Maybe Baby (13 page)

Thirteen

Nick and Dana returned to Babs’s penthouse from the hotel to find that someone had delivered bird food and a cage; Babs must have set it up that morning, sometime before she got kidnapped. Nick got the bird settled on the terrace, which was no small feat. The second he opened the box, it hopped out and bit his hand. It was another ten minutes of chasing the damn thing around the terrace before Nick was able to capture it in the hotel towel and battle it into the cage. In the process, he discovered that the bird’s smell got even nastier when it was pissed off.

Good to know. He guessed.

When he came back in, he found Dana sitting on the couch, staring at his cell phone, which she’d set out on the coffee table. Her eyes fluttered as she stared, and she looked exhausted.

“They’re probably not gonna call,” he said.

“They might.”

“You should get some sleep.”

“No.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m gonna go take a shower and throw these clothes in the wash.”

“Yeah, you stink.”

“Thanks a lot.”

She grinned up at him. “That’s one foul bird.”

“Okay. Enough.”

“Get it? Foul bird?
Fowl
bird? Come on. This is my best material.”

“Get some sleep,” he said over his shoulder as he headed to the laundry room. Since the hotel, something had shifted between them. Dana had seemed more comfortable, and they’d joked and laughed through most of the cab ride back to Babs’s place.

It had been like old times.

It had been nice.

When he came out of the shower he found Dana passed out on the couch, her head leaning against the arm at an angle that was sure to hurt later. He tried to wake her up, but when it became obvious to him that she was down for the count, he gently lifted her and carried her into the guest bedroom. He took her shoes off and folded the quilt up and over her, then sat on the edge of the bed and watched her sleep until the dryer buzzed.

Then he sat on the couch and stayed there for what must have been hours, because when he lifted out of his thoughts and became conscious of his surroundings again, it was dark out. Staring up at the vague city shadows playing on the ceiling, he focused on what he had to do next.

He had to tell her. Everything. It was time. Since they’d left the hotel he’d known that he was fooling himself thinking he could just leave and let it all go. The kiss that morning and the near sex in the hotel could be chalked up to overwhelming physical chemistry, but it was the easy comfort they’d slipped into afterward that had made his heart ache for her. Sure, he wanted to find out if she was wearing electric blue underwear, but more than that, he wanted to wake up to her bad jokes every morning for the rest of his life.

He realized his chances were slim, but without coming clean to Dana about everything, he didn’t have a prayer of keeping her. At least this way, if he ended up still going to California, he would know it was because Dana wouldn’t have him and not because he never tried.

That might not be much, but it was something.

***

Dana opened her eyes and focused on the blazing red numerals on the bedside clock. 10:23. Wow. She tried to put the day together, to distinguish what had been a dream and what had been real. It all seemed like a dream. Kissing Nick. Babs being kidnapped. The faux-fight in the dingy bar. The bald bird guy. The incredibly sexy interlude in the hotel, followed by a cab ride and the hottest up-against-the-wall sex of her life.

She blinked. Wait. She remembered the cab ride, then sitting on the couch staring at Nick’s cell phone, but that was it. She must have fallen asleep on the couch, and Nick must have carried her into the bed in the guest room.

The hot wall sex was the only part that hadn’t been real. She should have known, now that she thought about it, since the wall had been in her house back at the winery, but still.

“Oh, God,” she thought, and put her hand to her forehead. What if she’d been having that dream while Nick was carrying her into the room? What if she’d done something or said something or worse—what if she’d…?

She gasped and shot up in bed, the thought horrifying her as her face flamed.

“You okay?”

She looked up to see Nick silhouetted in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe. He was wearing his black T-shirt and jeans, and even with his back to the light she could tell by his voice he was smiling.

“Yeah,” Dana said, moving her legs over the side of the bed. “Thanks for putting me in bed.”

“You would have been in a world of hurt if I’d let you stay on the couch.”

She nodded, looked up at him. “Did anyone call?”

Nick shook his head. “No. We probably won’t be hearing anything until tomorrow morning.”

“So, now we just… wait?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Pretty much.”

She couldn’t see much of his face in the dark, but if he was feeling anything near what she was feeling, it was probably best to move it out of the bedroom. They’d managed, ever since the hotel, to get the friendly tone back in their relationship; but that was an easy boat to rock, and she needed something solid under her feet at the moment.

“Well, I don’t know about you,” she said, standing up and padding past him into the living room, “but I’m starving.”

The hall light was the only one on in the whole place, leaving the penthouse washed in mostly the dull glow from the city outside.

“What’s with the vampire ambience?” Dana asked as she headed to the kitchen. Nick followed her.

“Nothing, really,” he said. “I’ve just been sitting. Thinking.”

Dana pulled open the refrigerator door. “Thinking? About what?”

He cleared his throat. “Stuff.”

“Well, at least it’s nothing too vague.” Dana inspected the contents of the fridge. Two containers of leftover Chinese takeout, some coffee creamer, and half a cannoli. She smiled and grabbed for the takeout. “There never has been a woman in my family who could cook worth a damn.”

“No, there never has.”

She glanced up to see Nick watching her, unsmiling. God. So serious. As soon as the food was in the microwave, they were definitely going to have to lighten things up. Starting with the lights.

“So,” she said, holding out the two plastic take-out bowls, “Mongolian Beef or Szechuan Chicken?”

“I never slept with Melanie.”

Dana stared up at him, her mind taking a moment to translate what he’d said. Had he just said he never slept with Melanie?

“So… the Mongolian Beef then?” she said weakly.

He kept his eyes on her, and in the glow from the still-open refrigerator, she could see the tension in his face. He took in a deep breath.

“I had actually planned that to come out a little smoother.”

“I should hope to God so,” Dana said, “because as far as jarring statements go, I’m still feeling that one buzzing in my teeth.”

He met her eyes, and he looked nervous, which was definitely not like Nick. “She got to the house that night about five minutes before you did. I’d been drinking. She undressed and threw herself at me, then you walked in and I threw her out but I was too drunk to drive out after you so I passed out on the floor and left the next morning.”

Dana blinked. “Are you babbling? Isn’t babbling my thing? Am I still dreaming?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t even know Melanie had told you we’d slept together until later and I didn’t tell you the truth because I wanted you to hurt as much as I was hurting and by the time I got over myself it was too late.” Dana felt the left side of her body going cold, then she realized she was still standing in the half-open refrigerator. She put the Chinese food on the counter and shut the door.

“Gee. Get a load of that. I haven’t eaten a bite, and I’m suddenly not hungry anymore.”

“I know I should have told you…”

“You know, this could be a great diet. Every time I want to eat, you tell me about Melanie undressing for you. I’ll be totally hot by bikini season.”

He kept his eyes on the floor. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be, you big ass,” she said, not able to control the volume or stability of her voice. “I realize it’s weird for me to be angrier about you not sleeping with Melanie than I was about you sleeping with her, because sleeping with her should be worse but…”

Nick’s eyebrows twitched toward each other. “So… you’re saying you’re mad, then?”

“Yes, I’m mad!” she said. “I’m furious! I just don’t know if I have the right to be, which is making me a little hysterical on top of it.”

Nick ran his hand over his hair. “You have every right—”

“Don’t do that!” she said. “Don’t be all contrite and noble and ‘I don’t blame you’ about it. It just makes my raving hysteria look worse, which makes me angrier, which then feeds the hysteria… Do you see how we’re in a vicious cycle here?”

He finally met her eyes. “What do you want me to do?”

She stared up at him, her emotions jumbling in a mass of confusion at her center.

“You want to know what I want you to do? Is that what you’re asking?”

“I want to know what I can do—”

“You can grow warts on your face and you… you… you can gain a lot of weight and go bald and smell odd so that every time I see you, I don’t feel like this. You can be a horrible, petty, evil person, so that when I go to sleep at night alone—and it’s always alone—I don’t feel that cold hollowness in my gut because you’re not there. You can… not be you, but you are you and I…”

She trailed off, having no idea where she was going to go with that last bit. The fact was, he was Nick, and he’d always be Nick, and nothing was ever going to change what he did to her.

He took a step toward her and touched her elbow, and it hurt. Everything about him hurt right now—the sincerity in his eyes, the honest contrition that radiated off him, making it really hard for her to feel justified in her anger. All she wanted was to not be around him for a while.

“I need some air,” she said, pushing him lightly out of her way as she darted past him and out of the kitchen.

This time, she heard no sounds of his following her.

Fourteen

Finn spotted Toby as soon as he turned the corner onto Fifty-first Street. The guy was maybe five-foot-eight standing on a curb, unremarkable in every way, which made him the perfect accomplice. So innocent and ordinary that even when people remembered him at the scene of the crime—and that had happened once or twice—they never associated him with the bird theft.

Toby took a long drag off a cigarette as he leaned on one of
Chez Animaux
signature white vans, which had vague markings on the side that could either be a French poodle or the black mark of death, depending on which side of the Rorschach test you woke up on. Finn held out his hand for a smoke as he approached. Toby flicked his wrist, and a cigarette jumped out of the pack. Finn grabbed it, lit, and inhaled before speaking.

“What’s the outlook?”

Toby jerked his chin indicating Mrs. McGregor’s penthouse.

“Been dark since I got here, which was around ten, so I’m guessing no one’s home. You want me to call up and see?”

“No,” Finn said. If McGregor got the cops involved—slim chance, since his research informed him that Kakapos were illegal anywhere outside the conservation habitat, but still—Finn didn’t want to have a call traceable to him at this time of night. This was the big job, the final score, the last time he’d ever have to deal with a bird for money. Fucking it up was not an option.

Toby opened the passenger-side door of the van and pulled out a blue jacket with C
HEZ
A
NIMAUX
embroidered on the front, then tossed it at Finn. Finn peered into the van and saw a large bag of exotic bird food sitting on the front seat.

“You know the drill?” Finn asked.

Toby rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I go to the front door with the food. I make a distraction. You sneak in. Same as every other time.” Toby pulled out a chunk of pink chewing gum and grinned. “I’ve got a new bit.”

Finn put the cap on his head and gave Toby a dubious look. “Can’t you just do a job without making a big production out of everything?”

“Look, man. You’re the thief here. I’m an actor. You hired me to play a role, I’m gonna play it.” Toby popped the gum in his mouth. “Epileptic Fit with a side of Choking on Bubble Gum. It’s gonna be great. Too bad you’ll miss it.”

Finn shook his head, shrugged into the jacket. “Whatever, man.”

“Why? What’s the matter with Epileptic Fit?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s a good bit,” Toby said.

“Whatever.”

Toby smacked him on the shoulder. “I’m telling you, it’s great. Check it out.” He twitched from his shoulder, rolled his eyes back in his head, jerked his arms around a bit, made choking sounds, then smiled and cracked his gum. “See? Good, huh?”

Finn sucked down the last of his cigarette and stomped it out on the ground. “It’s just a little obvious. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Hmmm.” Toby blew a big bubble and popped it, sucking the gum back into his mouth. “Fuck it. I like it. I’m going with it.”

“Look, man, I don’t care if you do the first act of Hamlet, just get the doorman out that front door. Got it?”

Toby grinned. “Got it.”

“Good. Give me the sack.”

Toby reached into the van and pulled out a canvas bag, handing it to Finn. Finn held his hand out. Toby stared at him blankly.

“What?”

“Keys.”

“But I signed the van out.”

“Yeah, and I’m not gonna be taking the subway with the bird when the doorman calls the paramedics and has your epileptic ass hauled off to the hospital.”

“Fine, just bring it back first thing in the morning. I don’t want to get a call from Greeley chewing my ass out.” Toby dug into his pocket and handed over the keys. Finn started to cross the street.

“Hey, asshole,” Toby called.

“What?” Finn said.

“Actors Guild rules, man. I get paid up front.”

Finn watched Toby for a minute, then dug in his pocket for his cash.

“You know, it’s a shame how people can’t trust each other anymore,” he said, peeling five hundred-dollar bills off the small wad of cash in his hand. “Sign of a society in trouble.”