The Wild Zone (25 page)

“Jeff?”

Was he still dreaming?

“Jeff?” the voice asked again.

“Suzy?” He shook his head in an effort to clear it.

“Are you all right? Dave told me what happened at the gym. I’ve wanted to call all night. I feel so terrible.”

“Don’t. I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“I must have dozed off. What time is it?”

“Around ten. I can’t talk long. Dave just fell asleep. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m sure.”

“Maybe if I talk to your boss, explain what happened . . .”

“No. It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right. You lost your job.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters. Damn it. It’s all my fault.”

“None of this is your fault,” Jeff said.

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry. You must hate me.”

“Hate you?” Jeff asked incredulously. Then, before he could stop himself, before he knew the words were even forming, “I love you.”

Silence.

“Suzy?”

“I love you, too,” she said.

Another silence, a heartbeat longer than the first.

“What do we do now?” she asked him.

“You have to leave him.”

Suzy took a deep breath, released it slowly, almost purposefully. “I know.”

“Right now,” Jeff instructed. “While he’s asleep. Do you hear me, Suzy? Just get in your car and go straight to the Wild Zone. I’ll call Kristin, tell her what’s going on, get her to take care of you until I get back. . . .”

“What do you mean? Where are you?”

He almost laughed. “I’m in Buffalo,” he said, convinced now he must be dreaming. “I don’t know how it happened. One minute I was standing in front of this travel agency, and the next I was in a cab heading for the airport.”

If Suzy was surprised, she didn’t let on. “I’m glad.”

“You are?”

“It was the right thing to do. I’m sure it meant a lot to your mother.”

“I haven’t seen her yet,” Jeff admitted. “I was planning to go first thing in the morning.”

He felt her nodding her head as she absorbed this latest bit of information. “It’s probably better if I wait till morning, too,” she said.

“What? No. Listen to me, Suzy. You need to get out now. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.”

A sudden intake of breath, then, “I’m sorry,” Suzy announced curtly. “There’s no one here by that name.”

“What?”

“No, I’m afraid you have the wrong number.”

And then another voice, a man’s voice, as clear and as menacing as if he was sitting right beside Jeff. “Who are you talking to, Suzy?” the man asked just before the line went dead in Jeff’s hand.

“Suzy?” Jeff said, jumping to his feet. “Suzy? Are you there? Can you hear me? Shit,” he cried helplessly, pacing back and forth in front of the bed. “Don’t you touch her, you miserable son of a bitch. Don’t you touch her. I swear, if you lay a hand on her, I’ll kill you.” He sank back down on the bed, burying his head in his open palms. “I’ll kill you,” he repeated over and over again. “I swear I’ll kill you.”

TWENTY-FIVE

H
E
DECIDED TO CALL
the police.

“AT'T, 411 nationwide,” came the recorded message when Jeff punched in the number for information minutes later. “For what city and state?”

“Coral Gables, Florida.”

“For what listing?”

“The police.”

“I’m sorry,” the recorded message said, somehow managing to sound appropriately contrite. “I didn’t get that. For what listing?”

“Never mind,” Jeff muttered, snapping his cell phone shut in exasperation. Assuming he’d been able to reach the proper authorities, just what had he been planning to say? “Hello, officer? I think you’d better send a car out to one twenty-one Tallahassee Drive right away; I’m concerned my girlfriend’s husband might be beating the crap out of her”? Yeah, that would go over well.

Although he didn’t necessarily have to go into specifics. He didn’t have to give the police his name or the reasons for his suspicions. He could just be a concerned citizen calling to report a domestic disturbance. Except what if there’d been no such disturbance? What if Dave had chosen to accept his wife’s story of a wrong number without question or fuss? By alerting the police, by sending out a patrol car to investigate, Jeff would only be confirming Dave’s suspicions and sealing Suzy’s fate.

In any event, he doubted the police would be very quick to act on the word of an anonymous caller. They’d want details. At the very least, they’d demand to know who was calling, and when Jeff refused to tell them, when he refused to provide any explanations whatsoever, it was unlikely they’d pursue the matter further. They couldn’t very well go chasing down every vague, unsupported complaint that came their way.

So calling the police was out.

Still, he just couldn’t sit here and do nothing.

“Kristin,” he decided, pressing in her number on speed dial and listening as the phone rang three times before her voice mail picked it up.

“This is Kristin,” her voice purred seductively. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Damn it,” Jeff said, clicking off without leaving a message. What was the point? He glanced at his watch. Of course she wasn’t answering her phone. It was ten o’clock. She’d be at work. “What the hell is their number?” he wondered out loud, searching his memory for the digits he usually knew by heart and finally having to call information again when they failed to materialize. “South Beach, Miami, Florida,” he told the familiar recorded voice. “The Wild Zone.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t get that,” the voice said, as Jeff had been expecting. “For what listing?”

“Shit.”

“I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?”

“No, I fucking can’t,” Jeff hollered.

A real person suddenly replaced the recorded voice. “What was that name again?” the woman asked.

“The Wild Zone,” Jeff repeated, feeling his fingers clench and trying to block out the unwanted image of Dave’s fist connecting with Suzy’s jaw. “Can you hurry, please? It’s really very important.”

“Is that a business?”

“It’s a bar in South Beach.”

Yeah, right. Very important, Jeff could almost feel the woman thinking. “Here it is,” she said after several more seconds.

The recording suddenly returned with the correct number and the offer to connect Jeff directly for a small additional charge. Seconds later, Jeff listened as the phone rang once, twice, three times, four. . . .”

“Wild Zone,” a man bellowed over a combination of loud voices and louder music.

“Put Kristin on the line,” Jeff said, hearing Elvis in the background, belting out “Suspicious Minds.”

“She’s busy right now. Can I give her a message?”

“I need to talk to her. It’s an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?”

“Just put her on the goddamn line.”

And then nothing. Were it not for Elvis wailing away—
We can’t go on together
—Jeff might have thought he’d been disconnected. What was taking Kristin so long?

“Hello?” she asked in the next instant.

“Kristin . . .”

“Jeff?”

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Are you all right? Have you been in an accident?”

“I’m fine.”

“Joe said it was an emergency.”

“It is.”

“I don’t understand. Where are you?”

“I’m in Buffalo.”

“What?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Did your mother die?”

“No. Have you heard from Suzy?”

“What?”

“Suzy Bigelow. Have you heard from her?”

“Why would I hear from her?”

“Because I told her you’d take her to the apartment, hide her from her husband. . . .”

“I don’t understand.”

“That emergency just about over?” Jeff heard a man call out. “You got a bar full of thirsty customers.”

“When were you talking to Suzy?” Kristin whispered into the receiver. “I thought you just said you were in Buffalo.”

“I am. Look, it’s complicated. I’ll explain everything as soon as I get back. In the meantime, if Suzy shows up at the bar, just get Will to take her to the apartment, and don’t tell anyone where she is. Okay?”

A second’s silence, then, “Do you want me to come out there?”

“No. It’s okay. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“You sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow,” Kristin said before hanging up.

“Shit,” Jeff spat, dropping the phone on the bed. He could still hear the confusion in Kristin’s voice but knew it wouldn’t be there for long. She was a smart girl. She’d have his relationship with Suzy figured out in a matter of minutes. Would she be upset or would she simply take it in stride, accepting these unexpected developments the way she did with most things in life she couldn’t control? “Shit,” he said again, trying to understand what was happening to him. Could he really have fallen in love? And was that what love was—this overwhelming feeling of helplessness? After pacing back and forth for several minutes, Jeff stuffed his phone back inside his pocket and headed out the door.

TEN MINUTES LATER
, he found himself standing in a small line at the all-night drugstore around the corner from the motel, waiting to pay for a bag of disposable razor blades, a toothbrush, some toothpaste, and a package containing three pairs of white Jockey shorts, the only color they carried. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to keep his balance, his mind spinning, replaying the day’s events over and over again, like a deejay spinning records at a busy Miami nightclub: Suzy on the phone first thing that morning, Suzy across from him in the diner, Suzy in his arms at the motel, Suzy on the phone just moments ago, Suzy in his head, his brain, his heart.

Had he really told her he loved her?

Had he meant it?

I love you,
he heard himself say.

“How much did you say that was?” an elderly white woman at the head of the line was demanding of the young black man behind the cash register. “I think you’ve made a mistake. That can’t be right. Check again.”

“Five dollars and thirteen cents,” the cashier repeated with a roll of his eyes at those waiting.

I love you, too,
Suzy whispered in Jeff’s ear.

“I thought the deodorant was supposed to be on special.”

“It is. Two dollars and eighty-nine cents. That’s the special price.”

“I’m sorry. That can’t be right.”

I’m sorry. There’s no one here by that name.

“It’s normally three twenty-nine. Two eighty-nine on special.”

“What’s so special about that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t use it.”

“Check again. I’m sure you’ve got it wrong,” the woman insisted.

I’m afraid you have the wrong number.

The young man pulled a colorful flyer out from behind the counter and opened it to the second page. “I don’t have it wrong. See. It’s right here.” He pointed to the appropriate picture. “Special price: two eighty-nine. Now, you want it or don’t you?”

“What choice do I have?” the woman muttered, shaking her head as she slowly counted out the exact change, then grabbed the plastic bag containing her several purchases from the young man’s hands.

What do we do now?

You have to leave him.

“Pack of Marlboros,” the next customer said before the woman had vacated her place in line. In response the woman gave him a dirty look and shuffled from the store. “Pack of Marlboros,” the man said again, pushing a ten-dollar bill across the counter.

It’s probably better if I wait till morning, too.

Listen to me, Suzy. You have to leave right now.

“Can I help you?”

Who are you talking to, Suzy?

“Can I help you? Excuse me, sir. Can I help you?” the cashier was asking.

“Sorry,” Jeff said, snapping back into the present and realizing he was next in line.

“Twenty-three dollars and eighteen cents,” the young man said as he finished ringing up the various items, his shoulders stiffening as if bracing for an argument.

Jeff handed him thirty dollars and waited as he bagged the assorted sundries and counted out the change. “Thank you.”

“Have a good night.”

Jeff stepped outside, glancing up and down the street. On the corner, the Marlboro man had stopped under a streetlamp to light up. In the distance, the old woman with the disputed deodorant was proceeding at a snail’s pace, the plastic bag in her hand slapping against her side as she walked, her shoulders slumped forward as if she were fighting a strong wind. He thought of running to catch up to her, offering to give her a hand, but she’d probably think he was trying to steal from her and start screaming.

An old memory suddenly sprinted across his line of vision: he and Tom coming home one night from a party, both having drunk far too much, a middle-aged woman approaching, clutching her purse to her chest as she crossed the street to avoid them. “She thinks we’re after her money,” Jeff had said, and laughed.

“Or her body,” Tom had said, laughing louder.

And suddenly Tom was racing across the street and pushing the woman to the ground as he wrenched the bag from her hands, and what choice had Jeff had but to chase after him? He couldn’t very well stop to help the bleeding woman to her feet. She’d only have started screaming, accused him of being an accomplice. And so he’d fled the scene, not looking back. “Should have raped her,” Tom had said, almost wistfully. “Bet she would have enjoyed it.” He’d offered to split the forty-two dollars he’d found in the woman’s wallet but Jeff had refused, watching as Tom tossed the purse into the nearest trash can. He’d spent the next few days scanning the papers for any mention of the robbery, even checking the obituaries to see if a woman had died after being accosted, but there’d been nothing.

It’s a wonder Tom and I didn’t get our asses tossed in jail on any number of occasions, Jeff was thinking as he headed back to the motel. Except instead of turning left, he suddenly turned right, then crossed the street and continued purposefully down the block, turning left at the first intersection, and then making another left two blocks after that, as if being pulled along by a magnet. He didn’t have to check the street signs. He’d have known the way blindfolded.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
, tired and perspiring heavily, he found himself on Huron Street, standing in front of a gray two-story house with white shutters and a blood-red front door. His father’s house. Two doors away, in the white house with the black front door, had lived his stepmother’s closest friend, Kathy, the one who had seduced him when he was barely fourteen years old. “You’re a very bad boy,” he could hear her coo in his ear. “Your stepmother is right about you.” And then, when they were lying naked in her queen-size bed and she was directing him where to put his hands and how to use his tongue, listening to the strange noises she made and the husky sound of her voice as she whispered, “Tell me you love me,” and clawed at his back with her long fingernails. And he’d complied, telling her he loved her over and over again, maybe even meaning it, he thought now, who knows? And then one day, two years after the start of their affair, he’d come home from school to find a large
FOR SALE
sign in the middle of her front lawn, and several months later, that sign had been replaced by another one that said
SOLD
, and the following month the moving van had arrived and she was gone, moved to Ann Arbor with her husband and two young daughters for her husband’s new job.

Jeff never saw her again.

And he’d never said “I love you” to any woman again.

Until tonight.

What’s the matter with you? he thought now, feeling Kathy’s wicked laugh trembling through his body as his eyes left the upstairs bedroom window of her former house to flit up the narrow, flower-lined concrete walkway of his father’s home. What was he doing here? Was he really thinking of proceeding up that walkway, of climbing the steps to the small front porch, of knocking on that red front door? Had he lost his mind altogether? What was the matter with him?

Well, well. The prodigal son returns,
he could almost hear his father say as Jeff forced one foot in front of the other. Hell, he thought. It had cost him a lot of money to come to Buffalo, money he could ill afford now that he was out of a job. He’d made the trip at his sister’s behest, come to see the mother who’d abandoned him as a small boy. Why not pay a visit to the father who’d abandoned him emotionally at around the same time?

Two for the price of one; kill two birds with one stone, Jeff thought ruefully, looking toward the living room window. He pictured his father and stepmother inside, his father buried behind a book, his stepmother immersed in her sewing. How will they react when they see me? he wondered as he lifted his hand and knocked on the door.

The noise echoed down the quiet tree-lined street, conjuring up years of indifference and neglect. Jeff felt the years swirl like leaves around his head.

No one answered his knock, although Jeff thought he heard someone moving around inside. Just turn around and go back to the motel, he told himself, even as he was lifting his hand to knock again, the knocking assuming greater urgency as his fist slammed repeatedly against the heavy wooden door.