by Sara Reinke
“Jason.” Mei caught him by the arm, ashen with fear, shaking her head. “Please. Just go back outside and wait for me.”
“You heard the lady,” Pops said with a frown. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“Jason.” Mei hissed it now, her eyes wide in alarm as she pushed him back toward the threshold. “Please. Just go.”
“Forget it.” He didn’t even realize he’d pulled out his pistol until he found himself staring down the barrel into Pops’s enormous, rheumy eyes. Again, drawing the Beretta had been something instinctive to him, integral to his nature, leaving him to momentarily wonder, What the fuck did I do for the five years I was gone?
“Jason.” Mei hiccupped. “Please don’t!”
“I’ve got money if you need it,” Jason said to her. “I’m not going to sit here and let you do this. We’re leaving.”
“Fine, then,” Pops said. “Whatever you say, pal. The bitch is all yours. Take her and go.”
Jason backed toward the door, drawing Mei along with him.
“I don’t want to see your face in here again, Mei,” Pops told her, keeping his hands raised. “You hear me, you crazy bitch? Get out of my bar and stay out.”
Mei bristled at this, tensing beside Jason. “Yeah? Well, fuck you too, Pops,” she snapped. “You and this dump! Like I can’t go out and find another job shaking my tits for watered-down drinks and spare change. Fuck you!”
She shot him the bird, then turned, storming toward the exit. Jason kept the gun leveled at Pops’s nose for a long, lingering moment. Though his expression remained defiant and furious, the old man was afraid. It hung heavily in the air between them like something thick, pungent and nearly palpable. More than just attracted to the sensation, the Eidolon felt aroused by it, stronger than Jason had ever felt within him to that moment. His mind remained his own, yet somehow not, and he could feel the icy sentience of the Eidolon inside him. It didn’t as much wrestle control away from him as coax it, a strange but comfortable symbiotic shift as Jason gave himself over to its impulses and desires.
The shadow reached for Pops, shooting across the dingy carpet, spearing around and beneath and over his beat-up steel desk, not creeping this time or moving with any semblance of hesitation. The Eidolon struck like a spider darting deftly across the fibers of a carefully crafted web, and as it struck the shadow beneath Pops’s chair, Jason felt a surge of something powerful shuddering through him. If the Eidolon merging with Dean’s shadow at Sam’s apartment had felt akin to an introduction to fellatio, this sensation was nearly orgasmic. Jason gasped, the gun wavering then lowering in his hand, his head rocking back on his neck, his voice escaping him in a soft, breathless sound.
Man, that feels good, he thought in a daze as the Eidolon fed on Pops’s fear. It sounded ridiculous, but there was no other way Jason could explain what was happening to him, what the Eidolon might be doing. It was summoning some sort of strength from the fusing of its shadow with Pops’s, and as Jason watched, he could see that whatever exchange was taking place, the old man could feel it too. Pops’s complexion had drained to ashen, his hands had drooped from midair to his lap and he’d sagged in his seat like a hot air balloon slowly deflating. He began to blink sleepily, a thin, silvery line of drool sliding down his chin, escaping from the corner of his mouth.
“Jason,” he heard Mei call from behind him in the dance hall, her voice uncertain again, verging on fright. It was all that was needed to snap Jason from the reverie the Eidolon had brought upon him, like a rough shake to rouse him abruptly from a doze. He shook his head, watching as the Eidolon’s shadowy tendrils retreated back toward his feet as swiftly as they’d extended, snapping like the length of a tape measure whipping back into its case. Despite this break in contact, he could still feel it inside him, not as much the Eidolon itself now as whatever energy it had drained from Pops’s body and infused in his own.
His fear. It ate his fear, just swallowed it up, and it made it stronger somehow, made me stronger.
Pops looked at him, his eyes glazed, his facial expression lax, as if he’d suffered a stroke. That thread of saliva snaking down his chin now dripped onto his shirt, while the cigarette he’d dropped to the floor when his hands had gone limp singed enough of the thin carpet to raise an acrid stink. Pops didn’t react to this at all, or to the dim film of smoke that rose from the smoldering patch beneath him. He said nothing and didn’t move, didn’t even blink as he watched Jason turn to follow Mei out the door.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Come on.” Outside the strip bar, Mei had lit up another smoke, and she puffed sharply on it now as she marched down the street. “I’ll let you buy me breakfast.”
“Excuse me?” He was still coming down from one hell of a high, light-headed and somewhat dazed. “And what makes you think I’m going to do that?”
Without turning, she said, “You owe me.”
Jason closed the distance between them in three broad strides, his head clearing enough for him to summon some righteous indignation. “I owe you? You know, if memory serves, I just saved your ass back there.”
“Puh-lease,” she said. “For your information, I had everything under control. I didn’t need you.” When he couldn’t help but laugh at this, Mei glowered. “How do you know I wasn’t going bite his dick off? You just got me fired, you asshole. And you said you had money—if you need it, you said. Well, I’m hungry and I’ve got no cash, thanks to you. So that means you’re buying me breakfast.”
In addition to some of his clothes, Dean had left an old wallet behind in Sam’s closet. Only an auspicious prick like Dean could tuck a gold American Express card in an old billfold, then forget about it, and when Jason had ducked out, he’d taken the credit card with him. My life was worth at least this much, you son of a bitch, he’d thought.
As Mei continued marching on ahead without him, he shook his head. What have I gotten myself into? he thought. “Okay, fine,” he said. “Where would you like to go?”
“The Brinkhaus has a buffet,” she replied primly. “It’s right off the red line. We can catch it a couple blocks up from here.”
The Brinkhaus was one of the older hotels in the city, a landmark for tourists and locals alike. “Humphrey Bogart used to stay there,” Jason’s dad had always told him. “Katherine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, all those Hollywood types.” The rooms celebrities had favored now bore their names and people paid top dollar to sleep in the same bed Jayne Mansfield had once used, or where Frank Sinatra had once spent the night.
“Don’t you think we’re a bit”—he glanced down at himself—“underdressed for the Brinkhaus?”
“Not if you keep your gun in your pants and stop whipping it out every chance you get.” Mei looked at him and smiled, pinching her cigarette between her fingertip and thumb, flicking it into the gutter. “This is the real world, not a movie. You’re going to wind up with your ass in jail. Now come on. I’m hungry.”
****
“How old are you, anyway?” Jason asked an hour or so later, watching Mei tear into a heaping plateful of scrambled eggs, sausage links and fried potatoes.
As for him, the ibuprofen he’d taken at the clinic had helped ease some of the throbbing pain in his head, but his stomach remained a roiling, hungover mess. He sat across from Mei at a small table no bigger than a TV tray, draped in white linen, adorned with a pair of place settings that each included two forks and other assorted cutlery; salad, bread and dinner plates; wineglass, water glass and coffee cup, plus a heavy cloth napkin folded accordion-style and propped upright against the surface of the dinner plate.
The Brinkhaus buffet offered bagels, muffins, danishesDanishes, cereal, an omelet station, crepe service, fresh fruit, juices, teas and more. At thirty bucks a pop, Jason had forgone food altogether, settling for the five-dollar “endless” cup of coffee, which had turned out to be little more than hot brown water, but he wasn’t complaining.
Mei might have been a petite wisp of a girl, but she co
uld eat like a linebacker. She’d already polished off two plates filled to overflowing and was digging into her third. She hadn’t said as much as a word in between wolfish, eager bites, but when he spoke now, she froze, all eyes like a deer caught in the headlights, a forkful of eggs poised halfway to her mouth.
“What?” she said.
“I asked how old you are,” Jason said. “You’re what? Fifteen? Sixteen?”
“Ha-ha, real funny,” she said, then shoveled in the eggs. “I’m twenty-five, just like you.” When he simply looked at her, his brow raised slightly, her fervent chewing slowed, then stopped. “What?” When he still just held her gaze, twin patches of hot color bloomed in her pale cheeks. “Oh, all right, fine. I’m twenty-one.”
Jason’s brow arched a bit higher. The sign at that nudie bar had said you were supposed to be twenty-one to be in there, but considering the fact that the owner, Pops, had apparently harbored no qualms about the decidedly illegal act of forcing prostitution onto those dancers under his employ, Jason doubted he bothered with anything like verifying their ages before hiring them.
The crimp between her brows deepened. “I told you. I’m twenty-one,” she said. “Really.” He didn’t avert his gaze and she slapped her fork against the table. “Really, goddamn it.”
She said this last loud enough that, especially when accompanied by the emphatic slam of her fork, people at neighboring tables and the man in the chef’s uniform at the nearby crepe station turned to her curiously.
Because Jason didn’t say anything, merely took a sip of his coffee, Mei sighed heavily and sat back, crossing her arms. “Fine. I’m sixteen. Are you happy?”
“Yes,” Jason told her with a nod.
“What are you? Some kind of cop?”
“No. A bartender. I’ve been lied to about age by some of the best, kiddo. Which you’re not. Not by a long shot.”
“Don’t call me kiddo,” she growled, snatching up her fork and resuming her feeding frenzy. “Or I’ll call you zu fu. That’s Chinese for grandpa.”
At this, he laughed, and it occurred to him it was one of the few occasions since the entire nightmare had begun that he’d actually forgotten himself long enough to feel like himself, much less like laughing again. It felt good to him, normal somehow.
“So how did you wind up working at that dump?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I have a fake ID. Says I’m twenty-five. They don’t look too close or ask too many questions, as long as they get their forty percent of your nightly take.”
“Forty percent?” He whistled.
“It doesn’t matter. I still made enough.”
“Enough for what?” he asked, and she glanced at him, then away again with a shrug that clearly indicated she wanted to change the subject. “So are you from here in the city?”
Mei shook her head. “I’m from Louisville,” she said. “In Kentucky. You know, home of the Kentucky Derby.” This last she said using finger quotes, a sarcastic smile hooking her mouth.
“How did you wind up all the way out here?”
She shrugged, popping a fat bite of sausage into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully. “Greyhound bus. I went to Reno first, hooked up with the guy I’d met online. He turned out to be a perv, but it got me out of my house at least. So I hung out in Reno until I met this girl who had her own car, and we came out here together six months ago. We lived in her car for a while, panhandled on the streets, then a month ago, she decided to head for LA. I’d hooked up with J-Dog by then, so I stayed behind.”
“J-Dog,” Jason remarked. “The guy who did that”—he tapped his fingertip in the air—“to your neck?”
Mei bristled visibly, then self-consciously tugged at her coarse blond hair, trying to conceal the marks along her throat. “Yeah. We’re not together anymore. I took off last night, ditched his sorry ass.”
“So what will you do now?” he asked. “Go back home?”
At this, she laughed, nearly snorting orange juice out her nose as she took a drink. “Hell, no,” she exclaimed, again drawing disapproving glances from those around them. “Are you kidding? Anyplace is better than there. My mom was always jumping my shit. She and my dad own this little Chinese food place in Louisville, in the middle of this dumpy part of downtown. If I wasn’t in school, she expected me to be there with them, busting my ass mopping floors or pushing pan-fried noodles. Like that’s how I want to spend the rest of my life, never mind my free time.”
“What about your dad?”
Mei uttered a quiet little snort of laughter. “What about him? He doesn’t even understand English, never mind me. Qing an jing dianr, that’s all I heard from him. You be quiet! or Rangkai! Wo xian zai hen mang. Go away! I’m busy now. He was perfectly happy to stay in the back of the restaurant and let my mom deal with me.”
Her gaze grew distant, her expression forlorn. “The only person who ever really gave a shit about me was my zu mu…my grandma.”
“Maybe you should call her,” he suggested. “I’m sure she’s worried about you.”
She shot him a look. “Now you sound like Dr. Delgado.” When a waiter walked past them, seeming conspicuously determined not to as much as glance in their direction, Mei caught him by the elbow. “Can I get a box for this?” she asked with a glance down at the remaining contents of her plate. When the waiter simply looked down his nose at her for a moment, she frowned slightly. “Hui shuo ying yu ma?” she asked. “Do you speak English? A box.””
“Of course, miss,” he murmured, nodding slightly as he dislodged himself from Mei’s grasp. “Right away.”
Mei watched him go, waiting until he was out of earshot, then leaned across the table toward Jason. “There’s something else I want to ask you about. I sort of need your help again.”
Jason raised his brow, immediately suspicious. “You know that guy I mentioned, J-Dog?” she asked and he nodded. “Well, a bunch of my shit is still over at his place. I was kind of in a hurry when I left and couldn’t take it all with me. Will you come with me to get it?”
He must have looked dubious, or at least hesitant—which was good, since he felt that way—because she leaned forward all the more, reaching for his hand, her eyes pleading. “It’s not going to be like the club, I promise. He’s not home right now. He goes out first thing in the morning every morning, so the place will be empty. I’ll just run in, grab my shit and run back out again. Please?”
“If it’s that easy, why do you need me?” he asked. And then he thought of the bruises on her neck and it occurred to him. “Because I have a gun,” he said, answering himself. “Is that why you dragged me along to that strip bar too?”
“No.” Mei shook her head.
“You figured if Pops wouldn’t give you money outright, he’d try something like he did, and there I’d be, armed and dumb enough to step in. Which I was.” He stood, wincing slightly at a dull but insistent pain in his shoulder, and reached for his pocket. “Forget it, Mei.” Flicking a couple of twenties down on the tabletop, he turned to go. “You’re on your own.”
“You still owe me.” Mei said.
“No,” he replied, “I don’t.”
But even before he turned around to look at her, he knew she was frightened. The idea of him leaving, of having to face this guy, J-Dog, without him, terrified her even more so than being alone with Pops behind the closed office door had. Jason could sense it. Or rather, the Eidolon could. And when he turned to face her again, he could see it plainly in her face.
“Please,” she said in a voice he’d come to realize was uncharacteristically meek and quiet. When he walked back to the table and sat back down again, moving slowly, her dark eyes were glossed with a sheen of sudden, grateful tears.
“I’m not saying yes,” he told her and she pressed her lips together in a momentary line, nodding.
“He used to slap me around when he got high,” she said. “Then yesterday afternoon, he brought over three of his friends and they all sat around, smoking, getting
fucked up.”
Her gaze wandered down to her plate and now her hand trailed lightly, almost unconsciously toward her throat. “That’s when this happened,” she said softly, nearly a whisper. “Then they pushed me onto the bed, held me down. J-Dog took out his camera and started shooting video while the rest of them…”
Her voice faded, but she didn’t need to say more for Jason to understand.
“Mei,” he said gently, moved with pity for the girl.
“He just laughed the whole time,” she whispered. A tear slipped over the edge of her dark lashes, rolling down her porcelain-smooth cheek. “Like it was all a big joke.”
He reached across the table, hooking her hand, drawing her gaze. “We need to go back to the health clinic. You need to let Dr. Delgado—”
“No,” she exclaimed in a wide-eyed, breathless hush, the color in her face abruptly draining to ashen. “No, she’ll want me to take an AIDS test, go to some stupid shelter and talk to a counselor, the cops, or worse, call my folks. I don’t want her to know. I don’t want anyone to know.”
“Mei,” he said again, softly. “They raped you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mei said, shaking her head. She looked at Jason, tearful and imploring. “J-Dog said he’d get rid of the video if I gave him money, three hundred dollars. That’s why I went to the club this morning. I just…I don’t know anyone else who has that kind of money, and J-Dog told me if I didn’t get it to him today, he’d put it out on the internet, plaster it everywhere. I know where he keeps his camera, the closet in his bedroom. It won’t take me five minutes to grab it, ten minutes tops.”
Jason thought about pointing out to her that there was nothing in the world to have prevented J-Dog from posting the video images online in the twelve hours or so since she’d left the apartment, but he could tell from the frightened, pitiful look on her face that she knew this too. She was hoping for the best, hoping against hope, and was desperate enough to try just about anything, no matter how reckless or futile.