The Unremembered Girl: A Novel

by Eliza Maxwell

  “Course not. Meant no offense,” the man said, ducking his head and sending a sly smile in Henry’s direction.

  “None taken,” Henry said. “What’s your business here, stranger?”

  “Well, now, it’s funny you ask,” the man said.

  Henry didn’t see much funny about it, but he’d found that keeping quiet was usually the best way to get people to fill up the space with words of their own.

  “I’m looking for somebody. Somebody I been told might have found her way out this direction.” The man looked furtively around Henry, peering at the house and the shed with rheumy eyes, perhaps thinking he might find what he sought hiding in plain sight.

  “That so?” Henry asked.

  “Hmm,” the man murmured. “A girl. ’Bout so tall,” he said, gesturing with his hand to a place in the sky that presumably Eve would fit beneath. “Dark hair. Kinda shy.” He punctuated the last part with a wink that made his leathery, wrinkled skin contort on his skull. Henry felt like a copperhead had just climbed up his back.

  “Shy, you say?” Henry said. “This girl got a name?”

  “Well, now you mention it, that’s a funny thing, it is.”

  Henry had the feeling he and this man didn’t share the same sense of humor.

  “Known her nearly her whole life, I have, but she ain’t never been right. Her mama neither, for that matter. Never did know if she even bothered to give the girl a name. Always called her ‘girl,’ she did. Least when she was around. Sort of stuck, it did.”

  “Sorry, pal. I don’t know any girls without a name.”

  He did know one named Evangeline who was currently behind those walls the man was staring at so closely, resting—she tired easily these days—and that was exactly where Henry hoped she’d stay until he could get rid of this sleaze.

  The man squinted at Henry, clearly doubting his words. After a moment, he broke into a smile that showed off his crooked, yellowed teeth and held out a hand in Henry’s direction.

  Knowing full well that he hadn’t convinced the man that he didn’t have the girl he was looking for, Henry wondered how long it would take him to regroup and return, once he’d sent him on his way. Maybe under the cover of darkness next time.

  Playing along with the charade, Henry moved to shake the stranger’s hand. His handshake was sweaty and unpleasant, but that wasn’t what caused Henry to tighten his grip on the other man’s wrist, turning it so that he could get a good look.

  It was the sense that something wasn’t right with the hand that had touched his own. And his senses weren’t wrong.

  The hand that he was looking at was dirty and stained. The hand of a working man or a vagrant—Henry couldn’t be sure which. It also had only three fingers, sitting next to two puckered, skin-covered nubs where the pinkie and ring fingers used to be.

  “I don’t have your girl,” Henry said, staring down at the man’s hand. “But I’ve come across something else that belongs to you.”

  The stranger pulled his hand away, tucking it back into his pocket and looking around furtively. Not like he was searching for something this time, unless it was a way out of there. But Henry wasn’t done with him yet.

  “I got a feeling there’s a story behind those missing fingers,” he said, staring intently at the man.

  “I’d imagine there’s all kinds of stories in the world, friend,” said the man, dodging the question.

  “True enough. But the one I’m interested in is how you came to be separated from your digits.”

  The man tried to look nonchalant, but the single step he took back gave away his discomfort.

  “And why would I be sharing such a grisly tale with you?” he asked.

  “Seems to me, we’re both in possession of information of the sort that might be useful to the other.”

  “Information about my girl?” The discomfort had fled, and the man’s eyes sparked with a greed that turned Henry’s stomach.

  “About a girl. Somehow, I doubt she was ever yours.”

  Henry could see the calculation in the man’s eyes as he weighed his options. Truth be told, Henry didn’t want anything to do with the stranger, but he needed to know what he was up against.

  “What do you want to know?” the other man asked, squinting up at Henry beneath bushy gray eyebrows.

  “Everything.”

  “And what do I get in return?”

  “You tell me your story, and if it’s worth the price of admission, I’ll tell you where the girl is. Although she doesn’t like to be called that anymore.”

  “How do I know you’re a man of your word?”

  “I guess that’s a chance you’re gonna have to take,” Henry said. “Or not. That road’ll take you out just as easy as it brought you in.”

  The man barely hesitated.

  “All right. All right, then. Don’t see no harm in it. But talking’s thirsty work, you hear what I’m saying?”

  Henry glanced up at the house. Nothing was moving, no sign that there was anyone around for miles except for the two of them.

  That was just fine.

  “Yeah, I hear you loud and clear.” Maybe the man thought Henry was going to invite him in to share a cold beer in the front parlor, but he thought wrong.

  He pointed to his old blue truck pulled up next to the shed. “That’ll do just fine.”

  The stranger sent a glance of his own toward the house, but he played along.

  They walked together to the truck, and Henry let down the tailgate with a bang.

  “You’re welcome to one of those jars over there,” he said, pointing to the crates of moonshine stacked in the back.

  “Yeah?” the man said, raising a ponderous eyebrow.

  “Help yourself.”

  “Don’t mind if I do, and thank you kindly, friend.”

  The man had unscrewed the top of one of the jars, breaking the seal on the whiskey. Henry watched him take a swig and waited for the inevitable gasp.

  “Whew, boy!” the man said, wiping his mouth on the back of his dirty sleeve. “That stuff’s got some kick to it.”

  Wiping tears from the corners of his eyes, the man spoke again when he got his breath back.

  “Name’s Augustine,” he said. “Folks mostly call me Gus.”

  He took another gulp of the fiery liquid and twisted his face up, shaking his head back and forth as he did. The stuff Henry’d given him was rotgut, the cheap whiskey he sold to King for the customers that were slow to pay their tabs, but that didn’t seem to bother the man in the least.

  “Hey, this stuff isn’t gonna make me go blind, is it?” Gus asked, once he’d found his voice again.

  “Guess we’ll find out,” Henry said.

  Gus turned his head sharply, but Henry’s face stayed blank. Finally, Gus’s face made that slow morph into his sly smile.

  “You fooling on me,” he said. “That’s funny. You got a sense of humor. I like that, friend.”

  “I already told you once, I’m not your friend.”

  “Ah, come on now. We’re sharing a drink, ain’t we?”

  Gus was the only one drinking, but rather than point that out, Henry nodded toward the man’s hand, which was gripping the mason jar just fine, even with three fingers.

  “Tell me about the hand.”

  “Not one for small talk, then. Hey, I can respect that.”

  Gus was stalling, Henry could tell. Probably sorting through versions of the truth to find the one he felt most likely to get him what he was after.

  But Henry was nothing if not patient.

  “All started with the girl, I suppose,” Gus said, taking another drink from his jar. Watching the man wet his lips, then place them along the rim of the glass, Henry made a note to make sure that one got sanitized twice before it was used again.

  “Rita, see—my old lady—she never got on with that sister of hers. Her name was Maeve, but she called herself Starr. Ain’t that something? Starr. Two r’s at the end. Like that extra r made he
r a high-class hooker instead of just another whore in a dirt-poor border town.”

  “What town are we speaking of?” Henry asked, noting the slippery way Gus’s words had started to bump into one another.

  “That ain’t important to the story, I don’t suppose,” Gus said, with a look that cut sideways at Henry.

  With a nod to acknowledge the block, Henry signaled him to continue.

  “My Rita, see, she’s a good, God-fearing woman, and that’s why, see. Why, according to her anyway. I always figured it was pure old jealousy. ’Cause Maeve—Starr—she’s the one got the looks in the family.” Gus took another swig from the jar. “Religion seems to come easier to the ugly girls. You ever notice that?”

  “Why, what?” Henry asked.

  Gus’s face contorted, and one eye squinted at Henry. Henry realized he’d lost the man.

  “You said ‘that was why,’ speaking about your wife and her sister,” Henry went on slowly. “Why, what?”

  The cloud cleared from the other man’s face.

  “Why she hated her, of course. Hated her with a deep-down kind of mean that she saved just for Maeve. At least, until Maeve left her girl with us. Then she hated the girl.”

  “Your sister-in-law left her daughter with you and your wife?”

  Gus nodded. “Girl was young. I don’t know, six or seven. Maeve’d hooked up with some flashy grifter, looking for a meal ticket. No use for a kid underfoot. Truth be told, Maeve had no business with a kid in the first damn place. Used to keep her locked in the closet when she was entertaining. And that’s a fact I can attest to, you know what I mean?”

  Gus sent a wink in his direction, and Henry’s hands twitched, yearning to ball themselves into fists and smash into this man. Either the liquor had started to do its job, or Gus was stunningly unobservant, because he took no notice of the flex of Henry’s jaw.

  “I heard some talk ’round town that Maeve didn’t always lock the girl up, though. Sometimes she brought her out, let her do a little entertaining of her own. I don’t know that’s true, but I can’t say I was shocked to hear it. Maeve, now. That woman’d do just about anything for a fix. If you could snort it or shove it in your veins, Maeve’d sell her soul to the devil, then take out a second mortgage on it.”

  Henry felt a sick rage waking inside of him.

  “You’d think the girl’d have it better, once her mama decided to skip town. She didn’t stay gone for long, though, Maeve. Wasn’t two years later, she showed up again, back at tricks. By that time, she must have forgotten she ever had a girl. Never bothered to come and get her, leastways.”

  Gus shook his head.

  “Never did figure out why Maeve left her at Rita’s door. That woman,” Gus said, gesturing with the jar and sloshing whiskey on his boots, “that one’s got a mean streak down to the bone, she does. They say women are the softer sex. You know that?”

  Gus made a hawking sound deep in his throat and leaned over to spit in the dirt.

  “Whoever says that ain’t never met my Rita, that’s all I got to say about that.”

  Gus must have finally taken notice of the violence welling up behind Henry’s eyes, because he started backpedaling.

  “I tried my best to do right by the girl. I swear to you I did. I’m probably the closest thing she’s ever had to a friend. Why, there was times I was even able to distract Rita when she was in one of her moods, taking it out on the girl and all.”

  Gus’s eyes opened wide, but Henry wasn’t buying the bullshit he was selling.

  “The fact the girl didn’t starve to death alone, why, that was all on me. I made sure she was fed. Ain’t nobody else could say that. That was all me.”

  “How long?” Henry asked quietly.

  Grasping on the change of subject, Gus shook his head.

  “I don’t know, she’s probably with us twelve, fourteen years now. Right up till I got her out of there.”

  Gus nodded sharply, trying to convince Henry and maybe himself that he’d been some sort of fairy godparent to an abused, neglected child.

  “That’s right. It was me, see. You gotta give credit where it’s due. I didn’t have to pay the girl’s way, you know. Believe me, I was real tempted to put it in my pocket and go on whistling Dixie, with none the wiser, but that just didn’t seem right, you know.”

  Henry shook his head, exasperated with the man and his winding way of skirting around the heart of a matter.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The money!” Gus said.

  “What money?”

  “From the settlement,” Gus said slowly, like Henry was a child who wasn’t paying attention in class.

  “When Maeve went and got herself killed. The sombitch who did her, turned out he was a cop. They said it was a accident, but everybody knew old Officer Brinkley, and he was dirty as a port-o-john shitter. Something fishy about that whole deal, I always said. And I think they knew it too, which is why they paid out like they did.”

  There were plenty of questions clamoring inside of Henry’s head to be answered, but the liquor had loosened up Gus’s tongue, and Henry let the man ramble.

  “Course, the people who cut the check didn’t have no idea Maeve had a kid. Far as I know, the girl never set foot in a schoolroom in her life. Probably wasn’t even born in a hospital, knowing Maeve. Spent most of her life locked in closets or basements, getting used up and beaten on.”

  Henry could feel a tic starting behind his left eye.

  “Made that big damn check out to Rita, they did. And you’d think that’d be a fine thing, now, wouldn’t you? Having a wife who’s got a payday land in her lap like that. But what does that old bitch do? Claims we ain’t for real married! You believe that?”

  The sheer offense of it was written all over Gus’s face, but luckily Henry wasn’t required to respond at this point.

  “‘What the hell?’ I said. ‘You never heard of common-law, Rita?’ I mean, goddamn, I only been faithfully by the woman’s side for nigh on twenty years. You try sleeping in the bed next to a cold, mean-ass, ugly woman for two decades, see how you like it! And she wants to go and tell me we ain’t for real married.”

  “Would you get to the point?” Henry said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m getting there, chief, I’m getting there. Well, I’s so damn mad, the only thing I could think to do was take away the woman’s favorite toy. See how she liked that, you know.”

  Gus took another long swig from the jar, which was mostly empty by this time, and leaned in close. Henry couldn’t tell if the stench off his breath was from the teeth or the rotten core of the monster that lurked under the guise of a human being.

  “It was easy, man. So easy. Just a signature on a check, and nobody bothering to ask any questions. Hell, I don’t know what I was so nervous about. And I’m walking away with cold, hard cash. Cash that, by rights, should have been half mine anyway.”

  Gus tossed the glass jar, empty now, carelessly into the truck behind him.

  “Went and got that girl out of the basement, and I took her to some people I know.”

  “What people?” Henry asked with deadly intent.

  “People it’s best not to say too much about. Let’s just say they deal in exports and imports. And let’s just say you’re looking to get exported from one side of the border and imported to another. Well, now, these are the people to see. But it’s gonna cost you. Sure enough it is. They’re not running a charity over there.”

  “You’re talking about smuggling illegals into the States? Human trafficking?”

  If Henry thought this story couldn’t get any more twisted, he was very wrong.

  “That’s one way to put it, I suppose. But we was already in the States, so it was more like relocation than smuggling. They even knocked some off the price, since I worked with them before. Running trucks down the interstate over to Louisiana or Florida. Easy work for easy money. Can’t hardly beat that.”

  “You sold you
r niece to human traffickers at a fucking discount?”

  Realizing he’d said way, way too much, Gus began to backtrack again.

  “I didn’t sell her! I paid her fare for her! They provide a service, see. I was doing the girl a favor, friend. I swear to you. These guys, people pay them to help ’em get to a better life! I was helping her! I didn’t have to do it. I could have put that money in a G-string somewhere and got my knob polished for weeks! But I was thinking of the girl!”

  “Sure you were. You’re quite the hero, aren’t you, Gus?”

  “That’s right, I am a goddamn hero! All that girl had to do was what she was told, and she’d have been just fine. But what does she do? She’s got to go and cut a man up with a stolen knife! I swear to God, I’d have been better off if I’d have never set eyes on that crazy-ass family.”

  “You’re probably right, Gus. So I gotta ask. What in the hell are you doing here? This girl’s so much trouble, why would you want to find her?”

  “They know where I live, don’t they?! The girl’s run off on them, so it’s fine for her, but me?” Gus raised his hand toward Henry’s face and grotesquely wiggled the nubs where two of his fingers had once been.

  “So you’re looking to what? Get revenge? Deliver her back to them so they can get revenge? You gonna try and take two of her fingers and sew them onto your hand?”

  Some sense of self-preservation must have broken through the other man’s haze of anger, because his eyes grew large and pleading.

  “No! No. I just want to do right by the girl. I can’t hardly go back home, even if Rita hadn’t thrown me out. But if I gotta make a new place for myself in this old world, I figure I should find the girl and take responsibility for her well-being. That’s all.”

  Henry stared down at his palms, keeping his thoughts to himself.

  “Intentions as pure as the driven snow, right, Gus?”

  “Of course, friend. I’m her uncle. She belongs with me.”

  Henry gave a short bark of laughter. “I doubt she’d see it that way.”

  “I’m the only thing in the world that girl’s got, and I mean to do right by her.”

  “Then what brings you here?”