Last Night

by Karen Ellis

  “On board.” She cocks her head. “Is that where the saying comes from—surfing?”

  “Could be.”

  “So how’s Adam?”

  “He’s fine. Working on his dissertation. The usual.” Lex looks at Elsa and wonders why he’s holding back, considering the secrets she allowed him to glimpse last year, the slashes of self-inflicted scarring up and down her arm. He’d show her his own breaking point one day, he would—show by telling because his spell of addiction left no visible scars. But today, he opens up just a little. “Adam and I have hit some bumps lately,” he confesses. “He leaves late at night, comes home early in the morning, and won’t tell me where he goes. It’s been going on for over a week. Maybe I should be more patient, give him space, but…”

  The waiter arrives and they both order coffee, eggs, toast, orange juice.

  “Think it’ll blow over?” she asks.

  Lex shakes his head. “A couple nights ago, when he was heading out, I told him not to come back—I didn’t say it quite that nicely, though. I haven’t seen him since. But if this is it, if it’s over, then it’s partly my fault too.”

  “How?” She leans in, as if challenging him to provide a solid rationale for a weak premise.

  “Here’s something you might not know about me: I’m the green-eyed monster.”

  “You think he’s cheating?”

  “That’s the big question. I mean, he cheated on his ex with me.”

  She nods. “Ah—not a great start.”

  Lex steers the conversation away from Adam, and they chat about politics and the news until their food arrives. After they eat, Elsa checks the time. “I should head out.”

  “Busy day?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, but I’m sure that’ll change.”

  He knows it will.

  She asks, “You?”

  “I should go home—find out if he really left, talk it out if he didn’t. Sleep a little, if I even can.”

  “I’ve got to see you surf one of these days.” An arch twinkle in her eye.

  “Come have drinks with me at the beach club and maybe I’ll let you watch me make a fool of myself on the water.”

  “Now that would be fun.”

  The check arrives. Elsa lays down a twenty-dollar bill and stands up. “Think I’ll hit the ladies’ before I go.”

  Lex puts down his own twenty. While Elsa is in the bathroom, his phone rings—a number he doesn’t recognize. Out of curiosity, he answers.

  A man’s voice, flinty, unfamiliar: “Detective Cole?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sergeant Gordy Boyd, Eight-Four.”

  Lex’s interest perks up at the mention of his former precinct. “What can I do for you, Sergeant?”

  “I understand you caught a missing persons last night—Titus Crespo.”

  “I did. Already closed. He got in touch with his family.”

  “Sorry to tell you, but it looks like it’s not so simple. Just got a call from Detective Finley—you know her?”

  Lex thinks back to his brief stint at the downtown Brooklyn precinct. “No.”

  “Probably came in after you left. She gave me an earful—wants you to meet her as soon as you can.” Sergeant Boyd talks and Lex listens as the prospect of his day off is transformed by a trickle of urgency and then flooded out of existence.

  13

  Last Night

  Crisp stares down at the fallen man, sprawled, motionless, blood seeping from his brow, dark pupils growing to fill the whites of his eyes. Jerome looks dead because he is dead. He’s dead. The Baby Browning lies on the floor near Glynnie’s feet.

  Rodrigo crouches beside his friend, colleague—Crisp doesn’t know what they are, were, to each other exactly—and presses two fingers to the dead man’s neck.

  Crisp holds his breath, waiting for another explosion, a retaliatory rifle shot, a tirade, something from Dante to demonstrate the rage he must be feeling. But all the man says is, “Now this just won’t do,” without any emotion at all. Crisp looks at Glynnie, whose skin has lost its scant color. He didn’t know someone could become that white, so white you can see blue veins crisscrossing underneath.

  Glynnie feels hot, then cold. Cold and afraid. She can’t believe she just did that. Killed someone. With a gun. She never knew that blood smells like sparks off fresh-cut metal.

  “I’m so sorry…” Speaking fast, mind reeling. “I didn’t mean to do it, I don’t know how it happened, did you see what he was doing to me? It wasn’t my fault.”

  “Shut the fuck up, bitch.” Shouldering the rifle, Dante walks over to look down at Jerome. “What do you think happens when you pull the trigger?”

  “But—”

  “Now I’m down a man.”

  “I’m so so sorry I hurt your friend.”

  “He’s not hurt, sister, he’s dead. You killed him. And he ain’t my friend. He was a fucking asshole and I never liked him. But still, I’m down a man—you hear me?”

  Crisp meets her gaze. She’s never seemed so—what?—sober. All that confidence flickering in her eyes an hour ago, it’s gone now.

  He glances at the door with its seven locks. The case full of guns. Rodrigo with his arms crossed over a barrel chest and eyes that suddenly look jaundiced, as if someone lowered the lights, as if death has somehow dimmed the room. And Dante, Dante with his rifle and his ironed jeans, exuding control.

  “What I’m saying is I’m down a man,” the gun dealer repeats.

  Crisp asks, “What exactly do you want?”

  “Rod,” Dante says to his associate, “you know me a long time.”

  “Yeah, boss, that’s right.”

  “Tell me, what do you think I want?”

  Rodrigo doesn’t hesitate. He looks at Crisp.

  “That’s right. Sit down,” Dante tells Crisp. “Time to get acquainted, now you’re part of my team.”

  “I don’t understand,” Crisp says, untruthfully, because he does, he does understand, he understands perfectly well. Dante wants him. This cannot be happening, not after the night in jail because he rode his bicycle on the sidewalk. Okay, and mouthed off at a cop. And visited a friend. And followed her to what turned out to be here—his father’s world, not his mother’s—not en route to college but hurtling away from it.

  “What don’t you understand?” Dante asks.

  “I can’t work with you.”

  “No one works with me. You work for me. Got that?”

  “I can’t.”

  “You think you got a choice? I’m minus one.” Dante tips the rifle butt in Jerome’s direction, then looks back at Crisp. “I’m minus Jerome so I add you, and we’re back in business.”

  “I’ll do it.” Glynnie’s voice is choked by fear, barely above a whisper. She summons volume and says, “It’s my fault, like you said. I did it. I’ll work for you. Take me.”

  “What’re you on?” Dante says. “You look in a mirror lately? You a white girl.”

  “It’s a big city. I’ll…I’ll help broaden your market.”

  “Glynnie,” Crisp hisses. “Stop.”

  Dante says, “Glynnie—so that’s your name?”

  “It’s short for Glynneth.”

  “Glynneth. Sounds like you walked out of a castle from England, and you think you gonna be on my crew?”

  “Well he can’t.” She points at Crisp. “He’s going to Princeton.”

  Dante grins his golden grin. “You don’t say? Well ain’t that fine. Let the schooling start right here and now. You just got yourself a summer job, kid. Summer job, Rod, you hear that?”

  “I hear it.” Rodrigo shakes his head and half smiles, but not with humor.

  “What about you, my man?” Dante asks Crisp. “What do you call yourself?”

  I’m not your man, Crisp wants to say, but doesn’t. Why did Glynnie blurt that out about Princeton? Now they’ll never let him go.

  He takes a breath and answers, “Crisp.”

  “Well now I’ve hear
d it all. Glynnie and Crisp, Princess and Princeton. Shit.” Dante yawns and hands Rodrigo the rifle.

  “What now, boss?”

  “Keep an eye on them. I’m gonna get some shut-eye.”

  “What about Jerome?”

  “Stick him in the tub. We’ll deal with him later.”

  “You not worried about the kid out there?”

  “That runt says a word, he gone. Nah, I ain’t worried.” Turning to Glynnie, Dante orders, “Clean up the mess.”

  The dealer picks up his phone from the table, pauses, and, as an afterthought, also takes the silver bag. He retreats through one of the two closed doors and a lock clicks behind him.

  Rodrigo leans the rifle against the wall, then opens the second door to reveal a bathroom. As soon as she sees it, Glynnie realizes how badly she needs to pee. She hears the rough swish of a shower curtain being pulled across a metal bar. Rodrigo returns to lift Jerome and carries him out of sight. The shower curtain swishes closed. A cabinet door opens and slaps shut, and Rodrigo emerges with a roll of paper towels and a garbage bag.

  He drapes the bag over the back of a chair, tosses the paper towels to Glynnie, and says, “Who the cleaning lady now?”

  Glynnie catches the thick, soft roll and lifts her chin. She can do this, no matter what anyone thinks.

  “I’ll help you,” Crisp offers.

  “You sit your ass down over there while she do all the work. Her mess.” Rodrigo points the nib of the rifle at the far wall.

  Crisp crosses the room and sets himself down on the floor and watches as Glynnie, hugging the paper towels like a teddy bear, approaches the bloody linoleum.

  Rodrigo drapes himself awkwardly on the lopsided couch, cradles the rifle in his lap, and tells her, “Go on. Get to work.”

  Glynnie’s stomach bucks as she drops to her knees. She can do this. She swallows hard, and begins. Covers the blood with ribbons of paper towel until the roll is nearly finished. Pushes the bloody mess together into one central blob until there’s enough bulk that she can shove it into the bag. At the sight of her hands stained red she gags again.

  “Turn off the light.” Rodrigo uses the rifle as a pointer again.

  When she touches the light switch by the door, she leaves behind a red fingerprint.

  “Clean that fuckin’ bullshit up,” Rodrigo orders in a tone that channels his slumbering boss. Trying the role on for size, while he can. Hail, Il Duce, Crisp manages not to say out loud.

  Glynnie uses her bare elbow to wipe away the mark.

  Quietly, she says, “Maybe I should wash my hands.”

  “Maybe you should, but don’t touch nothing while you do it.”

  Using her forearm, she manages to turn on the cold water in the kitchen sink. The water turns icy and her fingers ache, she scrubs so hard and long. She turns off the tap and dries her hands and arms on her shirt. Looks at Rodrigo, then follows the rifle’s instructions to cross the room.

  Streetlight dribbles past the edges of the green sheets blocking the windows. In the scant light Crisp reads the fear in Glynnie’s eyes as she joins him, sliding her back down along the wall, her ass finding the corner of the floor.

  She whispers, “What now?” Thinking that even Crisp probably doesn’t have the answer. Is she a murderer now? By dragging him here, has she made him an accessory? Has she managed to completely destroy both their lives?

  “Shut the fuck up!” Rodrigo says.

  Crisp pats his shoulder so she knows she can use it for support. And she does. But he doesn’t know what else to do other than offer this meager comfort. How will he ever explain this to his mother and grandparents? He can’t even begin to process the depth of their disappointment when they find out where he is…and how will that happen, anyway? Best-case scenario, JJ is out there getting help right now—but that’s doubtful: he’s afraid of the police, possibly even more afraid of Big Man, and Dante’s threat sounded real. Worst case, he and Glynnie will be killed and no one will ever know how they got here.

  The shock will probably destroy Babu, his grandmother, who endured one heart attack and probably couldn’t survive another, and then Dedu will die of heartbreak, and his mother will be all alone. Alone in the apartment where she grew up and then spent her adulthood, instead of going out and making her own life, so that her parents could help her raise him. Eighteen years old when she had him—a year younger than Crisp is now. Shame blossoms at the thought of his grandparents’ pride in him. The way Babu introduces him to her friends on the boardwalk, as if it’s an honor: “Titus Crespo, my grandson.” It’s always been clear that now it’s up to him, an American with African blood and slave ancestry, to help his Russian Jewish grandparents die in peace when their time comes, knowing their sacrifice has not been in vain.

  Crisp rests his face in his hands in an effort to hide his tears from Glynnie.

  Still, she knows. She can feel it in the way his body is moving beside her, how he’s trying not to make any noise, but he’s definitely crying. She forces herself to breathe slowly, the way her father used to when she was little and she’d have one of her meltdowns and he’d slow-breathe to set an example, and it worked, her breath would also slow and she’d calm down. After a few minutes she can feel Crisp’s breath relax. Soon he falls asleep leaning against her, and she sits there listening to Rodrigo’s ridiculously loud snoring. His head is tipped back on the couch now. The rifle lax across his legs.

  Next thing she knows her eyes open in a disoriented fog and she realizes she nodded off. Crisp and Rodrigo are still asleep. Pale early sunlight traces the darkened windows, and with a start she realizes it’s morning. She wonders if her parents have even noticed that she’s gone.

  She stares at the front door and wishes she could just get up and walk over there and open those locks and waltz out. But there’s no way anyone could sleep through the racket of all those bolts unlatching. She counts to seven, letting her gaze settle on a lock before counting up to the next one, and then she counts again going down. Before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s counting to the rhythm of Rodrigo’s snoring, her eyes lingering on a lock until he issues his next sawing grunt.

  And then it hits her. Why not?

  She gently eases Crisp to the floor, jams her flip-flops into her back pocket, and pads quietly across the room, hiding her steps under the snores. She reaches the door. No one has woken.

  She holds her breath and waits. Just at the moment the snoring crescendos, she turns the bottom lock.

  Repeats.

  And again.

  On the fifth lock, Rodrigo turns over and she’s sure he’s about to open his eyes, but he doesn’t. He settles into a new position and the snoring resumes.

  She waits. Turns the sixth lock. Looks to make sure Rodrigo is still asleep and he is, he is.

  Bleary, disoriented, Crisp awakens to see Glynnie turning the seventh lock under cover of Rodrigo’s snoring. She is crazy. Shocked by her audacity, he catches her eye and opens his hands in a silent What the fuck are you doing?

  She mouths Let’s go and waves him over, relieved that now she won’t have to risk crossing the room to wake him.

  Crisp unlaces his sneakers, holds them in his hand, and pads carefully, quietly, across the floor. When he reaches her, they both hold still to make sure Rodrigo is still asleep.

  She waits for a snore, then eases the door open.

  Crisp doesn’t remember the hinges making any sound when they came in earlier, but there were six of them and their footsteps must have drowned it out. But now, now the opening door emits a hairline squeal.

  Rodrigo springs off the couch, knocks into the table, and two chairs crash over. The bedroom door flies open and there is Dante in his T-shirt and boxers with one side of his hair flattened, a circular indentation atop his head where he’d worn the hat.

  Standing behind Glynnie, Crisp feels his shoulders pinned under Dante’s big hands.

  Frozen in the open door, Glynnie jolts into the hall at the sound o
f her friend’s panicked voice: “Run!”

  She does: she runs.

  Behind her, the crash and hurl of Rodrigo coming after her in the dark.

  Dante’s face contorts and Crisp braces for whatever’s coming next. A portentous quiet hangs in the hallway—invisible residents hovering on the other side of their doors, afraid to find out what their gun-dealing neighbor is up to now. Crisp senses, in the heavy voiceless listening, that no one would dare step forward to help him if he raised his voice. So he doesn’t. He wonders what Rodrigo will do with Glynnie when he catches her, and he goes cold at the possibilities.

  PART THREE

  Think Like a Teenager

  14

  Friday

  Lex looks up from his phone to see Elsa returning from the bathroom. He tells her, “So…that easy case from last night, the one that was closed? It might have just cracked back open.”

  “Don’t you hate it when that happens?”

  “Yeah, except it hardly ever does, at least not this fast.”

  “What changed?”

  They vacate their table and stand on the sidewalk, bustling now with morning foot traffic leading mostly in the direction of the subway. Cars, taxis, trucks pile up at a red light on Smith Street. The hectic beginning of a new day.

  “Apparently a friend of his, an eighteen-year-old girl who lives near here, just showed up at home after she was reported missing last night too. Says my guy’s being held by a gun dealer in Red Hook.”

  Elsa’s eyebrows lift. “Wow.”

  “Looks like something happened last night,” he says, “and according to her they were together, but I’m told she’s not always reliable.”

  “Teenagers are hard to read.”

  “Hey, Elsa—”

  “I can’t.”

  “It’s five blocks from here—in Boerum Hill. Come for a few minutes, help me read the situation. We both know you’re better at teenagers than I am.”

  “Well,” a sly grin, “that’s true.” She thinks a moment. “I guess I can be a couple minutes late today.”