The Weight (35 page)

“So, one day, I asked Albie if he’d bought me from Jessop. ’Cause I knew Albie had money, and Jessop loved money.

“You know what Albie said? He said he told Jessop he’d
disposed
of me. I knew too much; I’d seen too much.
That’s
when Jessop wanted to get paid—he must have told Albie he had a lot of money invested in me. But I know Albie told him he wasn’t getting a dime, because it was Jessop’s fault in the first place, for bringing me along.”

“Jesus.”

“I know. I … never really believed it, not for a long time. I remember, once, Albie told me to stop being such a little brat. I knew what he wanted then. To spank me, you know what I mean? A lot of guys are into that, especially with a young girl. Only, I was wrong. You know what he wanted?”

“For you to stop being such a little brat?”

“Yes!” she said, smiling for the first time since … I didn’t even remember the last one.

She lit another smoke. “I was with Albie twenty years, that much is true. But I wasn’t his wife until the millennium came. The year 2000, that’s what everybody called it.

“I was Rena for ten years, but only by name. One day, I just marched into his den—that’s where the partners desk was—and I told him I was old enough to make intelligent decisions. And I’d made one.”

“That’s almost like this old movie I saw once.”

“If you say
Baby Doll
, I’ll spit in your face. I saw that movie.
We’ve got a satellite dish, with like a million channels, so I know what you mean. And it was
nothing
like that. Albie wasn’t waiting until I turned legal, and he damn sure knew I was no virgin. And I didn’t walk around shaking it, either.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? You’ve got no idea—”

“I’m sorry for saying something that hurt your feelings, Rena.”

“Rena’s gone.”

“Lynda, right?”

“Yeah. Albie always told me this day would come. That’s why he replaced the implants.”

“I don’t under—”

“After Albie … went, I was supposed to go, too. I
always
had Albie’s little book. I was supposed to take that with me, and hide it where I could always find it. A life-assurance policy, Albie called it.”

“Life insurance?”

“
As
surance. Something I could trade for my life if any of … those men found me. And that isn’t all. Anyone can get paper ID. Only the implants, they were like this secret weapon. Plenty of women change their hair, but how many have implants taken
out
?”

“I know a girl who did.”

“A stripper, right? And she went jumbo on them?”

“That’s right.”

“The size
I
got, it makes me … stand out, I guess. But they’re not the kind that would herniate my spine.”

“They don’t … pull on you?”

“Not a bit. I wasn’t lying about the working out every day.”

“So, if you got … smaller, you wouldn’t look like yourself?”

“Depends on where you’re looking.”

“I get it.”

“Good,” she said, like she was a little annoyed. “You have any more questions, Sugar?”

“Yeah, I do.”

She turned a little straighter, facing me like she was making sure I still had the different-colored eyes.

“So?” is all she said.

“You said you could find this Jessop. That can’t be just because he was on some paper as your husband a long time ago.”

“What’s your question?” She sounded a lot colder than before, but I didn’t have any choice. So I asked her: “Have you … seen him since you—?”

“Your whole mind is dirt, huh? No, Sugar, I haven’t ‘seen’ him since he brought me to that meeting. He brought in a piece of poor white trash, a … thing he could do whatever he wanted to with. If I’d just been dumped by the side of a road, I’d have been happy, just knowing I’d never have to see that … filth again. That answer your question?”

AJ/WT/X
, I thought.
Abner Jessop, White Trash, maybe? But what was that “X” for?
I knew I couldn’t ask her about that; I had work to do. So I only said, “Then how could you know where he is?”

“Albie’s ledgers. It’s all in there.”

“You can read them?”

“Every word.”

“I didn’t see any addresses. Some phone numbers, maybe, but …”

“We have to unpack anyway,” she said. Not icy anymore. More like bored. “When we find the ledgers, I’ll show you.”

By the time we dug out the ledgers, it was late. “It’s not like you need this stuff tonight,” she said. “I’m tired and I’m hungry. I know every take-out spot around here—there’s a lot of them. You probably don’t know how to … ah, never mind, what do I know? Just tell me what you want. Asian, Indian, Mexican? Hamburgers? What?”

“I’ll eat whatever you bring back.”

“Thai, then?”

“Sure.”

“Wake up.” Rena, kneeling on the carpet so she could whisper in my ear.

Damn!
is all I remember thinking. Nobody should be able to sneak up on me, specially if they had to open a door to do it.

The food was good. Crisp and clean. She brought so much that there were leftovers, even though we both ate like pigs.

“We have to let the food settle first,” Rena said. Sitting back in the living room, lighting a cigarette.

“Sure,” I said, although I didn’t know what she was talking about.

A few minutes later, she said, “Go take a shower, Sugar.”

I was standing under the steam when the idea that she might be calling Jessop right that minute hit me.

I was still thinking about that when she got into the shower with me.

“Don’t be rough with me,” she said in the bedroom. “It’s been a long, long time.”

That made me mad, like she had to warn me. “Can’t you do
any
damn thing without making it some kind of deal?” I said.

She raised her hand to slap me. I didn’t move.

Then she was crying and kissing me at the same time. I don’t even know how I ended up inside her.

“I said don’t be rough, not play dead!” she hissed in my ear. But I could tell she wasn’t mad at all.

The first time she woke me up that night, she was a little rough herself. The second time, she was just right.

I don’t mean she was good, like an expert or anything. She was just … right, is the only way I can say it.

“This is my breakfast specialty.” She was standing in the kitchen, talking over her shoulder at me. “Warmed-over Thai.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Trust, remember?”

“I do,” I told her. She was sitting on the floor with her legs crossed, the ledgers in her lap.

“I’m not going to ask you why you want to find Jessop.”

“If you want to know, I’ll tell you.”

“That isn’t what I meant by trust, Sugar. He doesn’t live in Tallahassee. Or Tampa, either. It’s way east of here, damn near in the middle of the state.”

“So?”

“The middle of this state, it’s another world from the coasts. Plus, where he lives, it’s a
tiny
little town. They probably pay attention to anyone who even stops for gas.”

“Were you ever there?”

“Not there, exactly. But in that part of the state? Sure. That’s where I was born.”

“So you met—?”

“I was a runaway, Sugar. I hitched a ride and I was gone. I didn’t meet Jessop until I’d been on my own for a few weeks. And that wasn’t so far from here. Tampa’s where he took me.

“If he hadn’t gotten busted for underage … I didn’t have any fake ID, and I wasn’t even … developed yet, not really. This was before I got the implants. The way the cops explained it to me, if we got married, they’d drop the charges on Jessop. But I’d need my mother’s permission. I never even went back myself. Jessop went over there, paid her the money, and she signed. Like he was buying a used car.”

The address she got from Albie’s ledger wasn’t the same one the lawyer told me. I figured Albie paid closer attention than any parole officer would. The Law might know where Jessop got his mail, but Albie would know where he lived.

A lot of good that did me. If Jessop had any sense, he’d stay close to his home base between jobs.

“He’d see me coming a mile away.”

“You are difficult to hide,” she said, kind of smiling at me. That’s when I realized I must have said it out loud, instead of just thinking it.

“So far, nobody’s seen me here, though. Do you think you could go out and get some more food? Enough we don’t have to go out for every meal?”

“Sure,” she said. I could see from her face that she knew why I wanted her out of there.

“Wait. Come here for a minute, Rena.”

“Lynda.”

“I’ll get it.”

She came over and dropped into my lap. “You
have
to get it, Sugar. Before I was Rena, I was someone else. Jessop never put a hand on Rena. And you never have, either. Understand?”

“Lynda,” I said. And kissed her hair.

She snuggled against me. I kept thinking about trust. “Do you know this town?” I asked her.

“I
used
to know it. Now all I know is what I told you: take-out joints, pharmacies, one mini-mall. I looked them up before we came down here. I even have a little map. But that’s about it.”

“Damn.”