The Wild Zone (22 page)

TWENTY-TWO

J
EFF
DECIDED TO WALK
the dozen or so blocks to work. It was a beautiful day, sunny and hot to be sure, but slightly less humid than in recent weeks. And he was feeling great. Not that he’d enjoyed lying to Kristin. He hadn’t. But he was relieved she’d accepted his story about Tom without question, and he rationalized that there was no reason to tell her the truth, not yet anyway, at least until he knew where things stood with Suzy.

“Suzy,” he said aloud, enjoying the feel of her name on his lips. When was the last time he’d felt this way about a woman?

Had he ever?

At first he’d assumed his ardor was stoked mainly by rejection, by her seeming indifference to his easy charms, her stated preference for his brother. The fact that she was married had only added to her allure. And yet she’d proved too complicated for simple seduction. As tough as she was vulnerable, she’d wrapped herself around his brain as tightly as an Ace bandage. As late as this morning he’d assumed that by getting into her pants he’d finally get her off his mind. But if anything, the opposite had happened. She was even deeper inside his head than before, etched like hieroglyphics into the side of his skull. Her presence infiltrated his every thought. He couldn’t take a breath without feeling the subtle rise and fall of her breasts against his chest.

He was being ridiculous, he knew. He’d known her less than a week, for God’s sake. Five days! How could a woman he barely knew have managed to consume him to such a degree? Yes, they were good together in bed, better than good, he amended quickly. Maybe even great. But what was that old saying? Even when sex was bad, it was good?

Except it hadn’t been just sex, Jeff realized. He hadn’t nailed her, screwed her, fucked her. Whereas the sex act was usually all about him—
his
pleasures,
his
needs,
his
satisfaction—everything he’d done with Suzy had been for
her
pleasure,
her
needs,
her
satisfaction. From the minute they’d entered that motel room, everything he’d done had been done
for
her, not
to
her. They’d actually made love, he realized, stopping dead in his tracks, for the first time beginning to understand the meaning of that phrase.

So what exactly
does
it mean? he wondered, pushing one leg in front of the other, forcing himself to keep walking. Did it mean he was falling in love? “Don’t be ridiculous,” he told himself, stopping again, catching sight of his reflection in the large front window of a local travel agency. Who are you? he wondered, staring the stranger down. What have you done with Jeff?

How can a man who’s never been loved possibly understand what it means to love another human being? his reflection asked.

I don’t know, Jeff answered silently. I just know that if loving somebody means thinking about her twenty-four hours a day, then I love her right out of my mind.

“Shit,” he said out loud. What was happening?

“Can I help you with something?” a woman mouthed from inside the front window of the travel agency. She stepped into his reflection, her large frame all but obliterating his already tenuous presence as she pointed to a handwritten sign offering a number of trips at a deep discount. He could fly to London for less than seven hundred dollars, Rome for just under nine. There was a seven-day, all-inclusive trip to Cancùn for only four hundred and ninety-nine dollars. “A steal,” he heard her say through the glass.

Jeff shook his head, waved the woman away, although the thought of spiriting Suzy off to some exotic locale was unbearably tempting. But while he might have been able to persuade Larry to give him some time off work, while he might even have been able to convince Kristin that he needed some time away by himself, he doubted Suzy would be able to come up with any kind of story that would convince her husband to let her take off for a week without him.

Unless Dave Bigelow was no longer in the picture.

Yeah, right, Jeff thought, hurrying away from the window and picking up his pace. What the hell was he thinking now?

I have such terrible thoughts,
he heard Suzy say.
He’ll be sleeping, and I’ll think about going into the kitchen and getting one of those big, long knives and stabbing him right through the heart. Or setting fire to the mattress. Or running him over with my car. Sometimes I imagine how wonderful it would be if an intruder were to break into the house and shoot him.

Could he do it? Could he burst into the man’s house and gun him down in cold blood? Jeff wondered, breaking into a sweat as he turned the corner, the bakery beneath Elite Fitness popping into view. “No way. You’re out of your fucking mind,” he said out loud, pulling open the door and staring up the steps leading to the gym.

“Hey, you,” Caroline Hogan said, appearing at the top of the landing, loud rock music blasting behind the closed gym doors. “Where were you this morning? We missed you.”

“Touch of food poisoning.”

“Yuck. Well, fortunately Larry was able to find someone to fill in for you,” she said, touching his arm as she ran down the steps. “He was actually pretty good. Anyway, feel better. Gotta run.”

“Have a good day,” Jeff muttered over his shoulder as he headed up the stairs.

Melissa was at his side the minute he entered the gym. “I believe this is yours,” she confided, handing Jeff his wallet. “Some guy brought it in this morning, seemed quite upset when I told him you’d called in sick. He might have aroused Larry’s suspicions.”

“It’s okay,” Jeff said. “Don’t worry.”

“Are you all right?”

“Fine. Much better,” he amended as Larry approached.

“Perfect timing,” Larry said. “Your next client is due any minute. He called about ten minutes ago to make sure you’d be here.”

“Sorry about this morning,” Jeff apologized, preparing to elaborate. But Larry was already walking away. “Who’s the client?” he asked Melissa.

“Somebody new.” Melissa was checking her appointment book as heavy footsteps bounded up the stairs. “I think Larry said he’s a doctor,” she said as the door opened and Dave Bigelow stepped inside.

WILL HAD BEEN
walking the streets of South Beach in a fog for the better part of the morning. He’d narrowly escaped being hit by a young man rollerblading down Drexel Avenue, only to walk smack into a woman with a cane coming out of the Espanola Way Art Center. She’d sworn at him in Spanish and raised her cane into the air, as if about to strike him down. A new variation on the old expression “raising Cain,” he’d thought, laughing as he’d headed toward beautiful Flamingo Park. There he spent ten minutes absently watching the joggers along the scenic pathways, then another five staring at a bunch of shirtless guys in tight blue shorts playing basketball on the practice courts. When one of the players stopped and asked him if he’d like to join in, Will had demurred and continued on his way, stopping minutes later at the Olympic-size open-air pool to watch a group of giggling adolescent girls butcher an impromptu synchronized swimming routine.

He’d then trailed a bunch of bicyclists to the Art Deco District, its single square mile chockablock full of art deco homes, hotels, and assorted buildings constructed in the 1930s and ’40s, most of them repainted a variety of
Miami Vice
pastels during the 1980s. Eventually he’d made his way over to Ocean Drive, where he stood for several minutes outside the Mediterranean-style former mansion of Gianni Versace, staring at its elaborate architectural flourishes and brushing away the dragonflies that buzzed around his head like a bunch of miniature helicopters. A herd of tiny gecko lizards accompanied his every step, racing along the sidewalks and darting between his feet as he continued on his desultory way, ultimately disappearing into the spectacular, if haphazard, display of palms, ferns, and flowers that sprouted along every available surface. South Florida was just a jungle after all, he reminded himself.

You are entering the Wild Zone.

Proceed at your own risk.

Eventually Will found himself back on the corner of Espanola Way and Washington Avenue. He lingered awhile in Kafka’s Cyber Kafe, leafing through a number of obscure international magazines, although he spoke neither French nor Italian nor German. He thought of e-mailing his mother on one of the numerous computers available at the back, then decided against it. What would he say to her, after all?

That she’d been right about Jeff?

Is she? Will wondered, hearing his stomach rumble and realizing he’d missed lunch. “Don’t forget to eat,” his mother had warned him, practically the last words she’d uttered before he took off for Miami. Not “Say hello to Jeff.” Not even “Don’t do anything foolish.” No. It was “Don’t forget to eat.” Advice you give a child.

Was that how everyone saw him?

“I’ll have a double espresso,” he told the young man behind the counter at the Cyber Kafe.

He’d been wrong to come to Miami, he decided. Wrong to seek Jeff out, to think he could reestablish a relationship with the brother he hadn’t spoken to in years. Wrong to think he was actually making headway, that he was more than just a mild curiosity, more than a pesky reminder of an unhappy past, that he might actually mean something to Jeff, that they were friends now as well as family. And not just “half brothers” either, with all the unfortunate connotations that “half” contained, as if each brother was somehow lesser, as if both had been cut in two, the two halves never quite equaling a whole.

I was wrong to come to Florida, he thought, trying not to picture Suzy in his brother’s arms. Could Tom possibly be right about them being together?

Will shielded his eyes from the relentless sun as he left the cafe, imagining Jeff and Suzy embracing in the corner of every shadow of every tree as he headed north on Washington Avenue with no clear plan for where he was going.

He couldn’t very well go back to the apartment. Kristin would take one look at him and know something had happened. Could he lie to her as easily as Jeff had? Could he tell her what Tom had told him?

Was there even the slightest chance Tom was right?

How would Kristin react? Will wondered. Would she care? Would she cry with him over their mutual betrayal and rage at the unfairness of it all, or would she dismiss it as nothing to get upset about and tell him not to take it to heart? “It doesn’t mean anything,” he could almost hear her rationalize.

Except it did mean something. It meant something to him.

And Jeff knew that.

And he didn’t care.

“A bet’s a bet, little brother,” Jeff would undoubtedly say.

Was that really what this was all about?

“Damn you, Jeff,” Will whispered under his breath. Damn you straight to hell.

“
YOU HAVE ONE
hell of a nerve coming here,” Jeff said to the man standing in front of him. His voice was quiet and surprisingly steady considering what was going on inside his body—his nerve endings on fire, his muscles twitching painfully, his throat constricting, his heart thumping against the inside of his chest, threatening to burst.

“I’d say that makes us even.” Dave Bigelow was smiling as he crossed his arms over his expansive chest. He was wearing a short-sleeved white T-shirt, navy knee-length nylon shorts, white socks, and expensive Nike runners.

“What do you want?”

“Decided it was time to get back in shape,” Dave said. “You mentioned the other day you were a trainer. I did some snooping around, heard some good things about you, thought I’d check it out for myself.”

How much does he know? Jeff wondered. Had he been home, seen Suzy, beaten the truth out of her? Had he followed her this morning, seen her and Jeff at the restaurant, then followed them to the motel? “You look to be in pretty decent shape already,” Jeff told him, his eyes on Dave’s massive hands. Hands he uses to slap a helpless woman around, Jeff thought. Hands he uses to hold her down while he forces his way roughly inside her. You miserable piece of shit, he thought. I should break your fucking neck. What he said was, “I don’t think I’m the right trainer for you.”

A look of bemusement filled Dave’s face. “Really? And why is that?”

“Jeff . . . ,” Melissa cautioned him as Larry approached.

“Problems?” Larry asked.

How many times had he asked that lately?

“Dr. Bigelow? I’m Larry Archer,” Larry said, extending his hand toward Dave. “We spoke on the phone this morning.”

“Nice to meet you.” Dave shook Larry’s hand vigorously.

“I see you’ve already met Jeff. Dr. Bigelow specifically asked for you,” Larry told him. “Said he’d heard some very good things.”

“Unfortunately it seems that Jeff doesn’t feel he’s the right man for the job,” Dave said.

Larry’s quick frown was evident, even in profile. It was even more pronounced full-face. “Really? And why is that?”

“I just thought Dr. Bigelow might be happier dealing with the man in charge,” Jeff improvised.

Larry’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I’m sure you’ll do a terrific job,” he said. “Enjoy your workout, Dr. Bigelow.”

“Please call me Dave.”

“Enjoy your workout, Dave.” Larry walked back to his client at the far end of the room.

“You really want to do this?” Jeff asked Dave after Larry was out of earshot.

“Lead the way,” Dave said.

Jeff had to dig the heels of his sneakers into the hardwood floor to keep from flinging himself at Dave. One good kick to the groin, he was thinking, one good snap of his neck; that’s all it would take to render him as helpless as Suzy had been. The thought of that bastard’s hands on her flesh was making Jeff’s skin crawl. What the hell are you really doing here? What kind of game are you playing? Jeff asked him silently, deciding that whatever it was, he could play, too. And win. You want a workout, you bastard? I’ll give you a workout. The workout from hell, he thought, and smiled. “Suppose you warm up for a few minutes on the treadmill.”

“Suppose I do,” Dave agreed, stepping onto the machine.