The Lady Upstairs

by Halley Sutton

  “Jackal,” I whispered, and he brushed his nose against my clavicle, aligning my lips perfectly with his ear, “tell me about those old case photographs on your floor.”

  Chapter 6

  Jackal didn’t come clean right away. “What do you mean?” he asked, pulling back. Avoiding my eyes. Still keeping himself between me and the snapshot on his office floor.

  “I don’t think you’ll be seeing that girl again.” I rearranged myself on his desk, smashing papers under my ass. That seemed to irritate Jackal, and he shoved me off. I didn’t mind. “Did you like her much?”

  “What did you mean, about old photographs?”

  “It doesn’t shock me that you’ve got something on the side,” I said. “Only I think you’d do well to remember the Lady Upstairs is less forgiving of sidepieces than I am.”

  His hands bunched, and he took two steps around the desk—he almost forgot the game he was playing and bent down to grab the photo before he turned around. There was a small smear of lipstick on his collar. Ugly, tropical-punch pink: a little girl’s color. He was wild-eyed and trying not to show it, trying to think of something to say or do to throw me off, outsmart me. “I don’t know what you think you’ve found out, but you’re—”

  “We both know you aren’t as dumb as you like to pretend to be. So tell me. How long has it been going?”

  His shoulders slumped. “Does Lou know?”

  “Not yet.”

  “If you tell her anything, I will make you sorry, you bitch, you—”

  “Oh, calm down,” I said, dabbing my finger over the smudge on his collar. The pink blushed my thumb, and I sniffed it, then popped the tip in my mouth.

  “If you tell her anything, I’ll—” He closed the space between us. I put a hand on his chest, but it wasn’t to stop him.

  “You’ll do what?”

  His hand tangled in my hair and he pulled his fist forward so that we were both looking at the dark strands tucked between his knuckles. I leaned into him, wanting him to break the stalemate first. But he let go, taking a half step back. I watched a feeling pass over his face, quick like a summer storm, but I didn’t know, did not want to know, what it was.

  I reached out a hand for him, and his phone rang. Jackal’s head jerked, and he stared at me, like he was waiting for me to tell him what to do. I blinked at him, and he cursed under his breath and answered.

  “What.” I watched his face as he listened to the other end, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the phone. Silently, he held his phone out to me.

  Me? I mouthed.

  Jackal shrugged, his eyebrows raised. Lou.

  “What’s up,” I said into the phone, a small wash of panic rising in my stomach. Maybe she’d heard from the Lady that there was a second envelope floating around the office. Maybe she was calling to ask if I’d happened to see it anywhere.

  “You weren’t answering your phone.” I could hear something going on behind her—the radio? A woman’s crooning alto. Lou’s voice had a tinny, disembodied quality, like she was speaking to me from far away.

  “I left it on my desk,” I said, picturing the phone next to the now-dead gin bottle. “Where are you?”

  “On my way home,” Lou said, which didn’t entirely make sense—she’d left the office hours ago. Before I could ask about it, she went on: “I wanted to make sure we were all set for Carrigan tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes,” I said, “of course. Ten. I remember.”

  There was a pause. I could hear someone honking in the background. “Don’t be too hungover, okay?”

  “Lou,” I said, my voice waspish despite the fact that she had a point, despite the fact that I didn’t want her asking me too many questions. “I won’t fuck up. All right? Just because Ellen isn’t—” I stopped. I could’ve bitten my tongue out.

  Jackal was staring at me, his hands on his hips. I knew he was wondering what she wanted. If he should be worried.

  “What?” Lou’s voice was clipped now, panicky. “Did something happen while she was there, something you didn’t tell me about?”

  “No,” I said. I didn’t want her to know that anything was wrong. But Lou would jump to conclusions if I didn’t say anything. “Nothing. But she’s been in it too long. The feelings are starting to turn on her.” I think she’ll sell us out to the police eventually, and by the way, while we’re on the subject of law enforcement, the cops are missing their bribe money . . .

  “Jo,” Lou said, her voice pitched low. “What’s our number one rule?”

  No attachments that can’t be shed. Never love anyone more than yourself. If we had a manifesto, it would’ve been printed on page one and page fifty and the last page, too, for good measure. Don’t let the girls fall in love.

  “I know,” I said. “Nothing I can’t handle.” I racked my brain and pulled out a detail about the new mark to distract her. “Carrigan’s hosting a fund-raiser on Olvera Street. Perfect opportunity to study him in person.”

  Lou took the bait, perking up and asking questions about the event. But I knew she wouldn’t forget what I’d let slip. We ironed out the last details of the surveillance—we’d swing by his office, maybe even his house, to get a look at his life up close. I hung up the phone, strangling a sigh of relief in my throat—she’d want to know more about Ellen tomorrow.

  “What did she want?” Jackal’s voice was strained.

  “She wanted to know if I’d caught you doing anything suspicious lately,” I said, biting my lip.

  Jackal looked like he wanted to throttle me, and not in a way I’d enjoy. “You’re not going to say anything,” he said, too confidently. “You don’t want to know what happens if you do.”

  I thought of Jackal’s ghostly ex. It bothered me more than I wanted to admit, that he might’ve sat back while the Lady had her killed. And then the girl tonight—the next in his line of brunettes. “Of course I won’t,” I said, soothing him. “Because then who would help me with Klein?”

  “I told you, I’ll be there—”

  “No. Not the usual. I need more than that from you this time.”

  It was difficult to explain why I needed the money without going into detail about the debt I owed the Lady, or the money I’d nicked from the Lady’s envelope and given to Ellen. I didn’t want him to know any of those things. Like my mother always said, Knowledge is power. So I decided to stick as close to a version of the truth as possible, which was: Ellen was getting squirrelly. I’d promised her more money to finish the job. I didn’t want to tell Lou. Since it was Jackal’s fault I was in this situation—and now, I added, because he didn’t want me telling anyone about his little side business—he was going to help me make up the difference.

  He didn’t like it, but in the end, he agreed. I’d known he would.

  It would be such a simple fix, asking Klein for a little more. As long as I had five days to spare. As long as I could keep control of Ellen long enough to get her back in the room with him. I could keep my end of the bargain. I had to hope that Jackal would, too.

  On my way out, Jackal started to tidy the photographs that had fallen onto the floor, taking his time sorting them into separate piles.

  “A woman used to work here,” I said, taking a shot in the dark, “when I first started.” I described what I thought I remembered: a round face, cheeks that creased when she smiled, dark hair long to her waist. I studied Jackal, looking for any clue that he knew what happened to her, or cared. “Very pretty. What was her name?”

  Jackal didn’t even bother looking up from the floor. “No idea. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  So I did.

  Chapter 7

  The listing for my apartment complex had called it “beachfront real estate,” and I guess that was true, only the beach was pretty far in front of the real estate.

  You couldn’t hear the ocean over the plan
es, which swooped so low over the Gardens that when they landed in the morning, all the car alarms were set off like fussy newborns. Some mornings, I thought I could swipe my fingers along the undercarriage of those metal birds if I jumped.

  You could smell the ocean, though. Even through the motor oil and the garbage left too long baking in the sun, even through the waxy, perfume-like jasmine bursting on the knuckled trees in the courtyard, you could still smell the vegetable saltiness of the ocean. That was the real name of the complex, Jasmine Gardens, for the trees—but those same trees attracted thick, hairy-kneed spiders. When Lou started calling it Tarantula Gardens after I moved in, it stuck.

  Slinging my purse down next to the couch, I didn’t bother to turn the lights on—the bulb had gone out the week before, and I hadn’t yet bothered to replace it. My apartment wasn’t exactly welcoming to come home to—couch, carpet, and walls all a shade of Builder Beige I hadn’t bothered to update. A patio that was more like a two-by-four plank of plywood taped to the side of the building. A wrought iron fence with bars like loose teeth kept the patio this side of a personal injury lawsuit. Luxurious living. Lou called my lack of decorating “willful poverty,” but then, she was always running up tabs to buy the most expensive items, racking up class on her credit cards.

  Style cost extra. What I saved in rent was more money that could funnel back to the Lady to pay off my debt. I could move out if I wanted something nicer, but why bother with marble countertops, or a posher zip code, when I spent more time away from my bed than in it? Tarantula Gardens was home, but it wasn’t forever. I’d always known that.

  But I’d thought I’d have more time before it ended.

  The last time I’d paid my own rent, I’d been a different woman. That woman would’ve been depressed by this apartment. She would’ve taken Builder Beige personally. Even with the debt and the threats, I had much to thank the Lady for—murdering that woman was perhaps top of the list.

  As long as the Lady kept signing my checks, I didn’t wonder, too much or too often, about who she was, or why she did what she did. It was enough for me to know that what I was doing made life a little more difficult for men like Hiram Klein, for whom life had never been particularly difficult.

  But it did bother me that Lou had a real relationship with her, this woman about whom I knew nothing. The two of them, bent heads looking through the newspapers, picking out names. Networking with the nouveau riche at galas, dressed to the nines. Arm in arm, sipping from each other’s champagne. How that would go on after me. Without me.

  I stood up, my face hot, thinking I’d grab a drink. Instead, I went to the window and pushed it open, sticking my face into the warm night air that smelled equally of jasmine and festering garbage.

  I wished I hadn’t said anything about Ellen. I hadn’t meant to. I’d wanted to take the words back as soon as they were out of my mouth. And she’d ask about it tomorrow. I knew that if I tried to smooth it over, like Jackal had with the photographs, Lou would see through it. She’d know I was lying to her, and then she’d start to wonder, and maybe she’d call the Lady and the two of them would put their heads together and figure out some other things before I had a chance to fix any of it.

  The score from Klein would depend on the footage, and the story I could craft, what I thought I could use to trigger him. If it was meant to be fifty large, could I push it as high as seventy-five? Slip the eight back to the police for the bribe, a couple more to ensure Jackal’s silence, and still pay off the debt. Playing fair, or close to it. The Lady would never know.

  I took another sip of the warm night air, pondering it. Outside, the low rumble of the planes overhead set the glass in the window trembling. When I’d first moved to Los Angeles, I’d hated everything about the city, the traffic, the people. Everything. Los Angeles was an endless appetite, ninety-two smaller cities stapled together and consuming everything in its path. Even with my doors locked tight, I could feel the city trying to make its way in—the Santa Anas sweeping through freshly soldered seams, pale afternoon light spilling through blinds zipped shut, the sight of beautiful people on every corner turning you inside out against yourself. In the beginning, living in Los Angeles was like having a constant spotlight shining on you and at the same time like being invisible.

  It had taken Lou, and the Lady, and even Jackal, for me to understand that the best part of the city was its artifice. Use the spotlight as a weapon. Wear the con like a coat. That’s when Los Angeles became my city.

  Somewhere a cat yowled, and I turned my back on the window. I’d never asked myself—I’d never wanted to ask myself—if there had been other girls before me. I’d never wondered what would happen if I didn’t want the job anymore. How impossible it would be for the Lady to let someone with so much knowledge about her business leave it. It had seemed we could go on indefinitely, the three of us, carrying out the Lady’s orders, making this little corner of the city our own.

  Little pinpricks of cold danced down my arms, into my stomach. When I’d been fired from my last job, I’d been sure I’d never put my life back together. But then I’d met Lou—or, rather, Lou had found me. There were other cities in the world, but there weren’t other Lous.

  Even if I didn’t close Klein and somehow managed to escape the Lady, I’d have to leave Los Angeles. Maybe even California. I’d have to leave Lou, and Jackal. I’d be back to square one: no references, no work history. Not as Jo. Not as the woman I’d been before Lou and the Lady, either. I’d made something of myself by Lou’s side. If that was gone . . .

  I turned off the lights and walked to the cupboard and grabbed a bottle of gin and poured myself a nightcap.

  I fell asleep that night on top of my bed, sheets pulled up to my neck, sweating through the cotton. If I had dreams worth remembering, they were ghosts by the time I woke.

  Chapter 8

  Lou and I were outside Carrigan’s office before noon. She’d picked me up on time, for once, and called me from outside my apartment building chirping, “Let’s go, let’s go!”

  Lou, normally, was not a morning person. But the minute she had a whiff of a mark, the whole game changed. When we were on a new case, she had an engine that couldn’t be stopped, and a cheerful, ruthless focus that had led to more than one marathon thirty-two-hour stakeout, me asleep in the car next to her, or else asleep in my bed, fielding phone calls with details on the mark’s bathroom habits. “Possible piss fetish,” she’d say, her voice bright and chirpy at 3 a.m. “Gotta go, I’ll call back when I’m sure.”

  On my way to meet her, I passed the pool where kids were slapping pastel-colored noodles against the surface for maximum splash. Management kept the concrete crater filled to the brim with eye-stinging chlorine that tasted of salty, gone-off fruit. A bright blue light at the deepest end kept you from noticing, right away, the scrum ringing the edge, the oil-like sheen the too-still water took on immediately. Instead, that light made it look almost healthy.

  After I’d finished my very first case, Lou and I had sat around the pool downing a bottle or six of champagne—“sparkle water,” Lou called it. I’d been so loopy from the bubbles that when Lou made some half-assed joke I’d nearly tumbled into the water, laughing.

  “Don’t fall in,” she warned me. “I can’t swim, so I’d have to let you drown.” She looked at the water like an ex-lover.

  “It’s only eight feet,” I said, my eyes burning from the chlorine fumes.

  “I’d have to let you drown,” she said again, waggling her eyebrows so I was in on the joke, and then she poured me more champagne, finishing the bottle and tossing the glass carcass into the deep end.

  The morning fog had turned into a miserable steamy mist that hung in the air like a wet wool blanket. Before I’d managed to buckle the seat belt, Lou stuck a freshly brewed cup of java in my face, and I took a long inhale, groaning in appreciation. It knocked me about halfway toward human.

>   Lou didn’t drink coffee. She smoked cigarettes (she said they were too tasty to kick, and besides, did you know you put on ten, maybe fifteen pounds once you did?—no thank you), and she drank—with me, mostly. But on the whole, she didn’t tolerate girls who blew shit up their nose, or jammed junk in their arms, and she didn’t even like caffeine, said the stimulants made her skittish. Instead she chewed gum in the mornings, said she thought the minty freshness jump-started her brain. And who was I to say she was wrong?

  “So,” Lou said as she braked into the 405 and we settled into the stop-and-go, “Ellen. Is she in love with him or what?”

  I’d known it was coming and I’d practiced my answer to minimize Lou’s concern. “Infatuated, maybe. She asked if we wouldn’t mind if she kept seeing him, once it was all over.” It was bad news and Lou would worry, but not as much as if I’d pretended nothing was wrong. And not as much as if I’d told her the truth.

  “How big a liability is she?”

  “Well, she told me,” I said, hating myself a little for the lie. “So she still trusts me. It’s nothing, I’ve still got her under control. I guess I wanted to tell you, be honest with you.”

  “Jo, tell me now if you think you can’t handle—”

  “No,” I said, fast. Lou had stuck her neck out for me with the Lady. I’d find a way to handle it. Ellen had her money. She’d be in almost as much trouble as us if she went to the cops. Even just thinking of the cops made me shudder. “It’s a little crush, nothing to worry about. I shouldn’t have even mentioned it.”