The White Van

by Patrick Hoffman

  She played the coincidences out in her head. She’d left the dirty Auburn Hotel, where they lived surrounded by convicts and drug addicts, and ended up here at this nice hotel, surrounded by what—businessmen? She’d taken two hundred from Pierre and gotten two hundred from the Russian. Four hundred dollars. Can’t argue with that. She was on a roll. At this rate she’d be rich.

  Her mind drifted. It was all a little bit of rude good luck. Get rude now, get lucky later. Something like that. Four hundred dollars was a lot of money. And she had pills and rocks and beers and some kind of new Russian associate and his wife. A thousand thousands was a million. Things were looking good. Things were getting better. I’m sippin’ on Coke and rum, I’m like so what I’m drunk, it’s the freaking weekend baby, I’m ’bout to have me some fun.

  She thought about these things for a while and then fell asleep, fully dressed, on the bed, above the covers.

  When Emily opened her eyes she saw a man and a woman standing above her and looking down. The woman had brown hair and bangs, round glasses, and thick eyebrows. Her lips were dark with lipstick. She appeared to be in her fifties or sixties. She was little and plump and seemed like someone’s nice mother or aunt. She looked Arab or Jewish or something. The man was the Russian. Everything was hazy.

  Emily had no idea where she was. The lights were on. The Russian looked familiar but she couldn’t place him. She couldn’t move. She felt paralyzed, but not in a bad way. She felt wonderfully paralyzed, warm and heavy. Her mind—which normally raced—was quiet.

  The woman bent down near Emily’s face, put her hand on Emily’s forehead, and pushed it back slightly so she could look into her eyes. Emily coughed a weak cough. The woman checked the pulse on Emily’s neck. Her hand was warm and Emily felt happy someone was taking care of her. The woman patted Emily’s head like a child and spoke incomprehensibly to the Russian, who just stared down at Emily with a grave look on his face. Then they walked away from her bed toward the door. Emily followed them with her eyes. There was another man standing there. He was younger than the Russian and had a military-looking haircut and a severe face. His brow was swollen and he had beady eyes. They left the room and closed the door. Emily, numb and hot, fell back to sleep.

  She woke up sometime later. It seemed dark outside. She felt drugged. The Russian was sitting in the armchair watching TV. He didn’t notice her. She sort of remembered who he was now—she remembered a plan to make some money, but she couldn’t remember the specifics. What was happening to her?

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “What time is it,” said the Russian in his accent. He looked all around him like he had forgotten where he was, too. “It is nine forty-five in the evening. You must have really needed the sleep.”

  “What’d you give me?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What kinda pills?”

  “Oh, those—I took those, too.”

  Emily did a mental inventory of her body to make sure she hadn’t been raped. She felt like she hadn’t.

  “Well, they were serious,” she slurred.

  “Don’t worry,” said the Russian. He stood up, walked to the bureau, and came back with two hundred-dollar bills. Emily, still lying down, pushed the blanket off herself. She was so hot. She took the money without thinking. Her pants were still on and she put the cash in her pocket to go along with the two hundred from Pierre and the two hundred from last night; six hundred. Good things come in threes, she thought. She stayed flat on the bed and turned her head to look at the Russian. She felt incredibly foggy, but again, not in an unpleasant way. In her head she wanted to argue, she was used to fighting about everything, but her body wouldn’t respond.

  “Man, well, listen,” said Emily, pushing herself up onto one of her elbows. “I’m feeling extra f’d up. Maybe I should just head back, you know, call it a night, all that stuff.”

  “It’s your choice, but you have yet to hear us out.”

  “Well, quit stalling and talk,” said Emily, rubbing her eyes.

  “It’s not time yet. Tomorrow. For now we just relax,” he said flatly. He waved his hand at her like she was being unreasonable. He stood up, walked to the bureau, grabbed the crack pipe, and brought it to her in bed.

  There was a big rock in it. She smoked it. She needed it. “Shit,” she said, exhaling metallic-smelling smoke.

  The Russian said he would be right back and left the room. Emily again considered leaving, but she felt so heavy. She also liked making two hundred dollars a day. She couldn’t argue with that; money was money. She hit the pipe again. The room grew. Her head grew.

  After a few minutes the Russian returned with a Styrofoam container of Vietnamese noodle soup. He gave it to her. She didn’t feel hungry, but she sipped from the broth. He held up a beer like a caricature of a man tempting someone and shook a pack of cigarettes with his other hand and set them next to her. Then he made her drink some kind of sports drink. She was sitting up in the bed like a hospital patient.

  They watched TV in the room for about fifteen minutes. Eventually the Russian stood up and walked over to Emily’s bed and held out a pill.

  “No, I’m good,” said Emily.

  “It’s for you.”

  “I’m all good. They’re too strong for me.”

  “It’s medicine.”

  “Well, I don’t need it.”

  “Take the pill,” said the Russian with a hint of anger in his voice. “We need you to take them. Just one more night.”

  Emily took the pill in her clammy hand. She didn’t like being bossed. If someone like Pierre or one of her old boyfriends saw her, they wouldn’t have recognized her. She looked at the pill—another 30 mg of oxycodone—took it, and swallowed it indifferently with her beer.

  “Emily, I don’t know how to explain it, but I wish you could just do the things I ask,” said the Russian. “Everything will be so much better if you do.”

  “Whatever,” said Emily.

  The Russian walked to the door. “Please,” he said. He looked desperate. He left the room.

  Emily picked up the pipe one more time and smoked from it. She told herself it wasn’t because she needed it; more just to take all she could from the Russian. Maybe he was going to stop giving her money. Take all I can from this motherfucker.

  She looked around the room: there was a bureau, a bed, a bookshelf, a chair, a desk, a TV stand, a TV, an end table, and a regular table with two chairs. How much could she get selling all these things on Market Street? At least thirty dollars for the TV.

  She stared at the television for half an hour: detectives were driving around Los Angeles talking to rich people; a warmth flowed through her body, some kind of sinking and melting, the anger she was feeling eased, and then she fell back asleep.

  She woke up again the next day. Her mouth was dry. The room was empty, quiet, and beige. She stared at a murky painting of a seashore. The television blared about the benefits of juicing.

  She had to drag herself to the bathroom. Afterward, she lay down on the floor for a change of pace and drifted back to sleep.

  At night she woke up and the Russian and the woman were standing over her again. They looked forty feet tall. Emily felt quiet and warm.

  “Get up, dear,” said the woman. She had an accent, too.

  Emily rolled to her side and used her elbow to push herself halfway up. It took all her strength to sit. She felt embarrassed to be in such a state, sitting there on the floor, unable to even stand. She felt so heavy. Her tongue felt swollen in her mouth. She pulled the blanket on her lap and coughed.

  The woman arranged a chair in front of Emily and sat down.

  She said her name was Natalya, pointing at herself as though Emily didn’t speak English. “Na-tal-ya,” she said, sounding out the word. Then she said something foreign and the Russian nodded and left the room.

  “Wake up, dear.”

  Emily rolled her head up and looked blankly at the woman. She had blacked out and
now found herself off the floor and sitting in a soft chair. “We have been giving you too much medicine, haven’t we?” said the woman, with a worried smile.

  “You got me all in a state,” mumbled Emily, sounding like she had just seen a dentist.

  “That stupid man, he didn’t listen to me. He gave you those pills,” the woman said, shaking her head. “It was too much—what he gave you.”

  “That’s what I been trying to say,” said Emily, feeling as though she were trapped in the center of a conflict.

  “We’ll fix it,” said the woman thoughtfully. “You’ll do a different regimen tonight, one more suited for a girl like you.” She brushed some hair from Emily’s forehead and looked into her eyes. An itch spread on Emily’s body like bug bites. She was too high to be concerned. She liked this woman. “We’ll take care of you,” said the woman. “We’ll get you back in tip-top shape.”

  The woman sat down on the bed near the armchair. She put her hands on her own knees, like someone getting ready to talk business, and said, “You must be wondering what we want with you?”

  “Yeah, I probably should just go.”

  “But you haven’t been paid for today, my dear.”

  “That’s all right, I just been sleeping anyway.”

  “Well,” said the woman with a sigh, “let me give you your money for today.”

  “If you insist. But I don’t know,” Emily whispered.

  The woman stood up and pulled out two hundred-dollar bills from her pants pocket; she snapped the bills tight on each end and held them out to Emily.

  Emily’s mind was saying don’t take it. She didn’t want to be indebted to these Russians. She said these things to herself, but she couldn’t help it. Her hand reached out and took the two bills.

  “Now I want you to shower,” said the woman.

  A shower would be nice. The woman pulled Emily up from the chair and walked her to the bathroom. Emily had to pause at the door. She forgot what she was doing. Even standing took effort. The woman brushed past her and reached into the shower and turned it on. She looked back and smiled at Emily, tested the temperature of the water, and told her to get in.

  She helped Emily pull her clothes off and guided her to the shower. Emily stood under the showerhead nearly asleep. The water, warm and high-pressured, made her feel clean. Her thoughts were soft and unfocused. Eventually, she became aware that she should turn the thing off.

  “Put your new clothes on,” called the woman from the other room. There was a shopping bag on the toilet. Inside it was a new navy blue tracksuit, a white T-shirt, some socks, a bra, and underwear. It took all her energy to get dressed. The clothes were clean and comfortable but the work made her head hurt. They buying me hella stuff, she thought, as she moved the money from her old pants to her new ones. She looked at herself in the mirror; her face looked slack and dumb.

  When she came back out the woman looked her over, then walked to the table and returned with a little tube of cream. “For your face,” she said. She smeared some cream around a sore under Emily’s mouth. Emily was confused but resigned. A cool medicinal smell lifted her stomach.

  “Now sit,” said the woman. “I tell you, it is very simple what we want you to do. It is a simple case of identity theft. Listen to me. We plan on making nearly a million dollars, a third—thirty-three-point-three percent of which, of course, will go to you. This is not small business.”

  “Why me?” asked Emily.

  “You look the part. You look exactly perfect for the part.”

  “What kind of identity theft?” mumbled Emily.

  “Simple.”

  “Simple?”

  Emily forced herself to focus: Money? Identity theft? Simple? She was too tired to figure out answers to any of it. The questions looped into her head and then floated out. It wasn’t that her mind was confused, it just wasn’t working very well. There was a humming in her ears. She fell asleep again.

  She woke up a few times throughout the night, thought about trying to leave, and then fell back to sleep. At one point, she managed to check if the eight hundred dollars was still in her pocket. It was.

  The next day she woke up alone. Her eyes scanned the room. It was clean. The carpet was oatmeal colored and the walls had vague stripes. She could go. There was nothing between her and the door. With effort, feeling heavy and dazed, she managed to get up and walk to it. It was locked, but just by the dead bolt. She turned the bolt and opened the door and looked outside. It was blindingly bright. Nothing too much out there, she thought. She closed and locked the door and lumbered over to the TV, turned it back on, went to the bed, and fell back to sleep.

  Later the woman woke her by shaking her shoulder. She was with the Russian. He barely nodded at her. He was busy fussing with a small digital camera. Emily stared at him from the bed. His shoulders were slumped down and he seemed to be in a depressed mood. He needed a shave and he was wearing the same clothes as the first night. Had she underestimated him?

  The woman made Emily sit up and began to brush her hair with a large plastic brush. She brushed and hummed to herself. Emily watched everything in a detached way. It was normal for someone to brush her hair. It was normal for a man to stand in her room with a camera in his hands. She couldn’t stop what was happening.

  “When are we gonna do this thing?” asked Emily.

  “Yes, dear,” said the woman.

  Emily waited for an answer but it never came. It felt like the brush was making Emily’s hair grow longer. Her head leaned in whichever direction the woman pulled. After a while the woman went to the mirror and brushed her own hair and then came back and put a little bit of powder on Emily’s face. The Russian sat down on one of the chairs and watched television. The woman dabbed some kind of cover-up on Emily’s chin, then poked her lips with a wine-colored lipstick and smeared it around with her finger. It was a strange way to do it. Her fingers smelled like cigarettes.

  Emily nodded off. She woke up feeling the woman rubbing her face; she had taken a napkin and wet it and was cleaning something off of Emily’s chin. Emily tried to shrug her off.

  “There, there,” said the woman.

  The Russian said something Emily didn’t understand—it must have meant he was ready because the woman smiled and pulled Emily out of bed. This is the porno, thought Emily. She tightened up.

  The woman walked behind, her hands pushing Emily forward. She walked her to the wall, turned her around, and stepped to the side. Emily stood there swaying. She felt sick.

  The Russian was speaking his weird language to the woman. He stood six feet from Emily. He lifted the camera to his eye and said, “Say cheese.”

  “Cheese.”

  The flash went off. The woman was standing behind the Russian, looking on like a mother.

  “Say cheese,” he said again.

  “Cheese.” Emily tried to look pretty the way she always did for pictures.

  Another flash. “Perfect.”

  The Russian lowered the camera, looked at the display screen, and then looked at Emily for a moment. He seemed satisfied. He coughed and then put the camera into his pocket.

  Emily woke up to find herself already awake. She was at the table, pushing ash and cigarette butts with her bare hand into an ashtray. The woman was watching her. Emily continued to clean the mess. She pushed as much as she could over the edge of the table into the ashtray and then looked at the trail of gray smudges on the brown table. Her hand and arm felt detached from her body. She was thirsty.

  “Go wash your hands now, Emily,” said the woman.

  Emily stood up and turned toward the bathroom. She felt heavy and light. The room had turned even more orange, the greens in the furniture became blue, the carpet seemed to have grown significantly longer. Emily smiled as she took little steps to the bathroom. The floor pitched and heaved. She felt, in a pleasant way, like she was dreaming.

  In the bathroom she rinsed her hands. She stared into the mirror for a few moments. She appear
ed to be a strange replica of herself.

  “Emily,” called the woman, “come back in here, dear.”

  Emily listened to the voice: “Emily . . . Emily . . . Emily.”

  She woke up. She was in bed. The woman was standing over her. “Emily, it’s time to wake up. I have your money. Come on.”

  Emily, still lying flat on her back, took the money in her hand and crumpled it up. The woman watched her with a concerned face and then pointed at Emily’s new pants, which were folded on the ground.

  “Put it in there, with the rest of it.”

  Emily picked the pants up off the floor and put the money into the pocket with the other bills. She didn’t bother counting it. She just stuffed it in. She was confused about why the new pants were on the ground and not on her. She looked at her own pants, which she was wearing again. They looked unfashionable: they were stretched and dirty.

  The woman gestured toward the room: “We have to clean. It’s getting dirty. I’ll do it. Sit down. Clean the ashtray.” Emily looked to where the woman was pointing. There was an overfilled ashtray on the table. She walked to it. “Put it in here,” said the woman, holding open a large, black trash bag. Emily picked up the ashtray and poured it into the bag. The dust of the ashes moved up like smoke. Her mouth was dry.

  It had been six days in the hotel now. Six days filled with sleep. When she wasn’t sleeping, when she floated back up into the world, Emily was greeted by the Russian, the woman, or both.

  “You need to start doing a little more work,” said the woman at one point. “We’re paying you!”

  “What?” was all Emily could manage to say.

  “Look,” said the woman, pointing at the table. Emily looked and saw a Styrofoam container filled with food. “You’re making a fucking mess,” said the woman.