by A. D. Miller
Trembling, he pushed himself into a sitting position. The dog turned its head to watch him, its muzzle pink with blood. With an arm that moved as if disconnected from his body, Nyman reached up to the door and fumbled with the chain.
Instantly there were footsteps behind him, then a hand on the collar of his shirt. The hand dragged him across the tile and up to the edge of the living room, at which point a voice said:
“Not on the carpet.”
The hand let go of his collar and Nyman collapsed on the tile, gasping. The boy with the trickle of moustache stood above him, looking down with blank, incurious eyes. He wore a stained t-shirt, grimy jeans, and flip flops.
“He awake?” the same voice said from the living room.
The boy nodded. “Want me to put him out again?”
“No. Get a towel and clean him up.”
The boy walked out of Nyman’s field of vision. After a moment there was a sound of feet on carpet, and then someone else standing above him: a man as old as Nyman or older, dressed in dark jeans and a shirt that failed to hide the rounded bulge of his stomach.
The skin of the man’s face was partly covered by a dark beard; thin dark hair was combed back from a receding hairline.
“Feeling okay?” he asked with mock concern.
“Yes.”
“You don’t look very good.”
“Thanks.”
The man smiled. “Know who I am?”
“Not offhand.”
“You can call me Alex. I’m Mara’s friend. You remember Mara?”
“Vividly.”
The boy came back with a dripping hand-towel. He tossed it on the floor and told Nyman to clean himself up.
With effort, Nyman picked up the towel and climbed to his feet. He stood swaying on the tiles and used the towel to wipe the blood from his face and head.
A long swollen ridge ran from above his left eye to the right side of his mouth. His nose and upper lip were bulbous and too painful to touch. On the right side of his skull, above the ear, was a shallow gash.
“We didn’t hit you too hard, Tom. Hit somebody too hard with a wrench and you end up killing them. We don’t want to kill you.”
“That’s considerate of you.”
“All I want,” the man said, “is my money back.”
“I don’t owe you any money.”
The man smiled and beckoned for Nyman to follow. “Come on. We’ll talk while we eat.”
Nyman followed him through the living room and into a large, brightly lit kitchen outfitted in stainless steel and granite.
A woman stood in front of the oven, dressed in a baggy white Suns jersey that showed the curve of her spine. On the counter was an empty Stouffer’s box; the room was filled with the smell of baking meatloaf.
Alex said: “Dinner ready yet?”
The woman shook her head and turned to face them. Without her makeup Mara looked worn and fragile and a decade older. On the left side of her neck were four dark bruises, one on top of the next; a fifth bruise was on the right side of her neck, where Alex had presumably put his thumb.
“The trouble with guys like you,” Alex said, smiling at Nyman and picking up a glass of wine, “is that you have no class. You come in from L.A. and think you can screw any girl in town, like you’re back in college. But when you ask for one of my girls, you’re making a business arrangement. Right, Mara?”
Keeping her eyes lowered, she said: “Right.”
“Guys like you don’t have any respect, is basically what I’m saying. If you don’t give Mara what she’s earned, then she can’t give me what I’ve earned. It’s like going to a restaurant and not paying your bill. You’re not just disrespecting the waitress, you’re disrespecting the chef who made the food.”
Nyman said: “I didn’t ask for her, and I never slept with her.”
“At this point,” Alex said, “I don’t care who asked for her. Maybe you called; maybe it was someone else. But you spent the evening with her. You enjoyed her company. That’s a service she provided on my behalf.”
Nyman asked him how much he expected to be paid.
“All I ask is two grand. And when you consider how much my girls make on a normal night, that’s very generous on my part.”
The oven beeped. Mara found an oven mitt in one of the drawers and used it to take a brown rectangle out of the oven and slide it onto the gas range. The bubbling surface of the meatloaf was pocked here and there by shallow pink pools of bloody water.
The boy took paper plates from the cupboard and tossed them onto the counter beside the meatloaf, which Mara was dividing into smaller rectangles.
Only now, under the bright kitchen lights, did Nyman notice the boy’s sharp, angular features, the same jutting nose and hollow cheeks he’d first noticed in Mara.
“You hungry, Tom?” Alex said, nodding to the meatloaf.
“No.”
“You sure? You’re looking a little pale, if you want to know the truth. Maybe you should eat something.”
Nyman turned away from the food, breathing through his mouth. “I’m fine.”
The other three ate standing at the countertop. For several minutes there was no sound in the kitchen but the noise of chewing and swallowing and the panting of the dog, which sat expectantly at Alex’s feet, its pink muzzle dripping.
Nyman asked where the bathroom was.
“End of the hall,” Alex said. “But the window’s not big enough to crawl through.”
“I don’t need the window,” Nyman said, and walked unsteadily to the bathroom.
He vomited twice in the toilet, then sat for a time on the floor with his back against the wall. Reaching into his jacket, he found without surprise that his phone and the cash in his wallet had been taken.
He got to his feet, flushed the toilet, washed some of the blood from his clothes, and drank a mouthful of water from the tap. When he came back into the kitchen the meal was over.
“Better?” Alex said.
“Yes.”
“Glass of wine?”
“No thanks.”
The man shrugged and refilled his own glass from the bottle. “All right, Tom, this is what’s going to happen. Hunter here—” he nodded to the boy “—is going to drive you to a bank, and you’re going take two thousand out of your account and give it to him. After that he’ll drop you wherever you want to be dropped, within reason.”
“What about my phone and cash?”
“Those are ours now. Call it a service fee.”
“In that case,” Nyman said, “I don’t see much point in giving you anything else.”
“Well, that’s not really up to you. Show him, Hunter.”
Slowly, with a smirk of toughness that was belied by the nervousness in his eyes, the boy put a hand to the small of his back and brought out a scuffed pistol. He raised it with one arm and held it pointed at Nyman’s chest, trying to keep his hand steady.
Mara glanced up from the dishes she was washing in the sink. Looking from the trembling gun in the boy’s hand to the smirk on his face, she turned off the water and left the room.
Chapter 26
Ignoring the gun, Nyman said to Alex in a tone of patient explanation:
“There are two vice cops named Carrillo and Parks. They were waiting for me when I got back to my motel last night. They already know that Mara met me at the bar. They know she threatened me after I wouldn’t pay her and they know she works for you.”
Alex smiled with teeth stained purple by wine. “Is all that supposed to mean something?”
“It means the police are going to come straight to you if anything happens to me.”
“Assuming they ever find out what happened to you, Tom. It’s not hard to lose a body in the desert.”
Nyman told him not to be melodramatic. “You’re not stupid enough to mess with a murder charge.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Alex said, and turned to the boy. “Take him down there.”
; The boy moved forward and waved the gun to one side, directing Nyman to walk ahead of him. Nyman, exhaling, moved away from the counter and into the archway that led out of the kitchen.
They came into a carpeted hallway with bedrooms set off to either side. Inside the bedrooms were bare mattresses, tables piled with perfume bottles, suitcases, cocktail dresses strewn on the carpet, yoga mats, stuffed animals.
“How many women does he have living here?” Nyman asked.
The boy ignored him.
At the end of the hall was another bedroom. Looking into it, Nyman saw Mara sitting cross-legged on a bed, putting rouge on her cheeks. Her lips were pursed and her eyes, looking at Nyman, were blank and lifeless. Lying open beside her bare foot was a prescription bottle.
They went through another door into the garage. The silver Mercedes stood beside a pile of boxes. The boy directed Nyman into the passenger seat, then crossed to the driver’s side and started the engine. He used his right hand to steer and kept the gun in his left, resting it on his thigh so that it was pointed at Nyman.
He backed the car down the driveway, swung onto the road, and drove slowly through a neighborhood that looked little different from Stephen Emmler’s.
Nyman said: “Mara’s your mom, isn’t she?”
The boy’s voice was clipped and artificially deep. “Maybe.”
“What about Alex? Is he your dad?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“That’s a shame. Such a nice guy.”
The boy cursed Nyman in a nervous voice and turned on the radio.
Nyman leaned back against the seat and looked out at the street. His pupils were twice their normal size and unfocused; his pale face was sweating. After a while he closed his eyes.
* * *
When he opened his eyes the car was stopped and the boy wasn’t in the driver’s seat. Nyman pushed open the passenger door and stepped directly into the chest of the boy, who’d come around the car.
“This way,” the boy said, gesturing with the gun.
They were in the parking lot of a strip mall. The line of darkened storefronts ended at the brightly lit façade of a bank. A pair of ATMs stood beside the bank’s doors. A few feet to the right the building gave way to a vacant lot of dirt and scrub-grass.
“Two thousand,” the boy said, pointing to the ATMs. “Get going.”
Nyman put his hands in his pockets and stayed where he was. Nausea and blood loss had taken the color from his lips and upset his balance, making him sway slightly from side to side.
“The trouble with this plan,” he said, “is that ATMs only let you take out a certain amount in a day. Seven hundred, I think it is.”
The boy’s eyes moved uncertainly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I can’t get two thousand out of it, even if I tried. I’d have to wait another twenty-four hours, and then I’d only have fourteen hundred for you. It would be three days until I could give you the full two thousand.”
The boy shook his head; the gun came up higher. “That doesn’t work.”
“I know it doesn’t. I wish Alex would’ve thought of that. Maybe you should call him.”
“He told me not to call him.”
“Really? Why not?”
“I ...” The boy shook his head again and stepped forward; his voice was high-pitched and wild. “Just get the money.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Yes you can. Just get it.”
“Did Alex also mention,” Nyman said, “that there are cameras in the ATMs? Which means they’ve probably already taken a picture of you.”
The boy moved back into a patch of shadow. The gun jittered in his hand.
Nyman said: “If you want to call someone, why don’t you call your mom? She’d know what to do.”
“Shut the hell up.”
“Or we could call those vice cops,” Nyman said. “If you told them what’s going on, they’d help you out. Help you get away from the guy who’s beating your mom.”
“Stop talking about my mom.”
Nyman, swaying, took the hands from his pockets and held them open. “You’re a kid, Hunter. You won’t be charged as an adult. You—”
The boy swung the gun at Nyman’s head, hitting him hard on the chin and mouth. An eye-tooth came loose and clattered to the pavement. Nyman started to fall, caught himself, and felt something hit the base of his skull.
His next sensation was of being dragged by the collar. Vaguely he was aware of the lights of the bank and the ATMs. He tried to speak and found that his mouth was filled with blood.
Later there was a rattle of chain link. Nyman saw that he was being pulled through an open section of fencing. Under his back was gravel; in the spinning sky were stars that formed fleeting arcs of light. From somewhere nearby came the boy’s grunts.
With sudden desperate energy, Nyman spun away on the gravel, tried to get to his feet, fell, and rose high enough on his knees to swing at the boy as he came near.
The punch moved through empty air. The boy had circled around behind him and was talking in a voice that sounded as if it were filtered through water.
There was a flicker of light as the gun clipped Nyman’s temple; then he saw grains of dirt and gravel at close proximity. Above him a hot wind was rising, blowing sand and dirt over his body, as if to fill a grave.
In a slurred voice he repeated a single syllable—a woman’s name—until he lost consciousness.
Chapter 27
Something dry and sinuous moved over the skin of his hand. When he opened his eyes the snake was a dark curving line disappearing into a clump of saltbush. Beyond the clump, the beam of a flashlight moved here and there in the darkness, illuminating rocks and dirt and branches of creosote.
The beam of light swept over him. He heard a sharp intake of breath, and then Mara came into view, made visible by the glow of her flashlight. She wore the same black dress she’d worn the night before; her lips were glossy and red.
“Thank god,” she said.
Nyman tried to speak and failed. His mouth was tangled with strands of half-dried blood.
Mara took his arm and helped him to his feet, then led him back through the fence and into the parking lot. Parked in front of the bank was a black Nissan with a crumpled fender.
“Hunter thought he’d killed you,” she said. “He’s hysterical. He thought he killed you and now he thinks Alex is going to kill him.”
Nyman spat blood on the pavement and said in a slurring voice: “What time’s it?”
Not answering, she led him to the Nissan and helped him into the passenger seat. A beach towel had been spread across the upholstery, presumably to absorb his blood. On the dashboard was a first-aid kit.
She came around the car and sat down in the driver’s seat. Her eyes were wide and bright and her hands, now that she’d gotten into the car, had started to shake. She took the first-aid kit into her lap and tried to sort through the bandages.
“I didn’t know what you’d need. I told Hunter you were probably alive, but I had to check. I thought if I could get you to a hospital, or stop the bleeding myself—”
“Thanks,” Nyman said, slurring. “I’ll be all right.”
Anger flared in her pale face. “I’m not saying I did it for you. I did it for Hunter.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Nyman said. “What time is it?”
She put her key in the ignition; the clock read 12:03. Mara cursed and said that she’d already missed an hour of work.
“Work?”
“The Strip. Saturdays I work the casinos.”
Nyman lowered the vanity mirror and looked at his face. The mass of dirt, blood, and swollen flesh was unrecognizable. He closed the mirror and slumped back.
Mara started the engine and asked him where he wanted to be dropped.
Nyman said thickly: “Summerlin.”
“What?”
“Mesquite Road in Summ
erlin. Have to see a suspect.”
She gave him a look of disbelief. “You’re not in any shape to go out there.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You can hardly walk.”
“All right,” he said, reaching for the door handle. “I’ll get a cab.”
She locked the door with a button and started the engine. “I’m taking you back to your motel.”
Nyman’s head lolled to the side as she backed out of the parking spot; after a moment he leaned forward and braced himself over his knees, as if he were going to be sick. Five or ten minutes later, muttering something indistinct, he straightened up again and looked around the interior of the car as if seeing it for the first time.
Mara, watching him in her peripheral vision, said: “He’s not a bad kid, you know.”
“What?”
“Hunter.”
“Oh.”
“A bad kid wouldn’t have cared if he’d killed you.”
Nyman nodded and said nothing. They were approaching the Strip from the east. In the distance the sky brightened almost to daylight as they drew nearer to the lights of the casinos. Ahead on the shoulder of the road was a parked police cruiser, its siren and headlights turned off.
Mara glanced at the cruiser as they went past. “You’re not going to say anything to the cops, are you?”
“Depends. Are you going to give me my money back?”
“I can’t. Alex has it.”
“I need it.”
“Look, I’d give it to you if I could, but I can’t. I don’t have anything.”
“How much’re you going to make tonight?”
The flare of anger reappeared on her face. “You know I have to give that to Alex.”
“You don’t have to. “
“Yes I do. That’s how it works. You have no idea how it works.”
Nyman rested his head against the rattling window. “I told your kid the cops would help him. They’d help you too.”
She laughed. “Yeah. I don’t need that kind of help.”
“Fine. Not the cops. A shelter or something.”
“A shelter? Why don’t you mind your own goddamn business? Alex loses his temper sometimes, but he’s always been there for Hunter and me. He’s been there a hell of a lot more than people like you.”
