The Wild Zone Page 9

  “Don’t I know you?” the man suddenly asked Jeff.

  Will found himself holding his breath.

  “Don’t think so,” Jeff said easily.

  “I’m pretty sure we’ve met somewhere. You work around here?”

  “Nah. I work in Wynwood. Elite Fitness over on Northwest Fortieth. You know it?”

  “Can’t say that I do. You’re a personal trainer?”

  “Jeff Rydell, at your service.”

  “I might take you up on that one day. What street are you looking for?” he asked, flexing his fingers.

  Will thought he detected some bruising at the man’s knuckles. His eyes shot to Suzy’s face.

  “They’re trying to find Miracle Mile,” Suzy said, avoiding Will’s penetrating gaze and staring down at her feet, her sunglasses acting as a shield from his prying eyes.

  “Miracle Mile? Everybody knows where to find Miracle Mile.”

  “Everyone except my friend here,” Jeff said, rolling his eyes in Tom’s direction.

  “You can go inside now, sweetheart,” the man said softly, although it was clear it wasn’t a request. “I can take care of this.”

  Suzy backed away from the car. “Good luck,” she said directly to Will. Then she turned and hurried up the front walk toward her house without a backward glance.

  “Thanks for your help,” Jeff called after her.

  “The Miracle Mile,” the man mused, as if giving the matter serious consideration. “Let’s see. What’s the best way to get there from here? Probably along Anderson Road.”

  “Anderson Road?” Tom asked.

  “Go to the end of this street, turn left, go straight for two blocks, then turn left again, then right at the next stoplight. That’s Anderson. Keep going till you hit the Miracle Mile.”

  “Sounds simple enough,” Jeff said.

  “You’re sure I don’t know you from somewhere?” the man asked pointedly. “I’m sure I’ve seen you around. The Wild Zone, maybe?”

  Will felt his throat go instantly dry. What was going on? You didn’t just pull a name like the Wild Zone out of thin air. How much did Suzy’s husband know? How much had she told him?

  “The Wild Zone?” Jeff repeated, chewing on the words, his face betraying nothing. “Is that a clothing store?”

  The man laughed, although the sound was hollow. “It’s a bar over in South Beach. You’ve never been there?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Me neither,” echoed Tom. “What about you, Will? You ever take a trip to the Wild Zone?”

  “I’m new in town, remember?” Will said, pushing the words from his mouth.

  “Well, enjoy the Miracle Mile,” the man told Jeff, as if the others didn’t exist. Clearly, if he suspected anything—and just as clearly, he suspected something —then his suspicions fell squarely on Jeff. The man straightened up, began backing away.

  “Thanks again,” Tom said with a wave.

  He was turning on the ignition when the man’s face suddenly reappeared in the open window. “Oh,” the man said, as if it were an afterthought. “Don’t let me catch you boys in this neighborhood again.” He winked, then turned away, striding purposefully back to his house.

  “What the hell?” Tom sputtered as the front door shut behind him. “Who does that asshole think he is?” He reached under his seat, pulled out a small handgun, brandished it in the air. “I’ve got half a mind to shoot that motherfucking piece of shit.”

  “Whoa!” Jeff exclaimed, stopping Tom’s hand as it began waving the gun back and forth. “You’ve got half a mind all right. What the hell are you doing with that thing?”

  “He’s got a gun?” Will cried. “Is he crazy? You want to get us killed?”

  “Aw, don’t get your panties all in a knot. It’s no big deal.”

  “We’re not in Kandahar, jerk-off,” Jeff admonished him. “Put the damn thing away.”

  “Shit,” Tom said, returning the gun to its previous location.

  “A gun. I don’t believe it.” Will’s breath was short and labored. It stabbed at his windpipe. “Is it loaded?”

  “Of course it’s loaded. You think I’m some pussy, walking around with an unloaded gun?”

  “I think you’re a lunatic. That’s what I think.”

  “Okay. Enough.” Jeff reached across Tom to start the ignition. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “What the hell just happened?” Tom asked as he pulled away from the curb.

  Will said nothing, Tom having taken the words right out of his mouth.

  “SO, SUZY, YOU want to tell me what that was all about?” her husband asked gently.

  She was sitting on the sofa, Dave standing directly in front of her, looming large above her, like a spitting king cobra.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Tell me about the men in the car, Suzy.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” she started to explain. “I looked outside, saw this strange car sitting there—”

  “You just happened to look outside?” he interrupted.

  “Yes.” She’d looked outside, thoughts of escape swirling around in her head. Could she make it out the door without his noticing? How long before he realized she was gone? How many hours before he tracked her down, came after her, made good on his threat to kill her should she ever try to leave?

  “And you saw a strange car with three strange men sitting in it, and so you naturally went outside to say hello?”

  She’d recognized the car immediately as the one that had tailed her the night before, the one she’d assumed belonged to a detective hired by her husband. Then she recognized the men from the bar, saw Will in the backseat. “I saw them struggling with a map,” she told Dave. “They were obviously lost. I was just trying to be helpful.” I was just trying to get away, she thought. She’d run across the street with only that in mind. She couldn’t afford to waste any more time. “Take me with you,” she’d been about to cry. Instead, what emerged was, “What are you doing here? You have to leave. Now.”

  Dave smiled, sat down beside her, took her hand in his. “Your hands are ice cold,” he noted.

  “Are they?”

  “Are you cold, sweetheart?” He put his arm around her, pulled her tight against him.

  “A little.”

  He started rubbing the side of her arm. She winced as he pressed down, hard, on one of her sore spots. “Oh, I’m sorry, darling. Did I hurt you?”

  “No. It’s fine.”

  “Because you know how much I hate hurting you. Don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “I know how much you hate hurting me.”

  “Almost as much as I hate being lied to. You’re not lying to me, are you, darling?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve really never seen any of those men before?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Not even at the Wild Zone?”

  “The Wild Zone?” Dear God, what had they told him?

  “The good-looking one with the blond hair? The personal trainer,” Dave clarified. “You haven’t been hooking up with him?”

  “What? No.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s that stupid-looking one in the driver’s seat. Please tell me you have better taste than that.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen any of those men before.”

  “So, they just happened to be driving through Coral Gables and stopped in front of our house, looking for the Miracle Mile.”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “Which any idiot could find blindfolded.”

  Suzy said nothing. It sounded lame even to her ears.

  Dave’s arm snaked its way around her neck, his hand massaging the top of her spine. “You know one of the best things about being a doctor, Suzy?” he asked. “People respect you. They think that because you’re a doctor, it follows you’re an honorable man. So they tend to believe whatever you tell the
m.”

  Suzy nodded, although his arm wasn’t allowing her much room to maneuver.

  “For example, if I were to tell people, the police for instance, that my wife had been moody and depressed of late, they probably wouldn’t be too surprised to learn she’d taken her own life. Which is one of the other nice things about being a doctor,” he continued, almost cheerily. “I know how the body works. And what it takes to make it stop working. Do you understand what I’m saying, sweetheart?”

  “Dave, please—”

  “Do you understand? A simple yes or no is all that’s required.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He relaxed his grip. “Because it would truly break my heart if something were to happen to you. You know that, don’t you? Again, a simple yes or no will suffice.”

  Suzy closed her eyes, pushed the word from her mouth. “Yes.”

  “Good. Now, why don’t you slip into something sexy? Seems your husband’s feeling a little amorous.”

  Suzy pushed herself off the sofa, walked silently toward the bedroom.

  “Hurry back,” she heard him say.

  NINE

  “JEFF, PHONE FOR YOU,” Melissa called from behind the reception desk that was tucked near the entrance to the small boutique gym.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Jeff said to the middle-aged woman in the black leotard and turquoise jersey. “Why don’t you do a couple of minutes on the treadmill? I’ll be right back.”

  “I told him you were with a client,” Melissa apologized, “but he says it’s an emergency.”

  The old-fashioned black rotary phone was barely out of Melissa’s hand before Tom’s voice was bellowing in Jeff’s ear. “She’s with a goddamn lawyer,” he was shouting.

  Jeff looked anxiously over his shoulder to check on whether his boss was hovering. But Larry was busy with a ponytailed young woman on the elliptical machine. Still, he’d have to be careful. You weren’t supposed to take personal calls at work. Larry might have been only a couple of years older than he was, and he was pretty laid-back, as far as bosses went, but he was still Jeff’s superior, and Jeff didn’t want to lose this job. Elite Fitness, located above a bakery, wasn’t too far from his apartment, and the clientele was nice. Not half as snooty as the last place he’d worked. “Who’s with a lawyer?” he asked, his voice low, barely audible over the loud rap music blasting from the nearby speakers.

  “Who do you think? Lainey, that’s who. Who the hell else would I be talking about?”

  Jeff decided not to remind Tom about the weekend. “Please tell me you’re not following her,” he whispered, holding one hand over the mouthpiece, his eyes darting between the large machines at one end of the room and the benches and free weights at the other. He shifted his position, trying to avoid both the direct noontime sun pouring in through the large front window and the mirrors that were pretty much everywhere. Despite the air-conditioning, it was pretty warm in the long, rectangular room, although the pleasing aroma of freshly baked bread wafting up from the vents did a nice job of masking the smell of sweat that permeated the wood floors.

  “Of course I’m following her,” Tom said impatiently. “How else would I know where she is? First thing Monday morning, and already she’s talking to a goddamn attorney.”

  “Tell me you don’t have a gun.”

  “I don’t have a gun.”

  Jeff knew immediately Tom was lying. “Jesus, Tom, you can’t keep doing this. You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

  “Anybody gets killed around here, it’s not gonna be me.”

  “What about your job?” Jeff asked, deciding to try a different tack.

  “Not to worry. I called in sick.”

  Jeff felt the dull thud of an incipient headache at the base of his neck. He didn’t have the patience for Tom right now. “Look, I can’t talk now. I’m with a client.”

  “I go over to her parents’ house around nine o’clock this morning,” Tom continued, as if Jeff hadn’t spoken. “I figured I’m being polite, you know, not getting there too early. Lainey’s just leaving the house, she’s dressed all nice, so I know something’s up. I mean, why is she all dressed up so early on a Monday morning? Where’s she going? So, I decide to follow her, find out what’s going on. She drives over to West Flagler, goes into this bright pink building that looks like a giant bottle of Pepto-Bismol. I check the directory. All lawyers, man.”

  “Okay, so she’s talking to a lawyer. That doesn’t mean—”

  “It means she’s gonna file for divorce. It means she’s gonna try to take my kids away from me. Those kids mean everything to me, man. You know that.”

  Jeff decided this probably wasn’t the best time to point out that Tom rarely spent much time with his children. “Look, why don’t you take a few deep breaths and try to calm down. Then call your boss, tell him you’re feeling better, and go in to work. It’ll take your mind off Lainey.”

  “I won’t let that bitch take my kids away from me.”

  “Just hold tight. Don’t do anything stupid. Wait and see what happens in a few days.”

  “I know what’s going to happen in a few days. I’m gonna get served with divorce papers, that’s what’s going to happen.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe if you don’t go flying off the handle, if you stay calm . . .” Jeff stopped. This was Tom he was talking to, he reminded himself.

  “Maybe you could talk to her,” Tom said.

  “What? No way.”

  “Please, Jeff. You gotta help me. It’s your fault I’m in this mess.”

  “What?” What is Tom talking about now? Jeff wondered as he watched Caroline Hogan reduce the speed of her treadmill, thinking that for a woman of almost sixty, she was in remarkably good shape. “How the hell do you figure that?”

  “If it hadn’t been for you and that stupid bet at the bar . . .”

  “Hey, it was your idea to go chasing after Suzy.”

  The receptionist cleared her throat, her eyes motioning to her right.

  “So what time works best for you?” Jeff asked loudly as Larry walked by, his young client trailing after him, her ponytail swaying from side to side.

  “Hi, Jeff,” the girl, whose name was Kelly, said, a big smile on her pretty, heart-shaped face.

  Jeff returned her smile as Tom’s voice boomed against his ear. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “Certainly. Why don’t you check your schedule again and get back to me? I’m sure we can work something out.”

  “What the hell’s going on there?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have any openings until seven o’clock.”

  “Are you shitting me or what?”

  “Look,” Jeff whispered when Larry and the girl were comfortably out of earshot. “I told you I can’t talk. My boss is watching.”

  “Who gives a shit? You don’t think this is more important?”

  “I’ll call you later. In the meantime, go home, calm down, stop following her. You hear me, Tom? Are you listening to me?”

  “I won’t follow her.”

  “Okay, good. I’ll talk to you later.” Jeff hung up the phone, finding it fascinating that someone who lied as often as Tom did was still so bad at it. He handed the receiver back to Melissa. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “Anytime. Oh, your eleven o’clock canceled.”

  “Everything all right?” Caroline Hogan asked, stepping off her treadmill and walking toward him, the front of her turquoise T-shirt sprinkled with coin-sized beads of perspiration, manicured red fingernails dabbing at her moist upper lip.

  “My eleven o’clock canceled,” Jeff said dryly. “And a friend of mine’s wife just left him.”

  She arched one carefully plucked eyebrow, her forehead wrinkling ever so slightly.

  A spot the Botox missed, Jeff thought, guiding her toward a nearby exercise bench and directing her to lie on her back.

  Caroline Hogan lay down and arranged her chin-length, curly blond hair on the white towe
l beneath her head, her still-shapely legs dangling over the end of the narrow bench, her Adidas runners resting on the light hardwood floor.

  “How fast did you go on the treadmill?”

  “Six-point-five.”

  “Not half bad for an old broad.” The words were out of Jeff’s mouth before he had time to edit them, and he was grateful when he heard Caroline laugh. She had such a nice laugh. Not too harsh, not too girlish. Substantial. Genuine. Not like Kristin, whose laugh was surprisingly tentative, or Lainey, whose laugh always sounded forced, both women laughing almost in spite of themselves. “He’s better off without her,” Jeff said, placing a twelve-pound weight in Caroline’s outstretched hands.

  “I assume you’re talking about your friend whose wife left,” Caroline stated, bending her elbows to lower the weight to the middle of her forehead and then bringing it up into the air again, without needing to be told. She’d been coming in twice a week for the last three years, warming up on the treadmill and then working out for an hour with a trainer. Her previous trainer had left for New York two months ago, and Jeff had been hired to take his place. Caroline knew exactly what was expected of her, a quality Jeff liked in a woman.

  A quality sadly lacking in Lainey Whitman.

  Although surely she’d known what she was getting into when she married Tom.

  “Arms straight,” he reminded Caroline. “Bring them up a little higher. That’s good, Caroline. Do another eight.”

  “Why’d she leave?” Caroline asked.

  “Who knows?” Jeff shrugged. “Why’d you leave your husband?”

  “Which one?”

  “How many have there been?”

  “Just two. I left the first one when I caught him in bed with the nanny—trite, but true; the second one died of cancer four years ago, so technically, I guess, he left me.”

  “Think you’ll ever get married again?”

  “Oh, I hope so,” Caroline said, sounding like a teenager, as Jeff took the weight from her hands. “I always liked being married. What about you?”

  “I’ve never had the pleasure.” The word “pleasure” stuck in Jeff’s throat. Sometimes, often when he least expected it, he could still hear his mother and father screaming at each other behind the closed door of their bedroom. Not much pleasure in that. He pointed to the floor. “A set of push-ups.”