A Third of Me (17 page)

We each get a latte and walk down Clay Street to the Ira Keller Fountain lit up like a majestic sculpture ran over with liquid luxury and modern class. If Niagara Falls was made over by Frank Lloyd Wright, it'd look something like this. There are too many people. The crowd makes me uneasy. Chastity makes eyes at me. She puts my hand on her ass, but not very discreetly. I think a couple of Japanese tourists take a picture or two. I could be mistaken, but it doesn’t matter. I'm ready to fuck.

After several hours of blasphemous sex, she showers and comes back to bed hiding something behind her back. I toss aside the Tribune and sit up with a smile, curious and already turned on, wondering how much longer I can go before I just pass out. She climbs aboard, straddling me, her skin flush and smelling like sweet apples. She reveals the long serrated blade in her right hand. For a moment I panic, but she's smiling and looking sexy, so I think surely she'll pulling a sick one. Okay, I'll play along.

“What are you gonna do with that, babe?” I ask.

She leans in close and I can tell she hasn't brushed her teeth yet. Her breath still smells like latte and cock. I feel sick and not into this anymore. She says, “First I'm gonna open your throat then I’m gonna cut out that black heart of yours.”

CHAPTER
3

After dumping her body into a sewage drain, I hurry back to the hotel to clean up and gather my things. I pop my vitamins and a few extra Xanax then drive as far out of the city as possible. My eyes cut to the rearview, searching for any strobing blues. I find a jazz tune on public radio and try to calm my nerves. My breathing softens, becoming deep and rewarding. The cool night air is easy on my lungs and as my thoughts gain clarity, I realize the knife – now christened a murder weapon – is still lying in the passenger seat. I had washed it off in the sink basin and dried it off with a scrap of her bra – the padding was soaked through, but it absorbed the smears on the blade rather well. I had stuck it in her purse, which also went over into the runoff.

The news is on. They might say something about me. Nothing. Not yet anyway. Emotion pours out of me, I'm overflowing with grief and confusion. I have no idea where I'm going and I have to call someone soon. Someone I can trust. But I trust no one. Then I remember Mickey. I don't know his address or phone number, but I have his mother's phone number jotted down in an old notebook in storage. I floor the gas and drive all through the night. I get to LA and retrieve the notebook from my old self-storage unit off Loxley. Mickey's mother tells me he's living in a duplex on Riverside, but he's working third shift at a toy warehouse. I find his place and wait in the driveway. My eyes grow heavy and I doze off for an hour or so. He raps on my window, causing me to bop the Lincoln's horn. I panic, then find relief in Mickey's ragged face. He invited me in for coffee. I tell my story.

We drop off the rental car downtown and take a morning flight into Portland. When we arrive at PDX, my cell beeps several times. It's George. He wants to know where I am. Jesus, Chastity and I should be at Delany's by now. I could go over there and rip an excuse like Chastity is sick or she was called into work, but I can't do that because the police – oh yes, the police would get involved sooner or later, and what am I going to tell them?

Mickey comforts me and says he has an idea. It's not a very good one, but I trust this guy. I can't even say he's very intelligent, but he's street smart, and right now that's good enough for me.

Why did Chastity want to kill me? We'd been together for fourteen months and the lies she told her husband must have been good enough to go so long without as much as a hiccup. She never struck me as nut job. She was very composed, agile, and witty. I'm ashamed to say I may have been in love with her, but we really didn't have anything in common except a voracious sexual appetite. Well, that's over now.

Mickey calls in a few favors to dig up what he can about Chastity. Maybe she really was a crazy bitch with an amphetamine problem I didn't know about. But she was a publicist at a respectable firm. She had very real friends, more authentic in terms of their success and ridiculously honest and forthright. Her apartment was well-furnished. Her wardrobe, expensive, and not entirely to blame on my own wallet although I did indulge in getting her a few items she lusted after. We never fought – except for that knife – and we never argued. Something just doesn't settle right. And where did she get that fucking pig sticker? It was not the sort of thing you'd expect a gorgeous young brunette to carry in her handbag.

I'm afraid to toss the knife. Maybe I've seen too many cop shows and forensic programs. My paranoia is through the roof, but I just cannot get rid of it. No doubt about it, the ugly thing would eventually surface and put me away for a really long time.

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