“I’m sorry that I haven’t been here for a while, Dad. It’s kinda been a crazy few weeks. But I guess you know that already.” Sitting on the curb, I look up at the sky as I talk to my father on the spot where I watched him die.
I feel bad that it’s been so long since I was last here, and the memories of this place are mixed up with Suzie’s betrayal. I wonder what her game is, why it is that she’s suddenly playing the good citizen. The most likely option is that she’s just trying to fulfill some of her own wants; maybe the Angels put her up to it, just like they did everything else. She was at the point now where she would do anything for drugs—anything at all, and it didn’t matter who she hurt or who got in the way. All that mattered was that she scored her next high.
“Mom’s doing better. The doctor can’t explain it, but it’s like one day she just woke up.” I scuff my sneaker in the dirt and wonder why it’s so hard to talk to him today. Usually the words just flow out, like there’s no stopping them. But today, I find myself searching around for something to say. I guess it’s because there’s too much. It’s like sending a letter to a friend you haven’t seen in years and you’re trying to condense your whole life into a few pages of white paper. There’s too much to tell him. And besides, I figure he’s up there looking down on us, looking out for us, so he already knows.
It occurs to me that he’s the one person outside of Jake that I can talk to about our plans to take down the Angels and the fact that we’re no longer working on our own. “I’m working with the Feds now.” I lower my voice as I say the words. It’s an automatic reaction, but there’s no one around to hear my secret.
“I want to get them so badly, Dad. I want things to go back the way they were, before the Angels, before this town lost its way. I want to have a normal life. I want to get out of Painted Rock, go to college, see the world, be with Jake without having to look over our shoulders the entire time or worry about what the Angels are going to throw at us next.” As I say the words out loud I realize how true they are and how little space I’d given them in my mind. I haven’t given my wants and hopes a lot of time, because they had seemed so far away from reality that it was a little like lying to myself. But now, things are different, and I felt like this was a turning point. That maybe, just maybe, this might be a war that we win, despite having lost so many of the battles up until now. College. I say the word in the same way that most girls would say “Prom.” But that’s all I’ve ever wanted—for my little world to be opened up.
“You’ll get there.” The voice comes from behind me, making me jump and scramble to my feet. But I don’t have to turn around to find out who it is. I would know that voice anywhere.
“Don’t you have any respect?” I can hardly believe that she’s here. “After everything that’s happened you have the gall to come here? Here, of all places!” Seeing her here, at the place where my dad had died, the place where she’d betrayed me that first time, it’s like reliving it all over again.
“I’m not here to fight with you. I just want to help.” Suzie spreads her hands in a peaceful gesture.
“I’ve heard that one before; tell me another.” I squint at her in the early morning sunshine. There was a time when I would have believed her, no questions asked, but that time has long gone.
“I told Jake this was a bad idea,” Suzie says under breath as she starts to turn away.
“Jake told you to come here?” I know that Jake has always been more trusting than I ever was. But, bearing in mind he knows about Suzie and everything she’s done to us, why would he think that her coming to see me was going to go down well?
Suzie stops what she’s doing and turns back around to face me. I notice that her cornflower blue eyes look clearer to me than they have in a while. When she looks at me there’s something different about her, but I can’t quite put a name to it.
“He told me that you needed help. A man on the inside. I guess he figured that a woman would do just as well.” The lopsided smile that she gives me doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“And why would you ever think after all that you’ve done, that we would trust you? In what parallel universe would that make any sense at all? Remember when I said that you weren’t someone that I wanted to know anymore? Those weren’t just empty words. I meant them.” I know I’m being hard, but the memory of her taunting me, telling me what she’d done, the lies she’d told to get Jake to go with the Angels quietly. It was the delight that she seemed to take in what she was doing, as if it were fun for her to hurt me. It’s that more than the betrayal itself, it’s that I don’t think I can forgive.
“I don’t expect you to.” Suzie’s reply is so simple that it catches me off guard. I had become used to her deception, but not to hearing the truth. “But for some reason, Jake does. I guess he doesn’t think that you hate me quite as much as you seem to. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come here.” Her voice breaks and she looks down at the floor, like she’s just realized that things aren’t going to work out.
I tilt my head to look at her, as if that’s going to give me a better perspective of what seems different about her and then, all of a sudden, it hits me. “You’re not high.” I say the words slowly, because I can’t quite believe them. This is the first time I’ve seen Suzie sober since she got involved with the Angels.
“Haven’t been for a few days now.” She holds her head a little higher, like she’s proud of it.
“But the day you were at the body shop...” I trail off, trying to fit the pieces together. “You were more doped up than I’ve ever seen you.”
Suzie shakes her head and looks down at her dusty feet again as if she’ll find some answer there. “I wasn’t high; I was strung out.” The admission seems to embarrass her, like she’s confirming just how bad things had got with her. “I was desperate for a hit, needed it so badly I’d have done anything for it. The Angels, they cut me off, wouldn’t let me in on their supply. It didn’t take long to get me to the point when I’d say anything, do anything, just to stop feeling like I wanted to tear my own skin off.”
I can feel myself being pulled into her story. It makes sense—how frenzied and violent she’d been that night at the studio. When she was raging at me, she had been like an animal. I’d thought it was the force of her hate for me, fueled by drugs driving her on. The little turbo-charged devil on her shoulder.
But Suzie hasn’t finished with her version of what happened. “I hate them for what they’ve done to me, for what they’ve made me do. You don’t have to believe that I want to help you, but it shouldn’t be hard to believe that I want them to pay for what they did to me.” As she says the words there’s fieriness in her blue eyes that reminds me of the friend that I used to have.
What she’s saying has the ring of truth about it, but it’s so hard to trust anything that she says anymore. But then, actions always did speak louder than words. “Prove it. How can you help us take them down?” I cross my arms, waiting for her response. I’m surprised at, despite everything, how much I want her to come good. But I’m really just expecting her to come up with some bullshit story that’s going to end with Jake and I in even deeper shit with the Angels.
She pulls something out the pocket of her dirt-stained jeans and throws it at my feet, watching me as I pick it up. It’s a small plastic bag, filled with a white powder.
“That one’s heroin,” she says, looking at me instead of the packet I’m holding. She licks her lips and I notice the tremble in her leg. “The Angels have a deal with one of the cartels over the border in Juarez. They buy the drugs—heroin, cocaine, whatever—and then deal them, over the whole state, passing them on to other gangs, selling them at a premium as they go.”
“Okay...” It’s getting harder and harder not to believe what Suzie’s saying. “And how does this help us? A tiny packet of heroin and your word against theirs isn’t exactly a huge scoop.” I know I’m being unfair—it would have taken time for Jake and I to get this information on our own and Suzie has just handed it to us.
“I can tell you when the next meeting with the cartel is. You tell the Feds, and the Angels are caught with their hands in the cookie jar.” Suzie shrugs like it’s the simplest plan in the world.
I can’t quite believe that this has fallen into my lap and I’m still not sure that I can trust what she’s telling me. “That all sounds great, but how can I be sure that this isn’t just another trick?”
Suzie’s face falls and, in spite of myself, I feel bad for doubting her. I have to remind myself that she hasn’t done anything to win my trust in recent weeks.
“You can’t be sure,” she eventually sighs. “I guess only you can decide if the risk is worth it.” There’s no challenge in her tone. It’s just a statement of fact. I don’t say anything. I’m not really sure what to say. “I better get going, before someone notices I’m missing.” She stands awkwardly like she’s not sure how to end this conversation. There was a time when we would have hugged each other tight, but that time has long since passed.
“Suzie…” I start to say that I want to believe her, but that I’m still not sure if I can. They’re words that her eyes tell me she’s already well aware of. It seems redundant to say them out loud when she’s clearly already heard them in her own head. “How do you know all of this?” I decide to ask the easy question rather than the hard one.
Suzie smiles and it’s not the fake or harsh smile that I’ve seen from her recently. It’s a real Suzie smile that reaches her eyes. “They think I’m stupid, and I guess I was so out of my mind on drugs for a while that they figured I wouldn’t take anything in that they talked about. But I paid attention. It’s easy to overhear things that you’re not supposed to when people don’t think anything of you.” The last words are sad, but she shrugs like it’s no big deal.
“They should’ve known better than to underestimate you.” I find myself speaking before I’ve had a chance to moderate what I’m saying. I want to kick myself for letting Suzie through that chink in my armor.
“Thanks, Aimee. That means a lot coming from you.” Her shoulders relax and it seems like a weight has been taken off of her.
“I know how hard it must have been for you to come here.” I take a few steps towards her and she looks at me somewhat afraid, as if it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that I might try to hit her. “Thank you.” I hold out my hand for her to shake, surprising myself. I might be kicking myself for this later if Suzie disappoints me again. But the truth is, I don’t have a whole lot of other options. Either I believe Suzie and give her a chance to redeem herself, or I don’t and I’m right back to where I started with no real clue of how to get to the Angels.
Suzie hesitates for a split second before taking my hand, as if she’s worried it might be a trick. We shake, and I notice how thin her hand is. It feels like, if I squeezed her too hard, it might be liable to break.
“I’m sorry for what they did to you,” I tell her, looking in her eyes and wondering if I would have been stronger if I’d been in her position, or if I would have fallen just like she did.
“I’ll be fine. I land on my feet.” Suzie shrugs, brushing off my words, but I can tell from the sheen in her eyes that they’ve affected her. She drops my hand and steps away, but she seems lighter than when she’d arrived, like she’d managed to get rid of something just by taking my hand. “I should go,” she repeats, and this time her legs follow her mouth and she starts to edge away from me, as if she’s afraid of making any sudden moves that might change my mind about her. “When I find out about the next drop-off, I’ll be in touch. You’ll need to be ready.”
“Don’t worry, I will be,” I assure her, unconsciously weighing the packet of drugs in my hand.
Suzie just nods, turns around, and walks away from me. I’m sure it isn’t my imagination but she seems to walk a little straighter, stand a little taller, than she did before. I wonder if she’ll be able to keep it together and stay clean. I’ve never experienced addiction—it’s just not in my nature—but I can see how easy it would be to slip down that road. If I hadn’t had my mom to look after when my dad died, then I might not have stayed on the straight and narrow. The amount of addiction, be it alcohol or drugs, that goes on in Painted Rock is testament to how hard things have been for this town.
Suddenly, I don’t feel like I can judge Suzie for what she’s done. It was one of my dad’s favorite sayings—that you shouldn’t judge a person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. Or, I suppose in this case, her high heeled wedges. Yet again, my dad was right. He usually was.
“Thanks Dad.” I look up at the sky as I say the words. “You’re still looking out for me, even after all this time.”
As I head back to the studio I feel like something has clicked into place and it takes me a while to figure out what it is. The burden of the anger that I was feeling towards Suzie has been lifted. I’m not saying that I can forget what she did, but I think I can start to forgive, or at least to understand, and that takes a whole lot less energy than hating someone.
I head straight for the cell phone that Agent Warner had given me the night before and press the call button in one smooth movement.
‘Warner.” The voice on the line is short and serious; he’s clearly a guy that doesn’t do small talk.
“Warner, it’s Aimee. Aimee Winters.” I suddenly feel like we should have come up with some kind of codename rather than using my own name. This isn’t a movie, Aimee, the little voice in my head snaps me out of it before I can go any further down the secret agent line of thought.
“I know who it is, Ms. Winters. Did you have something for me or is this a social call?” He’s more sarcastic than he is in real life, but I think that I can sense the hint of a smile on the other end of the line.
“Yeah, I missed your sparkling conversation,” I reply without missing a beat, and there’s a soft chuckle through the phone.
“As much fun as it is standing here, trading zingers with you. I’m assuming you have something for me?” I can almost hear him taking the notebook out of his pocket.
“We have someone on the inside.” Until that moment I hadn’t quite appreciated the enormity of what we’d achieved in just a day.
“Can you trust them?” Warner doesn’t even sound surprised—he’s straight down to business.
I take a deep breath, this was the question that I knew he was going to ask, but at the same time I was hoping that he wouldn’t. “As much as I can trust anyone else on the inside with the Angels. Yes, I think so.” I breathe out as I say the words and I’m surprised to feel that they have a ring of truth about them. I shake my head. This wasn’t where I thought I would be 24 hours ago, but, as living in this town my whole life has taught me, things can change within a minute in this place. You either roll with the punches or you get left behind.
“Good. Anything else?” Warner doesn’t sound as impressed as I thought he would be. But I have to remind myself: This isn’t kindergarten. I’m not going to get a gold star every time I get something right.
So I tell him about the Angels’ link with the Mexican drug cartel and the heroin sample that she gave me.
“There’s a white van parked on the opposite side of the street. You see it?” Warner doesn’t even miss a beat.
“What? How do you even know where I am?” I ask, as I head over to the window where I see a beaten up old white van parked so that it’s out of view of the road, but right in view of the shop. From that vantage point they can see whoever comes and goes. “You’re spying on me?” I shout down the phone.
“Not spying, just making sure that you’re safe. There’s a difference. Besides, they’re not there all the time. It would draw too much attention. They check in every now and again. But right now they’re here to drop off your wire.” Warner gives his explanation as if what he were talking about was the most normal thing in the world. I suppose, for him, it is.
“And you couldn’t have told me about this yesterday?” The idea of having someone watch my movements, even if it’s only to keep an eye out, is creepy. It feels a little too close to the way that the Angels operate.
“The less you know, the better.” I can almost hear Warner shrug over the phone.
“Whatever.” I know there’s no point in arguing so I don’t even bother—it’s not going to get us anywhere and I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t nice to have a little security. “Our insider is going to let me know when the next drug drop-off is going to be. You guys have to be ready to move fast, because we’re not going to get a big window.”
“Understood.” Warner doesn’t offer anything else and I take that as a signal that our conversation is over.
“So should I head on over to the van and collect my wire, or what? Doesn’t seem very stealthy,” I mutter as I look out of the window.
“They’ve gone.” Warner confirms and I can’t help but look behind me to see if he’s watching me from inside my apartment. “Like I said, they come and go. You’re not the only person they’re watching. They’ve left the wire in a clear bag in your refrigerator. Instructions of how to use it are inside.”
“Your guys broke in?” This is totally not okay. “What gives you the right?” I open the refrigerator and, just as he had described, there’s a small rectangular box sitting on the second shelf, staring at me.
“Well, like you said, we’re stealthy.” I wonder if it’s my imagination, or if does really sound like Warner is enjoying this.
“Great. Anything else I should know?” I ask, starting to unpack the wire.
“Yeah, you’re out of milk.” Then the line goes dead. I grab the carton from the doorway and shake it. It sounds like there’s about a drop left.
“Goddamn!” I throw it in the trash, miss, and have to walk over to throw it away. “Who knew the Feds were such a laugh riot?” I ask myself in the empty studio.
“Who’s a laugh riot?” A voice behind me asks, and I jump about three feet into the air. Dammit, doesn’t anyone ask to be invited in anymore?
I whirl around and come face to face with Jake’s mom. “Sally, I didn’t hear you come in!” It sounds more polite than “Did you forget how to knock?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle, you. It’s just that you were on the phone and I didn’t want to disturb you…” Her voice trails off as she looks around the room, and I wonder if she sees Jake in all the little crevices and corners, just like I do. She seems to make a decision and turns back towards the door “I should go.”
“No, Sally, wait. You don’t have to leave. You just caught me off-guard, is all. Take a seat.” I motion her towards the couch. It’s only when she sits down that I realize I’m still holding the package that the Feds had broken into the studio to deliver. It’s just a rectangular box, it’s not like it has “Secret FBI Wire” written on it in big red letters. But I feel too conspicuous just holding it so I shove it back in the refrigerator where I’d found it. “I would offer you a coffee or something, but we’re out of milk.” I smile apologetically at her.
“Don’t worry, I don’t want to put you out. I just wanted to come over to talk to you. I know that you and your mother had a few cross words the last time you spoke, but there’s no reason to let things fester. She loves you and she’s just concerned for you. She doesn’t want to see you get yourself into any trouble.” Sally’s earnestness on behalf of my mother is touching, but I have a sneaking suspicion that’s not the only reason she’s here.
“I know that, Sal. I guess we still have a few things to work through. It’s been a big change, her coming back to the land of the living. It’s hard.” I shrug, not knowing how else to explain it. “But I can’t focus on that right now. I just need to do what has to be done and then I can figure out whatever needs to happen between Mom and me. Is she alright?” I ask, abruptly, wondering if she’d had a relapse and was suddenly how she was before, a shell of the women we used to know.
Sally can obviously see the panic on my face and she shakes her head, waving her arms to show that what I’m thinking isn’t what’s going on. “Yes, she’s fine. It’s nothing like that,” she says gently, squeezing my elbow as I take a seat next to her.
“Good. Good.” I breathe a sigh of relief and then it’s time to focus on the real reason that Sally has come here. I had been pretty good at psychology in high school—I guess it had sort of become a bit of a hobby of mine—and what I’ve learned is telling me that Sally hasn’t come here to patch things up between my mom and me. She’s here to talk about something that’s harder for her than she probably cares to admit. “What’s up, Sal?” I ask, hopefully nudging her in the direction that she needs to be encouraged towards.
“What you said to me, about telling you the secret I’ve been keeping—I think I’m ready to do it,” Sally admits, looking down at her lap where she keeps fiddling with her hands.