* * *
I HOPED that Peaches would come back—some people did, after a tough reading. They wanted it to be like the casinos, when a new deal, another shuffle, might refresh their luck. When she didn’t, I decided to search for her: in the dim little casino bars on the floor, at the nightclubs, where I sat at the bar and drank an orange soda until the strobe lights gave me a headache. Every time I heard the click click click of high heels on marble, I turned to make sure it wasn’t her, strutting in those heels with the ties. I didn’t hear the crying anymore, but I was still having visions, a baby’s hand uncurling then clenching into a fist. Little legs kicking in the air. Another, of moths fluttering in and out of a streetlight, the blare of horns. But what I didn’t know, couldn’t understand, was why the visions lingered, repeated on a loop. They interfered with anything else I might see. For the first time in years, I couldn’t use my intuition, those little bread crumbs of knowledge that had been helping me get through the world. Like when I was younger and a bad storm rolled in off of the ocean, and the TV went fuzzy, then dim. I hadn’t thought of how vulnerable I might feel without my visions. One more reason to go to my mother—to ask her what was happening, to see if she could help.
I had been looking for Peaches at the Borgata when I met the next man. At the other end of the bar three drunk girls screeched along with a karaoke machine and spilled their drinks over the rims of their glasses when they danced. We sat one stool apart, but he ignored me at first, simply sipped a beer and frowned at the women in small denim skirts helping one another climb up and straddle the mechanical bull, cackling when they toppled to the ground, their leopard-print underwear exposed for everyone to see. Then I felt his eyes fall on the skin of my forearms, where I’d scratched a few jagged tally marks—one for each man who touched me. He slid over a stool and bought me a drink, something cloudy with sugar that held a bright sprig of mint crushed under cubes of ice. I knew I was being stupid, getting in over my head, but I’d make my money fast, get to California, and learn how to forget.
As we talked, I kept one eye on the hallway, the slow trickle of people passing by. I watched for the other woman, too, the one who’d run away from her reading. If I saw her, it would feel like proof that whatever trapdoor was supposed to open in the universe and swallow her up had been faulty. Maybe she had already gone home, back to whoever was waiting for her. But that didn’t make sense. If the first woman had left, why had Peaches found her purse on the side of the road? And even if I found Peaches, would the answers help? Still, I carried that purse wherever I went, hoping it might bring one of them around, like bait.
In the man’s room, the chill from the shuddering air conditioner sent a prickle of goose bumps up my arms. He pulled my hair so hard I pictured a fistful of it coming out in his hands. I didn’t cry out, even though he probably wanted me to. I bit my lip and waited for the sharpness of the pain to ease into a dull throb.
He kept a length of rope coiled in his dresser drawer, like a snake. He tied me to a chair, knotting it tight enough so that my head jerked on my neck with the force, and the rope rubbed and scratched against my arms. Then he sat across the room, lit a cigarette, and watched the smoke curl toward the ceiling. I watched him, both knowing what was coming and hoping I was wrong. He looked at the cigarette and tilted his head, playacting like the idea had just come to him. I shut my eyes and listened to his footfall cross the room. He stood over me until I opened them again, and that’s when he pinned my hand down and pressed the coal of the cigarette into my middle finger.
I screamed at the first hint of pain, my voice high and childish. I imagined the burn boring into the bone. I could smell the singed skin. He lit another cigarette and held my left hand. This time the pain felt brighter. I couldn’t think of anything besides how much it hurt—it was as though I had never lived a single moment without this sensation, that burning, white-hot scald, that awful smell.
When he was done I forced myself to look down at the marks. The wounds were an angry red, perfect circles dug out of my skin. The tears fell in a thick patter, rolling off of my chin and into my lap. He watched me cry, then reached for the buckle of his pants. I listened to him come, the strangled cry escaping through his gritted teeth, like any pleasure was something he was trying to keep in. He washed his hands before he untied me, the wounds throbbing. He left three hundred dollars on the table. I could hardly pick it up. I couldn’t decide if it was a lot—after all, I hadn’t had to touch him—or not nearly enough.
Back in the apartment, I smeared the wounds with ointment and wrapped Band-Aids around them. It took me longer than it should have, but my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The dread I had felt all summer was like a knot in my throat. I took the cash from my pocket and smoothed it into the back pages of my book. I counted again: $650. Enough for the bus, for the taxi ride to my mother’s place. It should have soothed me a little, made it feel worth it. But I could feel my pulse in each wound, and the thudding of it in my ears when I tried to go to sleep.
* * *
WITH EVERYTHING else that was going on, finding Peaches, and the woman who had run away, gave me purpose, though the strangeness, the pressure of it all, was getting to me—I had started to jump at even the smallest of noises when I was alone, or suffer crying jags that swelled up suddenly, full-body sobs that left me feeling used up. The day after the man burned me, I forced myself to leave the apartment, even though all I wanted to do was curl up and sleep.
Out on the street, a jitney swerved around a taxi, both drivers leaning on their horns. A few drunk college students swayed down the street, bickering about where to go next. This place is a fucking joke, one of them complained. The chicks here are fucking busted.
I walked toward Zeg’s pawnshop. I hadn’t been there for a while and for once had nothing to sell, but I was lonely enough that I was willing to listen to his scolding for the afternoon, just to talk to another person, to hear my own voice out loud. I once had a vision of Zeg helping a man who must have been his father at a shoe store: his father would hold out a shoe to a customer, and Zeg would hurry into the back room to look for the proper size among the stacks of white shoeboxes. In the vision I could see out the front window to what must have been Atlantic Avenue, the marquee of the old movie house. The theater was closed now and the store across the way, where Zeg’s father’s shop would have been, was now a fried chicken restaurant. So that explained Zeg, I guessed. He was just like the rest of us. He couldn’t let go of what he had lost and would spend the rest of his days hoarding the wrong things trying to make up for it. Maybe his father had gone out of business when the casinos were built. Maybe his pawnshop was his small way of getting back: collecting gamblers’ wedding rings and lucky coins when they came to him pleading, liquor wafting out of their pores, eyes bloodshot, hands shaking, giving them a tenth of what their most prized possessions were worth. Maybe he felt like he was getting his revenge by being exacting, cheap.
A strip of bells attached to a leather strap jingled when I pushed through the door. Zeg was bent over a copy of the Press of Atlantic City, and I could see the thinning hair at the top of his head. His store was a mess, but he knew where everything was, as though at the end of the day he brought home a map of his inventory and studied it before he slept.
Below him, a glass case gleamed with rhinestone necklaces, tarnished silver spoons, gold bracelets and earrings, old watches, all stopped at different times, and a few newer ones that told the times in other cities, too: London, Tokyo. I loved looking at the things in his case, but he was as indifferent to all of it as though they were tabs from soda cans, bits of penny candy, tokens from the arcade. They were like the visions in a way. Scraps of a life, clues. And then I had an idea.
“Good morning,” I called. Flirting didn’t work for Zeg, and stealing from him was out of the question—he was way too vigilant for that, one of the few people I knew who actually paid attention to how other people moved through space. I always wondered, what did he
want, other than to read his paper and exact his revenge, piece by piece, pawn by pawn? I couldn’t tell.
“If you’re bringing me some old movie poster or a porcelain doll, you can forget it. I’m up to my neck in goddamned porcelain dolls. And I don’t want to deal with paper goods. They don’t hold up, too much salt and water in the air.”
“No dolls. I’m here as a customer today.”
“A customer? That’s rich.”
I didn’t say anything, but crouched to look at the sleeves in a box of old records.
“Where’s Des been? Haven’t seen either of you around much lately.”
“Des? Your guess is as good as mine.”
“So, what are you looking for, anyway?” He must have felt sorry for me—his voice had softened.
I glanced at the trays of rings. The blonde woman had that pale band of skin on her finger. She had rubbed it as she spoke. “Hey. Has anyone pawned any wedding rings here lately?”
“By lately you mean what, today?”
“Like three weeks ago. A woman. Sandy-blonde hair. About as long as mine. Locket around her neck.”
“How do you know that? She steal something that you stole first? She was real shifty when she came in. I would have rather had that necklace, to be honest. You have no idea how many wedding rings walk in here each week. Lockets, not so much.”
“Which ring was it?”
“Christ, you think I remember?”
“Zeg, I know you remember.”
He sighed, produced another tray from the case, scanned the rows of rings. I thought of the reading I gave her: the Four of Wands, the happy home life. That ring had meant something to her, once. Zeg plucked a gold band from the tray and handed it to me. It had a pattern of tiny flowers engraved on the outside. I tilted it to get a look at the inside. In scrolling cursive: Victoria and Zachary, 7-13-14. I felt gratified that the reading had been accurate, until I realized that also meant there was something bad waiting for her.
“Victoria,” I said out loud. I don’t know why it felt so good to have a name—a name didn’t tell me anything else about her, didn’t help explain where she had come from, why she had been so nervous around me, or where she had gone. It didn’t explain why, after she came to me, I saw images of her baby, heard its cries rip through my brain. But it was some sort of comfort, one more thing that helped make her feel real.
“You done with that?” Zeg asked.
I held the ring in my palm, traced it with my fingertip, then clicked it onto the counter. “Yeah. But what can I get for twenty bucks?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, come on. Not true.” Zeg rolled his eyes and crouched to pull a few trays from the case. A row of vintage buttons with rhinestone centers, still sewn into the card. A single shoe buckle. A glass marble. A thimble. I lifted each item, weighed it in my hand. I was stalling, because it had felt good to come see Zeg, like when things were simpler. When I was just busy plucking bracelets from drunk ladies’ wrists, stealing wallets from senior citizens.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Hey, show me those?” I tapped on the glass to indicate a tray of pocketknives. The one that caught my eye had a pearly handle decorated with silver swirls. It gleamed in the light.
“Out of your budget.”
“Can I at least see?”
Another grunt, and Zeg crouched again.
He pushed the knives toward me. “You are wasting my time.” Some of them had handles that looked like bone; others were carved with marks and symbols that I didn’t recognize. I touched my finger to the one with the silver swirls.
“Don’t even think about it.”
I touched another, a longer one that looked less ornate. “Uh-uh.”
I picked up a third, and when Zeg didn’t say anything, I flicked the blade open. It was freckled with a few rust spots but otherwise it seemed okay. It was simple, silver, and a little shiver of feeling moved through me when I looked at it, felt the cool metal against the skin of my palm.
“How about this one?”
“What do you even want that for?” I didn’t really know, other than it made me feel good to hold it. A little less small, a little less afraid.
“Forty-five dollars for that one.”
“Twenty dollars is all I’ve got.” I pushed the bill toward him and his eyes caught on my fingers, the matching Band-Aids, and something like surprise crossed his face. Just for a second, and then it was gone. Sometimes I thought Zeg might have a little bit of the gift, too.
“You’re robbing me blind, kid.”
I handed the ring back to Zeg, pushed my twenty in his direction, and slipped the knife into my bag. Down to $630, but the knife had called to me, and I knew better than to resist a feeling like that.
I was a block away from home when the tingle came back and a vision moved through me, like a kaleidoscope turned too fast. Highways, roads stretching endlessly. A woman baking bread in a sunlight-filled kitchen. A hotel room, the sense of being hit hard across the face. Something soft and pale, something bright—shining discs, hanging above a bed.
I came to exhausted. My limbs ached, the way they had when I’d had the flu last year. The throbbing in my head from the blow lingered, and I had to blink a few times before the street around me came back into focus. Each step toward home felt heavy, full of effort. Her name was in the back of my throat, but I didn’t want to say it, to match up what I knew with the thing I had been afraid of.
The vision was about Julie. Julie Zale. The tooth, Victoria’s crying child. I couldn’t deny it anymore. There was something evil and ugly at work behind these visions. And now someone had gotten to Julie Zale, too. I texted Lily. Please, can we meet?
LUIS
ON HIS DAY OFF, HE buys food for the cats, and in the afternoon he carries three plastic bags of cans to the bulkhead. When he slips beneath the boardwalk, he takes a moment to relish the shade, the sand that has cooled underneath the planks. To his left, the pier juts out into the sea and a pair of men are talking, one of them leaning against a piling. Luis pays them no mind and stoops to open the first can. The cats crowd around him, curl around his feet. He’s only opened six of the twenty cans when he feels a tap on the shoulder. One of the men from the pier, who jerks his thumb over his shoulder. Get out of here.
Luis points to the bag of cans, to the cats that have only just crept across the beach and who are still hungry. The man shakes his head, and when Luis turns to open another can, the man grips his shoulder and spins him around. This time, he’s raised his shirt to reveal a black gun nestled against his skin. The second man joins him and Luis knows to raise his hands in the air and surrender—all he ever does anymore. On his way back he passes the shop with the golden eye in the window, and when the girl with the red hair looks up at him he scurries away.
Instead of going back to the boardinghouse—its musty carpets, the dim rooms—he makes his way to the lot where his old house was. Now it’s just another gap where weeds have grown up through the dust and people have tossed their empty beer cans. He’s furious that people are so cruel, so indifferent, that they permit the rot he notices at every corner. He stalks away, grinding his teeth, stopping to kick signposts, throwing loose cans and making them bounce off fences and walls. He shoves his hands in his pockets and feels the jingle of his change from the pizza joint, the matchbook he slid from the counter as the man warmed his slices in the oven.
The matchbook. It’s nothing more than a scrap of cardboard, a red-and-white drawing of a pizza on the back, a few sticks inside, and yet, it feels special, important. He stops to study the row of abandoned homes before him: a hint of blue paint on one of the windowsills, a molding doormat on the porch. A sign on the door looks like a warning, but it’s faded enough that he figures if it mattered, it doesn’t anymore. Maybe this house had been cheerful, beautiful even. Happy. And now lifeless, unused.
Inside, the air is thick with mildew and a smell that he r
ecognizes as cat piss, which makes his nose and eyes burn. In the living room there’s a folding table, an armchair covered in shredded, rose-printed fabric, a lumpy old sofa with stuffing poking through the seat. He strikes the first match and holds it to the stuffing, part of him hoping it won’t catch, the rest of him egging it on, coaxing, waiting. He feels a strange pull inside of him, between terror and excitement, fear and hope. It smokes for a moment before the flame starts to grow. Already he is picturing the swarm of police standing in front of the charred ruins, their mouths agape. It pleases him, too, to release the house from its sadness, to hide some of the city’s shame. If it can’t be beautiful, the way it once was, then let it not exist at all. And it will give the cops something to do other than ignore his pain.
He closes his eyes and pictures the candles his grandmother used to light, the tall glass jars with saints’ faces painted on the fronts. He opens his eyes and watches the fire get bolder, bigger. Flames rip from one end of the sofa to the other. He stands in front of it, holding his hands to the heat like it’s a hearth. He feels some of his anger burning up, too, like it has been used up by the flame, turned to smoke. It clouds the air, low and gray, until it makes him cough and his lungs burn. A feeling he’s never been able to forget. For many years after his grandparents died, he would still wake with a start most nights, thinking he smelled smoke wafting down the hall.
The flames catch the end of a pale panel of curtains above the sofa’s left arm, licking their way up the fabric. He would do anything to capture the colors, bottle them: the bluish bud at the center, the yellows and oranges that change to red. He coughs again, gasping now, knowing he should leave but unable to look away. He takes one last look at the fire, admiring what he’s created, then finds the back door, draws the fresh air into his lungs. He vaults himself over the sagging chain-link fence, and runs, flinging open his arms, feeling a little lighter, free.
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