The Garden of Eden and Other Criminal Delights

by Faye Kellerman

  Annie, said I, Mummy said ye don’t smile big enough.

  I cannot smile when I’ve got no drink in me, she answered.

  I think ye should smile bigger, I said.

  She pouted. Then why don’t y’make me smile bigger, luv.

  I can, Annie, I can, said I.

  And then I made her smile the biggest smile she ever had.

  When I got home, Mummy was asleep, so I could not tell her about Annie’s big smile. I took off my clothes, which were quite wrinkled from walking home in the mist and fog that swallows up everything like a big fish.

  The next morning I did not tell Mummy, because I wanted to keep it all a surprise for her birthday, which is very soon. She will know when I tell her. She will see what a good boy I am. And then maybe she will tell me a bedtime story. Perhaps even a bedtime story every night.

  But tonight I shall go for a walk again and get my mummy a wee bit of port for her spirits. I do it because it makes her so happy to have her spirits. It is often hard to make Mummy happy because she has so many sharp opinions. But I try and try. I do it all because I love her.

  BONDING

  “Bonding” is probably the most

  disturbing tale that I’ve ever written.

  My very first short story written for a

  Sisters in Crime anthology, it provides

  a stark contrast to Peter Decker and

  Rina Lazarus’s supportive parenting

  style, something that I repeatedly

  emphasize in my novels. I wanted to

  write something radically different

  from my first novel, The Ritual Bath,

  and I suppose I did just that.

  I BECAME A PROSTITUTE BECAUSE I WAS BORED. LET me tell you about it. My mother is a greedy, self-centered egotist and a pill-popper. I don’t think we exchange more than a sentence worth of words a week. Our house is very big—one of these fake-o hacienda types on an acre of flat land in prime Gucciland Beverly Hills—so it’s real easy to avoid each other. She doesn’t know what I do and wouldn’t care if she did know. My father doesn’t hassle me ’cause he’s never around. I mean, never around. He rarely sleeps at home anymore, and I don’t know why my parents stay married. Just laziness, I guess. So when my friend came around one day and suggested we hustle for kicks, I said sure, why not.

  Our first night was on a Saturday. I dressed up in a black mini with fishnet stockings, the garters lower than the hem of my dress. I painted my lips bright red, slapped on layers of makeup, and took a couple of downers. I looked the way I felt—like something brought up from the dead. We boogied on down to the Strip, my friend supplying the skins, and made a bet: who could earn the most in three hours. I won easily; I didn’t even bother to screw any of the johns—just went down on them in a back alley or right in their cars. I hustled seven washed-out old guys at sixty bucks a pop. Can’t say it was a bundle of yuks, but it was different. Jesus, anything’s better than the boredom.

  The following day, after school, me and my friend got buzzed and went shopping at the mall. I took my hustle money and bought this real neat blouse accented with white and blue rhinestones and sequins. I also saw this fabulous belt made of silver and turquoise, but it was over a hundred and fifty dollars, and I didn’t want to spend that much money on just a belt. So I lifted it. Even with the new electronic gizmos and the security guards, stealing isn’t very hard, not much of a challenge.

  Let me tell you a little about myself. I was born fifteen years ago, the “love child” of a biker and his teenage babe. I think my real mother was, like, twelve or thirteen at the time. I once asked my bitch of a mother about her, and she got reeeallly agitated. Her face got red, and she began to talk in that hysterical way of hers. The whole thing was, like, too threatening for her to deal with. Anyway, I was adopted as an infant. And I never remember being happy. I remember crying at my sixth birthday party ’cause Billy Freed poked his fingers in my Cookie Monster cake. Mom went bonkers—we hadn’t photographed the cake yet—and started screaming at Billy. Then he started crying. God, I was mad at Billy, but after Mom lit into him, I almost felt sorry for the kid. I mean, it was only a cake, you know.

  Once, when I was around the same age, my mom picked me up and we looked in the mirror together. She put her cheek against mine as we stared at our reflections. I remember the feel of her skin—soft and warm, the sweet smell of her perfume. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve such attention, and that frustrated me. Whatever I did, I wanted to do it again so Mom would hold me like this. But of course, I didn’t do anything. Mom just stared at us, then clucked her tongue and lowered me back onto my feet with an announcement: I’d never make it on my looks.

  Well, what the hell did she expect? Beggars shouldn’t be choosers. It’s not like someone forced her to adopt me. The bitch. Always blaming me for things out of my control.

  Did I tell you Mom is beautiful? Must have slipped my mind. We forget what we want to, right? Mom is a natural blonde with large blue eyes and perfect cheekbones. I’ve got ordinary brown hair—thin, at that—and dull green eyes. It’s been a real bitch growing up as her daughter. Mom turned forty last year, and she treated herself to a face-lift—smoothing out imaginary wrinkles. Now her face is so goddamn tight, it looks wrapped in Saran. Her body is wonderful, long and sleek. I’m the original blimpo—the kind of woman that those old artists liked to paint. I’m not fat but just really developed. Big boobs, big round ass. My mother used to put me on all these diets, and none of them ever worked. I finally told her to fuck herself and gorged on Oreo cookies. Ate the whole package right in front of her, and boy, did that burn her ass.

  She gave me this little smirk and said, “You’re only hurting yourself, Kristie.”

  “I’m not hurting myself,” I said. “In fact, I’m enjoying myself!”

  Then she walked away with the same smirk on her face.

  She once went to bed with this guy I was sleeping with. Can you believe that? Happened last summer at our beach house. I caught the two of them together. Mom got all red-faced, the guy was embarrassed, too, but I just laughed. Inside, though, I felt lousy. I felt lousy ’cause I knew that the guy really wanted to fuck her all along and was just using me as a stepping-stone.

  You might ask where the hell was my dad when all this went down? I told you. He’s never around.

  My friend and co-hooker came down with strep throat today and asked if I could service her regular johns. I said sure. So I go to the room she rents. It’s a typical sleazebucket of a place—broken-down bed, filthy floor, and a cracked mirror. Who should I see in it but my father? I turn my face away before he sees me. To tell you the truth, I barely recognize his face. Then I realize that he must have gotten a lift, like Mom, ’cause his skin is also like stretched to the max.

  I’m shaking—half with fear, half with disgust. That dirty son of a bitch. Doing it with teenage hookers. Then I remember a few years ago. How he eyed my friends when we sat around the pool. How he strutted out of the cabana wearing red bikini briefs and shot a half-gainer off the diving board. My friends were impressed. He popped through the water’s surface, a strange expression on his face.

  It was lust.

  I sneak another glance in the mirror.

  He holds the same look in his eyes now.

  What the hell do I do?

  I think about running away, but I know my friend will be real pissed. Jesus.

  My dad.

  I can’t screw my dad!

  Then I think to myself, My mom screwed my guy . . .

  But this is something different. He’s my dad.

  ’Course, he isn’t my dad by blood . . .

  And it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him . . .

  The thought starts to excite me. Yeah, I know it’s real perverse, but my whole family is perverse.

  And at least it isn’t boring.

  I take a quick hit of some snow from the vial I wear around my neck. Man, I need to be buzzed to pull t
his one off.

  I’m real excited by now.

  I drop my voice an octave—I can do that ’cause I have a great range—and tell him to can the lights. He starts bitching and moaning that he likes to do it with the lights on, and where the fuck is my friend. I tell him my friend has strep and it’s hard to give head with your throat all red and raw, and if he doesn’t want me, fine, he just won’t get laid tonight.

  He cans the lights. The only illumination in the room comes from a neon sign outside that highlights his semi. It’s a good-looking one, and it turns me on even further. But I stay well hidden in the shadows of the room.

  I wonder what he’ll think of my body after laying Mom all these years. Maybe he’ll think I’m too fat, but the minute he touches my boobs, his you-know-what becomes ramrod-straight. I let him bury his head in my chest, kiss my nipples. I give him a line of coke, then I take another snort. My face is always hidden.

  I ask him what kinds of things he wants to do, and he says everything. I say it will cost him two fifty, and he gets suddenly outraged. A real bad acting job. I know what he makes, and he could buy all of Hollywood if he wanted to. Anyway, by now he’s too excited to argue, and five fifty-dollar bills are slapped into my wet hand. I do whatever he wants as long as he can’t see my face.

  When it’s over, I tell him I have a surprise for him. He’s lying in bed now, smoking a joint. Still naked, I saunter over to the light switch, then suddenly flip it on. The cheesy room is flooded with bright yellow light. We both squint, then he sees me. It takes him a moment, then I see his tanned, tight face drain of all its color. His eyes pop out and he begins to pant. His skin takes on a greenish hue and he runs for the toilet. I hear him throw up.

  Afterward he cries in my arms. But we both know it’s not over.

  Dad came home at eleven tonight. Mom and he start fighting. They always fight, did I tell you that? Probably why Dad started staying away. Anyway, it’s the first time I ever remember Dad coming home in like twenty years or something. I’m no dummy. I know what the sucker has in mind, and that’s okay by me. After all, I’m not really his daughter by blood, you know.

  He comes into my room at around two o’clock. I make him pay, and no shit, he agrees. Man, I know you’re gonna think I’m sick, but I gotta tell you. My dad’s all right in the sack.

  This goes on for the next month. If Mom suspects anything, she doesn’t say a word. Then a strange thing happens. Life is weird—very weird. A real strange thing happens.

  We fall in love.

  Or something like it.

  We consider all the options. The first is running away and giving me a new identity so that we can marry. The idea is discussed, then tossed in the circular file. Dad makes a couple a million buckeroos as a TV producer, and no way he could make that kind of money outside of L.A. Neither of us likes poverty.

  We consider having Dad and Mom divorce and I’d live with Dad. That’s out. California has stiff community-property laws, and the bitch would get half of everything!

  There’s only one option left.

  First off, I gotta tell you that neither one of us really feel guilty about our decision ’cause: A, I’m not my dad’s real daughter; and B, Mom has had this coming for a long time.

  Way overdue.

  We plan to do it next Saturday, right after she comes home from one of her parties. She’s usually pretty sauced and hyped and has to pop some downers to get to sleep. We figure we’ll help her along.

  She comes in at two A.M., surprised that I’m still up. I say I was having trouble sleeping and offer to make her some hot coffee. She nods and dismisses me with a wave of her hand. Like I’m a servant instead of her daughter doing her a favor. I lace the java with Seconal. Halfway through the drink, her lids begin to close. But she knows something is wrong. She tells me she’s having trouble breathing and asks me to call the doctor. I act like I’m real worried and place the phony call. By the time I hang up, she’s out.

  Both Dad and I are worried. She only drank half a cup, and we wonder if it’s enough dope to do her in. Dad feels her pulse. It’s weak but steady. A half hour later, her heartbeat is even stronger. Dad says, “What the hell do we do now?” I think and think and think, then come up with a really rad brainstorm.

  I get ten tablets full of Seconal, crush them in water, and suck the mixture into my old syringe. Did I tell you I shoot up occasionally? When the boredom is just too much. I haven’t done it for a while, but I keep the syringe—you know, just in case the mood hits me. I shoot the dope under her tongue. It’s absorbed fast that way and doesn’t leave any marks. A friend of mine told me that.

  Dad feels her pulse for a third time. Squeezes her wrist hard. Nothing. Nada! We celebrate with a big hug and a wet kiss, then wash the cup and wipe the place clean of fingerprints.

  A half hour later, Dad places a panic call to the paramedics.

  God, I’m a great actress, carrying on like Mom and I were like bosom buddies.

  “Mommmeeeee,” I wail at the funeral.

  Everyone feels sorry for me, but I don’t accept their comfort.

  My dad has his arm around me. He pulls me aside later on.

  “You’re overdoing it,” he tells me.

  “Hell, Paul.” I call him Paul now. “I lost my fucking mother. I’m supposed to be upset.”

  “Just cool it a little, Kristie,” Paul says. “Act withdrawn. Like someone took away your Aerosmith records.”

  I sulk for a moment, then say what the hell. He’s older. Maybe he knows best. I crawl into this shell and don’t answer people when they talk to me. They give me pitying looks.

  The detective shows up at our door unannounced. He’s a big guy with black hair, old-fashioned sideburns, and acne scars. My heart begins to take off, and I say I don’t answer any questions without my dad around.

  “Why?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I respond. Then I ask him if he has a warrant.

  He laughs and says no.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t help you.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” he asks.

  “God, are you crazy?” I say. “I mean, with all that happened? I can’t concentrate on school right now. I mean, I lost my mother!

  “You two were pretty close, then.”

  “Real close.”

  “You don’t look much like her,” he remarks.

  I feel my face changing its expression and get mad at myself. I say, “I’m adopted.”

  “Oh,” the detective says. His face is all red now. “That would explain it.”

  Then he says, “I’m sorry to get personal.”

  “That’s okay,” I say, real generous.

  There’s a pause. Then the detective says, “You know, we got the official autopsy report back for your mother.”

  I feel short of breath. I try to keep the crack out of my voice. “What’s it say?” I ask.

  “Your mother died of acute toxicity,” he says. “Drug OD.”

  “Figures,” I say calmly. “She had lots of problems and was on and off all sorts of drugs.”

  He nods, then asks, “What kind of drugs did she take?”

  Then all of a sudden I realize I’m talking too much. I tell him I don’t know.

  “I thought you two were close.”

  I feel my face go hot again.

  “We were,” I say. “I mean, I knew she took prescribed drugs to help her cope, but I don’t know which drugs. Our relationship wasn’t like that, you know.”

  “Why don’t we just peek inside the medicine cabinet of your house?” he says.

  I shake my head slowly, then say, “Come back tonight, when my dad is home. Around eight, okay?”

  He agrees.

  Paul has a shit-fit, but I assure him I handled it well. By the time the detective shows up, we’re both pretty calm. I mean, all the drugs found in her stomach came from her own pills. And then there was the party she went to. I’m sure at least a half-dozen people reme
mber her guzzling a bottle or two of white wine. She loved white wine—Riesling or Chardonnay.

  My mother was an alcoholic. Did I tell you that?

  The detective has on a disgusting suit that smells of mothballs. It hangs on him. He scratches his nose and says a couple of bullshitty words to Paul about how sorry he is that he had to intrude on us like this. Paul has on his best hound-dog face and says it’s okay. Now I understand what he meant by not overdoing it. Man, is he good. I almost believe him.

  “Sure,” Paul says to the detective. “Take a look around the house.”

  I think about saying we’ve got nothing to hide, but don’t. The detective goes over some details with Paul. My mom had gone to a party by herself. Paul didn’t go ’cause he wasn’t feeling well. At around three in the morning, he got up to get a glass of milk. I was asleep, of course. He went downstairs and found my mother dead.

  “Where’d you find your wife?” the detective asks.

  “On that chair right there.”

  Paul points to the Chippendale.

  The detective walks over to the chair but doesn’t touch it. He asks, “What’d you do when you found her?”

  Paul is confused. He says, “What do you mean? I called the paramedics, of course.”

  “Yeah,” the detective says. “I know that. Did you touch her at all?”

  “Touch her?” Paul asks.

  The detective says, “Yeah, feel if the skin was cold . . . see if she was breathing.”

  Paul shakes his head. “I don’t know anything about CPR. I figured the smart thing to do was to leave her alone and wait for the paramedics.”

  “How’d you know she was dead?” the detective asks.

  “I didn’t know she was dead,” Paul says back. His voice is getting loud. “I just saw her slumped in the chair and knew something was wrong.”

  “Maybe she was sleeping,” suggests the detective.

  “Her face was white . . . gray.” Paul begins to pace. “I knew she wasn’t sleeping.”

  “You didn’t check her pulse, check to see if she was breathing?”