Scarlet
“Well, first of all, you have to use whatever tools you’ve got,” my father told me once, when he’d had one too many whiskies and was in one of his more talkative moods. “But you can’t let shame or embarrassment or social rules get in the way of that. Say, for example, you’re a black man—or woman—working a case on the KKK. If this officer discovers a way to use the color of their skin to disturb the KKK, should that be taboo? Or let’s be more specific. I was once working a case on a homosexual serial killer. One of my tactics was to go into the club and pretend to be homosexual to get some information. Now, a woman couldn’t have done that. Does that make it wrong? There is no wrong, within limits, Scarlet. There’s only winning and losing.”
I always got the sense that dad was embarrassed for telling me that story, but it is advice I’ve never forgotten. You have to use what you have in any situation. If that means using the loudness of a concert to mask your approach or the quietness of a library to startle somebody, fine. And if that also means using the fact that you’re in your underwear and there’s a coke-snorting psychopath in the passenger seat, well, that’s fine too. I catch Cormac’s eye and try to communicate to him that this is all just a game, to go along with it, and to be ready. He looks back at me, nodding.
We drive north, heading toward the freeway through the nowhere towns we’ve been driving up and down for the past couple of days. The plan was always to go back to New York eventually, but not like this.
“Shall we call ahead and tell the boss we’re on our way?” the bald man called Bryan asks.
“Get your nose outta his ass, man. You’re always sniffing around there. Mickey’s a good guy, I won’t deny it, but you’ve always got your nose right up his asshole.”
“You’ve told them we work for Mickey now, you dumb fuck.” Bryan sighs. “You really are a stupid cokehead cunt, you know that?”
“You work for Mickey?” Cormac laughs. “I knew the blonde rat was a fucking idiot the second I saw him, but you, Bryan? You seem like a smart man.”
Bryan doesn’t say anything, just turns onto a dusty road with sparse traffic, the freeway a tiny dot in the distance.
“Oh, don’t call him a rat,” I say, making my voice syrupy and disgusting, the kind of voice hookers use with their clients. If there’s any irony in me being able to be like this with a stranger and not with Cormac without feeling uncomfortable, now isn’t the time to think about it. “He’s not a rat. He was very nice when he put me in the car—very gentle.”
“Exactly!” Harold grins, snapping his fingers. “Exactly. That’s exactly right.”
I look in the rear-view and see that Bryan looks confused, but not hostile. Which means my performance is at least halfway convincing.
“We should’ve gagged them,” Bryan murmurs. “Maybe we’ll stop and—”
“Oh, baby,” I say, directing my voice toward Harold. He’s the coked-up one. If there’s an out here, it’s him. “Oh, baby, don’t let him gag me. Then you won’t be able to hear my sweet voice.”
“You’re a woman all right,” Harold says. “Yeah, you’re a woman. You’re the real thing. There’s no doubt about that. No doubt at all. You’re a woman if I’ve ever seen one.”
“Harold.” I speak in a low voice, as though only he can hear. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure you can.” He watches me in the rear-view. I make sure to keep smiling and to keep looking pretty. Somewhere faraway maggots are crawling over my skin. But I keep it professional. I can see Cormac, out of the corner of my eye, getting angrier and angrier, his hand gripping his knee. But he knows what I’m doing and stays quiet. Harold says, “You can tell me any damn thing you please. Look at those titties!”
I lick my lips, pout them, and then say in the sweetest voice I can manage, “I’ve always had a, well, a sort of, you know ...oh, it’s so hard to say!” I giggle. I wonder if I’m going too far, but he looks completely enraptured. Even Bryan, the smarter of the two, keeps glancing at me in the mirror. “I’ve always had this fantasy of a big, strong man with a big, hard gun crashing into my room and taking me—you know, just really making me his. I’m sure you’ve heard of girls with similar fantasies before.”
“Well, yeah, but not, ahem, not in real life.” Porn, of course. In porn he has.
“But I can never find a man who can, really, like, perform. Hehe!” The laugh is a sorority girl caricature. But Harold doesn’t see through the performance. He’s in too deep now. “I was wondering if you ...”
“I’ve never had a problem performing,” Harold says proudly.
“No, neither have I,” Bryan says, and that’s how I know I’ve got them both.
I’m constantly amazed by what a woman’s body can do. One minute you have men who are on their guard, ready for anything—men who see you as a threat. The next they see you as a piece of sex ready to be taken; they forget that you’re an FBI agent. They forget everything apart from their cocks. Their minds get fogged and you have control.
“Ooh, look over there!” I squeak. “Look at that!”
I point off the road, where an old abandoned barn sits, a burned-out shell of a tractor resting beside it.
“What about it?” Harold says, but Bryan is already slowing down.
“It’s so silly,” I say. “It’s, like, oh, hehe, it’s like, so, so silly. But what if we sort of pulled up and then got out, and we could see if my fantasy is as good in real life as it is in my head. Do you know what I mean? I don’t want you to think I’m a slut, or anything.”
“I’d never say that about you,” Harold says with so much sincerity I almost laugh. “I’d never insult you like that. Bryan, just pull up a second, will you?”
“It could be a trick,” Bryan says quietly. “What if she’s playing us?”
“Look at her!” Harold snaps. “She’s a skinny woman in her fucking underwear! Why would she play us? What does she think she can do? No, she wants it. I knew she was game when I saw those teddies.”
Bryan stares at me in the rear-view mirror. “And you’ll do both of us, sweetheart? Is that it?”
I nod, biting my lip and giggling. “Of course, baby. Whatever you want.”
“But me first.” Harold pinches some coke from his bag and rubs it over his gums. “I don’t want you there, watching me. All right? Me first. That’s the deal. Or I’ll kill everyone and then myself.”
“All right, all right. You first.”
Bryan turns the car toward the barn. I glance at Cormac, seeing that his face is red and his fists are clenched, shaking. He looks like he might try something. I shake my head subtly. If he tries something now, all that will happen is the spell will break and my plan will fail. Even the strongest men can’t break out of handcuffs.
The car comes to a stop just outside the barn. It’s empty inside except for some old, rusted equipment. Looking back at the road, I see that it’s farther away then it seemed, the road now a tiny snaking line just short of the horizon. Harold drums his fingers on the dashboard like a man who’s just found out he’s got the promotion. “We hit the jackpot today!” Bryan reaches across and takes the bag of coke from Harold, pouring out way more than he should onto the dash and vacuuming it in one quick snort. Maybe Bryan’s been coked up this whole time, too, which would make sense since he’s not seeing through my act.
“Me first! Me first!” Harold leaps from the car. I’m dismayed to see that he still has the presence of mind to pick up his shotgun from the foot well. Then he comes around to my door and opens it. He looks for a moment at my handcuffs, as though this might remind him of what exactly he’s doing.
I force my lips into a wide, flirtatious smile. “What’re you waiting for, baby?”
“Nothing!” He grins, reaching into his pocket and unlocking my handcuffs. “Nothing at all.”
I walk toward the barn with Harold’s gun aimed at the back of my head, with the knowledge that if I mess this up, I’m dead, and maybe Cormac as well. The barn reeks of old, rusted metal, dampness, and shit. But Harold doesn’t seem to notice. He leads me deep into the barn, to some old dusty boxes.
“Look at that ass move,” he says, sighing heavily. “I’ve never seen an ass move like that.”
I turn around, smiling, always smiling, and watch as he leans the shotgun up against a supporting beam and then starts fumbling with his pants.
“Here,” I say, stepping forward. “Let me help you with that.”
“Oh, sure!” He drops his hands.
I don’t think he realizes what’s happened until he’s flat on his back with my heel digging into his face, over and over, stamping quickly and brutally. When he tries to scream, I grab the shotgun and shove the barrel into his mouth, just like he did with me back in the motel room.
“You stupid fuck,” I say, forcing the weapon down his throat. “You think a woman who’s just been kidnapped wants to be screwed, you moron? Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to come out with me quietly, and your partner is going to set my friend free. Otherwise, I’ll blow your brains out the back of your skull.” His eyes go wide, but not just in fear. Recognition, too. Like he’s seeing me for the first time—like, in fact, this flirty, giggly sorority girl has just transformed into an efficient FBI agent.
I get him to his feet and then walk him slowly out to the sedan. Bryan is pacing up and down like a man in a waiting room, smoking a cigarette. When he goes for his gun, I scream, “Take one more step and I’ll cover you in his fucking brains!” He stops, dropping his cigarette. “Back up, all the way over there.” I nod toward the barn. “Back the fuck up.” He doesn’t have any choice but to do what I say, so he goes and stands at the entrance to the barn.
I lead Harold to the car, to Cormac’s side, all the while keeping one eye on Bryan. “Now unlock my friend.”
When I take the barrel of the gun out of his mouth so he can turn around, he coughs and splutters, dribbling down his chin. But then he reaches into his pocket, takes out the handcuff keys, opens the door, and unlocks Cormac. Cormac was right; he is a rat. All through this, he scurries through his movements, eager to get them done, eager to be of help. A perverted, dirty rat. Cormac jumps from his seat, goes into the front, and takes Bryan’s shotgun. Half a minute later Bryan and Harold are backed against the barn door, huddled together, their hands over their heads and kneeling in the dust.
“You thought you’d fuck her, is that it?” Cormac steps forward and presses the gun against Harold’s head. “You thought you’d take her, lad? Aye?” His voice sounds more like a mobster’s when he gets angry. I see the man he must be when he’s on a job. “Are you deranged in the fucking head? I ought to cover this barn with your guts.”
“Cormac,” I say. “We can’t kill them. That’s just not—we can’t kill them, okay?”
Cormac sighs. “Okay.” He knocks out Harold with two vicious smacks across the jaw with the barrel of the shotgun, holding it like a baseball bat, and then drops the shotgun and knocks out Bryan with four, five, six brutal punches to the face. When he stands up, his face is flecked with blood and he’s shaking with rage. I go to him, putting my hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “It’s done now. We’re safe.”
“Just couldn’t stand the way they were talking about you,” Cormac says, still trembling. “And I know it was for an act, all for an act, but when you started to ... I wanted that car to burst into flames. I mean that.”
“It was all for show.”
We drag them into the barn and handcuff them together around a weak bannister. They’ll be able to get free, but not before we’re long gone.
“I wonder who they work for,” I say.
“You know I have my theory. Let’s see if they’ve got some clothes in the trunk. We can’t have you walking around like that all damn day.”
Cormac busts open the trunk with the shotgun, and then my world begins to fall apart. Hearing about something, suspecting it, and having it happen are two completely different things. This isn’t a shortened name now. This isn’t Cor. The jackets in the back of the car are blue with yellow letters on the back—three letters: F, B, and I. And the trousers are the same kind I’ve worn to crime scenes before, and the holsters, and the ... Everything in here is FBI-issued.
I’m on my knees, hunched over, vomiting violently into the dust.
“No, no, no,” I whisper. “No, it can’t be true. It can’t be true. Not the FBI. Not my FBI.”
Cormac kneels beside me, rubbing my shoulder. “Shit, Scar, shit. I know. This is—shit.”
“I thought ...” I rise to my feet, wobbling, but managing to stay upright. “I thought it would just be Max Smithson if it was anybody, you know. I didn’t think it’d go so deep. This is—this is too much, Cormac. This is just too much. This is my life.” I walk toward the car. “Anyway, it’s a good job I left my gun back in that motel room.”
“How’s that?” he asks, looking at me with a funny expression. It’s like he expects me to start crying at any moment. But I can’t cry. Tears will lead to more tears, on and on, and soon I’ll be stuck in an endless cycle of tears and regret and anxiety. You have to keep going, that’s what I’ve learned. No matter what, just keep moving forward.
“Because there’s a tracker in my gun, probably.” I climb into the driver’s seat. “Most likely how they found us.”
Cormac looks at me from the passenger seat, eyeing me up and down. “Sure you can drive like that?”
“In my underwear, with no shoes?” I force out a laugh. “I’m professional, remember? Of course I can.”