The Pardon

Chapter 15

Seven minutes later the Mustang careened over a speed bump and squealed to a stop outside Gina’s condominium. Jack jumped out, devoured two steps at a time on the stairway to Gina’s front door, and then knocked firmly. He paced frantically until Gina finally opened up.

“Is everything okay?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

Gina stood in the doorway, wearing a tight-fitting white denim mini and a loose red tank top that revealed as much of her breasts as any wandering eye cared to see.

“Where’s Cindy?” he demanded.

“Cindy’s out.”

“Out where?”

Gina made a face. “Out being twisted like a pretzel by a squadron of Chippendale dancers. It’s none of your business where she is. She’s out.”

“I have to find her. I think someone may be after her.”

“Yeah,” Gina scoffed, hands resting on her hips. “You are.”

Jack stiff-armed the door to keep Gina from shutting it in his face. “I’m not making this up. Ever since the Goss trial ended, someone’s been following me-making threats. Some guy with a raspy voice called me and said there was a killer on the loose. He tried to run me over with his car. He killed my dog. And now he might be after Cindy.”

Gina’s face finally registered concern. “Cindy’s safe,” she said coolly. “After you two had your little Saturday morning brawl, she decided to catch an earlier flight to Rome. We went by the house this afternoon while you were out, and cleaned out her closet. Then dropped her off at the airport. She’s on her way to Italy.

“Oh,” he said, “that’s great.” But he didn’t feel great. He was relieved that she was safe, but he was having hard time adjusting to the fact that she was actually gone. Some part of him was wishing he had had one last chance to explain himself to her.

Gina watched as he turned to leave. It amazed her the way Jack looked after Cindy, even after they’d split up. Gina had definitely felt rejected last year, when Jack had dropped her for Cindy after their one blind-date. And although Jack and Cindy were both denying it to themselves, she was convinced that the trip to Italy would be the end of their relationship-which only made her wonder, as she’d often wondered before, just what it would take to get Jack to notice her.

“And what about me?” she said, arching her eyebrow as he looked back at her quizzically. “What if the lunatic comes looking for Cindy, and I’m here all alone?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Stay,” she said. “Just in case something happens.”

His mouth opened, but his speech was on a several-second delay. “I don’t think-”

“You think too much, Jack. That’s your whole problem. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink. Maybe I’ll even give you the lowdown on how truly ‘professional’ Cindy’s so-called business trip to Italy is,” she said coyly as she stepped back, inviting Jack inside.

He flinched. He wanted to think that she was yanking his chain about Cindy, but her insinuation had the ring of truth-especially since she’d packed up her clothes and left this afternoon without giving him a chance to apologize. In any event, after everything he’d been through over the last week, he saw no harm in not being alone-especially if his company could fill him in on what Cindy was really thinking. “Make it a Scotch,” he said. “On the rocks.”

Jack followed Gina inside the townhouse, through the foyer and living room. The downstairs was one big room, done in white tile, black lacquer, chrome and glass, with some large abstract acrylic paintings, Persian rugs, and dried flowers for color.

“Here,” she said as she tossed him a terrycloth robe. “Let me put those wet clothes in the dryer for you.”

He hesitated, even though he was soaked.

“Believe me, Jack,” she half-kidded, “if I wanted you out of your clothes, I’d be far less subtle. Now get in there and change before you catch pneumonia.”

He retreated into the bathroom and peeled off his wet clothes-which left him with the problem of what to do with the gun in his pants pocket. He didn’t want to do any more explaining to Gina. He removed the bullets, wrapped them with the gun in a washcloth, and slid the wad into one of the robe’s deep pockets. The knife wound on his left hand had stopped bleeding, so he carefully rinsed away some of the dried blood. He emerged with his hand in his pocket. Gina took his clothes and tossed them into the dryer, then led him to the kitchen.

“You did say Scotch,” said Gina.

“Right,” he replied. He watched from the bar stool across the kitchen counter as she filled his glass. The kitchen’s bright fluorescent lights afforded him a really good look at his ex-girlfriend’s best friend. Gorgeous, he thought, absolutely gorgeous. She had dark, glistening eyes, set off against a smooth olive complexion; he imagined there were no tan lines beneath her tight white miniskirt. Her only flaw was an ever-so slightly crooked smile, noticeable only because it was accentuated by her bright red lip gloss. The imperfection was enough to have kept her from becoming a teenage supermodel, but Jack didn’t see it as an imperfection.

“Here you are,” she said as she handed him his glass.

He nodded appreciatively, then downed most of the drink.

“Tough night?” she teased, pouring him a refill.

“Tough month,” he quipped.

A gleam came to Gina’s eye. “I’ve got just the thing for you. Let’s do Jagermeisters.”

“Excuse me?”

“Shots,” she said as she lined up a couple of glasses on the counter. “It’s just a cordial.”

“I don’t think-”

“I told you,” she interrupted, “you think too much.” She poured two shots, more in Jack’s glass than hers, then handed him one. “Prost,” she said, toasting in German.

Their heads jerked back in unison as they downed the shots.

Gina smiled. “Good start. Have another,” she said as she filled his glass.

The second was gone as quickly as the first.

“Whoa,” Jack wheezed.

Gina filled his glass again.

“What’s in this stuff?” he asked, his throat burning.

“Drink that one. Then I’ll tell you.”

He hesitated, reminding himself he was there to keep a lid on things. It wouldn’t do to be half-in-the-bag if Goss showed up. “Gina, I think I’ve had enough.”

“C’mon,” she pouted. “Just one more. Relax”-she looked over her shoulder-“the lock on that door is strong enough to keep the bogeyman out.”

It was no use. She raised the shot glass to his lips, and he reluctantly swallowed.

She smirked at the glazed look on his face. “It’s from Germany. It’s actually illegal in most of this country. Something about the opium in it.”

“Opium?” his jaw dropped.

Gina smiled wryly. “You’ll be totally shit-faced in about ninety seconds.”

He took a deep breath. He was already feeling something considerably more than an ordinary buzz. He grabbed the edge of the counter to keep his bearings. “I’ve got to go,” he said.

She leaned across the counter and looked into his eyes. He blinked and looked away only to get an eyeful of cleavage, which made him shift awkwardly, as if his personal space had been invaded.

“I really should go,” he said. But he didn’t pull back.

“I know a couple of ways to make you stay,” she said slyly.

“Such as?”

“Bribery, for one,” she said quietly.

He swallowed hard. “And the other?”

Her eyes slowly narrowed. “Torture!” she said as she grabbed his ribs and pinched hard, laughing as she turned and stepped away.

“Oww!” Jack groaned. It had really hurt, but he knew she was just playing and tried to smile. “Could we maybe stick to bribery?”

“Whatever you want,” she whispered as she handed him another Scotch, then directed him toward the living room with a casual wave of her hand. She twisted the dimmer switch, lowering the overhead lighting, then sauntered toward her stereo, walking the way she always did when she knew a man was watching her.

At first he couldn’t help but admire the gentle sway of her curves as she crossed the room. He was certain Gina was coming on to him. And after a month of personal, professional, and public rejection, he was definitely starting to feel too weak, too lonely, and too drunk to put a stop to it, particularly after she’d rekindled his doubts about the “purely professional” nature of Cindy’s trip.

“Take a load off,” Gina said from behind, knocking him onto the couch. She fell in next to him, and they were instantly swallowed by the fabric of her overstuffed couch. She kicked off her shoes and drew her knees up onto the cushion. She scooted closer to Jack, stirred the ice in his drink with her finger, and then licked it off.

She leaned into him, her firm breasts pressing against his arm and her hand falling onto his hip. He suddenly thought of Cindy, which made him tense up.

“What are you, a linebacker?” she grumbled as she gave him a little shove. She reached across his lap, grabbed the remote control from the end table, and flipped on the stereo, preset for Gato Barbieri’s “Europa.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said with a nervous smile, now realizing what all the pushing was about.

“I love Gato,” she interrupted him. “You like the sax?”

Jack coughed into his drink, thinking she’d said “sex.”

“I think it’s the sexiest instrument ever invented,” she said as she leaned back, clearly enjoying the mood of the music. “Have you ever watched a man play the sax, Jack? I mean really watched him, in a jazz bar, late at night? The lighting is always dimmed, just so. The smoke rises in the room in a certain fuzzy way, as if it’s all a fantasy. And then the musician makes love to his instrument, his lips pressed to the mouthpiece, his eyes closed tightly while his face displays his every emotion. It’s like a man with the confidence, the courage, the balls, or whatever it takes to cry, or to make love or to reveal himself, all at the same time, with the whole world watching. How can they be so free? I don’t know how they do it. . but it affects me deep inside when they do.” She leaned toward him and stared deeply into his eyes.

Once again he hesitated. That was the most articulate he had ever known Gina to be. Bet you’ve given that little speech a few times before, he wanted to say.

She moved closer. “Could you do that?” she whispered.

“Could I what?” he played dumb.

“Let yourself go,” she answered. “Turn yourself inside out. And enjoy it.”

He sighed. There was indeed a woman who made him feel that way, who could strip him down to a desire so intense that he could have stood naked to the world and yet felt like the most powerful man on the planet. Then something happened. It wasn’t his fault or hers. It just happened. And nothing had been the same since. “I suppose it depends on who I’m with.”

She smiled, only to have her next move interrupted by the shrill ring of the telephone.

Cindy? asked his guilty conscience.

Gina sprang from the couch, snatched up the phone, and carried it to the other side of the room, as far away from Jack as the cord would allow her to travel. She hissed something into the receiver, slammed it down, and walked back toward him, an intense look of desire having replaced the anger in her eyes.

“My old boyfriend,” she volunteered as she took her place next to Jack, “Antoine. Guy buys me a BMW and he thinks he owns me for life. He calls whenever he figures I have a date. Kind of pathetic,” she shrugged, “but he just doesn’t want anyone else to have me.”

“Does this Antoine own a gun?” Jack only half-kidded.

The phone rang again. Gina jumped up, angrier than before. She grabbed the phone and threw it at the floor. “Asshole!” she shouted, as if Antoine could hear her. She sighed deeply to collect herself, then returned to Jack and knelt beside him on the couch. “Now,” she said softly, “where were we?”

He edged away from her. “I think we were talking about. . Antoine,” he said nervously.

“Antoine,” she scoffed. “What I wouldn’t give for someone who could make me forget I ever knew a silly boy named Antoine.”

Their eyes met and held. Jack started to say something, but the clothes dryer buzzed, and he looked away, distracted. “I think I’m ready. I mean, my clothes are ready,” he said as he pushed himself up from the couch. His knees shook, the room spun, and he was back on the couch in a split second.

“I don’t think you’re going anywhere tonight.”

“I really should go.”

“No way,” she said as she jiggled the car keys she’d taken from his pants before tossing them into the dryer. “Friends don’t let out-of-town girlfriends’ ex-boyfriends drive drunk. You’re staying here tonight.”

“I-”

“Don’t argue,” she interrupted him. “It’s already after midnight, and your clothes probably aren’t even dry yet. I’ll sleep in Cindy’s bed-too many bad vibes in there for you. You can sleep in mine. Come on,” she said as she rose from the couch, pulling him by the elbow.

He wobbled to his feet, drunker than he’d been since college. He knew he couldn’t drive, and part of him was glad he couldn’t. “All right. I’ll stay.”

Gina held on to his arm and guided him across the room, toward the stairway. They were both startled as they heard the sudden pulsating noise of the phone off the hook. Together they glanced at the screaming receiver on the floor and then at each other, as if to see whether either would make the move to put it back on the hook. The noise stopped on its own, and they let the phone lie on the floor. No more Antoine. No more interruptions. It was just Jack and Gina. Gina the man-eater. Jack shook his arm loose from her grasp and followed her up the stairs.

“Time for bed,” she sang as she led him to her bedroom. The hallway lighting gave the room a warm glow. He sat on the edge of the bed and watched as she turned down the sheets. He wondered how many men had been in Gina’s bed. He figured he’d be the first to sleep in it without sleeping with her.

“If you need anything, I’m right across the hall.”

“Good night,” he said.

Gina disappeared into the hallway, leaving the door open. She turned off the hallway light, and Jack was in total darkness. He started to remove his robe, but felt uncomfortable about being naked in Gina’s bed, so he left it on. He removed the washcloth containing the gun and the bullets from his pocket and laid it on the nightstand, then crawled between the sheets. His head was buzzing. The shots Gina had poured him would surely give him a splitting headache in the morning, but at least they would speed him toward a deep and much needed sleep. He was nearly gone when a light suddenly flashed in his eyes, stirring him from his rest. It was the hallway light, but it seemed to shine like a flashlight right into his eyes. He raised his head groggily from the pillow and strained to make out the figure in the darkness. Someone was standing in the doorway, the backlighting from the hallway making the image a silhouette.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Gina’s voice cut through the darkness.

He propped himself up on his elbow, his eyes adjusting. She was posing like a pinup, one hand on her hip and the other on the door frame. Her long brown hair was pulled to one side in a bushy ponytail that seemed to flow from her ear like water from a hydrant. A gold hoop earring dangled from the other side. She was naked, except for a silk sash around her waist.

“I need my own bed,” she said.

Jack pulled back the covers and stood up, but she was already on him, pushing him gently toward the bed.

“Let me find my own way,” she said in low voice.

He searched for his conscience as his head hit the pillow, but Gina’s earlier remarks had him feeling foolish about waiting for Cindy while she traveled around Italy with her old boyfriend, and in his drunken, semi-dream state he was well beyond resistance. Gina started at the foot of the king-size bed and worked her way up, touching and tasting beneath his robe, demonstrating skills that he had only known as fantasies-until the caresses turned to pain.

“Oww!” Jack withdrew. “That hurt!”

“Oh, come on,” Gina smiled playfully, looking up from between his begs. “It’s a fine line, isn’t it-pleasure and pain?”

“Not that fine. I’m gonna have fucking bruises.”

“Just relax,” she said as she removed his robe. Then she swung her leg over him and sent him into a state of arousal that bordered on the uncontrollable. She was on top of him, but not touching him. She was teasing, tempting, torturing him. She kissed him on the chest, gently pulling his hair with her teeth. He winced at the pain, then felt the pleasure of her gentle kiss around his mouth. In a sudden lucid moment, it flashed through his mind that he hadn’t made love to anyone but Cindy in a long time. But this wasn’t about making love.

“Tell me,” Gina breathed heavily down his neck, her lips touching his as she spoke. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you,” he said, caught up in her passion.

She probed and pressed with her fingers, touching him at his center of gravity. “Tell me exactly what you want,” she whispered.

“I want to be inside you,” he said.

She stared down at him, amused by his euphemism. “I want you to fuck me,” she said with fire in her eyes, then pressed her body against his and rolled, pulling him on top of her. He entered with a rush, pushing out a horrible month’s worth of anger, frustration, and rejection, taking delight in her moans and groans as her long, red nails attacked his back.

Suddenly, Jack froze. “Did you hear that?” he asked quickly, his body completely rigid.

“Hear what?” Gina said with a satisfied smile.

“That thumping noise.”

Gina answered with a flick of her tongue. “That’s the headboard pounding against the wall, you stud.”

“No. It’s downstairs.”

“Stop it,” she said sharply. “Don’t do this to me, Jack.”

“I’m not fooling around, Gina. Did you lock the front door like you said?”

“Of course.”

“And the sliding doors in back?”

“Always locked,” she replied, “when the A.C. is on.”

“That wouldn’t stop Goss-if it is Goss.” He slid out from between her thighs. “I know I heard something.” He rolled off the bed without a sound, walked cautiously toward the bedroom door, and leaned forward, listening intently. He put the robe back on and took the gun from the nightstand.

“You brought a gun into my house,” she said angrily.

“Yeah-and aren’t you glad I did?”

“No. Please, Jack. No shoot-outs. Just call the police.”

“I can’t. The phone’s off the hook.”

Gina grimaced, as if for the first time in her life she regretted her craziness.

He checked the chambers to make sure the gun was fully loaded. It was. “I’ll take a look downstairs,” he said. “You stay here.”

“Don’t worry,” she assured him.

He opened the door carefully, holding the pistol out in front of him. The hall was dark. The apartment was still. He quietly stepped out and closed the bedroom door. He heard Gina lock it behind him; there was no turning back. He peered down the stairway but saw nothing. He stepped forward and slowly descended the first four steps. From his vantage point he could see most of the downstairs, but none of the kitchen. He noticed the phone on the floor by the couch, still off the hook. He took a few more steps and waited at the bottom of the stairs. He saw nothing, heard nothing, felt only the pounding of his heart. Slowly, he crossed the living room and placed the phone back on the hook. He turned and gasped as he noticed the front door-it was wide open.

He jumped back at a sudden burst of noise from outside. Then he realized it was his car alarm, blasting from the parking lot. Instinctively, he bolted out of the apartment and raced down the steps, leaving the door open behind him. He reached his car and froze as he saw firsthand one of the more obvious reasons that even a twenty-year-old convertible needed an alarm: The black canvas top was in shreds, sliced open from windshield to rear window.

“I can’t believe this,” Jack said to himself. An instant later his head was snapped around by the sound of a shrill scream from inside Gina’s townhouse. He rushed back up the stairs and dashed inside.

“Jack!” Gina cried from upstairs-in Cindy’s bedroom.

He led with his gun as he raced up the stairs and burst into the room. Gina stood in her green satin robe, frozen beside Cindy’s brass bed. She was alone. He caught his breath and stared. The pink bedspread had been neatly turned down, revealing clean white sheets that were smeared with something bright red and wet that looked like blood. He reached down and touched it.

“Ketchup,” Gina said, nodding toward the empty bottle on the floor, which had been taken from her refrigerator.

He cautiously approached Cindy’s bed, his gut wrenching as he imagined what might have happened here tonight. He knew better than to touch anything, but he could tell there was something beneath Cindy’s pillow-something, he figured, that whoever had been here tonight had wanted him to find. He gently took the corner of the pillowcase between his fingertips. Slowly, with arms fully extended so that he could stand as far away as possible, he raised the pillow.

“Jack,” her voice trembled, “what the hell are you doing?”

He ignored her. He kept lifting, slowly, until he saw it. A flower-a chrysanthemum.

“Goss,” he said as he lowered the pillow back into place.

Suddenly, the phone rang. Jack’s eyes locked with Gina’s. Her panicked expression said there was no way she was going to pick up. “Hello,” he answered, trying to sound calm.

Four blocks away at a pay phone on the street, a man in torn blue jeans and a yellowed undershirt stood in the murky shadows of a flickering streetlight, pressing the receiver to his ear and covering the mouthpiece with a rag. “You came early to my party,” he said accusingly.

Jack took a deep breath. It was the same voice, but the tone was different. The man was breathing heavily, as if he’d been running, and his voice trembled as he spoke.

“You came early, Swyteck. And now I’m very angry.”

Jack stayed on the line but was unable to speak, paralyzed by the crazed panting of a madman so furious he was gasping for breath. “Please,” Jack said, “let’s talk.”

“I said four-thirty A.M.,” he seethed. “And I meant four-thirty A.M. This is your last chance. Be there-at four-thirty.”

Jack started to say something, but the phone went dead. His hand shook as he hung up.

“What was that?” Gina asked with fear.

He looked at her. “My final invitation,” he said.