by Ben English
She’d been too flighty, too preoccupied with mundane, trivial crap. Her hobbies—photography, school, setting up her little business—had never interested Bryce. When it was time to leave, it was time to leave. His father had been proud of his son’s resolution, for once.
And now Bryce had The Story. He smirked into his champagne. Mercedes had been so obsessed with her health, following a specific diet, inhibiting herself when it came to alcohol, drugs, and food—all the stuff that added slivers of enjoyment to life—that he might as well have had a wife on death’s door. She’d given him enough anecdotal fitness and medical knowledge for two dead wife stories.
Not that he ever had to tell all that much about her. Mostly he could rely on the wonderful imagination he found in the fairer sex. What he didn’t tell, or merely alluded to, they could make up on their own. If Mercedes only knew what sort of hero he made her out to be. The women he saw socially always knew ahead of time what kind of man Bryce Westen was; they could see his boat, his clothes, and his car, things about which he never spoke. They were things, just physical evidence of his power. He was it. Likewise, as soon as they found out about his dear wife, gone less than a year, Bryce had a way of quieting himself and easing gracefully into silence, and each of the women he’d known—hell, played with—since Mercedes, had found themselves drawn to this quiet, grieving man. He hadn’t even had to show her picture very often, though he kept one by his bed to throw them further off guard.
When it came to that.
He was close with Robin.
Minutes away.
Then what was taking her so damn long? Bryce looked over towards the restrooms and caught one of the menials there, staring at him. The instant their eyes locked, she turned and walked away, off toward the front of the restaurant, as if she didn’t want him to see—but there had been an expression on her face that he’d never seen before on a hireling. Bryce swore, following her with his eyes. That same hostess—it occurred to him she’d have a name, something to match her face like Ingrid or Svetlana—had worked the reception area for as long as Bryce cared to remember. At least for as long as he’d been bringing women here. She caught up with another woman in a dark green, scooped-back dress, also walking away.
Bryce cursed again, loudly, drawing severe looks from the nearest couple, but he didn’t care. “Robin!” he called, but she was already out the door. Didn’t even look back. Bryce made his way through the suddenly infuriating maze of aisles with as much decorum as he could muster, and reached the front just in time to see her slip into a taxi. Without losing a step, he turned to the hostess. “You did that on purpose,” he said. Bryce kept his voice low. “How’s it feel to just lose your job, muffin?”
The hostess looked at him blankly. Such a little actress.
The headwaiter was instantly present. “Sir? My name is Robere, how may we be of service?” He was a small, dark man, lean behind a perfectly shaped mustache.
Bryce nodded at him, curtly. The supervisor of every waiter and busboy in the restaurant deserved a bit more respect than the woman between them, but not much. Bryce appreciated such men. They knew their places. “This woman displeases me; she’ll be fired at once.”
Robere’s reply was instant, if not exactly gratifying. “Ah. Mr. Westen, Miss McMinn, if you’ll kindly step this way?” With the smallest gesture, he swept the woman and Bryce ahead of himself.
A shade bewildered, Bryce allowed himself to be ushered into a foyer. Robere never actually touched him, but Bryce felt ushered nonetheless. Funny. It was like waiting for the punchline of a joke. What was happening here? He turned back to the headwaiter and pointed forcefully at the hostess.
“This woman, she – well, she said something to my dining companion, and the lady saw fit to leave.”
“I’m sorry, please repeat that?” Robere stood calmly, hands folded over themselves. At some point during their initial maneuvering into the foyer, he’d placed himself between Bryce and the woman.
“She said something to the young lady I was with when she went to the can, and the young lady,” Bryce gestured, “just left.” This was not going nearly as he’d planned. Bryce stepped up, as close as he could to the woman. “You’ve seen me here with other women; right? That’s it, isn’t it?”
Miss McMinn started to reply, but Robere silenced her with the briefest of looks. Even so, Bryce was sure he saw something pass between the two, some sort of tacit understanding.
“Mr. Westen, I can’t tell you how it distresses me to hear you say that. I shall, of course, investigate. In the meantime, would you care to return to your seat?”
Bryce could feel his neck redden under his collar. “And what, eat two steaks? I’d rather order a Big Mac.”
Robere smiled everywhere below his eyes. “As you like. On the house, of course. Miss McMinn, if you’ll return to your station, I see we have guests arriving.” Another look of subtle understanding passed between the two.
Bryce could barely contain himself. As the woman passed him, he said, as if to Robere, “When my grandfather was a guest here she’d have been taken out back and horsewhipped.” He had the pleasure of seeing her start and look back at him, then she was gone.
Still smiling, Robere moved a fraction of an inch closer. “Ah yes, Mr. Westen, though in fact that was a long time ago, and this is a new Millennium. A season of peace. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Again, Bryce found himself conducted in a direction he hadn’t really intended to go, ushered by the little headwaiter towards the door without a single actual physical contact. “Wait just a moment!” Couldn’t they see what was happening here? “Where is your sommelier?” He straightened his jacket. On the house, eh?
“I’m sorry sir, what?”
“Your wine steward, you obsequious little idiot.” Did everyone in this damn town have to be an actor? The man was summoned. The headwaiter was still trying to play head games, Bryce could tell. The cold amusement in their eyes, the way they looked at him. The same way they all looked at him.
Under Robere’s calm, unrumpled gaze Bryce took two bottles of Chateau Margaux, on the house, and stomped out into the growing fog. Two bottles at about four hundred dollars each. Heh. The kind of thing his father would have done. He handed his keys to the valet and began on the first bottle, worrying away at the seal that covered the cork. Most men he knew learned to do this in college; Bryce couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know at least two ways to open a bottle. The cork popped, and Bryce caught as much of the black liquid as he could. When his Jeep Grand Cherokee was brought around, Bryce tipped the driver with the cork.
He was furious. Pissed-beyond-out, he thought between droughts of wine as he drove through Hermosa Beach. He almost ran a red light, then decided against it, choosing instead to harbor his anger, pull it in close to him and let it burn rather that see it evaporate in some meaningless misdemeanor. The Newport police were out in force tonight, he noted.
In his place, of course, his father would think of something far more creative to do than run a red light. Bryce began taking random corners, driving more or less north, trying to think. He considered going to Robin’s apartment, even got on the freeway, and was only two exits away before he remembered Robin’s roommate was in the National Guard, or something like that. Bound to have a gun in the place, and damned if they’d let him explain himself.
The wine tasted like blackberries.
He pushed the Cherokee further north, the need for, what, revenge glittering in the pit of his stomach. The alcohol did little to ease his roiling innards. It definitely wasn’t sitting well on top of the house wine at Green Lantern and whatever he’d had earlier in the evening on the boat. Bryce drove past a billboard slathered with an ad for one of his father’s companies, and almost threw up. Daniel Westen would certainly think of something creative at a moment like this. “Bryce, Bryce,” he began in his father’s voice. “This is not the way you drink Margaux.”
He stopped at a light on Wilshire Bou
levard long enough to work the cork out of the second bottle. Usually Bryce enjoyed the drive through what he (and Mercedes) laughingly referred to as his hometown. Shooting the Jeep through the nearby canyons and hills was fun enough, but nothing beat a cruise down Wilshire. Starting near the coast in Santa Monica, he loved pushing east through traffic, turning his back to the rows of airy, bladed palms, pressing through to the more solid skyscrapers and finance palaces of Westwood. His father had an office here, though Bryce had never visited and didn’t know exactly from which concrete-and-steel summit his father looked out daily over The Kingdom. Next was Beverly Hills, where the houses were larger, softer. Parks everywhere. And everywhere along this gorgeous stretch of pavement lay the ever-increasing signs of raw wealth.
He turned north again.
*
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d soaked in a tub twice inside a twenty-four hour span, but after a day of getting down with the dead, Mercedes needed a fresh scrub. She knew buying an extra large water heater would be worth it. It was really the only way to completely fill up the sunken bath.
The heat had just worked its way back into her bones when the phone rang. Mercedes frowned, sinking deeper into the water, submerging her ears. This was still Mercedes’ Day Off. She’d remembered to reactivate her message service.
It rang again. Then again. Two rooms away, yet jarringly loud in the white tile room. She’d read the owner’s manual. Didn’t answering programs automatically reset themselves when you were done with them?
Damn. On the fifth ring Mercedes stood up, nearly slipped, and stepped up onto the rug. She found a towel from the stack as she skidded out the door, steering herself around the corner with a free hand. The cordless wasn’t in her bedroom; of course, she’d carried it into the kitchen last night, so she’d see what ingredients she needed to order from Arnaldo’s Italian delivery. Mercedes tiptoe-raced down the hall, praying that her blinds were down, and then had to pause during the eighth and ninth rings while she toweled off her ear and face. Electrocution was definitely not the way to go.
At the start of the tenth ring she picked up. “Hello?” Lucky if they’d still be on the line. She’d barely spoken when the birdlike voice on the other end started in. It was Sylfa Smith, her neighbor from two houses down. Sylfa tended toward the musically hysterical when excited or panicky, but Mercedes had never heard her neighbor so vocally disheveled . After the words “hospital,” “tree climbing,” and “trampoline,” Mercedes managed to break in. “Slow up, Sylfa; what’s going on?”
“Joshua fell out of our tree an hour ago and he has broken his arm and we have taken him to the doctor,” said the breathless woman on the other end.
“So you’re at the hospital?” Mercedes started to dry her hair, careful not to drip water over the papers fanned out on the table. “Is he all right?”
“Yes, at the hospital. Joshua landed on his head and the doctor wants to test him tonight before we go home. I have a problem, though. Can you help me?”
Mercedes nodded, toweling off her legs and shoulders, then smirked at herself, remembering she was on the phone. “Sure.”
Sylfa and her husband, Craig, had taken their son straight to the closest emergency room, which happened to be at North Hollywood Medical Center. They’d taken the same car, and now Sylfa needed a ride home so she could collect a few of Joshua’s things in case he had to spend the night. Craig had already taken the car and left for a pharmacy. He wouldn’t be back for at least an hour—the pharmacy was located next to a Fry’s Electronics, Sylfa explained. In her haste to the hospital, she’d forgotten to take any money for a cab.
“No problem,” said Mercedes. She gave her hair another half-hearted brush with the towel. “I can be there in – ten or fifteen. Just tell me where to meet you.”
A minute later Mercedes was on her way to the bedroom to find a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap. She left the towel on a chair as she passed through the dining room. She considered leaving a note on the door, but no. With any luck she could be there and back before Dr. Fenn’s assistant came for the papers. There was still a few hours’ worth of Mercedes’ Day Off left.
*
Now, this definitely was one part of his hometown he’d like to see crumble back into the desert. Studio City. Home base to screenwriters, photographers, sculptors, and pretty much anyone who dared called themselves artists. Bryce nearly laughed out loud. It was only natural that a chick raised in San Francisco would come to nest in a flaky, feel-good slum like Studio City.
It took him three tries to find the correct street. Sarah Circle. Ended in a cul-de sac. He had cruised past their new house a few times, though never in the dark of night.
Fog thickened along the shrouded streets. The lights on the corner wore fuzzy halos.
Two months previously he’d parked across the street and watched the night come down on what should have been their home together. Bryce had lost track of the number of kids on bikes riding up and down the cul-de-sac, and twice he sat through pathetic small-talk as couples young and old stopped by his parked truck to introduce themselves and ask if he was new, and was there anything they could help him with? Didn’t these people have anything better to do with their time than walk around outside together? One of the men had actually set a beer on the hood of the Jeep, ostensibly to shake Bryce’s hand, and Westen had almost tripped the hood release, just to see the look on his face. But Bryce had seen his share of police shows, and knew that dealing with the locals was just part of a proper stakeout. Through the leaves of the trees ringing the property, and sometimes over the heads of his wife’s curious neighbors, Bryce watched lights come on, one by one, in the house across the street.
He’d been that close to her and she didn’t even know it.
Bryce slowed as he began to pass the property. She’d picked the place for its seclusion: the half-acre was bounded by a thick variety of jade-leafed shrub and a brick wall the height of a man. Ivy covered it. Combined with the overhanging trees—at least one willow and lots of eucalyptus—the rest of the greenery made it hard to see what was going on in the house. She had most of the lights on, he noticed. Maybe even in there with one of her pieces of man candy.
His knuckles paled on the grooved rubber steering wheel. The wind made an odd raspy croak through the trees.
It was a nice house. White, one story except for the airy, spacious room above the double garage. “‘A writer’s studio with built-in bookshelves and a pleasant view of the eucalyptus grove in the back yard.’” What, did she expect him to write a book?
Bryce let the Jeep glide to a stop just on the far side of the driveway, turned off the lights, and cut the engine. He put his hands back on the wheel and sat for a long moment in the gloom. A strange flood of slippery feelings coursed through him. The idea that Mercedes was physically in there, right now, rode through him like a wave of cold giddiness. That she could be in there with another guy—there was a nasty little knot of anger riding along with that thought.
Bryce felt clammy sweat pop out across his body. His hands fluttered on the wheel, though whether in anger or fear or cold, reptile giddiness Bryce honestly could not tell. With a start, he realized that the raspy and ragged wind-sound was his own breathing. He was on the edge of a real fury, he could tell. He was about to get really, knock-down pissed.
He knew a way onto the property. He knew a way to get practically into the house and she had no idea it existed. As a child and then later as a teenager, Bryce had loved to hide. He’d spent entire summers building boltholes and hidden passages all through the hedges of his father’s Beverly Hills estate, and even sneaked over onto the neighbors’ grounds sometimes. He considered it a talent, though he’d forgotten how much enjoyment it was worth to pull a sneak like that until a few weeks ago, when he’d driven by Sarah Circle in the late afternoon and spotted Mercedes swimming in the pool in her front yard. He’d almost driven off the road. She wasn’t alone; six or seven kids were in an
d about the dark, roundish pool as well, along with their mothers. Bryce had smiled and left the PTA meeting without so much as a second pass, but later that night he’d driven back to Studio City, parked down around the corner, and slipped noiselessly through her neighbor’s oleander to a certain spot at their adjoining wall. A brick was missing, providing a perfect foothold. He’d gone over with a minimum of noise and crept around the garage to the backyard. One of the things he’d liked about the house when they first looked at it was the master bedroom. It was the room furthest back on the property, shielded from the neighbors by the enormous boles of full-grown eucalyptus, which was a good thing (Mercedes said) because she didn’t want them to be arrested for exposure. Two of the walls in the bedroom were glass, the mullions were set wide, in a style predating the house itself by nearly half a century.
She always pointed out details like that. Bryce didn’t really give a damn at the time, didn’t wonder how or why she even found such a thing interesting. The whole house was wired for sound, at least that was something, and the adjoining bathroom had a jet tub even larger than the one in their condo in Newport Beach. The previous owner had been a regional sales director for a loudspeaker company up in Berkeley, and at least twice as much money had been spent assuring the house was perfect acoustically as was blown on mullions and molding. Celine Dion had been to lunch in this house. The vaulted hall which the owner had hilariously called the living room had seen the likes of Luciano Pavarotti, Ricky Martin, and all the members of The Dave Mathews Band and The Barenaked Ladies. Bryce had grilled the eager owner for nearly an hour about exactly who had been in the house and when, admittedly relieved to find a way to kill time while Mercedes nosed about the four bedrooms. He’d already made up his mind, and didn’t need to see how the steam shower worked, or ask how to best clean the mullioned panes framing the master bedroom.