Edge Play X (36 page)

When X asked
Laurel
if she could use the bathroom, he
uncuffed
her and led her to the backyard. Her car was still
there. X tried to calculate how far she could get if she began to run, then
decided against the attempt. She peed in the sand then went back inside.

Once back in the building,
Laurel
woke up Hardy who was still asleep on the couch.

“What time is it?” the
groggy
man asked.

“
Twenty till six
.”

“Fuck. I’m not used to getting up this
early.”

The man removed a cigarette from his
pack and lit it. X was surprised when he held the pack out to her and asked if
she wanted one. But when X reached out to take one, he pulled the pack away and
thrust his hips towards her a few times.

“Suck on this first,” he said, and X turned
away from him in disgust. She didn’t need his cigarettes anymore; didn’t need
them at all. She was going to quit one way or another that day, through death
or by her choice, she was permanently extinguishing her habit.

X was directed to sit on the couch,
the cushions still warm from the slumbering body of the short man. And then,
unexpectedly, there was a knock at the door. Who came to the door at six in the
morning?
 

“Lay down on the couch! Don’t make a
sound!” the tall man whispered to her, and then he covered her with a blanket,
an old army issue wool blanket that smelled like urine, sweat, ejaculate, and
moth balls. And once she was covered, he went towards the door.

11.

Simeon loaded his gun as he sat in his
SUV.
 
He had pulled into a parking garage,
turned off the engine, and made a quick survey of his surroundings. He knew
that X had been kidnapped and that the men were asking
Compton
for a ransom amount that the man would never
provide them.
 

These last couple of
months,
Simeon had known that X had been in
Santa Fe
, knew where she was staying, in fact, all due to
a tiny transmitter that had been planted in the Mercedes. Sure, he could have
followed her and dragged her back to
California
, but he hadn’t. His superior had told him to wait
on it; the bitch needed a break.

 
Simeon held the gun in his lap as he sat in
the vehicle, closing his eyes for a few minutes and mentally rehearsing what
was about to happen. It went something like this: he would knock at the door,
and if the men asked who he was, he would respond that he was a Census worker.
As soon as the door was opened, he’s fire his gun at both of the men. Bang
bang
, thump
thump
, easy as that.
And if for some reason they didn’t open the door, well, that would be a
problem, but Simeon felt secure that the scenario would play out as he
envisioned.

As he exited the vehicle and closed
the door behind him, a minivan rolled by, the hollow sounds it made echoing
through the concrete of the garage. It was early but hot, and Simeon wore his
suit jacket to conceal his weapon. He walked down the stairwell, one heavily
tagged with graffiti and smelling of urine, then paused once he reached the
street. The house where X was being held was a few blocks away from the garage.
He slid his sunglasses on and then began to walk towards his destination.

If anyone had watched Simeon as he
walked, the sunglasses concealing his light eyes, his dark hair tightly cropped
and even above the crisp collar of his suit, they might have been surprised to
see such a well-dressed, official-looking man in such a run-down neighborhood.
Men like that only ever visited that particular neighborhood for business,
typically that of an illegal nature.

He looked at his watch. It was nearly
six in the morning. Simeon had chosen this time precisely because he knew that
most of the people in the nearby houses would still be asleep. Soon, the heat
would simmer out a shimmering mirage above the asphalt, but Simeon planned on
being gone before then. In and out. Bang
bang
, thump
thump
.

When he saw the small house with X’s
car in the driveway and parked towards the rear, he knew that X was inside. He
wondered what they might have done to her, knowing that the men who had
kidnapped her were unpredictable. There was a danger in unpredictability. The
men had probably hurt her, he knew. Men like that sometimes couldn’t help
themselves. But just as long as they hadn’t killed her.

One last time, Simeon scanned the
street. When he saw that it was empty, he looked at his watch. Three minutes
till six. Once the gun was in his hand, he walked to the side door.

What
a shit hole
, he thought. He had
been told that the place was an abandoned crack house and it fit the
description. The stucco, dirty and broken, had begun to crumble onto the sandy,
weedy grass below. Through the glass of the dirty windows, he could see the
broken blinds and thought he saw some movement inside, but he couldn’t be sure.

He knocked. When there was no answer,
he knocked again. The index finger of his right hand sat gently above the trigger
of the gun and he couldn’t wait to unload it at her kidnappers, get this whole
thing over with.

“Go away!” a man shouted from inside.

“This is the U.S. Census,” Simeon
said. “I have a few confidential questions that will only take a few minutes to
answer. If you don’t come to the door, I’ll have to come back later.”

Simeon heard the lock being undone
from the other side of the cheap door which separated them. The tall man opened
it.

“Make it quick,” he said, and Simeon
fired his gun, releasing the second shot at the other man. They both dropped to
the floor with heavy thuds and Simeon stepped over them. Now, he would need to
get X out of the building before anyone came around to see what was going on.

A soft whimper came from the couch.
Simeon went to it and pulled off the blanket that covered her, revealing X
underneath it, her arms wrapped around her head. She was trembling, not sure
who had shot whom.

Finally, she opened her eyes and saw
Simeon. “Where are your keys!” he asked her frantically.

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“Close your eyes,” he said, “don’t
look,” and X obeyed as Simeon pulled the keys out of the tall man’s pocket.
Once he had them, he scooped her up in his arms, the blanket falling off of her
and to the floor in a crude heap, and he carried her out to her car, gently
placing her into the passenger seat. He drove back to the parking garage, and
once they were next to his SUV, he asked her if she was alright to drive.

“I think so; yes,” X said.

Then he told her to get in the
driver’s seat of the Mercedes, and as he entered his own car, he told her
simply, “Follow me.”

12.

X took refuge in the womblike cave of
sleep. Simeon had given her a pill to calm her down and the thing had knocked
her out. Her slumber was deep and dreamless, interrupted occasionally with a
quick jab of adrenaline, primal and serrated. She would awaken in a frenzy and
then she would remember that she was safe now. Her kidnappers were dead. Simeon
had shot them and then taken her back to the house where she had been staying,
commanding her to get her things, telling her that it wasn’t safe to stay there
anymore. X had packed her clothes and the few belongings she had brought,
tossing the Van Gogh on top of everything before zipping up her suitcase and
heaving it into the Mercedes.

Yes, now she was safe. X stretched in
bed, not wanting to get out. The sheets smelled like Simeon, the scent carrying
with it hints of sex and smoldering masculinity.
 

The intensity of the day was leaking
through the window blinds and there would be no going back to sleep. What time
was it? X looked at the digital clock. It was
3:10 p.m.
X tried to remember the date and had to backtrack
to the day she had been kidnapped. She added on from there and confirmed that
it was indeed June 21
^st
, the solstice, the longest day of the year.
Her birthday.

The smell of coffee wafted in from
beyond the door as did the smell of food, heavy with salt and grease. X
selected her clothes from her suitcase on the floor and dressed. When she saw
the Van Gogh on top of her rumpled clothes, she felt ashamed for treating
something so valuable so carelessly, so she gently placed it on a nearby
dresser.

Briefly, X examined her reflection in
the mirror. The skin under her eye was dark purple. After she got her shower,
she decided, she’d cover it up with make-up. She’d have to wear sunglasses when
she went in public. But now, it was time for coffee. Her veins longed for it.

The first thing she saw when she
opened the door was Simeon. He was standing in the kitchen and washing a cup.

“Hello,” he said, and X returned his
greeting. “Would you like some coffee?”

“Yes, please,” X said as Simeon began
filling up a large mug.

“Milk and sugar?”

“Black is fine.”

Simeon brought X over the coffee and
she took a sip, hoping the brew would help her shake off the lingering
fatigue.
 

“Are you hungry? While you were
sleeping, I got a bucket of chicken, and there’s some milk and bread and
lunchmeat, but not much more than that,” Simeon said as he opened the
cupboards, taking inventory of the food.

“The chicken sounds good,” X said as
she got up from the small table where she had been sitting. X found a plate and
began piling the food onto it. Next to the cheap paper bucket was a small
chocolate cake in a clear plastic case.

X realized then that he knew. The date
would have been with all the other information in that folder he had about her,
but she didn’t think that the date would be anything Simeon would have
remembered.

He sat down with her and they ate
together. She measured their silence in chews and swallows, considering what
she might say to him, wondering if he was going to punish her for leaving.

“Did you sleep well? Is there anything
that you need?”

“No,” she answered, recognizing that
having her life was enough.

Simeon brought the cake over when she
had finished her meal. He cut off a slice for her and put it onto a paper
plate.

“Happy Birthday, X.”
 

His words embarrassed her. She felt
like a child. They ate the cake together and X wondered why he was being so
nice to her. She knew that she looked like shit, her hair undone and no make-up
on her face, her eye blackened like some abused woman.

As these thoughts went through her
mind, Simeon watched her. She looked beaten and worn, defeated. He felt sorry
for her for everything she had gone through since he and
Compton
had come into her life. And yet, he still wanted
her to do what she was told. Things with
Compton
weren’t finished quite yet. But maybe it was time
to try a different approach. Maybe X needed a gentle master. Some wild horses
could not be tamed through force, only through whispers. Wasn’t that what his
superior had said?

When her cake was gone, she told him,
“Thank you.”

“The cake was alright? It was just a
store cake.”

“The cake was great. I meant thank you
for rescuing me.”

Simeon cleared their dishes and then
joined her at the table again.

“You’re welcome,” he said and then
went back to sit with her, taking his own cup of coffee along with him.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

He paused. “The Mercedes has a
tracking device in it. But I knew that you had been kidnapped because of the
bug in
Compton
’s office.”

“I see,” X said. “So you’ve known I’ve
been in
Santa Fe
these last couple months?”

“Yes.”

All this time he had known where she
had been and he had left her alone. The knowledge surprised her.

“I was going to come back in a few
more months,” she lied.

“You don’t need to explain.”

“I just needed to get my head
together,” she said, the tears welling up now. She felt like she was a kid in
the principal’s office trying to explain why she had gotten in trouble. A tear
ran out of her eye and slipped down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back
of her hand and sniveled.

Simeon went over to the counter and
picked up a new pack of cigarettes.

“I picked these up while I was out in
case you might want one,” he said, hoping it would help the woman calm down.

“I don’t want one,” she said.

“Well, they’re here in case you need
one later.”

“I don’t want one ever again!” she
snipped, the tears rolling out in procession now. Simeon looked at the woman,
perplexed.