Beautiful Lies (27 page)

So Detective Salvo had come to the conclusion that Christian Luna had been someone’s loose end. The fact that Jake had been digging around in the same graveyard made him a loose end, too. And I, for that matter, looked to be doing a bit of dangling myself.

He looked around the diner, littered now with shattered glass. The sidewalk outside was riven with rounds from an automatic weapon. What the fuck, he wondered to himself, was going on? And I might have known this sooner if I hadn’t stubbornly turned my cell phone off when it started to vibrate in my pocket and I saw his number blinking on my caller ID.

twenty-nine

You’re driving on the highway and an eighteen-wheeler in front of you kicks up a little rock, which hits your windshield with a surprising, loud snap. That stone, probably no bigger than the nail on your little finger, leaves a tiny, almost invisible chip. And even though at first you can barely see it, eventually it’s going to spider. That minuscule rupture has created fissures that compromise the stability of the whole. Eventually everything you see through it will become fractured and broken, and another blow, however small, might cause the entire thing to collapse in a deadly, slicing rain.

Through the compromised windshield of my memory, I saw things that I hadn’t thought about since childhood, if I’d thought about them at all. They were rushing back to me, these moments that had been recorded but buried. How many things have we seen once and then never thought about again? I think, as a kid, when you see things you don’t understand, maybe you file them away in your subconscious, and only when you have the language and the knowledge to finally process them do they surface in your memory again. I’m not talking about repressed memories. I’m talking about nuances, subtleties, those delicate moments that can change meaning.

I remembered an afternoon in winter when my school closed early. I was eight maybe, in the third grade, and we all gathered at the jalousie windows to watch the snow fall, coating the playground impossibly fast. The sky was that blizzard color, a kind of blackish gray. Our school was dismissed in shifts generally, the kindergartners and pre-K’s all released at noon and the rest of us at three, so there weren’t enough buses for all of us to go home early on that day it snowed. Mothers were called and the drive leading past the entrance to the school was a parade of station wagons and minivans. I remembered this feeling of guilty excitement, happy to be going where it was warm and cozy to watch the cold, wet world grow ever whiter from a window near our fireplace, eating grilled cheese sandwiches and drinking hot chocolate.

We were all bundled and waiting by the aluminum-and-glass doors, and every time the doors opened, a flurry of snowflakes and cold wind blew in so that our noses and cheeks grew pink in the waiting. I was one of the last children to be picked up. I saw our familiar car approach, but at first the woman driving didn’t look like my mother. Her face was gray, her expression hard and drawn. Her hair looked tousled, and her eyes were narrowed in an angry squint. My mother was a beautiful woman, always impeccably maintained. I don’t recall ever seeing her “undone,” as she would say. The woman who had seen us off that morning, though still in her red silk pajamas, had been perfectly groomed, face washed, hair brushed, wearing a matching black velvet robe and slippers. She was in costume and playing her role as mother perfectly.

The woman at the wheel of the black Mercedes looked anxious, annoyed, and deeply, deeply sad. She stared ahead into the snow as if the weather were the most crushing disappointment to her. I remembered a flutter in my heart that I’m not sure I would have been able to explain. In that moment, I think I saw my mother without her mask.

My teacher, Miss Angelica, said, “There you go, Ridley. There’s your mom.”

I looked away from the woman at the wheel and shook my head. “That’s not my mother, Miss Angelica.”

My teacher looked again, peering through her glasses into the snow. “Why, sure it is, Ridley.” She gave me a confused, benevolent smile.

When I looked back my mother was there, smiling and waving. I felt a little jolt of surprise and then moved out into the snow. My mother leaned over and pushed the door open for me. I climbed in beside her and smelled her perfume, L’Air du Temps, the one that came in that frosted glass bottle with the little bird on the stopper. She brushed the snowflakes from my hat.

“Snow day!” she said cheerfully. “Let’s go pick up your brother from the middle school. Then we’ll go home and have some hot chocolate.”

I was still looking for that ghost woman.

“What is it?” she said with a smile when she saw me staring.

“You didn’t look like yourself,” I said. “When I saw you from the door. You looked different.”

She gave a little laugh, as if I was silly or playing a game. But her smile twitched a bit. “Did I?” she said. Then she turned and made a face, sticking out her tongue. “Do I look like myself now?” I dissolved into giggles.

What am I trying to say? What am I trying to tell you? I guess that it’s not just the big things that were lies—some of the little things were, too.

I remembered again that day, that birthday party when I overheard Uncle Max and my mother talking in the kitchen, how I couldn’t believe the tones they were using with each other. So angry. I realize now, so intimate. Because, think about it, you don’t talk that way to polite strangers, even to your husband’s best friend, even if over the years he’s become your friend, too. There was so much emotion in their words. As if there was a whole layer to their relationship I hadn’t suspected.

To bring one of them here. To Ace’s party. How could you?

I didn’t want to come alone.

Bullshit, Max.

What do you want from me, Grace, huh? Stop being such a fucking prude.

My maternal grandmother always said with such pride about my mother and her siblings, “Oh, they never, ever fight.” And for the longest time I thought this was the hallmark of a good relationship, a lack of conflict. And then, one night, when my grandmother made the remark, I heard my father whisper under his breath, “Yeah, they never fight because they never
talk.
”

“What was that, Benjamin?”

“Nothing,
Mother.
” He called her that, as if it tasted sour in his mouth. He called his own mother Ma.

I remembered how my parents never fought—except about Ace. That I knew when she was angry at him—he was never angry with her that I saw—because of the silence and the darkness. When my mother was in a good mood, all the lights would be on in the house, the fire lighted in winter and autumn, the sound of a television or a stereo somewhere. When she was angry, she sat quiet and alone in the dark until she was appeased. That’s how I knew when things were not good.

“You doing all right?” asked Jake, putting a hand on the back of my head.

“Yeah. Just remembering,” I answered. He nodded as if he understood.

The cab we had hailed on Hicks Street had come to a stop in front of Ace’s building. I won’t say I was thrilled about seeing him again; I was still angry and hurt from our last encounter. But honestly, there was nowhere else to go for answers. He knew more than he’d told me. His passive-aggressive hinting around told me that. And he was going to be honest with me, for once. I wasn’t leaving without answers. Not this time.

The stoop was empty, and though it was just after 4:30
P.M.,
the sky was nearly dark. We’d waited in the church for a while, considering ourselves safe because no one had followed us there. We dozed off in the confessional, leaning against each other, holding hands. Both of us were so tired, it felt as if we’d been drugged. We awoke during an afternoon Mass and remembered that the sign said confession began at four. When the Mass ended, we filed out with the faithful and got a cab right in front of the church, told the driver to head toward the Lower East Side. Jake watched out the back window, and when he was satisfied that we hadn’t been followed, asked me to give the driver the address. Now we stood in front of the building.

“This is where he lives?” he asked.

“If you can call it a life.”

As we walked into the building, Jake put his hand to the gun at his waist. Like before, that awful odor—garbage, human rot, something chemical—drifted up into my sinuses. But tonight the building seemed quiet, deserted, and there was no sunlight fighting its way in through the dirty windows.

“It’s okay,” I told him, taking his hand.

“I don’t like dark like this,” he said. I thought about all the awful things that had happened to him in the dark and I understood. I squeezed his hand tighter. Our eyes adjusted as we climbed the stairs, the wood creaking beneath our weight. When we came to the apartment door, it stood open and my heart fell like a stone into my stomach.

“Ace?” I said. But there was no answer.

Jake drew his gun and stood to the side, guiding me gently over toward the wall. He pushed the door and with a creak it opened. There was a figure slumped on the bed; I could see the outline in the dark. The thin, frail shadow seemed to shake slightly. Then I heard the sound of low sobbing.

“Ruby?” I said, moving closer to her. Jake reached for my wrist but I shook out of his grasp and walked toward her.

“They took him,” she said quietly between sobs.

“Who took him?” I asked, kneeling beside her. I couldn’t see her face but I could smell the cigarettes on her breath.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Two men in masks. They slammed through the door. One of them hit me so hard in the jaw.” She reached her hand up and rubbed her face. “I blacked out. When I woke up, they were gone and so was Ace.”

“Are you okay?” I said, trying to inspect her jaw in the relative darkness.

She nodded and looked at me, her eyes wide and full of tears.

“They didn’t say anything?” said Jake from the door.

She nodded. “They said to tell you to let it go.”

“To tell
me
?” I said, incredulous.

“Both of you. They said, ‘Let it go and we’ll let
him
go.’”

I didn’t say anything for a second because there was something lodged in my throat that kept all the words bottled in my chest. I had that nightmare feeling again, that moment where you look at things around you and hope that something is going to remind you that you’re dreaming.

“It’s my fault,” she was saying. “I told him to help you. I told him he had to tell you the things he knew, that he had to protect you from them.”

“Protect me from who?”

“He knows,” she said, nodding toward Jake. “He knows who.”

Jake just shook his head and raised his shoulders. “No idea,” he said when I looked at him.

“The men who took you, Ridley,” she said, looking at me earnestly. “The people responsible for everything that’s happening to you.”

“Who, Ruby? Who’s responsible?”

She started crying again. I had dueling impulses: One was to embrace her, the other to slap her.

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me,” she said as she cried harder. “For the same reason he wouldn’t tell you. He thought it was too dangerous for us to know.”

Was this girl just a crazy junkie? Did she have any idea what she was talking about? I didn’t know what to say to her.

“They left this telephone number,” said Ruby finally, sitting up and handing me a piece of paper. She kept suspicious eyes on Jake. It was dark in the room but there was enough light that we could see one another’s faces. The smell of cigarette smoke was like a presence. I pulled the cell phone from my pocket and turned it on. With a beep and a flash of green light, the screen announced that I had three messages. I had no idea how to retrieve them. I looked over at Jake.

“Should I call?” I asked him.

He moved in closer to me. “What choice do you have?”

I should have been panicked, crippled with fear over what had happened to Ace and what was happening to me. But I was calm. The only hints of my fear were the persistent rushing sound in my right ear, the dryness in my throat, and the slight, barely perceptible shaking of my hands.

I dialed the number and we all waited while it rang.

“Ridley. That didn’t take you long at all. You always were a smart girl.”

I recognized the older man’s voice but couldn’t place it. It was smooth and educated but edged with malice.

“I thought we agreed that you’d go home to your parents, Ridley.”

The tumblers of recognition fell into place with a sick snap, unlocking the door to a tiger’s cage. It was Alexander Harriman.

“I don’t understand…” I said.

“I knew the minute I saw that picture of you on the cover of the paper that there was going to be trouble.” His voice was casual, lilting, as if we were old friends.

“What do you
want,
Mr. Harriman?”

“I just think we need to get together and talk some things over, clarify some misunderstandings, set a plan for the future. And when that’s all taken care of, we can talk about your brother, getting him the help he needs.”

I realized he was being careful about what he was saying on the phone.

“I could go to the media with what I already know, Mr. Harriman. I could call the police since I know you have my brother.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “You could. But there would be consequences. I think you’re starting to realize that the truth doesn’t always set us free. For many of the people I know, it’s quite the opposite. For many of the people you know as well.”

“Are you threatening me, Mr. Harriman?”

“Certainly not,” he said with mock indignation. My mind was racing. I didn’t know how to play this game. I felt like a mouse in the paws of a hungry house cat.

“I need to know that Ace is okay.” I know, it was lame. But I couldn’t think of any other demand to make. Plus, I just wanted to hear his voice, know that he was safe and that it was within my power to help him still.

“As long as you and I can reach an agreement, then your brother and the rest of your family, not to mention your friend Mr. Jacobsen, will have no concerns. You have my word.”

“That’s not good enough,” I said weakly.

“Look, Ridley,” he said, impatience slithering into his measured voice. “You’re not holding any cards here, so let’s stop fucking around. Be at my office before the end of the hour. I’m extending you a courtesy because of Max’s love for you. But I’m not a sentimental man by nature and you’ve become a terrible inconvenience.”

He hung up then. After all, he’d said everything he needed to. I took the phone away from my ear and stared at it as if it were a murder weapon. I felt a shudder move through my body, thinking about how his courtesy so far had involved a drive-by shooting and a bad case of road rage. I wondered what happened when his sentiment ran out. I looked over at Jake and he moved in to me and took my shoulders.