Lou had picked up immediately. Told me she was sober and tired of it and where did I want to meet her? No, wait, she knew exactly the place: a tonga-hutted skid mark not far from the St. Leo. I met her there, a hole-in-the-wall terror of a tiki bar, walls painted a ghastly labial pink, canned thrums of an absent ukulele clogging the air.
Lou had a knack for finding the last place I’d ever want to go.
Break it up into little pieces, I’d told myself as I was leaving the St. Leo. Call Lou. Figure out the next meetup between Ellen and Klein. I had to make sure there was no way to fuck that up, even if I had to record it myself. And then, a little treat for last: Murder Robert Jackal in his bed.
I’d spent the majority of the ride trying Jackal’s number. The rage boiling inside me had simmered to a slow burn by the time I hit traffic, but my fingernails left dents in the steering wheel.
Blackmail was only as good as its evidence. I knew that. All the research in the world wouldn’t make up for a missed opportunity, and this one had been golden. Without tape, Ellen was a nobody. Another girl who wouldn’t be believed. A fucking nightmare.
I slammed the dashboard with the heel of my hand so hard that by the time I met Lou at the bar, I had a bruise.
Weeks ago, at the start of the job, Lou had passed the Lady’s envelope to me, the one with Klein’s name in it, and I swear, I swear, her eyes had been shining when she’d said: “This should close it, right?” She hadn’t needed to elaborate. We were both keeping track of how much I owed, even if Lou pretended she wasn’t. It was my debt and my problem, but I knew it hung over her, too. It was a secret we shared, even if only one of us was paying for it.
Lou sat at a table uncluttered by other admirers. She was the best-looking woman in the bar—I was big enough to admit that. She was one of those beautiful women who never took much care of her face at all; the humidity had caused her mascara to bloom under her eyes, and her bright copper hair was damp at the temples. The heat had softened her like warmed chocolate.
Here’s my idea of a good bar: a clean, ill-lighted space. No pink drinks. No hula statuettes. Certainly no dangling stuffed parrots strangled by fairy lights. But this bar had Lou. She looked up, smiled. The drink in front of her was so orange it glowed, turning the underside of her chin the color of a sunrise. It looked like the sort of drink that made you hug strangers before you hugged a toilet.
“Is it spring break already?” I slid into the seat across from her, catching the glass with the tip of my finger and stealing a sip from her straw. An explosion of sugar and foam and one sickly zing of rum down my throat. I grimaced, and Lou laughed.
“For six dollars a pop, you can rewire your palate,” she said, grabbing the little purple umbrella from the glass and tucking it behind my ear. I brushed the garnish out of my hair and onto the floor. Lou laughed again, a full-throated sound. I could feel the disappointment and panic still tugging at me, but it was easier to ignore now, as though one sip of her cocktail had washed the taste of Robert Jackal’s failings right out of my mouth.
“I ordered you the Bombs Away,” Lou said. “Since we’re celebrating.”
Celebrating. Right. “Oh, you ordered for me.”
“You’ll like it.”
“You know what I’d say to Jackal if he decided what I’d have without asking?”
Lou dimpled. “I have some idea. You’ll drink it because I’m buying.” She took another sip. “You like the place?”
Behind Lou, some kid at the jukebox threw on a classic rock song popular at least a decade before he was born, and the carved wooden hula dancer in the corner swayed offbeat. Every time someone ordered one of the specialty cocktails—Enjoy Our Blasted Good Bikini Atoll!, a Jäger bomb in the center of a lake of curaçao—a cardboard volcano spewed tissue-paper lava and cardboard people at its base shook and danced.
“Hate it,” I said.
“You never like anything I like!”
“I don’t think that’s true. It’s just that I have better taste in most things.”
Lou arched an eyebrow. “Robert?”
“Most things.”
A briny waitress plopped a disturbingly pink mug in front of me, a wilted purple flower starting to capsize in its frothy depths. “Bombs Away,” she said with a smoker’s rasp. I crinkled my nose and looked up at Lou skeptically, but she was crackling with delight, waiting to see if I’d actually drink it. I sniffed it—grapefruit and something that made my tongue curl. I took a sip: mezcal. Smoky and bitter and juicy.
“Not bad,” I said to Lou.
“See? I know you better than you think.” Lou reached out with one finger and gently tapped the corner of my mouth with her nail. A bead of sweat rolled along the inside of my knee, tickling. “Is that a new lipstick? No need to dress up for little ol’ me.” Lou cracked that lopsided grin, and her hand went back to her drink. A little red smudge lingered on it, then on the glass.
I resisted the urge to swipe at my lips. “I might be paying Jackal a visit later.” And it was true, I might do that. There were many things I might do later that evening.
“I don’t know if that means he’s a lucky man or a very unlucky one.”
“Somebody’s gotta keep him in line.”
Lou chuckled a little. “Always a thing for the bad boys,” she teased.
“What use do either of us have for boys?”
Lou smiled at me, her face glowing. “So? How did it go with Klein? Tell me, tell me.”
Jackal didn’t show, that’s how it went. “He’s rough with her,” I said. Trying to think up the best way to break the bad news.
Lou lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. But her eyes were still twinkling, so I knew it was a challenge, not a letdown. “Bor-ing. Besides, that can be fun.”
I took another sip of my drink—going down easier all the time. “Not when you’re the man who’s made a living as the kindly cardiganed grandfather of Hollywood.”
It was a thing Lou had taught me to do well: walk through the pitch ahead of time. So you’ve got pictures of me naked with some broad. What do I care? Let ’em see. You always had to have an answer. Besides recruiting and training the girls, it was the most important part of my job: crafting the pitch for maximum payout. And for Klein, I had the pitch down pat. Just no pictures. Yet.
Lou nodded her approval, drumming her nails on the bar. “It might not ruin him,” she said, thinking her way through it, “but it’ll mean he has to reinvent himself. And that could take years. He’s, what—sixty-five?” I nodded, and Lou’s nose crinkled, making the smattering of freckles across her nose dance. “I’m willing to bet he doesn’t think he’s got those years to waste. Oh, good work, my love.” I choked on my drink, and Lou went on like she hadn’t noticed: “This will set her mind at ease.”
She didn’t have to specify who.
I’d pestered Lou for years about details on the Lady Upstairs, the faceless woman who handed down our orders on the marks, and our paychecks. But there was a reason Lou was the only one who dealt with her directly. Even loaded, she was the soul of discretion. She never leaked any details, no matter how many drinks I poured her.
Jackal told me once he thought the Lady Upstairs was a retired movie star. I figured she was married to one of the old families of Los Angeles, those scions established a generation or two ago. She clearly had access to people with money. Maybe she wasn’t even a she at all. Except too many of the marks, the names funneled to Lou and me in white envelopes, were bad men—cheaters, assholes, men who never heard a no. They weren’t exclusively the men we targeted, but it was more than a passing coincidence. And I could understand why. Any woman could. I couldn’t imagine a man sharing that vendetta.
But knowing the Lady had a personal hatred for bad men with money didn’t really narrow the field.
I took a moment to wipe my chin with a tiny damp cocktail napkin. “Set her mind at ease?”
Lou stamped wet circles in the grain of the wood table with the bottom of her glass and didn’t meet my eyes. “I didn’t want to worry you. She told me— Anyway, it doesn’t matter since you’ll have the money tomorrow.” Lou grinned at me, her dimples flexing.
I gulped the drink, wishing Lou had made it a double. I’d never had much of a poker face. My mother had always been able to tell when I was fibbing or upset—she said I looked like I’d swallowed my heart, exactly that phrase. Since my time as one of the Lady’s girls, I thought I’d gotten better at hiding it, but Lou noticed. Lou always noticed. “What exactly did the Lady tell you?” I asked.
“What’s wrong? You will have the money tomorrow, won’t you?”
“By the end of the week,” I said, trying to sound confident. It didn’t convince either of us. “An equipment malfunction,” I said. I didn’t want to rat on Jackal, even as pissed as I was. “This time next week, we’ll be laughing at him.” I took another gulp of the drink and dared a glance at Lou’s face. She was staring at me like she’d didn’t understand what I was saying. I charged ahead. “I don’t know what the big deal is, one more week when it’s been three years—”
“Stop,” Lou said. The fan above her churned hot air vigorously enough that little auburn strands undulated above her head. She was staring past me, and her eyes had gone glassy and dark.
In all the scenarios I’d imagined on the drive over, I’d pictured Lou irritated—pissed, more likely—but I’d also figured we’d talk it through together. Work out a new plan.
I’d never imagined the look on her face now.
“I know it’s not ideal,” I started to say, but Lou cut me off.
“The Lady wants to retire you,” she said.
The sound that came out of me was between a cough and a laugh. “Yeah, sure,” I said. “What sort of 401(k) is she offering?”
Lou’s mouth was a tight, flat line. She reached for her purse and snapped it open. I watched her pull out everything inside—wallet, tampons, bullets and bullets of lipstick, even a piece of hard candy crushed into a thousand twinkling shards like a tiny butterscotch galaxy. Finally, she found her cigarette case and used trembling fingers to light up. It took her two tries.
She was scared, I realized. Lou was scared. I’d never seen it before.
“Come on, it can’t be that bad—”
“What do you think, Jo, the Lady sends us off with a tidy severance package when things ‘no longer work out’?” Lou gestured with her cigarette, and embers hopped onto the table where they flared and died. “Do you think girls like us get to go live quietly after this, dreaming of our wayward youth? Knowing what we know?” Lou shivered. It was infectious.
My head filled with water, like a kiddie pool inflating. A half-submerged memory, from my early days with the Lady: a woman, one of the Lady’s runners, who’d dropped items from the Lady to Lou. She’d always stopped by Jackal’s office, where she paused too long, laughing at his jokes, her mouth sticky like red vinyl, training her breasts on him like a sniper. We’d started up by then, but I wasn’t jealous. I’d never be her, I thought, not with Jackal—my favorite thing about the man was that he didn’t make me preen for his attention. But their familiarity had its own intensity, too, and I’d understood that he meant something to her—or maybe that she was trying to mean something to him. And then one day I realized I hadn’t seen her around for weeks. I’d asked Lou, and she’d shrugged me off with some half-baked answer, some don’t worry about it bullshit. I’d been dumb enough that I hadn’t.
“She’s done this before?” It was only half a question. “That woman. Jackal’s ex. The Lady dealt with her, too?”
Lou stubbed out what remained of her cigarette. She didn’t meet my eyes. Finally, she said, “Unpleasant business. Jackal understood.”
I imagined that slick red mouth opened wide in a scream of terror, and I shuddered. So Jackal didn’t mind that his workplace paramours had a shelf life. For all his assurances this morning, none of it had been as important as whatever shiny object had distracted him. The chills started in the pit of my stomach and moved up my spine to my scalp. “What do I do?”
“I’ll talk to her,” she said. “I’ll beg her. But it has to be this week, Jo. The money this week or”—she licked her lips and her eyes were pleading—“you’ll have to leave Los Angeles. For your own good.”
I gripped the edge of the table, trying to think. The ancient mariner of a waitress popped her head over Lou’s shoulder to check on our drinks. Neither of us said anything. Eventually she got the memo and moved on.
Once we were alone, I promised Lou: “By the end of the week.” She nodded and grabbed both my hands in hers, squeezing tight.
I didn’t tell Lou the thing I’d noticed in Ellen, that Klein was more than a job to her now. It was our one unbreakable rule for the girls: don’t get attached; never lose yourself in someone else. Once you developed feelings for the mark, you couldn’t do your job. You couldn’t see clearly, once you were attached. I should’ve told Lou then, but I had bigger concerns. So I was worried about Ellen, but not the way I should’ve been. I’d find a way to handle it, I told myself.
“I hope so,” Lou said. “For both our sakes—I hope so.”
The thing I wanted to say then, but didn’t, was: Lou, what we did all those years ago—we did together. I took the fall and I owe the Lady and it’s my ass on the line, but it was as much you as it was me. But I didn’t say it. I wasn’t even sure I believed it—that what had happened was as much Lou’s fault as mine.
The glow of the evening had been ruined, and no matter how many of the Bombs Away I gulped, it couldn’t quite lose its tarnish. By the time we decided to go home, get some rest, we were chattering about the usual things, both of us working hard to pretend nothing important had happened.
Lou leaned in to give me a hug as we reached her ride, and I could smell the lemon scent of her hair, her neck. I let go as soon as I could, but Lou clutched me tight. But when she broke the hug, her face was wiped clean of fear like it had never even existed.
“Headed home?” I asked, trying to ignore the feel of her still lingering in my arms.
Lou winked at me and turned away. “Tell Jackal I said hello,” Lou called over her shoulder, her flinty grin a little cut beneath my breastbone.
“I don’t think we’ll have time to talk about you at all,” I managed, feeling glad to see her go so I could process the Lady’s threat on my own—even if it meant losing the plugged-in zip of her presence, of watching her face as I made her laugh.
At the last possible moment, I reached for her hand but caught only air and told myself it was for the best.
Jackal kept a key taped to the back of the fire extinguisher outside his apartment door, snuggled against the dry and gummy cobwebs that crisscrossed the back of the box. He trusted too much in the laziness of other people; it was a hiding place that would stop a determined thief for all of thirty seconds.
The apartment was still hot from the day, clammy almost, if walls can be clammy. I could hear the whirr-buzz of Jackal’s air unit propped inside his bedroom window. I knew his place almost as well as my own. But I didn’t want it to feel like mine. I didn’t want anything of his to feel like mine.
I crept through his house on unsteady feet shucked of shoes. A small but tidy apartment. No stacks of books. Carpet always freshly vacuumed. He hired a maid to come in and clean everything twice a week, but that was never enough; he couldn’t go to sleep unless he’d wiped down the counters and cleaned every dish. But the ceiling was pocked with asbestos and the tiles beneath the sink were mushy. Jackal was all freshly closed seams and tight corners, as though that could hide the rot underneath.
Robert Jackal: inveterate gambler, enforcer, and photog for the Lady, sometime paramour to me and any other disposable dark-haired vixen who strolled through the office.
I slipped through his foyer, past his kitchen, which smelled of lemons, like Lou’s hair, and into his bedroom. Jackal’s bedspread was tugged down to his waist. Wiry black chest hair rose and sank with each breath. I wondered how far down his body that naked went. I stood in the doorway for a moment, carpet swaying beneath me like a choppy sea.
It disarmed me to watch him sleep. Those shoulders I knew so well, pocked with glowing half-moon reminders of me, his dark lashes fluttering as he dreamt. Staring at him, I thought there weren’t enough words in the dictionary for the things we were—not friends, lovers certainly, but something and nothing more, too. And then he stirred and frowned, a dark lock of hair falling over his perfect face, and the anger took root.
I wanted to slap him awake. I leaned down and pressed a kiss lightly to the corner of his mouth. He grunted and twitched but didn’t wake up. I slipped my pantyhose down but left the dress on. In the dark, the gray-green of his sheets looked like swamp water. I eased back his covers and sat on top of him. Jackal’s eyelids fluttered. He started to sit up and I pressed him back down, moving a knee over his most sensitive part as I dragged my nails around the edges of his jaw. I wanted to scrape him raw and eat the leftover bits.
He looked at me, groggy still, and opened his mouth to say something, but I leaned down and cupped my hands over his eyes, pressing gently at first and then harder when I could feel his eyelashes flickering back and forth. I kissed my way down his chest, stopping to tease his nipples first with my tongue and then my teeth, tugging until he yelped. I brought my mouth to his face and bit down on his lips. The mood I was in, I could rip one off and not notice. Farewell to that lovely face.
He tasted like night sweats and nicotine, and I could almost detect the tangy smell of well-handled cash, which gave me a clue where he’d been when he was supposed to be with me. I pressed down harder on his eyes. I imagined sliding my fingernails into his green circles. Jackal let out a strangled sigh. I wondered if he knew what I’d been dreaming of, but I slipped him into me so easily. One hand drifted up, reaching for me. I let his thumb hollow out in my collarbone, pressing hard enough to feel a sharp crack under my skin. He tried to bring his other hand to the back of my neck, bend me over him, but I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t want any sort of affection from him tonight.
I rocked on him, clamping my thighs against his ribs, until I could feel the old familiar sparks moving from my toes to my scalp. I didn’t want to see his face, so I pressed it away from me, cranking his head into the pillow until he grunted in pain. I liked the feel of him underneath my hands, and I wished they were larger, like a man’s, so I could really hurt him. I imagined him panicked and trying not to show me, wondering what I would do to him, how far I was going to take this, and it sent me over the edge.
As I came, I bit his thumb hard enough to draw blood. I could tell that he was close, too, by the hitch in his breathing, but there had to be some sort of punishment for standing me up at the St. Leo, so I slid off him with no warning. He gazed up at me, pumping recklessly for a moment, mouth gaping like a fish. I leaned down and slapped him, once, twice, until I could see my hand’s red shadow on his face.
“Listen to me,” I hissed. “I don’t care where the hell you were or who you were with, but you better thank your lucky goddamn stars I convinced Ellen to see Klein again. If you fuck that one up for me, I’ll do worse than this, understand?” He blinked up at me, mute, and I felt a rush of hatred. I wasn’t sure if it was for him or myself or both of us.
I gathered my stockings and swayed unsteadily out of his bedroom into the kitchen, where the lemon smell was making me dizzy. It followed me all the way back to my car and into my own bed and even, it seemed, my own dreams.