Save Me from Dangerous Men--A Novel

by S. A. Lelchuk

  Inside, what passed for the lobby smelled like cigarettes and stale vomit. The stained tile floor was sticky against my shoes. I pushed the button for the elevator. Nothing. I pushed the button again, then gave up and started up the staircase. On the fourth floor, I used my key, knowing the door would be locked. “Hey,” I called out. “It’s me.”

  “Nik?”

  The apartment was dark. Heavy blinds hung over the windows, no lights on. Instead of a sunny afternoon it could have been the middle of the night. The furniture would have gone on the Free section of Craigslist and then waited a couple of years for someone to pick it up. A beat-up red couch, pockmarked with cigarette burns; a couple of chairs that looked like they were biodegrading right into the floor. Pizza boxes and random clothing were strewn around, along with empty cans, crumpled cigarette packs, and liquor bottles like something out of a Bukowski story. Cigarette butts, some in ashtrays, plenty not. A cheap red plastic bong on the coffee table. I tried not to see the syringe next to it. The air stunk of smoke and sweat and bong water. I set down the shopping bags and turned on the overhead light.

  Brandon was lying on the couch. A shirtless man of about my age slumped in an armchair, asleep. He had a green Mohawk and a face full of piercings. A girl sat on the floor, slouched against a wall. She smoked a cigarette and looked at me dully. Her hair was peroxide blond with darkening roots. She could have been sixteen or twenty-six. “Who’re you?” she slurred. Her pupils were bright and tiny. She wore torn black jeans and a stained gray T-shirt with pink BeDazzling spelling out the word PRINCESS.

  I looked at her. Thinking that she and Mohawk could probably go on the Free section right along with the furniture. They’d probably have to wait a lot longer to get picked up. “You should leave.” I jerked my head over to Mohawk. “Both of you. Now.”

  “Hey, c’mon, Nik,” Brandon said. “What’re you doing? I invited them. They’re my guests.” His words dripped out of his mouth.

  “Who’re you?” the girl said again. Insistent. She fumbled for words. “You can’t just barge … just barge in here. Tell us what to do. What gives you the right…?”

  I went over to Mohawk. He’d been smoking a cigarette and it had fallen out of his mouth or hand. It lay on the floor, steadily burning into the wood.

  I stomped it out. Shook his shoulder. “Hey. Get up.”

  There was no response. I shook harder. Still no response. I took one of his earrings in my fingers. The upper lobe. More sensitive. I tugged the earring sharply. Once, then again. Like ringing a doorbell. His eyes slowly opened. “What the fuck?”

  “You. Up. Go take a walk.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Come on, Nik,” Brandon said. “These are my friends.”

  “You can’t tell me shit,” said Mohawk. He seemed to have woken up in a bad mood. He blinked his eyes, the tiny pupils glaring up at me. “We’re his friends. You heard him.”

  “Where are we supposed to go?” argued the girl in that same dull voice. Still sitting on the floor. Her cigarette smoked down to nothing. She took another drag anyway. I wondered how the filter tasted. “You think we have anywhere to go?”

  “Sit on the damn curb,” I said. “Same as what you’re doing now. Only there, not here.”

  “You can’t talk to her like that,” Mohawk said. He looked like he was trying to get himself out of the chair. His voice not quite aggressive, but getting somewhere in the vicinity.

  I looked away. Took a breath. “Brandon,” I said, ignoring Mohawk and the girl. “These two should really go. Immediately. Because I’m getting kind of sick of asking nice.”

  Brandon laughed. He had an endearing laugh, at odds with the grim surroundings. A high-pitched near-giggle that faded into a long smoker’s cough. “That’s your cue,” he said to Mohawk. “I wouldn’t make her mad.”

  “She shouldn’t make me mad,” Mohawk said. “She has no idea what I’m capable of.”

  Brandon laughed again. “If you make her mad you’ll get a reeeeeaaal surprise. I’d listen to her, I really would.” He laughed more.

  “Come on,” Mohawk said haughtily to the girl. “I can see we’re not wanted.”

  I didn’t look at him. Let him pause in front of me, light a new cigarette, blow a cloud of smoke into my face. I didn’t move. The two of them left. The door slammed. Footsteps faded.

  “Why’d you have to kick them out, Nik? They weren’t doing any harm.”

  The two of us alone, now. The apartment quiet.

  “No harm?” I said. I turned away from the wall. Once my kid brother had been handsome as hell. Unforgettable green eyes that danced with energy, and smooth clear skin. Given a normal childhood, he would have been juggling girlfriends right and left. There would have been girls stopping by the house for help with chemistry homework or to borrow a CD or whatever high school girls did when they liked someone. Traces of that Brandon were still there but I had to look close. He was thin, no longer in a coltish teenage way but just a parched, unhealthy look. A couple of inches taller than me and probably ten pounds lighter. He wore a black sleeveless tank top and dirty blue mesh gym shorts, and his lightly freckled face was covered with scraggly stubble. A Band-Aid on his cheek, his brown hair unwashed. I wanted to cry. I wanted to shampoo his hair, sponge hot water over the dirty skin. His green eyes didn’t sparkle. The pupils were small, the eyelids puffy.

  “Are you hungry? You want me to make something? An omelet? Grilled cheese?”

  “Not hungry, Nik-Nik,” he said. “But thanks.”

  I took the shopping bags into the kitchen. I couldn’t have done much cooking anyway. The sink was piled high with dirty plates and moldering food, the stovetop greasy, covered in pizza boxes and empty takeout containers. A cockroach scuttled across the counter and took refuge behind the stove. I opened the refrigerator. Two six-packs of Bud Light, a bottle of Sriracha hot sauce bearing the telltale rooster, and a rotting head of lettuce. That was it.

  I took cleaning supplies from where I kept them under the sink. I threw out the lettuce, scrubbed away the liquid rot that had pooled underneath. Began unloading groceries. Fresh vegetables and fruit, delicatessen cold cuts, eggs, bread, cans of soup. I scrubbed ash and dried food off the dishes, filled two large Hefty bags with trash. In the bedroom, the sheets were rank. I put them all in another trash bag to be laundered, got clean sheets from a shelf in the closet. The air was stale. I managed to get a window open and jumped as a loud jangling went off from the night table by the bed. An old analog alarm clock, a vivid Mickey Mouse imprinted on the bright yellow face. I shook the clock and turned dials until it stopped ringing.

  Brandon was just as I had left him. “That alarm clock scared the crap out of me,” I said. “You want a new one that actually goes off when you want it to?”

  He shook his head emphatically. “Mom and Dad gave it to me for my first day of first grade. Mom said I’d actually have to start waking up on my own.”

  “Sorry,” I said, suddenly guilty. “I knew that.”

  “Maybe this one doesn’t work perfectly. But neither do I. We’re a good fit.”

  I changed the subject. “You’re sure you’re not hungry?”

  “Let’s have a drink.”

  “A drink? Seriously?”

  “We’re both over twenty-one.”

  I looked at my brother, draped comfortably across the couch. “You’re just a regular Oblomov, aren’t you? Sure, we can have a drink. Why not?” I went into the kitchen and twisted the tops off two bottles of Bud Light. He was sitting up now. I handed him a beer. “Here. How much do you need?”

  “Could I get a thousand?”

  “I took care of rent already. You need a grand on top of that?”

  He laughed. “Inflation, Nik. Basic economics. The dollar doesn’t go as far anymore.”

  “Dammit, Brandon. It’s not about the money. I give you that, it goes into your arm.”

  “This month will be different.”

  “Right
.”

  “Please, Nik-Nik.”

  “Don’t give me that Nik-Nik shit! Okay?” His name for me. When he was barely old enough to talk. Running around the house playing hide-and-seek, chasing me down the beach, crowing delightedly as he snatched a piece in checkers. Nik-Nik. His older sister.

  “I need something,” he said. “Can’t not have something. What’s the harm?”

  Harm. That word again.

  I bit my lip and counted out five hundred-dollar bills. “The harm? That I come in here one day and— Can’t you be careful? And who knows what’s in the needles?”

  He laughed merrily again and drank more beer. “I already got most things you can get from a needle, Nik.” Traces of his old smile. “It’s the damn needles should be scared of me.”

  I took a vicious swig of my bottle. Feeling the cold beer hurtle down my throat. “Here. Five hundred is all you’re getting. Take it.” I handed him the money. “Naloxone. You have some here?”

  Brandon giggled. “We did, but Eric—the guy you kicked out—he took a bad hit the other day. Here one minute, gone the next. I used the dose I had here to pull him out of it.” He giggled again, gestured to his Band-Aid. “He was so mad when he woke up that he head-butted me.”

  “The asshole with the Mohawk did that?” My hand gripping the beer bottle. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have bothered tugging the earring. Mohawk would have been awakened by a bottle breaking over his head.

  “He didn’t mean it.”

  I took two plastic nasal spray tubes out of my purse and put them in the drawer of the coffee table. If someone overdosed on an opiate, naloxone was a literal lifesaver. No need for paramedics or hospitals, although a side effect was sending the OD into an instantaneous state of acute withdrawal. There were all kinds of stories of junkies mindlessly attacking the paramedics who’d just saved their lives. But the stuff worked almost magically. One day, one of those little white tubes might save my brother’s life. “You’re sure you don’t want to live somewhere nicer? I’ll find you a place in my neighborhood.”

  “Naw,” he said with a gentle smile. “The gritty underbelly is where I stay.”

  I got up to pee, guiltily aware that I was bringing my purse. I doubted my brother would take money from me unasked, but a small part of me never wanted to have to find out. The bathroom was in the same shape as the living room. Cigarette butts, ashtrays, empty baggies. The only thing that wasn’t there was toilet paper. I used a Kleenex from my purse. Suddenly I was sobbing. Nothing gradual. Not a few tears or whimpers leading up to the main event. Just full-on choking sobs. Striking like the most explosive thundershower out of a clear sky. I got control back. Splashed tepid water on my face and went back into the living room. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

  He ignored my question. “You made it. Look at you. I love you. You made it.”

  “Why?” I asked again. Like talking on different frequencies. Yet hearing each other fine.

  “You beat the odds, Nik. Neither one of us should have. But you did.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  He stood. Slowly, carefully. His eyes that beautiful green. He put his arms around me. Hugged me. “You look out for me,” he said. “Like you always have.”

  “Like I always haven’t.”

  “You have. And you got through. And maybe I couldn’t. But that’s on me, Nik.”

  “I should have been there. You were there.” I wasn’t even pretending not to bawl. Just clutched his thin shoulders to me as tightly as I could. “I should have been there, Brandi.” The name had driven him crazy when he was a kid. Brandi. A girl’s name. He’d hated it. Obviously ensuring that that was the only thing I’d ever call him. “Let me help you. Please. Get you checked in somewhere. And then I’ll get you a place close to me.”

  He hugged me back. I could feel the weakness in his thin arms. It was strange, feeling not the presence of strength but its absence. “I know you would,” he said. “But that’s not me. You know that. I’m on my train, you’re on yours. And I’m really happy that I get to rattle along and look out the window and see you. But we’re on different tracks. We can’t change that.”

  I took a step back. Looked into his eyes. The black pupils larger now. Wishing I could make his words somehow less true. “Is there anything you need? Anything?”

  He grinned. “I could use another beer.”

  “My God. Anything you actually need?”

  “Naw,” he said, sitting back down on the couch. “I have everything I need right here.”

  “Well, I’m hungry, anyway. I’m going to order a pizza.”

  His voice brightened, puppyish. “Half ham and pineapple? Please?”

  I shook my head. “Now he perks up.”

  “Whatever. I’m allowed to change my mind.”

  “Won’t let me make you an omelet but you’ll take a damn Hawaiian pizza.”

  His eyes danced. “Omelets are breakfast food. It’s lunchtime. Get with it.”

  I punched his shoulder. Lightly. “Close your damn mouth and let me borrow your phone. See if we can find a place that’ll deliver without freaking out when you tell them the address.”

  16

  I left my motorcycle parked sideways between a white delivery van and a Volvo with a faded College Prep bumper sticker and headed into the bookstore, where Jess was arranging an empty circle of chairs in the back. “Shit,” I said. “Book club.”

  “You forgot.” She smiled.

  “Too much going on.” I thought of something. “Hey. Important. When was the last time you were on a double date?”

  Jess laughed. “Umm, like last week. Why?”

  “What do people do on them?” I felt something brush against my leg and looked down. Bartleby the cat looked up at me with large yellow eyes and meowed sharply. I leaned down and scratched his head. He rolled onto his back and I scratched his belly, then the soft gray fur under his chin. He purred in pleasure.

  “You’re hopeless. Double dates are like regular dates. Except with two extra people.”

  I shook my head. “I have one tonight. I’m gravely unprepared.”

  “Never heard you say that before.”

  “Excuse me, do you work here?”

  I turned to see a freckled woman in a lilac blouse. She had an open, friendly face and a wide, frank mouth. “What can I help you find?”

  “I’m on a mission. My daughter can’t get enough of mysteries. She’s a junior in high school, reads everything, wants to be a writer. I was thinking any female mystery writers would be perfect, but I don’t know much more than Mary Higgins Clark or Gone Girl.”

  “Sure. Follow me. She goes to College Prep?”

  The woman gave me a surprised look. “How’d you know?”

  “And you drive a Volvo.”

  She laughed. “The bumper sticker, I see. You keep your eyes open.”

  In the Mysteries section I began pulling books from the shelves. “We’re going for variety. Let’s give her a bit of everything. The Hours Before Dawn, Celia Fremlin. Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train; Joyce Maynard, To Die For. Margaret Millar, Beast in View; Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen; and Beautiful Lies by Lisa Unger.” I thought of something. “Oh—and of course something by Sara Paretsky. I think I have the first in the series … here we go. Indemnity Only.” I handed her the stack. “Try these—if she likes them, send her in and I can recommend some more.”

  The woman looked at the titles with curiosity as I rang them up. “Thank you. These look perfect.” She took the stack of books and nodded good-bye.

  “Ready?” Jess asked.

  “I’ll be down as soon as I can. Start without me.” I headed up the stairs into my office. Thinking about my client. Gregg Gunn. Trying to figure out what felt off. We had instincts for a reason. Ignoring instinct was a waste of a critical resource. Like ignoring sound just because you trusted sight. I thought about Karen Li. The fear on her face. The mysterious Oliver, trying to warn me of something. A CEO o
f a tech company taking secretive, unexplained trips to dangerous parts of the world. People I hadn’t known even to exist, a week ago. And now I was wrapped up with them.

  But wrapped up with what?

  I glanced at the monitors. Downstairs the chairs Jess had arranged were filling up with women. I was going to be late. And then I had to go home, change, and race back to Oakland to meet Ethan. Instead I picked up the phone. A voice answered on the third ring. “Yeah?”

  “Charles, it’s Nikki. I need you to check something.”

  “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?” Charles Miller had a strange sense of humor.

  “A man named Gregg Gunn. He runs a company called Care4 down in Sunnyvale. They make some kind of baby monitoring system. Also an employee, Karen Li, L-I.”

  “Okay.” There was a pause. I knew he’d be writing things down. “Anything specific?”

  “I just want to know a little more about them. Anything you find.”

  “Give me a day or two.”

  “You working weekends now?”

  He laughed a little bitterly. “What, I’m gonna watch the kids play baseball?”

  In a previous life, Charles Miller had been an investigative journalist in Houston. Then he’d written the wrong piece, targeting a notoriously press-shy billionaire who had a habit of dumping money into shady, hard-to-trace foundations. The kind of guy who had probably opened every champagne bottle in the cellar the day of the Citizens United decision. The billionaire hadn’t taken kindly to being the subject of a story. Charles had been followed, his phones tapped. Undeterred, he had continued. When finally published, the article had been a success. The billionaire had filed suit that same day. Facing a nine-figure lawsuit, Charles had been fired. Hung out to dry. Because he had been named personally in the lawsuit, it didn’t stop there. Without a newspaper to pay for lawyers, the outcome wasn’t in doubt. After the dust settled on the bankruptcy and divorce, Charles ended up in the Bay Area. Burnt out on journalism and looking to start over. We’d done each other more than a few favors. I liked him. He was a loner. For most people, that was unnatural. In my book, it was fine.