Simple Intent (12 page)

It had been his idea to come here, with a little coaxing from Sailor and the dress. And here they were in a million dollar condo sipping hundred-dollar champagne and pretending neither one of them knew what they were really doing. Sailor watched Deluca as he refilled her glass, wondered how long it was going to take for the capsule to work. She must have slipped it in Deluca’s second glass, and weren’t they on their fourth? Reilly assured her he’d never know what hit him. 

Deluca sat beside her on his suede couch, an arm draped casually over the back. He said, “I bet your Mom’s a real knockout, isn’t she?”

My Mom? God, I can’t believe I’m doing this. “Oh, Eddie. Let’s not talk about me anymore. Let’s talk about you.” She watched Deluca struggle with his bow tie. Jesus, he’s pathetic. “Here.” 

Sailor set her glass on the table and pulled herself into his lap. “Let me.” She slowly untied the knot and began unbuttoning his shirt. She could hear his breath quickening, feel his pulse in his neck. It wasn’t what she was here for she reminded herself. But, damn he really did smell nice. 

Sipping his Dom, Deluca regaled his female companion with tales from his youth. Boarding school in England, his years at Harvard Law, the trip around the world. Sailor nodded at all the right times, but her mind wandered. She needed to keep him talking, but she was also dying to snoop. Here she was, an arm’s length from a home office crammed with files and papers and probably a state of the art computer system. 

Sailor had to agree with Reilly. There was more to the Bentley case. And that more had something to do with Deluca. On the way to the party, Reilly had filled her in on Deluca’s past. It seemed her “ideal” attorney figure had a few skeletons in his closet. According to Reilly, in the seventies when most people were concerned about war and peace, Deluca’s focus never left the city. He made cleaning up the streets his priority. As one of Philly’s Assistant District Attorneys, Deluca had a hand in everything, legal and not, and he worked it. Cops respected him. Judges ruled for him. The public loved him. Deluca was on his way up. He seemed to have it all. 

Then something happened. In a matter of months, Deluca took a nose dive. He lost three consecutive cases, all mob-related. There were rumors of jury tampering. Then, a co-worker filed sexual harassment charges and photographs of Deluca in compromising situations with women named Candy and Starr started appearing in the paper. His marriage fell apart and his high-school-sweetheart-wife filed for divorce. It was public and messy and expensive, forcing him to sell his family house and sell out his inheritance. Fast Eddie was living a quicksand life. Some said his father’s sudden death was the final straw. 

But somebody did Deluca a favor. Montgomery and Scott offered him a job on the other side of the courtroom and he began again—defending the same people he had worked for years to put away. Publicly, it was said to be a political move, but behind closed doors, folks said he sold out. Some thought the mob owned him, others couldn’t care less. They were just happy to not have to work with him anymore. He could be a real pain in the ass. And now Sailor, in the pleasure of his company, had to agree. 

“May I?” she pointed to the stereo system.

“Be my guest.” Deluca kicked off his shoes and leaned back on the couch, hands behind his head.

Pulling out all the stops, Sailor arched her back and sashayed over to the entertainment wall. She flipped her hair back, bent over a stack of CD’s, ass to the ceiling. Deluca watched appreciatively from the couch, eyes at half-mast. She loaded the music in the carousel, adjusted the volume. Soft strains of an alto sax filled the room. She dimmed the lights, posing by the wall of glass facing the marina. Soft moonlight cast her in silhouette. The effect was not lost on her audience.

“Oh yeah.”

The sax wailed, Sailor began to dance a sexy strip tease, slowly first, drawing her hands over her hips and thighs then back up again into her hair, then faster, gyrating her hips, throwing her head back and exposing her throat. Her high, firm breasts were barely contained by the low-cut gown. She turned away from Deluca, reached behind her neck, loosened the halter-top knot and let the top fall. Bare to the navel, she turned around and approached the couch, her long pendant swaying from breast to breast. 

“Eddie,” Sailor said watching Deluca. He was almost out, fighting to stay awake. “You like what you see, don’t you?”

Deluca smiled, then slumped into himself. Sailor waited a few seconds then stretched him out on the couch, pulling up his legs. She leaned over, skimming her breasts over his chest and kissed his cheek, smiled at his goofy grin and the rather impressive tent in his trousers. 

“Maybe another time, Fast Eddie.”

Retying her dress, Sailor headed for Deluca’s office.

Maria walked into Vault tavern, looking out of place among the burly men. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. She made her way past the crowded bar and the smoking room to the walk-in humidor. The door opened easily, a whoosh of regulated air. It was still, quiet and smelled of more than tobacco. There was a hint of men’s cologne, bourbon and cedar. She closed her eyes and saw Puerto Rico—stony streets and dirty alleys, yelling mamas, a man with a belt. She blinked, had to remind herself she was in The Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia, and no longer a naive young girl.

Berger pushed on the door too hard, smacking it into a rack of Havana imports.

“Fuck. Smells like my old man in here!” He was drunk, swaying. He looked around, stopped on Maria.

“Congratulations on your retirement, Detective.”

“Well thank you, sugar. Now come over here and give an old cop some love.” 

He grabbed at his crotch, missed the first time. “Whaddya say?’ 

Berger stepped closer to Maria, squinting. “I know you.” He tried to snap his fingers. “Little Maria Conchetta. I’ll be damned.”

Maria muttered, “Yes, you will.”

“Well, well, aren’t you all grown up.” He ran his eyes over her. “Did fine for yourself, didn’t you, Maria? Got yourself another Sugar Daddy? What’s he into? Gambling? Money laundering? Not drugs. No, no, no.”

Berger waggled his finger in Maria’s general direction, fumbled a fat cigar off the shelf and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. “Well, pleased as I am to see you, you’d better get out of here. I’m meeting someone, and you don’t want to be anywhere around when he gets here.”

“Lou isn’t coming, Detective.”

“What do you mean, he isn’t coming?”

“He sent me.” Maria crossed the small space. She reached up and tugged the cigar from his mouth. Spit shined on the back end. She held it gingerly. “Listen. You’re working for Gallo now. Meet him at Pier 12. Tomorrow night at ten. Look for a Chinese crate marked C445. You know the drill. Pier 12, C445, 10 p.m. Can you remember that, Detective?’ He nodded, still staring at her. She pushed the cigar back between his slack lips and left.

Berger stared after her, didn’t notice the waitress in the doorway until she said, “Need anything, Mister?”

He blinked. “Yeah.” 

The waitress stepped halfway in, holding the heavy door with her hip. 

Berger took the soggy cigar from his mouth and laid it in the nearest box. Arturo Fuente Grand Reserve, $11.75.

The girl grimaced. Berger belched loudly, blowing beer-scented air to the ceiling. As he looked up, his body made circles of its own, defying the stillness of the environmentally perfect room. The girl looked over her shoulder at the bar and wished she hadn’t stopped here. She had a napkin full of orders already. 

“Let me use your pen.” Berger grabbed a pack of matches from her tray and motioned for her pen. She hesitated, then handed it over. Berger scribbled something on the matchbook, shoved it into his pocket and dropped the pen on the girl’s tray. He stumbled out of the humidor and made his way to the exit, one hand on the wall, the other on his stomach.

The waitress called after him. “You okay, Mister?” 

Berger kept going. Double doors were propped open with two silver ash cans at the end of the hallway. Berger focused on the space between the cans. Air. Door. Outside. Air. Door. Outside. He stepped into the Philly night and fell onto his knees between the perfectly trimmed hedges. He puked up three pitchers of beer, four shots of tequila and seventy-five bucks worth of spicy Maryland crab.

A few minutes later, a janitor pushed a gray cleaning cart up the path toward the open doors. He saw Berger’s feet before he heard the guy heaving in the bushes. 

“Must have been some party, man. Some party.” He snapped his headphones over his ears, cranked the volume and sang, “Welcome to the jungle.”

REILLY smelled coffee. He rolled out of the tangled sheets of his bed, wondering when the girl had left. He followed the scent to the kitchen where the coffeemaker gurgled out the last cup. Thick brown heaven filled the carafe. Reilly grabbed a dirty mug from the dishwasher, rinsed it out then dried it on his boxers and poured a steaming mug. He took a sip, closed his eyes and sighed.

“It’s not too strong, is it?”

Reilly jumped. Coffee sloshed over the lip of the mug onto his bare foot, hot, then warm between his toes. 

“Too strong? Not for me.” He took another sip. “I like it like this.”

“Me too.” 

The girl was in the living room on her hands and knees. Her wet hair made a dark mark on the back of her shirt. She reached under the coffee table for a single black stocking and snapped it toward Reilly. He grinned, raising his mug in a mock toast. She tucked the stocking into her purse and slipped on her shoes. Reilly watched her button the pink satin blouse over her large breasts. She had to suck in to tuck the shirt into her black leather mini-skirt. 

She said, “I’d better go. It’s my turn to take Grandma to church.” 

She approached the breakfast bar gathering up her bushy hair and twisting it into a loose bun. She jabbed a pencil into the mess, securing it. Reilly watched her, admired the way her breasts fell back into place when she dropped her arms. 

“Can I have some?” She asked, pointing to the coffeepot. 

Reilly poured the coffee, trying to remember her name. 

The girl chugged the hot coffee: “God, I love a good, hot…” she passed her eyes over Reilly’s bare chest “…strong...” she licked her lips “…cup of coffee.”

She rubbed her abdomen, walked around the counter to Reilly. “Is it true you can burn your stomach lining if you drink hot coffee too fast?”

She took Reilly’s mug out of his hand, set it down and moved his hand to her stomach. “My roommate’s always saying, ‘Slow down, Shelly.’ Is she right?”

Reilly moved his hand lower. “I wouldn’t know, Shelly. I’m studying law, not medicine. But I don’t think you’d burn your stomach.” He pulled her close, his hand on the small of her back. “Maybe right here.” He reached out, skimmed two fingers from the base of her chin down her throat. She tipped her head back in response. Reilly paused, his fingertips in the valley between her collarbones. She pressed into him and they kissed. Warm coffee tongues and bruised lips, nerves still raw from the night of excess. 

Shelly broke the embrace, moaning softly. Her cheeks were flushed. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

“Who says I can’t finish?”

Shelly laughed, slapping his arm playfully. “I have to go.”

“Are you sure? I can be very fast.”

She laughed. “I wouldn’t advertise that.”

She opened her phone, asked for a taxi service, reading his address off a stack of mail on the counter. She finished her coffee and headed to the door, calling over her shoulder, “I left my number on your desk and my email, just in case.”

Reilly followed her to the door, kissed her good-bye, murmuring something more than his usual false promises, then watched her strut down the hall to the elevator, wishing the whole time that Sailor would poke her head out of her apartment. 

He went back to his kitchen, to his coffee and remembered last night’s dream. He and Sailor had been walking on a garden path. Sailor wore a white dress. Reilly held a red flower the size of a dinner plate. Dark green vines curled around thick tree trunks and yellow, orange and purple flowers bloomed at every turn. The path kept circling, but they never passed the same sight twice. Every few feet, Reilly looked down and saw that he had lost something. A shoe, a sock, then his pants and shirt. He felt the breeze on his bare body. Sailor walked next to him. She was talking as if nothing was happening. She was so beautiful. A halo of white butterflies encircled her head. He reached out to touch her face. She became Gina. He leaned forward and kissed Gina’s lips. They changed and he was kissing Ray, their teeth smashing, his mouth too big. When Reilly opened his eyes in the garden, no one was there. He dropped the red flower and ran, naked and cold, into a tangle of briars.

An hour later, Reilly knocked on Sailor’s door.

“Just a second,” Sailor called, wincing. She rolled off the couch, holding one hand to the side of her head as if the contents would dribble out of her ear. She checked the peephole then unlatched the door and let Reilly inside.

“Don’t look at me. I look like shit. And for God’s sake, don’t make me laugh.” She shuffled back to the couch and lay down, watching him from hooded eyes.