Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [15]
It was an unexpected life, and there were many times when I felt that it was the wrong life. Not a bad life, mind you, just a sidebar to the main story, the threads of which I had somehow lost. A year turned into two years. I made money, but that didn’t help relieve the feeling that somewhere out there my “real” life was waiting for me to come and live it. I was wrong about that, of course. There is no other life besides the one you’re living in the here and now. To think otherwise is just another brand of self-pity, and remember: The speed bumps are there for a reason, and it’s not the one you think.
More than once I found myself on the verge of becoming a police officer again. Even Gus and Cal thought it was a good idea. As trainers went, I was good, very good. I spent a lot of time in the library studying exercise physiology, nutrition. There was a lot to know. I even thought of going back to school to get a degree, but my heart just wasn’t in it. Finally I gave in and took the cop test for the city of Miami, but when they called me down for an interview, I decided not to show. The truth is, I just couldn’t see myself in a uniform again.
Then one day in the spring of ’99, Cal calls me into his office, and sitting across from him is this beautiful, black-haired Asian woman—about twenty-five or so—whom I had never seen before. She had a bold look in her eye, I’ll tell you that much. She stood up and offered me her hand, and suddenly I was facing a lot of leg. She was wearing a pair of white shorts that in Kansas City would have been scandalous. Fortunately, however, my brothers and sisters, we were not in Kansas City. Down here those little white shorts made perfect sense. Like a pith helmet on the banks of the Zambezi River. They were even a bit on the conservative side—not by much, though.
“Vivian Patterson,” she said. “You must be Jack Vaughn. Cal was just telling me about you.”
The vibe that came off of her was different from her appearance. That happens with the beautiful sometimes. You’re so busy looking at them that you don’t see them. You miss the extra glint in their eyes, that extra burst of life and the gift of mystery some people have. She had it.
The legs had thrown me off for a moment, but that was understandable. Impeccable manners and the voice were not what I would have expected. Another surprise to sweep away the veil of her appearance. She could have passed for a Valley Girl, but the accent had a trace of England mixed with something else that brought it home again.
The boldness in her eye was not sexual in cast or in intensity of expression, just appraising and self-assured. The sex was there, though, lounging in the background like a black cat on a Persian rug. You know what I mean. It was blended in, natural, nothing artificial, no need to force it.
We sat down, and Cal got called out of the office for a moment. There was the usual awkward silence that hangs in the air like an invisible piñata waiting to be broken. I let it hang. No sense saying anything stupid until it was absolutely necessary. Besides, if you’re quiet, you can feel people. I caught a lot of people that way when I was a cop.
“Cal said you used to be a police officer,” she said.
“Yeah, in New York.”
I was a little pissed at Cal for having told her about the cop thing. I understood why he did it, though, especially with the wealthy, the famous, or the nervous. People figured that it made me that much less likely to haul off a Hummer or talk to a tabloid. Maybe they were right, but I didn’t think so. Either you’re honest or you’re not. I wasn’t a thief, and