by David Cole
“In a way.”
“What if I don’t want the contract?”
“You just don’t.”
“But I’m going to lose out on something, right?” He shrugged. “What?”
Don folded his hands in his lap. Looked me in the eye. Said nothing more. Knew that was the only way to really bait the hook, to get me back. I had no reason at all to want to go back to hacking, other than occasional, small-time jobs where I had absolutely no contact with the client.
I had bank accounts totaling in the high six figures. All cash. I got steady, monthly, large payments from the company, wired electronically and randomly to one of those bank accounts. I didn’t need money. I didn’t even think I needed to be juiced by the game. A good part of me never wanted to be juiced again. In four years, four contracts had ended with at least one person dead. Several of them right in front of my eyes. I’d shot people. Although I now owned several handguns, I never wanted to shoot anybody again unless my life depended on it.
“She asked for you, Laura.”
“Oh, you bastard,” I said.
But he’d set the hook. I thought about all those packed cardboard boxes, stacked haphazardly, waiting to be taped up or flung into a dumpster. I went inside the house, got a plate of green grapes, brought them out. Don shook his head. I ate fifteen grapes. I got up again, went inside again, went from room to room, looking at all I possessed, all I wanted to throw away, all I wanted to change.
“I’d be working only with you?”
“No.”
“Pass.”
“Not working in the office,” he said. “That’s what I meant. I’m in the office. I’m too tired to get out, you know that.”
“So. By myself, then.”
“Didn’t say that, either.”
“You know I don’t like working with strangers.”
“I vouch for him.”
“Oh, gee, Don.”
“He’s been working with me for three months. He’s part of the package.”
“Why?”
“Used to work for the Arizona Prison CIU. Investigator. He knows the different complexes. He knows Florence. Use to work up there.”
“Pass.”
“He’s also a U.S. Marshal. Nathan Brittles.”
“You gotta be kidding me,” I said.
“You know him?”
“John Wayne. Played somebody named Brittles. Cavalry officer. I can’t remember which film.”
“Well, this guy’s legit. I checked him out.”
“Brittles,” I said to myself.
“Good man. He just doesn’t know computers.”
“Why does he work for you?”
“He knows security.”
Rich came through the front door just at that moment, stopped dead still when he saw me. I’d never talked about Don, never talked about computers or the Internet or hacking or my friend Meg’s kidnapping or all those people I’d watched die. He smiled his gentle smile, came over to rub my nose, but I turned away from him and went back outside, standing in front of Don. He already had his hands on the wheelchair brakes, unlocking them. Wanting to leave, he only waited for me to swallow the hook or swim away. Bye bye.
“Okay,” I said. “What’s next?”
6
I watched Don lower the wheelchair ramp of his van and roll onto it. The ramp rose, the panel doors slid shut. Through the passenger-side door I could see him levering himself into the driver’s seat. When he saw me watching, he waved me over.
“One more thing. I should have said how soon it’s gotta go down.”
“You want me to drive up to Phoenix tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” He shifted into Drive. “Somebody will get you in an hour.”
The van moved slowly around the twin palo verdes near the front door, dust rising from the crushed shell and rock driveway, and the van quickly accelerated and turned onto the paved street.
“You going to do it?”
Rich stood several feet behind me, startling me. I moved to him, but he stepped aside, careful not to touch any part of my body. Sadness, frustration, anger, I couldn’t tell what he was feeling. I went to the fridge and got out some Gatorade.
“Maybe.”
“Like, maybe you’ll dump those cartons of junk?”
“Or not.”
He went outside, stood underneath the thatched ramada, his back to me.
“Rich. I don’t know. Okay?”
“Is it something ordinary?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“He said enough.”
“You were listening?”
“Some.”
He gathered his long hair, rolling it around and around, finally pulling out a thick rubber band and fastening the ponytail so it hung down to his shoulder blades. “You want to talk about it?”
I really didn’t want to talk about it.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“It. Them. The things you do. Not that I really know the things you do.”
“Did.”
“Okay, the things you did. The things that got you wound so tight you were snorting Ritalin when I met you. You want to go back to that? Back to…it?”
“I never thought about it until today.”
“What about your life here?”
“With you?” I said, touching his arm, holding it with both hands.
“It’s not about me. You’re relaxed, Laura. I’ve never asked what you used to do, I never cared what you used to do. I’ve never read your papers, I’ve never snooped on your computer, I’ve never even asked why you don’t touch your computer for days. I don’t care about that stuff.”
“Going back,” I said. “It wouldn’t be anything I haven’t done before. Are you worried that somehow I’ll go back to a job and go away from you?”
“Are you healthy enough?”
“Excuse me?”
“Capable.”
“Say what?”
“You were on the ragged edge when I met you, Laura. Like that song. Alanis Morrisette. You were on a bunch of jagged little pills, you ground them up, you snorted them, you snorted a lot of them. Are you going back to that?”
“You want me to stay? Here?”
“With me, you mean.”
“Stay with you,” I said, a little too slow and deliberate. “Yes. Stay. Not take this…job, whatever. Just continue like we’re doing? Is that what you want?”
“Laura. I just want you to stay healthy.”
“You mean, emotionally healthy,” I said bitterly.
“Dammit, I mean stay the way you are now. For your sake. I don’t care about us as much as I care that you don’t go back to whatever work you used to do. I’ve seen you come away from that work.”
“It’s only one job.”
“Right.” I’d never seen him so angry. Rarely angry, that’s my Rich. “Whatever.”
“Rich. I think I need to do just one more small job. I need to make sure I can leave it after one more job. Leave it. Junk it, can it, walk away from the life.”
“The life?” He was appalled. “You mean, like, The Life? You were in The Life?”
“Jesus Christ!” Now I was angry. “If you’re saying I was a working girl, if you’re saying I was a whore, that’s ridiculous.”
“Whatever it was, Laura, you could walk away from it now. Other people move on.”
“Rich,” I said. “What’s your bottom line here?”
“When I told you I never checked your computers, your private stuff, I mostly meant that. Except. The first two months after I met you, I’d check out your bathroom, your bedside, wherever I thought you might be hiding that Ritalin. I can’t go back to doing that, Laura.”
“That’ll never happen again.”
“My sister,” he said. “She drank. A lot. When I was a teenager, mom and I would search the entire house, looking for my sister’s booze. No matter how much we poured down the toilet, she’d always find more. No matter how many times she’d promis
e the boozing was over, it never ended. Never. I can’t go through that again. I shouldn’t even talk about it. I forgot about it for some years now.”
“Just this one more job, Rich. I promise.”
“Yeah. You promise. I’ve got to get going.”
Buzzing, somewhere, a drone, getting louder.
“What the hell is that?” Rich said, angry we’d been interrupted.
I knew that whopwhopwhop sound and a minute later a small Bell helicopter flew twenty feet over the house and settled into the desert lot across the street. The pilot kept the blades rotating as somebody jumped out of the left seat and came toward us.
“Fuck this,” Rich said, picking up his forensic tool kit.
“We’ll talk later.”
“I could be up in Coolidge for days. Maybe I’ll get a motel room there.”
The man from the chopper loped up the driveway, saw me at the door. “Mrs. Burdick?”
How like Don to keep names and titles secret from people he’d hired for a job but whom he didn’t trust.
“Yes.”
“When you’re quite ready.”
“I’ll need some clothes,” I said to the pilot. “Five minutes.”
When he left, Rich set his forensic tool kit in the middle of the floor and walked around and around it. Not a good sign, since he only traveled in circles when he was so angry he didn’t trust himself to head straight out anywhere.
“I’ve got to do this,” I said, getting angrier with each of his circles.
“No, you don’t!” he shouted.
“What?”
“You just stay here. You just chill, I’ll come back tonight.”
“Not this girl,” I said. “You must be talking about one of those horny little undergraduates you said always want to see your bones.”
I put on some Mad Squirrel, amped the stereo to max.
“Turn that crap off!” he shouted.
Why’d you have to go and say that?
Now all these people gonna think I’m a bitch
But now I’m pissed off and don’t give a shit
You can fuck a freshman if that’s your go
But don’t think you gettin’ in this ass no mo.
Rich picked up the stereo, ripped off the speaker cables, and smashed the hard metal case against the floor. He stood back suddenly, afraid of what he’d done so unconsciously, awed by his anger. Palms up, arms out, pleading for my forgiveness in the total silence of the room, even the birds and insects frightened away by the noise.
Rich strode angrily to his pickup, ground the starter.
When I came back out, after locking the door and getting into the chopper, we rose above the road, and before the chopper headed north I could see Rich’s pickup, swerving around and around on the desert floor, driving in ever widening circles, and long after his pickup lurched off to the west I could see a tall, thin cloud of dust motes lingering in that spiral of uncertainty.
revelations
The black Lincoln Town Car arrived promptly at four-fifteen.
Exactly as promised.
Yayo saw the dust trail when it came through the Rapture Warriors main gate. She stopped pacing, wrapped both hands around the woven silk handles of her Takashimaya shopping bag, stood absolutely straight up, pushing her shoulders back to relieve neck tension due to anticipation. Finally squaring the shoulders, she wondered, if she held them back, whether her small breasts would show better. But because she was wearing a XXL tee shirt on her small-boned body, nobody would be able to tell about the breasts, so she just waited until the Lincoln pulled up beside her and an immaculately tailored and groomed chauffeur came briskly around from the driver’s side to open the rear door for her.
“Miss Yayo,” he said, unsmiling, precise.
“Arrigato,” she said, making a slight bow, wondering how Japanese she should be with him, wondering if he reported on her behavior. She spoke perfect Japanese. Tokyo born and Kyoto raised by a geisha mother, now in the U.S. for just two months of her sixteen years. Knew how to please men, knew which men not to please, knew the chauffeur wasn’t important, swung her legs easily into the backseat, knees and ankles pressed together as though she were wearing a geisha’s kimono instead of the jeans.
“I’ll take that, Miss Yayo.”
He held out a gloved hand, pointing at her bag.
“These are my things. From the camp.”
“Yes, Miss Yayo.”
She hooked the twined handles around his glove. He shut her door with a solid clunk, walked briskly to a large trash receptacle, and dumped the bag into it.
“Those are my things,” she protested.
“Tamár has all new things for you.”
“Are you taking me to meet her?”
“Of course. Fasten your seatbelt, please.”
He drove in through Oro Valley, swinging along Sunrise Highway to the canyoned foothill area of rich Tucson. She sat without moving, content to look, head moving slowly, elegantly from side to side as different homes caught her eye. The limo turned into a gated community, the security box barrier raised so quickly the limo barely slowed.
The Lincoln wound easily along the curved street, heavily and expensively landscaped. Thirty-foot high mesquites, carefully planted palo verde trees, and many different shrubs, mingling with an occasional saguaro left where it had grown for decades, protected by state law against removal.
“Here we are,” the driver said.
Yayo had expected a mansion, a palace in this summer land, but the Lincoln turned onto a driveway of crushed coral and up a long, winding hill to an ordinary one-story house. She unclipped her seatbelt, expecting to be let off at the front door, but the driver pressed a garage-door opener in the sun visor, waited for the door to rise, and drove the Lincoln inside.
Eager, excited, more than a little bit anxious, Yayo started to get out of the Lincoln, but the driver was already coming around to help her. When the garage door closed, banks of indirect lighting came on. He held a gloved hand to assist her out of the Lincoln. She expected to see a small door from garage to house, was startled to find one entire side of the garage had been decorated as though it were the front of the house. Elaborate golden carriage lamps on either side of a huge double door, knobs of fourteen-carat gold in the absolute dead centers of both doors. There were no visible locks. The driver motioned her toward the door. Standing in front of it, looking for a bell, she gasped as the doors swung inward.
A tall, beautiful woman stood there. Wearing a short-sleeved blouse in a blue paisley print, with a sheer bodice, fluttery collar and sleeves, and lace inserts at the Empire waist above a slim inch or two of bare skin. Stonewashed indigo blue denim skirt, slit up the front, and indigo Manolo Blahniks.
“Welcome,” she said in a modulated English accent. “Do come in.”
“Are you Tamár?”
“Tamár, yes.”
“I wanted to have better clothes. I look awful.”
“We’ve got plenty of nice clothes for you in a few moments. But business first. Let’s have some tea. I’ve oodles of different teas. What is your favorite?”
She adjusted a perfect faded green celadon teapot, opening a large box with packets of tea leaves. Yayo chose a green tea and Tamár put it in a silver tea strainer, pouring hot water into the teapot from a silvered pitcher, and offering Yayo her choice from a delicate china platter carefully arranged with ginger cookies.
“Digestives,” Tamár said. “I much prefer the chocolate ones. Do you?”
“Arrigato gozaimus,” Yayo said, teacup in hand, unable to bow, so she cast her eyes down, head forward and back in one gracious movement.
“I don’t doubt your ability to speak Japanese,” Tamár said. “It’s your English that the men desire. And I also. How is your English?”
She handed Yayo a Newsweek magazine, folded to a page.
“‘Top of the Week.’” Yayo read carefully, not too fast, not too loud. “‘Cover Story. With a blunt tough-love m
essage that says we have to stop complaining and take responsibility for our lives, Dr. Phil McGraw has become America’s hottest self-help guru.’”
“Good, except…the men will want that quality you Japanese women have, the voice pitched up, a bit of singsong, that clear indication that Men Rule. Now. Read it again. Your natural voice. A bit of insistence. A certain quality, let’s call it Women Rule.”
Yayo faltered with the first words. Eyes lowered, she stopped, but didn’t look up, began again, and gained enough confidence halfway through to raise her head and eyes to deliver the last words directly at Tamár, who smiled and clapped her satisfaction.
“I’m told you are sixteen,” she said.
“And two months.”
“Are you a virgin?”
“No.”
“Good. You’re too old for that market. Now. Come over here.”
She crossed the room to an antique desk, took out a book. Yayo tried to comprehend the shape of the house, where the bedrooms were, confused that no kitchen seemed evident, even more confused that the expansive living room, on three levels, seemed to have no doors except the ones through which she’d entered. Tamár sat on a long sofa, watching Yayo for a moment.
“In good time, my dear. Look at the pictures.”
Yayo opened a large photo album, the chrysanthemum-color covers of heavy leather, with a dozen soft leather tabs.
“I thought I would be working here,” Yayo said.
“You’ll start here. Let me explain how the Circuit works. This book shows thirteen other houses, just like this one. Like mine. You’ll see pictures of all the other houses in that book. Each house has its own manager. Like me.”
“I thought…” Yayo hesitated.
“You thought?”
“That you were in charge. That this was the only house.”
“Women need to protect themselves from those men who usually manage working girls. Women need to organize. As women. Cut out those men, those pimps who take your money. The Circuit started at least sixty years ago. Now we have so many houses that we’ve regionalized. You’re looking at the Southwest Circuit. Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, California. For the first year or so, you’ll be moving between houses in the Southwest.”
She paused to pour Yayo more tea.
