Soledad said: "I was really surprised when you asked me out."
"Because you'd just wrecked my car?"
"Hey, I saw the insurance claim. It's not wrecked. And wasn't just that. The look on your face when you saw my gun."
"Yeah. Well…" Ian's ass squirmed, looked for a comfy spot on his wood chair."I've got a bad habit of being attracted to the wrong women. Women with guns are about as wrong as it gets."
Out on Little Santa Monica someone was trying to make a left turn across a double yellow into the drive of the Peninsula. Traffic behind the car was getting held up. People were getting pissed. People were laying on their horns. Eventually the car made the turn. The other drivers went on to wherever they were going—now short of temper—to infect the rest of the city with their freshly acquired anger.
Falling dominos.
"So… what's with yours; your gun?"
"Hit woman for the Triads."
"No, really…"
"It's legal, it's registered. Can we talk about something else?"
"But is it, is it like protection? Do you have a restraining order against—"
"Let's talk about something—"
"Something else. Yeah, I'd like to, but you don't want to talk about anything else: your family, what's going on in your life, what you do for a living."
Shooting the mutie, the trouble over her gun, IA and lawyers: All that thrashed around in Soledad's head. Did this guy need to know any of that? Did she need to rehash it?" Maybe we should—"
"Talk about something else. Yeah. I know."
"How about we talk about you?"
"We talked about me."
"When did we talk about you? We didn't talk about you."
"Yeah, we did."
"I don't know where you're from, I don't know anything about your family…"
Between his teeth Ian gripped his lip.
Soledad: "Okay, so the sharing only flows in one direction? Why don't you like to talk about things?"
"Why don't you like to talk about things?"
There was just the sound of the cars getting worked on.
Ian said: "Told you about my job."
"Barely. Said you were an architect, but you didn't—"
"I'm not an architect. I do industrial design."
"I thought… I'm sorry, I wasn't…" Soledad trailed off into the incomprehensible.
"Landing gear," Ian said.
"Oh, yeah," Soledad remembered.
"I design landing gear for commercial jets. Business has changed a lot since Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas. Then they shut that down, no more MD designs. I don't think there's going to be as much innovation as the—"
"That's a weird job."
Ian shrugged."It's decent work."
"I guess not weird. I guess I meant… It sounds kind of odd. Never thought of landing gear being designed. Not in particular. I always figured…" A little laugh. An honest laugh."I didn't figure anything 'cause it's not like I sit around thinking about landing gear." Heels to the edge of her chair, Soledad pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs. Went a little fetal."So I'm really bad company and I'm way too intense and I kind of was… part of me was hoping this would be a shitty time so you wouldn't call me again."
"Why?"
"I have a lot of guilt and I want my life to be miserable."
"… Fuck…"
"Yeah. I'm fucked-up, huh?"
"And they let people like you have guns?"
From Soledad, a sideways glance.
"For real, though, that's just… that's, like, that's a helluvan honest thing for someone to say about herself."
"I'm going through a situation. The kind that forces you to be honest about things."
Ian, again: "Fuck. Who's your therapist?"
"Don't have one. Just this lawyer…"
A couple of the mechanics working on a Volvo got into an argument about something. A lug nut or a timing belt. They went at each other good and loud, and one of the guys had a wrench, gripped hard and held low, that he looked like he wasn't afraid to use if things ended up going that way.
Ian: "I think… I think you're an interesting person, Soledad. I wouldn't say it's been a shitty time, but I don't get the feeling you and I…"
Soledad looked to Ian.
Ian didn't return the stare.
Soledad said: "You want to call it a day, I don't blame you. Really don't. Like I said, I was kind of hoping for that. But you should just know, I haven't been testing you. I've been testing myself. My world, it's not very big; there's not much to it, and I'm not used to letting other people wander around in it."
"At least we start off with something in common."
Ian looked to Soledad.
No fire in her eyes. Not anymore.
"I want to try," Soledad said."I want to, but this is going to take a while."
"How long is a while?"
"Longer than most guys would want to stick around. What you're doing now, it's a deposit on a long-term investment. If that's what you want."
Ian slumped, let out a breath long and slow.
Back on went Soledad's sunglasses.
Ian said again for the record: "Always did pick the wrong women."
The mechanics settled their dispute, quit arguing. There was nothing to fill the quiet between Ian and Soledad.
"In Japan they have this thing called haragei."
"You know about Japan?"
"There're all kinds of things to me, Soledad. Some of them aren't that obvious."
"Japan…?"
"Japan. They have this thing called haragei, and it's… it's talking without talking; without saying anything. It's just people sharing an experience. Maybe we could do that, for starts, just… share an experience."
No need to think about it: "Yeah. Let's do that."
The two sat and shared the experience of Soledad's car getting its front end worked on.
After a while the mechanics finished up, handed Soledad the bill. Handed her a little more eye. Soledad paid up, suspicious of the charges.
The experience ended.
Soledad and Ian got ready to go. Ian walked out to Little Santa Monica, to where his Jaguar was parked, started it up. When the road was clear, he pulled out into traffic and drove home.
It was opposite the direction Soledad was heading.
Had it always been there? That or one like it. Was she just noticing the picture of the girl—actress or model or singer—more endowed with chest than talent, ass than ability. She had on a bikini, a size too small and then pulled tight. She'd been yanked from the middle of Maxim or Stuff or FHM and stuck on a wall next to someone's desk.
Fine.
If the girl looked hot and wasn't good for much but looking hot, if a guy somehow felt high on himself for being stupid enough to pay hard-earned cash for a one-dimensional version of a woman… everybody was happy. Nothing to write NOW about. So the idea of a little cheesecake around Parker Center didn't bother Soledad.
Alone it didn't.
But there was that picture and there were other pictures torn and ripped and tacked and scotch-taped all over Parker Center— this desk, that locker… And there was that detective by the window, the one with the coffee mug. The one with the coffee mug that read: save a mouse, eat a pussy. How long had he had that thing? Was she just now noticing it, same as she was just now noticing…
That uniform: Was he staring at her? Just looking in her direction, or was he staring at her? That cop he's talking to: was he just talking to him, or talking about Soledad? Was he really saying…
Had it always been there? Was she always oblivious to it? Was it even, really, there now, or was she somehow making more of the stares, the cheesecake? The lips that moved slowly, were read clearly, saying: "What a lucky fucking bitch."
Had they…
Was she…
Soledad went for the motor pool. Head down, blinders on.
That's some crazy shit, I'll tell you that. Some crazy, crazy shit."
Willie Lesker was in the process of letting Soledad know the shit was crazy.