The First Cut (20 page)

“That’s Nan. Still so tight she squeaks.”

“I’m a single mother.”

“I’m treating. We’re celebrating.”

“I don’t want you to treat.”

“Well I do.” He raised his glass. “Drink up.”

“Trying to loosen me up, huh?”

“Who, me?” He looked again at the menu. “I know what you like. Sliders with banjo fries.”

She let out a little moan.

He placed an order for two platters and more drinks.

“I’ve hardly started this one.”

“You’d better get busy.”

“I have to drive home.”

“I’ll drive you home. You can leave your car here.”

The tiny amount of booze she’d consumed was already hitting her. She felt the tension loosening its grip. It felt good to take a time out.

“You saw the DVD.”

He grew serious. “Looking at that will sober anyone up. Sami will do what he can to enhance it, but it was filmed from far away. He didn’t think he’d get close enough to see faces, but we’ll see.”

“What else happened on your end today?”

“Touched base with Jones and Sproul. They’re working through Frankie’s arrests. Everyone they’ve talked to so far conveniently has an alibi for Frankie’s Friday night at the strip club.”

“Of course. Good alibis?”

“Not unshakable.”

“Ruiz talk to Frankie’s friend Sharon?”

Kissick nodded. “Sharon holds to her story that she didn’t know what Frankie was up to. She said Frankie was not one to spill her guts about her life anyway. She was taciturn. Bit of a hard-ass.” He winked at her.

She smiled and looked away.

“Has Ruiz calmed down since this morning?”

“He calmed down.”

When Kissick didn’t elaborate, she let the topic drop.

“Enough law and order. How are your boys spending the summer?”

He grinned, relieved to move on to a new subject. “How
aren’t
they spending the summer? Cal wants to go river rafting with his buddies for his thirteenth birthday. And Jimmy…Oops, I forgot. He prefers to be called
Jim
now. Is driving. A mixed blessing. Hounding me and his mom to buy him a car. Maybe for his birthday, if he keeps his grades up.”

“Onward.”

“Yep. As for me, I’ve decided to pursue a bump up to sergeant. I was supposed to take the test next week, but with the Lynde case, had to reschedule.”

“That’s great, Jim. You’ll have no problem. The brass loves you.”

“You never know what tiny infraction you committed years ago that will come back to haunt you. Some toe you stepped on.”

“I hate the politics. I just want to do my job.”

“I heard that.” He turned his wineglass by the stem against the table. “So howya doin’, ol’ gal?”

She smiled. “Good.” She maintained eye contact even though she was not being truthful.

“Got anything going on in your personal life?”

“Yeah. Trying to pull it back together.”

He raised his glass to that. “You stickin’ to your plan not to date again until Emily is out of the house?”

“Yep. Although lately she’s been pushing me into it. Trying to hook me up with her math teacher.” She raised her eyebrows, conveying she found the idea ridiculous.

He gave a knowing nod. “Well-meaning friends and relatives.”

The waitress brought fresh drinks. He tipped the rest of his wine into the new glass. She let the waitress take her half-finished piña colada.

She grabbed the stem of the maraschino cherry and stirred the foamy cocktail with it. “What about you?”

“I dated somebody for a while. Broke up a couple of months ago.”

“What’s a while?”

“Over a year.”

She picked cashews from the nut bowl and wondered where the sliders were. “She didn’t get you to the altar.”

“Like my father used to say: Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” He leered, baiting her.

“Ow. My mother has a saying: Men are dogs.”

“Woof.”

“See? Mom was right.” She sipped her drink. “What does she do?”

“Works for Kaiser here in Pasadena. Business planning. Finance. Brainy stuff.”

Vining felt that pang of not measuring up. “A real live citizen. Who ended it?”

“I could claim it was mutual, but you’re right. Someone always ends it. She did. She wanted more. Marriage. Kids. The white picket fence. I
was
married. I
have
kids. I think marriage is great. I wouldn’t mind being married again, but I don’t want to start a new family. I know so many guys who have gone that route. First kids in college. Little babies at home. I want to stop paying my dues at some point.”

“I hear ya.”

“I was up front with her from the beginning. She was cool with it then, said she was focused on her career. Didn’t need to be married to feel complete. What’s a wedding ring anyway? Half of her friends are divorced, yada, yada…”

“Then the baby bell started clanging.”

“You got it. Hey, she deserves more than a battle-scarred, broken-down cop.”

Vining pointed at her scar. “Me and a math teacher.”

“My point exactly. So…”

He looked at her and she looked back. It was nice seeing him by candlelight. He’d visited her often in the hospital and checked in on her at home. Those times were tense and heavy. Her situation had been touch and go for longer than she admitted. Her visitors worked on keeping up her spirits. She did the same for them. He’d taken Emily along on outings with his boys: movies, bowling, ball games, miniature golf. Vining was grateful for that.

She repeated what he’d said. “So…”

He hesitated.

She felt ready for whatever he was going to say. She was firmly planted in her chair. She wasn’t going to run away, no matter what.

“So…I’ve missed you, Nan. I’ve always missed you.” He crept his fingers across the table and touched hers.

She did not pull away. He moved his fingers until he grasped her palm. His hand was warm and dry. A big, strong hand. She felt his pulse beating beneath his skin. It had been a long time since she’d shared even this small intimacy. She wanted more. Craved more. She wanted him. She laced her fingers in his. He looked into her eyes. He didn’t stop looking. Her lips parted and she breathed shallowly through her mouth. He pulled himself closer. She met him halfway. They kissed. Her heart pounded while the rest of her melted. His other hand caressed her chin. After what seemed like a deliciously long time, she turned her head, breaking the kiss. His lips landed near her ear.

He whispered, “We could get a room.”

She playfully swatted him. “You
are
a dog.”

“I didn’t plan this. I swear. But, what the hell, Nan?”

What the hell? A lovely room in the lovely hotel. A lovely night. After being so tightly wound, grappling to hold herself together, the mere thought of letting go was like a lifeboat and a cool drink of water after being stranded on a rooftop. He was the last man she’d had sex with over two years ago. She had shut away that part of her life. Never allowing herself a visit. Her struggles now were different. For the first time, Kissick didn’t feel like another complication. One more thing to handle. He felt like a solid oak in a forest of saplings. Here she could lean. Let down her guard. Here she could find comfort and rest.

While his lips brushed her ear, sending electricity to her toes, she raised her eyes and learned they were entertainment for a group of women sprawled across couches. It was an awakening. She anticipated Emily’s bewildered look upon seeing her dragging home in the wee hours. She saw the crass gaze of their coworkers when they detected the heightened tension between her and Kissick
again.
What message did it send her daughter? How could she and Kissick work the same case? She’d just returned and was lucky to have a desk in detectives. This couldn’t happen.

She sat back and nervously touched her hair, but managed a withering gaze at the snoopy women.

His demeanor showed he knew it was a no-go.

“It’s not you, Jim. It’s too sudden. So much has happened…”

“You’re right. I’m not thinking with the head on top of my neck. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It was wonderful. It brought back nice memories.”

“Really?”

She gave him a sly smile. “I used to like it when you stopped being so…you know, in control. When you let yourself go.”

He gave her a sly smile back. “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me.”

She snickered.

“Aren’t you?”

She laughed harder and was grateful when the food arrived. They devoured it. Vining drank water, leaving the second drink untouched. The alcohol she’d already consumed had quickly gone to her head, scattering the few wits she had left.

He waited for her to get inside her car and drive off. He said he was heading home, but she knew he would go back to the station.

N I N E T E E N

T
HE PLACE WAS A RUN-DOWN NIGHTCLUB ON PIER AVENUE IN HERMOSA
Beach called The Lighthouse, and Pussycat knew she had been there too long. A rock-and-roll band had taken the stage at 10:30 p.m. and they were grinding out Metallica covers, their amps at full volume. The music reverberated through Pussycat’s bones and shook the thoughts from her head, which was fine with her. The dance floor was crowded with guys in tank tops and girls in spaghetti strap camisoles and shorts or skirts that fell well below their belly buttons. The footwear of choice was flip-flops.

A sign on the door said “No shirt, no shoes, no service” and the clientele barely met those minimal requirements.

Pussycat sat on a stool at the wooden bar, marred with generations of graffiti etched with knives or ballpoint pens if nothing more lethal was at hand. The club’s décor was near-Hawaiian with a sprinkling of yard sale. Thatched roofs over the bar and the conversation nooks were studded with tiki heads, plastic bananas, monkeys carved from coconuts, rubber chickens, and pieces of surfboards. On the brightly painted walls were photographs of surfers with inscriptions to the owner. “To Sharkee, keep shredding!” A life-size plastic shark hung behind the bar. A roll of paper towels on a dowel was attached to each table. Televisions of all shapes and sizes were bolted to any remaining wall space.

Hundreds of dollar bills with names, dates, and sometimes phone numbers written in black marker were thumbtacked to the ceiling, completely covering the acoustic tile. Here and there among the curled bills were brassieres and thong panties like exclamation points, flares sent up by female patrons, sky writing that announced that their night had gone on a shade too long.

“Pace yourself, Pollywog.” The bartender cautioned a customer, apparently a regular, at the same time he refilled his shot glass with tequila. The admonition had come too late or was pointless anyway as the bleary-eyed guy raised the glass, reverently held it for a moment in the direction of the bartender, and knocked it back. He fumbled to take a lime wedge from a saucer, bit it between his teeth and dropped the rind on the bar.

Pussycat signaled the bartender to serve one of the same for herself. She
had
been pacing herself, nursing a Sierra Nevada, then a second, but itched to cut loose. Things were not going well. She was down in spite of the meth she’d done. She’d do more if she had it, but he’d rationed her dose. Bastard. He wanted to make sure she came back with what he wanted. She hated craving more meth, hated herself, but craved more Tina just the same. How did her life get so screwed up? She had always prided herself on being the kind of woman who made choices and decisions that would bring her the greatest freedom in life. Her axiom was simple: money bought freedom.

Now she had lots of money. All she wanted. More than she’d ever aspired to. More than she could ever spend. She had beautiful things. Her every shopping whim was fulfilled. She had the house of her dreams. When she was in high school, she used to drive around neighborhoods like where she now lived and look at the beautiful homes. She especially loved wandering at night when the landscaping was skillfully illuminated and lamps shone brightly through spotlessly clean windows, setting off the houses and gardens like they were in a storybook or a Thomas Kinkade painting. No one had drapes or blinds over their first-floor windows. The homes were as openly on display as Fifth Avenue department stores at Christmas.

Christmas was the best. The professional trim-the-home crews strove to outdo each other with garlands, wreaths, and twinkling lights. Huge Christmas trees went up in the expansive sitting rooms.

Sometimes when cruising the neighborhood at night, she’d spot people through the windows chatting with friends, raising a glass or a coffee cup. Or she’d catch guests leaving in a shower of good-bye hugs and kisses and laughter, children chasing each other across spacious lawns.

Then she’d drive on and feel a stab in her heart as she returned to the small house her parents rented in Pomona on a faceless street in a hopeless neighborhood. Her two brothers and sister lived there, too, all of them crammed into a three-bedroom, one-bath stucco tract home. Closing the door was like a jail lockdown. During summer, she’d roll a sleeping bag out in the backyard and spend the night under the stars. Often her sister, who was only a year younger, would join her. Pussycat told her parents it was too hot inside the house, which it was. But mostly she liked looking at the stars and the open sky. It reminded her that there was a big world beyond Pomona. It made her feel free.

She’d learned early that a lack of money imprisoned one. Needing money, you went to a job you didn’t like, were nice to a boss you hated, lived someplace you barely tolerated, and were grateful for that crummy roof over your head. Money even dictated whom you married. People rarely married above their class. That was so rare they wrote books and made movies about it.

She’d bought a plaque that said “If you think money won’t buy happiness, you don’t know where to shop.” She vowed that if she ever had money, she would support her family, give generously to charity, and she’d never forget where she came from.

People never gave her credit for brains. Maybe she wasn’t the smartest cookie in the jar, but she knew how the world worked. She knew she’d never earn the kind of money she wanted on her own. But she could marry it. The social climbing heroines in those books and movies told her how. She took a seminar about meeting rich men. Guys with that kind of dough weren’t looking for girls like her. She had to transform herself. She needed to look money to meet money. She needed to go where the money was.