Across the Deep

by Lisa McGuinness

  “I’m too young.”

  “Not at all. Besides, you look older than you are.”

  “Yeah, well. I have to go to school, so I can’t be staying out late like the two of you did. And,” she paused, “I don’t want to.”

  “You seem a bit unappreciative, Claire. I’m here supporting you. Looking after you. Paying the rent. And what are you doing in return?”

  Claire’s heart had begun to beat rapidly. She had no idea how to respond.

  “Just think about it, beautiful girl.” Nick said. “That’s all I ask.”

  Claire let out a sigh of relief when he got up and took his dish to the kitchen.

  “I can help out more around the apartment,” she called to him. “I’ll clean the kitchen tonight.”

  “That’ll be a start,” he said curtly, then sat down with his computer and began rapidly typing.

  She quickly finished her dinner, cleared the dishes, and then scrubbed the kitchen until even the old, cracked tile looked better than it had in years. But she knew. Deep in her heart, she understood that cleaning wasn’t going to be the end of it.

  Aanwat

  To get Suda, Aanwat needed a gun, which he didn’t have because there had been no way to get one through airport security, and he hadn’t wanted to admit to Chakrii that he didn’t have one when he’d arrived. But his plan depended on it. The question was where to get one. His best guess was that he could get one through Tea, but he was too afraid to approach the guy because he seemed like the kind of guy who would like to kill him just for sport. He would try one of the others and hope for the best.

  He had spent the better part of a week trying to see Suda, and while he never got a good look at her through the window, he could see someone her size with long bleached hair, and he believed it had to be her.

  Once he decided where they should end up, he would make a plan to get them there, but that was a problem he would worry about once he had her. He wanted it to be somewhere warm, though. He was tired of the cold wind. But, first things first: he had to get her to the motel. He’d need a car as well as a gun. That meant he would have to steal one.

  When he’d first started working at the karaoke, he’d felt a small internal thrill at the fact that there had been a gun tucked out of sight behind the bar. It gave him a sense of power, and he sometimes liked to hold it when everyone had gone for the night. But he had never had to use it. Now he felt he was becoming an entirely different person. He not only had to buy a gun of his own, but he also had to steal a car somehow—like some degenerate. His life had taken more of a turn than he had imagined when Gan had approached him with a proposition to make a bit of extra money.

  He sat on the bed and put his head in his hands, palms pressed against his eyes. His tormented thoughts were tearing him in two. He wanted out, not further in. But sometimes the temptation was there. If he wanted to get in good with Chakrii, he could now. He could tell him he’d just found Suda, and he could stay here and become part of the organization instead of going home. He could have more money than he ever dreamed of. And some other girl. He told himself that he could forget about Suda if he had to. But he knew that wasn’t true because her face was permanently stuck inside his mind.

  He took out his wallet as well as the money he had stashed under a corner of the rug he’d pulled up in the closet and counted out the bills he had. It totaled almost $2,000. Surely that would last them long enough if he was careful. He’d have Suda. They would make do. He paused, thinking. He hesitated to contemplate it, but it came to him unbidden: if worst came to worst, he could arrange for Suda to make a little side money for them. He shoved that thought away. No, he wouldn’t do that. Still, they had to eat, and she was used to it. He hated to think of her with other men, but … He sighed. It was a backup plan.

  “Stop being weak,” he almost growled, yet he stared out the window and chewed on his bottom lip.

  Chai

  The fact that his true apartment—rather than his current undercover hovel—was in the same neighborhood as Simone and the Hope House was one of his favorite coincidences. It was a quick, easy walk along the park from his apartment on Fulton Street to the bakery. He liked the neighborhood because to him it felt almost suburban with kids walking hand-in-hand with their parents on the way to school, no high-rises, more houses instead of apartments. It was almost quaint. And with Golden Gate Park across the street, he felt connected to green spaces when he needed a break from city life.

  So stopping into Hope Bakery in the morning had become the best part of his day. If Simone had time to join him for a quick coffee, it was even better. He loved the normalcy of it before he had to head back to his hated undercover apartment where he worked out and had associates stop by for one reason or another to keep up appearances. It was all part of his immersion into his work.

  “You look tired,” Simone said, when she brought coffee and a fresh scone and grabbed a chair at his table for a few minutes.

  “I am. It was a late night. You don’t want to know.” Elbow on the table, head in hand.

  “It must be hard.” She had been wondering how he could stand being among those men every day at all hours.

  “It’s the job.”

  “Is it hard going to church on Sunday then pretending to pimp girls on Monday?”

  “I don’t know whether it’s any more difficult than for anyone with a strong moral compass, but I can tell you that what I personally find the most difficult is the normalizing of what happens. At first the language, the topics of conversation, the actions of the people on the inside was so shocking. Seriously sordid.”

  “And now?”

  “When business decisions are made about people in the organization or about moving drugs to evade the police, I sometimes shrug my shoulders and think, ‘Smart move.’ Like we’re just playing chess or something. I’m part of it even though it’s to try to stop it.”

  “Do you ever feel as if it’s breaking you?”

  Chai snorted and looked out the window for a moment. “Absolutely,” he sighed. “I’ve done stuff I never thought I would,” he told her. “But not in the way you’re thinking, based on the look you have on your face.”

  “Sorry. I would never want you to think I’m judging you.”

  “No, it’s fine. What I mean is that it’s easy not to compromise myself sexually, because there’s no desire there. When I think about how these young women, girls, boys, are used, I see them only as desperate, terrified people. Certainly not people I would want to have sex with. No, the compromise is in the violence, the anger, and the words that come out of my mouth.”

  Simone reached across the table and rested her hand on his arm, trying to comfort him.

  “I cut a man’s fingers off once.” He looked her in the eye, to assess how disgusted she would be by the admission.

  “Did he deserve it?” She surprised him with the question.

  “He was a scum and a drug-dealing pimp, but never in a million years would I have imagined I would cut off a person’s fingers.”

  “You had to do it to keep your cover?”

  “I’m ruthless, and most of my associates are terrified of me.”

  “Will it help in the long run?”

  “God, I hope so.”

  “Then you did what you had to do.” He looked at her, surprised at her frank attitude about it. He felt the tension in his body relax at her words. He had expected her to be repulsed by him after the admission, but he had decided he wanted to be real with her. He wanted her to know him, the entire him, not the “good guy” facade because if he’d learned one thing it was that there’s both bad and good in everyone.

  “When I went undercover, I decided the best way to live through it was to be someone nobody would consider messing with. So I went in hard. I rarely spoke, leered at everyone, pumped a lot of iron, and tried to be as intimidating as possible. A
nd it worked. I seem to scare the shit out of people, even the other guys on the inside.”

  Simone smiled at her visualization of him. “Do you ever think of getting back out?”

  “All the time.” Chai paused and sighed. “Lately even more than I used to.” He smiled at her.

  “It’s been great having you around so much. For the girls, it’s a chance to see what a normal man is like.”

  He smiled again. “Normal man? I don’t know about that anymore.” He put his hands on his thighs and made a move to get up from the table. “I just want you to know who I am.”

  “Like I said, it’s nice to have a good man around. And that’s what you are.”

  He lifted one of her hands to his face. “Thank you for that.”

  She smiled at him. “You’re welcome. We’re all flawed. We all fall short. You can’t be in the situation you’re in and not have it affect you.” It was strange to think of him as ruthless to those he worked with now that she’d gotten to know him.

  “The normalizing I was talking about? That’s what I hate. What I hear has seeped into my brain, and I don’t want to be surrounded by it anymore. But then I think about getting out and that means I wouldn’t be able to stop it. I wouldn’t be able to help people like Suda.”

  “Maybe you could still help them. Just from the other side. There’s never only one way. You just have to figure out what the other way is.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. That’s something to think about,” he said, crumpling up his bag and tossing it into the recycling bin. “But for now, I have to wade back in.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to. Are you getting any closer?”

  “I think I am. There are some rumblings. Something’s going to happen soon. I can feel it.”

  “Cop’s intuition?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Will I see you tomorrow morning?”

  “Absolutely. At the latest. I might even find myself free around dinnertime. If so, can I crash your dinner table?”

  “Yes,” Simone told him. “I’ve been having a hankering for pot roast, so I’ll make a lot just in case.”

  “Say no more,” he said, waved, and was out the door.

  Simone

  After Chai left, Simone couldn’t stop thinking about him having to cut the fingers off of some guy. The thing she couldn’t shake was not the horror of it but, rather, the realization that if she were in the same position, she might do it without any qualms at all. Heck, with no provocation, she might happily cut every one of Nick’s fingers off if she ever encountered him after what he had done to Claire. His fingers and thumbs, too, just for good measure.

  She sighed and tidied up the sugar and creamer area of the bakery before another wave of customers came in. She knew she should pray for the predators, but it was hard to have compassion for them. And frankly, she wanted them to be punished. No matter how hard she tried to pray for Nick or Hailey’s “boyfriend” Dante, or other of the men who had hurt the women she had worked so hard to help, she just couldn’t do it. When she tried, she usually ended up praying that God would kill them in some terrible way, and she was pretty sure that wasn’t God’s intention for prayer.

  “Hey,” Grace walked in from the back, catching Simone staring out the window at the passersby instead of her usual full-speed-ahead modus operandi. “You look deep in thought.”

  “I was thinking about cutting the fingers off of some of the dirtbags who hurt women.”

  “So, nice light pondering on a lazy afternoon?” Grace smiled at her fierce friend.

  “Exactly,” Simone concurred. “Actually, that’s where I started, but then I found myself debating whether I should pray for them instead, which I often think about, but I just can’t do it. When I try, it feels forced and disingenuous.”

  “I get it,” Grace rubbed her shoulder. “Believe me.”

  “Sorry. I know it must be much harder for you.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve devised a work around,” Grace told her.

  “Of course you have.”

  “I just pray that someone else will pray for them.”

  “I love that. You’re a genius,” Simone hugged Grace.

  “Glad to be of service. Hey,” she said, changing the subject, “Have you tried actually talking to Suda lately? She’s learned so many English words. I’m pretty impressed. She clearly has some serious smarts to pick it up so quickly.”

  “Yes!” Simone laughed with delight. “I actually heard her say, ‘Shut up, Claire!’ this morning, with her heavy Thai accent. It was hilarious. You should have seen Claire’s face. She was so surprised. And I think a little bit impressed, too. There’s a sweet bond happening between them.”

  “Which you’re surmising from Suda telling Claire to shut up?”

  “I don’t think Suda realized it was rude. She was just saying what Claire says to everyone.”

  “I think Suda’s innate good nature is rubbing off on Claire a bit. She realizes that Suda went through something horrific, even if she doesn’t know the exact details, and sees that if someone can go through what Suda did and still come out with a positive view of life maybe she can, too.”

  “I think you’re right,” Simone concurred.

  “Healing is creeping up on her.”

  “I think it is. Have you noticed that Claire has been dropping fewer F-bombs and smiling more?”

  “Yes!”

  “This is why we do what we do.”

  “You know it, Sista.”

  “Well, I’ve got to run to the grocery store. I’m going to make pot roast for dinner. It’s feeling like fall, and that always triggers my taste buds to crave pot roast. Chai might join us.”

  “I’ve noticed he’s been doing that a lot.”

  “Yeah, I think he likes being here. It’s a good counterbalance to his day job, so to speak.”

  “You think that’s it?” Grace asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah, I think that’s it. Or as our articulate young ladies have taken to saying: ‘Shut up, Grace.’”

  * * *

  Simone, head down and list in hand, went through the front door and almost ran into the same man she had helped a few days before. The slight, suspicious one, whom she suspected was Thai. She internally yelled at herself because she had meant to tell Chai about him, but somehow always found herself distracted when he was around.

  “Sorry,” she said, quickly sidestepping him so they wouldn’t collide.

  Still, he was a customer, so she smiled at him and held the door open so he could go inside. Instead of leaving as she had intended to do, she turned back around and followed him into the bakery. She sat at a small table, got out her shopping list, and pretended to add something she’d forgotten—feigning complete absorption in her task. She then got out her phone and casually took a photo of him while he stood at the counter. It wasn’t a good shot. It didn’t get his full face, but at least she had a record of him now.

  At the counter, Claire was already feeling that this guy was taking too much time. She preferred customers to come in, order, and get out. But this guy was in no hurry and continued to look around as if to memorize his surroundings.

  “Can I help you?” Claire tried to keep her voice upbeat as Grace had instructed her.

  “Yes,” he said with a heavy accent she now recognized. “Tea,” he said pointing to the medium-size paper cup.

  “Coming right up,” Claire said grabbing the wooden box filled with little cubbies of tea bags. “Breakfast tea, herbal tea, Thai tea?”

  “Thai tea.”

  “Are you here on vacation?” she asked, attempting to be gracious.

  He shook his head.

  “Visiting?” palms up, she moved her hand and arm in a gesture to indicate the area around them.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Wh
ile the tea steeped, Claire caught Simone’s eye and raised her eyebrows. Simone had an intent look on her face. Did she think something was up? The guy continued to look around until Claire handed him the cup. He passed her a few bills, gave one more look over his shoulder, and then left.

  Claire

  When the bakery slowed down later that day, Claire’s mind drifted to the past, as happened all too often when she didn’t keep her thoughts occupied with a book.

  Nick had waited until she was in high school, acting the chivalrous gentleman instead of the disgusting pimp he turned out to be. By then, she’d finally begun to trust him. He’d been good on his word for more than six months and her fifteenth birthday had come and gone. He had stayed at the apartment, cooked her dinner, provided. Yes, he’d ask her to help him out with clients more than once, but had always accepted her answer of “No.”

  She’d begun to believe that diligently cleaning the apartment and doing the dishes after dinner was earning her keep. Now, she snorted with self-derision at the thought. No, her keep had cost her much more than chores. She wearily rubbed her eyes and allowed her thoughts to come.

  Her cheeks still burned with humiliation when she remembered. She had woken up, completely naked in a hotel room with a man. She saw one of her mother’s favorite dresses strewn across a chair. Was she there? She jumped out of bed, ran into the bathroom—woozily—and vomited into the toilet.

  “Mom?” She shakily called. Had Nick been deceiving her this entire time? Was her mother alive? Was she in the hotel?

  “Mom?” she called again.

  “Shut up!” a deep voice called from the bedroom.

  She crouched, terrified, behind the bathroom door.

  Whose voice was that? Was it a friend of her mother’s? Her head hurt and swam with nausea. Was she alive? What was happening?

  She had no idea how she had gotten there. Her last memory was of eating street tacos with Nick at the dinner table. He’d brought them home from her favorite taco shop in the Mission. He knew she loved them, and she’d been excited when she’d seen the bag in his hand. Carnitas! They had both dove in with relish.