Marlon drained his fifth or sixth highball. He finished grilling me about stock market ideas and asked if the Brandywine Fund is really all it’s cracked up to be. He paused, then laughed overloud when I told him it was a good fund, but too much of it could impair his ability to drive or operate machinery. His face was covered in a light brown beard that matched his hair, and the whole thing kind of crinkled in on itself when he laughed. His eyes were nervous again when he stopped.
“What do you do, Marlon?”
“Caryn, can I build another one of these?”
She looked at him and told him to build away, and another one for her, too — rum and Coke, mostly rum. I watched him lumber to the drink table. When he reached out for a bottle I saw his shirt catch on something at his hip.
“I’m a supervisor at the school district,” he said. “Got about thirty janitors under me.”
“Sounds like good work.”
“Pays the bills.”
This talk is nearly all lies, and we all know it, but that is how things are done. The names are false, the occupations invented, the interests faked. It’s partly for security — in case any one of them is popped or propositioned by law enforcement; it’s partly the logical stance from men who, on one level, are deeply ashamed of what they do. Occasionally, you’ll find a deviant who feels no shame at all, no remorse for his acts. Danny, whom we flipped quite easily, is not one of those. My guess is that Marlon is not, either, and that the handgun under his shirt is just another compensation for his profound and thorough inadequacies. I didn’t make him for the kind of guy who would have the nuts to use it, but I’ve been wrong before. Chet is the real catch here, the sociopath, the only one cold enough inside to turn a profit on perversion, with his daughter as the product. Caryn is driven by greed, low intelligence and by hatred of the girl her husband prefers over her. Like most people who do this kind of thing, both Chet and Caryn were probably used sexually as youngsters themselves, came from measurably terrible childhoods that they will never outgrow. They’re passing down the legacy to Lauren now, and, in the spirit of free enterprise, making it pay.
Danny kept to himself and no one said much to him. He seemed to feel superior to us all, but from the non-reaction of the others I gathered it was his usual way. My little Judas, counting down the minutes, guzzling down the gin. I had assured him that if he failed me even in some small way, his leniency deal would be shot and I’d personally see to it that they threw the book at him and plastered his picture all over the newspapers and TV. This guy’s got a wife and two grown kids, and a tenured position. I’d never dealt with a more agreeable subject. All he had to do now was wait. He looked distressed, though. Maybe he just wanted to be in Lauren’s room one more time in his life.
Chet reclined, gulped his drink and watched us. He smiled slyly at me a couple of times, a can-you-believe-this smile, trying to welcome me to the club. Caryn waited on him, bringing him his dinner on a real plate — the rest of us had paper and plastic. She moved mechanically, like her responsibilities could quickly overwhelm her if she didn’t stay in control. I tried to guess how many times they’d done this. And I sensed it was time to make my move.
I rose and slid my chaise next to Chet’s. He gave me a not-in-the-program look. I wanted to get the heart of this transaction for the tape for the DA. I sat on the edge and leaned toward him confidentially.
“I’m afraid Lauren won’t like me,” I said.
Chet’s eyes narrowed as he vetted my intentions. “She likes who I tell her to like.”
“But, well, are you sure she’ll like me?”
“What’s wrong with you, Art?”
“I just told you.”
“Look, if it’s you you’re worried about, just let her do her thing. She knows what to do.”
“I’m thinking that fifteen hundred is going to seem pretty expensive if she’s scared or not turned on.”
“Art, we covered this already. If you’re scared then I’ll take you home right now. But this is a professional operation here, so I’m going to keep that money of yours either way. You need to have this kinda shit settled before you come over.”
I nodded and looked down at the patio. “I’m all right.”
“You’re all right, Art.”
“Just... you know... first-time jitters.”
“Make yourself another drink, man. Relax. We’re adults doing adult things. Nobody’s doing anything they don’t want to. Fuckin’ relax, man, you’re making me nervous.”
“Got it.”
I stood up and dragged the chaise longue back where it was, regarded the pool for a moment, then started making another drink. Chet was looking at me and I didn’t like the silence around it.
Caryn was eyeing me, too.
And then Marlon.
Danny was trying hard not to.
“Hey, babe,” Chet said to Caryn.
“Yeah, babe?”
She had just sat down with her paper plate of food. He nodded his head toward the house and she got back up, setting her plate on the drink table.
He grinned at me. I grinned back.
Caryn walked toward the house with an air of self-conscious drama. It was her gait, I think, that suggested the importance of what she was doing — deliberate and measured but not slow, like she was walking between walls of flames, like this was a mission only she could accomplish, like the world really needed her now.
She went inside for about twenty minutes, and when she came back, Lauren was with her.
They’d dressed her in a short black skirt and red heels. Her face was made up and her lips painted, and perhaps most revolting of all, they’d left her little pigtails alone and they stuck out from her whore’s paint job as a monument to her childishness. No, what was most revolting was the change in her personality now, the way she changed like any girl trying on her mother’s clothes, playacting her vision of womanhood, performing her concept of how a woman acted and how a woman walked and how she looked at you. And I could see that Linda Elizabeth Sharpe, age ten, had been trained to believe that a woman was an object to arouse men. A painted, alluring item. A fuck in red heels.
She walked past me. I could smell perfume and a trace of booze on her. She stopped at the drink table, sloshed a little bourbon into a plastic cup, twirled and drank it.
“Wooh!” Marlon yelped quietly. “Hot stuff!”
Lauren smiled and set down the cup. She walked over to Chet and pecked him on the cheek.
Danny stood up then. He swayed a little, but he had a matter-of-fact expression on his face. I should have seen it coming, but I hadn’t.
Suddenly it was over, and it was too late.
“Chet,” he said loudly. “Art’s a cop.”
My heart was slamming in my eardrums.
“Not funny, my man,” I said.
Chet froze a look at me.
Marlon shifted his big body around and his hand came out with a revolver. “I thought he was a cop the second I saw him. Chet?”
“Boys,” said Caryn, her rasp brittle with nerves. “Boys? Put up that thing, Marlon, for godsakes—”
“—Shut up!” said Danny, stepping to Marlon. “Give me the gun, fatso. I’ll prove what he is.”
Chet stood up. “One — Marlon, put that thing away. Two — Caryn, get Lauren in the house. Three — Art, you stay exactly where you are, friend.”