Jonathan Kellerman - Survival Of The Fittest

What I could see of the walls was hung with prints in metal frames. Florals, nothing telling. It didn't seem like Zena's style, but who knew how often she reinvented herself?

One thing was certain, she wasn't into decorating. The few pieces of furniture I saw weren't much better than Andrew's, and the books that filled two walls sat in flimsy-looking shelves nearly identical to his.

Spooky prescience on Daniel's part. If he ever tired of police work, a career as a matchmaker awaited.

Zena's hand burned my fingers as she continued to guide me past a long folding table covered with white paper. Behind it were yet more people, eating and drinking.

Then, the only feature elevating the house above low-rent crackerbox: glass doors onto a balcony, beyond them a symphony of stars.

Man-made constellations twinkling from houses half a mile across a darkened ravine and the real stuff set into a melanin sky.

Drop-dead view, a real-estate agent would claim, working mightily to show the place at night.

As we neared the food, I played passive and managed a rough body count. Sixty, seventy people, enough to congest the modest room.

I looked for Farley Sanger. Even if he'd been there, I'd have been unlikely to spot him in the darkened crush.

Sixty, seventy strangers, as average-looking as their cars.

Men seemed to outnumber women. The age range, thirty to mid-fifties.

No one particularly ugly, no raving beauties.

It might have been a casting call for Nondescript.

But an active bunch. Fast-moving mouths, a mass lip-synch. Lots of gesturing, posturing, shrugs, grins, and grimaces, finger-stabs of emphasis.

I spotted the thickly bearded man who'd answered the door off in a corner by himself, sitting on a folding chair, holding a can of Pepsi and a paperback book, worrying a fold of his sweatshirt.

He looked up, saw me, stared, returned to reading with the intensity of a finals-crammer. Nearby, two other men, one in a baggy tan suit and plaid tie, the other wearing an untucked white shirt and khakis, sat at a tiny table playing silent chess and smoking.

As my eyes accommodated, I noticed other games going, on the edges of the room. Another chess match- a woman and a man- moving pieces quickly and fiercely, a minute-glass filled with rapidly sifting white sand next to the woman's left hand. A few feet away, yet more table warfare. Scrabble. Cards. Backgammon. Go. Something that resembled chess but was played on a cubelike plastic frame by two bespectacled, mustached men wearing black who could have been twins- three-dimensional chess. On the near side of the kitchen partition, two other men did something intense with polished stones and dice and a mahogany chute. How did anyone concentrate with the noise?

Then again, these were smart people.

We made it to the drinks. The white paper was a butcher's roll cut unevenly. Soda, beer, bottled water, off-brands of scotch, vodka, bourbon, corn chips and pretzels, salsa and guacamole and shrimp dip still in plastic containers.

Zena used a chip to excavate the avocado paste, came up with a healthy green blob, ate, scooped again, and aimed the construction at my mouth.

“Good?” she mouthed.

“Excellent.”

Grinning and fluffing her bangs, she blew me a kiss, reached out and took hold of my belt buckle and tilted her head at the glass doors. Her eyes were the brightest thing in the room.

She led me out to the balcony and closed the doors. “A dull roar. So the neighbors don't shit themselves.”

It was quieter out here, but we weren't alone. About a dozen people shared the balcony, but no turning heads or vigilant eyes.

Lots of conversation; I tried to make out words, heard “economy,” “texture,” “bifurcation,” “mode of deconstruction.”

Zena maneuvered me into the left-hand corner and I felt the railing press into my back. Not much of a railing, thin iron, top and bottom pieces connected by widely spaced diagonal pickets. A large man would have had trouble slipping through, but anyone else would have found it easy.

Zena pushed up against me and the metal bit deeper. The air was warm, the view stunning.

Maybe that made it the party's romance zone, because right next to us, another couple made out feverishly. The man was beefy, balding, middle-aged, wore a tweed jacket too small around the shoulders; it rode up over corduroy slacks. His playmate was a few years younger, fair-haired, bespectacled, with a thin face but thick arms that jiggled in a sleeveless white dress as she masturbated her boyfriend's lapel. He said something, her hands flew around his neck, and they kissed again.

Next to them three men argued heatedly… about modems, software, morons on the Internet, how the meaning of cyber had been distorted from Norbert Wiener's original conception…

Zena turned my head and jammed her mouth against mine.

No one noticed.

The apathy was comforting. But also disappointing, because what did it say about my conspiracy ruminations?

A murder club? What I was seeing were some folk who craved sex and chitchat, checkmate, triple-word scores, whatever you aimed for in three-dimensional chess.

Sixty, seventy people.

How many killers?

If any.

The lovebirds next to us continued to go at it, even as the debating trio raised the volume, one man nearly shouting.

Zena's tongue continued to explore my palate.

My hands were on her shoulders; when had I placed them there?

Her tongue withdrew, regrouping for another attack, and I pulled away and massaged the back of her neck, such a small, delicate neck, then her shoulder. I could feel the bumps on her collarbone.

Smiling to camouflage the retreat, I said, “Nice party. Thanks for inviting me.”

“Thank you for coming, sir.”

“What, exactly, is the occasion?”

“Who needs an occasion?”

“Okay,” I said. “What's the organizing criterion?”

She laughed merrily, guided my hand downward, across crepe, wedging it between her legs.

I felt heat, the butter of upper thigh, then a crinkly patch that puckered the silk.

No panties- no, there was something there, a waistband. But very sheer, very low. Bikini pants- why the hell was I conjecturing?

She tightened her muscles, capturing my fingers.

Her eyes were closed. Her mouth had parted and I smelled gin. One pink-nailed hand had gathered the fabric of my sportcoat as the other began moving down…

Not again… I played a frantic mental slide show: dead faces, bloody shoes, filthy alleys, grieving parents… I stayed soft.

She looked up at me. On her smooth, white face was that same flash of narcissistic rage.

I removed her hand, took hold of her face, kissed her.

When we stopped for breath, her confusion was gratifying.

“All these people,” I said, shaking my head. “I'm not into displays.”

I glanced at the passionate couple, now edging toward the glass doors.

Her lower lip twitched. She nodded. “I understand, A.”

I turned, placed my hands on the railing and pretended to study the view. Lots of black between the house and the twinkles. Anything could be out there.

She moved next to me, put her head against my arm and I slipped my arm around her and touched her cheek. The necking couple had left but the three-man debate was still raging. Two women came out, holding plastic cups, laughing, and moved to the opposite end of the balcony.

“I repeat my original question, Z.: What's the occasion? Not simply a collection of friends.”

I felt her tense up. “Why do you say that?”

“Because these people don't act like your friends.” I rubbed her neck harder, slower, and she shivered. “No one's paying you any attention, and you're rather hard to ignore. So they must have their own agendas.”