Scarlet
The problem of seeing Cor everywhere I look is heightened as I go from bar to bar, searching for him. I go into six bars and see six different men who could be Cor. I can’t explain this aching I have for him. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt. I think back over my brief flings in the academy, and then afterward, on the job. I try to work out if any of them made me feel anything close to this. Some of them made me feel something, at least I had thought so at the time. But comparing it with this, all my past relationships—not that any of them were relationships—seem petty and trivial. I was just playing at feeling something. As I roam the streets, searching for him, I imagine the two of us in bed together, not even having sex, but just lying there with hot chocolate watching bad TV. Right now, that seems like heaven.
I approach the barman at the seventh bar with a photograph of Cor ready on my phone. “Excuse me,” I say. “Have you seen with man around here, maybe sometime yesterday?” The man barely even looks at me. None of them do. He just glances at the photograph and shakes his head. “Are you sure?” I don’t move, just standing there with the photograph in his face. “He can be quite charming. Maybe he cracked a joke. He has an Irish-American accent.” The man shakes his head firmly, and I’m forced to leave.
I walk down the street, wondering what Max Smithson is up to. I learned about his absence this morning when I got into work. Nobody’s heard from him. I wonder if he’s with Mickey somewhere, planning something. I wonder if it’s time to enact our plan with Moira, but the idea of it makes me feel dirty and mean. I just wish I could turn all this back—that we could sit in The Leprechaun and flirt without pain and violence. I even find myself longing for that two-bed motel room. It seems like a lifetime ago that I pulled a gun on Cor.
I tell myself that I’m continuing my investigation, but really, I know that it’s my desire to reclaim a tiny piece of the past that sends me to The Leprechaun. The model leprechaun out front has been painted since I was last there. Now it’s bright green, his face a healthy pink color. Inside, the place has been fully converted to make it family friendly. Nothing of the old, grimy décor survives. Everything is smooth, with clean surfaces, brand-new, bright-green cushioned couches for the booths, and stylish chairs for the tables; even the barstools have new green cushions. As I enter, a teenager with braces, who looks like she’d rather be anywhere else, smiles and says, “Top of the morning to you, lassie. Do you have an appointment?” She has the strongest New York accent I’ve ever heard, without a hint of Irish.
I shake my head and go to the bar. It’s afternoon, so I order a diet coke and sit there, listening to the Irish folk songs that play quietly beneath the sound of families talking, people laughing, and glasses clinking together. It will be time to pass on Moira’s whereabouts to the mob soon, I think, with a pit in my stomach. Pass on her whereabouts and use her as bait. I sip my coke, feeling rotten. The only upside is that it will all be controlled. If Mickey himself comes to pick her up, we’ll get him right there and then. If it’s one of Mickey’s cronies, we’ll follow him and have our people move in for the arrest. Moira knows that something like this might happen. She’s asked about it several times, looking at me with an expression that reminds me of Cor—brave and ready to do what’s necessary.
“It will be controlled,” I tell myself, but I don’t feel any better about it. Sometimes being in the FBI sucks.
I’m about to leave when a huge man sits next to me. He’s so big that I have to crane my neck to look up into his face. It’s the ugliest face I’ve ever seen. His nose has been broken too many times to count, and it’s crooked and bent out of shape. His eyes are close together, one a dim blue and the other a dirty green. His mouth is small and mean, and he doesn’t have a chin. His lower lip seems to lead directly into his neck. His hair is a bowl cut, black specked with grey. He must be seven feet, or maybe taller, wearing a clean, cheap grey suit that’s too tight for him, stretching at the arms. I know the face well. I’ve stared it at in FBI files enough times over the past two months. It’s Mickey MacFarland.
On instinct, I reach for my gun. Mickey shakes his giant head. “If you do that, I’ll have to crush your skull. People think it’s very difficult to crush a skull. They think a skull is such a strong thing. But it’s not, especially if your hands are strong and used to crushing skulls.” He pauses thoughtfully. “My hands are strong and used to crushing skulls. Little lady skulls. You might have a gun and a suit and shoes and all the things women cover themselves in to try and feel like men, but you’re still a little lady. Don’t forget that. Put your hands on the bar and don’t make a scene. You know I’ll kill you here. I wouldn’t like that very much, but I will.”
In one of the files I’ve read, Mickey MacFarland broke a man’s back by throwing him to the floor and kicking him once. One swift kick to the back, and the man will never walk again. In another, he slaughtered two prostitutes by hacking them to pieces with an axe. In another ... fear roots me to the chair. Slowly, I bring my hands to the bar and lay them flat. For a few seconds my FBI training drifts way, but I wrench it back. I have to try and talk with him.
His barstool creaks as he leans forward to gesture to the barmaid. “Excuse me,” he says, in a polite voice. “Would it be too much trouble if you brought me a lemonade, please? Thank you.” When he turns to me, his smile is all gums. “Manners make people think you’re a nice man. I like that.”
The barmaid brings him the lemonade. When she asks me if I want anything, I shake my head, smiling like everything’s okay. Mickey is insane. I’m sure of it. Calculating and clever in his own way, but also insane. You can’t do the things he’s done and be sane.
“Aren’t you thirsty?” he asks, concern in his voice. He has a voice that can shift at will. One second he’s menacing and the next he’s my old friend asking me what’s wrong. “You have to stay hydrated, although coke isn’t very good for that. You see, coke has caffeine in it and caffeine dehydrates you. Once I had strep throat and the doctor told me to say away from coke and drink water instead. I told him I liked the fizziness, so he said fizzy water. But I didn’t like that either. In the end we settled on lemonade. Would you like to try some?” After taking a sip, he thrusts the glass into my face. When he leans across, I see the guns inside his jacket—a sawn-off shotgun and a pistol dangling in a holster.
“I’m okay, thank you—”
He pushes the glass until it’s pressed against my lips. It’s either sip or let it spill over myself. I mean to take a small sip, but Mickey tips the glass so I’m forced to gulp it all down.
“There’s a good girl.” He smiles, patting me on the back. I lurch forward. His strength is unbelievable. One hit and he could send me through the bar. He would, too. That’s the scariest part. I’ll play along until I get a chance to go for my gun, then I’ll end this. “Aren’t you a good girl?” He squints at me with his mismatched eyes. “Oh, yes, you are. You are a very good girl. Do you know how I know that? Because you’ve been so good about not catching me. All the things I’ve done, but you still let me walk free. What a good, kind girl you are.”
“It makes it easier when you have contacts within the FBI, doesn’t it?” I smile back at him, hoping to give him the impression that we’re two equals having a conversation—hoping to make him comfortable enough to turn his back.
“Not anymore. Your friend Cor took care of that. He was always a pesky brat, Cor was, always getting in the way where he wasn’t wanted. His father, my uncle, loved me more than anybody. I was his favorite. He never said it, because he knew it would offend his little darlings, but it was obvious. Cor was jealous.”
“What do you mean, not anymore?” I think of Max Smithson. “What’s happened?”
“I had three contacts,” he says breezily. It’s an agent’s dream, their suspect confessing without even having to be questioned. “Well, five contacts, but the two you messed with on the road had to be let go ... Two of my current contacts have gone into hiding. Max Smithson will be dead right now. Cor won’t let him live.”
“Cor won’t kill him for spying on the FBI. He’s not FBI.”
“Spying!” He laughs in an oddly feminine way, clutching his sides and giggling. “Is that all you think Max Smithson was up to?” He tells me about the girls and about the torture. “I can show you videos if you like.”
My world reels, spinning too fast. Max Smithson, a murderer and torturer. That’s why he worked with Mickey. Part of me refuses to believe it, but another part of me knows it’s true. All those looks Max gave me over the years have double meanings now. I think I’ll be reliving every meeting I ever had with him for the rest of my life. I shiver. Mickey giggles again.
“Cor is a righteous man. A real hero. He won’t let a villain like that live.”
I remember the car, when I was in my underwear, with the coke-snorting agents. I had to swallow my feelings of revulsion then to save myself. I’ll have to do the same now. Reaching across and laying my hand on his arm makes me want to puke, but I do it. Smiling at him like he’s the funniest, most charming man I’ve ever met makes me want to scream, but I do it. I have no choice. “To be frank with you, Mickey, I’ve always thought the FBI over exaggerated how bad you are. I mean, what have you done that’s that bad? You’re just doing what you have to for your family. All you’re doing is taking what’s yours. To be honest, I think you’re the hero, not Cor.”
I’m sorry, Cor. I don’t mean it.
For a long time, he grins at me, that snakey, gummy grin. Then he shakes his head and starts making a tutting sound. “That must work on a lot of men, the way you look. You are a very attractive lady, Ms. O’Bannon, but please understand that I have spent my life around very attractive ladies. I even procured some for your dear, probably-dead boss. I’m afraid that won’t work on me. It might have, if I didn’t have an even more attractive lady in my care. Oh, she’s a piece, this one. The sweetest thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Like something out of a dream. Like something out of a porn movie. I played a game with her earlier, thinking of titles for the movie I’m going to put her in. Naïve Young Teen Gets Blasted With Cum is my favorite. What do you think?”
I look into his eyes, praying he isn’t saying what I think he is. When that gummy smile gets so wide it reaches from ear to ear, a pit opens in my belly. “You’re lying,” I say, voice trembling.
“Lying?” He shrugs, as though it’s no big deal for him. “So I didn’t go to Hell’s Kitchen to the top floor of an apartment building and pay a visit to Moira? That’s so strange. I thought I did that. Maybe I’m misremembering. And Moira isn’t under my care right now? How strange! I thought she was!” He makes that awful giggling noise. “But I suppose you hard-assed FBI types need proof, don’t you?” He reaches into his pocket and takes out his cellphone.
He’s dressed her in a sparkling red dress and heels. She’s squinting at the camera. A deer in headlights. Tess drowned; now Moira’s drowning. “You better not hurt her,” I snarl. “I swear to God—”
“I bet you thought you were going to try something, didn’t you?” Mickey grins. “Silly girl.”
“What have you done with her?” My hand itches to go for my gun, but Mickey leans forward, his giant bulk ready to topple into me at any second. I have never felt smaller, more defenseless, or more aware of my own size. If he fell on me now, all the firearm training in the world wouldn’t help me. I grip the edge of the bar, digging my fingernails into the wood. “What have you done with her?” I repeat.
He messes with his cellphone, then hands it to me. “Why don’t you hear for yourself?”
I only realize how much I’m sweating when I put the phone to my ear. The touchscreen slides against my skin, my cheek slick. “Hello! Hello! Cor! Scarlet!”
I’m about to respond when Mickey snatches the phone away.
“Here is your choice,” he says, hanging up the phone, then dropping it into his pocket. “You either come with me right now—this second—or I have some special fun with little miss Moira.”
“She’s your cousin.” I see my fist buried in his face, my hands on his throat. I see myself kicking him in the head. Violent images that my FBI training is meant to have made impossible in my well-honed mind rise up like acid. I feel ill. “You sick fuck! Is this how you show what a big man you are, by dressing your cousin up like that?”
I hope to throw him off-balance, but he just stares at me with those mismatched eyes.
“Part of me hopes you don’t come with me,” he says. “That way I will not be forced to withhold my urges. Urges are funny things, really hard to keep in check. So, are you coming, or am I having some fun?”
I want to protest, to shout, or to fight, but then I think of Moira in her pretty dress and Tess sinking like a rock to the bottom of the lake. I think of the way dad looked at me when we all knew there was no life left in Tess and imagine Cor looking at me in the same way. Instead of asking me if I could get her to the shore, Cor will say, “Weren’t you meant to be protecting her?”
“I’m coming with you,” I say, standing up, legs feeling like jelly.
“That’s the right choice.” Mickey nods and throws a bill onto the bar. “Maybe you’re not as stupid as you look, Ms. O’Bannon. Don’t look so sad. We’re going to have a party.”