Be the One

by April Smith

  “So who are these assholes,” says Joe gravely, “and why are they trying to blackmail you?”

  “This has nothing to do with that,” answers Cassidy. “He’s here because he got into a fight over a girl in a disco and hit somebody with a chair. When the lawyers get into this, I’m toast.”

  Alberto: “I very sorry that I make trouble for you.”

  The door jerks open and Detective Mark Simms comes in, wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a couple of gold chains, a half-smoked cigar between his teeth.

  “Hello, Alberto. Cassidy. You’re working late.” He takes in the dress. “Dedication. Beyond the call of duty, but appreciated.”

  Cassidy folds her arms. “We were at a museum event.”

  “Would you excuse us, sir?”

  “No problem,” says Joe, newly energized and tense. He cocks a finger toward Alberto. “I’ll make a call.”

  When the door closes Simms begins: “Let me explain why I’m here. As the LAPD detective assigned to Major League Baseball, I was notified of your arrest. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I fight.”

  Simms sits in the metal chair, hitching it three times toward the glass, a move he has obviously made in this room a thousand times.

  “With a thing like this, you don’t want it staying wet too long.”

  At first Cassidy thinks he is talking about the case in some kind of obscene police code, then notices Simms rolling a cigar between his fingers appreciatively.

  “Genuine cubano,” he explains.

  “I tried to buy those in the Dominican. Where did you get it?”

  “A Hollywood madame.”

  Cassidy leaves, depressed. She knows nothing about the world.

  Isabel Street is deserted and heavy with mist as if someone had taken a spray bottle and tried to revive downtown Glendale. Cassidy comes down the steps to find Joe leaning against the most princely car she has ever seen, a weighty verdant-green convertible with cream interior—long, with a stately and determined stance.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “Tired. Look, Joe, what was going down with Alberto, that was club business. It was nice for all of us to be together shooting the breeze, but you really had no right to be in that room.”

  “Let me make it up to you.”

  “How,” she says in a voice going husky, “are you going to make it up to me?”

  “What if I told you how to make the felony charge go away?”

  “I’d be interested.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. Go ahead.”

  “Okay, you call the owner of the club and get him to agree to a civil compromise.”

  “Which is?”

  “A way of not going to court. You pay for damages, the felony charge is reduced, they cite Alberto out on a misdemeanor. It all goes away. No big deal.”

  “How did you come up with that?”

  “I called Harvey.”

  Her fingers lightly drum his jacket lapel.

  “Our lawyers would have thought of it tomorrow.”

  “I know,” he says, “but this is tonight.”

  They stand still in the empty street. Neither wants to leave the other’s shining eyes.

  “What can it do?”

  “The car?”

  “Of course,” she says. “What do you think I’m talking about?”

  “Zero to sixty in six-point-something.”

  “Fast.”

  He makes a cup of her hands and drops in the keys.

  “Any way you want.”

  LAPD Detective Mark Simms exits the lobby of the police station, eager to relight the cubano, but slows in the doorway when he observes Cassidy Sanderson sliding her hands up the chest of the guy in the expensive suit, all the way up around his neck, and they kiss, a gum-crusher, no kidding around, then manage to pry themselves apart long enough to maneuver into separate doors, she’s driving, then the Bentley disappears, leaving a slick trail in the dewy dark.

  Simms mouths the wet cigar and makes note of the license plate.

  Habit.

  8

  The Bentley Azure convertible whispers past City Hall and follows a row of old pink brick apartment buildings down Broadway. Behind the crystal windscreen the damp air puffs discreetly at Cassidy’s loose hair. The motorcar handles like a cloud.

  She hits a button on the CD and they are suddenly enveloped in the climax of a grand Italian opera—oceanic bass and sweet soprano, lush brocades and golden tassels instantaneously made almost visible by the pure rich clarity of sound.

  “Got any blues? Muddy Waters, B. B. King—”

  “I’ve got jazz.”

  He punches up a trio playing “Waltz for Debby” and Cassidy summarily punches it off.

  “What is this, a V-8?”

  “Three hundred eighty-five horsepower and don’t ask me anything else, that’s all I know.”

  “What’s the fastest you’ve ever driven it?”

  Her eyes are on the freeway entrance a couple of blocks ahead.

  “A hundred thirty, going out to Vegas.” He studies her profile. “You are actually licking your lips.”

  “You offered. No taking back.”

  He smiles but unconsciously crosses his arms.

  Protection. At a hundred thirty.

  They stop at a light along a cheesy strip of discount stores and bail bond storefronts. A red Trans Am pulls up beside them, hip-hop pummeling. The tinted window rolls down and a Latino guy calls, “Do you know how to get to Pasadena?”

  “Take the 134 east,” says Joe, pointing ahead.

  The guy cracks up laughing along with his pals, about seventy of them crammed into the backseat.

  The street is empty, harsh white light spoking out from the barred windows of the bondsman. Cassidy counts the remaining seconds until the light goes green. It isn’t just the music that is pounding in her chest.

  Both cars start to roll, grille to grille, then without effort, without even seeming to accelerate, the Bentley vaporizes as, incredibly, Cassidy cuts the guy off, hits the westbound ramp at sixty and puts a half mile between them by the time Joe recovers enough to say, “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Are you mad?”

  “No.”

  “You’re nice to let me drive. Just like you let Alberto.”

  “I live to serve.”

  “Go ahead. Put on your music.”

  “No, thank you,” says Joe. “I’m in your hands.”

  She smiles.

  “Is that what you like? Power over men?”

  “I don’t have power over men.”

  He raises an eyebrow skeptically.

  She answers, “Come with me to work one day.”

  Her palms slide up and down the hide-covered wheel.

  “So what does a car like this cost?”

  “Three hundred, plus change.”

  “Three hundred thousand? I am totally intimidated.”

  “I fell in love, what can I say? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Passion?”

  “If you can afford it.”

  “To me this is the most beautiful car in the world. I wanted to surround myself with beauty, no matter what the cost. But now I realize I was wrong.”

  “Why?” asks Cassidy, glancing at the side mirror. Behind them the freeway is empty and the emptiness keeps piling up. They’re cruising at ninety.

  “Well, it turns out,” says Joe, “I had no idea what beauty was until tonight. Only now, with you in the car, is the beauty complete.”

  A slow blush starts at the base of her throat and mounts to her cheeks.

  “It’s that virginal quality.”

  She sputters laughter.

  “Yes, Joe, I am a virgin.”

  “I believe, underneath, there’s a lonely girl. Want some heat?”

  An insinuating warmth radiates from the driver’s seat like a hot bath
at warp speed.

  Does it vibrate, too? she wants to say, but that would be a dyke jock thing.

  “Are all scouts as involved with their players as you seem to be?”

  “You get attached, to varying degrees.”

  “What is it about Alberto?”

  “He’s talented. A good kid. Alone in this country—”

  “Such the big sister.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “No, I can tell you’re really concerned about him.” Joe lowers the back of his seat an inch. “Who do the police think is behind the extortion threats?”

  “They say it’s a grudge. Someone looking for reflected light off the star.”

  “A pal from back home who didn’t make it?”

  “It’s after working hours, Joe.”

  They don’t speak. For several minutes the flat light-grid of the San Fernando Valley strobes by.

  Finally Joe yawns. “How far do you want to take this?”

  “The ocean.”

  “Really? Way over Topanga?”

  “Why not? You have to be somewhere?”

  “Uh, no—”

  “I want to drive this thing over the canyon.”

  “Fuck! I just remembered. I have a meeting in the morning—”

  “Should I turn back?”

  “Never mind—”

  “No, it’s silly, if you—” She starts to sneeze. And sneeze. Six times in a row.

  “Allergies?”

  He presses buttons.

  Seven sneezes. Eight. “What’s that going to do?”

  “Filter the air.”

  “Joe, we’re in a—convertible.” Ten. “Do you have tissues—?”

  Swollen-eyed, blinded with tears, she reaches over and gropes the glove box open.

  A pistol falls into Joe’s lap.

  She swerves. Out of nowhere a sixteen-wheeler blasts by with a horn like a freight train.

  Cassidy veers to the right, almost hits a Volvo.

  “Watch out!”

  She compensates. The Bentley centers itself.

  “What is that?”

  “A Beretta.”

  He has put the gun back in and snapped the glove box smartly.

  “Why do you need a Beretta?”

  “Protection.”

  “From what?”

  He thinks about it.

  “I know this is going to sound somewhat corny, but I believe it’s true. Our lives more than crossed in the Dominican. Our lives changed. Mine did. Since the first time we met, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

  “Why didn’t you call?”

  “I had some things to sort out. I’m still not sure. I still don’t know. Except that you’re different. No woman has ever done this to me. How many guys get a hard-on driving by Dodger Stadium?”

  “Not nearly enough. Should I turn off here?”

  “Yeah, sure. Go for it.”

  She coasts down the freeway ramp onto Topanga Canyon Road, a curving mountain pass black as pitch. She takes the first hairpin at forty, a rockfall of stones stirred loose in their wake from the invisible shoulder of the hill.

  “Easy. I like my paint job.”

  The heat brings out the same rich smell as the supple leather seats of the Range Rover when they had driven those endless looping roads, unable to see beyond their headlights in the intensifying rain. The Rover had the same walnut veneer console; she remembers how it felt to be up high, as if they had been in command of all the roads in the Dominican.

  A car comes down the opposite direction, slopping over the yellow line. Cassidy hugs the canyon wall so branches whip the door.

  “Don’t worry. I’m on it,” downshifting so the tires chirp. “So why the gun?”

  “I’m going to take a very big risk here,” says Joe.

  “You’re already letting me drive.”

  “I’m going to tell you something. In confidence, okay?”

  “You got it.”

  “I’ve been getting blackmail threats as well. The same as Alberto.”

  Cassidy glances over. His fingers flex the top edge of the door. His black hair glistens with perspiration; full of contradictions, perplexingly attractive, and fierce—a flameless, smokeless ferocity.

  “Oh my God, Joe.”

  “That’s why the gun.”

  “What do they have on you?”

  “Nothing! I don’t know! We’ve had some problems down there, I thought it was another government crook on the take, so I paid.”

  “You paid? How much?”

  “Thirty thousand dollars. So far.”

  “So far?”

  “The notes kept coming. I kept paying.”

  “Harvey said you’re never supposed to pay a blackmailer.”

  Alarmed, “When did he say that?”

  “At the party.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing. I was talking about Alberto, but I never even got to say—”

  “Look,” interrupts Joe. She can see dark sweat creeping at the armholes of the suit. “It is very, very important that Harvey never finds out anything about this.”

  “He’s your attorney—”

  “My life is complicated. Harvey can’t know.”

  It is still dark but pickup trucks have begun to appear on the road, laborers going to the job. They slow through Topanga Village, the buried heart of hippie culture, horse corrals and slipshod weathered structures overgrown with plants, where Druids and fairy-worshipers still dress their children in crowns of flowers during rituals in spring.

  “You know, these spirit bottles—”

  “Don’t talk about that.”

  “There’s something that brought you, me, and Alberto together. Once. Twice. Why?”

  “You’re giving me the chills.”

  “I don’t know who or what it is, but frankly, I don’t like it. Less and less. Or more and more. All I know, we have to stay together. You’re the only one I can talk to about this. We have to trust each other.”

  Cassidy turns into a lookout, braking at a dented guardrail. She cuts the headlights and there is nothing but black and the silence of the canyon. In an hour there will be light and birdsong; now, in darkness, coyotes hunt and owls cry.

  The top goes up, swoosh, and the locks go down, swoosh, and Joe and Cassidy touch lips.

  She forces herself to slow down, to savor the untying of the tie, the opening up and pushing apart of the jacket and the white dress shirt, off his shoulders like the wings of an angel, drinking from the pool between the small bones, then both of them clawing gracelessly along the pleated panels of soft hide in order to do this thing; skins hypersensitive, even the featherweight brush of his tongue causing her to cry out from the unendurable actuality of being with this man, the real mass and weight of him, then the goal between her hands, unbearably unmysterious.

  Finally, Joe sitting up in the backseat. Cassidy on his wide-apart thighs, dress half down, half up, a twisted cummerbund of spandex and lace. Their ankles scrolled together.

  Now she has it where she wants it.

  “Oh do it.”

  The first time they had touched had been at the bar in the airport. “You know what I think?” “What do you think?” “You have Swedish hands.” “Swedish hands?” She’d laughed and hidden them under the table. “What do you mean?” “They look like they could handle a pitchfork. Or weave some incredible sweater out of raw sheep’s wool.” And the back of his hand brushed hers as he passed along a drink.

  Now his fingers are enslaving as they compress the tendons of her wrists, forcing them, in the last unbinding moment, to hold their arms straight out together: a double crucifixion; throats exposed, and blood-red fists.

  9

  One week later. The phone rings at dawn. A male voice with a foreign accent says, “Wake up. You know what you have to do.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Your trainer, gorgeous.”

  Cassidy rolls over. Her heart rate
has skyrocketed.

  “You scared me.”

  Marshall chuckles. “Usually it’s the other way round. See you at the gym.”

  Edith jumps on board, jiggling the bed frame. Cassidy hangs up and rests a hand on her heaving breast, waiting for a resting pulse to return. She does not want to leave that warmth. She does not want to work out. Right now she would be content to float like a fetus in salty sleep until noon.

  Waking up in a rented cottage in Southern California can itself be a shock. Too much seacoast light. Whose Picasso poster is that on the wall? Why a map of old Laguna Village? What is going on with the pile of pillows and blankets and mismatched sheets on a pine bench in the corner and exactly how long have that earthenware rice bowl and those wooden chopsticks been sitting on top of the TV?

  Edith and Cassidy stare eyeball-to-eyeball for a vacant moment as she makes an effort to bring up the task of the day: she has to make sure Travis Conners gets there this afternoon to see a kid named Brad Parker play. It has rained during the past week and she hasn’t been able to get Travis down. But the big western regional meeting prior to the June draft is coming up and Parker is Cassidy’s top pick. She’s feeling a lot of pressure to claim him now.

  Do something right.

  She reaches for the electronic personal organizer and scrolls down to Pierce High School and the home phone number of math teacher and baseball coach Jack Hughes.

  Coach is on his way to school, says his wife.

  “Are you calling about Brad Parker?” she wants to know.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “The Astros called last night.”

  Cassidy tries diversion: “Is the field playable?”

  “The field is fine.”

  “And Parker’s on the roster?”

  “You’ll have to ask Coach,” the wife says firmly.

  “There are other kids to look at besides Parker.”

  Good try. There aren’t. Not on this team. No one else averages 13.5 strikeouts per nine innings. She calls the high school, identifies herself as a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers, asks a grumpy front-office secretary if she has the lineup for the varsity baseball game today and, Great, isn’t it, they didn’t get rained out?

  “Oh,” says the secretary, perking up. “You must be calling about Brad Parker.”

  Not a good sign.

  Cassidy swings out of bed, more anxious than ever for Travis to see the right-hander.