Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(9)

“Sure.”

“How’s the violence?”

“The violence.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I wanted to slug my waiter the other night.”

“Your waiter? Why?”

“Ordered a martini and he brought it over with vodka.”

“Vodka? That was a problem?”

“Gin. Someone orders a martini, you bring them gin. That’s the default. Not vodka. Gin.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Didn’t hit him? No. Just asked for gin. I was mostly kidding, anyway. About hitting him.”

“I’m very glad to hear that.”

“But I wanted to. Kind of. A little. Vodka. God.”

“Are you drinking a lot, Nikki?”

“Why would you ask me that?”

“Just a question—you know, drinking can be a trigger for other things.”

“Other things?”

“For impulsive behavior of any kind.”

“Look. Ninety-nine percent of the time I don’t consider myself impulsive.”

“Maybe we should talk about the one percent.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but can I go now?”

“We can end early, I don’t see why not. I’ll see you next week, same time?”

“Sure. Next week. Same time.”

“And Nikki?”

“Yeah?”

“Try to be good.”



* * *



I walked out into bright afternoon sunlight. Squinting, putting on black Ray-Ban aviators. Reached into my purse for lip gloss, tasted vague citrus. The therapist worked out of her home in North Berkeley. She had been dressed casually in blue jeans and a faded sweater. We’d sat in her living room, me on a couch, her in an armchair. A desk adorned with crayon pictures, probably the work of grandchildren. A worn Persian carpet over the hardwood floor, a high bookcase filled with many of psychology’s prominent names, as well as others I didn’t recognize. I liked the setup. A home was better than tile floors and clipboard questionnaires. For this kind of thing. The therapy thing. Outside, speed bumps in the road rose in gentle asphalt waves. Colorful homes lined the quiet streets. A gardener’s clippers buzzed. A comfortable neighborhood. A safe neighborhood. The late September air pleasant.

I pulled a hair tie off my wrist and worked my hair into a bun, put my helmet on. The big engine thrummed, the sound filling my ears even through the padded helmet. I left my leather jacket unzipped to feel the wind. Clicked my foot down into First, eased my hand off the clutch, rolled onto the street, headed south toward Oakland.

I had a job to do.





7


The man’s bare behind was the same shade as an uncooked parsnip.

I aimed the black crosshairs, centering them directly over his back.

Click.

I took several shots, the powerful zoom lens of the camera making it seem as though he was only a few feet away, instead of across the street in a second-floor apartment. The woman walked into view, wearing only a bra and underwear. The apartment was rented under her name. She looked about forty, maybe two decades younger than the man. She had the body of a woman who spent her fair share of time in the gym. I idly wondered if he paid for the apartment, some kind of sugar daddy relationship. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me one way or the other. What mattered was that the two of them were here, in front of me, together. The woman looked awfully pretty for him, though.

They embraced. His hand caressed the back of her neck, under her blond hair.

Click. Click-click-click.

I watched through the zoom as his fingers worked her bra open.

Click. Click.

As they moved from window to bed they disappeared from my line of sight. That was fine. I put the big camera into my backpack and walked down the block to wait. I found a deli and bought a coffee and a copy of the Chronicle. There were the usual headlines, seemingly all of them bad. Skyrocketing housing prices, North Korea shooting off missiles, human rights abuses in the Middle East. In the U.S. & World section there was a blurry picture of a curly-haired man with a missing front tooth, inset next to another picture: an overhead shot of yellow police tape surrounding a body bag. The caption identified him as the late Sherif Essam, a prominent blogger who had decided to leap from a thirtieth-floor rooftop in Cairo while breaking a story about government human rights violations. The police were treating it as an open-and-shut suicide. I pushed the paper away. The world was a depressing place. Not really the most groundbreaking thought, but one that I had frequently. Maybe due to my work.

Given what I did, I didn’t generally see the best side of people.

Best side, indeed. I stood. Even the most passionate couples only shacked up for so long.

When the man and woman emerged from the apartment, the zoom lens brought them again into perfect focus. He wore a pinstriped navy suit and red tie, looking like the successful lawyer that he was. She wore jeans and a T-shirt, hair still damp from a shower. Their faces flushed. Happy with their secret. He leaned in to kiss her.

Click-click-click.

It always amazed me how easy it was to catch people having affairs. Trysts in apartments, cars, hotels. Thinking they were being clever. I’d never had an affair, but maybe that was part of the thrill. The illicitness. Spy games. Getting to sneak around, check into an anonymous motel. Some people were more cautious than these two, the pictures harder to get. But they were always gettable. I didn’t mind the endless waiting, learning routines and preferences, but I didn’t like the intrusion. The weird voyeurism of seeing and photographing men and women, women and women, men and men, often in explicit sexual contact. People chose to have affairs. Had nothing to do with me. Some probably deserved to be forgiven. Some probably didn’t.