Complete Corruption (Corruption #1-3) (4 page)

A kid of about seven jostled me out of the way and jammed a dollar into the slot, punched buttons as if it was his job, and stood in front of me while the machine hummed. But nothing happened. No goodie was forthcoming.

I ran through the next day in my head. Katrina would have to drive me back to Frontage. I’d get my car, make it home, and—

There was a loud bang, as if a bullet had hit fiberglass, and I jumped, not realizing I’d spaced out. Antonio Spinelli, still in his black suit, touched the machine and, finding the spot he needed, banged again. Two bags of chips fell, and the kid jumped at them. The lawyer smirked at me and shrugged. He was more gorgeous in the dead, flat fluorescents than he’d been in the dark parking lot.

“You want something?” he asked.

He kept his eyes on my face, but I felt self-conscious about my scrub-clad body and dress shoes. “What are you doing here?” I sounded small and insignificant, probably because I was trying to speak while holding my breath.

He shrugged. “Getting you a late dinner.” He indicated the array inside the machine like a tall blonde turning letters. “Cheese chips? Ring Pop?”

I felt alone on a Serengeti plain with a cheetah circling. “You waited for me all this time?”

“I noticed you might need a ride home, so I followed the ambulance.”

“A lawyer. Chasing an ambulance.”

He smirked, and I wasn’t sure if he got the joke or if it was outside of his cultural matrix. “What kind of gentleman would I be?”

“Again. What are you doing here?” My mouth tasted as if a piece of week-old roast beef had been folded into it. I was wearing scrubs that wouldn’t have fit even if they were the right size, and my spiked heels felt like torture devices. My head hurt, my sister was in the hospital for alcohol poisoning, and a beautiful god of a man wanted to share a Ring Pop with me.

Antonio took out a bill and fed the machine. “I think I made a bad impression in the parking lot.” He punched more buttons than any one item required.

“Your intentions were good. Thank you for that.”

“My methods, however?”

Things dropped into the opening. Chips, candy, crackers, cookies,
plop, plop, plop, plop
. He must have put a twenty in there.

“I’m trying not to think too hard about it.”

“You were very composed.” He crouched to retrieve his pile of packages. “I’ve never met a woman like that.”

“Except for looking aroused?” I crossed my arms, feeling exposed.

“That, I’ve met.” He handed me an apple, the one piece of real food available in the hospital vending machine. He looked at me in a way I didn’t like. Not one bit.

Except I did like it. I took the apple. I became too aware of the teddy bears on my shirt and my hair falling all over the place. My lips were chapped, and my eyes were heavy from too many hours awake. Maybe that was for the best. Looking early-morning fresh would have made his gaze seem sexual rather than intense.

He stepped back next to an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair, indicating I should sit. Holding my apple to my chest, I sat. He dumped our meal into the seat next to me and sat on the other side of it.

“How’s your sister?” he asked.

I sighed. “She’ll be fine. I mean, she won’t, because she’ll do it again. But she’ll be up and running by afternoon.”

He looked pensive, plucking a bag of nuts from the chair and putting it back. “It’s impossible to change what you are. You drink like that when you fight yourself.”

“How did you get so educated on the matter?”

“I had an uncle.”

He opened a granola bar, and I watched his finger slipping into the fold of cellophane, exerting enough pressure to weaken and split the bond between the layers. It took exactly no effort. A child could do it. But the grace of that simple thing was exquisite. I pressed my legs together because I kept imagining those hands flat on the insides of my thighs.

“It was my job to collect him in the mornings,” he continued. “He supported my mother, so he had to go make money. Every morning, I had to look for him. I found him in the street, in the piazza, wherever. Passed out with wine all over his shirt. I splashed water on his face and sent him to work at the dock. I mean, he called me a
stronzo
first, but I got the job done.”

His story opened doors and corridors to further questions. The possibility of spending hours in that waiting room with him was a little too appealing. I’d seen what he’d done to the man who’d kicked my sister, and I had the feeling he wasn’t a normal lawyer. Something was up, and finding out was akin to stroking a snake to feel the click of the scales.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “In Los Angeles?”

He shrugged. “The California bar is easy. And the weather’s nice.”

“My name is Theresa.”

“I know.” He smiled at my shocked expression, looking about as concerned as a cat on a windowsill. “I used to see you on TV during Daniel Brower’s campaign for mayor. Part of it, at least. I think he might win.”

I must have turned purple, though my face didn’t shift and my shoulders stayed straight.

He cast his eyes down as if he’d said too much. “It’s not my business, of course.”

“It’s Los Angeles’s business, apparently, that my fiancé was having sex with his speechwriter. Any details in the paper you missed and want me to fill in?” I was having a complete emotional shut down. Not even his full lips or the arch of his eyebrows could pierce my veil of defensiveness. “That’s why you were watching me at Frontage that first night. Trying to put the face with the story.”

“No.”

“I’m not interested in your pity, or in you proving yourself, or anything for that matter.” I stood. I’d talked myself into a deep enough hole, and the shame of the entire incident swelled inside me. “Thanks for dinner.”

I spun on my heel and walked to the nearest door that led outside. I should have headed back to Deirdre. I should have gone to the ladies’ room. I should have gone to the desk. But outside looked so appealingly anonymous, as if I could walk into the darkness and disappear. Once I got there though, I had nowhere to go, and the cars speeding down LaCienega didn’t slow enough for me to cross. In any case, I couldn’t go far. Deirdre needed me.

I walked down the block as if I had a destination. I’d been foolish. I’d wanted him, spine to core, but he knew who I was. I couldn’t run away from what had happened with Daniel. Everyone knew, and any relationship I had would be painted with the brush of my humiliation. I felt that beautiful hand on my elbow, and part of my body continued forward despite his best effort.

“Wait,” he said, “you never let me finish.”

“I don’t want you to,” I said, letting him hold my elbow while I caught my balance.

“I was watching you because yes, I wanted to place the face.” I started to object, but he put his fingers to my lips and said, “And when I did, I was... how do you say?” He squinted as if trying to squeeze the word out of his brain. “Awestruck.” I pulled away and he let go of me. “Don’t go. It’s not what you think. Yes, I saw you on TV with Brower. You always stood so straight, even when they attacked you. Reporters, the other side, even your own people. And you never cracked. Then tonight, you stand up and tell me to stop hurting that man, like it’s your right under God to do it. You could run the world. Do you realize?”

I said nothing. I hated that he had observed my shame with Daniel so closely in such one-sided intimacy.

“Let me take you out,” he said. “My attention isn’t going to hurt you.”

“Look, I’m sorry. You’re nice enough. And I have to be honest, you’re handsome. Very handsome.” I couldn’t look at him when I said that. “But I’m a curiosity to you. To me, it’s still very real.” I folded my arms so he had to release my elbow. A bus blew by us with a shattering roar, sending a warm breeze through our hair. “I’m just not ready.”

“Let me take you out anyway.”

“Tee Dray!”

I spun around. Katrina jogged toward me from the parking lot, carrying a huge satchel and wearing Uggs with her leggings. She was early, and not a minute too soon.

“I’m sorry,” I said, backing away toward Katrina. “I can’t.” I felt her at my back, panting.

“Hi,” she said.

I turned around and realized she wasn’t saying hello to me. “Katrina, this is Antonio.”

“
Ciao
,” he said with a nod before he directed his gaze back at me. “You have my card, Contessa.”

“I do.”

“
Ciao
then.” He smiled, nodded, and walked toward the parking lot entrance.

Katrina spun around to watch him as he turned and waved. “Holy fucking hot fire.”

“Yes. Holy hot fire.”

“That’s not the same guy, is it?” she asked.

“It is.”

“Is he an actor? I could use him. Fuck, I could write feature films about the way he walks.”

“Lawyer. Italian. Which is nice if you’re into that sort of thing. You’re early, by the way.”

“We actually got shit done.” We started back toward the hospital. “Michael was a bruiser. He asked about you,” she said.

“Not interested.”

“How’s your sister?”

“Should be awake by now. Can you wait for me?”

“An hour. Then you drive yourself home,” she said as if she meant it. She put her arm around my shoulder and walked me in.

hey’ll send a priest if you want to see one,” I said, sitting by Deirdre’s bed.

“I don’t need counseling.” My sister looked flush and healthy and energetic, despite being waist-deep in sheets. Nothing like a mainline of B vitamins to bring a woman to the peak of health.

“They can’t release you without it. And I’m sorry, but I agree with the policy. You could have died.”

“I’m a grown woman.” She threw off her sheets, exposing a blue hospital gown that matched my scrubs.

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Dee, please. I’ve got your vomit all over my clothes. We can get Dr. Weinstein back if you want.”

She tucked one curly red lock behind her ear, where it would stay for three seconds before bouncing in front of her eyes again. “I want to go to work.”

“You need a break from that job. It’s turning you into a grouch.”

“I can’t do anything else,” she said. “I don’t know how.”

One of the downsides of being incredibly wealthy was the ease with which one could go through life without marketable skills. The only ability she’d developed was compassion for people who didn’t have what she had and contempt for those who did. Self-loathing went deep, a trademark Drazen trait.

“There’s a trade school around the corner,” I said. “You could learn to fix cars.”

“You think Daddy would buy me a shop in Beverly Hills?”

“Anything to get you out of social work. Heck, I’d buy you a shop.”

She put her face in her hands. “I want to do God’s work.”

I held her wrists. “God didn’t build you to see what you see every day. You’re too sensitive.”

She took her hands away from her face. “Can you go to that thing with Jon tonight? At the museum? I don’t think I can take it.”

Jonathan was only seen in public with his sisters in the hope of drawing back his ex-wife.

“If you give the counselor one hundred percent, I’ll go.”

She leaned back in the bed. “Fine.”

“Thank you.”

“You smell like a puke factory.”

I kissed her head and put my arms around my crazy, delicate sister.

atrina was in the waiting room, sleeping on her binder and drooling on the breakdown script for the next day.

I sat by her head and put my hand on her shoulder. I felt guilty for calling her while she was in production, and I felt lonely for needing her so badly. “Come on, Directrix. I’m driving.”

“Five minutes, Mom,” she whispered.

By the time Katrina dropped me at Frontage, my little BMW was the only car in the lot, and condensation left a polka dot pattern on my windshield. It was a 1967 GT Cabrio with chrome detailing that wasn’t happy about water drying on it. I shouldn’t have bought it. The car was a death trap. But Daniel had gone to the automotive museum’s auction to show his face, and I’d walked out with what he called LBT, the Little Blue Tink. He’d been annoyed, but I’d fallen in love.