“Well, then, maybe I oughtta see for myself. When does he go?”
“He’s there tonight.” Vic checked his watch. “Right now. It’s a satellite operation of what he had going at the Black Garter. When he took the political nomination, he had to move some of his personal business off the island. He does it late nights now, over in Jersey.”
“Does what exactly?”
“It’s the kind of thing,” Vic said, “that you have to see for yourself.”
Maureen tried not to think about what a satellite operation meant in Sebastian’s world. It didn’t matter. She was going. “How do I know you’re not calling Sebastian the minute I walk out the door?”
“’Cause I’m tired, too. Tired enough to give you a shot. I’m not a bad guy; I’m just exhausted.”
Eyes to the floor, Vic stroked his ponytail, more a man watching his memories than the reality in front of him. He could be telling the truth, Maureen thought, or he could be hedging his bets. If Maureen succeeded in whatever she had planned, Vic got out from under Sebastian for good, his debt wiped clean. If she failed, Vic had a reward coming from dropping Maureen in Sebastian’s lap. Either way the tired old man came out a winner, at least until the next rent check was due.
“I swear to God, Maureen,” Vic said, “I’d heard the stories, even this summer, but I never thought he’d killed anyone. Not really.”
Not anyone important is what you mean to say, Maureen thought. Not anyone worth saving, worth paying attention to, or remembering.
“What did you think would happen,” Maureen said, “if no one stood up to him? That he’d see the error of his ways? That he’d change his stripes and grow out of being a complete fucking psycho? Jesus. And you call me naïve.”
Vic threw back the rest of his vodka. “Who knows, Maureen? Maybe you’re my chance at salvation.”
“The fuck I am,” Maureen said. “You’re on your own, same as the rest of us.”
She put the gun in her coat pocket and headed for the stairs, leaving Vic sitting at the bar, the bottle standing beside his glass.
Maureen turned once on the stairs to look back at Vic. He seemed to have no interest in the phone or in moving at all. He sat at the bar, one hand over the top of his glass, the other hand propping up his head. His cigarette burned unattended in the ashtray. On her way out the door, she stepped on Vic’s keys. She picked them up and walked back into the bar.
“Vic,” she called from the landing, holding up the keys, jingling them. He didn’t turn, didn’t say anything. “Vic, it’s late. You probably want to lock up.”
He dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Kill the lights on your way out.”
Maureen stood on the top step, looking at the keys to the bar in her hand. “What was her name?”
“Who?”
“The girl he killed in Brooklyn in the alley, the one who worked for you. What was her name?”
Vic frowned into his empty glass, pretending to search for a name. “I dunno.” He looked across the barroom at Maureen. “I’d tell you I forgot it, but I don’t think I ever knew it to begin with.”
Maureen set the keys on the top step and left Vic alone with his bottle and his thoughts. She left the lights on, unable to decide whether turning them out was too cruel or too merciful.
Walking across the parking lot, all the way back to the car, she kept one hand tight on the gun. Every shadow vibrated with threat. Only when she was back in the car with the doors locked, the engine running, the wheels turning, and the headlights slicing through the darkness, did Maureen realize she’d been holding her breath ever since she’d left the bar.
25
Maureen cruised the right lane of Route 35 through Sayreville, her brain going numb at the endless succession of traffic lights, mini-malls, strip clubs, diners, and gas stations, the same five hundred yards of highway repeated on an endless loop while an infinite chain of white lines disappeared under her wheels. Had she passed the motel? Should she double back? She shifted her rear end constantly in the driver’s seat, trying to work some new blood into one side and then the other. She chain-smoked cigarettes, apologizing to Amber with every one. She hoped once the cops had Sebastian in cuffs that her mom would forgive her, for stinking up the car and for everything that had come first. Her back ached, and the warm air blowing out of the heater made her sleepy.
While on the Outerbridge Crossing on the way over to Jersey, she’d called information and gotten the number for Sunnydale Suites. The desk clerk, her voice parched from cigarettes, held silent for almost a full minute after Maureen had asked directions to the motel. Sunnydale was not a place many people sought out. It was like Staten Island, Maureen thought, like this bleak stretch of Jersey. Shit, except for the rampant sex, Sunnydale’s a lot like my life.
It’s not a place you plan to get to; it’s a place you end up.
Finally, as Maureen hit the blinker for a gas station and another rotten coffee, Sunnydale’s roadside sign appeared at the top of a hill. Good Lord, Maureen thought, they put a fucking rainbow on that sign. Under the rainbow, the neon letters a-c-a-n burned bright red. According to the sign, Maureen noticed, pulling into the parking lot, the Sunnydale Suites were able available as well. She didn’t stop at the front desk to thank the clerk for her directions. She parked in the spot farthest away from the two-story row of rooms and killed the engine and headlights. Of the twenty rooms, lights shone in three of them.
Which room, if any, hid Sebastian? Find him, call the police, and get outta the way. That was the plan. Don’t even get out of the car.
Scanning the parking lot, Maureen noticed a dark Crown Vic parked two rows in front of her. Had to be Sebastian’s. Could be a coincidence, though, however unlikely. She couldn’t call it in unless she was sure. Calling out the Jersey State Police only to put them on the wrong car would make things much worse, and get her in considerable trouble. The Staties did not mess around. In a way, Sebastian had done her a favor. The Jersey State Police wouldn’t give a fuck who he used to be or what he was running for now. Bringing them in is like sending in the Marines. Man, I wish I was a Statie, she thought. I could kick ass from six ways to Sunday. Just once, I wanna be the cavalry. She reached into her pocket, fingered the phone.
Leaning over the steering wheel, Maureen tried reading the Crown Vic’s license plate. Could she get the number and call it in to Waters? Get him to look it up and confirm they had the right car. Right. And then he’d flip out over where she was and what she was doing. She sighed, fogging the windshield. Forget Waters. She rubbed away the cloud with her coat sleeve. She licked her lips. She could follow Sebastian when he left the motel. And end up God-only-knows where, lost and far beyond the reach of any help. Not much of an idea.
She was so sick of waiting. If Sebastian was at the motel, she had to get him now. She had to do more than sneak up on his car. She had to peek in some windows. She reached her other hand into her other coat pocket and gripped the gun. Spying. Waiting. Hoping. Were these really the things she’d come out here for?
She took a deep breath and checked the bushes behind her in the rearview. So get out of the car, girl. Go get your man. She released her breath and reached for the door handle.
A shadow moved in the driver’s seat of the Crown Vic. The dark of the lot hid the face. Maureen shrank in her seat, hiding from the Crown Vic’s rearview, her heart beating so hard she could barely think. Had Vic ratted her out? Shit. Had she been seen pulling into the lot? Whoever sat in the Crown Vic expected her, expected someone, to leave the K-car. Was he watching, waiting for Maureen to make the first move?
In the Crown Vic, the figure drew a shadowy arm back to itself. A lighter flared and Sebastian’s profile hovered over the flame. The lighter went out. Maureen watched the glowing coal of Sebastian’s cigarette float across the front seat as he resettled his hand on the headrest beside him. If he’d seen her, would he let her sit there watching? He might, Maureen thought, to mess with her head. Had he known sh
e’d go to Vic and that Vic would send her to the motel? Had Sebastian planned the whole thing?
Maureen rubbed her hand over the gun in her pocket. But what if he didn’t know she was there? One shot and she’d be rid of him—she and a lot of other people. People who’d never had the chance she had now. People who would’ve killed him already. After all this time, who knew how many would’ve given anything to be where she sat right now?
Vic knows where I am, Maureen thought. He’d know I did it. But Vic was a toothless old lion sleeping under a tree, waiting for a woman to do his dirty work. He’d cover for her. Maybe. He had a lot to gain if Sebastian went away, and he certainly had enough to hide. He had sent her to the motel. Might make him an accessory. And the cops would look hard for Sebastian’s killer. Retired or not, he’d been NYPD. What would Waters do? You didn’t need an experienced detective to add this one up: Sebastian gets shot the same night Maureen goes missing in her mother’s car. It was a lot to ask, that Waters look the other way, no matter how he felt about Sebastian or Maureen. She drew the .38 from her pocket, set it in her lap, stared down at it: Molly’s gun, going cold in her hand. She was in her mother’s car.
Someone might see her driving away, might get a description or a plate number. Someone might see her ditch the gun. She couldn’t drag innocent people down with her. She’d already caused enough trouble. But, but, there he was right there in front of her, his back turned. And she did have a gun. She stared hard at the back of Sebastian’s head. If she just thought of her mother, the rest would be easy.
She jumped, almost yelling in fright, when a second head rose from the darkness into her view. The passenger settled into his seat, raised a hand to his face. He rolled down his window and spat into the darkness. With a short snap of his arm, Sebastian backhanded the man’s face. Maureen heard the crack of the slap from where she sat. Sebastian yelled something Maureen couldn’t make out, punctuating his message with a pointed finger. She didn’t need to hear the words to figure out what had gone on in the car. She was looking at Dennis’s replacement.
The other man got out of the car, waiting beside it as Sebastian reassembled himself. Maureen didn’t know the new boy, from the Narrows or anywhere else. Some hustler? Some junkie Sebastian had picked up in the neighborhood? Didn’t look like it. The guy looked sturdy. A slick haircut and a pricey leather jacket. Maureen’s age, maybe a couple years older, he was no street kid; he was another poor slob deep in debt to the wrong man.
Maureen inched down in her seat, peering over the dash as Sebastian got out of the car. The men crossed the lot with their backs to her, walking at arm’s length. She watched what room they entered. The light around the edges of the curtains didn’t match the other rooms. Sebastian’s room was whiter, brighter. Maureen pulled her phone from her pocket. Sebastian was right there. She even had his room number. Time to call. She hesitated. The state police would laugh her off the phone for calling in a blow job in the Sunnydale parking lot. But if she could find out what Sebastian was up to, see what was in that room, she could get enough to bring the cops, and then she could call Waters. She could tell him she had everything handled, under control. Go home, get some rest, I got this. It’s done.
She dug her switchblade from her bag. She slipped the knife in her boot and hid the bag under the seat. Reaching up to turn off the dome light, she eased open the car door, making sure to leave it unlocked. If she needed to make a quick escape, no need to delay it. She’d be quiet. She’d be quick. Then she’d make the call.
Hands in her coat pockets, phone in one fist, gun in the other, Maureen walked the length of the fence running along the back of the parking lot, staying in the shadows, careful of kicking the old beer cans and broken liquor bottles. At the end of the fence, she jogged across the lot and pressed up against the wall three rooms down from Sebastian’s. She spent a few breaths looking around. Nothing from the other rooms or the other cars. No reaction from the check-in desk. It seemed everyone at the Sunnydale Suites had activities under way that commanded their full attention. Maureen moved along the wall until she stood at the edge of Sebastian’s window.
At her toes, a sliver of white light cut the surface of the sidewalk outside the window. Spotlights, Maureen thought. The kind used to light a room for a camera. No voices came from inside the room, only moans. One woman. Maureen tucked her hair into the high collar of her coat. She took a deep breath, held it, and pressed her back hard against the wall. With a slight lean, she peeked around the curtain and into the room. The bed sat close to the window. On her side of the glass, Maureen stood barely three feet from it. She had a bird’ s-eye view.
On the bed, under white-hot lights, a naked woman lay spread-eagled on her back, the black bedsheets bunched at her bony hips. Another woman knelt above her face, grinding her crotch down hard and moaning at the ceiling. Both women were blindfolded with long red scarves. The kneeling woman crushed her own breasts together hard enough to stretch white the skin over her ribs. Maureen could count the runners of sweat leaking from her armpits and dripping over her ribs. Three knuckles on the hand Maureen could see swelled black and blue, freshly broken. The top woman’s hips pushed and rocked and rotated, as if searching for the best, softest place to do damage to the face beneath her; she moved to punish.
The woman on her back, her wrists and ankles bound in leather straps tailing off the corners of the bed, writhed and fought for air. Where she was bound, her marble white skin glowed red and raw, as if she’d been resisting her torture for a long time. Maureen could see the black whisker-length hair on the woman’s shins, the purple track marks dotting her fish-belly inner thighs. Her hips pumped in the air. Between her pointed hip bone and her dark pubic hair ran an elaborate calligraphic tattoo. One word.
Mercy.
Maureen panted through her teeth, forcing herself to continue looking. Forget the girls, Maureen thought. They’re not what you came for. She looked away. No, don’t turn away. She fought the urge to jump in the car and keep driving till she hit Ohio. No. Don’t run away. Those girls are exactly what you’re here for. She flashed on the cash and the coke and the pills and whatever else they hid in their dresser drawers. She didn’t recognize either girl from the bar or anywhere else; the Narrows wasn’t Sebastian’s lone hunting ground. But Maureen felt she’d heard their voices. They were never her friends, but they were always right there, living on the other side of the glass Maureen held up between herself and the rest of the world. She thought of the young girl twenty years bloody and dead in the alley, wearing nothing but denim shorts, the thundercloud-colored marks of Sebastian’s hands all over her. She thought of little Bruce Price’s dead sister. Of Tanya.
Maureen peered back in the window. The arms and legs of the woman on her back started to jerk and flap as if she were trying to fly. That’s when Maureen noticed the men. Each leather strap led to a fat-bellied man, each man naked except for a black rubber hood. Their eyes, all she could see of their faces, stared transfixed at the action on the bed. Jerking the straps, the men worked the woman on the bed like a sail in heavy wind. In his other fist, each man stroked an ugly half-hard cock. Were they actors? Paying customers? Maureen looked away again, shutting her eyes, sick to her stomach. She saw stars across her eyelids, as if she’d been struck. The moans went on, pain beyond the physical rippling now beneath the false pleasure. One more time, she commanded. One more look. Find Sebastian. Put him at the scene.
She struggled to see more of the room without giving herself away, without her reflection appearing on one of the mirrored walls. She couldn’t see the camera or Sebastian. Then, leaning another inch, Maureen found him. Away from the bed, fully dressed and out of the camera’s eye, Sebastian sat on the arm of a black leather sofa, speaking into a cell phone. He wore a campaign pin on his lapel. His companion from the car sat at the other end of the sofa, slumped over a mirror on his knee and sucking rails of coke up his nose.
Sebastian watched the bed, his face as blank as a man watch
ing bowling in his underwear. He tucked the phone between his ear and his shoulder, scowled, and tapped the face of his wristwatch. He was supervising, Maureen realized. Like he did with his security firm, like Clarence had said he’d done at the Black Garter, like he’d done with his Brooklyn vice crew and his stable of teenage informants.
This was what Sebastian had been doing at the Garter, overseeing some kind of sick torture porn operation. Maureen thought again of Tanya. This motel room explained Sebastian’s demands from her on Dennis’s debt. Those things Tanya had said Sebastian wanted her and Dennis to do, those things that would hurt; Maureen realized she was seeing a similar script acted out on that bed. She knew she was seeing Sebastian’s real face, the true depth of the abyss of his appetites. She wondered, and the thought shot her through with despair, if Tanya wasn’t better off dead if this motel was where the devil she knew was taking her.
Bizarrely, Maureen thought of Dr. Travis, the black-clad Shakespeare professor from Richmond College. What the hell did he have to do with…?
No, not him, that stupid poem he used to recite in bed; that was what she was thinking about, the poem with its seductive rock-star devil who loved power in Hell over service in Heaven. She’d always thought she knew that devil, appreciated his disdain for his all-powerful boss and his ass-kissing co-workers. She’d thought herself at times: Man, if I could just get my own joint, I wouldn’t have to put up with any of this shit. But now, before her eyes on the other side of the glass, Maureen saw there were devils neither she, nor Travis, nor anyone she knew had ever imagined.
Maureen backed away from the window, her fingers steepled over her nose, cold tears running down her cheeks. Breathe. In and out. In and out. Breathe. Keep your head together, she told herself, and you can put a stop to this. Right now. Tonight.
She jogged back to the car, her hand over her mouth. Why hadn’t she listened to Vic? Or her mother? How had she ended up here? Maureen made it to the back bumper of the K-car before she puked on the pavement.
The Devil She Knows Page 30