Heat (8 page)

A young Hispanic man with flashing black eyes and short-cropped hair was dancing right in front of Gaia. He was smiling at her. And he was dancing at her.

The man wasn't very tall, barely as tall as Gaia, but he was well built, with a narrow waist and broad, square shoulders. Gaia guessed he was somewhere in his early twenties. He wore a black jacket that was hanging open at the front and a snug white shirt that pulled in tight against the brown skin at his throat. He was muscular. Not overmuscled,
but smooth, firm, fit.


The man didn't say a word, but his eyes never left Gaia. He looked into her face as he danced. Right into her eyes.

Gaia could barely feel herself moving. It was like she was riding the music. It seemed effortless now, like something she had done all her life.

The tune ended, and the music changed, but Gaia never missed a step. For the first time in a long time she felt like she was part of something bigger than herself.

She understood why people danced.

The man moved closer. He leaned toward Gaia, and she leaned away--but not far away. They moved together, so close that the man's jacket brushed against the cloth of Gaia's dress.
As soft as a whisper.
Gaia's long blond hair sprayed around her shoulders and spilled across the man's face.

Their bodies were inches apart. Less than an inch. Touching. Gaia could feel the heat coming from the man's skin as if there were a furnace in his chest. She couldn't tell if the beat she felt was the music. Or her own heartbeat. Or his.

The man's hand moved around Gaia and settled at the small of her back. His fingertips pressed into her, pushing her against him.

In that moment Gaia forgot that she was wearing a dress that exposed her bulky legs and arms. She forgot that she was supposed to be embarrassed. For that moment she even forgot about her father, and mother, and Sam.

And when the song ended and the man--the man

she had never seen before in her life--brought his face down to hers, Gaia kissed him.
Hard.


VODKA DID PACK A PUNCH.
Unfortunately, that punch didn't hit Sam where he wanted. Instead of thinking less about Heather and Gaia, every shot of vodka only seemed to make him think about them more.
And it burned more
, as if he were pouring the alcohol straight into a raw wound in his heart.

Hot in the Throat

Still, Sam didn't stop. He was sure that if he only drank enough of the cold, clear liquid, he wouldn't be able to think at all.

Sam leaned over the bar and waved an unsteady hand toward the glass. " 'Nother one," he said.

The pink-haired bartender gave him a quick inspection. "You sure about that, Sam my man?"

"Sure," Sam repeated with a nod.

The woman frowned. "All right, but just one more." She refilled the glass and waited while Sam shakily counted out the cost of the drink. "Whoever she was, she must have hurt you bad."

A girl with short, honey blond hair, big silver earrings, and
a very small red T-shirt
dropped onto the stool next to Sam. She gave him a quick smile as she ordered a beer. "Great band, huh?"

Sam glanced over the sea of dancing people at the trio up on the band platform. He shrugged. The truth was, Sam had barely noticed the music. Ever since his second drink, all the noise in the place had merged into a kind of hum. Even though the music was loud enough to send ripples across his drink, the vodka kept Sam insulated from everything going on around him.
The music seemed dull and distant
, like something happening in another town.

"They're okay," he said. "I guess."

The blond girl's smile slipped a bit. "You here by yourself?"

Sam nodded. He picked up his glass and took a drink. The vodka was cold in his mouth but hot in his throat. "All alone."

"Aww, that's too bad." The girl looked him over for a moment, then held out a hand. "Why don't you come out and dance with me?"

Sam started to say no. After all, he was supposed to be with Heather, and that meant not being with anyone else. Then he realized how completely stupid that was. There was nothing wrong with a little dancing. Besides, dancing was nothing compared to what

Heather had done.
He certainly wouldn't be cheating on anyone.


But when Sam started to get up, the room began to swirl around him and the floor swayed like the deck of a ship caught in a storm. He stumbled back against the bar, tried to take a step, and stumbled again.

The girl put a hand on his arm. "Man, you're crashed."

"Am not," Sam replied. He tried to stand up straighter, but
that only made the room start to spin faster.


The girl laughed at him. "I don't think you're going to be doing any dancing tonight."

Sam frowned. "I can dance."

"Sure, you can," said the girl, "but not with me. Next time hit the dance floor before you hit the bottle." She drained her beer, gave Sam a quick wave, and charged back out onto the dance floor.

Sam watched her go and felt a fresh flood of despair. He carefully sat down on his swaying bar stool and picked up his drink. He was going to be alone forever. That was clear.

He was beginning to think about leaving when someone new settled in next to him. It was a girl--no, a woman,
a definite woman
--in a skintight emerald green dress. The dress was cut very high on her thighs to reveal long, shapely legs, and it scooped down low at the top to reveal even more pale skin.

Long seconds went by before Sam could manage to raise his eyes from what the dress revealed and look up at the woman's face.

She smiled at him. "Hello." Her lips were very full and very red.

"Hi," Sam managed. He ran a hand across his tangled hair and tried to return the woman's smile.

"So why is someone as cute as you sitting over here all alone?" she asked. Her voice was soft. Throaty. Sexy.

Sam had to swallow hard before he could reply. "It's, um, a long story."

The woman leaned toward him, revealing even more of the contents of her dress. "That's all right," she said. "I've got all night."

ED SCRIBBLED DOWN A NOTE.
"Thanks, Detective Hautley. That story will be in the paper tomorrow. Oh, absolutely. Page two or better. Yes, I have the spelling. Thanks again."

The Good Detective

The phone went back on the hook for the last time, and Ed leaned back in his chair. He had lied so often that night that he felt like

he had taken
a crash course in method acting.
He could probably go to work on Broadway. Or head out to Hollywood.

Or make a real killing ripping people off with a phone scam.

It had taken more hours of pretending to be someone he wasn't, but finally all the lying had paid off. All it took was finding the right person.

The right person turned out to be Detective Charles Hautley. Hautley was a vice cop who wanted to be in homicide, and he was willing to share a few choice details with a reporter who might make the poor, hardworking, clean-living detective into a star. Once Ed got the good detective on the phone, it hadn't taken him ten minutes to find out what he wanted.

Hautley knew all about Skizz.
He knew the man's record. He knew about the dealer's trip to jail. And most important, he knew where Skizz could be found.

And now that Ed knew the answer, he wished he had never asked.

GAIA

I
always knew that vacation was the best idea in the history of the world. Right up there with the doughnut
.

You have to wonder who came up with something so brilliant. It's a shame that this hero isn't in the history book. There should be statues. There should be parades. They ought to give a holiday in honor of the guy who came up with vacations
.

Maybe there was some caveman out there who got tired of hunting woolly mammoths. Better yet, maybe it was some cave woman stuck back home, chewing on mastodon blubber and sewing bearskins. One day she wakes up, looks around, and says, "Hell with this--I'm going to Florida." One smart cave woman
.

Even little vacations are good. Memorial Day. Columbus Day. Dead Presidents' Day. But when it comes to vacation, size definitely matters. Spring break, good. Christmas break, also good. Summer, very, very good
.

That's all I knew about vacation until last night
.

But I have made a discovery every bit as important as that sun-bathing cave woman's. Something right up there with fire, electric lights, and Krispy Kreme. I have found the New World of vacations
.

Ever hear someone say, "Wherever you go, there you are"?
Yeah, it's a stupid saying.
Corny. Stupid and corny
.

It's also wrong
.

Here is my attempt at explanation
.

Point 1. I was at the club last night
.

Fact B. Gaia Moore got left behind
.

I don't want to sound like one of those guys selling self-improvement books on 3
A.M.
infomercials, but you really can take a vacation from being you. You can stop worrying about who's
looking or who's talking about you or what they might say. Why should I care what anybody there thinks of me? I mean, I don't have to live with those people. I probably wouldn't like them if I did
.

If you run hard enough, you can outrun yourself. And the only secret is: Stop running
.

Doesn't make any sense, right? That's because you haven't been there
.

Actually, I can't claim solo credit for this great, world-shaking discovery. It was Mary Moss who blazed the trail to this hidden continent of vacation. It's because of her that I learned how to stop being Gaia for a few hours and just have fun. She led me to the land of Moss. Mary Land. The place where you don't stress over what other people think
.

All my life I've never been afraid, but I think this is what it really means to be fearless. It means doing the things you
want to do without worrying about being rejected
.

So I think it's time to do something I've been wanting to do for a while. I think it's time to talk to Sam
.

The real difference this morning was that Gaia sounded happy.

GAIA CAME OUT OF THE SHOWER
with one of the tunes from the night before running through her head. She walked across the bedroom wrapped only in a towel, but she had a hard time walking.
Her feet still wanted to dance.


The Girl in the Mirror

She had started to rummage through the clothes beside her bed when she noticed the black dress thrown across her chair.

I wore that. I went out in public in that.

No one had laughed. At least, if someone had laughed, Gaia didn't notice them. The guy she had danced with--Inego, his name was Inego--certainly hadn't been laughing.

Gaia paused, stood up, and walked across the room to the mirror. Carefully she studied her reflection in the mirror.

Gaia wasn't prepared to admit that Mary was right--no way was she beautiful.
Not by a long shot.
Still, maybe things weren't so bad as Gaia had always thought. Sure, her legs were packed with muscle. But were they so awful? Her shoulders and arms were bulked up, too, but this morning they didn't look so terribly hulkish.

Gaia tried to imagine what it would be like if she

didn't know that girl in the mirror. What if she were just to meet this girl on the street or maybe at school? What if she didn't know this was Gaia Moore, fearless expert in all things kung fu and girl freak? Would she really think this blond stranger looked that bad?
Could she be normal?
Could she even be ...

The phone rang. Gaia was across the room in a flash, leaving her towel behind as she ran. She grabbed the receiver and, for once in her life, managed to answer before Ella could get to the phone downstairs. "Hello," she said.

"Gaia?"

"Ed!" Still naked and damp from the shower, Gaia threw herself back onto the unmade bed and lay facing the ceiling. "How are you? It's a beautiful morning, huh?"

There was a pause of at least five seconds before Ed spoke. "It's cloudy outside."

"Whatever," said Gaia. "How are you doing?"

"I'm not sure," Ed replied. "I was trying to reach a girl named Gaia."

"That's me."

"Gaia Moore?"

"Don't be an asshole, Ed."

"Hmmm," Ed replied. "That sounds more like it. Okay, maybe I did reach the right girl after all. But you sound different this morning."

Gaia sat up on the bed and ran her fingers through her damp hair. "Different how?"

"I don't know. You sound cheerful, and you're not, I don't know--"

"Not what?"

"Not whining, I guess."

Gaia scowled at the phone. "I do not whine."

"Oh, yeah? Whenever you talk about your foster parents, or Sam, or school, or--"

"Shut up, Ed." Gaia bounced up from the bed, jammed the phone between her shoulder and her ear, and started digging through the available clothes. "If you're so tired of me, you could always call someone else."

ED SHOOK HIS HEAD, THEN REALIZED
that shaking your head didn't work when the other person was on the phone. "No," he said. "The Gaia report is the high point of my day."

Dancing Gaia

"All right, then," Gaia replied. "Stop complaining. Or should I say, stop whining?"

Ed grinned. Gaia did sound different, but she was still Gaia.
The real difference this morning


was that Gaia sounded happy.
That was a condition that didn't happen nearly as often as it should. In Ed's opinion, Gaia needed to be happy all the time. And of course, the way to see that Gaia was happy all the time was to see that she fell in love with Ed.

He started to say something else, but his voice caught, and his smile collapsed. Gaia was happy.

And he was about to ruin it.

"Ed? You still there?"

"Yes." Ed cleared his throat. "I'm still here."

"Hang on for a second. I need to get something on. I'm standing here naked."

Ladies and gentlemen, Ed's mental theater presents:
Gaia Moore Naked.
Now held over for another extremely popular extended run.
Ed considered it an absolute tragedy that the picture phone had never caught on.
He thought of telling Gaia that there was no reason for her to get dressed just to talk on the phone, but he didn't want to give her quite that clear a glimpse into the things that churned in his brain.

"Okay," she said after a few moments. "I'm back."

"So, uh, did you and Mary go to the club last night?"

"Absolutely."

"And what did you do while Mary danced?"

"What do you mean, what did I do?" Gaia shot back, doing a pretty decent imitation of Ed's tone. "I went dancing."

"You?"

"What? Is it so shocking that I can dance?"

Actually, it wasn't shocking at all. It was very easy for Ed to imagine Gaia dancing. She had those incredible long, strong legs.
Dancer's legs.
In his mind Ed could see Gaia spinning and swaying on those legs. Her blond hair flying. He knew without ever seeing it that Gaia would be an incredibly sexy dancer.

"So," she said. "Do want to hear about it?"

"Sure."
Hearing might not be enough,
Ed thought.
How about coming over and doing a demonstration for me?

Ed listened as Gaia described going to the club, getting out on the floor, and starting to dance. Every word increased the heat that was growing inside him. He could picture it in his mind almost as if he were really there. A new feature debuted in his personal Gaia Moore multiplex.
Dancing Gaia.
Of course, in real life Gaia had probably worn clothes while dancing, but Ed thought he could allow a few special effects in his mental movie.

"And when I opened my eyes," Gaia continued, "this guy was there."

The film suddenly broke in Ed's internal cinema and went flipping around the reel. "Sam?"

"No, not Sam. Some guy I never seen before."

"How bad did you hurt him?"

Gaia made a disgusted sound. "I don't automatically hit every guy I meet. I didn't hurt him. We danced together."

"You danced with a strange guy?"

"Did I mention he was really good-looking?" said Gaia. "And he was a really good dancer. We danced together all night. It was great. Maybe better than great. Incredible. I never really . . . I mean, I never danced like that before."

Ed felt a stab of jealousy. He was immediately jealous of any guy who spent time with Gaia. Having Gaia say that the guy was good-looking only opened that wound a little wider. But what really hurt, what really poured the salt into the cut and rubbed it in good, was the fact that Gaia and this good-looking stranger had danced together.

Ed lusted after Gaia twenty-four hours a day.
He was pretty sure that he even loved her. One of these days, if he could show her what a great guy he was and stay close, Gaia might even start to love Ed. After all, she had kissed him, even if it was only once. All he had to do was keep at it and wear down her resistance.

But one thing Ed would never be able to do was dance with Gaia. He would never get to be with her the way the guy from the club had been the night before.

There was a new threat here, a threat maybe even bigger than the hurdle of Sam Moon. It was clear that Gaia liked the dancing.
And the guy.
If she kept going to the clubs, it would mean she saw less of Ed. And more of the guys who were there--guys who could dance.

"Ed?" Gaia called from the other end. "Are you still there?"

"I'm here." The wheelchair suddenly felt very hard

against his back and arms. He adjusted his position, trying to get more comfortable. "So, are you going to see this dancing fool again?"

"No," said Gaia. "At least, I don't think so. I didn't even tell him anything but my first name."

Good. The situation wasn't completely out of control. "So you just left. You and Mary."

"Are you trying to ask if I had sex with this guy?"

"No."
Yes
.

"Well, I didn't. We talked a little bit. And kissed a couple of times. But mostly we danced."

Kissed.


Ed felt like someone had roped a brick to his heart and thrown it in a lake. Gaia had kissed this stranger. Kissing wasn't supposed to be a big deal. People kissed all the time. But Ed had thought Gaia was different. He'd thought that the kiss she had given him was special. Important.

"Ed? You keep going quiet on me. Are you doing something?"

"No." Ed was embarrassed to hear the catch in his voice. "No, just thinking."

"Don't hurt yourself. What's the news? Did you find out anything?"

Ed had almost forgotten the reason for his call. He held the phone away from his face for a second and cleared his throat before speaking. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I found out something."

"So, is Skizz still in the hospital?"

"No." Ed picked up a piece of paper and looked at the notes he had scribbled the night before. "According to the nurse I talked to, his injuries weren't as serious as first believed. Plus the guy had no insurance, so they kicked him out."

"I'm not sure whether I should be happy or upset that he's not that hurt," said Gaia. "If he's out of the hospital, I guess he's in jail."

"That's the really fun part," said Ed. He flipped over his page of notes. "It seems that the drugs found on your boy Skizz were judged to be the product of an illegal search. Inadmissible as evidence."

"So how are they going to keep him in jail?"

"They're not," Ed replied. "Skizz is loose."

MARY BENT DOWN AND PICKED UP A
broken piece of wood. It was no more than a few inches in length, splintered at both ends, and scorched black. It was all that remained of the door to the apartment leased in the name of Tom Chaos.

The Father of Gaia

"So what did he look like?" she asked.

The fruit stand owner scratched at his thinning hair. "I'm not sure I ever met the man," he said.

"Didn't you rent the place to him?"

The man nodded. "I did, but that was over the phone. I never met this Chaos guy in person." The man's face pulled down in a heavy frown. "If I knew what he looked like, I'd be putting up posters. This bastard blew up my stand."

Mary looked across the pile of rubble. "I thought the paper said it was a gas explosion."

The fruit stand owner snorted.
"Oh, yeah, some gas explosion." He waved a thick finger at Mary. "That damn apartment didn't even have gas."

"So what--"

"Who knows." The man kicked at a pile of shattered boards and rotting fruit. "You gonna hang around here, you be careful. I got enough troubles with the insurance guys already." He turned and stomped away.

Mary looked at the ruined fruit stand and the shattered remains of what had once been an apartment. There wasn't much left. The fruit stand had been split down the middle. No one had been killed, but the building was twisted in its frame like a broken toy. Bricks from the back wall had landed as far as two blocks away. Only some of the plumbing still remained where the apartment had been, sticking up into the sky like
the picked-over skeleton of some dead beast.


No one had been killed here, and there had been few witnesses to the actual explosion. It was a small story, buried deep in the pages of the
Times.
Except for the search that Mary's aunt had made, it might have stayed buried.

Mary pulled out her notebook and looked at the few lines she had scribbled. Thomas Chaos had rented the broken apartment. Gaia's father's name was Thomas Moore. There was no real connection. Only two little facts had made Mary come to the site of the ruins.

First, Thomas Chaos didn't exist. All the information he had provided in renting the apartment had turned out to be fake.

Second, in some versions of Greek mythology, Chaos was the father of Gaia.

If those two bits of information fit together as Mary thought, it made for
interesting results.
Gaia Moore's father was somewhere in New York.

That was information Mary thought Gaia might find very interesting.

SAM

It's
supposed to be a dream. In fact, it's supposed to be the classic dream, something every male in America fantasizes about
.

You're sitting alone when this beautiful woman walks up and sits down beside you. You might be drunk enough to think any woman looks good, but you're not drunk enough that you don't recognize gorgeous when you see it. True, this woman might be a little older than you, and she might be a little more slutty than your usual taste, but isn't that part of the way the dream works? This is a woman with a lot of experience when it comes to sex
.

This beautiful woman--beautiful, sexy woman--starts to talk to you. She tells you you're cute. She says she likes you. She tells you she's all alone. She puts her hand on your leg. She brings her face so close, you can smell the flavor of her lipstick. And eventually she asks you if
you want to go home with her
.

What are you going to say?


So, the two of you end up in a hotel room, and the dress comes off, and she's just as sexy as you thought she would be. Her body is incredible
.

She's as experienced as you thought she was. She knows exactly what do with her hands. And her mouth. And her body. Even if you're half drunk--even if you're ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent drunk--you're not falling asleep on this performance. She moves like no one you've ever met. She bends in places you didn't even know human beings had joints. She keeps you going not just once or twice but until exhaustion catches up with drunk and the room spins. When you fall asleep, she's still pressed against you. Warm, and soft, and sexy
.