Abracadaver (Esther Diamond Novel) (18 page)

“Mm.
Mm.
” My mouth still on his, I was gesturing to and stumbling toward my front door, trying to get to it while I still had enough dexterity left to open it. As I turned away from him to wrestle the key into the lock, his hands were—
“Oh!”
—not at
all
shy with me now.

As soon as we were inside the apartment with the door locked behind us, we both dumped our coats on the floor, and then his arms were around me again. He backed me toward the couch as his mouth clung to mine. John and I fell onto the thing in a heap, jostling it hard enough to make it slide a little and thud against the wall, and we both laughed breathlessly.

We writhed around together, kissing, stroking, shifting to get closer—and my whole body went
zing!
with primal excitement when our hips slid neatly together and I could feel, through the weight of our winter clothes, how excited he was, too. I sighed mindlessly and pressed myself against him, moving without inhibition.

He whispered my name and sat up, breathing hard, to pull off his suit coat, his tie, and his shirt as fast as he could. I sat up to pull his undershirt over his head, and when his torso was finally naked, I ran my hands over him, enjoying his body, his kisses, his whispers.

He pulled my turtleneck sweater over my head, then his warm lips explored my neck and my cleavage while his hands sought the fastening of my bra. I held his head, sighing as I arched against him, and felt him unhook my bra and start to peel it away from my breasts.

And that was when I panicked.

One moment, I was passionately craving John, clutching him as if trying to absorb him into my body—and the next, I gasped in cold shock, rolled frantically away from him, and scooted to the edge of the couch, where I sat with my back to him, clutching my bra to my chest with one hand and holding the other hand over my mouth in stunned mortification.

Behind me, I could hear John breathing hard. So was I. I felt him shift a little on the couch, but he didn’t come closer.

“Esther?” he murmured, sounding confused—as well he might.

I felt like someone had gathered a big bucket of icy slush from the street below and dumped it all over my half-naked body.

John shifted a little more and risked touching my shoulder. Just his fingers. Gently, no pressure. “What’s wrong?”

Oh. My. God.

Well, wasn’t this just a
perfect
ending to another perfect day? If my life got any more wonderful, I might ask Quinn’s demon to move in with me so we could share the joy.

“Esther?”

How could I possibly face John now?

But I had to. There were some things in life you simply
had
to do, and this was one of them.

So I removed my hand from my mouth and choked out, “Sorry.”

“Are you okay?” he asked with concern.

“I’m really sorry,” I said, my back still to him.

“Did I . . . did I do something?”

“No.” I took a few breaths, braced myself, and looked at him over my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, John. I can’t tell you how sorry.”

He looked concerned, confused, and uncertain. “What’s wrong?” he asked again.

No, we weren’t going to talk about that.

“I should never have . . . I wasn’t ready . . . I’m
so
sorry, John.” I looked at the floor, deeply embarrassed.

“Oh.”

There was a long moment of silence, and then he sighed. When he moved again, it was to sit upright at the other end of the couch.

I glanced at his face, and I could see from his pensive expression that he had correctly interpreted my short stream of babble.

Not knowing what else to do, I apologized again as I fumbled around behind me on the couch, in search of my turtleneck. When I found it, I turned away to pull it over my head, then I reached underneath to refasten my bra.

Still mortified by my behavior, but feeling a little more secure with my clothes back on, I said, “It’s my fault. This should have gone well.”

“I thought it
was
going well,” he said with rueful sadness.

“It was,” I assured him. “Very well. You must know that.”

Like my apology, the statement was sincere. John was another guy who seemed like such an altar boy when his clothes were on and then revealed a whole different side of his nature when they came off. I seemed to have a terrible weakness for men like that.

“Okay.” He nodded and let out a long, slow breath. “I get it.”

“I wish
I
did,” I said morosely.

“Things being over between you and him . . .” John looked at the floor and shrugged. “It’s not the same thing as you being over him. Is it?”

“No.”

Goddamn you, Lopez.

But to share the blame fairly, I probably should not have tried to sleep with someone only a few hours after Lopez broke my heart.
Again.

“Not my finest hour,” I said, sensing John really didn’t want to hear the word “sorry” again.

“I should go.” He rose to his feet, slipped quickly into his clothes, and picked his coat up off the floor.

When he put his hand on the doorknob, I said anxiously, “Maybe I shouldn’t ask right now, but are we still friends?”

He met my gaze. “Of course we are.” And I could see that he meant it.

“I don’t want things to be awkward the next time we meet.”

“Oh, of course it’ll be awkward, Esther,” he said with a snort. “Come on.”

“Oh. Yeah,” I said wryly, “I guess so.”

“But it’ll pass and we’ll be okay again.”

“All right.” I smiled. “Thanks, John.”

He left, and I finally got off the couch so I could lock the door behind him. Then I leaned my back against it and covered my face with my hands, utterly mortified.

On the bright side, though, at least I was too swamped by remorse and embarrassment to spend the rest of the night crying, as I had planned.

Damn you, Lopez.

Yet despite how rotten he had made my whole night—and, in some ways, my whole year—when I found out the next day that he was marked for death, I was willing to do anything to save him.

A
fter a restless night and a late morning, I bundled up and left my apartment the next day for another
D30
costume fitting. It was still windy, snowing intermittently, bitterly cold, and the streets were an icy mess.

I was too tired and cranky to do anything with my appearance, so my hair was pulled back in a ponytail, my head was ringed by a red knit ear warmer, and my face was bare of makeup. This look didn’t really blend that well with the tiny black dress and thigh-high boots the wardrobe designer was squeezing me into for one of my upcoming scenes on the show as Jilly C-Note.

I thought this sleek, off-the-shoulder outfit looked a little upmarket for a streetwalker with a heroin problem. Sure, it was slutty (I could just imagine my mother’s expression when she saw the show), but it seemed more like an outfit for an uptown party girl than for a gritty hooker suspected of involvement in shooting a cop—which, it was clear from today’s new pages, was where the Jimmy Conway subplot was headed. He was having sexual fantasies about a hooker who—Cal Donner would tell him in the final episode—had probably tried to have him killed.

The costume designer wasn’t entirely happy with the fit of my little black dress, so I sat around the costume shop in a bathrobe while she plucked out some seams and made some adjustments. She was pleasantly gossipy, and delighted to tell me that many people in production were grateful that I got Michael Nolan out of their hair for a few days by arranging for him to shadow some OCCB cops I knew.

Okay, Quinn and Lopez were probably still unhappy about it, wherever they were today, but at least I was scoring some points with
D30
for that desperate measure.

No, don’t think about Lopez. Don’t even start.

After the alterations were finished, I tried on my costume again. While I was changing into it, the costume department received a phone call from the C&P storage warehouse, and it sounded as if there was a serious problem. I stood around for a few minutes, and once it was clear that no one seemed ready for me, I excused myself to go to the bathroom—something which took some careful maneuvering in a skirt that tight. When I returned a few minutes later, the costume shop was empty.

I was surprised, and I realized the problem must be bigger than I had supposed. The designer and the two assistants who had been here earlier must be conferring with the producers or something. I assumed the best thing for me to do would be to wait here until it was convenient for someone to take a final look at the fit of my costume. So I sat down with next week’s finished script, which I had been given upon arrival today, and started reading.

I was pleased that another scene with my character had been added to the episode. It supported the developing subplot that implicated (always inconclusively) Jilly C-note in the unsolved shooting of Jimmy Conway. The scene also portrayed Jilly’s bisexuality, a feature mentioned in her character description but not included in my previous appearance on D30. In this scene, Jilly would use sex to convince another prostitute to give her a phony alibi—but whether she wanted it for Jimmy’s shooting or for an unrelated matter remained murky.

So apparently I would be kissing and fondling another woman next week. I didn’t have a problem with that—it’s a lot like kissing and fondling a male actor. Either way, you’re getting physically intimate with a person you aren’t
actually
intimate with (and probably aren’t personally attracted to), and you’re doing it in front of cameras and microphones, with more than a dozen crew members crowded closely around.

In other words, it’s just acting.

But I did have a brief moment of discomfort when I pictured my parents watching me kiss and fondle another actress.

That’s where focus comes in handy. The thought of my parents bothered me now, and it would bother me when the episode aired; but while I was rehearsing and filming, I’d put it out of my head and focus on the work.

Thinking about sex and personal attraction brought last night to mind, of course—but I was
not
going to think about
that.
It would be at least a few weeks—and maybe a few months—before I’d be able to think about last night without immediately cringing and trying to put it out of my mind.

So I turned my attention back to the script.

But my thoughts drifted. What was I
doing?
A good man like John . . . an attractive, engaging man who’d been patient and gallant ever since I’d met him. And last night, I . . .

Script! Focus on the script.

I shifted in my seat, gave myself a shake, and resolutely put John Chen—and my mortifying folly—out of my mind.

As written, the new scene was pretty raunchy. There was nothing tender or emotional about Jilly’s sexuality. It was always commerce for her, whether she did it for money, to coax another hooker into giving her an alibi, or to string Jimmy Conway along. I was pleased that in the revisions Kathleen had done since our first read-through, Jilly now had a little more power. She wasn’t just being used and discarded by Conway, as was previously the case. She was also using him, playing him, and making sure he stayed off balance. This dynamic also made Jimmy more vulnerable, which made him more interesting.

With still no one turning up to finish my fitting, I started learning my lines. I had a comfortable chair in a quiet room and nothing else to do today, so I might as well use the time productively.

It was nearly dark outside by the time I was letter-perfect on my lines, getting bored here by myself, and wondering if I should just leave. Obviously, something much more serious than I’d suspected must have happened.

Still wearing my slutty black dress, I left the costume workshop and went looking for someone who might know what was going on. Before long, I found a production assistant who informed me that, in yet another tedious mishap, there’d been a messy accident at the warehouse where C&P’s costumes and props were stored. Due to snow and ice building up in the gutters, the roof had wound up leaking, and no one had known about it until a big part of it collapsed earlier today. The upshot was that about a quarter of C&P’s costume and prop stock was damaged or destroyed. Everyone available from both departments had gone straight out to the warehouse to sort through the damage and rescue whatever could be saved.

The production assistant was practically prostrate with distress upon learning that no one had told me and I’d been sitting in the costume shop all afternoon, waiting to finish my fitting. But I insisted the abject apologies weren’t necessary and this wasn’t a big deal. This was the most peace and quiet I’d had for some time, and that was a luxury I didn’t take lightly. I’d had time to read the script and learn my lines, and I’d been warm and dry for several hours in a row. All in all, it was hard to find cause for complaint.

When I went back to the changing room, I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my phone. As a professional courtesy, I had turned it off upon arriving for the fitting, and I hadn’t checked it since then. This was, of course, another reason that I’d had a peaceful afternoon.

I now saw that I had missed a phone call. The number was unfamiliar, but when I checked the message, I wasn’t that surprised to find that it was from Lucky. His phone had died under the influence of Quinn’s malevolent prankster, but he changed phones and phone numbers regularly, anyhow. It was one of the habits that ensured he remained too “lucky” to be prosecuted.

The message just said he had urgent news, and I should call him as soon as I got this. I felt a little guilty when I realized he had called more than an hour ago. I should have checked messages sooner.

Hoping that no one was hurt or maimed or malevolently possessed, I returned the call. I expected some cranky criticism about taking too long to get back to him. But he didn’t say anything like that. He just launched right into his reason for phoning me. So I realized this must be pretty serious. Even though, at first, it didn’t sound like it.

“Kid, it bugged me last night, what I overhead you tell the cops about Danny. Because you and I know who was responsible for the deed in question.”

“Uh-huh.” I assumed the deed was Joe Ning’s murder, about which Danny Teng had made a scene. Lucky believed in exercising discretion on the phone.

“And we know Danny
don’t
know who done that.”

“Agreed,” I said. All indications were that he had no idea Susan Yee was behind Uncle Six’s death.

“So I wondered, what does a coke-snorting rapist with the IQ of overcooked ravioli
think
he knows about that death?”

I hadn’t known Danny was a rapist or a cocaine user, but neither thing surprised me.

“This kind of thing can be very messy, and also bad for business. Hot-headed young thugs looking for vengeance in all the wrong places,” Lucky continued. “And since my boss’s business interests are extensive, I decided he should be made aware of this development. There is already too much attention on our family, and we don’t need more.”

“Ah.” It did not surprise me that Victor Gambello had interests, so to speak, that had intersected with those of Uncle Six. They were both big men, after all.

And if Victor Gambello felt that Danny Teng was becoming a liability . . . well, then Danny’s future might be even shorter than previously expected. I was, due to the strange twists and turns of fate, on cordial terms with the Gambello family; but that didn’t mean I ever fooled myself about how they conducted their business.

“So I received instructions late last night to look into this matter, which I been doin’ today.”

“And?”

“And this is not the sort of thing in which we usually interfere, Esther, but you are a friend of the family. So we will take what steps we can.”

I frowned, more puzzled than scared. “What are you saying? Danny Teng is after
me?
”

“No, he’s after your boyfriend,” Lucky said seriously.

“What?” I blurted.

“That stupid jerk believes all this crap that TV lawyer is spouting about Wonder Boy being responsible for Uncle Six’s death.”

“But—”

“And in his half-baked little brain, he’s taken it a step further and convinced himself that Lopez shoved the old man off that balcony and the cops are covering it up.”

“Seriously?”

“You see, Danny talks a lot when he’s, uh, in a woman’s company.”

“You found the girl he took home last night?” I guessed.

“Yeah. And she don’t like him any better than anyone else does, so it wasn’t that expensive to find out what he said to her. Especially since she don’t want to be an accessory to killing a cop.”

“That’s
his plan?” I blurted. “Danny intends to kill Lopez?”

“We’ll take care of this, Esther,” Lucky said formally. “You’ve been a good friend to the family, and we don’t forget our friends.”

I knew what that meant. And given what he had just told me Danny planned to do, I had no intention of telling the Gambellos I didn’t want their help. Lopez wouldn’t want it, but he didn’t have to know.

I also suspected there was an element of self-interest at work here. The Gambellos would not like to see a cop who was investigating them get blown away by a thug who’d worked for someone they did business with. It was too likely to attract more unwanted attention to the family.

“Where’s Danny now?” I came to my senses a second later and started to ask him not to tell me. The less I knew, the better, I suspected.

But Lucky said with regret, “We don’t know. He’s gone to ground.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” I demanded. “How hard can one swaggering, self-advertising gangster be to find?”

“Last time anyone saw him,” Lucky said, “was a few hours ago, when he went looking for Detective Lopez with a loaded gun.”

“He’s planning to do it now?
Today?
”

“You’d better call your boyfriend and warn him,” said Lucky. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve got news.”

I was in my coat, out the door, and hailing a cab before I even realized where I was headed. I rarely spent money on cabs, but this was obviously an emergency.

However, when a taxi stopped and the driver asked where I was going . . . I realized I didn’t know.

I hopped into the car anyhow, since it was cold and snowing, and it might not be easy to get another one later. “Just turn on the meter and drive. I’ll give you an address later.”

“Okay!” the driver said cheerfully. “Take your time!”

I phoned Lopez and got his voicemail. After the beep, I started babbling. “It’s me. This is really important. Danny Teng is looking for you with a gun.
Right now.
He plans to kill you! Never mind how I know.
Be careful!
And call me as soon as you get this. I
mean
it!”

“Whoa!” said the driver. “Sounds serious.”

I closed the partition and tried to think. I didn’t have Quinn’s phone number. And Lopez was the only person I knew who did.

Damn.

And then I remembered: Nolan!

“Oh, thank God for Nolan.” Those were words I had certainly never expected to say. I called the actor.

To my relief, he answered on the second ring.

“Are you with Lopez and Quinn?” I asked eagerly.

“No, I’m at dinner. I’m done with—”

“Where are they?”

“Off protecting and serving, I guess,” he said without interest. “My entrée is going to be put in front of me any second, so I’m gonna g—”

“Why aren’t you with them?” I asked shrilly. “You’re supposed to be with them!”

“Look, today was a bust, so I’m done with this,” he said. “I don’t even know where Quinn was today, and Lopez . . . Jesus, you’d think
rats
had crawled up that guy’s ass, the way he’s acting.”

“We broke up again last night,” I said by way of explanation.

“Oh. Figures,” Nolan said. “I thought it must be something to do with a woman—but when I asked nicely, the guy bit my head off and then just brooded. You know, I just can’t stand people who are that rude and self-absorbed.”

I was in no mood to appreciate the irony of this.