Jonathon King - A Killing Night

"Oh, so now it's your place," she said, and the grin was sneaking back onto her face.

"Ours," he said. "Our place, our secret."

He knew they liked that sharing shit. She was quiet a few moments, watching his eyes with that look like she knew him better than she really did.

"Let's go for a ride," he said, the thought coming on to him, bringing it up just like that, surprising even himself. He saw the winch in her face, like, pained, not scared, not like she knew.

"Come on," he said, putting his hand on her leg. "Mix up some whiskey sours that you like and we'll burn out to alligator alley, see how fast the cruiser can really cruise." He made his voice sound excited. Hell, it was excited, the thought of doing it again.

"Kyle," she whined, but that smile was again behind her eyes. "You scared the shit out of me last time with that. God, when you turned the headlights off I was freaking." She couldn't hide that glimmer of the wild girl. He did that Groucho Marx thing with his eyebrows.

"Yeah? Come on."

He moved and the leather of the couch squeaked. But she resisted.

"No, come on, Kyle. I'm really tired, babe. That shift was really long. My feet are aching. Can't we just stay here and watch a movie?"

She put her hand over his on her thigh. He didn't like to let her win. But this time, maybe. Shit, wasn't it always this way? You're nice to them, take 'em out, give 'em all this attention, but you just can't ever trust them. They're finally going to turn on you and try to dominate your ass. They're gonna push and push and push the line until, fuck it, they go over it. Then you gotta end it. Can't just let 'em walk off thinking they won.

Afterward, after they'd had sex with the blue glow of one of his favorite movies flashing and shimmering off her skin, she lay quiet with her head on his chest. This was all he wanted, so why did they always have to go and screw it up by trying to take over?

"So the tall blonde is kind of attractive," she said. "Ever have to follow up with her as the real cop?"

She was running her fingers through his hair, letting her nails lightly scratch his scalp. He took a quick pull from the beer that was still on the coffee table. Jealousy, he thought. What a lever, man.

"Never," he said and then moved his mouth, cold from the beer, to her stomach and down and she squealed and giggled but did not try to get away.

I met Billy at his apartment. Diane was there, cooking pasta and warming up a red sauce that I knew Billy had put together in advance. I recognized the smell of his special seasonings escaping from each snapping bubble of thick sauce as it simmered. I kissed Diane on the cheek as I helped myself to a beer.

"Counselor," I said in greeting. "You sure you want to sit behind the bench instead of opening your own boutique restaurant on Atlantic Boulevard?"

"I could do that, Max. But your lawyer would have to quit also and be my chef. And where would that leave you?" she said, stopping to have a taste of wine from the glass beside her.

"I'll be the dishwasher, of course. Work for meals only."

I joined Billy out on the patio where the breeze was coming in off the ocean. It was in the low seventies, same temperature, I knew, as the water. Billy had rolled back his sliding windows, but I knew that he also had the A.C. working inside, if for nothing else than to keep the humidity level down to protect his paintings. Sometimes he did this in midsummer, unruffled by the expense and waste of energy. I knew the kind of oppressive and foul air he'd grown up with in the row houses of north Philly. This was Billy's way of pushing that past back, of exerting his power, even over the weather itself. A few boat lights blinked out on the horizon. One hundred thirty feet below, the surf made the sound of a drummer's slow brushes on a snare head.

"So how was it, rubbing shoulders with the movers and shakers the other night?" I asked.

He smiled, looking out into the night, and shook his head.

"I d-didn't know why I was anxious, Max. Maybe because of b-being linked with Diane. On m-my own, I frankly don't give a damn. It's one of the beauties of l-lonely success."

He stopped, took a drink from his wine and cut a look at me. If we had reached out and clinked bottle to glass it would not have been any more obvious. We punched at each other's psyches like this often. We knew each other well.

"I've b-been in that company before, of course. And d-deep down, they're just capitalists. You m-mention the name of a stock that you know everyone is hearing rumblings about. You sp-speak knowledgeably about real estate movements. You agree, even slightly, with a brokerage firm's st-stand on the Republican governor's tax relief on capital gains. Hell, when it c-comes to money, every one in that circle is green, Max."

"So I take it that suit you were wearing made enough of a statement that you didn't have to?" I said.

"The women were entranced and only a handful of the men knew what they were looking at, other than a high price tag," Diane said as she stepped onto the patio and slipped her arm through Billy's. "He was the talk of the town."

"Without having to t-talk m-myself."

I could not tell whether the slight glow of the moment was balanced between them, or whether hers was spilling onto my friend, enveloping him in the bubble of her optimism. It was like stepping closer to someone else's campfire. Even if the warmth wasn't of your making it made you feel better and a cold man would find it impossible to resist. Diane had that way about her and I was both happy for Billy and a little jealous.

"If you gentlemen are ready," she said, breaking the moment. "Dinner is served."

We ate at the dining room table again, which had always been Billy's habit. He liked being surrounded by his paintings and sculptures and always served on china and crystal. I had even learned to eat in his home without bringing a beer bottle to the table.

Yet Billy was also not one for dinnertime small talk. And as usual he had sensed my reluctance to ask what I'd come to ask.

"So what's up w-with Sherry and this O'Shea?" he said, never shy of cutting straight to it.

"She's still got a bead on him. He's still hanging around, worried that she's going to grab him up."

"So why doesn't he skip the country?" Diane suddenly said, causing both of us to look at her. "I mean, come on, he knows the system and is paranoid enough about your friend Richards picking him up, I would think he'd take the chance to get out of the country before they find a body someplace and connect him."

If no nonsense was an attractive character trait, no wonder these two were together.

"Money?" Billy offered.

"Hell, an ex-cop from the States could find work in South America without much trouble," I said.

"Family?"

"I didn't get that sense from his ex-wife. They never had kids."

"Has to be somebody he cares about?"

"Richards says he lives alone and the way he's playing the bar scene, I don't think so."

Diane was watching us with a bemused look on her face until Billy noticed it.

"What?" he said.

"Maybe this man is innocent," she said.

Billy slipped his hand over and touched his fingertips on the back of his fiancee's wrist.

"An interesting position, coming from a future judge," he said and smiled at her. "And I b-believe Max was finally getting to that part."

He looked, expectantly, at me. Billy was good at watching my internal arguments. Sometimes he was even better at recognizing when I'd come to a decision than I was.

"I think O'Shea needs a lawyer," I said, throwing it straight out there.

Billy cut his eyes to Diane, she to him.

Then I told them both of Richards's plan to arrest O'Shea on the assault charge, about the tactic she used to get inside his apartment with the hope of finding something to connect him with the missing girls.