Unzipped (12 page)

“Chrissy and I have something of an understanding,” he said, hitching up his pants a little. “We live our own lives, but . . .” He shrugged. “You know how it is.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

J.D. pushed up his glasses. “Little nooky in the Porsche now and again don’t hurt no one, huh?”

“That depends,” Rivera said, his voice turning deep as he stepped toward Solberg, “on whether the nooky is consensual.”

Solberg stumbled back a half pace, shocked by the speed of Rivera’s mood change. Welcome to the dark side of the LAPD. “Sure it was. Wasn’t it, Chrissy?” He glanced at me. I glared back. “I mean, we didn’t do nothing much. Just a little . . .” Rivera was inches from him now, looming like a gargoyle. “I was drunk. Fell asleep on the way home. Ended up heaving in my bushes.”

Rivera glanced at me, his face sober, his eyes still shining. I felt tired. “Is that how it was, Ms. McMullen?”

“I think she might have carried me upstairs,” Solberg added in a panic.

Rivera’s lips twitched.

“She’s stronger than she looks.”

“That how all your dates end?” he asked me. “With you carrying your conquest up to his room?”

“Don’t you have some kittens to torture or something?” I asked, and he laughed, actually laughed. The sound did something despicable to my insides.

“So,” he said, raising his voice slightly. “Would you like to press charges, Ms. McMullen?”

“Charges!” Solberg was jittering like a June bug. “Listen. She wore that skirt, and I was wasted, and—”

Rivera turned slowly back. “Sexual harassment is a serious matter, Mr. Solberg.”

“Yes. Yes, sir. I know that.”

Rivera nodded once. “I don’t want to hear that you’ve crossed the line.”

Solberg was shaking his head when Rivera turned back toward me. “If you have any idea where the diary might be, give me a call.” His eyes darkened like dusk. “Or if you’re tired of carrying your dinner companions upstairs,” he added, and turning, strode past Solberg to his car.

I stared in dumbstruck disbelief. Had he just propositioned me? Was he attracted to me? Were we even the same species?

“Jesus!”

For one lovely moment I had forgotten Solberg still existed. But his panicky tone brought me back to the matter at hand.

“What an asshole!”

I failed to respond, but it seemed like we were both thinking of the same general area.

“No wonder you’ve been so damned bitchy.”

Reality sifted slowly back in. I turned toward my tormenter. Maybe I looked as harried as I felt, because he drew back a little.

“Listen,” he said. “Just give me my Porsche back, huh? I’ll look into things for you.”

I wasn’t expecting good news. Not the way the millennium had been going so far, but I could dance to the music if I got a chance. “I’ll need some information about Bomstad’s football friends.”

“Sure. I can do that. Anything else?”

Wow. A little police brutality and voilà. “Not right now, but keep in touch.”

“Sure. Ummm . . .” He shuffled his feet again. “About the Porsche—”

I eyed the Beetle across the street and almost sighed. “Take it with you. I’ll return the Bug when my car’s fixed,” I said, and turned away.

“But, the ahhh, the garage door . . .” He motioned with his mystical box, antenna bobbling like an alien’s.

“There’s no opener,” I said. “Just stick your hands underneath and pull hard.”

“There’s no opener!”

I did sigh then. “Good night, Solberg.”

I could hear his braying laughter as I closed the door. “You’re a snooker, Chrissy McMullen. A real snooker.”

8

I don’t care what
Cosmo
says about exercise improving sex. Some things aren’t worth the cost.

—Eddie Friar,
two weeks before he came
out of the closet

M
Y HEAD FELT SLOPPY the next morning. I rolled over in bed and groaned at the sunlight that streamed through my window. Chicago may be gray and smoggy and horrible, but at least you have an excuse to stay inside. In L.A., fitness has reached epidemic proportions. It’s everywhere. I often recommend it as a stress reliever for my clients, but in actuality, there aren’t many things I find more stressful than moving about for no good purpose. I’m never more relaxed than when I’m stretched out in front of the boob tube with a bowl of Häagen-Dazs and a vat of hot fudge.

Nevertheless, I pulled on a sports bra, shimmied into my shorts, and strapped myself into my running shoes. The lawn crunched under my feet as I stepped off my walkway. Remembering Rivera’s insulting comments and Mrs. Al-Sadr’s disapproving stare, I wandered around the side of the house to turn on the hose.

Water arced out of the sprinkler, easing back and forth, and for a moment I was tempted to simply watch its hypnotizing rotation. But I could feel the fat coagulating around my waistband and finally forced myself onto the street.

The air was heating up already, but early morning traffic was light. I did two cursory stretches, thought “screw that,” and pushed myself into a jog.

Mr. Harendez’s roses were in full bloom on the corner of Orchid and Woodland. And up on Grapevine a dog jumped at its fence and barked ferociously. It looked like a cross between a grizzly and an orangutan. I feigned courage and lumbered on past.

Three miles later I was back home, my bra soaked with sweat and my body odor starting to wreak havoc with my still-functioning neurons.

There was a puddle on the lumpy soil beneath the sprinkler, but my lawn had yet to erupt into tropical glory, and though I was pretty sure I should move the sprinkler around, I was in desperate need of a shower and I had no desire to share the water pressure with the yard. I’m a strong proponent of survival of the fittest. It was me or the lawn. Stumbling around the corner, I bumped into someone and almost screamed.

Rivera glared down at me.

I clasped my chest in an effort to keep my heart from erupting through my ribs. “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, my voice an abbreviated croak.

He watched me for an instant. “I was concerned about the condition of your grass.”

“My—”

He gave me a look that suggested my mind might not be functioning at warp speed. “I’m working on a case,” he said. “Dead guy in your office.” He took a step forward. I took a step back, remembering my peculiar post-running aroma. Rivera looked as crisp as a lettuce leaf. “Ring any bells,” he asked, “or did last night rattle all that dull homicide stuff right out of your head?”

“Last night?”

“He make a habit of staying over?”

I scowled, not following his line of thought.

“Garage door man,” he said, nodding toward the street.

And then I spotted the Beetle, still parked halfway on the sidewalk. So then I came to it. The first dilemma of the morning. Should I let him think I was so desperate even the Geek God hadn’t wanted to stay, or let him think I was so desperate the Geek God
had
stayed.

“I’d have to check to be sure,” I said, “but I don’t believe my personal life is any of your concern.”

“A guy was found dead in your office,” he argued. “Everything’s my concern. I have a few questions for him.”

“Who?”

He gave me that look again. “Have you got more than one man in your bed this morning, Ms. McMullen?”

My mind rattled around a little more. I can exercise or I can think. Both at the same time is a bad bet. “Solberg?” I asked, reality finally filtering in. “What do you want to ask him?”

“You two so close you field his questions now?”

I wished to hell I didn’t care that I smelled like pulverized fish guts or that sweat was dripping out of my saturated hair and into my eyes. “Ask him anything you like, Ribald.”

He gave a sarcastic dip of his head, as if grateful he had my permission, and said, “I tried the door. It was locked.”

“You tried to get into my house uninvited?”

He shrugged. “I knew you’d want to help with the investigation any way you could. Law-abiding citizen that you are.”

The man had balls the size of cantaloupes. Maybe, I thought, and noticed that he wore dress pants today, dark blue, belted low on his rock solid waist. Crap.

“You have a key,” he asked, “or is lover-boy supposed to let you in?”

Still didn’t know what to say. Still was debating the age-old question about size. Rivera was looking at me funny, like maybe I’d lost my mind.

“I tried the doorbell,” he said. “No one answered. You didn’t kill him, too, did you?”

My mind clicked back to the matter at hand. Better late than never. “They must think you’re a riot down at the precinct.”

He gave me that almost smile. “In a scary sort of way.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You going to invite me in?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Afraid I’ll be intimidated by your man’s sheer . . . magnetism.”

I gritted my teeth. “Solberg is not my man.”

“Just out for a little nooky like he said, then?”

It dawned on me at that precise moment that he was having entirely too much fun. “I do have some information for you, after all,” I said.

“Yeah?” His eyes sharpened.

“Yes. Turns out you’re an ass.”

His eyes gleamed. “Rouse Don Juan,” he ordered. “I’ll only take a minute.”

And so we finally came to it. I took a deep breath. “He’s not here.”

There might have been a flicker of surprise in his expression. In fact, there might have been something else.

“Lost him?” he asked. “Running?”

“He . . .” I remembered Solberg’s lies from the night before, and since they tended to cover my own rather exposed ass, I decided to corroborate them. “He took a cab home and left the Beetle for me. My car’s in the shop.”

“An epidemic,” he said.

“His vehicle’s going to be done today.”

“Ahh.” Something sparked in his eyes. I didn’t like it.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Just ahh.”

“It just so happens Solberg and I are no more than friends. In fact, we’re not even friends.”

“Business acquaintances, I believe you said.”

“Exactly,” I agreed, and remembering the pond in my front yard, bent to shut off the water.

When I straightened and turned I couldn’t help noticing that Rivera’s gaze was just skimming up my body to my face. His eyes were smoldering. I swear they were. My stomach did a funky little double loop. But I was sure it was just hunger.

“You run every morning?” he asked. His voice was deep and primordial.

My heart rate jumped up another notch, which it didn’t usually do because of hunger. Still, I couldn’t possibly be attracted to this man. I was a psychologist. He was an ape. But I’d always thought the ape was the sexiest of the lower primates. I moistened my lips and remembered to breathe. “Most days,” I lied, and couldn’t help but notice there was a bulge just to the right of his fly.

A muscle jumped in his jaw. He clenched his fists, eyed my chest and took a step toward me. “Got any protection?” he asked.

And in that precise instant my hormones fired up like a kiln. It was stupid. Asinine. But I hadn’t seen a man look at me like that for a couple of lifetimes, and if I wasn’t ready to apply for renewed virginity I should do something about it quick. Maybe I should have been glad he was concerned about protection, but right then I really couldn’t think about anything but the tingle in my shorts. “Yeah.” It was all I could manage.

His gaze raked over me, hotter than hell. “Where do you keep it?”

I was breathing like a racehorse.

“Dresser drawer,” I managed.

Chemistry burned like a torch between us.

He scowled. “You run alone and leave your pepper spray in your bedroom?”

“Pepper spray?” My voice sounded hoarse. My mind clipped disjointedly back to reality. Pepper spray! Holy crap!

He was staring at me as if I was one bean short of a hot dish. “You don’t have a gun in there, do you?”

Oh, fuck!

“Most firearm accidents are perpetrated by their owners on themselves.”

“I . . .” I felt faint. And a little sick. “No. No gun.”

He took a step closer. My face felt hot. Hell, my knees were blushing.

“Do you know the penalty for lying to an officer of the law?” he asked.

“I don’t have a gun. I swear it.” If he produced a warrant and found the aging condoms stashed away beneath my underwear I’d have to kill myself—with the rubbers, since I didn’t own a firearm.

He was looking at me funny. “But you do have self-defense spray.”

God save me. “Of course.”

“How old is it? Sometimes the propellant goes bad. The chemical’s still viable, but it won’t do you a hell of a lot of good if it doesn’t spray.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, wishing quite fervently that I was dead. “You’ll have to excuse me. I have a ten o’clock appointment.” I turned like an automaton, hoping the earth would swallow me, but it was pretty doubtful, even in L.A.

“I have some questions for you.”

“Just bought it a couple months ago,” I jabbered. Digging my key out of my shoe, I shoved it into the hole. “Zapped the mail carrier just last week. Worked like magic,” I said and escaped into my house like a squirrel into a nuthouse.

9

Booze and boys, ain’t nothing in the universe that’ll make a girl stupid faster.

—Lily Schultz,
when she bailed her husband out of jail for the fifth time in as many months

M
R. ANGLER.” I stuck out my hand like a real grown-up.

Vincent Angler didn’t reciprocate. Instead, he stared at me, head tilted back slightly, dark eyes hooded. He was tall, black, and as broad as a freight train. He was also a defensive lineman for the Los Angeles Lions. Solberg had dug up a list of the team’s phone numbers as promised and had subsequently given it to me. I had started calling immediately, thinking there was no time like the present.

The first two players had been polite but unhelpful. The third had spouted profanity like poetry. Angler was fourth on the list, and while he had been less than ecstatic to meet with me, he had agreed. Thus my excursion across town to a squat, graffiti-riddled bar called the Hole. Just looking at it made me miss the aristocratic class of the Warthog.