Chapter 19
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
“You survived the mafia house,” said Boris as soon as he stepped into the lobby. He appraised Jack with an enquiring eye, scanning him up and down. “Unscathed,” he added, sounding impressed.
“Yeah,” said Jack, nodding. “I guess so.”
“What was it like? Was it crazy fancy?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Jack, remembering suddenly how small and out of place he’d felt. “It looked like something out of a movie.”
“Shit,” said Boris appreciatively. “What was that like?”
“Intimidating,” said Jack.
With a snort, Boris said, “I’ll bet.”
“I thought someone would shoot me,” Jack confessed. “Maybe I was a little paranoid.”
“No,” said Boris, shaking his head. “Can’t be too paranoid with the mob. Just paranoid in the wrong ways.”
“Like what?”
“Like thinking they’re gonna shoot you and then finding out they’re just gonna break your legs,” said Boris. “Still shitty. Just the wrong thing to worry about.”
“I guess so,” said Jack, now thinking of all the ways the mob could fuck him over, and how badly they would hurt. “Thanks for the advice.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” said Boris, flashing a winning grin.
Giddy, Jack made his way upstairs. Whether it was the bourbon or Claudia or Boris, he couldn’t say, but there was a bounce to his step, optimism flowing through his veins like toxins in a river.
Maybe things would finally improve.
“My name’s not Claudia,” said Claudia the next day as she opened the door.
Jack stood there with a bottle of Coke and a gas station muffin, satchel at his hip, looking for all intents and purposes like a terrible impersonation of a mobster.
His suit was ill-fitting, his hat was too big for his head, his shoes were scuffed.
He’d dragged himself up the road like a half-starved animal; slow, ambling, desperate.
“Um,” said Jack. “What is it, then?”
“It’s Carla,” she said. Today, she wore jeans and a black t-shirt. Her hair was pulled back into an artfully messy ponytail, and her eyes were kohl-rimmed, the lashes long and dark. In the daylight, she was gentler, carefree, with none of yesterday’s tension in her shoulders.
“Nice to meet you, Carla,” he said, feeling foolish. “You can still call me Jack.”
“That your real name?” She shut the door behind them.
In the daylight, the wallpaper was more ostentatious. The marble floors positively gleamed. The hallway was shorter than he remembered, but the crown molding was even more extravagant. Far beyond, he spotted a foyer, complete with a grand staircase. Carla was quick to lead him past it.
“Yeah. It’s Jack Hazel.”
“Jack Hazel, huh?” she said, shaking her head. “Your eyes are grey.”
“Hazel is my last name. You can’t blame my parents for that.”
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it,” she said. “I just didn’t notice your eyes last night.”
“It was dark,” said Jack with a shrug.
“That’s not an excuse.”
She led Jack down the long hallway, past the office they’d visited last night, and into a kitchen so enormous that an entire elementary school classroom could have moved in and still had room to spare.
The range stove had eight burners. The farmhouse sink had not two but three compartments.
Cherrywood cabinets gleamed. A wine rack reached from floor to ceiling, stocked full.
The pantry was a walk-in, and the refrigerator was nearly double the size of the one at his parents’ house.
Gadgets and gizmos he didn’t recognize were strewn across the counters.
Carla caught his eye and smirked. “Gotta be able to cook enough for the whole family,” she said.
“Do you do all the cooking?”
“We have maids for that. No, I only cook for me and Ronnie. Mostly me.”
“Right,” said Jack, still overwhelmed.
Carla rummaged inside the refrigerator, emerging with a jar of mayonnaise, some deli meat, and cheese. “I wasn’t planning on feeding anybody today, so this is going to have to do.”
“Oh,” said Jack. His stomach lurched. Was she offering him food? “Um, no, that’s fine. Totally understandable. I’ve been living on gas station hot dogs and free coffee from the hotel lobby. I’d eat out of the garbage at this point.”
Carla frowned. “You want some vegetables or something? I can see if there’s a tomato in here that we can slice up. Maybe some lettuce. I’m not really sure.”
“No, don’t worry about it,” said Jack hurriedly. He hadn’t meant to guilt-trip her. Was thrilled someone even thought to offer him food.
But Carla was already digging through the fridge, her eyes narrowing as she examined the selection. Jack spotted at least three different flavors of juice, a jug of milk, several cartons of eggs, a bag of grapes, and some tiny sausages floating in brine.
All of it looked delectable. Jack wasn’t kidding—he really would’ve been happy to eat out of the garbage. In a place like this, even trash was gourmet.
“I’m gonna worry about it,” said Carla, plucking a tomato from the depths of the refrigerator. “I know how bad it is. The selection is the same, day after day.”
“Ever go to the grocery store?”
A laugh. “All the time,” said Carla. She set the tomato on top of a cutting board, grabbed a knife from the magnetic strip on the wall. “The grocery stores here are shit.”
Seeds and juice shot across the counter as she lowered the blade. The steel caught sunlight, glinted red.
“I lost my wallet on the way here,” explained Jack hastily, before she could judge him. “I’ve been living off a dollar-fifty a day.”
A spray of tomato juice landed on Carla’s cheek. She didn’t wipe it away. Maybe she didn’t even notice. “That’s completely ridiculous.”
Jack shrugged. “I’ve managed.”
“Still sucks,” said Carla. She passed him a plate. “Here, help yourself. We have more food if you want it.”
“I’m pretty sure the tomato is enough to ward off scurvy,” Jack joked, pulling two slices of thick bread free from the bag. He didn’t recognize the brand.
“That’s from Ronnie’s bakery,” said Carla. She finished chopping the tomato and threw the knife in the sink. Juice ooze from the edge of the cutting board and pooled onto the counter. “He always lets it go stale,” she added, frowning out the window.
Jack didn’t really know what to say to that. Should he admit that he usually froze his bread in a desperate bid to make it last longer? Or was that more than Carla needed to know?
They ate at a tiny kitchen table. Carla prattled on about anything that crossed her mind, while Jack tried to respond as politely and vaguely as possible.
When he was almost done eating, Carla turned to scowl at him. “Do I have to get you drunk to get you to talk to me?”
“No,” said Jack, startled. “I, uh, I just… Don’t really know what to say, I guess.”
“Are you gonna be afraid of me every time we meet up?”
“What? No, of course not. I’m not afraid of you, I’m just… kind of intimidated?” Jack stared down at the crust in his hand, started to tear it into tiny pieces.
“Intimidated? By what?” Carla demanded, dark eyes sweeping over him.
“This is the nicest house I’ve ever set foot in,” said Jack. Crumbs dusted his plate. “I don’t really belong here.”
Gaze softening, Carla said, “Want to know a secret? Neither do I. Just pretend like you fit in. You’ll be fine. Nobody’s gonna hurt you. And if you break something, it doesn’t fucking matter because it’ll just reappear tomorrow, anyway.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You’ve noticed that, too?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Carla, stretching her long legs. The toe of her shoe bumped Jack’s shin. He very carefully did not react.
It was probably an accident. There was no change in her expression. No indication that she meant to touch him. Besides, even if she had, he didn’t want to complicate things any further by reciprocating. He was here to gather information like Buck and Nora, not flirt with a mobster’s girlfriend.
“I broke every vase in the house,” Carla continued. “Then I crashed the car. Woke up the next day and nothing was different. Absolutely nothing.”
“You crashed the car?” Jack exclaimed, dropping the crust onto his plate. “Were you OK? Was it a bad wreck?”
Carla grinned crookedly. “It was bad,” she said. “I wrapped the whole car around a tree. Glass everywhere, twisted metal, smoking engine—the works. Crawled out of the wreckage and just laid in the road, bleeding like a stuck pig.”
“Shit,” said Jack, looking her up and down, searching for any evidence of injury, as if he hadn’t had his nose smashed into his forehead by a falling crucifix and woken up completely fine the next day. “Were you OK? Did you… pass out?”
Carla flipped her bangs out of her eyes. “I think I died.”