into tight fists. Stop! Please stop! A silent scream inside his head pleading with his brain to stop the seizure. Surely people around him must be staring. Moving away. Giving the crazy man space. He forced himself to slow it down. He breathed deeply in and out until he was finally able to open his eyes. Tyler continued the slow breathing, started counting drops falling from the faucet and finally, after seventy-eight drops, everything was just as it was before. He looked around. Nobody seemed to be staring at him. No one was moving away. No one in the crowd even seemed to notice.
Tyler looked back at Zoe. Then, as if she had somehow felt the intensity of what had just happened inside his head, she turned and looked at him. Her smile disappeared. Her dark eyebrows arched downward.
Uncertainty flitted across her face. Instead of turning away, Tyler forced himself to look like a normal guy noticing a pretty girl. Forced himself to acknowledge her look with a simple nod and a smile. She smiled and nodded back. But it was only half a smile. Not genuine. Really, she was probably just trying to figure out if she knew him or not. But that was okay. They had met, albeit briefly, at the opening night party. Besides, Zoe had to be used to men looking at her. Men smiling at her. Men pursuing her. How could she not?
In the end, it was Tyler who turned away first, telling himself it was better not to be too obvious in the middle of a crowd. He moved on to the end of the bar, where he managed to land a corner stool just as its previous tenant checked out. He couldn’t see Zoe from where he sat. But that was okay. It meant she couldn’t see him either and she’d probably forget the few seconds of intimacy they’d shared. No big deal. The stool provided Tyler with a clear view of the exit. No question he’d be able to spot her when she and her companion left. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to sit here too long.
Since this was the first time Tyler had ever been inside the Laughing Toad, he took a minute to look around, to check out the large, dimly lit room with its dark walls. Paintings, drawings and framed photographs of toads covering every inch of wall space. Fat toads, thin toads, spotted toads, leaping toads and, of course, laughing toads, including one sizable oil painting of a Disney-like toad sporting a prince’s royal crown. He’d read online that most of the toads in the room were the work of neighborhood artists who donated the images in return for a couple of free drinks and the status of having their work on display in what many considered one of the hippest hangouts in New York. Most prominent of the toads and seeming to lord it over all the others was a giant-sized wooden sculpture of a toad’s head, meticulously carved from what Tyler was pretty sure was a single piece of walnut. Tyler loved good woods. Interesting woods. He loved working with them, sculpting them into interesting shapes at his workshop in the country. It was one of the only things that made him feel really and truly happy. Good wood or not, the sculpture itself was pretty ugly. The toad’s head protruded from the wall like a deer’s head in a hunting lodge and was positioned in a place of honor above and just to the right of the front door, its oversized lips squeezed into a grotesque parody of a grin. Ever since the Toad had opened, Tyler had heard tales of various patrons—mostly women but also a few gay men—pulling over a table, putting a chair on top of the table and climbing drunkenly up the stack to the cheers of those around them in an effort to press their own lips against the toad’s. He supposed that each was secretly hoping a kiss from the ugly monster might give them a little luck in finding the rich, handsome prince they longed for to help them live happily—and perhaps wealthily—ever after. Tyler smiled at the thought. If any of the women had actually managed to kiss the thing without breaking her neck, and if by some miracle a prince had actually materialized, Tyler could assure them that even the handsomest and richest of princes might in the end turn out to be far uglier than any toad.
Chapter 2
At 11:34 on that same Sunday night, just as Tyler Bradshaw was walking through the etched double-glass doors of the Laughi
ng Toad, some three hundred and twenty miles to the north and east, Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe, head of the Portland, Maine, Police Department’s Crimes Against People unit, and his top investigator, Detective Maggie Savage, were engaged in activities both felt demanded their undivided attention.
Activities that were, however, briefly interrupted when McCabe’s silenced cell began vibrating on the table next to the bed.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he managed to say, pushing himself up and looking at the phone.
“Don’t you dare pick that up,” Maggie instructed through heavy breathing. “Please. Not now.”
Following Maggie’s lead, McCabe ignored the phone and turned his attentions back to the woman whose long, slender body lay beneath his own. The woman he loved far more than anyone he’d ever loved before. The woman who, just an hour ago, he’d asked to become his wife. It bothered him that she hadn’t accepted immediately, telling him she wanted to think about it. What was there to think about? He loved her. She loved him, or at least she said she did. Shouldn’t that have sealed the deal? The uncertainty bothered him.
Four more rings went unanswered and finally the phone went silent. The breathing of the two lovers quickened, accompanied only by an occasional gasp as McCabe began to move faster and Maggie dug her nails hard enough into his back to nearly draw blood. It took only another sixty seconds before their bodies arched, not quite but almost in unison. Then stiffened. Then slowly and deliciously relaxed. For several long minutes the two of them lay in place, still coupled, softly kissing each other’s faces and necks.
“As much as it pains me to say this , but hadn’t you better see who was calling?”
McCabe sighed. “Yup. You’re right.”
“I am?”
“You are.”
“Damn.”
He sat up, swung his bare legs over the side of the bed and grabbed the phone from the side table. He sat for a moment silently studying the screen.