by Jude Hardin
I walked back up to the apartment, cut Duck and the girls loose. I still had the shotgun.
“False fucking imprisonment,” Duck said. “I’m going to find out who you are, then I’m going to sue your goddamn ass.”
I threw a business card on the floor. “There you go. You can sue me, but all my shit together doesn’t add up to that Escalade in your driveway. Remember, I know where you live and what you do.”
Our eyes locked. He sneered and showed his gold front teeth but he didn’t say anything so I left.
Rule # 17 in Nicholas Colt’s Philosophy of Life: it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than to get any meaningful conversation from a teenager. It’s hard enough with the suburban types, the ones worried about pimples and shoe brands and who did who after the football game. With someone like Brittney, orphaned and exposed to the potential cruelties and uncertainties of foster care from an early age—coupled with time on the streets—it was next to impossible.
Brittney sank against the passenger’s side door and sat there stiffly with her arms across her chest. I reminded her to buckle her seatbelt. She did her fencepost impersonation for another minute or so, strapped on the shoulder harness and said, “Just drop me at Leitha’s.”
“Why?” I said. “So you can run away again?”
“It’s not your problem, mister. You did what you were hired to do. Just take me home.”
“What did you hope to accomplish by selling your body?”
She straightened up in her seat. “I am not a whore.”
“So what were you doing with Duck?”
“Modeling lingerie. That’s all.”
“Modeling. Let’s see, you prance around in some fancy underwear while a guy watches? Is that it? You wag your ass while some drunk bastard plays with himself? I got news for you, little girl. That’s a form of prostitution, too. You can go to jail for that. Is that where you want to be? Jail? You’ll learn some lessons in jail, all right. You’ll learn how to be a thief and a con artist, a druggie and a whore. Maybe even a killer. I don’t have any kids, but, if I had one, I’d do whatever it took to keep them out of jail and the court system. That shit’s strictly for losers. You’re a smart girl. What the hell were you thinking?”
She was silent for a beat. “I need money. Enough to get to California.”
“Why California?” I said.
“Have you ever heard of Point Conception?”
“Sure. It’s from a book called Two Years Before the Mast.” I was proud of myself for remembering that.
“It’s a real place. The most beautiful place on the planet. I have a friend there, and a job on a ranch whenever I want it. I want to study drama in California. I’m going to be a movie star some day. Plus, like I said, somebody here is going to kill me. I can’t stay in Florida.”
“Who’s going to kill you? Why do you even think that?”
“I saw something—I can’t tell you.”
“How am I supposed to help if you won’t tell me anything?”
“Don’t you get it? I don’t want your help. If I tell you, you’ll tell the police and somebody will be arrested and tried and sent to prison, but they’ll still get to me. I know they will. The only way for me to survive is to be far, far away from here. Somewhere they won’t find me.”
We rode in silence for a few minutes. I turned on the police scanner. A man in Orange Park was holding his wife hostage in their home with a gun. The SWAT team had been called in. I turned it off. Jimmy’s tires hummed a monotonous tune on the blacktop.
“I did a little acting one time,” I said, trying to find some common ground.
“Let me guess. Arsenic and Old Lace in the high school drama club? You were the stiff, right?”
“Nope. I had a bit part in G.I. Jane, movie back in the nineties with Demi Moore. They filmed part of it down at Camp Blanding.”
“You got to meet Demi Moore?”
“Bruce Willis too. He was hanging around with her during part of the filming.”
“Oh my God, you are lucky. What part did you play?”
“Have you seen the movie?”
“Only about a gazillion times. I love Demi Moore.”
“Remember the restaurant scene? I was the guy two tables over eating spaghetti.”
“That’s not a bit part. You were just an extra.”
“I was still in the movie.”
“You were scenery. That’s not acting.”
“Hey, I’m a method actor. I lived the part, ate spaghetti for years preparing for my role.”
Brittney giggled. “Well, I’m impressed that you met Demi and Bruce.”
“How about you?” I said. “Done anything yet? You know, any acting?”
“No. But I know I’ll be good at it. I do scenes by myself sometimes, from Shakespeare. You ever read any Shakespeare, Mr. Colt?”
“I usually wait for the movie,” I said. Got another laugh.
I slid a CD into the player. The first track was a song I cowrote called On the Verge. It still got decent airplay on classic rock stations.
“Don’t you have anything from this century?” Brittney said.
“You don’t like these guys?”
“They’re all right.”
“I was the guitar player,” I said.
“Now I know you’re lying. They all died in a plane crash, like, before I was born.”
“All but one.”
“Are you serious? You played guitar for Colt Forty-Five?”
I nodded.
She looked out the window into the darkness and listened to the song.
It was two in morning and traffic was light. I took the interstate and got off at the Green Cove Springs and Hallows Cove exit. I almost creamed Juliet’s mailbox when I turned from State Road 17 onto her driveway.
“Is this your house?” Brittney said.
“My girlfriend’s. You’ll be more comfortable here.”
“Won’t we wake her up?”
“She’s at work. Graveyard shift, Hallows Cove Memorial.”
“She’s a doctor?”
“Nurse.”
“My sister’s a nurse. I couldn’t do it, give people shots and all that crap.”
We got out and I unlocked Juliet’s front door. I switched on the light in the foyer, disabled the alarm, smelled the vanilla-scented candles Juliet keeps on a stand in the entranceway.
“This is a pretty house,” Brittney said.
We walked into the living room and I turned more lights on. Jules had forgotten her stethoscope on the coffee table.
“I’ll give you the grand tour tomorrow,” I said. “Right now, I want you to go to bed. First door down the hall, on the right. The bathroom’s right across the hall.”
She didn’t argue. Her eyelids looked as though someone had tied boat anchors to them.
“You have a toothbrush?” I said.
“In my backpack.”
“Anything to wear?”
“No.”
She brushed her teeth, went into the spare bedroom, and shut the door. A few minutes later, I knocked and handed her a set of Juliet’s pajamas. Brittney’s eyes were red and swollen, from fatigue and maybe from crying again. I told her goodnight.
I went to the kitchen, plunked some ice cubes in a glass, filled the glass with bourbon. I grabbed a pack of crackers from a tin on top of the refrigerator, opened the sliding glass door to the back porch, and stepped outside. The deck chairs, beaded with dew, glistened silver in the moonlight. I got a towel and wiped one off and sat down with my drink and looked at the stars. I ate a few crackers, and then lit the cigar Mr. Clemons had given me.
The cigar was first-rate, a product of the Dominican Republic. The bourbon was first-rate, a product of Bardstown, Kentucky. I sat there enjoying them, pondering how two very different things from two very different parts of the world went so well together. Like Juliet and me.
I sat there in the dark, thinking about Brittney’s claim that someone was
trying to kill her. It was possible she fabricated the story to delay returning to Leitha’s care. From a teenager’s perspective, there’s no way Big Sister is going to be “the boss of me.” I’ve heard plenty of bogus stories from plenty of runaways who didn’t want to go back home for one reason or another. Leitha’s threat to ground Brittney might have been all there was to it. It was also possible Brittney was telling the truth, and her life really was in danger. If that was the case, I needed to find out who, what, when, where, and why, and make sure whoever had threatened her got a solid message to leave her alone.
I reactivated Juliet’s alarm system. If Brittney tried to sneak out, a siren would go off. I took a hot shower, climbed into Juliet’s bed, and fell asleep within minutes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I was dreaming about black-eyed peas with Tabasco sauce and cornbread when I felt Juliet snuggle in behind me.
“Who’s been sleeping in my bed?” she said. I was naked except for my underwear, and she was naked except for the silver crucifix she always wears.
“The big bad wolf?” I said.
“Wrong fairy tale.”
Juliet’s hair was damp and she smelled like cocoa butter. She wedged her hand between my thighs, tickled me with a fingernail.
“What can I say?” I said. “Nobody ever read to me when I was a kid.”
“Want me to tell you a bedtime story?” She kissed the back of my neck.
I turned over and faced her. “Do they live happily ever after?”
“Always.”
“I need to pee first.”
“How romantic. Go on, you.”
When I raised my head, someone with tympani mallets started pounding in my brain. It was my inner troll. He attacks various parts of my body at various times. Today it happened to be the area behind my eyeballs. “You got any Tylenol?” I said.
“There’s two full bottles in the cabinet over the sink.”
“Thanks. I think one full bottle will be enough.”
I got up and used the bathroom, then quietly opened Brittney’s bedroom door and peeked in. She’d kicked the covers away and curled into a fetal position in the pajamas I’d given her. Her hair was braided into one long pigtail, and a darkened area the size of a quarter stood out against the otherwise pale skin on the back of her neck. Someone had either been kissing or hitting her, I thought, until it occurred to me she might have bumped her neck climbing out that second-story window last night. I’d probably gotten a few bruises myself. I gently shut Brittney’s door. I went back to the bathroom and looked my body over. I didn’t find any bruises. I splashed some water on my face and ran Juliet’s brush through my hair and beard. I squeezed out a thread of paste and brushed my teeth.
I noticed Juliet had disabled the alarm. I punched in the code for reset, swallowed two headache tablets with some cold water, and went back to bed.
“I heard you open the refrigerator,” Juliet said. “You didn’t drink out of the jug again, did you?”
“Of course not.”
“Yes you did. I would have heard if you’d gotten a glass out.”
“What are you?” I said. “The bionic woman or something? You got super hearing? So what if I drank out of the jug?”
“I have super everything.” She kissed me on the mouth.
“I was trying to be quiet.”
“What’s up? You hiding another woman here somewhere?” She smiled, unaware she’d rolled a seven.
“The runaway I told you about. I picked her up last night.”
Juliet sat straight up, switched on the bedside lamp. “Here? In my house? Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“Shh. She might hear you. I can explain.”
“Don’t shh me. This is my home, Nicholas. It’s not a flophouse for your juvenile delinquents.”
“I think you’ll like her.”
“I can’t believe you brought her here. Why didn’t you take her home?”
I told her why.
“Someone’s trying to kill her?” she said.
“That’s what she told me.”
“So now I have to worry about murderers coming here?”
“Nobody knows she’s here. I haven’t even told her sister yet. That reminds me, I need to call her.”
“Why didn’t you take her to your place?”
“I figured she needed more privacy than she could get at my place. And there’s always the possibility she might fabricate abuse charges or something. I need your help on this one, Jules.”
“You could have at least called before you brought her here.”
“Didn’t want to bother you at work. Sorry. I’m hoping it’ll only be for a couple days. If I can get her to trust me, maybe she’ll tell me who threatened her.”
“Two days, Nicholas. You’ll have to think of something else if it takes longer than that.”
“All right.”
“I have to go to sleep now. Goodnight.” She blew me a sarcastic kiss, turned over, and buried her head under the pillow. I told her goodnight, even though it was nine o’clock in the morning.
I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I got up and started a pot of coffee. Juliet says I make the world’s worst. I use about twice the recommended measurement of grounds, and it comes out looking similar to oil drained from an engine with too many miles on it. At least you can taste my coffee. Juliet’s reminds me of weak tea. We always have to make two pots.
When I opened the front door to get the newspaper, the alarm started wailing. I quickly punched in the code to silence it, heard scuffling noises coming from Brittney’s room. I walked in there and found her sleepy and confused, trying to escape through the closet. She was wading through a rack of clothes, desperately trying to find her way.
“Brittney. It’s okay. It was just the burglar alarm.”
She came out of the closet and looked around, her bottom lip trembling. She sat on the bed, folded her arms across her chest.
“I forgot where I was,” she said. She untied the pigtail and ruffled her hair into frizzy strands with her fingers, then pulled out a brush from her backpack and vigorously stroked it into shape. “Usually nothing wakes me up. Leitha always says I’d sleep through a hurricane.”
“It’s all right. You can go back to sleep if you want.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“You drink coffee?”
She nodded. We walked to the kitchen, and I poured us each a cup. Brittney sat on a barstool, her bare feet dangling. I stood beside her.
“This coffee sucks,” she said. “When did you make it, last week?”
“It’s fresh. I like it strong.”
“I’ll say. You got something I can dilute it with, like a gallon of paint thinner maybe?”
“How about some milk? They say turpentine is bad for your health.”
“Milk would be nice. You got a cigarette?”
“Those things are definitely bad for your health.”
“Lots of things are.”
I couldn’t argue with that. We walked out to the back porch, and I gave her a little stainless steel pitcher of half-and-half for her coffee and a Marlboro. My fine Dominican Republic butt from last night was squashed and wet in the ashtray. I took the ashtray inside and wiped it clean, walked back out and sat beside Brittney in one of the deck chairs, lit a cigarette for myself.
The sky was aspirin white, a thin layer of benign clouds blocking the morning sun. The guy with the drum mallets had stopped beating so hard.
“Did you sleep okay?” I said.
“Like a fucking rock.”
I coughed out about three lungs worth of smoke. “Okay. Rule number one. Nice girls don’t say fuck.”
“Your girlfriend said it.” Brittney dribbled half her coffee onto the deck and replaced it with some of the cream.
“Yeah, well, who said she’s a nice girl? You heard that?”
“Uh-huh. Then I fell back to sleep.”
“Okay. Nice fifteen-year-old girls don’t say fuck.�
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“She sounds mean. She doesn’t want me here.”
“Juliet’s not mean. She was surprised, that’s all. She was tired from working all night. You’ll see. She’s really a nice person. How’s your coffee now?”
“Why can’t I stay at your house?”
“My house is a seventeen-foot camper on a rental lot on the lake.”
“Sounds cool.”
“There’s only one bed, and it hurts my back to sleep on the couch.”
“I’ll take the couch,” Brittney said.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. Come on in and we’ll get some breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then come on in and watch me eat some breakfast.”
I cracked a half-dozen eggs into a clear glass Pyrex mixing bowl, handed the bowl and a whisk to Brittney, told her to scramble the eggs for me.
“I don’t know how,” she said.
“You’ve never made scrambled eggs?”
“So? Have you ever read Dante’s Inferno? Can’t we just go to Burger King or something? This is stupid.”
I took the bowl and demonstrated. “Now you try,” I said. “It’s not stupid to learn how to take care of yourself.”
“Maybe, but Burger King has better coffee.”
After a while she got into a rhythm and mixed the eggs while I turned on the electric griddle and started laying out strips of bacon. Pretty soon the room smelled good and I was starving.
“You’re going to cook the eggs,” I said.
“I don’t know how to cook. Nobody ever showed me.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
I showed her how to set the stove and melt butter in a skillet. Once the butter started bubbling, I told her to gently pour in the egg mixture. The eggs landed with a satisfying sizzle, and I showed her how to keep stirring and turning them with a spatula so they wouldn’t burn. I put four slices of whole wheat bread in the toaster.
“I don’t like brown bread,” she said.
“This is for me. You’re not hungry, remember?”
“Maybe I’m a little hungry.”
We sat at the table and ate bacon and scrambled eggs and toast.
“Wicked delicious,” Brittney said.
“Wicked delicious?”
She smiled. “I knew a girl in school from Cape Cod. She was always saying wicked this and wicked that.”