Damaged Goods

by Dane, Cynthia

  “You meet any good guys here?”

  Sylvia was really into her wine. She was licking drops from an empty glass now.

  “Come on, girl. Spill. I want to hear the drama.”

  “There’s really only been one guy of note since I moved here. But it’s not working.”

  “Oh?”

  Here they went.

  Sylvia hadn’t wanted to bring up Joseph, but she realized something – she really, really needed to talk about him to someone. Grace was the closest thing she had to a best friend, and at most they talked on the phone about once a month. Otherwise, Sylvia was a lone wolf who eschewed companionship so she wouldn’t get hurt. Her need to have friends went by the wayside after good ol’ Maxwell. Plus, people in Portland were weird. And not the good kind of weird. Sylvia hadn’t been able to make any friends, whether at work or in her neighborhood. Unless people like Sam Jean or Chess Master Carl counted. They probably didn’t. Not on the level Sylvia needed the most.

  Slowly, she opened up about Joseph. None of the details about the investigation, of course, but enough to give Grace an idea that there was a down-to-earth man of means who cared more about justice than how much money was in his bank account. Oh, and he was Latin. And good in bed. Because that was important.

  “Got a picture?”

  Sylvia was loathe to do it, but she ran a search for Joseph Montoya on Google and came up with public record photos – and a few of him in a suit at balls and galas. Most of those were either with the Montoya clan or with his mother.

  “Holy shit, that man is fine!” Grace wasn’t easily impressed when it came to a man’s looks. She was good at making men feel like the hottest in the world, but her real opinions came out as soon as they left her room. So for her to call Joseph fine? That was a great compliment. “I want a Latin boyfriend. The last one I had loved it when I called him Papi.”

  “I’m sure he did.” Sylvia took her phone back and returned it to the search page. One quick thumb-scroll down revealed another set of gala photos.

  These were not with his family. They were with another woman. A beautiful woman who glowed around Sylvia’s ex-lover.

  That has to be Angelica. Long, jet black hair parted down the middle framed the woman’s smiling face. She wore an evening gown of deep sapphire blue, her hand clutching Joseph’s as they posed for a press photograph. They both looked resigned to it, even though they forced smiles. The most telling thing was how Joseph’s hand rested on her hip. More tender than it was outright possessive.

  Yeah. That was Angelica. Sylvia didn’t need to read the caption to know that. This photo is only a year old. It must have been right before Angelica broke up with Joseph so she could go marry some other man. Had she met him yet? Had she known what she was going to do to his heart? Was having a baby really more important than being with a man like Joseph Montoya?

  And why the fuck was Sylvia dwelling on it?

  “You fell for him, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. We fooled around for a hot minute.”

  “Apparently it was really hot.”

  “Yeah. It was.”

  Grace’s shoulders sagged. “Sorry to hear that. Why did you two break it off?”

  “He stopped contacting me one day.”

  “You two have a falling out?”

  “Not really. I guess. I dunno.” How the hell would Sylvia explain what happened? Could she do that? Put it into words?

  Definitely not succinct words.

  “You never followed up with him? He piss you off that badly?”

  “He didn’t actually piss me off. Though I kinda am now.”

  “Well, if you ever run into that guy again, you better get it. Men like that don’t pop up very often. As you, um, know.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  Grace didn’t have long to stay in Portland. As soon as their meal was over, she said her goodbyes and headed to the transit center to pick up the commuter bus back to Vancouver.

  Sylvia went back home, where Posey was in the middle of a study group with some of her classmates. Sylvia, unfortunately, interrupted them, garnering a “Would you leave us alone?” from Posey. No use in even acknowledging her. Sylvia kept her head down and went straight upstairs, where she collapsed on her bed and didn’t feel any better than she had earlier that day.

  Chapter 21

  Joseph

  “Do you really take dance lessons? Or do you insist on embarrassing us every time you put one foot in front of the other?”

  Joseph didn’t have to take this from his little sister. The girl was about one week away from going off to college, and she as still giving him this level of shit? In front of people who thought image was everything? (And it wasn’t his mother’s family?)

  “You think I don’t? You’re there half the time!” Samba music played from a CD, echoing through the closed-off street. When the entire cul-de-sac was occupied by large families that liked to party? They would close the damn street if they damn well pleased.

  Joseph only came to these weekend block parties for a lack of anything else to do. Used to be he came to catch up with kids he went to school with. Playmates from his youth. Ex-girlfriends who gave him many of his firsts when he was a teenager. Now most of those folks had either moved away or were somehow related to incarceration, which made Joseph no real friend of theirs. Also, many of those former teenage girls were now grown women with husbands and children. The husbands were not too keen on him either. Apparently Joseph held quite a few V-cards in his back pocket. Didn’t know it at the time. I must’ve been a terrible first time. Contrary to what more recent lovers thought, Joseph had not been born an excellent lover. That shit took time and practice. Lots and lots of practice…

  “I think Josef is a fine dancer,” someone said in Spanish. Long, fake eyelashes batted in his direction. Speaking of babies… she’s still one herself. Thing about Reina’s friends was that they tended to skew toward flirtatious. “You wanna dance, Josef?”

  “No thanks. Not right now.” You’re not my type, sorry. Too young. What he wanted was a beer, but the idiot in charge of bringing the booze hadn’t brought enough. Didn’t that idiot know that these parties had twice as many people attending as had RSVP’d on Facebook? It was a neighborhood street party. Probably one of the last of the year before it started raining 24/7. The street was going to be packed with first and second generation Mexicans and their Puerto Rican, Nicaraguan, Cuban, and Honduran friends. Joseph only had to walk three feet to hear another dialect of Spanish being spoken. Most of which he couldn’t understand, because he had barely learned dirty Mexican Spanish growing up. And I learned it all from my classmates… and my father. Horatio loved talking like a sailor when his wife and mother weren’t around.

  The Montoyas didn’t come to these particular parties, although they didn’t care if the brood went. Verónica was too uptight for them, preferring to stick to her small, close-knit church and social club circles, and her sons had “grown out of it,” according to them. Rafael would never be caught dead at one of these things. He was too busy taking over the family business.

  Joseph, however, had enjoyed these get togethers since he was ten and looking for a place to belong. His sister? Reina loved to party. She had pockets of friends everywhere she went, and she loved bringing along her handsome older half-brother for the other girls to fawn over. It had been cute when he was closer to that age. Now that he was over thirty? A man – especially a man in law enforcement – had to know when to walk away without even a hola.

  “When are you going to bring a girl to one of these things?” Reina attempted to grab a bottle of beer that appeared in front of her, but Joseph snatched it in her stead. You’re nineteen. Calm down. There will be plenty of booze in college. “You’re getting embarrassing, hermano. All my friends want to date you. You’re like a Mexican Prince Harry to them.”

  “Don’t you mean Prince William?” Joseph popped the cap off the bottle as the music switched fro
m samba to tango. A small group of dancers cheered as they re-paired and attempted to outdo one another in form and finesse. No matter how many lessons I take, I’ll never be at that level. While Joseph didn’t have two left feet, he didn’t have the natural rhythm that so many of his peers did. Reina could saunter up to any of those dancing fools and act like they had been partners for years. Joseph, on the other hand, still had trouble walking up to and touching women so intimately in front of others. His friends told him that it was the stuffy guero side of him.

  “No, I mean Prince Harry. The bad boy. The one who has nothing to lose cause he ain’t gonna be king one day.”

  “Gracias.”

  “Why are you being such an ass? It’s a compliment! Women like the gives no fucks guy! Sheesh.” Reina attempted to swipe his beer from him. Like he was going to let her drink in front of him – in public, no less. “Seriously, get a girlfriend, hermano. Both abuela and Mama say you’re paying too much attention to the gringas. Time to start dating a nice Latina. I bet you could get away with her not being Mexican, too.”

  “Gee, really? Then what am I waiting for?” This beer wasn’t that cold…

  “Yeah, what are you waiting for? There’s a bunch of nice Puerto Rican girls over there. Papa would love them, cause they’re definitely citizens.”

  “Cristo, Reina, do you actually think about what you’re saying?” Of course she didn’t. She was a teenager. With any luck, college would knock some of that bullshit out of her head. If the partying didn’t first…

  “Huh?”

  “I’m not looking for a girlfriend right now.”

  “Because of Stella, or whatever her name was?” Reina looked off into the distance, manicured nail brushing against her pronounced Montoya chin. Our father has that exact chin. So did Rafael. “Oh. Because of Angelica.” She said that so sagely that she almost sounded ten years older. Almost.

  “Yeah, because of Angelica.” Joseph would go with that. Nobody but his mother knew about Sylvia. Fuck my damn life. He had to stop thinking about Sylvia. Memories were poisoning his brain.

  The thing about Sylvia was this: Joseph knew that Genevieve was right. He was incapable of focusing on the task at hand when a woman was involved in that task. His emotions, his desire to fall in love and make a family with a woman overrode everything else in his life. All right, so he wasn’t in a hurry to marry and have kids with Stella, but he still fucked up that investigation by getting too distracted by her. Sylvia? Shit. Joseph had no idea how he felt about her in a familial sense yet, but she was… well, she was trouble. Bad news. A terrible distraction that was going to cost him more than his job if he wasn’t careful.

  Joseph didn’t trust himself to try explaining that to Sylvia. He knew the moment he saw her again he would fall into old habits. I’ll want to kiss her. Then hold her. Then make love to her until it starts all over again. A woman like Sylvia was a dangerous aphrodisiac. Only with her, every movement, every word she uttered held a purpose – and that was to seduce men like Joseph. Maybe it was genuine on her behalf. He wanted to believe that, but it only made it worse.

  So he couldn’t go to her and explain why they needed to take a break, or stop seeing each other altogether. It was best this way. No contact. Genevieve assured her son that Sylvia was constantly being monitored by those paid to protect her. His mother wouldn’t lie to him. They didn’t have the most emotional relationship, but he knew that she would not lie. If she said Sylvia was safe, then he trusted her.

  That didn’t stop him from constantly thinking about her. Every damn day. Every long, lonely night.

  Joseph had hoped that she was a phase of some kind. As it turned out, however, she had been so much more. Only three days existed between them, but those three days were enough to fuck with his head. Time. I need more time. Reina was probably right. He needed a distraction.

  He’d deal with that later. Probably when his stepmother and grandmother fussed.

  Reina was in the midst of telling him something when his phone buzzed in his back pocket. “Figures.” She dramatically rolled her eyes and wandered off to find some of her friends. Who wanted to spend the whole day hanging out with their thirty-year-old brother, anyway?

  Joseph’s phone didn’t recognize the number trying to contact him, other than it came from Oregon. This better not be a cold caller. Joseph removed himself from the bulk of the party and found a quieter spot behind some hedges. The delicious scent of homemade tortillas enticed him to head over to the open kitchen at the end of the cul-de-sac, but he allowed the phone call to take precedence.

  “Montoya,” he announced, loudly. Someone had chosen that moment to start blasting hip-hop. “What is it?”

  “Um, hi?” A female voice. Somewhat familiar. Joseph, however, couldn’t put his finger on the caller’s identity. “Is this Agent Joseph Montoya?”

  Crap. It was probably someone who had come across his calling card. Which meant he had to pretend to know who this was. But I give that card out to everyone. Fuck. He wished he could be smooth like the agents on television, who recognized every voice speaking to them.

  “Yes, this is him. Can I help you?”

  “I had guessed you wouldn’t recognize me. This is Nala Nazarov.”

  Joseph lowered his phone and took in the party still going on a few yards away. Arms waved in the air. Happy voices echoed through the neighborhood, scaring away cats and attracting happier dogs. Familiar scents of family meals and the divine rhythms of music from lands not so far away called to Joseph. If he held onto these moments a while longer, he could pretend that he wasn’t about to get into a load of trouble ala his sister and her friends.

  Because someone like Nala Nazarov would not be making a pleasure call. Her voice was dripping in information regarding a man named Alexander Sheen.

  Chapter 22

  Sylvia

  After a year living in Portland, Sylvia could still not say she knew much about what went on east of the Willamette River. She never had a reason to go out there, unless she was meeting a client – and most clients also wanted nothing to do with the eastern side of town. Sylvia had heard lots of nice things over the months, of course. Mostly that there were great ethnic eateries, little theaters, and enough parks to make any cyclist or jogger happy. We’ve got that in Northwest, too. So there.

  Things were certainly more relaxed around places like Hawthorne. Sylvia felt slightly overdressed in her Breakfast at Tiffany’s ensemble, but that’s what the client wanted. This was the first guy to call her cell phone and not be after sex. In fact, as Chester Heddington informed her, he hadn’t been interested in sex in months. Perhaps it was his age. He was getting up there, one had to admit. No, no. He simply wanted the company of a pretty young lady as he made the rounds at the racetrack and to a brunch near Mt. Tabor. Sylvia had come highly recommended. Not only that, but they had met before at her former place of business! Didn’t Sylvia remember him? Ah, perhaps not. It had been over a year, and it was quite the party.

  Sylvia was simply happy to have some extra business. Even better if they didn’t want to have sex, although she didn’t get much money for just escorting. Still more than she made in a night at Decades.

  “Where should we drop you off?” Chester asked, referring to both himself and his driver. They rode in the back of a rented sedan, the early sunset fucking with Sylvia’s head after many long summer nights. I’m sad to see the summer go already. It may not have snowed much in Portland, but the winters still somehow managed to be drearier than back in Boston, or anywhere else in New England for that matter. “We can take you home, or wherever you prefer.”

  “I don’t wish to impose on you much longer. You can take me to the nearest MAX station and I’ll make my way home.” What she didn’t tell Chester was that she had some other errands to run. A trip to the local mall before it closed might have been nice…

  “All right. Nathan, do Ms. Rogers a favor and locate the nearest MAX station for her. We’ll be sad to see you
go, Sylvia, but I will keep you in mind for my next trip to this city.”

  “And I look forward to seeing you.” Sylvia left him with a light kiss to his grizzly cheek. That was enough excitement for Chester Heddington, who waved at her through the sedan window before the car pulled away again.

  Sylvia briefly looked in her purse to make sure she still had the cash he left her as tip. Yesss. I can get that dress. A girl needed a warm sweater dress if she was going to be fashionable that winter. She had been eyeing a beautiful cashmere dress that had her name written all over it. Charcoal gray. Ah, she could already see the makeup palette she would wear with it…

  A police siren jolted her from her daydream. Behind her, a police cruiser zoomed by, lights flashing and siren wailing. Sylvia reoriented herself and pulled out her phone. Google Maps would tell her the shortest route to the mall. Even better if it delivered before the next Blue Line MAX arrived and tempted her with a ride home.

  Another police car zoomed by. Then another.

  Then another.

  “Wow. Someone’s in trouble.” Sylvia walked along the sidewalk with nary a care. She only looked over again when a fire truck and an ambulance followed each other down the boulevard. So many cars had pulled over and probably wouldn’t be moving anytime soon. Nevertheless, they honked their horns in frustration. “Wonder what’s going on?”

  She soon found out. After ten minutes of walking, Sylvia came upon a dire scene.

  Signs blocked the on and off ramps leading to the 205 freeway. Particularly the southbound portion was out of commission, with cars rerouted around a gruesome site.

  A long, unmarked truck had crashed onto its side, smoke blowing into the air while streams of water from firetrucks sprinkled in the sky. Sylvia caught herself staring, wide eyed, the awe that such a scene could make her forget her errand. Wow. I hope they’re okay. No way. That driver was fucked.