The Girls Club (21 page)

The line went quiet.

“I love you Rosh” Karen said sheepishly.

“I love you. Fucking idiot. Wait for my call”

Maybe time you know.  Leave LA.  Start afresh somewhere else.  England?  So it rains a lot?  At least you’ll never end up hung from the Hollywood sign.

But what about Sarah?

She’s going to have to take care of herself from now on.  I can’t be responsible for her forever.  Besides.  Its not like she’s ever looked after you properly.  Fuckin’ branded you to prove her worth to the top ten last time her ass was in a crack.  And you let her! 

Because blood is thicker than water.

She tapped on Miss Toulouse’s door.

“Yes”

She stepped in.

“I’ve spoken to Karen. She’s going to tidy herself up and come in to see you”

Miss Toulouse had her head in both hands.  Papers were scattered hell to breakfast across her desk.  A world apart from the scene Rochelle had been greeted with when she was here not ten minutes ago.

She turned to go back out.

“Wait. Rochelle. Tell her I’ll see her Monday instead. I’ve got some people I really have to see. If Caplin rings put him through, his PA should also have a report for me on lead content of domestic paint purchased from Caplin’s before 1984. Anyone other than Caplin or Caplin’s PA take a message.”

“Very good. I’ll go ring her before she sets off”

And just when she thought her connivance had paid off Miss Toulouse put the nail in the coffin.

“Plausible deniability. I respect that Rochelle. If you’ve got any sense you won’t mix in with that British lass any more, she’s on a fast track to trouble”

Rochelle turned to the partner, she didn’t think it was possible to be even more mad than she had felt at Karen but she found that poison welling now and directed it sacrosanctly.

“I think who I ‘mix in’ with is my business. I also think that Karen has got a yard of heart and I’ll tell you something else, fuck you Charlotte! You have no control over me and its about time you realised it.”

“Just because your sister, oh pardon, half sister is in…”

“Enough!” Rochelle levelled her index finger at the suited woman.

“No matter what Sarah is to me, I know people and I know things and I don’t want to tell. BUT I WILL IF I HAVE TO!”

Rochelle gave the hinges a mighty test on her way out.

Charlotte Toulouse wondered if she could still come up with some sort of barter or trade that would save her ass.

There was a post-it note on her table.  Sarah’s meeting with the prosecution in the Huntington-Wolfe case had had to be re-scheduled.  Come Monday she’d have to pick the case up.  They’d already stumped up a major bail. 

“ARRRRGGGG!” she swept the papers all the way off now onto the floor.  Why were there never any ‘small’ fuck-ups in LA.  Why did it always have to be ‘Dallas Omnibus’ sized fuck-ups that ended up with people being made into trinkets. 

“WHERE IS SHE?”

She flipped open her cell.  No calls.  No messages.  It was unheard of for Sarah not to have messaged her at least 17 times before the day had ended, reminding her to do stuff, asking for advice, getting dates arrangements for ‘Chain’ rendezvous.

Back at her desk Rochelle sat and closed her eyes.  She needed a moment to quiet the raging inside her.  The stomach that held her lunch threatened to throw everything overboard, her brain that held her thoughts also threatened to commit an act of treason.  Her heart that held her love promised her it would break soon if things carried on the way it was going.

Rochelle had never played the ‘Sarah’ card.  It wasn’t common knowledge and they each liked it that way.  Sarah didn’t want to be associated with the office lackey and Rochelle wanted to be considered one of the girls.  It had worked fine for the most part. 

They each had the same mother, different fathers, different names.  It wasn’t an obvious connection.

Sarah Steiger and Rochelle Kobolowski.  Even their names were worlds apart.

And as much as you think Karen has been hiding things from you, you have to admit that’s a pretty big secret you’ve kept from her isn’t it?

And because of that perhaps when she opened her eyes they had cleared.

It was answered on the first ring, she must have been sat there just waiting.

“Hi, Rochelle, please! Listen”

“Karen.”

“Yessum” she went quiet.

Rochelle smiled, she never failed to make her smile. 

Love your friends.

“Its ok. You don’t have to come in today. She says she’ll talk to you Monday.”

“Fine. Like I’m going to tell her owt. Sounded like some real shady business. Is Sarah there today?”
“No. Just a message saying she’ll be back Monday.”

It went quiet again.  She could sense Karen wanting to make things better again but knowing she couldn’t give her the ten yard stare on the phone.

“Heh”

“What?”

“Just thinking about the roast dinner you’re making me. And then the beer, and then you”

“You know it’s the truth sugah” Karen said in her cheesiest Elvis accent.

“I won’t be long now anyway. Sky missed you today, she’s mega hyped about her big weekend licking Miss Huntington-Wolfe’s minge”

“Oh, Rosh, ewww. Fuck! I’ll text her and let her know I’ll be thinking of her. Star struck slut”

They laughed together.

“I’ve been thinking, about stuff.”

Karen heard a long sigh from Rochelle.

“What stuff?”

Rochelle put her feet up on her desk.  Her feet obscured her view of the telephone console, the speaker light was green.

“About leaving LA. Starting fresh somewhere. With you”

“You mean it? Because you know I would love nothing more. Except maybe for sorting out whoever carved their name into your legs”

“But it wouldn’t matter any more would it? It would be in the past, we’d go somewhere new, you can get office dogsbody jobs anywhere”

“I know, but still…”

“But nothing. I thought that’s what you wanted”

“Of course! What’s made you change your mind though?”

“Everything. The Chain. You. Sarah ‘Goddamn’ Steiger. I want to be happy. Can you manage that?”

“Bet yer arse I can” her voice was thick, like she was near tears.

“I better make myself busy for another hour or so. That dinner better be on the table when I get there, and Karen”

“Yes chief”

“Your punishment will be to serve dinner in the nude”

Karen laughed.

“Yes sir!”

The green light went off.

Rochelle told Karen again she loved her and leaned forward to hang up the phone.

Now that she was decided she really felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.  Sarah may have been her only physical family, but she’d just made herself a new family member.  Sarah wouldn’t stop her this time.  Karen would be taking her with her.  Sarah was out of the frame.  It was sad that things had ended up so bizarre and out of whack.  Her days of mopping up after Sarah and being the scapegoat had come to an end.

She couldn’t wait to get home.  Dinner might end up being the second course by the time she’d finished punishing Karen.  It was really nice knowing someone was there waiting for her. Was it her fault her homicidal half sister was very possessive of her and wasn’t prepared to let her go?

No.

As much as she loved Sarah she was glad in a small way she wasn’t here to fuck everything up this time.

She remembered back to her first love. It had happened pretty damned fast.  The third person she had met on the Chain on her way up.  Denise.  Denise Fontaine.  Her name, like her personality, bubbly and full of spark.  She had been open and honest.  When Rochelle had told her that Sarah was going to be killed by Miss Smythe for fucking the number 2 on the Chain and breaking etiquette Denise had gone mad.

“She might be your sister but what in God’s name do you think you’ll be able to do to help?”

The agreement.  The God damn agreement.  The Chain elite agreed that Miss Steiger held considerable sway and the reprisals and recriminations that would arise from her slaying may reverberate until they had all been slaughtered.  The Chain had demanded a sacrifice of her.  She was to be marked.  Then everyone on the Chain from that day forward would be aware of her trespass, others would see and learn.  Follow the rules, or pay the price.

Sarah had begged,
crawled,
emails and calls were made with frantic abandon.  If she could get the Chain elite to agree that she could have someone take her place she’d be home free. 

“They can’t fuckin’ mark me, ME? Who do they think they’re fucking with?”

Then Sarah had gone quiet for a few days  Rochelle knew this meant she was cooking something up and kept her distance.  She knew there was trouble but knew that she’d be kept out of it, until Sarah needed something.  The corridors were war zones, Sarah’s office a ‘no go’ zone entirely.  Her dark temper and furiously grey study kept all people away.

Then she had buzzed Rochelle one afternoon.  Told her that the Chain had made her a proposition.  One that if she could get Rochelle to agree too, meant she would keep her life, which she was sure Rochelle would agree, was the only thing they should be focusing on.  After all, she was the high power attorney with the gold plated crutch.  And Rochelle’s only surviving relative.

Reliable Rochelle.  Sarah sold her a tar baby.  With the best amount of sleaze she could muster she called tear eyed to her half sister and explained her dire need.  If Sarah couldn’t find someone to wear the mark of her betrayal, to prove there was at least one person out there who thought she was worth saving, then she’d be gutted and dragged down to Venice Beach for the gulls to feed on.

Rochelle agreed.  Sarah was many things, but yes, she was still her sister and Rochelle would let the Chain use her to save Sarah’s life.

Rochelle had never known the extent of Sarah’s lies to her.  Her dealings with the Chain in general had ended very shortly after that.

Her memory of that night never revisited while she was awake.  Perhaps now would be a good time to remember.  Remember and take heart that she was free to leave.

They were in a warehouse.  Battery powered halogen floods had been placed in each corner of the room.  In the centre of the room was a metal table.  The kind with a built in sluice tray underneath.

Even now, by putting an arm across her eyes Rochelle could see the beige peeling walls.  Could smell damp and salty air.  Debris crumbled under their feet as they made their way to the room.  Sarah had given her a line of coke at lunchtime, and again in the car as they pulled up.  She also had a can of ice spray to numb the area to be marked before the cutting.

Because none of the Chain elite were known to her she was lead into the room blindfolded.  The coke in her brain and the ice spray on her legs making her feel hot and cold.  There were voices, seemed like a lot of them.  Sarah had her arm and was leading her out, the room felt large and under the bottom of the blindfold she could see powerful light, she wondered if that meant a guardian angel had been sent to look out for her.

Sarah took both her arms and backed her onto the table.

There had a semi-hysterical giggling, she remembered weeks later hearing Heidi laugh having drinks with Sarah and knowing instantly she had been there.

“Hop up Rochelle. I’ll make it quick” she whispered into her ear, then kissed her cheek.

Rochelle had been positioned on the cold metal table.  A sexual murmur ran through those attending, they had been waiting all week for this.  As revered as the female form was to them, the letting of blood touched some deep dark part of them, that they had this power made them sway with madness. 

Metal against metal. A snick sound.  She had gasped as Sarah’s cold hands had reached under her skirt and pushed it up to her waist.

A few wolf whistles were heard.

Sick, fuckin’ sick, sick, fuckin’ sick cunts oh dear Jesus, fuck…

On her left thigh she had felt something press down into her skin, there came pain.  Pain in waves, down, gouge, along, gouge, along, gouge.  Each stroke punctuated by a twisted of the blade.  Her skin parted with sickening ease.  Bile rose in her throat.

“I love you Rosh” Sarah whispered, she heard her choke back a sob.

A shadow passed round the bottom of her vision.  Passing out wasn’t an option, she feared they’d devour her, the coke made them sound like dogs.  Coyotes.  Wolves.  Foxes.  She could smell damp earth and bark.  This was woods territory and to lose control here would mean the end.

Gouge, along, gouge…

Warm fluid ran down the inside of each thigh.

Is it that time again? Comes round so fast it seems.

Roars of approval from the crowd.

“Fuckin ‘A’”

“Cut that cunt”

“FUCK YEAH!”

And clapping.  Applause for her half sister no doubt.  There was blood touching her panty line now and she was beginning to panic in the dark behind the blindfold.  A few flashes which she took to be photos being shot and the sound of retreating footsteps.  The crowd had been sated.  Now they left.  Sarah had undone her first aid kit and was packing cotton wool furiously against the sides of Rochelle’s gashed thighs.  Her gusto at getting the job done and the keenness of the blade had made the cuts wide and deep.