We Know

Chapter 34

With its throngs of UCLA students, Westwood has even more coffee shops per block than the rest of Los Angeles. At a sidewalk cafe table, I found a dark-skinned guy tugging on a hookah and slurping a boba drink with tapioca balls.

I said, "Want to make a hundred bucks easy?"

He said, "Okay, but I'm the top and it's another fifty for a reach-around."

"Let me rephrase."

"Please."

"Here's my credit card. The hundred bucks is just to walk across the street to that Starbucks, charge a cup of coffee, and bring it back here."

"Where you get the card?"

"It's mine." I showed him the name and my driver's license. Then I peeled five twenties off my roll.

"What if they ask for ID?"

"They don't ID for three-fifty."

He took another toke. "You think I look like somebody name Horrigan, you smoke more than I do."

"I'm paying you a hundred bucks to try."

He shrugged and rose, snatching the bills from my hand. He took two steps away, then came back. "What kind of coffee?"

"A Mocha Valencia."

"What?"

"A Toffee Nut Latte."

"Huh?"

"A cup of coffee."

"Coulda just said so."

I waited for him to scurry through the slow traffic and get into line, and then I crossed the intersection, entered a little jewelry store with tinted windows and a good view. The cut in my cheek radiated pain when I shifted my jaw, but I didn't want to leave to get more Advil.

The kid came back across the street with the coffee, found the table empty. After looking around, he sat down again and resumed smoking and checking out girls. Another few minutes passed. Then he started drinking my coffee.

I'd been perusing the same cabinet for too long. The clerk came over with an aggressive smile. "Maybe I can help you decide on something?"

"Sure, I'm looking for my girlfriend."

"Earrings?"

I looked down. Earrings. "Yes."

"Do you know what she likes?"

Two sedans screeched up to the curb by Starbucks, and Sever and three agents I didn't recognize hopped out and rushed inside. I'd figured Bilton's crew had put a flag on my credit card, and I'd wanted to note the faces of some of the other involved agents. As a branch of the Treasury Department up until the Homeland Security shuffle, the Service knew money and how to track it. It had been nailing counterfeiters since the end of the Civil War. And now those considerable resources were pointed at me. This was bigger than just Sever and a few agent cronies. Bilton's crew was using the system against me. They wanted that paternity test and ultrasound. Maybe they even thought I could lead them to Baby Everett.

The clerk cleared her throat. "Is she fair or dark?"

"Oh, sorry. Her skin color's caramel. A little darker, maybe. Beautiful black hair. Dark brown eyes."

"Rubies are nice."

"Yeah, but she has an emerald stud in her nose. I'm worried it'd look like Christmas."

The agents emerged from the Starbucks and looked around. Sever locked eyes with the kid across the street. The kid was holding the mouthpiece at the end of the hose a few inches from his open mouth.

The clerk leaned across the counter. A little tenser. "Pearls, maybe?"

"Sapphire's her birthstone. The gold settings?"

"Yes. Those are chips, not full sapphires."

Sever crossed the street. The kid gave him my credit card, gestured around. Sever listened for a while and then laughed, the gleam of his white teeth pronounced against his tan face. He spoke into his radio, and the agents reconvened.

"Should I wrap them up? Sir?"

The agents climbed back into their cars and drove off.

"Sir? "

I offered her a smile. "Do you take cash?"

Induma was sitting on the couch in the dark when I came through the back door an hour later. The clock on the Blu-ray player showed 9:30 P.M., but it felt later than that. As I neared, I saw that she wore a black tank top and a pair of men's Calvin Klein briefs. One night when we were dating, she'd put on my underwear on her way from bed to bathroom and found them so comfortable she'd made a habit of wearing them to sleep. I couldn't help but stare at her smooth, brown legs.

"Glad you're back safe," she said. But she looked upset.

"What's wrong?"

She blew out an exasperated breath. "For how low-maintenance Alejandro is, he drives me fucking crazy sometimes."

I dropped the keys on the counter, mostly to stall. I waited until I could at least feign casualness. "Does the good outweigh the bad?"

"In the relationship? Yes. I mean, for starters he's gorgeous."

"He's not that gorgeous."

"He's better-looking than you" She smiled at my mock indignation. "Don't pout-that's hardly news. And he's nice enough. Heart of a golden retriever."

"And the mind of a goldfish." I relented under her look. "Okay. At times he's pleasingly good-natured."

"So he's gorgeous-"

"You'd mentioned that."

"I'm working to a point here." She was smiling. "But no matter how good-looking they are, you stop noticing. After a while you get this

… disdain for their familiarity. Sweat stains on their shirts. Hair-gel blobs on the countertop. Open mouth when they sleep. I never had that with you. No part of you was dirty to me. Was it me? Was it just me?"

My hands were balled, and I was unaccountably cold. I could catch the faintest scent of her perfume-Jo Malone Orange Blossom. "No," I said. "It wasn't just you."

"But that wasn't enough for you." Glow from a garden light fell through the back window, catching her face in a pale yellow band. There were so many things I wanted to tell her, but before I could find the shape of them, she continued, "Despite the problems, Alejandro's always there when I need him. This relationship-it works for me."

"Does it?" I asked. "How?"

"With all my money, everyone wanting something, I guess I want to hold some part of myself safe. Where no one can touch it. With him there's never that risk." Her voice was soft, even vulnerable, but her stare was as level as ever. "I learned that from you."

I crossed to her. She bobbed a bit on the cushion when I sat next to her. I said, "That's the last example I'd want to set."

"Well, you set it. With me. Over and over."

I said, "I'm sorry."

"I made my own choices. I'm not looking for an apology."

"That doesn't mean I don't owe you one."

She bit her lip, waved me off. Her eyes glimmered a bit, or maybe it was just the way the glow caught her face.

I felt a black hole where my stomach was supposed to be. I would've done anything to rewrite the past, but here we were, with her upset and me wanting to say something-anything-that would help. "I'm sorry your date went badly."

"I wouldn't call it a date."

"Oh." My face grew hot. "Uh-oh."

"He took me to Hooters. I mean, Hooters. And you know what his big surprise was? Chicken wings. I'm a vegetarian, for Christ's sake. I don't care that it's not some elegant restaurant-I mean, pack a sandwich and take me to the beach. Something that shows you've been remotely paying attention to who I am."

I found my cuticle suddenly fascinating. "I… um-"

"I asked him what the hell he was thinking, but he wouldn't say anything." She looked over at me, noting my discomfort. "What. "

"I may be partially at fault here."

Her gaze hardened. "Talk."

I would have done anything to avoid copping to my smart-ass role in their failed date. There was no way to come clean without revealing my feelings for her. But I owed it to her, and to Alejandro.

I cleared my throat self-consciously. "He asked me for advice on what to do for your anniversary, and I… uh, I told him where to take you. Half joking. I'd like to say that it got lost in translation, but I was also half not-joking, I guess."

She glowered for a moment, then cracked up.

When she finished laughing, she wiped her eyes and said, "Why would you do that?"

My face burned. If I could have curled up and disappeared, I would have been long gone. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and stared at the blank screen of the TV.

She said, "Oh, Nick." Her voice was empathetic and disappointed all at once.

Then she rose and headed up for bed.