Mr. Hooligan (17 page)

“Yes to all of the above. I’ll tell you the truth, she’s an artist to me, Sister Pat. She’s got a mind that attracts me. Stop me if this is too much information, but it’s way more than physical and I enjoy the hell outta that part, but it’s—hey, it’s
deeper
with her. We can hang out, cook together and we’re in this zone where it’s peaceful but full of energy at the same time, and we riff about anything, God or if there isn’t a god, music, art, and maybe I don’t know that much about Edward Hopper but I’m learning. Sometimes she talks about her fiancé who got killed in a crash, how much she missed him, and I could see a part of her is still hurting, so I listen, and I think it makes us closer. I’ve taken her all over Belize. The cayes, the ruins, camping in Placencia, snorkeling at Half Moon Caye … I guess I’m saying it feels natural with her, Sister Pat, it feels
effortless.
Real. We argued a couple times, yeah, but basically there’re no pretense between us. Either that or I’m fooling myself.”

Sister Pat said, “I like what I’m hearing, but more than that, I like what I’m seeing as you’re telling me this. Drink your tea, it’s getting cold.”

They sipped tea together, Riley scanning the spines of the books on the credenza across the room to see what he might borrow next.

Sister Pat said, “I saw Candice this afternoon as a matter of fact.”

“Really? Then you beat me ’cause I haven’t seen her all day after that thing that happened to me last night.”

“That thing I don’t need to know any details about, thank you very much.”

“I know. Where’d you see her?”

“Battlefield Park. Taking pictures of a man. Looked like an American.”

“Maybe one of her Peace Corps friends.”

“I don’t think so. This fellow was somewhat too well dressed. Too clean cut.”

“Sister Pat. My personal spy. Hey, I’m teasing.”

“That’s okay. This man, I’ve seen him before. Driving a U.S. embassy SUV.”

“And you can tell it’s embassy because…”

She set her bowl down and glowered. “Boy, don’t insult me. I know what an embassy vehicle looks like. From the tags. Which say U.S. embassy.” She let him off with a little smile.

Riley shrugged. “Who knows? Candice’s business has taken off recently. She gets all these different clients. She sold two photos to
Condé Nast Traveler
last month, I told you about that?”

“That’s wonderful.”

“Yeah, she’s got an eye. Like I said, she’s an artist.”

Sister Pat pushed the plate of cookies toward him. He took one, bit into it and said, “So an embassy vehicle, huh? Cheating on me with The Man. That evil woman.” He chewed the oatmeal raisin, thinking Okay, who could this guy be? He looked at the cookie and put it down, his appetite gone.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

One evening, Riley peering over her shoulder, Candice had ordered a bunch of skimpy panties from the Victoria’s Secret Web site. Riley pointed to this and that on the screen, saying oh, yeah, that’s perfect. No, scroll down—yeah, look, right here, Brazilian string. But wait, better yet, get the
extreme
string. Rubbing her shoulders and fitting his chin into the crook of her neck.

She was wearing one now, a racy, black sliver of a thing—there’s something delicious and naughty about black panties, he told her, and she was inclined to agree—the panty tight with strings high on her hipbones, and a sleeveless form-fitting blouse hugging her midriff, while she sliced sweet red peppers and dropped them into a bowl with onions and potato wedges.

The pan hissed when Riley spooned the red curry paste into the hot oil and stirred. He was sporting silky blue boxers she’d bought him, which he had vowed he’d never wear. Aromatic fig candles were burning on the far kitchen counter and on the dining table, the houselights were low, jazz drifting from the living-room speakers. An open bottle of chardonnay and two glasses of wine stood over there on the counter.

“Where’s the chicken?” Riley asked, fanning away the spicy fumes rising from the pan.

“In the fridge,” she said, opening a can of bamboo shoots, “where you put it ten minutes ago.”

Passing by, he spanked her butt, took out the pan with the chunks of seasoned chicken breast. He stuck his head farther in the fridge.

“What do you need?”

“The fish sauce. I know I saw a bottle of fish sauce in here somewhere.”

“It’s in the cabinet over there, by the sink.”

She didn’t keep a close eye on him and when she looked up again he was rummaging around, toppling spice bottles, in the wrong cabinet, so she told him the
other
one,
by the sink,
you don’t listen, and he shook his head and said the fish sauce shouldn’t have been in there anyway, since anybody knows it belongs in the fridge or it goes bad, refrigerate after opening, right there on the label. She argued otherwise, and he cut her off and said now, dammit, he needed garlic powder, was that in the spice cabinet or maybe, should he like check the freezer?

She went after him with a spoon and they ended the argument laughing through a ferocious kiss. When he lifted her up and sat her on the counter, water from the can of bamboo shoots spilled, and he stood between her legs kissing her, long and deep.

She continued cooking, tipsy from the wine and all that loving, she said. She slid the onions, potatoes, and sweet peppers in with the chicken chunks coated in red and browning juicily. Next came a can of coconut milk, whitening the pot then picking up swirls of red curry as she stirred. Next, the bamboo shoots and a cup of frozen peas that he handed her, then he dipped across and sluiced cold wine from his mouth into hers, pressing his bare chest against her, and the room felt hot and smelled of figs and red Thai curry and his skin, that sharpness he had.

They ate at the table, curry ladled over mounds of basmati rice, refilled wineglasses. Rain was falling outside. They ate messily, they didn’t care, commenting on the food. Playing footsie under the table.

She jiggled her eyebrows at him. They had all night for things to progress. Let the anticipation be sweet.

Somewhere between putting the plates in the sink and draining the bottle of Chardonnay into her glass, he lost his boxers, and she cackled and clapped her hands once when she noticed. Before you know it, her clothes were off, too, and she was leading him astray, into the bedroom. The rain had picked up, smothering the music, and rain-breeze washed over the bed. Giggling and kneeling over him, she flung the sheet over their heads, and they set about pleasing each other, while the rain drummed the tin roof.

*   *   *

The sheets were drenched. He was drowsing, pillows scattered on the floor. She kept the bathroom door open and spoke to him as she sat on the toilet peeing. “Are you listening to me?” He mumbled. She saw herself in the big mirror over the sink, hair mussed, face flushed, and she was happy.

He said, “You musn’t tell your friends about me. They’ll all want a piece. I can’t be expected to rock every woman’s world, there’s only one of me.”

She said in a monotone, “Okay, you stud you.”

He said he liked some of those pictures she had on the wall, were those ones new? She said a few were. How could he see? Put on a lamp. Look at the ones by the closet, Lamanai, that one with the yellow rope leading up to the temple, the angle and the color contrast. He snapped on the light. He said man, how cool. She’d pumped up the color saturation on the computer to bring out the yellows, and the blues in the sky. She flushed the toilet, washed her hands, smiling giddily at herself for some reason, maybe content mixed with chardonnay.

He said, “Could you take a portrait of Duncan and one of Duncan and me? I’ll bring him over one day.”

She said, teasing, “Sure, and bring your ex, too,” but when she walked out of the bathroom, saw that he was serious. She said, “I’ll finally get to spend a little time with him?”

He nodded. “Maybe one day this week, in the evening, I’ll bring him over.”

“Perfect.” She saw no trace of a joke on his face. “I could whip up something. What does he like to eat?”

“That’d be nice, but not necessary. Some of those Oreo cookies and some ice cream would be cool.”

“The cookies you’ve been scarfing and there’s only a quarter pack left?” She found a bottle of body spray from the night table drawer and spritzed her neck and her arms.

He heard his cell phone chirping, looked around. “Now where’s that thing?” He lifted his jeans off a bench by the wall, patted the pockets.

“It’s outside.”

“Outside, what would it be doing outside?”

“Hmm, let’s see. Because maybe you left it in the coin tray like you always do?”

He snapped his fingers, walked off to get it and spun around fast. “You were checking out my ass, weren’t you?”

“You know I was.”

She sat Indian-style on the bed and flipped through a textbook on color management, hearing him on the phone, her mind wandering. She slapped the book shut, heaved it on the ground, and covered her face with her hands.

What the hell was she doing?

That man outside, the man who just rose naked from her bed, was he the slippery drug runner of the “ruthless organization” police had been trying for years to nail? That man outside? That silly, sweet gentle man? Riley James?
Her
Riley James?

She sighed, she felt like such a heel. There was a golf ball in her throat, but she was not going to give in to emotion, no way. Not tonight … it had been so perfect.

She lay on her side, curled around a pillow. He was not the man she thought she knew when the investigation started. Not a streak of meanness in him that she could see now. Like a father should be. Occasionally, she’d dropped hints, spoken well of him to Malone. “The best neighbor I’ve ever had. I’m not lying.” “What an easygoing guy.” “Why do some criminals turn out to be such nice people?”

Malone said, “You sound like every single woman I know. ‘Why are all the handsome guys gay?’ ”

Malone must’ve picked up on her warming up to Riley, or growing cool toward the operation. Picked up on her doubting her role. He showed her pictures, two men lying bloody on a dirt road near a pickup. He pointed to the one slumped against a tire. “This guy, Tarik El-Bani. This other guy, a local officer in El-Bani’s pocket. The agency had been following El-Bani’s movements for months back in the eighties, he was getting big. Do you know how these men died?”

“Shot, it appears.”

“Multiple times. You know by whom?”

She hesitated. “I think I know.”

“So do we. In fact, we’re pretty damn
certain
Mr. James was the gunman. Everything we know about the local investigation points to him, which is how he came on our radar. A young member of a loose organization run by a rival drug family takes out our target and makes himself a target. Candice, the bad guys never get away. The shadow they cast, it’s too long, they draw too much attention, clever as they think they are, they can’t hide forever. It’s simply in their nature to be deviant, and what does law enforcement need to do? Pay attention, be patient. Like going fishing.”

She thought, Sure, whatever you say, John Wayne. But then, in the days that followed, she wondered if what he said next was true.

“Sooner or later, people like Riley James, they all taste the hook.”

*   *   *

After he got off the phone, he brought a hefty chunk of cheesecake on a plate with two forks. They ate in bed, propped against the headboard, licking the forks clean and listening to the rain. “One mile more tomorrow morning,” she said, stabbing a piece. “Mmmm … Two more miles,” digging in again.

He said, “Yeah, all one hundred and twenty pounds of you.”

“One eighteen.”

“Excuuuse me.”

She teased him about his calloused toes, some of the ugliest she’d ever laid eyes upon. He wiggled them, cracking them to annoy her. He scraped off the cheesecake stuck to the plate and said, “I’ve got to meet somebody tonight. I shouldn’t be too long, okay?”

That surprised her. “In this weather? Do you have to?”

“It’s this man I do business with, he just called. He’s being unreasonable, and I think I better get this meeting over with so I don’t have to hear his complaints anymore. I’m sorry.”

Why was she so upset? She wasn’t faking, there was something else.… She bounded off the bed and hurried into the bathroom, slamming the door.

Riley called, “You all right?”

She sat on the toilet, lowered her head. “I’ll be okay.… It’s the cheesecake, I think.” Her forehead was cold with sweat—she’d lost her flipping mind, hadn’t she. She felt a knot of indigestion high in her stomach, her breath was shallow, her arms suddenly clammy.

To expect that she and this man were going to live some normal, stable life was ludicrous, a fantasy, a child’s game. For that to happen, she saw it plainly: She’d have to betray the DEA completely.

How the hell did she take this long to admit that?

Riley rapped on the door. “Want me to get you something? Tums?”