by Zara Cox
I hurry along the sidewalk, careful to avoid the morning rush hour crowd. I bumped into someone by accident two days ago. The abuse hurled at me by the guy in the snazzy suit was eye-watering. Had I not been reluctant to draw attention to myself, I would’ve responded with a few choice words of my own. But keeping my head down was more essential than losing my shit on him. The worst that happened to him was a few drops of ten-dollar, fancy-assed coffee spilled on his suit.
What could happen to me should I be discovered is an outcome I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. So I keep my head down, the soiled tips of my worn boots guiding my feet on the wet sidewalk as I speed walk.
The train ride from my ratty, roach-infested Queens motel to Wall Street is thankfully uneventful, but I’m even more nervous when I exit the subway station. In the sea of suited stock market traders and high-fliers, my cheap clothes and poor disguise stands out. Not enough to attract notice unless you were really paying attention.
Problem is, someone is paying attention.
Clayton Getty is looking for me. So is the man I grew up thinking was my father. Between the two of them, they have endless resources with which to find me, regardless of where I am.
Right now, the problem isn’t if they find me, but when. It’s the time between now and when that I’m desperate to prolong. It’s the when that drove me to the pay phone on the street corner near my motel, where I risked precious money to make a frankly absurd phone call and send my picture to an unknown social media account. It drove me to risk leaving my cell number on a stranger’s voicemail in the hope that I’d land a job that promises a ridiculous payday.
Even as I told myself I was old enough to know better than to fall for a scam, the fear and desperation that gnawed like acid in my stomach spurred me on. It led me to a sterile room that reeked of money and sinister intentions in a Midtown penthouse, and a mechanical voice that still echoes in my head and sends shivers down my spine.
It could all be for nothing. The voice that has haunted my dreams the last three days could be the perfect fuck you to the cosmic fuck up that is the sum total of my life. But I can’t get it, and the possibilities, out of my mind.
That cryptic article in a discarded newspaper started a chain of events that I know deep down could be my undoing.
It’s given me hope.
And right now, hope is all I have left.
One million dollars.
For sex. For my life.
It’s unthinkable to me that anyone would pay that much for sex. Back where I’m from, lap dances cost sixty dollars, blow jobs are ninety-five. Sex attracts the princely sum of a hundred seventy-five, often negotiated down to a flat one-fifty if your belly’s full. If you were caught in the gleeful talons of starvation and you were stupid enough to let your desperation show, you’d be lucky to walk away with eighty.
Unless you were fortunate enough to be promoted to a job at The Villa. The special wing at The Villa is where every girl aspires to be. The Villa is where Clayton Getty rules his kingdom with titanium fists, aided and abetted by my father, his second-in-command.
It was where I was born and where I lived until I was five, when my mother was unceremoniously tossed out, and I was introduced to Trailer Trash Central.
I didn’t know how thankful I should’ve been with my lot until Ma died and my absentee father reappeared and dragged me back to The Villa.
Initially, I thought that karma decided to stop shitting on me. The food was great, the showers hot, and the bed gloriously lump-free. Little did I know that karma was merely taking a short nap while the clock, and Clayton, counted down to my seventeenth birthday; that the six months between Ma succumbing to her fucked up liver and my seventeenth birthday was just a pit stop between Armageddon and Hell. A mere dress rehearsal for the patrons of The Villa.
And what a show it was. I was dressed up like a doll every night. Paraded before hungry assholes while closely guarded by Ridge, Clayton’s top dog. The months’ long look but don’t touch threat sent them into a frenzy by the end, and on the morning of my seventeenth, Clayton was all but salivating. His disappointment that I wasn’t a virgin was obscenely palpable. Still, he had every sleazy patron eating out of his hand.
The night my father delivered the news that I was elevated to Clayton’s Top Whore, I vomited all over his shoes. That earned me a backhand, the sting of which I can still taste. The ones that came after have faded with time, but, as the song goes, you never forget your first…
I round the corner onto Wall Street and get hit in the face by a cannonball of chilly wind. A shiver rattles my teeth. I’m not used to freezing conditions. The town outside Fresno, California, where I grew up may have been a shit hole, but at least it was a warm shit hole. Going from perpetual sunshine to interchangeable weather has been a body shock. But the weather is the least of my worries.
There are even more street cameras here and fewer people dressed like me.
I raise my head a fraction and see the building I’m headed for two blocks away.
Blackwood Tower.
More specifically, the basement.
I have no clue what goes on above street level. I haven’t gone anywhere near the Internet since I hightailed it from Fresno. The one and only time I attempted to use my phone, Clayton found me within the hour. I ditched that phone at a rest stop in Iowa, stuck to hitchhikes all the way to New York, and bullshitted my way to a burner phone.
Whatever high-flying business happens up in the glass and steel tower is none of my concern. All I care about is that this job pays in cash, and that, as long as I keep my head down, no one notices me.
I hurry past the entrance of the building to the side street door that leads down into the cavernous basement. I enter the security code, walk through a large industrial kitchen, then down another set of stairs to the sub-sub-basement level. I shove the heavy double doors open, and a wall of steam and the sound of clanging plates greet me. A smaller side door leads me to the rec and locker room, where I quickly change out of my jeans and T-shirt into my work gear.
The white shirt and matching pants hang loose on me, the result of one too many missed meals. I secure the pants with the cheap rope belt I brought and make sure my hair is tucked under the black hairnet before I head back out.
“Hey, sweet thing. You’re early,” a voice greets me over the rattle and shake of rows of machines churning out glasses and plates.
I slow my stride and nod at Miguel, but I don’t stop as I pass his station. I’ve noticed his eyes on my boobs and ass more times than I’m comfortable with. So far my mild fuck off vibe is working. I’m not sure how long it’ll last though. Experience has taught me that a half-decent set of tits and ass blinds most men to just about everything else.
“Yeah,” I respond. “I lucked out with the subway.” I reach my station and activate the machine. Seconds later, the first stack of clean, steaming plates arrives in front of me.
“That’s great. So…uh, where is it you said you commute from again?” He raises his voice to be heard above the sound of the plates I’m stacking on the tallboy trolley.
I turn and spear him with a cold look. “I didn’t say.”
He looks taken aback for an instant. Then he grins. “Come on, muchacha. I’m just trying to get to know you. No need to be so prickly.”
I turn away without answering. He gets the hint because he doesn’t engage me again for the rest of the morning.
An hour before the lunchtime rush is when hundreds of dirty plates are sent down. I found out through a talkative Miguel that not only are Blackwood Tower employees given three squares daily free of charge, the top executives are also given brunch, hence the late morning madness. The only sliver of a lull comes after lunch, but we’re allowed to take fifteen-minute breaks twice a day besides our lunch break.
During the first break, I pour myself a cup of cheap, but free, coffee from the rec room, grab the burner phone from my locker and head upstairs. Outside, I head deeper into th
e side street and make sure I’m alone before I turn on the phone.
My heart hammers and my palms grow clammy as I wait for the blue wheel to stop spinning. My rational brain tells me it’s a burner and Clayton will have no way to trace it unless I do something stupid, like call someone back at The Villa. I don’t intend to. For one thing, nothing and no one back there triggers anything near nostalgia, although every now and then I suffer a twinge of guilt for what I did.
All the same I’m nearly dizzy with fear as I check for missed calls.
Nothing.
My heart drops, thankfully along with a large dose of terror once the phone is powered down. But in its place, anxiety rises.
It’s Thursday. The stranger with the mechanical voice said he’d be in touch within the week. Did that mean in the next seven days or within this week, i.e. before Friday? I stare into the middle distance and mull the words over. The longer I think about what happened in that room, the more surreal it feels.
The stunning, but starkly minimalist apartment. The light grey walls with the uncomfortably, artsy chair. The mirror. The futuristic looking camera.
His robotic, hypnotic voice.
Had that all really happened?
“Elly.”
My mind frees itself from the lingering fear. I conclude that I must have fallen into some Kubrick-style, hunger-induced delirium and fantasized the whole thing.
“Elly?”
Which means, my life is still set on a countdown clock, which spans days, possibly a week or two, tops. Because Clayton will find me. And when he does, he’ll kill me. It might be slow or it might be fast. But death will be the ultimate penalty.
“Hey, Elly!”
It takes a nano-second for the name to register as mine. Snapping fingers emphasize the call and I turn to find Miguel hovering five feet from me. A cigarette dangles from his fingers as he stares at me funny.
My skin prickles with thoughts of discovery, thoughts of flight. I force myself to remain calm, not give away the fact that the name he’s calling me by is as familiar as it is alien to me. “Yes?”
He laughs. “You didn’t hear me? You spaced out there for a sec, huh?”
I slowly slide the phone into my pocket. “Did you want something, Miguel?”
“Not me, no. But the boss wants you.”
My heart skips several beats. “Why?”
He shrugs. “Hell if I know. But he wants to see you, pronto.”
I manage a nod and keep a sensible distance between us as I leave the alley.
“Uh…Elly?”
My back stiffens, the name a reminder of why I’m here in this cold, noisy city awaiting a gruesome fate that looks exactly like death. I look over my shoulder.
“Is everything okay with you?” Miguel asks.
“We don’t know each other well enough for you to ask me that.”
He shrugs. “Maybe not. But I’m asking all the same.”
I think of all the answers I can give. Then settle on the only option available. “I’m fine.” I dispose of my Styrofoam cup and hurry inside before he can stick his nose further into my business.
The man I work for, Sully Manning, overheard me enquiring about a short term job in the shop where I bought my phone in Queens. His shrewd pale grey eyes assessed me throughout my conversation with the shop owner. He followed me outside, scaring the shit out of me before he said he might be able to help. It took two tries before I conquered my fear long enough to call the number he gave me.
Now, as I approach his office, I wonder if that fear wasn’t justified. Have I been too trusting? Hunger and terror have a way of messing with your mind. By letting one overrule the other, have I walked into a trap?
My feet falter. Fight or flight spikes adrenaline into my veins.
Sully sees me through his window and beckons me with a beefy hand. I look behind me. Should I make a run for it? How far will I get?
“Elly! I haven’t got all day.”
I press clammy palms against my pants and present myself in his office doorway.
“Umm, you wanted to see me?”
“Yes,” he snaps. He’s Irish-Italian with a brusque manner that keeps everyone in the catering support team in line. He moves a few papers around on his desk before his head snaps up. “You wanna earn some extra money?”
“I…yes?”
He head-tilts. “You don’t sound sure.”
I swallow hard, wonder if this is another acid-trip offer without the actual acid high. “I’m sure.”
He nods a grey head. “Good. Good. Two of my servers have called in sick. Some bullshit stomach bug or other. I need you to step in.”
My alarm escalates. I push it down and manage to nod. “Okay. What…what do you need?”
“Go see Meg in the uniform department. She’ll find one of the girl’s outfits for you. You need to be upstairs in fifteen minutes.”
I’m glad I don’t have to answer because sheer terror has overtaken my vocal cords. I belong in the basement, in the bowels of the earth where no one can see me. I don’t belong upstairs doing…whatever Sully wants me to do. But I need this job or starvation will claim me long before Clayton does. Ninety-nine percent of my cash goes into paying for my shitty, but extortionate, motel room. The owner chose to overlook my no-name-or-address status in return for a thirty-dollar a week hike up on normal prices. Right now, I have twenty-two dollars to my name.
So I force my feet to move.
“Oh, and Elly?”
I stop. Sully stares back at me.
“Remember how you got here. We all have pasts we don’t want held up to the light. I’m not going to peek at yours. Return the favor by not letting me down. Deal?”
I nod. “Deal.”
He waves me away.
As I leave to go in search of Meg, relief punches through me.
I’ve been rightly wary about Sully’s motives. He knows I’m hiding something. But unlike Miguel, he’s chosen to leave well enough alone. For that, I’m glad. Because tossing my particular closet open will reveal putrefying skeletons.
The first of which would explain why I don’t respond well to Elly. Before arriving in New York no one called me by that name.
My real name is Elyse Gilbert, nicknamed ‘Lucky’ by my father, because according to him, I'm the unluckiest person alive, and I'll die the same way I came into the world: naked, screaming, and dirt poor.
So far, he’s been right about the unlucky part. Also dead right about the dirt-poor part.
But what he didn’t predict was that at twenty-two, I’d be on the run for arson and murder. Or that one of my hunters would possess the single goal of trying to pry my secret from me before he puts me in the ground.
4
SCENE 1
Lucky
I arrive at the service elevator in my new server’s uniform of black button down dress and a white apron. I’ve swapped my hairnet for a white mini-cap and my boots for nude tights and flats courtesy of Meg. If my heart wasn’t slamming so hard against my ribs, I’d grimace at how ridiculous I look.
The service elevator has two buttons—B. Restaurant and B. Executive. My shaky finger hits the second button. I swipe at the sheen of sweat dimpling my forehead, suck in a deep breath and reassure myself of the unlikelihood of Clayton finding me here. The assurance rings hollow.
He once tracked a girl who stole two thousand dollars from him, all the way to the ends of Clusterfuck, Alaska. It took four months, but his patience was inexhaustible. He found her, dragged her back to Fresno, and chained her to a wall in his special room, reserved for clients with the sickest proclivities. When he let her go a year later, Abby left The Villa, and walked straight into oncoming traffic.
I chose New York because I hoped the sheer density of the population would buy me some time. That doesn’t mean I’m comfortable hiding in plain sight. I’d give my pinky to be back in the basement, handling piles of dirty plates and enduring Miguel’s ever-increasing cocky advances.
The elevator pings open and my heart threatens to give out altogether. I step out into a sky lit atrium decorated with stunning water features, horticultural masterpieces and stylish furniture I’ve only ever seen in glossy magazines. Contrary to my fear, the room isn’t crowded, but again, I know I stand out like a nun in a whorehouse.
Already I’m attracting stares by standing in the middle of the sun-drenched space. I avert my gaze and head toward the sound of a hissing coffee machine. Two waiters, a young guy and woman about my age are standing in front a glass and chrome counter that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. Behind the counter, a stocky chef fires off instructions to a team of four about specific dietary requirements and the temperature of foie gras before he spears me with a hard stare.
“Are you the extra I requested?” he snaps.
I clear my throat. “Yes, my name is Elly. Sully sent me up.”
His mouth compresses, and he points to the far side of the counter. “Stand there, don’t move. You’ll get your brief in five minutes.”
My brief? To serve food?
He returns to barking instructions at the two servers, who nod briskly and whisk away silver trays to opposite sides of the executive restaurant.
I wait, making sure to keep alert so I don’t repeat the spaced-out-in-the-alley incident Miguel witnessed. But my gaze wanders and lands on a magazine rack three tables away. On the front cover is an aerial picture of Blackwood Tower and on either side two men—one older and one younger—facing each other. The caption reads: Dynamic Duo or Dynamite Duel? Even in profile, both men are eye-catching enough to snag my interest. I’m just about to lean closer to scrutinize the cover when a throat clears next to me.
The chef looks even more annoyed than before. “You’ll be serving Mr. Blackwood today. He takes his lunch at exactly one o’clock.”
I nod. “Okay.” He starts to walk away. “Umm, I’m sorry, which one is Mr. Blackwood?”
The servers pause to stare with open shock at me.
The chef swears in a language I don’t understand and shakes his head. “How long have you worked here?”