The First Cut (2 page)

The woman’s demeanor was as oddball as her appearance. She was wearing a masculine pantsuit, a white button-down shirt, a rep tie, polished wingtips, and a billed chauffeur’s cap. From beneath the cap, a platinum blond braid dropped to the middle of her back. White frosted lipstick set off a deep tan. Heart-shaped, red plastic sunglasses obscured her eyes.

“My boss was robbed. He was
robbed,
” she wailed in a high-pitched voice. “A man, with a gun.”

“Where?”

People turned their attention from the dancers to watch this show.

“Outside. In the parking lot. Please help us.
Please.
”

“When?”

“Just now. Come out. I’ll show you.”

“Is the man with the gun still there?” Frankie’s stoic demeanor cracked and she appeared bewildered.

“No, no. Just come out.” The chauffeur didn’t wait but bolted out the door.

Frankie jogged after her, quickly catching up. “My boss was robbed. What kind of crap is that, Pussycat?”

Still running, one hand holding her hat on her head, the other cradling her large breasts to keep them from bouncing, Pussycat let out a squeal. “Your acting stinks.”

“I thought we were meeting inside.”

“Change of plans.”

Pussycat’s voice was airy and her speech rapid.

Frankie couldn’t see her eyes behind the heart-shaped sunglasses. “How high are we?”

Pussycat gave her a big, open-mouthed grin. “I’m having a real good time.”

“Maybe a little over-amped, huh? You’d better check yourself.”

“Oh, Officer Lynde. You just can’t stop being a cop, can you?” She squealed as they approached a limousine that was parked in the farthest corner of the lot and laughed with abandon when the passenger door dropped open.

Panting from the run, Pussycat resumed the ruse. “He’s in there, Officer. My boss is in there.”

Frankie climbed into the back of the limo and the chauffeur, giggling, closed the door after her.

“Good evening, Officer Lynde.”

He was immaculate in a white tuxedo with tails, a red rose in his lapel.

His wife climbed behind the wheel and pulled the limo into the street. The entrance to the 105 was less than a block away. She got on heading east.

He took Frankie’s breath away. He always did, but tonight…Something was different tonight. Something was special. He had requested that she wear her uniform. The only other time she’d been with them in uniform was when they had first met.

John Lesley had walked into her life at the best and worst time for debauchery. She was in a moribund relationship, each waiting for the other to drive home a stake. She suspected her inamorato was covertly doing just that as she’d gotten wind that he was stepping out with someone else. This hurt and infuriated Frankie in equal measure. The SOB didn’t have the balls to end it like a man. Prick bastard. While at an endless luncheon banquet, she’d received a text message from him canceling their date. CNT 2DAY. L8TR. She sought solace in a cigarette outside.

John Lesley was seated at a table on the hotel patio, drinking a glass of beer and smoking a cigar. She took note of him, as she did everything. She took in his expensive suit and the way his physique filled it just right, his stylish dark hair flecked with gray, and his profile, like that of a matinee idol from the days of black-and-white movies. She kept moving to the garden wall that bordered the pool and hiked her hip onto it.

She took out a cigarette and he was beside her, gold lighter in hand. She guided his hand with the flame and their eyes locked. They stood silently, smoking. She saw he was not wearing a wedding ring.

She held out her cigarette and turned it in front of her face. “We’re a couple of outlaws.”

“These days.” Holding his beer, he raised it in a way that asked if she wanted one.

She declined.

He gave her a crooked smile and leisurely looked her over, returning to her eyes. “No drinking on duty.”

“That’s the rule.”

“Do you always follow the rules?”

“When it works for me.”

“You know what they say about rules.”

She dragged on her cigarette. “I think I broke that one, too.”

Standing too close, he sipped the beer and watched her, openly and unapologetically, with no attempt to hide his thoughts. She read his thoughts. His gaze alone made her tingle. She had no trouble imagining what his hands, mouth, and body would do.

She took the beer from him and finished it all at once. She handed the empty glass back to him and licked her lips. Walking back inside, she felt his eyes on her.

She took her seat at the banquet table. Shortly, he came in and sat a few tables away, next to a pretty woman with long hair dyed an assertive shade of auburn. He and the woman chatted in that casually intimate but disinterested way of old friends or married couples. They both gazed at her across the tables that separated them. The woman twirled a strand of hair and Frankie caught the glint cast by her wedding rings.

After a further exchange of disagreeable text messages with her lover, Frankie pushed aside her dessert plate and excused herself. She was staring into the restroom mirror, lip gloss poised in her hand, when the woman with auburn hair entered. She toured the room, glancing beneath stalls, and returned to stand beside her. She wore a simple black dress and understated, real jewelry, but she somehow made the ensemble look provocative and a whiff trashy. The two women fussed with their hair, neither speaking.

A toilet flushed. A woman emerged from a stall and washed her hands. Soon Frankie and the redhead were alone. She stepped close enough to fill Frankie’s nostrils with an alluring mixture of delicate perfume and money. She came right to the point.

“I’m Pussycat. My husband and I like you. We want you to come with us. We’ll have caviar and champagne or cocaine or whatever the hell you want and we’ll fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before.”

Frankie had heard of vice detectives who had become too close to the Job. When she’d first started working vice, the thought was outrageous to her. She’d planned to do her year or so then work on moving into homicide. Three years later, she was still in vice and had no intention of leaving. The Job had worked on her. Made her see things about herself. It was tough, trying to keep people from pursuing their basic urges, restraining their unhealthy impulses when she was having the same struggle herself.

She’d met them later and they’d spent the weekend in the penthouse suite of an exclusive hotel. She’d gone lots of other nights, too. Mostly they went to the couple’s home. It was big and private and perfect for their kind of partying. The sex slowly got rougher and the setup, disguises, and rules of the game more complex. John Lesley had a predator’s instinct for luring her in. He stoked her confidence and dependence on him while, ever so slowly, they progressed from the erotic and experimental to the perverted. She once came home with bruises, nothing visible outside her clothes, and locks of hair yanked out. She refused to meet him again, but he wore her down. Near the first of the month, when things were tight and the mortgage on her tiny condo was due, a knock on her door brought a messenger with a robin’s egg blue box from Tiffany’s and a manila envelope crammed with crisp hundred-dollar bills. Not having to worry about money for the first time in her life was blissfully freeing. A natural aphrodisiac.

Didn’t she deserve nice things? She’d busted her hump her whole life and was still on the outside looking in. She had also missed the sexy excitement of the tightrope walk he represented. Worse yet, she missed him. She’d fallen in love with him a little. That made her feel crazier than she wanted to accept.

What she was doing was immoral, but it wasn’t illegal. She’d checked. She’d also checked them out. Knew everything about them. Knowledge was power and she made sure she was always in control. She told herself that the moment she stopped feeling in control, she’d walk away, keeping his gifts and money. She had told no one and made sure there were no traces between them. She had taken pains to avoid an ugly confrontation between her two lives. As for the Lesleys, they also held her at arm’s length. Frankie flirted with worst-case scenarios, but the style suited her personal agenda. Their liaison would eventually end and no one wanted repercussions.

It was beyond dangerous. Every cop instinct in her body told her so. And it was thrilling.

Frankie said to him, “Sir, I understand you’ve been robbed.”

At a stoplight, the smoked-glass partition rolled down and Pussycat grinned back at them, her teeth unnaturally white and her lips too full.

“I haven’t been robbed yet, Officer Lynde, but I’m ready.”

He pulled away his tuxedo jacket, exposing himself through his unzipped pants.

Pussycat let out a throaty laugh.

“I’ll take your report now, sir.”

Frankie lowered her head to his lap.

He stretched his arms across the seat back. “That’s right, baby. That’s it.”

She felt his excitement building.

Grabbing her tightly pinned hair, he followed her up-and-down motion. Suddenly, he forced her head down and held it there. She began to choke and struggled to push away. He let go. She didn’t like his smug expression.

She reached for the pepper spray on her equipment belt. “You prick. I warned you about that rough stuff.”

She could tell he relished her distress.

There was a flicker of that look in his eyes. The look that betrayed his soul. It quickly passed, making Frankie wonder if she’d misjudged. He smiled and caressed her face between his hands. The smile of a charming man. She was still a sucker for it. She couldn’t get past it. It had to do with not receiving enough attention from her father growing up and blah, blah, blah. She slid the pepper spray back into its sleeve.

“Aw, Officer Lynde, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“I have something for you.”

“You already gave me something I didn’t like.” Lately she’d wondered if the party was coming to an end.

He took a small box from his inside jacket pocket and ceremoniously opened the hinged lid.

She drew in a sharp breath as he slipped the watch around her wrist. She caught the look in Pussycat’s eyes in the rearview mirror and took pleasure in the hint of shock and hurt there. Maybe the wife was the one who was on the way out.

“Patek Philippe,” he said. “Twenty-five grand.”

“It’s beautiful.” The watch was gold and paper thin, lying nearly flush against her wrist. A line of diamonds around the face sparkled.

Pussycat kept driving, her shoulders stiff.

“I have something for you, too, my love,” he told his wife.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Something you want. It’s at home.” He rolled his eyes. “Women.”

They had left the freeway and were heading up Mulholland Drive. Pussycat pulled off onto a lookout point. Twinkling lights blanketed the landscape to land’s end. A classic L.A. postcard. No other cars were parked there. Pussycat got out and climbed into the back with them.

Frankie gulped the flute of Cristal that John Lesley gave her and closed her eyes as Pussycat massaged her shoulders, the watch issue forgotten.

“Poor Frankie. She works so hard.” She began unbuttoning Frankie’s shirt.

He refilled Frankie’s glass, stuck his finger in the champagne, and painted her lips. She sucked his finger. She threw the brimming glass to the floor and began kissing him and madly ripping at his clothes as Pussycat did the same to her. She felt her equipment belt fall away and raised her hips to allow Pussycat to pull off her slacks.

He gently guided her head to where he wanted her. Relaxed now and aroused, she started again. She couldn’t wait.

This was her addiction, this feeling of wild abandon, of doing and having, wasting money and indulging every fantasy. They sometimes drove past MacArthur Park near downtown L.A. and let fistfuls of twenty-dollar bills flutter from the limo’s moon roof just to laugh as the drug addicts and dealers chased and fought over the money. They rolled in sex for days on end. Later, at work or at home, the guilt would come and Frankie would ask herself why. But not now. The moment had taken hold. Why had no meaning here. Why was the lament of the weak and sleeping.

He was close. He was there.

He slid his hands around Frankie’s throat and squeezed.

Frankie tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her. This was too soon for the rough stuff. She flailed her arms and reached for her gun. This was over right now. Where was her gun?

She heard Pussycat jabbering incoherently and felt her trying to pry off his fingers.

Frankie reached up and jabbed her thumbs into his eyes. She bit down on him as hard as she could. He cried out, but it wasn’t a cry of true, sustained pain and it sounded far away. Her thumbs and jaw had no force. There were spots in front of her eyes and a metallic taste in her mouth.

The last thing she saw before going out was his face. It was pure evil.

T W O

I
T WAS NEARLY A YEAR SINCE OFFICER NAN VINING HAD LAST WALKED UP
the six low steps that lead to the Pasadena Police Department on her way to work. She wanted to avoid returning so close to the one-year anniversary, but bureaucratic B.S. had interfered, postponing the end of her leave until then. She refused to see it as anything more than coincidence.

Officers generally came in by the back entrance through the garage, but that route would take her through the thick of the graveyard shift, officially called Morning Watch, waiting to go home and the Day Watch preparing to roll out. She needed to make this transition slowly. Ease back in. It had been a long journey. No one except her daughter, Emily, knew how far she had traveled.

At the top of the steps, a supporting post of the arcade bore four plaques commemorating officers killed in the line of duty since the city’s incorporation in 1886. Sergeant Sebastian Crone, shot responding to a liquor store robbery in 1971, was the last. Vining reflected that she had nearly become the fifth name, beneath Crone’s.

“Okay, Em,” Vining whispered, imagining her fourteen-year-old standing beside her. “I’ll be honest.”