“People aren't usually friendly, is what you're saying. Well, maybe I'm just trying to be friendly. You consider that?”
“And maybe I don't need any new friends.”
He swallowed and studied her for a moment. “And maybe you should think twice before rejecting a friendly neighbor.”
“So now you're my neighbor? Look, I'm sure you're a wonderful man . . .”
“I'm just trying to be friendly, ma'am. You should never bite the hand that feeds you.”
“I wasn't aware that you had fed me.”
He reached over, picked up her bill, and slid it into his pocket. “You are aware now.”
Lacy leaned back, struck by the absurdity of the exchange. “I don't even know you! I don't even know your
name
.”
“Call me . . . Kevin.” The stranger smiled. “And honest, I'm just an ordinary guy who looked across the room and saw a woman who looked like she could use some friendship. What's your name?”
She eyed him carefully. “Lacy.” The bells were still gonging in her mind, but she could not place their significance. “And you can't tell me that walking up to a woman in a Chinese restaurant and asking to sit isn't rather strange.”
“Maybe. But then, they say all is fair in love and war.”
“So then that makes this a war? I'm not looking for a fight, really. I've had my share,” she said.
“You have? Not with men, I hope.”
“You're right. Men don't fight; they just leave.” The crazy discourse was suddenly feeling a bit therapeutic. “You the love-'em-and-leave-'em type, Kevin?”
The man swallowed and grew very still. A pause seemed to settle over the restaurant. “No, of course not.”
“Good, Kevin. Because if you were the love-'em-and-leave-'em type, I would throw you out the door myself.”
“Yes, I'll bet you would.” He shifted in his seat. “So we're sworn off men, then, are we?”
“Pretty close.”
He eyed her carefully. “So . . . what happened?”
She did not respond.
OF COURSE Kent knew precisely what had happened. She was speaking about him. He had courted her, earned her trust, and then dropped her on her seat. And now this.
On Monday he had sworn to kill himself rather than stalk her again. On Wednesday he had broken that promise. He had allowed himself to live despite slinking back to Boulder to sneak a peek. She had gone grocery shopping that night, and he had slipped between the aisles on the edge of panic for the duration.
But this . . . He would pay for this madness. But it no longer mattered. He no longer cared. Life had somehow lost its meaning. He had followed her to the restaurant; taken a seat in plain view, and then approached her table. It had felt like stepping out on a tightrope without a net.
And now he'd had the audacity to ask her what happened. His palms were sweating, and he wiped them on his knees. The electricity between them had his heart skipping beats.
She was not responding, and he repeated the question. “So what happened?”
“No offense,
Kevin,
but if you want to befriend a lady at a restaurant, it's not necessarily advisable to strut up and drop the old
So-what's-happened-in-your-love-life-lately?
line. Comes across like something a pervert might say.”
That stung, and he flinched visibly.
Whoa boy, don't expose yourself so easily.
“You look surprised,” Lacy said with a tilt of her head. “What did you expect? That I would lie down on a couch and tell you my life history?”
“No. But you don't have to bite my head off. I just asked a simple question.”
“And I just more or less told you to mind your own business.”
So, she was bitter and letting it ooze from her seams. She was right; he should have expected nothing less. “Okay look, I'm sorry if my introducing myself caused such offense, but maybeâjust maybeânot everyone in the world is as cynical as you think. Maybe there are a few decent people around,” Kent said, building his volume. Of course the whole thing was a crock, and he knew it as he spoke. He was about as decent as a rat.
She looked at him for a moment and then nodded slowly. “You're right. I'm sorry. It's just not every day that a man walks up to me and plops down like this.”
“And I'm sorry. It was probably a dumb thing to do. I just couldn't help noticing you.” She was softening. That was good. “It's not every day you come across a beautiful woman sitting alone looking so lost.”
Lacy looked to the side, suddenly awash with emotion. He watched it descend on her like a mist. Watched her swallow. His own vision blurred.
Lacy, Oh, Lacy! It's me! It's Kent, and I love you. I really do!
His throat burned with the thought. But he could never go so far. Never!
“I'm so sorry,” he said.
She sniffed and wiped her eyes quickly. “No. Don't be sorry. Actually, I think I'm in love with another man, Kevin.”
Heat flashed over Kent's skull. Another man?
“I'm not even sure I could befriend you. In fact, I'm crazy about him”
Goodness, this was impossible! “Yes,” he said. But he felt like saying no. Screaming,
No, Lacy! You can't love another man! I'm right here, for Pete's sake!
“I think you should leave now,” she said. “I appreciate your concern, but I'm really not looking for a relationship. You should go.”
Kent froze. He knew she was right; he should leave. But his muscles had locked up. “Who?” he asked.
She looked at him, startled. “Who?” Her eyes bore into him and for a moment he thought she might lash out at him. “A dead man, that's who. Please go,” she said. “Please go now,” she insisted.
“A dead man?” his voice rasped.
“Go now!” she said, leaving no doubt as to her intentions.
“But . . .”
“No! Just go!”
Kent stood shakily to his feet, his world gray and fuzzy. He walked past her toward the door, right past the cashier without thinking to pay for their meals, right out into the street, hardly knowing he'd exited the restaurant.
Lacy was still in love with him. With Kent!
And this was good? No, this was bad. Because he was indeed dead. Kent was dead. And Lacy had not shown the least morsel of interest in Kevin, with his surgically altered cheeks and larger nose and sharper chin.
The realization fell on him like a boulder rolled from a cliff. He had truly died that night at the bank! Kent was truly dead. And Lacy was on the verge of deathâ at least her heart was. Any lingering hopes for love between them were now lost to the grave. End of story.
Kevin would have to find his own way. But Kevin didn't want to find his own way. Kevin wanted to die. Kevin didn't even exist.
He was
Kent! Kent, Kent, Kent!
But Kent was dead.
It was the low point of his day. It was the low point of his month. It might very well be the low point of his lifeâalthough that day Gloria had died and that day Spencer had died, those had been low as well. Which was a problem because before coming here tonight, he had already been sliding along the bottom. Now the bottom was looking like the sky, and this tunnel he was in was feeling like the grave.
Kent's mind drifted to Spencer and Gloria, rotting six foot under. He might have to join them soon, he thought. Life up here above the grass was becoming quite difficult to manage. He trudged down the street thinking of options. But the only two he could wrap his mind around were trudging and dying. For the moment he would trudge, but maybe soon he would die. Either way, that woman back there was dead.
He knew that because he had killed her. Or he might as well have.
KENT STORMED up Niponbank's sweeping steps Friday morning at ten, grinding his teeth and muttering under his breath. A fury had descended upon him in the wee hours of the morning. The kind that results from stacking up circumstances on the grand scale of life and then stepping back for a bird's-eye view only to see one end of the brass contraption dragging on the concrete and the other end swinging high in the sky. How much could a man take? Sure, on the one hand there was the brilliant million-dollar larceny bit, teetering up there on one side of the scale. But it was alone, hanging cold in the wind, forced into the loft by a dozen inequities piled high on the other side.
Lacy, for example. Or, as Kent saw the image, Lacy's firm jaw, snapping at him, barking for him to go.
“Just go! Now!”
Then there was the cop, an ear-to-ear grin plastered on that pointy head. Pinhead.
“You wanna know what I think, Bob? Or is it Kent?”
And there was Bono, spouting his wisdom of the grave, and Doug the Aussie, smiling toothlessly on the yacht that had killed his last son, and Steve the bartender hovering like a vulture. The images whispered through his mind, weighing the scales heavily, slowly pushing his blood pressure to a peak.
But it was the final few tidbits that had awakened him an hour earlier, panting and sweating on the covers. The ones he'd somehow managed to bury already. Gloria, swollen and purple and dead on the hospital bed; Spencer bent like a pretzel, cold as stone. Borst and Bentley, sitting behind their desks, smiling.
Welcome back, Kent.
Somehow, all the images distilled down to the one of the porky twins sitting there, wringing their hands in the pleasure of their
deed.
Which was why he found himself storming up Niponbank's sweeping steps Friday morning at ten, grinding his teeth and muttering under his breath.
He pushed through the revolving door and veered immediately right, toward the management offices. No nostalgia greeted him this time, only an irrational rage pounding through his veins. Sidney was there somewhere, clacking on the marble floor. But he barely registered the sound.
Bentley's door was closed. Not for long. Kent turned the knob and shoved it open, breathing as hard now from his climb up the steps as from his anger. A dark-haired woman sat cross-legged in a guest chair, prim and proper and dressed in a bright blue suit. Both snapped their heads up at his sudden entry.
Kent glared at the woman, stepped to the side, and flung a hand toward the door. “Out! Get out!”
Her jaw fell open and she appealed to Bentley with round eyes.
Bentley shoved his seat back and clutched the edge of his desk, as though poised to leap. His face had drained of color. He moved his lips to form words, but only a rasp sounded.
The woman seemed to understand. She could not possibly know what was happening here, but she wanted no part of it. She stood and hurried from the room.
“Get Borst in here,” Kent said.
“He . . . he was already coming. For a meeting.” The boy in Bentley was showing, like a man caught with his pants down. But if Kent's previous encounters with him were any indication, the man would gather himself quickly.
Borst walked into the room then, unsuspecting. He saw Kent and gasped.
“Good of you to join us, Borst. Shut the door.” Kent closed his eyes and settled his nerves.
His former boss shut the door quickly.
“Why didn't you return my calls?” Bentley demanded. He was finding himself.
“Shut up, Bentley. I really have no desire to subject myself to more of your nonsense. I can take my share of punishment, but I'm no sadomasochist.”
“And what if I had information critical to your investigation? You can't expect to walk out of here hurling your accusations and then just leave us hanging dry!”
“I did, didn't I? And short of a signed confession, nothing you could possibly tell me would prove critical to my investigation. Take my word for it. But I'll tell you what. I'll give you a chance now, how's that?”
Bentley stared at him, flabbergasted.
“Come on, out with it, man. What was so important?”
Still nothing. He had the man off center. No sense stalling.
“I didn't think so. Now, go over there and sit next to Borst.”
“Iâ”
“Sit!”
The man jerked from his seat and shuffled over to where Borst sat, still white as a marshmallow on a stick.
“Now, for your sakes I'm going to keep this short. And I don't want to see you two slobbering all over the chairs, so save your comments for the authorities. Fair enough?”
They sat woodenly, unbelieving.
“Let me start at the beginning. I've put my findings in writing to the men who sign your checks, but I figure we have about ten minutes to chat about it before the Japanese come screaming across that phone. You ever hear cursing in Japanese, Borst? It isn't soothing stuff.”
Kent took a breath and continued quickly. “For starters, you two had very little to do with AFPS. Its actual development that is. You evidently learned how to use it well enough. But in reality you did not deserve credit for its implementation, now did you? Don't bother answering. You did not. Which is a problem because, in claiming credit for another man's work you violated your employment agreements. Not only ground for immediate dismissal, but also requiring repayment in full of any monetary gain from the misrepresentation.”
“That's not true!” Bentley said.
“Shut up, Bentley. Kent Anthony was solely responsible for AFPS, and you two know it as well as you know you're in this, neck deep.” He drilled them with his eyes and let the statement settle in the room. “Lucky for you Kent seemed to meet an untimely demise a month after your little trick.”
“That's not true! We had nothing to do with Kent's death!” Borst protested. “Taking a little credit is one thing, but we had nothing to do with his death!”
“You take a man's livelihood, you take his pride. Might as well be dead.”
“You can't make any of this stick, and you know it!” Bentley said.
“We'll let the Japanese decide what sticks and what doesn't. But I'd spend just a little more time thinking about the million-dollar problem than about the Kent Anthony problem. Pretty clever, really. It took me the better part of a week to crack your little scheme.”