Scarlet
“Cormac Mackay ... hasn’t he given us information in the past? It could be useful.”
My boss, Max Smithson, leans back in his oversized chair and drums his fingers against his desk. Outside, the sun is glaring, and I can’t help but notice the way it glints off his shiny cufflinks. He’s a big man, with a big jowly face and serious dark eyes. When he sighs, the whole room seems to rumble. I sit with my back straight, exuding an aura of professionalism I’ve spent years cultivating. Finally, Max leans forward and smiles at me in that odd way he has. It’s the sort of smile that makes a woman wonder whether or not pepper spray is a sound investment. I realize he’s waiting for my answer.
“Yes, well, sort of.”
“Sort of?” He raises a bushy grey eyebrow. I wish they’d close the curtains in here. My head is throbbing from an overnight session combing CCTV tapes for a drug deal. I should’ve let one of the new agents do that, I was told by half a dozen of my colleagues. But if the devil is in the detail, it’s only fair I go after him myself. Plus, other people might miss something. “What do you mean by sort of?”
“He’s never testified. He’s loyal to his family. He just sometimes nudges me in the right direction.”
“And in return, you don’t arrest his sorry ass. He sounds like a confidential informant to me.”
Max hooks his thumbs through his waistband and stands up, causing his chair to whine painfully. He goes to the window and looks down upon the city. Boats and ships leave and enter New York Harbor. Somewhere faraway a car backfires. A New Yorker screams at another New Yorker in the street below. Birds call out. I close my eyes and breathe steadily as Max gazes out of the window, as he always does before issuing an order. It’s not that he gets to order me around; it’s the pleasure he takes in it which annoys me. Everybody knows my father is a skilled FBI agent. And everybody thinks they know that’s why I’m even here. Never mind that I do good work and make good arrests.
He turns to me. There’s a light dusting of donut icing on his lapel, but now doesn’t seem like the right time to bring it up. “What is this, Scarlet?”
I swallow. Scarlet. Like we’re friends at a barbeque. “I don’t follow, sir.”
“If he has requested a meeting, surely you should jump at the opportunity. Maybe he has something important to tell us.” He returns to his chair, but doesn’t sit. Instead, he leans forward and places his hands on the desk. When he looks at me, it’s like he’s trying to look inside me. For a few moments worms crawl up my spine, oozing onto my flesh. Then he laughs, a throaty chuckle and drops into his seat. “You’re cold as ice, O’Bannon. Look, maybe you’ve got a crush on this kid. Maybe you’ve let him get to you. But if we stopped meeting with every confidential informant we wanted to bone, we’d hardly meet with anyone. Okay? Right. Thank you, O’Bannon.”
I stand up, outwardly calm, but inwardly wondering if it’s that obvious or if Smithson was just guessing. As I walk through the office, nodding to people here and there, I think about Cormac Mackay. I don’t have a crush on him. I’m not attracted to him. I’m not invested in him. It’s nothing like that. Cormac Mackay is an Irish mobster, a killer, and a criminal. Every now and then he tells me about some of his rivals and, instead of dying, they get jailed. But he never gives up his own people. Perhaps I should’ve taken him in by now. Perhaps I’m letting something get in the ...
My cell buzzes. I’m searching my bag with my phone in my hand before I realize it’s my second cell, buzzing from a separate compartment. My non-work cell. I check the display and see that it’s Cormac.
I go into the stairwell and answer it.
“O’Bannon,” I say. I’m careful to keep my voice as honed and unemotional as a diamond: a glinting series of jagged edges. No softening for Cormac. I can’t let him get to me.
“That’s a pretty goddamn fancy way to greet me,” Cormac says. His accent is New York intermingled with Irish, a smooth, deep voice that makes me think of sloping green hills and endless expanses of grass and mountains. I force those images down and wait for him to go on. It’s my own Irish blood, I tell myself. It’s betraying me. “I’m at The Leprechaun and there’s no sight of you. I’m starting to think you’re going to stand me up, Scar.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap. “My name is Agent O’Bannon.”
“Can’t exactly say that in here, can I, Scar? Are you on your way, or shall I order some whisky and go and talk to the leggy blonde who’s been eyeing me all afternoon?”
I think about a long-legged, youthful blonde with red flushed cheeks and a fuck-me gaze staring at Cormac across the bar. I think about her wrapping her legs around him and running painted fingernails down his bare chest. Then I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and tell myself to stop this, stop this now. This is no way for a federal agent to behave, even if it’s only in my head.
“Your love life is none of my concern, Mr. MacKay.”
“Mr. MacKay.” Cormac laughs. It’s carefree, as though he’d never consider letting a problem enter his field of vision, let alone bother him. Cormac is wind, I reflect. Cormac is nature. Cormac is a wave that rolls across the ocean and laps over anything that gets in its way. And what does that make me? A gnarled tree root unwilling to move, maybe. “Listen.” He lowers his voice. “We both know you are obligated to come here, by your job, so why don’t we just move this thing along to the part where you tell me you’ll be here in five? You can sound unhappy about it, if it makes you feel better.”
I hang up the phone without replying. Let him stew for a while.
But half an hour later, after changing into something less FBI-like, I’m approaching The Leprechaun. Outside, there’s a giant model of a leprechaun, the green of his outfit turned to grey where wind and sun and rain have battered it over the years. But the sign is brand new, green and flashing. When I push on the door, the atmosphere inside washes over me, the same way another climate will wash over you upon stepping out of an airplane. Whisky, fried meat, more whisky, cigarette smoke drifting in from the outside smoking area, sweat from the working men in the corner, and perfume from the girls giggling at the bar. I find Cormac sitting at a booth, one foot in the aisle, forefinger stroking around the edge of his glass.
This would be a hell of a lot easier if he wasn’t so attractive.
He’s a year older than me, twenty-eight, with thick, dark-red hair, and a short brown-and-red beard. His eyes are the most devastating part of his face: they’re wolf-blue, ice-blue, a blue that makes me think of frost and winter and secrets. He is well-built, six-foot-one with wide shoulders. Today he’s wearing a checked green shirt and jeans, his body looking comfortably powerful. He hasn’t got those showy bodybuilder muscles; Cormac is built like a soldier, a man accustomed to violence. And his smile always makes me wonder what joke I’m missing.
“Wow,” he says. “You look incredible, Scar.”
I can’t help but smile at the compliment, but even as I do, I tell myself it’s not me smiling—not Agent O’Bannon. It’s the character I play whilst meeting with Cormac. That’s all. I’m wearing a sea-green dress the same color as my eyes, and dark-red heels the same color as my hair, which is tussled around my shoulders instead of tied up in a ponytail like it is when I’m working. I’m tall, at around five-foot-nine, and thin from all my running and swimming. I’ve seen Cormac looking at me plenty of times during meetings like this, especially at my legs. Once or twice I’ve even let my mind wonder what he might be thinking. I wonder if my thighs would feel good squeezed around his hips, wonder if—
I kill the thought.
“Let’s keep this professional,” I say.
“Sure. Drink?” He sits up and folds his hands, making his face faux serious. “I mean to say, would it be acceptable of me to ask if you’d like a drink in a completely professional capacity?”
“For a thug, you can sure talk fancy when you feel like it.”
I don’t know why I’m trying to needle him, but it doesn’t work anyway. He just smiles that carefree smile. “Do you think the Don would let his son grow up to be a moron? No, ma’am. My father didn’t even want me in the life at first, hence all the fancy speak. Would you prefer me to talk like this, Scar? Come over ’ere and get to suckin’, woman.” He flashes his grin.
“I’ll have a diet cola.”
Cormac waves a hand and calls over to the bar for a diet cola. A few heads turn to watch us. I wish he’d just go up and order like every other man. But he isn’t every other man. A tingle runs down my spine. It’s cold in here, I tell myself. The air conditioning is set too low.
“You don’t want to ruin that beautiful lipstick,” Cormac says, handing me a straw.
I want to throw the straw away and sip the sofa defiantly, but the truth is applying lipstick can be a real pain, so I take the straw.
“You have information for me,” I say.
“Do I?” He knocks his whisky back, and I’m forced to wait as the waiter brings him another. After taking a sip of this one, he says, “That’s news to me.”
“You left a message at the drop box telling me you have information.”
“Oh, yeah!” He snaps his fingers. “I wanted to know what sort of movies you like. See, I’ve got a contact at a local theater and I thought we’d go sometime. Sit in the back, you know, get nice and comfortable. Maybe you could wear that smoking hot dress. Maybe I’d lay off the whisky and stay nice and sober for you. And then maybe you’d lean into me and I’d wrap my arm around you, and then—” He must be able to see the effect he’s having on me. He leans in close. I feel his breath on my cheek. “—we could go back to my place.”
I’m always surprised by how strong the urge is inside of me. It’s like something animal. It’s like something totally new. Ever since Tess, sweet Tess, innocent Tess, dead Tess—ever since my little sister drowned to death and the whole world cracked asunder and spilled out pain like magma, I’ve disciplined myself to control my emotions. But Cormac can somehow circumvent all my defenses. The bastard. The prick. Because maybe I’d like to feel the tickle of his beard against my pussy one of these days. Maybe, in some alternate universe, that’d feel pretty good. But not in this universe. No way. Not here. Not now.
“If you haven’t got anything useful to tell me,” I say, “I don’t see any reason for me to stay here. And I have to inform you, Mr. MacKay, that wasting my time is hardly a good idea. We may have worked together in the past to take down your rivals, but please do not make the mistake of thinking your own organization untouchable.”
Cormac laughs, shaking his head. “Sometimes, Scar, you can be a real wall, you know that? A brick fucking wall. Fine, let me tell you why I’ve dragged you all the way out here in that sweet goddamn dress.” A man dressed in a fancy new leprechaun outfit bursts from the kitchen with a birthday cake in his hand. As Cormac speaks, the man sings happy birthday to a couple of ten-year-old twins dressed in matching red shirts. “I’ve brought you here because I’m starting to think you guys might have somebody in our organization. Weird stuff has been happening. People missing deliveries. People going missing. My cousin, Mickey, has been dark for about a week now. And yesterday I found out two of the guys who’ve gone missing are locked up, but not in New York. They’re in LA, somehow.” He stares at me with what I think might be a hint of worry. “What’s going on, Scar?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “This is the first I’m hearing of this.”
“Shit. Really?” He leans back, letting out a long breath.
I hate to admit it, but I’m touched by how quickly he believes me. He just accepts it. No second guessing. No questioning. He trusts me. A criminal trusting an FBI agent is not a good idea, and yet Cormac does it anyway. I see an image: me and Cormac, curled up in a hammock on some tropical island sipping martinis and exchanging kisses. I kill the image before it tempts me toward alcohol.
“That’s a shame,” he says. “I was counting on you having at least some clue. I don’t know, Scar. It’s just strange. I heard these boys in LA were with the feds. That’s what my contact says, anyway. Don’t you all talk to each other?”
“It’s conceivable that an agent arrested them here and sent them there to keep it quiet,” I say. Using words like “conceivable” brings me back to reality. A woman who’d given herself utterly to pleasure with the wrong man wouldn’t use that word. “But if that’s the case, I haven’t heard anything about it.”
“Can you find out?” he asks.
“Yes, but I can’t tell you.”
His face drops. I feel absurdly guilty. I need to remember the boundaries. I need to remember who he is and who I am. “Sometimes I wish I’d taken shit more seriously,” he says.
“When?” I ask.
“Always, since I was a kid. Shooting my mouth off. Drinking. Messing around with women.” He looks away on the last one, as though embarrassed by saying it. I don’t know why. I’m not jealous. I don’t care. “So that when shit like this starts happening, at least I’d know what to do. I need to speak with my old man. He’ll have some idea of it. But we don’t need to cut our evening off right now, do we, Scar? Sure you don’t want a drink—a proper drink?” He lurches forward and takes my hand. His hand is larger than mine; I can feel the dormant power in it, each finger a piece of a giant crushing mechanism. I know it’s a hand that has performed countless acts of violence. But as he strokes his thumb along my knuckles, all I can think is: how would it feel if he was stroking my clit instead? “Or we could get out of here. We both know we want to. We both know we’ve wanted to since you first rocked into the compound in that sleek business suit.”
When he mentions my FBI attire, I remember who I am. “I’m going to freshen up,” I say, withdrawing my hand. For some reason, that political exit seems necessary. I don’t want to push him off too firmly. I don’t want to make it so he never tries it again. The floor doesn’t feel like wood or stone as I walk to the bathroom. It feels like crackling ice.
In the bathroom, I stare at myself in the mirror. A bead of sweat slides down my forehead. My chest is rising and falling, my B-cup breasts pushed up. I’m dressed like a woman who wants to seduce her date. I look like a woman who can’t wait to tear this carefully chosen outfit off and sprawl naked and sweating on silk sheets.
I shake my head, turning away from the mirror. I need to remember myself. I need to remember Tess. I need to remember that I’m an FBI agent, which tonight I’ll tell myself means Fucking Behave Innocently. Maybe that’ll help me keep things in perspective.