No More Birthdays (Carol Ann Baker Crime)

by Pelzer,Lissa

  ‘That’s right.’ Her smile rictus tight. ‘Will you excuse me? I forgot my purse down in reception.’

  He wasn’t listening. ‘But… you’re out of bounds now anyway. I don’t want to put you forward for the role with the revelation, ‘Yeah. I tapped that and I mean today… Hey, what time is it?’

  Lilly stopped. ‘What role?’

  ‘The part with Terence McCoy, you remember? We discussed it last night…Time?’

  Lilly looked at the clock on the side, the one right in front of him. ‘Six-ten.’

  ‘Shit, I need to get ready. I need ten minutes. All this talking…’ He went off to the closet and pulled out a suit bag, lay it on the bed and unzipped. Inside were the dry cleaning bags still with the tags on, the ones that didn’t have all their buttons anymore. ‘You’re ready right?’ You don’t need to pee or anything?’

  ‘Ready?’ Lilly backed away.

  ‘For the movie. It’s late, we’ll have to go in with the civilians¬¬–’

  ‘You know, I don’t have a ticket…’

  ‘Please…. But this is a pretty big deal. If you get this role we’ll need to talk agent fees and…Hey, I’m glad you dressed up. I wasn’t sure you know. I was taking a risk, but hey.’ Gary stepped into the pants she been fucking with a few hours earlier and bent over to adjust the ankles. A nasty red gash, the one she painted on earlier with nail polish, popped open.

  She looked away. ‘What role?’ Lilly asked again.

  ‘Listen.’ Gary cut the air with his hand. ‘It’s about confidence. In this business, you’ve got to have confidence and pretend like fuck that you don’t. Last night, I saw both sides of that in you and looking at you right now, well I know you clean up like a gemstone. I don’t want to be cheesy…but baby you’re a diamond in the rough.’

  Lilly bit the inside of her cheek. She’d heard that said before, she’d heard it from The Judge. ‘Well, look at this little diamond in the rough.’ Like she came from trash like he could pick her out, spit on her and rub her up to make her shine. But she didn’t say anything. Gary was talking about a role in a movie. That was different. That was a compliment.

  ‘What kind of role is it?’

  ‘Can we walk and talk?’

  ‘Sure.’

  It didn’t matter.

  She didn’t have to think long to know she couldn’t do it. If her face showed up on a big screen, some guy somewhere would tell everyone what she had done before. But she could play along for now.

  She only needed Gary for one thing. She needed to be on the right side of the velvet rope when she tapped Bobby on the shoulder and let him know she was sticking around until she got her cash.

  ‘What the fuck has happened to this shirt?’ Gary turned circles looking for his missing buttons. ‘When I get home, I am going to tear Mrs. Chow a new fucking asshole.’

  Lilly shrugged and grimaced, picked up her purse and stuck her arm through the straps. For some reason, revenge didn’t have any effect unless the person knew it was you doing it.

  In the street, the stage was lit up again. A girl from a TV show she sometimes watched was sitting on a stool taking questions from a guy standing over her. She was laughing, throwing her head back and showing her tonsils at everything he said, but leaning away from him, as he got closer. Gary opened the taxicab door and Lilly got in.

  ‘When you meet Terence, you’re just going to smile and let me do the talking.’

  ‘Are you a talent agent?’

  ‘No. I’m a publicist… You don’t know what that is, do you?’

  ‘Sure I do. You publicize stuff.’

  Gary turned to her. ‘Why don’t you just say that you don’t and I’ll tell you?’

  ‘Okay.’ She smiled at him. She didn’t care what he did for a living. He was talking and really all she was thinking about was taking a pen and sticking up his nose and giving it a hard hit with the palm of her hand.

  Gary lifted a finger. ‘It’s like naughty kids right, you know how kids do stupid shit because they need attention, they might get punished, but it makes sure they don’t get forgotten about by the tribe… don’t die.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity.’

  ‘Yeah well, if you’re a person of any serious talent, that’s bullshit…why would a good kid want negative attention? Why does a good kid want to get a slap instead of a piece of candy?’ He held onto the strap as they went around a corner. ‘So imagine you’re a good kid and everything you do gets a reward and then you do something just a little bit naughty and the tribe knows you didn’t mean it, you’re still a good kid, so it lets it go. At what point do you know where the line is before you really fuck up?’ He lifted one eyebrow. ‘That’s what it’s like being seriously talented. You do something funny and everyone laughs so you do it again only bigger. Then one day you wake up and you remember that you pulled your cock out and peed into the air to show how you could catch it in your mouth and now the TCM channel won’t show your stuff anymore. That’s what I do. I make sure Terence McCoy doesn’t pee in his own mouth.’

  The car pulled up to the high glass façade of the theater and Lilly looked out at the banner stretched tight like a trampoline against the front. Below was a thick hedge of people and just a narrow roped off opening to let everyone see what was going on behind it.

  ‘Who you looking for?’ Gary asked.

  ‘No one.’

  ‘You don’t see anyone you recognize? Look. There’s May Maxi.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Are you serious? He hosts Maxi’s Pad on TCX.’

  ‘I don’t watch a lot of TV.’ She looked away from him.

  ‘Yeah, well. It’s online. Where do come from anyway?’

  ‘Miami Beach.’

  ‘Really? You could have fooled me. Anyway ¬ not important.’ And he carried on talking and Lilly looked out for a glimpse of Bobby or Cassandra.

  A kid in a fancy dress, toy soldier uniform opened their door. Gary tipped him a dollar and he shoved it in his pocket without saying thanks and they walked up the blue carpet to the mafia-looking guy taking tickets.

  ‘Welcome to Neon Movies,’ the mafia guy said. ‘I just need to see both your IDs.’

  And that was that.

  ‘I don’t have mine with me,’ she said.

  Gary turned to look at her. ‘What. Why not?’

  ‘I just forgot it.’

  ‘So where the hell is it?’ He was really looking at her, his eyes traveling around her face. ‘Are you telling me you don’t have your ID anywhere in that stupidly large purse?’

  ‘I guess I left it at the hotel. But you can get me in can’t you? You know Terence McCoy.’

  The mafia guy laughed.

  But Gary didn’t. He pulled out his phone to look at the time. ‘This is un-fucking-believable. I have to go in. Do you get that? Look, we’ll discuss this later. I don’t have time right now. Here!’ He snatched back one of the tickets and pushed it into her hand. ‘Be quick. Don’t stop to pee, don’t reapply your fucking lip-gloss. Make my head spin. It starts sharp at seven ten.’

  ‘It might take awhile.’

  He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘You want to miss this opportunity, that’s up to you. But be smart. Go and get your ID and be quick about it.’ And he saw someone he knew and called off after them and Lilly stood there for a moment, holding the damn useless, shiny piece of cardboard in her hand while the line behind her pushed up.

  She was trying to think fast, but her brain was like cotton wool. What about, just going left, stepping over that velvet rope, but there was security everywhere. What about using someone else’s ID. What about that moon-faced girl? She could pass for her if she wore a short dark wig. But where was she going to get a wig? The idea was pretty stupid.

  She went back to the cabs. ‘Can I get in this next one?’ she asked the kid in the soldier uniform.

  ‘They won’t take you anywhere. They’re all going right back to The Colorado District.’
<
br />   ‘That’s where I need to go.’

  ‘Fine.’ He flicked the word off his bottom lip. ‘But stand back and let these folks out first.’

  It was like a bad dream, where someone shows up in the wrong place. Cassandra was getting out, rising up almost into her face and a moment later she was a few inches above her.

  ‘Don’t make a scene,’ she whispered into her shoulder. Her eyes dropped to the ticket in Lilly’s hand and reached out. She was going to say something, but Bobby was up on the pavement already. His jaw was tight as a vice, and he looked her level in the eye, trying to work out her angle until he realized – she didn’t have one.

  ‘Miss Cassandra!’ He beckoned her over and Cassandra complied, held out her pale fingers as if she were a foreign princess.

  ‘You’ll understand if I don’t stop to chat,’ she said loudly. ‘I have an appointment.’ The white of her teeth flashed between wet, red lips.

  Lilly watched her walk off towards the guy on the desk. In tight vinyl trousers, her legs looked like they were made out of oil. She was all smiles as if she really was here to see a movie and not to be sold to the highest bidder. And Lilly knew if anyone were interested Bobby would be offering them free samples, a grope when no one was looking or a tongue in her ear.

  Lilly shuddered.

  How could Cassandra still stand it? And not only that but how come she was even here, after what had happened at the restaurant? Why would he trust Cassandra after he’d seen her talking to Davis? She’d never had two words with the woman a day in her life – at least not until this weekend. Cassandra was the one he should worry about.

  And suddenly Davis being here didn’t seem so mysterious.

  She watched them pass through into the theater, saw Bobby look back and sneer.

  Lilly got in the cab. ‘I’m not taking fares,’ the guy yelled back in the rearview mirror.

  ‘That’s good because I haven’t got any money.’

  ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘Relax will you. I’m just getting a ride back to The District. You’re going there anyway, right?’

  His eye twitched. ‘I’ll tell you something. If I wasn’t getting a twenty from every sap doing this trip right now, I’d drive you off…’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ She cut him off. ‘I believe you.’

  The cab pulled up behind the park into a line of five other taxicabs all letting people in and she opened the door before they stopped, got in the crowd again and was carried off in the fuss of noise and bodily heat. She found a doorstep and got up, looked around to get her position. She kind of knew where that bar was, down one of these two streets, but there was no guarantee Moon Face would be there. And she could spend an hour looking and not find her and it was a quarter to seven now. Lilly needed a different idea.

  The door to The Plan 8 Hotel was open. It was that same kid on reception and she stepped inside. Tonight was his lucky night.

  Thad didn’t recognize her at first. He just looked at her like she couldn’t see him back, couldn’t see how dopey he was.

  ‘You still fully booked?’ she asked.

  And then it clicked. ‘Oh. Yeah. What do you think?’

  She pulled out the ticket and waved it about like a stack of cash. ‘You sure?’ She saw his eyes follow it just like Cassandra’s had.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘What do you think?’ She slapped it down, but her hand stayed pressed on it even as he tried to pull it away. ‘I need you to exert some influence.’

  He was still looking down, his fingers still on the ticket trying to drag it away from her. ‘What do you want?’

  Thad!’ She remembered his name from Moon Face and smiled when he flinched, the stuff between his ears struggling. ‘Book a room for me in your name at The Colorado Palace.’

  He looked up. ‘Seriously, what’s wrong with you? Just drop the act and go to The Econo Lodge!’ His mouth curled open showing the gaps in his teeth. ‘You’re not in any way exceptional, you know.’

  She looked down at the ticket. There was a little hologram and a barcode on one side and on the other, a pile of logos and sponsor names, all the markings of the real deal. People had markings like that too. Good and bad. Like the kid who showed up at the house in Opa-Locka, who kept going on about how cool and romantic it was to sleep outdoors, down on the beach. He wanted her to go down there with him and she noticed the headphones round his neck, big DJ style headphones. She remembered looking at the cable and seeing that it wasn’t connected to anything, seeing the wire at the top was busted, seeing they were just there for the show, picked up out of the trash. That gave him away.

  What was it that gave her away?

  ‘If you want to get rid of that ticket….’ Thad said. ‘I’ll give you a hundred and fifty for it, that’s the normal price of a room here.’

  ‘You said tickets were going for three hundred yesterday. You said they’d go for a thousand today.’

  He looked at his watch. ‘Yeah, and now the doors close in fifteen minutes. So you know, the shelf life on that thing is almost up. It’s probably not even worth one fifty right now.’

  ‘And you have one fifty?’

  Thad turned around and pulled out a wooden draw from under the counter. He slapped the two bills down but kept his hand on it. ‘One fifty,’ he said.

  Maybe his mom owned the place. Maybe she didn’t. Either way.

  Lilly dug her nails into the counter. She had the feeling he could just run out the clock if he wanted to. One fifty was better than nothing. She could at least get a room somewhere with one fifty. She said, ‘Do you know a girl around here from Indiana, about my height, black bobbed hair, with a really white face?’

  ‘Summer?’

  ‘Her name’s Summer? She hangs out with a guy called Leif.’

  ‘Summer.’

  ‘Do you know where she lives?’

  His glasses were slipping down his nose again and he pushed them back up. ‘Is that part of the deal?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said and put the ticket back on the counter.

  ‘And what about what you owe me from before?’

  ‘What do I owe you from before?’

  ‘You know…for looking after your bag.’

  ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘I knew you were like that.’ He pulled the money back and Lilly reached for it, felt the notes slip out from under her fingers.

  ‘Okay, fine!’ She pushed the ticket towards him. ‘Come on let’s go.’

  ‘Yeah, but there’s no time.’

  ‘So why are you even bringing it up?’

  ‘The ticket, for one hundred bucks and I tell you where she lives. If you want the other fifty, you’ll have to come back for it…’

  They didn’t shake on it. They both knew it wasn’t going to happen. She slid the ticket over and waited for the money to come over, thinking, if he reneged, there wasn’t much she could do about it right now.

  He took the ticket. ‘It’s VIP!’ he said.

  It didn’t say VIP on there. It said ‘with compliments of Mr. McCoy’.

  ‘Sure it is,’ she said with a shrug, ‘what did you expect?’

  ‘It better not be fake.’

  ‘Please!’

  Thad was vague about Moon Face’s place, but Lilly knew how it was, you could usually say where someone lived if you’d been around there, without knowing the actual street address. And he heaved himself up over the counter and eyed up her shoes. ‘But you’ll need to change those to get there. I’ll give you that bit of advice for free.’

  ‘Yeah? Thanks,’ Lilly would have told him she could run a marathon in these things, but the truth was, her heel was already starting to bleed.

  Chapter 11

  No one looked twice at her going into The Colorado Palace. She passed the bar, passed the lounge too, and when she saw someone in there, she kept on walking. She was standing next to the elevator when Davis came out.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you back so soon, I
thought you were on your way to the movie.’

  ‘Been keeping track?’

  ‘That’s what I do.’

  ‘Well, I just came back to get something.’

  ‘Did you leave it in the lounge?’

  For a split second Lilly thought she meant her ID as if Bobby had put it there or it had been there all along and that’s how Davis knew her name. But she was just run ragged and her head was playing tricks on her.

  ‘I very much doubt it,’ she said coolly.

  ‘Why don’t you come and check?’

  The elevator door pinged open and Lilly debated just ignoring her and getting in, but she had this feeling like Davis was playing nice, like she didn’t have to. As much as she would love to see the expression on her face when Davis took her in and found out she was eighteen already, nineteen tomorrow, she couldn’t afford the time to let her drag her in just to prove a point.

  She went in the direction of Davis’s outstretched arm, into the lounge and lowered herself down onto the arm of the couch nearest the door.

  ‘Do you mind if I have that seat? Only I like to be able to see what’s going on.’

  Lilly got up. ‘For someone with a room bought and paid for in another hotel, you sure like hanging out in this one a lot.’

  ‘What can I say? These couches are much more comfortable. Here, take this one.’ She gestured to the couch opposite and Lilly took it gladly. It was just about as far away from Davis as she could get while still being in the same room.

  ‘Was there something you wanted to ask me, Detective? You tried persuasion and you tried bribery. What’s next?’

  ‘Not so much ‘ask’ you, Carol Ann, but show you. I want you to know where I’m coming from so you have an idea of why I want to help you so much.’

  If she’d had any hairs on her legs, they would have stood up. God talk creeped her out, people going on about forgiveness one minute and how you’re going to hell, the next.

  ‘You know,’ Davis said. ‘I have a daughter your age. One your age and one a few years younger.’ She leaned back. Her nose was going to the mantelpiece where Bobby had put the money, but Lilly didn’t look. ‘Does that surprise you?’