A Date You Can't Refuse (26 page)

Simon came back to me and took my hand, leading me to the southeast wall.

A rectangle was formed by the edge of the stairwell and the corner of the parking structure, maybe four feet wide and six feet long, a tiny bastion of privacy.

Simon threw down his jacket, displacing some leaves and an empty bottle of Vitaminwater. After a glance behind him to the parked cars, he pulled me down, hiding us from view.

We knelt on his jacket. He took my face in both of his hands, looked at me a long moment before his eyes dropped to my mouth, and then he moved in on it and kissed it.

The sun beat down on us.

After a while, he pushed the hem of my tight skirt up to my waist and I undid his belt buckle and unbuttoned his pants and then he grabbed my thighs and I grabbed the back of his neck and he pulled my legs around until they were straddling him and after that I was falling backward
in slow motion, with his hands holding the small of my back, until I came to rest on hard concrete, pebbles, and a Milky Way candy wrapper. We were already sweating, and we were about to sweat a lot more.

We didn't talk much.

A half hour later we walked back down the stairwell to the street. We moved languidly. Our clothes were wrinkled and my blouse was dirty. I felt beautiful. We smelled like each other.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Fine, thank you, and you?”

He put an arm around me and kissed the top of my head as we strolled. We reached Wilshire and broke apart, walking side by side. We no longer held hands.

Now that inches separated us, I realized I wasn't all that fine. Crispin was dead, partly because of me, I was in the midst of a conspiracy I didn't understand, in a job where people shot guns and dealt in stolen goods, and no one was telling me the entire truth about anything, including those I was really working for, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

And I couldn't tell any of this to Simon, and my frustration about it was enough to wipe out the postsexual nostalgia I was feeling.

“I'm thinking of quitting my job at MediasRex,” I said.

His head turned. “When?”

I reached over and flicked away a piece of gravel that was stuck to his cheek. It was a gesture more proprietary than romantic and still my in-sides went wiggly touching him. “I'm not sure. Soon. A few days. I need to finish up some things before I can back out gracefully.”

He stopped. I stopped too, and turned to him. “Closer,” he said, and I came closer, but didn't touch him. We were in public now and public displays of affection were to be avoided. This wasn't something we'd ever discussed, it was a tacit understanding.

I hated understanding it. I wanted to renegotiate the whole thing.

“I'm glad you're quitting. I want you to,” he said quietly. “I never
want to go through this again. Not knowing where you are or if you're safe.”

“We want the same thing,” I said. “I want all that and I want never to use a code name again. I want to do what we just did and do it in a bed. Not always, but mostly. I want to be able to call you at the office and ask you what time you'll be home for dinner.”

He looked away.

“What?” I asked.

He looked back. He'd recovered and was smiling.
“Are
you going to cook for me?”

“I could cook.” I'd planted bugging devices that morning. Could a pot roast be any harder?

He looked away again.

“That's not what you're talking about,” I said. “We don't want the same thing. You want me to be home safe, but you want to be out there, doing whatever it is you're doing.”

He scratched his head. “It's not a good time to discuss this.”

“When's a good time?”

“Things are heating up on the case. We've put in a lot of work toward this end. I need it to succeed. I need this.” He turned to me again, with the same intensity he'd had earlier, when we'd been sweating on each other. “When it's over—I don't know. I can't look ahead right now. I'm in the middle of something and I can't question myself the way you want me to. I won't be able to do my job.”

“When's a good time to talk about this? When won't you be in the middle of this?”

“Weeks, maybe a month. And Wollie?” He touched my chin with a finger. “Chances are I won't be able to see you again till I've wrapped it up.”

To hell with it. I reached out and grabbed his hand. “A month?” I was fighting now to stay calm. “Do you see what you're asking? You want me to endure something that drives you crazy when it's me we're talking about. Being in danger. Being incommunicado. I'm not saying I can't or won't endure it, but look. Do you see what you're asking of me?”

“It's not the same—”

“It is exactly the same.”

“I'm trained to do this, I have years of experience in this, while you're doing God knows what for Yuri Milos—”

“It is the same. You don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what you're doing, no one's home for dinner, nobody gets to fall asleep wrapped around each other or wake up together in the morning, it's a long-distance relationship in the same town, it's sex with a married man, except you're married to the FBI and you're never getting a divorce, it's—”

“Why do we have to talk about this now?”

“Because,” I said, “it's my best chance of making my case, of making you see what it's like to live with the kind of uncertainty you're putting me through—”

“Not
now
, Wollie.” His voice held a note of command that must have slipped out. He didn't usually let himself do that, knowing it set me off.

“No problem,” I said, and dropped his hand. “When it's convenient, I'm sure you'll be in touch. June or July? And will we start over at the beginning of the alphabet? With
A
or do we do jump to
B
and do the even-numbered letters this time?”

“Wollie.”

“For the record, what's the record? What constitutes a long-term relationship? Three times through the alphabet? What's the longest anyone's lasted with you?”

“Screw this.”

“This?” I asked. “Or me?”

“At this moment? Take your pick.”

I stared at him, waiting for him to take it back, then saw he wasn't going to.

I turned away. There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell I was letting him see me cry right now. Or ever again, maybe. Ahead of me, the light at Wilshire and Brighton Way turned green. I took it as a sign and hurried toward it.

Simon didn't stop me.

F
elix was waiting for me on the street outside Dr. Rosen's office, people-watching, eager to be off to Tiffany's. “So famous!” he said. “I feel like a movie star. I feel like—”

“Audrey Hepburn?” I asked, wanting his mood to infect me. “George Peppard? Whoa—you have to watch the jaywalking in Beverly Hills, Felix.” I reached for his arm. “The cops will swoop down on you and—”

“Okay!” Felix jumped back onto the sidewalk with such alacrity, I feared being knocked over.

“Felix, is it my imagination or are you unnaturally frightened of cops?”

“Of cops? No. Frightened? No.” He accompanied this with a jolly chuckle that sounded forced. “My goodness, what you have been doing?” he asked, turning his attention to me—a classic diversion technique, I realized. Still, it worked.

“You mean my clothes?” I said, blushing. “A little dirty, aren't they? I— fell. Sort of.”

“You must have fallen hard.”

“Very hard.”

“On your back?” Felix asked.

“Look, the light's changed. Come on.”

Tiffany & Co. was at Two Rodeo, a tiny and exclusive piece of real estate
designed to look like a tiny and exclusive European street, complete with cobblestones, fountains, and costumed valet guys. Tiffany's was the jewel in the crown, although it shared the crown with other luminaries like Valentino and Cartier. It brought to mind a bank vault, built in matte-finished steel. The main floor featured relatively affordable baubles, and it was packed, mainly with camera-toting tourists. So packed, in fact, that I immediately lost Felix.

I looked around for ten minutes, baffled. I asked where the restrooms were, and went so far as to ask a man in customer service to scout out the men's room for me. No Felix. I took the beautiful Deco elevators down to the basement level, where the fine jewelry lived. Here there were few customers, and none with cameras. No Felix.

I began a pattern of going from floor to floor, convinced that he was simply looking for me at the same time that I was looking for him and we would have to bump into each other eventually, according to the laws of physics. I turned on my phone, even knowing that Felix didn't have my number and didn't have a cell phone himself. I picked up a single message— from my brother, asking—okay, demanding—that I bring him a copy of
Superstrings and the Search for the Theory of Everything
. Speaking of physics.

After twenty minutes of floor patrol, I was in a panic. On the top level, near the restrooms, a wall was lined with mahogany cabinets the size of gym lockers. I had no idea of their function, but I began to wonder if Felix could be dead and his body parts stuffed there.

Finally, I approached a salesperson. I chose one from fine jewelry, in the basement, because no one on the main floor in affordable baubles looked like they had time for missing persons. Sharon, on the other hand, looked both available and gratifyingly human.

“I've lost my friend,” I told her. “It's been half an hour. I can't find him anywhere.”

“Is he—a young person?”

“A child, you mean? No, but he is an odd person. A foreign person. He may have wandered somewhere off the beaten path. There are just the three floors, right?”

“Yes.” She eyed my clothes, then picked up a phone behind the counter. “Let me check with security.”

I felt a stab of fear. Might they arrest Felix? Was he up to something arrest-worthy? Unless Sharon was suspicious of me. She seemed friendly enough, but I did need dry-cleaning. Although they could hardly arrest me—or even evict me from the store—for that. At least my clothes were expensive. No, I was taking on the team paranoia. Act like a super-heroine, I told myself, throwing my shoulders back. I could hardly be the first person in the world to browse Tiffany's an hour after having sex at Neiman Marcus.

A moment later, Sharon hung up. “Your friend, Mr. Seriodkin, is having tea with our head of security.” She smiled. “He apologizes for alarming you and will be with you shortly. Is there something I could show you in the meantime?”

I shook my head, relieved, then remembered Donatella's ring. “My God, I can't believe I forgot this. It's the whole reason we're here.” I handed Sharon the receipt.

“Oh, I love this ring! I sold this to Mrs. Milos.” She picked up the phone again and called the repair department. She was positively twinkling at me now; it seemed that any friend—or servant—of Donatella's was persona grata at Tiffany's. “And we got a fax from Kimberly the other Mrs. Milos, saying you'd be in today. Could I trouble you for a look at your driver's license?”

“No problem.” I reached into my purse. “Do you remember all your sales?”

“Well, this one's memorable. So is Mrs. Milos. All the Mrs. Miloses. The ring's an antique, a pear-shaped blue diamond, graded fancy intense blue, in a bezel setting. Loads of tiny pavé diamonds surrounding it. One of them got loose,” she said, reading the repair order.

“What's it worth?” I asked. “Do you remember?”

“Somewhere in the neighborhood of four hundred, I think.”

I gulped. “Four hundred—”

“—thousand, yes.” Sharon laughed at my reaction. “Crazy, isn't it? But it was a trade. Right after her divorce, she brought back her engagement ring, which she'd also gotten here, and walked away with this one. I'm not being indiscreet, just so you know.
Town and Country
did a feature article on Mrs. Milos, everything I just told you. Oh, this must be your friend.”

Felix was getting off the elevator alongside a man in a suit, who introduced himself to me as the head of security, then bid Felix a friendly farewell. Minutes later we took possession of Donatella's blindingly expensive ring.

“It's like being entrusted with the Hope Diamond,” I said to Sharon.

“You know what I'd do?” she said, leaning over the counter, winking. “I'd wear it. Until you hand it over to Mrs. Milos.”

This seemed crazy, like asking to be mugged, until it occurred to me that carrying a small Tiffany's shopping bag was also an invitation to assault, perhaps more than wearing a diamond ring that looked too big to be real. I decided to go for it, but turned the stone around, to the inside.

Once outside the store, I questioned Felix about the lost half hour in our lives.

“Oh, this was nothing,” he said with a wave of the hand. “I get lost with ease. I ask this nice man where am I, and we talk of Jesus and he gives me tea.”

“Okay,” I said. “I wonder if I'm supposed to write that in my report to Yuri.”

“What?” Felix came to a sudden stop, causing a pedestrian behind him to bump into him with a Michael Kors shopping bag. “So sorry,” he said, turning to her, and then back to me. “No, please. Yuri will not want to know this.”

“Sure he will,” I said. “Making friends is what public relations is all about, isn't it?”

“No, really, Wollie, I would like not to mention this, please.”

“Okay,” I said, pulling him along. It's not like I didn't understand the desire for secrecy. I wasn't going to put my own afternoon activities into my report either.

I led Felix up Rodeo Drive, on the lookout for potential muggers until I realized half the people we passed probably wore far more than $400,000 on their bodies.

We'd just reached the Suburban when I remembered that I was to take Felix on a lunch date. I fed the meter and dragged him off to the nearest restaurant. Provençale.