Hard Rhythm

by Cecilia Tan

  They might be right, but I found myself still wondering. “And if they did care?”

  “If they care because they think it’s awesome, no problem; it boosts everyone’s careers. If they care because they think it’s awful, well, then the spin machine has to crank up. But that’s why it makes sense to be the ones to make the announcement ourselves, to control the spin and introduce it with the message we want.”

  That was true. If exposure might happen anyway, being proactive was better than reactive.

  She tapped her fingers. “I’m not completely sold on the idea we should step so far outside the box. But I want us to consider the idea, really think it through. Meanwhile, Madison, stay in touch with Lawson. Tell him he’s wrong about the money but that you might be able to tell him more if he has any further dirt on Schmitt to share with you. Because if it turns out Schmitt is really deeply into Purity stuff, I’m not sure I want him around anymore regardless.”

  Chapter Twelve

  MADISON

  I met Price at a different coffee shop this time, one where we could sit indoors, and where the hissing of the drinks being made and the general clatter would keep us from being overheard. I was already waiting at a small table in one corner with an iced coffee drink when he came in.

  He didn’t even go through the pretense of getting some coffee himself. He made a beeline for me and sat down, peering at me gleefully over the tops of his sunglasses and grinning a shit-eating grin. “Gotcha,” he said, like he’d won some playground game.

  I didn’t lower my own polarized lenses, merely sipped from my straw and then said, “No, don’t gotcha. What exactly do you think you’re proving here?”

  “Someone’s paying you off, Madison.”

  “Someone’s paying me. If you hadn’t noticed, I have a lot of sources of freelance income. Some of them pay in cash, some by PayPal, you name it.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid? Nearly the same amount every month for four years, always around the same time for the deposit?”

  “You’ll note my mortgage payment is due at the same time every month and it’s important for me to add money to my main checking account before that.”

  His smile dimmed a little. “You don’t really expect me to believe that,” he said slowly, but his words lacked conviction.

  “Believe what you want, but that’d be an awfully flimsy piece of evidence for a sensational news story.” I ran my finger nonchalantly down the condensation on the side of my cup. “On the other hand, I may have more to tell you about Schmitt—that is, someone I know may be willing to talk to you about Schmitt. But they didn’t believe the deposit record evidence you gave me. There’s got to be something more.”

  Lawson shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way, Maddie. You have to give me something before I give you something.”

  I laughed out loud, which disconcerted him greatly. He whipped his sunglasses off and made a shushing motion, looking over his shoulder as if expecting someone to be sneaking up on him.

  “I don’t have to give you anything,” I told him, “because I don’t actually want anything from you. I’d be just as happy not to be involved at all.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You want…you want a job. You want to be a political reporter. I can help you with that.”

  “No, thanks, Price. You’ve done enough to burst my illusions about journalistic integrity that I’m no longer interested.” I sipped my drink and regarded him coolly.

  “You’re going to want my protection,” he growled, leaning forward as if that would intimidate me.

  “Is this like the mafia’s protection? Is that why you were staking out my house with a camera? To protect me?”

  “I—That was—”

  “Stalking. And now we’re getting into extortion. Care to rack up any additional offenses I could bring to the police? Or your new bosses?”

  He stood suddenly, as if his chair had become red hot. “Schmitt himself must’ve put you up to this. What does he want?”

  “Don’t be stupid. If Schmitt knew you were digging up dirt on him? He’d have already offered to either pay you off, or threatened to run you out of town. I’m not working for Schmitt.”

  “I…I’ll e-mail you.” He moved quickly away from the table then, trying to look casual with a fake “good-bye” wave as he crossed the floor, but then he had to come back to grab the sunglasses he’d left on the table.

  I watched him flee, thinking what a piece of work. He was trying hard to be a chess master but he had hardly any pieces on the board and didn’t even seem to know the rules. But when I walked to my car a couple of blocks away, I felt like looking over my shoulder the whole time. This thing with Lawson and Schmitt, the talk with Gwen and Ricki about paparazzi, the importance of managing the exposure if it came…it was all making me paranoid. You’re going to want my protection, Lawson had said. What had he meant by that? Was he just blowing smoke or was he continuing to dig? Of course he was continuing to dig. That’s what he did.

  I got in the car and drove toward home, telling myself, No one is following you, Madison. But Price had staked out my house that one time… He could’ve assigned a photographer I didn’t know. If he was desperate enough to dig up some dirt he might even make something up that could be more damaging than the truth. I drove all the way to the highway, got on, got off at the next exit and reversed direction, just to confuse anyone who might be following me.

  I got off the highway and took out my phone. I had not yet entered Chino into speed dial and had to pull over to bring up his number and call him.

  “Madison,” he said, “how are you?”

  “A little freaked out. You know the reporter guy you scared off from outside my house? He’s still annoying as fuck.” I put the car back into gear and started driving.

  “Are you in the car?”

  “Yeah, can you hear me okay?”

  “I can hear you just fine. Anything I can do about the annoying asshole?”

  “At the moment, no.” I sighed. “I just…just wanted to hear your voice.”

  I felt like a dork for saying that until he said, “I’m glad it’s me you called.”

  I wished he was there with me right that second. I was suddenly tired of slogging through life alone. Independence was great; this was its drawback.

  “Are you scared?” he asked.

  “No. Well, maybe. I’m just feeling weird about the whole thing. I don’t want to be home alone.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I got off the 101 at Vermont Ave.”

  “You know…” he trailed off, thinking. “You’re not far from where I live.”

  “Is that so?” I held my breath. He’d been evasive about where he lived and I still didn’t know why.

  “Do you want to come over?”

  “Yes.” I said it with more force than I intended, but knowing he was nearby made me suddenly desperate to see him, all the more so because of my questions about his living situation. Maybe they were about to be answered.

  “My place isn’t much,” he said. “Come south on Vermont Avenue and I’ll talk you through the directions.”

  I thought he was being mock-deprecating, after the mansions and modern palaces we’d looked at in Laurel Canyon. But as his directions took me deeper into a not-ritzy neighborhood I began to wonder.

  “So have you heard from PlayPeople about whether they liked the kit review?” he asked, as I drove slowly down a commercial strip.

  “They loved it. And the bathtub one went over well, too. They’re cleaning up the edits a little and going over the written stuff I sent and checking the links. I think the first one should launch next week. They didn’t say exactly.”

  “If you’re coming up to the motorcycle detailing shop, turn left. The building right behind that’s mine and you can park in the back.”

  His place was a smallish loft apartment in the back of a somewhat run-down-looking converted industrial building. No wonder he was looking to tra
de up if this was where his digs were now. He was on the second floor, waiting for me in the doorway. He was wearing cargo shorts, a tank top, and nothing else.

  “I told you it wasn’t much,” he said as he shut the door behind me and threw the deadbolt. He showed me into the main room, where a set of electronic drums stood in one corner. On the coffee table sat a practice pad and some drumsticks.

  “Don’t you have a big set of drums, too?” I asked.

  “The full kit’s at our rehearsal studio,” he said. “And aren’t you forgetting something?”

  My cheeks flushed and I turned to look at him. “You mean, a proper hello?”

  He clucked his tongue. “At your age I didn’t think I’d have to be the one to teach you proper manners. Come here, sweets.” He beckoned me to come to him, placed my hands on the hard planes of his chest, then slowly wound his arms around me until our mouths met.

  The kiss heated up instantly, one of his hands slipping into the back of my jeans as he pressed our bodies together. I opened for his tongue, sucking in a breath.

  And then he pulled back. “Can I get you a drink? Are you hungry?” When I didn’t answer right away, he added, “Or are you already slipping so deep into subspace that you can’t answer questions about your own needs?”

  That jolted me a little. “I’m fine. I just came from a coffee shop.”

  “Horny, then?”

  I sucked in another breath. “Always, when you’re touching me, and that’s the plain truth.”

  He gave a slow nod. “Same here. But I don’t want to take advantage of you if you’re feeling scared and vulnerable. You know, hey baby, come over to my place.”

  “Um.” My brain felt sluggish, like it was partly frozen. It was like being asked something by a teacher in school and knowing the answer was in your head but not being able to think of it on the spot.

  He kissed me on the forehead. “Here. I’ll give you the nickel tour of the place.”

  There wasn’t a lot to show me: a galley kitchen, the main room with its overhead skylight, and a bedroom with a very small window but another large overhead skylight in one corner, the bed in the other. He had almost no furniture. The closet lacked a door and his clothes were mostly in makeshift shelves of milk crates or scattered in several laundry baskets under a small table. Out in the main room he had two mismatched armchairs, a kitchen table, and a flat screen on top of a trunk serving as a TV stand. A laptop sat on one of the chairs. He moved it to the kitchen table and sat where it had been, pulling me into his lap. “Now you’ve seen what none of my bandmates have seen.”

  “Your apartment?”

  “Yeah. I got the cheapest place I could stand so I could sock away as much money as possible. Saving up for a house for my mother.” He ran his fingers through my hair and I felt relief running through me. Once again Chino wasn’t what I expected…and wasn’t hiding what I expected, either.

  You might have to accept that he’s actually as good as he seems, I told myself.

  His phone rang. I recognized the ringtone and couldn’t help but give him a questioning look as he pulled the phone out of the pocket of his cargo shorts. I saw the name on the screen: Flora.

  The last time I’d heard that ringtone he’d sent it to voice mail and brushed it off. That nagging fear I had about another woman in his life reared up like acid reflux in my throat. Just when I had let myself think there was nothing left that could come between us other than the crap in my own head.

  To my surprise, this time he answered the call. “Hey, Flor. You okay?”

  Sitting in his lap like that I could make out the woman’s voice, tinny and frantic, if I stayed quiet. “Chino, I’m really starting to worry.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “The parking lot of the grocery store. I volunteered to go out and get something so I could call you where no one can overhear.”

  “What’s going on? Are you okay? Is Mom okay?”

  Mom? Was this his sister? The knot in my throat started to loosen.

  “Listen, I don’t want you to think badly of Vincent or me that we didn’t do something sooner—”

  “Flor, what are you talking about?” Chino’s voice dropped as low as I’d ever heard it. “Just tell me.”

  “I don’t know if it’s because Vincent’s getting married and moving out or what, but he’s been more volatile lately.”

  “He, Vincent?”

  “No. Father. He’s been getting more and more violent. I mean, maybe I’m reading too much into it, he never raises a hand directly to her or me, you know?”

  Oh, no. I leaned closer to listen and felt Chino’s arm squeeze me tighter. This didn’t sound like a good situation.

  “Flor—”

  “I don’t know. I mean, everyone gets angry sometimes…”

  I eased myself out of Chino’s lap and motioned to him, pointing at myself and miming holding a phone to my ear. Let me talk to her?

  He nodded at me, leaned close with the phone tipped slightly toward me, and I could hear her say, “He blames you. He puts the blame on you. He’s forbidden us from speaking with you. I had to call to tell you that’s why Mom hasn’t called you back.”

  “So you had to sneak away to call me? Flor, is he threatening you?”

  “Not directly. Maybe I’m blowing it all out of proportion.”

  I gestured more urgently. Flora sounded like so many women I’d talked to back when I worked the crisis line, scared but unsure.

  “Flor, listen to me. I have a friend. She knows about this kind of thing, okay?” He stood up and paced the length of the room. “I want you to talk to her. Tell her what you think is going on.”

  I couldn’t hear her reply now but I sat down in the other chair, hoping she’d talk to me.

  “She counseled women, that’s why. Look, if it’s nothing she’ll tell you.”

  I watched him pace back and forth like an agitated tiger at the zoo, getting more and more ready to lash out.

  “You wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to call me if you weren’t worried. Why do you keep trying to talk yourself out of it? Here. Just talk with her.”

  He thrust the phone at me and I took it. “H-Hello?”

  A female voice was at the other end. “Hi. Look, I’m sorry to bother you about this, but I guess it’s worth a try. I’m Flora.”

  “Hi, Flora. I’m Madison.”

  “Marilyn?”

  “Madison. Like the avenue. Call me Maddie.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Maddie. Look. I don’t want you to think badly of our family or our mother.”

  “I promise I don’t. It’s okay, Flora. Every family’s different. Can I put you on speakerphone so Chino can hear, too?” It had been several years since I’d helped on the crisis phone line, but the training was still there. Number one, don’t act judgmental or you’ll scare them off. In the early going it was my job to listen, and if possible to try to get them to see—or admit—that there was a problem. Often women who were suffering any kind of intimate partner abuse were sort of brainwashed into thinking their situation was normal—or hopeless, or shameful, or any number of other things that would keep them silent about it. Getting them to see past that was so important. I put the phone on my lap and dug a notebook and pen out of my bag. “I’m not here to judge you or your mom’s choices. Can you fill me in a little on your situation? Do you live with your mother?”

  “Yes, I live in the same house, but it’s a large house. I used to worry, but then things seemed all right. I mean, things got better for a while. After Chino left I started to believe the story that the reason Dad was so angry all the time was because Chino was making him angry. He calmed down a lot after Chino left. But it feels like now that Vincent’s finished with college, something’s changed.”

  “That’s your little brother?” I motioned to Chino to stay quiet.

  “Yes. He’s on Dad’s side.”

  Dad’s side. Who was on the other side? Chino? Mom? “And you’re not?”r />
  “I’m…not so sure now. Mom’s been really depressed lately. Dad says it’s because her ‘baby’ is all grown up. He’s very…impatient with her all the time now. I just don’t know what to think.”

  I took a deep breath. I wasn’t prepared to grill her about whether she’d seen signs of physical abuse, but there didn’t have to be punching or hitting for there to be threats or emotional manipulation. “Think about what you just said a second ago, ‘things got better for a while.’ What were they like when it was worse?”

  “Oh, goodness. Dad having rampages where he said he’d put the fear of God into us. Into Chino, mostly.”

  “Rampages?”

  “Oh, he smashed the TV one time—”

  Chino couldn’t stay silent any longer. “Because he said our minds were being poisoned by it. There was the time he smashed the coffeepot, too. Tell her about that.”

  Silence. Then Flora cleared her throat and went on. “He…he picked up the glass pot from under the coffee maker, full of hot coffee, and smashed it on the counter, glass everywhere.”

  “And you got burned by some of the coffee, Flor.”

  “I did, but he was so so sorry about that afterward.”

  “Was he? I remember him screaming it was Mom’s fault for making the coffee too strong and bitter, and forcing her to clean it up.”

  “I don’t remember that,” Flora snapped.

  “Sure you don’t, because he was kissing up to you to make it aww better.”

  “Chino,” I said sharply. “If you want me to talk to your sister you should stay out of it.”

  He glared at me for a second then shook his head as if suddenly remembering he was looking at me and not his mother or his stepfather or his little sister. He raised his hands then stood silently and went into the hall, either to the bedroom or bathroom.

  I picked up the phone. “Sorry about that,” I said to Flora. “It’s just me now.”

  “That’s all right,” Flora said. “It’s just…hard. Our stepfather did a lot for us. Our mother taught us to be grateful to him and to be respectful.”

  “I would never ask you not to be respectful of him if that’s important to you,” I said. “But it does sound to me like you’re describing someone who, at the very least, acts out dangerously at times.”