The stiff, icy wind pricked at Trevor's face. It was a hair before six in the morning and much of Chicago slumbered. When he reached the end of the street, he leaned against the brick apartment building at the designated spot and pulled his cell phone out of his trench coat. Though the street was empty, he pretended to have a conversation with a broker. Yeah, yeah, I hear you, the timing's right, sure.
He had learned over the years that even if you didn't think anyone was watching, it was better to play it safe.
Still, he was glad he had to wait only a few minutes before he heard the woman scream. His new wingtips weren't doing a damn thing to keep his toes warm.
After a moment's hesitation—after all, even the bravest of heroes paused when they heard a scream—he ducked onto Ontario and charged up the street. The sky was the color of old concrete. He saw them immediately: two guys in black ski masks, dirty jeans, and worn high school varsity jackets tussling with a redheaded woman in purple sweats. They'd cornered her against her black Lexus. One them was clutching at her black purse while the other was attempting to tug down her sweatpants.
Trevor launched himself at both her assailants, all of them going down hard on the pavement. When Trevor scrambled to his feet, palms scraped, he saw the shapes of people through the fitness center's tinted windows behind them. Good. An audience always helped.
"You're dead, punk," one the guys said.
Trevor really wished they would come up with more original lines. Her attackers staggered up, both of them at least a head taller and twenty pounds heavier than him. One produced a knife with a black handle and a long serrated edge. The woman screamed, but Trevor didn't look at her. This part required all of his concentration.
First came the guy without the knife. He swung his right fist, then his left, and each time Trevor dodged. Trevor landed a punch to the gut and sent the guy sprawling, gasping. Then the second guy came on, the knife slashing at the brittle air. Trevor locked onto the guy's arm, spun, and elbowed him in the gut. The guy let out a woomph and doubled over.
Police sirens blared in the distance. Both muggers were up in a hurry and running, one of them snatching her purse off the ground. Trevor took off after them, slowly gaining, feeling the cold air burn in his lungs. When they were nearly to the corner, the guy with the purse dropped it and sped off after his partner.
Trevor jogged to a stop and picked up the purse. Paused there a moment, holding his side, grimacing. The grimace was important. You always had to grimace. Heading back to the woman, he saw a few spandex-clad girls from the athletic club, bodies steaming in the cold, surrounding the woman and offering comfort, and it wasn't until he was nearly upon them that he finally got his first good look at her. He had always believed that not seeing a picture of the woman ahead of time would ensure his first reaction was more genuine, but now he saw how dangerous that had been. He should have looked at the picture. He should have been more careful.
He knew her.
He had known her since he was nine years old.
As the women around her parted, eyes filled first with suspicion, then softening to that familiar my hero glow, Trevor felt a chill. Her hair had been more of an auburn, not red, and she had probably put on twenty pounds since he had seen her last, but it was definitely her. The mole on her nose. The slight downward slant of her hazel eyes. The ivory tint of her skin. There was no doubt. Diana. It was Diana, for God's sake.
"Hello," he said.
* * * * *
"Her maiden name was Garvin," Trevor said. "Diana Garvin. Not Kellanger. It's why I didn't recognize it."
His breath misted on the glass. If he looked down, he saw the Chicago river twenty-two stories below, a black serpent amidst all the window-lit buildings. Fog had rolled in that evening, giving all the outside lights a fuzzy glow. It was pleasantly warm in the room, but he felt the coolness of the air next to the glass.
"You're shittin' us," Bob said. No matter how hard he tried, he could never quite shake his Boston accent. "Fourth grade? Did she even have tits back then?"
He turned and looked at them. The Hilton's hotel room was large and luxurious as hotel rooms went. Bob sat on the edge of the king bed, a Heineken in one hand, TV remote in the other. His silk flower print shirt was unbuttoned halfway, his gold chain and obnoxiously large cross lost in all his silver chest hair. Marvin, redheaded and pale, dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans, sat at the little table paging through the Tribune. A Bulls game was on the television. They were getting crushed by the Celtics.
Looking at them, Trevor was often left wondering how exactly it was that he ended up partnering with these two morons. They were useful, but between them they had the intelligence of a bar stool.
"From fourth to tenth grade back in Idaho," Trevor said. "Before my family moved to New Jersey."
"No kiddin?" Bob said. "You bang her?"
Marvin, flipping the pages of his newspaper, snickered. Trevor sighed.
"No, I most assuredly didn't," he said.
"Ah, ah, but you wanted to," Bob said. "I can tell."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Bet he'd like to go to bed with her now," Marvin said. His own voice had echoes of Brooklyn in it, but he was much better at hiding this when he wanted to.
Trevor turned back to the window. He didn't want them to see that they were getting to him. He was thirty-six now, meaning the last time he had seen Diana had been nearly twenty years earlier. Dear God, twenty years. "We moved in different circles," he said quietly, mostly to himself. "I don't think she really knew me. She . . . I mean, I would have liked to know her better."
This came out awkwardly, and there was a moment of silence. Trevor regretted saying it. When you bathed in a pool of vipers, showing weakness was deadly.
But how many times had he composed love notes to her only to throw them into the river on his way to school? How many times had he stared at the back of her head in class and tried to will her to turn and smile at him, only to have her go on blissfully unaware of his existence?
And of course there was the time with the locker. It happened in tenth grade, when he finally got up the nerve to ask her out. He remembered how he had a lump in his throat the size of a tennis ball, how she had stared at him as if he had just stepped out of a flying saucer. When he had just been about to get the words straight, something about going to a movie, maybe ice cream later, you know, if you're free, some football player with cologne that smelled like fresh tar tackled him into the locker. That had been humiliating enough, but it hadn't been why he despised Diana.
He despised her because she had laughed.
Until then, he had thought that being ignored was the worst kind of cruelty. But being nothing but a joke to someone you adored . . . that was far worse. He had resolved right then he would never to be a joke to anyone ever again. No one would ever laugh at him like that. No one.
Sighing, Marvin folded his paper. "You're sure she didn't recognize you?"
"Positive," Trevor said. "I talked with her for ten minutes and she still didn't know." But what he didn't tell them was how, when she asked him his name, he had accidentally told her the truth—Trevor Allen—rather an alias. That she didn’t remember him even after he told her his name made him hate her even more.
"You gave her your card?" Marvin said.
"Yes."
"Well, if she doesn't call . . ."
"She'll call." Trevor was certain of it. Her eyes had practically been glowing when she looked at him. Oh yes, everybody loves a hero. He thought about how she once looked in a cheerleading outfit, wondered how her naked hips would feel when he slid his hands over them.
"Yeah, and then he can finally bang her," Bob said, and he punctuated this remark with a belch.
Trevor grimaced. He thought about how wonderful it would be to finally get away from these fools. He hadn't told them, but this was his last job. He had been planning it for a long time. He had enough saved that he could sit on a beach in Puerto Rico for years without lifting a finger. Afterwards, he'd get into some other line of work, something more noble. Maybe he'd be a lawyer.
He had been hoping for a last job that would be something special, and along came Diana. It must have been fate. Now she'd find out what real cruelty was.
"She'll definitely call," Trevor said again.
* * * * *
The next morning, while eating breakfast at a diner on Twenty-Fifth, Trevor got the call on his cell phone. She wanted to take him to dinner. To thank him, of course.
And while Bob, sitting across the table, made an obscene gesture by sticking his index finger in and out of a hole formed with his left hand, Trevor suavely told her that he'd love to have dinner with her. Gone was the awkward and introverted Trevor, once bruised by bullies and scorned at by women. In his place was the confident and worldly Trevor, the guy that knew all the people and had all the connections, a guy who was just waiting for the right woman to come along and see the heart of gold hidden behind his cocky demeanor. It was all in the voice. All in the tone. She laughed a girlish laugh and he knew he was reeling her in right from the start.
Oh yes, he was going to love hurting her.
* * * * *
Their first date, they ate in the back of an Italian restaurant, everything done in reds—the high walls, the embroidered tablecloths, the velvet seat cushions. A candle in a glass jar flickered between them, the cherry wood table small enough that it created a sense of intimacy all by itself. A violin concerto played from the speakers in the corners. Now and then, they heard muted laughter from the bar around the corner, caught a whiff of cigarette smoke.
"I buy and sell things," he said, when the inevitable question came. He smiled. "Preferably selling for more than I buy."
She chuckled and dabbed at her lips with her cloth napkin. Her black evening dress had a plunging neckline. The tops of her breasts were a creamy white. She didn't have breasts like that in high school. They made her seem so much more womanly.
"What kinds of things?"
He rolled his fork in his spaghetti.
"Oh, all kinds of things. Precious metals. Antiques. Anything I can
buy one place and sell another. It's why I'm here in Chicago. Doing
another deal."
"Sounds fascinating."
"It pays the bills. Let's me buy and sell the stuff that's really important."
He tossed off the comment as it was nothing, as if he didn't intend for it to lead anywhere.
"And what would that be?" she asked.
"Hmm?"
"What's really important?"
"Oh. Well . . ." He looked around nervously. "I really shouldn't say here. It's not exactly, um, above board."
"Now you've really got me interested."
"I'll tell you later," he said. "Why don't you tell me about you? Maybe start by explaining why you're not married, because I've been sitting here wondering just how a woman as attractive as you could still be single." Not many guys could make such a comment without it sounding phony, but Trevor knew the trick to delivering compliments was to speak them as if you were completely unaware that they were compliments.
It induced the desired effect. He saw a hint of red in her cheeks.
"Well, I was married," she said, and then she went on to explain everything he already knew. Her husband, who had done quite well as a real estate developer, had died three years earlier in a mountain climbing accident. No kids. She was thinking of going back and finishing her degree. She didn't say anything about her financial situation, but he already knew from his research that she was worth a cool two million. The life insurance policy on her husband had been worth a million by itself.
Later, he parked his Mercedes outside her lake view condo. He glimpsed Lake Michigan in the gap between the ten-story buildings and the leafless oak trees—a black expanse, a few shimmering lights on the horizon. She fidgeted with her dress. The street lamp above them cast deep shadows on her face. My, she was lovely. The apricot scent of her perfume was wonderful. Patience now.
"I have something I should tell you," he said. "You may not like it."
He couldn't see her eyes, but he saw her lips part. "Oh?"
"What I said back at the restaurant. About selling things. You see, I . . . uh . . . Wow, I didn't think this would be so hard."
She took hold of his hand. Her skin felt soft and slightly moist, as if she pampered them often with lotion.
"Go ahead," she said, "you can tell me."
"Well . . . I'm kind of afraid you're not going to like me when I tell you." He hesitated for a few seconds to make it seem like he was struggling, then plunged ahead. "Well, it's like this. I told you I buy and sell things so I can buy and sell things that really matter. What I didn't tell you is that what I've been buying that really matters is . . . drugs."
Her grip on his hand slightly relaxed. "Drugs?"
"Yes. Marijuana, actually."
"Oh . . ."
"But it's not like you think. I don't buy it so I can sell it to just anyone. I buy it to sell it to people who are suffering, who have cancer or some other disease." He swallowed hard. "You see, my Aunt Nancy. . . I haven't told anyone about this."
"It's okay," she said.
There was still a bit of hesitancy in her voice, but he hadn't lost her. He knew that this was the critical moment, where the deal could fall apart. Time to really lay on the charm. "My Aunt Nancy," he continued, "she meant everything to me. After my parents died when I was little—"
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"It's all right. It's when I was three. But my aunt, she raised me. When I was in high school back in New Jersey, she died of breast cancer. It was awful there toward the end. She smoked marijuana for a while, and that helped, but we were poor, and she just couldn't find any cheap enough. She was really suffering there toward the end."
She squeezed his hand reassuringly and he squeezed it back.
"It's good to say this," he said. "I needed—I needed to tell it to someone. When I finally started making some money, I vowed that when I had extra cash, I would buy marijuana and sell it to people in need. Below cost, if necessary. I've even given some of it away. If the government legalized it, it would help even more, but I do what I can. Technically, I'm trafficking in narcotics. I . . . I understand if you don't want to see me anymore."
He allowed his voice to choke up a little at the end, then he turned and stared off into the night. When he looked at her, her face was inches from his own, her breath warm on his face.
She leaned forward and kissed him. He reacted stiffly at first, then leaned into it. Her lips were as soft and moist as her hands.
When they were finished, she said, "I hope you don't mind."
He just looked at her. Blinked a few times, swallowed. Everything was falling into place.
"If you want to come upstairs . . ." she said.
This time he squeezed her hand. My God, did he want to go upstairs. Here was the real challenge. Here was the testament to his talent and control.
"Gosh, I'd love to," he said, "but I don't want to be a one night stand to you."
"Oh, I wasn't saying—"
"I know you weren't. But I want to take it slow, okay? I don't want to ruin this. I'm here all week trying to put this deal together. Tomorrow?"
"Okay," she said.
"You're not hurt are you?"
"No, no."
But he could see that she was. The right kind of hurt. A little prick that would start the bleeding.
"All right, then," he said. "Pick you up at eight."
She kissed him again, lightly this time. Now there was just a hint of desperation in it, and it was good. She opened the door, and the dome light came on, lighting up her face. He saw that a few tears had smeared her mascara. It startled him. He hadn't known she'd been crying.
"I really admire you, Trevor," she said, and the sound of his name in her voice sent a tingle up his spine.
"Oh, it's nothing," he said.
"No, it's not. You're risking your life, your future, so you can help people. I . . . I think that's a great way to respond to a loss. I wish I'd been like that. When I lost my parents—"
"You lost your parents?" he asked.
She nodded. "It was when I was in grade school. A car accident. It wasn't even a drunk driver, just somebody stupid. I grew up with my grandparents. They were all right, but I wish I'd been like you . . . I wish I'd made their deaths mean something. Instead I just found a rich guy and got married."
This was new information to him, and it caught him off guard. "I think you're selling yourself short. You've done a lot with your life."
She shook her head. "Even Ted dying didn't wake me up, and it should have. But you've inspired me, Trevor. You've inspired me."
Watching her walk toward the condo, he tried to recall the sound of her laughing at him back in high school, but he couldn't summon it. It was gone.
* * * * *
The first thing Trevor did when he got back to the hotel was some research on her to see if her story was true. Some checking online verified that it was. Then he began to wonder how much more there was to her that he didn't know.
He saw her each of the next three nights. He learned she had struggled with schooling until the seventh grade, when she was diagnosed with dyslexia. He learned that she had always wanted children, but that her husband had been infertile. He learned that she had few friends, none of them close, and that she felt completely alone in the world.
He began to have doubts.
At the end of the third night, they were drinking wine in her living room, sitting on her leather couch so close their thighs touched, the room filled with the soft orange glow from the dying fire. Kenny G was on the stereo. Usually he hated Kenny G, but this time he hardly noticed. While looking up, he reached to put his wine glass back on the table and he misjudged the distance. The wine spilled on the carpet. To make matters worse, the carpet was white.
"Oh, god, I'm sorry," he said, reaching for the glass, and he was genuinely sorry. Where was his control?
"Don't worry about it," she said.
"Do you have a rag? Maybe some cleaner? I can clean this up."
"Really, it's not a problem."
"I feel like such a klutz—"
She grabbed him and pulled him away from glass, leaning forward,
pushing him back into the sofa. She tore at his shirt, breaking a
button, ravenously groping at his bare skin. Her mouth pressed down
on his with all of her weight. He felt himself responding to
her.
Their clothes were ripped off in a blur of hands and fingers. Naked, he carried her up to the bed room. Usually, when he made love to a woman, he took his time, every sound and groan choreographed to yield the maximum response from his partner. But now he found himself responding to her energy, becoming frantic himself.
Later, when they lay side by side on her satin sheets, sweaty and exhausted, he said something that wasn't part of the plan. It was something he usually said, and it was right on schedule, but he had never meant it before. He had said it lots of time with lots of conviction but he had never meant it.
"I think I'm falling in love with you," he said.
She smiled. "Well, that makes two of us," she said.
* * * * *
They had gathered in his hotel room to make the final preparations. Bob, sitting on the edge of the bed, clicked off the television with the remote and looked at him, eyes cold. He had gone for a dip in the pool downstairs and was still shirtless, his waist wrapped in one of the hotel's wimpy white towels, his hair slicked straight back.
"What do you mean, you can't go through with it?" he said.
Marvin, who was polishing his shoes over at the little table, paused with his rag and looked up. Trevor had never seen either of them look this angry.
"I meant exactly what I said," Trevor said.
"Why?" Marvin asked.
"I just don't want to do it anymore."
Bob shook his head. "He went and banged her and now he thinks he's in love with her."
Trevor felt blood rushing to his face. "She's just . . . not what I remembered."
"Good pussy, huh?" Bob said.
"I wish you wouldn't talk about her that way."
Bob laughed. "Kid's getting his back up. Funny."
"Look, I just don't want to do this job, okay?"
"Nah, we'll do this one," Bob said. "Took us a month to find her. You'll find another girl to bang, believe me."
Trevor sighed. "Maybe you're not hearing me. I said I'm not going through with this. And another thing. I'm taking a break for a while. I'm not doing any more scams, at least for a couple of years."
Trevor hadn't meant to talk to them about quitting, but now that it was out in the open, he didn't regret it. Time to make a clean break. Maybe he could invite Diana to come with him to Puerto Rico.
Bob's eyebrows went up. Marvin put his shoes on the floor and slipped his feet into them. He stood, smoothed out his pants. He looked lean and powerful like a middle-weight boxer. The silence felt heavy.
"We'll do this last job," Marvin said finally, "and then we can go our separate ways."
Trevor shook his head. "I don't want—"
"Do you remember Jimmy Costa?" Marvin cut in.
The name was like a glass of ice water down his back. Jimmy Costa . . . Before Marvin and Bob teamed up with Trevor, Jimmy had been their point man. That was before he tried to double-cross them and run off with a cool million dollars. Now he was apparently keeping watch on an old lady's garden somewhere in Wisconsin—from six feet underground.
Trevor tried to play it cool, but his voice sounded strained. "I remember him."
Marvin smiled. "Let us know when the final meeting will take place."
* * * * *
It was going to be hard. No doubt about it, it would be hard. But Trevor spent a few days without returning her calls, and a few nights in bars firming up his resolve. When it came down to it, Diana was just another girl, and there was no way Trevor was going to end up dead because of her. He reminded himself she had laughed at him once. She had laughed at him as if he was nothing . . .
~continued~
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