Death Prefers Blondes

by Caleb Roehrig

  “Swell,” Axel said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “What’s the second thing? He can shoot laser beams from his eyes? He has a nuclear arsenal?”

  “The second thing you need to know is that this haul, if we can pull it off, could be the biggest any of us will ever see. In a lifetime.” She met their eyes one by one, her excitement palpable. “The resale value of precious stones is outrageous, and if we have the settings melted down … we could be looking at a payoff of millions of dollars—apiece.” The four boys stared, not sure whether they’d heard correctly, and so she drove the point home. “Guys: Each one of us could walk away from this heist a millionaire. It could be the last time any of us have to do this again. So … by a show of hands, who’s in?”

  Hers was already up, but Joaquin’s followed it immediately, then Davon’s and, after a brief hesitation, Leif’s. Only one voter abstained.

  Margo’s brow furrowed. “Axel?”

  “I’m sorry, Margo,” Joaquin’s brother began, “but I don’t like it. We’re supposed to break into a fucking fortress belonging to a paranoid whack-job, steal some necklaces from a hypersecure vault, and then sneak them out under the noses of a pack of gun-toting private bodyguards?” He shook his head, wig bouncing. “It’s too risky. And you only want to do it to settle a personal score, anyway.”

  Margo took a step back as if she’d been slapped. “Excuse me? There’s no love lost between me and Valentina, but if I was that petty, I’ve got about fifty videos on my phone of her doing scandalous shit that I could post online anytime.” A mic test sounded from the front of the club, but you could’ve heard a pin drop in the dressing room. “I’m proposing this because the payoff is ridiculous, and some of us”—she skewered him with a pointed look—“need the money.”

  From the side, Joaquin watched his brother’s mouth clamp down into a tight line. Mutinously, Axel inquired, “Think you can pull this job off without a grappling hook?”

  “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” Margo’s voice was as hot as Axel’s was cold.

  Davon rotated in his seat to stare at the queen beside him, his face screwed into a question. “Girl, do you need to go outside and take a moment?”

  “It’s a bad idea,” Axel shot back, his words clipped. “We don’t need this kind of risk.”

  “Oh, this is a bad risk?” Davon blinked extravagantly. “Because last month, when we broke into a foreign consulate, fucking with international laws and throwing hands with military dudes toting assault rifles, you were down with it!” There was an unkind silence, and he continued, “Did you miss the part about ‘millions of dollars’? Because—”

  “I’m willing to think about it,” Axel interrupted, eyes on Margo, “and maybe I’ll change my mind. On one condition.” He licked his lips. “Quino is out. He stays home.”

  “What the hell, Axel?” Joaquin was on his feet before he even knew what he was doing, his chair juddering across the floor behind him.

  Axel stood up, too, but ignored the outburst. Eyes still on Margo, he said flatly, “It’s him or me. And I think you know the right call to make.”

  Pivoting on his heel, taffeta skirt swirling, he flounced for the door. He only made it a few steps before Joaquin caught up with him, his skin prickling with rage. “What is your fucking problem? What gives you the right—”

  “Will you keep your voice down?” Axel hissed irritably. “This is where I work.”

  “I don’t give a shit.” Joaquin was so angry his tongue felt forked. “You’ve been avoiding me at home, and now you’re trying to stuff me in the fridge, and I’m sick of it!”

  The older boy grabbed him roughly by the upper arm, dragging him first through a narrow hallway, and then out a rear door into an alley behind the club. Once they were in the open night air, jaundiced light splashing down from a bulb that dangled on a cable overhead, Axel snapped, “You want to know why I’m ‘stuffing you in the fridge’? It’s because of this. This … temper tantrum. You’re obviously not mature enough to handle—”

  “Fuck you, you shithead!” Joaquin’s whole body was trembling, anger burning his veins like a dose of battery acid. “You don’t get to treat me like a little kid and then call me immature when it pisses me off—and you don’t get to decide what I can handle!”

  “You shouldn’t even be here, Quino.” Axel radiated disappointment. “You should never have been part of this thing to begin with.”

  “Well, I am! And you don’t get to decide that, either.”

  “You should be home with Mami,” Axel pressed on self-righteously. “Did you even think about the fact that she’s alone right now? That she’s got nobody? What if you get your head blown off trying to sneak into Valentina’s castle? What’s that gonna do to her?”

  Joaquin was humiliated to feel tears spring to his eyes, the sudden rush of emotions so strong he couldn’t contain them all. He could barely speak, his voice a broken whisper as he shook his head. “You are so fucking selfish, Axel. You never think about anybody but yourself. Do you have any idea what it’s like to live with that?”

  “Excuse me?” His brother actually stumbled back a step, his mouth flapping silently for a second before he could speak again. “For a year and a half I have been the only one trying to hold our family together. The only one! Everything I’ve done has been for you and Mami; I don’t even get to take a breath anymore unless you two get oxygen from it also!”

  “Is that what you’re doing?” Joaquin waved at his brother’s wig, his makeup, his dress. “Is this you breathing for me, Axel? Is this you holding us together?”

  “How dare you!” The older boy’s lip curled. “You know what this means to me. Forgive me if I do one damn thing for myself twice a month! This is literally the only break that I get from worrying about the two of you, taking care of the two of you—”

  “And when do I get a break?” Joaquin shouted, his throat raw. “When is it my turn to do something for myself?” He spun around like he was going to storm away, made it two steps, and then turned back. “You know, if you want to sit this job out, maybe you should! You can be the one to stay at home with Mami, trying to figure out what you’ll say if your brother doesn’t come back. You can sit and stare at the pool we can’t swim in, or look at a blank computer screen because we can’t afford the internet anymore, or play shitty games on your shitty phone because you don’t have any friends to text with, because everybody you know fucking hates you!”

  His chest was heaving, and his face was wet, but he refused to wipe his eyes. “At least you have this, Axel. At least you get to have this one thing that’s just yours. What about me? You won’t even let me pick where I go to school.”

  “Quino…” Axel blinked, his eyes huge in the stark light. “This sort of stuff, these jobs … they aren’t a game. It’s dangerous, and it’s illegal, and it’s not something we do because it’s fun; it’s something we do because we have no other choice.”

  “Breaking into LAMFA was the first time I’ve felt alive, the first time I haven’t felt like a zombie since Dad went to prison,” Joaquin finally confessed, tired of stepping around the subject—tired of “Dad” being a dirty word, tired of hopscotching over Axel’s feelings. “I don’t care if you like that or not. You want me to help Mami? Then get out of my way. You’ve been getting twenty percent as your part of the cut, and we still have to spin the wheel on which bills we’re gonna pay. Together, our cut goes up to thirty-six. That’s almost double, in case you need help with the math.” He tossed his hands up pleadingly. “She’s my mom, too. They’re my bills, too! My life is fucked up, and you can’t save me from it, so you might as well let me be happy—even if what makes me happy isn’t want you want for me.”

  There was a moment of awkward, unbearable silence, Axel just staring at him, eyes zooming in and out of focus. He wasn’t going to give up, Joaquin realized; he was just looking for a new way back in to the argument. The door to the club swung open again and Davon cleared his throat. �
��I was sent to get you for the sound check, but it probably won’t be necessary. The whole neighborhood can hear the both of you, loud and clear.”

  “Go back inside and start breathing, Axel,” Joaquin snapped bitterly. “You’re having fun for three now.”

  Turning on his heel, he stalked away down the alley, headed for the sidewalk, the blaze of streetlight blurring in his eyes.

  * * *

  When the angry clatter of returning footsteps sounded in the corridor, marching back into the bar, Margo instinctively faced the open doorway. Axel appeared a moment later, framed in shadows and lit by a failing golden bulb, and her heart gave a twist as their eyes connected. It had been impossible not to hear the argument, and there were a hundred things she wanted to say; but their earlier confrontation stood like a wall between them, and it was impossible to maneuver around. No matter how much she wanted to lecture, to console, or play peacemaker, he’d challenged her authority and she couldn’t afford to bend. Deliberately, she turned away to pack up her things, and when she looked back again, he was gone.

  13

  Santa Monica Boulevard was a neon gallery, bass-heavy music thudding so loud Leif could feel the vibration in his lungs when he passed the packed clubs and bars. Tipsy boys in tight-fitting shirts laughed and shouted, crowding the outdoor seating areas, eyes bright and gestures broad. A few of them whistled at Leif as he walked by, and his cheeks turned a little pink—but he smiled back at the cute ones, his heart racing.

  He’d never fit in anywhere before, had never felt understood until he discovered West Hollywood. Back home there was nothing like this. After fifteen years of trying to fake it, to speak a language that didn’t belong in his mouth, he’d finally found this magical community that was fluent in his native tongue. He was an ugly duckling who’d joined his fellow swans at last—flamboyant, proud, occasionally slutty swans—and it had changed everything. He hadn’t even realized how hopeless he’d felt about life until he got here and realized he didn’t feel hopeless anymore.

  He walked all the way into Beverly Hills before he finally caught the bus, enduring a lurching ride down the boulevard and into Santa Monica, texting with his roommate. Some of the other students at the academy were going out, and no one could decide what to wear. Another benefit of life in LA: He could finally dress however he wanted—from ripped jeans and crop tops to angel wings and body glitter, nobody batted an eye.

  At Lincoln Boulevard, he disembarked, zipping up his jacket against the cool air rolling in from the ocean, and hurried the rest of the way home. Home. The Marechal Academy of Ballet occupied a complex of studios and classrooms on Ocean Park, along with a theater, a clinic, and two dormitories for the room-and-board students. He’d worked his ass off to get accepted there, and even in his second year, he still sometimes had trouble believing it was real.

  Hurrying up the front steps of the boys’ dorm, he threw open the door and nearly collided with a tall woman in a gray cardigan and flowing black slacks. Recognizing him, she smiled. “Mr. Dalby! What a coincidence.”

  “Dean Mountjoy?” Leif stepped back, surprised, a million anxious thoughts swirling up like silt billowing from a riverbed. “What are you…?”

  “Doing in the boys’ dormitory at eleven o’clock on a Saturday?” Abigail Mountjoy, dean of students, concluded wryly. “Nothing salacious, I promise. I had to pick up some paperwork from my office, and while I was on campus I … actually, I was dropping off something for you.” Her tone softened when she said it, and Leif felt his pulse go a little haywire. “Do you have a moment?”

  “Um…” He wanted to say no, to make some excuse, but his words failed him and Dean Mountjoy took his frozen, blank-eyed stare as a yes.

  “Per our conversation at the beginning of September, I’ve been doing periodic check-ins with your instructors, and all of them have made glowing reports about your work since what happened over the summer term.”

  Her tone was encouraging, but it felt like a warning nonetheless. Leif split his tuition with his parents, but the cost was so high that the first year had wiped his savings out completely. He’d spent most of the summer working three jobs, putting in hours before and after classes during the week, and both days on weekends; he’d been fatigued and stressed, constantly at the breaking point, and his dancing had noticeably suffered. Dean Mountjoy had adopted this same delicate tone when informing him that he was “no longer performing at a level that met the school’s standards,” and that she needed to see more focus and commitment from him if he wished to maintain his spot.

  The worst of it was that the summer term wasn’t even part of the normal curriculum; he’d signed up for it because it gave him a reason not to have to go back home. But his three jobs barely afforded him enough to cover the five-week special course, and he’d begun to seriously panic about where he’d get the funds for the coming year. Thank God for the guest instructor from São Paolo, who had convinced him to take an elective class on capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art discipline that joined dance and acrobatics. Thank God he’d turned out to have a natural aptitude for it.

  And thank God, too, for that class’s public demonstration on the Third Street Promenade, where he’d lost himself in the physical symphony of constant, fluid motion—the rocking feints and spinning kicks, the clever transitions and impromptu attacks. They’d performed for nearly an hour, and when it was over and he was flushed and sweaty, he’d finally examined the gathered crowd and seen a startlingly recognizable girl watching him from the periphery.

  He’d met Margo Manning just in the nick of time.

  “I’ve … found a better job,” Leif stated diplomatically.

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Dean Mountjoy continued to smile like someone was paying her to do it. “We like it best if our students have no outside distractions, of course, but scholarships are hard to come by.” There was a stilted pause as the woman cleared her throat. “On that note, Mr. Dalby, it was brought to my attention that your tuition payments for the current term are … behind schedule.”

  Leif blinked. “But that’s … I brought a check to the bursar’s office two weeks ago!”

  “Yes,” the dean said gently, “but it was only for half the amount due.”

  “Right.” Leif’s chest began to itch with heat. “I pay half and my parents pay half—they send their checks directly to the office. That’s how we’ve done it since I started.”

  “Well, maybe there’s been a mix-up.” The dean seemed to sense how agitated he was becoming. “Maybe your parents forgot to mail it, or they wrote the address wrong. Whatever the case, it’s best that it’s sorted out quickly, before it becomes a … problem.”

  She said some other things that he didn’t hear over the roar of his blood in his ears, and then, with a friendly pat on his numb shoulder, she left him alone. As soon as she was gone, Leif pulled out his phone again, fingers damp and clumsy. He dreaded these calls, because they always went as badly as he feared, but this one couldn’t be avoided. After the second ring, his mother answered with her standard greeting.

  “Praise the Lord.” Mrs. Dalby had said this so many times it sounded joyless and mechanical—an accurate barometer of her religious rigor. “I was wondering how long it might take for you to call your poor mother.”

  Leif ignored the jab at his guilt; it was his least vulnerable spot these days. “Mama, Dean Mountjoy just … My tuition payment was due last week, and the dean says your half hasn’t arrived yet.” There was silence on the line, and as it stretched out, a bead of sweat slipped down Leif’s rib cage under his shirt. “Mama?”

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Dalby finally said, full of confidence.

  “That’s right?” It was not the reply he’d been expecting. “What do you mean, ‘that’s right’? Did you forget? Because there isn’t much of a grace period—”

  “Your daddy and I have been speaking with Pastor James,” Mrs. Dalby interrupted, just as confidently, “and I have been having long conver
sations with Lord Jesus. Leif, it’s time for you to come back home.”

  “What?” He rolled his eyes irritably, in spite of his nerves. “Mama, no. I can’t just come home in the middle of a semester. I was cast in the spring production of La Sylphide, and I have an important role. It’s a huge honor, and I need—”

  “I’m not talking about a visit.” Mrs. Dalby’s tone was imperious. “Leif, this is no good. I have never been comfortable with you off by yourself in that city of wickedness! You did not come home this summer, and you almost never call … I can feel you slipping away. I can feel you moving away from the light of Lord Jesus, and it has me heartsick.”

  The pressure in Leif’s body changed so quickly that his head spun, and he slumped against the building for support. “Mama…” Only he didn’t know what to say. Anything he told her that was even remotely honest would only make things worse. “Mama, you’re being silly. I’m not ‘slipping away,’ I’m just—”

  “Backtalk!” she snapped furiously. “You most certainly did not learn backtalk in my home, but one year in that den of iniquity—”

  “It’s an academy, Mama,” Leif retorted, anger and fear making him unstable. “It is a prestigious school, with some of the most gifted dancers in the country. It’s a privilege to be accepted here—people fight to be accepted here—and when I graduate, I’m all but guaranteed to land a job with an important ballet company!”

  “I do not believe that’s your path.” This reply, firm and self-assured, stunned him into silence. “We’ve had our doubts, as you know, about this pursuit of yours, and the kind of men who go in for it.” The inference was as familiar as it was unmistakable, and Leif’s stomach went cold. “It’s not natural, and your eternal soul comes before any school—no matter how prideful or prestigious.”