The Wild Zone (28 page)

“Maybe you just weren’t sure you’d go through with it.”

Jeff didn’t have to ask Ellie what she was referring to. “Maybe.”

“You want some coffee?”

“Already had plenty.”

“Me, too. Maybe we could just go somewhere and sit down.” Her knees cracked as she pushed herself out of her crouching position.

A few minutes later, they found themselves in their mother’s empty room, Ellie perched on the side of the freshly made hospital bed, Jeff standing at the window, looking out at the street below. “So, what happened exactly?” Jeff asked.

“Her heart just gave out, I guess.”

“What do the doctors say?”

“Not much. I mean, what
can
they say? It wasn’t exactly a surprise. The cancer had pretty much taken over. She’d been in and out of consciousness for the last few days. Her heart was getting weaker by the minute. When I was here yesterday, her skin had taken on that horrible gray pallor. I knew she wouldn’t last much longer.”

And suddenly Jeff was laughing, loud and long.

“Jeff? What is it? What’s going on?”

“The bitch just couldn’t wait, could she?” he said.

“What?”

“She couldn’t wait one fucking more day.”

“What are you talking about?”

“A few fucking hours,” Jeff said.

“You think she did this deliberately? That she died on purpose before you could get here?”

Jeff threw his head back and laughed even louder than before. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“You’re talking crazy.”

“She just couldn’t pass up the chance to screw with me one more time.”

“That’s not true. You know it isn’t. She’d been asking for you for weeks. She wanted to see you so badly. She kept hoping you’d come.”

“Then why didn’t she wait? Tell me that.”

“She didn’t have a choice, Jeff.”

“Of course she had a choice. She always had a choice. Like when she chose to give me up, when she chose to keep you, when she chose to forget I even existed. . . .”

“She never forgot about you, Jeff.”

“She knew that sooner or later, I’d show up. She just couldn’t be bothered waiting. I wasn’t worth the effort.”

“That’s not true.”

“So she abandoned me all over again. The final slap in the face. This time from the grave. Way to go, Mother. I’ve got to hand it to you. Nobody does it better. You’re still the champ.” Jeff sensed his sister approaching from behind, felt her hands on the sides of his arms. He flinched and pulled away. “Where is she anyway?”

“They took her to the funeral parlor. We can go there, if you’d like. You can see her, say good-bye.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.” He laughed again.

“What?”

“The nurse at the station said she’d
passed.
Like she’d passed her driving test or something.”

“It’s just an expression, Jeff. I guess she thought it was gentler than saying she was dead.”

“Hey, dead is dead, no matter how you say it. So, what happens now?”

“We go home, finalize the funeral arrangements. I was thinking of Friday. I don’t see any point in dragging it out any longer than that, do you? She didn’t have many friends. . . .”

“I’m shocked,” Jeff said, his voice a sneer. “And no, by all means, the sooner we put her in the ground, the better.”

“You’ll stay at my house,” Ellie said. “Kirsten, too, if she’s coming.”

This time Jeff didn’t bother to correct her. Kirsten, Kristin—what difference did it make? “She isn’t.”

“Just as well. This way the kids will have you all to themselves for a few days.”

“They won’t even know who I am,” Jeff said.

“Then it’s high time you did something about that.”

Jeff swiveled around to face his sister. He saw the sadness in her eyes and understood for the first time that the mother she’d lost was a different woman entirely from the mother he’d never really known. “Okay,” he said.

Ellie’s face flushed pink with relief. Tears of gratitude filled her eyes. “Good. I’ll call Bob, tell him we’re on our way home.”

“Why don’t I just meet you there? I have to go back to the motel, pack my suitcase. . . .”

“You brought a suitcase?”

“You know me.”

“I’d like to,” she said.

“You go on, finish making whatever arrangements are necessary,” he told her. “I’ll go back to the motel, take a shower, pack up my things, and be at your house in an hour.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“I love you,” Ellie said, her voice breaking.

Jeff took his sister in his arms and hugged her while she cried.

An hour later, he was sitting in the airport lounge, his head lowered into his chest, images of Suzy filling his brain, when “The Star-Spangled Banner” began to play. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and checked his caller ID, hoping it was Suzy but knowing it was Ellie, calling to see what was keeping him.

He thought of answering it, but then, what could he say? That he’d had a change of heart? That he’d been lying all along? Surely Ellie had suspected as much. She could have insisted on accompanying him to the motel. She could have refused to let him out of her sight, knowing there was a good chance he would turn and run. Instead, she’d chosen the easy way out. Her mother’s daughter after all.

Saying “I love you” had been her way of saying good-bye.

Jeff stared at the phone until the anthem stopped playing, then returned it to his pocket. He settled comfortably back in his seat, closing his eyes as he lowered his head to his chest, and went back to dreaming about Suzy.

TWENTY-EIGHT

T
OM
OPENED HIS EYES
to the darkness of the late afternoon. Not that it was dark outside. It wasn’t. But with the living room drapes pulled tightly shut, it might as well have been the middle of the night. He laid his head back against the floral pillows of the sofa, kicking off his sneakers and stretching his legs out to their full length, ultimately bringing them to rest on top of the wood and glass coffee table in front of him. His right foot—wearing the same navy blue sock he’d been wearing for two days now—knocked against a bottle he’d forgotten was there, sending it crashing to the floor. The smell of spilled beer immediately filled his nostrils. It combined with the sickly sweet odor of marijuana and the discarded cigarette butts that lined the floor, marking his territory like a bunch of tiny pebbles. “What the hell are you doing?” he scolded himself in Lainey’s voice. “This place is a pigsty, for God’s sake. Clean it up.”

Tom laughed. “I’m just getting started, bitch,” he shouted at the dark room, this time the voice his own. “Wait till you see the bedroom.” He laughed again, his eyes lifting toward the ceiling as he lit another joint, his mind returning to last night. What a night that had been!

He grabbed for the half-drunk bottle of beer in his lap and finished it off in one prolonged gulp. How many did that make? he wondered, trying to add up the number of beers he’d had since this morning. Make that since last night, he amended, since he hadn’t slept in at least twenty-four hours and he’d started drinking at around seven p.m.—not counting the two beers he’d had on the way home from work. He dropped the empty bottle to the floor, took a deep drag off the joint, and reached for the phone on the small table next to the sofa, his hand slapping against the lamp and almost knocking it over. Tom turned his head lazily to one side, watching the lamp wobble precariously before righting itself, then he rested the phone on his chest and punched in the number he still remembered from last night. Yes, sir, he thought. Last night was some night.

“Venus Milo’s Escort Service,” a soft voice purred into his ear. “This is Chloe. How can I help you?”

Tom curled his arms around the receiver, feeling himself grow hard at the memory of the girl the escort service had sent over the previous night. “Hi, you,” the curly-haired cutie had said in greeting, stepping inside the small foyer and quickly removing the flimsy sweater covering her enormous implants. “I’m Ginny. I understand you like to party.”

“I’d like to order a girl,” Tom told Chloe now.

“You’d like to hire an escort?” Chloe corrected him gently.

“Yeah. Maybe Asian, for a change.” Tom remembered hearing that Asian girls were usually more submissive than Americans. “Is that a problem?”

“No problem at all. When were you thinking of?”

“I’m thinking of right now.”

“Right now,” Chloe repeated. “Where are you located?”

“Morningside.”

“Okay, that’s easy enough. Let me see if I have anything. Can I put you on hold for a minute?”

“Not for too long,” Tom cautioned, picturing Ginny naked and squirming underneath him.

“Okay, I think I might have somebody for you,” Chloe said, coming back on the line approximately a minute later. “Her name is Ling. She’s originally from Taiwan, and she can be at your place in about forty minutes. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good.”

“That will be three hundred dollars an hour, and you understand we are an escort service only. Anything you negotiate with Ling beyond that is strictly between the two of you.”

“Oh, I understand all right.”

“Good. I’ll just need your name and credit card number.”

“Tom Whitman,” he said, fishing into his jeans for his credit card, about to rattle off the numbers on his card when Chloe stopped him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, the softness in her voice instantly hardening, turning to steel. “Tom Whitman, you said?”

“That’s right. Is there a problem?”

“I’m afraid we won’t be able to fulfill your request at this time, Mr. Whitman. I suggest you take your business elsewhere. Or better yet, get professional help.”

“What do you think I’m trying to fucking do here?”

“Good-bye, Mr. Whitman,” Chloe said before hanging up.

“Wait a minute! What are you— What the hell . . . ? Shit!” Tom jumped to his feet, mashing the cigarette butts beneath his toes and almost tripping over the recently discarded beer bottle. “Did you just fire me, bitch?” What the hell was going on? First that little prick Carter at work, telling him his services were no longer required, that smug look on his stupid face when he’d told Tom a number of customers and even a coworker had been complaining about his attitude, then handed Tom his severance check without even giving Tom a chance to explain or defend himself. Not that he would have, in any event. “I’ve given you every chance to improve yourself,” Carter had said.

Was it any wonder Tom had taken a swipe at him, missing his nose but succeeding in knocking his glasses to the floor and then stepping on them for good measure, before being escorted, none too gently either—he should file a complaint with the human rights commission—off the premises by a security guard? And now this glorified cocksucker from the escort service informing him she wouldn’t be able to fulfill his request, that he should take his business elsewhere, that he should get professional help!

It was that bitch Ginny’s fault. Ginny with the big tits and the mouthful of expensive veneers. He should have knocked them out of her stupid mouth, he thought, his right hand forming a fist and grinding the joint he’d been dangling between his fingers into scraggly greenish-brown dust, letting the loose pieces of marijuana fall to the carpet like dirty snow. She’d obviously run crying to the powers that be. Goddamn amateur. He’d paid her, hadn’t he? And still she’d complained about everything. Didn’t like being tied up; refused to take it up the ass; wasn’t “into pain.” Damn cunt—he should have blown her bloody head off.

Now what? Tom thought, heading for the kitchen and searching through the cupboards for where Lainey kept the phone book, opening one drawer after another in his search. It was just like Lainey to hide it from him. He emptied one drawer of paper napkins and another filled with placemats and once neatly folded tablecloths. Cutlery was thrown to the floor, plates shattered. It was only after every cabinet had been emptied and Tom stood ankle-deep in detritus that he stopped. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, sweat drenching his stained white T-shirt, perspiration dripping from his hair into his mouth, panting with exertion, he remembered he’d taken the phone book into the living room the night before, that he’d used it to look up Venus Milo’s Escort Service. He laughed. Of all the damn escort services in the book, he’d picked that one. And why? Because he’d thought the name sounded classy. Wasn’t Venus Milo some famous work of art, a statue of a woman whose main claim to fame was that she was missing both her arms? Shit, he thought now, returning to the living room. A naked woman was a naked woman. And without arms, how classy could she be?

He got down on his hands and knees and crawled through the filth on the living room floor, the palms of his hands growing wet and sticky with spilt beer and the assortment of chips and dip he’d consumed for breakfast. He stumbled onto the phone book just as he was about to give up, spotting its moist, dog-eared corner sticking out from behind the drapes, as if it had been trying to escape the debauchery. “Get out of there, you miserable piece of shit,” he commanded, dragging the heavy book into his lap as one hand reached for the lamp, pulling it off the table and setting it down on the floor beside him.

He recoiled from the sight that greeted him when he turned it on. “Shit,” he exclaimed, then laughed triumphantly. “What a dump!” Lainey would throw a fit when she saw the mess he’d made.

“What have you done?” he could already hear her yelling. “My God, what have you done?”

“Just a little redecorating,” Tom yelled at the surrounding silence. “Something I should have done years ago.” He opened the phone book to the yellow pages at the back, quickly locating the pages marked
ESCORT.

There were at least a dozen such pages, some with full-page ads, of listings for various escort services. I shouldn’t have too much trouble finding one to suit my needs, Tom thought, assessing his situation. Word couldn’t have gotten around this fast. Surely he wouldn’t be blackballed by all of them.

executive choice, miami escort service. open 24 hours. outcalls only.

And then in smaller, although bolder, letters:
DINNER ' BUSINESS COMPANIONS, CONFIDENTIALITY ASSURED, HIGHLY DISCREET, BEAUTIFUL LADIES.

And then finally:
All Major Credit Cards Accepted,
followed by a phone number, a website address, and an e-mail address.

The next dozen pages were variations of the same: Cachet Ladies, one listing promised. Party girls, another proclaimed. There was a listing for Bodylicious and another for Ooh-la-la. One service specialized in college students, its full-color half-page ad complete with headshots of smiling, nubile teenagers. “That one looks good,” Tom said, reaching for the phone, then stopping, flipping to the next page, noting a host of ads offering agreeable Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipina, Indian, Singaporean, and Thai female companions. Not that I’d know a Korean from a Japanese, he thought. Not that he cared one way or the other as long as they were as agreeable as the ads promised.

There was a photograph of one Asian lovely peeking out shyly from behind a pleated ivory fan, another of a woman gazing provocatively over the top of a pair of jeweled designer sunglasses, yet another of a smiling, dark-haired girl with a green apple in her hand.

What was that all about? Tom wondered, dismissing the last one. Who wants to fuck a girl holding an apple? An apple a day, he thought, his eyes falling on a full-page ad for a service calling itself Déjá Vu Escorts. What the hell did that mean? That you’d seen them all before?

He turned the page. There was a “Beauty at Sixty”—“You gotta be kidding me,” Tom scoffed—and a “Fabulous Lady at Fifty” (another scoff) followed by Captivating Mature Companions (who the hell wanted maturity?) as well as Black ' White Maid Services and Bound and Gagged (both of which he thought might be worth investigating another time), Kitchen Depot (what, did they clean up afterward?) and Your Older Slower Better Escort. “Who needs old and slow?” Tom asked out loud. There were ads for Cuban girls, Russian girls, and even “Home-grown Beauties.” There was a listing for a Miss Vicki, a Mistress Letitia, and one for a Ms. Carla de Sade. There was a listing for Holly Golightly, one for Thelma and Louise, and one for, simply, Mark. “Sorry, pal. Not in this lifetime.” In the end, Tom opted for Last Minute Escorts.

“This is Tanya,” a tantalizingly low voice announced over the phone seconds later. “How can I be of service?”

Tom tried to think of something witty to say, but all he could think of was “You can get your ass over here and suck my dick,” so instead he said, “I’d like a girl. As soon as possible.”

“Certainly,” Tanya said. “Do you have any particular preference?”

“You have any girls from Afghanistan?” Tom surprised himself by asking.

“Afghanistan?” Tanya repeated, her voice rising at least half an octave. “You mean, like, Arabs?”

“I guess.”

“I’m afraid not,” Tanya said. “We
do
have a wide variety of Asian women,” she offered, as if Asians and Arabs were easy substitutes for one another.

“You have anyone from Singapore?” Tom had heard about how strict they were in Singapore, where they threw you in jail for jaywalking and doled out hundreds of lashes for just spitting on the street. Shit, hadn’t they almost executed some poor American kid for scribbling harmless graffiti on a wall? You had to figure their women would be pretty submissive.

“I believe we do.” The sound of keys tapping on a computer. “I can offer you a lovely young lady named Cinnamon. She’s twenty-five, five feet two inches tall, and has a twenty-two-inch waist.”

“Bust size?”

“Double D.”

“Natural?”

“Is that a joke?” Tanya asked.

“Okay. Fine. She sounds great.”

“I’ll need your name and credit card.”

Tom was about to fish into his pocket for his card when he stopped, not wishing for a repeat of what had happened with Chloe. “Can you hold on a minute?”

“Sure.”

This was gonna be good, he thought, reaching into his other pocket but coming up empty-handed. “Damn.” Where had he put it? “Can you give me another second?”

“Take your time.”

Tom raced up the stairs, past the empty bedrooms of his children, and into the maelstrom that was the master bedroom. The
master
bedroom, he repeated silently, turning on the overhead light and pulling at the crumpled white sheets of his bed, trying to ignore the large bloodstain in the middle. Stupid bitch had bled all over his nice white sheets, and
she
had the nerve to complain. He should sue that stupid Venus Milo, he thought, locating his red and black checkered shirt on the floor by the foot of the bed and finding what he was looking for in the shirt’s front pocket.

He was chuckling as he returned to the phone in the living room. “Okay, Tanya baby. I’m back. You ready?”

“Name?” Tanya asked in return.

“Carter,” Tom said, suppressing a chuckle. “Carter Sorenson.” He recited the numbers off the front of the credit card he’d stolen from Carter’s wallet a few days earlier. The imbecile hadn’t even realized it was missing, or if he had, he still hadn’t reported it to the credit card company. Tom knew this because after Carter fired him, he’d gone to Macy’s and charged several shirts and a new pair of boots to Carter’s account. Then he’d gone to the grocery store and bought half a dozen cartons of cigarettes and an equal number of cases of beer.

Clothes he shouldn’t be wearing, cigarettes he shouldn’t be smoking, beer he shouldn’t be drinking, shady ladies he shouldn’t be frequenting—that Carter is quite the dude, Tom thought, and laughed out loud. “Shame on you, Carter baby.”