No More Birthdays (Carol Ann Baker Crime)

by Pelzer,Lissa

  Lilly fingered the key out of her hand and picked a scratch off the inside of the baggie. Took it off with her nail and wiped it against the inside of her nose. It was nasty shit and made her mouth turn down.

  ‘You need more than that to get anything off it.’

  Lilly took the same again and then added a bit more. This burnt harder. It made her eyes water. She tasted it in her mouth and ears. And while she was squeezing her nose, she heard Moon Face laugh and a moment later felt her lungs get big.

  It made her want to smoke. She had to smoke and she went into her purse, thinking only of getting a cigarette in her mouth and smoke in her lungs. She brought a few with her, only to have some reason to go up to Bobby, to ask for a light, to act casual but now she wanted to smoke. She lit up like a real addict, her hand shaking as she matched the lighter to the end.

  ‘It’s pretty good for bathtub crank, huh? Leif said.

  Lilly nodded and breathed in. It felt like the first full breath she’d taken in a week.

  ‘There you go. Now you look human,’ Moon Face said, her eyes as big as saucers.

  And Lilly thought if that’s what she looked like, ‘human’ wasn’t the right word.

  ‘Who are you anyway?’ Leif leaned in to pick up a beer bottle.

  The words flowed out of her now. ‘I’m Carol Ann.’

  ‘You don’t look like a Carol Ann. Is that a fake name?’

  She laughed, a real laugh. ‘Yeah. Kind of.’

  ‘So, Carol Ann. You want a beer?’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘They’re for free.’ Moon Face said proudly. ‘It won’t cost you anything.’

  She looked at the guy beside her, head back, he was suffering. Maybe she’d need it, if not now then in an hour. ‘Okay. Sure. Why not?’

  Moon Face got up like she was on a spring and went off to the bar.

  Leif rolled his head around to face her. ‘You need somewhere to stay?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Only for one night?’

  Lilly nodded.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Definitely. I’m not living here. I came here to find someone and I found him. So I’ll be back home tomorrow.’

  He returned to his position. A thin smile spread across his mouth. ‘What are you going to do with him now that you found him?’

  Moon Face handed her a beer and she took a chug, but it tasted like nothing, like water and she checked the bottle.

  ‘That’s the crank,’ Leif said. ‘You can’t taste shit.’

  ‘You want some more?’

  Lilly saw the desperation in her eyes. She needed a friend, a girlfriend, someone to talk to. Maybe these two guys were her only roommates. And she was already high, what did it matter? And Lilly stuck out her hand and took the baggie.

  ‘I’ve been over here two months. I came with a friend of Leif’s.’ Moon Face was nodding too quickly. Lilly could feel the air rising up inside her too, the desire to open her mouth and tell stories, to say truths or things that sounded like truths…to be validated.

  ‘He was in town for a concert. He was the graphic artist for the band. Like, instead of flyers they had these huge throw-ups. Which is really smart when you think about it because if you put up posters, they just get torn down, but it takes a while for them to paint the wall again.’

  Lilly was nodding and shaking her head. ‘That is a good idea. They should do that in Miami.’

  ‘Yeah, I should tell him to go down there. I’m not sure if he would. I think he went to Europe. He’s an artist too. He’s having an exhibition in Paris. He said I could come over and see him sometime.’

  ‘You should do that.’

  ‘I think I will. Next summer.’ She wiped her mouth. ‘I’m an artist too. I mean I’m a writer.’

  ‘That’s so cool. That’s cool.’ And Lilly took a deep breath as if she’d forgotten she needed to breathe to live. It felt good to talk, but now she had taken more, she could really feel it. She was high and she’d still be high in three or four hours. She couldn’t stay high. She had shit to do.

  She had to not take any more. The instruction went round her head on a loop. ‘Don’t take any more. No more. No more.’ She drank the beer.

  Moon Face leaned in. ‘Do you write?’

  Was it a trick question? Was she asking if she could write? Did she think she was stupid?

  The girl was watching her. In the dark, she looked like a china doll with black plastic hair. ‘By the way,’ she said, ’You’re all right with Leif. You can stay.’

  ‘Tell him thanks.’ Lilly leaned her head back and felt the room moving slowly as if they were at the beach, or on the water or at the North Beach restaurant where they use to go every Tuesday, the one four floors above the ocean.

  That was the place they were at for her birthday last year, her pre-birthday. Bobby, Cassandra and her all together like they were every Tuesday for their ‘board meeting’. Bobby sat with his back to the water and his face to the stairs that came up from the floor below. He said you had to know who was walking into the room at all times, one of his pearls of wisdom. As usual, Cassandra was sat on his right, next to his good ear. There was no point sitting to his left and he didn’t like anyone being there anyways, so Lilly place was opposite him, facing out towards the beach.

  From the terrace five floors up, watching out over the ocean was like being in a movie theater. The whole panorama, everywhere you looked, was sea and sky. It used to make her feel kind of sick. And she would be glad when it got dark and she could stop looking at it.

  It was dark by the time they started pretending it was her birthday. She remembered the sparkler stuck in the slice of key lime pie flickering all over the tablecloth. And she could see Cassandra now, gasping – her cheekbones golden in the light of the tiny firework and she could see the little black velvet box Bobby had placed between them on the table.

  Lilly hadn’t even looked inside yet and Cassandra was acting like it was a something special. Maybe she was just trying to get her back for laughing on her birthday. Bobby had given her the little, tiny 22 caliber North American Arms pug gun with a plastic handle. Lilly had known she wanted the gold colored Magnum they’d seen in New Orleans and Cassandra knew Lilly wanted diamonds. But from where she’d been sat, Lilly could see the lip of the box. She could see where the imitation velvet had worn off around the edges. Cassandra would have been able to see it too.

  Lilly opened it without expecting much, which was lucky. It was earrings. They looked like silver and amber and when she took them out and turned them over between her fingers, she wasn’t even sure they were that.

  ‘Oh, they gorgeous.’ Cassandra sat on the other side of the table, her heavily lined eyes closed against the breeze. ‘Put them on!’

  They were friends, but she had known Bobby first. She had introduced her to Bobby. It wouldn’t suit her for Lilly to get her desired gift if she hadn’t. But now she was satisfied. Lilly could see her chest rising and falling with the pleasurable sensation of being the preferred person at the table. This shit birthday gift told her she was still number one. And at that moment she thought she always would be.

  Then Bobby said, ‘You can wear them next week when we go up to see The Judge.’

  And it was like the air tried to take the cloth right off the table.

  ‘You mean, me,’ Cassandra said, holding her slim, pale hand to her chest.

  Bobby had still been looking at Lilly. For once she was the center of attention.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Cassandra was leaning in. Already her fingers were curling up like a dying spider.

  ‘I’m taking Lilly up to Sea Island at the weekend.’

  ‘But The Judge is my client!’

  ‘No Miss Cassandra.’ Bobby pressed his hands down on the table and the veins stuck out like the ropes that hold boats onto the key. ‘The Judge is my client. You’ve been to see him twice. It’s Miss Lilly’s turn now.’

  ‘Did he ask for her? Did he say
he didn’t want to see me again?’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  ‘Did he say he wanted to see someone new?’

  ‘Trust me, darling, when I say, I can read a man. When I speak to him on the phone I can hear him say a thousand words that never come out of his mouth. But please. This is Miss Lilly’s birthday. Let’s leave it at that.’

  Cassandra paused, chewed the words over in her mouth. ‘And what is it you believe that he never said?’

  ‘You’re being very unladylike.’

  ‘Is that what he said?’

  Bobby lifted his fingertips from the table. ‘This discussion is over. That’s the end of it.’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that. There are three people in this company. You better tell me what it is you think he said.’

  ‘Miss Cassandra. Now is not the time to discuss this.’

  Cassandra was running hot – as Bobby would say. She had the fire in her veins and it had to come out. ‘Then I’m going Bobby. Put up or shut up. I’m not sitting here, listening to this.’

  Bobby groaned, but his face stayed the same so that Lilly wanted to look around to see who made the noise. ‘If you must know, he said –’

  ‘Don’t give me this ‘he said’ crap.’ She pushed back from the table. ‘You just said he didn’t say a word to you about it. You’re changing your story.’

  ‘Miss Cassandra!’

  ‘Mr. Alvin!’

  ‘Have it then! I saw you, you hear me?’ Bobby pushed his shoulders back. ‘I saw you talking to Davis.’

  It was Lilly she looked at as if she had told him what she’d seen. Lilly hadn’t said a word.

  Bobby said, ‘You were waiting for her on the beach and I saw you there. I saw you talk to her when she came along. You let her sit down next to you on the wall and acted like you didn’t know she was there.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t see her there…’ Cassandra said, ‘Or else it wasn’t even me. Were you wearing your glasses?’

  Lilly knew as well as Bobby it was true. Cassandra was stacking her deck, making deals, talking about scholarships and anonymity, looking to maximize her exit strategy. Davis had stuck a pin in Cassandra. That’s what Cassandra had told her. She knew everything about what Bobby did and needed someone to testify and Davis was willing to make treaties.

  ‘I think you’re over-excited,’ Bobby said. ‘I think it’s best you go on home.’

  ‘I’m not a child. You don’t get to send me to bed without my desert.’

  ‘I’m not sending you home as a child. I’m sending you home as an employee.’

  Lilly was sure Cassandra would scream at him now, but she didn’t. She shoved her purse under her armpit and pulled the zipper open and stood up. She pulled out that little pug gun he had got her for her birthday and Lilly shrank back into her chair, hoping she could push hard enough and come out the other side. She heard a thud. She heard a slam. But it wasn’t a gunshot. It was just the metal hitting the table so hard it would make anyone think it had gone off.

  ‘You can stick that up your ass.’ Cassandra said coolly. She had pushed through the tables and was gone before the sparkler had died down on Lilly’s birthday key lime pie.

  Bobby acted like he couldn’t even see the pug gun. Perhaps Cassandra was right, perhaps he couldn’t see too well without his glasses. Still it was sat right there. Lilly lifted up her napkin and let it drop over the small gun. No one was looking anymore anyways. She picked it up and held it in her lap and waited for Bobby to say something.

  His lower teeth jutted out. ‘Damn, women,’ he said. His eyes skimmed over her face and away again.

  Lilly had picked up her fork and had eaten her pie.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘What?’

  Why are you here?’ Moon Face was staring at her, maybe she’d drifted off for a minute.

  ‘What?’

  ‘In The Colorado District? Leif said you’d come to find someone.’

  Leif’s eyes were blank. Had he spoken?

  ‘Huh? Yeah,’ Lilly said. ‘I came to find someone.’

  ‘A friend.’

  ‘Sure, a friend.’

  ‘But he owes you money, right?’ Leif said.

  She hadn’t told him that.

  ‘No one comes from Miami to here, just to see a friend.’

  Lilly leaned in a little. ‘He kind of owes me money, but that’s incidental.’

  ‘Is it a lot?’ Moon Face rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Drugs?’

  ‘No.’ Lilly paused, trying to make sense of it herself. ‘Let’s just say, it was money promised that was never given.’

  Leif shifted in his seat. ‘Damn. Are you hitting some poor dude up for a Rolex he never gave you? Girl, you should just leave that shit alone.’

  ‘Excuse me. I’m not here for a Rolex.’ She watched them watching her. ‘We worked together, okay. He fired me without telling me. I’m here to get my job back. The money is in the business. We were in business together.’

  ‘He ripped you off then?’ Leif said.

  ‘Kind of, but only because he misunderstood something that happened.’

  ‘Still, why don’t you just take him to court…why would you even want to work with him again if he ripped you off?’

  Lilly reached for the beer. She’d let it go. Let it drop. It wasn’t worth trying to prove your point to people like this. They didn’t get it.

  ‘But I reckon it wasn’t that kind of work.’

  ‘Leif, don’t be rude!’

  ‘I’m not being rude. I’m just calling it like it is.’ He lifted a hand towards her. ‘Look at this girl, look at that handbag, look at those shoes. What do you think she does for a living?’

  ‘What I do for a living? I’m eighteen… My father bought me this purse for my birthday…’

  ‘Yeah right, but you just said you work for this guy and he hasn’t paid you. So that doesn’t fit now does it?’

  ‘Leif!’ Moon Face pushed him and he held his hands up.

  ‘I’m not judging, but if you’re hustling you should have the decency to own up to it. You know, isn’t that what this feminism shit is all about, making your own choices and not judging?’

  Lilly pulled her purse towards her. If she had anywhere else to go right now, she would be on her feet already.

  ‘Look, now she’s all offended because I was right.’

  ‘I am offended, but you’re not right.’

  ‘You get money for sleeping with guys.’

  ‘I don’t sleep with anyone.’

  ‘Yeah, you do.’

  ‘Really?’ She was keeping her voice sweet, trying to sound like the nice girl.

  ‘So tell us why this guy owes you money, enough money worth coming all the way up to Ohio for.’

  Lilly stared at Moon Face, waited for her to jump in and tell him to shut the fuck up, but the girl was just sitting there, leaning in waiting for an answer. She looked at Lilly like she had no more feelings than a TV screen. Now Leif was posturing, getting all smug and she had the feeling he was a minute away from telling her to get lost.

  ‘It’s like a date…’ She would tell him what Bobby had told her, the first time. ‘There’s no sex – right. They’re just dates.’

  ‘But these guys want to fuck you because you’re young.’

  It was hard not to smirk. ‘Half the teachers in school want to fuck you because you’re young, what’s your point?’

  ‘No point. That’s what I’m saying.’

  ‘But they don’t want to, you know, be an abuser…’

  ‘Right. Sure.’

  ‘Leif. Let her talk for God’s sake. Go on Carol Ann. Ignore him.’

  She would have liked to ignore him altogether and if Moon Face would just stand up and do something about it, maybe she could. ‘They want dates and they want…’ She felt her chest tighten, and she closed her eyes and was already in a courtroom. Eyes boring into her head imagining, the things these guys wanted. ‘They
want to think they can…’ She let the words go unsaid, heard them drift across the ceiling. ‘And you won’t remember…’

  ‘What, can what?’

  She’d started something. She only had herself to blame. ‘We’ve got a system, like a technique.’ She took a chug of her beer. ‘I go to their room and this guy would call me, the one who owes me money, He’d say some stuff down the phone…’

  Moon Face was squinting. She wasn’t buying it any more than Leif.

  ‘He’d call me and I’d pretend I’d been hypnotized by him and then they can talk to you, tell you how lovely you are and that type of stuff and they think you won’t remember anything. But they don’t get to do anything to you. If they get fresh and you need to stop him, you just hurt yourself, bang into something like a table or whatever and they’ve already been told, that brings you out of the trance, and then the game is over.’

  She stared Leif down. The wheels were turning in his head and Moon Face was looking at her too, but her mouth was soft, she didn’t get it. They were going to call bullshit on her and they’d be right.

  ‘That’s fucking stupid,’ he said suddenly. ‘That’s ripping people off.’

  ‘How is it ripping people off?’

  ‘Hello, you’re pretending to be hypnotized when you’re not. And what, you tell them you’re twelve or how does it work?’

  Her face tightened. ‘If you must know I say sixteen – or I did. Big deal.’

  ‘And not to mention that it’s fucking dangerous.’

  ‘It’s not dangerous! Not if you know how to handle yourself.’

  ‘And with what do you ‘handle’ yourself exactly?’

  She nearly said it. She could have said, ‘I carry a gun.’ That’s what Cassandra would have said and it would have ended right there. But Lilly didn’t, didn’t say it because she didn’t do it.

  Like Bobby said, it was too dangerous. There was no point pulling out a gun if you weren’t willing to use it. That was one of his pearls of wisdom. If you pulled out a gun on an unarmed man you’d better be ready to use it. Because once you put it away, maybe you’d find out, he’s not unarmed after all. And what else? You couldn’t fire a gun in a nice hotel and expect just walk out the front door.