by Meg Gardiner
A road sign inched past. CENTRAL LONDON 15 MILES.
We flew along in the black cab, heading toward central London. It was cold, and the sky, though blue, seemed thin and distant compared to Thailand. Jax looked exhausted. She had a black eye and bruises all along the side of her cheek. But she seemed to be holding it together. She seemed, in fact, more rested than I did.
“Benzedrine and ibuprofen,” she explained.
The driver buzzed along, with the radio blaring. Jax ripped open a package in a thick padded envelope. She checked that the driver was watching the road and slid out a military knife. Next she took out a black ankle holster. She pulled up her trouser leg, Velcroed the holster to her calf, and shoved the knife into it.
“No gun, but it’ll have to do.”
“Start talking. You have a hell of a lot of explaining to do,” I said.
“I ordered this cab before I left Bangkok. Also ordered the package. The driver picked it up for me on the way to Heathrow.” She shot the cuffs of her wool suit. “The blade will decapitate an ox. The hilt is tungsten carbide, can break a car windshield.” She smoothed her lipstick. “Always carry a knife.”
“No, I mean talk about Christian. His mother didn’t groom him to take over the bordello. She groomed him to be a prostitute.”
“Do you really need me to comment on that? Rio started him when he was about thirteen. Working nights at the club, turning him out to her johns. Hank didn’t pay attention.”
“You implied that she was also doping him, doing something with drugs to delay puberty, to keep him . . . girlish. He was manipulated like Bliss and Shiver, wasn’t he?”
“In the club, they called him Revel.”
“Was he the third one you said to look out for?”
“Yes. Most of the customers who came to the club thought he was a girl. They didn’t find out the truth until they got in a room alone with him. Then Rio caught her clients on tape messing with an underage boy. She tried to sell that to us and . . .” She paused. “Phil couldn’t take it. Christian, the other teens. He said, ‘No more. Shut Rio down; end the op.’ That’s when Hank sold me out. My mistake was in not telling him sooner. It was . . . Forget it. It was everything.”
A green MINI scooted past. At home, something that size was required to be on a leash.
“Did you know about Christian all along? When you were working the operation? Did Dad?”
“No. I found out shortly before everything went balls up.”
I watched the road race by. The graffiti had evolved since the last time I’d been here. What it still lacked in California style it made up for in ubiquity. Everywhere it was scrawled like spray-paint tapeworms.
“Why did you lie to me when I first met you—about what happened with Hank Sanger?”
“Did you want to know one bit of what was in that video footage?”
“No.”
The other questions I held back. Did you know that you were pregnant? That my father killed Georgia’s dad?
“Boyd Davies, the bounty hunter Tim shot—he was impersonating an Immigration agent,” I said. “I think he helped Rio smuggle girls into the U.S. Want to bet she planned to get your daughter across the border by having him bring her in under color of authority?”
“Good guess.”
“What’s driving the push to get Georgia?”
“Opportunity. And her age.”
“But if they really wanted to, the Sangers could have found Dad anytime. Why now? What sparked all this off?”
She looked drawn. “That’s a good question.”
“You said that Christian had health problems.”
“Yes. I think they originated from the drugs Rio was pumping into him and the others.” She glanced at me. “Rio liked to go to Bangkok for plastic surgery and rejuvenation treatments. I think she takes human growth hormone to keep herself looking young. But she tried to deprive some of her hookers of the hormone, to keep them looking childlike.”
“Think that’s what’s wrecked their teeth?”
She considered that. “Doubt it. More likely that’s from years of drug abuse. Ever hear of meth mouth?”
“Vaguely.” I thought back to the sight of Christian aiming a gun at Tim’s car on a Santa Barbara street. “Christian didn’t look childlike to me.”
“No, Rio must have abandoned the idea for him.”
“Do you know what’s wrong with him?”
“He seemed anemic back then. My guess is some blood-borne disease caused by the drugs.”
An awful thought began coalescing. “You said he wants his sister. Could it have something to do with his health?”
She looked out the window, her jaw tight.
“Jax, if it’s a blood disease, or something malignant, could he want her for more than revenge?”
The sun was sharp in our eyes, at a low angle in the sky. All along the roadside, daffodils were blooming, an extravagant gift of yellow and gold, though the trees were still bare.
She leaned her head against the window. She didn’t want to answer, but when she looked at me she was thinking the same thing I was: Christian wanted to suck Georgia’s blood and marrow.
“If he tries to touch her, his own blood will be the last thing he ever sees.” She knocked on the driver’s partition. “Faster.”
The view over Hyde Park was bare. So much green grass, all those bony trees. Below on Park Lane, black cabs and Mercedes stroked around the edges of the park. Christian stood by the window, chilled. Cashmere and his greatcoat couldn’t keep him warm. It was an annoyingly bright day, morning too soon; he hated morning, and he was exhausted. More so than from the anemia. Coffee wasn’t doing it. He’d injected himself with EPO, knew it would bring his hematocrit up, but not immediately.
Morning was oblivion, restoration. Rio usually left him alone in the morning. The clients were gone, the cash counted. He would have showered, cleansed his skin and mouth and cock, washed off the scent of the john’s breath and sweat and cum. He would have . . .
The feeling overcame him again, the disgust, the need. And his SIG was back home because he couldn’t take it on the plane. Eject the magazine, check that there were nine cartridges in the clip. Strip it, clean it. Press the takedown lever, pull the slide off . . . He needed it, oh, he needed it.
He found the Swiss Army knife in his toiletry kit, took the flathead screwdriver and unscrewed the knob mechanism for the bathroom door. He sat down on the floor and disassembled it.
There was a knock on the door. When he opened it Shiver stood in the hall, hair gleaming, eyes dark and pleased. She swept past him into the suite.
“Where’s your laptop?” she said.
He pointed at the desk. “You have any glass?”
“Not where you can reach it.” Sitting down at the desk, she produced a flash drive and jacked it into his computer. She saw the doorknob mechanism spread across the floor—screws and springs and levers. “Jesus, Christian. We don’t have time for tinkering.”
Shiver didn’t care that he disliked her. She didn’t care whether any man disliked her, even though she could play winsome when she wanted to, with that practiced posture of the yielding Orient. She didn’t need to play nice, because scorn was a powerful aphrodisiac. Too many guys thought their cocksmanship would cure her disdain. Such a young little thing, they thought, imagining that they would teach her. Those men never bothered to look into her eyes.
Rio had finally stopped her from hooking after she blinded that Ukrainian with a corkscrew.
“Let the drive boot up. Get me the glass,” he said.
“Give me a minute. Rio won’t want us to wait.”
“Rio isn’t here.” He pulled her to her feet. “I need it. I have to be sharp.”
She raised her chin. “You want to get high, fine. Let me pull it out of my pussy for you.”
He pursed his lips. “You couldn’t be more tacky if you took a course. That’s why you’ll always be a whore at heart.”
She
shook him loose. “You too.”
She slid past him to the bathroom to pull out the Baggie of crystal meth. He sat down at the desk with his Swiss Army knife and bits of the doorknob mechanism. As he fit the screws back into their slots, the flash drive downloaded to his laptop and a video began running. He heard a woman say, “I have to tell you about Christian. Rio’s doing something to him.”
His head jerked up. Oh, God—it was Hank’s place. He watched and went still, gripping the knife.
By the time Shiver returned from the bathroom with the glass, he was pale and sweating.
They knew. Rivera. Phil Delaney. His dad. Before he died, Rivera had told him, Rio’s grooming Christian. His dad died knowing he was heading for whoredom.
The video brought it all back. The noise, the horror, the sight of—
“God.”
His father dead. The gun coming around, Delaney trying to kill him. Turning his whole life to trash. In the mirror on the wall behind the desk, he was so pale he had no reflection at all.
He dropped the knife, grabbed the computer, and flung it at the wall. The mirror shattered in a waterfall of glass.
“Christian, Jesus,” Shiver said.
He glowered at her. Why did everybody stare at him all the time like they knew something he didn’t?
“What? Don’t look at me like that. Don’t look at me.”
Stalking over to her, he grabbed the Baggie from her hand. His weakness increased.
“This isn’t glass.” He threw it at her. “Pills, I don’t want pills.”
“Get hold of yourself. I wasn’t going to take my works through Thai customs.”
“I have works, you idiot. I have syringes prescribed for me, for my EPO.” He sat down on the couch, raking his hands over his legs.
“What is wrong with you?” she said.
He picked up the Baggie, ripped it open, and swallowed a handful of the methamphetamine. “Let’s go get the girl. One of us doesn’t have long to live, and it won’t be me.”
26
“Kit, get ready.”
Feeling a hand nudging me, I sat up, trying to shake myself awake. We were in the middle of London. I looked around: bustling streets, black cabs, and motorcycle messengers, everybody driving on the wrong side of the road, same as in Bangkok. White stucco buildings sat bright in the chill sunshine. On sidewalks, hordes of people walked fast, all wrapped in bulky coats, all talking on cell phones. My head seemed firmly on backward. Surreptitiously I wiped the drool from the edge of my mouth. My Thai clothes were brighter and thinner than what the rest of the street was wearing. We pulled into a quiet neighborhood and I pulled my jacket more tightly around me.
The cab stopped outside a Victorian building in a narrow lane. This was Kensington, home to palaces and graceful Anglican churches. The lane was lined with sleek row houses, quiet as a churchyard, and throbbing with money from empire and investment banking and pop music, virtually pouring from the sidewalks, as profuse as the wisteria that crept green above windows and doorways.
But the school looked like a nineteenth-century factory—red brick, gabled windows, wrought-iron scrollwork. It hunkered behind a grimy old wall that was rimmed at the top with barbed wire.
“Wait here,” Jax told the driver.
We walked through an archway, past a row of parked bicycles, and climbed the worn stone steps to the door of St. Mary Mazzarello Salesian School.
Above the door was a CCTV camera. Inside, the hallway was chilly and faintly damp. Feeling a draft, I crossed my arms. The ceilings were high, with crown moldings and tarnished chandeliers that gave off wan light. But tacked to the walls were reams of vivid watercolors, and down the hall I heard the energetic discord of a school orchestra. On a pedestal to my right stood a plaster statue of St. John Bosco, founder of the Salesian order.
To my left was a statue of the Madonna and child, crowned in gold.
“Maria Auxiliadora,” I said.
“The Salesians are devoted to honoring Our Lady as Mary, Help of Christians.”
Jax headed into the school office. Behind the counter, a secretary looked up.
“Jakarta Rivera to see the headmistress. Sister’s expecting me. I’m Georgia’s mother.”
The secretary directed us to take a seat, eyeing the bruises on Jax’s face, and made a phone call. Jax lowered herself gingerly into a chair, holding her left hand in her right, rigidly upright, eyes scanning the doorways. Her pupils were still uneven, and it seemed as though her left arm might be lagging.
Outside, on a small asphalt playground, clusters of girls were squealing their way through early recess, jumping rope and playing tag and strolling in huddles near the moss-stained wall. There was no view of the playground from the street. But there were two more CCTV cameras bolted to the brickwork.
“How long has it been since you’ve seen her?” I said.
“Ten weeks, since her half-term break.”
Across the room a door opened. “Mrs. Rivera, won’t you please come in?”
She was a nun, doughty and bearish in a blue suit with a heavy cross, hair cut like a pewter bowl under a short head covering.
“Wait here,” Jax said to me.
And seemingly by strength of will alone, she held herself erect and strode across the room, hand out.
“Sister Cillian.”
The nun shook her hand. “My goodness, what’s happened to you?”
“Car accident.” She touched her cheek and followed the nun into her office. “More frightening than anything else. But I’m taking a few weeks off and wanted to reassure Georgia that I’m all right.” She closed the door behind her.
I watched the children on the playground. They wore maroon skirts and jackets with white blouses and black neckties. The look was utterly English, even if the playground was cramped and urban, more hip-hop than Hog-warts.
After five minutes Sister Cillian’s door opened and Jax strode out with fervor in her eyes. The nun’s expression was caring but reserved, as though she trusted Jax but instinctively kept her at a distance.
“I hope you’ll be fighting fit again soon.” She asked the secretary to go get Georgia from the classroom, and shook Jax’s hand. “You’ll be in our prayers. We’ll see Georgia next week.”
“Thank you, Sister.”
Jax walked back to me, virtually humming with energy. Like a lightbulb, right before the filament cracks and it burns out.
“The accident really shook me up. I just need some time with my daughter,” she said.
Voice low, I said, “And did you explain that child traffickers might show up at the school looking for her?”
“They have a good relationship with the Metropolitan Police. Calls will be made. After we leave.”
Her voice had a thick edge to it, as though she’d had novocaine. She was still cradling her left hand in her right. The hand looked limp.
From down the hallway came the sound of rushing feet. Jax was instantly out the office door. I heard a girl’s voice, spinning with joy.
“Mummy!”
Through the doorway I saw Jax spread her arms wide. Georgia flew into her embrace, burying her head against Jax’s chest, shaking with excitement. Jax gripped her, kissed the top of her head, laid her cheek against her hair, eyes shut, as though holding her daughter was all she could bear; as if the sight of her would prove overwhelming. I felt myself choking up.
When Jax did open her eyes, Georgia smiled up at her. She was coltish, not yet an adolescent but pure kid. Her black hair was drawn back into a ponytail from which uncontainable curls erupted. Her skin was creamy brown, her eyes dark and restless. Her necktie was askew. Jax straightened it affectionately.
Despite my exhaustion and dread, I felt swamped with relief. Jax had her girl safe in her arms. I walked out into the hall.
She turned to me. “Come meet my sweet song. This is Georgia.”
“Georgie,” the girl said, raising a hand in greeting. “Hiya.”
I smiled. “Hi,
Georgie.”
“This is Kit,” Jax said. “She’s my friend.”
Georgie looked at me with open curiosity. Jax was jabbing at me, because in Bangkok I’d cracked that she was friendless. But it hit me that perhaps I truly was the closest thing to a friend she had. The thought was both sad and scary.
“Mum, what happened to your face?”
“My car got in a fight with a telephone pole. Don’t worry, sweetness. I’m okay. It just looks disgusting.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. Come on—I’ll tell you all about it.”
Georgie held tight to Jax’s hand. “Mrs. Westerman said you’re here to collect me. Are we going on holiday?”
“For a few days. Let’s get your things.”
“Where are we going?”
Holding on to her mom’s hand, Georgie skipped down the hall toward the dormitory, a jack-in-the-box of excitement, jabbering away in an enchanting English accent. I followed a step behind, aware of Jax hanging on and somehow drawing energy from her daughter’s happiness. She looked absorbed and almost, impossibly, at ease. I had never seen her seem so . . . normal. We headed outside and crossed a courtyard where the sun felt sharp and shadows lay cold against stone walls speckled green with moss. The girls who had been on the playground came streaming past, red cheeked from the cold. They stared at Georgie, inquisitive and possibly envious. She purposefully ignored them—Miss Cool, the eleven-year-old facsimile.
The dorm was unadorned and echoing. Inside the door, another statue of Maria Auxiliadora beamed at us. Upstairs on the landing, clear light streamed through a tall window. Plaster saints, brown brick, cold linoleum: not a place where I would want to grow up. Georgie’s room overlooked the courtyard. The room was tidy, but barely, as though chaos roamed the corners longing to break free. Above the beds hung posters of boy bands and teen-angst TV stars. It felt comfortable, but not homey.
Georgie grabbed a backpack and shoved in a music player and a paperback and her phone. “Can I change, Mum?”
“Yes. But we have a taxi waiting, so get your booty in gear.”
