by Jason Starr
“That was really good,” she said. “How long did it take you to think that one up? Seriously, I bet you were thinking about that all day. You were thinking, ‘I’ll tell Rebecca, “Once you’re gone you’ll see how good this is for both of us.”’ You thought that would really get me back.”
“I’m not trying to get you—”
“You probably made up that whole Angie story too.”
“I’m not making up anything,” I said very seriously.
I could tell she was starting to believe me.
“So how is she?” she asked.
“How is she what?”
“You know . . .”
She tried to grab my ass, but I moved away in time.
“. . . in bed,” she continued. “Is she in shape? I bet she isn’t. I bet she has flabby thighs and a blubbery stomach, and I bet she has zits.” She made a disgusted face.
“You have two days to get out,” I said. “I think that’s a reasonable amount of time to find someplace to crash. Maybe you can move in with Ray.”
I went into the kitchen and Rebecca remained in the living room. I opened the refrigerator and took out the Brita water pitcher.
“Two days,” I said as I turned on the faucet and filled the pitcher. “I’m giving you two days.”
With the water running I couldn’t hear what Rebecca was saying—not that I cared. I turned off the faucet and said, “Two days,” again.
Rebecca entered the kitchen. She watched me pour a glass of water and drink it, and then she said, “So you expect me to just leave? Just walk out the door and that’s it?”
“It doesn’t have to be like that,” I said. “We could still stay in touch—be friends, do lunch every once in a while.”
“And what about me? What do I get out of all this?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I didn’t invest all this time with you for nothing.”
“I wasted time too.”
“I didn’t say wasted!” she screamed in a shrill voice. Great, I thought. Now Carmen or the other neighbors would complain about the noise to the landlord—I’d be lucky if I could keep my lease.
“Brilliant,” I said.
Rebecca picked up the glass from the counter and flung it behind her. It smashed against the wall above the stove, shards going everywhere.
“That’s it—we’re over!” I screamed.
“Nothing’s over,” she said, “until I say it’s over or until one of us dies.”
“Really?” I said. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Whatever you want it to mean.” She smiled ambiguously.
“So what’re you saying?” I said. “You’re saying if I try to force you to leave you’re going to kill me?”
“You never know,” she said. “I could strangle you while you’re asleep one night. Or maybe I’ll get a gun.” She held her index finger and thumb up to my forehead, then bent her thumb down and said, “Pow.”
“You’re really scaring the shit out of me,” I said sarcastically, but I kind of meant it.
She was staring at me, doing her best to look like a maniac.
“You’re right, I could never hurt you,” she said. “Besides, what reason would I have? I know you’d never really try to leave me.”
“What’re you talking about? I’m telling you to leave.”
“You don’t tell me to do anything.”
She came over to me and put her hands around my waist and rubbed up against me. I wanted to move away but I didn’t, or couldn’t.
“When I found you that day in the park you were like a stray dog,” she said. “I rescued you, and now you’re mine.”
“I think you need help.”
She kissed my neck a few times; then she kissed my lips.
“You belong to Rebecca now,” she said. “You only do what I tell you to do, but you don’t have to worry—you can sleep tight tonight, cutie. Rebecca would never, ever hurt you.”
She kissed me again, longer this time, then strutted out of the kitchen and headed along the hallway. Moments later I heard the bathroom door shut.
I stayed in the kitchen, wondering who was crazier— Rebecca, or me for staying with her all these months.
After ruminating for a couple more minutes, I tiptoed over the broken glass, figuring I’d clean up the mess later, and went into the living room. “Can’t Stand Losing You” was playing, and I remembered how Barbara and I used to listen to Bowie and the Police all the time in high school and college, and how I was listening to a Bowie CD that night Barbara came over to my apartment.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You were so right. You were so right about everything.”
She looked awful, like she’d been crying for hours. I hadn’t spoken to her at all in over two weeks, since the night I beat Jay up. I’d tried to call her at home and at work, but she kept screening my calls and hanging up on me.
“Jay’s a fucking scumbag,” she said. “He was seeing his old girlfriend the whole time, right behind my back. I’m such a stupid idiot.”
I held her for a long time as she cried.
I read part of some boring, poorly written story about the divas of hip-hop in Rebecca’s copy of Vibe, and then, with the Police still playing, I started thinking about the police. I looked at my watch—it was 6:25. I’d once read somewhere that most crimes are solved within twenty-four hours after they’re committed and I hoped that every hour that passed without the police showing up made it more likely that they’d never come.
The CD ended and the apartment was suddenly silent. Having an apartment in the back of the building with no street noise was great most of the time, but when you didn’t want to listen to yourself think, the quiet was unbearable. I considered playing another CD, but somehow the idea of listening to more music depressed me. I turned on the TV to some dumb reality dating show just for the comfort of noise.
Not that I really cared, but I looked down the hallway every once in a while, noticing that Rebecca was still in the bathroom. I figured that she was taking one of her annoyingly long baths. She’d done a lot of damage on my credit cards, buying exotic bath soaps and massage oils, and she often hogged the bathroom, taking baths that lasted an hour or longer.
Eventually I heard Rebecca leave the bathroom and go into the bedroom, the odors of whatever shampoos or soaps she’d used seeping into the living room. It was past eight o’clock now, and there was still no sign of the police. As I expected, there was nothing about Ricky’s body being found on the TV news. Even if the police were investigating, the death of a scumbag drug addict wasn’t exactly newsworthy.
I heard a noise to my right and looked over and saw that Rebecca was sauntering into the living room in a black satin nightie.
“I’m sorry,” she said, in a soft, vulnerable voice. “You know I’d never really hurt you, right? I just get upset because I love you so much and I don’t want to lose you. You can understand that, can’t you, baby?”
“Move out in two days,” I said calmly. “Please understand that it’s the best thing for both of us.”
“I’ll be waiting for you in the bedroom,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard me. She popped an Ecstasy tablet into her mouth and swallowed. Then she headed back down the hallway, swinging her hips from side to side in a slow, exaggerated way.
I shut off the TV and lay on the couch, squeezing my thighs together against my hard-on. Then I remembered having lunch with Angie—how normal and right it had felt to be with her. I imagined that we’d gone out for a drink after work and then she’d invited me back to her place. We’d sat on her couch and started making out. Things had progressed and we’d moved to the bedroom, where we’d undressed each other and started making love.
Unconsciously, I had started to masturbate. I continued, pulling down my underwear for easier access, imagining that I was lying on my back and Angie was next to me, taking off her panties. Then she climbed on top of me and I slid into her. She started bouncing
up and down as my hands squeezed her heavy breasts. My hand action quickened as I saw Angie’s face, and then Angie turned into Rebecca. I was getting closer and I wanted to get rid of Rebecca and see Angie again, but then Rebecca became Charlotte. I tried to think about Angie again, but Charlotte was sticking. I could see Charlotte clearly, her tiny breasts in my face. It was too late to stop, and I concentrated on Angie, seeing her again for an instant, and then there was a rapid flux. I was thinking about Angie, Charlotte, Angie, Charlotte, Rebecca, Charlotte—shit—Angie, Charlotte, Angie, Angie, Angie, Angie, then—right as I started to ejaculate— Charlotte.
Miserably, I rubbed the semen onto my leg until it had mostly absorbed. A few minutes later, I was asleep.
8
THE RINGING PHONE jolted me awake. I sat up, disoriented. The lights in the kitchen and in the hallway were still on. The phone rang again as I glanced at my watch: 1:03.
I picked up the phone during the third ring, thinking, Shit, it’s the fucking police. Why did I pick up?
“Hello,” I said wearily.
“David, you gotta come meet me. Right now!”
Charlotte’s annoying, squeaky voice made me wonder if I was having a nightmare. I didn’t say anything, still trying to process what was going on.
“Hello, you there?” Charlotte said.
“I’m here.” Then I thought about Rebecca. “Hold on.”
I left the phone on the couch, hearing Charlotte protesting, “Hey, where’re you going? Get back here!” and then her voice fading to nothing as I headed down the hallway. I opened the door to the bedroom carefully. The room was dark but I could see the shape of Rebecca’s body asleep in bed. I closed the door and returned to the living room, where I could hear Charlotte’s screaming voice still coming through the receiver.
She was saying, “You there? . . . Hello? Hello?”
“Are you crazy?” I said. “Why are you calling me?”
“We gotta talk,” she said. There was background noise—a car honking, Spanish-accented voices.
“Talk about what?” I said.
“Meet me at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge on St. Marks—”
“Tell me—”
“Just meet me at the cocktail lounge—St. Marks and First—”
“Are you out of your mind?” I said. “It’s one in the morning.”
She breathed deeply, then said, “Be there.”
“Charlotte,” I said, but she’d already hung up. I called her back, using the star-69 method, and a guy answered.
“Is Charlotte there?” I asked.
“What?” the guy said.
“Charlotte,” I said. “She has brown hair. She’s very thin.”
“You got a fuckin’ phone booth, man.”
“I know it’s a phone booth. Can you just look around and—”
The guy hung up.
“Fuck,” I said, and slammed the phone down.
I wanted to pull the phone out of the wall and go back to sleep, but I knew that would be a mistake. Charlotte could be trying to scam me again, or something could have gone wrong with the police. Either way, I had to find out what was going on.
I’d fallen asleep in my clothes, so I didn’t have to get dressed. I put on my shoes and jacket and headed out.
On Columbus I hailed a cab downtown. The thought of seeing Charlotte’s face again was making me sick. I wondered if she’d told the police about me and they’d talked her into wearing a wire. I could be walking right into a trap.
The cab sped past Lincoln Center, looped around Columbus Circle, and continued downtown.
I GOT OUT at Second and St. Marks and walked down the block to the Holiday Cocktail Lounge, a dive bar with a metal facade and a black, graffiti-covered awning. Inside, a mix of derelicts and college students trying to look like derelicts were seated at or standing around the horseshoe-shaped bar. The jukebox was cranking “Tangled Up in Blue.”
I didn’t see Charlotte anywhere in the front of the bar; then I went farther inside and saw her seated at one of the booths in the back. I looked around at the only other people nearby— four guys drinking a pitcher of beer at another booth—but they didn’t seem to be paying attention.
I sat across from Charlotte on the red, cracked vinyl cushion. She was visibly agitated—wiping her nose obsessively with the back of her hand, rocking from side to side. She was wearing her old, ripped denim jacket.
“I didn’t think you were gonna show,” she said.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Buy me a drink.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Come on, I need something to calm down with. Just one fuckin’ drink.”
The guys at the other booth started laughing. I looked over at them, then turned back to Charlotte and said, “Are you gonna tell me what’s going on now, or am I gonna go home and get back into bed?”
“We’re in trouble,” she said. “Big trouble.”
“Why’s that?” I wondered where the wire was. On her leg? Her arm?
She reached into the pocket of her jacket and took out three photographs and put them facedown on the table. I didn’t move, getting the sense that I didn’t want to see them.
“Go ahead and look,” she said.
I waited several more seconds, then picked up the photos and stared at the first one. It was difficult to make out, but maybe that was because I was so shocked and wasn’t focusing well. It was actually a very clear picture, considering it was taken at night, showing me leaving Charlotte’s apartment building, carrying Ricky’s body. It took a while to get ahold of myself, and then I looked at the next photo—a head-on shot of the body and me. The third picture was of me leaning the body against the garbage can. Although the pictures were taken from a distance, maybe from across the street, the general features of my face were unmistakable.
I stared at the third picture for a while longer, trying to think of something to say that made sense. The best I could come up with was, “What are these?”
“What do they look like, you idiot?” Charlotte said.
The guys at the other booth were getting up, putting on their jackets.
In a softer voice, almost whispering, I said unsteadily, “I mean, where did they come from? How did you . . . Who took them?”
“Kenny,” she said. “And he said he’s gonna show them to the cops if we don’t pay him off.”
“What?”
“He’s gonna show them to the cops if we don’t give him the money. You deaf or something?”
“Money?” I said, because that was all I’d really heard. “How much money?”
“Twenty thousand bucks.”
I looked at the last picture again, remembering how I’d been so determined to get away that I hadn’t really looked around carefully. Kenny must have been hiding behind a car or a lamppost, or maybe he’d taken the pictures from inside a car.
“What’d you do,” I said, “set this all up when you went out for your fix?”
“Fuck you,” she said.
“What’d you think, I’d fall for this bullshit?”
“I had nothing to do with any of this.”
“And why should I believe a word you say?”
“Because it’s true,” Charlotte said. “I don’t know why Kenny was out there. He must’ve figured it out on his own.”
“He figured out that I’d just happen to be dumping—” I cut myself off and looked around. The guys at the other table were gone, and the nearest people were at the bar, about thirty feet away. “Wild Horses” was much louder than our voices, but I continued whispering anyway. “He figured out that I’d just happen to be out there at four in the morning? Give me a fucking break.”
“Look, I’m telling you the truth—I swear on my grandmother’s grave.” Charlotte crossed herself. “I don’t know how he figured it out, all right? Maybe he saw you and Ricky in the shower.”
“And why did he decide to get his camera?”
“Kenny’s crazy,�
� she said. “He’s always looking to make a buck.”
“And you’re not?”
She gave me a piercing, narrow-eyed stare, then said, “At least I don’t go around killing people.”
She was speaking at a normal level, and “Wild Horses” had ended and someone could have easily heard her. I looked around, trying to be nonchalant, but no one seemed to be eavesdropping. Some grunge song came on—maybe Pearl Jam. An old drunk guy was stumbling toward the bathroom, almost tripping a couple of times, but he didn’t look over.
“You better keep your fucking voice down,” I said.
“We have to give him the money,” Charlotte whispered harshly, “or we’re both fucked.”
I still knew Charlotte and Kenny were working together, but I decided it didn’t matter. The pictures existed and I was being blackmailed—it didn’t really matter who was blackmailing me.
“Why do you care if he goes to the cops?” I said. “You’re not in the pictures.”
“That’s what I told Kenny,” Charlotte said. “But he said if he goes to the cops he’s gonna tell them that he saw Ricky’s body in my apartment. I don’t know, maybe he’s just using me to get to you. How the hell do I know what he’s thinking?”
I picked up the pictures again, looked at each of them for a good five seconds, then ripped them up disgustedly.
“You’re wasting your time,” Charlotte said. “Kenny said he’s got negatives.”
Looking at her face was making me sick. I leaned over the table and rested my head in my hands, kneading my scalp with my fingers. Then I looked up and said, “What happened with the cops?”
“Nothing,” Charlotte said.
“What does nothing mean?” I said. “Did they talk to you or not?”
“Yeah, they talked to me,” she said. “Two cops came to my door and told me Ricky was dead. I pretended I was shocked; then I went down and ID’d him. They asked me if I knew how it happened, some other bullshit, and that was it.”
“Did the cops follow you here?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I just told you, no.”
I glanced toward the bar, where mostly drunk-looking guys sitting alone were nursing drinks. No one was looking at us, but that didn’t mean one of them couldn’t be a cop.
