"What kinds of things?"
He rolled his fork in his spaghetti. "Oh, all kinds of things. Precious metals. Antiques. Anything I can buy one place and sell another. It's why I'm here in Chicago. Doing another deal."
"Sounds fascinating."
"It pays the bills. Let's me buy and sell the stuff that's really important."
He tossed off the comment as it was nothing, as if he didn't intend for it to lead anywhere.
"And what would that be?" she asked.
"Hmm?"
"What's really important?"
"Oh. Well . . ." He looked around nervously. "I really shouldn't say here. It's not exactly, um, above board."
"Now you've really got me interested."
"I'll tell you later," he said. "Why don't you tell me about you? Maybe start by explaining why you're not married, because I've been sitting here wondering just how a woman as attractive as you could still be single." Not many guys could make such a comment without it sounding phony, but Trevor knew the trick to delivering compliments was to speak them as if you were completely unaware that they were compliments.
It induced the desired effect. He saw a hint of red in her cheeks.
"Well, I was married," she said, and then she went on to explain everything he already knew. Her husband, who had done quite well as a real estate developer, had died three years earlier in a mountain climbing accident. No kids. She was thinking of going back and finishing her degree. She didn't say anything about her financial situation, but he already knew from his research that she was worth a cool two million. The life insurance policy on her husband had been worth a million by itself.
Later, he parked his Mercedes outside her lake view condo. He glimpsed Lake Michigan in the gap between the ten-story buildings and the leafless oak trees—a black expanse, a few shimmering lights on the horizon. She fidgeted with her dress. The street lamp above them cast deep shadows on her face. My, she was lovely. The apricot scent of her perfume was wonderful. Patience now.
"I have something I should tell you," he said. "You may not like it."
He couldn't see her eyes, but he saw her lips part. "Oh?"
"What I said back at the restaurant. About selling things. You see, I . . . uh . . . Wow, I didn't think this would be so hard."
She took hold of his hand. Her skin felt soft and slightly moist, as if she pampered them often with lotion.
"Go ahead," she said, "you can tell me."
"Well . . . I'm kind of afraid you're not going to like me when I tell you." He hesitated for a few seconds to make it seem like he was struggling, then plunged ahead. "Well, it's like this. I told you I buy and sell things so I can buy and sell things that really matter. What I didn't tell you is that what I've been buying that really matters is . . . drugs."
Her grip on his hand slightly relaxed. "Drugs?"
"Yes. Marijuana, actually."
"Oh . . ."
"But it's not like you think. I don't buy it so I can sell it to just anyone. I buy it to sell it to people who are suffering, who have cancer or some other disease." He swallowed hard. "You see, my Aunt Nancy. . . I haven't told anyone about this."
"It's okay," she said.
There was still a bit of hesitancy in her voice, but he hadn't lost her. He knew that this was the critical moment, where the deal could fall apart. Time to really lay on the charm. "My Aunt Nancy," he continued, "she meant everything to me. After my parents died when I was little—"
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"It's all right. It's when I was three. But my aunt, she raised me. When I was in high school back in New Jersey, she died of breast cancer. It was awful there toward the end. She smoked marijuana for a while, and that helped, but we were poor, and she just couldn't find any cheap enough. She was really suffering there toward the end."
She squeezed his hand reassuringly and he squeezed it back.
"It's good to say this," he said. "I needed—I needed to tell it to someone. When I finally started making some money, I vowed that when I had extra cash, I would buy marijuana and sell it to people in need. Below cost, if necessary. I've even given some of it away. If the government legalized it, it would help even more, but I do what I can. Technically, I'm trafficking in narcotics. I . . . I understand if you don't want to see me anymore."
He allowed his voice to choke up a little at the end, then he turned and stared off into the night. When he looked at her, her face was inches from his own, her breath warm on his face.
She leaned forward and kissed him. He reacted stiffly at first, then leaned into it. Her lips were as soft and moist as her hands.
When they were finished, she said, "I hope you don't mind."
He just looked at her. Blinked a few times, swallowed. Everything was falling into place.
"If you want to come upstairs . . ." she said.
This time he squeezed her hand. My God, did he want to go upstairs. Here was the real challenge. Here was the testament to his talent and control.
"Gosh, I'd love to," he said, "but I don't want to be a one night stand to you."
"Oh, I wasn't saying—"
"I know you weren't. But I want to take it slow, okay? I don't want to ruin this. I'm here all week trying to put this deal together. Tomorrow?"
"Okay," she said.
"You're not hurt are you?"
"No, no."
But he could see that she was. The right kind of hurt. A little prick that would start the bleeding.
"All right, then," he said. "Pick you up at eight."
She kissed him again, lightly this time. Now there was just a hint of desperation in it, and it was good. She opened the door, and the dome light came on, lighting up her face. He saw that a few tears had smeared her mascara. It startled him. He hadn't known she'd been crying.
"I really admire you, Trevor," she said, and the sound of his name in her voice sent a tingle up his spine.
"Oh, it's nothing," he said.
"No, it's not. You're risking your life, your future, so you can help people. I . . . I think that's a great way to respond to a loss. I wish I'd been like that. When I lost my parents—"
"You lost your parents?" he asked.
She nodded. "It was when I was in grade school. A car accident. It wasn't even a drunk driver, just somebody stupid. I grew up with my grandparents. They were all right, but I wish I'd been like you . . . I wish I'd made their deaths mean something. Instead I just found a rich guy and got married."
This was new information to him, and it caught him off guard. "I think you're selling yourself short. You've done a lot with your life."
She shook her head. "Even Ted dying didn't wake me up, and it should have. But you've inspired me, Trevor. You've inspired me."
Watching her walk toward the condo, he tried to recall the sound of her laughing at him back in high school, but he couldn't summon it. It was gone.
* * * * *
The first thing Trevor did when he got back to the hotel was some research on her to see if her story was true. Some checking online verified that it was. Then he began to wonder how much more there was to her that he didn't know.
He saw her each of the next three nights. He learned she had struggled with schooling until the seventh grade, when she was diagnosed with dyslexia. He learned that she had always wanted children, but that her husband had been infertile. He learned that she had few friends, none of them close, and that she felt completely alone in the world.
He began to have doubts.
At the end of the third night, they were drinking wine in her living room, sitting on her leather couch so close their thighs touched, the room filled with the soft orange glow from the dying fire. Kenny G was on the stereo. Usually he hated Kenny G, but this time he hardly noticed. While looking up, he reached to put his wine glass back on the table and he misjudged the distance. The wine spilled on the carpet. To make matters worse, the carpet was white.
"Oh, god, I'm sorry," he said, reaching for the glass, and he was
genuinely sorry. Where was his control?
"Don't worry about it," she said.
"Do you have a rag? Maybe some cleaner? I can clean this up."
"Really, it's not a problem."
"I feel like such a klutz—"
She grabbed him and pulled him away from glass, leaning forward, pushing him back into the sofa. She tore at his shirt, breaking a button, ravenously groping at his bare skin. Her mouth pressed down on his with all of her weight. He felt himself responding to her.
Their clothes were ripped off in a blur of hands and fingers. Naked, he carried her up to the bed room. Usually, when he made love to a woman, he took his time, every sound and groan choreographed to yield the maximum response from his partner. But now he found himself responding to her energy, becoming frantic himself.
Later, when they lay side by side on her satin sheets, sweaty and exhausted, he said something that wasn't part of the plan. It was something he usually said, and it was right on schedule, but he had never meant it before. He had said it lots of time with lots of conviction but he had never meant it.
"I think I'm falling in love with you," he said.
She smiled. "Well, that makes two of us," she said.
* * * * *
They had gathered in his hotel room to make the final preparations. Bob, sitting on the edge of the bed, clicked off the television with the remote and looked at him, eyes cold. He had gone for a dip in the pool downstairs and was still shirtless, his waist wrapped in one of the hotel's wimpy white towels, his hair slicked straight back.
"What do you mean, you can't go through with it?" he said.
Marvin, who was polishing his shoes over at the little table, paused with his rag and looked up. Trevor had never seen either of them look this angry.
"I meant exactly what I said," Trevor said.
"Why?" Marvin asked.
"I just don't want to do it anymore."
Bob shook his head. "He went and banged her and now he thinks he's in love with her."
Trevor felt blood rushing to his face. "She's just . . . not what I remembered."
"Good pussy, huh?" Bob said.
"I wish you wouldn't talk about her that way."
Bob laughed. "Kid's getting his back up. Funny."
"Look, I just don't want to do this job, okay?"
"Nah, we'll do this one," Bob said. "Took us a month to find her. You'll find another girl to bang, believe me."
Trevor sighed. "Maybe you're not hearing me. I said I'm not going through with this. And another thing. I'm taking a break for a while. I'm not doing any more scams, at least for a couple of years."
Trevor hadn't meant to talk to them about quitting, but now that it was out in the open, he didn't regret it. Time to make a clean break. Maybe he could invite Diana to come with him to Puerto Rico.
Bob's eyebrows went up. Marvin put his shoes on the floor and slipped his feet into them. He stood, smoothed out his pants. He looked lean and powerful like a middle-weight boxer. The silence felt heavy.
"We'll do this last job," Marvin said finally, "and then we can go our separate ways."
Trevor shook his head. "I don't want—"
"Do you remember Jimmy Costa?" Marvin cut in.
The name was like a glass of ice water down his back. Jimmy Costa . . . Before Marvin and Bob teamed up with Trevor, Jimmy had been their point man. That was before he tried to double-cross them and run off with a cool million dollars. Now he was apparently keeping watch on an old lady's garden somewhere in Wisconsin—from six feet underground.
Trevor tried to play it cool, but his voice sounded strained. "I remember him."
Marvin smiled. "Let us know when the final meeting will take place."
* * * * *
It was going to be hard. No doubt about it, it would be hard. But Trevor spent a few days without returning her calls, and a few nights in bars firming up his resolve. When it came down to it, Diana was just another girl, and there was no way Trevor was going to end up dead because of her. He reminded himself she had laughed at him once. She had laughed at him as if he was nothing . . .
~continued~
To read the rest of the Everybody Loves a Hero,
as well as the other nine tales in the collection,
please visit your favorite online bookseller.
Or find out more at
www.scottwilliamcarter.com
A Desperate Place for Dying Page 26