One of the shelves was completely dedicated to books about tattoos and graphic design.
He stepped over and let his finger tick along the spines of the books until he found the one he knew was there and pulled it out. It was a book about Chinese pictograms, the book from which she had chosen her tattoo. He turned the pages until he found fu and read the copy. It quoted Confucius.
With coarse rice to eat, with only water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow, I am happy.
He should have known. Pierce knew he should have known it wasn't her. The logic was wrong. The science was wrong. It had led him to doubt the one thing he should have been sure of.
He turned the pages of the book until he came to shu, the symbol of forgiveness.
' 'Forgiveness is the action of the heart,' ' he read out loud.
He took the book to the coffee table and placed it down still open to the page displaying shu. He knew she would find it soon.
Locking the door, he pulled it closed behind him and went to his car. He sat behind the wheel thinking about what he had done, about his sins. He knew he got what he deserved.
Most people did.
He slid the key in and turned over the engine. The random access memory of his mind produced the image of the pizza delivery car he had seen earlier. A reminder that he was hungry.
And in that moment atoms smashed together to create a new element. He had an idea. A good one. He turned off the engine and got back out.
Nicole was either still in the shower or not answering the door. But he didn't care, because he still had a key. He unlocked the door and walked down the hallway toward the kitchen.
'Nicole,' he called. 'It's me. I just need to use the phone.'
There was no response and he thought he could hear the sound of water running far off in the house. She was still in the shower.
On the kitchen phone he dialed Information for Venice and asked for the number for Domino's Pizza. There were two locations and he took both numbers, writing them down on a pad Nicole kept by the phone. He dialed the first number and while he waited he opened the cabinet above the phone and pulled out the Yellow Pages. He knew if Domino's didn't work, he would have to call every pizza delivery service in Venice to run out the idea.
'Domino's Pizza, can I help you?'
'I want to order a pizza.'
'Phone number?'
From memory Pierce gave Lucy LaPorte's cell number. He heard it being typed into a computer. He waited and then the man on the other end said, 'What is your address?'
'You mean I'm not on there?'
'No, sir.'
'Sorry, I called the wrong one.'
He hung up and called the second Domino's and went through the same routine, giving Lucy's number to the woman on the other end of the line.
'Nine oh nine Breeze?'
'Excuse me?'
'Is your address Nine-oh-nine Breeze? Name, LaPorte?'
'Uh, yeah, that's it.'
He wrote the address down, feeling the spark of adrenaline dumping into his blood. It made his writing on the pad tight and jagged.
'What would you like?'
'Um, does your computer say what we got last time?'
'Regular size, onion, peppers and mushrooms.'
'That's good. Same thing.'
'Anything to drink? Garlic bread?'
'No, just the pizza.'
'Okay, thirty minutes.'
She hung up without saying good-bye or giving him the chance to say it. Pierce hung up the phone and turned to head to the door.
Nicole was standing there. Her hair was wet and she wore a white terrycloth robe. It had been his. She gave it to him as a present on their first Christmas together but he never wore it because he wasn't a bathrobe guy. She appropriated it and it was too big on her, and that made her look very sexy in it. She knew what seeing her in the robe did to him and she used it like a flag she would hang out. When she showered and put on the robe, it meant they were going to make love.
But not this time. No more. The look on her face was anything but provocative or sexy.
She glanced down at the Yellow Pages, open to the ads for pizza delivery.
'I can't believe you, Henry. After what just happened and what you did, you just come on down and order a pizza like it's nothing. I used to think you had a conscience.'
She walked over to the refrigerator and opened it.
'I asked you to leave.'
'I am. But it's not what you think, Nicole. I'm trying to find somebody and this is the only way.'
She took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and started unscrewing the cap.
'I asked you to leave,' she said again.
'All right, I'm leaving.'
He made a move to squeeze between her and the kitchen's center island. But suddenly he changed course and moved into her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her toward him. He kissed her on the mouth. She quickly pushed him back, spilling water on both of them.
'Good-bye,' he said before she could speak. 'I still love you.'
As he walked toward the door he slid the key to the house off his key ring. He dropped it on the small entry table under the mirror by the door. He turned and looked back at her as he opened the door. And she turned away.
36
Breeze was one of the Venice walk streets, which meant Pierce would have to get out of his car to get close to it. In several neighborhoods near the beach the small bungalows were built facing each other, with only a sidewalk between them. No streets. Narrow alleys ran behind the houses so owners had access to their garages. But the fronts of the homes bordered the shared sidewalk. It was a distinct plan in Venice, a design to promote neighborliness and at the same time put more homes on smaller parcels of land. Walk street houses were highly prized.
Pierce found a parking space at the curb on Ocean near the hand-painted war memorial and walked down to Breeze. It was nearly seven o'clock and the sky was beginning to acquire the burnt-orange color of a smoggy sunset. The address he had gotten from Domino's was halfway down the block. Pierce strolled along the sidewalk like he was on his way to the beach for the sunset. As he passed 909 he nonchalantly took a look. It was a yellow bungalow, smaller than most of the others on the block, with a wide front porch with an old glider seat on it. Like most of the houses on the block, it had a white picket fence out front with a gate.
The curtains behind the front windows were drawn. The light on the ceiling over the porch was on and he took this as a bad sign. It was too early for the light to be on and he guessed that it had to have been on since the night before. He began to worry, now that he had finally found the place that neither Detective Renner nor Cody Zeller had been able to find, that Lucy LaPorte would be gone.
He continued his walk to where Breeze ended at Speedway and there was a beach parking lot. He thought about going back to his car and bringing it over to the lot, but then figured it wasn't worth the time. He loitered in the lot and watched the sun drop toward the horizon for another ten minutes. He then started back down
