Don Winslow - California Fire And Life

So why hasn't she already done it? Jack thinks. If she wants the Vale file so badly, why doesn't she just take it? Nice big juicy arson file. Lotsa glory for SIU…

"I'm trying to do this nicely, Jack," Sandra says. "I'm telling you: back off."

"You're saying pay the claim?"

"I'm not saying anything."

"You're working Vale already, aren't you?" Jack says.

"Shut up, Jack."

"You must have a blind file and Vale's name has-"

"Don't say another word."

"— come up in there somewhere and you're afraid I'm going to trip over it and blow your investigation."

"SIU has no such file."

"Come on."

"I never said that," Hansen says. "And this conversation never happened."

Official-pronouncement-type voice.

"And you're going to pay the claim," Sandra says.

"I'm tired of everyone and his fucking dog telling me to pay this claim," Jack says. "Agency, Underwriting, now SIU? What's going on? Who is this Vale guy, the king?"

"Just pay his claim."

"A woman was murdered."

"This is bigger than that."

Jack stands there and stares at her.

"You're crazy," he says.

"If you force us-"

"Totally whacked."

"If you force us to take over this file," Hansen says, "I promise you a world of trouble. The rest of your short career will be nothing but one long shit shower."

She can do it, too, Jack thinks. All she has to do is get one contractor to say he gave me money and I'm out on my ass. She can do it and she would do it because Sandra Hansen is a tough cookie. Standing there in her white business suit with blond hair like a helmet. Attractive, sexy, a killer. Thirty-five or so and already the head of So-Cal SIU. Her career a bullet and I'm standing in the way.

"Think about it, Jack," she says.

"Stay out of my file, Sandra."

Hansen decides to give it one more try.

"Get on the team, Jack."

"What team?"

"You want to be a claims dog the rest of your life?" Sandra asks. "With your background, you could be SIU. Mayhew's retiring at the end of the year. There'll be a slot open…"

"You offering me a deal, Sandra?"

"Whatever."

"I don't do deals."

This pisses Hansen off.

"You're either with us," she says, "or you're against us."

Jack takes Sandra by the shoulders. Gets right in her face.

"If you want to pay this claim," he says, "I'm against you."

He lets her go and walks away.

"That's not where you want to be!" she yells after him. "That is not where you want to be."

Jack keeps walking as he flips her off over his shoulder.

Leaving Sandra Hansen thinking what a big, brainless, dumb stud Jack Wade is. She's thinking that Jack's surfboard has landed on his head once — make that twice — too often.

And that she's going to have to take him down.

Three years.

She has three years and God only knows how much of her budget sunk into a long-term investigation of Russian organized crime and she's not going to let one stubborn M-4 of an adjuster flush it down the toilet.

Dead woman or no dead woman.

She feels bad about that.

It makes her sick that Vale gets away with murdering his wife, but that's the way it is.

Pamela.

Nicky's biggest break from Mother Russia.

A break with the old code, but Nicky's inaugurated the new code and the brothers are marrying now.

But not California girls — Russian women.

Women of the same culture and language, usually with family ties in the mob. These are wives who understand the way things work, who help bind their husbands to the mob and the code, whose families back home in Russia can be used as hostages if hubby suddenly develops a desire to transgress against the mob.

Not American wives, not California girls.

Who don't know the code, who ask questions, who make demands, who can't keep their mouths shut, who get unhappy and when they get unhappy get divorces.

Marry a Russian girl, Dani tells him when he sees Pamela on his arm two, three, four dates in a row.

"I want children," Nicky argues.

"Have Russian children," Dani advises. He whips open a catalog of Russian would-be brides eager to immigrate. "Pick one out. Any one and she's yours. There are some real beauties here."

And there are, Nicky agrees. Stunning Russian women, but that's the point. He doesn't want a Russian woman. He wants an American woman. He doesn't want to strengthen the bond, he wants to break it.

And they don't get it.

Mother does.

She sees exactly what's happening.

"It is a slap in the face," she says.

"No, it isn't."

"You are a Russian."

"I'm an American."

Nicky Vale.

The turnaround in one generation, but to make that a reality he needs to regenerate. To have children.

American children.

Besides which, he has to have her. She's driving him insane. He knows she dresses to provoke him. Shows him the tops of her white breasts, her long thighs. Wears perfumes that make him hard the second she walks into the room. Kisses him with full warm lips and swipes her tongue across his in a way that makes him feel that tongue on his cock, and then she breaks away and smiles at him to let him know that she knows exactly what he's thinking, and laughs at him.

Or she'll press against him. Press her breasts into his arm or his back, or worse — no, better; no, worse — press her pussy against the front of his pants and say, "Oh, baby, I wish we could."

"We can," he'll say.

"No," she'll say, frowning. Then a little whimper, her lips in a frustrated pout. "It's against my beliefs."

Then she rolls against him, sighs, pouts, and steps away.

Sometimes even touches herself over her dress and looks at him with sad eyes and he knows what she's doing. Knows that she is a cockteaser extraordinaire, knows this, but can't help himself.

Maybe because she represents to him everything that is so close but just out of reach.

America.

California.

A new life.

A turnaround inside one generation.

And he can see her as the mother of his American children. She is beautiful, free, happy in that careless California way that just doesn't carry the long tragic burden that Russians bear. And if his children come from her, in his mind they come somehow cleansed of all that history.

And besides, he has to have her.

"Then have her as a mistress," Mother says. "If you absolutely must have the little tease, then set her up in an apartment, give her money, give her presents, screw yourself silly until you're tired of her, then give her more money and say goodbye, but don't marry her."

If you marry her, Mother says, she will take your heart, your money, and your children because this is America and in America the father has no rights. She will ruin you. She's a gold digger.

"Marry this piece of trash," she says, "and she will leave you in the rubbish in her place."

Which, of course, cuts it.

Nicky gives Pam a ring that night.

They marry two months later.

On their honeymoon, on the lawn of the private villa on Maui, she sheds her flowered dress for him. Invites him inside her.

Where she is hot sweet honey.

Liquid gold.

Nicky remembers her neck, the smell of vanilla in the nape of her neck as he stood behind her and put his lips and his tongue against the sweet-smelling white skin below her ear, below her black hair. How she moved against him so he ran his hand down the scooped neck of her dress and felt her breast. Felt the flimsy bra give way and then he rolled her nipple between his thumb and finger and she didn't object so he slid the dress down over her breasts then held them in his hands and slid his thumbs back and forth across the nipples and how she brought her hand around — to stop him, he thought at first, but she just held her palm to the back of his head — so he took one hand and ran it down her stomach, and down, and she was wet.