I sit heavily onto the chair again, dropping my hands between my legs; my head falls near my slumped shoulders.
After a moment, I raise my head and look at him.
“Just tell your sister to leave Izabel alone,” I reiterate. “I have put her through enough. And…I am tired of doing it.”
My gaze veers off toward the wall again.
Apollo drops his foot from the bottom step; his face is cast in shadow.
“I was wrong before, about it making you feel worse,” he says. “If you say it, it’ll probably make you feel better.”
“Leave, Apollo, before I change my mind.”
“You won’t change your mind.”
I look at him with curiosity.
“Just say it. Admit it to yourself. Out loud. It’s always realer when it’s out loud. Realer? Is that a word?”
“Apollo…if you do not leave…”
“If you want me to tell my sister the truth; if you want me to stop her, then I want you to tell me the truth. I just want to hear you say it. Say it, Victor, and I can guarantee on my life that Artemis will never bother Izabel again. Just say it.”
“No.”
“Say it. Come on, man, just say it!”
I shoot into a stand, one fist clenched at my side.
Apollo smiles; his stark-white teeth visible amid the shadow.
He steps forward, pushes his face into view.
And he waits.
Slowly, I raise my eyes to his again. And I tell him what he wants to hear: “I love Izabel…but not as much as I love Artemis.” My hands are shaking; I go even further though he does not ask, because I know I need to—I have to.
“What I did to Artemis is my number one regret, and it always has been. I think I have…been using Izabel, without knowing it, to make up for what I did to Artemis. She was my chance to make peace with myself, to start over, to do things right. But over time, I began to see that Izabel could never replace Artemis; she could never bring her back to life; she could never reverse the worst mistake I ever made. And now I have gone too far, and though I do not want to further my life with Izabel, I do not want to be the reason she is denied the chance to further her life with someone else.”
Apollo blinks, stunned. “Wow,” he says, shaking his head. “I didn’t expect that, but I respect your need to get it off your chest. We all got heavy loads to carry, man. Some more than others. Obviously.”
He sighs. “You know what, Victor? You were wrong about one thing—Izabel, in a way, did bring Artemis back to life.”
My eyes find his in the darkness.
Apollo heads up the basement stairs, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Izabel
Day Three – Evening
The theatre looks the same as it did on the first two nights, but the atmosphere has changed. The buyers arriving in twos and fours even feel different; it’s the money—the wealthier one is often means the more corrupt. It’s like I can taste it, the corruption—I imagine bleach tastes the same. Drawing a deep breath into my lungs, I straighten my shoulders, glance behind me at Sabine, and then we follow Cesara through the crowd toward our table. Sabine, as always, sits on the floor at my feet; but even she is different; she sits closer, pressed against my leg like a loyal dog wanting to stay close to its loving owner. Too much hope, Sabine. Too much hope…
Joaquin walks out onto the stage; the sound of his dress shoes tapping against the floor echoes throughout the vast space; the microphone attached to the lapel of his suit jacket pops and crackles as it rubs against the fabric; I hear the humming of electric lights above in the high ceilings; the soft susurrus of conversation; the rustle of clothes; the clinking of glasses—my head is spinning a little, the anticipation of this night growing heavier in my blood by the minute.
From the corner of my eye, I see the man from the other day—Dante—walking to his table; he looks right at me, nods with that nervous smile that sets him apart from everyone else here, and then takes his seat. What a strange little man, that one; interesting enough to note, but irrelevant enough to ignore.
Every guest that walks through those doors I make note of, filing each one away inside my head, scribbling annotations in the sidelines, and getting frustrated that, so far, not a single one of them feels like ‘the one’. I don’t know what I was thinking, anyway. There are a lot of places in the world where Vonnegut could be; and here, tonight, on the same day I’m hoping to find him, is, according to the universe, probably the last place he’s likely to just magically show up. But what other plans did I have? What other leads did I, or Victor, or any of us have other than this one? None. Not a single damn one. And if I don’t get a lead on the real Vonnegut tonight, then I’ll just have to stick around and play my role for as long as I have to until I do.
“And-here-she-comes,” Cesara whispers in a singsong voice next to me.
I look toward the south entrance—as does everyone else in the room—while Frances Lockhart comes sauntering down the aisle as if paparazzi are flashing cameras in her face and the carpet is red beneath her stilettos; her two beefy bodyguards follow closely behind her—and the thirteen girls she bought on the first night. How odd.
“My table better not be occupied,” she says aloud for everyone nearby to hear. “It’s my table, and I won’t be seated somewhere else.”
“Didn’t expect to see her tonight,” I say to Cesara.
“No one did,” Cesara agrees. “Probably begged Daddy for more money—this should be interesting, to say the least.”
“Yeah, to say the least,” I echo, my voice trailing.
“Can’t say I’ve ever seen a buyer come with that many girls,” Cesara adds. “Looks like a harem—like a Hollywood socialite with a harem.” She shakes her head at the absurdity.
After a male server pulls out Frances’ chair, she sits and then shoos him away with the wave of her hand. “Go before you brush against one of my girls—go!” she snaps, and the server scurries off.
Frances looks up, noticing the eyes on her, pauses to drink in their dislike, and then makes an annoyed, wide-eyed face at them all; her mouth falls open with a puff of air. “Something you need?” she asks derisively, and they all look away.
Frances snarls, and just as quickly as the guests averted their attention, she loses interest and focuses on her girls. “No, no,” Frances argues, pointing at them, “I want you here—and you, sit next to her—no, you. Yes, you sit on the other side of her.”
Few can actually tear their eyes away from the spectacle that is Miss Frances Lockhart, but all of them do it less invasively; covertly they watch her with disgusted looks; some even look outright offended that a rude, loudmouth like Frances is allowed in their midst. I and Cesara, on the other hand, look forward to the dramatic woman’s performance.
Cesara’s hand touches my arm upon the table. “And here comes Callista,” she whispers as a woman with long, inky-black hair moves toward our table like a ghost gliding gracefully through a room.
Mentally, I prepare myself, and jump immediately into character. Curling my right arm around the back of Cesara’s neck, my hand cupping the side of her face, I pull her toward me and dip my tongue into her mouth. Callista flinches, just barely, but I see it in her eyes before she has a chance to hide it.
“Cesara,” Callista greets with a slow nod; her eyes skirt me with hatred.
“Callista,” Cesara greets in return.
“I see you’ve…lowered your standards,” Callista says, icily.
I smile, sticky and venomous, rather than come out of my chair at her and give in to the taunting because I know that’s what she wants.
Then I lean forward and stretch out my hand. “Lydia Delacourt, scum of the desert, White-trash-in-training, but good enough that I’m the one sleeping in Cesara’s bed, and you, are not—pleased to meet you.”
Callista’s nostrils flare.
A victorious grin dancing at my lips, I retract my hand I knew she’d never accept to begin with.
&n
bsp; “Oh, come on,” Cesara says, trying to calm Callista’s internal raging, “you didn’t expect me to be alone forever, did you?”
“Alone is how I’d like to talk with you later”—Callista glances at me—“after the auction; I have some…business to discuss.”
Cesara nods. “All right,” she agrees. “I’ll find you after the last showing.”
Callista shoots me with one final look before walking away from the table, weaving through people standing, and other tables before making it to her own.
“I’m sure ‘business’ is code for ‘personal’?” I say, bitingly.
“Of course it is.” Cesara smiles, and her hand squeezes my thigh underneath the table. She leans toward my throat, sweeps her lips across my flesh, and then says against my ear, “You aren’t jealous, are you?”
“You know I am.”
“Well, don’t be,” she says breathily, her mouth on my neck. “Besides, I’ll be taking you with me when I meet with her; that’ll really piss her off.”
I pull away. “I hope you’re not using me to make her jealous.”
Cesara’s mouth pinches on one side, and she tilts her head. “That’s not at all what I’m doing”—she reaches out and touches my bottom lip with the pad of her thumb—“Lydia, you should know by now how I feel about you, how much you mean to me; I would never do anything to jeopardize what we have.”
“And what do we have, Cesara?” I soften my eyes, and tilt my head against her hand.
She smiles, and in it I sense both weakness and strength—the weakness is her falling for me; the strength is still that part of her resisting it.
“I think you know,” she says, still resisting; she leans in and kisses my lips. “There’s something I need to talk with you about after the auction, as well.”
“Oh?” I ask. “Business, or personal?”
She grins. “Both.”
After a few minutes, the disappointment I’ve had all evening in feeling no closer to Vonnegut than when I started, vanishes in an instant as a man, neither handsome nor unattractive but something in-between, walks into the theatre with six bodyguards, and exuding something no one else in the room has—rank. It’s as if everyone knows him, or at least knows of him, and he doesn’t need to put on a performance to make every person in the theatre turn their heads to look as he makes his way to his table next to the stage. And the looks he garners are the opposite of disgusted, offended, or shocked; the faces watching him are filled with respect, awe, and fear.
Once the man takes his seat, and his bodyguards take their positions around him and near the stage, the din of conversation picks up again, but to a different tune.
“Joaquin should’ve announced that he’d be here,” a man at a table to my left whispers to another. “A little warning would’ve been nice.”
“I would like to meet him,” says a woman behind me to another woman, “see for myself if the rumors are true; I’d risk a beating if he fucks as hard as he hits.”
“He’ll buy the best girl on that stage tonight,” says another man somewhere to my right. “There goes my damn evening.”
“I met him once,” says another woman. “I stood right in front of him with my husband, and he didn’t even look at me. Rude bastard.”
“Iosif Veselov, I take it?” I say to Cesara. The Russian buyer they warned me never to speak to unless he speaks to me first.
“In the flesh.” She’s gazing across the room at him; her face suddenly lights up with what looks like excitement “Definitely going to be an interesting night,” she says, still looking toward Iosif, her grin spreading.
Suddenly, the source of Cesara’s reaction makes its way to my brain as I hear Frances’ annoying voice carrying lightly through the crowd. I peer through the shuffling bodies all moving to their seats to see that Frances’ table is just one table behind Iosif’s. And I notice she is the only person in the room who doesn’t seem the slightest bit interested in this man. But is it just arrogance on Frances’ part? Or, is it something much worse? I don’t know, but I get the feeling it might be that Frances is oblivious to the danger Iosif poses to her. She’s not only a woman, but she’s a woman with a big mouth, and combative with buyers who outbid her, as she had shown on the first night. A part of me shares Cesara’s anticipation of the inevitable clash between the two, but the other part of me, the human part with a conscience is saying Oh shit, oh shit repeatedly inside my head.
Focus on Iosif, I tell myself, and I wonder why I was worried about Frances at all—she’s buying girls as slaves, and the bitch deserves whatever happens to her. Yeah, I don’t care about her. Do I?
I shake it off, and look across the five tables that separate Iosif and me. He does everything with OCD-perfection: the way he sits tall, facing forward, his hands on the table in front of him precisely the same distance apart on either side; how two guards, the same height and weight, stand to his left and right, also the same distance apart; how he situates his bidding paddles on the table in front of him. My heart is pounding in my ears; the saliva evaporates from my mouth—I’ve seen him before. I can’t place his face, and I need to get a closer look, but even at this distance, I see enough of him to know that he is familiar to me.
Scrambling to place his face with someone from my past, I almost forget that Cesara is sitting next to me.
“If anybody dies tonight,” she says, waking me up, “I just hope it’s not one of us, or any of our girls.”
“Why would somebody die?” I ask.
“Well, anything can happen,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Especially when the buyers get into it. It’s happened before; there was a shootout right there on the floor in front of the stage one night. Two men wanted the same girl, and only one went home with her”—she chuckles—“Only one went home.”
I don’t care about Frances Lockhart…!
Not surprising, Frances Lockhart wins the three first bids. Also, not surprising, Iosif Veselov hasn’t even bid yet, or shown any indication he might later. He is unreadable; I can’t tell if he’s interested, bored, or about to shit on himself—he’s a statue.
At nine o’clock, Iosif raises his bidding paddle for the first time—and Frances raises hers.
Here we go. Cesara and I glance at one another, eyebrows raised, mouths pinched on one side.
Iosif—three hundred grand.
Frances—three hundred fifty grand.
Iosif—four hundred fifty grand.
Frustrated Frances—four hundred seventy-five grand.
Iosif—one million.
Frances slams her bidding paddle down on the table in front of her.
“One million going once,” Joaquin announces, “going twice—”
Frances—one-point-one-million; her small shoulders and busty chest rises and falls with heavy, exasperated breaths.
“One-point-one-million going once—”
Iosif—two million dollars.
A flurry of excited voices moves over the room like a wave.
“Is that woman insane?” the man at the table to my left says to another.
“Oh, this is exhilarating,” the woman behind me says to another in a sultry voice. “Maybe I should bid like that to get his attention.”
Frances shoots up from her chair, and she glares at Iosif; gasps and sharp whispers pierce my ears; I look up at Joaquin standing tall on the stage with his hands clasped behind his back, and the biggest smile I’ve ever seen stretching his face—sick bastard.
“What do you need her for?” Frances challenges Iosif. “What do you need any of them for?”
Sit down, you stupid, stupid woman. I think I stopped breathing; I think everybody in the theatre has stopped breathing.
Iosif, like a demon rising from the bowels of Hell, slowly stands, and every face in the crowd follows his movement without falter. Without taking his eyes from Frances Lockhart, he says in a thick Russian accent to Joaquin: “Five million dollarrrs.”
Eyes widen, mouths hit the floor;
the gasps and sharp whispers intensify and multiply all around me. Cesara and I look at each other again, same shocked faces as before, same excitement in Cesara, same nervousness in me, pretending it’s excitement.
Frances slams her palm down on the table; she glares at Iosif once more, and then she sits heavily back into her chair like a spoiled child accepting defeat without decorum.
“I’m surprised he didn’t go over there and knock her through the wall,” the woman behind me tells the other.
“I’m disappointed,” says the other.
Where are the fireworks? Where’s this big show everybody expected to see? Maybe Iosif is just waiting for the right moment; maybe he’s plotting to do worse things to Frances after the auction—I don’t know, but I’m glad Frances is safe. For now.
For the next hour, Frances is more careful with her money; Iosif continues to win, only bidding on certain girls with specific attributes; and almost all of them are red cards, making Cesara—and apparently me—that much richer every time Iosif raises his paddle. Joaquin looks delighted standing up there on the stage; I can practically see him bathing in his money, and then wasting it all on American hookers and parties and expensive cars he’ll drive once and hide away in a fancy garage somewhere. I hate people like that—I’m going to enjoy taking that hatred out on Joaquin, seeing as how I can’t exactly go around killing rich men just because they’re rich.
And in that same hour, I’m no closer to placing Iosif’s face.
Jorge Ramirez, rapist extraordinaire according to Cesara and Joaquin, wins his first girl of the night, and for a little while, worrying about what’ll happen to her once she leaves this place, takes my mind off the frustration with Iosif. But I’m just trading one darkness for another.
God…this room is full of devils; every single face in this crowd are the epitome of evil—though, I still can’t for the life of me see two of them the same way I see everyone else. Frances. And, I can’t believe I’m going to say it—Dante. I just can’t shake that there’s something off about those two, despite the company they keep.
Dante, every now and then, looks across the room at me, and he smiles, and I almost smile back, until I have to remind myself that I’m in character and smiling is beneath me. Why does he keep looking at me? I don’t think it’s some kind of creepy attraction—I just don’t know and it’s driving me crazy!
Spiders in the Grove Page 11
