Go big or go home—isn’t that how it goes?
Big I could do.
“Go on, Elizabeth.” I nudged her with a sympathetic curve of my lips and tilt of my head. “Tell me what you need.”
—
I was wrong.
Elizabeth was boring.
I hated being wrong almost as much as I hated being bored. Still, I could take her problem, one I’d heard too many times, and make the solution entertaining. Making my own challenge. And why not? Someone had to do it.
I sulked—it’s not pretty to say, but I did—drank my margarita, and read Elizabeth’s face as she carefully laid out what she wanted piece by piece, artfully jumbled, because she thought if I saw the picture of the puzzle clear and bright as the North Star, I’d think her vain.
She was.
I’d think her greedy.
She was that, too.
I’d think her selfish and malicious.
Well, that’s in the eye of the beholder.
I’d think her a sociopath.
As if she’d be the first to cross my door, shy little guppy.
I’d think her a murderer.
Don’t we all have our piddly faults?
I made out the puzzle despite her best efforts, and her best was very good. The secret was to not look into her eyes but beside them before wrinkles in her fine skin were hidden like bodies in a graveyard under a blanket of softening spring grass . . . or, in this case, by expensive makeup. See the forehead not smooth from a peaceful nature but unmoving from poisoned nerve endings. Linger on that beautiful dress that had the high neck to conceal the minute sag of skin and also behold the bra that defied gravity, physics, and Einstein himself in one hellacious hat trick.
I felt for her—I did.
I do lie—how do you think I spot the best so well?—but that isn’t one of them.
No one wants to get old. Or rather we wouldn’t mind getting old if only it didn’t show so much. In the past we prized age not for appearance but for its wisdom. In this technology-drenched future when knowledge appears like magic at the press of a few keys if you cared (no one cared), it was different. No, these days we’d put the aged in nouveau leper colonies if we could, to hide the sight and wisdom. How much wisdom can you fit in one hundred forty characters or less? Is that really an issue the modern world cares about?
“Like” yes or no on that question, please.
Sighing, more bored than before, I put down my empty glass and laid it out for her . . . if not quite in the way as she’d laid it out for so many. I did it in words while she used silk sheets. “Elizabeth, you’re making this harder than it has to be, sugar. All this?” I brushed my hand an inch above the table to indicate the threads of her tapestry of deceit that draped in invisible folds. “It’s lies. And they’re good lies, mind you. I may tuck a few away for future use,” or just to take out and covet as the shiny trinkets they were, “but in my bar you don’t have to tell me lies. You said your husband was Catholic. Think of this place as a confessional.” I winked. “Or better yet, a whorehouse. No judgments from me, none at all. You can tell me anything and you should. You’re paying for my service. If you can’t tell me what you really want, how can I give it to you?”
I actually could, but where was the entertainment in that? The only thing better than a great liar was forcing a great liar to tell the truth. We hate it like poison. We’re contrary that way.
Hate it she did, all the warmth draining out of her as quickly as if she’d turned off the lights with a flip of the switch. It’s harder to be a successful sociopath if you have to show your true face to the world. Not impossible, though, not at all—just a little harder. I had faith that Elizabeth could handle it. I had faith that Elizabeth had handled many bumps in the particularly crooked road in her life, much larger ones than simply telling me the truth.
Then again, bigger isn’t always better.
But me? I’m easy as pie to bare heart and soul to—I had said no judgments. Elizabeth, one liar measuring another, saw what she saw and took me at my word. She told me.
The truth hurts. The truth will set you free. Today the truth was a business transaction and nothing more. We shook on it. It was sort of sweet, her trusting me with her most precious hope . . . sweet, indeed, if not for the murder and all.
Don’t you look at me that way. You’ll make me giggle like a five-year-old.
Honestly? Judgments? Please. Do you think I’d have any clients at all if I made them?
Or if I did make them, didn’t keep them to myself?
Work is work. You do what you have to.
Or you do what you want to—sometimes it’s both.
“You can do it, then?” Elizabeth asked as I tapped a bronze nail against an empty glass and pondered the cost of paper umbrellas or little flamingo swizzle sticks. I switched my attention back to her and hid my irritation.
Could I do it?
That wasn’t a question. That was an insult. Of course I could do it. I simply had to figure out the most intriguing way to achieve it. “Oh, honey, you wound me with your doubts.” I forgot the glass, beamed at her, and put my fingers in my hair to give it a wild shake. It was good for getting the brain going. “It’ll cost you, though. Seventy-five thousand. No bargaining, no haggling. Payment on delivery. And it goes without saying, I hope, that I do a cash-only business.” Rich people like Elizabeth had forgotten about the quaint custom of haggling. They bought what they wanted and never cared about the price. I stopped bargaining with them a long time ago. They weren’t good enough at it to make it entertaining. Elizabeth had been rich long enough that while she hadn’t forgotten about it, she was disgusted by it. She thought herself too high and mighty, too good for the likes of that sort of thing now. Shame.
I guessed we couldn’t be friends after all.
“I’ll call you in a week.” I straightened from the less-than-ladylike slouch my mama had never been able to correct me of and stood to walk Elizabeth to the door, our herd of tall heels castanets on the floor. “It shouldn’t take longer than that.” Not to mention giving her time to gather up the money. Rich or not, or rich but not for much longer—either way it was hard to gather that sort of cash at a moment’s notice. Unless you’re keeping your money in a mattress, banks get possessive and are closefisted about handing someone seventy-five thousand dollars in cash. Write a check for a sports car if you want—intangible money—but handing over the real thing, stained with invisible blood and dirty with greed? They didn’t like that. They were suspicious. Why would you possibly need that much real-world money? For something illegal? For someone like me?
Banks. Hate ’em or hate ’em, they could smell illegal a mile away—when they weren’t the ones behind it. I gave respect where it was due.
“You’re certain about this?” Elizabeth had opened the spigot on her charisma again, and it was flowing like Niagara. Hopeful eyes, skin paled anxiety white as her diamonds, shoulders braced against a no—she was a living, breathing plea. See? All those naughty things society frowned upon, sins that crawled out of her mouth with snapping jaws and a thousand poisonous legs to pull you in, they were tucked away again as if they’d never been. She was good as gold as ever she’d been. I knew she had it in her.
“Sugar, I never break a promise.” I hugged her to see if I could get a peek at the label of that astounding dress, then patted her back and cheerfully shooed her out the door. “Don’t fret. It’s as good as done. Hand to God.”
Whichever god she wanted.
—
The week went by faster than I planned. I caught two boys, runaways from the system, I thought, devouring half of a Big Mac out of my back alley Dumpster. Each tried to push the other behind him for protection, and wouldn’t that break any heart? I worked on convincing them to stop eating out of alleys and get to work cleaning the bar for me. They were stubborn and it took some serious talking, but finally they were sleeping in my storage room on inflatable mattresses and trying to stop twitching every time I picked up a phone. I wasn’t going to report them. They were running, and sometimes even the most wholesome of heart and naively caring of folk couldn’t imagine they might have good reason to do so. There were times when running was the only option, when going back to a system that was supposed to protect them could conceivably end up being worse than living on the street.
Bad things happened. They happened everywhere, not just on the street. These boys had definitely seen the bad. Now I had them tucked away, safe and sound, collector of damaged goods that I was, and that was sorted for a while. Although the blond one—sixteen, or maybe younger—seemed to think I was a one-woman Mafia. He stared at me as if I were the Godmother of Las Vegas, impressed by my daily stream of clients wanting favors and information, wanting this and that, wanting the stars and the moon themselves. His friend, a younger redhead with the eyes of a feral wolf, didn’t care about my business. He ate the food I gave him and snarled when I patted his copper hair and called him Kit. He thought he was a wolf, but he was a baby fox deep down. I’d have to see about fixing him sooner or later.
So much to do.
Then came the health inspector, who wanted to shut me down for letting my pet raven help out at the bar. The bird was quick and clever when it came to pecking out a slice of lime and shoving it in the open mouth of a Corona. Lenny—short, naturally, for Lenore, as some clichés can be only good—was more likely to catch a disease from some of my more crusty regulars than the reverse. Health inspectors are stubborn, though. Some need a thorough talking-to in order to come around to a right way of thinking. This one, he was especially obstinate, his palm practically sweating for a bribe. I wasn’t averse to a good bribe now and again, but only when I was the one on the receiving end.
We talked in my cramped little office, and when was all said and done, he saw it my way. After I gave him a handful of paper napkins, he was out the door and my little bar was safe until next time. Griffin, my newly adopted blond stray, came out of the office later holding something in the palm of his hand. Wise in the ways of the street, he didn’t often look puzzled, but he did now.
