Risk

by Raquel Belle

  “I already knew Melissa, she and Judd were together, they were living here too. Luke had the room down here on the right,” I point it out.

  “They were all supposed to be running the Barracks, taking people skydiving, using the shooting range and the moving target zone, the training center, all that stuff, but I never saw any clients and there was always a lot of money around. Like…a lot.”

  “I thought that it was probably happening while I wasn’t here. I mean, what did I know? I grew up in Missouri. I’d been travelling for a while by then, but I’d never hung out with drug dealers and shit like that.”

  Charlotte gives me a dirty look.

  “What? You think your brother is innocent?”

  “Never mind what I think, keep talking,” she says.

  “Anyway,” I go on, “the fluffy storm trooper upstairs is mine,” I smile.

  She gestures for me to go on.

  “So, one day I’m about to get on my way to work when Ben tells me that he forgot to give my boss, Carter, a package that he was expecting. It was about the size of a paperback book in brown wrapping. I asked what it was and he said it was a book that Carter asked him to order to give to his sister as a birthday present. He said Carter was bad with computers so he asked Ben to do it. Your shithead brother could think on his feet like no one else I’ve ever met.”

  Charlotte looks away.

  “I threw it on the backseat and started driving, halfway to work I got pulled over. It was the DEA.”

  “Fuck,” Jack says.

  “Yeah, I didn’t know what was going on and I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong so when they asked to search the car I said it was fine. Oops, the book turns out to be a kilo of coke. They cuffed me, hauled me down to Phoenix. I was crying my ass off, I had no idea what was going on. I kept asking for a phone call but I didn’t get one. It was a long drive. And the agent kept telling me that I was going away for a long time.”

  “When we got there they put me in a room for three hours with the goddamn heat turned up all the way with not even a glass of water to drink. The only thing in there besides a surveillance camera, the table and two chairs was a clock on the wall. Eventually a lady named Deborah Harcourt came in. She told me that I was looking at a maximum of twenty years, because that’s the law. I know now that it might’ve been anything between ten and twenty, but who gives a shit about that. I just didn’t want to go to jail for something I didn’t do.”

  “She said they’d been surveilling the Barracks for months and that she knew I wasn’t involved and she wanted to help me, but under the rule of law…I was going to go away anyway and there was nothing she could do about it…unless I cooperated and became her C.I.”

  “You were a confidential informant?” Jack asks.

  I nod.

  “This is not the story I was expecting,” Charlotte says.

  “I didn’t know what I was doing, I just didn’t want to go to jail. I said yes, but I didn’t know what I was getting in to. She told me that she had papers drawn up for me that she’d keep in a safe. If I worked for her and she got what she wanted, she’d burn them and no one would be the wiser, it would be like she’d never busted me at all. If I fucked her over, I’d go down. Don’t talk, don’t tell anybody, just keep going and feed her information.”

  “She can’t do that,” Charlotte says.

  “Yeah, well I didn’t know that, Red. Anyway, they took me back to the car, they resealed the coke, smashed me and my car up and prepped me with a story that I’d been in an accident to account for the time I was gone. I gave the package to Carter like I was supposed to, much later than planned obviously, then I drank myself silly at the bar. When Ben showed up really concerned, he gave me something to make me feel better. Woohoo. Cocaine.”

  I look at Jack and I know it’s all over, he thinks I’m trash.

  “From that point on I had to meet with Deb twice a week to give her updates. Turns out Ben was using the plane for pickup and distribution but who they really wanted was his supplier—his source.”

  “After that your brother started getting sloppy. There was always drugs around the house because he was dipping into the stash. Everybody was high all the time. They were smoking meth, doing coke and it was like that 24/7. I had to do it too because if I wasn’t part of the team I wasn’t any use to Deb. Who’s going to trust the only one in the house who’s not doing the free drugs? Bitch fucking knew it but she made me do it anyway.”

  I turn to Jack again and he looks away.

  Oh well.

  “They put something on my phone that recorded intermittently, and I could start a recording if I thought an interesting conversation would come up. But I always kept the phone in my purse or fed them bullshit and pretended that I thought someone was going to say something but in the end they didn’t. Ben and Luke didn’t discuss a lot of business around me. It happened sometimes but nobody wants to be a rat, right? So about three months went by with Deb grooming me and teaching me how to lie better, how to ingratiate myself, how to play the role, how to detach myself. It made me fucking sick. I ended up doing the drugs because I needed it. It was the only thing that kept me functioning. I could escape into another world and pretend I wasn’t me.”

  Jack puts his hand on my back and strokes it. I shrug away from him. I think it hurts his feelings but I kind of don’t care right now.

  “We’re only in the middle, sweetheart,” I know I sound like such a bitch when I say it, but it just comes out. “She eventually caught on that I wasn’t giving anything up on purpose. I was stupid and I didn’t want to betray the people who I thought were my friends. But they weren’t my friends, they were a bunch of junkies who were using what your dead father built to have a good time and fuck around.”

  Charlotte looks at me with pure hate.

  “Every single day I had to have a smile on my face, get fucked up high and pretend that I was with them. And all the time I was rotting inside. I had to pretend I didn’t think your brother was a piece of shit. One day when I met Deb she showed me surveillance photographs. Ben had been fucking Mel for the past month. I had no idea, I suppose neither did Judd. After that I wasn’t going to protect anyone. I wanted it over.”

  Jack puts his hand on mine but I just don’t want anyone touching me right now, I pull away.

  “I heard about a drop that Ben was going to make near the border for some other distributors to pick up, I called Deb as soon as everyone was out of the house and told her about it. The DEA couldn’t make it in time so they got the local P.D. involved. She figured if they caught someone low enough they’d talk. They seized ten kilos and got a few low-level guys. No one said anything. They took the pinch and went to the can.”

  Charlotte seems rivetted, I guess this is the part she’s always been wondering about.

  “About a month later on one of your brother’s non-stop coke binges he decides that he’s not going to let the profit slip through his fingers so he’s going to call in a bomb threat at the local high-school, use the distraction to plant dynamite at the police station, blow it up, kill everyone and take the seized drugs back from evidence lockup. That was my ticket out. I told Deb and she finally agreed that she wasn’t going to get Ben’s source through me, but if she could bust him with this kind of thing, he’d either talk or rot in jail, and she’d be saving the lives of seven officers. I tried to warn Judd, he was the least fucked up out of the lot, I told him it was wrong but he wouldn’t listen. He worshipped Ben. Anyway, when it was done, I made her burn my file in front of me and then I disappeared. Best of all, I wouldn’t have to testify, so as far as the world is concerned, I had nothing to do with anything. That’s the whole story.”

  Everyone is quiet.

  “If you can’t guess what happened, the cops were waiting for Ben and caught him in the act, they grabbed everybody, raided the house with a warrant and that’s that. I took whatever could fit in one bag and hit the road, I didn’t look back. Jack knows the rest of the story.
Was that what you were looking for?” I ask Charlotte.

  She says nothing.

  “Any questions?”

  “I think that about covers it,” she says.

  “I cared for him till the end, I wish things could’ve gone different,” I tell her.

  I’m met with silence.

  “Well, in that case, I’m really tired so I think I’m going to take a shower and turn in. I’m sure you guys have a lot of catching up to do so I’ll leave you to it.” I push out my chair, noisily, stand and walk off.

  I don’t look at Jack, I really don’t want to. I know what he thinks of me now. A fucking junkie bitch who’s so fucked up he’ll never be able to trust me. It’s probably over between us.

  I go upstairs. I start to shake. Don’t break down.

  I go to my old room. It looks like the one where Charlotte sleeps because it seems to be the most used. I spot a pair of scissors on the vanity. I take them, grab the fluffy storm trooper and cut it open. I empty out the stuffing onto her bed. That’s right bitch, sleep tight.

  There’s only one other room up here so I go into that one. Jack’s left our bags in here. I lay out some stuff on the bed, then get into the shower. It’s not a mixer, so I spend two minutes getting alternately frozen and scalded before there’s a decent temperature to the water. Once I’m able to stand underneath the shower completely, I let the tears come.

  Fuck, I’ve really been crying a lot recently. I’m not normally a crier. I wonder if you can finish your tears? I scrub myself like I can clean the dirty memories away, but…that won’t happen. You just have to learn to live with the things you’ve done. You don’t ever forget. You have to learn how to live and do the best you can.

  It’s not fucking easy though. I had to fuck Ben…knowing who he was, knowing what he was doing, knowing he was fucking Mel, and I still thought that I loved him. I had to lie to everyone. I had to put shit up my nose and smile when I was dying inside. I had to poison my body, I had to sell myself like a fucking whore. I am a piece of trash. I don’t deserve anything, I don’t deserve anyone.

  Sometimes I just wish I would die and this could all be over. I keep running but I keep coming right back here.

  When I’m done I dry off and put some clean underwear on, bun up my hair, turn on the shitty ceiling fan and crawl into bed. I’m so tired, I feel myself going under in a minute.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jack

  We sit in stunned silence for a couple of minutes, Charlotte picking at her plate, me at mine, then I help myself to another round. I figure Deanna went through the trouble and the casserole is really good so it’d be a shame to waste it—also I’m really hungry. I use the time to think about what I’m going to say to her.

  I finish what’s on my plate in silence and then Charlotte asks if I want another beer.

  “I should probably go check on her,” I say.

  She gives me a whatever look and I excuse myself.

  Honestly, I was expecting something, but not that. Deanna didn’t even want me to touch her so I’m not really sure what to do right now.

  She went through something that no one should have to go through. It answers a lot of questions though—a hell of a lot—you could do a psychological profile based on what she told us. Deanna being a C.I. is how she knew all the right moves with Melvin, she spent months being wired. I can’t imagine the stress of having to act for that long.

  Now I know why she reacted the way she did the other day. Why she won’t put herself out there. Why she won’t lead with her heart. She tried it once and it nearly destroyed her.

  Strangely, the fact that she’s been through that and hasn’t given up…it makes me want her even more. I want to make her believe that what she’s been through doesn’t have to define her…that’s there’s more to life.

  But why is she going to believe me?

  We’re both a couple of damaged people who don’t have a clue what they’re doing.

  Maybe this is wrong, but I’m not going to give up on her. I’ve seen what’s inside…and I know Deanna is worth waiting for, worth fighting for…even if it’s not for me, she needs to see how special she is.

  I go upstairs and knock on the door. There’s no answer. I wait a few seconds and then turn the doorknob.

  The lights are all off and she’s already curled up in bed. She looks beautiful—she always looks beautiful.

  I sit down as lightly as I can to not disturb her. “Deanna,” I stroke her back.

  “Hmm?” She sounds out of it already.

  I want to lay down next to her and hold her. “Do you want to talk?”

  “No, go play with your friend, I’m sleepy,” she says, she doesn’t even open her eyes, but I can see she’s been crying.

  Typical. Just push me away. But I suppose she’s allowed…given the circumstances.

  “Okay.”

  I get up, move a strand of hair away from her face and give her a kiss on her forehead. I close the door quietly and go back downstairs. The table is already cleared.

  I find Charlotte in the living room. It’s a couple of dark leather couches facing each other, a coffee table in the middle and a shelf with some records. She’s dropping the needle on a vinyl, as soon as it kicks in I know it’s Led Zeppelin.

  Her pants are gone. She’s in a red G-string and her t-shirt. That’s a lot of leg. I’m sure she didn’t mean for this to be weird. She’s been in the same shower rooms with all the guys and we’ve been naked around each other plenty. It’s her house. I’m sure she’s just being comfortable. She didn’t know I was going to come back down here.

  “I brought out the good stuff,” she holds up a bottle. I walk up to her and take it, she falls onto the couch and puts her feet up on the table.

  “Macallan 18, nice,” I say, “glasses?”

  “Out the bottle old man, you gone soft?”

  “Alright,” I laugh and take a swig. “Damn that’s good.” I hand her the bottle and sit down, putting my feet up on the table. This is good, I needed this.

  “So, you going to tell me about this thing you’re doing?”

  “Probably better if I didn’t.”

  “Why is that?” She takes a sip and passes me back the bottle.

  “Well…because it’s not exactly legal.” I take another swig. This is good stuff.

  “When has anything we’ve done been legal?” Charlotte laughs.

  I can’t help but laugh too. “This is straight up not legal, so I don’t want you being an accomplice.” I hand her the bottle and she sets it on the table.

  “What’s it for?”

  “I’m trying to make some money for the girls. You heard what happened, you know what it is.”

  She takes a breath and sighs, “Yeah, it’s shit.”

  We’re quiet for a while…listening to Black Dog…it’s not that loud but it’s there.

  “Angie called me a few weeks ago.”

  “Yeah?” That’s Lester’s wife.

  “Yeah, she told me you gave her your truck,” she chuckles.

  “Well, I wasn’t using it and she needed it, she’s got the boys and all.”

  “That was nice.” She picks up the bottle, take a hit and passes it over.

  I take a drink. “You know what’s fucking me up?”

  “What?”

  “That it’s been two years and I still don’t know what the fuck happened and why I’m here. I don’t know if it was my fault…I mean how? You know? I don’t know anything and there’s…never mind—” I’m not going to tell her about the blackouts.

  She puts her hand on my leg. “You think it would’ve been different if I was there?”

  What?

  “Why would…why would you even say that? Maybe you’d be dead too or maybe you’d have done something to save us all but I don’t know what happened so how the fuck would I know, Charlie? Fuck.” I take another shot and pass the bottle back.

  “I’m sorry, that was stupid,” she’s quiet…then,
“I hate the fact that you went through it alone is all. I didn’t want to leave, Jack. I just can’t help but think maybe if I was there…you know?” She lets the moment settle and then drinks. I shouldn’t have gotten angry. I know she didn’t mean it that way. “To Brenner,” she drinks and passes it to me.

  “To Lester,” I drink and pass it back.

  “Ross,” she goes again and hands it back.

  “Daryl,” I drink. “Oh fuck. I needed this. I should’ve come by sooner.” I feel the alcohol in me. I needed my friend, my family. I should have done this as soon as I could walk. We just sit for a while…letting the alcohol get to our blood.

  “So, where does miss confidential informant come in to this thing?”

  I laugh, it feels good to let it out.

  “What?” Charlotte starts laughing too.

  “We robbed a diner together on Monday.”

  “You did what?” She looks very amused.

  “It’s a long story. I’d been hitching since I left my wheels at Angie’s and then I hooked up with this kid who had his dad’s gun and likes robbing places. Deanna was working there and then she came with us. The kid left, Deanna stayed.”

  She laughs again, “Sounds like something you’d do.”

  “Does it?”

  “I’m sure you thought it was very funny.” She pulls my arm to her lap and rests her head on my shoulder…nothing she hasn’t done a thousand times before.

  “You want to know a secret?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Anton organized this fucking job. He’s the one who roped Deanna into it.”

  “That Dutch asshole?” Charlotte laughs. “Actually, I’ve always liked him, he’s good people.”

  “Yup,” I take another sip and pass the bottle, “enough about me, how’re you doing?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual. I take parties up for dives on Sundays. I’ve got a few guys that help do tandems,” then she uses a voice to mock herself, “I pay my brother’s legal fees, I drink, I have nightmares, I wake up, I do it all over again…”