Finally, the food arrives. A second waitress joins in and they carry out plates of appetizers along with the main course. I’m tempted to try the calamari rings but they look hot, spicy, not just hot in temperature from the fryer.
Only when the plates of food have been set before them and Tom starts to cut off a bite of meatloaf does the man in the pinstripe suit speak.
“You’ve met with the new supplier?”
“Yes,” Tom says. “He’s most agreeable.”
“Any word on alternate means of transport?” the thin man asks.
Tom starts to answer, but the heavy one cuts him off. I pick up a hint of an accent. Russian, maybe.
“Before we discuss business, who’s this lovely one?”
He looks right at me.
Tom laughs. “This is my daughter, gentlemen. She can be trusted. She’ll be working closely with me after I take office.”
The heavy man nods, but frowns.
“Well?” the thin man says.
Tom eats a bite of meatloaf and dabs at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “I spoke with Eli this morning. Our new partners can move some of the product themselves. So far I’ve found no alternative to the Leviathans. They want their usual cut.”
Pinstripe Suit saws into his steak. “Why should we deal with them after the last debacle?”
“The leadership has all been shuffled around after the recent unpleasantness. I think the new, ah, administration will be more amenable to our methods. I’ve spoken to them about some of their sidelines. They won’t be running a brothel in the county again.”
I flinch when I hear the word brothel.
Back when the school burned down and all the weirdness happened, something odd happened over in Port Carol, a one-stoplight town a few miles away from Paradise Falls. There was a bar there, an illegal strip club that attracted a lot of truckers.
Supposedly there was a shootout, gang stuff, and the place was shut down.
I put my sandwich down before any of them notice my hands are shaking. This is some kind of criminal thing. These guys are criminals. I’m sitting in a secret criminal meeting and they’re talking about illegal things. Oh God. Oh God. They saw my face. They keep looking at me.
“How goes the campaign?”
Tom laughs and takes a drink, then spears a chunk of meatloaf into his mashed potatoes. “I’m running unopposed. I’d say it’s going well enough.”
“Once you’re in place,” the thin man says, “We need to ramp up operations quickly. We’re losing money tip-toeing around.”
Tom nods. “Once I’m in office and I ‘clean up’ the police department, the state should get its nose out of our town. I take it my wonderful friends will speak to some officials on my behalf and ease the process.”
“Of course,” the man in the pinstripe suit says, nodding.
“I think this’ll be a very productive relationship for all of us, gentlemen. I’m going to meet with Eli again this evening and review his facilities. From what I’m told, the plain folk are amazing to work with.”
The big bald man snorts. “Amish drug-”
“Careful,” the man in the pinstripe suit says. “The walls have ears.”
No one is looking at me but somehow I feel the attention of the entire meeting seems to fall on me. The thin man looks at me.
“I still don’t see why you felt the need to bring her,” he says.
Tom shrugs. “It’s time she got involved in the family business. I’ll be putting her in charge of some of the logistics soon.”
“How do we know she can be trusted?”
Tom looks at me. “I trust her. Things were bumpy when she was younger but you know teenagers. She’s a perfectly dutiful daughter, now.”
The thin man gives me an appraising look. It feels like he’s stripping my clothes off.
“I’ll be taking my leave,” the man in the pinstripe suit says.
The others nod, as if that’s a signal. Half the food is left uneaten. The big man watches me the whole time he slips into his coat and adjusts it to hide the bulge from his gun. They all walk out together, back into the restaurant. I slip my chair a few inches further from Tom now that I have more room.
He grabs my arm. His fingers press into my flesh.
“Don’t be alarmed, sweetie. They’re suspicious by nature.”
“Tom,” I say softly.”They were talking about-”
His voice is cold. “We both know what they were talking about.”
He lets go of my arm, leaving soft marks in my skin that fade out slowly. I gulp down the rest of my Shirley Temple. Tom snaps his fingers and the waitress brings me another one.
“Bring her some ginger ice cream.”
The waitress nods.
“It’s a specialty here,” Tom says. He’s quiet until she’s out of earshot and then says, “Do I take it you don’t approve of this?”
“I…. I don’t… I…”
“I didn’t think you’d understand, sweetie. It’s difficult to get your head around. I came to an understanding, though, when Katzenberg came to me about doing some work for him, and made it clear that I had a choice between accepting his offer and finding many vital avenues of business closed to me.”
“What understanding?”
“The world is full of good men and bad men. Good men think they can stop the bad men, but they can’t. There are always more. One bad man goes away and another steps up to take his spot in the whole thing, and it just goes on and on and on, round and round and round. So good men can fight a pointless fight, or give the bad men what they want.”
“Are you a good man?”
“What do you think, honey?”
I shiver. “Of course you are.”
“I am. When I work with the bad men, I keep them under control. That’s why the baldheaded man was looking at you, dear. He’s a procurer, in addition to moving narcotics. A fleshmonger. Do you know what that means?”
The question must be rhetorical. He answers before I even open my mouth.
“He sells girls.
Girls younger than you. Runaways, mostly. Sometimes they abduct girls who won’t be missed. They take them places, and train them. Virgins sell for the most money, they get moved overseas. Less valuable ones end up in places like the one out in Port Carol, fucking truckers for twenty bucks a pop all night until they overdose on heroin.”
He says it so matter-of-factly, like he’s discussing the logistics of concrete deliveries for his construction business. I shudder.
“They bring them in from foreign countries, too. Mostly Eastern Europe, sometimes poorer girls from Germany or France. They promise them good high paying jobs in the States, and when they get here the good high paying job is in a brothel and they don’t get to keep any of the money they make. Deplorable, really.”
He adds his moral judgement with all the conviction of a man condemning a baseball coach he doesn’t like. After another bite of meatloaf, he goes on.
“I’m not going to have that in my, ah, territory. Once I work my way up the ladder, I’ll be able to tone things down. Not put a stop to it. I can’t, you see. I can make sure it’s clean, the girls are treated well, they have a chance to get out. If I stamp it out completely, someone else will take over, someone who doesn’t care if they die in a cargo box on their way to wherever or get fucked to death in some shitty honk-tonky trucker dive. The world isn’t going to run out of girls any time soon, sweetheart. Our bald friend, see, he isn’t like you and me.”
Hearing Tom lump me in with himself sickens me. I feel like I’m going to puke turkey club all over my lap.
How can this creature be Hawk’s father?
The waitress carries out a plate with two scoops of ice cream sitting in in the middle and sets it in front of me. I take a long spoon and slowly begin choking down bites. It’s rich and creamy and very good, and I want to spit it in his face.
“How is that?”
“Good.”
“Good. As I was saying, our friend isn’t like me, hon. He needs someone like me to regulate him, moderate him. Now, I know what you’re thinking, what about the drugs? Drugs hurt people, yes?”
I keep still, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
“People hurt themselves. The thing is, I can keep people safe if I have my hand on the tiller. There won’t be shootouts and robberies. People will get the drugs one way or another, even if they have to make them on their own. My way, people get their fix and they don’t get robbed or shot or blow themselves up with a meth lab in the basement. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” I agree. “I suppose.”
“I understand you’re reluctant. It’ll fade in time once you understand how important this work is. You see, sweetheart, the truth is, these are the men who really run the world. We can’t stop them, only… guide them. Work with them. It’s better to be part of the system than fight against it.”
I nod, and take another gulping swallow of ice cream. I finally manage to eat it all, scooping some of the melt up from the plate with my spoon. Tom takes an intense interest in watching me eat, especially when I draw the ice cream off the spoon with my lips. He finally finishes his meal.
“Ginger settled your stomach, no?”
I nod.
He leaves a stack of cash. It must be a tip, since no one brought us a bill. I rise and take the attaché, then follow him back through the restaurant and out to the car. My body rebels at the idea of getting inside with him, sitting so close. It made me shiver before, but now it’s a discomfort. I’m sweaty all over, my clothes clinging to my skin.
Before I realize what I’m doing, I unbutton the top two buttons of my blouse. As Tom drives, he keeps one eye on my neck, and shifts in his seat to sit a little higher, as if he might catch a glimpse of cleavage from just the right angle. I look out the window and stare at my own reflection sliding over the world, and think.
Tonight. He said something about a meeting tonight.
I have to find out what that means, who he’s meeting with and where. He made it sound like the Amish guy is involved in drugs or something, but that’s nuts. Amish drug runners? Or Mennonites. That guy might have been a Mennonite, since they wear the same clothes. I don’t know.
When we pull around behind the house, I’m ready to leap out of the car, but I wait for Tom to walk around and open it for me.
He takes the attaché.
“That’s enough for today. I’ll need you tomorrow.”
He leans towards me a little, and pulls back, as though he was about to kiss my cheek and stopped at the last second, caught himself. Instead he looks me up and down, very clearly and openly, and heads towards the house.
I follow, slowing when an old red pickup rumbles up into the yard. The thing must be raised up half a foot higher than it should be, on big silly looking monster truck tires. Tom starts over only to stop when the door swings open and Hawk steps out, slams the door, and pats the hood.
“Hey. I bought a truck. Like it?”
The question doesn’t seem directed at Tom, but he sneers. “Wonderful. Pull that thing behind the carriage house.”
Hawk shrugs, climbs back inside and drives it around.
I can’t show too much interest in him. I head back inside, upstairs, and lock myself in my room. Once I’m finally alone, the armor cracks and I stifle a sob into my hands, pull my hair free and quickly yank my way out of my clothes. I’m standing in my bedroom in nothing but my blouse and underwear when I hear a rhythmic tap on the window glass.
I spin around and there’s Hawk, hanging from the side of the damn house.
Quickly I scramble over the bed and open the window, only to realize that in the process, my blouse has fallen away from my body and given him quite a show. I dart back and do up the buttons as he slides over the bed and turns to pull the window shut.
My voice is a low, hoarse whisper.
“Someone’s going to see you if you keep doing this.”
“Nah, trust me. Nobody looks up.”
“You’re crazy.”
“You’re upset. What’s wrong?”
I swallow. “I can’t talk about this.”
“Alex, it’s me. Come on.”
I chew my lip, grab a Coke from the fridge and offer one to Hawk. He takes his and touches my hand, then takes my wrist and tugs me lightly to the bed to sit next to him. He’s not a robot; he looks at my legs, but then focuses on my face.
“You look like you’ve been crying,” he says, very softly, then takes a sip.
I drink half of mine before I can talk. “Just a little. I can’t take this much longer.”
“What happened?”
“He keeps looking at me and calling me sweetheart and he dresses me up in these clothes. You should see the shoes he wants me to wear for him. He wants me to look like a secretary by way of a stripper.”
“Let’s go. Tonight.”
“I can’t.”
“Alex, listen to me. Do you think it matters how old May is? That he’s just going to say ‘welp, they’re both adults, nothing I can do’?”
I snap back and look at him. “You make it sound like we can never escape.”
“No, I mean it doesn’t matter whether we go now or after she turns eighteen. The result will be the same. We’re going to be on the run.”
“It’s we now, is it?”
He touches my arm. His hand is slick from holding the sweaty soda can, but warm.
“Alex, if you don’t… if we don’t… I’m never going to leave you again no matter what happens. I’ll keep you safe. I swear on my life.”
The conviction in his voice stirs me. I sit for a while and think about it.
“There’s more than that.”
He looks at me and sets his soda aside.
“I have to stop him, Hawk.”
He takes my hands in his. His are so much bigger than mine, rougher, but the way he cups my palms in his fingers is so gentle.
“While you were away fighting wars, I was fighting one of my own. I’ve been looking for a way to stop him for years even as I play dress up for him and be his good girl,” I spit the words, “Jacob and Jennifer are helping me.”
His hands tighten around mine. “I want to help, too. Tell me what’s going on.”
I sigh, and in a breathy whisper, I tell him everything that happened to me today, everything I heard and saw, everything Tom said.
He listens in silence until I finish and slip my hands from his to hug myself.
Hawk rests his big arms around me, and even if it’s an illusion, I feel so safe with him. My heart tells me this is right, so why can’t I make myself believe it?