Most Wanted (33 page)

Steve patted her arm. “We’re sorry, really, we apologize. Listen, we’re kind of in the middle of something here. If you wouldn’t mind, can we talk about this in the morning?” He shepherded her to the door and gently guided her through it. “Thanks again, Elsie. Have a good night.”

He closed the door behind her and walked into the living room, sinking down heavily onto the sofa. Melanie came and sat at the opposite end, leaving several feet of space between them. They hadn’t spoken the entire way home in the taxi. She looked down at the sofa’s once pristine taupe chenille surface, now marred with spit-up stains. She thought of when it was new, of their happy ignorance as they settled into their marital apartment. They’d been so confident of a smooth future, so blind to what could go wrong. Down the hall, as if on cue, Maya started to cry.

“Do you want to check on her, or should I?” Steve asked, sounding tired. He didn’t move.

Melanie stood up, but then the crying stopped.

“Stay here. She stopped,” Steve said, but Melanie continued heading for Maya’s room. She always checked on the baby when she came home. Besides, she’d feel better and think more clearly if she saw her daughter’s face.

The nursery glowed with golden light from the night-light. Melanie approached the crib reverently, holding her breath so she wouldn’t make a sound. Maya lay on her back, lost in the wild abandon of infant sleep, her arms thrown back over her head and her eyelids fluttering. Looking at her baby daughter, Melanie flashed back to how she felt at her high-school graduation when her father didn’t show up, seeing all those other big, happy families. By then it was official that he was never coming home. The doctors had given him a clean bill of health, but every time a date was set for him to fly back to New York, he made some new excuse to delay. Finally she demanded an explanation from her mother. “
Your father wants to stay in San Juan,” her mother had said wearily. “But he’s better! He can come home now! The doctors said so,” Melanie had protested. “You wanted to know
,
so listen to what I’m telling you. He’s not coming back here. We’re getting a divorce
.”

“What’s gonna happen to you,
nena
, if I don’t fix this?” Melanie whispered now.

She heard a noise behind her and turned. Steve stood in the doorway, the light from the hall picking up the gold in his hair. He was so gorgeous, she thought, he made great money, and he loved his daughter like only her own father could. What if Melanie’s mother was right? Plenty of other women in her shoes would patch things up and consider themselves fortunate. What was her problem? Maybe she should try harder to work things out. If there was one vow she’d ever made, it was that Maya’s childhood would be better than her own.

Steve walked over and stood beside her. “She’s so beautiful,” he said, looking down into the crib. “Like you.”

He took her hand and pulled her toward the door.

“Steve—”

“Shhh!” He put his finger to her lips until they were in the hallway, then led her into their bedroom, where he turned her to face him. He kissed her lightly on the lips and began unbuttoning her blouse.

“I thought about it on the way home, Melanie, and I’m willing to forget about this incident with the FBI guy. I get the point. You wanted me to see that other men find you attractive. You think I don’t know that, baby? You’re so damn hot,” he said, nuzzling her ear.

“You’re crazy. We need to
talk
, not have sex.”

She frowned, but she didn’t stop him. This was how he always dealt with their problems, and it wasn’t working anymore. Or was it? His touch still made her knees go weak. She wanted to protest, to tell him that Dan was more to her than a point she was trying to make. But Steve was distracting her, sliding her blouse off her shoulders and kissing her neck, then her mouth. She started kissing back. She couldn’t help it—he was a great kisser. She’d say that much for him. The way he used his tongue to part her lips,
ay, mami
, so good! And he picked exactly the right moment to slide his hands slowly around her behind and pull her tight against him. She could feel her insides melting.

“Yeah, you have a little wild streak, don’t you?” he whispered in her ear.

“You’re the wild one, not me,” she said, between wet kisses and heavy breathing. “Remember when we first met, at that ski share? You couldn’t decide who you were gonna bed first, me or that bitch Kelly what’s-her-name. I knew from the start you were a playboy, but you were so handsome I didn’t listen to myself.”

He pulled back and looked at her, his hazel eyes sleepy with lust. “Kelly? No way. She was boring and uptight. You were always the one I wanted. Like I said, the hottest thing on the planet. Why do you think I married you?”

“Steve, there’s more to marriage than just sex.”

“Yeah? Who says?” He pushed her down onto the bed and climbed on top of her, nudging her legs apart with his knee. “When the sex is this good, who needs anything else? Not me.”

Well, I do, she thought, but she couldn’t speak with his tongue in her mouth. Okay, so maybe she’d wait and tell him that afterwards.

“Oh!” she moaned.

“See, baby? Told ya.”

SHE HAD TO STOP HAVING SEX WITH HER HUSBAND. Not only was it confusing but it made her feel cheap. Though how could that be? she asked herself, looking at Steve after he rolled off her. This was the man she’d married, in the eyes of God and the law. The father of her child. She was doing exactly what she was supposed to do, trying to work things out with him, wasn’t she?

Steve started to snore.

“Hey!” She poked him. “Wake up!”

“Wha’?”

“Wake up. We need to talk. Then you need to go. GO, go.”

“No way. I’m too tired. You wore me out, Mel.”

“I’m not kidding about the separation, Steve.”

He sat up and looked at her.

“Why? Because of that musclehead creep in the trashy car? I got a look at him. He has ‘fling’ written all over him, Mel. You’re rebounding. I understand, and I’m prepared to forgive. Provided you never see him again, of course.”

“You’re assuming all I’m after is sex because that’s all
you’re
after. Dan happens to be a very substantive human being. He’s caring and a great listener—”

“Oh, and since when does shit like that even matter to you?” he asked angrily.

“What?”

“Look, I’m not criticizing you or anything. But intimacy is not your strong suit. After the childhood you had, who can blame you?”

“What are you
talking
about?”

“If you don’t get it, you ought to take a long, hard look in the mirror, Mel. Think about it. You work all the time. You have no close friends. And you and me—we have fun, and we’re really compatible. But this isn’t one of those relationships where we sit around blabbing about our innermost feelings. Like you’d ever get that from Mr. Musclehead anyway. Gimme a break!”

She got up and pulled on a bathrobe, then walked over to the window, not speaking, more troubled than she cared to admit by what he’d said.

“You know they never caught the man who shot my father,” she began tentatively. “Sixteen years ago, and he’s still out there somewhere. That’s why I work so hard. To stop other people from suffering what I suffered.”

“Hey, like I said, you have your reasons. I’m not blaming you, and I’m not complaining. I’m crazy about you, just the way you are. You’re gorgeous and smart and fun in bed. You’re an amazing mother. But it doesn’t ring true for you to go all psychobabble on me, Mel.”

“If it’s really like you say, doesn’t that mean we need to work on our relationship? And work on
ourselves
?” she asked, turning away from the window and looking at him.

“No! We’ve got a good thing going here, baby. Let’s not overthink it, okay? The best solution is just to forget this ever happened. I cheated with Samantha, then you fooled around with Mr. Universe. Fair’s fair. Let’s just call it even and put it behind us. I mean, what more do you want?”

More than that, she thought. I want more than that.

Steve sighed and rubbed his eyes. His stomach rumbled. “I never had dinner tonight,” he said. “Want to order some Chinese?”

She walked over and picked up his pants from where they lay on the floor, handing them to him. “The diner on Madison is open until eleven. You can still get something if you hurry.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Steve, you may be content to live your life in the kind of relationship you just described, with the kind of partner you seem to think I am. I’m not willing to settle for that.”

He sighed, looking down at the pants in his hand. “Fine, if you insist, we’ll go back to that marriage counselor. If that’s what you need to feel better.”

“Don’t say that just because you want to sleep over tonight. You need to be sincere. Look, I really think we need some time apart, to figure out how serious we are about fixing this marriage.”

He studied her for a moment, then stood up and pulled on his pants.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll indulge you for a little while longer, Mel. I guess you’re more upset about Samantha than I realized. But I’m warning you, there’s a limit. I’m getting tired of sleeping at my parents’. And if you see that guy again, I am
not
going to be happy.”

She followed him to the foyer to lock up behind him. As he left, she automatically kissed him good night. The kiss made her sad, but it wouldn’t have felt right to let him leave without one either. Old habits die hard.

AFTER STEVE LEFT, SHE GOT THE MUNCHIES something awful. It must be stress. Or all the sex. Lucky Steve was gone, because if he were still here, they’d probably wind up doing it again. Food was a safer option. She’d rather have her stomach full and her mind clear of her husband, so she could think.

She went hunting through the cabinets to find it. The small, square box with the blue-and-gold label that hadn’t changed since her childhood. Flan from a mix, her favorite dessert as a kid. And yes, she was an assimilated, mainland Puerto Rican whose
mami
didn’t know how to make the real thing from scratch. So what? That’s who she was, and she should stop being so down on herself.

That was what she ultimately decided, as she stirred the creamy yellow mixture, savoring the delicious caramel scent that rose from the pot. She needed to think better of herself. In her heart she’d never made it out of Bushwick. She was still the girl from the block, child of violence and divorce, whose father never came back home after that one awful night. Up until now she was grateful to take what Steve offered and not ask anything more.

She poured the sweet molten liquid out into small bowls and stuck them in the freezer to speed the cooling process. She ate two and a half of the bowls before she felt sick to her stomach and dumped the rest in the trash.
¡Qué estúpido
! What was she thinking? She could feel those calories going straight to her hips. Now she’d have to fast tomorrow to make up for it.

She went to her bedroom and turned off the lights, lying on top of the covers and watching the blue shadows move across the room, thinking about what Steve had said. She didn’t want to be the person he described. She wanted to jettison all that old baggage from her childhood, so she could be better and braver and take her rightful place in the world.

Now all she had to do was figure out how.

BILL FLANAGAN SNAPPED HIS CELL PHONE SHUT, A satisfied smile spreading across his broad red face. He hadn’t expected this gig to amount to much. But whaddaya know, a phone call out of the blue, and here he was looking at twenty-five grand. Fifteen, that scumbag offered him first, but he negotiated it up. Think Wild Bill Flanagan didn’t know the street price for a hit? Think they were dealing with a fucking amateur? Think again, my friend. The timing was good, though. Frankie Bricks was coming after him for that wad he dropped in Atlantic City. He needed a payday if he didn’t want to wind up kneecapped.

He’d have to think it through real careful, though. It was such an easy setup, what with him in the room anyway, it was tempting to jump the gun. She’d been sleeping when he left. He could walk back in and take care of it right now with the old pillow-over-the-face routine, then string her up with some rope or, better yet, a torn bedsheet. Make it look like a suicide, the man said. Twenty-five grand for a couple minutes work—not bad. He’d enjoy it, too, big-time. That snotty little bitch waking up terrified when she couldn’t breathe, trying to fight him off, writhing under him while he pressed the pillow down harder, then going limp. Wow. Just thinking about it, he got a hard-on for the first time in as long as he could remember. But if he decided to go that route, he’d have to set up his alibi real careful, or he’d get caught.

That was the problem. The easiest thing about this hit was also the hardest. He had total access. That meant they would come looking to him for answers. If they didn’t buy the suicide angle, they’d know it was murder; nothing in her condition far as he knew would suggest natural causes. So they’d assume he had something to do with it. Somebody else bodyguarding her might be able to say he’d stepped out to take a piss and get away with it, but not him. They had it in for him, the lousy motherfuckers. He needed something good, something that could be corroborated. He needed to be seen somewhere. The cafeteria, maybe? He could kill her, string her up, then go down there and pick a fight with somebody. That would get him noticed, and it would also have the added benefit of explaining any marks on him if the little bitch resisted. Then he’d come upstairs and pretend to discover the body. It was a possibility.

He went back into the room and sat in the chair in the corner, watching her sleep, thinking about how to do it. It was around ten o’clock. Bright light spilled into the darkened room from the hallway. Still a lot of activity on the ward. Middle of the night would be better, so nobody would hear the struggle. It had to be done tonight—that was a condition of the deal. So he didn’t have time to get no heart-attack drug or any fancy shit like that. A knife, a gun, he already had, but they wouldn’t fly if he was gonna fake the suicide. Suffocation, then, or maybe strangulation. Strangulation, now there was an idea. The white flesh of her skinny neck under his thumbs as he crushed her windpipe. Jesus, he was turning himself on again.