Cheap chicks did that, no doubt. Girls they picked up and used. Girls who didn’t get tickets to any special destination. She wondered if they were planning on dumping her on the side of the road? Whether they thought they could leave her at a gas station, when she went to the bathroom.
She pictured herself standing by the gas pump, startled, clutching her hat, looking at the lonely highway, maybe even having to hitch a ride back home.
Or perhaps they’d be a smidgen classier. They’d creep out of a motel room while she slept, even fold a couple of bills in an envelope. Sorry it didn’t work out, sweetheart.
It was her fault for thinking scorpions could be tamed, but Viridiana was nothing if not quick to learn. What she discovered in those days when the temperature soared and sweat clung to their bodies, the fan whirling slowly, was that there was an uncomfortable similarity between despair and desire; an agony of the flesh. She learned that she could loathe and want something, that his hands were repugnant and delicious. Most of all she learned to handle him with a brutal, quiet efficiency. It was not only the physical act of getting on her knees, more than that it was the dissimulation it took to do it with a smile.
“Baby, it’s going to be so good you and me together,” he told her, and she didn’t contradict him, her body didn’t tense as he spoke. His hand was splayed against her breasts and she nodded.
She felt very much alone as she lay on the bed with Gregory by her side. More alone than she’d ever been, but also considerably less afraid. There was a calm inside her now, a silence. She’d always been so afraid that the land would eat her, but it was obvious now that the answer was you had to eat it.
You have to be the carnivore, the devourer, the one who bites first.
A shark, enormous, majestic, unstoppable, rows and rows of teeth.
In mock play she bit into his hand, leaving the slightest indentation of teeth on his flesh. He thought it was funny.
“You’re a cannibal,” he said and she remembered that they said the Aztecs ate the hearts of men.
She bit his lips for good measure.
Chapter 21
It was easy to find an excuse to go into town. They were always needing things. Daisy was out of cigarettes—Viridiana had flushed the last two of them for good measure—and Gregory got cranky when the booze reserves were too low. No need to flush that, in their boredom they knew to do little more than drink and tan themselves. They were primeval creatures, despite their sleek appearance. They were the Nephilim in the first few pages of her family’s Bible; golden-haired angels who had fallen low.
Viridiana went to town, parked her bicycle behind the hotel and walked in through a side door which was perpetually broken, avoiding the lobby and heading straight to the room she wanted. She knocked twice and the door opened wide.
The thin man, Henry, wore a different velvet jacket, this one blue, but looked at her with the same expression he’d employed before, like a man who is adding up numbers in a column.
“Can I come in?” she asked, calmly. She had rehearsed that line in front of the mirror half a dozen times until it sounded right, an actress preparing for the most important audition of her entire life.
“Please,” he said.
She went in, stood in the middle of the room and saw that there was an interconnecting door and the other man, Scott, stood there, staring at her. Henry waved at the man, and Scott moved back out of sight. He was close enough. Close enough he could barge into the room in three seconds if he deemed it necessary, she’d understood the message.
Henry pointed to one of two plush chairs set next to a large framed photograph of the cave paintings in the Sierra de San Francisco. She’d never seen them up close, but the legends said they’d been painted by giants.
The giants had killed each other many years before, leaving behind only those paintings in black and red upon the walls of caves.
Every story in Baja California seems to end in death.
“What do you drink?” Henry asked, opening the mini bar.
“Water.”
“Not with Lily and James you wouldn’t.”
Lily and James. Whoever they were. Their names had changed, but they must have started somewhere. Like this man, and the man in the adjoining room. They began somewhere.
Viridiana was beginning, too.
“They’re not here,” she said.
“Right. Why are you here, then?”
“You told me to make sure I was taking care of myself the other night.”
He had filled a glass with mineral water and the other with whiskey, and handed Viridiana the one with water before sitting down in front of her.
“We all have to take care of ourselves,” he said, smiling.
She did not smile back, although she thought that’s what he expected. After all, we mirror people’s expressions and emotions. But she thought there was no need for that now and that her face, impassive, would be taken seriously, while a smile would undermine her words. Besides, she had not practiced a smile.
“What story did they spin you?” Henry asked. “At one point Gregory told girls he was a photographer and he’d make them into famous models. Is that the line he threw you?”
“No,” she said, although she could picture that all too easily. He probably hadn’t bothered with that because there was no need, she was all too willing to cooperate, and Daisy had the cassette tape anyway. It was as good as anything else to force a girl’s hand.
They’d forced a lot of people into a lot of things.
“Whatever it is, you don’t really think you’re their protégé, do you?”
“You’ve known them long?” she asked, instead of answering him. It still hurt, a little, the whole thing. It was like a discolored bruise.
“Some,” he said. “They worked for my boss. Until they bungled that.”
“Daisy and Gregory owe you a bunch of money, don’t they?”
“Not me. My boss. But, yeah, they do,” Henry said.
“You said you were a gentleman, you said that, too. The other night.”
“I am.”
“Then maybe I can talk to you.”
“Talk away.”
“Right. It may please you to know they’ll be getting money from Lawrence Landry tomorrow. Two-hundred thousand dollars. They also intend to run off tomorrow night. Without paying you a single cent,” she said.
Viridiana sipped her water. She had rehearsed this part but she was still surprised at how coolly she was able to speak. She was nervous. That hadn’t disappeared. But she could also clutch that nervousness, clutch it tight and pin it in place so that it didn’t radiate up and down her body. It stayed pinched in that single point.
“That would be very rude of them,” Henry said. He didn’t sound angry. But his eyes fixed on the photograph on the wall in a way that was not at all pleasant. “Very rude, indeed. Are you sure they’ll have the money tomorrow?”
“Not in coins and bills. They’re headed to the notary public to sign papers. After that, Daisy will have access to two-hundred thousand dollars.”
Henry fixed his eyes on Viridiana now. “How do you know this?”
“Lawrence Landry told them that’s the way things would go. Tomorrow they’ll conclude their business, then they’ll go to the house, have a few celebratory drinks and then some more, and late at night they’ll head out of town.”
“And you are telling me all this, why?”
“They’re shortchanging me, too,” Viridiana said. “And also because I intend to have a very long, very happy life.”
“Don’t we all?”
“It’s very hard to live happily ever after when you don’t settle your affairs properly. I want to settle mine. I’m not sure how Daisy and Gregory got involved with you, or why they even call themselves that, or what they’ve done before getting here. I don’t care whether your name really is Henry and what you do for a living. I care only to be left out of thi
s situation, and to go on with my life as it was before I met them.”
Henry had finished his drink, he stood up and set his glass on top of the mini bar.
“I see.”
He turned to her, pulled her up from her seat, one quick motion which almost caused her to spill her drink and she opened her mouth to protest, but managed to shut it quick.
“If you’re lying to me, you’ll be sorry,” the man said. “I walk in there tomorrow and if they’re ready for us, if it’s an ambush, I’ll tear you apart.”
“It’s not. I’m not an idiot.”
“Could be you’re feeling suicidal.”
“I feel like living.”
He let go of her and Viridiana straightened herself. “You’ll come by tomorrow night, then. I can expect you?” she asked. Despite her composure she bit her lips for a moment, the slightest hint of the anxiety she was managing to control.
He smiled again. “Aren’t you scared, kid, to invite us like this?”
What did he want her to say? She didn’t reply, placed her glass next to his.
She left, rode her bike to the liquor store and made sure to buy cigarettes while she was in town.
The next day they marched into the notary public. Lawrence and Daisy signed a bunch of papers. There were polite handshakes and when Lawrence approached Viridiana she leaned forward, whispering to him.
“Maybe we can hang out tonight?” she asked. “I’ll stop by.”
He blinked at her and nodded, and then he whipped his face away so quick that she knew Daisy had been right all along. He had it bad for her. Until that moment she hadn’t wanted to admit it, because admitting it meant she was using him. The same way Gregory had used her. But there was also something surgical and clean about the words inside her head. About the truth.
He wants you, plain and simple.
She turned her head, too, looking at the ugly church by the square.
Delfina was heading out by the time they reached the house, but she had left a bounty of food as she always did. Fish and potatoes and fresh bread from the bakery, and the cold cuts and cheeses Daisy liked to nibble on.
Rather than eating right away, Viridiana suggested they walk down to the beach. Daisy and Gregory were jubilant, and readily agreed. Viridiana spent most of the time under the umbrella, watching them frolic in the water while she traced letters in the sand.
When they got back inside it was time to gobble the food, to drink and smoke and lay on the couches, blasting music and idling around. Viridiana sat with a fashion magazine in her lap and considered the many times she had done this with them, the evenings spent in a haze of indolence.
Gregory lay on the floor with a hand behind his head, popping smoke rings out of his mouth. How impressive that had been a few weeks ago. Now Viridiana looked down at him, at his tight shirt, first two buttons open, the expanse of visible skin, and felt incredibly foolish for thinking him Prince Charming.
Daisy, sitting in front of Viridiana, her arms resting on the back of the couch, a glass in her hand, with her bangles and her rings, was still regal. But even her appeal had diminished. She was like a plaster figurine of the Virgin of Guadalupe which has been scraped of bits of its paint. The plaster was showing.
The night was long in coming. It took a thousand years for it to come because that’s the way it was here, with clocks that did not mark the right time. Time stalled and they sat in that living room, listening to the same tunes, for years and years. So long, that when Viridiana raised her eyes and saw that the two men had walked into the room, she had almost completely forgotten she’d left the front door open for them.
Viridiana slowly put aside the magazine she had been reading and regarded them in silence. Henry was wearing a black velvet jacket with wide lapels and metal buttons down the center front. This was his uniform, then.
She supposed it was important to know who and what you were. To pick a uniform.
Daisy and Gregory hadn’t seen them. They continued chatting, the music played, until a hand lifted the needle from the record and the two of them turned their heads.
“Good evening.”
“Henry,” Gregory said, jumping to his feet. “Why, Henry, you should have told us you were coming over. We would have tidied up a bit.”
“Celebrating something?” Henry asked stepping forward and looking down at the empty bottles on the floor, the full ashtray, the plundered plate of cold cuts.
“You know us. Killing time.”
“Really? I thought you were doing business today. I heard you were at the notary public. After that, you went to the bank. Bought some travellers checks, I think.”
Henry stepped forward, pushing aside an ashtray with his foot, clearing himself a path towards Gregory and Daisy. The big guy, Scott, remained by the stereo, looking through the LPs stacked there. He flipped an album over, checking out the liner notes, like he didn’t care what Henry and the others talked about. He was a guest at a party admiring the host’s record collection.
“Do you think I haven’t been watching you?” Henry asked.
Viridiana remembered how he had popped up next to her at the hotel, nonchalant. He had probably been following her. He might have been following her when she went to the lighthouse or the restaurant.
“Henry,” Gregory said. “Look, man—”
“You two must think I’m a fool,” he said pausing in his trajectory, pausing right in front of Gregory.
“Sit down, let’s chat,” Gregory said, pretending friendliness. Everyone was pretending.
“I’ll sit down in a minute, and we’ll chat alright.”
“Let me get you a drink.”
“No, not you,” Henry said. “Kid, get me a glass of whiskey. Neat.”
There were bottles on the other side of the room, on a table, along with a few glasses. She poured him half a glass and handed it to him. He nodded at her.
“Where’s the money? And don’t you dare give me that song and dance number that you don’t have it.” Henry said, casually, as though he was in a bar and they were all having a friendly chat during cocktail hour.
“It’s… it’s in… she would know. She handles that,” Gregory said.
Henry walked behind the couch Daisy was occupying, leaning forward, glass between his hands, turning his head to stare at her. She looked at him, unblinking.
“Help me here, or I’m going to have to be unpleasant.”
“You’re going to be unpleasant anyway,” she replied.
“No. Not me. You know me. I don’t like unnecessary messes. Maybe we can square this.”
Viridiana figured Daisy spent her life squaring out a lot of things, but this time it was going to be difficult to settle the score. Daisy nodded, anyway.
“I transferred it to an account. And then it’ll need to be transferred again,” Daisy said. “You know how it is. I have a few thousand in travelers checks, but that’s only to tide us up for the next few days. You can’t put that kind of cash in a purse.”
“I know how it is. I suppose you have all the necessary documentation to execute these transfers and get ahold of this money.”
Daisy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and nodded again.
“Bring the documents down,” he ordered Daisy. “Scott, keep her company.”
Scott and Daisy went up the stairs together. Gregory did not seem to know what to do with himself. He thrust his hands into his pockets, looked down at his feet. Henry concentrated on his drink, turning the glass between his hands.
Daisy and Scott came down. Henry handed Scott the glass and Daisy handed Henry the papers. He looked them over, turning the pages, pausing over a certain section, his finger on it.
“Two-hundred thousand,” Henry said.
“That’s right,” Daisy said. She stood next to Gregory. Her fingers grazed his arm.
Viridiana remained with her arms crossed, by the big yellow painting. She fixed her eyes on Daisy�
��s long fingers, the bangle on her wrist, the movement of that wrist as it touched Gregory as if to reassure him.
She must do that often. She reaffirmed his courage, or gave him courage where there was none.
“Just about what you owe Frank.”
“Then we’re square, right?” Daisy said. “Like you said, we’re square.”
“I said just about.”
“Be good, Henry.”
“I am being good, Lillian.”
Henry handed Scott the papers and he took back his glass. He finished his drink.
“I’ve always liked you both,” Henry said, shaking his head. “Always did. And maybe, if you hadn’t tried to run from us a second time, I would have left it at that. But you gave us the slip the first time and then you tried to give us the slip here. That’s not right.”
“I mean, Christ, Henry, we didn’t go anywhere,” Gregory said.
“You were planning on going somewhere. It’s the principle. Whose idea was it to run off tonight?”
“Hers.”
Gregory spoke lightning quick. He couldn’t have spoken any faster. Daisy’s fingers stilled on his arm and she looked up at him, a smirk across her face.
“And it was you who pushed for Mexico,” she replied.
“Come on now,” Gregory said raising his hands, palms in the air, stepping back from her. “That wasn’t me, either.”
“It was someone,” Henry said. “Who pushed for it, kid? Chatter in my ear a little more, tell me the whole thing.”
He was talking to her.
It took Viridiana a few seconds to realize he was talking to her. She had been able to keep her nerves at bay so far. Mostly because she had been prepared for everything, she’d rehearsed her conversation with him and had pictured a similar scene as this in her head. However, she had not thought he’d speak to her again. He’d be too busy with them.
It made it all worse if he spoke to her. Because she had to speak back and she knew that they knew. They were staring at her, and they knew she’d gone to the hotel, they knew she’d done this. The way Daisy stared at her and Gregory’s ghostly face, it was right there, that terrible knowledge.
Untamed Shore Page 23