Liar's Game (24 page)

I moved her stun gun to the side, searched top to bottom, and didn’t find anything else. No phone numbers.

Nothing at first.

Underneath her letter from the IRS was her pager. It was turned off; the messages might’ve been rolling over to her answering service.

I scrolled through the numbers. My after-hours pages weren’t the last ones she’d received. Two had come in within the last thirty minutes. From the same number. And it wasn’t Gerri’s 310-671-whatever number over in Inglewood’s Carlton Square. I didn’t think that a client would be calling way after midnight to ask about an open house, maybe just searching for some legs to open, so I wrote the number down.

A jackhammer was living inside of my chest. I put the pager back, left her purse where I found it, and crawled back into the bed. But ten seconds didn’t pass before I pulled the covers back again, tipped into the kitchen, and dialed that number. Had to know what was up.

“Thank you for calling the Wyndham Bel Age Hotel.”

That caught me off guard. I asked the sister to repeat the name of the hotel. Asked where they were located. They were on Green Valley Circle in Culver City. Five minutes away.

I hung up. Wanted to know who’d call my woman from a hotel in the middle of the night. There was no extension on the pager, that meant she knew.

New feelings crawled over my skin like an army of African ants. My first mind told me that I should’ve done like Womack said, grabbed her shoulders and rattled her cage right then, but Womack had suggested that I do something that he wouldn’t do his damn self.

Something I knew I could never do again.

Dana woke up long enough to murmur, “You all right, sweetie?”

I nodded in the dark. She hadn’t called me sweetie in a while.

“What’s the matter, baby? Why you keep getting up?”

I replied, low and uneasy, “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

Dana softly said, “Vince?”

I waited a couple of seconds. “Yeah.”

“Sweetie, I love you so much it scares me.”

“Same here.”

Dana spoke in a sensitive tone, “I’m just going through some changes, I guess. Things are on my mind, and I’m scared, so fucking scared because this is new territory for me, and I don’t know how to address the issues.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Ignore me. I’m just looking for reasons to argue, I think.”

“Why?”

“Frustrated?”

“Why?”

“Shhh. We have to work in a few hours. Close your eyes.”

I kissed her head. “Don’t let that worm dig too deep.”

“I won’t.”

She wrapped around me like she never wanted to let me go, like she owned me. Her affectionate touch made that jackhammer feeling go away.

Just that quick she was asleep, almost as if she’d never woke up.

My fingers drifted back and forth across her satin scarf. Rubbed her pea-size head like she was mine all mine. I moaned out a gust of worry, stared at the ceiling until sleep robbed me of consciousness.

I made it home around six. Put on my purple nylon shorts and running shoes. Purple was a neutral color, didn’t belong to any gang. I conquered Stocker, tackled two-mile-high hills in Baldwin Vista—Cloverdale and Veronica—then jetted back down Hillcrest and found my blue-collar world, made it home around eight.

I cranked the shower up and hopped in with eight miles of aches, and the pain felt good. The music was bumping, so I got my bathtub boogie on.

The shower curtain swayed when the front door opened quick and closed hard. Bags rustled. Soft singing. Heels clicked across the tile on the kitchen floor. Then Dana came down the hallway into the bathroom. Smiled.

She had on a long woven skirt and top, maize and burgundy colors flowing in a horizontal pattern. The outfit was new. Hair pulled up like a queen. Silver geometric jewelry I’d never seen before.

New clothes. New jewelry. Subtle changes.

I asked, “Where’ve you been?”

“Food shopping. Want to make my world-famous turkey nachos.”

“Close the shower curtain.”

She eased the curtain back some more. She lowered her voice. “Maybe the nachos can wait. Room for two?”

“Yeah.”

She undressed where she stood. Folded her clothes and took them into the bedroom. First there was a new darkness from the curtains being drawn, the sound of matches being struck, then the smell of incense romanticizing the air. The radio was changed from the hip-hop on KKBT. I heard the cassette door open, then close. Instrumental jazz kicked in a new kind of mood. A second later her craving came to me with a smile, nipples hard with anticipation.

The shower rained over us. I cleansed my fiancée’s back, ran my soapy hands over the molds and curves I knew so well. She murmured. All lights were off; all bets were on. The aroma of the Black Love incense mixed with the sounds of the Boney James
Seduction
tape rippling from the boom box in the bedroom, his sax blowing out smooth rhythms with a gentle bass line.

Dana turned to me and we shared a wealth of insatiable kisses. Water bounced off the wall and drizzled our faces like a spray from a river gone wild. She kissed my face, moaned, loaned me soft sucks and lagged her tongue over my neck, back to my mouth, over my chest, enjoyed my nipples. I loved the shit out of that. The shower steamed like soft clouds from heaven.

She said, “I know what you like.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

Her kisses flowed south, below my equator, my hot spot. Heat and moisture from the inside of her mouth. I gripped the shower wall and tried to keep my knees sturdy, fought to keep the sensation from overwhelming me. I gazed down on her motions, watched her fill herself with me, watched her work it.

I moaned, closed my eyes. Imagined myself being a man who controlled everything around him. I opened my eyes. Let the light from reality shine through. Dana rubbed that rigid part of me on the side of her face.

She brought her mouth to mine, her damp breasts to my chest, let her hand massage the part of me she’d seasoned.

“I want you inside me.”

“Let me get a condom.”

“Without one. I need to feel you.”

“We’ve never gone bareback.”

“First time for everything. Please me. Come inside me.”

“We can’t. Not without a condom.”

“You been with somebody else?”

“No.”

“What’s the problem?”

“You’ve never wanted to do me without one—why now?”

“I’m gonna be your wife. Can’t I feel you for a minute?”

“What if, you know.”

“What if what? What if I get pregnant?”

“Yeah.”

“Why you have to say it like that?”

“You know we’re not ready for that.”

“Chill out, sweetie. I’m not ovulating.”

“We shouldn’t take that chance.”

“I just came off my period. It’s safe. Don’t you trust me?”

“This ain’t about that.”

“Well, if you want to, you could pull out before—”

“Dana, let’s not play that game. Let me get a condom.”

“Never mind. Never mind. Never mind. Forget it.”

Dana slid an inch in a new direction. Pulled her braids back, held her face toward the shower, rinsed the soap off her neck, stepped out, water dripping from her body, dried off in two seconds, wrapped a green towel from her breasts to her hips, put one over her hair, grabbed the Listerine from underneath the cabinet, and gargled deep, hard, and long. Over and over she spat, rinsed, gargled again.

“You can stick your dick in my mouth, but you want to put a condom on to go inside me. Makes me feel less than I am.”

I was still in the shower, alone with the warm water turning cold, my penis harder than an ancient Chinese writing block, throbbing for relief. My handle took on a life of its own, screamed and aimed at Dana the way the provoked creatures in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
pointed at the humans who needed to be changed.

I switched the water to cold and calmed myself the best I could. But some days my best ain’t good enough.

By the time I got out, Dana was in the kitchen pouring herself a glass of juice. I stood naked with liquid almond soap creeping across my flesh and stared at her. She swallowed her juice, then returned my glare.

I went to the bedroom and picked up the frame with my child’s picture in it, the wooden frame she’d crammed the photo into. I took the picture of me and Dana out of the silver frame and put my child’s back inside. Dana’s was put back into the wooden frame.

Dana went back into the kitchen, nodding all the way.

I went into the bathroom, grabbed a towel, dried off what water hadn’t been burned away by the heated anger brewing deep inside my soul. Sat on the edge of the tub, head down. My hands doubled up into fists. I was about to come apart, but I found my cooltivity, pushed the troubled man in me aside, let the feeling of control take control. Slowly opened my hands.

I’m a peaceful man by nature. Can’t afford to get riled.

When I raised my head, Dana was standing over me. One foot on top of the other, leaning against the door frame, her eyes burrowing in mine.

“Would it be so bad if I did get pregnant?”

“Dana, please, babe.”

“Maybe that’s something we should talk about, if we want kids. How many, if any at all. We’ve never talked about it, and I assumed you do. Assumed you did. But that was before I knew you already had a child.”

“Well, right now we don’t have any real savings, no room in a one-bedroom apartment. We’re living on top of each other as it is.”

“I can’t get pregnant. Not today. I know my body.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Would you want me to kill it because you already got one?”

“Let’s not play hypothetical right now, okay?”

“This isn’t play, this is for real. This is the kind of shit people should talk about before they go this far.”

“Not now.”

“Then I know your answer. You know, I’m telling you that you can trust me with anything, but your message is loud and clear. That’s another reason why I never wanted to get with a man who had a child. It’s always that sorry-eyed, selfish ‘I already got a baby, I can’t afford another one, here’s half the money, why don’t you run down to the corner and get an abortion’ crap a brother sobs and spits out when he fucks you pregnant.”

“You saying you’re pregnant?”

“No.” A moment passed. She said, “I’m saying I love you, Vincent Browne. Loved you damn near from the moment I saw you.”

An intermission in the conversation lasted ten seconds.

Dana said, “It wasn’t about the damn condom. I needed a new level, a deeper connection with you. I really needed to feel you. Really wanted you to feel me without that barrier taking away some of the feeling.”

Her sweet, sensitive personality had resurfaced. The vulnerable side she had shown me out on the beach, the woman I’d met and fallen in love with.

“Vince?”

“Yeah?”

“I apologize. You okay?”

“I’m cool.”

“Forgive me?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I have a kiss?”

“Yeah.”

We did.

Dana said, “Cheer up.”

“Nothing to cheer up about.”

Dana opened her hand. Two golden condoms were inside.

I gazed at my limp manhood. Pillow-soft ebony flesh with no definition. My mood had become a casualty. It wasn’t impotence. Not a Viagra moment. It was missing desire. I had less appetite for Dana than a corpse has plans for tomorrow.

Dana kneeled, came closer, reached for my penis. Her head lowered, eyes focused, mouth eased open. The warmth of her breath was on my wrinkled skin. I intercepted her face with my hand.

I said, “Later.”

“I need you now.”

“Too much on my mind.”

“Try, okay?”

“Later. I need to get out and get some fresh air.”

Her lips curved up into a mutilated smile. “Sure.”

She stood, held my hand. I stood, let myself dangle. Disappointment was in her eyes. I followed her into the bedroom. We both found our own space, dressed without looking at each other. Her reflection was in the rectangular mirror on the wall. Like a merry-go-round, her eyes kept floating about the room. To the bed. To the dresser. Toward the pictures. To me. To the closet. To her reflection.

She clicked the tape off, then lay down on the mattress.

Five minutes later, I told her I was about to drive over to Womack’s for a while. Don’t know if she heard me. She was breathing hard and deep, holding herself, like she was asleep.

I put my hand on the doorknob. The phone rang. Dana picked up before the first ring was done.

Her soft voice, a short pause, pure silence, then she yelled, “Vince! Phone.”

I crept into the doorway. Dana had dropped the phone next to her hipbone. She sighed with a weary smile, fidgeted, picked at her toenails. I’d have to be up under her when I answered.

I cleared my throat, put the phone to my ear: “What’s up?”

“Vincent. This is Malaika.”

My world stopped revolving.

I took a slow breath and said her name: “Malaika?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” Her voice, unsteady. “How’s it going, Vince?”

Hearing Malaika’s voice jarred me down to the bone. It was like getting that middle-of-the-night call from a relative who never called, and you know they’re going to tell you something horrific had happened.

I asked Malaika, “How’s Kwanzaa? I mean, everything okay?”

“We’re blessed.” Malaika’s tone was hesitant. “I called to thank you for the little package you sent. That was unexpected.”

“Your mother forwarded it to Germany that quick?”