Why they have a kitchen that big? And Shelly, Marty say, don’t cook. He went through the dining room and living room. Was a Japanese sword hanging on the wall, looked like the Hattori Hanzo sword the Bride used in Kill Bill. DeJuan picked it up, slid the blade out the case. The metal glimmered. He felt the edge, see if it was sharp. Sharp? Could’ve shaved with it. He gripped the handle with two hands and slashed the air the way he’d seen ninjas do in movies. “Hey, motherfucker, want some of this?” He moved now, attacking three imaginary dudes, thrusting and slashing the sword, the blade making a swishing noise as it cut through the air.
DeJuan carried the sword around the living room looking at things. On one side of the room was a wall of glass that looked out on the backyard, and a sliding door that opened to a walkway that led to the pond and the pagoda. Furniture looked oriental, too. Black lacquered tables with oriental figures, Japanese bitches in kimonos and ninjas with swords. More Jap warriors in pictures on the wall, DeJuan trying to figure out what the connection was with this Mormon dude and all this Japanese shit.
He moved through the living room into an office, had a desk and a leather couch and chairs arranged for people to sit and talk. On the desktop was a framed shot of Marty posing with a good-looking dark-haired girl. Next to it was the Book of Mormon. DeJuan laid the sword on the desk, picked up the book and opened to a page, said: The First Epistle of Paul and the Apostle to the Corinthians-Chapter 15.
DeJuan read-read it in a voice trying to sound like the preacher of the First Baptist Church, where his grandmother had took him when he was about ten, his mother smoking rock pretty serious by then, disappearing for days at a time. “1. moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherin ye stand.” Huh? Didn’t understand why someone use words like moreover and wherin. Why not say in addition and where, make it easy on the reader? He closed the book, checked out the pictures on the walls. One called Joseph Smith’s First Vision showed two angel-looking dudes with light behind them appearing to a young white dude. DeJuan wondering if this Joseph Smith was related to Marty. There was another picture showing a caravan of
Mormons in covered wagons. A line under it said: Crossing the Great Plains in 1847.
He heard something, looked out the window across the backyard, saw a car pull in and park, a Jag. Good-looking woman-twin of the one in the picture with Marty-got out the car, went toward the house.
DeJuan stood at the door to the office with the sword pointed straight down, tip of the blade buried in the black wool carpeting, listening, heard her in the kitchen, sounded like the refrigerator door closing. Watched her cut through the living room and head down a hallway to the bedrooms.
Now he stood outside the bathroom door in Shelly’s pink bedroom, listening to the water running in the shower. Should he go in now, drown Shell-bell in the bathtub? Hit her over the head, make it look like she fall in the shower? DeJuan thinking, he could do that, sure, but he was curious about her and Marty. Sleeping in their own bedrooms, his down the hall, no mistake about it, shit everywhere. He’d’ve thought Marty’d be neater. Man was a pig.
He checked out Shelly’s dressing room, boxes of shoes stacked to the ceiling, name Manolo Blahnik on most of them and Jimmy Choo. Boxes of hats, too, and twenty feet of dresses and shit on hangers. He heard the shower turn off, went back in the bedroom.
He was sitting on the black-lacquered, four-post queen-size bed when Shelly opened the bathroom door, came out in a white robe, hair wrapped turban-style in a white towel, letting out a cloud of steam.
She fixed her gaze on DeJuan as if she was expecting him to be there and said, “Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it.”
DeJuan wasn’t expecting that. “Why he want to get rid of you, good-looking woman like yourself?”
“I get in the way,” Shelly said.
DeJuan said, “Want me to reverse the contract, that what you’re saying?”
“What’s he paying you?”
“Twenty grand.” DeJuan thinking, she don’t know the going rate for assassinations currently, trying for the long dollar.
“He try to bargain with you?”
“Not that I recall,” DeJuan said.
“You’re lucky. Marty’s worth millions, he makes the maids reimburse him for phone calls.”
DeJuan said, “You don’t look like you’re doing too bad.”
“I can pay you thirty.”
“Seems fair, under the circumstances,” DeJuan said. “Anything else I can do for you?”
NINE
Jack stood against the railing-Somerset Collection, second level-looking down at all the glitzy storefronts and the parade of shoppers, everyone carrying a coffee cup or bottle of water. When did that start? He remembered his sister telling him to stay hydrated. Huh? He didn’t know what she was talking about but got it now. Everybody drinking water, carrying bottles with them so they wouldn’t die of thirst on the way to the mall.
He saw a blond come out of a store called Williams Sonoma with a shopping bag in her hand and move past Gucci, stopping to look in the window, either at herself or a leather jacket on display. He watched her go into Barnes amp; Noble and took the escalator down to the first floor. He went in and couldn’t believe how many people were in there buying books, Jesus. It was packed. He tried to remember the last book he’d read and thought it was Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, that much he seemed to recall, pausing now, trying to come up with the story line: A guy named Holden went to New York to find himself. Jack thinking the way he’d gone to Tucson. Only he couldn’t remember Holden Caulfield committing armed robbery and spending thirty-eight months in prison.
He looked around; it was the biggest bookstore he’d ever seen. Dozens of people buying books and drinking coffee. He saw her in the section called New Releases. Recognized a couple names like John Grisham and Stephen King but had never heard of most of the others: Mary Higgins Clark, Patricia Cornwell, or Sue Grafton.
He moved closer and studied her face. She looked older. Who didn’t? But she was still a knockout. Her hair different, cut shorter, and that’s what threw him at first. She’d had shoulder-length blond hair the last time he’d seen her and he couldn’t imagine her ever changing it. But that was sixteen years ago. He’d changed too. Thirty pounds heavier now, at least, and his hair was thinner on top at age thirty-eight.
Nothing to panic about yet: girls still checked him out when he walked into a room-even in a khaki janitor outfit-he discovered his first day out of prison at a grocery store in Tucson.
When he glanced over, she was gone. He scanned the checkout line, the coffee bar. Ran out of the store, looked down the mall concourse, first one way, then the other. Saw her, just a brief glimpse, walking into a store.
He felt strange going into Victoria’s Secret, seeing all the negligees and female underthings. He saw her shuffling through a rack of pajamas and moved in close, holding up a skimpy negligee. “I think you’d look better in this.”
She turned and looked at him, did a double take and said, “Jack …?”
“It is you,” he said. “I wasn’t sure.”
They moved toward each other and hugged. It was awkward. He held her too long and she pulled away from him and seemed nervous.
They had lunch at P F Chang’s, sitting across the table from each other in a booth after sixteen years. It felt odd and confining. Kate glanced at the menu, then at Jack. “What’re you going to have?”
“Sweet-and-sour chicken. It’s the only thing on the menu I’ve ever heard of.”
He looked older, his face fuller and heavier, hair starting to go gray.
They ordered.
Jack looked at her and smiled and said, “It’s good to see you. You haven’t changed, it’s amazing.”