Empire of Lies (8 page)

"She's the one in the middle," I said. "Her name's Serena."

Anne leaned on the bar and bowed her head over the snapshot. I used the opportunity to smell her hair. It had a rich, earthy smell.

Her elbows still on the bar, she raised her face. Now it was close to mine. "Yeah, she comes in here all the time. Every night, almost." She glanced at the neon clock on the wall to her right. It was about ten thirty. "Usually around now. Another half an hour, maybe. I'll tell you when I see her."

"Great, Anne. I appreciate it."

"She'll be messed up, though, if you're gonna try and talk to her."

"Drunk, you mean?"

She lifted the soft, broad, bare shoulder with the ladybug on it. "Drunk. High. You know."

She was called away again to draw a couple of beers. I slid the snapshot off the bar and slipped it back into my jacket pocket. I tipped my own bottle back a time or two, stealing glimpses of Anne
as she pointed at customers, took their orders, poured their drinks. Now and then, she glanced my way and caught me looking and sent me a corner of a smile. After a while, she wandered back.

"How's your beer? You ready for another?"

"No. I'm good. What do you do?" I asked her. I was curious but I was flirting with her, too, riding the current. "When you're not here, I mean."

"How do you know I do anything? Maybe bartending is my life."

"Yeah, I'll bet."

"I go to school. Up at the university."

"Figured. What're you taking?"

"Cultural Studies."

"Cultural Studies? What the hell is that?"

"Oh, just books. You know. Like writers."

"Oh, yeah. We used to call that English. I majored in it," I said. "What writers do you like?"

She named some writers, the sort they teach in universities now. You know, mediocre, unimportant types no one will read in a generation, but since one was a black woman and one was an Arab and one a Mexican, everyone was supposed to pretend they were better and more interesting than they were. Cultural Studies.

"How about Shakespeare?" I asked her dryly.

"We haven't done him yet." She brightened. "But I think one of my professors is gonna lecture about him this week." Then she said, "There she is."

I followed her gesture, looked behind me. Serena was just coming through the door. She was in the middle of a small cluster of boys and girls. The boys looked to be in their twenties, the girls in their teens. Serena looked younger than any of them.

Even from across the room, through the dark and the flickering lights and the dancing shadows on the walls, I could see how
drunk she was. Drunk in that way people sometimes get where they feel hard done by and sullen and, damn it, they want to do what they want to do for once in their lives, so leave them alone. She moved peevishly out of her cluster of companions. Frowning, she stumbled sideways a step. One of the boys took hold of her elbow. She yanked free, shaking her head, slashing her hand in front of her as if to say, "No, no, no." Whatever was on the schedule, she didn't want any. The boy rolled his eyes, giving up on her.

"Wow," I shouted back at Anne over the music. "Is she always like that?"

"Lately, yeah," Anne said. "I don't blame her mom for being worried."

I set my beer bottle on the bar. "All right. Well..."

Adorably, Anne gave me a regretful little wave. I reached out and squeezed her hand. I wanted to feel the heat of her one last time. The future Mrs. Zucabatoni.

Then back I went across the cavelike club, through the firelike light, along the cluster of thrashing dancers and their thrashing shadows on the fake-rock walls. By the time I reached Serena, she was giving her buddies hell about something, yelling at them, bent forward, her little fists clutched at her sides, her face pinched and ugly with rage. The boy who'd tried to take her arm was calling something back at her, but moving away with his friends at the same time, pushing with them out onto the dance floor.

"That's not what you said, Ray!" I heard Serena yell as I drew near her.

She was small, I could see now, small and slender, without much in the way of a figure. She was wearing a sparkly pink minidress that left her shoulders bare and her legs bare to high on the thigh. The outfit would've looked cute and sexy on her if she hadn't been such a mess otherwise. But her mouth was hanging
open and her eyes were filmy, her hair was slovenly, and there were mascara stains over the sparkles on her cheeks.

I touched her naked shoulder. She spun around to me, belligerent, loaded like a blunderbuss, ready to go off.

Then—very suddenly—everything about her changed. One look at me, and her face went pale, her eyes went clear with what I was sure was terror. Her mouth opened and closed as if she'd been caught red-handed at something and were trying to come up with an excuse. For a second, I thought she might start to cry or try to run away, screaming for help.

"Serena!" I shouted over the Morse code music and the thumping sideman and a new singer yearning like the last. "Your mother sent me to find you."

I saw her try to understand me—then she understood me. I saw the color come back into her face as her small body sagged with relief. Whatever she was afraid of, apparently I wasn't it. As suddenly as she'd become frightened, she turned pugnacious again. She yanked away from me violently as if I'd been trying to drag her off somewhere.

"Ah..." she mumbled drunkenly. "...the fuck ... fuck..."

I felt angry. At Lauren mostly. For letting her daughter come to this. Ugly drunk, foulmouthed, here in a club with a bunch of guys. I felt angry and, right after that, I felt guilty. Because maybe she was my daughter, too; maybe I'd let her come to this, too.

Well, that's why I was here. To get her out, to take her home. To try to, anyway. I moved in close, towering over her.

"Listen," I said, "we're leaving now."

She pulled that insolent and somehow pathetic pose teenagers have, rearing up openmouthed as if to look down on me, daring me to try to follow through on my threats. At the same time I could see
in her eyes as plain as day how desperate she was to have someone take control of her.

"I'm serious," I said. "You either come with me or I call the police."

"The fuck..." she said, but her eyes went fearful again. The cops—that's what she was afraid of. She had thought I was a cop at first—that's why she'd looked so scared.

I pressed my advantage. "You're underage and drunk. I'm going to give you to the count of three, and then I'm calling the cops."

She fumbled with a tiny pink purse hanging from her shoulder on a long golden chain. "I'm ... not underage. I have a license—"

I moved in even closer, crowding her hard. "I'm your mother's friend, Serena. I know how old you are. Let's go."

"Serena."

I turned. It was the kid, the boy who'd come in with her, who'd tried to take her elbow and reason with her. A reedy dark-skinned kid, of Indian extraction, maybe, or Pakistani, his face already shiny with sweat from the dance.

"You all right?" he asked her. He glared at me.

I smiled. Good for him. He was young, but he had some man in him. I cocked my head at Serena. It was her call now. How was she going to play it?

She hesitated. I held up one finger. Then I held up two. At three, I would call the cops.

"Yeah," Serena said quickly. She spoke to the kid, but her eyes stayed on me. She really was afraid. "It's okay. He's a friend of my mom's."

The dark-skinned kid tarried another second, giving me another threatening once-over. But he'd done his bit. He was eager to get back out on the dance floor.

"All right," he said. He swaggered away. Good for him.

I took Serena by the arm. "Let's go."

"Just a minute!"

"No, now." I moved her toward the door.

"All right. All right." She snaked her arm free angrily. "The fuck!"

I was glad to get out of there, glad for the fresh air, but glad for the quiet more than anything else. That music is an idiot's delight: The best thing about it is when it stops.

Side by side, we walked to the corner. Serena could barely keep straight. She kept wobbling on her low heels, bumping into me. Her head seemed balanced precariously on her neck. Her eyelids were getting heavy. I guess the open air was making her even drunker.

When we crossed the street, I took her arm again. Now she was too woozy to pull away. We reached my Mustang parked at the curb. She leaned against it as I got the door open. She looked like she would've tumbled right down to the gutter cobblestones without the car's support.

I got her into the passenger seat. Went around to the driver's side. As I went, I pulled my cell phone from its holster. I dialed Lauren's number. Her phone rang and rang. No answer. I bit back a curse. It was eleven o'clock at night. Where the hell was she? Finally, her answering machine picked up.

There was no hello or anything, just Lauren's voice, curt and harsh. "Leave a message for Lauren or Serena after the beep."

After the beep, I said, "I've got her. Call me back." Then I snapped the phone to my belt again.

I got behind the Mustang's wheel. Started up the engine. Serena sat blinking and nodding next to me, her mouth gaping like a fish mouth.

"Put your seat belt on," I told her.

She blinked some more and turned to the shoulder belt, stared at it as if she wondered what it was. After a while, she pawed at it. To hell with that. I leaned across her, pulled it out and over her, stuck it into the latch by her seat. I could smell her perfume, close to her like that. One of those fruity little-girl perfumes I'd smelled before. Christ, she was just a child. She should've been home, in her room, finishing her homework or giggling on the phone about who liked whom. I shoved the car into gear, cursing Lauren in my mind. Where the hell was she?

As I pulled the Mustang away from the curb, Serena snapped straight, trying to focus.

"No ... No ... I can't ... I don't wanna..."

"Yeah, well..."

"No. Can't. Back there. Mom's—"

"You have to, Serena."

"...find me..."

"How'd I find you? It was easy."

"No ... no..." Her chin sank toward her chest as she shook her head. "They'll ... find me..."

"What?"

She started to fade again, tilting forward against the seat belt. Then I guess the world must've started spinning around on her because she sat up fast and jacked her eyes wide open.

"I just ... I gotta..."

I sighed.

She went on muttering. "I ... just get me some ... some coffee, something..."

"You don't need any coffee. The night's over."

"No, really, listen..." She had to fight off unconsciousness again. "Just gotta get a little straight, okay, then ... I'll give you head."

"You'll what?"

"You let me go, okay? I'll give you head if you let me go."

I laughed. You've got to laugh. The way people treat themselves, the shenanigans they get up to. "You're not giving me head," I said, laughing.

Serena looked at me, confused. She tried to smile and keep her eyes open at the same time. It didn't look easy. "No. Really. Just need ... some coffee."

"Yeah, just take it easy, sweetheart. I'm taking you home. Then you can work it out with your mother in the morning."

"...mean it," she insisted, her head slowly tilting forward again. "...serious."

"I understand. But just forget it."

Slumped forward, she turned her face my way. Narrowed her eyes at me. "You're my mother's friend?"

She sounded surprised. Sure. Most of her mother's friends probably would've opted for the blow job. I laughed again, shaking my head. Poor little creature. God take pity on us all.

Mercifully, she passed out then, her head falling limp, her mouth hanging open. She started snoring. I drove crosstown toward the expressway.

I took her out to Astoria first, to Lauren's place. But the brick row-house was dark. Lauren wasn't home. Of course. I sat out front in the car and dialed her number again. The phone rang and rang, and then the machine picked up. I gave a curse and broke the connection. Damn her.

I glanced at the girl in the seat beside me. She sat slumped and limp and snoring, dead to life. From where I sat, I could still catch traces of her perfume. She probably had a house key in that pink purse of hers. But what then? I couldn't just leave her inside alone. And the thought of waiting around for Lauren to turn up—if she ever did—was more than I could stomach.

I took off again. Got the car back on the expressway and
headed toward my mother's house. The pitted expressway pavement thumped and rattled under my tires. The late traffic streaked by on either side of me, red taillights pulling away up ahead, white headlights coming toward me in the oncoming lanes. The billboards, the grimy factories, and the bright main streets of Queens gave way to malls and gas stations and twinkling houses out amid the rolling shadow-shapes of trees on midnight lanes.

I cursed Lauren the whole way. What had she gotten me into? Something was up with this kid; something was wrong. She was scared—scared of the cops—scared of something, that was for sure. Her muttered words came back to me.
Can't. Back there. Mom's. They'll find me.
She didn't want to go home because if she went home, someone would find her. Maybe the cops, maybe someone else. Someone.

She was still out cold when I pulled into the driveway of my mother's house. I sighed again as I killed the engine. It was going to be hell getting her inside.

Out here, away from the city, the bracing night was full of the tang of autumn leaves. I went around to the car's passenger side and pulled the door open. I ducked inside and reached over her to release the seat belt. As I took it off her, Serena fell forward. I caught hold of her. She began muttering.

"Come on," I said.

"Why do I...?"

She protested dully as I turned her around and worked her body to the edge of the seat. Her eyelids fluttered a little and she made a confused gesture with her hand as I got hold of her. One of her shoes had already fallen off in the car. I took off the other one and tossed it in with the first. Then I got one arm under her knees and the other under her arms, hoisted her into the air, and kicked the door shut. Her head fell against my shoulder. I turned with her in my arms to survey the houses around me, dark, most of
them, hunkered under their oaks and maples. I hoped that meant the neighbors were asleep. God knew what they would think if they saw me carrying this drunken teenaged girl into the house.