"Tell me about the mess."
"The police took my fucking fingerprints! Even you know about it."
"So why are you upset about it?" Jason asked.
"I don't like being accused. It makes me angry. I'm not like them. I don't use people. I always liked the Chinese girls; they weren't nasty like the girls in school. You never had to do anything to impress them. They just liked you, know what I mean? It didn't matter to them if a guy wasn't perfect. I never used them." He pulled on his fingers, wringing his hands. "I'm a good person. That's why this whole thing burns me so much. Did you see my wife's face? She's a mess. This is too much." He dropped his hands to his lap and let his chin fall to his chest as if depleted of all his energy.
"Do you think Heather will tell her mother the whole story?"
Anton raised his head slowly, as if considering it. "I don't know her anymore. I don't know what she'll do. Do you think she's crazy, I mean really crazy?" He asked it with his eyes wide, innocently.
"You suggested it yourself the first time we met. And again tonight."
"I know, but there are other factors," he said vaguely.
"You mean somebody hit her on the head with a broomstick."
"Not me," Anton insisted.
"Who?"
Anton pushed air through closed lips making a farting noise.
"How could I know? I wasn't there."
Jason didn't like the guy, but oddly enough he believed him. Half an hour later, when Anton nodded off in the middle of a sentence, Jason went home for dinner.
CHAPTER 31
B
y evening Mike was beginning to worry about April. It had been a big day. He'd received a call from the Tel Aviv police in the morning with some information that broke his homicide case. He tried to reach April with the good news, but she didn't respond to his page. This prompted him to stop in Forest Hills on his way home to buy two cell phones. April still wasn't responding to her beeper when he got home at half past seven. Mike paced around his apartment for nearly an hour, then was astounded when she arrived with two shopping bags at quarter past nine.
"Querida,
where have you been all my life?" He took the shopping bags from her, drew her arms around his neck, and gave her a lingering kiss that threatened to go on for a long time.
She let her arms slide down his sides and around his back. Her fingers felt around in the waistband of his trousers. Still kissing him, she raised her knee up the inside of first one leg and then the other, like a spy on assignment, looking for a weapon.
He realized what she was doing and laughter bubbled up from deep inside. April was feeling him up and patting him down, arousing and teasing him at the same time. His pants were suddenly unbearably tight. Then, with sleight of hand worthy of a magician making tigers appear and disappear, April had his trousers unzipped and around his knees. He stopped trying to kiss her because he was laughing too hard.
"Ha ha ha ha."
She sure knew how to disarm a guy. "Ha, ha-ha, ha!" He was laughing, and then she had him nailed.
"Look at what I found," she murmured. "Sir, did you know you're carrying a concealed weapon?"
"No, ma'am. Nothing concealed about that."
"Oh, yes, it was concealed until I revealed it. You have a license for this?" she asked, giving him a friendly squeeze.
"Ahhhh uhaaaa."
"You wouldn't want me to take you in for this. This is big. What is it, a semiautomatic you've got here?"
"No, it's completely automatic. Ahhhaaah—" He made some more noises, not laughing anymore. "Oh, my God. Okay, okay, you win,
querida.
What do you want?"
April stepped away, appraising him with a raised eyebrow and a smile the way men did so often with women. Then she patted him on his bare bottom and let him go. "I need a few minutes,
mi amor.
I have to call my mother."
Then she turned to look for the phone. And his heart, pumping away at his lifeblood, wouldn't let him calm down. She'd turned the tables on him. Once again he was on fire and didn't know whether to take his pants off or put them back on. Whew. The woman knew how to even the playing field, and she had a mind of her own. It was going to take some getting used to.
April dialed the phone in the kitchen and waited a long time. Then she dialed again. He could hear her hang up. She came out of the kitchen shaking her head.
"What's going on?"
"I'm making dinner," she said, a little distracted. "I was in Chinatown all afternoon. I couldn't help shopping."
"But how'd you know I'd be here?"
April gave him a look. "Where else would you be?"
"I could be out on a homicide, could be anywhere." He pulled at his mustache, trying to figure her out. Why hadn't she just let him know she was coming so he could have been happy and anticipated the pleasure of seeing her, trying out her cooking. "I broke the case."
"That's great," she said.
"Yeah, I got Schlomo's killer."
"Who was it?"
"Another Israeli. Get this, the victim's wife received her husband's private parts by Federal Express this morning. Guess there wasn't any problem with customs. Scared her so much she told Tel Aviv police she and her husband's partner had been having an affair for some time. When she decided to break it off and go back to her husband, the partner made good on his threat that the next time she saw the gonif's dick it would be in a box."
"Wow." April still looked distracted.
"This guy was in trouble over there a number of times dating back to his army days, so they were eager for us to keep him. Guess where he was?"
"Do I have to?"
"He was doing business in his office as usual, selling the diamonds he'd stolen without the slightest fear of getting caught." Mike laughed. It was constantly amazing to him how people did the stupidest things and thought they could get away with it.
April started unpacking her shopping bags. "Well, you had a better day than I did. All I did was check out a lot of people who had new babies, none of which was the one we're looking for. Bugged the Popescus some more, didn't get anywhere with them. And I went shopping." She took two jars of nasty-looking stuff with Chinese labels out of the bag; then came garlic, ginger, scallions, and something that looked like green beans but were way too long.
Mike recognized cucumbers and dried mushrooms but couldn't identify some leafy things or the black bulbs in a plastic bag. A bottle of mushroom soy sauce emerged from its wrapping in a Chinese newspaper.
"I needed a break," she said.
"Hmmm . . . This cooking and break thing is new with you. What am I supposed to do, hang around here just in case you decide to come over on the spur of the moment?"
She gave him a mischievous smile. He leaned against the counter close to her, trying to be cool and not grab her again. "What are these black things?"
"Fresh water chestnuts. We're lucky. You don't see them every day." She finished unpacking the bags, finally taking out a whole roast duck. This she left on the counter. "Want to fool around?" she asked, touching the buckle on his belt.
The invitation threw Mike off balance again. He hadn't wanted to rush her and be corrected again. He took a teasing tone. "Right now? Don't you want to call your mother, hear more about my day, tell me about yours?"
"No." April put her arm around him and drew him back into the living room and sat on the sofa. She checked her watch, then took off her sweater. Under it she was wearing a lacy bra he hadn't seen before. "I've been here five minutes. You want to fool around now?"
"You sure we've been civilized long enough,
quer-idaV
' Mike teased, finally on solid ground.