Savages

153

Designer coffee joint on Ritz-Carlton Drive.

And the PCH, coast side.

Chon refers to the place as Yummy Mummy Heaven.

Useta park himself at one of the outdoor tables, sip cappuccinos, and watch the parade of rich young mommies jog past pushing their three-wheeled running strollers. Tight bodies in T-shirts (or designer hoodies, in colder weather) and sweatpants.

“That’s the early shift,” he explained to Ben.

The later shift involves the exclusive day care just up the street. The slightly older YMs would drop the brats off and then come in for their lattes and, maybe, post-latte sex with Chon.

“Bored and resentful,” Chon observed to Ben. “Perfect in bed.”

“Adulterer.”

“I’m not married.”

“What ever happened to morality?” Ben sighed.

“Same thing that happened to CDs.”

Replaced by a newer, faster, easier technology.

Ben asked, “What would O think about these squalid escapades?”

“You kidding?” Chon answered. “She talent-spots for me.”

“Shut up.”

No, it’s truth. O, when she can get up that early, has spent many happy hours handicapping Chon’s odds. That one’s hot, that one’s horny, that one is happy at home, forget her, check out that ass, I’d do that one …

“Did she ever …”

“Nah.”

They’re not thinking about O’s barely latent lesbian tendencies or Yummy Mummys this morning. They’re thinking about O, however, as

Alex and Jaime walk in—

“Siamese beaners.”

“Easy.”

—stand at the counter and order coffee to go.

Ben and Chon follow them out to the parking lot and get in the backseat of Alex’s Mercedes.

“What?” Ben asks.

Alex turns around to look at Ben. “One of our cars was hijacked last night.”

Ben is stone. The son of two incessantly probing shrinks, he knows how to outface an interrogation.

“So?”

Alex is an amateur at this.

Shows all over his lawyer face. “Would you know anything about it?”

Ben jumps all over the conditional tense. “Yeah, I would know something about it, if I had anything to do with it. Seeing as how I didn’t, I don’t.”

Fun with language.

Alex tries Chon for a stare-down.

Yeah, that’s going to work.

Try making a Rottweiler blink.

“Okay,” Alex says finally.

Chon is Chon but Ben is Ben. “Try not calling me out for nonsense in the future, okay? How is O?”

“Who?”

“Who”? Chon looks like he might slap the guy. It’s a real possibility there for a second, but Ben jumps in. “Ophelia. We call her O. The young lady you kidnapped. How is she? We want to talk to her.”

“Maybe that can be worked out,” Alex says.

Ben notices the passive verb form.

Responsibility is being avoided, or

Authority is not possessed.

Interesting.

“Work it out,” Ben says. He opens the car door. “If there’s nothing else, Chon has marriages to destroy and I have product to produce.”

They stand in the parking lot as the Mercedes pulls away.

“You’re good,” Chon says. “You think they really suspect us?”

“If they did, we’d have seen Chain Saw Guy.”

They walk back to the shop.

“By the way?” Chon says. “I feel I make the marriages better.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah.”