Broken Monsters (17 page)

When she was a kid, Layla entertained all those pop-star princess fantasies. That there had been a terrible mix-up. She was a changeling, and one day her true parents, who were either New York socialites or Hollywood movie stars, would come to reclaim her. Or her owl would fly through the window with her scroll from Hogwarts.

She thinks about how Ben calls Cas “Iza,” how little they talk about her old school and her life in Oakland.

“Can I ask you something serious?” Layla picks around the shrimp.

“Serious like Dorian? Or serious like climate change? Because I'm sad for the polar bears and shit, but I don't see how we're supposed to make a difference on an individual level. Although I think using public transportation helps.”

“Cas.”

“Yeah, fine. Ask whatever you want.” She's gone as still and tense as her mother did earlier. It's in her shoulders, even though she's stirring her noodles with her chopsticks, head down, intently digging for one last shrimp. Funny how body language can be genetic.

“Are you in witness protection?”

Cas laughs and her whole body unclenches. “Yeah. Exactly. You got us. Don't tell anyone. Pass the soy sauce.”

“I mean it, Cas.”

“Like my dad was a whistle-blower on insider trading software and we've been on the run ever since? And my mom's really CIA, which is why she flies around so much?”

“Fine, okay, it sounds really dumb when you put it like that.” A terrible thought occurs to her. “Wait.
Did
you try to off yourself?”

Cas puts down her noodles and gives her a look full of contempt and pity. “Hasn't everyone?”

“What is
it with graffiti in Detroit?” Jonno says into the microphone, standing under a beautifully detailed black-and-white pasteup of a wild boar, three stories high. “Like Coney Island dogs, stray dogs and hipster facial hair, it's freaking everywhere.”

He strolls toward the camera, Jen matching his pace, walking backwards. He passes a little old lady carrying a bright pink purse.

“Tags, tags everywhere, but there's also some serious work to rival big international names like Banksy and Blek le Rat, or Faith47. And what do we have to thank for the explosion of street art in the city?”

He pauses for dramatic effect. “The high crime rate.”

There's a pause, then a man in a ski mask runs up to the old lady behind him, and snatches her purse. She shrieks in dismay.

“Cut!” Jen yells. “Simon, you have to come in earlier.”

Simon slinks back into shot, his ski mask pushed up back on his head, looking sulky, and hands the old woman her purse back.

“This is stupid,” Jonno complains. He hates being here at all; he's decided there's a
vibe
between Simon and Jen, the residual energy of people who have slept together.

“I think so too,” the mugging victim chimes in. “I would never give up my bag that easy. I should struggle, maybe I could hit him with it a few times before he gets away.”

“Relax, Jonno, it's cute,” Jen says. “We can always cut it if it doesn't work. And sure, Ivy, if you want to ad-lib, go wild.”

“Great. Now the old lady gets more of a say than I do,” Simon bitches. Everybody wants to be a director.

“We want it to be funny.”

“It's not funny, it's tragic,” says Jonno.

“That's even funnier.”

“Fine. I'll pick up and maybe Simon can hit his fucking cue this time?” He still hates this, even if, it turns out, he's pretty good at it when he warms up. It reminds him of his mother, who was a nurse in an obstetrics ward. She hated inserting catheters, so she did it as quickly and efficiently as she could, which meant she got called to do
all
the catheters.

And he's kind of flattered that Jen is so serious about it. She's been designing a two-second intro sequence for his channel with an animator friend (male, of course), and they've worked out a schedule of what they're going to film, focusing on the art scene: this new street art, the Dream House party on Saturday, a pop-up dinner with the cool glitterati in a secret location next week. This might even work, Jonno thinks.

The Dream House prep video they did got 788 hits in the first twenty-four hours. They watched it spread, and it was amazing how each new view was a little shot of validation. This piece they're filming now isn't just about art, it's about the weirdness Detroit has in spades, which is what people are hungry for. They might even reach a few thousand views. It's about building your audience.

They repeat the scene. This time Simon hits his mark, the little old lady they lured over from her porch to be part of the scene for fifty dollars screams hysterically, and Jonno walks forward, improvising on the script they wrote this morning. “Detroit's police department has bigger problems to deal with than street art. So you get major artists, sick of being arrested in California, moving to Detroit. Their loss, our gain. Here, no one hassles you.”

He ignores the tussle that has broken out behind him and Simon's yelps of “Ow, shit! What is wrong with you? Get her off me!”

“There are household names on the scene. Revok. Nekst, Pose, Elya. The Smooth Wizards League, Loaf.” According to Jen at any rate; he's never heard of any of these fuckers, and that's not including the oh-so-edgy art students or the white-trash weed dealers who like to think they're being creative, throwing up tags. “But some prefer to stay mysterious, like whoever is behind the wooden Delray Angels, a heavenly host of painted plywood that some believe watch over one of the D's most forlorn neighborhoods.”

“Great! Cut there,” Jen says. “We'll edit in footage of the angels later.
Forlorn,
Jonno?”

“Oh come on! Give me something, sometimes.” He shouts back at the scene behind him, where their would-be mugger is curled up on his haunches with his arms wrapped over his head. “Hey, Miss Ivy! You can stop beating Simon now.”

Everyone wants to be in the movies. Everyone wants their fame time. He holds the camera out the window as they drive to film cutaways of Detroit scenery, his scarf pulled up over his nose to protect him from the icy blast of wind.

“Did you bring food?” Jen says from the driver's seat, and he digs in the bag at his feet and hands her the sandwiches he made this morning.

“I can't eat this.”

“What?”

“White bread and jelly? Are you trying to kill me?” She's smiling, but there's also a baffled woundedness there. A look that says “I thought you were paying attention.”

“Shit, sorry baby. I wasn't thinking.” But how's he supposed to remember all this crap? Maybe that's an article right there: “10 Things You Should Know About Dating a Type One Diabetic.” Like how going out to dinner is a joyless exercise because food is something to be managed not savored, or how your sex goddess's insatiable libido might suddenly crash along with her blood sugar.

“Don't worry about it,” she says, breezily. “We can get something en route.”

Scott, the photographer, is waiting in his car, the windows fogged up. He climbs out, lanky and bearded, his beanie pulled down low on his forehead. “I was just about to bail on you guys.”

“Sorry, babe! We had to stop to grab a bite.” Jen kisses him on the cheek, but Jonno can't tell if they have a vibe or not. “Don't worry, we won't keep you long. If you can tell us what's going on, introduce yourself, and then you and Jonno are going to walk into the building together, okay?”

“All right,” he says. “Okay, I'm Scott, I'm a sculptor and photographer, and I work a lot in these abandoned buildings.”

“Tell us what you found yesterday,” Jonno interrupts.

“I've been doing some follow-up work, revisiting places I've photographed before to see how they've changed. I came back here and—”

“Cut,” Jen says. “Now you're going to walk us inside.”

Scott rubs at his beard. “I have to say, I prefer being on the other side of the camera.”

“I feel you, buddy,” Jonno says. “But you're doing great.”

“This way.” Scott leads them into the broken-down strip club, propping open the door with a piece of concrete.

“I'm filming,” Jen says, shining a handheld light on the two men. “You can carry on talking if you want.”

“You were saying, you came here a couple of days ago?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you say that as a sentence?”

“I came back here on Tuesday, as part of a follow-up series I'm doing, and I found this graffiti. I've been noticing it a lot over the last few days, all around town.”

“And reveal!” Jen says.

She swings the light onto the wall as Scott and Jonno step to either side. There is a chalk door drawn on the wall.

“What we're looking at is a crude rectangle drawn in chalk on the wall. Do you have a name for them?”

“I call them ghost doors. I think they're kind of memorials to where people have died, or something has happened. You can feel it, can't you? There's a particular energy here. A lot of the great earthworks of Detroit—the burial grounds of the ancient indigenous people—were destroyed in the process of industrialization. And now, many of those factories have been abandoned or demolished as well. Like the Solvay Process plant, which was built on the site of the Great Mound of the Rouge, the largest mound in Detroit, and now it's just this flat patch of dirt—a toxic brownfield. It's wild: ghosts of the industries on top of ghosts of the natives—we've got thousands of years of ghosts here. Some people have ghost towns, we have a whole ghost city.”

“Cut. That was amazing, Scott. Thank you.”

“It was fun.” He runs his hand over the chalk door. “They do creep me out, though, the way they've just sprung up overnight. I heard there's one down by the tunnel where that kid was killed, but the cops have got someone stationed down there. I couldn't get near it. This going up on YouTube? Let me know when it's up.” He raises his camera and snaps off a photograph of them, which annoys Jonno—it's like he has to have the last word.

“They with you?” Scott says, pointing at a raggedy couple, holding a candle, frozen in the doorway.

“
Perdón,
we're sorry, we're sorry,” the scruffy little man says, flapping his hands as they both start backing away.

“No, wait!” Jen darts after them. “Hi, can we talk to you? We're not the police, don't worry. We're making a movie.”

“El video,” Jonno tries a bastard attempt at Spanish, miming winding a camera reel—as if that means anything anymore.

“About the graffiti,” Jen says. “Is that why you're here? For the door?”

The woman tugs at the man's arm. “Papi, I don't think this is a good idea.”

“Please. Five minutes,” Jen implores.

“Can you tell us your name on camera and why you're here today?” Jonno says to the man with all the wear of the streets engraved on his face.

“My name is Ramón,” the man says. “This is my girlfriend, Diyana.”

Jen quickly pans the camera to take in the shy woman with the braided hair, who is hanging back.

“We live on the street, and when it gets too cold we go to the shelter or a friend's house. I used to be a motor mechanic. I could fix up anything. Ford. General Motors. Chevrolet. Pontiac. But these new fancy cars. Built by robots, you need to be a robot to fix 'em.”

“What's that you have with you?” Jonno interrupts.

“It's a blessing candle from the botanica.”

“And what are you going to do with it?” Jesus, Jonno thinks, like pulling teeth.

“We brought it to the door. For a prayer for luck and good fortune.”

“What are the doors?”

“You get here at the right time and place, when that door opens? That door will take you anywhere you want.”

His ladyfriend pipes up, “But maybe you don't want to go where that door takes you. You only think you do,” but she shrinks when Jen turns the camera on her.

“I've heard some people call them ghost doors.”

“I don't know. You call them what you like.”

“What do you have to do to open them?”

“I hear different things. You have to be here at midnight, full moon.”

“Have you tried it?”

“No, brother. I don't want to mess with that stuff.” Ramón crosses himself.

“Then why bring the candle?”

“Sometimes you got to appease the spirits. Keep them happy.”

“Can we film you lighting it? Maybe the two of you together?”

“All right,” he nods, as if this is reasonable. He bends down in his bright red Keds and flicks a plastic lighter over the candle in front of the chalk outline.

“Just stay there for one more moment. Can you close your eyes, as if you're praying?”

“If you want.”

“And don't talk. Don't even nod your head. Just stay there. Five more seconds. Three, two, one. Thank you.”

Ramón straightens up, hands on his knees. “Was that good?”

“It was beautiful. Really touching. It's great to show the more spiritual side of the city,” Jonno says. “Now, if we can just get one of you and Diana holding hands and sort of holding up the candle together. No, don't smile. Look serious. That's it. Perfect.”

He gives them ten dollars each.

“It's not
too late,” Layla says, clutching the raft of flyers they printed out at her house. “We could just hand over his IP address and email to Anonymous or whoever. Pedobear. Bullyville.
To Catch a Predator
. There are people who deal with this stuff.”

“Like the cops?”

“My mom would kill me.” But it's not just her mother she's worried about. Her dad would freak. Because what they are doing is the very antithesis of “be reasonable.”

“Stop whining. It's going to be epic. We're in a public place. We've got masks. We're going to put it on YouTube, for real, and the guy is a twisted fuck who totally has it coming.”

“I feel sick.”

“That's the nausea of justice about to be served.”

“Feels like just plain nausea to me.”

Cas smiles at a woman stepping out of the tanning salon. “Excuse me, ma'am?” The sun beds on the poster on the door look like torture cabinets to Layla, the ones with all the spikes. She thinks about all the UV rays stabbing into you, the black bloom of melanomas spreading under your skin.

Cas gestures for one of the flyers and sticks it in the woman's face. “We've lost our VelvetBoy. Have you seen him?”

“Is that your cat?” The woman takes the flyer and peers at it.

“Well, he likes pussy. But only if it's underage.”

She recoils and shoves the flyer back at them. “That's repulsive.”

“That's just how we feel, ma'am,” Cas calls after her, cheerfully.

They'd argued about the wording and whether to include his full name and the photograph they'd found on his Facebook profile, which was under the same email address. How dumb can you get? Layla almost feels sorry for him. It's like he's living in the past, before the NSA and PRISM and flying killer robots in the sky. He's the kind of guy who would fall for an email scam.

They cased the joint two days ago to establish the best positioning for “Operation Pants Pulldown.” Which is not what they're actually planning to do, Cas has promised. It's metaphorical. And because “Operation Exposure” sounded like some kind of Arctic survival documentary.

She shoves Layla into the path of an older woman in a belted purple trench coat, head down against the chill.

“Have you seen our—” Layla starts, but she can't bring herself to finish the sentence. She jabs the flyer out, mutely. The lady gives her an apologetic smile.

“Oh no thank you, honey, I'm a Lutheran.”

He said he lived in Bloomington. He said he was going to be in town on business for a few days, and hey, maybe they could meet. That would be fun. He could buy SusieLee a milkshake. He could pick her up. Luckily, they managed to talk him out of that. He's supposed to meet them, well,
her
—SusieLee—at the table under the painting of the blue lady at the pancake place.

Layla talked Cas out of using his full name.

“I want him to be ruined.”

“There are libel laws, dumb-ass.”

“Excuse me! Sir!” Cas skips over to a man taking out the trash. “Sir? Have you seen our pedophile?”

It's the proximity. The closer they get, the more it feels like someone filled her up with burning lead, but it's having the opposite effect on Cas. She is giddy.

“Not for lo-oong,” Cas had singsonged, right-clicking his profile photograph to save-as. It showed him grinning widely into the camera, lakeside somewhere with water and trees behind him, holding a hamburger like a trophy, and giving a big thumbs-up. Layla spent ages studying it, searching for some sign in his face: a villainous glint in his eyes, receding hair, a criminal brow. But he looked normal, sweet, maybe a bit goofy.
Nice
. He had a small splat of mustard on his shirt. Inhuman monsters who prey on little children shouldn't be allowed to spill mustard.

“What if it's just a game?” Layla pushed Cas. “This stupid thing he does online.”

“Intention is nine-tenths of the law.”

“Possession.”

“Probably that too. X-rated materials of minors on his hard drive. We should raid his house. Do you think we could get him to bring his computer with?”

They've got SusieLee's MChat account set up on both their phones now, so that Layla can reply to him. He messages her several times a day. It's exhausting. She wanted to send him a private message this morning to say “Don't come. It's off. And by the way fuck you.” But she knew Cas would see it.

Layla would have preferred to set some sort of trap. The kind you can fall into, with spikes at the bottom. She still can't believe they're doing this. Maybe she could fake an injury. Twist her ankle. That wouldn't be enough for Cas. Maybe if she stepped in front of a car pulling away from the curb and let it hit her—she'd choose a compact obviously. They'd have to go to the hospital. He'd wait around and finally realize that he'd been had, and that would be the end of it.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket. Cas is humming to herself as she sticks pages under cars' windshield wipers like club flyers. “Dah-dah-dah. Gonna be a good, good day.”

Layla checks the message surreptitiously, hoping he's got cold feet.

The typos give him away. Intention doesn't count for shit, but action does. He's waiting in a coffee shop for a little girl he believes is lying to her mom about going to her cousin's to play. He is excited about it. He's ready to take her away in his car. She still feels sick about the whole thing, but now she is angry too. Outrage is a coat she can wrap herself in. She types back.

There is a long wait. The dot-dot-dots that mean he's writing a reply. Deleting it. Starting again.

“Was that him?” Cas says. “It's still on, right?”

“It's fucking on.”

“Good.” But she says it without her earlier conviction.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Peachy. Let's just get on with it.”

“Mask.” Layla hands her one of the plastic cat faces. She pushes her own back on her head.

They stop outside the diner. They picked a table visible from the street through the window.

“I can't look. Is he there?” Cas says. Her skin has turned bright pink, making her freckles fade out. Sweat is beading her nose.

“He's hiding behind his menu.”

“Maybe this is a bad idea. What if he turns violent?”

What if he does? What if he has a gun? Or a knife? Layla has seen photographs of every variety of wound in the forensics manual her parents kept trying to hide—like she couldn't find more gruesome photos online. But she knows it's not like in the movies. One bullet can kill you. A lucky stab with a screwdriver can cripple you for life. Falling off your bicycle can cause brain damage. You don't want to get in a fight if you can help it.

But then the waitress puts a frothy pink milkshake down in front of him, and he gives her a curt little nod, just the top of his head showing above the menu—and that seals the deal.

“No turning back.” She takes Cas's hand and tugs her inside.

The doorbell tinkles, incredibly loud. Everything seems loud. The clatter of plates in the kitchen. The hum of the heating. He glances up sharply from the menu and she can see him look them over and dismiss them,
too old
. He ducks down behind the menu again.

“Anywhere you can find a place, sweeties,” the waitress calls out to them. “Be with you in a sec.”

“Thank you,” Layla says. “But I don't think we're going to eat.” She pulls the mask down and starts for his table, but Cas pulls her up short.

“What are you doing?” Layla hisses.

“I can't.” Cas looks like she is about to burst into tears. Her mask is still perched on top of her hair, like the world's stupidest hat. “I'm sorry.” Her shoulders start shaking.

Layla is cold with certainty. She feels like another person. “I'll do it.”

“Excuse me,” she projects, striding across the diner, so that everyone looks up. She plucks the menu out of his hands and tosses it aside. It makes a very particular plastic fillip as it hits the floor. Which is funny, because that's his name. She has to bite back a bark of laughter.

He smiles up at her, baffled. “What's up with the mask? This a hold-up?” He raises his hands: “Don't shoot.” He still looks nice, and that makes her even madder. How dare he have smile lines?

“I thought we'd need them. But we don't,” Layla says. She peels off the cat face and drops it on the table. It smiles up at them benevolently. “Because unlike you, Phil,
we
don't have anything to hide.”

His brow furrows. “Do I know you?”

She holds up the flyer at arm's length, right in his face, and recites the lines, loud and clear. “Excuse me. We've lost our pedophile. His name is VelvetBoy. Have you seen him?”

“Fuck.” His face flushes different colors, like a cartoon. Then he bursts up from the table. For a moment she thinks he's going to stab her, but he pushes her instead. The milkshake goes flying, glass exploding across the floor. She falls backwards and puts the heel of her hand down onto a shard.

“Ow, fuck!” She looks for Cas, but there's no sign of her friend. The entranceway is empty. There's no one to stop Phil as he bangs open the door, setting the doorbell jangling again, leaving a slim fold of leather on the plastic seat.

“What the hell are you playing at?” The waitress pulls her up. “You're bleeding,” she says, as if this is the worst crime in the world.

“Did you see where my friend went?” Layla pulls the piece of glass out of the fleshy part of her thumb. Hand fat, Cas called it once. Where the hell did she go?

“You gonna pay for that breakage? You can't come here and chase away my customers. Are you high?”

Layla is indignant. “He's not a customer, he's a pedophile!”

The waitress stares. “Is this some kind of joke?” The rest of the kitchen has come out to see what the commotion is about. Other customers are hovering. Layla feels the rush of righteousness.

“You saying the guy who was just here is a pedo?”

“Yeah, we busted him online. Soliciting a minor.” She feels like a true-blue bad-ass.

“He's taken off,” the chef calls from the door.

“I
knew
he looked sketchy. The moment he came in here, I said to myself, ‘Melissa, there's something off about this one. Grown man ordering a milkshake.'” People are unreliable witnesses. They can talk themselves into anything.

“Hey, I drink milkshakes,” an old black guy with peppered hair says, indignant. “You saying I'm a pervert?”

“I know this guy,” the other waitress says. “I saw him come in here last week. Wasn't he with a kid? I'm sure he was.”

“A little boy,” the first corroborates.

“No, no I don't think so,” Layla says, pressing a napkin against her bleeding hand. This is getting out of control. The nausea of justice.

“Judge a man by the dairy products he drinks.”

“Did you escape from him, honey? Is that what happened? Like in Ohio?”

“Oh my God,” a customer half-screams.

“Call the police!”

“Please don't.” She is suddenly exhausted. All the adrenaline and righteousness have been sucked right out of her. And where
the fuck
is Cas? “Don't,” she says again, with as much authority as she can muster. So far as she can see there's only one way out. Drop-down menu: maximum bullshit.

“I
am
the police.” She tries to summon up the image she had of her mother when she was a little kid and still thought she was a hero. All in blue, with her hair pulled up and the light behind her in the doorway, the Virgin Mary with a gun.

“It's a sting. Undercover vice. Don't worry. My partner's probably got him by now.”

“You look awful young,” the chef says, suspicious. Galleo, she remembers.

“That's why it works. I'm twenty-three.” The lies come easily. All she has to do is open her mouth and they're already there, fully formed.

“I told you I've seen him!” the waitress says.

“No, it's his first time here. New location every time, that's why we had to go through all these hoops to get him. The masks were part of his thing. Sick bastard.”

She has to get out before they ask to see her badge. She's stuffing the flyers in her jacket before they can take a look, along with the black leather wallet Phil left behind.

“What was he going to do with you?” Their faces are hungry with grotesque curiosity, reminding her of Greek tragedy masks, the ones you can turn upside down into a smile.

“I—” She pulls her phone out of her pocket, acting out the fake incoming call decoy. But there
is
a message, from Cas, that has come in sometime during the big inquisition.

“That's my partner now. We got him!”

The diner burst into a smattering of applause, like when they went to visit her grandparents in Miami and everyone clapped after the plane landed.

“I have to go do the paperwork on this.” She pulls a twenty out of her bag and presses it on the waitress. “This is for the broken glass. Thank you all, and I'm sorry again for the inconvenience.”