Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade (Criminal Mischief Book 1) (6 page)

If she were a European, Sergiu explained, she would probably have to be smacked around or beaten into compliance, but he doubted after all that had occurred under the Khmer Rouge the woman would have much fight left.

To pay off her debt, Chantou would be required to work for the mob. She would never know how much her body was being sold for, and the debt she owed to the mob would increase as they fed, clothed, and housed her. In the decade it took her to clear the balance, she would likely become a willing participant, even manipulating other young women who arrived to find themselves in the same position. And then, when she was too old to sell, if she hadn’t first killed herself, been murdered, or overdosed, she’d likely become a house matron, or madame.

And no amount of language charades would allow me to convey this to her.

The man at her side spoke Khmer, and he was telling her something truly terrifying about me, shoving her forward with the box, prodding her toward the exit.

I was following, imploring, “Please, Chantou, please just wait.”

But she was backing away, pointing at me with wild accusations that fell into loud heaving sobs.

Then security arrived.

I learned the Cambodian spoke English. He said, “This woman is assaulting my niece.”

And Chantou wailed agreement.

The guard stopped me while they scurried fast steps for the sliding doors. I tried to explain, “I’m with the Dallas Fort Worth Refugee Agency, and I’ve been sent to collect that woman. She’s an asylum seeker.”

“She seems to be happy with everything except you,” the guard said. “Do you have a badge or ID?”

“Not on me, but if you’ll give me a moment, I will get it.” I watched Chantou merge into the crowd outside the airport and said, “It’s with my associate in the car. I’ll just go get it.” But there was no one in the car and I was driving without a license.

The guard held my arm and suggested, “How about you wait with me for a second?”

“How about not?”

I’d taken us both forward but he hauled us back, proposing, “How about you come with me then?” and walked us through the curious observers. But it was nothing more than a stroll through the turnstiles, wasting time until Chantou and her uncle could leave the area. Off at the empty edge of baggage claim, he released my arm with another suggestion, “Now, how about you go home?”

~~~~~~

It was agreed, I was not the best person to collect women from the airport. Tricia needed to go with someone who spoke Khmer, but no one capable in the language was willing to step into mob territory.

She spoke with an officer who acted as one of the liaisons between the police force and the Cambodian community. He wasn’t surprised to hear anything Tricia said, but he thought there were a few things she should know. Chief among them, the Cambodians were tight and they didn’t talk, especially not to the police who they didn’t trust. And in case she hadn’t heard, the mob was ruthless. The officer had seen a hatchet job of theirs that had required all the carpets to be replaced, both in the apartment on the third floor where the incident had taken place and also in the apartment under it on the second floor.

What Tricia was saying about the missing women was sad, he granted, but an investigation would go nowhere as no one would talk. About all he suspected would come of probing it would be her death. If that’s how she wanted to open the investigation, “Well, that will be the open and close of it, because the Cambodians still won’t talk.”

While Tricia was mulling over that brush off, Mike made a visit to the refugee agency to see how I was getting along. Being as he was ex-FBI, Tricia explained to him about the missing women. He heard it all out, asked some questions, and then wanted to know why she was telling him and not the police.

“Could I take this to the FBI?”

He knew what she hoped to hear and frowned to have to tell her, “I doubt it would be a large enough case to interest the FBI. What you are describing is a matter for the police.”

But before Tricia approached the police again, she wanted more evidence. She wanted to drop undeniable proof on their desks. She understood the Cambodians weren’t going to talk, but there was still the possibility that an American might know something.

Sergiu thought he was punishing me by not speaking to me in the weeks after I left surreptitiously with Rick, but I hadn’t noticed, so Daniel was forced to explain it to me. “He was very hurt and angry.”

“
Why
?”

“I think you know.”

But I didn’t. And I didn’t care enough to press. The whole Eastern Bloc of men were an unending frustration to me, never going for the job interviews I arranged, or sabotaging the ones they did. Eugene and Daniel still hadn’t accepted employment even though I had all but guaranteed them a dozen opportunities.

Daniel had arrived at Tricia’s house in a new BMW to tell me Sergiu had forgiven me and was coming to take me to dinner. Daniel had come with a bag of groceries and a plan to cook moussaka for Tricia, and he wanted me out of the house.

And I did what I was told. Get in the car.
Sure
. Make coffee.
Of course
. Pick people up at the airport.
You got it
. Go eat dinner with Sergiu.
Okay
.

I never said no.

Tricia thought it was my submissive training, years spent acquiescing to a master, but it was my adolescent mentality. I was out of my league, frequently overwhelmed by some new experience but on constant guard not to reveal surprise, thinking everything — the dismembered Cambodians, the missing women, Sergiu’s parade of expensive cars — was all just part of the adult world I had staked claim to. I was deeply tired trying to understand it, and every other bit of minutia as well, all the while maintaining pretenses, careful not to let my English accent slip or expose myself as a fraud. Having done one giant fuck-you-rebellion in getting to Dallas, my beleaguered mind was content to follow directions.

When Sergiu arrived, he said, “Constanzia, come,” and held out his arm to take possession of me. I was already familiar with this habit of his. Countless times before he’d had his hand on my shoulder, guiding me as though I might get lost crossing the carpet. Few people around him were competent enough to transverse small distances without help. But he was rougher with the men. Daniel and Eugene would get shaken while he laughed, gripped until they winced, or pulled into a good-natured, bone-rattling side-hug.

Within the first week of meeting Sergiu, I’d already given up trying to walk unassisted. At first I had tried to drop away, slinking off to the side to slip his hold, but this tended to result in a series of correcting dance steps, or worse, the question, “Why you act like this? I good with you. You want hurt me?” He’d touch his heart, and I’d feel guilty.

Thinking I had made an appalling social plunder, I’d apologize and he’d consider my sincerity. Then he’d smile, pat me on the cheek, and carry on directing me across the floor.

It was preferable to how he handled others. A newly arrived Bulgarian had tried to shirk him and Sergiu had seized onto his shoulder until the man was bending with the pain, but Sergiu was slapping him in the stomach, laughing, jostling him until the Bulgarian returned forced amusement, agreeing to whatever Sergiu said.

I figured it was cultural and was glad Sergiu was gentle with me. He was directing our path to the black Corvette three houses away, asking, “You understand Spanish?”

“No.”

“Is no problem.” He took us to a Mexican restaurant where he spoke easily with the staff, ordering for us both, before returning to fractured English to converse with me.

Three hours later he pulled back from our conversation to look me over with surprise. “This is first time I see you like this. You very …” he went looking for the word he knew in four languages but I didn’t understand any of them. He asked the server for the word in English and the server asked another and pretty soon every employee was looking for the English equivalent of a Spanish compliment.

No one knew it. But the table behind us had started bickering. It escalated until the Texan slammed down his beer, plunked on his cowboy hat, and stalked out the door. The Mexican woman was finally free to talk and came around to speak to me. “You are very charming. This is what the gentleman wants to say.”

And the staff confirmed, “Sí, sí, es charming,” offering again to Sergiu, “charming.”

But he wasn’t listening, instead we were both watching the woman from the adjoining table. She had the first hint of gray in her hair, but it looked premature. She wasn’t happy. She was leaving but needed to explain, “I never wanted to be the couple that sat silent in a restaurant with nothing to say. It was a mistake learning English. We had more to say when we couldn’t say it.”

~~~~~~

It was just before midnight when Sergiu and I returned to the house. Daniel was working hard to seduce Tricia, so, to give him space, Sergiu offered to let me drive the sports car.

Now this was a real mistake.

No one in Texas had seen how quickly my personality could flip. Sergiu now knew I could be charming, but he assumed this was merely an extension of my demure character. He didn’t know I liked to charge horses. I’d race them, mad to frothing, into goats, people, and tobacco fields, and then laugh when scolded. I loved the rush and my favorite horse wanted to be let loose without reigns.

Nothing about my reserved demeanor had prepared Sergiu for what was about to happen.

But the moment I popped the Corvette into first gear, I was certain the engine was screaming to be unbridled, and I was manic to set it free.

The car could charge, and I was racing around the narrow neighborhood streets trying to reach eighty with Sergiu shouting, “Stop! Constanzia, stop! This is not my car. My friends be very mad if you hurt it.”

And the car already seemed to be in pain. I’d never driven a manual but I’d watched Sergiu and the process looked simple. He made it seem like a fluid exchange of gas and clutch, but my attempts to emulate him just ground against the gears. I handled it by going faster, revving the RPMs into red and then lunging the car forward so both Sergiu and I were slammed back.

Thinking to halt the insanity, he grabbed my right wrist as I shifted down to second, squealing into a turn, but I accelerated regardless, taking my other hand off the wheel to lurch the car into third. Pressing hard on the gas, and about to use my left hand again for fourth, he released my right hoping I’d keep control, but it scarcely made a difference; I kept us on the edge of wrecking.

The nose was too long and, unlike a horse, it couldn’t direct itself. Twice I nearly put the headlights into a parked car while skidding around a corner, Sergiu exclaiming, “
Oddio
!”

Then I shot us across a dark lawn, bottoming out with horrific noise on the curb, while he shrieked, “
Madonna mia
!”

And in between it all was a string of language I only partially understood, but I knew he was calling me crazy, was swearing and begging, threatening and bargaining, never realizing there was nothing he could offer that could compare to the power under my foot. It was truly the most fun I had ever had.

He wanted to take the wheel from my hands but didn’t dare at the speeds I was reaching, and the interior of the car was too tight for him to get his foot across the gearbox and onto the brake. With one hand on the back of my neck, wanting to wring it, and the other braced against the dash, he could only bellow and then plead with me for restraint.

About ten minutes into the ride of terror, I stalled the Corvette trying to do donuts on the golf course green.

I was reaching for the ignition key again, finally seeing there wasn’t one, and then Sergiu got my wrists. Hauled straight over the transmission, we were both going out the passenger door.

I didn’t comprehend but three foreign words of what he was roaring, but I understood the tone. Holding me against the car with one hand, he’d thrown his other open to encompass the circles of torn up grass, and I imagined he was cursing, “A golf course, for Christ’s sake!” and next he was shaking me, saying something about the police.

Then, one hand around my neck, he was threatening with the other to slap me, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was consumed by something else. Leaning into him to breathe deep, he was just like a horse whose scent had been raised with its blood. I said, “You always smell like Givenchy.”

Taken aback, he hit the roof of the car instead.

Then, with his finger in my face, the tirade continued but I hadn’t even flinched; I was still drawing in the fragrance as he demanded, something-something “you crazy?”

I replied with unaffected serenity, “The asylum said no.”

Sergiu stalked away only to turn and bound back, slamming both hands on the top of the car’s frame, pinning me to the door, expecting something more than my continued interest in his cologne, but when all he got was me pressing my face into his jacket to inhale, he heaved frustration from his lungs and opened the passenger door to push me in.

While he crossed behind the car, I saw the ignition key on the floor and reached to collect it. It had been filed down to a thin line, no grooves whatsoever, no grip to hold it in place on a wild ride, but most importantly, it should not have turned over the engine.

I handed it to Sergiu with a smirk.

The whole ride back was a long incomprehensible rant that he gave to himself in what sounded like four different languages, and only briefly was one of them English. “This girl is no good. No good. No
bueno
, no
buona
, no
bun
. No more with this girl.”

~~~~~~

Daniel was on the porch with Tricia waiting for Sergiu, and at the curb, Eugene was adjusting the radio dial in a Saab. All three were driving that night to New York and planned to fly back later in the week. Daniel had said they were working for a wealthy businessman, conveying cars bought at auction to a dealership. And while he confided it was too good of money to pass up, he considered the job strictly temporary until he found something else.

“Constance, you come to airport for us?” Tricia had already volunteered me in the agency’s car, but Daniel wanted it confirmed.

But on hearing it, Sergiu erupted in Romanian. Pacing between the curb and the porch, he directed Daniel’s attention to the mud sprayed across the back fenders and then pointed at the golf course, all the while raging loud and throwing his arms wide to emphasize the insolence he’d endured.

I shrugged my shoulders at Tricia as though the scene playing out across the lawn was utterly inexplicable.

The close tussle against the car had left me smelling like him, and the scent almost made me want to apologize. I even turned before retiring into the house, had the words “I’m sorry” in my mouth, but he was still seething and I thought it would probably be easier to just go buy a bottle of Givenchy.

It took all of the days he was away for Sergiu to find anything remotely humorous about that night. He returned with annoyance still pinching at his eyes, informing me we were going to dinner. Once in the Jaguar, he tried to explain his frustration. “You always calm. You,” his hand dropped across his face to erase all but the merest hint of a smile, and he spoke with a near comatose expression, “You show nothing. You say, ‘Yes, Sergiu,’ and, ‘Of course, Sergiu,’ but nothing here,” he punched his heart. “But you sit here,” indicating the driver’s seat, “and ahi,” hands up and screaming followed by “brum,” his arm shot off down the road. He barely managed to chuckle, “You no drive again.”

I’d already seen the Jaguar key with no teeth turn the ignition and thought his assertion was highly unlikely, but I wasn’t going to give him any cause to suspect it. I nodded and looked out the window, mostly just glad to be out of the house. Tricia was having nightly asthma attacks brought on by stress. She knew the cause of it, but she wouldn’t stop searching for the missing women.

The agency was overseen by a board of directors and Jeff was Tricia’s primary contact among them. I had listened to Tricia’s even voice behind the partitions at work as she quietly told Jeff her concerns. She’d flipped through the growing stack of files, counting off the young women who had arrived at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport only to vanish.

Jeff’s tone was at first soothing, sounding like he was placating, whispering something smooth like,
No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. Everything is fine
.

Tricia tried to make him understand. “No communication has ever been established. The women have no known addresses. And no one will admit to meeting them.”

Jeff kept giving soft assurances, sounding like a father putting a troubled child to sleep, murmuring things I could only imagine.
Hush now, nothing lives under the bed
.

But Tricia was clear and insistent, “I can’t find the most recent woman, Chantou. No one’s heard of her.”

It’s the dark, shhh, you’re imagining things
.

“Who was the man? No one will say.”

There are no monsters in the closet
.

“But he took her and she’s gone.”

And no faces in the window either
.