by Paula Cox
“We can get it straight in a parking lot. If you want me to pay attention, I’m more likely going to do that if I’m not fearing for my life.”
“I’m not going to kill us.”
“You ever heard the old motto ‘never trust a pretty face?’ ”
“Kirill’t you dare try to be cute right now.”
A flash of orange on the road ahead, followed by a couple SERVICE ROAD CLOSED signs asking me to reduce speed and cut along a side road. Thank God for road crews.
“No choice now. Let go of the wheel, and I’ll pull into the first lot I see.”
Maya shoots me another one of her hellfire glances, but lets go. It relieves me more than I imagined. It would’ve been easy enough just to force her hand off, but I’ve got a feeling Theo’s got something like medieval-era laws for laying unwelcome hands on his daughter. Plus, a mob boss seems like the kind of guy who’d keep rusty machetes in his office desk for the purpose of cutting off bad hands.
I swing the Mercedes around and slot us through a lane at the very end of a Lowe’s Home Improvement. Maya doesn’t waste a second.
“I’m gonna make it simple for you so you can understand. If you ever put a hand on one of my friends again, I’ll make sure that within the hour you’ll be out of a job. And a word to the wise, if my father puts you out on your ass, good luck trying to find work again in this state. If you think that’s a threat, then you’re absolutely right.”
She wraps this speech up handily and sinks back into her car seat. I’ve got to admit it’s one of the better-worded threats that has been thrown at me, compared to the usual stuff. It gets me to thinking that I’m probably not the first guy she’s laid into.
“Are you even going to say anything?” Maya says, although everything I read in her face is saying ‘don’t even try.’ One thing I picked up on from the first moment I saw her in her daddy’s mansion was that this isn’t a girl who’s ever been told ‘no’ before in her life. Lucky for me, this isn’t the first time I’ve had these problems: problems like Maya. They’re really not all that bad to deal with if you get everything set up straight in the beginning so that you understand each other nice and clear. It’s like when somebody asks you to paint his garage black but then sends you blue paint and thinks you ought to be the one to fix it. No choice but to tell the guy you won’t.
“There is,” I say, turning to face her and looking into those doe-like, fresh-chocolate-on-an-Easter-morning eyes so that there won’t be any confusing what comes next. “Just a couple of things. I work for your father. Not you. Tell me what to do all you like, and it won’t make you my boss. You expect me to turn over on my belly and lick your fingers and say ‘yes ma’am’ like one of your toys in the shopping mall. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to keep you alive. And as for your friend, if he wants to give you a birthday card, he’d damn well better make sure it doesn’t look like an Item when he takes it outta his coat. You see him again, you tell him he’s lucky he didn’t get his wrist snapped. I don’t trust a damn one of the people I saw today, but it’s that mistrust your father’s paying me for so you’d better get used to it.”
I try to for something else to say and realize there isn’t anything more. Then I notice the whole time we’ve been exchanging our spiels we’ve had the radio on. Bobby King and the crew have been crooning on about chain gangs, and I hadn’t heard a note of it. Maybe not usually the kind of stuff most people go in for, and probably not the kind of music the Stitches eat up, but I love it.
Maya’s gone quiet on me. Can’t tell yet if it’s the consideration kind of quiet or the time bomb quiet. Either way, the best option is silence, and that’s exactly what I do as I reverse out of the lot. Chances are Your Highness will be taking us further downtown to continue the high-end shopping crusade, so it’s not a total shot in the dark when I pull us back onto the service road, then the highway. No pissed-off truck drivers or maniacal shifts in the road. We’re making progress.
Maya waits until we’ve gone about five miles before breaking the silence. “I see your point,” she says, which was pretty much the absolutely last thing I was expecting. More than that, she even sounds sincere about it. I decide not to say anything to this, sensing the ‘but.’ It comes about five seconds later. “But don’t you ever talk like that again to me.”
“I hope I won’t have to, Miss Butler.” She doesn’t say ‘call me Maya,’ which I’m glad of. The less buddy-buddy we can keep this, the better.
I weave the Mercedes over to the right lane to exit at the enormous Nordstrom’s that’s just pulled into view. Maya puts a couple fingers on the wheel and my hands lock—no way she’s wrestling us away again. Just a tap this time.
“Kirill’t exit here.”
“Okay.” We twist back into the passing lane and blast by a black BMW, then a police cruiser. Maya twists around in her seat and waves. The cops wave back, recognizing either her face or the plates.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“No. Not right now. Just go until I say to stop.”
“No problem.”
“Chain Gang” fades out, replaced by sixties cigarettes-and-tar-voice Bob Dylan singing about rolling stones. “You mind?” I ask although my hand’s already twisting the volume.
How does it feel?
How does it feel?
To be without a home?
“Be my guest,” Maya sits back and drapes her right leg over her left. She’s wearing this short black dress, and she’s got miles of suntanned leg to show. I’ve always liked nice legs, though I know better than to spend too much time staring at Maya Butler and turn away.
“Just so you know,” she says, closing her eyes, “‘Jokerman’ is better.”
Chapter 5
We drive for an hour and pass enough exits that’ll take us just about anywhere in the continental United States. Twenty, thirty, thirty-five miles since we left the city I count off the odometer. What the hell or who the hell does Maya know all the way out in the boondocks?
I can’t ask her because she’s been asleep for the last thirty minutes. She’s taking these deep, wet breaths and snoring slightly through her nose and through the whistle between her lips, sort of like a kitten. It’s cute but also weird when I think that, for jobs like this, I’m getting paid two-and-a-half grand a day. Even running around with the Stitches making hits doesn’t pay the kind of dough I’m getting to watch this kitten purr.
The road begins to twist and soon enough we’re up on the Gulf of Maine. It’s mid-afternoon, and the sky is a mash of clouds. The water’s gray as concrete and whipping up a spray from the wind, while the beach is a gnarly twist of sand with so much driftwood sticking up through the surface that it looks like the ocean rose up and accidentally drowned a forest.
I turn on the windshield wipers when the air gets dewy. I take a look out over the water - haven’t seen the beach in ages. Maybe not even since I first arrived in this state. There are a few guys with waders and large salt-crusted peacoats tossing in their lines and lures from the pier, and it looks like the most boring, most miserable thing you could be doing on a day like today. I never understood the whole fishing craze or the whole seaside craze in general. But then again, I’m not much of a seaside guy, or a vacation guy come to think of it.
The road curves on alongside the water for another five miles. I open the window a crack to get a smell of the rain and the brine and to catch a bit of the fresh air. Maya stirs and opens an eye.
“We’re by the water?” she says sleepily.
“Take a look out the window.”
She takes a look but seems unimpressed.
“How long have you been driving along the beach for?”
“Six or seven miles. You want me to pull over?”
“Not yet. We’ll go for another ten minutes.”
“Okay.”
I roll the window back up. Maya looks thoughtful.
“In three miles you’ll take Hammond’s. You�
�ll get in the right-hand lane and just follow that road for a little while. We’ll be there in ten minutes or so.”
“It might help if you told me where we’re going.”
“The complex is called Sunrise Apartments. I’ll point it out to you when we get nearer, though I doubt you can miss it.”
“Okay.”
Hammond’s exit is three miles to the dot. Something pretty obvious tells me that this girl’s been to these parts before and Christ only knows what for. She doesn’t much seem the sea-scrounging fisherwoman type or the kind who’d drive an hour out of town for a drug deal. She might be a mobster’s daughter, but she looks pretty clean to me.
And then all of a sudden it’s like we’re back in colonial America, and all the houses are three-storied mansions with yards big enough to hold circuses. Least that’s my impression when I see the houses. There are dozens of them, stately wooden things with huge archways, porches, and honest-to-God towers: the kinds that look like you’d keep birds in them. Aviaries those are called.
“These are fancy,” I say.
“It’s called Queen Anne.”
“You mean the house?”
“The architecture. Kind of old-fashioned, right? And with those big circular windows and those winding steps and the towers. I love this kind of building.”
“You come here often?” I cringe because it sounds too much like a bad pickup line.
“Whenever I’ve got a spare minute.”
“Just to come look at the buildings?”
“Sort of.” She points to the right. There’s a big wooden sign with the words Sunrise Apartments painted in green before a wrought iron gate and guardhouse. I stop next to the tiny pavilion while an old man in a creased white shirt and gray mustache waddles out with a clipboard to take my name.
“Afternoon, folks,” he says, looking inside the car and dipping his hat to Maya. “Pleasure to see you again, Stella.”
“And you, Jerry dear. Just here for a visit—we won’t be in your hair any more than an hour.”
“Take as long as you want. You know the place is always open to you.”
The old guy goes inside and presses the button for the gate and walks back out all smiles. Maya gives the guy a wave and then we’re driving on through, passing row after row of luxury apartments that all look like they’ve been dragged out of turn-of-the-century Netherlands. Gives me a weird feeling like we’re traveling back in time or something like that.
“Kirill’t ask.”
“About what?”
“You know what,” Maya says and directs me down to the left. “Far as you’re concerned, you’ve never known anyone named Stella Smith in your life. Got it?”
“Far as I’m concerned, unless you’re coming out here to shoot up without your daddy knowing, it’s none of my concern.”
“You think I do drugs? I can’t even smoke a joint without my lungs practically caving in on me.”
“I don’t know what you do, and as long as you don’t wind up killing yourself, I don’t care either.”
Maya goes thoughtfully quiet. Whatever she’s got running through her brain, I betcha right now she’s considering whether or not to tell me about it. Please, no. The less I know about her, the easier this will be.
“Daddy’s got connections a hundred miles in every direction outside Portsmouth,” she says. “Sometimes, you just want a little privacy.”
“You don’t think your father would understand if you just told him you wanted to get away every once and awhile?”
“He hired you, didn’t he? What do you think that says about what he thinks?”
“What he told me is that he wants you safe. That’s not the same thing as keeping you in a prison.”
I slow the car at Maya’s direction and stop in front of one of the Queen Anne-style apartments. The paneling is the color of salmon, and it sprouts these little turrets like smokestacks you see in pictures of London in the 1800s. A big porch sits out in front like a second house, raised up by these big Roman pillars. I bet ten grand a piece for those pillars, just judging by their handiwork.
“You think that now. Get to know my father a little longer than three days, and you’ll see they’re one and the same for him. Stop here.”
I stop behind the black BMW, the only other car on the street.
“You can turn it off. I’m not going to be gone long.”
I don’t like the sound of this, and so I keep the door locked so that she can’t jump out on me. “ ‘Not going to be gone long’ is too vague. You need to tell me something better before I let you out.”
“I’ve told you enough already.” She tries to unlock the door, but I reach over and smash the knob back down.
She rounds on me, strands of her bottle-blonde hair whipping about her face. “Have we got a problem?”
“That depends. I’ve already told you who I work for. Now you’re trying to act like it’s a choice.”
“You’re gambling, Quinn.” It’s the first time she’s used my name, and I do not like how she said it, like a curse. “All it takes is one word from me, and you’ll be out on the street. You’re not in a position to demand anything.”
“You’ve already threatened me once today, Miss Butler.”
“It’s my birthday. I can damn well do what I want.”
“Then do what you want,” I say. “Just know that if at any point I think you’re in danger, it’s my job to make sure you have as much protection as possible. That may include calling your father. And if you’re hiding out an hour from the city in a place I’ve never even seen before, how am I supposed to know you’re safe?”
That’s a risky mouthful, but it gets the job done. She takes her hand from the door. Her mouth curves into the shape of a pout. When she talks again, her voice is quieter: “This is where I used to come when I was younger. Six-seven years ago. None of these apartments existed back then—they were just a bunch of abandoned buildings. Big fire twenty years ago. They only just got around to cleaning up everything and making it all nice again. I used to come here with my old boyfriends to fool around. Now I like walking around so I can get a moment’s rest. That’s everything. Happy?”
“I don’t see why you couldn’t have just said something in the beginning. I still don’t get why you have to keep this a big secret.”
“Because the only reason I ever came here in the first place was to get away. How do you think he’d take it if I told him that?”
“I don’t think he’d care. He’s got to let you go at some time.”
“Right.” She smears a hand over her mouth. The gesture’s rougher than anything else I’ve seen her do. Usually, she’s such a princess. “Like I said, wait more than two days, and you’ll see what kind of man he really is. I’m his little princess, and he wants to keep me locked up in his tower for the rest of my life. He’d kill me if he found out where I was right now. And he’d kill you if he found out you took me here. So you’d better not breathe a word if you know what’s best for you.”
I can’t decide if that last sentence is supposed to sound like a corny mobster’s threat or a legitimate one. I spend a whole second waiting before I unlock the doors.
“As long as you don’t get yourself killed, no one has to know anything. Far as I’m concerned, your father has better things to worry about than the fact you were walking around in some old apartment.”
Maya gives me a look that is half doubtful and half relieved. Then she opens the door. But there’s one more thing I’ve got to say before she leaves. “I’m not an expert or anything like that, but have you tried just telling your father you want to live away?”
She hangs her elbows on the door and gives me a stare like I’m some kind of indescribable moron. “You think after everything I just said, if he thought I was even considering it, he’d let me out of his sight another moment? Does a mob lord—one of the most feared and respected men in New England—strike you as the kind of person who’d let the most precious thing in the wor
ld to him just slip away and do what she pleased? Are you an even bigger idiot than I took you for?”
“So you’ve never even mentioned it? You’ve snuck around for six years and never said a word.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is that simple, far as I can see. You’re making it more complicated than it needs to be,” I say, getting bold. “And I’ve got a feeling that the longer you do it, the more you’re putting yourself in danger.”
There’s a dewy rain coming in from the direction of the bay. Briny winds. Salt that sticks to the roof of your mouth and stays there like a glob of peanut butter. I’m wondering if Maya feels cold standing there without a coat, giving me the blackest look I’ve ever gotten from anyone before. It’s amusing but also unsettling. That’s a new experience for me.
