Chapter 30
That night, Ronnie slapped her book closed and said, “Gandalf just died.”
“Uh oh.”
“I’ve seen the memes for this, Gandalf in the movie, people posting it online. You shall not pass, and, fly you fools. But I didn’t know he died died. He’s a fucking awful wizard. Sorry for cursing.”
“You’ve never seen the film?”
“No Mackenzie. I was busy being beautiful in my twenties,” she said.
“I know what we’re doing the next few nights—watching the extended edition. It’ll only take fifteen hours.”
“Absolutely not. Tolkien killed my favorite character. I will not finish this fu… this absurd piece of fiction.” She kept reading, though.
Her hair was pulled into a top ponytail so she could lay back against the pillow, the novel balanced on her chest, her reading at a distance of twelve inches with no reading glasses, an impossibility for Roanoke’s finest PI.
She eventually made an unhappy hum. “And there are no women in this story.”
“There’s . . . a modicum.”
“Do they merely serve as love interests and aids to the brave heroic men on their quests?” she said.
“I plead the fifth.”
“Then the court holds you in contempt.”
“In the third book, Eowyn defies her father and rides into battle with—”
“The third book? I’m not reading three of these wizard-less man-romps.
” She dropped the novel onto the floor and grabbed her book about self-sabotage.
I returned to my highbrow literature, about a guy named Carl who was stuck in a dungeon.
After a minute, Ronnie muttered, “I mean I might keep reading it. But only because Aragorn is sexy, and reminds me of you.”
“Courageous. Kind. Tall The strength of ten. And Manny reminds you of the dwarf Gimli?” I said.
“Pffah.” Manny sat up from the floor at the foot of our bed. “If Legolas had a muscle car and better arms, he’d be me.”
“You’re an elf?” said Ronnie.
“The best elf.”
“Have you seen the movies?”
“Sí. I can tell you why all great Americans should watch them.”
“No thank you. I’m angry about Gandalf and I’m going to sleep.
” She set her supercilious book down and clicked off her light and she stretched and yawned.
“Today in court, Judge Thompson had to terminate the parental rights of a mom on her thirteenth strike. The dad is nowhere. The correct choice but difficult to watch. It wrecked me. So I’m angry about everything, I suppose.
Not just Gandalf’s death. It’s children stuff too. ”
My lamp was still on, filling the room with a visual warmth. “Hits too close to home.”
“With Piper and Sophia, yes. I don’t know how to help them.”
“Me either,” I said. “Other than scaring and threatening them, which I did.”
“I can tell you’re ill at ease about it,” said Ronnie. “You’re not often ill at ease. And it makes me ill at ease.”
“More like, when I’ve been at their house, I’ve seen something that disturbs me.
Something I saw or heard, but didn’t know that I did and I can’t name it, a secret they’re keeping.
It’s something other than the body of evidence suggesting they are inept parents.
It feels like I took apart an engine and when I put it back together there’s a leftover bolt, and I don’t know where it goes, and even though the engine seems to be running, I know the bolt is important, and things might get worse. ”
“Hate it when that happens,” Manny said. “Like assembling a bookcase or a weight bench, you know the thing will break and kill you.”
Ronnie yawned again and rolled onto her side, facing the closet. She reached behind with her hand and found me.
I said, “As soon as I figure out what I’m missing about Sophia, it’ll be obvious. Right now it’s cloudy.”
“So the case of Emile and Sophia is ongoing,” she asked.
“Until I find out what they’re hiding.”
“I bet Aragon and Legolas never have leftover pieces when they assemble their saddle or bow or catapult or whatever,” she said.
Manny made an irritated tsk’ing noise with his teeth. “This is why Tolkien didn’t write women in the book. They say stupid stuff.”
Emile came into my bedroom that night. My bedroom but not my bedroom, the details were wrong. She wore a robe and we were alone. I was pinned to something, unable to move.
A memory. I was recalling an event from Italy, in a dream. Vivid and real, like the last one. I knew this on a subconscious level within the reality of sleeping.
She said, “Ronnie bid a fortune for you, Mackenzie.”
“Go away, Emile. I’m asleep.”
“Ronnie will wait in the next room, though. She bid with my money, on my behalf.”
Something like this had happened in a big luxurious hotel in Naples, Emile molesting me between cage fights. I tried to wake up but couldn’t. She had won an auction to sleep with me but I couldn’t remember what happened.
She said, “The average champion earns twenty thousand dollars for an hour with a woman. Two years ago, the Prince earned forty. Tonight, an unknown woman bid fifty for you. Fifty thousand, Mackenzie. In order for Ronnie to win, she was forced to bid fifty-five.”
“Aren’t the auctions silent?”
“I have my ways.”
“This is a dream,” I said.
“Do you know what my husband is doing? Going to an old man party where he’ll pick from provided woman and have fun.”
“Yuck.”
“Indeed,” she said. She stepped out of her heels. “Duane thinks he’s making a fortune off you tonight, of selling you to a woman. Little does he know, the arrogant and limp old man, he’ll be paid with his own money. So tonight I have double the pleasure.”
“I have doubts about the stability of your marriage, Emile.”
“You are naked.” She lowered to her knees in front of my chair. Placed her hands on my thighs. “As punishment.”
“You’re a pretty lady. You could go upstairs and find a willing partner. I’m married. This is a dream.”
I wasn’t sure if she could hear my words. The firmer details were shifting around the room, sometimes my bedroom, sometimes a hotel, but I stayed tied to a chair. Wake up, Mackenzie, dammit.
She slid her hand between my thighs. “You are naive, Mackenzie. Even if you win, an assassin is waiting to kill you.” She smiled, tight and cruel. “You want me.”
“I do not.”
“But your body says you do.”
“If I had more say-so with my body, I would’ve made better grades in high school. I don’t always get my way.”
“Like I said, Mackenzie, some women enjoy having a man under her complete control.”
“Cute terminology for rape.”
“Don’t use ugly language. If I free you, do you promise to please me?” she said.
“I do not. I will throw you through the window. I’m married, this is a dream.”
“So you stay in your chains. Entirely immobile. But do not fret. By the end, you will be won over.”
“I’m not entirely immobile, Emile.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I’m going to head butt you.”
She frowned and blinked, her sadistic seduction routine hitting unexpected turbulence. “Do not try to resist, American. You belong to me, and your pathetic squirming will be unmanly.”
“I’m sorry you’re dead, Emile. Or I should say, my wife is sorry for the way you died.”
Her hands retracted and rested on my knees. “I don’t care.”
“I have a theory. You think you like having men under your thumb. Controlling them against your will. But I think you crave like the positive feedback to which you’re accustomed.
It’s a sick game you play, seducing men.
Exerting your sex appeal until you get your way.
Trying to fill the gaping hole in your ego made by your husband.
It makes you feel better to win men over. Prove you still got it.”
She stood and slapped me. It was a slow movement and I saw it coming, but in the dream I couldn’t move.
“I will use the shock bracelet on you,” she said. “Stop being an ass. I get what I want.” She undid the belt at her waist and the robe dress fell in silky waves onto the red carpet. “Look at me.”
I felt the shock then, a huge electrical current, even though she hadn’t activated it.
I jerked my head back and forth and Ronnie shook me awake.
I blinked and I was still in the bedroom, and my heart thudded hard enough to hurt, and tendrils of the dream remained in my mind, of Emile and Italy and her hands on my knees, and of electricity, so I found Ronnie with my eyes and held her. Focus on one thing and the rest fades.
“Mackenzie,” she said. “You’re having a nightmare.”
I sat up, grabbed the sheet, and rubbed the sweat off my face. My bedroom. No Emile. No restraints.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry.”
“You haven’t had a nightmare for years.”
I breathed in her scent and it brought me further back into reality. Shampoo and lotion. She lifted an Owala water bottle off her nightstand and handed it to me.
“Did I wake you up?”
She shook her head, visible in the starlight filtering in through the slatted wooden blinds. “I was already awake.”
“Why?”
“The same reason I’ve been awake a lot recently. Guilt,” she said.
“Emile.”
“Asking you to look into it has made it worse. Now I know her daughter Sophia is being raised by unfit parents.”
I nodded and drank water.
“I wanted to find a way to apologize to Emile,” she said. “Or, more accurately, apologize to her family. But instead I found that her estate and her daughter are a mess and it’s my fault.”
“We’re humans. We’re a mess no matter what,” I said. I was sleepy and disoriented and the lame platitude was the best I could manage.
“I wish I could make it better for Emile’s daughter but I don’t know how.”
I handed her the water back and I laid down. “Me either. Not in the middle of the night.”
“I know,” she said. “Talking this through at 2 a.m. is fruitless. But it seems like I’m waking up more and more.”
“We’ll find a way to help,” I told her.
“But what if we don’t?”
“Then none of us gets good enough sleep,” yawned Manny from the floor.
A lesser couple would’ve been startled. Instead, Ronnie and I smiled at each other in the dark at the sudden unexpected reminder that community make things better, even bad dreams. We could unclench and lie down, because Manny had made things okay just by being there.