Social Misconduct

  I had to sit and listen to her sob.

  “I wish your father was here,” she said, finally. “He would know what to do.”

  That shut me up.

  It made me wonder if Mom remembered him as he really was or if she had developed an alternative memory, where he was a wonderful, nonabusive father. I didn’t want to force her to confront all that, make her acknowledge it, but I wanted to rattle her a bit as she had rattled me.

  “Well, he’s not,” I said. “He’s not around to tuck us in at night. We’re on our own. And I need to focus on getting my life back on track.”

  “You need to come down here for a little while. I’m sure everything would look better if you could have a little break. You’re under so much pressure. This is all frightening me, Candace.”

  I had to be firm.

  I told her I loved her but I had to go. It was time for dinner. She was still crying when I hung up.

  59

  When Chris shows me the picture, and I see how he has me trapped, I break down. I have nothing left. I am defeated. He pulls me to him. I resist, but I’m crying so hard I can’t see, and he’s much stronger than me. He holds me in his big powerful arms and I keep sobbing. It makes me think of being in my father’s arms when I was a little girl. I think of Miss Busy, who needs to step up, like, right now.

  “It’s okay, baby,” he says. “It’s okay. You think I’m a scary man, but I’m going to look after you now.”

  He kisses the top of my head. I’m gulping in huge breaths.

  “I’m sorry for choking you. That’s not what I’m like. I’ve had a bad, bad couple of weeks. I’ve had some problems in my family. Bad problems. Maybe I was too rough. No. I was too rough. That’s not me. I’m sorry. Now I am going to make it up to you. You a scared, lost little girl. You don’t have to be alone anymore, running from the police. I’m going to look after you.”

  He rubs my back. I let my head rest against his chest.

  “You can’t do it on your own, girl,” he says. “The police will catch you and then you going to go to jail for the rest of your life.”

  He takes my chin in his hand and lifts it up.

  “Look at me.”

  I manage to wipe my tears away and open my eyes.

  “You want to go to jail for the rest of your life?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “No, you don’t,” he says. “Believe me, you don’t want to go to jail. I been to jail and I didn’t like it. And I’m a big strong man. You just a little girl. So I’m going to help you. Okay?”

  I nod at him.

  “Good girl,” he says, and kisses me, his big lips pressing against my little mouth.

  I see that his eyes are brown and liquid and kind of nice, with little crinkles around them that somehow suggest kindness.

  He takes me in his arms and plunks me on the bed.

  “Look at you, you all a mess,” he says and steps into the bathroom to grab a wad of toilet paper. He comes back, smiling, and sits down next to me on the bed.

  “Let’s clean you up,” he says. He wipes my eyes and nose and then holds the tissue to my nose while I blow into it. “You been through a lot. You need some sleep. You got bags under your pretty eyes.”

  He kisses me again, on the forehead.

  “You get some sleep, then you and I are going to get out of Scranton, okay?”

  I nod at him.

  “Where will we go?” I ask.

  “Miami. I got some friends there can help you. They don’t need to know who you are. You’re just my friend. But you can get some money, get new ID, a phone, new clothes, get on with your life.”

  “You want me to turn tricks?”

  He looks at me, like he’s trying to decide how to handle it. He nods.

  “It’s an easy way for you to make money. You’re a beautiful girl. After you get a few dollars together, get ID and a phone, you can figure out what you want to do, but first you need some money. You worried about it? You afraid of sex?”

  I shrug.

  “I don’t want to give blow jobs in a place like this, to guys like Bruce.”

  He laughs.

  “He was disgusting,” I say.

  “Don’t worry. It won’t be like this. You the escort type. We put an ad online, you go on dates with businessmen, they act like little bunnies, meek and mild, so glad to be with a hottie like you. Always use a condom, keep yourself clean, make a thousand bucks in an hour. It’s not that bad,” he says. “If you like sex. Do you like sex?”

  I nod.

  “I do,” I say.

  He puts his hand on my cheek and pulls me to him and kisses me, harder than before. Here it comes.

  “I bet you do,” he says and kisses me again. He puts his hand on my breast. I kiss him back. His enormous tongue goes into my mouth.

  One of his hands is on my breast and the other is on the back of my neck. I feel tiny in his grip. He could break my neck with his hand. Or he could close it around my throat again and cut off my air until I am dead, or until I do whatever he says.

  He pulls away and looks at me closely.

  “You like that?” he says.

  I lick my lips and nod.

  “I can always use a condom?” I ask. “Like, now?”

  He smiles.

  “Yes, girl,” he says. “I’m clean, but how you supposed to know that? Nobody ever going to force you to do something you don’t want.”

  He puts his hand on my breast again and squeezes it. I lean forward to kiss him.

  He kisses me and slips his hand inside my dress and kneads my breast. Then he stands in front of me, smiling down at me. He undoes his belt.

  “I’m going to get a condom,” I say, and I stand up. I go behind him, reach into my bag, and find the handle of the chef’s knife.

  I kiss him on the back of the neck, sucking and biting, and put my hands on him. He moans and arches his back and leans his head so I can stick my tongue in his ear.

  Then, without hesitating, I see myself bring the knife up and stab it into the side his throat as hard as I can, thrusting through the skin and gristle, putting all my strength into one desperate cut. Miss Busy wants to kill him fast. She stabs quickly again, before he can react. He twists and lets out a strangled grunt when he feels the cut, trying to grab my arm, but then he puts his hands to his throat, which is open in two places, spouting blood. One more stab.

  Is it good enough? I am intent, observing the moment, the slick of dark blood on the blade of the shiny knife, his grimace, the tight knot my fist has made around the handle of the knife. Is he dying, or will he kill me? I scramble away from him but he drops to his knees and I watch, see with relief that blood is spouting from between his fingers, lots of blood, covering his hands, spilling down onto his chest and the dirty motel room carpet.

  He looks up at me, shocked, his eyes bugging out. He can’t speak. I look back at him and see that he is about to die.

  I give him a nice smile to look at as his life ends.

  60

  Declan was waiting at a nice table by the window at Candle 79, my favorite restaurant, a vegan white-tablecloth place that even meat eaters like.

  It was my date spot, my place to have dinner with men, although I hadn’t had much cause to use it for that purpose. Was I using it that way tonight?

  I felt like I was when Declan rose, like a gentleman, to greet me, and then elegantly pulled me to him to exchange cheek kisses like Europeans.

  He seemed freshly good-looking in that stubbly way, and surprisingly gallant, pulling out my chair for me and ordering a really nice bottle of California pinot noir.

  I was half seduced by the time our wine arrived. I had to remind myself that I was on a fact-finding mission, as directed by Jess.

  “You’ve been through a lot in the days since I’ve met you,” he said.

  “FML. You have no idea.”

  “So what happened?”

  “You want the whole story?”

  “C
an you bear it?”

  “I can,” I said. “It might do me good. We might need more wine, though.”

  I explained how I got a text the day after I met him from someone who pretended to be him, convincingly, joking about his shirt.

  “Creepy,” he said. “Deeply creepy.”

  Then I told him about the cheese list, which I thought was from him, the subsequent threatening texts, the first topless tweet, and the whole sorry saga, concluding with my computer-smashing breakdown when the bj tweet went out.

  “Jesus Murphy,” he said when I finished. “You’ve been through the wringer.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck full of social.”

  “Do you have any idea who’s done all this?”

  “No,” I said, gulping wine. “Well, maybe.”

  “You thought it was me at first?”

  “Well, yeah. But the moment I talked to you, and you told me you’d been in Reykjavik, I kind of, I don’t know, it didn’t add up.”

  “I’m not the type.”

  “You’re not the type.”

  “Alvin could be the type.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “Not well. Our paths first crossed in a deal that didn’t happen, then he invited me for drinks to kick around business ideas. I decided he wasn’t the kind of guy I wanted to do business with, but I kept going to his parties.”

  “Why didn’t you want to do business with him?”

  “He’s not a serious person. I like to do business with rational actors. Like, greedy people, people who want stuff. He’s not greedy. He’s bored. He is investing in businesses to have fun, and I don’t want to depend on someone who might do something irrational because it’s fun. And he’s got a funny idea of fun.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He has a cruel side.” He suddenly looked uneasy. “I won’t be going to any more of his parties.”

  He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “What?”

  “You look like something’s bothering you.”

  I thought, Is he afraid of Alvin?

  “I don’t know if I should mention it,” he said. “Or I think I should but I don’t want to.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Spit it out.”

  “Well, I may have been hacked, too.”

  “What?”

  “Someone stole my laptop.”

  I stared at him.

  “Please don’t mention it to anybody. I shouldn’t tell you because there are potentially serious questions about disclosure. There were proprietary databases on it. I wanted to tell you, though, on the off chance there’s a link.”

  “Oh God,” I said. “What happened?”

  I felt queasy. I needed more Ambien.

  He couldn’t meet my eyes.

  “I don’t know for sure,” he said. “But I can tell you when it happened.”

  “When?”

  “The night of the party,” he said.

  “I remember you had your laptop bag hanging on your shoulder when I met you,” I blurted, irrationally delighted to be helpful.

  “Right. I had it then. I remember putting it down when I went out to the balcony and I believe I picked it up before we left. Do you remember?”

  I shook my head and tried to think.

  “I was drinking quite a lot,” I said.

  “Do you remember whether I had it when we got to my place? Or did you see it in the morning?”

  I suddenly felt stomach sick.

  “Wait,” I said. “You don’t think I took it, do you? I’m not sure I could handle that right now.”

  He winced.

  “No,” he said. “You were asleep beside me, and I didn’t wake up when you left, but no, I’m not accusing you.”

  The night came back to me in a hurry, as he sat there and looked at me quizzically. I had a fuzzy memory of lurching out of a cab and into an elevator with him, kissing him in the elevator, entering his huge condo hand in hand, admiring the view with a big drink of brandy. I had no memory of the laptop but I remembered his hands on me, being on top of him on the bed, his face looking up at me as I rode him. That was where the memory ended, until I hailed a cab on the street in the small hours of the morning. I must have slept in between.

  He watched me, could see the confusion on my face. I could tell he thought I was a nutcase.

  “Don’t believe that I did it. Please. I know it must look that way but . . . just no.”

  He looked like he wanted to get away from me.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m sorry. I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

  I couldn’t be there anymore.

  I got up and ran out of there and vomited on the sidewalk. I looked back and could see him looking at me through the window with an expression of alarm and disgust. He was trying to pay the bill.

  I ran down the street and away before he could pay.

  So, not a great date.

  61

  Chris is dead. I stand there for a minute to make sure of it. I’m afraid he’s going to jump up at me like the villain in a horror movie. Then I can see that’s silly. There’s something about his inertness that makes it obvious he’s dead. He’s a thing now, not a person. He is a very bloody thing.

  I go to the bathroom, where I vomit. I flush it away and wash the blood off my hands. Macy will come back when she finishes blowing Bruce. I need to hurry. Miss Busy has to look after this. This is a job for her.

  I take a big breath and feel myself calm down. I go back into the room. I need to flip Chris over to dig into his pockets. I have to put my back into it because he’s so big, but I know that I can do it. His arms flop around and blood gets all over him. I am careful not to get it on me. In one pocket there’s a thick wad of bills, which I drop into my bag. In the other pocket he has three little plastic bags full of brown powder. Must be heroin. I leave it.

  I find a gun in his jacket pocket, hanging on the back of the chair. I don’t know anything about guns, but I take it out and look at it. It’s black. It says Smith & Wesson on the side. There’s a safety switch, I see. I switch it to off and hold it up, see how it feels. It feels good. Heavy. Powerful. I think if I pull the trigger it will shoot.

  I need to get to the highway. Take no chances. While I am standing there, planning, I hear someone coming. Without thinking, I step into the bathroom to hide.

  I know it is Macy when I hear her gasp. It’s a deep, raw sound.

  “Oh my God,” she says. “No. No. No. Tell me you’re not dead. Tell me you’re not dead.”

  I hear her crying. I’m standing behind the door, with my back pressed against the wall. I see her coming in the bathroom mirror, holding the knife, her face drawn and intent. She sees me. What to do?

  I see myself step around the corner and point the gun at her. She keeps coming. Her eyes are narrow and hateful. She wants to cut me, wants to kill me, wants vengeance for her man. I pull the trigger and she stops, a little hole in her chest. She lurches toward me. I pull the trigger again. Another little hole appears in her chest, below the first one. She stops, looks surprised.

  “Bitch,” she says and drops to her knees next to Chris. The knife falls from her hand. She is not going to cut me. Blood is pouring out of the new holes in her. I am ready to shoot again. She opens her mouth to speak but her voice is strangled and she has blood in her mouth, which she has to spit out. Then she falls back and is still. Blood pools around her.

  I wait and watch to see if she moves, but not for long. She is on her back, still. The blood pool is growing. She is now as inert as Chris. They are things. I have to get out of here.

  Everything is very still. I feel completely calm. I am thinking, calculating.

  I clench my teeth and think again: Take no chances.

  How to get out of here?

  I take the wad of tissue Chris used to wipe my face and I ca
refully wipe the handle of the gun with it. I put the gun into Chris’s hand.

  How much time will police spend on this crime scene? Not much, I think.

  It depends on whether anyone sees me leave. I go into the bathroom, look into the mirror. I look fucking crazy, wild-eyed and weird, but there is no blood on me. I take five seconds to compose myself, then go out and grab my bag, being careful not to step in the blood pooling around the corpses. Am I leaving anything? I look around. No.

  What would I do if I were the sad person, likely a middle-aged Indo-American guy, who runs this motel, and I heard shots? I would call the police. I wouldn’t go outside. I pull the curtains aside and peek out. There is nobody there. Okay. Time to go.

  I open the door and start walking quickly, toward the highway.

  62

  After vomiting on the sidewalk in front of Candle 79, I ran toward Central Park.

  Did someone really steal Declan’s computer and download the data files?

  If he was responsible for everything I’d been through, that would be a good story to make up. If he put it out there that I had stolen his lists, that would tie up a big loose end and make me look like the kind of crazy girl who would tweet dirty pictures of herself and then play victim.

  And how well did I know him, really? My impression of him was based on casual observation at one party and half an hour of drunken sex.

  I headed over to the park, walking past all the precious Upper East Side apartments, whose tasteful furnishings and beautiful art seemed to taunt me, reminding me that many people in this city weren’t hanging on to their shitty apartments by their fingernails. That part of New York always makes me feel poor and resentful.

  I walked toward the running path around the pond, moving fast, my mind spinning. I couldn’t figure it out. I considered one alternative, rejected it, then considered another and rejected it. Either Declan was lying, which just didn’t seem like his style, or someone stole his laptop and used the files to snare me, which seemed too elaborate. Then I thought about how thoroughly my life had gone off the rails in the past week and felt sorry for myself. It was unproductive.