Bulletproof Mascara: A Novel

by Bethany Maines

  “Jim, relax,” said the voice Nikki recognized as Sarkassian’s, and with a jolt she remembered that Z’ev had been using the name Jim the last time they’d met. “I appreciate your attention to detail, but you’re too uptight. Bringing you out to Thailand was supposed to make you worry less!”

  “I might worry less if knew what was going on with that security director of yours.”

  Nikki could practically hear the finger quotes around “security director.”

  “Are we on that subject again?” Sarkassian asked, scorn filling his voice. There was the sound of the champagne bottle being opened, followed by the distinctive splash of the foamy liquid into glasses. “Victor does his job. You do yours. Why is that so hard for the two of you?”

  “Well, it’s a little hard to trust a guy who disappears like a ghost every time I show up.”

  “He doesn’t like lawyers,” Sarkassian said. “And I tell him you’re really nice for a lawyer, but he doesn’t believe me.”

  “Thanks for that impassioned defense,” Z’ev said. Nikki heard the couch springs creak as he flopped onto it. She winced sympathetically and hoped that Laura wouldn’t get too squished. There was a rustling fabric sound, and for a moment Nikki had the paralyzing thought that Laura was being discovered.

  “What’s that?” asked Sarkassian.

  “Someone’s jacket,” Z’ev responded.

  “Oh, it’s Victor’s,” said Sarkassian casually. “He was in here earlier. Here, I’ll take it.”

  “You didn’t just arrive? How long have you and Victor been here?” Z’ev asked. Nikki could hear the faint surprise in his voice as he realized that Victor and Sarkassian must have been there ahead of him.

  “Victor wanted a drink; we got here just before you did. Here, I’ll take the coat.”

  The command was more distinctively a command this time, and behind the curtain Nikki tensed.

  “Sure,” Z’ev said, his voice suddenly neutral as if he didn’t care about the whole situation. “Where did you want . . .”

  Whatever Z’ev had been about to say was cut off as the door flew open and banged against the wall.

  “Oh, hey,” came Val’s voice. Nikki breathed a sigh of relief. Val would surely do something clever to clear the room. Smoke bombs possibly, or something else from Rachel’s selection of gadgets.

  “Sorry,” she continued. “I thought my boyfriend was hiding out in here with some floozy. My bad.” The door closed again, and behind the curtain Nikki gaped. What sort of rescue was that?

  “You know,” said Sarkassian thoughtfully, into the silence that followed Val’s exit, “that sounds like a woman who’s interested in finding a new boyfriend.”

  “And you’re thinking of applying for the position?” Z’ev said, laughing slightly.

  “Why not?” he responded. “It wouldn’t hurt you to start interviewing a few possible candidates yourself. Stop you from pining over that wife of yours.”

  Behind the curtain, Nikki smiled.

  “Who’s pining?” replied Z’ev. “Unless you think that go-go dancer in Hong Kong looked like pining?”

  Nikki ground her teeth.

  “Then come out to the bar, we’ll see if we can find something for you.”

  She heard the two men leave, but the door had barely shut before it opened again.

  “Forgot my wallet,” Z’ev said. “I’ll be right there.”

  The door shut again, and Nikki, peering carefully through the curtains, saw Z’ev cross the room with quick strides and, with rapid fingers, begin searching Victor’s jacket. She saw him look out the two-way mirror into the bar and grunt in dissatisfaction, as he carefully returned the jacket to its former position. He was reaching for the door when it opened of its own accord. Nikki yanked her covering curtains back into place as she heard Sarkassian speak.

  “Are you coming?”

  “Yeah, right behind you,” said Z’ev as the door shut again.

  Nikki counted to ten after the door closed behind them and then slid out from behind the velvet curtain with exaggerated care.

  “Laura,” she whispered, hurrying to the couch and tugging it away from the wall. “Laura, are you all right?”

  The ambassador’s wife responded with a deep groan.

  “I’m not as slender as I used to be,” she said, sitting up. “That was not pleasant. And I’m pretty sure there are some undergarments under there, and Lord knows where they were before they got there.”

  “Well, with undergarments it’s a pretty easy guess, actually,” Nikki said, leaving Laura to stare through the two-way mirror. Outside the window, she saw Sarkassian sliding onto the barstool next to Val. Val did look good sitting there, with her black hair swinging at a provocative angle against her cheek and her lips caressing a maraschino cherry. Nikki could see why Sarkassian would be interested. What she was more worried about was that Z’ev still hadn’t moved far enough away from the VIP lounge for her comfort. She and Laura would be spotted the second they left the room.

  “Watch him,” she told Laura, indicating Z’ev, who was ordering a drink from a waitress as she began to ransack the pockets of Victor’s jacket. “If he comes back this way, tell me.”

  The pockets were mostly empty. A few receipts, a Pai Gow domino, and a cell phone were all they contained. Nikki stared at the phone—the model looked familiar—and it reminded her of something she’d read in her cell phone manual on the plane ride over. There was a trick she thought she could use here.

  “What’re you going to do?” Laura asked, trying to talk over her shoulder without taking her eyes off Z’ev.

  “I’m going pull out the battery and SIM card,” Nikki said, reciting steps one and two.

  “What’s a SIM card?” asked Laura helplessly.

  “Watch the window,” ordered Nikki, as she popped out the SIM card and then found the narrow slot in the side of her phone and plugged it in. A green download bar began to chug across her screen.

  “What are you doing?” asked Laura.

  “Well, theoretically I’m uploading all the info on his phone into mine. And when we’re done . . .” The phone dinged and indicated that it was now safe to remove the SIM card. Nikki replaced the phone in Victor’s pocket and tucked her own phone back into the waistband of her skirt.

  “He’s going to the bar,” whispered Laura.

  “Great,” Nikki said, grabbing Laura by the arm. “Time to go.”

  Moving quickly, she dragged Laura into the hallway and down the stairs. She pushed her way through the crowd and into the street, expecting the cool thrill of night air, but feeling instead only the sticky grittiness of a Bangkok night. At a loss as to what to do next, she was relieved when her own phone vibrated with an insistent buzz against her hipbone.

  “Yeah,” barked Nikki, flipping it open.

  “So my meeting is running longer than I thought it would,” Val said.

  “What?”

  “I won’t be able to meet you for dinner like we planned,” said Val, and Nikki sensed the slightly gritted teeth at the end of the sentence. She sighed. It was a clear sign she was being dumb again.

  “You should just go back to the hotel,” continued Val, “and I’ll meet you later.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Nikki objected. “You shouldn’t be in there without backup.”

  “Trust me,” said Val. “I have everything under control. I’ll meet you later.” And then she hung up. Nikki stared at the phone in fury, wondering if she should call back.

  “What do we do now?” asked Laura.

  “We take you home,” Nikki said, “and I wait for Val to report.” She didn’t like this plan, but she tried to sound as if she were behind it one hundred percent. She couldn’t show anything less than a united front to an outsider.

  “Well, all right,” said Laura, getting into a taxi. “If you think it’s the best plan. I’m so glad you’re here! I would have messed this all up without you. But it turned out just great!”r />
  “Uh, yeah . . .” said Nikki with a backward glance at the club. It felt wrong to leave her partner alone inside, but what else was she supposed to do? “Just great.”

  THAILAND V

  The After Party

  Nikki quietly shut the door of her hotel room. She had left Laura with assurances that she would call with any updates or information. Laura had been reluctant to leave the matter there. With crossed fingers and a guilty conscience, Nikki had claimed to be a professional and that Laura should trust her to do her job. Surprisingly, Laura seemed to buy it and had gone inside. After that, Nikki had spent the cab ride back to her hotel trying to make sense of the events of the evening, but without much luck.

  She dropped her purse, overstuffed with her original ensemble, on the bed and walked to the window, stripping off her heels as she went. The city of Bangkok glimmered beneath her window like a Lite-Brite. She adjusted the air-conditioning and washed off her makeup, then sat on the bed and opened her phone. But several minutes of poking the buttons produced no results. She couldn’t find the information she had theoretically downloaded from Victor’s phone.

  With an angry sigh, she paced the length of the room. She felt useless, confused, and worried. Val wasn’t with her. Z’ev was in town. And she’d already botched her first attempt at using Carrie Mae technology. Sighing, she kicked at her luggage. Half a step later she was back at her luggage and digging out the Carrie May–issue computer.

  Nikki looked in dismay at the tangled octopus of cords and computer. Setup should have been a simple procedure, but faced with the dusty bits that Val had simply jammed in the computer bag, it looked more complicated. After a frustrating five minutes, the computer was at last plugged in and humming with electricity. She deftly logged on to the Carrie Mae website and sat staring at the blinking prompt. With a sigh for her ineptitude, she grumpily clicked on the Do You Need Assistance? tab.

  “Yes, I really think I do,” she muttered at the screen. The computer scanned for the webcam and then directed her, through a series of universal pictograms, to place the headset on her head. Nikki jammed the headset on and clicked the Ready button.

  “Just a moment, NICOLE LANIER, while we page your case worker.”

  Nikki knew that it was a simple computer program that filled her name into the correct field for the pop-up button, but she couldn’t help feeling a little bit less alone. Someone knew she was out here. She had been recognized by the greater computer world of Carrie Mae. She belonged. A few moments later, Jane appeared on the screen, her three-cornered face delineated by Bettie Page bangs and red lipstick that Nell would have approved of.

  “Hey, Nikki! Did you find Lawan?” Jane’s perky nature was at odds with her rebel wardrobe, but right in line with Carrie Mae culture.

  “No, I . . .” Nikki said. She didn’t think she could explain the entire of chain of events, so she just skipped to the end. “I think I used the Download feature on my phone to upload someone’s SIM card, but now I can’t find it. Did I totally mess it up?”

  “I doubt it,” said Jane reassuringly. “Let me look.” There was a flurry of typing, and then Jane nodded. “You just e-mailed it to yourself. It’s the default setting. If you shut the phone without selecting an alternative, that’s what happens. Do you want me to sort through it for you and give you a report?”

  “Can you?” asked Nikki, feeling guilty about passing her work to someone else.

  “I’m your technical support,” Jane said. “It’s what I do!”

  “Oh,” said Nikki. “Well, thanks.”

  “No problem,” said Jane cheerfully. “What else can I help you with?”

  “Uh, well . . .” She didn’t really want to confess her ineptitude to a relative stranger like Jane, even if she seemed nice. And she really didn’t want to discuss Z’ev with Mrs. Merrivel. It would be just too embarrassing. What she needed was a friend.

  “I need to talk to someone, but I don’t know where they are or how to reach them.”

  “I can find anyone,” said Jane confidently. “Who am I calling?”

  “My friends Jenny or Ellen from the academy,” Nikki said, and Jane’s face sort of wrinkled up.

  “We’re not really supposed to connect agents to agents,” she said, her fingers poised over the keyboard. “It could compromise all of your missions.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Nikki, “but they already know about parts of this one and I need their advice.”

  “I’m not supposed to,” repeated Jane, looking apologetic.

  “But you could if you wanted to?” Nikki pressed. “Please, Jane. Please, please. I really need their help. I can’t do this by myself. And besides, like I said, they already know about this mission. It wouldn’t be putting them at risk any more than they already are.”

  Jane stood up briefly, looking over the wall of her cubicle, then sat back down.

  “I really can’t do that,” she said, holding up a tablet of writing paper on which she had written NAMES?

  “You really can’t contact Jenny Baxter or Ellen Marson?” asked Nikki, catching on. “You can’t help at all?”

  “No, I really can’t help,” said Jane flatly, her fingers flying over the keyboard. There was a ding, and Jane smiled. She scribbled briefly on the notepad again and then held it up to the camera.

  LUCKY. ELLEN ONLINE. JUST A MINUTE. THEY WON’T BEER. TURNING OFF RECORDING NOW.

  “They won’t beer?” Nikki read. Jane looked confused, then looked at her sign. Nikki could hear her scribbling on the paper and then she held up the sign again. BEER had been clarified heavily with a marker to read HEAR.

  “Oh, right,” said Nikki. “Sorry.”

  A second window opened on her screen, and Ellen appeared.

  “Nikki?” Ellen said, squinting at her screen. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be doing this. Are you OK?”

  “No!” Nikki burst out. “No, I’m not OK! I’m in Thailand and he’s back!”

  “Who’s back? You’ve never been to Thailand. How can you be back in Thailand?”

  “Not me! Z’ev. And that Sarkassian guy,” she added as an afterthought.

  “Ooh!” exclaimed Ellen, clapping her hands. “You really liked him! Is he as cute as you remembered?”

  “Yes!” Nikki wailed. “It’s a disaster!”

  “What’s a disaster?” asked Jenny, appearing on-screen. “I just got the page. Who are you? Who’s she?” she said, looking at Jane and then back at Nikki.

  “I’m Jane.”

  “She’s my case worker,” explained Nikki.

  “You remember that guy from Canada?” said Ellen, ignoring both of them and diving straight into the topic at hand. “The one who picked Nikki up at a bar by proposing to her and took her to lunch with the mysterious foreign jerk-off where they had to pretend to be married?”

  “Jerk-off?” repeated Jenny. “I must be rubbing off on you, but never mind. What about him?”

  “He’s back!” Ellen said happily. “Well, they’re both in Thailand. So, not really back, but they’re there. Together, you know.”

  “Yay!” exclaimed Jenny. “We liked him and he was funny. Well, this is good, right?” They both looked at Nikki, who was shaking her head. There was a crunch as Jane bit into a handful of popcorn.

  “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I want to find out about Canada. Nikki’s life sounds more interesting than mine. I can’t even get picked up at a regular bar. Let alone proposed to. So the guy is a good thing?”

  “It’s not good,” said Nikki. “It’s a disaster. I think they’ve done something bad. Or at least their friend might have. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Wait,” Jenny said. “I’m lost. How did you get to Thailand in the first place?”

  “I got partnered with Valerie Robinson. And Mrs. Merrivel’s friend is the wife of the ambassador to Thailand, and her friend is Lawan Chinnawat, who is missing. So Val and I came to find her.”

  “Nikki’s life is definitely more
interesting than mine,” said Jane.

  “So where does the guy come in?” said Ellen. “And what was his name again? Something funny.”

  “Z’ev,” Nikki said. “But he’s still pretending to be Jim Webster.”

  “How old is he?” asked Jane, typing on her computer.

  “I don’t know. Thirty-something?” answered Nikki.

  “He’s a lawyer,” Ellen said in Jane’s direction. “Specializing in international shipping.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Jane.

  “And that Sarkassian guy is still with him,” continued Nikki. “Only now Z’ev is working for him. So I think maybe we’re still supposed to be married or something. But there’s this other guy, Victor, who we saw getting a handoff from the orderly at Lawan’s clinic. And we chased him, but then we lost him behind the elephant.”

  “Hmm . . .” said Jane. “You said you were pretending to be married to this guy?”

  “Yeah,” said Nikki. “I was Kim Webster.”

  “Well, then apparently you got divorced three months ago.”

  “What?” said the other three women at the same time.

  “Check your screens. You’ll see a lovely picture of Nikki and our handsome bachelor from an engagement announcement in a Vancouver paper. Also, there’s a wedding certificate, and a divorce decree.”

  “That’s the head shot from my passport picture!” Nikki shrieked.

  “Photoshop is great,” said Jenny.

  “Not great! I look like I’m on crack!”

  “He looks good, though,” said Jenny.

  “It’s not that bad,” Ellen said. “You just look a little vacant.”

  “A little . . . that was majorly harsh, Ellen,” said Nikki.

  “Sorry, dear, but passport pictures are never meant to pass for a wedding photo.”

  “I can’t believe he divorced you without alimony. What a bastard,” said Jenny.

  “Actually,” Jane said, “I think you’re all missing the bigger picture. You can’t just fake a Canadian wedding or divorce on a whim. This guy is soooo clearly not who he’s pretending to be. Did you say he had another name?”