by Julia Dahl
“No,” said Ridley. “You’re right.”
“The way I see it, you sending my brother—a fucking teenager—after Claudia Castro might very well be the reason he’s in the hospital right now.”
Was Lars trying to scare him? Small-time hustlers were exhausting.
“Look,” said Ridley, “I didn’t force your brother to do anything. I offered him a lot of money to do something in his own self-interest. He didn’t want the police to see that video. This is the post–Me Too era, son. You can’t get away with that shit anymore, especially not if you’re stupid enough to get it on video. That video guarantees a conviction. Your brother understood that. I don’t think he’d do well in prison. And especially now, with his limitations…” He let the word linger in the air. When Lars didn’t bite back, he continued. “That’s why he was looking for Claudia.”
Lars set his face like he was ready to argue but Ridley could tell he was listening.
“Okay,” said Lars, finally. “You got any leads, at least?”
Ridley took his phone from his jacket pocket, scrolled to the ID photo of Trevor that Chad had sent him from the NYU system, and handed the device to Lars.
“She’s been spending a lot of time with this kid.”
CHAD
The video—shooting it and sending it—was a bad idea. He could admit that. But his father’s reaction was out of whack, as usual. In the package room at The Park View, Ridley asked him why the boy on the other side of the door had punched him.
“Because he found out his girlfriend’s a slut,” said Chad.
“That’s not an answer, Chad. How are you involved?”
“I sent him a video of her sucking me off.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because it was funny.”
That wasn’t the reason, of course. It was kind of funny—Claudia Castro getting it from both ends, so out of it she pissed herself in his bed. But really, he did it because he hated her and he wanted her to suffer forever. Before she kissed him that first week at NYU, he thought he’d gotten over her. He’d spent the last two years of high school in Los Angeles with his mom, away from Claudia and away from his father’s insane sex life. How can a kid like you not get laid? his father would ask, sometimes in front of the women he brought home. After the separation, Ridley had a woman in his bed at least three nights a week. In the morning they were always half-dressed and playing wifey, offering to make breakfast in the kitchen his mother had never used. Did they think his dad was going to marry them if they whipped up a Belgian waffle? Ridley loved it, though. He had asked Irina, the housekeeper, to make sure there were always fresh pastries in the morning, and coffee service. Chad’s dad wasn’t the typical fuck-and-run; he liked playing house, too. The sex was better, he once told Chad, if they think they have a chance. A chance for what? Chad had asked. A chance to get all this.
Chad started skipping breakfast but he couldn’t avoid the women entirely, especially once sophomore year was over for the summer and he didn’t have school to go to. They always asked the same question: Do you have a girlfriend? No, he didn’t have a fucking girlfriend
“He hates it when people ask that,” his father said once. “I don’t know why,” Ridley continued. “He’s a good-looking kid.”
“Dad.”
“I’m just saying, you need to get it done. You can’t go to college a virgin, Chad.”
“Dad.”
“He’s hung up on this one girl.”
“Ahh,” said the woman. She was a cliché in every possible way. Blond and skinny, wearing one of his father’s shirts with no bra beneath, bare legs crossed at the breakfast table on the balcony overlooking Central Park. “That’s sweet.”
Chad wanted to throw something at her. Instead, that night he called his mom and asked if he could come live with her in Beverly Hills. Her parents were so excited she’d finally left his dad they said they’d buy her a house if she moved back. He got to California in time to try out for basketball, so in addition to being the new kid from New York he was the starting forward on a division-ranked team. Nobody knew he was a virgin who’d spent a year obsessing over the same girl. His teammates took him to house parties and just before Thanksgiving a friend said he heard that Mia Gregory, a frizzy-haired, flat-chested cheerleader whose dad owned car dealerships all over Southern California, liked him.
“I bet she’ll let you fuck her if you take her to winter formal,” said the friend.
Chad asked and Mia said yes and the week before the dance she gave him a blow job at a party. They went to formal as a group. Nine couples in a rented party bus, then a sleepover at someone’s house. They had a bedroom to themselves and he brought a condom. She brought one, too, and she didn’t ask him if he’d done this before. He kept his eyes closed and thought of Claudia. Like he always did. Mia was the ugliest girl in the group and it pissed him off that she was all he could get, even three thousand miles away from Manhattan. What was with these bitches?
For a couple of months Mia didn’t complain that he didn’t hold her hand at school or call her his girlfriend, and she seemed happy, or at least available, to have sex whenever he texted. She let him try pretty much anything he wanted if he pushed a little bit, and the stories he told impressed his new friends. Mia went with her family to Hawaii for spring break and back at home one of her friends, Bella, made a big show of flirting with Chad at a party. They made out in the hot tub and had sex two nights later in Bella’s family’s pool house. Bella was a step up and seemed game to continue what they’d started—as long as he wasn’t doing it with Mia, too. When Mia came back and heard, she didn’t make a scene. He ignored her and she him. The next year, as managing editor of the senior yearbook, Mia managed to get “Playing with his small dick” printed between “Varsity Basketball” and “Mock Trial” among Chad Drake’s school activities. Ha ha. Fuck them all. He was going back to New York. And for the summer before he started at NYU Chad and his dad actually got along. Ridley had left his big law firm and gone on his own since the divorce. If you were worth more than twenty million dollars, you probably had him on retainer. If your daughter was caught drunk driving in the Hamptons, Ridley could get the locals to drop the charges; if the towel boy at the club was threatening to tell your wife you let him blow you, Ridley gave him money and made him sign an NDA, then got him fired. Underage girls, rape charges, domestic violence, drugs, tax fraud. The day Trevor ambushed Chad, Ridley had been coming from the courthouse where he’d just gotten a judge to sign off on probation and a fine for a CEO who’d sent a prostitute to the emergency room after a hotel encounter. The hotel had the CEO on surveillance entering the room with the girl, but Ridley got the girl’s roommate to make a statement saying the prostitute had told her she was going to “jam up a suit” and get rich.
“What do you mean it was funny?” demanded Ridley in their building’s package room. “Why are the police here?”
“He’s the one who punched me!”
“Show me this video.”
“Dad…”
“Show me the fucking video, Chad.”
Chad handed over his phone. He watched his father, and when it got to the part where she peed, Chad snickered.
“This is Claudia Castro,” said Ridley.
“Yeah.”
“What is the matter with you?” he hissed.
“What?”
“You showed this to that kid out there?”
“I sent it to him. Him and Claudia and her ex.”
Ridley was silent for a few seconds. “We’re going to go out there and tell the cops this was all big misunderstanding, and we’re going to apologize for wasting their time.”
“Dad…”
Ridley grabbed him by the arm. “You will say nothing. Got it. Keep your mouth shut. Can you do that?”
Upstairs, after the cops left, Chad’s father let loose.
“How did you get so fucking stupid?” he screamed as soon as the elevator doors closed on the
ir penthouse. Chad tried to escape to his bedroom, but Ridley followed him up the stairs, going on and on about all the ways the video could fuck up their lives. “Do you want to go to prison?”
Chad kept walking. Ridley pushed him and he stumbled forward, falling briefly then popping back up, surprised and angry.
“What’s the big deal? It’s just a sex tape.”
Ridley stared at his son for a moment. Chad had seen the same expression on his father’s face last month when he told him he hadn’t gotten the internship with the Brooklyn Nets.
“What happened?” Ridley had asked.
“It was between two of us and they chose the other guy. I think his dad’s a state senator.”
Ridley had shaken his head and looked at Chad like he’d just sung off-key. “At some point you need to start figuring out how to close the deal, son.”
He’d closed the deal with Claudia, though, hadn’t he? He hadn’t kidnapped her. She’d come up in the elevator with him. She knew what was going to happen. She’d known it was coming. It had been coming for a long time.
“Give me your phone.”
“No.” Chad touched the device in his back pocket.
Ridley shook his head. Disappointed.
“Give it to me.”
“I’m not giving you my phone.”
Ridley stepped forward and Chad took off down the hall, sprinting into his bedroom, flipping the lock. His father kicked the door.
“I’m trying to help you, you moron!”
“I don’t need your help!”
His dad was not going to back off, so he decided to wipe the phone. His contacts were in the cloud and everything else was in apps he could log back into. He could probably even find the video if he really wanted to. But he didn’t need it, he thought, as he Googled “erase contents of iPhone”—he’d been there.
When he finally opened the bedroom door, his father was still standing there. Chad pushed the phone into his chest and walked past him, headed down the stairs to the elevator.
“What did you do, Chad?”
“Fuck you, Dad.”
And that should have been the end of it.
CLAUDIA
Lesley showed up late, but looked exactly right. Short black dress, high heels, cleavage, big hair, glossy lips. The full cliché.
“You look great,” said Claudia.
“Yeah?” Lesley found the mirror on the wall and checked, running her hand along her hair, turning to check out her ass. “Good. Obviously he’s into you, but does that mean your look? His Instagram had him with more basic bitches. So I went that way.”
“It’s perfect. He’ll probably nut at the bar.”
“Damn,” said Lesley. She sat down on the sofa and pulled a baggie out of her purse. “That’s an image.”
Claudia laughed. She liked who she was with Lesley. With Lesley, Claudia was in charge. She was strong again, capable. Could she keep that up with Chad in the room?
Lesley laid two lines of white powder on the coffee table, took a pad of yellow Post-its from her purse, and rolled a straw.
“One for you?” she offered.
“I’m good.”
Lesley shrugged and snorted.
“It’s just coke. The other thing’s in a little dropper.” She wiped her nose then got up and went into the bathroom. Claudia heard the water running.
“I was thinking,” called Lesley, “maybe you should just give me the rest of the money now.”
Knock knock.
Claudia went to the door and saw Trevor through the peephole. He wasn’t supposed to be here. The plan had been to keep everything offline and connect in a couple days. She didn’t want him to meet Lesley. All this felt manageable if she kept things simple. Two people in a room at a time. Everybody on a need-to-know.
She opened the door.
“What are you doing here?”
He pushed past her.
“Is Chad here?”
“What? No.”
“Good.”
Trevor started jabbering about Jeremy’s dad, but Claudia interrupted him.
“Stop talking,” she said. “Did something happen?”
“Yes, something happened!”
Lesley came out of the bathroom. “Who’s this?”
Trevor grabbed Claudia’s wrist. She shook him off.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“You are talking.”
“Claudia, who is this guy?”
“Don’t worry. We go to school together.”
“Tell him he better not fucking touch you again,” said Lesley.
“I’m fine,” said Claudia. “He’s harmless. Thank you. Why don’t you head down to the bar?”
“Whatever you say,” said Lesley. She picked her purse up off the bed and left with a little kick of her heel. The clock beside the bed said 9:15 p.m.
“Did you do it?” asked Claudia when Lesley was gone.
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s in the hospital.”
“Did you get his hands?” The plan had been to knock him down with a blow to the head, then smash his fingers. No fingers, no guitar god.
“I couldn’t do that part,” said Trevor. “His brain is swollen, he’s…”
“Can he still play the guitar?”
“Claudia, listen to me. You need to call this off. Whatever you’re going to do to Chad, I don’t think you should do it. I think you’ll regret it.”
She drew a sharp breath. “Oh, really?”
“I know you will.”
“Oh, you know I will?” The confidence she felt alone in the room with Lesley had vanished. She didn’t have the strength to argue with Trevor for long.
“I met his dad,” Trevor said. “He’s freaking out. Jeremy’s really fucked up.”
“That was the point. As you know.”
“I just don’t think you want to do this. I mean, I don’t think you want to have done it. You don’t want this on your conscience. It’s not right.”
“Of course it’s not right, you asshole!” she screamed. “None of this is right! They did this. This is on them.”
“I think you’ll regret it,” he almost whispered. “What if you get caught?”
Claudia stared at him, her eyes flashing. Was he really doing this to her? A million words came rushing into her mouth but she wasn’t going to say any of them. She wasn’t going to explain herself. She wasn’t going to spend another ounce of energy on this fucking traitor.
“Fuck off, Trevor,” she said finally.
“Claudia—”
“Bye.”
Claudia pushed him into the hall and slammed the door shut. Fury rose and radiated inside her. She grabbed a pillow and pressed it to her face, screaming so hard her throat burned with the effort. Deep breath, then again. The scream roared and scratched, like the rage that spawned it was clawing through the muscle and bone and skin. She wiped her leaking face with the pillow and threw it at the window. Fourteen floors below, the city was moving. Lights flashing a party every square inch. She imagined herself pushed into a cab: Come on, Claudia, what’s wrong? It’ll be fun, Claudia. It’s a party, Claudia. Everybody knows you like parties. She filled up a glass of water at the bathroom sink and drank it with her eyes closed. She picked up her toothbrush and her pills, looked around to make sure she hadn’t left anything else, and put them in the zipper pocket inside the duffle. Two thousand dollars for a go-bag. Why had she bought this ridiculous thing? Because for a few moments in Macy’s, surrounded by designer bags, she’d been able to recapture the ease of her life before: pick an item, charge it, take it home, enjoy it, show it off. It wasn’t happiness but it was, she understood now, power. Power she wanted back.
There was a convenience store opposite the bar in the hotel lobby, and the plan was for Lesley to drink a round, order another, then ask Chad to go buy a couple mini-bottles of Jack Daniel’s so they could “take the party” to her room. While he was gone,
she’d drop the drug in his drink. Lesley said that her guy said the ketamine would take about twenty minutes to kick in, and Claudia’s Googling found the same thing. Three drops, apparently. So, when Chad brought back the mini-bottles she’d tell him to drink up and settle the check.
At just after ten, Lesley texted that they were headed up. Claudia slid the mirrored closet door open and got into place, wedged beside the wall-mounted iron, hangers inches from her forehead, the Louis Vuitton at her feet. She waited, and after a few minutes heard the beep and click of the door opening.
“Not bad for a Holiday Inn,” said Chad.
“Snob,” Lesley teased. They were inches from the closet mirror.
“Next time I’ll take you someplace really nice,” he slurred.
“Will you? You’re so sexy.”
Kissing.
“Mm, you taste good,” said Lesley. Claudia could smell his cologne. “I’ll open the Jack, you get on the bed. I’ve got ideas.”
“Ideas, huh?”
“Promise you won’t tell anybody?”
“Promise.”
“I did some strippin’ back in Atlanta. You want a little show?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Chad. Claudia wished she could see his face. She imagined his slavering smile. Thinking: How’d I get so lucky?
“Just lie down. Let me take care of you.”
She heard Lesley unscrew the bottles and pour their contents into glasses. Footsteps.
“Hey,” said Lesley. “Hey. You awake? You awake?”
A moment later the mirrored door opened.
“He’s all yours.”
Claudia stepped out and there was Chad Drake, lying on the bed. One shoe on, one shoe off. His oxford tucked into dark jeans. A leather belt, a clean white undershirt, a watch she knew cost thousands of dollars.
“How would you feel about me taking that watch?” asked Lesley.
“Are you sure he’s out?”
“Go check if you want.”
Claudia walked to the edge of the bed. “Chad? Chad?” She shook his socked foot. Shook it harder. Then she poked his chest. He was out.
“Take it,” she said.