"Exact Revenge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Tim)

4

THE DOOR THAT LED up to the second-floor condo complex where Lexis lived was just down the wide brick alley that bordered one side of the Tusk. I stepped into the shadow of the alleyway, leaving Rangle to search the crowd that had spilled out from the bar and into the railed-off section of tables and chairs.

The condos were high-rent, and I had to punch in a code just to get into the common area. As I started up the steps, my heart began to thump. I hadn’t seen Lexis in four weeks. We hadn’t even spoken on the phone.

On New Year’s Eve, she threw a drink in the face of a partner’s wife. The next day we took a long walk and I tried to hint around that maybe she should get some help to stop drinking.

When she figured where it was I was going, she got hot and started to yell. I tried to keep cool, but pretty soon we both said some things we shouldn’t have. Stupid things neither of us meant. Then I got tabbed to go down to the city and salvage the Iroquois deal and we agreed to take a break and see how we really felt about each other. A test.

I knew how I felt. I felt like shit. Going up those steps, I suddenly didn’t care about the Iroquois deal. I didn’t even care about the United States Congress.

I stood there thinking about how to say I was sorry. Then I heard a voice through the door, deep and rumbling. My gut knotted up. It was her old boyfriend. A guy I knew whose dad was head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. No surprise he was the youngest detective in the department.

My hands clenched into fists and I hammered on the door.

“Son of a bitch,” I said between my teeth.

There was a pause, then footsteps, and the door swung open.

“Raymond?”

It was Lexis. I wanted to punch my fist through the wall. My face burned and my stomach felt sick.

Her dark hair hung in long smooth sheets that only made her blue eyes more striking. Her skin was from another age, a Victorian painting. China skin with a straight nose and high cheekbones. The hair around the fringes of her face was damp.

She wore a white cotton dress with a blue flower print that matched those eyes. Her legs were long and lean. Her waist was narrow.

“What are you doing?” she said.

I said, “What are you doing?”

“I didn’t even know you were back,” she said. “Frank is here. His mother is sick.”

“Right,” I said. My hands were jammed in my pockets and I stood glowering at her with my attention fixed on the interior of the apartment.

Lexis stepped toward me. She put a hand on my cheek and kissed me lightly on the lips. Her lips were full and soft, she smelled of strawberries.

“Missed you,” she said. Her voice was hushed, tender.

I didn’t kiss her back.

She sighed as if to say it was nothing more than she expected out of me and said, “Come in here.”

She turned and walked down a narrow hallway into the towering loft that served as both living room and studio. Frank was standing by the glass doors next to an unfinished canvas. Outside was a balcony overlooking the hickory trees that lined the street below. The sunlight streaming in through the leaves dappled the scarlet silk of his shirt. It hung loose around his waist, but I could still see the bulge of his police-issued Smith amp; Wesson.

I despised him. He was like a giant from a children’s story, with a mop of dark curly hair, flaring nostrils, and hands like slabs of meat. Most women thought he was handsome. So did Frank. He had this shiny olive skin, small fat red lips, and pale blue eyes with lashes like a girl.

“Sorry to hear about your mom,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“Heart attack,” he said. “She’ll be okay. She’s pretty tough.”

“Yeah,” I said, “they say those aren’t as serious as they used to be.”

I circled toward the kitchen, keeping my body sideways to him the way I did when I was sparring.

“Still working on that kung-fu stuff, Big Chief?” he said.

“Some people might be offended by a stupid comment like that,” I said. “But they might not understand about people who are mentally challenged.”

Frank laughed.

“You gotta be careful out there,” he said. “It’s a dangerous world.”

“Same for you, Frank. Don’t try to walk and chew gum at the same time.”

“Tell your mom I send my best,” Lexis said, taking Frank by the arm.

He looked up at me and, showing his teeth, said, “Make sure you treat this girl right.”

I forced a smile.

When he was finally gone, Lexis closed the door and came back into the living room. Almost every flat surface was covered with photos of her and me in delicate silver and wood frames. Us at Disney in front of the castle. Her sister’s wedding in L.A. Camping. Our first-anniversary dinner. She moved slowly across the room, stopping to straighten the picture frames as she came.

“Oh, Frank,” I said. “I’m so glad you could console his delicate spirit.”

“He’s gone.”

“But he’ll be back,” I said. “An asshole boomerang.”

“He’s nothing,” she said. “Don’t waste your time.”

I smelled the musky sweetness of Oriental lilies and looked for the source. In a glass vase beside the couch was a fresh-cut flower arrangement. The paintings on the high brick walls were the same as they’d been a month ago. Surreal, with electric blue skies and inanimate objects with bloody teeth. No new work. Even the canvas on her easel had seen little progress. I couldn’t help feeling glad.

Across the room was the door that led to her bedroom. I studied the big king-size sleigh bed in the middle of the wood floor. It was neatly made.

Lexis was in front of me now. In her hands was an inlaid mahogany frame that held a picture of just me. My neck, shoulders, and chest were bare and tan, the lines of muscle and bone clearly drawn. My hair was a dark tangle. My eyes were half shut, but you could still see the yellow slivers set deep in their brown.

“Remember when I took this?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

I did remember. A seaside cottage on Cape Cod. She said after sex was the only time I ever really relaxed. She said she liked me that way.

“Yes,” I said in a raspy tone.

She traced a fingertip up the front of my thigh.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Me too.”

I could feel her touch through the leg of my pants, up over my waist, then through my shirt, sharp and tingling, ascending my abdomen, over my chest and coming to rest just above my collarbone, where she moved it back and forth in a gentle rhythm. It got hard to breathe. I stepped toward her and let my hand slide down the muscular ridge along her spine to the shelf of her round bottom, where I took hold and pulled her close, pressing her hips against my own and kissing her.

Lexis stripped off my coat and frantically unbuttoned my shirt. They both slipped to the floor. The corner of the white envelope poked out from the inside pocket. I started to bend down to tuck it back in, but her dress fell to the floor-came up over her head and down over the top of it. We began to kiss again, holding it as we moved sideways toward the bedroom. One of my hands slipped beneath her bra, the other under the waistband of her lace underwear, finding the small smooth scar at her hip. My belt buckle jingled and came undone.

By the time we reached the bed, we were both naked. She pushed me onto my back, and then, everything stopped.