Unzipped (16 page)

“Yeah, sure. What’d you want?”

“Just to talk,” I said. We were already being ushered to a table. The Elephant Ear was fairly empty for a Sunday afternoon.

“’Bout Bomber?”

“Yes.” I slid into the booth across from her.

“You was his shrink?”

I was becoming a little tired of the word “shrink.” I felt like I should pull my hair atop my head and put a bone through my nose. “His psychologist. Yes. For several months.”

She nodded. Her hair was platinum blond but for the dark roots, and her face was plump and pretty. “You boink ’im?”

Wow. Another recurring theme. Who would have expected that?

“No,” I said. “My relationship with Mr. Bomstad was purely professional.”

She looked at me from under her kohl-black lashes and smiled as if she knew something I didn’t. I decided I didn’t like Sheri Volkers very much. I also decided she probably didn’t know a whole lot I didn’t. But maybe that was just the bitch in me. I’d been right the other day. I had been premenstrual. Now I was dangerous.

A chipper little waitress trotted up. We placed our drink orders. Sheri had a whiskey sour but I, classy to the end, stuck with iced tea. If I was going to be attacked in the parking lot again, I wanted to be fully cognizant. I also wanted to have an Uzi handy. Unfortunately, I hadn’t even managed to pick up a new can of Mace. But it was full daylight, and the bogeymen seemed fairly distant. Besides, I was menstruating. The boogies would have to be suicidal to try anything.

“What’s good here?” Sheri asked, opening her menu.

I wondered if I would seem cheap if I suggested the soup. Probably.

In the end she ordered a porterhouse. Damn her. I love porterhouse. I ordered a chef salad with dressing on the side and almost felt more haughty than jealous.

“So?” She finished off her first drink, glanced around for the waitress, and eyed me again. “What’d you wanna know?”

“Nothing very specific, I’m afraid. As I said, I had been seeing Mr. Bomstad for several months, and some of the information he gave me didn’t quite match up with recent events. I’m simply trying to justify—”

She snorted, halting my clever soliloquy. I gave her a moment to explain. She took a slug of her drink instead.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“I heard he died with a hard-on big as my pocketbook.”

Ahhh, good, the news was out.

I gave her a somber expression. “I was seeing him for an impotency problem which—”

She snorted again. The waitress appeared at our table and Volkers handed over the glass without glancing up.

“The Bomb,” she said, leaning forward as if we had a secret, though she failed to lower her voice, “. . . was a friggin’ animal in the sack.”

Good to know, I thought. And I was sure the other patrons were just as appreciative as myself. I refrained from glancing around to confirm. “So you don’t think he had any . . . difficulties in that department.”

She snorted again. I fantasized about sticking an ice cube up her nose. “He didn’t have much upstairs. Ya know?” She tapped her skull, as if hers was chock-full of government secrets. “But his main floor was well stocked.” She grinned. “Only . . .” The grin faded, replaced by peeved resentment. Her drink appeared. She slurped it down. “He couldn’t keep his front door locked. Ya know what I mean?”

Cryptic, but I thought I could decode it. “How long did the two of you share an apartment?”

She shrugged. Appetizers arrived. Mozzarella sticks. There are days when I would gladly sell all three of my moronic brothers into slavery for a mozzarella stick. This was one of them.

“Most of a year,” she said. I eyed the appetizers and tried not to drool. “The bastard couldn’t go a full month without boinking some bimbo.”

“Is that why you left him?”

She licked cheese fat off her fingers. “That and the fact that I met Matt.”

“Matt?” I said.

“Friend of Bomber’s. He didn’t have the Bomb’s ammunition, but he was loaded just the same. You know what I mean?”

I was pretty sure she was mixing metaphors, or maybe she was just into guns. “How did Bomber take your leaving?”

She scowled, which made me guess that the Bomb hadn’t cared all that much. I could commiserate. Sometimes you had to kill them or leave them, but it never hurts if they beg a little. “Turns out he was doin’ some high-school slut.”

“Did he tell you that?”

Our meals arrived—my fodder and Sheri’s cow. Luckily, she could eat and talk at the same time. I had the same talent, but I didn’t like to show off. “Locker room gossip,” she said and sliced into her meat. Some restaurants won’t serve beef rare. This wasn’t one of those places.

“Was he still seeing her when he died?”

She shrugged and ate.

“Do you know her name?”

She scowled as if trying to think. If her expression was any indication, the process was brutally painful. “Druella or Duane or something.”

“Duane?” I’m not a sarcastic person by nature, but judging by the last million people I’d met, the name seemed unlikely.

“Something like that,” she said, speaking around the half-masticated side of beef. I considered snatching away the remainder and holding it for ransom.

“Did her name start with a D?” I guessed.

“Yeah.”

“Denise, maybe?”

“Naw.”

“Dena?” I realized this process could take a while, but I didn’t have any better ideas.

She canted her head, chewing madly. “Deannnn. Dana!” She said it with some pride and took a giant gulp of booze to celebrate.

“Dana? Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know her last name?”

She rolled her eyes. “We weren’t exactly pen pals, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t remember hearing about her,” I said. “On the news.”

“News!” she said and snorted so loud I was afraid the cow might come charging out of her nose. Maybe I wasn’t as hungry as I thought I was. “Bob woulda taken a slug to the heart before he let a juicy tidbit like that slip out.”

“Bob?”

“He was a coach or something, but if you ask me he was nothing but a friggin’ pain in the ass. Bomber couldn’t take a piss without Bob knowin’ ’bout it.”

“Would he know where the Bomb kept his diary?” It was my prime question, my number-one reason for watching her slurp down the steak I was paying for. It was casually couched between a delicate bite of lettuce and an elegant sip of tea.

“Diary!” she said and cackled like a demented laying hen. “The Bomb didn’t keep no friggin’ diary. He could barely write his own name.”

I
t was dark when I got home that night. Armed with the coach’s full name and a little more knowledge than I’d started the day with, I checked the street twice before I unlocked the Saturn’s door and scurried up toward my house. My security light was dim and the trek murky.

“Shorty.”

I gasped, spun toward the sound, and dropped my keys. They clattered on the concrete like shattering glass. A giant shadow stepped from the darkness beside my front door.

“Stay back! Stay right where you are!”

The shadow didn’t listen. “I had me a visitor, Shorty.”

I recognized him in a second, but the realization did little to soothe my skittering nerves. “Mr. . . .” My chest was crushing my heart like a squeeze box. “Mr. Angler?”

“I gotta tell you, girl, I don’t like cops.”

“Oh, shit!” The words slipped out on a breath. “Rivera?”

“Yeah.” He was close now, sharing the stoop, so close I couldn’t bend to pick up my keys, even if I dared shift my gaze from his. “Rivera.” He stepped closer still. “You send him by?”

I managed to shake my head.

“He said you been attacked. Thought I might know something about it. You give him that idea?”

I shook my head again, but he grabbed my arm.

I gasped at the pain and he eased up, glaring at me as he yanked the sleeve up to my elbow. Even in the semidarkness, the bruises were impressive.

He stiffened. “You think I did that?”

“No!”

“Don’t lie to me, bitch!” he warned, and it was that word that set my teeth and straightened my spine.

I snapped my arm out of his grasp. “I never thought you did it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” I said. “If you’d wanted to hurt me you would have done it without the mask.” He watched me, eyes narrow as a cat’s. “And I’d be dead.”

A smile twitched his lips as he studied me. “So, this Rivera, he your boy?”

“No.” It was still hard to breathe.

“What’s he to ya, then?”

“Nothing.”

He flashed his teeth at me as if he knew better. “He look like he could be a mean motherfucker if he get riled.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“You have trouble again, you let him know right off.”

“Okay.”

He gave me a nod and turned away, but a moment later he stopped. “And if you hear who done you that way, you give me a call. I got me a few things to say to him.”

Then he was gone, disappearing into the darkness.

My fingers managed to scoop up the keys, my knees got me into the house.

It was my bladder that failed.

B
y morning my nerves were stretched to the breaking point.

The scab on my knee broke open when I tied on my sneakers and my tendons groaned like a mummy’s when I did my two-second stretches. I stepped out onto my stoop and locked the door behind me.

“Where’s your spray?”

I screamed as I spun around, holding my keys in front of me like a semiautomatic.

Rivera simply stared.

“Holy crap! Can’t you just leave me alone?”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, but his expression suggested he wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

I kept my keys aimed at him. “Then why the hell are you here?”

“Do you tell a friend when you go out?”

I was trying to marshal my senses back into working order, but he wasn’t making it easy on me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You should let someone know when you go and when you plan to return.”

I threw my hands up, crazy as a loon. “Don’t you have a job to do?”

“I’m doing it. Protecting the good citizens of L.A., remember?”

“So, what? You’ve decided I’m innocent?” I wanted to walk away from him, but I was afraid my legs weren’t ready for that Herculean feat.

“Until proven guilty,” he said, and I scoffed, remembering his former words, his general attitude. “How far do you run?”

I would have liked to have lied, but I didn’t feel up to the effort. “Four miles.” Huh! Guess it didn’t take that much energy to lie.

“Do you vary your course?”

“What?”

“You don’t run the same route every day, do you?”

“Of course not.” Another lie. Wow. I was on a roll.

He gave me a look. “What if someone’s watching your house, figures out your schedule?”

I felt my toes curl inside my sneakers. “Why would anyone do that?” I asked, but I couldn’t help scanning the bushes.

“Why would someone attack you in the parking lot of a fine establishment like the Hole?”

I forced my gaze back to his. “Do you have a purpose for being here?”

“I have a few questions.”

I waited. Apparently my mind still wasn’t working at full capacity.

“Why would someone attack you?” he asked again.

Oh. “Isn’t that your line of work?”

He stared at me. “Did he say anything about Bomstad?”

“My attacker?”

“Yes.” He was in patient mode. I hated that even more than cocky mode.

“We’ve been through all this.”

“I thought you might have forgotten something.”

“Believe me, it’s all pretty vivid,” I said and stepped off the stoop in an effort to act casual. My knees wobbled like a toddler’s.

He turned and followed me, catching up in a few long strides. “So you believe his purpose was just to rape you?”

Just rape! I stumbled. He caught my arm, drawing me to a halt. His eyes were like lasers. Okay, I’ve never actually seen a laser, but if I had, I’m pretty sure that’s how it would look.

“Yes,” I said and found that my teeth were gritted. “Just rape. Nothing horrible.” I jerked my arm out of his grip.

He caught it again. “Listen,” he said, “I’m just trying to help you.”

“You’re just trying to frame me for a death I had nothing to do with.”

We stared at each other like two rabid hounds. He leaned in.

“Bomstad was in your office with a bottle of wine and a hard-on.”

I leaned in. “I had nothing to do with the wine . . . or the hard-on.”

We were inches apart. My sports bra was one of those clever little numbers that zip up the front. He dipped his gaze in that direction for a fraction of a second. “I’m pretty sure you had something to do with one of those.” His tone was gruff, his eyes hawkish when he lifted them to mine.

My chest felt tight, my stomach ticklish, and for a second I wasn’t sure if I should skitter off like a scared bunny or drag him into my dying tea roses and have my way with him. I stood there trying not to pant while I debated.

“Here,” he said and taking my hand, thrust something into it. “In case condoms aren’t enough protection,” he said and turned away.

I stood staring after him, then opened my hand and glanced at the contents. It was a big-ass can of pepper spray. Don’t ever let it be said that size isn’t important.

13

If I wanted to catch the damned worm I’d get outta bed.

—James McMullen,
seconds before his mother doused him with the scrub water

I
HAD SENT an official sounding letter to the Board of Psychology on August 30. But apparently I hadn’t pacified them with my five-dollar words, because they still wanted to meet with me in person. Evidently most therapists don’t have clients drop dead in their offices, and the powers that be were wondering why I felt a need to buck the system.

I was looking forward to the interview about as much as I would have enjoyed being diagnosed with the clap.

As it turned out, the clap would have been considerably more fun, but I fenced and parried and tried to act as if my world hadn’t come undone. I left the interview feeling marginally better. I would still have to file a half million idiotic reports and one of the board’s gray-faced drones had said something about a probation period. But if I kept my nose clean they weren’t likely to yank my license.