“How much does he owe?” she asks quietly. She isn’t looking at me. I wish she would look at me.
“Around two-hundred and fifty grand.”
“What!” Daisy jumps up, bringing her hands to her mouth. “How is that even…what! Hound!”
“Mac’s an evil bastard, Daisy. He lets the debts build up over years, let’s them borrow more, all whilst the other debts are gaining their interest. Massive amounts of interest, too. So that when he finally comes to collect, people are forced to mortgage their houses, sell their cars, and he gets a big payout. It doesn’t even matter if a lot of people can’t pay all of it. Even some of it is a fortune. But your dad’s a different case. Mac wants me to kill him, but I reckon he’d take around a million. But I don’t have a million.”
“And neither does Dad.”
I risk moving my hand to her, laying it gently atop her hand. She hesitates, but then flips her hand so that our fingers can interlock.
“I won’t let anything happen to him, Daisy. I’ll die first.”
“It wasn’t you…” She turns to me, the skin under her eyes puffy from crying. She looks vulnerable. All I can think is I want to hold her, shield her from the world, for the rest of my life. But then she slides her hand away from me. “What are we going to do, Hound? I’m going to have to run with him, aren’t I? Me and Dad are going to have to run far, far away.”
“Don’t do that. It’d kill me.” I reach for her again but she stands up.
“What else are we supposed to do?” she snaps.
“I don’t know. But I know one thing: if you left, I’d die. I love you, Daisy.” I’m on my feet, standing close to her, looking down into her face, a face I know as well as my own reflection now, a face I’ve spent hours exploring until I know every valley and peak. A face which would haunt me every day for the rest of my life if it were suddenly to disappear. “I used to think my dream life was just a house, Daisy. A house. Wood. Stone. Appliances. Shit. Whatever. I used to think my dream life was just being out of the life. But you know what these past couple of months have taught me? None of that means anything if I don’t have you, you and our kid. I want to make this work. I want to be somebody else. I don’t want to be—” I cut myself short, suddenly afraid I might cry.
Daisy touches my face. “You don’t have to be strong all the time, not with me.”
“I know.” I lean in for a kiss, but she backs off.
“I don’t know, Hound. This is all such a mess. I haven’t slept. I’m—God, I’m tired .”
“Just promise me you won’t go. Give me a week. Just a week.”
“Will we be safe, though?”
“I have men watching you and your father,” I tell her. “And I’ll talk to Mac and tell him that he’s going to be paid. I’ll lie my ass off.”
“And then what?” Daisy asks, a note of desperation in her voice. “A week isn’t forever.”
“And then we find a way. As a family.”
I don’t know if she’s fully convinced, but she nods before turning back toward the hospital. “A week,” she calls over her shoulder. Then she stops, turns, and looks me dead in the face. “And I love you, too. I think you should know that.”
She paces away before either of us can say anything else.
Chapter Nineteen
Daisy
Over the next week, I meet with Hound once, while I continue to work at The Lady Shack and the café, and as Dad stops being a swollen balloon and starts to resemble a person again. “There’s no way I’m finding this money,” Hound says. “I thought I could, but, shit.” We’re sitting in the café after my shift, sipping coffee, the distance of the table seeming too long between us after months spent in each other’s arms. “I’ve put off Mac, but pretty soon he’s going to be expecting his cash, and—fuck, I feel like the only thing for me to do is walk in there and tell him I’m out, tell him I’m out of the life and that I’m taking my family with me. You, Dean, you’re my family now.”
“And then what?” I ask. I’m aware that my voice sounds timid and I hate it. But I can’t stop it, either.
“Then we’ll get out of here. I have the cash I was going to spend on the house. We’ll run, find somewhere safe, away from him. Maybe I’ll be able to intimidate some of the men out of following me. They all know how dangerous I can be.”
“But your house—” I stop myself. Maybe it’d seem silly to most people, but I know how Hound has fantasized over this for years.
He just shakes his head. “I told you. It’s just a house. You’re what matters to me, you and our baby.” His ice-blue eyes go cold and distant. “And any man who tries to harm you better be ready to face me.”
That was two days ago. Today, despite all the craziness going on around me, life trundles on as normal. I’m at The Lady Shack, squeezing into my uniform, pushing my tits up to my chin and my ass into these tiny shorts, getting ready for another shift of goggled-eyed and mean-eyed men. Sarah seems to have gotten over her concern for my dad. As I’m leaving the changing room, she blocks my way and sneers at me. “So the whole marriage thing fell through, did it? I guess a woman like you can’t help herself, can she? Married one minute, slurping off every guy you see the next minute.” Behind me, her sidekick titters, and it’s all I can do to navigate around her without smashing her face into the wall.
The day gets immediately worse when I see Marsha’s face, which is distraught and apologetic all at once. I know that face well from working here, the face that ushers in a day of dealing with asshole customers. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I tried to tell Steve, but he said that you have to deal with him. Keep the customers happy, he said.” I don’t have to turn around and look down the aisle to know who it is, but I do anyway. Charles Wheeler sits in his buttoned-up shirt and bow-tie, tapping his manicured fingernails against the table and smiling down the aisle at me, an expression that tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing and wants to relish it.
Swallowing my pride—how many times is that now? a thousand?—I walk on my absurd heels to where he’s sitting, notepad in hand, plastering a smile on my face which surprises me when it doesn’t falter.
“Hey, doll!” I beam, despising my own voice. “How are you this afternoon?”
Charles holds his hands up. “Is he going to choke me again?” He lets out a harsh laugh, dropping his hands. “But in all seriousness, if he’d tried that when I was ready, I don’t think he would have had such a grand time of it, no way. I do karate. They teach you to use your opponent’s size and strength against them. So you can tell that cowardly braindead hunk of meat that if he ever lays his hands on me again, it will be the last thing he does.”
I accept all this with a smile, since there’s nothing else I can do. It’s ridiculous, Charles must know that, but I can’t say it.
“Now lean forward like a good girl.”
I’m about to say no when I notice Steve out of the corner of my eye, Sarah standing at his shoulder whispering in his ear. Oh, I know exactly what that bitch is saying: “Ooh, Steve, last time that customer was here Daisy caused a ruckus so we better keep an eye on her to make sure she isn’t going to risk making another scene. You know how much I care about this place, Steve.” All the while she’s leaning just a little too close and letting her lips brush over his ear.
I swallow my pride—one-thousand and one—and lean forward, painfully aware of Charles sitting up so he can look down my cleavage. “I see that those garish rings are gone,” Charles comments. “I don’t think rings like those flatter a woman like you. Women like you should be wearing cheap supermarket jewelry, so that when men look at you they know exactly what they’re getting. Whores, basically.” He tips his head back and laughs at his own joke.
I get the urge to stab my pen into the exposed skin of his neck, but I can still see Sarah and Steve staring at me, Steve with his thumbs hooked into his belt loops like some old-timey oil man.
“Would you like something to drink?” I ask, in my swee
test, most polite voice. How am I speaking like that? How is my voice coming out so serene when inside there’s an earthquake tearing through my body, making me want to clench my fists and spit and swear? “We have cocktails, beers, I think we even have a—” A mulled cider, I was going to say, because I’m just making sounds to stop myself from snapping at him.
“Where did you learn to speak so prettily?” Charles asks. He has one hand under the table, shifting slightly back and forth. I know what he’s doing and it makes me sick. “Didn’t you ever want to be something more than—well, more than one step up from a stripper? Or is it one step down? I’m sure strippers make more than you.”
“You know what, you little—” I bite down on my tongue so hard I taste blood.
“That’s right,” Charles says, nodding. “Be quiet now and take my order and shake that ass for me. You’re all whores, every single one of you. You’re all good for one thing. And most of the time you can’t even do that right! So what good are you? You look the type, all bouncy and sexy, but when you get you home, you just lie there dead and boring and pointless.” He shrugs. “You might as well be dead, to be honest.”
I see myself in five months with a bulging belly, see myself in five years with a son or a daughter, see myself in twenty years with a fully grown child, and wonder if I want to one day tell them about the time I let this man walk all over me, or the time I salvaged my self-respect and did something. I don’t think. I just tear off my apron and toss it on the floor, and then scream, “You’re a small little man! A tiny little man! A pathetic little man who’s never gotten laid in his whole damned life and so has to come here to feel big!”
I hear Steve gasp and see Sarah smile. Then Steve is walking toward me, shaking his head.
“Oh, you’re going to fire me?” I snap, tossing my notepad onto the floor with my apron. “You think I give a shit. I’m pregnant! I’m going to be a mother, and I won’t take this shit! Not anymore! Being pawed at by freaks for a few dollars an hour, only being able to pay rent with the tips! Letting them grind against you and—and you, Steve , are the worst of all. How many girls have you forced to suck you off, you fucking pervert?”
I turn away from him before he can answer, throw Charles a grimace which has him recoiling in his seat, and then stomp from the building, ignoring the eyes of the men. Even now, they go to my breasts, my legs. I want to slap the face of every man who robs some of this moment by leering, but then I’m out in the autumn sun, panting, fists clenched so tightly two of my fingernails snap. When I’m in the parking lot, I realize I’ve left my clothes back there in the locker, but it’s too late to go back now. I tap my pocket, where I always keep my purse just in case Sarah tries to play a prank on my locker, which is the sort of childish thing she’d do.
I’m walking down the street to the bus stop when I see Hound’s jeep parked at the end of the road. Instantly, I feel better, so much better than I did a few moments ago. I told him I loved him and I meant it, but it’s not until this moment that it really hits home for me. If I can go from rage to smiling in a matter of seconds, there must be something here. I think about how I’ll tell him the story, how I’ll relate all the looks on their faces. I wonder if he’ll laugh.
I open the passenger seat door and climb in. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I say, fastening my seatbelt. “This has been the craziest day. I just couldn’t handle it anymore— Wait? No! No! ”
Mac, the man with the tattoo on his forehead, grabs my arm when I reach for the door. He’s old, but he’s strong, his grip like iron. He reeks of whisky and cigarettes, but his suit is clean. He grins at me. “Let’s not be foolish, Miss Dunham,” he says. “Or you’ll have to deal with them.” He nods into the backseat and I feel like an idiot for not checking the car first. The ginger-haired twins who were with Mac when he came to watch the stripping auditions sit back there, staring with empty eyes straight ahead of them. “So please, can’t we try and be civil?”
“I’ll scream,” I say. “I’ll scream and—”
“And what?” Mac’s smile never once touches his eyes. I imagine this man putting a bullet into somebody’s head and then making some toast afterward. He doesn’t seem to care. “What do you think would happen? Prince fuckin’ Charming is going to come to your rescue, is he? No, you’re ours now, so be a good little girl and stay quiet, or I’ll have one of my friends here cut that baby out of your belly and force it down your throat. Don’t look so shocked, you stupid whore. How hard do you think it is to pay off a doctor?” He flashes a grin that sends worms crawling over my body. “Are you going to be a good girl while I drive us to our date, dear, or am I going to have to get one of my friends to educate you?”
I glance back at the dead-eyed twins. They don’t look like they’d enjoy hurting me. But they don’t look like they’d refuse to hurt me, either. They look like hammers, lying inanimately until it’s time for them to act. I turn back to the road and shake my head. “I’ll be quiet,” I say. “I won’t…” Tears rise in my throat. I cough them back. So much for my big, dramatic, I’m-strong-now exit. I’ve walked out of one situation where men are the judges and jurors right into another, only now they might be the executioners as well.
“Good,” Mac says.
He starts the car and drives leisurely through the city.
“We’re going to have to double back on ourselves,” he says. “I have a meeting at The Red Room, but there’s a stop we need to make first.”
He drives for five minutes before I realize where his destination is.
“No, please. Please don’t hurt him. He hasn’t done anything. It’s not his fault.”
Mac laughs at this, and then coughs violently. “Not his fault! It’s all his fault, you stupid hole. If it wasn’t for him you’d be safe in your slutty bar right now, sucking men’s balls for a ten dollar tip.” He leans across, breathing whisky onto my face. It takes all my self-control not to gag. I’m afraid that if I do, he’ll take offence to it and hurt me. “You’re all sluts in there, aren’t you? I know for a fact that one of your girls will do anything for a bit of cash, because she works at The Red Room. I’m always amazed by how far women will go for a few hundred dollars. A few hundred dollars! Not even enough to pay their rent and the sluts’ll let you put it in their asses.” He laughs again, before coming to a stop outside the hospital. “Go and get him. And you,” he goes on, shooting me a look of cold death. “If you make one more noise, I’ll cut off one of your fingers.” He takes a pair of pruning sheers from his pocket. “Try me. Go on. See if I won’t. I’m tired of you and that big hunk of fucking shit disrespecting me. You’ll both learn your lesson. I would’ve taken the money, a month ago, but let me tell you, it’d take a damn lot more money than your old man has to stop this now. I will not be disrespected.”
The twins exit the car and walk toward the hospital. This is my chance, I tell myself, but Mac doesn’t take his eyes off me and he opens and closes the sheers, making a click-click noise that makes me wonder how easily metal can cut through flesh and bone. And before I have a chance to summon the courage I’d need, the twins are walking back toward the jeep, but without Dad.
“Where is he?” Mac asks tightly, when they climb in.
“Don’t know, Boss,” one of the twins answers. “Wasn’t in his bed. Nurses and doctor don’t know, neither.”
“Your dear father has left you to your fate,” Mac says. “What a surprise.”
“What are you going to do to me?” I ask, as Mac drives back toward The Red Room. I’m shivering now and I wish that smell of whisky and tobacco would go away so I could think. It’s too stuffy in here, too claustrophobic.
“I’m going to have my adopted son kill the one obstacle standing between him and a long and fruitful career. I’m sure it will take some persuading. But that’s never been a problem for me.”
And the sheers go click-click .
Chapter Twenty
Hound
“What do you mean, you thought sh
e was with me?” I shout down the phone, making people on the street back away from me uneasily.
“She climbed into your jeep, man. Shit, the fuck am I supposed to think when I see her climb into your jeep? It’s your car, the license plate the same, all that shit.”
“And you didn’t check? You didn’t fucking check?” I stop, leaning against a wall that smells of piss and taking shaky breaths through gritted teeth.
“No,” Denton says quietly. “Shit. I know. Shit.”
“It’s Mac. It’s fucking Mac. That psychopathic old fuck . I’m guessing you didn’t tail the jeep, then?”
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