“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I said, looking around. Cubicle Girl smiled at me as if she thought I was seeking her out. If my Mystery Lady was Marsha from high school, she was far older than twenty-two. “Is she still here?”
“Naw, she took off. Like I said, she got here way before you. I almost came over here ten times before now.”
I slid my index finger across the sealed lip of the envelope. “What did she look like?”
“Five-six, maybe. Longish hair. Dark skin—black or Latina. Thirties? Super fine.”
“Super fine?”
Ricardo winked. “Why else you think I went along, compadre? Hope she at least put her phone number in there!” And he left me with my puzzle.
Super fine, huh? A phone number would have been great, but I knew better than to expect anything that simple. Inside, the handwritten note was two lines of elegant penmanship: Some encounters are best kept Secret. Meet me near Maxella and Del Rey in Marina del Rey. I’ll make the drive worth your while.—A friend in need.
I didn’t recognize the intersection, but it sounded close to the harbor. Was she inviting me to her place?
I guessed she was about twelve or thirteen miles from Hugo’s, which might mean forty minutes in traffic. Not a quick drive. Some guys would have torn up the note and walked away, and maybe those guys are smart. But I wasn’t that type, and Mystery Lady knew me already.
I finished eating and drove south as swiftly as the traffic would allow.
I was within two blocks of our designated meeting place when a groan rose in my throat, and I pounded my steering wheel with frustration. “Shit!”
The corner of Maxella and Del Rey brought me to the bright tropical colors of the Villa Marina Marketplace, a shopping mall laid out in a giant, multilevel strip and swimming with humanity. I’d shopped there at least a dozen times with female companions, but Mystery Lady’s joke hadn’t dawned on me until I drove up. Okay, you got me, I thought. It was a mall.
I idled and kept watch for about five minutes before I parked. Scores of women passed me, but few were dark skinned. I gave every sister careful scrutiny, but no one registered recognition. They were either too young, too old, or definitely would not fit Ricardo’s definition of Super fine—and I allowed for a broad definition. I could almost hear Mystery Lady laughing at me.
“Oh no, baby, we’re not done,” I muttered. I had been talking to her without realizing it, like she was my imaginary friend. I hoped she was a friend, anyway. I scanned the street and read the note again. I found another clue I’d overlooked: Some encounters are best kept Secret, she’d written, with a capital S. It wasn’t a mistake, so it had to be a puzzle piece.
“Secret . . . ,” I muttered, scanning the street again.
There, right near Starbucks and Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill, I saw the sign for Victoria’s Secret. Bingo! “You are a naughty girl . . .”
Not counting São Paulo, where the Brazilian women cast a spell on me, I’d hardly been laid since April and I had broken up. Opportunities abounded, but interest was lacking. On the days I felt restless and irritable, I called my fine selection of booty calls—a couple of actresses, a comedienne, a photographer—women I’d known for a long time and was attracted to, but who held no mysteries or expectations. After April, I wasn’t in a hurry to start that dance with someone new. And it had been years since I’d found any joy fishing in the barrels of L.A.’s nightclubs. Too easy.
But my Mystery Lady had awakened the part of me that enjoyed the hunt. I felt the first stirrings of a hard-on as I walked into the lingerie store.
As soon as the bell tinkled, I knew I was in the right place. A thin, statuesque saleswoman with a slightly horsey face grinned widely at me as I walked past the rows of skeletal mannequins in sheer lingerie who could be her twins. The cheery blond woman beside her was shorter and cute, slightly older than Chela.
“Damn!” said the shorter girl. “I only had five minutes to go!”
“But he made it, so pay up,” said the tall one.
A five-dollar bill exchanged hands as I stood before them. The tall girl giggled; her name tag read CHLOE, and the shorter one was KATE.
“I’m looking for someone . . . ,” I began, and Tall Chloe giggled again. She reached behind the counter and pulled out a midsize store gift box.
“A face that could make you forget your own name?” Chloe said, and they both laughed.
“Definitely fits the description,” said Kate. She had a fading English accent.
Chloe met my eyes. “And you made it before one thirty, so guess what . . . ? We have a package for you, Tennyson Hardwick.”
She gave me the gift box, which had my name written in a corner with a bright red Sharpie, the same handwriting as the note. I shook the box, and something fluttered inside. It was light, but it wasn’t empty. “And the woman who left this . . . ?”
“She’s long gone, mate,” Kate said. “More than an hour ago. She dropped in, did a little shopping, and left that for you. If you’d gotten here five minutes later, she said to put the box in the rubbish bin and forget we saw her.”
Chloe grinned. “Very mysterious.”
Mystery Lady liked deadlines. The physical description I gathered from the clerks was consistent with what Ricardo had told me at Hugo’s.
Chloe touched my wrist when I began to open the box. “Oh no. Use a changing room. She said you should be alone.”
“Go on, there’s no one back there now,” Kate said.
“Alone, huh?” I shook the box again—this time I listened, as if for a bomb. No ticking. “All right then, ladies. Lead the way.”
While the saleswomen chortled, we walked past the lingerie promising sex. The changing rooms were spacious, with saloon-style doors, moody pink lighting, and a tiny doorbell for emergency consultations. I had visited a changing room at Victoria’s Secret once before, but that particular time I wasn’t alone. Twins, in fact. Another story. Ask me sometime: I don’t kiss and tell, but I have been known to allude.
With my saloon doors closed behind me, I finally opened my Mystery Lady’s gift.
A black teddy. Underneath the sheer black fabric, I saw the blurred outline of a white envelope. Please let it be her hotel room number, I thought.
Instead, I found a photograph: a brown-skinned model wearing the black teddy in the box, only strings except at the breasts and crotch, with a thin strip of satin to hold it together. Her body made the regular Victoria’s Secret models look like amateurs. She had one hand on her hip, nails painted bright red, her hip slung to one side in a dare. Tantalizing shadows fell across the flat, slender sides of her abdomen. She had a triathlete’s build, and natural breasts as nice as Sofia Maitlin’s. My mouth watered, as if that photo was a hot lunch from Aunt Kizzy’s Back Porch, the soul food restaurant just down the street. Woof.
I eagerly read the handwritten note underneath:
You’ll be my #I if you meet me where you first got high. Look north if you want a hummer. Let’s see if you’re Up to finding me—A friend in need
She wasn’t finished with me yet. Shit!
It was almost three o’clock, and I had blown my day. I’d planned to throw the box away as soon as I got outside the door. But I didn’t. Instead, I sat in my car staring at the last clue. And the photograph.
The first part was easy enough: I was just off the Pacific Coast Highway, which is also called CA-1. You’ll be my #1. But follow it where? Meet me where you first got high.
Even as I merged into the early rush-hour traffic headed back home to paradise on the Pacific Coast Highway with its spectacular view of the ocean, I had no idea where I was supposed to be driving. Bright white foam cascaded against sandy shoreline and craggy rocks, and cars laden with coolers and surfboards were parked up and down both sides of the highway. The view from the PCH always brings to mind that great line from Roots as Kunta Kinte holds his firstborn child up to the night sky: Behold—the only thing greater than yourself. Beautiful.
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br /> Meet me where you first got high. I could barely remember the first time I got drunk, much less high. It would have been back in high school, but I was hanging out in South Central Los Angeles in those days, not the PCH. Had I driven out to meet Marsha and some other students for a party on the beach where someone passed a joint? High school. I racked my brain as I drove.
When the answer hit me, I laughed aloud. “Good one, girl,” I said.
My first major break in television was a semiregular part as a basketball coach on a Beverly Hills 90210 clone called Malibu High, so many years ago that the residuals checks were down to double digits. The highway would take me straight to Malibu. The last time I’d visited Malibu, I’d risked getting myself killed when I rescued Chela from a rapper’s rented beach house.
I was hunting pleasure this time, not business. I’d almost been late once, and I didn’t want to give my Mystery Lady the chance to throw me off her trail. I gunned the accelerator, passing majestic rows of royal palms. “Oh, I’m coming, baby,” I said, posting her photo on my sun visor. I was eager to finally see her face.
“You find her?” Dad said when I called to tell him not to expect me home early. My life was his favorite new soap opera.
“About to.”
In my father’s silence, I guessed that he was disappointed I hadn’t asked him to be my partner on this new case; he spent most of his time watching TV, so any drive was a diversion. But there are some women you just don’t bring home to Daddy.
“Any problem, let me know,” Dad said finally. “Keep your eyes open, Ten.”
“Oh, I’ll keep an eye on her, all right,” I said, staring at the photo. Her curves blotted out the mighty Pacific. After I hung up, I posted her note beside the photo so I could study them side by side, a recipe for a car crash. But my clock was running.
Three twenty.
Look north if you want a hummer. I shifted in my seat to release the pressure of the erection fighting to break out of my jeans. I guessed I would find my treasure somewhere up Route 1, Pacific Coast Highway, which actually runs northwest. Close enough. Malibu feels more like a village than a city, with a population of only eighteen thousand, and the PCH carves straight through town. Malibu is best known for its celebrity residents and gorgeous houses near the beach. What did she have in mind? An adult bookstore?
I passed a rainbow assortment of six gleaming Hummers parked in a row. Look north if you want a hummer! I slammed on my brakes so hard that the car riding on my tail was forced to honk and swerve. My Little Head had taken over the steering wheel of my Prius long ago. I waved an apology, but I got the finger in return.
The Hummers and two or three Jaguar convertibles were parked in front of an office building built on a bluff to my right. A discreet sign in the window read: MALIBU LUXURY CAR RENTALS. I would have missed the sign, but I couldn’t miss the Hummers. The owners had hauled in piles of sand to give the impression that the massive vehicles were racing across sand dunes. The two-story office building behind the cars was a converted beach house.
It felt like the right place, but where was she? I saw only a salesman sitting in a lawn chair behind the Hummers, as if he was at the beach. Last chance, I lectured my erection. If all you find is another bread crumb, game’s over. Don’t let her drag you all over the map, man.
The salesman looked about fifty, slightly overweight, hiding his paunch beneath a loose-fitting Hawaiian-style shirt with a sailboat pattern. He was so deeply tanned that he looked like he was on his way to skin cancer treatments, probably from spending too much time sitting on his phony beach. The back of his neck was broiled and spotted.
He pointed out the Hummer closest to me, an H3 with paint the color of a fiery sunset. “Chicks love these babies,” he said. “Keep it all day for a hundred bucks.”
“Sorry, man. I’m looking for someone . . .” I thought about showing him the photo in my pocket, but I described my Mystery Lady instead.
“Can’t say I’ve seen her.” He spoke slowly, a verbal wink.
If I’d been chasing anyone else, I would have ignored his cue. “You seen her or not?”
“Can’t say I have.”
Now I was sure of it: He was speaking in code. I tried to keep my patience. “This lady you can’t say you’ve seen . . . where would I find her?”
“Can’t say that either,” he said with a convincing shrug. “Sorry I can’t be of more help. But be sure to check out our selection in the rear.”
He went back to his chair to soak up the UV.
I began to doubt that I’d read the car salesman’s meaning right, but I followed a gravel footpath to the rear of the building. The path had a steep incline, since the office building was higher than the makeshift car lot below. Behind the building, a bike covered in sand dust leaned against the storm fence between the building and the rocky cliff pressed behind it. The strip was narrow, without a blade of grass—never mind a living and breathing female. The windows were shuttered from the inside, and the rear door was locked. End of the line.
Sighing, I glanced one more time at my treasure map. Let’s see if you’re Up to finding me. Why was the word Up capitalized? Way too deliberate to be a coincidence, so I looked up. Beneath the dizzying blue skies, I noticed fire-escape–style stairs from the rooftop on the opposite corner of the building. The stairs were painted white to blend in with the paint.
Was that a piece of paper up high, waving at me in the ocean breeze?
My heart gave a tentative leap. I climbed up the stairs, which rattled enough to make me glad the walk was only two stories. At the top of the stairs, I grabbed the paper, which was anchored by a rock. CAN YOU HELP ME? the same handwriting said.
The modestly sized, flat rooftop was a makeshift beach-watching and hangout spot, with faded deck-style wood flooring and observation benches and a large umbrella facing the sea. I was only a few feet behind two lounge chairs side by side, their backs raised high. A few discarded Coke Zero cans were strewn near the stairs. From the rooftop, the shoreline stretched as far as I could see in either direction. The view of the water across the highway would have been perfect except for the large beach house smack at the center of the vista, far below.
“Hello?” I called.
Silence. Or did I hear a faint whimper? And R & B music playing very low? It might be Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing,” or my horny imagination. Two steps, and I heard Marvin’s familiar whisper: Wake up, wake up . . .
“I’m glad you finally made it,” a hidden woman’s silken voice said. “It starts to cool off up here before long, and then I’d really be in trouble.” Her voice came from one of the loungers.
I saw two bare brown legs first, one outstretched, one bent at a knee that glimmered with oil in the sun. The photo hadn’t done my Mystery Lady justice: Her feet were small, with brightly painted red nails, but hard, not dainty. Exquisitely toned calves, and legs a mile long. She lived in the gym: Her body hadn’t bloomed that way by accident.
When I stood over the lounger, I recognized her Victoria’s Secret teddy—but she wore it in red to match her toenails. Her breasts were more impressive in the flesh, ripe and round, bare except for the nipples. It was hard to look away from her chest.
Her face was a disappointment only because it didn’t unlock any memories. The new face was a hell of an improvement, but except for maybe the nose, it was hard to see high school Marsha in the lovely woman she had become. The acne was gone without a trace, and time had been generous to her smooth face, perhaps in compensation for her awkward high school years. Her hair was long and bone straight, almost the way Cher wore hers—a weave, obviously, albeit a good job. She wore reflective sunglasses that hid her eyes except for a glimmer of sea green that had to be contact lenses. She was strong jawed like Mike Tyson’s ex, Robin Givens.
Her kind of beauty could be both a lure and a weapon. If she was my age, she didn’t look it. She and Halle had the same timeless genes.
“What took you so long, Ten?
” she said, smiling playfully.
My mind was slow to respond, deprived of blood flow after the sudden surge to my groin. As far as the Little Head was concerned, we’d already spent way too much time talking.
“Lousy directions,” I said.
“And yet, here you are.”
“Funny—you don’t look like a car salesman.”
Without unclasping her hands from behind her head, she nudged away her sunglasses with her elbow, displaying her full face. Her eyes were so large and striking, with or without contacts, and they seemed to swallow me. I longed to see their true color. The true window.
Her nose brought her surname back to me.
“Marsha Willis,” I said. “You played Lena Younger in A Raisin in the Sun.” Acne or not, I’d thought it was a shame to hide Marsha’s face under so much stage makeup to make her look like Mama. Her face didn’t stir memories, but her body, height, and voice seemed right. I hadn’t known her well, but she’d been a sweet girl. And she’d been so determined to be an actress that she had routinely outshined more talented actors who were less motivated.
Her eyes sparkled. “Impressive. I knew you were the right man.”
I showed her the HELP sign. “What’s this about?”
With a mischievous grin, Marsha shifted position to bring her hands into view, her wrists bound in handcuffs with red, feathery padding. “I’m afraid I’m in a bind, Ten.”
I expected to hear the denim in my jeans rip. I don’t want to complain, but men who are well endowed have a tough time in close quarters. It’s a curse, but I suffer in silence.
“First things first,” I said, trying to keep my brain power switched on. “How do you know so much about my life? Are you with SecureGuard?”
“You have to make me talk, Ten.”
“Too bad I left my waterboarding kit at home.”
“You’re wearing a belt, aren’t you?”
Not for long, I hope. I lifted my T-shirt so she could see my leather belt and its copper belt buckle. From her appreciative smile, she was happier with what she saw beneath it.
From Cape Town with Love Page 10
