“What?” she demanded.
“Can you run a quickie?” he said, and explained.
Iris looked at Ganymede. “Family problem, huh? Okay, I can help. Come on.”
She held out her hand. Ganymede took it, and Olympus vanished.
BOOK 8
PART VI
I have to write fast. I have to write it down before I chicken out and stop writing and someone gets hurt. I can already feel the words build up inside me like a water behind a dam, and I’m scared of what’ll happen if it breaks. I’ve already been punctured or perforated or whatever other p-word you want to use, and the pressure makes everything in there come out at a high pinhole power that flattens everything in the way. I want to fill all the cracks and crevices on earth with water, then break them open and wash the whole world away, leaving behind a clean, empty beach of damp sand and maybe a few seagulls to cry their sadness to the wind.
I went down to the Haidou Hotel and headed for Lucian’s office. The hotel was busier than it had been before. Music and voices floated out of the bar, and lots of guys, some in suits, some in polo shirts, were hanging out in the lobby. Lucian’s office door was open a crack, and I hesitantly pushed it open. He was typing something on his laptop, but he looked up and gestured me in with a little smile.
“Eryx told you,” Lucian said. He got up and came around the desk. “Good. Let’s get you oriented, Danny.”
“Uh, okay,” I said, a little nervous for some reason. “What am I doing?”
Lucian steered me out of his office with a hand on my shoulder and guided me up the hallway to one of the ground floor rooms, number 008. “This is one of the rooms we don’t rent out. I’ve got a uniform for you, and you can try it on in here.”
He opened it with a keycard from his pocket and I went in with Lucian right behind me. It was a simple room—double bed, closet, night stand, sliding glass door, bathroom. The curtains were drawn across the glass door. It smelled old, and the bed was a little saggy. I wondered how many thousand people had slept on it over the years.
Lucian opened the closet. Hanging inside were some white polo shirts and black slacks on hangers. He tossed me one of each. “Try these on, see if they fit.”
I looked around uncertainly. “Here?”
He rolled his eyes. “You can go in the bathroom if you’re body shy, kid.”
His expression made me feel stupid, but after what happened with Myron, I didn’t feel exactly comfortable changing clothes in front of him, so I went into the bathroom, shut the door, and pulled off my t-shirt.
“So where are your parents, Danny?” Lucian asked from the front room. His voice came through the crack under the door.
I hesitated a second, the shirt still stuck over my arms. “They don’t know I’m working here,” I said. “They wouldn’t like it if they knew I was working in a bar, but I need the money.”
“Understandable. You’re not supposed to work in a bar unless you’re eighteen, but hey—what the cops don’t know …”
“Yeah.” I shucked my shorts and pulled the white polo shirt over my head. It was a little small.
“How long have you lived in Aquapura?”
“Not long,” I said. What was up with this guy? I thought he was someone who handed out low-paying jobs and in return didn’t ask questions.
“You get along well with your family?”
I pulled up the slacks. They were snug, too, and I could barely zip the fly. “Um … I don’t really like talking about my family, you know? It’s … embarrassing.”
“Sure, sure. You got that uniform on yet?”
“It’s a little tight.” White on top and black on the bottom, I emerged from the bathroom, a penguin popping out of a refrigerator. “Do you have a size bigger?”
“Let me see you.” He was sitting on the bed. I didn’t want to come close to him. I felt naked and covered with dirt, and his eyes were on me. Lucian made an annoyed gesture at me, though, and I made myself walk over to him. The tightness of the unfamiliar clothes wrapped me in a fabric prison. “It looks good to me.”
I stretched out an arm. “Hard to move.”
“When did you run away from home, Danny?”
The question caught me completely off-guard. “Run … away?” I stammered.
“I know you left home, kid. I see the signs. Eryx was the same way.”
“What did he tell you?” I asked, getting panicky. What if he called the cops? They’d make me go back to Michigan. To Myron.
“He didn’t say much,” Lucian said. “Don’t get your undies in a bunch. I have lots of runaways working for me.”
I sighed a little, feeling relieved. “Okay.”
Lucian stood up, put both his hands on my shoulders, and leaned in to me. I flinched at the invasion of my space, but didn’t back away. “You just do what I say, and everything’ll be copacetic.”
“I’ll … do what?” I was nervous again.
“I have a lot of special guests who come to this hotel, Danny.” A smile slid across his bearded face. “They want special services, and you’re going to help provide them, just like Irene and Eryx provide them.”
“Eryx does? What do you mean? What kind of services?” Now, while I’m writing this, I can’t believe I was so dumb or blind, but in the hotel room, standing there in those stupid tight clothes, the answer didn’t occur to me. Maybe I didn’t want it to.
“The difference, Danny,” Lucian went on, as if I hadn’t said anything, “is that here, working for me, your pictures won’t be spread all over the Internet.”
It felt like the world dropped away and I was hanging there. I was the Coyote from the Roadrunner cartoons, only now noticing that I was standing on nothing but thin air. Lucian knew. I thought back to his laptop, the one he closed every time I walked into his office.
“Yeah,” he said, reading my expression. His hands were still heavy on my shoulders. “I’m on the web site. It’s a real small world, kid, and I recognized you and Eryx the moment you walked through my door. I’ve seen the shower video. Good stuff. Now you’re gonna work for me. You’ll work as a busboy in the bar and restaurant, and when one of my clients wants to see you, you’ll do whatever he wants in his room. No questions asked. I’m happy, my customers are happy, you earn some extra money, everyone wins.”
My mouth was dry and my heart was pounding so fast from fear I thought it would explode. “No. I’m not going to—”
He slapped me hard across the face. My head snapped sideways and pain smashed my cheek.
“You’ll do it here or you’ll do it for your step-daddy,” he said in a calm, deadly voice that would kill a rattlesnake. “One call to the sheriff, and you’ll go right back to him, you and your little step-bro both. And before you get any ideas about telling the cops yourself, ask yourself who they’ll will believe—a respected local businessman, or some teenage street trash?”
I didn’t have to say anything because the answer was obvious. And I didn’t want to go back to Myron. My cheek still hurt.
“Think of it this way,” Lucian said reasonably. “Here you get paid. With Myron you don’t. It’s going to happen, Danny, you may as well accept it. I watch all my special workers, and they don’t have a choice either.”
My throat closed up, and I felt like I was going to cry if I said anything, so I just looked down and shook my head. Every line and lump in my body showed through my shirt and slacks. Suddenly I knew why he’d given me clothes that were a size too small. I felt naked and exposed, like I’d been peeled.
“Get undressed,” Lucian ordered.
Fear stabbed me one more time. “What?”
“Do it.” The deadly tone was back. “Unless you want more than a slap. And don’t even try to make a break for the door. I’ll have you on the floor in two seconds, and you’ll learn what real pain is, you little fuck. Do it. The trousers, too.”
Little Red Riding Hood
Faces a wolf secretly engorged.
She marvels at t
he size of his eyes and ears and teeth.
Shaking, I pull the shirt over my head and throw it into the fire
But doesn’t see the biggest danger.
A bed is supposed to be warm and inviting.
And then the trousers go and I’m wearing nothing but thin red underwear
The wolf throws me down on a bed stuffed with stale sleep and painful promises
But it’s a toothy trap.
And the wolf eats her alive.
His knees comes down heavier than stones on either side of my stomach
Did this happen to the other?
But a woodcutter comes and frees the scarlet hood with his axe, and doesn’t even spill any blood.
The wolf drowns in the well, poisoning it forever, but leaving the happy ending intact.
I don’t have a woodcutter.
When he was done, Lucian told me to take a shower and put on my own clothes. I stood under the hot spray, wishing I could wash down the drain with the waste water. Parts of me ached, and I felt … I just felt. Finally Lucian yelled at me to quit wasting time, and I got out. He let me get dressed in the bathroom by myself, and I felt glad of this small thing.
Out in the hotel room, Lucian handed me a twenty and a cell phone. “You can get something to eat from the restaurant, if you want it. Keep this with you. Forget what I told you in my office—I’ll call when I want you to come in, probably in the afternoon.”
I stuffed the phone and the money in my pocket. My hands were stone, and my brain was lead. I was trying not to think, but I couldn’t help wondering if this was how Eryx felt all the time.
“One more thing, Danny.” Lucian suddenly crushed me to his chest in a hug. For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to start it all up again, and I froze. But all he did was stroke my hair and whisper in my ear, “You’re mine now, kid. I just proved it to you.”
He kissed my forehead like he was my uncle or something, then shoved me toward the door. “Get the fuck out of here until I call you.”
I don’t remember the walk back to the nursing home and I have no clue how I picked my way through the dark hallways to the bedroom. Eryx and Irene were asleep, her on the mattress, him on the floor. Moonlight dripped into the room through the open window, and the hot air felt close, almost stiff. The mug on the window sill cast a distorted shadow across the wall. I watched them breathe, their faces serene as silver. Pain throbbed warm and red in my … in the parts of my body that Lucian had … fuck, is it even my body anymore? How much of it belongs to me?
I got mad. “You set me up!” I yelled. “Bitch! Asshole!”
They both jerked awake. Eryx was halfway to the door before he realized it was me, and I saw a flash of metal in Irene’s hand. A knife. She slipped it back under her pillow.
“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me,” she said as Eryx flopped down on the mattress beside her. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“With me?” I was practically screaming. “What do you mean what’s wrong with me? You sent me to fuckhead Lucian and he … he …” My throat closed again and my chin trembled.
“Okay, okay,” Irene said softly. “You don’t have to say it. I know.”
“Yeah,” Eryx added, equally soft. “I know.”
And suddenly I was tired and sad and scared and the rage slipped away like mercury. “Then why the fuck did you send me over there, Irene? And why didn’t you say anything, Eryx?” I was swallowing hard to keep my words steady because I knew if I started freaking out, I’d never stop.
“Look, Danny, why don’t you sit down, okay? You look wiped.” Irene patted the mattress beside her. I sat cross-legged on the floor instead. It was hard and gritty under my shorts.
“Listen,” Eryx said, “there are only three ways kids like us can earn a living on the street: stealing, dealing drugs, and hooking. I know, Danny. And I knew which it would be the second we walked out on Myron. It was just a matter of time.”
I thought about all the sleep Eryx had been catching lately. Trying to avoid thinking about it?
“Stealing gets you caught,” Eryx went on, “and dealing eventually gets you killed. That leaves hooking.”
“I know it sucks at first,” Irene said. “But think of it this way—you let some guy poke at you, and you earn more money in half an hour than in a whole day of sweeping floors. And you sleep in all morning and spend all day at the beach.”
“And live in a fucking hellhole with lizards and cockroaches,” I said.
“So what? It won’t kill you. And the rent’s cheap. Lucian’s nicer than most pimps. He doesn’t hit very much and he makes the johns use a condom, though that’s more to cover his ass than ours. If he gets a rep for spreading disease, the johns’ll take off.”
Suddenly I halfway wanted to laugh. “Are you convincing yourself or me?”
“You get used to it,” Eryx said. His voice was flat in the near-darkness, and I felt cold, unable to answer him. “Besides, if it’s not Lucian, it’ll be someone else. Someone who’ll cut you. Or leave bruises. Or use duct tape.”
“There isn’t anything else, Danny,” Irene said, though it sounded like she was talking to herself as well as me. She scooted toward me and put her hand on my shoulder. “There really isn’t. If there was, I’d be doing it.”
“He said he’d call the cops if he didn’t do what he said,” I said dully. “Report me as a runaway and have them take me—us—back to Michigan.”
“Yeah,” Eryx said from the mattress. “And I’ll die before I go back there.”
They said more, but I don’t really want to write any of it down. After a while, we all lay back down to sleep, except I couldn’t. Instead, I stared at the bit of moonlight on the floor and watched it edge toward me across the floor, a patient hunter seeking timid prey.
Dear Danny,
We have stolen half your life.
Soon we will steal half of what you have left.
Then we will steal half of that
And half of that
And half of that.
Can you tell the difference between what you have left
And nothing at all?
This is not a ransom note.
Sincerely,
Danny
I finally got up and went outside. The night air formed a heavy cloak around my body and trailed me down to the ocean. The soft rush of the waves, the pale sand, the warm water. I sat on the beach and buried my feet until I couldn’t pull them out. Eryx and Irene were right—there was nothing else a runaway could do for money. Stealing would get you caught, drugs would get you killed. All I had to sell was my body. At least I could sell it more than once.
I wanted to go home so bad, but home—the little cottage on Lake Trick—was gone, demolished under a bulldozer that didn’t care about dreams or memories. I couldn’t go back to Mom and Myron. I could run away from Lucian, but someone else would just take his place. Even if I took off, I was stuck. Trapped.
Stars made reverse freckles on the night sky above me. I looked for familiar groups and found them. I missed Uncle Zack so much, my bones ached. I wanted to tell him everything that had happened and let him ruffle my hair and say, “’S okay, sport. You still have me.”
A meteor streaked through the sky in a tiny firework, and I wished harder than a little kid in the hospital for someone to swoop in and take me someplace safe, where nothing mattered, where I didn’t have to worry. Then I sighed. Why waste a wish on something that would never happen?
It occurred to me that I could get up and walk forward. Just walk, that’s all. The ocean would part enough to let me in, accept me completely. Walk long enough, and the silky salt water would wash all my problems away. The possibility fascinated me and scared me in equal parts.
I was barely aware that I was crying at the time Irene found me. She just sat beside me on the silent sand. I didn’t take my wet eyes off the ocean, even when she put her arm around my waist and leaned into me. She was warm and smooth, and the moonlight
drained all the color out of her.
“It’ll be okay,” she said. “I promise, Danny. You’re not alone, you know. Not ever.”
Then I was kissing her. Or she was kissing me. I wasn’t sure which. The kiss went on for a long time, covered in silver moonlight and held forever. It felt relaxing and exciting at the same time, like a feather bed on a roller coaster. I didn’t want to stop, but finally we had to.
When we pulled apart, Eryx was crouched like a seagull in the sand nearby, his face unreadable. I felt a stab of guilt. He’d seen us, and what if he wanted Irene too? I didn’t want him to be mad or get jealous or run away. The thought made my heart pound and my stomach twist into a snake.
Eryx walked forward on his knees until he was kneeling beside me and I was between him and Irene. Irene’s arm was still around my waist and mine was around her shoulder. Irene and I both looked at him. The pale light turned his blond hair white, and the quiet rush of waves continued somewhere in front of us. He slid an arm around me just above Irene’s, and I swallowed hard, not daring to move.
“Love is random,” Eryx said. “We should take whatever we can get.” And he kissed me.
It was the first time I’d kissed a guy. It was both different and the same as kissing Irene. The same because, like a girl’s kiss, it was electric as a building thunderstorm. Different because I caught Eryx’s male scent, felt his strong arm holding me hard, sensed the breath in his—his—chest against mine. He put his hand on my cheek, and it covered nearly half my face.
“My turn,” Irene said when it ended. She leaned across me to kiss Eryx, and I pulled back a little to see, and that was strange, too, but I liked it. Then both of them suddenly broke away and kissed me on opposite cheeks at the same time. All three of us burst into a giggle-fit at that, and we fell backward onto the sand, laughing. I felt … free and freed, fine and fantastic, even if it was just for a little while.
Danny Page 15