Too Beautiful to Die

by Glenville Lovell

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Too Beautiful to Die

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2003 by Glenville Lovell

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 978-1-1011-9183-5

  A BERKLEY BOOK®

  Berkley Books first published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: July, 2005

  ALSO BY GLENVILLE LOVELL

  SONG OF NIGHT

  FIRE IN THE CANES

  For my brother Elvis:

  In our hearts you’re too beautiful to die

  1

  MY WIFE, ANAIS, was one of those women who not only turned heads—she confused minds. With skin that always shone like a well-buffed car and a smile so bewitching it could easily strip a blind man of his dignity, the grandness of her beauty had been burnt into my mind since the day I laid eyes on her.

  I first met Anais one soggy Sunday afternoon in Central Park, and thought then that she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I still think so, though I’m not sure she cares anymore what I think. You see, she split for California a year ago while I wallowed in a revenge-induced stupor. It’s not always easy for a proud man, one as stubborn as I am, to admit his mistakes. A more humble man would’ve seen his error right away and gone after his wife. What fool would let a woman like Anais get away? A smarter man would’ve seen it coming and done something to prevent it. Unfortunately I wasn’t nearly so humble or smart, and it took me a while—too long by Anais’ standards—to realize or accept that life was not the same without her. And now I wasn’t sure I could win her back.

  Despite countless letters and emails, numerous calls, and dozens of presents, my efforts to draw her back from the West Coast failed, so I flew out there to woo her again, hoping to use the blueprint that got us married. And for a while it appeared that I was winning the battle. We drank wine and laughed over candlelit dinners in chic restaurants; we held hands and walked in the park; we went to museums. And we argued. But even when we argued I tried to remain open-minded, not letting my stubbornness obstruct my goal. By the time we made love I thought for sure I’d won my prize. But two weeks later I returned to New York without Anais or a promise of permanent reconciliation.

  I flew back to New York with a fear deep in my soul that Anais was never coming back to me. But I did not give up. I kept calling and sending email with funny e-greeting cards of dancing bears and singing dogs. If only I could convince her to come east for a weekend. New York was my turf. I’d won her here once, and I fancied my chances of doing it again. What I got was even better. She promised me one week.

  I’d spent the day sprucing up the apartment, hanging art I’d bought at a gallery in Harlem and strategically placing photos of the two of us in happier times. It was a steamy summer day, hotter inside the apartment, but I was able to ignore the heat as I worked, buoyed by thoughts that soon Anais and I would be sharing an intimate laugh over wine, or a scented bath in my oversized bathtub.

  Late in the afternoon I lay on my bed lathered in sweat thinking up ways to convince her that no man could make her as happy as I could. Early in our courtship I’d made a big impression with my cooking, the benefit of having a mother whose birthplace was New Orleans and a grandmother from the Caribbean. Born into a well-off Atlanta family, Anais had rebelled against the notion that something in a Southern woman’s genes left her predisposed to developing culinary skills, and she made no attempt growing up to learn anything about the kitchen other than its geographical location in the house so she could avoid it. When she left home to become a dancer in New York without her family’s blessing, it all caught up with her. Cut off from their money she had to find ways to survive, including learning how to cook for herself. She was thrilled that I knew how and could do it well.

  That morning I’d stopped in at Fish Tales and bought three pounds of Chilean sea bass, a sweet oily fish from South America. This was my secret weapon. Done well and served with a crisp white wine, this dish could open up any woman to romance. It always worked on Anais. She loved this fish almost as much as she loved me to massage her feet after a tough ballet class.

  My thoughts flew back to Los Angeles a month ago and our lovemaking there in her apartment overlooking a park. Seeing her spread atop new blue sheets wearing white panties and nothing else. To taste her was to eat a ripe, full-bodied fig, the dark spread of her skin a mystery I told myself only I could unravel. When she touched me, her nimble soft hands seemed to transmit her soul’s meaning, making me want to break out in song. Drawing those panties down her brown legs with my eyes closed. And when I opened them again to her naked body sprawled on the bed, she was watching me so intently I wanted to cry.

  Just as I saw myself falling to my knees to bury my face in the cave of her thighs, my phone rang. I ran to pick it up, thinking it was her. She’d promised to call to let me know what time to pick her up tomorrow. It was a voice from my past. A voice I wasn’t at all happy to hear.

  “Blades?”

  I would know that whine anywhere.

  The cracked voice spilled into my ear again. “I need to see you, man. Today.”

  THE GREEN-UNIFORMED LATINO doorman looked at me cockeyed before asking if he could help.

  “Apartment C-Four,” I said.

  “And your name?”

  “Blades.”

  He picked up the house phone and punched the keys with his index finger. “A Mr. Blaze to see you, Ma’am.”

  “That’s Blades with a D,” I corrected.

  He turned to me and smiled. His teeth were short and shiny and pointy like a cat’s. “Blaze?”

  I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Third floor. Elevator right, Mr. Blaze.”

  I walked off muttering to myself.

  COORS IN HAND, Jimmy was waiting for me when I ducked off the elevator. I hadn’t seen him in six months; he’d improved his wardrobe, but other than that he looked much the same. He smiled as if he was happy to s
ee me. I can’t say the feeling was mutual. Perhaps some other time, but not today. For starters, at a time when all I had were dreams, he’d interrupted the daydream I was having with my wife as the centerpiece. But if that wasn’t enough—and believe me, it was—when I tried to get rid of him by telling him I was waiting for a call from my wife, he invoked the E-word. Emergency. I had no answer for that word. Not from Jimmy. We had a history. I gave in to history.

  The heat wave that had gripped New York by its throat was now in its third day with the mercury still hovering around 100. Not the kind of weather I like for my evening stroll. And were it not for the fact that he’d saved my life three years ago, I would’ve told Jimmy Lucas exactly where to bury his freaking head. I’d taken the train to Manhattan, walking as slowly as I could from the station, slimy sweat dripping off me as if I’d been slow dancing with the creature from Alien.

  “Man, you don’t know how happy I am to see your black ass,” he said.

  Other than my brother, Jimmy Lucas was the only white person who could speak to me this way without getting a bounty of their own enamel rammed down their throat. I gave Jimmy a lot of slack for saving my life. But one day, I told him, his honorary-black privilege would expire.

  “I need a cold beer, kid,” I said.

  “You got it, baby.”

  He grinned and draped a scrawny arm around my shoulders. A loose silver watch dangled on his bony wrist as we walked awkwardly down the hospital-white hallway, which smelled of Pine-Sol. Jimmy was a tall dude, about an inch taller than me at six-two and skinny as a praying mantis. Sporting shoulder-length blond hair in a ponytail, he had a two-toned face with dark freckles around his nose and mouth.

  A short distance later we paused opposite a green door with C-4 printed in gold lettering. Jimmy pushed the half-open door.

  “I want you to meet somebody,” he said, dragging me inside.

  The apartment was large. And cool. We were standing in a wide room furnished minimalist-style, which emphasized the size. An imposing six-foot sculpture of a naked woman in polished black wood guarded one corner near a window. Posted against one wall was a cream leather sofa with a red wing chair a few feet away. The black marble-top table in the center of the room was no more than a foot off the floor. Several colorful paintings, tropical in tone, were evenly spaced on bone-white walls around the room. It was a generous room that, despite its size and free space, felt warm and cozy. I imagined people dressed in black would retire to this room after a fancy four-course dinner to sip champagne and talk about art or the ballet. What was Jimmy doing in a place like this?

  A woman with skin as smooth and brown as a crisp macadamia nut stood behind the sculpture almost mirroring its pose. She was dressed in white. Jimmy walked over and took her arm.

  “Blades, meet Precious,” he said.

  “Nice to meet you, Precious,” I said, extending my hand.

  She captured my hand. “I’m so glad you could come.” Her voice was dark rum being poured over ice on a very hot day.

  “Sit down, man,” Jimmy said. “What kind of beer you want?”

  “I don’t imagine you have Banks?” I said.

  “Banks? Is that one of those European brews?” Jimmy said.

  “It’s from Barbados. I vacationed there earlier this summer. Very smooth lager. Didn’t think you’d have it. Gimme a Coors.”

  Jimmy glanced at Precious, and silently a decision was made that she would get the beer. She quickly disappeared down the hallway.

  “Sit down,” Jimmy urged. “It’s cool here, right?”

  “It’s cool.”

  “Sure it’s cool. You didn’t think it’d be this cool, did ya?”

  “What’s this all about, Jimmy? Who’s this woman? Is this her place?”

  “Sit down, man. What’s the matter? You don’t like the place? It ain’t cool enough for ya?”

  Someone must’ve been giving Jimmy fashion tips, because he was dressed more stylishly than I’d ever seen him, in a metallic blue shirt with a Donna Karan tag on the pocket and black flat-front pants. Donna Karan was a big step up from Buffalo Bills sweatshirts. I looked down at his feet to see if he was wearing sneakers. He was. Way to go, Jimmy. I settled into the cool leather of the sofa, and as I watched him milk the beer bottle, uneasiness crawled up my back.

  “Nice, huh?” Jimmy chirped.

  Precious returned with a tall bottle of Coors, half of which had been poured into a frosty glass on a black coaster. As she leaned toward me her whole body seemed to tremble. Her neatly manicured nails were painted a rich gold.

  I chugged the beer as if I’d just staggered in from the Sahara, emptying the glass, allowing the cool frothy liquid to bubble noiselessly down my throat. The sensation was one of such incredible relief I couldn’t hold back my smile. Jimmy sat cocked in the wing chair, his face stricken with the melancholy look of a sleepy dog. Precious had returned to the shadows behind the sculpture.

  “I was asking Jimmy if this was your place,” I said to her, after I’d slopped the other half of my beer from the bottle.

  Jimmy rushed forward. “Let me get you another beer, man.”

  I indicated no with a wave of my hand. He took my glass and the empty bottle and flopped on the edge of the wing chair with them cupped in his lap.

  Precious was smiling self-consciously. “I bought it five years ago.”

  “It’s very nice.”

  “Thank you.”

  Damn, I liked her voice.

  “Precious is an actress,” Jimmy said.

  “Really? Are you in anything I might’ve seen?” I said.

  She smiled. “Do you watch Dark Passions? It’s a daytime soap.”

  “Not lately,” I said.

  “I play a British physician, Dr. Antonia Parker.”

  “Is that right?”

  Amused by my feeble attempt to hide my ignorance, she smiled. “It’s a great part.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  She was a tall woman, six or seven inches over five feet, with full, wide hips. Her white shorts showed off well-muscled legs and an apparent athleticism that made me think of Anais. A swanlike neck held her round head absolutely still, with cheeks that flared too faultlessly at its widest point. I wondered if she was the kind of woman who’d hand over her face to a cosmetic wizard.

  “She needs your help,” Jimmy said, standing up. “Tell him your story, Precious.”

  He went to draw her from the shadows. She waved him aside, gliding to the center of the room with balletic grace.

  “Are you here to help me, Blades?”

  “He’ll help you,” Jimmy said. “Ain’t that right, Blades? Tell her how I saved your life.”

  “Tell me your story, Precious,” I said, after a pointed stare in Jimmy’s direction. He didn’t have to bring that up.

  “You promise to help me?” Precious said.

  I hesitated. Looking into her impassioned hazel eyes, I wondered if anybody had ever said no to this woman.

  “IFEEL SO ashamed talking about this.” Her voice had the forced calmness of someone trying to hide her emotions.

  She sat in the wing chair, long legs crossed, back erect. I kept my eyes focused on her face. When I was a cop I had honed to perfection the skill of reading the eyes of a witness or a suspect, but was my attention to her eyes, which could light a candle, force of habit or the fact that she was so damn beautiful?

  “I don’t know who my father is,” she continued. “I don’t know his name or what he looks like. I never even saw a picture. I don’t even know if he’s alive. For years I’ve been trying without any luck to track him down. Last week, out of nowhere, I got a call from a man. He asked me how much was I willing to pay for information about my father. I asked him his name. He wouldn’t tell me, so I hung up. He called back and told me that for fifty thousand dollars he would tell me who my father was and how to get in touch with him. He wouldn’t give me any details about how he knew I’d been searching for my father, but t
he more he spoke the more I was taken in. There was something about his voice. He just seemed so sure. Like he knew things most people didn’t know. In the end I agreed to pay him.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” I said.

  She glanced at Jimmy and then back to me. “The money is nothing to me. I can afford it. I’d pay twice that to find my father.”

  “How many times have you spoken to this man?” I asked.

  “Three or four.”

  “Did you get his name?”

  “He called himself Antonio.”

  “It sounds like a hoax. A crazed fan,” I said.

  “That’s why I need you.”

  Right there I should’ve gotten up, thanked her for the beer and the brief respite from the heat and made my way back to my Brooklyn sauna before I got so comfortable in her company and this Town & Country living room that I’d agree to slay a lion. Instead, I sat there looking like a schoolboy watching his first striptease.

  Precious got up and went back to the sculpture, her gold-embroidered slippers smacking the floor. She bent down and picked up a black leather briefcase.

  “I have the money. And I know where to take it. I want you to go with me.”

  At least she didn’t say, “I want you to take it.” Give her credit for that. She might be an actress, but she was no prima donna.

  “I think you should call the police,” I said.

  “She don’t want to do that,” Jimmy said.

  Precious stepped forward. “I don’t want any publicity. I was ready to go myself, but Jimmy convinced me you would help.”

  “You have to help her, Blades,” said Jimmy.

  “You want my help, then take my advice,” I said.

  “Is it asking too much for you to go with her, man?” Jimmy’s voice rose impatiently.

  The actress completed her parade across the room and sat opposite me again, leaning forward. I could feel her sharp eyes scaling my face.

  “Please, I’m willing to pay you,” she said.

  Jimmy stood guard near the hip of the couch, watching me warily.

  I looked up at Jimmy. “Why don’t you go with her?”