I'll Sing for my Dinner

by BR Kingsolver

  “There isn’t an arrest warrant. The FBI has a material witness warrant out for you. It was issued under a seal. In other words, it’s secret. They seem to think that you know who killed this Jimenez guy, maybe even saw him killed.”

  She stood with her back to me, still staring out the window. “When I was in my last year at the Peabody Institute,” she began, “I started having this suffocated feeling. I never had control over my own life. I started performing professionally at eight. A violin prodigy, they called me. I played Paganini at ten. There’s something about my fingers and my ear that’s different from most people. They measured me once. A neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins saw me play, and asked me if he could wire me to some machines. It seems my reaction time is about half of what’s considered normal. I can move my fingers faster than other people. And I only have to hear a piece of music once to be able to play it.”

  She chuckled. “That really interfered with my development. It took me forever to learn to read sheet music. Anyway, when I went through puberty and my voice changed and settled, we discovered that I had an amazing range. My parents and my teachers were ecstatic. And I was excited at first. It’s such a high to hit the notes of an aria exactly, and to be able to sing almost every female part is supposedly unprecedented. I spent almost every waking hour eating, drinking and breathing music.”

  She turned from the window and sat in the chair across from me with her hands clasped in front of her, staring at the carpet. “But that’s not really healthy for a kid. I lived in an insular world almost completely populated by adults who pushed me to please them. And the more I worked, the more I accomplished, the more accolades I received, the more they always wanted from me.”

  For the first time, she looked at me. “I met this guy. I didn’t know he was a drug dealer, but he paid attention to me, not to what I could do. He wasn’t interested in music at all. His idea of music was rap. He told me I was beautiful and desirable. He took me home with him and fed me cocaine and a roofie and took my virginity. I thought I fell in love with him. I barely managed to finish my degree.”

  Looking me in the eyes, she said, “I didn’t know what love was. Until I met you, I had no idea what it meant to be loved. All the drugs he fed me ... I get higher than that just seeing the expression on your face when you look at me.”

  Taking a deep breath, she gestured toward the CDs. “I had a tour booked after graduation. A thirty-stop, worldwide tour. New York, London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Tokyo, Sydney. I would have made millions. Eddie said he didn’t want me to go, and I cancelled it and moved in with him. He used to throw these big parties. Sugar bowls full of coke all over the place. He liked the way people looked at me when I performed for his friends. He was proud that he owned me, that he could show me off. That’s the first time I played guitar in public.”

  She bit her lip. That was always a sign that she was making a tough choice and was afraid of what she was going to say next. “This is hard to say, Jake. You know, it isn’t worth much to own something if you can’t sell it. He used to trade me to men for a night, in exchange for drugs or other favors. Jake, I think you know I wasn’t pure when you met me. I was pretty sure you’d forgive me for getting raped. I don’t know how you feel about sleeping with a whore.”

  Forgive her for getting raped? “Cecily, I love you,” I said. “You told me once that your past didn’t matter, that I should just accept that you wanted to look forward and build a new life with me. If I dwelled on what you said, I could conjure all kinds of scenarios in my mind. I know what a woman might have to do to survive on the streets. I saw it in Afghanistan and Iraq. I don’t blame any woman for doing what she has to do to survive. I don’t care what you did before we met. None of that has anything to do with you and me.”

  She started crying then, silently, her lips trembling and tears flowing down her cheeks. She swiped at them with her sleeve, but they continued to flow.

  “Eddie partied too much and used too much of his product. He got into a bind when he ‘misplaced’,” she made air quotes with her hands, “ten kilos of coke. It wasn’t his fault, of course. Nothing ever was. I never found out what happened. I suspected that he might be gambling, on top of his other vices, but that’s just me guessing. Anyway, his suppliers weren’t very happy about him owing them a quarter of a million dollars.”

  Suddenly, she jumped up and went into the kitchen. I followed her. She took a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard and poured a shot glass full. Tossing it back, she closed her eyes and shuddered. Taking a deep breath, she did it again. I had never seen her drink anything other than wine, and never enough to get drunk. She gestured to me with the glass.

  “Want one?” When I shook my head, she put the bottle away and washed the glass.

  “The night he died, I threw what would fit in that backpack and ran for my life,” she said, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “I hitchhiked to Nashville. I thought I might be able to find work as a studio musician. It took me two weeks to get there. I didn’t have any money, and that’s when I really discovered how cruel the world could be. But when I got there, I saw a report on TV that the FBI was looking for a mystery girl, as they termed it, who was living with Eddie. So I ran again.”

  “Is that where the nightmares come from?” I asked.

  She gave me a startled look. “I didn’t know I woke you up.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Jake.” Cecily stared off into space for a few moments, then said, “I’ve had nightmares since I was a little kid. If I did something I wasn’t supposed to, I had guilty nightmares about my mother finding out. And then when I lived with Eddie, there were people I knew who got killed. There’s always an atmosphere of fear in the drug culture. A girl I knew was a dealer’s girlfriend. She caught him with another girl at a party one night and made a scene. They found her floating in the harbor three days later.”

  Cecily took a deep breath. “I still dream about them fishing her out of the water, and sometimes the girl they fish out is me. Since Eddied died, I dream about that, and about the FBI and the drug dealers coming for me.”

  She looked at me straight in the face. “And I dream about some of the things that happened before I got to Greeley. I’m still surprised that I didn’t die between Baltimore and here.”

  “That’s why you carry the knife,” I said. “I’ve never seen one quite like it.”

  “It’s an athame, a witch’s ritual knife. I guess originally they were used for sacrifices. Eddie gave it to me for my birthday. The hilt is a low-level silver alloy, but the blade is Toledo steel. He said he paid a lot for it.”

  The tears started again.

  “God, Jake, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know I’d fall in love with you, or that you would be so kind. I should have kept on going. You don’t deserve any of this.”

  I took her in my arms and hugged her close. “I’m sorry for the pain you’ve had to endure,” I said, “but I’ll never be sorry that you walked in my door. We’ll get through this, Cecily. Together.”

  ~~~

  Chapter 10

  Cecily

  Jake and I talked and determined that we didn’t know what to do. We decided to call Thomas and ask his advice. But before making the call, I insisted that Jake take me upstairs and make love to me.

  “Do you want it rough?” Jake asked as he laid me on the bed.

  “No. I want you to be Jake. Remind me of why I fell in love with such a kind, gentle man.” And so he did. Afterward, he called his friend.

  There was a knock on the door and when Jake answered it, Dave Thomas came in and took the chair I had sat in while talking to Jake. I sat on the couch, my arms folded across my chest. Jake sat beside me, his arm around my shoulders.

  “I’m sorry,” Thomas said. “I assume you’re not too happy with me poking into your business.”

  “I’m not going to shoot the messenger, Mr. Thomas,” I said. “You didn’t get me in this mess. I tried to find out if there was a warra
nt out for me. I can’t say I’m pleased to find out there is, but it’s a relief to know where I stand.” I gave him a small smile. “Except that I’m still not sure where I stand. Jake trusts you, and since the feds aren’t knocking on the door, I guess I trust you, too.”

  “I guess you want my advice,” he said. Both Jake and I nodded. “Do you have access to any of your money?”

  “Are my accounts being monitored?” I asked in return.

  “Probably. You don’t have any money that no one knows about?”

  I chuckled. “I have about thirty-five hundred dollars under my mattress. I assume you’re talking about more than that.”

  “Yes. I think you need legal counsel, the best there is. Did you kill him, Ms. Buchanan?”

  “Mr. Thomas, I decline to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me. I watch cop shows on TV. I know that you could be compelled to testify about anything I tell you. So, unless you’re willing to sign on as one of my lawyers, let’s leave what happened in Baltimore alone.”

  He nodded. “I know you’re a musical prodigy. Do you mind telling me how you managed to enroll in Johns Hopkins’ Peabody Institute at sixteen?” he asked.

  I grinned at him. “And what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

  “I get the impression that you’re very intelligent. Whether or not that is true helps me determine how to explain things to you.”

  “My IQ was tested at 165 when I was fourteen,” I replied. “I scored 1600 on my SAT. I graduated high school two years early. But intelligence is relative. Obviously, I’m capable of making some really stupid decisions.”

  “So are we all. As I said, Ms. Buchanan, I think that you need a good lawyer. To pay for that, you’re going to need money.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, “but since my money was all earned before I met Eddie, and can’t possibly be connected to any criminal enterprise, the authorities can’t freeze my accounts. Is that right?”

  Thomas nodded.

  “In that case, I can hire a lawyer. We just need to be prepared to move fast when I hand him the first payment. How much do you think this could cost?”

  “Possibly up to a million. It depends on how complicated it gets, how long it takes, and whether they decide to charge you with anything.”

  I took a deep breath. “I can handle that.” I heard a sharp intake of breath from Jake. “I’ll tell you what I’m most worried about. Having some thugs with guns show up here. Even if I satisfy the authorities that I’m innocent of any crime, I have absolutely no intention of testifying against anyone. I am not going to help them put anyone in jail. I won’t even give them information off the record.”

  I sat up straight and looked Thomas in the eyes. “I lived in that world for over a year. Eddie wasn’t really a big fish, and even he had a fibbie on his payroll. I don’t trust your old buddies. And the honest ones aren’t above blackmailing a witness by leaking information to the bad guys. I knew a guy in Baltimore who walked out of a bust. The rumors started that he was a snitch, and he didn’t live a week. If I need to move to Brazil, I’d rather do it now instead of going through all the bullshit and then still have to do it.”

  “I take it that you didn’t partake in a lot of the product your boyfriend was moving,” Thomas said with a raised eyebrow. “You don’t seem to have a problem doing without it.”

  “I did some coke,” I said. “I liked the first hit of the day. But it made me sick if I did too much, and it screws up my ability to finger the notes and it screws up my pitch. No matter what my morals are in other things, my relationship with music is as pure as freshly fallen snow. Even when Eddie threw his parties, he expected me to entertain his guests, so I had to stay sober.”

  Taking a deep breath, I said, “Do you have any recommendations?”

  He handed me a piece of paper with three names and phone numbers. “The first name there, Donald Kerrigan, is someone I dealt with when I was with the Bureau. He kicked my butt on three cases that I thought I’d locked down cold. We had the goods, we had eyewitnesses willing to testify, and they never made it to court. I loathe the son of a bitch. But if I was in a pinch with nothing but dead ends, he’s who I’d hire.”

  Nodding, I said, “Do you have some time? I’d like to talk to Jake privately. I can make you some coffee, or get you a beer or a glass of wine. Are you hungry?”

  I made a pot of coffee and fixed him a sandwich, and then I took Jake’s hand and led him upstairs. Closing the door to our bedroom, I said, “The same thing I said to Mr. Thomas goes for you. I can’t talk to you about anything that happened in Baltimore. We’re not married, and so our conversations aren’t protected. Okay? It’s not that I don’t want to take you into my confidence, but I need to protect myself and protect you.”

  “We could get married,” he said.

  I took him by the shoulders and tiptoed up to kiss him. “No, that’s a bad idea. That would make you and the bar open to anything that might land on me.” I smiled. “Besides, that’s the most unromantic proposal I’ve ever heard. You can do better. And I still might not say yes. Jake, I don’t need a ring or a ceremony. If you think we should profess our commitment to each other in front of man and God, we can probably arrange to screw on a tabletop at the bar on a Friday night. A lot more people would attend, and it would be a lot cheaper.”

  He laughed. “Cicely, can you really afford a million dollars?”

  “Jake, I had written off that money. I’ve been afraid to touch it, and truth to tell, you can’t miss what you’ve never had. The last statement I saw showed about six million in my accounts. I don’t know how much my parents might have drained from that, but they haven’t been able to touch it since I turned twenty-one. If I get out of all this intact, without anyone hunting me, I can earn it again, if you want me to. And if you don’t care, I’m happy with what I make at the Roadhouse.

  I kissed him. I never got tired of doing that.

  “So, what do you think I should do?” I asked him.

  “Cicely, I can’t tell you what to do.”

  “No, but we can make a decision together. Isn’t that what people in relationships do? Are we in a relationship, Jake? Do you want to go through this? You can tell me to leave any time, and I’ll kiss you and wish you well on my way out the door. You didn’t sign up for my problems.”

  I think we kept Mr. Thomas waiting longer than I intended, but he was still there when we made it back downstairs.

  “Can you make the call to Mr. Kerrigan for me?” I asked. “I assume that he would probably take your call directly, if only out of curiosity.”

  “Yes, he probably would.”

  “And I wanted to ask, if he were to hire you as a consultant on the case, would you be included in his umbrella of client-lawyer privilege?”

  “Yes, I would. Why?”

  “Because I need someone on my side. Someone I can talk to that the feds can’t squeeze. Someone who will tell me if I hit the point where I need to cut and run. Jake can’t do the first part, and Kerrigan can’t do the second part. Mr. Thomas, I haven’t done anything that deserves my spending time in jail or being killed. I’m not going to become a sacrificial lamb for the players in the drug wars.”

  “Yes, I can do that.”

  “Make the call, if you please,” I said, and sat down on the couch.

  Thomas left his name and number. We were kind of in waiting mode, since we didn’t know when Kerrigan would call back, or even if he would. As Mr. Thomas was preparing to leave, his phone rang. He raised his eyebrows and nodded at us, letting us know it was Kerrigan. After a few minutes, he handed the phone to me.

  “Miss Buchanan? I understand you have a problem,” the deep baritone voice said.

  “Yes, sir. It appears the FBI have a material witness warrant out for me in connection with the murder of a drug dealer in Baltimore. I have some concerns about my safety from said dealer’s connections. And I don’t know if the feds might arrest me and c
harge me with something if I arrange to meet them.”

  “I saw you perform at the Kennedy Center some years ago,” he said. “I’m willing to provide a free consultation to understand the situation, if you’re willing to sing an aria for me.”

  I laughed. “And here I was worried about how to pay you. Mr. Kerrigan, one of my problems is getting to you. I’m afraid that the second I present my passport to buy a ticket, I’ll be arrested.”

  We worked through the logistics, and in the end, Jake bought a ticket to Denver for Kerrigan. We drove down on Sunday to meet him, and took him to dinner at a nice restaurant. But we didn’t talk about the case.

  After we drove Kerrigan to his hotel, Jake waited downstairs in the bar while I spoke with the lawyer in his room.

  I told him my story, pretty much as I had told Jake. At the end, Kerrigan said, “You said, ‘after Eddie’s death’, but you didn’t say who killed him, how he died, if you were there, or if you did it.”

  Jake hadn’t questioned me when I skated past that part. I took a deep breath and said, “He was stabbed to death. I saw him die. I don’t know who did it, but I have my suspicions. And no, I didn’t kill him.”

  He grilled me some more, then said, “I’ll take your case. I assume you have the means to pay me?”

  “Yes, sir. Do you want me to sing for you now?” I said with a grin.

  He chuckled, but continued to wait for an answer.

  “All of my money was put in trusts when I was a minor. I called the trustee earlier today, and verified that I’m now in control of them. He also told me that the feds got a court order and flagged my accounts. I can get to the money, but it will trigger a call to the FBI.”

  “Have the trustee transfer the funds directly to me,” Kerrigan said, handing me a piece of paper. “They’ll have a good time asking me where you are. Do you need any money from those accounts? If so, transfer that to me also, and I’ll get it to you. We can use Dave Thomas as a go-between. Your idea of my hiring him was a good one. Now, here is how we’re going to work this.”