one-two-three-four back out of the corner then balance the heavy jewel—yes, two carats have heft—in both cupped hands as I do an unhurried spin like Jordan’s daddy Joe used to do to me and I’ll tell you I miss that man, reminds me of Charlie Hood, not so much the way they look but they both have that good man thing inside them that you can’t move no matter how much woman thing you push against it; then I glide between the window and the couch and watch myself as I pass the mirror, nice-looking woman there, then I’m into the alcove with the closet and the bathroom, and the diamond rolls from hand to hand, one-two-three-four, I, Allison Murrieta.
An hour later the papers are laid out open on the bedspread, each gem gleaming in the light. There’s a total of eighty-one stones. The two-carat whopper sits in the middle of the bed, shining like a beacon on all the little twinkling ships around it.
The buyer is named Cavore but he has no idea I know this. I saw his car once when I arrived early for a meeting, and later gave the plate numbers to my DMV acquaintance. The registered owner was Carl Cavore. I’ve dealt with him before and he is just barely tolerable. He calls himself Jason.
I make the Jack in the Box in Redondo Beach in an hour twenty minutes in the light traffic. He pulls up in his conversion van, a hulking black GM with cobalt blue pin-striping along each flank. No windows except the ones up front. I step up and put one knee on the captain’s chair and swivel around for a look in. He says hi and I ignore him. The van smells like a man’s bed, not recently laundered. I’ve been here before: up front is the cockpit, then a small built-in table with two folding chairs facing each other, a very small bathroom, and at the rear, poorly lit and unmade, the bed. We’re alone, so far as I can tell. I swivel forward and drop the satchel between my legs.
Cavore pulls out of the lot. I still haven’t said a word to him. He takes us up Pacific Coast Highway half a mile, to the Beachside Center parking lot. He parks up close to the stores with the other cars tight around us. As soon as the engine and lights go off, he motions me to the back.
“No. You know I sit closest to the exits, Jason. Claustrophobia.”
He chuckles and moves past me. The van shifts with his great weight. I don’t take my eyes off him. He steps down into the pit of the vehicle, lifts the table in order to get around it, then lowers it behind him.
When he’s settled in at the far end, I lug my satchel back to one of the folding chairs and I sit.
I clap my hands and the lights come on. Cavore snaps his fingers and they go out.
I clap again.
“You’re cute,” he says. He smiles.
“Thanks, but I’m really not.”
“I know cute when I see it.”
Cavore is big, fat and wears his hair in a pompadour. The pompadour is orange on top and brown down at the roots. The rest of him is pale and moist. Large gums and small teeth. His yellow Hawaiian shirt is tight to his enormous arms and the tail rides up over the revolver he carries in a holster approximately at his waist. I don’t know how he could find that gun under all his blubber. But I’ve seen the benches and weights and the heavy bag in the warehouse he used to rent, and by the stacks of fifty pounders I think Cavore has something capable under all that fat.
He sets a magnifying glass on the table and smiles without opening his lips. “Maxine, I’ll pay any reasonable amount to take you to my bed.”
“The answer’s still no. You’d crush me.”
“I’ve been told I can be overwhelming in a good way. Huge is huge.”
My LASD staff acquaintance ran a records check on Cavore. Among other things, he has raped. Got her in the backseat of a car and let his body weight almost suffocate her while he did his thing. Suspected in two others, but never charged. This was a while back, for what little that matters. The first time he propositioned me was at his
An hour later the papers are laid out open on the bedspread, each gem gleaming in the light. There’s a total of eighty-one stones. The two-carat whopper sits in the middle of the bed, shining like a beacon on all the little twinkling ships around it.
The buyer is named Cavore but he has no idea I know this. I saw his car once when I arrived early for a meeting, and later gave the plate numbers to my DMV acquaintance. The registered owner was Carl Cavore. I’ve dealt with him before and he is just barely tolerable. He calls himself Jason.
I make the Jack in the Box in Redondo Beach in an hour twenty minutes in the light traffic. He pulls up in his conversion van, a hulking black GM with cobalt blue pin-striping along each flank. No windows except the ones up front. I step up and put one knee on the captain’s chair and swivel around for a look in. He says hi and I ignore him. The van smells like a man’s bed, not recently laundered. I’ve been here before: up front is the cockpit, then a small built-in table with two folding chairs facing each other, a very small bathroom, and at the rear, poorly lit and unmade, the bed. We’re alone, so far as I can tell. I swivel forward and drop the satchel between my legs.
Cavore pulls out of the lot. I still haven’t said a word to him. He takes us up Pacific Coast Highway half a mile, to the Beachside Center parking lot. He parks up close to the stores with the other cars tight around us. As soon as the engine and lights go off, he motions me to the back.
“No. You know I sit closest to the exits, Jason. Claustrophobia.”
He chuckles and moves past me. The van shifts with his great weight. I don’t take my eyes off him. He steps down into the pit of the vehicle, lifts the table in order to get around it, then lowers it behind him.
When he’s settled in at the far end, I lug my satchel back to one of the folding chairs and I sit.
I clap my hands and the lights come on. Cavore snaps his fingers and they go out.
I clap again.
“You’re cute,” he says. He smiles.
“Thanks, but I’m really not.”
“I know cute when I see it.”
Cavore is big, fat and wears his hair in a pompadour. The pompadour is orange on top and brown down at the roots. The rest of him is pale and moist. Large gums and small teeth. His yellow Hawaiian shirt is tight to his enormous arms and the tail rides up over the revolver he carries in a holster approximately at his waist. I don’t know how he could find that gun under all his blubber. But I’ve seen the benches and weights and the heavy bag in the warehouse he used to rent, and by the stacks of fifty pounders I think Cavore has something capable under all that fat.
He sets a magnifying glass on the table and smiles without opening his lips. “Maxine, I’ll pay any reasonable amount to take you to my bed.”
“The answer’s still no. You’d crush me.”
“I’ve been told I can be overwhelming in a good way. Huge is huge.”
My LASD staff acquaintance ran a records check on Cavore. Among other things, he has raped. Got her in the backseat of a car and let his body weight almost suffocate her while he did his thing. Suspected in two others, but never charged. This was a while back, for what little that matters. The first time he propositioned me was at his
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