The John Milton Series: Books 1-3 (97 page)

He booked her two more times until, one day, she was idly watching the TV in a bar where she was waiting for Trip, and she had seen him on the news. The bartender made some quip about how they were watching the next president of the United States. She Googled him on her phone and nearly fell off her stool. He booked her again the day after her discovery, and she had told him, when they were lying on the bed together afterwards, that she knew who he was. He asked if that bothered her, and she said that it didn’t. He asked if she could keep a secret, and she had said that she could. He had said that he was pleased because he thought that she could be special—“different from all the others”—and he wanted to see her more often. Mentioning that there were “others” didn’t make her feel all that special, but she told herself that he was with her, and that she
was
special; she would make him see that, and then, maybe, eventually, it would just be the two of them.

Robinson had been good to his word, and they saw each other at least once a week all the way through the summer. She had persuaded herself that he really did see her as more than just another working girl and that, maybe, something might come of it. She dreamt that he would take her away from hooking and give her a better life: money, a car, a nice place to live. He had made promises like that, and she bought all of them. She read about him online and watched him on the news. The fact that a man like him, with so much to lose, had started a relationship with her and trusted her to keep it secret? Man, that was totally crazy. The proximity to power was intoxicating, too, and she admitted that she had let it get to her head. He told her that his wife was a bitch, and he would be leaving her as soon as the election was over. She started to believe his spin that, if she was patient, they could be together. At no point did she question how any of that could ever be possible for a working girl. She loved him.

“And then he dropped me,” she said. “No warning. Just like that. He called me and said he couldn’t see me again. I asked why, and he said it was one of those things—we’d had a good run, he said, we’d both had fun, but all good things have to come to an end. No hard feelings, goodbye, and that was it. Just like that.”

She moped for a week, wondering whether there was any way she could put things back the way they were before. She blamed herself: she had pushed him too fast, talking about the future and the things they could do together once they were a couple. That, she saw then, had been childishly naïve. She had scared him off. She called the number he had given her, but the line had been disconnected. She saw that he was speaking at a rally in Palo Alto and had hitched down there in the vain hope that she might be able to speak to him, but that, too, had been a failure. She had found a space near the front, but he had been absorbed in his speech, and even as he beamed his brilliant smile into the crowd, his eyes passing right across her, she knew that he hadn’t even noticed that she was there.

Two days later, Jarad Efron called.

“He was having a party,” she explained. “A fundraising thing for the campaign. He was inviting people that he knew, CEOs and shit, these guys from the Valley, and Robinson was going to be there, too. He asked if I could come. I couldn’t understand it at first, I mean, why would he want me to be there after what had happened between me and J.J., but then I realised, there was no way he could’ve known how involved we’d been and what had happened since. All he knew was that Robinson had taken a shine to me, so he thought he’d get me to be there too because he thought that’d make him happy.” She laughed bitterly. “That’s a laugh, right? I mean, he couldn’t possibly have been much more wrong about that.”

“What happened?”

“You drove me to the house. It was fine at first. Robinson wasn’t there. Jarad was sweet, looking after me—the place was jammed with rich guys, totally flush, and there was as much booze as you could drink.”

“And drugs?”

“Yeah,” she said, “but I didn’t take any. I’m not into that.”

Milton frowned, but he said nothing.

Madison said that Jack Robinson and Arlen Crawford arrived at a little after midnight. Milton remembered the town car that had pulled into the driveway and the two guys who had stepped out; he hadn’t recognised them, it had been dark and foggy, but it must have been them.

Crawford had been aghast to see her. He sent Robinson into another room and came over to deal with her. He had been kind, she explained, taking her to one side and having a quiet drink with her. He explained that the governor couldn’t see her that night, that there were people at the party who couldn’t be trusted and that it would be damaging to the campaign if anything leaked out, but as she protested, he told her that the governor was missing her and that he would call her the next day. She had been overwhelmed with relief, and as Crawford refilled her glass, and keen to ingratiate herself more fully with him, she had accepted his offer to do a pill with him. He said it was ecstasy, and although she rarely did it these days, she had swallowed it, washing it down with a slug of Cristal. She realised afterwards that he had not taken his pill and then, after that, that it wasn’t ecstasy but something that was making her feel woozy and out of it.

“I asked him what it was that I’d taken, and he said not to worry, it was just MDMA, and then when I told him I was feeling worse, he said it was just a bad trip and that he’d get me a car and take me home. He was on his cell, making a call, and he had this weird expression of concern and irritation on his face. Mostly irritation, like I was this big inconvenience for him, this big problem he was going to have to deal with. I knew then that Jack never wanted to see me again and that Crawford was getting rid of me. I told him that. He snapped at me, said I was a fucking embarrassment and a mistake and a liability and why couldn’t I have stayed away? I shouted back at him. I went totally nuts, so he lost his cool too, and when I tried to get away, he grabbed me and told me I had to stay until they could drive me back, and that’s when I screamed.”

“Do you remember me being there?” Milton asked.

She shrugged. “Sort of.”

“Why didn’t you let me help you?”

“Because I was out of my head and terrified. I didn’t believe Crawford, not then, not for an instant, and I knew I was in trouble. Whatever it was he’d given me was seriously messing me up. I didn’t even know where I was. I just felt like I was underwater, and I kept trying to swim up, I was really trying, but it felt like I was going to fall asleep. I remember an argument, men shouting at each other, and then I knew I had to get out of there, right that instant, before it got worse and I couldn’t move, and so I took off.” She paused, frowning as she tried to remember what had happened next. “I know I went to a house over the road. There are bits after that that are a complete blank. The pill, whatever it was, it totally wiped me out. I woke up in the woods behind the houses. Five, six in the morning. Freezing cold. There was no way I was going back there, so I just kept going through the trees until I hit a road, and then I followed that until I got onto the 131. I hitched a ride back to San Francisco.”

“After that?”

“I’ve got a girlfriend in L.A., so I got on the first Greyhound the next morning, this is like at seven, and went straight there. I didn’t want to stick around. I didn’t think it was safe. The first week down there I just kept my head down. Stayed in the apartment most of the time.”

“Why didn’t you call?”

“I heard about what had happened to them… those other girls.”

“No one knew that they were connected to Robinson.”

“Yeah,” she said. “But it freaked me out. It just felt a little close to home. And then when they said who they were, like last week? I was about ready to get out of the state.”

“Did you know them?”

“Megan—I met her once. This one time, at the start, before I was seeing Jack properly, there were two of us. Me and her. She was a sweet girl. Pretty. She was kind of on the outs then, but I liked her. I remember her face, and then, when they put pictures up on the news and said she was one of the girls they’d found, and then I thought what had nearly happened to me, I realised what was going on. I mean, it was obvious, right? Robinson likes to have his fun, and then, when it’s all said and done and over, if they think the girl is gonna cause trouble, they get rid of her.”

“You could’ve called the police,” Trip said.

“Seriously? He is—was—the governor of California. How you think that’s going to sound, I call and say I’ve been with him, and they ask how, and I say it was because I was a hooker, and then I say I think he wants to kill me? Come on, Trip. Get real, baby. They’d just laugh.”

“You could’ve called me,” he said sadly.

“Yeah,” she said, looking away for a moment. “I know.”

“You have to go to the police now, Madison,” Milton said. “It’s pretty much wrapped up, but you have to tell them.”

“I know I do. Trip’s going to take me this afternoon.”

They finished their drinks quietly. Milton had packed his few possessions into a large bag. The apartment looked bare and lonely, and for a moment, the atmosphere was heavy and depressing.

“I’m gonna go and wait outside,” Madison said eventually. They all rose, and she came across the room, slid her arms around his neck, and pulled him down a little so that she could kiss him on the cheek. “Probably wasn’t what you were expecting when you picked me up, right?”

“Not exactly.”

“Thank you, John.”

She disengaged from him and made her way across the room. Milton watched as she opened the door and passed into the hallway, out of sight.

He looked over at Trip. He was staring vaguely at the open doorway.

“You all right?”

He sighed. “I guess,” he said quietly. “Things aren’t what they always seem to be, are they, Mr. Smith?”

“No,” Milton said. “Not always.”

Trip gestured at his bulging travel bag. “You going away?”

“I’m leaving town.”

“For real?”

Milton shrugged. “I like to keep moving around.”

“Where?”

“Don’t know yet. Wherever seems most interesting. East, I think.”

“Like a tourist?”

“Something like that.”

“What about your jobs?”

“They’re just jobs. I can get another.”

“Isn’t that a bit weird?”

“Isn’t what?”

“Just moving on.”

“Maybe it is, but it suits me.”

“I mean—I thought you were settled?”

“I’ve been here too long. I’ve got itchy feet. It’s time to go.”

He walked across to the bag and heaved it over his shoulder. Trip followed the unsaid cue and led the way to the door. Milton took a final look around—thinking of the evenings he had spent reading on the sofa, smoking cigarettes out of the open window in the swelter of summer, staring out into the swirling pools of fog, and above all, the single night he had spent with Eva—and then he pulled the door closed, shutting off that brief interlude in his life. It was time. He had taken too many chances already, and if he had avoided detection, it had been the most outrageous luck. There was no sense in tempting fate. Quit when you’re ahead.

He locked the door.

They walked down the stairs together.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked the boy as they crossed into the harsh artificial brightness of the lobby. “With Madison, I mean?”

“I don’t know. We’re right back to the start, I guess—that’s the best we can hope for. And I’m not stupid, Mr. Smith. Maybe we’re through. I can kinda get Robinson, how it might be flattering to have someone like that chasing after you. Efron, too, all that money and influence. But there’s the other guy, the driver, I thought he was kinda dumb if I’m honest. I don’t get that so much. All of it—I don’t know what I mean to her anymore. So, yeah—I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”

“You do.”

“What would you do? If you were me?”

Milton laughed at that. “You’re asking me for relationship advice? Look at me, Trip. I’ve got pretty much everything I own in a bag. Do I look like I’m the kind of man with anything useful to say?”

They stopped on the street. The fog had settled down again, cold and damp. Milton took out the keys to the Explorer. “Here,” he said, tossing them across the sidewalk at the boy. He caught them deftly but then looked up in confusion. “It’s not much to look at, but it runs okay, most of the time.”

“What?”

“Go on.”

“You’re giving it to me?”

“I don’t have any need for it.”

He paused self-consciously. “I don’t have any money.”

“That’s all right. I don’t want anything for it.”

“Are you sure?” he said awkwardly.

“It’s fine.”

“God, I mean, thanks. Do you want—I mean—can I drop you anyplace?”

“No,” he said. “I’ll get the bus.”

“Thanks, man. Not just for this—for everything. For helping me. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t been here.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Milton said. “I’m glad I could help.”

The corners of the books in his bag were digging into his shoulder; he heaved it around a little until it was comfortable and then stuck out his hand. Trip shook it firmly, and Milton thought he could see a new resolution in the boy’s face.

“Look after yourself,” Milton told him.

“I will.”

“You’ll do just fine.”

He gave his hand one final squeeze, turned his back on him, and walked away. As the boy watched, he merged into the fog like a haggard ghost, melting into the long bleak street with its shopfronts and trolley wires and palm trees shrouded in fog and whiteness. He didn’t look back. The foghorn boomed as a single shaft of wintry sunlight pierced the mist for a moment. Milton had disappeared.

THE TWO NEWCOMERS came into the bar with trouble on their minds. They were both big men, with broad shoulders and thick arms. The bar was full of riggers from the oil fields, and these two fitted right in. Milton had ordered a plate of BBQ chicken wings and fries and a Coke and was watching the Cowboys’ game on the large flat-screen TV that was hanging from the wall. The food was average, but the game was close, and Milton had been enjoying it. The bar was busy. There were a dozen men drinking and watching the game. Three young girls were drinking next to the pool table. He watched the two men as they made their way across the room. They ordered beers with whiskey chasers, knocked back the whiskeys, and set about the beers. They were already drunk, and it looked like they were fixing to work on that a little more.