At the other side of the mirror I saw Emily’s eyes and tits pointed at me. “How did you get those scratches?” she asked.
I crooked my back and looked at her. “What scratches?”
“There’s one on your arm and others on your bum. They look like claw marks.”
I touched my backside and felt a slight scabbing, realizing I’d felt a minor degree of burn there the last few days. I aimed my backside toward the mirror and noticed a trail of fingernail markings along my buttocks. I’ll be damned. Welcome to the club, Jack.
“Bestiality?” she said.
“Yeah, that’s it. I’m tired of women.”
“There are always men.”
“I’ll stick with long, painted claws.”
“She must have been wild. Is she why you rolled over so fast? You always cuddle up afterward.”
“I’ve got things to do today.”
“You’re in love with the cat-scratching bitch, aren’t you?”
I drank more water and shifted my eyes around the room until they landed back on Emily. More than just a cigarette-laden rasp hung in her voice; a gist of culpability dangled there too.
She continued, “I can see it. Mari Ella saw it too. You insulted her, by the way, when you called her a murderer, but insulted her enough for her to purchase more product than expected.”
I started to dress. “I do have a way with selling women things they don’t need.”
“When we were making love, you said you loved me.”
“It helps when I say it...” Whoops.
The gaze in Emily’s eyes switched from post-coital lover to that of a used and thrown aside piece of ass. She got out of bed and headed for the bathroom, then stopped and stooped to retrieve one of her open-toed shoes from the floor. She flung the heavy, wooden shoe at me, but I ducked in just time because I saw it coming, as always.
She stepped across the room and swung a punch at my face, which I blocked. A quick jab of her other fist rocketed at my nose, which I staved off as well. I clutched her trembling arms, and with a rush of strength that surprised me, she body slammed me against the wall and night table. After catching the boney parts of her fists and elbows in my face a few times, I achieved control of her arms and pressed her onto the bed.
Her trembling stopped, and she began to cry, bawled like a baby, really. She was no longer the firebrand billionairess who summoned fearful obedience among all her cohorts; it was little Emmy now, powerless and flat on her back. Her tearing eyes begged for my help, but I refused this time to enable her.
She then did what she does best; she straight armed the nearest obstacle out of her path. She crossed the room and entered the bathroom, closing the door gently behind her. I reached behind and noticed the scabs bleeding on my ass.
22
I left Emily at the house and took the ferry over to the peninsula where I had breakfast at a new restaurant called Le Café Rouge. The coffee there had a wonderful unburned flavor, and I was impressed by the French menu, style, and name. The essence of white table setting of an outdoor café bathed in sunlight on a yielding walkway next to the sea lent itself nicely to the hit-and-miss evolution of civilization. And for the moment, the rest of the world, particularly serial killers, land pirates, and the greedy and envious can all go to hell. But for now I was here with coffee and newspaper in hand along with the sight and sound of luxury yachts tilling placid swaths through glassy, still water.
Just what the hell am I going to do with the contents of that trunk? I had possession of the damn stuff now, which made me an accessory. Not once did Emily even look at the trunk. A degree of oblivion hid in her eyes and voice, yet why was she here now, a month earlier than planned? She’s yet to explain that letter, the one lodged in the manila envelope in my kitchen. But if she wanted me dead, why would she warn me? Or did she?
A waitress walked up to my table. The hazy sunlight revealed a pale luster on her premature skin, tracing dark crevices inside her face. A subdued vigor peered through her blue-gray eyes. We chatted awhile about the weather and the day. She was pleasantly amiable and perceptive, I thought, for someone of working class status, and the more she vented her feelings the less troubled she seemed. She then began to pace to and from her stationed tables more brisk and upright. I wished I felt the same way.
I read the newspaper while I ate my breakfast. The harbor had been quiet this past week, free of slashings, anyway, nothing beyond the usual doom-and-gloom of world affairs or petty alimony or palimony disputes.
A young family, a husband, wife, and their son, sat at a nearby table. The boy was eight, nine years old maybe, dressed smartly with a distinct likeness to both the man and the woman. I watched all three of them. I had to. The air, sunlight…the subtle sights and sounds of the world transcended around them. They were purity, a family, brief and beautiful, a gift to anyone who would simply—
Emily walked up to my table, blocking my wholesome rumination. Cartier sunglasses flourished her eyes, and, as usual, her face was charging at something.
“You and I haven’t met each other in public, Emily, since you were my number one.”
“Oh, shut up!” It appeared her post-coital charm of a hormonal adolescent was still in full force. She did have, however, her above par fashionable sense and was donning a summery beige Hermes pantsuit. Her platinum-blonde hair, set into a stylish bun, glowed brilliantly in the sunlight, serving as a functional beacon for incoming boats. She sat down. I glanced over toward the entrance of the café and saw two very large men stuffed in black suits standing guard. Attractive blondes with billion-dollar price tags on their heads do make for tempting targets. She laid her matching beige, Hermes handbag on the table.
“I see you’ve added a couple gorillas to your entourage. Having death threats lately, Emily?”
“Nothing I can’t manage.” She gestured for my waitress and demanded, “A coffee and a crumpet, if you please.”
“How would you like your coffee, maam?”
“Hot and quickly.”
“And what kind of crumpet would you like, maam?”
“What other kind of crumpets are there but crumpets?” Emily looked up at my server and spewed more of her South London accent, “I need coffee and food now, so make like a good girl and hurry.” She shooed the server away with a fluttering display of manicured fingernails graced with an array of 34-carat diamond rings.
I watched my waitress walk away with pitched shoulders again.
“That waitress needs eyelid surgery,” Emily said. “She has horrendous hooding over her eyes and this sunlight reveals it frightfully. And why did she call me maam and not Miss? I still look young, don’t I?”
“As young as any other uncouth maam out here. What are you doing out here, Emily?”
“Don’t use that tone with me.”
“Sorry, maam.”
“What’s wrong with us, Jack?” She aimed her easy-to-see-through gaze my way.
“Oh, nothing a good long business trip won’t cure. Weren’t you on your way out?”
“I rescheduled the flight.”
“I suppose you can do that when you own your own plane.”
“And you didn’t mind my plane when it evacuated your sorry ass out of Belize a year ago, did you?”
After Michelle Brigham’s death and my resulting layover in Belize, it was Emily’s Gulfstream jet that I hitched a ride on back to the States. It pays sometimes to have friends close and enemies even closer. I said, “Let’s not talk about that.”
“That’s your problem, love. You never want to talk about anything important.”
The waitress came back with the coffee and crumpet. I took off my sunglasses and looked at her, letting her know that both she and I were under siege by well-dressed bitchery. She walked away with her shoulders straight again.
“Who is she, Jack?”
“My waitress? Just a down-to-earth hard working girl who’s had some bad breaks—”
“Not her, you idiot,
the one who put scratch marks on your ass. You got out of bed too soon and I want to know why.”
“Even goddesses such as you can’t know everything, Emily.” But you do know something, don’t you, you catty bitch.
“Don’t fuck with me, Jack.” She drank her coffee and tore at the crumpet with her fingernails. “So this is where you like to sit and mope every day, ey, farm boy?”
I put my sunglasses on and began to read the newspaper.
“I don’t know why I ever bought a house in this harbor town,” she said. “Look at them, all these nouveau riche, illiterate Americans, bargain shopping for food and clothes. None of them know how to dress, and they wouldn’t know a decent cup of coffee and pastry if it came up and bit them on their Yankee asses. Oh, but this is where it all began, isn’t it, farm boy? Those rugged pioneers who forged west to grow oranges and step in cow shit?”
I lifted the coffee cup and took a drink, wanting to spit it across the table. “If my memory serves me correctly, Emily, you’ve only been in the money for about twenty years, give or take, far from being upper crust. In fact, you were born on the east side of London in one of those home-pone Cockney districts, weren’t you?”
“I’m worth over a billion pounds, so don’t you dare lecture me about my rank. I do as I please, and I didn’t come out here to talk about that or any other of your rubbish.”
“Then what kind of rubbish are you here to talk about?”
She leaned in and reached for my hand. “I’m worried about you, Jack.” Her voice changed to a more velvety tone, genuine and caring, glaringly hollow. “I was at a soirée not long ago in London and I heard some scuttlebutt.”
“Was it the usual ad nauseam bullshit?” Come on you scheming bitch, cough it up.
“It was about a starlet, a theatric dancer, one with a wicked history. She’s come to Newport Beach to...” She retracted her hand and began turning her half-empty coffee cup in quick increments. Her foot tapped beneath the table.
“To?” I said.
More coffee-cup turns and toe tapping.
“What’s this starlet’s name?” I asked.
“Catherine...a Catherine Whittaker.”
“Whittaker?” Come on, let it loose, you over-the-hill sexpot.
“That’s right.” The mea culpa in her voice was blatant.
I noticed a client in the distance walking through the café, a woman I was scheduled to meet this morning. “What do you mean by wicked past?” I asked. I glanced over to where the father, mother, and their young son had been sitting and noticed they’d vanished, ascended to some other immaculate setting, no doubt.
“It’s too horrible to even mention. She’s like something out of a bloody, pulp-fiction novel. Why are you looking at me as if you know something, Jack?” Her fingernails dug into the crumpet pieces, scattering brown crumbs onto the white saucer.
“I’m sure I don’t know as much as you, Emily, at least not yet anyway.”
“What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?”
“What did you mean in your letter about my life being in danger?”
“What letter?” Another see-through gaze seized her face.
“A printed version of an email written by you that somehow found its way into my breakfast nook a couple weeks ago.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. Who do you think put it there, Emily, a stealthy postman, the Easter bunny, or perhaps a catty lover playing a serious game of Clue?” I pulled the letter from my pocket and handed it to her. She looked it over and tossed it on the table.
“I did write it. But I didn’t send it.” Her eyes darted in sporadic, unreadable directions.
“What’s the matter, Emily, did you let the cat out of the bag and now you can’t put her back in? And I thought you loved me.”
“Goddamn you, Jack!” She slammed her hand on the table, drawing looks from everyone at the café.
My client ambled watchfully along the sidewalk, then stood at the edge of the tables, apparently waiting for my acknowledgement. I said, “If you don’t mind, Emily, I do have things to do today and your plane can’t wait forever—”
“Fuck you.”
“And you do every time you come home, dear.”
After what seemed only a mere second, not even long enough for me to attach my eyes back to my newspaper, I felt the solid impact of Emily’s hand against my face. What little deference the surrounding patrons had for mine and Emily’s building brouhaha quickly morphed into gasps, groans, and muted laughter.
Emily then screamed out, “You got that wrong, Jacko—you’re the one who’s been fucking me! And furthermore, as long as you’re here, this bloody place will never be my home!”
I caught a few set of neighboring eyes aimed our way, some empathetic, most entertained. I ran my fingers along my tingling, no doubt, cheery-red cheek.
Emily took a hurried drink of her coffee, sloshing half of it onto the table. Her hand trembled.
“About this letter, Emily...” I lifted the envelope.
She yanked off her sunglasses, exposing her moistened, lying eyes. “I have a lump in my breast,” she said.
And I have a welt on my face, you bitch. “A what?”
“A lump—a growth.”
“Try not to change the subject, will you?”
“You stupid bastard, Jack. I swear to God I’ll hit you again...”
I leaned back in my chair. “How long have you had this growth?” By now every patron within a shouting radius, which was just about everyone, had eyes and ears riveted on Emily’s medical condition.
“I don’t know. It’s a tumor.” I saw both confusion and panic in Emily’s eyes, and also in the eyes of those changing tables.
I signaled for my waitress. “Have you had a biopsy?”
“I’m waiting for the results.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“At least I’ll die pretty.”
I didn’t respond. My favorite server approached our table. I asked her, “Could you get me a glass of ice please?”
After a quick analysis of my face, she nodded and marched earnestly to the kitchen.
Emily stood quickly, jerking up her Hermes bag along with a saucer of the half-eaten crumpet. The plate somersaulted, then landed with a hollow thud against the table. Tiny, brown granules lay scattered across the white tablecloth and on my lap.
“It’s best to feed the birds on the ground, Emily.” I brushed the crumbs from my pants.
“I’ll feed the damn birds anyway I like. I came out here to say goodbye and to tell you to be careful. It’s not fair what you’re doing, Jack.”
“You should talk, dear.”
“Don’t you dare patronize me, you goddamn, gigolo prick!” She began to cry. “We’re finished. You can buy me out of our house and we’ll be finished.” She drew a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed her eyes. The neighboring tables now stood empty, besieged my Emily the Terrible.
“I’ll make the arrangements,” I said.
The waitress came back with a tall glass of ice and handed it to me. “Is everything all right, sir?” Her attention glanced between my eyes, my welt, and my abuser across the table.
“Everything’s fine. Thanks for the ice.” I pressed the glass against my cheek, feeling instant relief. My comrade in arms walked away, making careful glances over her shoulder toward me. Appreciating the cruel irony to all this, I slipped the letter back inside my shirt pocket. I lifted my arm toward my client, signaling for her to wait.
Emily looked at whom I was waving at, sniffled, and said, “Just another notch, huh, Jacky boy? You pathetic whore.”
“I’m showing her a tri-level down the coast. I work hard for those notches, by the way.”
“You work hard at living a lie—you pathetic whore.”
“Your plane can’t wait forever, maam.”
Emily leaned into me and pressed her face against my welt, then
murmured softly in my ear, “Oh, John, what happened?” Her tone switched back to more velvety hollowness. “I did write the email, but I’m telling you honestly that I didn’t send it. I came here this week to confess it all to you, everything.”
“Confess what?”
“You can have the house; I don’t want it anymore, and after I’m dead you can runaway with any woman you want—except one woman. Oh, John, I just want you to be safe.” Emily was either overwhelmed by her lumpy breast or she was doing what any billionaires would do when found guilty of hiring a same-sex lover to kill her estranged boyfriend, sweet talking a load of exculpatory bullshit.
“We were once right for each other, Jack—I just wanted us to be happy...but you don’t know how to be happy.” She whimpered and dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. “Remember that night in Manhattan when we decided to stroll through Central Park?”
I nodded, then noticed the café manager peering at me from the kitchen. It was clear I had used up my rented table space.
“I’ll never forget how that mugger came out of nowhere, pointing that gun at us and how I told the bugger to fuck off, causing him to pull the trigger. In an instant you jumped to shield me from the bullet, but the gun didn’t fire and the crazy bugger ran away. You risked your life for me that night, Jack. In one sheer moment you showed me how much you loved me by taking that bullet, yet you can’t show me that same love for even a few days. I can’t understand you. I can’t get close to you. I’ve been willing to love you for the rest of our lives but you...”
I looked away from the barren rage in her eyes, the rage I helped create. “You’ve broken my heart, John...you’ve broken it so badly.” A gush of tears finally erupted. A half-hearted sympathy rose inside me.
“You’ll be fine, Emily. We’ll both be fine. It seems your hired killer, though, has other plans for me now, none of which have anything to do with shredding my flesh, at least I don’t think anyway. By the way, when did you find out about this tumor? Was it before or after you sent Catherine to kill me?”
The Irresistible Muse of Jack Kidd Page 15