Palm Springs Heat (23 page)

“The footage you gave to Sushma
Vishnuveda.”

“Who?”

“Is that the Japanese chick? Are we
going to do some kind of interracial girl-on-girl thing?” the blonde asked.

The redhead nodded in Lara’s
direction. “That’s cool. But who’s
this
bimbo?”

Lara ignored them.

“Chill, ladies, I’ll take care of
this. Lara and I have history.” Kyle’s smile was so snaky Lara swore she could
see a forked tongue flitting through his teeth. “Lara, really. I—” He stopped.
“You know, you look really good.”

“Oh, for—”

“No, really. Something’s different.
Did you…” He raised his eyebrows and cupped his hands on his chest.

“That’s right, Kyle,” Lara said, “I
got a boob job. They’re all over the place now.”

“I knew it,” Kyle said.

“
She
got a boob job?” the
blonde sneered.

“Yeah, what was she before? An
A-cup?” the redhead chimed in.

“Double A,” the blonde said. “She looks
like an A now.”

The redhead nodded.

Lara glared at all three of them in
turn, then went into the house.

“What’s up
her
ass?” the
blonde asked.

“It’s probably fake, too,” the
redhead said.

Lara came back with a toaster and
an extension cord.

“Jesus!” the redhead said. “What’s
she gonna—”

“Just relax,” Kyle said. “She’s not
going to do anything. Isn’t that right, Lara?”

Lara calmly plugged the toaster
into the extension cord and the extension cord into an outlet, then stepped up
to the edge of the tub.

“Christ and candy bars! She’s a
psycho!” The redhead knocked Kyle into the water and used his submerged body to
clamber onto the deck. The blonde didn’t need a boost; the sudden tensing of
every muscle in her body shot her out of the pool like a rocket.

Kyle stood up, but before he got
any closer to safety, Lara shook the toaster and said, “One more step and
you’re toast.”

Kyle eased himself back to a
sitting position, keeping both hands on the edge of the tub. “Toast,” he said
with a fake chuckle. “I get it. Good one.”

“I’m done joking around. Let’s talk
about Sushma Vishnuveda. From Fast Lane?”

“Fast Lane.” Recognition spread
over Kyle’s face. “I don’t remember anyone name Vooshma, though. There was a
guy.”

“There was a
guy
?” the redhead
interjected. “You got some kind of male-on-male thing going on?”

“Please, babe, I’ll explain
everything,” Kyle said to her. “It’s just that, you see, I’m in kind of a spot
right now.” He turned back to Lara. “A private investigator. Looked like a gangster
from an old movie. He was digging around for dirt.”

“Lucky for him he came here. Where
else could he get a video of your vomit-inducing brother fucking me
doggy-style?”

“You fucked my brother?”

“You fucked his
brother
?”
the blonde said, crinkling her nose.

“
Doggy-style
?” the redhead
said, making the same face as the blonde.

“She
is
a whore,” the blonde
concluded.

The redhead nodded. “I’ve never
fucked someone’s
brother
.”

“What about the football twins from
UCLA?”

“It doesn’t count when both
brothers are
right there
.”

“Good point.”

Lara slapped the toaster. “Sushma?”

 “Okay, okay. Let me get out
of the tub so we can go inside and talk this over.”

“I kind of like you as toast.” Lara
looked at the bimbos. “How ’bout it, ladies?”

“Lara?”

She grinned and let go of the
toaster.

* * *

Kyle frantically looked through
files on his computer with Lara looking over his shoulder. “It would have been
nice to let me at least throw a towel around myself.”

“You should be grateful I didn’t
let the toaster hit the water.”

“Yeah, well, it came fucking close.
What if you misjudged how long the cord was?”

“You’d be dead. Which wouldn’t be
so bad.”

“Here it is.” Kyle clicked on a
file of Lara and him having sex.

“This isn’t what I saw,” Lara said.

Kyle clicked on another file. The
woman with him in this scene wasn’t Lara. The same was true of the next file he
opened. And the next.

“
All
these are from four
years ago?”

“They’re arranged chronologically.”

“Jesus—how many women did you fuck
when you were married to me?”

Kyle shrugged. “How many women are
there?”

“Keep clicking,” Lara said through
clenched teeth. Finally, the scene she had viewed in Sushma’s office came up.
“This is what I saw…except it was Drake instead of you.” She shuddered.

“I’m sorry about that,” Kyle said.
“I mean…Drake.”

“Did you give the private eye any
other footage? Something with Drake in it?”

“No. Just this.”

“Then how did his face get
plastered onto your body?”

“I don’t know. Real estate guy. His
face is everywhere.”

Kyle clicked the mouse a few times
to burn a DVD for Lara. She leaned on his desk and drummed her fingers.
Oh,
for Christ’s sake!
“Are you peeking down my dress?” Lara stood up. “You’re
such an asshole!”

“What? I’ve seen them before.”

“You don’t get to anymore.”

“It’s just that, from this angle,
it doesn’t look like, you know.” Kyle cupped his hands at his chest again.

“I look different to you?” Lara
asked in an irritated voice.

“Yeah. I gather it’s not your
boobs.”

“Look at my
hair
, Kyle.”

“You’ve got more of this showing?”
He flicked his fingers on his own forehead. “It looks nice that way.”

Seven fucking years of “cover
your forehead, Lara.”

“It’s brown,” she said

“It used to be a different color?”

Luckily for Kyle, the DVD tray
popped open with Lara’s copy of his home movies.

“You are just unbelievable,” Lara
said. “You have no trouble noticing the most miniscule details about any piece
of ass that comes within a hundred feet of you—but after being married to me
for seven years, you can’t even say what color my hair was.”

“Lighter brown! Right? With reddish
streaks.”

“Pathetic,” Lara said. “You may
continue your orgy now.” She snatched the DVD and stormed into the backyard.
The bimbos were still naked, reclining on lounge chairs and smoking cigarettes
while waiting dutifully for Kyle.

“Bye, ladies,” she said. “Enjoy the
rest of your afternoon.”

“Whore,” the redhead said.

Lara stopped. “You realize, don’t
you,” she said, “that he’s filming everything you do in that hot tub.”

“No fucking way!” the blonde
responded.

Lara went up to a hanging planter,
ripped out a microcam and tossed it in the bimbos’ direction.

“No fucking way!” the redhead said.

“My guess is that if you look hard
enough, you’ll find two or three more stashed around the yard. He likes to
catch every possible angle.”

Lara squeezed back through the
space between the fence and the house. Her car looked just as pathetic as
before, but this time the noises she heard from the backyard made her smile.

21

An hour later, Lara sat at a table
under a sun-bleached umbrella in the midst of the bustling Encino Farmers
Market. She laid out a paper napkin and arranged her lunch: a fish taco, a
baseball-size cluster of champagne grapes and a slushy flavored with passion
fruit and guava.

Sushma came to the table with a cup
of fruit topped with a clear plastic dome. “I cannot believe you would pick
such a place for our meeting.”

“See anyone you know here?”

“In this godforsaken place? Do not
be obscene.”

Lara took a long pull of slushy
through her straw and looked all around. Families. Teenagers. Senior citizens.
Not
exactly
Malibu
or

“This is really good,” Lara said
between slurps of her slushy. “You should try one.”

“I would not put such a thing into
my mouth.”

“Why not? It’s mostly fruit and
ice.”

Sushma didn’t respond. She had
managed to remove the plastic dome from the fruit cup and jabbed at chunks of
pineapple, mango, grapefruit and apple before pushing the cup aside.

“Not hungry?” Lara asked.

“I am not in the mood for being in
this place. Or for whatever game it is you are playing.”

“
I’m
playing games?”

“If you are not, then explain to me
why you showed me what you wrote for Virginia Warren.”

“I wanted you to see that I can
tell the truth.”

“Your article is accurate. But one
can be accurate and still not tell the truth.”

Lara washed down the last bit of
taco with a gulp of slushy. “So, we’re on the same page. At least about that.”

“This is exactly what I am not in
the mood for. You apparently believe you know a great deal more than you are
letting on, so why not simply say so?”

Lara put her new phone on the table
so Sushma could see Kyle’s footage playing on the screen. “Recognize this?”

“Of course I do.”

“Look closer.”

Sushma remained expressionless.
“What is the point of this?”

“Is there a point to be made?”

Sushma stood up. “If you are
insinuating that I or that anyone at Fast Lane altered this footage—”

“I’m not insinuating anything.”

“This is absurd! Tell it to the
attorneys.”

“Tell them what? That you had this
footage altered for the same reason you do everything else at Fast Lane?”

Sushma strode off. Lara grabbed the
phone and followed. “You altered the footage for the same reason that you
brought Taequanda into The Rotation.”

“I brought Taequanda into The
Rotation because she is beautiful and intelligent.”

“And completely uninterested in
Clay romantically.”

Sushma walked faster. Lara kept
pace.

“And you brought Corynne into The
Rotation because you knew that Clay would have no interest in her, either.”

“Do not be ridiculous. Why would
any man not be interested in a woman such as Corynne?”

“Any man, sure—but not Clay.”

“And why not?”

“Because she’s twenty-three,
shallow and self-absorbed—exactly the kind of woman Clay is no longer
interested in. He’s almost forty years old!”

“What difference does it make what
age he is? Many men prefer younger women.”

“Even so, don’t you think he’s old
enough to pick out a woman for himself?”

Sushma waved dismissively. “You are
making no sense.”

“Does it make sense that no member
of The Rotation since Gina—not one—has been blond?”

 “Blondes represent a small
minority of the world’s population.”

“Or even had light-brown hair?”

Lara got waylaid when Sushma darted
between an older couple.
This is what Clay meant about love and war—and you
can’t stop me from taking my shots.
“And why did every woman since Gina
have a boob job?”

The woman, who was generously
endowed, gave Lara a dirty look.

“Those are real,” the man said.

“I didn’t mean her. Sorry.” Lara
slipped in between them and caught up to Sushma.

“This is Los
Angeles,” Sushma said. “
Every
woman has had a
boob job.”

“Not Gina.”

“Stop following me, or I shall
inform a police officer that I am being hounded by a disgruntled ex-employee.”

“
You
said The Rotation is a
business proposition.
You
said Clay isn’t very good at business.
You
said the women who join The Rotation are usually thoroughly vetted.”

Sushma walked even faster despite
her four-inch heels.

“
You
are the one who does
the vetting,” Lara continued. “
You
decide who gets to be in The
Rotation.”

“Someone has to do it. Otherwise,
there would be no quality control. Any gold digger or tramp or…or…”

“Or woman Clay might get attached
to?”

Sushma stopped in her tracks. “Of
course. If he should become attached, as you say, The Rotation would be
threatened. And The Rotation is Fast Lane’s bread and butter. I choose women
according to what is best for the company.”

“You don’t do what’s best for the
company. You do what’s best
for you
.” Lara pointed at Sushma, stopping
just short of touching her. “Gina—Virginia Warren—is everything you’re not:
Tall, blond—”

“And flat-chested?” Sushma spat out
a laugh. “You are sounding more and more like a crazy person.”

Sushma tried to brush past Lara and
cross the street, but Lara grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back around.

“What do you think you are doing?”
Sushma said, horrified.

 “You love Clay,” Lara said.

“Let go of me!”

“I only got into The Rotation so
you could keep tabs on me while you figured out how to make me go away
forever.”

“I said let go!”

“You did the same thing with Gina!”

“I am warning you that I will
scream!”

“Clay fell in love with Gina, flat
chest and all, and you decided she had to go. What did you do—fake some dirty
pictures of her? Or did you have some other trick up your sleeve?”

“You must be a crazy person. How
else could you have come up with such insane assertions?”

“It was in the media after you
kicked her out: Clay brought her back to the ICE House after Elton John’s Oscar
party.”

“Clay meets hundreds of women at
those parties.”

“But with Gina he skipped a step,
didn’t he? He skipped the step where you get to grill the girl to make sure
there’s no chance Clay will fall for her.”