Strip

by Thomas Perry

  She came in an hour later, reminded him that he was stupid, went into her bedroom, and locked the door. He hid the money in his car and slept on the couch. When he had time to look at his money, he discovered that he had a lot. He didn’t count it, any more than he would have stopped to count the potato chips in a bag. The meaningful measures were a lot, a little, and none. He put the money and the gun in the laundry bag in Lila’s closet and spent the money happily over a period of about a month.

  During the month he took Lila to restaurants and clubs, and on a couple of shopping trips. Her mood improved and she let him leave the couch to Eldon and join her in the bedroom. But Lila worked nights, so he could hardly be blamed if he went out by himself while she was gone. He had discovered that one of the best things about having money was not having to count. Every night he would reach into the money bag, take out bills, and make a roll of hundreds and fifties of a size that felt good in his hand. The next night most of it would be gone and he would make another. It was a life without worries—almost without thought.

  Eldon and Jeff went around the block and returned to Lila’s apartment just as the twilight reached its best moment, with the last rays of the sun tinting the clouds above the western horizon bright orange, leaving the sky in the east a deep, luminous purple about to turn to black. Jeff took Eldon inside, refilled his water dish, and poured some more kibble into his bowl. “There, dude,” he said. “That should hold you until she gets back. Got to go.”

  He went out, got into his old Trans Am, fired it up, and listened to its low, throaty growl. He had bought a new muffler while he still had money, and new tires, and had the oil changed. After nine years he could tell from the sound that the engine was okay. He had driven it here from Arizona only a couple of months ago, and he had decided the night when he had begun his new career that a new muffler was a good idea. He drove out to the Valley, stopped at a Mobil station to fill up his tank, and paid in cash. When he went into the little store to pay, he was at the end of a line of four men, all about twenty to thirty, all six feet to six-two and thin, all wearing denim and dark-colored T-shirts. He was sure that five minutes from now nobody would remember him, because in five minutes he would be replaced ten times by the next guys who looked just like him. One of the things he loved about L.A. was that there were a million of everything.

  Jeff drove to the Siren Club and checked the parking lot for Lila’s shiny little red Honda. It was there, right where she liked to park it, under the bright lights mounted along the edge of the roof. Jeff turned south and west and drove to the diner he liked best because hardly anybody else did. He wanted a chance to be by himself and think through the acts he was going to have to perform later.

  In the only stint he had ever done in prison, he had met a man named Girard. He preferred to be from France, but when he spoke French it didn’t sound like the French that Jeff’s teachers spoke. He was about sixty years old, but he could still do all sorts of gymnastics. During exercise periods he would do flips and cartwheels, and when he was in his cell he would walk around on his hands. He told Jeff that walking upside-down on his hands was the secret of his strength. It was true that he had very muscular arms and shoulders. He also told Jeff that his way to do anything difficult was to visualize it first, step by step in proper order. The method didn’t work very well for Jeff, because he usually did things on impulse and was very easily distracted. But he was determined to try again tonight.

  He went into the diner and sat down facing away from the door. When the waitress came, he ordered a turkey dinner with gravy and potatoes and green beans, looked up at the mirror that ran the length of the back wall of the restaurant, and watched her walk away to hand in his order. Then he began the work of visualizing. He would arrive near the bank at 1:30 A.M. and spend some time studying the area to be sure there were no cops watching the building. He would then place himself in the parking garage near the back of the bank.

  He looked straight ahead and saw the reflection of two young women walking in the front door. They were both about twenty-two or twenty-three, and they wore tight, low-cut, straight-leg jeans, and tops that had a little lace along the edge and straps like camisoles. They both had long brown hair with highlights streaked in to look like the effects of the sun, and skin that probably hadn’t been exposed to direct sunlight since they were nine. They saw the sign that said PLEASE SEAT YOURSELF, walked deeper into the restaurant, and stopped at the table right behind him. They both looked into the mirror briefly—first at themselves, then at him. His eyes met theirs and they looked away, kept smiling at each other and talking, and sat at that table anyway.

  Jeff’s consciousness opened and filled itself with the two women until there was room for nothing else. His mind was captive. He listened only to them. The waitress brought his turkey dinner, and he was glad because it drew the attention of the two women, whose eyes followed it to his table. He cut his food into half-inch bits so he could eat slowly, letting his eyes move upward to the mirror at varying intervals to stray across the women. The one in the lime-green camisole had no trouble catching him at it every time. The first couple of times she pretended to give him a reprieve, looking away as though she thought he might actually have met her eyes accidentally. The third time she looked directly at him, gave him a quick smile, and raised her eyebrows in a question.

  The woman seated with her back to Jeff glanced at her companion, half-turned to verify that the one she was silently communicating with was Jeff, then leaned forward to whisper to her. She set her napkin by her place, stood up, and walked past Jeff to the stairway that led to the restrooms. Jeff was aware that everything was some kind of test, so he willed himself not to watch her.

  “I’m sorry if she looked at you in a weird way.” It was the girl in the lime green, who was still at her table behind him.

  He looked into the mirror at her. “No, please. Don’t feel that way. I was trying to think of a way to talk to you anyway.”

  Her smile came back. “What did you want to say?”

  “That I wanted to talk to you”

  “So now what do you want to say?”

  He shrugged. “That you’re beautiful. I suppose everybody who talks to you says that.”

  “Pretty much. Men say that to every girl the first time they talk, no matter what she looks like. After that, most of them seem to think of something smarter to say.”

  “I’m not very smart. Did your friend get mad because you were looking at me?”

  “Not really. She went to the ladies’ room to give us a chance to see if we had anything.”

  “What would we have?”

  “Potential.”

  “I think we do. Would your friend mind if you and I went somewhere for an after-dinner drink?”

  “She’s my sister—a year older. Please don’t say you thought so. It’s like saying you had the right answer on the tip of your tongue. You didn’t.”

  “No, I didn’t”

  “So you’ve decided to be honest.”

  “Yeah. To tell you the truth I never really looked at her. From the first second, it was you all the way. She was just the person who came in with you”

  She laughed. “You’re such a liar. You have that plain, innocent face, and you never go out of character. Are you an actor?”

  “Maybe I’m telling the truth. I’m a simple guy.”

  “I saw you look at both of us the second we came in the door. When my sister turned around to sit down, you were staring at her ass. I saw you.”

  “The mirror distorts things. I was probably looking at my shirt to see if I got gravy on it.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jeff”

  “Show me your license.”

  He took out his wallet and handed her his driver’s license.

  “Arizona? You live in Arizona?” She seemed disappointed.

  “No. I moved here a couple of months ago.”

  She handed it back to him. “It says Jefferson Da
vis Falkins, all right. It’s also expired. You might want to do something about that before you get arrested.”

  “I will. At least before I get executed. What’s your name?”

  “Carrie.”

  “I won’t ask for your license. But will you give me your phone number?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. What do you do?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Then no.”

  “I’m an entrepreneur. I invest in good ideas, turn them into businesses, run them for a while to prove they work, and then sell them.” He had heard someone say that on television and it had sounded good to him. “That’s why I don’t know yet what business I’m going to be in.”

  “Is that true?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’ve never lied to you before, have I?”

  “No, never in all these years.” Her eyes focused on something beyond his head, and she quickly took a business card out of her purse and handed it to him, then withdrew her hand.

  He could tell it must be her sister coming back, so he palmed the card and said, “When can we go for a drink? Are you free later?”

  “After we pay our check, give me an hour to get back here.”

  He nodded, pocketed the card, and then Carrie’s sister reappeared. As she prepared to resume her place at the table, Jeff stood and held out his hand. “Hi” he said. “My name is Jeff. I thought I should introduce myself.”

  The sister looked down at his hand with distaste. “Why?”

  He let his hand drop and she turned to Carrie. “Are you two friends now?”

  “We’ve just been talking for a minute.”

  Jeff said, “Is it okay to say I can see the resemblance now?”

  “Resemblance to what?” The sister seemed suspicious, hostile.

  “Each other. You’re sisters.”

  The woman glared at Carrie. “We are not sisters.”

  Carrie shrugged and smiled at Jeff. “We’re such close friends that it feels like sisters sometimes. This is Laura.”

  Laura looked at Jeff with undisguised contempt as she picked up the check from their table. “Come on. I’m not feeling this. Let’s go.”

  “All right,” said Carrie, and stood up. When she saw Laura start out for the door, she gave her three seconds, then said, “Remember. An hour,” turned, and hurried after her.

  Jeff considered. He had to kill time until around 2:00 A.M., and Carrie was cute. No, she was actually beautiful, but she was also young and playful. He was aware that the number of men who had waited in some public place for some girl they didn’t know and got stood up was in the billions. He decided not to mind. It gave him something to think about while he waited for closing time. But he knew that most of the women who stood men up were playful and cute in exactly the same way Carrie was, and she had already lied to him once about her friend.

  He stayed where he was and ordered a piece of pie and coffee. As he sat at his table drinking coffee, he wondered about women. There were girls who seemed to be completely sane. They wanted things a man could understand—maybe a good time she couldn’t afford but the man could, or sex. Actually, the sex they wanted was not so much sex in itself, but a nice friendship that might include sex at a future time. Or they just had an honest wish to kill a long night without being alone in a crummy apartment in a city they weren’t born in. But then there were these strange, incomprehensible women who wanted to play tricks and humiliate men they didn’t even know, who had done nothing but show interest in them. If Jeff had met a girl he wasn’t interested in, he wouldn’t have said he was giving her his number and really given her the number of the police or the YMCA or something. It was a mystery.

  After he’d had two cups of coffee, he was nearly ready to leave. He went upstairs to the men’s room, came back down the stairs, and found Carrie sitting in the seat across from his.

  “I was afraid you stood me up,” she said. “But you didn’t.”

  “Never crossed my mind.” He took out a fifty-dollar bill, tossed it on the table by his check, and took her arm to guide her up. “Come along.”

  She came. “Where are we going?”

  “I think we said ‘out for a drink.’ But since you had practically nothing but coffee for dinner, we might want to go someplace that sells food.”

  They went outside and he walked her to his Trans Am and opened the passenger door for her.

  “What’s this car?”

  “What do you mean—model? It’s a Pontiac Trans Am. It doesn’t look hip, but it’s got an engine and transmission and stuff in it that cost me more than most cars. It’s pretty fast.”

  She looked at him in wonder. “My God. You’re a throwback, aren’t you?” She cocked her head and squinted at him. “Are you a good kisser?”

  He shook his head. “Not as good as you deserve.”

  “Amazing,” she muttered, and put her hand on his chest to make him hold still while she kissed him softly on the lips.

  Jeff put his arms around her, pulled her to him, and extended the kiss a few more seconds.

  She pulled back to end it, her hands pushing off against his chest. “Oh my God.”

  “What?”

  “I felt the gun under your jacket, asshole. What did you have in mind? Were you going to bury me in the desert or the mountains?”

  “That’s crazy. I would have told you about having it, but I never expected you to kiss me like that. I have to carry it as part of my job.”

  “I thought you were a big-shot investor or something.”

  “Not a big shot. But sometimes I have to carry money or negotiable securities. And sometimes kidnapping is a concern. That’s why the police gave me a permit.”

  “Come on. The police never issue permits to anybody here. Try again.”

  He sighed and shook his head in frustration. “You win. I’m a crazed pervert who finds pretty women and shoots them. Let’s leave it at that.” He shut the passenger door and walked around the back of his car to the driver’s side.

  But she followed him, not satisfied. “Well, what are you, then? I never believed that entrepreneur shit. You can barely say the word, and this car … It’s all just ludicrous. Are you a robber?”

  He was not sure why he was saying it, but he said, “Yes, I am. I was in the restaurant by myself because I like to get focused before I go pick up some money.”

  He watched her face go through a series of expressions, one following rapidly on the other. First was fear, but fear had a way, once the person noticed it, to change to anger. Or maybe her expression was a simple fight-or-flight response, her body reacting with a huge release of adrenaline, and her face showing only that.

  Her next expression was a widening of the eyes as she stared at him. The slight curvature of the upper lip that he had thought was going to be a snarl stretched into a grin. She laughed. “I knew it. I could tell you were, like, this outlaw. That is so cool. You’re a bandito. Armed and dangerous.”

  “I am.”

  She gripped his arm and pulled her body as close as she could to his. “You’ve got to take me with you.”

  As he got into his car and started it, she rushed to get into the passenger seat and slam the door. In the second or two he was allowed to think, he supposed that her reaction to his real profession could only be to say “You’re scum” or “You’re hot.” He was amazed that she had chosen the second. It was even more amazing that it didn’t feel like good news.

  “It’s not a good idea. People don’t want to get robbed. They just don’t like it. You’d think the sight of a gun would make them go all weak in the knees, and it usually does. I’ve robbed a few stores where the clerks were so scared they wet their pants. But that’s not always”

  “God, I’d love to see that.”

  He wondered about her, but only for an instant, because he needed to win this argument quickly before her heart was set on it. “But not always,” he repeated. “Sometimes the sight of a gun makes them so mad they look like they
’ll explode, and then they sort of do. They try to kill you first. It’s not a rational thing, because even if they can see there’s no chance that they’ll succeed, they come right after you.”

  “Then you have to kill them, right? Just open up.”

  He wondered about her again, this time more seriously. Her face was so close to his that he couldn’t really see it all at once, so he wasn’t sure if she was just being ironic. Her eyes seemed huge, and he could feel her breath on his cheek. “Well, sometimes. I mean you have to be prepared for something ugly to happen. But you don’t actually want to shoot anybody. If you get caught they put you away forever, and there’s nothing in killing for you. It’s the robbing part that gets you the money.”

  “Just let me go,” she whispered into his cheek. “I want to. I’ll do whatever you tell me. I won’t ruin it, I promise.”

  She was so insistent, and she kept pressing herself closer, across the front console and in his face. It was flattering and erotic and confusing. He couldn’t think of a way to resist, and he wasn’t sure he even wanted to. “Let’s get out of this parking lot,” he said. “It’s a long time before I have to make a decision. I’m not pulling this until two A.M.”

  “I understand,” she said in a small, earnest voice. “I really do.” She released his arm, sat back in her seat, and let him drive ahead out of the parking space and off the lot. He turned east on Ventura because it was a right turn and a left was more work.