Hard Exit, page 5
While still kissing me, she removed her scarf and dropped it to the floor. I wanted to pull away but couldn’t face what rejecting her would bring. She tried to take off her sweater but realized she was still holding the gift, so she tossed it on one of the giant striped pillows. With her still wrapped around me, I took three steps to another huge pillow, bent at the waist, and set her down on it. I tried to straighten up, but she grabbed my collar and pulled me down, rotating out from under me, then climbing on top of my face-down body, straddling my back and giggling.
“There they are, my sweetbuns,” she said. She beat on my ass like bongo drums. “I thought about you and your sweetbuns a lot, you know.” She nuzzled my neck and gently bit my left ear. “I thought about them while naked.”
She sat up and pulled off the sweater, which she tossed on the other pillow, next to my present. “Do you want me to show you how I thought about you?” My arousal indicated I did.
“Turn over, you.” I did, then admired her perfect, tan, surgically enhanced breasts as she undid my belt and slid my pants and boxers off. America had seen her breasts in her third film, the one she did in an attempt to shatter her girl-next-door image, the movie she hoped would turn her into an actress to be taken seriously. I don’t think she achieved this aspiration.
She pulled my shirt gracefully over my head, licked each of my nipples once, and stood up. She started to roll her clingy pants down. Her body was perfectly toned and tanned, thanks to her five-days-a-week workouts with her trainer in the gym downstairs and the tanning she did on the roof, out of view from the tabloids’ lenses, although drones were occasionally a problem.
She stepped out of her pants and straddled me again, balancing on the not-quite-firm giant pillow.
I made a noise that probably doesn’t exist in any language.
She slowly began to play her fingers between her legs, her eyes going from her increasingly insistent ministrations to my reactions. As she transitioned from heightened arousal to complete ecstasy, she closed her eyes, and I wondered whom she saw behind her lids when she needed to crest the summit. Whomever it was, he or she got her there, and she shuddered and gasped. She caught her breath, smiled, squatted, and slid me inside her.
After bouncing around that pillow for a while, when it was my turn, behind my lids I saw my wife, my former wife, my late wife, Jami.
After our pulses had slowed, Amanda and I leaned against the edge of the pillow and engaged in how-was-your-trip, what’s-new-with-you talk. She let me know about the wonders of Italy and about how messed up the shoot was, because the director, Michael Goodwin, was an idiot. Then I said I had something I needed to discuss.
“No, wait a sec,” she said, “you didn’t open your present yet.”
“You haven’t given it to me yet.”
“Oh, I gave it to you all right.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let me have it.”
“Just did.” She winked. She handed me the small package, then looked pensive. Her expression changed again into a smile, in anticipation of my delight.
I hate to receive presents. Even if I like the gift, and I rarely do, I always feel awkward about the process. Why are you giving this to me? What do you expect in return? Am I supposed to be grateful or impressed? Why did you buy me a gift that you actually want? Am I supposed to include this with me in my coffin?
Awkward is the best I ever feel after receiving a gift. It would be one thing to feel this way about gifts while partnered with someone who rarely gave them, but feeling this way with Amanda—who inundated me with one-of-a-kind baubles because it was Tuesday—was the height of absurdity. I’d tried to make it clear to her as diplomatically as I could that all of her gifts were just stuff to me, expensive clutter, money better spent elsewhere. “It’s my money,” she’d replied, “and I enjoy spending it on you.”
I unwrapped the package, suspecting she’d dropped a bundle again. Please don’t be another watch, I thought, certain that fashion rules dictate a man must wear only one watch at a time. She’d given me at least five over the years.
“Before you make one of your faces, I want you to appreciate the spirit with which I give it.”
“Okay,” I said. I removed the lid and pulled back the tissue paper to reveal a baseball card of Ed Delahanty wearing a Phillies uniform. It appeared to be a facsimile, not an original card from the 1880s.
No words came to me. Instead of speaking, I hugged her. I respected her at that moment because this gift actually related to me, indicating she’d given it thought, not having simply thrown money around. But I also felt betrayed because she’d broken our agreement.
When we first got together, Amanda agreed to my one condition: That she never mention Jami, my dead wife. In return, I wouldn’t ask her about her sexual activity while on location. It was a pact forged of denial, resignation, and weakness, a concession to the fact that life is messy, honesty is subjective, and love often isn’t enough. I knew I was deeply flawed to make such a demand, but I didn’t want Amanda to sully Jami’s memory by making catty or demeaning comments about her—or even by complimenting her. I wouldn’t share Jami with Amanda, who had honored our arrangement for seven years.
But then she gave me the baseball card. The day Jami died, I’d received an offer from a publisher to write a book about Ed Delahanty and other unsung sports heroes. I hadn’t written since that day.
I wanted to shout, “Who’d you screw you weren’t supposed to?” I wanted to confront her about the alcohol on her breath, to remind her she’d just stepped back onto the same slippery slope we’d stepped off of two years ago. I wanted to smash something valuable, to run until I couldn’t breathe, to feel physical pain to match the emotional torment I’d worked so hard to bury.
Instead, I said, “It’s a thoughtful gift but completely inappropriate.”
“Damnit. You and your stupid agreement. Jami, Jami, Jami. There, I said her name: Jami, Jami, perfect, angelic Jami.”
“Don’t. You’re drunk and way out of line. I should’ve called you on it as soon as you came in, but I didn’t want to fight. Obviously, you do.”
“No, I don’t. Damnit, Jack, I knew you’d mess this up. You’re not normal. Most people like getting gifts. What’s wrong with you? We both know you’re just coasting. Not even that. More like stuck, and I thought maybe you’d start writing again if I gave you a nudge.”
“I’m a private investigator, Amanda. Have been for a long time. I’m not going to argue with you now, but I will let you know we have a houseguest.”
She looked confused, then waited me out.
“His name is Game, and he’s downstairs. He’s the son of the woman Mike’s dating, Rachelle, and I’m keeping him safe for a while.”
“Safe from what?” I was surprised she wasn’t acting out more, protesting loudly, but I’d called her on her drinking, and she probably knew that making a stink about a short-term visitor would worsen the situation.
“‘From himself and his youthful idiocy’ is the easy answer. But I guess ‘from participating in a gang shooting’ is more accurate.”
“You’re kidding! He’s a gang member?”
“His two older brothers were killed, so he joined to get revenge.”
She got up and gathered her clothes. It must have occurred to her that she was naked in the great room with a stranger in her home. Carrying her clothes, she headed to the elevator.
“I gave him the chance to get away,” I said, “but he didn’t take it.”
“You’re his bodyguard, and he’s supposed to try to escape? That makes perfect sense. I’m going to bed. It’s been a long trip.”
She stepped into the glass elevator and pressed the button for the penthouse. As the doors closed, she said, “Sorry about the gift.”
She rode one flight up. I wanted to go after her to reassure her we’d get through this drinking episode as we had the others, to tell her the gift was thoughtful and she was right to try to jumpstart my life. Instead, I quickly put on my clothes, headed down the front steps, and said, “Game?”
No answer. I walked into the room I’d put him in, but he wasn’t there. The TV was on, and his stuff was there. I walked to the bathroom, and he wasn’t in it. I checked the two other rooms and the second bathroom on that level. I figured there was no need to panic because he’d left his stuff, but he would’ve been smart to leave it if he was making a run for it.
I’d figured he was bright but misguided. Maybe I’d overestimated him. Maybe he was naive enough to think he could travel forty-five miles without benefit of a bus line that late at night. And was he foolish enough to steal a car in this neighborhood? The homes had security systems, most of the cars were equipped with LoJack, OnStar, or another tracking device, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies would become giddy at the prospect of shooting a fleeing Black gangbanger. I hoped he wasn’t that delusional. Maybe he was simply checking out the rest of the house.
I went downstairs to the home theater, another bedroom, and the study, as Amanda called the cozy room that contained a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, then down again to my office, the gym, a bathroom, and the indoor lap pool and changing room. And he wasn’t on the bottom floor, the one with the dance studio and the two storage rooms where Amanda kept items she’d never need. Game was in none of them.
I grabbed a flashlight from a storage closet, switched on the outside light, and shouted his name as I unlocked the steps, then lowered them to the sand. I saw where he’d landed after jumping off the railing and saw that his footprints led away from the house to the right. The light from the nearly full moon revealed Game standing forty feet away, near the mean high-tide line. I turned off the flashlight.
As he heard me approach, without taking his eyes off the house, he said: “Dawg, I come out here to check out the beach but see a sister in that house over there unbelievable. Tall, tight, and fine. She on the balcony with that short, fat dude we saw at the gas station. I was taking in the view, cuz who wouldn’t, when I look up at this joint and see Amanda Bigelow in the elevator bare-ass nekked. Ain’t never leaving.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Yeah, this place has its advantages,” I said. Game continued to stare up at the elevator, hoping Amanda would return, but she was out of sight, preparing for bed.
“I’m feeling antsy, and I’m not going to sleep tonight,” I said. “I was thinking about heading out in the kayak and going night diving. Nothing serious, just tinkering with a spear gun, no tanks. I’m coiled up.”
“You a strange man, Jack. Rest of us, we get busy with someone, we good for the night. But you do it with Amanda Bigelow and that bothers you. And you the one looking after me.” He shook his head.
“Want to join me?”
“Do I have to swim?”
“No, I’ll put you in a life-vest, and the worst that’ll happen is you’ll have to bob around. Best case, you’ll barely get wet. Unless you want to dive with me.”
“You want me to swim in the dark?”
“Didn’t say I wanted it. I asked if you wanted to join me.”
“Ain’t gonna sleep either, so’s let’s do it. Gotta get my trunks.”
He walked back toward the house, and I pulled the yellow, two-person sit-on-top Wave Skimmer kayak down from the hooks next to the hooks that held the sky-blue one-person kayak I’d used that afternoon. Then I pulled my fins, mask, and snorkel from the front hatch, followed by a life-vest for Game. I left the spear gun in the rear hatch, so there would be no chance of either of us getting jabbed if a wave wiped us out. I stepped inside, found a bathing suit, and put it on. It was knee-length with a loud, obnoxious floral pattern in blue and white—a suit a Miami Beach octogenarian would have worn in the late ’60s, trying to show he was simpatico with the hippies. I wore it because Amanda hated it.
I pulled the kayak to the water, letting the incoming waves lap at the nose of the boat. I looked down the long arc of sand that encompasses Broad Beach and Zuma Beach and juts out into the ocean at Point Dume—an unbroken sweep of expensive real estate and public beaches that stretches for about five miles. House lights, mostly external at that hour, shined onto the dunes that buffer the private homes from the section of sand the public is allowed to walk on. That publicly accessible strip, however, now only exists at low tide, because severe storms obliterated most of the beach, and now many of the multi-million-dollar homes are separated from the sea by a jumble of rocks or a sea wall that grants the beach the feel of a demilitarized zone.
I waited for Game too long, then checked on him. I found him sitting in a chair in his blue bathing suit. He’d taken his shirt off. His left shoulder was still bandaged, and I reminded myself to check his wound later.
“Ain’t going,” he said without looking at me.
“Why not?”
“Ain’t going in the ocean at night.”
“Game, have I misled you?”
“Kidnapping count?” He turned and looked at me. “Nice trunks.”
“Thanks. Knew you’d like them. But I didn’t kidnap you. I’m your bodyguard, hired muscle, as they say. Just another of the lackluster components of the P.I. arsenal. I do this kind of work more than I’d like. It’s how I met Amanda.”
“For real? You her bodyguard?”
“Not anymore, but yeah, that’s how we made contact. She had a stalker, and she hired me to protect her.”
“Did you?”
“From the stalker, yes. The rest is debatable. Now get off your ass. I told you I couldn’t promise you anything. We could’ve gotten hit by a bus on the way home. But now that we’re here, I can promise you nothing bad will happen to you in the water. If we get dumped, you’ll have a life-vest on, and I’m a great swimmer. Nothing worse will happen than your shoulder stinging in the saltwater.”
He didn’t move.
“The moon’s nearly full,” I said, “and I’ll bring a waterproof flashlight for you and an underwater light for me.” He started to stand, then sat down, but I suspected he was milking it for effect.
“Okay, if you don’t get up now, I’ll put up a webpage stating that Game Jackson, aka Wendell, refuses to face his fears and has cooties.”
“You a sick dude. Worst part, you think you funny. A clown like you banging Amanda Bigelow. The world messed up, dawg.” He got up, grabbed his shirt, and walked out the door in front of me.
“You may want to wear your shirt for warmth,” I said. He shrugged it on, and I helped him slip into the life-vest. I tightened the straps, then ran back up the steps and grabbed the waterproof flashlight and my underwater spotlight from the storage closet. I jumped the steps into the sand, then removed a paddle from the Bungees that secured the paddles to one of the house’s crossbeams. I walked back to where Game stood and clipped the lights to the hooks on the kayak.
I said, “All you have to do is hold onto the rails. I’ll paddle from the back seat. The waves are small, so we shouldn’t have trouble getting out. But on the chance I mis-time our entry, lean as far forward as possible when we go over the wave. But we’ll be fine. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Get in the boat.” He did, and before he could think too much, I grabbed the front handle, hoisted the bow, and hauled the boat into the water, running until an incoming wave reached my waist. I let go of the handle, stepped quickly to the back, and scrambled into my seat. I paddled like hell, and we glided over the crest of a small wave, then down the backside into the smooth water.
“See, piece of cake.”
“Okay, that was fun.”
I paddled in the moonglow another seventy-five yards so we would be clear of the outside sets, then turned to the right. I steered the kayak to a patch of kelp I knew about off the rocky point, about two hundred yards in front Jennifer’s house. I used to dive in that spot as a teenager, before all of the overdone, I-Me-Mine houses cluttered the point.
I tied the back of the kayak to the kelp, which then acted as an anchor and held us in place. As I unbuckled the rear hatch to retrieve the spear gun, Game said, “Now what? I just sit here while you swim with the sharks?”
“I have another mask and snorkel in the hold.”
“I’m good. Just shoot something so I can go back to that big-ass TV.”
“Did you call your mom?” I asked as I pulled out the spear.
“Yeah, she cool. Acting like this all good for me and shit.”
“We’ll see.”
I spat into my facemask, wiped the spit around, flooded the mask with seawater, then emptied it and pulled it onto my forehead, securing the strap behind my head and adjusting the snorkel.
“Why’d you spit in it?” he asked while craning to see me over his shoulder. He was still clutching the rails, despite the water being very calm, rocking the boat gently. I turned sideways so my feet dangled in the water, then pulled on my fins.
“To prevent the mask from fogging. What did your homies say?”
He twisted farther in his seat, letting go of the rail with his right hand.
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because you don’t swim well, and we’re a long way from shore.” I jostled the boat with my hand, and he turned forward and clutched the rails as I stopped the spear gun from slipping in.
“What with you?”
“I had a privileged childhood. That shit stays with you.”
I made sure the spear snapped into place, then rested the butt of the gun against my stomach for support. I carefully loaded the gun by pulling hard on the rubber tubing with both hands. I did the same with the second band. Because I’d forgotten to do it earlier, I reached to the end of the gun and made sure the spear tip was secure.
“What did they say?”
“They gonna pop some fools tonight.”
“Anyone in particular?”
