Kiss Kill Vanish (18 page)

“That's as good as a confession,” he says. “So who'd you kill?”

I need a jokey answer, something stupid and light so he'll leave me alone. “My seventeen-year-old boyfriend. The one whose parents wanted me in jail for statutory rape. I set the whole house on fire.”

“I knew it,” he says.

A fan of seared Kobe beef is placed before me, each rectangular piece with a purple-raw center. I take a bite. It's deliciously salty and metallic, but I can't enjoy it. I feel like I'm eating my own heart. I wish I knew if Emilio was okay.

“So how do you know Emilio?” Marcel asks, and for one sickening moment I know he knows. He's eating his bloody beef calmly, but he knows what I'm thinking, who I am, and who really killed his brother.

“I met him at Les Fontaines. You were there, remember?”

“But when I called this morning, you thought I was him.”

“He asked for my number,” I say casually. “Not many people have my number. I just didn't look at it before I picked up.”

“You sure sounded . . . I don't know. Excited.”

“What do you care?” I fire back. “And how is that any of your business?”

Marcel abandons his beef, stares at his tea like he wishes it were something else. “It's not. You just don't know who he is.”

“Really? Then enlighten me,” I say before my brain can catch up with my temper.

“He's involved in some bad business. Lucien was too.”

I hold my breath. I do and I don't want to hear Marcel's take on the
bad business
.

“After Lucien dropped out of art school, he was sort of desperate to do something big to prove himself. My dad was insisting he come work for him, but Lucien wouldn't. I don't blame him. My dad's a jerk. But then Lucien started working for this guy down in Miami. I think he met Emilio first, and then Emilio introduced him to this Cruz guy.”

Time stops. It's only for a second, but it's long enough for Marcel to take a breath and my stomach to squeeze everything I've just eaten and my pulse to pound so loudly in my ears that I'm wondering if I'm having a stroke or an aneurism or some kind of neuro-vascular explosion. Cruz guy. I have to ask, “What was he doing?”

“Smuggling art.”

“What?” I twist my whole body to look at Marcel's face. Papi is dealing art, not smuggling it. And art is the cover. Drugs are the dirt and the blood.

“Don't look so shocked.”

“But . . .” Papi wouldn't steal art. He lives for it, practically breathes it. Marcel doesn't know what he's talking about.

“There's a lot of money in it,” Marcel explains, like the economics of art theft are the unbelievable part.

“I know, but since when did Lucien need money?”

“Never. But he needed respect, which is the other thing working for this guy offered. I don't think Lucien even knew who Cruz really was until he'd been at it for a while.”

Who Cruz really was.
Did the whole world know but me? “What do you mean?” I ask, needing to hear it again, but dreading it too.

“He's the head of some Colombian drug cartel. The art fetish is more than a cover, though. According to Lucien, he was pulling in almost as much from stolen masterpieces as cocaine.”

I picture the paintings I grew up staring at: the Klimt, the O'Keeffe, the Warhol, the Rodin. He's wrong. My father loves art, taught us to love it, travels all over the world to buy the finest. He wouldn't be stealing it. “So Lucien . . .”

“Lucien was one of his scouts. At first it was all legitimate, but eventually he got sucked into the smuggling side too. He had the right contacts from art school, so he'd go around pretending to be looking to buy. Plus, he was rich enough for people to take him seriously.”

“And Emilio.” I hear myself say his name and know I should stop. “He does the same thing?”

“No. Cruz runs his businesses in layers—the legal art dealing, then smuggling, then drugs. Emilio's pretty deep, does it all. He manages things, takes care of people, threatens people. Probably more than threatens people.” Marcel stares at his plate. It's empty except for the small puddle of blood. “And of course, he always brings coke with him to grease wheels and make friends.”

“Do you work for him too?” I can't hide the tremor in my voice, but I have to ask. I have to know.

“No. But I partied with Emilio. At first I did it just to make Lucien mad. I told him he was an idiot, and that he was going to get sent to jail or this Cruz guy was going to start asking him to do way worse stuff, but he ignored me. He had things under control. Suddenly he was important, not just some art school dropout, or Daddy's little pawn. So I screwed around more, stopped going to school, hooked up with Emilio's party-favor girls. I thought I could be wild enough to scare Lucien.”

My stomach hurts. I've eaten too quickly. I stare at the plate in front of me, half-eaten seared shark, shiny with brine and oil. I can't remember when the beef was taken away, or when this arrived, and I can't remember taking those bites.

Emilio can't be who Marcel thinks he is.

The door chimes ring, a reminder that people are still eating and talking and living all around me. It seems impossible, though why would the whole world stop just because my world has? How long have we been here?

“Maybe you and Emilio aren't any of my business,” Marcel says.

“We aren't.”

“I'm just telling you he's dangerous.”

“I believe you.”

Marcel finishes his shark. I keep staring at mine; it keeps staring at me. Leaving unfinished food is
omakase
taboo, but the richness is finally too much. One more bite could be fatal.

When the chef turns his back, I nudge Marcel with my elbow and point to my plate. “Please?”

“You owe me,” he says, and reaches for it.

Ominous words. They slice through me. My shark is being carried away, but I dive in, my chopsticks proving stronger and faster than his as they snatch it midair. It's in my mouth before he even understands that it's gone. “Changed my mind,” I say between chews.

Our last course is roasted peaches and pistachio ice cream. It's good, I think, but my taste buds are spent. Our bellies and brains are already too full, and I don't even make eye contact as he pays the bill. My cheeks burn, but I don't know if it's gratitude or shame that does it, or if there's much of a difference at this point.

The drive home takes longer. We hit light after light, get caught behind a bus making regular and long stops, and finally sit sandwiched between cars waiting for an accident to be cleared up ahead.

Still no music.

“Did Lucien seem different to you that night?” Marcel asks abruptly.

“I don't know.” I say it without thinking. I don't want to think about it ever again.

He swallows. “I don't remember most of it. I was wasted when I showed up, and after that . . . well . . . Maybe if I hadn't been, things would have been different.”

The compassionate thing to say is
of course not
or
don't blame yourself
, but if Marcel wants to take some blame, maybe less of it will be pressing down on me.

“I think I was a jerk to you,” he says.

“You were.”

“And I think Lucien and I fought,” he says.

“You did.”

He cringes.

“But that wasn't it,” I say, not just because it's the nice thing to say but because it's true. “He didn't kill himself because of anything that happened between you two.”

“Maybe not. But if I hadn't been so busy getting high that night, or this entire year, I'd have known something was wrong.”

I can't make him feel better about that. Trying seems dishonest—dishonest in a way I don't have to be, and I have to be a liar in so many other ways right now.

“You have a way of saying the right thing,” he says.

“I didn't say anything.”

“Exactly.”

I swallow. I look at him. The misery is intense, and yet it's only his eyes that show it, clear and sharp as pain. I want to tell him about Lucien kissing me, to turn it into something that it wasn't—a lover's quarrel or a rejection or something that could inspire a suicide—but that feels like a betrayal to Lucien. I don't know why.

I let Lucien kiss me because something about those last few hours had felt final. That night was an ending point for us. Emilio had come. I was finished being Lucien's doll. I don't want to lie about it and turn it into something it wasn't.

Traffic unclogs itself. We inch past the accident, and I have to stare. It looks like a sculpture—crushed metal and broken glass artfully arranged on a sheet of ice. The ambulances have already left it behind. We do too.

Marcel pulls to the curb, and I look out, shamed by the decrepit apartment towering down. I reach for the door.

“Wait,” he says. “Before you go, I have to tell you something.”

I brace myself for the worst: a declaration of feelings, or maybe an angry tirade. I think I'd prefer the tirade.

“This isn't because Lucien was obsessed with you.”

“What's not?”

“The reason I called you.”

“Okay.”

“It's just you knew him. At the end, I was too busy hating him, and I don't know why, but being around you makes me feel better. Less guilty.”

He runs his fingers through the cropped hair again, and this time I see they're long and white and trembling. Of course. I see it now, what I haven't seen all day because I've been too hungry and worried and self-obsessed. He's detoxing.

“Can I call you again?” he asks.

I nod.

“Good.” He doesn't smile. I have a feeling Marcel's smile is gone forever.

My stomach is meat-heavy and the stairs are endless. I trudge upward. I'm three steps shy of the fifth floor when my phone rings. Trembling, scrambling, my fingers grope their way through everything in my purse, but can't find it. Panicked, I tip the purse upside down and shake violently, watching the contents clatter and flutter halfway back to the fourth floor. There. I see it. I lunge and grab it. I'm so close to hearing his voice, I can't think straight enough to realize it's stopped ringing.

But it's stopped ringing. It only rang once. A text. It was just a text. I pick up the phone and see it was from Emilio.

   
I need longer. More info when I have it. Miss you. Be careful.

I have to be quick. I sink to the cold concrete and text back, tears blurring my eyes as my thumbs fly over the keys.

   
How much longer? Why? Miss you too, but don't tell me to be careful. I'm not the one in danger.

I send it and wait. I suck the tears back up. I stare at the screen. I will the phone to ring, but it doesn't. I reread my response and realize I forgot to say
I love you
, but he didn't say it either, no, he didn't say it
first
. I type in
P.S. I love you
,
then delete it. I don't need him thinking I'm juvenile and needy.

After ten minutes of nothing, I abandon hope. I get up, pick up my mess, and trudge back up to hell.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“A
re you going to the café tonight?”

Nanette's voice jerks me to life. I was sprawled across my cot nearly comatose; now I'm perched on its edge, heart racing. She probably knocked. I'm not sure why this feels like an attack.

Nanette raises her eyebrows and says, “Hm?”

That French Canadian
hm
is so endearing and aggravating at the same time. It's both
Are you?
and
Don't you think you should?
in less than a word.

But am I? I did plan to meet Jacques tonight. The last time I even intended to practice was the night I ended up going for sushi with Marcel, which was five days ago. And I want to play Emilio's mandolin—no, I
want
to want to—but right now, just thinking about the instrument makes me feel abandoned.

I can only feel abandoned for so long before it becomes anger, and I don't want to be angry at Emilio. It seems safer not to go to Soupe au Chocolat at all, to sit here in this shrinking closet like I have been for the last several days until it's so small I don't have room to roll over or even breathe.

“I don't think so,” I say, picking up my phone to check for messages. Nothing.

Nanette's perfect little eyebrows furrow, but she doesn't frown. I'm worrying her.

“I don't feel well,” I say.

“Are you okay?” she asks gently. She pulls on one of her pigtails. Her thick hay-colored hair is too short for a single ponytail, so she wears it in two tufts poking out below each ear. She looks like a baby deer. “You look a little pale.”

“I think I'm getting the flu. You probably don't want to come too close.”

She nods and backs away, saying, “Come get me if you need anything.”

“Thanks.” I don't know why she's so nice to me.

I close the door and sink back down into the cot. I don't look at the clock. I don't want to know when I would need to leave if I was going, because I'm not going.

I've given up on trying to do anything but sit here and worry. Emilio owes me a call, or at the very least, a text. I've spent every second of the last five days imagining the possible meanings behind his last text. He said he'd let me know when he knew more, so he must not know more yet. Unless something is very wrong.

Maybe it's time to call one of my sisters. Lola. No, not Lola. Ana. No, neither. I love them both, but Lola is a little mean and Ana is a little incompetent, and all it would take is one nasty or stupid moment from either and Emilio could end up dead. There has to be a better way of finding out if he's okay.