Hi Five

by Joe Ide

  Sal dreaded going home. As soon as Annie saw the stain, the shit would start. She’d bought the suit so the stain would somehow be an insult, and then she’d pout and sigh, bang pots and pans around, or sit on the sofa with her arms crossed and stare at the TV like her eyeballs were frozen. The passive-aggressive stuff was infuriating. And the nagging. It was like living with your mother, mother-in-law and the high school vice principal all at the same time.

  The beige stucco house was small, with a chain-link fence and a blotchy lawn. Inside there were flowered drapes, thin beige carpet, and a lot of maple furniture bought at thrift stores. Bric-a-brac with no sentimental value and photos of families that weren’t theirs lined the shelves. Annie was in the kitchen, sulking while she stirred creamed corn, which she knew Sal hated.

  “Hi,” Sal said. She sat down at the breakfast table to hide the stain and took the scrunchie out of her hair. The pencil skirt and the jacket felt like a wet suit. Annie said you had to wear heels with the outfit or it would look weird.

  “Why are you so late?” Annie said.

  “Because rush hour is rush hour,” Sal said. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” She took off the fucking heels and rubbed her feet.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” Annie said. “Why don’t you shave your armpits while you’re at it.”

  Sal tipped her head back and looked at the ceiling. “Oh my God, will you give it a rest?”

  “Dinner will be ready in a minute,” Annie said. “Don’t you want to wash up?”

  Dinner was agonizing, Annie sighing and picking at her food like she was looking for something in particular. Sal pushed the creamed corn to one side and ate little bites of the fucking meat loaf.

  “Don’t you like it?” Annie said. Meat loaf was one of the three things she knew how to make.

  “It’s great,” Sal said. “It tastes better the fourth time in two weeks.”

  “Well, don’t eat it, then.” Annie stood up, snatched Sal’s plate away and dumped it in the sink. “I try real hard, you know.” Sal didn’t apologize and didn’t care. Enough of this bullshit; she was done with it.

  “You’re really a pig, you know that?” Annie said as she banged the dishes around.

  “And you’re really a bitch,” Sal replied. “And could you please take that fucking apron off?”

  “No, I won’t. You’re not the one who does the laundry.”

  Sal pushed away from the table and stood. “Okay, I’ve fucking had it. You’ve got to stop bullshitting yourself, Annie. We are not going to have kids and you’ll never be a mom. You’re a goddamn killer, just like me. Snap out of it, will you? You’re being ridiculous.”

  Annie wasn’t indignant anymore. She was angry in the way only Annie could be, her voice like an axe hitting an anvil, eyes fierce and blazing, balled-up fists, her steely arms tight as piano wire. She took a step back and rested her hand on the countertop. There was a gun in the drawer beneath it. Sal pretended not to notice.

  “Take it back,” Annie said.

  “Take it back?” Sal huffed.

  “What are we, eleven years old?”

  “I’m warning you, Sal,” Annie said. “Take it back.”

  “Or what?”

  They locked eyes a moment.

  “Or we’re through,” Annie said.

  Neither of them cried. Sal didn’t want to stay in the house. She was in the bedroom, packing and wondering where she’d go, when she heard Annie’s phone ring. Moments later, she came in.

  “That was Terry C, the guy in Dallas?” Annie said.

  “Yeah, what about him?” Sal said.

  “He said Angus hired an investigator to find us. His name is Isaiah something. They call him IQ. He’s after us.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Here. In Long Beach.”

  They looked at each other. They had a rule. Always work out of state. They had another rule too.

  “No loose ends,” Annie said.

  “I’ll pack the gear. Leave in half an hour?”

  Isaiah was at the condo again. He’d made an appointment with Marlene and she was already an hour late. He was restless and anxious and worried about Stella. Christiana could be arrested at any time. The mess in the living room was depressing. It was too much of a mess, an excessive mess, like the alters were purposely trying to fuck up the place. Gia was haggard, scurrying around, putting trash in a garbage bag. She stopped and wiped her brow. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

  They sat at the breakfast table amid the stacks of crusty dishes, spilled cereal, greasy pans piled on the stove, the room smelling of burnt toast and coffee.

  “I try,” Gia said, “but I can’t keep up. Christiana refuses to get a housekeeper.” Isaiah sipped his coffee and set his mug down between splotches of dried egg yolk.

  “What do you do at the shop?” he asked.

  “Christiana selects materials and does most of the sewing,” Gia said. “The rest is up to me. I create the pattern, order the fabrics, keep the books. Pearl does all the little things.”

  “I wondered about that,” Isaiah said. “Why does Pearl take the measurements? Isn’t that important?”

  “Yes, but Christiana doesn’t like to be touched,” Gia said. She sipped the coffee, her eyes studiously avoiding him. She was tense, he thought. She wants to say something but doesn’t have a way to get into it. What would she want to talk about? Probably Angus, he decided. She’d been quick to say they’d been divorced for a long time. Maybe she wanted to explain.

  Isaiah said, “Tell me about you and Angus.” Gia instantly brightened. “I was young, stupid and a stripper,” she said with a small laugh. She seemed relieved to have said it. “How’s that for a combination? Angus was a regular at the club. He wasn’t what you’d call attractive but he threw money around like it was nothing. Very appealing to a hardscrabble kid from East Side Chicago. Disappointed?”

  “No. We all have a past,” Isaiah said.

  “We were quite a pair, I can tell you,” Gia said, shaking her head. “We did crazy things. Parties, drugs, all that nonsense. I was a real rock-and-roller. I loved to dance.” She made another small laugh. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? How you can be so different from your past? For a while, I worked with Angus. Criminals love hot chicks. They liked dealing with me. Angus was so belligerent and hateful—and jealous. My God. If anyone looked at me the wrong way, he’d have his goons beat the guy to a pulp.”

  “Do you still see each other?” Isaiah said.

  “Yes, fairly frequently, actually,” she said. “Angus fires his bookkeepers when he thinks they’re too nosy. I don’t ask questions and I know all his secret codes.”

  “What happened when Christiana was born?” he asked.

  “Angus was worse. She was a usurper, competition for my attention. He hated her. He…did things to her.”

  “Did you know about it?” Isaiah asked.

  Gia’s whole body sagged, inhabited by a pain so awful she’d become a slave to the alters, forever paying down a debt she could never pay off.

  “I didn’t want to know,” she said, “and I was in a drug haze most of the time. Or I was out partying. Or asleep. Or screwing some stranger.”

  “What did it?” Isaiah said. “Why did you leave?”

  “It was Christmas, of all things.” Gia tore a paper towel off the roll and dabbed sweat off her face. “Christiana didn’t get the present she wanted and was whining about it. Angus got upset but it was way over the top. He started yelling at her, calling her an ingrate and a bitch and…other things. He threw a marble ashtray at her. I got in the way and it hit me right here.” She put her finger above her right eye. “I had to get stitches. And it didn’t end there. Angus knocked a couple of my teeth out, broke a rib, and that was it. I took Christiana and left.” She breathed a deep sigh. “I should have done it before. Long before.”

  Isaiah agreed but didn’t say it. “And then what?”

  “It was hard. By that time, the alters were
in charge.” Gia shrugged and sighed. “Angus got married again,” she said. “A Filipino woman named Virginia. I heard they were in love and Angus was very happy. They had a baby but Virginia died in childbirth. The grandmother took the poor thing. For a long time, Angus didn’t give it a name.” Isaiah glanced at his watch.

  “Why are the alters so unresponsive?” he asked. “Don’t they realize they’re in serious jeopardy?”

  “They might only be vaguely aware of what happened,” Gia replied, “if they’re aware at all. Or they might think it hasn’t anything to do with them. It’s somebody else’s mess.”

  Isaiah hated downtime. “I want to look around,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  Gia led him through the hall toward the bedrooms. It was a huge place.

  “In general,” Isaiah said, “do the alters get along?”

  “Some do, some don’t. Christiana tells me they argue about everything. What to wear, what to eat, where to go. Everything.”

  “With all that going on in her head, how does she function?”

  “The others are like background music or people talking in a bar,” Gia said. “She can ignore them if she wants.”

  “Does one alter know what the others are doing?” Isaiah said.

  “Sometimes, but I honestly couldn’t tell you who sees what. Maybe one alter can see everything. I’ve heard of that happening.”

  Isaiah didn’t know why he wanted to see the alters’ rooms, but at this point in his career he didn’t need a why. He had been in his acupuncturist’s office, waiting for his appointment, and saw a pointillist painting on the cover of a magazine. People in a park in old-fashioned clothes, sitting, walking, lounging on the grass; men in top hats, women carrying parasols. When you looked closely, you could see the whole canvas was comprised of tiny dots. Isaiah’s work was something like that. Putting dots on a blank canvas, seemingly unrelated, some in bunches, some disconnected, shapeless spaces in between. Keep adding dots, no matter where they landed, and eventually something took shape. Looking in the bedrooms was like adding dots.

  “Christiana and Pearl’s room is to the right,” Gia said.

  “They share a room?” He had to remind himself they were one person.

  “The others have their own rooms. It’s not necessary. It’s silly, really. I’ve never heard of anyone doing this but Angus is indulgent. He wants Christiana to have everything. Even privacy from herself.”

  Pearl and Christiana’s room was pretty and happy. “Fortunately they have the same tastes,” Gia said. “If they didn’t, the room would look like the living room.” There were soft colors, prints of Monet’s water lilies and Renoir’s Two Sisters, diaphanous curtains like at Christiana’s shop.

  Two beds neatly made. A designer suitcase and a carry-on jammed tightly underneath the bed. Odd, Isaiah thought. Buildings like this had private storage. There was a closet with two sets of clothes and two different styles. Chic and shy. On Christiana’s side, there were a couple of new sundresses with the tags still on them.

  A pair of beautiful jade earrings were on the dresser. Isaiah wondered if they were real. He tossed one of them up in the air and caught it. Noticeably heavier than a pebble the same size. It felt cool, smooth and soap-like. Real jade. Real expensive. There were travel brochures on a small desk. Fiji. Christiana and Pearl had dreams of going away.

  There were photographs on a side table. “Christiana insists on having them,” Gina said. “They weren’t exactly happy times.” In one photo, Christiana was seven or so; Angus, beatific, cradling her. She was asleep or pretending to be. Her mouth was open a bit and most kids her age slept with their mouths closed. Her body wasn’t slack enough for sleep. Why be awake in the arms of your victimizer?

  Another of mother and daughter sitting at a vanity, their backs to the mirror. They were both wearing lavender dresses and forced smiles; Angus was probably the photographer. In the mirror, Isaiah could see a large framed photo of Chuck Berry in that famous pose—hunched down and aiming his guitar like a gun. Gia said she was a real rock-and-roller. A family photo, Christiana was nine or ten, expressionless, dressed like Shirley Temple in another lavender outfit, apparently Gia’s favorite color. Ugliness had not come to Angus later in life. Even back then he was the Mr. Potato Head monster except with more hair. He looked proud, as if saying, Aren’t we one happy family? Gia was young, hot, dressed expensively, a huge diamond engagement ring that glittered like the sun on a breezy sea. If nothing else, she’d enjoyed Angus’s money. The photos were reminders, Isaiah thought, to Gia and Angus and what they’d done under the guise of doting parents.

  There was a single photo on the nightstand. It was of a house, more like a cottage, with a porch and a brick chimney. It was rustic and charming and at the edge of the sea. A dark forest behind it. Isaiah thought it was strange, a photo singled out like that.

  “Whose house?” Isaiah asked.

  Gia shook her head. “Christiana never said.”

  Jasper’s room. About what you’d expect from a dumb, unsupervised, eighteen-year-old asshole. Isaiah stopped and stared, Gia looking over his shoulder.

  “Did I mention Angus was indulgent?” Gia said. “He even gave Jasper a job for a while, until Jasper kicked his dog. The ultimate sin. I’m going to go. Look around wherever you want.”

  The dense smell of things unwashed, unsanitary and unappetizing wafted into Isaiah’s face. It was the smell of neglect, of not caring, of contempt for order. Piles of dirty laundry, stuff spilling out of drawers, food splatter on the walls, the floor strewn with trash, beer cans, empty bottles of Everclear, a pair of heavy black boots with zippers on the side and a studded monk strap. The left sole was nearly worn through. Posters were thumbtacked crookedly on the wall. The Ramones. Kiss. Dead Kennedys. The New York Dolls. Twisted Sister. The sheets on the bed were knotted with stains Isaiah didn’t want to look at. A battered toolbox underneath it. A cheap scimitar, a crowbar and a Fender Stratocaster leaning against the dresser.

  Bertrand’s room was orderly and spartan. Dockers, polo shirts, and sturdy shoes precisely arranged in the closet. A poster of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Books on self-defense. A small collection of baseball hats. A framed, stock photo of a man, woman and a boy, the kind that comes with a picture frame or a wallet. Made bed with military corners. No dust bunnies under the furniture. There was a cluster of dents in the drywall, broken through in a couple of places. Isaiah looked at them closely. Fist marks. He wondered if all the alters were like this. Off kilter. Odd. Familiar yet not quite credible.

  Marlene’s room was like a whorehouse after the DEA had come and gone. There were a variety of thongs, nighties, nipple-less bras, crotchless panties, and a dildo the size of a bluefin tuna. There were condom boxes torn open and a plastic bottle of lube called Unicorn Spit, donut flavored. The only neat thing in the room was a folded sheaf of freshly laundered T-shirts. The one on top showed part of the logo: UST. “Lust,” Isaiah said aloud. Meeting Marlene should be an event.

  Marlene’s liaisons had left behind some items. A BMW key ring, a leather bra that was too big for Marlene, a charcoal-gray vest, expensive material, and a pair of Converse All-Stars, men’s size ten and a half. That must have been funny, Isaiah thought, the guy humping away when Marlene turned into Pearl, who screamed, who turned into Jasper, who shouted, What the fuck? Isaiah would have left his shoes behind too.

  The rooms felt staged. As if a director had told the prop master, I want to see a party girl’s room. Really wild, like a slut, you know? Okay, this guy’s a real tight-ass. An accountant, maybe. Like completely boring. Copied lives. Torn from magazines, seen on TV, read about in the tabloids.

  Isaiah had read that each alter plays a role and that these roles helped the victim cope. Christiana’s was to be pragmatic and rational. Pearl was submissive, a useful quality when dealing with an abuser. Alters didn’t like intrusiveness and Jasper’s role was probably to keep people away. Evidently, Marlene was overtly sexual,
also useful given the situation. Bertrand’s role remained to be seen.

  A deep sadness descended on Isaiah. He wondered what form of wrath Angus had wreaked on his own daughter to create a human being this fucked up. What would be horrific enough to shatter a child’s selfhood into so many jagged pieces? Cruelty to kids infuriated Isaiah. Working for a perpetrator was sickening. He felt sorry for Gia. All these years living with a real-life Hydra, never knowing whose face would appear, five personalities making demands that would never end. He admired her doleful acceptance. Her brave perseverance.

  Later in the day, Dodson showed up at Isaiah’s house unannounced.

  “I put the word out about them two killers,” he said. “Heard anything?”

  “Not yet,” Isaiah said.

  “You don’t look so good. The case got you down?”

  “Some, yeah.”

  Weird, Isaiah thought. Not enough time had gone by for him to have heard anything and Dodson could have called. He couldn’t worry about that now. He had to find Marlene—or Bertrand or Jasper. Any one of them would do.

  Gia called. In a small, embarrassed voice, she said, “Marlene was here and then she left.”

  “Did she say where?” Isaiah said.

  “No, and when I asked her she said, ‘I’m going to have fun.’”

  He thought a moment. “How did she say it?”

  “How?” Gia said.

  “Was she happy, like Yay, I’m going to have fun?”

  “No,” Gia said thoughtfully. “She was more…determined, like she was going to have fun, hell or high water.”

  “When she left there, what was she wearing?” he asked.

  “Tight skirt, low-cut blouse, heels.”

  “Perfume?”