Confidence Girl

by Blake Crouch

  He got up and faced Letty.

  “Stand up,” he told her.

  She stood.

  The man beside her pulled out a folding knife and cut her wrists free.

  James reached into the co-pilot seat and grabbed a wad of clothes. He handed them to Letty.

  “You’re letting me go,” she said.

  James nodded.

  “But you let me believe you were going to—”

  “You tried to kill me, Ms. Dobesh. My shoulder is still burning. If I were you, I would put those clothes on right now, and get the hell out of my boat.”

  # # #

  Letty moved through the lobby of the La Concha Hotel. Despite the wreck she must have looked, the concierge still smiled and nodded as she stumbled past.

  She wasn’t drunk anymore. Just tired to the point that nothing seemed real. Not the planted palm trees or the chandeliers. Not the eerie quiet of 5:00 a.m. Not even her own reflection in the elevator doors as she rode up to her room.

  She drifted down the corridor like a vagabond. Old pair of flip flops. Boxer shorts. A Jimmy Buffett T-shirt from Fitch’s closet that had faded into oblivion. She couldn’t even think about the last ten hours. They were beyond processing.

  Morning was almost here.

  She had no money, no idea how she would get back to the mainland.

  But one thought kept needling her.

  Javier.

  The strangest thing was that his betrayal didn’t just make her angry. It hurt her, too. It wasn’t like he was a friend. She couldn’t fathom that Jav was even remotely capable of experiencing the feelings it required to maintain a friendship.

  And yet...it hurt.

  They had worked together two times before. Both had been successful. So why had he done this to her?

  She shoved her keycard four times into the slot before the light on the door blinked green.

  Because he’s a psychopath, Letty. He had a need. You filled it. End of story.

  She kicked off the flip flops and staggered toward the bed.

  Smelled his exotic cologne a half-second before she noticed Javier sitting at the small table by the window.

  She brought her hand to her mouth.

  The door whisked closed behind her.

  In a night of being chased and shot at, none of those horrors could touch the sheer terror of seeing Javier Estrada sitting like a demon in her hotel room.

  She stood frozen, wondering if she could get out the door before he stopped her.

  “You wouldn’t make it,” he said. “Please.” He motioned to the bed. “I’m sure you’re very tired.”

  Letty sat down on the edge of the mattress and put her face in her hands.

  She said, “Oh God.”

  So many times tonight, she had thought she was going to die and didn’t.

  Now this.

  After everything.

  It was too much.

  “What do you want to ask me?” he said.

  She made no response.

  “Nothing? How about...am I surprised that you are not dead?”

  “You son of a bitch.” She muttered it under her breath.

  “Ask me,” he said.

  She glared over at him. “Are you surprised I’m not dead.”

  “I am not,” he said.

  “Good for you.” Her eyes were filling up with tears. “Good. For. You. Why didn’t you just let Fitch’s men kill me? Wanted to clean up this last little detail yourself?”

  “I like you, Letty.”

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re deranged?”

  Javier opened a laptop sitting on the table beside a Slimline Glock.

  He said, “You may choose to believe I betrayed you. I don’t see it that way.”

  “Really.”

  He began typing, still watching her out of the corner of his eye.

  “There were reasons I couldn’t tell you the true nature of the job. It partly had to do with promises I made to our client, Mr. Fitch. But some of it just came down to my faith in you.” He stared at her. “Two times before this, we worked together. I’ve seen you in action. Simply put, you’re a survivor. I believed you would survive tonight.”

  “You had no right to—”

  “And yet I did. Next topic. Part of my agreement with Mr. Fitch was that if you survived...if you killed him...his men were not to touch you. I went so far as to promise him that if anyone other than him laid a hand on you, I would kill his men and his sons too. Was a hand laid upon you?”

  “Why didn’t you just let me in on this?”

  “Because you might’ve said no. Come over here. I want to show you something.”

  Letty pushed against her knees and stood.

  Already, her legs had gone stiff.

  Three feet away, she stopped.

  “What?” she asked.

  Javier was pointing at the laptop. “Do you see this?”

  She leaned over his shoulder, squinting at the screen.

  It was an accounts page on a website for The First National Bank of Nassau.

  “What’s this supposed to be?” Letty asked.

  “It’s an account I opened for you. Do you see this?”

  Javier was pointing at a number.

  $1,000,000.00.

  “Is that...”

  “Yes. That’s your balance. Do you remember the first thing I asked you when we met back in Atlanta?”

  “You asked if I’d risk my life for a million-dollar payday.”

  “And do you recall—”

  “I said yes.”

  “You said yes. I know I said four million, but I wasn’t even paid four for this job. I’m giving you fifty percent. You earned it.”

  Javier stood.

  He stared down at her through those alien blue eyes.

  “You know to keep your mouth shut about Fitch.”

  Letty nodded.

  Javier lifted his Glock and jammed it into the back of his waistband. He picked up his leather jacket, slid his arms carefully into the sleeves.

  “Why are you giving this to me?” Letty asked.

  “Who can say? Maybe we’ll work together again.”

  “You still sold me out.”

  “You’ll get over it. Or you won’t.”

  He walked out.

  Letty sat at the table and stared at the computer screen for a long time. She couldn’t take her eyes off that number. Light was coming into the sky. The lights along Duval Street were winking off. She couldn’t imagine falling asleep now.

  Letty raided the mini-bar and stocked her purse. Headed out still wearing John Fitch’s clothes.

  The roof of the hotel was vacant.

  The bar closed.

  Letty eased down into one of the east-facing deck chairs.

  Drank cheap champagne.

  Watched the sun lift out of the sea.

  Something Jav had said kept banging around inside her head. It’ll buy you enough crystal to kill yourself a thousand times over. Already she was feeling the itch to score. A pure craving. Is that what lay in store? Three months from now, would she be living out of another motel? Ninety pounds and wasting away? Now that she had enough money to finish the job, would she use until her teeth melted and her brain turned to mush?

  Until her heart finally exploded?

  She told herself that wasn’t going to happen, that she wouldn’t lose control again, but she didn’t know if she believed it.

  The sun climbed.

  Soon, there were other people on the roof and the smell of mimosas and Bloody Mary’s in the air.

  Letty ordered breakfast.

  As the morning grew warm, she thought about her son.

  In better times—mostly while high—she imagined sweeping back into Jacob’s life. Saw them in parks. Parent-teacher conferences. Tucking him into bed at night after a story.

  But she didn’t want to entertain those fantasies now.

  She wasn’t fit.

  Had nothing to offer him.

>   She couldn’t get the hotel concierge out of her mind. Wondering if he could assist on scoring her a teener and a pipe.

  Three times, she started down to the lobby.

  Three times, she stopped herself.

  It was the memory of the Atlanta motel that kept turning her back. The image of her skeletal reflection in that cracked mirror. The idea of someone someday having to tell her son how his mother had OD’d when he was six years old.

  In the afternoon, Letty moved to the other side of the roof. She passed in and out of sleep as the sun dropped. In her waking moments, she tried on three promises to herself, just to see how they fit.

  I will set up a trust fund for Jacob with half the money and make it so I can never touch it.

  I will check myself into the best rehab program I can find.

  If I’m still clean a year from now, then, and only then, will I go to my son.

  The next time she woke, there were people all around her and the sun was halfway into the ocean. Letty sat up, came slowly to her feet. She walked over to the edge of the roof.

  The people around her were making toasts to the sunset and to each other. Nearby, a woman mentioned a news report concerning the death of John Fitch. The group laughed, someone speculating that the coward had taken his own life.

  Letty clutched the railing.

  She couldn’t escape the idea that it meant something that she’d stayed up here all day. That she’d watched the sun rise, cross the sky, and go back into the sea. She hadn’t felt this rested in months, and those promises were looking better and better.

  Like something she could own.

  Keep.

  Maybe even live for.

  She knew the feeling might not last.

  Knew she might fall down again.

  But in this moment, Letty felt like the tallest thing on the island.

  III - Grab

  1

  Letty Dobesh reached to freshen up a trucker’s coffee from behind the counter. His name was Dale or Dan or Dave—something that started with a D. He was a regular. A creepy regular. Came into the diner several times a week. Tall, lanky, never-tipping guy who always wore a red down vest and a John Deere mesh hat.

  As Letty filled his mug, he grinned, said, “Know what would look good on you?”

  This should be good.

  “No, what’s that?” she asked without risking eye contact.

  “Me.”

  Now she did meet his eyes. They were small and brown and contained a volatile energy that she recognized—he was a hitter.

  “That’s beautiful,” she said. “You should write Hallmark cards.”

  The man laughed like he wasn’t sure if he’d been insulted.

  Her manager called her name from the grill.

  “Be there in a sec!” she said.

  “No, Letisha. Not in a sec. Now.”

  She set the pot of coffee back on the warmer and wiped her hands off on her apron. An image blindsided her: Letty at seventy, hobbling around the diner on arthritic feet, hands like claws from a lifetime of this.

  The manager was a short, sweaty, unpleasant man. He wore black jeans, black sneakers, and a white Oxford shirt with a hideous Scooby-Doo tie. Same outfit always. As she approached, she saw that he held a wire brush in his right hand.

  “Good morning, Lloyd.”

  “Bathrooms. They’re disgusting. You were supposed to clean them yesterday.”

  “Lloyd, I haven’t had a chance—”

  He shoved the wire brush into her hand. “With a smile.”

  “I’m smiling on the inside.”

  # # #

  Letty scrubbed furiously at a beard of dried shit affixed to the inside of the toilet.

  The noise of the jukebox was indistinct through the concrete walls, but a new refrain had taken up residence in her head.

  This is my life.

  This is my life.

  This is my beautiful life.

  When the toilet bowl was pristine, she stood looking out of the small window behind the sink. The view was down Ocean Boulevard. Vacation cottages and high rises all oriented east toward the sea.

  There were bars over this small window, and Letty somehow found it fitting. She’d been out of prison now almost ten months, had been clean for half a year, but she hardly felt free.

  She was thirty-six years old and she had just worked herself into a sweat cleaning a toilet in a diner.

  Bad as prison was, the walls that had kept her in her cell and in the yard had never screamed hopelessness as loud as the barred window in this tiny bathroom. In prison, there was always something to look forward to. The promise of release, and beyond, the possibility of a Life Different.

  She felt a sudden, irresistible urge to get high.

  You don’t do that anymore.

  Why?

  For Jacob.

  She needed to distract herself. If she was back at the halfway house across the sound, she’d either jump in the shower or go for a run. Do something to break that death spiral thought pattern. Here at work, she could just plug herself into serving the customers. Her therapist, Christian, would tell her to challenge the thought to use. To stop, take a moment, and analyze the error in it.

  Where is the error? I feel bad. Getting high will make me feel good. Doesn’t get much simpler than that.

  But it’s not that simple, Letty. Because you won’t use once. If you start, you will use until you’re broke or dead or back in prison.

  A layer of tears fluttered over the surface of her eyes.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Just a minute!”

  She wiped them away. Smoothed her blue and white dress. Pulled herself together.

  Lifting the cleaning supplies, she opened the door.

  The trucker in the John Deere hat stood in the alcove that accessed the men’s and women’s restrooms.

  “All yours,” she said.

  He crowded into the doorway.

  “Letisha, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Wanna earn your tip? How’s about we go back in there for a spell?”

  Letty pushed up against his scrawny, fetid frame. Reaching down, she grabbed his groin and pulled him toward her.

  He said, “Oh hell yeah.”

  Bulge in the vest. Left side. Wallet.

  With their lips an inch apart, Letty smiled. She released his manhood and drove her knee straight up into his balls at the same instant her right hand slid inside his vest, fingers diving into the pocket. She snatched the wallet as he keeled over onto the floor. Would’ve hit him again but Lloyd had appeared at the end of the hallway that opened into the diner, his face twisted up with rage.

  “You junkie whore. I didn’t have to give a convicted felon a job.”

  “He was trying to—”

  “I don’t care. You’re fired. Get out.”

  Letty ripped off her apron and dropped it on the floor beside the moaning trucker who’d gone fetal in the corner.

  # # #

  She rode the bus into Charleston. Sat in the back going through the trucker’s wallet. His name wasn’t Dale, Dan, or Dave. It was Donald, and for a cheapskate, he carried around fat stacks—$420 in cash and three credit cards.

  She whipped out her jailbroken iPhone which she’d retrofitted with a wireless card-reader. Started scanning Donald’s Visa, Mastercard, and Amex, dumping sub-$100 deposits into shell accounts.

  2

  Letty put her hands behind her head and interlaced her fingers. She liked this couch. The leather was always warm. She liked the afternoon view through the open window in the back wall where the two blues met—sky and ocean. The air breezing through was tinged with salt and suntan lotion and the sweet rot of seaweed.

  “You got fired?” Christian said. He was seated at his desk several feet away.

  “This morning. I’m leaving town tonight. I’ve already cleared out my room at the halfway house. Won’t miss that place.”

  “I th
ought we agreed it would be a good idea for you to hold down that job at least through Christmas.”

  “I’m done with this place.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Oregon.”

  “To see your son?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Do you feel you’re ready for that? Ready to reenter Jacob’s life on a permanent, reliable basis?”

  “It’s the only thing I’m living for, Christian.”

  “That means this is our last session.”

  “You’ve been great. The best part of my time here.”

  “Are you anxious?”

  “About leaving?”

  “It’s a big deal.”

  “I know it is.”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  “Ready.”

  “That’s all?”

  She stared at the Thriller-era Michael Jackson bobblehead on her substance abuse counselor’s desk and said, “Christian, will it make you feel better if I say I’m scared?”

  “Only if it’s the truth.”

  “Of course I’m scared.”

  “Afraid you’ll use again?”

  “Sure.”

  “But you know how to fight it now. You’re empowered. You know your triggers—external and internal. You know your three steps to ensure sobriety.”

  “Recognize. Avoid. Cope.”

  “There you go. And what’s your main trigger?”

  “Breathing.”

  “Come on.”

  “Remembering what a complete failure I am.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Convicted felon.”

  “Letty.”

  “Meth addict.”

  “Stop.”

  “Junkie whore.”

  “This is counter—”

  “And let’s not forget—you got mother of the year sitting on your couch. Christian, I got triggers everywhere I look.”

  Christian leaned back in his chair and sighed the way he always did when Letty turned the knife on herself. He was old-school Hollywood handsome. Cary Grant. Gregory Peck. With his short-sleeved button-down and clip-on tie, he looked like a car salesman. But his eyes implied trust. Kind and wise and sad.

  How could they be anything but? Talking all day to losers like me.

  “You know if you don’t make some kind of peace with yourself, Letty, none of this stuff works.”