Josh steered the discussion back on track. “Bell, why have you come back?”
“I’m a Sacramento girl born and bred. I don’t see why I should be away from my home, my friends…
my lover.” She flashed Josh a coy smile.
Did she honestly think they would pick up where
they left off after what she had done? “We’re not getting back together. Are you crazy?”
Bell seemed unaffected by the accusation. “You never can tell.”
“Why did we have to come here? It’s too public.”
She looked away and briefly surveyed the zoo, its animals and its patrons. Without looking at Josh she
spoke seriously, a side of her Josh rarely saw. “It’s strange. I’ve been away less than two years and I have yearnings for the weirdest things. I don’t know why, but it’s the little things you miss. This is one of them. I haven’t been to this zoo since I was a kid and a lot’s changed since then. I’m not even a big zoo fan, but when I came back to Sac, the memories flooded back and I just had to come. Do you like zoos?”
Josh wasn’t sure whether to believe what Bell was saying.
She never seemed that sentimental before, but maybe San Diego hadn’t been kind to her. “Not particularly.”
Bell snapped out of her reverie and returned to her normal self. “Well, do you have my money?”
Josh removed the envelope from underneath his
denim shirt. He placed the envelope on the bench between the two of them, letting his hand rest on it. As he went to ease his hand back, Bell placed her hand on the back of it and applied pressure to keep it in place for a moment. Josh yanked his hand out from under hers.
The transaction looked more conspicuous than if Josh had just given her the five thousand straight from his wallet. Bell laughed and threw her head back. She picked up the envelope and slipped it into her purse.
People meandered past without noticing the transaction.
Unable to comprehend their behavior, the lion
watched with keen interest the activities of the two people on the bench.
“Josh, you’re so easy.”
Her sense of humor didn’t impress him. “Does this money mean you’ll keep out of my life here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jesus, Bell, I can’t have that. I can’t live not knowing when you’re going to pop up next.” Josh felt his
cool slip from his grasp.
“I’m sorry. That’s the price you have to pay for being a criminal. If you’d been a good man, a faithful man, you wouldn’t be in this situation.” Bell’s expression hardened into a sneer. “So you’d better get used to it.”
“But every criminal eventually pays his debt to society,”
he said.
“Yeah, but some crimes warrant the death penalty.”
Josh said nothing. She had him. He was cornered
just like the animals. He couldn’t live like this. His only way out Was to confess and take his chances. He would only tie himself in frustrated knots waiting for Bell to issue another demand. He would tell Kate about the kickback and the affair and hope to God she would forgive him. It wasn’t an enviable choice, but perhaps necessary.
“It won’t be that easy to get rid of me, Josh.”
“You wouldn’t have much hold over me if I told Kate.”
She looked at him with a crooked smile, amused by his attempt at trying to get the upper hand. “Do you think Kate would understand what you did? Besides, even if you did, I’ve still got you for the bribe. I’m sure that your employers, the police and the people living in that apartment complex would be most interested in your part in its dubious construction.”
Josh looked around furtively, checking that someone hadn’t overheard them.
“Don’t worry, Josh. No one here cares about you
and your sordid past,” she reassured.
“So what will it take to get rid of you?”
She paused for a moment. “A lifetime of watching
you squirm because of what you did to me.”
He saw the hatred ablaze in her eyes. “What did I do to make you hate me that much?”
“You dumped me. You had your fun. You came to
me when you had problems at home. You promised
you’d leave her for me, but you chickened out when things got all lovey-dovey again. You shit on me, Josh.”
A woman with her preschool age child walked past
Josh and Bell. Offended by the foul language, she grabbed her daughter’s hand and sped past. She muttered her disgust as she went.
Bell embarrassed him, but she ignored the woman.
“I don’t regret breaking up with you. It was wrong to cheat on Kate. I regret the affair. I betrayed my family and I was wrong.”
“What about me?” she demanded.
“What I did to you was wrong. I never should have gotten involved with you and I apologize to you, right now. I’m sorry.”
“And you think that’s enough?”
“I want it to be enough. I want to be left alone. I don’t care about the money. I don’t want to see you prosecuted for blackmail. I just want peace in my life.”
“I’m not sure that I can grant you that.” Bell stood up. “We all have wants, but we rarely get them.”
Still seated, Josh grabbed her wrist. “This can’t continue.
You know that.”
“I know.” Her smile weakened and she looked away.
He let go of her wrist. Bell walked toward the exit.
He watched the bustling crowd moving from one habitat to another swallow her up.
The professional was perfectly camouflaged amongst the tourists. His target hadn’t spotted him in the crowd. He was good at just fitting in, disappearing amidst the masses. And he doubted anyone in the zoo would remember him by the time they got home. Not even that guy with his two brats in tow who walked right into him at the jaguar enclosure while he watched his target take a seat on the bench. The family man had looked stunned and apologized profusely, swearing blind he hadn’t seen the professional. The hit man took the remark as a compliment.
He watched from no more than twenty feet away,
but found it difficult to listen with all those damned kids whooping like monkeys.
The trip to the zoo had puzzled him. His target had left the house, visited a drugstore, gone to the bank, then come to the zoo. Why hadn’t he brought his
daughter? What good father didn’t bring his daughter to the zoo? But a short fifteen-minute wait revealed all—a clandestine meeting with a woman. What is Mr.
Michaels up to? Is he a bad boy? A lady friend to keep perhaps? This was something the professional would enjoy watching.
Sometimes in his investigations he came across some interesting alternative lifestyles his targets kept. One of his targets had a taste for peep shows and prostitutes when he was not with his happy family at home. Another had been a cross-dresser. It had been hard not to laugh when he saw an overweight middle-aged man
prancing around like a little girl. Several had kept mistresses, and Michaels was turning out to be one of
those. There’d been so many little oddities he had gazed upon in the course of his work. The human race never failed to amaze him.
This meeting was different, not quite what he had expected. His target didn’t look too pleased to see the woman. The professional saw Michaels snap his arm away. Rejecting her affections. Is that money I see being exchanged? Michaels was turning out to be a very
interesting assignment. The professional decided the woman wasn’t a mistress. She might have been once,
