Chapter 56 Gentleman
Gentleman
Like the gentleman he was, B-Roll met Blanca downstairs.
His pad was on the third floor, walk-up, and he wanted to make sure she didn’t lose her nerve on the way.
She was done up real cute, hair pulled back, shiny makeup, loose-collared crop sweater so a strip of that flat brown stomach showed.
She had a little belly-button ring in, too, a hoop with a star.
She wore PJ bottoms, thick flannel ones that she’d cuffed twice at the waist to keep the bottoms from dragging in the street.
Perfume, too, one of those ones named Rain or Sky or whatever, that smelled all clean and natural, like you just snorted it off the back of a unicorn.
When he came out to the street, she kicked one foot behind her, tapping the toe of her lavender-check Vans high-top on the sidewalk. She had something in her hands, a little gift bag with purple tissue paper fluffed up out of it.
“Hey, Beauty.”
She gave him that big smile. “Hey, Beast.”
B-Roll jerked his chin at the bag. “What’s that?”
“Oh, this? Just a little gift. For Luce.”
“Really,” B-Roll said, bored. “That’s sweet.”
“It’s a Polly Pocket koala family. You said she had the purse playset so … I know, lame, right?”
“No,” B-Roll said, ushering her in. “No. She’ll dig it.”
He took her by the shoulders, stood her against the wall, and raised his burner phone to snap a picture of her. She blushed, fixing her hair. “What’s this for?”
“’Cuz I want to,” he said, thumbing her photo off to the boys with a text: Get reddy to partay!
! It didn’t send right away. Reception was ass here in his building, especially in the lobby, but he hoped the phone’d grab signal when they got to his room so the boys could see what they had to look forward to.
Blanca handed him the gift bag, which he snatched, heading upstairs.
“It’s just a dumb thing,” she said, gesturing at the bag. “I thought, you know, you said there’s family stuff going on and sometimes it’s good to have a family you can, like, be in charge of yourself, you know? I mean, play with and feel safe and stuff. Even a koala family. Stoopid though, prolly.”
Most of the light bulbs in the stairwell were out. The asshole on the second floor left his takeout boxes right on the landing, mounded like a pile of leaves, and there’d been flies and cockroaches but the dickhead landlord never did shit. It smelled like Chinese food and rot.
B-Roll said, “Just walk around it.”
She did her best, high-stepping in her shiny Vans. She looked so clean, a girl like her way off her turf in a place like this. Next floor up, at his door, he fumbled with the keys, got it open.
The dude he sublet from called it a one-bedroom but it was really a studio, a three-hundred-square-foot rectangle. He held the door for her.
She went in.
He saw her shoulders deflate a few inches.
The place was a shithole, sure. Thirdhand furniture, rusty appliances, gross brown carpet, grease stain up one wall, his unpacked stuff spilling out of moving boxes.
Battered window shades cast a nicotine-yellow glow across the jumble of dirty clothes and mismatched dumbbells.
A freeway ramp rose just outside his window, and the traffic noise and headlights could be a lot if you weren’t used to them.
But that’s not why her shoulders dropped.
It was because there was no Luce in here. A younger sister wouldn’t last five minutes in a place like this.
Oh. And there were the cameras, too. Set up on tripods around the main prop he still had from Manny. The prop was covered in a white sheet. Saving the surprise for later.
B-Roll closed the door behind him. Threw the dead bolt. It gave a good thunk.
Blanca spun to him, clutching the gift bag to her stomach. Her voice came out like a squeak: “Where’s Luce?”
“Right, I forgot to mention. Turns out? She can’t make it now. But that’s okay. I have some buddies coming over.”
Her eyes darted nervously to the cameras. “What’re those for?”
“I shoot some art photography now and then.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Girls trying to break into Broad-way.”
He threw an arm wide, palm out, the whole your-name-in-lights thing, trying to lighten the mood. But she didn’t laugh.
New approach: “The woman I shot last week was super-hot. Like model-hot. Better looking than anyone I’ve seen in person.”
To make them shrivel, all you had to do was sprinkle the right words, salt on a snail. Sure enough, Blanca shrank into herself. She looked small. Small and unsure of herself.
“Oh, hey,” he said, adding a honeyed note of comfort, “you’re good-looking too.”
“Thanks. I mean, not like model-hot…”
“Well, not everyone is.”
Just a tiny sting, keep her off-balance.
“I’m sorry, but I just…” Her narrow chest heaved beneath that sweater. “I think maybe I should get back home. I mean, I do have trig homework, and since Luce isn’t here—”
“Since Luce isn’t here, we can party.” He sidled up, ran a finger along the line of her jaw. Stopped beneath her chin, tipped her face up to his. Her eyes were scared but her mouth wanted him to kiss her. Those glossy lips parted, her breath tasting of mint. “Grown-up fun.”
It could’ve gone either direction but it went the wrong way, Blanca gently tugging his hand from her face and stepping away.
“I’m not sure I’m ready for this. To meet your friends and all that.
I’m sorry. I mean, it’s cool, but I thought it was just us hanging out with your sister. I think I should get going.”
He eased toward her again, not wanting her to scare. “But my friends are on their way. Right now. They really wanted to meet you. You don’t want to disappoint them, do you?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sure they’re, like, supercool, but—”
“We got the whole evening planned. You really want to ruin it? For all of us?”
She set the gift bag down on the desk. The computer monitor was set up there. She looked at the screen. It said, CLICK TO START LIVESTREAMING.
He watched her read the screen. Her jaw shifted forward.
When her head snapped up, her eyes were different. “I don’t … I’m sorry, I don’t get it.”
He loved how they apologized all the time whether it made sense or not, whether they did anything wrong or not.
“Oh that.” He waved it off. “That’s just if we want to play around later.”
She was standing there stiff and frozen the way they got. Sometimes you could just move them right to the futon like a broken-down robot, a life-size doll, and they didn’t say anything at all. Her throat was jumping around like she was trying to breathe or talk but couldn’t get her body to obey.
“You’re old enough to play big-kid games, aren’t you, li’l girl? You’re definitely sexy enough.”
Now a hushed whisper: “I think I should go.”
“You’re all the way here already. And you’ll dig my friends. Promise.”
He reached for her and she jerked back a step. Her heel pinched the white sheet where it draped to the floor, pulling it free.
Her eyes went wide. Wide and scared and quite pretty. She stared at what had been hiding beneath the sheet.
A wooden pillory with holes for the head and wrists.
The top was lifted slightly on its hinge like the stick of a movie clapper board.
The post had been shortened, though, so even a smaller girl like Blanca would have to bend over to get put into it.
That way even once they were locked in, you had easy access to them from behind.
She turned those wide, wild eyes to him.
He smiled, traced the strips of his chinstrap beard with a thumb and fingertip, pinched it off at the bottom. “Don’t worry about it. That’s not something we have to do. That’s just for show.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m gonna go.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
She was breathing deeply. Her nostrils widened. Lips swollen with emotion, face flushed, perspiration sparkling at her temple. She looked so hot. It was amazing how some chicks looked turned on when they were scared. Maybe it was the same thing for them.
Some fire came up in her, a faint accent creeping in: “You know what? Fuck this. I don’t want this. I didn’t ask for this. Let me go.”
He pretended to contemplate, tapping a finger on his chin.
Then said, “No.”
She deked and then broke left, darting around him. She made it to the door, throwing the bolt, yanking it open. It didn’t swing more than a few inches before it met his palm backed by his full weight, slamming shut once more.
He was standing over her now, breathing down, her face by his armpit. She was so much smaller. She turned her gaze up and he saw the depth of fear in her brown eyes. Docile at last. They both knew now that she had to do whatever he wanted.
He gave her his best smile.
“No means no,” he said, and shot the dead bolt home.