In Her Eyes

by Sarah Alderson

  The barman has turned away, is busying himself with the bottles that line the back of the bar. The men sat on the stools on our other side have returned to studying the labels on their beers. The noise in the bar has started up again, but it’s subdued, as if everyone has one ear tuned to our conversation.

  ‘What about James Hill?’ I ask, mentioning the second man who was arrested.

  ‘Who’s he?’ the man asks, frowning.

  Did I make a mistake? I knew it was a long shot coming here. When Nate showed me the surveillance photos of Robert handing over the money to James and Raul I made a mental note of the bar that appeared, fuzzy but still distinct, in the background. I figured that if this is their neighborhood, then someone in this bar should know them. Maybe, even, I expected to find them here.

  ‘You cops?’

  Another man has sauntered over. This one is in his early twenties. He’s short, wearing jeans so baggy they fall halfway down his thighs, revealing his underwear. He’s holding a pool cue, rubbing a square of chalk on the end in a gesture that, though innocuous enough, unnerves me. The other man with the straggly ponytail saunters away, making a tssking sound with his tongue and eyeing me through lowered lids.

  I turn to face the younger man. Maybe he knows something and will be prepared to tell us.

  ‘Don’t I know you?’ he says, narrowing his eyes and frowning at me. A second later recognition erases the frown and he nods vigorously. ‘You’re that woman from the TV. They arrested your husband.’

  ‘Raul Fernandez,’ I repeat.

  His expression hardens. ‘Why you want to see him?’

  I leap on that. ‘So you do know him?’

  He pulls a face. ‘Nah, didn’t say that, just asked why you wanted to see him.’

  ‘Because I have questions I need to ask him.’

  The man glances quickly around the bar and then leans forwards, putting his mouth so close to my ear I can feel the heat of his breath and struggle not to flinch. ‘If I were you,’ he says, ‘I’d turn around right now and walk out of here, while I still could.’

  I hear a loud, dramatic sigh. It’s Laurie. ‘You listen to me,’ she says loudly. ‘The only place we’re going is over there to those bar stools. And we’ll stay right there until you go fetch your friends.’

  The man looks up at Laurie, startled. He tries glowering at her, but Laurie, towering over him, stares him down unflinching. Before our eyes the man visibly shrinks, his swagger melting away, until he looks just like a twelve-year-old.

  Laurie plops herself down on a vacant bar stool. ‘Two Coronas,’ she calls to the barman. The men sitting to her right swivel their heads in unison to stare at her. Laurie smiles broadly at them until they look away.

  The short man turns towards me, scenting an opportunity to regain his dominance. Without missing a beat I hop up onto the stool beside Laurie. She pushes a bottle of cold Corona towards me and I pick it up and take a swig, keeping my eyes fixed on the man the whole time.

  ‘You heard the woman,’ I say.

  We’re on our second beers, sipping them slowly, our eyes continually straying to the clock above the bar. It’s almost midnight. We’ve been here fifty minutes and I’m trying not to show any sign of the anxiety that’s gnawing away at my insides. Laurie seems much more relaxed, but twenty years teaching in the kind of schools that have metal detectors and airport-style security at the front gates has given her a Teflon coating.

  ‘Honestly,’ she says, eyeing the short man, who has gone back to his pool game and seems intent on ignoring us. ‘I’ve dealt with tougher sixth graders than him. How long do we stay?’

  ‘As long as it takes,’ I answer, glancing at my phone. There are no messages from Gene and I wonder where he is and what he’s up to. The more I think about it, the more obvious it seems to me that he has to be involved. My mind spins around the possibilities. Did he get into some kind of trouble with these two men – Raul and James – and was Robert trying to get him out of it?

  The boy with the baggy jeans is finally finishing his pool game. He pots the last ball and then, after exchanging a handshake and taking money from his opponent, he glances in our direction. Turning his back, he fishes his phone out of his pocket and makes a quick call, looking briefly over his shoulder at us as he talks to whoever is on the other end.

  ‘Here we go,’ murmurs Laurie.

  Fifteen minutes later my nerves are stretched taut. I eye the tequila bottles lined up along the bar and contemplate getting a shot of one to help steel me but I don’t have time. A sudden commotion by the door snatches my attention. The bar falls quiet as two men enter, the door swinging shut behind them.

  I recognize them instantly from their mug shots. Raul and James.

  They scan the bar, their eyes falling on us. One nudges the other and they weave their way towards us, the tall one – James – stopping to slap the young man on the shoulder by way of greeting.

  Everyone in the bar is now staring at us, collectively holding their breath. My heart starts racing and I wonder for the thousandth time what on earth I was thinking coming here.

  ‘Are you fucking stupid?’ the man with the shaved head, Raul, hisses the minute he reaches me, as though he’s read my mind.

  ‘I . . .’ I stutter.

  ‘Did the cops see you come in here? Are they following you?’ His mouth twists into a snarl that shows his gums and a gold tooth flashes where his canine should be.

  ‘No. No, we made sure,’ I say, my voice quavering. Laurie and I did some rudimentary spycraft learned from the movies, taking an early exit on the freeway and then circling the block a few times before parking.

  ‘No one knows we’re here.’ I instantly regret making that known.

  Raul studies us, eyes roving our bodies, his mouth tightly pursed. ‘Maybe you’re working with the cops.’

  ‘Oh please,’ says Laurie, scoffing loudly. ‘Really? Do we look like police informants? Do I look like I’m wearing a wire?’ She gestures to the tank top she’s wearing.

  ‘Why are you here?’ the second man – the preppy-looking one, James – says to me. He seems agitated, glancing over his shoulder nervously and keeping his voice low.

  ‘I need to talk to you.’ I glance between the two of them. ‘I know it wasn’t you who broke into my house.’

  ‘Tell that to the fucking detectives,’ Raul snarls. ‘Cos they still seem to think it was.’

  ‘I did tell them,’ I say, taking a deep breath.

  They glance at each other, then back at me. ‘So what are you doing here?’ James asks. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Why did my husband meet with you?’ I say. ‘What was he paying you for?’

  ‘Why not ask him?’ he answers.

  ‘I have. He won’t tell me. He won’t speak to anyone and I need to know what’s going on. I figured maybe you might be able to tell me something.’

  Raul stares at me for a beat and then he’s suddenly in my face, looming over me, baring his teeth, fists coiled tight at his side, his mouth a mean, tight slash. I flinch.

  ‘You fucking bitch,’ he spits. ‘Coming here, who do you think you are? You think just cos your husband don’t want to speak to you, that I will?’ He laughs, shaking his head, and looking around the bar. ‘You realize the shit you could get us into?’ he asks, gesturing at the room. ‘Everyone seeing us here together. Cops already think we’re connected to you. They’re looking for any excuse to nail us. Now you’re giving them one.’

  I shrink backwards on my stool, my heart pounding and my mouth dry, but then a switch flips inside me. All the fear and anger that’s been building since it happened explodes and I’m up off the stool, pointing my finger in Raul’s chest. ‘Listen,’ I spit, ‘I’m sorry you’re pissed but here’s the thing: my husband’s in prison, my daughter’s in a coma, the bank is about to take my house and I’m so in debt I couldn’t pay it off even if I worked for the next hundred years.’ I lean even further into Raul’s personal space. ‘You
think your life is fucked? Believe me, mine is way more fucking fucked than yours. You have a lawyer who looks like she eats prosecutors for breakfast. Meanwhile my husband is stuck with a public defender who last won a case in 1987. The cops are convinced that it was you who broke in to my house and shot my daughter and put her in the hospital.’

  Raul looks like he’s about to interrupt at this, but I don’t let him, my voice rising to cut him off. ‘I don’t believe it was you. But if it wasn’t you, then it was someone else, and I really need to find out who it was, and you two are the only people who might be able to help me because the police couldn’t find their own assholes if they were sitting on the toilet shitting diarrhea.’

  I take a deep, shuddering breath in and then let it out and now everything comes back into focus – my field of vision widening to take in the almost silent bar and the two men standing in front of me, mouths agape, and Laurie behind them, turning paler by the second. Did I go too far? Oh shit. I don’t know what just came over me. All I know is that it came from somewhere deep and guttural inside me and that now it’s unleashed like a genie from a bottle, there’s no way of putting it back.

  I look at Laurie. She’s clutching her keys in her hand like a homemade knuckleduster and her eyes are darting wildly from them to me and back again.

  ‘All right,’ Raul says, and just like that he pulls up a stool and sits down beside us.

  I topple backwards onto my own stool, legs suddenly amorphous as jellyfish.

  James sits on Laurie’s other side and signals the barman who pulls a bottle from under the bar, lines up four glasses and then proceeds to pour shots of what I assume is tequila.

  ‘Drink,’ says Raul, nudging the glass towards me with a tattooed knuckle.

  I pick it up and throw it down my throat, slamming the glass down on the bar. Fuck, I needed that. Raul guffaws and signals the barman to refill my glass. I down that shot too. The alcohol strips a layer off my throat but brings an instant hit of warmth and settles my nerves. I wait for Raul to pick up his glass and drink, his eyes fixed on me the whole time as though he’s still trying to get my measure.

  ‘Do you know who broke into my house?’ I ask.

  He splutters, coughing. ‘Look,’ he says, crunching his shot glass down on the bar and wiping the back of his mouth with his hand. ‘We can’t tell you shit about the break-in. Wasn’t us and we don’t know who it was.’

  He leans in close and I study his eyes – inches from mine – the golden halos at the center burning bright. Can I believe him? I look at Laurie, who shrugs.

  ‘What did my husband pay you for?’

  Raul and James exchange a look. ‘Like we told the police, no comment.’

  I sigh loudly. ‘He gave you money. What for?’

  They exchange another look. James finally nods at Raul who leans forwards so his lips are right by my ear.

  ‘If you must know, your son Gene owes us eighty thousand dollars.’

  I reel backwards to stare at him. What the hell? ‘I don’t understand,’ I murmur. ‘What for?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Drugs?’ I say.

  ‘Shhh,’ he hisses, darting a glance over his shoulder at the bar, but all the customers are studiously looking everywhere but at us.

  ‘That’s a lot of money,’ I say.

  ‘Was a lot of drugs.’

  I stare down at the filthy, unswept floor, trying to gather my thoughts. What was Gene thinking? He must be dealing to be buying such large amounts. Even he couldn’t smoke that much weed. The damn stupid idiot. I look up. Raul and James are watching me.

  ‘What kind of drugs?’ Laurie asks, before I think to.

  ‘Meth,’ Raul murmurs.

  ‘Meth? He’s dealing meth?’ I screech so loudly that Raul growls at me to keep it down. I think back to how Gene was at the hospital and the pieces slot into place like the cylinders of a lock. ‘Oh my God.’ Gene’s not just dealing. He’s using.

  ‘It’s a huge problem in the valley,’ Laurie breaks in, looking and sounding as shocked as me. ‘I read about it in the paper.’

  I feel suddenly dizzy, the tequila making my head spin. ‘Robert was giving you money to pay off the debt,’ I stammer.

  ‘He gave us thirty grand. Gene still owes us eighty. You don’t happen to know where he is, do you? We’ve been trying to find him.’

  ‘Join the club,’ I murmur, all the while trying to wrap my head around the enormous number he just mentioned. Eighty plus thirty. One hundred and ten thousand dollars! What was he thinking? And what was Robert thinking bailing him out like that using my pawned jewelry?!

  ‘Why does he owe you so much?’ Laurie asks, and I can tell she’s suspicious that they’re lying to us.

  ‘He’s meant to pay commission on what he sells.’

  ‘You take a cut?’ I ask.

  Raul eyes me. ‘Us, and the people above, the people who provide the product and allow him to distribute it.’

  People above them? It’s a chain. I look at Laurie who’s figuring it out too. Raul and James are only the middlemen.

  ‘Who are these people?’ Laurie demands.

  Raul cocks an eyebrow at her. ‘You don’t need to know.’

  ‘But he owes them too?’ I say, dully.

  He nods.

  ‘If it wasn’t you who broke into the house, could it have been them?’

  Raul gives a non-committal shrug. ‘Could be anyone. Gene pissed off a lot of people. Could be one of the people he dealt to – figured he had money on the property. Or maybe they were looking for his stash.’

  ‘How long has he been dealing for you?’ Laurie asks.

  ‘Six months.’

  I take that in. My stepson is a drug dealer. Gene, the little boy I raised, is a drug dealer, and not a small-fry one either. I can’t look at Laurie. I’m too ashamed.

  ‘Why couldn’t Gene pay you the money?’ I ask. ‘If he’s been dealing for six months and making profit, why couldn’t he pay you?’

  ‘He claims it was stolen.’

  ‘Stolen?’ I ask, frowning. ‘What? When?’

  ‘About a month ago. All his cash vanished, conveniently just before he was meant to pay us. Told him I didn’t give a shit, he still owed us the money. That’s when your husband showed up with the thirty Gs.’ He scoffs. ‘Like that was gonna do it.’

  ‘Bought him some time, that’s all,’ says James.

  I absorb this new information and muse on what he just said. Something about it didn’t track but I’ve forgotten what it was. Gene must have gone to Robert and told him. And Robert, instead of telling me, or telling his criminal son to go to hell, pawned my jewelry to help Gene get these men off his back, only it wasn’t enough money to clear the debt. Not even close. Is that why Robert adjusted the insurance? Was he planning on filing an insurance claim for the jewelry he pawned, so he could use the payout from the insurance company to pay off Raul and James? It looks that way. I think about Nate and his hypothesis about Robert. If he actually knew the real story he’d use it as even more evidence against him. But then I realize something else – Robert wasn’t meeting them down some dark alley to arrange a hit, as Nate would have it. He was trying to help his son.

  James leans close, elbows on the bar, and I notice the incongruous Virgin Mary tattoo on his arm. ‘We told your husband he and Gene had three more weeks to find the money or . . .’ He tails off, leaving the threat to hang nebulous in the air.

  ‘Three weeks?’ Laurie asks, doing the math. ‘So that makes the deadline a week ago. The exact date that the break-in happened. Seems like strange timing.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ James asks.

  ‘What if you didn’t get the money, so this was your way of threatening Gene and Robert? Maybe you thought you could rob the house and steal enough to make up for it.’

  ‘She didn’t ID us in the line-up,’ Raul says, jerking his head at me.

  ‘Maybe you paid some associates to break in,’ Laurie
presses.

  ‘Look, it wasn’t us, lady,’ Raul growls, his eyes sparking with fury at the suggestion. ‘I already told you.’ He glares at me and I study him. I think he’s telling the truth, but if it wasn’t them who broke in, who was it?

  ‘You said you owed money to other people,’ I interrupt.

  James glances at me. ‘Yeah, and they’re not the kinds of people you want to owe money to. They’re tired of waiting for it.’

  ‘Who are they?’ Laurie asks.

  James shakes his head and gives Raul a warning look. He’s not telling.

  ‘Could it have been them who broke into the house?’ I ask.

  Raul shrugs, giving nothing away. Goddamn it, the suspects keep multiplying. I stare around the bar, dazed, as though I’ll find the truth sitting at a table sipping a beer. ‘You need to tell me who they are,’ I say, my voice rising. ‘These men you owe – what if it was them? What if they come back? I need to know so I can protect my children.’

  Raul shrugs. ‘The best thing you can do is pay up, then you won’t have to worry.’

  I press my lips together. Why should I have to pay up? This is Gene’s debt not mine. That’s probably why he’s fucked off, isn’t it? Goddamn him. If I ever see him again I’m going to kill him myself. I’ll tear him limb from limb.

  ‘Where are we meant to find eighty thousand dollars?’ I hiss, my throat hoarse. ‘I can’t. I don’t have that kind of money.’

  Another shrug. ‘I’m sorry you got problems, but this one ain’t mine.’

  I’m starting to feel like I’m in a pressure cooker and my skull is about to implode. There has to be a solution to this. But what? Unless . . . what if . . . an idea starts to form in my head.

  Raul laughs under his breath. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you could just go to the police. Maybe Gene could provide testimony, cut some kind of deal with the DA’s office. He’s a rich white boy after all. The system’s already rigged in his favor.’ He lowers his voice, draws nearer so his face is level with mine and I can see the glint of gold in the depths of his mouth. ‘But you do that,’ he says, ‘and I promise you and your family you’re going to be looking over your shoulders the rest of your lives.’