going to be immortalized on the walls of Barnes & Noble with Kafka, Hemingway, Faulkner, Hughes, and Nabokov. I will be respected. I will not be ignored. They’re going to have to look up from their venti white chocolate mochas and see me looking down on them.”
She tightened her lips and stared out the window.
Checkmate.
He added, “And when you get to the hotel, take it easy on the mini-bar.”
Her lips tightened more. “Marcus, I demand to inspect the room before they take the luggage up. The sheets were filthy at that place we stayed in D.C.”
“Don’t complicate things with your bullshit, Sade.”
“Sheets that atrocious at a five-star hotel. Looked like bile. And there is no telling what we can’t see on these sheets. People have all kinds of sex and ... while you’re out doing your thing with your ego feeders, please be useful, pick up some sheets with a high thread count—”
“Damn. That’s why I tour by myself.”
“And if time permits I would like to tour the city, go sightseeing.”
“The book is due. I’m working, Sade. I’m not on vacation. Did you see the schedule publicity gave me? Do you know how much it costs to go to one friggin’ city? Hotel. Airfare. Transportation. We have to turn a profit. Even if I had the time, you don’t get to the top by going to museums and clubs. You don’t achieve by staying in one spot. It’s about the hustle.”
“Marcus, if we married it would be bigamy.”
“What are you talking about, Sade?”
“You’re already married to your publishing company. To your editor. To your next book. Those are your women. Snuggle up with that book and see how warm that keeps you.”
“Come here.”
“Polygamy. Our marriage would be considered polygamy, not bigamy.” “
Then Arizona’s friend was almost at my window, her hand inside her large handbag.
Lisa was on my mind. Lisa and her gun. Lisa and her lion and jackal. This woman could be part of Lisa’s crew. I put my hand on the door handle, ready to jump out if I had to, if I could before a bullet screamed my name.
Pedro had said Arizona had come to Back Biters a couple nights before I met her. I was there almost every night. That was my watering hole. Saw how she had looked at me when she walked in last night. I thought I had moved into her space. She had worked her way into mine.
I whispered my warning, “If your girl tries anything—”
Arizona replied, “Relax.”
“That’s what they told Kennedy in Dallas.”
Her friend tapped my window. Irritation painted my face. I eased the glass down. My passengers saw her. I didn’t have to turn around to see the uneasiness that painted Freeman’s face. The way Sade’s breathing changed, I imagined her blue eyes had turned green.
She said, “I think you dropped this.”
Arizona’s friend tossed a wallet in my lap and walked away. I opened it and saw my ID, cash, and cards staring at me. I patted my suit pocket. She’d lifted it when she bumped me.
Arizona’s smooth voice came alive in my ear. She said, “Merry Christmas.”
Hostile silence settled between us. I let my window back up.
The pickpocket’s sashay took her to Arizona’s side. She never looked back.
Freeman and Sade had gone back into their own world. Separate worlds. She had closed her eyes. He was on his phone bragging to some interviewer about how good his work was.
I asked Arizona, “How much?”
“Meet me and we can negotiate.” Her tone remained even, all business. “We’ll talk.”
I hung up.
Arizona and her co-grifter mixed with the crowd and crossed the street.
They vanished into the garage.
10
The sun was easing down, slipping from the sky.
Five bookstores and three protests later, I chauffeured Freeman and Sade to their seven-hundred-dollar-a-night hotel down in Santa Monica. A swank joint called Shutters, on the good end of Pico, not far from the Santa Monica pier. Freeman and Sade were greeted by European luxury and Mexican smiles. They had two wood-burning fireplaces in the lobby and a nice bar with an ocean view. It had to be a great spot to sit and enjoy spirits while you watched the sun set on both the privileged and the homeless people in this part of the world.
I’d only been in the lobby, never upstairs. In front of the hotel, where all the Spanish valet parkers were congregated, that was where I unloaded Freeman and his ton of bobbleheads.
Then came the insult.
Freeman tossed me a bobblehead as a tip. His woman