“No car? I’ll pick you up.”
“David,” she said, “I can’t leave, I can’t leave her alone.”
I wanted to tell her she was a prisoner and wasn’t sure how she’d react to the truth.
But she knew: “I’m in a cage,” she said.
I wanted to rescue her. “Tomorrow?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Same bat time, same bat channel?”
“Huh?” She didn’t get the reference.
“Same time as today?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What are you doing right now?”
“Masturbating,” she said, “to the sound of your voice.”
I imagined that, and bad images ran though my skull. “Tell me more.”
Silence.
“Gabriella?”
“I have to go,” she said.
“Not yet.”
“My aunt…”
“Okay.”
“Kisses,” she said, and hung up.
The next morning I had to go to court; someone I had served papers to was contesting it, what they call in legalese a “Motion to Quash Service of Summons.” Basically, the person, this fat slob who worked in an auto repair shop named Roy Erics, claimed I was lying. He was working alone that day, so it was his word against mine. He was acting nervous and he was sweating up there, trying to convince the court that I wasn’t telling the truth. He was just trying to get out of the lawsuit, or delay the process. I gave my testimony in a clear and concise manner, and the judge weighed in favor of my testimony.
The fat slob, Roy Erics, glared at me with a lot of hate.
I was used to people looking at me like they wished me dead. Usually I just smiled back at them, but this time I stuck out my tongue at the dude and winked. I was feeling like a kid, because soon I would be with my new woman, making love to her.
Gabriella’s aunt was asleep and I paid a visit. Gabriella took my hand and led me to her bedroom, a small space in the back of the house. There was a painting of a weeping Jesus on the wall. Her bed was a slender single and the mattress was thin, hard. She had a bottle of tequila under the bed. I told her we didn’t need that but she isn’t on getting buzzed before we had sex. What the hell, I had a few shots.
The sex was violent like the last time: biting and scratching and blood and I wouldn’t have it any other way, this was the special thing between us now. I’d never been with a girl who liked it rough and I wondered where and when Gabriella got into this sort of thing, considering she was only nineteen and, based on what she’d told me, never had much of a free life while under her aunt’s roof.
“How sound asleep is she?” I asked later.
“Very,” Gabriella said. “Thank God.”
“Can I see her? She’s in her bedroom?”
“Why?”
“Just curious.”
She shrugged. “If you want.”
She didn’t bother to dress; nor did I. We crept down the hallway. The master bedroom door was open. I could hear the snores of a woman.
The aunt lay on her stomach and she looked ancient: thin, skin gray, hair white, wearing a housecoat from the 1950s. If it weren’t for the snoring, I would’ve mistaken her for a corpse.
“Soon,” Gabriella said, “soon.”
“Soon?”
“Soon she will go, and I will be free, and rich.”
We made love again and before I left. This time there was a tenderness to it.
I asked what she meant about rich.
“She has a lot of rental properties around the city, left by my uncle,” Gabriella said.
“Who takes care of these places?”
“Oh, a property management group. Every three months they send a nice fat check, profit made from renting.”
“Not bad.”
“It’ll all be mine one day,” she said.
“Something to look forward to.”
“I’m more interested in the cash. Green moola, baby. And the diamonds.”
“Diamonds?”
“A girl’s best friend.”
“Diamonds are forever,” I said; she didn’t know the James Bond reference.
“They are in a safe deposit box at the bank,” Gabriella said, a dreamy look in her eye. “Half a million’s worth, plus $350,000 in bearer bonds, whatever they are.”
“Good as cash.”
“So I’m told. And then there’s the checking and savings accounts, I have no idea what they’re worth but I’m sure a lot.”
“And you know this…?”
“My aunt,” she said, kissing me. “She’s told me I’m in her will, and I get it all, because I’m the only relative she has, and I have sacrificed my young years to take care of her.”
“Why not hire a professional care giver or nurse? She can afford it.”
“And give up on getting the whole pot of gold?”
She had a point.
“I’m going be a rich bitch one day,” she said before I left.
9.
I was thinking about how I shouldn’t be fooling around with this girl, because she was just that: a nineteen-year-old girl, and I was a twenty-eight-year-old man. That’s only a nine-year difference, not too bad, nothing unheard of; it wasn’t like I was thirty- or forty-eight like some middle-aged guys who went after barely legal girls, par for the course in southern California. The other thing: she came from an entirely different world than I did, a world of ethnic gangs and sick relatives, but at least she did not come from poverty, if what she said was true; that house she lived in was in bad shape, but I gathered her aunt (and uncle) were misers who preferred to horde their money than spend it—and I’m sure in her hood, you did not exactly broadcast your wealth. The third issue: she had no freedom; I couldn’t take her out to dinner and a movie—oh, I asked—and she couldn’t come spend the night with me (I also asked, and pleaded). I’d never been involved with a woman who had such restrictions on her personal time and life, not since junior high and high school.
I was drawn to her, and it was more than the sex and her body and skin, more than the rambunctious libido she had after drinking tequila. There was something else I couldn’t put my finger on, like maybe we had known each other in another life, making a pact that we would find each other again in some other time. That night she helped me, when I first looked at her face, I felt like I knew her before. Call it what you want, it was true, and this bugged me because I had never experienced such a thing with any woman—although Meghan claimed many times that she and I were soul mates, and she felt those pangs of destiny, I had never felt the same about her, as much as I had tried, back when we lived together in Ocean Beach.
I went back to Gabriella the next day, and the next…
She said, “This is nice.”
She asked, “But what does it mean?”
She said, “Maybe I shouldn’t think about it too much and just enjoy what we have right now.”
“Called living in the moment,” I said.
“Story of my life.”
“No, you’re living with an eye to the future. Your inheritance. I’m sure you have half that money spent already.”
“No.”
“C’mon, Gaby.”
“Really. Because sometimes I don’t think it’s real.”
“Her will is bogus?”
“It’s legit. Sometimes I don’t think she’ll ever die.”
“She will,” I said.
“How can you be so sure, David?”
“Everyone dies eventually.”
“You promise?”
“Pinky promise,” I said, and linked my pinky with hers.
She giggled. “You’re so silly. That’s what I like about you. Most people I know, especially around here, are always so damn serious. ”
“When in doubt, laugh,” I said. “When in fear, laugh. When in love, laugh.”
“That’s nice. Where did you hear that?”
“The back of a box of cereal.”
“Am I in doubt?” she said. “Always. Am I in fear?” she said. “Sometimes. Am I in love?” she asked, looking up and kissing my nose. “I just might be,” she said.
Neither Pablo Martinez nor his ex-girlfriend showed up for the restraining order hearing. That really pissed me off—I went through all that hassle and headache for nothing. Well, I got paid; and I would not have met Gabriella Amaya otherwise.
I don’t know what happened nor did I care. Perhaps Martinez and the ex- reconciled, perhaps he threatened her, maybe he killed her and then killed himself. It was none of my business.
That didn’t stop me from being ultra cautious when visiting Gabriella, even if I did go through the backyard. Martinez would remember me, and so would his buddy José. José would be seeking some payback for what I did.
10.
“I want to take you out on a real date,” I said.
“What does that mean?”
“You know, dinner and a movie, what regular people do.”
“I’m not ‘regular people’ if you haven’t noticed.”
“You don’t want to?”
“David,” she said, “I’d love to, but you know how it is.”
“I have something in mind,” and told her about my idea of hiring a private nurse to keep an eye on her aunt during her aunt’s second sleeping schedule, nine to six in the morning. “We might not be able to catch a movie,” I said, “but we could have a nice dinner somewhere, and we could spend some time together, other than there.”
Her face brightened. “You’d really do this for me?”
“Of course, all for you.”
I was also doing it for me.
“A private nurse . . .”
“A baby-sitter,” I said.
“If she woke up . . .”
“Does she?”
“Never. Maybe once. But no.”
“This Friday?”
She kissed me. “You’re so good to me. No one has ever been good to me.”
So she’d know I was serious, I had flowers delivered to her.
And that gave me an idea for a woman I needed to serve divorce papers on. She was being elusive, not answering her door, acting like she wasn’t home but I knew she was when she looked through her peephole. Many people don’t realize that light from inside, natural or bulb, comes through the other side of the peephole, and when it goes dark that’s a giveaway someone’s on the other side of the door, looking at you. Sometimes you can get away with shoving the papers under the door, which the courts deem the same as placing the documents at the feet. But they could still argue that you’re lying, or that they had a guest over, or it was the dog who blocked the peephole. For dissolutions of marriages, like restraining orders, I preferred personal service that couldn’t be denied.
I bought a bouquet of roses and daises from the same place that I had flowers delivered to Gabriella. I put on a generic baseball hat and dark blue wind blazer; this gave me that generic delivery guy look. I pulled the hat down to cover my face; she probably remembered what I looked like.
I rang her doorbell. The peephole went dark.
“Flower delivery,” I said.
“You have the wrong address,” a woman’s voice said from behind the door.
I said her name.
“Who sent them?”
I pulled out the card, which I had written You’ve been served on. “Says from a secret admirer.”
For a moment I didn’t think she’d go for it, then the door opened and she said, “Really?” She had a smile on her face. I figured, she’s separated from her husband, things aren’t going well, maybe she cheated, maybe she’s been dating. Who can resist a secret admirer?
I handed her the flowers, along with the divorce papers. “Enjoy the flowers, and you’ve been served.”
“Goddammit all,” she said.
“Read the card,” I said. For added effect, I had wrote you’ve finally been served on the card.
The door slammed shut.
All in a day’s work.
Back at the office, a process server was waiting for me. He was a regular guy like any of us are regular guys and he was sitting in a truck outside the office building downtown.
“David Kellgren,” he said.
“Yeah?”
He gave me some documents. “You’ve been served.”
“Hey, that’s my line.”
At least I tried to find the humor in it.
I examined the documents, a summons and complaint; was being sued by the guy with the auto-shop for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Roy Erics, in pro per: meaning he did this without a lawyer, prepared the suit on his own. Despite the court’s ruling, he still maintained I was lying and he was suffering from anxiety attacks over my fabrications and violations of his due process rights.
“This is bullshit,” I said.
“I’m just the messenger, buddy,” my fellow process sever said.
“Stop stealing my lines!”
I found it funny, really, and so did he, so be both chuckled: ha ha, hee hee, the joke’s on me, G.
“I feel for your buddy, I was on the end of one of those last year. But I was paid to do a job…”
11.
Saturday.
Our first “date,” technically.
I arranged for the private nurse and it wasn’t cheap, on quick notice and for only a few hours. If it worked out, I’d need the nurse every Saturday, maybe Friday, maybe three nights a week; as many as Gabriella wanted and needed, it was fine by me.
By now I couldn’t get enough of the girl and it had me wondering, and maybe a little worried: I didn’t remember the last time I had felt this way about a woman, if I ever had. Had I ever felt this way about Meghan? Perhaps I had told myself I did, or it seemed par for the course: you date someone, you sleep with them, you have feelings for them, you move in with them . . .Gabriella looked stunning when I went to pick her up, in a flower-print summer dress that clung to her body like a second skin. This was the first time I had seen her with make-up on and while I thought she applied just a little too much around the eyes, it did not matter in the grand scheme of things.
She was nervous about leaving her aunt alone with the private nurse, a woman in her forties who appeared to know what she was doing. Gabriella went over everything about her aunt and the house, keeping her voice low, and the nurse just smiled and said, “Everything will be all right, Ms. Amaya, you just go out and have some fun.”
In the car, Gabriella said, “Wow, no one has ever called me ‘Ms. Amaya’ before, like I was someone important.”
“Well, you are,” I said, and took her hand in mine.
She reached over and kissed me on the cheek.
Gabriella was like a child at Disneyland, as if the city at night were a strange new land to laugh and play in. She certainly had a good time. I took her to dinner at a fine Italian restaurant down in the Gaslamp Quarter of downtown San Diego. She thought she wasn’t dressed fancy enough. I assured her that it was all casual. I was wearing black slacks and a blazer. There were eyes on her in that restaurant; she was aware of this and I leaned over the table and said, “You’re the most gorgeous woman in this place.”
“I don’t want to be the most gorgeous,” she said, smiling like a little devil, “I want to be the hottest.”
She belonged in public, for everyone to see, not cooped up in that house all day and night with her invalid aunt.
Next was the movie. There were five to choose from at the complex: a romance, an animated film, a science-fiction and two horror flicks. I thought she would go for the romance or cartoon, but that’s what Meghan would’ve done. Gabriella picked the most gory of the two horrors, about a family vacationing on a lake and terrorized by a white trash hillbilly family with rape, murder and mayhem on the agenda. She laughed through it while I cringed at the torture and blood.
“I love crazy shit like this,” she said.
I didn’t tell her what I felt about violence.
“You don’t know the risk I’m taking for this date,” she said.
“Aren’t you curious about where I live?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not,” I said.
“Let’s do it in the car,” she said.
“The car!”
“You’ve never fucked in a car?” She was amused.
“Sure…in high school.”
“I like car sex,” she said, “and cargasms.”
“Auto-orgasms.”
We both giggled like kids.
She said, “Sounds like masturbation. I can do that, if you want to watch.”
“I want you.,” I said, and we had each other in my parked car.
“Thank you for taking me out,” she said. “Next time, we’ll go to your place. Forget the dinner and movie; we’ll head straight for your bed.”
“There’ll be a second date, then?”
“Third, fourth, fifth, and so on,” Gabriella said, “if you’re a good boy.”
I held her in arms and said, “Can’t I be a bad boy?”
“I’ve had enough bad boys.”
“Tell me about them.”
“You don’t want to know.”
We kissed.
“Call me when you get home,” she said, “so I’ll know you’re safe.”
“I’m always safe.”
“Just call me.”
I called when I was home.
“Where are you?” she said, voice low.
“Getting in bed.”
“Wishing I was there?”
“You’re reading my mind.”
“I want to be there,” she said.
“You could be.”
“I will be.”
“Promises, promises.”
“I’m sick of being trapped here, David,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
“Listen to me, David,” her voice a hard and serious whisper. “I need to get away from my aunt. I need help.”
Hard Cold Whisper Page 3
