The twenty-four hours waiting to meet Carrigan were torture. If I could’ve, I’d have spent the night at the tiki bar so I could make sure I didn’t miss him. When the time came, he was early to meet me, but by then, I’d been waiting nearly an hour.
Only a handful of patrons sat at the half-moon tables, where germy little handfuls of stale pretzels and peanuts floated in faux-coconut shells next to Technicolor-disaster cocktails. The bar didn’t have the same luster as the last time I’d been there with Lou. Now, the ugly décor—the browned and splotched wood of the floor and the exposed beams, the lumpy clientele—was just ugly, not charmingly so. Jo will tell me she hates this bar, but I bet she loves it. She’d been wrong, for once. It wasn’t the bar I loved.
For the occasion, I’d dressed up: tight black dress that hugged my ass and hips, stilettos, red lipstick. The shoes pinched my toes and the patent leather was scraped in places, but I liked the inches they added to my stems when I crossed my legs. A moneyed woman, I’d thought, looking in the mirror before I left. I’d taken a picture and sent it to Jackal, who sent me back only a full row of dollar-bill signs.
In the movies, Carrigan would’ve been carrying something ridiculous, like a suitcase weighted down with gold bars. Instead, when he sat down next to me, his expression permanently pickled, he threw a large envelope onto the table in front of me.
“Half cash and a cashier’s check,” he said by way of greeting. I clawed it open and the sight almost took my breath away: bundles of rubber-banded bills nestled alongside a long white check that might as well have been made out to Freedom instead of Cash. “Where are my photos?”
Wordlessly, I slid my own envelope across the table. I watched his face while he went through the photos, keeping the manila folder tight against his chest, as though everyone in the bar were dying to see them. It took a while. Jackal shot more than he needed to, strictly speaking. Finally, Carrigan folded the envelope in half twice, not carefully, the bump of the USB drive visible through the paper, and shoved the entire packet into his briefcase. I wasn’t sorry to see them go.
When Carrigan looked up, he caught my eye and glared at me. “Why are you staring?”
“You look different with your clothes on.”
“Fuck you,” he said. “You don’t have to enjoy it so much.” He studied me for a second. “There wasn’t even really an abusive ex-boyfriend, was there?”
I ignored him. “I ordered champagne for the occasion. Well, it’s sparkling wine, not champagne. But it’ll do. I’ll even buy.”
“I might as well order the bottle then,” he snapped, “if you’re paying with my money.”
“Whatever you want.” I could afford to be generous.
In the end, he settled on a ginger ale. I was surprised he’d even bothered to order a drink. I’d expected him to drop the money and bail, threaten to hunt me down, make me pay. Instead, he studied the menu like we were on a date, glaring at the cream-colored card. Once his order had been taken, he rubbed his hands across his face. “How did you ever get mixed up in something like this?”
“I would’ve expected you, of all people, to know.”
The waitress brought my champagne in a little saucer, and I held it up to the candle in the center of our table, flickering through a red glass votive. I twirled the golden juice back and forth, admired the slim line of my wrist and my long nails, now painted blue, in the light. I took a sip. It stuck in my mouth like honey.
“The hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean,” I said, “when did you find out your wife’s last name?”
“Jesus H., you miserable—”
“First date? Third date? Before you got her number?”
Carrigan was silent for a long time. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Of course not. I only used you for a week, not your whole life. Do me a favor, stop pretending that last name is a burden to you.”
Carrigan’s mouth opened, and whatever he was going to say was going to be nasty, delightfully so, but I held up a hand.
“Besides,” I said, taking another sip of the sparkling wine, letting the bubbles fill my mouth and float all the way to my nose, “you should be grateful. Now you get to feel angry instead of feeling guilty.”
Carrigan’s face was very sour. “You took a helluva chance I didn’t turn you over to the police.”
“Not really. But if you like, I can pretend to be scared of you. You seem to want it so bad.”
“I won’t forget about this,” Carrigan said, trying to make it a threat as he stood up from the table. He threw down a few dollars. The edge of one caught the lip of my champagne saucer, and I left it dangling there as I took another sip, smiling up at him. If he was trying to make me feel cheap, it didn’t work. Nothing could.
“No,” I said, “I wouldn’t expect you to.”
“You really would’ve used those photographs? With your face all over them? You really would’ve sent them to the paper?”
He was looking for a moment of softness from me, some trace of the woman he thought he’d been fucking.
“What do you think?” I said.
The last I saw of him was the line of his shoulders moving for the door. Back to the wife. Maybe this would be a lesson for him. Maybe he’d learn not to go sniffing after strange women to feel like a hero. Maybe he’d go back to that strong wife of his and appreciate her more now. Or maybe he’d learned nothing at all.
I stayed at the bar for another drink or two, watching the clientele get sloshed and then soaked. This time tomorrow, Jackal would be on his way to his new life—whatever that was.
Before I’d left to meet Carrigan, Jackal had suggested one last goodbye drink. I’d told him no, I’d drop the money off in the morning—“What, a lovers’ goodbye? You must be thinking of some other woman”—but now I found myself dialing Jackal’s number. “I changed my mind. I do want that drink.”
“You always do.”
“Meet me at my place? Bring something.”
There was a pause. “You don’t want to go anywhere?”
“Not gin,” I said. “Something expensive. Come soon.” I hung up.
When Jackal rang my doorbell, he was carrying two nice bottles of pinot noir and an overstuffed file folder of the photographs. “I know you don’t drink white,” he said.
“Good boy,” I said, tucking the prints under my arm. Jackal made a face. I found us two glasses, and then changed my mind, uncorking them both and handing him one of the bottles. He sat down on my couch and started to drink. I put his cut on the table, and he counted it there, his mouth moving with the numbers.
I flipped through the photographs while Jackal drank. I had to admit, he was more than competent at his job: I recognized a judge with a girl who looked underage but wasn’t, a famous tennis player with a woman old enough to be his grandmother, and pictures of Lou from every angle, sometimes with the girls, sometimes waiting in the lobby of the hotel, plenty of her in the office. But no pictures of me.
“I’m not in any of these,” I said. Jackal didn’t say anything. When I looked over, his eyes were closed and his head was slumped against the back seat of the couch. “Jackal. Where are the photographs with me in them?”
“There aren’t any.”
“What?” I sat up. “Are you trying to pull something on me here? Come back in two months, looking for another score when you blow through this cash?”
Jackal crooked one eye open. “Jesus Christ, Jo,” he said. “There aren’t any of you because I deleted them. From the SIM card, anywhere. Nothing to tie you to the business. In case.”
“In case what?”
“In case you changed your mind,” he clarified. “If you wanted to come with me. Or even if you changed your mind one day without me.” He put a hand over his eyes.
“Oh,” I said, not sure what to say. I stared at the photographs in my lap. “That’s . . . well. Thank you. I don’t need it, but . . . thank you.”
Jackal shrugged, eyes still closed.
“When will you leave?” I asked him, reaching out and touching his thigh. Even now, drinking red from a bottle on my couch, Jackal was dressed in a nice button-down shirt, slacks, dress shoes. If I hadn’t seen differently myself, I would believe that’s what he slept in.
“Tonight,” he said, and then took another slug from the bottle. He patted the couch next to him, and I scooched closer, putting my feet into his lap.
“That soon,” I said.
“Are you asking me to spend the night?” He popped my right heel out of the shoe, began to massage my foot before sliding the stiletto all the way off.
“No,” I said, “I am not.”
Jackal uncased my other foot, and I beat time on his thighs with my toes. There was a scar in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger on his left hand, and I pressed the ball of my foot into it, feeling for scar tissue, feeling for the story it would give up. I tilted my face to kiss him, and Jackal gave me a light peck, not trying to start anything. I sank back into the couch.
“Where will you go?” I asked him.
“Somewhere that isn’t here,” he said, pushing my feet off his lap. I hadn’t expected him to tell me. I didn’t really want to know. “It’s not that much money.”
I wondered if he was reassuring himself that the Lady wouldn’t bother to track him down for a measly fifteen grand she never needed to know about, or if he was disappointed that we hadn’t gotten more.
“Relax,” I said. “She’ll never know about it.”
“Did he give you any trouble?”
“He wanted to,” I said. “But no, no trouble. If I’d known it was going to be that easy, I would’ve suggested independent work years ago.”
“With Lou,” Jackal said.
I took a drink. I didn’t deny it. “If I’d known it was that easy.”
Jackal stared at his bottle. He stared at it for a long time, twirling it in his hands, the scar jumping and flexing. He kept it up so long I began to get uncomfortable, wondering what wheels could be turning in his brain, not liking having that question about him.
“I’m not going to ask you about it,” he said. “I want you to remember that after I leave, that I never asked you.”
“What could you possibly have to ask me about Lou?”
“About Ellen,” he clarified. “About exactly what happened that night.”
“What a hero you are. Isn’t this sort of like asking me?”
Jackal shrugged and took a swallow of the wine. Usually it was him watching me drink. Funny that I’d never noticed before. Funny that this was the way things would end.
I tried again to kiss him, and Jackal let me, but again he broke it. I stared at him. “You don’t want me? Now that you’ve seen me with Carrigan?”
Jackal closed his eyes and dropped his head onto the couch back. “It’s not that.”
“So what, then?”
Jackal’s leg jiggled against the cushions. “It’s not what I want to remember about you,” he said. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“The Lady would say you’re getting soft,” I teased, trying not to feel stung. “I guess it’s a good thing you’re leaving.”
Jackal winced, and I took another sip of my drink. Around us, my apartment was so empty. I thought that if I had plans to stay I’d have to decorate. But the new version of Jo, the one headed for a different country, different life, she’d decorate another apartment. She’d make a home somewhere else.
“Here’s some advice: drop the stuff about the Lady,” Jackal said. “We don’t know anything about her, only Lou. Don’t you think that’s odd? I’ve been thinking— Jo, I think—”
“Easy enough for you to say drop it,” I snapped. “If you’re smart, you’ll be in Mexico by sunrise and heading for Brazil in twelve hours. Finding some new rich woman to foot your bills.”
“You could’ve come,” Jackal said. “I wanted you to come. Didn’t I offer to let you come with me?”
“So generous. Tell me, did you give what’s-her-name that option before the Lady had her killed?”
Jackal blanched. He stared at me for so long without saying anything that I almost wished I could take it back. “I’m drunk,” I started to say, but Jackal just shook his head. After a moment, I said, “What were you going to say? About the Lady?” I didn’t think he knew the name Rita Palmer, but I wondered what he had pieced together over the years.
“Nothing,” Jackal said. “What do I know, anyway?”
We both stewed in silence for a bit until Jackal stood up, went to the kitchen, and brought us each a glass of water. “To sober up,” he said.
I reached forward and turned on the TV. I curled into him—I wouldn’t call it cuddling, exactly, but if you squinted, it wasn’t such a stretch to call it a loverly thing to do. He didn’t try to kiss me, but he stroked my hair, my back, lulling me into a drowsy half-awakeness. I could feel the yes and no of him inside me even then, the thing that pulled him close and the thing that pushed him away. Maybe one and the same.
I finished my bottle of wine, and when I was done, Jackal silently handed me his. It was near midnight when he stood up—my head completely soggy by then—and told me it was time for him to go.
I walked him to his car. No long, drawn out goodbyes for us. Three years had taught us both that; it wasn’t our style. And it had been only three years. Of what? Nothing worth crying over. Nothing I couldn’t do without. Instead, I tried to focus on the car, which was swimming in front of me.
“You have all your things packed in there? How did you manage that?”
“I travel light,” Jackal said. “Except for that fifteen large.” He unlocked his car and fiddled with the keys.
“Adios, my lovely,” I said, making a joke of it. “My best to the woman you’ll be screwing tomorrow night. I’ll think of you if you think of me.”
Even then, Jackal didn’t know how to be soft. His fingers crept around the back of my neck, like he might choke me—once more, for old time’s sake—and his thumb stroked the hollow at the base of my throat.
He leaned in to kiss me, and I reached up to meet him, then changed my mind at the last second and pulled back. “The St. Leo. Just tell me,” I whispered.
“Lou asked me to swing by the Albatross,” he said. “Pick up a bill, and then . . . well, you can guess. I really did lose track of time.”
“You’re a goddamn—” I started, but he leaned forward and caught me in a kiss that didn’t end. Finally, he broke the seal between us and took a deep shuddering breath, a serious breath, a one-last-declaration breath, and I thought of what Lou had drilled into me: never get attached, never love someone so much you lose yourself. I ducked my head down, tried to nip at his thumb with my teeth. He jerked his hand away as though it had been scalded. “Everything’s always a joke with you.”
“Goodbye, Robert,” I said.
He walked away, then turned back for one last glance, a hand on the roof of his car. “Think about what I said. You should get out.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. I could tell he didn’t believe me. “You should go,” I said. “Wherever you’re going has a lot of miles between here and there.”
“I’ll still buy you that last drink sometime.”
“Sure,” I said. “That’ll be nice. I’ll be waiting for it.”
He started the car, the engine loud and whirring. It didn’t sound healthy. It didn’t sound like it could take him far. He rolled down the window and said something to me. I couldn’t hear it, or pretended I couldn’t, and waved one more time and turned and walked back to my apartment.