Wild Card pp-8 Read online

  “Things moving along okay with your exhibition?” she said to Julia.

  “They’d better be.” Julia shrugged. “I’ve got a week to go before the opening, thirty pieces left to hang, and a thousand rapidly multiplying butterflies in my stomach.”

  Megan took a bite of the scone.

  “Still plan on sticking to watercolors?”

  “Mostly,” Julia said. “I’ve decided to take your advice and go with a limited mixed media presentation.”

  “So you included the batiks.”

  “That abstract series you like, yeah,” Julia said. “I brought a few to the gallery yesterday, and have the rest set to go for tonight, which should just leave me needing to drive over my oils.”

  “Those two great big canvases.”

  “Right.”

  “Think they’ll fit into the Celica?”

  Julia shook her head.

  “Not unless I plan on strapping them to the roof.” She paused and briefly lowered her glance. “It almost makes me wish I hadn’t gotten rid of the old SUV… but, hey, you’re followed, kidnapped, and almost murdered by professional assassins, you wonder if maybe you ought to appease the gods and trade in the vehicle you were driving that day.”

  Megan had seen Julia’s eyes flick downward as she spoke. It was the same, or nearly the same, whenever she mentioned what happened to her. She would leave it out there, the remembered terror thinly wound in defensive humor, making it difficult to know how to pick up on it, or whether that was even something she wanted.

  Julia would talk about it one of these days, Megan thought. Eventually she would need to talk about it in an open way. But the timing was hers to decide.

  Megan ate another piece of her scone. A couple of high-school-age boys with McDonald’s bags sat down at the table vacated by the round and purposefully untidy mother and daughter. They swept the rubbish and dirty tray that had been left behind to one side of the table, took a bunch of hamburgers from their bags, and plowed into them with enthusiasm.

  “I’d be glad to help with the paintings,” Megan said. “Far as your transportation problem, though, my car’s smaller than yours.”

  Julia made a swishing don’t-worry-about-it gesture.

  “Dad’s got me covered,” she said. “He’s coming over tomorrow in the Land Rover.”

  Megan scrunched her forehead. “Roger?” she said.

  “He would be my one-and-only father, right.” Julia gave her a puzzled look. “Why the funny face?”

  “I didn’t know I made one.”

  “That’s because you couldn’t see it from here,” Julia said, and tapped her side of the tabletop.

  Megan lifted her coffee to her mouth, sipped. “Guess I was wondering about your handsome curator friend,” she said.

  Julia frowned slightly.

  “Richard is an assistant curator,” she said. “One among several at the museum.”

  “Uh-oh. This already sounds ominous.”

  Julia sighed.

  “We’re over,” she said.

  “Over?”

  “And done,” Julia said. “I broke things off last weekend.”

  “Wasn’t that your first date with him?”

  “Second, if you feel the need to count,” Julia said, chewing her pizza. “Take it from a divorced woman, Meg. It’s better to recognize a dead-end street before turning into it, because those U-turns can be absolute murder.”

  “Do tell.”

  “You really want to hear about it?”

  “I would.”

  Julia looked at her, expelled another sigh.

  “Last Saturday night, Richard asks me out to dinner, my choice of restaurants,” she said. “I suggest Emilio’s, you know it?”

  “Sure,” Megan said. “That Italian place in Santa Clara with the courtyard in back. Very romantic.”

  “Which is the reason I picked it… that and the cuisine,” Julia said. “Easy question, okay? What’s Italian cooking supposed to be except this”—she gave the pizza in her hand a demonstrative little shake—“or some kind of pasta dish? Fettuccine, ravioli, lasagna. Maybe veal scallopini. A basket of homemade bread or rolls on the side, a cannoli for desert, nothing too creative. Am I reaching some unreasonable level of expectation yet?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Bam!” Julia said, doing a fair impression of Emeril Lagasse. “In Richard’s world, asking a date to choose a restaurant doesn’t necessarily mean she’s also entitled to choose her own dish. Most especially not if it contains repulsive, unfashionable carbs.”

  “Uh-oh.” Megan had to grin. “He’s one of those?”

  “Hold the bun,” Julia said with a nod. “You know how I am, Meg. The reigning Miss Individuality. If he says so right off, no sweat, I find another restaurant. I’ve got nothing against him believing a certain diet works, but don’t foist it on me with a lecture about unburned calories.”

  Megan was shaking her head. “Did he happen to notice you’re in pretty fantastic shape?” she said.

  “Not the way he might’ve if he hadn’t blown his chances that night, let me tell you.” Julia frowned. “I walked out on him, Meg. Left him right there at the table and hailed a cab home.”

  Megan’s eyes widened with surprise and amusement. “No.”

  “Yes,” Julia said. “He kept insisting I eat the lobster or grilled fish. And he talked over me—overruled me — when I tried making my preference of Ziti al pomodoro clear to the waiter.” A frown. “That was the last unbearable, embarrassing straw. I’ve only answered his phone calls once since, and that was to tell him to forget my number.”

  Megan threw her head back and laughed. “God,” she said. “And I thought my history with men was a road littered with wreckage.”

  Julia looked at her.

  “Goes to show there’s always a person waiting to outdo you,” she said, laughing a little, too.

  They ate quietly. Megan worked away at her scone as Julia got through eating her slice and then reached into the pizza box for another.

  “Enough about my life,” Julia said after a bit. “What’s with yours these days?”

  Megan shrugged, sipped.

  “Work,” she said.

  “No play?”

  “No time.” Megan sighed. “It’s taken everything out of me just trying to settle into the new position. And lately our projects with Sedco have developed some speed bumps. The Caribbean fiber deal sticks out… Do you know about it?”

  “Some,” Julia said. “I heard my father mention it once or twice when Dan Parker was still on their board. He’s like a member of our family. Almost a god-uncle to me.”

  Megan nodded her awareness. “There’s a guy that replaced him on the board of directors, A. R. Baxter — that’s Andrew Reed, great-great-grandson of the famous privateer — FYI. He’s constantly wanting to reevaluate and clarify points of contractual agreement. He’s a stubborn pain, and it makes for long, hard days of meeting with our own lawyers and executives.”

  “Is Baxter the reason for your conference this afternoon?”

  Megan shook her head.

  “That’s a different can of worms,” she said. “I felt we needed another huddle to work out a plan for making nice with the Pentagon.”

  Julia looked at her. “Because of what Tom Ricci did in New York,” she said.

  Megan nodded, sipped away at her coffee. Again, the subject of the abduction hung unaddressed between them. Ricci had assembled the Sword task force that had tracked Julia to the cabin in Big Sur. He had pressed the search and gotten her out himself and left the man who’d led the hostage-takers dead. But Ricci alone knew exactly how that man died. Ricci alone was in the room with him, behind a locked door, in the minutes before he died. And what Megan wanted to say now, and didn’t, was that whatever occurred behind that door had seemed in some indeterminate way to spiral out into what took place those many months later in New York City.

  “Tom’s name is bound to come up, sure,” she said inst
ead, trying with her even tone to reduce his importance as an issue, make it sound as if he wasn’t at the very center of things. “We’ll have to decide what to do about him when Pete gets back from the islands.”

  “Has anybody been in touch with him since he was suspended? Anybody from UpLink, that is.”

  Megan regarded Julia for a few seconds, struck by the too-light, almost singsong quality of her voice right then, thinking maybe more than one of them here wanted to downplay the matter.

  “Pete’s tried calling him,” she said. “Not with any success, though. At least these past few weeks.”

  “He doesn’t answer his phone?”

  “Doesn’t answer, doesn’t return messages, won’t give us a clue what’s going on with him.”

  Julia tilted her head curiously.

  “That seems kind of odd,” she said.

  “Come on.” Megan couldn’t hide her skepticism. “Tom Ricci being incommunicative?”

  Julia was looking at her.

  “I mean Pete not going to see him where he lives,” she said. “I’d always heard they were tight.”

  The expression on Megan’s face went from skeptical to just plain blank. She was unsure why that hadn’t entered into her thought processes. But it hadn’t. She didn’t know what to say, and found herself glad to see Julia reaching for slice number three, apparently satisfied to let the whole thing ride. Besides, a quick glance at her watch told her it was almost time to get going.

  She drank some more coffee, ate some more scone, examined herself for crumbs again, discovered a few tiny specks on her skirt, and was brushing them off when she noticed that one of the burger-munching teenagers at the nearby table had turned to watch her, his attention glued to her hand as it moved over the lap of her skirt.

  She drilled a cold stare into him and he snapped his eyes away.

  “Did you get a load of him?” she said, looking aghast at Julia.

  Julia chewed a mouthful of pizza, swallowed.

  “That’s amore,” she said.

  Megan made a face. “What?” she said. “Getting ogled by a high school kid with acne on his cheeks?”

  Julia shrugged.

  “At least he didn’t hold the bun,” she said with a sly grin.

  * * *

  Devon’s nightly set at Club Forreál would begin with a shadow dance.

  A minute or two before she made her entrance, the DJ would key up something with a heavy beat and a smooth walking bass, and the lights would pulse in rhythm over and around the empty stage. Then she would step from the wings in a slight, clingy bikini top and sarong that gave her an illusion of nakedness in silhouette.

  She was limber and acrobatic getting into her dance. As the men around the stage watched her slink out in front of the screen, they would realize she wasn’t all skin, and that would build on the tease while her movements became more explicitly sexual. The stage was large, with a couple of runways, and she was skillful at using every inch of it.

  Most nights Devon’s set went two songs. The opening song would be the longer of them, giving her a chance to warm up the crowd with her bit behind the screen, and then come out and strip off her bikini top while dancing in the swell of lights and music. She called that her first reveal. At the pole Devon would work her flesh hard, sliding, pumping, swinging her body.

  The second number in her set would have a quickened tempo, and midway through she would peel away the sarong.

  Club Forreál had booze on its menu. This meant the house dancers could go topless but not nude. Under California law, nightclubs that entertained with full nudity were restricted to serving nonalcoholic drinks. The men who came to watch Devon and the other girls weren’t happy about it, but the alcohol loosened them up for a good time, and Devon, when she writhed free of her sarong, would leave little to the imagination in a G-string that was almost invisible, and that made for an easy tradeoff.

  At his table in the third row from the stage, Tom Ricci finished his Chivas and water, caught the eye of his waitress, and made a pouring gesture over the glass, holding his thumb and forefinger apart to indicate he wanted his next one heavier on the scotch. She smiled her understanding and waggled toward the bar in her racer shorts.

  Ricci turned to watch Devon emerge from behind the screen.

  He had seen her dance perhaps twice since the night they had met here, when her name was still Carolina to him. Carolina was her professional alias. It was posted on the schedule outside the club’s entrance, and above her gallery photos on its elaborate Web site, and announced from the DJ booth as the music got cranked for her set. It was also the name that customers used when they tapped the maître d’s shoulder to request a private dance with her. Ricci had once asked how she had chosen it, and she’d told him it was borrowed from the state where she had grown up. She did not specify whether that was North or South Carolina, and he hadn’t pursued the subject. Their involvement was a fair give-and-take that sometimes relieved the emptiness inside each of them. But she gave away nothing extra, and neither did Ricci.

  Now the waitress came over with his fresh drink. Ricci paid, tipped, noticed her lingering by the table. He raised the glass to his lips and swallowed. The scotch was warm in his mouth and then going down his throat. She’d done okay with the proportions, he thought, and nodded.

  She smiled at him and left and he turned back toward the stage and watched Devon heat up her set.

  The sarong in which she was costumed tonight was a dash of metallic fabric with black and blue horizontal bands and long, shiny fringes that would flap over her left thigh. In her bellybutton was a silver serpent pin, its tiny jewel-eyed head dangling downward. Ricci guessed between sixty and a hundred other men had their eyes on her as she slowly untied and shed the wrap. That didn’t bother him much. The woman up there in the colored lights almost could have been anybody. She seemed unsolid, a projected image. Only in glimpses could Ricci see Devon in her. Something she did on stage would remind him of something she had done when they were in bed together — a toss of her head, a contortion of her waist, a wanton curl of her lips — and Ricci would wonder whether it had been practiced even during their sex, and if it came from the inside out or the outside in.

  Mostly that was the extent of his feelings as he watched. A curiosity rather than jealousy or possessiveness. It was an emotional remove not so different from what he felt toward Devon when they were together. The stage just seemed to frame and accentuate things for him.

  He sat and drank more of his scotch.

  Club Forreál was a garish island of neon and stucco outside Santa Clara on Highway 101, El Camino Real. For real, Ricci thought, and found himself having to smile a little at that. He had the sense that nothing in the place was what it seemed. Or if it was, that it wasn’t what he ought to be going out of his way to seek. He neither liked nor disliked watching Devon perform, and she seemed to pretty well match his indifference. He had no idea whether she had noticed him at his table, but he hadn’t intended to make a secret of it, or surprise her for any reason. He wasn’t even sure why he’d come. He’d simply gotten into his car and driven here intending to sit awhile, and it was all the same to him if she knew about it or didn’t. Either way, he would probably leave before she was ready to head out with him.

  It was a working night for Devon, and the place was packed; she would want to stay on shift for several hours yet.

  Ricci wondered if A.J. ever popped in without letting her know beforehand. He held onto the thought a minute, tried to picture what A.J. looked like, and glanced randomly at some of the men around him, their faces turned toward the stage, staring at Devon as they were swept by the crayon colors of the disco strobes. Any one of them might be A.J. All Ricci knew about him was that he had a wife and kids and a high credit line and, Devon had once casually mentioned, a boat that he liked to launch out of Monterey. It was a waste of time trying to figure out who was the strongest candidate, but so was a lot else.

  Ricci played the game
with himself awhile longer, grew tired of it, and drank. Then he heard a loud squall of laughter from a nearby table and turned to see what had provoked it. There were four men at the table. They were young, maybe in their early twenties. A look of hang-jawed arousal on his features, one of them had pushed himself back from the table’s edge and was getting a chair dance from a blonde who had finished her set right before Devon. His friends seemed boisterously amused and elated by the whole thing.

  Ricci watched her bump and grind between his outspread legs, bare-breasted, wearing only a red sequined thong and high heels. Here again the law would have something to say about how far she could go. But while it prohibited physical contact between performer and client, and house rules declared they could come no closer to each other than six inches, nobody was holding a tape measure between the blonde and the guy at the table, and she seemed more than open to some occasional rubbing up against him.

  The good money for dancers at Club Forreál was in chairs. Elsewhere in a room its owners called the VIP Lounge, the better money was in couches. Their maroon velvet cushions lined two of its walls, and the men who sat on them could get a private dance that was supposed to have the same restrictions on touching as the dances in the main hall. But the doors of the VIP Lounge were kept closed, and watched from the main room by security guards on the lookout for vice cops, and the girls inside the lounge, who would start out a couch dance straddling a customer’s lap, would bend the hell out of both legal and house regulations if the price was right.

  Devon had told Ricci she preferred doing chairs to couches. They didn’t bring in nearly the same cash but let her stay within eyeshot of the bouncers at the front entrance, who would step in when guys got too touchy. She had told him she followed the six-inches-of-separation rule to the letter in the main room and, on the rare instances she worked the VIP, gave the rule just enough slack for her customer to feel “nice” about his experience. She had said that she could identify the ones who would be trouble and was careful to steer away from them. She claimed to likewise recognize the ones who were okay, and she looked at every situation from the perspective of whether it would let her stay in control.