Wet Work: The Definitive Edition (3 page)

God, I love you.

In that instant he wanted to dive into her ocean, to swim in his wife’s sea, to drown himself in the fragrant smell of the light patina of sweat coating her slim body, to immerse himself in her soft, firm contours and never surface. But that would come later. There was still plenty of time. The night, as the saying went, was still young.

She raised an eyebrow along with her glass.

“To you,” she whispered.

Nick lifted the bottle of Rolling Rock.

“
To us.”

Glass and bottle touched lightly and Sandy smiled again.

God, how I love you,
he thought again as he looked at her slightly crooked front teeth. He’d always loved her smile more than any of her other physical attributes: the slender legs she felt were too thin, the full breasts she considered too large, the slight bulging curve of her abdomen which she could never banish either by religiously dieting or working out at the gym. Sandy joked she had a body like Jamie Lee Curtis—which suited Nick—”and she doesn’t think she’s attractive either,” she’d said one night as he was massaging her back. Now he called her Jamie whenever she was down on herself. But that smile…it could break your heart and make your dick hard all in one. A lusty smile, yet sensuous and gentle. For an instant he was back in twelfth grade at Van Buren High in Arizona, Mrs. Feldman’s lit class, struggling through the words of Chaucer, with Bonnie “the Witch” Feldman explaining the significance of the Wife of Bath’s gapped teeth. They symbolized lust, she’d informed the largely inattentive class, provoking laughter.

Lust
.

Nick felt a familiar stirring in his beach shorts and smiled his best poor man’s Tom Cruise grin in return. An image of Lynne Hernandez came to mind, the two of them making out on the football field at dusk, back when he was innocent, still a boy pretending to be a man in Scottsdale, the two of them laughing over nothing as teenagers do.

“…
listening?” Sandy said, a slight edge to her voice.

“
I’m drunk. That last beer just put me over the line.”

She stared coolly at him for an instant. He’d been drinking a lot lately, he admitted to himself. She hadn’t said anything, but her disapproval wasn’t hard to miss. He knew his drinking made her think of his father, Trooper Will Packard. Six foot three inches of alcoholic, belligerent Arizona cop. Not a good person to think about.

Sandy forced a smile.

The night was too precious to worry about anything. It was a celebration, and—

“
Not too drunk, I hope,” she said, her voice tinged with promise.

“
No.”

“
Good. This’ll sober you up.”

She plucked a banana from the fruit dish. He watched with mock disinterest as she slowly peeled it, exposing the tumescent flesh, lowering her mouth to its tip with painful slowness, gently running her tongue over her top lip before inserting the fruit.

“
Stop. Don’t—”

Sandy continued to swallow the banana.

“
Okay! I’m drunk. But not that drunk,” he laughed.

She bit down as he placed the bottle on the table. He pushed the dirty plates to one side, reaching over to touch her arm.

“
Come here.”

A faint breeze made the candle flutter, the flame swaying drunkenly.

“
Where?”

“
Here,” he said, slapping his thigh.

She came to him. Another chill ascended his spine as she slipped onto his lap, her right arm encircling his broad back, her firm ass crushing his erection, exciting the rising heat in his groin. Her sweat smelled sweet, clean, feminine. He sniffed it like a wine connoisseur savoring the bouquet of a fine vintage. He kissed her ear. It was slightly salty. But she didn’t respond to his soft kisses.

“
How do you feel?” she asked wistfully.

“
Happy,” he said softly, nuzzling her ear lobe.

“
About Monday.”

He paused.

“
Like a kid about to go to school for the first time.”

He didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think about her leaving for New York in the morning. Didn’t want to consider guns, badges, uniforms or what it was really going to be like out there on the streets of D.C. with crackheads, hookers, welfare cases, crazy people roaming the streets, arguing, fighting, dealing, killing each other. One hundred seventy murders in five months. Nothing they’d taught him at police academy would mean shit out on the streets. No, he didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to taste her lips, feel her body wrapped around his. But the fragile moment, the delirious buzz, was broken, pushed back by the sudden intrusion of past ghosts, present fears.

Sandy disengaged herself from his embrace and walked across the small dining area to the window. The phosphorous luminescence of the comet lent a tragic cast to her face as she gazed out into the yard. Party sounds hung in the stagnant night air. The Williamsons next door were having a barbecue. As the CD came to an end he could hear Denise Williamson’s shrill laughter and the pop of a champagne cork, but the festive mood didn’t carry with the noise. Behind Sandy’s cheerfulness and subtle sexual taunts lay great sadness. And fear.

Her mother, a sweet, fine woman like her youngest daughter, was dying of colon cancer in a private room at Beth Israel Medical Center, hooked up to IVs, a sanitary bag and an EKG, two steps from death. And tomorrow, Sandy would be gone, heading north on Amtrak’s noon Metroliner.

I should be with her
, Nick thought.

But duty called. Not the duty of a loving husband or devoted son-in-law, but the obligation of a rookie cop about to face his future on the mean streets of Washington. Nick rubbed his hands across his face. He got up, gently pushing the chair back so that the legs didn’t scrape on the hardwood floor. Sandy hated that.

What do I do now?

A lifetime of holding his emotions in check, keeping deep feelings safely under lock and key—away from the verbal and physical attacks he’d endured from his father—caused him problems in difficult situations, leaving him tongue-tied and hesitant, uncertain how to respond to the pain of others. Shit, she was his wife.

You’re thinking too much, kid,
his father’s admonishing voice echoed in his head.

He picked up the beer bottle, downed the last mouthful, and went to her.

Sandy stood by the window with her arms crossed, hugging herself as if cold. He paused behind her, hesitant, searching for the right words. His mind felt as empty as the six Rolling Rock bottles standing on the table; his mouth dry, inarticulate.

“
Hon?”

She continued to stare up at the magnificent celestial body bathing the night sky a pale, eerie green. It wasn’t just the fact her mother was nearly gone; Sandy had been opposed to Nick’s career choice for most of their two-year marriage. Though she’d said nothing in the early days, he’d sensed the disapproval. As he’d progressed through the Academy, her thoughts gradually became vocal, at first spoken tangentially during small arguments over domestic matters—like leaving the toilet seat up—then directly as he entered his last year at Henderson.

I don’t want to be a widow before I’m thirty
, she’d said one day while they were riding horses at her Uncle Steve’s ranch in the Carolinas.
I don’t want to lose you to the streets or the pressures of a cop’s life.

But he had no choice. He had to prove that he was a better man than his father—that not all cops were embittered bullies poisoned by cynicism, and self-hatred.

Nick reached out, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“
Hon.”

Sandy turned, tears in her eyes. She looked like a Romantic painting, her face framed by the pageboy bob, the comet’s weird luminescence causing the tears to glisten like diamonds as they threatened to spill from her eyelids, her lips tremulous with emotion.

“
Hold me.”

He embraced her. Words weren’t necessary. If his verbal vocabulary had failed him, his body language did not. Sandy clung to him with the need of a small child seeking reassurance from a parent.
It’s going to be all right
, he nearly said. But that was a lie. It wasn’t going to get better, only worse. Her mother was dying a painful death, and nothing he could say or do would make any difference. All he could give was himself and hold her tightly.

Sandy melted into his arms, her breasts warm against his LA Raiders T-shirt and the taut muscles beneath. Her hair brushed his cheek. The smell of apple shampoo was clean, sweet. She looked up at him, lips parted. The tears were under control. She kissed him, at first slowly, then with passion. He responded, squeezing her supple body against his, their tongues entwining.

He was swimming in her sea.

Sandy ran a hand down his back to clasp his ass, urging him deeper, her tidal rhythms guiding their movements on the bed. He drew her body upwards as he eased his motion from a circular grind to long, slow thrusts, supporting their mutual weight on his elbows as she wrapped her legs around his waist, soft groans emerging from her throat each time her hips pushed against his. Then the undertow took him and he was submerged. It was sooner than expected and he slowed his pace. Sandy nipped at his shoulder, gasping, urging him on, deeper, deeper. Like a sailor lured to his death by the singing of the Lorelei, he gave up the struggle and began to drift down towards the depths of primal feeling. As he reached bottom she cried out, her own spasms cresting along her stomach as waves of orgasm brought mutual release. The viselike tension in his groin abated, and he began to float towards the surface bringing her with him, blood pounding in his ears, his muscles going limp as the tide washed them to the beach and the soft dunes of post-coital intimacy. He moved to disengage but she clung to him.

“
Thank you,” she whispered, caressing his back as she lowered her legs. He kept his arms locked beneath her as he buried his face in the curve of her neck. All fear and apprehension was gone. All that mattered was the sensation of skin on skin, two hearts beating together.

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA.

9:13 P.M.

Corvino thrust his left arm back hard, driving the elbow into his attacker’s ribs as he twisted his body, trying to free himself from the hand on his neck. He jabbed again, simultaneously kicking his right foot back against the assailant’s leg. It worked, freeing him from the hand. He turned fast, the silenced 9mm bucking in his hand as he fired three shots into the attacker’s chest at point-blank range. The man jerked backwards with the force of the bullets.

Partially stunned from his head hitting the wall, Corvino’s thoughts were a blur. But the man still stood, swaying to maintain his balance. Corvino fired again.

The assailant bucked at the bullet’s impact, stumbling now.

Kevlar vest.

Corvino squeezed off another shot, the force of the gunfire toppling him to the lawn.

Aim for the head.

The attacker sat up slowly, giving him a clear view. Corvino fired, and the back of the man’s cranium exploded.

It was insane. The man had taken six shots to the chest at point-blank range. Even if he was wearing a bullet-proof vest, the force of the shots should have dropped him immediately. Corvino knelt beside the corpse, his eyes widening in disbelief.

The man’s throat had been slashed from ear to ear, gaping like a second mouth beneath his chin. His shirt was stiff, leaden with dried blood.

He had to be dead already! Mother of Christ, how?

Corvino’s mind reeled. It was impossible.

The bodies in the living room
—
what the fuck was going on?

He stood and headed for the front of the house.

As he rounded the corner, he froze. Another body lay on the steps leading up to the front door. Corvino crouched beside a lime bush, gun ready.

Harris.

Someone had got to him. Who—the guard? But how had they caught his partner unaware?

His mind raced. Were there others? If so, how many? The situation was rapidly going to hell. He reached inside his jacket for the miniature radio.

“
Alpha to beta, copy?” He whispered.

Nothing.

“
Alpha to Beta.
Emergency.
Copy?”

Come on, Lang! Where are you?!

Dead air hissed in response.

Corvino ducked instinctively at a sudden rumble of machine-gun fire. The noise level indicated it was coming from inside the house. He was too close, too vulnerable. Pocketing the radio, he broke from the cover of the bush and raced across the lawn to the nearest tree, diving into a roll as he reached it. He crawled around the trunk to grab a view of the front door. More machine-gun fire, then the muffled blast of a shotgun.

The front door opened, a shaft of light spilling down the steps to illuminate Harris’s body.

Corvino frowned. There, silhouetted in the doorway, was the unmistakable outline of Skolomowski.

What?
He was supposed to be with Lang.
But where was Lang?

The Pole staggered forward, dropping his MAC-10, keeled over and rolled down the steps. In the glow from the doorway, Corvino could see Skolomowski’s stomach had been blown open from a shotgun blast.

Corvino waited, expecting someone else to emerge from the doorway. Nothing. After a minute, he stood, preparing to creep closer to the house. He tried to raise Lang again on the radio. Still nothing. He made his move, zigzagging between the meager cover of the trees, straining to get a clear view of the hallway through the open door.

As Corvino neared his partners’ bodies he re-holstered the 9mm, replacing it with the MAC from beneath his left arm, and ran at an angle towards the building.