by Nicole Fox
I want to spit something back at him, to tell him he’s just a worm and a scumbag who’s working for a man who hits children and sells women. But any anger I feel stays in my bones, far away from my face. I nod, smile, and stand up. “Thank you, sir,” I say in my politest voice.
I go to my desk and get on with some paperwork, looking around the office and wondering which of these men and women can be trusted. Any one of them could be watching me and reporting back to Mickey. I wonder about Mickey, too—about how he’s evaded us for this long. We’ve had tips and reports on him, but every time we get there, he’s gone. It might be time to enact our other plan soon.
At lunchtime I check my cell and see that I’ve got two texts from Moira, although her name isn’t Moira in my phone. The first text from Inner City Dry Cleaning is asking me if I’m still coming over for lunch. The second is demanding that I still come over for lunch.
When Moira and her congressman boyfriend broke up, dad and I decided that it would be for the best if we took her out of college for a semester and put her up in witness protection housing. It would come in handy if we ever needed to enact our plan, which was looking more and more likely, but also it meant that she would be safe from Mickey. Without her boyfriend’s private army, she was more vulnerable than ever. I leave the office and go to my car, but I don’t drive straight to the apartment we’ve secured for her. I drive a course around the city, watching my rear and looking for anybody who might be tailing me. When I’m convinced I’m not being followed, I drive out to Hell’s Kitchen, stop my car a few blocks down the street, and duck into an alleyway. Maybe these precautions are over the top, but when you’re dealing with somebody who will hurt children, you can’t take any chances on what he’ll do to adults.
Finally, around an hour after I left the office, I’m riding the elevator to the top floor. I keep telling myself that I’m taking such pains with Moira because one day she might come in useful, but I know that’s only half of it. The other half is the dead girl in my dreams with maggots in her eyes. The other half is redemption. When I knock on the door—a secret knock only dad and I know—Moira throws it open, a book in her hand, as there often is, and her other hand raised for a hug.
We embrace, then she leads me across the room. She’s been here for only a couple of months, yet it has more character than my place: books scattered everywhere, a poster of the original cover for The Great Gatsby, and a gaming console with games scattered over the table.
She leads me to the couch, and we sit side by side near a miniature space radiator that blows air onto our legs. Sitting there, watching her with her feet tucked under her bum and her hands worrying at her blanket, I feel a pang, like I always do when I visit her. It’s not fair, I know, to keep seeing Tess when I look at her. But, then, it’s not fair to keep seeing Cor everywhere I go. I’m starting to learn that my mind doesn’t care about what’s fair or not.
“Any news?” she asks, as she does every time.
I shake my head. “I’ve got feelers out for him, but he hasn’t been spotted. New York’s a big place, especially when nobody will talk. I’ve had a few mob members asked, but of course they’ve said nothing. He could be in New York, he could be in Texas, or he could be in Uganda for all I know.”
“Or he could be dead. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Thinking, but not saying because it will upset me.”
The word dead sends chills through my body. I think of Cor lying there, covered in blood and never knowing how much I truly cared for him. “Don’t say that, Moira. He’s alive. Nothing could kill Cor.”
“My dad used to hold me over his head when I was little. He’d hold me in the sky, and I would hold my arms at my sides, like this.” She drops her blanket to demonstrate. “And for the longest time I believed I was really flying. I always thought that nothing could hurt this man—not if he could make me fly. How could anything hurt a man who knew how to fly, you know?” She grows quiet, dropping her arms. “But it did. Cor is tough. I know that. Everybody knows that. But just because he’s tough, doesn’t mean he’s invincible.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “I tell you what. I’ll call dad when I leave. Maybe he’ll have some news.”
I don’t hold out much hope for that, but what else can I tell her? And maybe, just maybe, dad might have something for me today. He’s been coordinating with agents he says he trusts, so perhaps he might really have something soon.
“Do you miss him?” Moira asks.
“Of course I do.” The strength of my words surprises me. I think about telling her about the dream, but I don’t. Some things are best kept private. “I think about him every day,” I say instead, which is true, without cutting too close to the bone.
“I bet he thinks about you, too,” Moira says. “Wherever he is and whatever he’s doing, I bet he thinks about you all the time.”
“He’s angry with me,” I mutter, looking down at my hands because looking into Moira’s face is like looking into the face of my past. “I want to find him so I can let him know I’d never hurt him. He has to know that.”
“He will. We’ll see him again.”
“I hope so.”
Out in the street, walking toward my car, I call dad. He answers with a terse, “Yes?”
“Any news on the Irishman?” I ask. We can’t use names, just in case somebody is listening.
“Yes,” Dad says. “Meet me at the place with the green bench.”
I drive to a corner near my apartment building, where a red bench sits opposite a park. Sitting there with a book in my hand that I hardly even look at, I wait for dad. He drops into the seat next to me with a sigh, turns to me without smiling, and tells me, “He was seen near at a bar a few blocks over from the docks. Might be he’s staying at the docks. Might be he was just passing through. Could be worth checking into, though.”
“Okay. I’ll do that.”
We watch each other for a moment. I think of my dream and of his cutting words. For years after that scene in the car, I couldn’t be around dad without feeling horribly guilty. I would think of his question and the disbelief in his voice. The word ‘shore’ still makes me flinch.
“Get to it, then,” he says. He’s halfway to his car when he stops, stands still for a few seconds, and then turns around. Standing over me, he says, “You’re doing a good job, Scarlet.”
With that, he leaves.
It’s not much, but it’s something.
Chapter Fifteen Cormac
I wake on my mattress in the damp, cold office that once belonged to a foreman, a man in a suit watching over his workers. Now it’s mine, watching over the meagre army I’ve been able to assemble. Three men, the ones without wives or children, have agreed to stay here with me as I try and get to Mickey, or get to someone who’s helped Mickey. Davey, Sebastian, and Flint, all three of them loyal and all three of them eager to push Mickey aside so that we can get the family back on the right track. Every damn day there are more reports of Mickey hurting kids, of Mickey selling drugs, of Mickey trafficking women. He’s disgracing my father’s legacy.
As I wash and change in the shower room at the end of the hall, which once was used by double-shifters—men who just wanted to go home—I think of Scar. Scar is always the first person I think of once I start the day. Even after I’ve gotten ready, she’s always in the back of my mind, haunting me. I think of the years before we ran away together, both of us wanting to go further, but Scar unwilling to. And then I think of her at Moira’s penthouse, how she would skip into my room and climb atop me. I ache for her when I think of what we shared. But it’s not just her body. I ache for her laugh, the things we’d talk about, and hearing her shout at me. I miss her snapping at me more than anything, which is strange, I reckon.
Flint is waiting in the warehouse for me, near dad’s cigarettes. The crate has been busted open and about only half of the cigarettes remain. Flint has become my second-in-command over these past months. He’s around eighteen years ol
d, short, stocky, with a bushy ginger beard, and a hairline that’s already receding. He smokes nonstop and talks in a thick Irish accent.
“Where’re the others?” I ask.
“Following a lead. Apparently someone’s been sniffing around the warehouse.”
“When?” I take the offered cigarette and light it with a match, smoking slowly. I need to cut down on these, but without Scar, I have no reason to. Maybe she’d snap at me and tell me I was smoking too much.
“Early hours of the morning. Davey and Sebastian think she might come back this morning, so they’re keeping lookout.”
She. I have no doubt about who it is.
“Text them. Tell her she isn’t to be harmed.”
Flint tilts his head at me. “We’re not Mickey, boss. We don’t hurt women.”
“Even so, text them.”
He does as I say, then we walk across the warehouse floor toward a small makeshift alcove in the corner, constructed by piling up boxes. The entrance is a rectangular piece of tarpaulin cut away from a dusty corner upstairs. It was white once, but now it’s brown and murky, making the weak electric lights which are dotted all over the place into a color like a bruised sunset. We walk into the alcove, causing Max Smithson’s eyebrows to shoot up into his forehead.
“When’d you bring him in?”
“Last night,” Flint says.
“And the other three. The ones who were working for him?”
“We put a fright in them. They haven’t done anything too bad—not like this one. They’ve just spied on their co-workers—the usual bent stuff. They ain’t the ones we need to worry about. They ain’t the one who got your father killed.”
“All right.”
Max Smithson is tied to an old wooden chair, the ropes digging into his fat belly, his ankles, and his wrists. Duct tape has been wrapped around his mouth and the back of his head, forcing him to breathe through his nose. When he does, his nose makes a wheezing sound. When he sees me, he starts struggling, making the chair rock back and forth.
“Keep doing that and you’ll fall over,” I say, feeling cold at the sight of him. Rage rises in me, months-long rage, rage I’ve nursed as summer turned to autumn and autumn to young winter. “Get that shit off him.”
Flint tears the duct tape from around his head. I notice that bits of grey hair cling to the sticky side of the duct tape before Flint tosses it away. Then Max Smithson is talking, his words tumbling out quickly: “Are you mad? I’m an FBI agent! Are you completely mad? What’s the matter with you? How do you think this will end for you? The FBI don’t have a track record of being kind to men like you, you fool! They’ll kill you. Some brave agent will put a bullet in your head, file a report claiming it was justified, and nobody will bat an eyelid. Do you understand?”
I stare at him, saying nothing.
His lips quiver, his eyes searching the room. Then he launches into another speech. “Okay, okay, if you’ve been following me you must know that I have lots of money, places in Cali, and places in Texas, too, though they’re off the record. I have over two-hundred thousand dollars in three separate bank accounts. I can make this right. How much will it cost to make this right?”
“Cost,” I repeat. Flint chuckles darkly. I approach the man, kneeling to my haunches so that we’re eye to eye. “Cost is a funny word to use in this situation. Cost implies that something was bought, or can be bought. What do you think you’re gonna buy?”
“My ... my life!” A tear rolls down Max Smithson’s cheek.
“Your life was forfeit the day you started working for Mickey, old man.”
He spits in my face, a phlegmy globule that hits under my eye and slides down my cheek. “Your father was a mob boss! Your father was a criminal! If I had anything to do with his death—I’m not saying I did, but if I did—do you really think you’re ... you’re morally justified in taking my life? Do you really think you can kill me and have it be okay? If I am working with Mickey, it’s only because I’ve—”
I wipe the spit from my face with my sleeve. “You gave Mickey the location of my father. You had FBI men tailing my father, telling them it was for a case, and then you gave Mickey the location. The other men have been dealt with. They’ll go back to being FBI men now, or they’ll run, or they’ll die. But you—I can’t let you get away like that.”
He squints at me, trying to work out the words beneath my words. Maybe he’s guessed that I know.
“You want me to believe that you worked with Mickey to bring down my dad. That’s all. That’s the furthest it went, eh?” I hold out my hand, and Flint places the piece of paper in it. “Lexi Connington, Samantha Priestley, Isabella Jones, Charlene Thomas, Alexendria—”
“Stop this nonsense!” Max roars. “Stop this right now! Stop this before I have you killed, you fucking cunt! You stupid boy!”
I finish the list, talking through his roaring outrage. When I’m done, I let the paper flutter to the floor.
“You didn’t work with Mickey to bring down the mob, Mr. Smithson.” I think of Scar, working under this man for years. I think of Scar in her FBI getup, her jacket, and her black trousers. I think of this man, this old perverted fuck, eyeing her up and wondering what he could do to her if he got her alone. My jaw aches from clenching it. My knuckles feel like they might burst out of my skin, I’m clenching my fists so hard. “You worked with Mickey because he went out, picked up hookers, and brought them to a room he owned in the middle of nowhere—a room you used to rape, torture, and kill them.”
“You’re mad!” Max Smithson snaps. “You’re out of your mind—”
Flint takes out the cellphone and starts playing the video. As it plays, I wish I was with Scar, holding her. The world is too dark and messed up to be alone. The camera is set high up in the room, looking down with a clear view of what this man is doing to these innocent girls.
“He recorded it all, you stupid bastard,” I say. “He was going to use it against you one day, when you finally remembered you had a conscience.”
“Will you ask him to turn that off?” His voice is whiney, pathetic. My fingernails, short as they are, scrape against my palm.
“Flint.”
He returns his cellphone to his pocket.
“So you’ve figured it all out. Well done. What a clever boy you are. So why am I not dead? I told Mickey where to find your father. And I—you can say I hurt those girls. But if you watch carefully, you’ll see them wriggling in pleasure. And if you listen carefully, you’ll hear them moaning in pleasure.” His eyes are glassed over, like he’s not really here. For years, Scar had to call this man ‘sir.’ After this, I tell myself, I’ll reconnect with her. Damn opposite sides. There’s no such thing as opposite sides when you care this much about somebody. There can’t be. “So why wasn’t I just killed, instead of brought here?”
“You that eager to die?” Flint laughs.
“No, not eager to die. But eager to get out of this fucking chair. Look, listen, just listen to me, all right? What do you want?”
“We need to know where Mickey is staying,” I say. “We know it must be one of my dad’s hideouts, but which one? He had a few.”
Max Smithson starts to cry, the tears sliding down his cheeks. “You know I can’t tell you that.” He blubbers, sniffling. He goes from an outraged psychopathic killer to a weeping child in a matter of seconds. “You know I can’t tell you that!” he cries. “The man is—the man is—the man isn’t a man! He’s a monster! He’s something out of nightmares. If I tell you that, I’m dead!”
I jump at him, wrapping my hands around his throat just enough to show him how strong I am. “If you don’t tell me, you’re dead. What difference does it make? Listen to me, you old perverted fuck. You’ve done worse things than any man I ever knew in the mob. You’ve done worse things than my father ever fuckin’ dreamed of. And now you’re gonna sit there and tell me you can’t give me shit? I bet you had fantasies about her, didn’t you? Every damn day, every damn time she
was in your office, you were looking at her and dreaming your sick dreams. Dreaming your sick dreams about the woman I love! Do you hear that, you psychotic old fuck? The woman I love! Not anymore! Not anymore!”
I don’t know how long I hold my hands around his throat, only that when I finally let go my fingers are aching and Max Smithson’s face is a strange color. Flint is talking, but I can’t make out any words. My ears are ringing. I stumble away, sitting with my back to the boxes and taking slow breaths. The woman I love , I repeat in my head. The woman I love. It’s this realization, as much as killing the man, that is hitting me with the force of a truck. I love Scar. It doesn’t matter that our time together was short; I want to have more. It doesn’t matter if we’re on different sides; I want to close that gap. I ache for her with an almost supernatural longing. I don’t understand it. It’s like she’s another half of me, calling out to me.
Standing up and shaking my head, I try to get all this soppy shit out, but fail. I go to Flint. “I need you to call the others. I need to know Scarlet O’Bannon’s location. Urgently.”