Corrupt Practices (28 page)

I can’t tell from this picture whether this woman has the Strength tattoo on her ankle or not. I study the face—lips curled downward even in the midst of a victory celebration; longish nose; eyes so dark that they seem to absorb all the light around them and emit nothing in return. I take the photograph and hold it up, unable to stop looking at that face. As tired as I was feeling, as stressful as this day has been, I’m now all at once hyperalert.

I do my best to concentrate on what Markowitz is saying. He tells us that he hired Sandra after she answered an ad on Craigslist. He remembers that she got a great reference from an ex-boss, a lawyer who said she was top tier in office management and accounting, although he doesn’t recall the lawyer’s name. She was only supposed to keep the books and do other clerical work, but it soon became clear that she was better than that. She eventually filled out finance contracts, dealt with credit companies, and interfaced with the Department of Motor Vehicles. He gave her access to the corporate tax returns, which is where she must have gotten his social security number and date of birth. About a year ago—just after New Year’s 2011—she quit suddenly, leaving no forwarding information.

“I trusted her,” he says. “And she was interesting. You rarely meet someone so smart in this line of work.”

After he makes a copy of the photograph for us, we walk out front to find a bored Jonathan and a wilted Lovely sprawled out on a ratty synthetic sofa. We huddle on the sidewalk, and I summarize what Markowitz told us about Sandra Casey. I have to find her, but that won’t be easy. She’s intelligent and slippery and unpredictable—and dangerous. I strongly suspect she wrote those awful e-mails to Monica Baxter. One phrase in particular sticks with me—
soon we’ll all be awash in blood
. Then I tell them something that I didn’t want Markowitz to know—the woman who went by the name Sandra Casey is actually my ex-colleague, Grace Trimble.

Lovely and I crawl through traffic on Highland Avenue. “Turn left,” she commands. Although The Barrista lies in the opposite direction, I make the turn.

“I don’t live far from here,” she says. “We can have a glass of wine.” A pointed pause. “Or something.”

Except for Lovely giving sporadic driving directions, we make the rest of the trip in silence. My mind and body are anything but silent. She is still my student. I don’t make light of that. I believe you should respect the rules, especially rules that protect those weaker than you. Then the bargaining starts. Am I really a law professor? I have three students and a one-year deal that’s going to expire in a few months, and anyway Manny gave me the job as a sinecure just so I could feel useful again. And whose trust would I really be breaching? How much pleasure, how much human connection, must we forgo for abstract principle?

We pull up to a châteauesque six-story building. With its restored mansard roof and wrought-iron balconies, the apartment house is supposedly an example of how the neighborhood is gentrifying, but the refurbished façade and upgraded masonry can’t quite mask a lingering decrepitude. We park behind the building and take a creaky elevator to the fourth floor. There’s a faint fusty odor of decaying redwood. She unlatches the original lock and two security locks. When the door opens, she lightly places her fingers on a mezuzah affixed to the doorpost and says, “A gift from my mother.” She recites the words, “May God protect my going out and coming in, now and forever.”

She flips on an old electrolier in the entryway. The living room is decorated in Bohemian chic—light gray walls, a quatrefoil mirror over the mantle, a brown throw rug, a loveseat upholstered in a green and ivory floral pattern. Mix and match with a purpose.

She drops her knapsack on the floor, takes off her jacket, and faces me. I wrap my arms around her, and we kiss with aggression. She captures my lower lip between her teeth and bites, releasing it only when I thrust my tongue into her mouth. I put my hand under the hem of her skirt and run my fingers up her inner thigh, linger at the margin of wet heat, and then move beyond. She moans and says breathlessly, “Oh yeah, baby, right there.” When her breathing becomes ragged, she jerks my hand away. Kneeling before me, she unfastens my slacks and takes me between her lips. There’s a kind of anarchy to her touch—fervid, raunchy, disquieting, a flawless blue flame.

She stands up suddenly, places both hands on my chest, and shoves me away. She removes her jacket and camisole, lifts her right breast to her mouth, and slowly licks the nipple, all the while keeping her eyes glued to mine. I’ve seen this in porn, but I’ve never been with a woman who’s done it, couldn’t have imagined taking it seriously, and yet now I experience a fresh surge of arousal as if she touched me and not herself. Her eyes, steely gray in the dim light, signal challenge, hunger. I grab her shoulders and draw her to me. When my lips touch her breast, she arches her back and gasps.

We sink to the floor. No thought of the bedroom or even the couch. No thought of shedding the rest of our clothing. No thought of protection. No thought of pain from the beating. She’s like no one I’ve ever been with, not the desperate groupies who pursued me as a teenager even as my fame dimmed, not Deanna before the sex became rote and aimless. She makes me feel as if she’s been waiting all her life for us to find each other.

I return to my condo the next morning and spend hours scouring the Internet, trying to get some kind of lead on the whereabouts of Grace Trimble. Nothing. Late in the afternoon, my security bell rings. It’s Lovely. After I buzz her into the building, she arrives at my door carrying several bags of groceries. She sets them down and kisses me.

“It’s Friday,” she says. “I brought dinner. I’ll get it together.”

I remember that inedible pasta she served me at her father’s house. “Are you cooking?”

“Reheating. Some stuff from Gelson’s.”

Trying not to show my relief, I take her hand and lead her out to the balcony. The sun is setting in the northwest. Vast cirrus clouds glow scarlet on the horizon, their wispy tendrils curling downward as if to consecrate the sea.

“Awesome,” she says. She rests her head on my shoulder.

We stand outside watching the ocean until the sky darkens and the first stars are visible above the horizon. We go inside, and she lights the Sabbath candles. While she warms the food, I mix boxcar martinis, something I learned to do my senior year in college when I worked as a bartender. We eat dinner, avoiding the subject of work, easy for her but almost impossible for me.

After we finish, she goes into my second bedroom, which I use as a combination office and storage room, and returns with a DVD jewel case still in its original shrink-wrap. It’s a copy of
Fourth Grade G-Man
. The garish cover art depicts the clownish images of its stars—Parky Gerald and Lake Knolls, in the worst roles of their careers. I was eleven, almost twelve, trying to pass as a nine-year-old. Even the gullible kids among my audience didn’t buy it, much less the critics. Dramatic actor Knolls insisted on trying comedy but didn’t have a sense of humor. During his election campaign, his critics used his appearance in this film to mock him mercilessly.

“I want to watch this,” she says.

“Be my guest. In fact, keep it. It’s yours.”

“I thought we could watch it together.”

“I haven’t seen any of my movies in twenty years, and I don’t want to see one now.”

As usual, the word
no
means
yes
to Lovely. She takes my arm and pulls me toward the living room. I turn awkwardly, wrenching my torso. I wince, a residue from the beating.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

“I will be if you don’t make me watch that bomb.”

She shakes her head and leads me to the sofa. She powers on the television and the DVD player and loads the movie. I don’t know why I’m going along with this. I don’t want to see that kid.

I watch myself playing a fourth-grade genius who helps Knolls, a rogue FBI agent, fight two madcap underworld mobsters who’re trying to fix the Little League World Series. In the movie, Erica Hatfield plays my teacher. I still find it hard to imagine that this beautiful young woman on the screen is the same person whom I visited in the mountains just a few weeks ago.

“How does this feel?” Lovely says.

“Like I’m being forced to watch a really bad kids’ movie.” I don’t feel connected to anything unfolding on the screen. What I do remember are the grueling hours on the set—and the turmoil. This was the picture on which my mother got into a shouting match with the director, eventually hurling a prop stapler at his head. No matter that the director was a horse’s ass—Harriet Stern was banned from the set and arrested for assault.

To my surprise, about halfway through the film, Bradley Kelly appears, playing Erica’s boyfriend. He has a bit part, little more than a walk-on. Even so, I can’t imagine how I could have forgotten. When I hear his voice, a hairline crack in my memory splits open. The images on the screen blur into meaningless flickers of light. Then the cotton mouth, the quivering hands, the constricted chest, the grubby beads of sweat, the nausea—the classic symptoms of stage fright. I grab Lovely’s wrist. “I . . . I can’t watch this. Please turn it off.”

She starts to protest, but then sees my face. She picks up the remote control and powers off the television set. The symptoms subside almost immediately.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I can’t.”

“Parker, wasn’t that Kelly?”

“I said I can’t!”

“OK. It’s OK.” She takes my hands in hers.

As soon as I feel her touch, my fear turns to mortification. “Look. It’s stupid, but I just couldn’t watch that thing. Those days were . . .”

“I understand,” she says, but she couldn’t possibly.

We’re quiet for a long time. Finally, she says, “It’s time for your lesson in Judaica.”

“Excuse me?”

She slides her body against mine and says, “Did you know that Jewish tradition encourages sex on the Sabbath?”

If her goal is to make me forget about my panic attack, she’s succeeded. “I’d have thought it would be forbidden. I mean, you can’t work, so I would think—”

“You can’t work on the Sabbath, but you can play. You think fucking is work?”

“Definitely play.”

“Actually, it’s a double mitzvah to do it on Shabbat. According to the Kabbalists, the earthly joy of sex is worthy of celebration anytime, but on the Sabbath, you’re also merging the divine male and female aspects of God. Of course, you’re supposed to be married, but . . .” She lies back and pulls me on top of her. She spends the rest of the evening showing me several ways for an observant Jewish girl to honor the Sabbath.

The next day, a Saturday, Lovely doesn’t work, but I do. I arrive at The Barrista at ten o’clock. Manny Mason is there, sitting at a table with Deanna. I get my coffee and join them. I immediately pull out the photocopy of the Lankershim Preowned Seminoles coed softball team, set it on the table, and point to Grace Trimble. “She calls herself Sandra Casey.”

“What the hell?” Deanna says. “She looks malnourished. What did that poor girl do to herself?”

Manny spends a long time examining the photo. “What’s this about a Sandra Casey?”