Читать книгу Teaser - Burt Weissbourd - Страница 9

CHAPTER TWO

Corey stood, antsy, raising her binoculars from the window sill. She was waiting to hear back from Luther’s CCO, trying not to think about Annie. Her office was in an older building overlooking Elliot Bay. In its heyday, the stone building had been a hardware emporium. She turned to face the Sound. From her seventh floor window she could just see the southern tip of Bainbridge Island, deep green against the grey sea and sky. When she was fourteen, Corey harvested sea cucumbers off that shore. It was the last innocent time she could remember.

In 1987 she turned fifteen. While her girlfriends were smoking dope, drinking, and partying, she was canning fish. After her mother died in ‘89, she lived alone on their boat, the Jenny Ann, doing whatever she could for money.

The phone rang. It was Luther’s CCO. The guy explained that Luther had his own room on Bentley, which she knew, and that he had an alibi, which she already knew, too. His CCO went on, detailing Luther’s post-prison routine.

“You screwed up,” she interjected, matter of fact.

“No, lady, you screwed up. That girl wasn’t my responsibility.” He hung up.

She stared at the phone.

Yesterday she had filled him in. Even if it was Luther—which he doubted—he had sixty clients; there was only so much he could do.

Corey took a walk—no place special—over to Madison, up to Broadway. She tried to imagine how frightened Annie must have been to jump through a closed window. Annie had once told Corey how her Uncle Luther was an unhuman. She said he was way dead and full of worms and every time he touched her she died.

She thought about Annie’s chances. Abe said that when things went badly, she was too hard on herself. She wasn’t sure. Corey sat on a bench in front of Seattle Central Community College, watching the kids drift by.

“I’m wired,” Maisie said. “Like I can’t slow down.” She wore worn jeans, and a white, hand-woven Mexican blouse.

Abe sat at his desk, watching her, waiting. Maisie had large, sea blue eyes. Her lips were full and her smile alluring. She was thin, delicate, growing into a sensual woman’s body—an intense, unwieldy business. Abe sensed that she was keenly aware of her nascent sexuality, though unsure how to manage it. Maisie fidgeted, anxious, running a hand through her short, brown hair.

“Sometimes things start to spin,” she said. “I told Verlaine. The sixties-stoner stepdad wants me to take Prozac.”

He almost smiled, caught himself. “Do you want to?”

“Are you like kidding or something?”

Abe wasn’t sure where this was going. He’d first seen Maisie three years ago when her mother remarried. Her stepfather was fifteen years older than her mom, and he was her boss at Microsoft. Maisie didn’t approve and she withdrew from family life. At that time Abe had prescribed a very low dose of an anti-depressant, and after just a few sessions, Maisie was back at the dinner table. He’d had little or no contact with her until six weeks ago when she called to announce, “My parents say I have to see someone and you’re it.” Since then he’d seen Maisie five times.

“So sometimes things start to spin,” he repeated. “What would you like to do about this spinning?”

“Well, I skipped flute yesterday, and today I cut Spanish. My mom was totally pissed when I missed flute.”

“Why did you skip flute?”

“I was getting it on with Aaron.” Maisie touched the gold ring in her eyebrow. “We met this really cool girl. She’s got a place near Broadway, and she lets us come over.”

He waited before asking, evenly. “Does your mother know why you missed flute?”

“I think she picks up on it. It’s like she can smell sex. She can’t be exactly satisfied in that department. I mean Verlaine wouldn’t even know if he got her off. Un-unh.” Maisie raised her palms—she knew that much. When Abe didn’t say anything, she leaned her forearms on his desk then rested her chin on them. “I saw Billy today. Why don’t you call him Will? I think Will’s better than Billy, don’t you?”

“That’s up to him.”

“I wish you were my dad.”

Abe didn’t respond.

“I mean Will’s so together, and I’m so, I dunno, what’s the opposite of together? Apart?”

“Does Billy—”

“Will. Hey, does he know you see me?”

“Not from me.”

“Does anyone know, except us, and the dot com deadheads?” And solemnly, before he could ask, “Devoted fans of the Grateful Dead.”

When Abe still looked confused, she added, “Duh—the Microsofties—my so-called parents, okay?”

“I haven’t told anyone.”

“What about your wife?”

“No, she doesn’t know.”

“Our secret, huh?”

“Until you say otherwise.”

“Cool.” She sat back in the brown leather chair. “Now, can we talk about something personal?”

“Sure.” Abe waited, watching her drum her fingers on the arm of the chair. He liked Maisie, liked her quickness, her directness, liked how she was more and more open with him. He could help her, he thought, if they could learn to rely on one another. As far as he could tell, she didn’t have this with any adult.

The drumming stopped. “I tried some cocaine,” she volunteered. “Afterward, we got it on, the three of us.”

Why, he wondered, is she being so provocative?

“And?”

“Is that crazy or what?” Maisie closed her eyes.

“I don’t know. Here, with me, you often say something shocking, then measure my response. Did you expect something terrible to happen?”

“Won’t it?”

“Not necessarily.” Abe waited until he had her full attention; this was important. “The drugs worry me, though.”

“When I’m stoned I sometimes do things in my mind. But this was different. I really wanted to try it. Do something just really hot.” She found his eyes. “I mean so hot just thinking about it would get me going. In class, at the dinner table, anytime.”

He watched as she folded her legs up under her in the big leather chair. Abe thought Maisie seemed more edgy than excited. She closed her eyes again, unaware that her face was flushed. He understood her desire for intensity. He hoped he could help her find it in less worrisome ways. And without drugs. “What did Aaron have to say about it?” he asked.

“He got off on it, I can tell you that.” She opened her eyes, smiled at him coyly.

Abe ignored it. “Did you talk with him about it?”

“I told Aaron it would help me see if I’m bisexual. I knew I might be. I mean I got really excited in the tenth grade when I was into pregaming—”

“Pregaming?” Abe furrowed his brow, a question.

“That’s when you make out with another girl before going to a party.” Maisie pursed her lips, touched them with her fingertip. “You know—like warming up.”

Abe sat back. “I’ve never heard of that.”

She smiled again. “Does it freak you out?”

“No, I don’t think so. But the drugs do worry me. I’d like you to stay clear of them. Can you do that?”

She made a face. “Even weed?”

“Yes.”

“I’m addicted to grass.”

“I don’t think you are.”

“What about cigarettes?”

“They’re okay, for now.”

“And if I can’t?”

“I know a good program. You’ll have to live there until you clean up.”

Her mood shifted, Abe could see it change her face. She laughed. “No way.” When he didn’t respond, Maisie squinted, tense, then snapped, “No fucking way.”

She was keyed up now, almost speeding. Abe waited until she wound back down, wondering if her desire for sexual intensity was related to managing her own mercurial feelings. “Maisie, you’re sixteen. This is important.”

“I just changed my mind about you being my dad.”

“Try staying clean until I see you again.”

“Whatever.” She stood.

“Listen to me, Maisie. I think I can help you figure out what you want—not what your parents or your teachers think you want—what you really want. And then we can figure out how to get it.” He let that sink in. “It’s difficult work, and drugs make it much harder, if not impossible. I’d like you to stop taking drugs. That’s the one thing I’m asking you to do. I’m going to set up weekly lab screenings until you’re clean. Can I count on you to do that?”

Maisie flipped him off as she left.

“Excuse me, please,” Jason Weiss, Corey’s lawyer, said into the phone.

“It’s family that’s dropped by.” Then he was up and at the door, smiling wide, taking Corey’s hand. Abe had asked Jason to represent Corey when she was in trouble almost eighteen months ago. Jason had helped her, earned her trust, and he and Corey had become friends.

Jason Weiss was a sole practitioner. His practice of law flowed loudly, and effortlessly, from his large office in the Maritime Building. Two stacks of papers always sat on his desk: favors owed, favors due. He spent his days matching them. His generous figure spilled out of an expensive charcoal suit. He wore a silk tie every day.

Jason put up a finger. “Corey, you missed the last two Sundays at Jesse’s. She’s worried.”

Corey didn’t respond. Talking about her mother-in-law was like touching a tar baby.

“So have Abe call her.” Jason rubbed his ear lobe between thumb and forefinger. “Make something up.”

“Soccer? Allergies?” Corey took a candy from a bowl on his desk. “She checks. I swear to God.”

“She—” Jason stopped. He raised his palms. Jesse was, well, Jesse. “The court order you wanted for Luther Emerson. Done.” Jason handed her an envelope.

“Thank you.”

“Be careful,” Jason added, then he touched her arm. “So…brunch. Pick a Sunday. She’s been in therapy—over a year. She’s getting better…” He nodded, solemn. And finally, when she didn’t respond, “Abe’s dad…” He raised his eyebrows. “My best friend…since childhood.”

Corey made a funny noise—part laugh, part aagh! Jason was incorrigible, and, she knew, a rare friend.

Jason rubbed his earlobe again. “You know what it is, a mitzvah?” And before she could answer, “It’s a good deed.”

Corey pursed her lips. Her freckles bunched on her nose. “I have to talk with her?”

When Billy was six he’d taught his mother to skip a stone over the water. He’d worked with her every day until she skipped one five times. Then another. Two years later Billy dragged Corey to her first Sonics game. It was love at first sight. And he’d taught her about basketball in the same deliberate way. When the Sonics left for Oklahoma City after the 2007-08 season, Corey and Billy started following the Seattle women’s team, the Storm. Corey liked the women’s games more than the men’s. When Billy asked why, she thought about it before saying, “they share the basketball.”

It was a thing they did together, just the two of them. They’d asked Abe to come but as he put it, “Basketball makes me nervous. I can’t run, I can’t jump. In high school, I had the lowest vertical leap in King County.”

Now, whenever Corey went inside the Key Arena she felt old. Espresso, fajitas, sushi, frozen yogurt. The plush upholstered seats sparkled under bright, white TV lights. Where were the greasy burgers, the beer-stained wooden seats, the smoky yellow lights? Gone the way of the cheap seats, she supposed.

Corey sat back. Billy was already screaming about a bad call. At halftime, New York’s Lady Liberty was leading by three.

“I found Aaron,” Billy offered at the half, between bites of Mexican pizza.

“Where was he?”

“Some girl’s apartment. Off Broadway.”

Corey’s antenna went up. “What about Maisie?” Aaron and his girlfriend had been together almost nine months, a long time for Aaron.

“She was there, too. I mean Maisie and Aaron were there together. You see, Maisie met this girl a while back and they got friendly. She and Aaron have been cutting classes, hanging at the girl’s apartment. I think they go at night sometimes.”

Corey turned to face him.

“I know what you’re thinking, but it’s only weed.”

“Only weed? Have Aaron and Maisie done other drugs?”

“Not Aaron. I don’t know about Maisie.”

“What’s your guess?” Corey asked.

“Chill, mom, just let me talk to you.”

“Chill?” She bit her tongue. He was talking to her, even though his friends thought talking to your mom was really weird. She and her mother had talked—she remembered wild, wonderful late-night conversations, mostly at sea. Had it been so complicated? Probably. Certainly. She touched Billy’s arm. “Okay. Tell me about Maisie.”

“Her mom and dad, they have like, I dunno, this agenda for her—flute, poetry readings, she dances in the Nutcracker every Christmas, she feeds the homeless Sunday dinner. Maisie’s always tired, and whenever she breaks loose, she parties. I mean she smokes at breaks because it’s a break, you see what I mean?”

“Yeah. I’m surprised. People seem to like her parents.”

“That’s part of her problem. They’re like poster parents for Olympic—Microsoft millionaires who still talk the sixties. Verlaine even has sixties cred—Woodstock, the Yale student strike committee…” He sighed. She noted his resigned, that’s-my-world face.

“I didn’t get that.” She watched her son. “What’s worrying you?”

“This girl, Star, they called her, because of this tattoo on her thigh. She stopped by to see them at Blue City. She’s twenty, at least, and she’s weird. You know, cool, on—always moving, high energy—but, at the same time, a little off.” Billy made a puzzled face that reminded her of Abe working on some idea. “If you know what I mean.”

Corey nodded, unsure what he meant, but aware that, like Abe, Billy would get there in his own way.

“And I think she has tracks on her arm. I mean there’s a tattoo there now—some kind of flower thing—but the little knots are there on the vein, underneath. I wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t told me what to look for.”

There it was. “Can I ask around about Star?”

“Alright, yeah. But, you know, stay out of it, okay?”

“I’ll try.” This was a thing she was getting good at: being “in it” and “out of it” at the same time. “Stay away from her place, will you?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Corey touched his hand for just a second. “Thank you, Billy, for coming to the game with your mom.”

The halftime was over, and they were on their feet for the fast break.

“Mom, from now on, could you call me Will?”

“Will?” She read the look on his face. He wasn’t kidding. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

The front door of Luther’s apartment building was gated, the kind of accordian gate often seen covering pawn shop doors and windows. It was almost 11:00 p.m. when Corey and Abe went around back, past several men smoking on the back door stoop.

The apartment was in a seedy four-story building on Bentley, several blocks north of Pine. Pine ran parallel to Pike, and the Pike-Pine Corridor, as it was called, was attracting artists, night-life, small businesses, and real estate developers. The Bentley Building was a single-room-occupancy building that still rented to sex offenders.

They took the stairs two at a time. Corey gently guided Abe around a hole in the third floor landing, then banged on Luther’s door. She was tense, bracing herself for god-only-knew-what. The door swung open. The air inside was stale, somehow fouled. Abe shone a flashlight across the tiny apartment. No one home. She was almost glad. There was an unmade bed, a card table, a chair, and a small TV. Dirty dishes and half-empty soup cans filled the sink.

Abe’s light stopped on a tattered porn magazine. “Let’s wait out back,” he suggested. He, too, was readying himself. She could hear it in his voice. Abe was more anxious than she, but he’d worked hard and learned to manage his fears. He was better at that than she was. Abe did what he had to, even when it scared him.

At the rear entry the men were still smoking. These guys had probably done time. The building housed men in drug and alcohol rehab and work release programs, as well as sex offenders. “We’re looking for Luther Emerson. Muscle-bound, red-headed guy,” Abe said. “We’ll pay twenty for a conversation.” Abe held out a ten. “There’s twenty in it for him. And a deal. No cops.”

One of the men nodded. The ten disappeared, and the three men faded into the night.

Abe and Corey sat on the stoop, helping each other wait. They went over again what they knew about Luther. He was Annie’s uncle. Uncle Luther started raping Annie when she was eleven. Annie told a teacher what was happening when she was twelve.

Luther had lived in this building since he was released—untreated—from the Western Corrections Center three months ago. Annie ran away ten days before he was released. Abe emptied several pockets onto the stoop before finding matches, then lighting his pipe.

They listened to city sounds, sitting back to back, tense. They’d talked this through, carefully weighing the risks, and finally decided that they had to do this—someone had to brace Luther, put him on notice. It could make a difference for Annie. Still, there was danger.

They shifted subtly when a harsh voice came out of the alley, “What you want with me?”

One of the three men reappeared. Abe stepped down, handed him another ten, then signaled for him to leave. When he was gone, Luther ambled out of the shadows. The red-haired man had muscles bursting from under his sweaty T-shirt.

Corey stood slowly, pointed a finger at him. “Remember me?” she asked, somehow right there, ready.

He just stared at her.

“When I found Annie, you promised—no, you swore—that if I brought her home to her mother, you’d stay away from her. Your CCO backed you up. I trusted him, and I trusted you. This morning you kidnapped her off the Ave, then whipped her with your belt. You would have raped her if you could. I can’t have that. Ever again.”

Luther lit a cigarette. The light from his match showed a large purple birth mark, like a stain on his cheek. “Un-unh,” he muttered in a raspy voice. He shook his head, no, then he stepped closer.

Corey took a document from her jacket pocket. “This is a court order. You go near Annie—anywhere, anytime—you’re back inside.”

“She’s mine.”

“Not anymore.”

Luther took the document, lit it on fire, then unfolded a curved skinning knife. He cleaned his thumb nail with the blade. “I need some money.” He turned the knife toward Abe, moving behind him, positioning himself so Abe was between them.

“Easy, big fella,” Abe said, soft, reassuring. Abe turned, handed Luther a twenty-dollar bill.

The big man stepped closer still, knife near Abe’s throat, rubbing his left thumb and the first two fingers of his left hand together.

“Don’t make another mistake here, Luther.” Corey unholstered the gun at the small of her back, showed it. “You touch him, I’ll put you down.“ She found his eyes.

Luther fixed her eyes in a fuck-you prison glare, then grabbed Abe’s hair and touched the knife to his throat.

Corey blew off Luther’s right kneecap. It happened so fast Luther never took a step. He spun, buckled, then fell to the ground, writhing.

Corey looked at him, feeling the rage wash over her, like lava, unstoppable. When it passed, she felt empty and lonely. In prison, where violence was as quick as a night shadow, she’d learned to push through these awful feelings.

Luther wasn’t finished with Annie, she knew that.

She took a slow breath, aware she was pumping adrenaline like she was snake-bit. Guys like Luther lived in this never-ending macho horseshit soap opera. She hated it. Corey twisted the .38 into his ear, drawing blood. She twisted again. “If you ever get near Annie again, I’ll kill you.”