11
ROAD TRIP
As the days passed, I played a game with myself.
Vitaly was always present, always a gentleman to me. He never swore, never smoked, and never raised his voice. In fact, he never raised his voice at all, to anyone. He was always totally even-keeled, calm, smooth as a glassy lake. His household help seemed to respect him, but did not seem to fear him. The men, though—the foot soldiers or base level thugs or whatever you wanted to call them, now they were scared shitless of Vitaly. And with good reason. He killed them regularly, for the slightest infraction. A misstatement, a failed job, an ill-advised glance at me…and that switchblade would find their ribs. They never saw it coming. It was like a serpent striking, sudden, vicious, and final. He never missed, never hesitated. Right to the heart, and they just dropped dead.
And it was always a man named Gutierrez who cleaned up the body. Gutierrez was short, thin, balding, and always wore mirrored aviators, black cargo shorts, black crew-neck T-shirt, sports sandals. It was a uniform, it seemed. He was never armed that I could see. And he was scarily efficient at disposing of bodies. It was like a scene out of Scandal: he’d appear with a huge blue tarp, roll the body onto it, wrap the body in the tarp and seal it with duct tape, heave the wrapped corpse onto an appliance dolly, and wheel it away. Moments after that, Maria appeared with an armful of towels and disinfectant, and the blood stains were gone. The whole process took less than ten minutes.
So, the game I played with myself was pretty simple, and rather morbid: I woke up each day and asked myself what I would be willing to do to stay alive. What horror would I willingly endure, if it meant my heart kept beating? What barbarity would I perpetrate if it meant another day closer to Harris rescuing me?
I chanted my mantra like it was a “Hail Mary”, over and over and over: Harris is coming, Harris is coming, Harris is coming.
Thus far, four days into my captivity, I’d been very well treated, if scantily clad. Vitaly provided me with a new pair of underwear, a tiny red thong. No shirt, no bikini top, nothing. Apparently his claim that I would be properly attired was a lie. I lived in that thong, and forced myself to act as if I was fully dressed. I endured the eyes of his lackeys as they came and went with reports, the eyes of the maids and the chef as he brought meals, the bodyguards always lurking just around a corner. And Vitaly’s eyes, always his eyes.
A touch, now and then. A palm across my ass, a brief caress of my boob. A hand on my hip, an inhalation of my hair.
I was forced to shower with Vitaly as my audience once a day, in the morning, after breakfast.
Vitaly was a creature of habit, I discovered. He woke at six a.m., rolled out of bed and exercised for thirty minutes. Squats, lunges, two kinds of pushups, crunches, obliques, planks, five reps of twenty each. On the third day, he made me do it with him. Asshole. At six thirty he had breakfast, plain yogurt with fresh-cut strawberries, four eggs scrambled with cheese, four slices of toast lightly buttered, three cups of coffee, and a handful of vitamin supplements. Then he showered, shaved, dressed, and watched me shower. By eight he was ready to go, and usually left the penthouse via helicopter with two bodyguards in tow, and an older, weather-beaten man with salt-and-pepper hair at his side. The older man’s name was Cut. At least, that’s what Vitaly called him.
Cut never so much as looked at me, but I felt his attention somehow, anyway. I didn’t like his attention. It made my skin crawl, made my gut churn.
And yes, the entire time I had my old buddy Mr. Papermate the Pussy Pen in place, ready when I needed him. Fucking uncomfortable. Definitely not meant to have something hard up there at all, much less for so long. It was starting to hurt like a bitch, and I was never able to forget about it. I was, for sure, gonna end up with a bitch of an infection.
Super fucking fun.
But I had no doubt in my mind that I’d end up needing Mr. Papermate at some point in this little adventure. Especially with Cut around.
Cut scared me worse than Vitaly. Cut was an unknown quantity, whereas with Vitaly, at least I knew for a fact that he could and would kill without compunction. I knew he liked to look at me, liked to watch me shower, like to grope a bit. He made me sleep on the floor at the foot of his bed like a goddamn dog, which really pissed me off, but I dealt with it without complaint because I liked being alive, and it didn’t mean anything in the long run. No blanket, no pillow. Just the carpet, my naked ass hanging out, my arm under my head. Vitaly was toying with me, testing me, pushing me to my limits. Trying to elicit a reaction.
Unfortunately for him, he was absolutely correct in his assessment of me: I had an iron will. If I decided to do something, no force on earth could sway me. Usually I just did what I wanted, whatever seemed fun or easy. But if I got something in my mind, there was no stopping me until I did it. That was how I managed to work two full-time jobs plus fifteen credit hours at Wayne State University. It was how I survived the shit I did, growing up. I survived the ghetto as an outsider, not black, not white, not Hispanic, but as a girl alone on the streets and in the schools, which were often as dangerous as the streets, if not more so. In school, they could trap you in the locker room or the bathroom. On the streets there was usually somewhere to run. I’d survived that—not necessarily unscathed, but I’d survived it. I didn’t talk about that shit with anyone, though. Not anyone, not even Kyrie.
But I survived. I’d push through fucking anything, no matter what. I’d made it this far, made it out of the ghetto on my own, I’d paid my way through school, damn near got myself a bachelor’s degree, and a good set of skills. And I would be damned if some motherfucking Greek kingpin would end me. He wanted to watch me shower like a fucking nasty-ass creeper? Let him watch. He wanted to make me sleep on the floor like Fido? I’d sleep on the floor.
He wanted to rape me?
Wouldn’t be the first time.
Wanted to beat me into a bloody pulp?
Wouldn’t be the first time.
I hadn’t been tortured, but I’d survive that too.
And besides, Harris was coming.
So each morning as Vitaly’s expressionless black eyes watched me shower, I’d envision a hellish new scenario, and figure out my best options.
Turns out, one of them came true.
* * *
Vitaly was gone, leaving me alone in the penthouse. The elevator was locked, no call button, only a keyhole. All points of exit or entrance were either guarded or locked. I had a TV—in the local language, of course—and magazines, again all in the local language, and most of those were nudie mags anyway. Not my thing.
BOREDOM SUCKS.
I flipped through all the magazines, tried to figure out words and phrases, I watched TV I didn’t understand. I did a lot of pacing, and a lot of staring out the window. A lot of watching people come and go far below me, wondering if one of them was Harris.
And then it happened.
The elevator opened, revealing Cut. He was bloody from head to toe, splattered, painted crimson. Unhurt, though, it seemed, which meant the blood was someone else’s. He swaggered toward me, leaving bloody footprints on the marble, dripping gore from his fingertips. He even had blood on his face, his neck, on his ears.
A grin curved across his features, splitting his scarlet-bathed face with white teeth. “Everyone is gone.”
I glanced at the doorway Maria usually came through. “Oh. Okay.” I backed away.
He stuck a hand in his pocket, casually, and stalked closer. “Just you and me.”
“Where is Vitaly?”
“He was called to Brasilia. He won’t return for many days.”
I swallowed hard. “Oh. Um. Okay.”
My skin crawled as Cut stepped close enough that I could smell the blood and the death on him. He touched the center of my chest, leaving a red streak on my skin as he dragged his fingertip down between my breasts. “Now you’re mine.”
“I…I don’t think that’s a good idea, Cut.” I forced myself to stay calm, to breathe. “He’ll come back, and he’ll know if you do anything to me.”
“He won’t know.”
I lifted my chin. “I’ll make sure he does.” I faced him square, nose to nose. Put all my attitude into my eyes. All my contempt. “You want a piece of me, it won’t come easy. Which means he’ll know. And that won’t go well for you. He killed Yuri just for not treating me well enough on the way here. What do you think he’ll do if you hurt me?”
Cut just leered. “I am his oldest friend. You think he would kill me like he does those piece of shit pissants?” He spat onto the marble. “He won’t. I want a piece of you, I’ll take it. And bitch, you make it hard, you will regret it. I promise you this.”
I backed away. “Fuck you.”
I never saw his fist move. Just BAM! I was on the floor, my cheek throbbing. And then he was leaning over me, rancid breath on my face. “Wrong answer.” An open-palm slap to my cheek, and then again on the other side. Again and again, until I was dizzy from pain.
I swallowed the pain, clenched my teeth, and kept breathing. When Cut finally stood up, my lip was split and my face pounded with fiery pain.
I stared up at him, unblinking. “You hit like a pussy.”
“You want more?” Cut sneered.
He smacked my tit, and Jesus, that hurt. Again, again, again. I gritted my teeth and endured it, eyes stinging and leaking, but I didn’t so much as whimper. And then he pinched. And by “pinched” I mean clamped down and twisted so hard I thought he was trying to rip my damn nipple off. A shriek escaped, but I bit down on it.
I had blood smeared on me from his hands and clothes, and I was writhing in agony when he finally let go. A moment to breathe, and then I scrambled away, realizing this was all just foreplay to him.
“You going to cooperate now, bitch? Or you want me to start really hurting you?”
I should just cooperate. Pretend it was a drunk fuck. He was bit old for my taste, and it wouldn’t be pleasant, but if I cooperated, he’d be done in a few minutes and I’d still be alive.
I thought about it. Shit yeah, I did.
For about four seconds.
“Fuck. You.” I spat the words, and then spat on the floor near his feet.
CRACK! His fist split my lip open and loosened a tooth. Knocked me to the floor. Hurt, but I’d been jumped and had the shit kicked out me more than once, even badly enough to need hospitalization on one occasion, so this wasn’t exactly new territory for me. Of course, he was a big guy who’d been pummeling people for longer than I’d been alive, so he could hit significantly harder than the teenaged dickweed gangbangers who’d jumped me when I was in high school.
He hit me twice more, and I felt the pain building enough to feel like maybe it was time to stop taunting him.
But then I heard rustling, and peeked through swollen eyes to see him unzipping his pants.
Fuck that. Fuck him. Not without a fight, douchebag.
Under the guise of rolling around and moaning in pain—which I didn’t exactly have to fake, mind you—I twisted onto my side, away from him, and withdrew Mr. Papermate the Pussy Pen, slipped it out of myself as swiftly and surreptitiously as I could.
Jesus, it stank.
I curled into a ball, hiding it from him. Pried the cap off the point, blinked hard to clear my vision, held it in my fist, point down—yeah, it was a little…slippery. Eew. Just…eew. This would serve his ass right, though.
I waited. Curled up in a ball, fighting the urge to whimper in pain. I wasn’t gonna cry. Fuck no. Bitches like him wouldn’t make me cry. Nothing could. No one could.
His foot crashed into my back, sending me rolling across the floor. I nearly dropped the pen, but managed to hang onto it. I groaned, curled into a ball again, and waited.
This time, he grabbed my arm and rolled me to my back, straddling my prone body with a leg on either side of me. Still standing, he bent over me.
Dumbass.
I silently thanked Brad the MMA fighter and our six months of hot monkey sex-slash-Brazilian jiu-jitsu practice.
I almost laughed at the irony: I was about to use Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and I was in Brazil. Heh-heh-heh.
Let’s break some shit.
I stuck the pen in my teeth—yuck—and grabbed his palm with both hands, then twisted until it wouldn’t twist anymore, hooking my leg around his arm so the back of my knee braced the cap of his elbow. Grinning up into his surprised face, I then pulled back with both hands while rocking my body in the opposite direction. SNAP. His elbow now bent in two directions.
The entire move took less than three seconds.
He screamed, I screamed, it was glorious.
Cut fell to the floor, writhing and grabbing at his ruined arm. I rolled over him, hooked my leg around his throat and got him into a good strong leg-lock; look at the little bitch turn blue.
I wasn’t done.
Rape me? Fucker, I don’t think so.
I took the pen in my fist, spat into his face. Steeled myself, jaw clenched, squeamishness locked down tight. He saw it coming. I made sure he did. I held the pen up high, palm of one hand cupping the back of my pen-wielding fist, slammed it down as hard as I could into his eye socket, putting all my weight, all my strength into the move. It pierced his eye like…well, like an ink pen through Jell-O. I hit resistance, and the pen stuck. He was thrashing, gurgling, twitching. I smelled shit. I put my palm to the end of the pen where it protruded from his skull, slammed my fist down onto the back of my hand like a hammer, driving the pen deeper into his brain.
He went still.
I puked until I had nothing left but bile.
I released my leg-hold on him, kicked his inert bulk off me. I stood up shakily, staring down at him, and retched again.
The elevator stood open, key still in the hole. That was my chance out of here. I made quick work of Cut’s blood-soaked shirt, unbuttoning it, peeling it off his torso, and then slipped it on, shuddering at the warm wet stickiness of it. God, so fucking gross. But I was covered. I untied his boots, pried them off, stuffed my feet into them, tied them as tight as they’d go, and then patted him down for a weapon. I found a black folding knife in his pocket, the blade clean while the handle was tacky and bloody. Clearly, this was the weapon used to create all the blood covering him, and now me.
No matter, I was covered, shod, and armed.
Time to go.
I ran at a stumble, lurching into the elevator, his huge boots flopping and clopping like clown shoes. I looked ridiculous, but that was no concern. I mean, it was, because the thought crossed my mind while in the middle of a life-and-death scenario that I looked utterly ridiculous, wearing a man’s blood-soaked white shirt, the edge hanging to mid-thigh, and a pair of men’s huge, smelly work boots, ten sizes too big. But I wasn’t naked, and wasn’t running barefoot through São Paulo, so there was that in my favor.
Also, I’d just killed a man.
There would be time to process that later, hopefully. Now, I had to get out of here.
I twisted the key to the P, for parking lot, I assumed. I hoped. The door slid closed and the lift lurched into motion, descending rapidly. A couple gentle bumps, and the elevator halted, the door slid open, and I was through, knife blade open, cutting edge up. A guy I’d hooked up with once had taught me that; hold the knife with the blade pointed up. He was a pretty rough character, obviously, but he’d explained that if you gotta cut someone real quick, cut up, start low and jab up. You can exert more force by jerking upward, do more damage.
Thanks, Lil D. Looks like that’ll come in handy.
The parking garage wasn’t empty. There were a bunch of valets standing around smoking pot, chattering, laughing. They went quiet as they caught sight of me, and one of them came over to me, a lit joint between his teeth, holding his hands palms out, chattering at me in Portuguese.
“I don’t speak that shit, bro. Habla usted Inglés?” That was Spanish, not Portuguese, but it was all I had.
“No English.” He gestured at the knife, saying something else.
“You can have the knife over my dead body, asshole.” He understood my tone of voice, at least, and backed up, holding his hands up. I lunged at him, grabbed his shirt front. “I need a car.”
“O quê?” He seemed surprised by my sudden aggression, but not particularly worried.
“A car. Un auto? Das Auto? Shit, that’s German. Um…” I mimed driving, making a zoom-zoom sound.
The other valets laughed like fucking hyenas, but the guy whose neck I had my knife pressed against wasn’t laughing. He was sweating and waving at his buddies, chattering in Portuguese. Give her the damn keys, you idiots, I imagined. One of them dug in his pocket and produced a key attached to a ring with a tag shaped like a soccer ball. He tossed me the ring and gestured at a beaten-up old jalopy, something small and once-green, now more rust than paint. Probably a stick-shift. Good thing I’d learned that skill too. How? You guessed it—a fuck-buddy. See? Being a slut comes in handy, as long as you learn valuable skills along the way.
I hopped into the driver’s seat, thanking my lucky stars that it was on the left, which meant they drove on the right here, which would make my getaway that much easier. I turned the ignition, and the engine caught with a cough and a sputter, and then set to idling. I was about to put it into reverse and pop the clutch, but one of the valets banged on the hood, shouting something at me. I just stared at him in the rear-view mirror, shrugging broadly.
He smacked the trunk again, miming opening it. I fumbled, found the latch, and opened the trunk. Maybe it was his car and he wanted to get something out of it? I didn’t think there would be immediate pursuit, not until someone found Cut. The valet, the one who’d tossed me the key, closed the trunk again, pocketing a baggie and what looked like a wad of cash and a pipe. Yep, his car. He also had a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and a pair of flip-flops in his hand.
He tossed them through the open window onto my lap. “Big Boss, up there? Asshole.”
I nodded. “Yeah. He’s an asshole, that’s one word for him.”
He pointed at me. “You steal my car. I no see you.”
I grinned at him. “See who?”
He laughed and backed away, and I shoved the shifter into first, popped the clutch, and hit the gas. The ancient little car bolted forward and the valets all scattered out of the way, laughing at me. I squealed the tires as I slammed the gears into second and took off, up, up, toward the light and out into the city. I nearly got in a wreck immediately upon exiting the parking garage. Super great. A big truck full of fruit swerved out of the way, earning me shouts and what I assumed were rude gestures. I just flipped them off and peeled out, zipping past them and through an intersection. Of course, the light was red, so I caused two T-bones and one head-on collision as I darted through the intersection, flooring it once I was past. This piece of shit could move, it turned out. I mean, it was no BMW, but it had a little get up and go. Enough that I could cut around slower-moving cars and rush through intersections.
But then a thought occurred to me: I was an American woman, without a passport, without a Brazilian driver’s license, and I was wearing nothing but a bloody shirt, with a bloody knife still clutched in my shifter-hand. Maybe I shouldn’t draw too much attention to myself. So I braked to fade in with the traffic, forcing myself to keep calm and look like I knew what I was doing.
I didn’t.
I hadn’t thought past getting out of the hotel.
So now I was in a strange city, alone, half-naked, with no money, no ID, no means of communicating with anyone. I mean, I knew Kyrie’s cell phone number by heart, but I didn’t have a phone, and I didn’t know how to dial out of the country.
I turned at random, weaving around the city with no particular destination in mind, trying to come up with a plan. I needed money, and I needed to get hold of Kyrie so she could tell Harris how to find me.
Step one, change out of the bloody shirt.
I pulled into an alley and drove halfway down, put the jalopy in neutral and set the e-brake, left the motor running. I shucked the bloody shirt and tossed it out the window and into a nearby Dumpster. I slipped the boots off and threw those away too. I changed into the valet’s shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. Thank god he was a short, skinny little shit; the clothes were actually a little small. The blue shorts ended up hugging my thighs and ass, and the maroon shirt barely covered my tits, and when I did get it over them, it was tighter than a damn sports bra. The sandals were a little big, which worked out. My hair was a mess, so I searched around on the floorboards on the passenger side—this guy obviously lived in his car, as it was an unholy disaster area of random crap. I found a rubber band eventually and used it to tie my hair back—it’d be a bitch to untangle later, but it kept my hair out of my eyes for now.
There was even a scratched-up pair of dollar-store style sunglasses in the back. And—score!—some tightly-rolled dollar bills in the glove box. Pesos? What did Brazil use for currency? I unrolled one and examined it; they were reals, apparently. Pink, with a picture of a sculpture on the front, the numeral 5 in the top right and bottom left corners. I counted them—I had a hundred real. Reals? The correct plural didn’t matter. Thank you Pedro—I would nickname my valet benefactor Pedro, I decided—for being a money squirrel.
Attired more like a normal human being rather than a horror movie victim, I felt like maybe I had a chance, now. A slim one, but it was something.
It’s amazing how a set of non-bloody clothes can improve a girl’s mood, huh?
I backed out of the alley carefully, watching oncoming traffic for a clear spot. I pulled out, and headed away. I drove at a sedate, unhurried pace, sweating buckets, cutting a direct line one way, then turning left and driving for several more miles, and then turning right and going even further, just trying to get away from the scene of the crime. I checked my mirrors regularly, watching for signs that I was being followed but, so far, nothing.
I found a gas station with a small market, put one of my precious five-real bills’-worth of gas into the tank, and went in to the little shop. I got a bottle of water, what I hoped was a protein bar, and a map of the area. At the counter, I saw prepaid cell phones and minute cards. Of course, the instructions were in Portuguese, but I’m a smart girl, I hoped I’d be able to figure it out. I grabbed a phone and a card and passed it to the cashier. He rang me up, passed it all back to me.
And then, squinting, he spoke. “American?” He was an older guy, a little salt in his hair, wrinkles and weather on his skin.
You’d think with my hair and skin color that I’d be able to pass for a local, but apparently not. I just nodded. “Yeah. American.”
He chewed on something in his mouth, and then ripped open the phone, took the minutes packages and withdrew the SIM card, glanced at the instructions, and then spent a few minutes pressing buttons and listening. Eventually, he closed the phone—an old clamshell-style phone, the cheapest one he had, as it was all I could afford—and handed it to me.
He circled a set of instructions on the minute plan packaging and shoved it at me. “Dial home. Ring America. Easy.”
He must have assumed I was a student or tourist, lost, and trying to call home. True enough, and thank god there were still nice people in the world.
I was closer to tears at his kindness than I could remember being in a long, long time. “Thank you! Thank you so much! Gracias!”
He laughed at me, waving a hand. “Nah. Não é nada.”
I got in the car with my purchases, and as I checked my mirrors, I happened to get a good look at my face. Well shit, no wonder the old guy took pity on me: I looked like I’d gone three or four rounds with Manny Pacquiao, with predictable results. My left eye was quickly going purple, my lips were split and puffy, I had a cut on my right cheekbone, and I’d bled from the nose at some point, although it had stopped on its own, but had left a sticky trail of dried blood on my upper lip.
I got back out of the car and went in to the market, making a beeline for the bathroom. There wasn’t much I could do but wipe at the blood and rinse my face with cold water, but it was better than nothing.
“Bad boyfriend,” the clerk said, as I passed him.
“What?”
He gestured at me. “Boyfriend no good.”
I nodded, and felt an absurd compulsion to laugh. “Yeah, but you should see what he looks like.”
“You kick ass?” His face lit up with a grin.
“Yeah buddy, I kicked his ass good.”
He nodded, his expression fierce. “Hit girl no good. Hit pretty girl? Very no good.” I laughed at that. Apparently hitting any girl was bad, but hitting a beautiful one was especially bad. Good thing I’m pretty, then, right? The old man gestured. “You go Guarujá. Drive to o mar. Very pretty, much relax.”
“I will. Thanks. Gracias.”
He laughed again, pointed at me. “No gracias. No Espanhol. You say ‘obrigado.’”
“Obrigado,” I repeated
“Sim, sim. Obrigado.” He waved at me again, and I left.
I got back into my “borrowed” car, the interior of which felt like it was at least a hundred and fifty degrees, even with all the windows down. Brazil was fucking hot, dude. I sat in the driver’s seat, the engine running, the radio playing some kind of local club music, examining my map. Rodovia dos Imigrantes seemed like my best shot for driving to this Guarujá—which I wasn’t even going to pretend I knew how to pronounce. Now I just had to figure out where I was currently and how to get to the Rodovia-whatever-whatever. But first, it seemed, I had to go through both São Vincente and Santos, across a bridge, and through Guarujá. But then if I wanted to go the ocean, why not just stop in Santos? The old guy had specified Guarujá, though, so I’d go there.
I found the most direct route according to the map, dug a pen out of the glove box, and outlined the path I’d need to take, memorizing the numbers of the roads—the 160 to the 101 to the 248. So not through Santos at all, now that I checked the route again; I would be skirting north of there, staying to the mainland as opposed to going through the island of São Vincente. Whatever. I just had to get out of São Paulo. Find somewhere to lay low, get hold of Kyrie, and wait for Harris. Hopefully without any more super-fun run-ins with Vitaly’s army of assholes.
So, I took my map back inside the market and showed it to the clerk. He spent a few moments staring at it, finger tracing one road or another until he located our current location—which, it turned out, was only a few miles away from the highway I needed. He grabbed a pen from the counter and drew a path for me on the map so I’d know how to get to the interstate, or the highway, or whatever the road was called. The big road out of São Paulo. Rodovia dos-something-about-immigrants.
Let me try this once more, this time with feeling.
I actually left the gas station, followed the helpful clerk’s directions to the Rodovia dos Imigrantes, and hit the highway. Except for a bunch of cars whose makes and models I didn’t recognize, and all the signage being in Portuguese, the trip was a lot like any road trip across anywhere in the US. Green grass on either side along with some scrub brush, palm trees in a hot breeze, semis and buses and passenger cars zipping back and forth.
I had two major concerns: running out of gas, and running out of food and water. I had one lonely little five-real bill left, unless my buddy Pedro had more cash stashed somewhere in his ride. I felt bad about stealing the dude’s car and all his bank, but a girl has to do what a girl has to do, right? I was alone in a foreign country, didn’t speak the language, and I’d just killed the right-hand man of a crime syndicate’s top boss.
Not going there. Not thinking about putting a ballpoint pen through Cut’s eye. Not thinking about the way he twitched and gurgled, or the fact that he shit himself. Shit. Shitshitshit.
I had to swing off the road and onto the shoulder so I could lean out the open window and retch.
Keep it together, Layla, I told myself. I couldn’t afford to fall apart. Not now.
Iron will. Iron will.
I steadied my breathing, pushed away the images of Cut’s violent death at my hands. Pushed away any and all emotions. Feel nothing. There was nothing in this moment, nothing but doing whatever was necessary to get myself out of this.
While I was stopped, I followed the instructions for calling out of the country and dialed Kyrie’s number from memory, pulled the car out onto the freeway and tucked the phone between my shoulder and my ear, since I didn’t think the archaic cell phone had speakerphone technology.
The line rang once, twice, three times…four, five, six. “Come on, bitch,” I muttered, “pick up the damn phone.”
I heard a click, and then a smooth male voice. “Who is this?”
I choked, blinked back blurry stinging salt out of my eyes. The relief I felt was immeasurable. NOPENOPENOPE. I’m not crying. For sure I’m not crying. “I—Harris? It’s—It’s Layla.”
A pause. “Layla?” Another pause. “Sit-rep? Um, I mean, what is your situation?”
“I know what a fucking sit-rep is, Harris—I watch TV. I’m fine. I got away.”
“Where are you?”
“Brazil. Heading out of São Paulo toward—well, I don’t know how to pronounce it. A city on the coast, south of São Paulo. Starts with a ‘G’ and has an ‘A’ with a slant over it at the end. Gwar-yooh-jah or some shit.”
“Guarujá.” He said it gwar-ooh-zha. “Good plan. I can be there in—less than twelve hours. Are you hurt?”
I hesitated. “I’m fine. I can last twelve hours.”
“Layla.” He said my name…softly. Strangely inflected, like with emotion and shit. It made my heart squirm and my stomach flop. “What did they do to you?”
“Nothing, really. Nothing to worry about. I got away. I’m alive, not permanently damaged, and I’m in transit.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“I stole a dude’s car. He had some money in it, so I bought a prepaid cell phone. A nice gas station guy hooked it up for me. I don’t know if I’ll have enough gas to get all the way there, but I’ve got my route mapped out. I can walk if needed.”
“I’m impressed.” It sounded like he wanted to say a lot more, but kept it to himself.
“I grew up in Detroit, Harris. This shit is cake.”
“Think you’re being pursued?”
“No. Not yet, at least. When they find—well, when Vitaly finds out what I had to do to get away, I’m sure he’ll send guys after me with a vengeance. But for now, I’m not being followed. Vitaly’s in Brasilia for a few days, Cut said, so it might be hours at least before Vitaly is even aware that I’m gone. Depends on if his maid at the hotel knows how to get hold of him or his guys. We’ll see.”
A rife pause from Harris. “Layla…? You met Vitaly?”
“I met a lot of people. But yes, I met Vitaly hisownself. He’s a scary motherfucker, Harris.” I tried to keep my voice even and calm but couldn’t quite stop a quaver.
“What did you have to do to get away?” This, said softly, in that same concerned tone.
“Nothing I’m willing to talk about on the phone. I gotta keep my shit together. Maybe after you’ve rescued me I’ll let myself think about it. But for right now, don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“Get to Guarujá, Layla. Find somewhere to hide out. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t stop for anything. I’ll be there as soon as I possibly can, okay? You’re going to be fine. I’m on my way.”
I wanted to say so many things. “Harris?”
“Yes, Layla?” God, that tone in his voice. No one had ever spoken to me like that, as if I mattered more than anything.
“I’m fine. This is like a road trip. Just…in Brazil.” I was trying to convince myself more than anything.
“You’re just fine. Everything is fine. We’re on vacation together.”
“I’m gonna go lie on the beach and put on my bikini and get some sun. Drink a few dozen mai tais.”
This earned me a chuckle. “Mai tais are more Hawaii, babe. You’re in Brazil. Have a piña colada.”
He called me ‘babe.’ I tried not to love that, and totally failed. “How about straight tequila?”
“Does tequila make your clothes fall off?”
“I hate country music, Harris.”
He laughed. “Yet you got the reference. Must not hate it too much. And I bet tequila does make your clothes fall off.”
“Yeah, it kind of does. But then…so does whiskey, and rum, and wine.” I hesitated. “I can’t afford that many minutes, so I should go. Save them for emergencies.”
He laughed, and then sang a few bars of the Joe Nichols song, his voice surprisingly smooth and melodic. “Keep your eyes open,” he finally said. “Don’t trust anyone. And…do whatever you have to.”
“Just get here,” I said, and then ended the call before he could hear the knot in my throat.
I didn’t cry. I was just sweating…from my tear ducts. I had a little sniffle. A summer cold.
No big deal.
Harris is coming. Harris is coming. Harris is coming.