“So...”
I sat up in bed and looked up at her.
“So why are you here, Debbie? Owen busy with another one of his basketball groupies tonight?”
“Why don’t you have any self-confidence, Bill? You act like you’re a complete loser. You don’t have much money and you’re not the most handsome stud on campus, but you’re brave and smart and funny and Amy said you were pretty damned good in bed. But you would have let Ramone have me that day on the yacht if I’d been inclined that way. You didn’t even try.”
“It’s called realistic, Debbie. I know what I am and what I’m not. And guys like me don’t end up with women like you.”
She looked at me sadly.
“No, they don’t, if they’re like you.”
We just looked at each other. I expected her to turn around and leave.
“You know that you’ve never touched me. You’ve never tried to kiss me. Girls - women - don’t throw themselves at guys. Maybe a slut like Amy. But women want a man to come after them. If you want someone that looks like me, if you want any woman, you have to take a chance. You have to step out. I like guys, but I’m not going to lay there and spread my legs and beg a guy to take me. I’m better than that.”
She stepped as close to the bed as you could get without being on it and looked at me with a gaze that was partly challenge, and partly hope and partly fear.
“You may not be the best looking guy I’ve ever been with, not the biggest, damn well not the richest. But I think you’re the best guy I’ve ever been with. It doesn’t matter though because we’ll never be together if you don’t grow a set of balls.
“You have to take what you want, Bill. So, the question is, do you want me?”
I knew that someday I’d regret this because I knew that someday she’d tear the heart out of my chest and leave me bleeding. I knew what I should do. But I did what I’d known deep down I was always going to do, no matter what it cost me.
I rose from the bed and pulled her down to me.
“More than my last breath...”
Wednesday, July 13, 2005 – 4:30 P.M.
I came out of the elevator and approached Myra’s desk in front of the big oak doors that led to the Big Man’s domain. I often wondered if she had been fucked on every single piece of furniture in that big office. It was hard to believe he hadn’t had her everywhere humanly possible.
They might get together outside the office, but Edward’s wife of nearly 40 years was reputed to be jealous as hell and she HAD been an alternate on the U.S. Olympic shooting team back in 1976.
Rumor had it she still went to the gun range to show young and not-so-young cops how good she still was. Everyone always wondered how the Big Man had survived this long bracketed by the world’s hottest and biggest tittied secretary on one side and one of the world’s most jealous and most accurate shooting wives on the other.
The guess was that he must have at least 12 inches to keep the wife happy with the state of affairs, and he was also VERY, VERY careful not to play with Myra anywhere his wife might catch them.
No one would probably ever know, until the day the cops got called to check out his bullet riddled corpse, but it made for some interesting office speculation.
Myra snapped her fingers and I came back to reality from my daydreaming.
“Earth to Bill. Where were you?”
I looked into her eyes, a dazzling shade of green that looked like emeralds gleaming, then down at the vast expanse of chest that looked like nothing so much as twin volleyballs somehow crammed into a blouse that had buttons quivering dangerously from the pressure being exerted on them, back up to those emeralds again.
“Sorry, my mind wandered. Doing that a lot lately. You have something for me?”
“Exactly how do you mean that?”
I could not prevent my traitor eyes from dropping to those quivering buttons on the front of her blouse but with superhuman discipline raised my gaze back to her eyes and avoided either blushing or smiling. I think I managed to avoid drooling, mostly.
“I believe you have some tickets and other documents for me.”
“Oh. Yes. I thought you were coming by for them yesterday.”
“Just trying to put it off as long as possible – not seeing you but making this ocean voyage thing real.”
She twisted to pick up an manila envelope on her desk and my body reacted before I even realized what I was doing. Carlos’ training showed me again why three pro boxers had come out of his gyms or training schools. I grabbed the flying missile before I even consciously saw it. She looked up at me and I opened my palm to show the round object.
She opened her mouth in surprise as she recognized the button. She looked down to see top button of her blouse missing. The blouse gaped open, revealing cleavage that went on forever.
“Damned cheap material. This keeps happening.”
I couldn’t’ resist.
“It did its best, Myra. Some things aren’t meant to be contained.”
“Aren’t you sweet,” she said with a sly smile. “For a married man. Anyway, I never thought you noticed them.”
“Is there any male anywhere that’s not noticed them?”
“You’ve done a pretty good imitation for five years. I really thought you were so hung up on that wife of yours that you never noticed.”
“I noticed. But...it’s like the moon. There’s no point in even thinking about going there. And they’re...you’re...further away than the moon.”
I had my hand on her desk and she placed one slim hand palm down on mine. It had to be my imagination, but her touch burnt.
“You’ve been out of touch. You know that men have conquered the moon, don’t you?”
There was absolutely no response I could make to that. My mind was as barren as the Sahara desert.
“Is...that envelope for me?”
She took her hand off mine and handed me the manila envelope with her other hand.
“There are tickets, confirmation papers, some brochures of what to expect on the Bonne Chance. Everything you need to take with you, except a few changes of clothing. I hope you have a good time.”
I took the manila envelope and thought about the last time I’d gone on a cruise, ten years before to Hawaii, just before taking this job with the State Attorney’s Office.
“I don’t know. It’s going to be...different.”
“Because you’ll be going alone.”
The smiled faded.
“I haven’t said anything because...we don’t see each other and it’s not my place...but your wife is an idiot. I know you don’t want to hear that now, but you’re going to be fine. You were always a good guy, but now...”
“Now?”
“You’re getting hot.”
I probably did blush at that.
“I’m bald, pudgy and middle aged. Unless they’ve changed the definition of hot...”
“Bald looks good on you, you haven’t looked in a mirror lately if you think you’re pudgy, and middle aged...You look dangerous is what you look....you’ve got that bad boy thing going.”
“Are you hitting on me?”
“No,” and she laid that burning palm on the back of my hand again. “I don’t mess with married men. Except for...But when your divorce is final....Anyway, about the cruise. You know the name of the ship translates roughly to ‘Good Luck’, right? Well, you just might get lucky. Stranger things have happened.”
“That would be pretty strange, alright. Thanks for the compliments, though, Myra, even if you’re lying through your teeth. See you in a week and a half or so.”
I waited for the elevator. Before the doors opened, she said, “Oh, by the way, Bill, Mr. Edwards doesn’t want you thinking about cases or the business this office does. That doesn’t mean you can’t think about the people here. Or anybody in particular.”
She had a way of saying things that shut me up. I stepped into the elevator without looking back. I could still see that enormo
us expanse of cleavage in my mind’s eye.
CHAPTER 9: BONNE CHANCE
My name is William Maitland. I am, or was, the actual head man with the Assistant State Attorney’s office in Jacksonville, the guy who ran things on a day to day basis without the title or the salary or the headaches of being the official Number One. It was a wonderful life.
Except for it costing me my wife and my marriage and my kids and my life. That part sucked.
And now, this past week, I drove an old man to suicide, probably destroyed the lives of his two daughters and convinced some people around the Jacksonville courthouse that I’d really lost it.
I’d been a walking asshole for four months since I’d learned my wife was in love with another man. Or like. Or lust. Or something. But she had left me. And I’d taken it out on the whole world.
And then, since the old man who’d murdered his wife at the end of a long and happy lifetime together had driven me a little crazy for one day - just one day - I’d come to the brink of losing it all. Everything I had left. My faith in justice, my faith in my job, my faith that what I did could make sense of the world.
I even risked the loss of my job itself. The Big Man who had trusted me with his Office had kicked me out onto a week’s ocean cruise to see if the salt air might somehow cure the sickness deep inside me.
The sickness? A broken heart. And the only people that ever make light of that are the lucky bastards that have never faced it. If you have, you’re not laughing. You know.
Friday, July 15, 2005 – 5 P.M.
I rested my elbows on the railing and looked down to the docking area where people the size of ants, or large bugs, thronged waving and shouting up to the passengers who stood beside and around me at the rail. The ship’s horn blasted again and there was only a gentle swaying motion as it began to slide slowly through the water away from the Blount Island berth that the Bonne Chance had occupied for four days.
Even the summer heat of a Jacksonville July gave way to ocean breezes gusting and tossing hats and papers around. There was the smell of mud flats and rain in the air and dark clouds massed above the horizon.
It was going to rain, probably storm tonight because the weatherman had said the weather system getting ready to inundate Jacksonville was more than the typical summer thunderstorms that hit on a regular basis after 95-plus searing days.
There were couples and groups of women without men, but few groups of men without women, and mothers with infants and more than a few knots of teenagers or younger kids wandering or prowling the crowd looking for teens of the opposite sex or, with pre-teens, of the same sex, to hook up with.
Whoever coined the phrase, lonely in a crowd, knew what he or she was talking about. I looked around at the families, at the couples holding or hugging or kissing, the knots of single women who were eyeing the males in the crowd. What the hell was I doing here?
“I always love this part of the trip. Leaving is...I don’t know, it’s exciting. I’ve done this three times in my life and I never get used to it.”
I looked over at the man and woman standing beside me at the railing. He was about six foot, dark brown hair, open, smiling face. I pegged him for a businessman of some type. The woman standing beside him was about four or five inches shorter but she was wearing sensible heels. Slender with long blonde hair, apple cheeks. A Barbie brought to life.
From the way she was holding onto him, I figured they were on their honeymoon, or second honeymoon because he was no kid.
I looked toward the clouds.
“Looks like it might rain. If it does, it’ll be bumpy tonight. You need to hold your bride tight when you’re getting around. It’s easy to slip and fall.”
He grinned.
“We’re that easy to spot? I guess so. It is our honeymoon. I just made an honest woman out of this young lady.”
He reached over to shake my hand.
“You look familiar. Have I seen you before?”
“No. I just have one of those faces.”
“I hope we’ll run into each other again. My name is Dan Jenkins. I have an insurance agency in Jax, and this is Caroline. My blushing bride. By the way, how are you set for homeowner’s insurance?”
He saw the look on my face and laughed.
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Everybody gets that look on their face when I tell them I’m in insurance. But I’m off the clock for the next week. Going to be too busy to sell anything.”
As he said he grinned and then bent down to kiss his new bride. We must have been about the same age, but I felt immeasurably older than him.
“I’m Bill Maitland. Glad to meet you and your wife. Well, good luck,” I said, moving away as if I had somewhere I had to be. I just didn’t want to be around happy honeymooners right now. Happy anybody, actually.
I wandered down the railing, moving in and out of the couples and families and groups of women, trying to make myself as invisible as possible. Most people had loved ones or friends waving to them. There was no one down there for me. My choice.
Kelly had actually called and asked if I wanted her and her brother at the pier to see me off. I don’t know if she did it on her own or her mother put her up to it, but I thanked her and said it would be a long boring process waiting for the ship to leave. I knew she, they both, had things they’d rather be doing with their friends on a Friday afternoon.
I didn’t ask about her mother, because I knew what she was going to be up to with that prick Doug. Just thinking about it was enough to sour any good feelings I might have had.
I don’t know if I believe in ESP, but sometimes you can tell when someone is watching you. I had that prickling feeling in the back of my neck and I spun around, scanning the deck behind me. There were people all over, passengers and crew scurrying around or moving purposely for whatever reason, but I didn’t spot anyone looking at me.
The feeling didn’t go away but damned if I could figure where it was coming from. Something made me look up. There were staff members in blue and gold, somehow Gallic in look, standing at the next deck railing, looking down at the passengers, talking animatedly and probably discussing among themselves how to insult any passengers rude enough not to be able to speak French perfectly.
A pair of eyes caught my gaze. She had been looking straight at me, not talking with her fellow cruise staff. I made out black hair, a slender figure in blue and gold. It was hard to tell from this distance, but she appeared pretty. I looked around quickly. If our eyes had just accidentally met I didn’t want to be staring at her. When I looked back she’d be looking elsewhere.
Except she wasn’t. She was still staring at me. It’s hard to tell if someone is smiling from that distance, but she didn’t appear to be. I began to wonder if a seagull had crapped on my head or something equally bizarre had happened to fascinate her so totally.
It’s one of those things that happens sometime when someone is staring at you believing you’re not aware, and they suddenly realize you’re looking back at them. It was if something had clicked and we were both aware of what the other was doing.
I can’t explain what happened next. I never would be able to, because it defies rational explanation. But the hairs on the back of my neck started rising.
The only thing I could compare it to is when I was a kid, nine or ten years old in Jacksonville, I’d ridden a bike to a friend’s house on the Westside. As I got off the bike, I suddenly saw the biggest damned dog I’d ever seen in my life. He looked like one of those St. Bernards as big as horses that rescue people trapped in the Alps.
This one wasn’t a rescue dog. Just a huge mutt, who was baring very large canines and growling in a low tone as he moved slowly toward me. That day, the hairs had risen on the back of my neck as I watched death on four paws stalking toward me.
That day I had been scared shitless. Today, I was...what? Not afraid? Of what? Just a dark-haired female cruise ship staff member. Who happened to be staring at me intently. I thought I had never seen h
er before, but at that distance, who could be sure. Maybe she was looking at someone near me.
Even as I tried to float that trial balloon I shot it down. She was looking into my eyes with an unfathomable expression.
Whatever, there was no point in holding a staring contest with a stranger. I looked around and tried to make it appear that I was deeply interested in the antics of a little boy and girl whose parents were trying to corral them before they jumped ship. But I couldn’t stop myself from looking back at the next deck up.
She wasn’t there. There were still cruise ship staff talking and gesturing among themselves, but the space where she had stood was empty. I just stared for a few moments. What had just happened?
I wondered if I could have imagined it. She had just been inspecting the cattle, make that passengers, and her gaze had happened to lock on me for a moment. Nothing more than that and my overheated imagination.
Except that I knew what I had seen and sensed. She was staring at me. It suddenly occurred to me that the Big Man might have asked the ship’s management to give me a babysitter for the cruise to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid. I wouldn’t put it past him. But it would be embarrassing, at the least, to ask if they had been directed to provide a handler for me to keep me from jumping ship or doing something equally stupid. Based on what had already happened since I got to the ship, I could see it.
I had gotten to the ship at 11 a.m. as was suggested. I carried two suitcases. One with clothing that I had thrown together in a night. I wasn’t too fussy about what I wore. I threw in one suit for dining if I made it to the formal dining room, shorts, slacks and a bathing suit although I doubted I’d hit any pools. The other had my laptop, some documents about coming cases and a couple of paperback novels.
I had just checked into my suite, one of the top rooms on the ship only slightly smaller than your typical million-dollar Miami beach house, when I heard a knock at the door. I wondered who it was and when I opened it I said, “God damn. He’s really going to do it, isn’t he?”
Jessica Stephens smiled and nodded.
“He told me to come back with whatever court documents you’ve got squirreled away or not to bother to come back.”
The Long Fall Page 33
