Johnny Temple - USA Noir - Best of the Akashic Noir Series

Levi liked to give me pleasure, or maybe he knew this was the main thing he had to offer, so he got on his knees and buried his face down there and I about went nuts, but kept stirring until I just couldn’t take it anymore. I let the spoon clatter to the counter and dropped to the aqua and white linoleum. I pulled Levi down with me. It didn’t take us long, which is another thing I liked about Levi—he wasn’t one of those guys who needed to linger and stretch it out.

We finished, and I washed my hands before returning to my risotto, but it was too late. The pot of rice was one sticky clod. I dumped it into the sink. Levi cracked two beers and ordered a pizza. While we waited, we went out onto the balcony. We drank our beers and watched the pool where a lone pink inner tube floated.

“Get this, Mimi,” he said. “The house I was at today, it also has a three-car garage. Three fucking cars! And there’s just one dude who lives there, with his kids.”

“Where’s the wife?” I asked, taking a swig.

He shook his head. “Died from cancer or something—and not long ago. There’s fucking art all over the place and expensive dishes are stacked in a monster cabinet the length of our living room wall. His brats have these little motorized cars they drive around the neighborhood. They live on this dead end—a cul de sac . Old money Costa Mesa, looks like. People have got serious funds over there. More than they need.”

“Some people have all the luck.”

“We deserve that kind of life,” he said.

“Everyone thinks they do.”

“But we really do. His fucking housecleaner knows more about his stuff and what he has than he does. He has so much crap he wouldn’t miss a few things disappearing.”

“I hate it when you sound stupid,” I said. “You think you can just help yourself? Is that what you’re saying?”

Levi shrugged, took a long pull off the bottle, and slipped out of his red leather cowboy boots, setting them inside our apartment doorway. He pulled off his T-shirt. He was still that sleek boy, a beauty. His curly brown hair was streaked blond and he had just the right amount of growth on his face. His teeth were white-white and his bare feet were perfect. He could be a model, that’s how handsome he was. Feet and teeth, I always say, have got to be superior. His physique made me overlook the fact that he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the room.

“Shepard needs a nanny for his kids, pretty much right away,” Levi said. “Someone smart enough to tutor. He’s running an ad but says he can’t find the right person.”

“I’m a teacher,” I reminded him, “not a nanny.”

“But you could be a nanny… for a time. Then we’d both be working there.”

“You think he’d go for a fricken handyman and his older girlfriend both working for him? Please.”

“Don’t call me a handyman,” he snapped.

“That’s what you are, babe.”

He looked hurt. “I aspire to more.”

“Sure you do,” I said. “I just don’t like where you’re headed with this.” I stroked his chest and tickled his nipples, which always put him in a good mood.

“Shepard would like you, Mimi. I told him about you. He seems lonely. I mean, who wouldn’t be, your wife up and dies and leaves you with little kids? But once he sees a pretty young thing like you, his day’s suddenly gonna seem a lot brighter. Don’t you want to brighten up a widower’s day?”

“I’m not that young.”

“You’re the sexiest thing going,” he said, running his fingers along my collarbone. “We could both be working there.”

“And then?”

“Who knows? But you deserve better’n this,” he said, his hands describing an arc about him, his voice going low. “You think all the rich fucks in this town work for what they have? A lot of them got old money. Inheritances. Bank accounts handed down. Or they have great gigs, businesses that haul ass. We weren’t lucky that way. Shit, Shepard has an entire goddamn library! He’s old, Mimi, but he has money.”

“Levi, you’re scaring me.”

“Don’t be scared, baby. How about I just introduce you to him?” He put his hands on my shoulders and looked down at me with his seawater eyes. “C’mon, Mimi. As long as you don’t like him that way, and why would you?—he’s not me —it could be fun.”

“Ripping off your employer… fun, huh?”

He shrugged. “Like I said, it’d be better’n this.”

We turned our attention back to the pool and that pink inner tube bobbing about when a pizza boy came whistling into the courtyard, looking like a waiter holding a tray with that flat box poised on his fingers.

“We’d need a plan,” I said, as the pizza boy looked up, trilled the fingers of his other hand like we were in some Hollywood musical, and headed for the cement stairway.

“Mims, I’m all about planning,” Levi replied, pulling a twenty from his pocket.

The stinking economy, even here in glorious Orange County, had pushed substitute teaching gigs further and further apart, so the next day, around lunchtime, I was sitting on the balcony smoking a hand-rolled and scanning the classifieds. A cherry pie cooled on the counter. I had to do something fast to rescue my financial situation. Levi’s truck skidded in. He threw a veggie bologna sandwich together—white bread from Trader Joe’s, Dijon mustard, and four slices of fake lunchmeat—and said he was taking me with him to Shepard’s house, ten minutes away.

I climbed into his truck, a major gas hog, which you just about needed a ladder to get into. As we passed Latinas with long black braids that touched their waists who pushed strollers, and homeless guys wearing tattered backpacks, he said, “Um, by the way, Shepard thinks you’re my older sister, so just play it cool.”

“Excuse me?”

“I decided he wouldn’t like the idea of you being my girlfriend.”

“Sometimes you fucking make me wonder.”

He nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. “I just thought of it. Brilliant, huh?”

“Yeah, right. Incredible genius you got goin’ in that head of yours.”

But as we crossed over Newport Boulevard, leaving the not-so-good side of town for the lush, moneyed side where tall eucalyptus swayed in the faint ocean breeze, Costa Misery segued to Piece of Heaven, California, with its cute cottages, palm trees, rosebushes, magenta bougainvillea, and Jaguars, BMWs, and hybrids.

We pulled into his boss’s driveway. A tall husky guy in khakis and a polo shirt, with short graying hair, futzed in the garage. He was a bit thick in the middle and wore conservative beige shoes.

“You owe me big time,” I said, pushing open the door as Mr. Orange County Republican approached us.

“That a promise?” he responded, as I jumped from the cab.

The guy had probably been a hottie once and was handsome in an almost-fifty way, but he was so not my type. He held out his hand. “You must be Levi’s sister,” he said, giving me a warm handshake. “He didn’t tell me you were so pretty.”

“He’s been forgetting to take his ginkgo biloba,” I countered, playing it off, but I was charmed. And it takes a lot to charm me.

Levi laughed as if I were the funniest older sister in the entire universe.

“You two get acquainted,” said Levi. “The back fence is calling me.”

Shepard gave him the thumbs-up sign and said, “Shall we go inside?” His eyes were friendly as he gestured me in and hit the electric garage door button. “The kids are at school, but I’ll show you around so you can see where you’d be spending your days.”

I forced a smile, tried to look interested.

“School’s out tomorrow,” he said. “I need someone who can be a nanny and a teacher. Only occasional sleepovers, when I’m out of town.” He had a gap between his front teeth, which were white and even. I had a boyfriend once with a gap I loved to tongue.