Bulletproof Mascara: A Novel (32 page)

“Hey, do you guys know what happened in there?” she asked, smiling.

“Took us a while to figure it out,” one of the men said, his accent distinctly Australian.

“We had to ask one of the ring judges,” said the other, also Australian.

“Turns out the fight was fixed. One of the trainers found out and they tried to stop him from telling, but he escaped.”

“I knew he shouldn’t have been losing!” Nikki exclaimed. The two Australians looked startled.

“You’ll have to excuse my wife,” said Z’ev, coming up behind her, the phone still pressed to his ear. “She does like the fights.” He draped an arm across her shoulders, and the two Australians laughed as if he had made an actual joke. He nodded to the two men and walked away, effectively forcing Nikki to go with him. Nikki smiled for the strangers, seething silently.

As they walked away, she heard one of the Australians mutter, “Lucky bastard,” which only reinforced her anger. Z’ev was lucky—lucky she didn’t kick his ass.

“Yeah, OK, got it,” Z’ev said, speaking into the phone. Stress made his consonants harder and more American than usual. “I’ll get back as soon as I can. No, it’s a call on the other line. Yeah, bye.” He punched the Off button and without asking Nikki, answered the waiting call.

“Nikki’s phone,” he said. Startled, Nikki reached for the phone, but he leaned away from her outstretched hand. Nikki felt a slosh of panic. It had to be Val on the phone, and she was going to get so reamed for this. She held out her hand more emphatically, but Z’ev just grinned.

“Uh, yes, ma’am,” he said, as his face made a dramatic change to serious and he handed her the phone. “It’s your mother,” he said with one hand over the speaker.

Nikki shook her head, backing away from the phone. He held it out with more conviction.

“Nikki?” Her mother’s tiny voice could be heard echoing from
the phone. With a sigh, Nikki took the phone from his hand and put it to her ear.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Nikki? Who was that?”

“Oh, you know, just someone I met.” She didn’t want to talk about Z’ev while he was standing there.

“And you’re letting him answer your phone? I don’t really think that’s wise. What if he goes through your phone book and copies down all your information and steals your identity?”

“He couldn’t fit into my dresses,” answered Nikki. Z’ev gave her a strange look.

“What? That is not what stealing your identity means, Nikki. Why do you say such ridiculous things?”

“I lent him my phone to call someone. You were on the other line.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose that’s all right then.” There was a pause, while her mother regrouped for the next attack. “Is he good-looking?” Nikki gave Z’ev the once-over and Z’ev met her stare with a bland smile.

“Some people think so.”

“Hmm. He had a nice voice. Is he nice?”

“Sometimes,” Nikki answered.

“What does he do? He isn’t a native, I hope?”

“He
says
he’s a lawyer,” answered Nikki, and saw Z’ev wince at her stress on his lie.

“Oooh, that could be good.”

“I think it’s more complicated than that.”

“Well, still, he sounds promising: I won’t keep you. But you said you’d call and you didn’t call. I worry, you know.”

“Yeah, sorry. But I’ve been really busy, and I wasn’t sure of the time difference. I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“Don’t be silly. As if I’d be mad at you for waking me up.” Nikki considered pointing out that her entire childhood indicated otherwise, but she thought better of it.

“OK, I’ll call you later then.” Nikki hoped Nell would take the hint and hang up.

“Bye, sweetie.”

“Bye, Mom.” Nikki pushed the Off button and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. “So,” she said, turning to Z’ev, “Are we going to have another one of those conversations where you explain why something bizarre is perfectly reasonable?”

“Like your relationship with your mother?”

“My relationship with my mother is not bizarre,” she snapped. “Besides, I’m trying to get over my mother issues. Now what about those guys in the bathroom?”

“It’s taken care of,” he said.

“What about Lawan?”

“How do you know about her?” he demanded sharply.

“My company donates to her foundation. She’s one of the people I’m supposed to talk to here. She’s the keynote speaker of the conference! Now, what was she doing with you?”

“You know we aren’t really married,” he snapped. “I don’t have to answer your questions. Why are you worried about her, anyway? I don’t think this kind of thing is your job.”

“Carrie Mae helps women,” Nikki said. “It is my job.”

“Carrie Mae sells makeup,” he said harshly.

“Hey! There is nothing wrong with selling makeup. Each Carrie Mae consultant is her own boss and earns her own money, on her own time. That kind of flexibility and extra income can really help families.” She paused, realizing that she was giving the wrong impression. “And I only did it once. And besides, it’s not like the experience was scar-free.”

“You got scars from selling makeup?”

“I didn’t say they were my scars,” replied Nikki, avoiding eye contact, trying to figure out where she’d lost track of the conversation. “My point is that the Carrie Mae Foundation helps women, so it is my job to help Lawan. How do you know her? Why did she call you?”

“We’re not having this conversation,” he said, cutting her off and looking around while making shushing noises with his free hand.

The sound of police sirens could be heard in the distance, and Z’ev pulled on her arm, trying to make her move. “This conversation is bad for both of us. We are not having it.”

“No,” Nikki said, resisting. “Why don’t you just tell me the truth?” He walked a step away and then came back, towering over her. Nikki held her breath, frightened for a moment, and then angry that he could do that to her.

“Nikki,” he said, stepping away, as if sensing her sudden change in mood, “this is really not something you want to be involved in, and I’m not someone you want to be involved with. Let’s just leave it at that.”

He took her arm again and walked away, increasing the length of his stride, forcing Nikki to break into a trot to keep up. He slowed down to a walk again as they came out onto a sidewalk, putting his arm around her waist, attempting to blend in with the other strolling couples. But Nikki’s spine remained poker straight and she knew that anyone who looked closely would notice the distance between them.

“What about you?” he whispered in her ear, which might have been romantic under different circumstances. “Do you always pack a stun gun?”

“Yes,” countered Nikki, as if he were crazy for asking.
When
in doubt, pretend you’re the normal one
. “Particularly when I go on dates with suspicious ‘government’ men.”

She could tell he was mad by the way he clenched his jaw, but as he opened his mouth to say more, a tuk-tuk pulled up to the curb. Z’ev leaned in to bargain with the driver, but Nikki recognized him immediately.

“Hey!” said the driver, smiling and pointing at Z’ev.

“Hey,” Nikki replied, and climbed in without negotiating a price. “Mandarin Hotel.”

The driver made a questioning sound and pointed at Z’ev.

“Meh,” said Nikki, and she shrugged.

“Oh,” he said, clicking his tongue in a
c’est la vie
manner as he started the engine.

“Hey,” Z’ev said, quickly climbing in before the tuk-tuk could pull away. “I take it you’ve met before?” he asked, looking suspiciously between her and the driver.

“You could say that,” Nikki said. “Just don’t ask to drive.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

The driver’s presence forestalled any further conversation. They reached the hotel safely, and the doorman ushered them into the lobby. Nikki shivered as they walked into the wall of air-conditioning.

“I’ll walk you to your door,” Z’ev said as they got on the elevator. Nikki didn’t reply.

“You shouldn’t have been there tonight,” Z’ev said, turning to her as soon as the doors closed, his voice harsh. Nikki didn’t reply. “I told you I had to leave. Why’d you follow me?”

“I thought you were ditching me,” said Nikki. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have. She wanted time to think. “I don’t like being ditched.”

“I told you it was work related.”

“Yeah, just exactly what kind of work do you do?” she demanded. He couldn’t be angry at her; she was already mad at him.

“You know I’m a lawyer,” he said, but his eyes wouldn’t meet hers.

“Yeah. Right,” she said. “The kind of lawyer who meets with a woman who’s been missing for two weeks and gets in a fight with someone he’s supposedly working with. And speaking of fighting . . . I’ve met lawyers before, Z’ev. They couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag, much less rip a pipe off the wall, beat someone with it, and then stick that someone’s head through a toilet. And you said that ‘we’ needed Victor. Who’s ‘we’? And if you were working for the same place as Victor, why didn’t Lawan go after you like she did Victor? It doesn’t add up.”

“Nikki, you don’t get to be pissed,” he said, clearly frustrated. “You barged into someplace you didn’t belong.”

“Trust me, Z’ev, I can be pissed if I want to. It’s a free country.” She paused to take a mental rundown of the Thai government. Yes, it was a free country, mostly. “And besides, I didn’t barge in. You invited me when you asked me to marry you.”

“Well, now I’m uninviting you.” He was growling through the sentence, trying to maintain a grip on his temper.

“Oh, that’s right,” Nikki said bitterly. “We’re divorced.”

The elevator door opened and Nikki marched briskly out, tugging on the key card in her purse. The more she thought about the evening, the madder she became. The card slipped through her fingers, and Z’ev picked it up.

“Nikki,” he said, holding out the card. She snatched the card out of his hand and slammed it into the door slot. “I didn’t mean it to sound like that. It’s just . . . it’s just not safe to be around me. Would you just listen?”

“To what? Your lame explanations? You’re a government agent. Why don’t you just admit it?”

“Nikki!” he said sharply, and looked in both directions down the hallway. “Nikki,” he said again, lowering his voice, “I have a job to do and you are putting it and a lot of other people in jeopardy. Do you understand?”

“Oh, I understand,” she said, refusing to be quieted. “I understand just fine. You’re a liar. I said it in Canada and I’m saying it now—liar. I’ll tell you what, Z’ev, next time you need to be hauled out of a bathroom, call someone else. I’ve got better things to do with my time.”

On that final note, she slammed the door shut in his face and leaned against it, breathing hard. In the following silence, she heard her phone beep sadly, indicating a missed call.

THAILAND X

Universal Truth

Nikki threw her purse at the bed and spun around to look through the peephole. Through the fish-eye perspective, she saw Z’ev raise his hand as if to knock on the door, drop it again, and then shake his head before walking back toward the elevators. She counted to ten and then opened the door. The elevator doors were firmly closed and Z’ev was nowhere in sight.

Nikki marched out into the hall and across to Val’s door. She gave it a hearty knock and waited, composing her speech to Val. It was going to be a towering tirade of a wronged woman, but after standing in the hallway shifting from foot to foot she realized that not only had Val not answered the door, she hadn’t even heard the telltale rustle of movement from within the room.

Nikki felt a shiver of oncoming fear, like the first wavelet caressing the beach before a tidal wave. She knocked again—harder this time, but the answer remained the same. Down the hall another door popped open and a man’s head appeared, annoyance
scrawled across his face like graffiti. She gave an apologetic smile and retreated to her room.

Where was Val? They had been attacked at the gun shop. What if after she had left Val at the restaurant there had been an
incident
? What if by leaving Val to chase the myth of a trustworthy man she’d left her partner vulnerable? What had she been thinking?

Nikki sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands, breathing deeply. There had to be an explanation. Val was following Nikki and hadn’t gotten back yet. Val had gone to talk to Laura Daniels. Val was tracking some as-yet-undiscovered clue. She could think of a few more, but her phone kept beeping repetitively, putting sonic periods in the mid-sentence of every thought she had. She wanted to sit down to take a breather, call a time-out, have some time to think. Instead, she reached into her purse, fumbling through the layers. The phone beeped again, and she hurried faster. She dropped her purse, scattering items on the floor. She ignored them, concentrating on the one task of making the phone
be quiet
. Flipping open the phone, she expected to see a message from Val, and instead saw one unread message from Jane.

Belatedly remembering her brief conversation with Jane earlier in the evening, she opened the message and waited for the image to fully open on her screen. She glanced around the room before looking back at her phone, then wished she hadn’t.

The image, even on the phone’s little screen, was disturbing. A little girl of about nine or ten stared back at her from the tiny square—hands and feet bound and tied to a chair, her mouth gagged, but clearly screaming. The whole image made Nikki’s guts churn.

She hit the Call Back button and dialed Jane.

“What the hell did you send me?” she demanded when Jane picked up.

“I told you. It’s the picture from Victor’s phone,” Jane said, sounding impatient.

Nikki was afraid. All her mother’s warnings about what happened to little girls who went outside alone or went somewhere after dark or just plain left the house seemed to have reared up in the darkest part of her mind.

“That’s it? Just the picture? There’s nothing to explain it?” Nikki barked into the phone, knowing that she was yelling at Jane for something that was not Jane’s fault.

“There’s the date and the number he sent it to. It was to a cellphone account that’s been closed out. We’re working on figuring out who used to pay the bill.”