THE PAIN OF OTHERS (3 page)

“Recently moved here.”

“Nice town.”

“
S’okay
.”

She could already feel the conversation beginning to strain, climbing toward a stall.

“I have a confession to make,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“I shouldn’t. You’ll think I’m awful.”

“I already think you’re awful. Go for it.” He bumped his shoulder against hers as he said it, and she loved the contact.

“I’m here for a blind date.”

“What’d you do? Ditch the guy?”

“No, I’m chickening out. I don’t want to go through with it.”

“You were supposed to meet him in the lobby?”

“This bar. I got scared. Saw you sitting here. I’m a bad person, I know.”

Arnold laughed and slugged back the dregs of his first beer. “How do you know I’m not the guy?”

“Oh God, are you?”

He raised his eyebrows as if dragging out the suspense.

Finally said, “No, but this poor sap’s probably walking around trying to find you. He know what you look like?”

“General description.”

“So you want to hide out with me. Is that it?”

She dusted off her cute, pouty face. “If it’s not too much trouble. I can’t promise to be witty and engaging but I will get the next round.” She sipped her drink, staring him down over the lip of the martini glass, the salt of the olive juice and the vodka burn flaring on the sides of her tongue.

“Do you one better,” he said.

“How’s that?”

“Well, if we’re really going to sell the thing, totally throw this guy off your trail, you should probably have dinner with me.”

They told each other lies over a beautiful meal,
Letty
becoming a high-school English teacher and aspiring novelist. She would rise at four every morning and write for three hours before driving into work, the book already five hundred pages, single-spaced, about a man who bears a strong likeness to a movie star and uses that resemblance to storm the Broadway scene and ultimately Hollywood, to comic and tragic ends.

Arnold worked for a philanthropist based out of Tampa, Florida. Had come to Asheville to investigate and interview the CEO of a research and development think tank that had applied for funding.

“What exactly are they involved in?”
Letty
asked after the waiter had set down her steak and topped off her wineglass, and she’d sliced into the meat, savoring both the perfection of her medium-rare porterhouse and the impromptu train of bullshit Arnold rattled off about bioinformatics and cancer applications.

They killed two bottles of a great Bordeaux, split a chocolate lava cake, and wrapped things up with a pair of cognacs, sharing a couch by a fireplace in the lobby,
Letty
adding up the three martinis, her share of the wine (more than a bottle), and now this
Rémy
Martin which was going down way too easy. Part of her sounding the alarm—
you’re letting it get away from you
. The rest wondering how fast the Hispanic bellhop pulling a cart of luggage toward the elevators could score her some tweak and would Arnold be down for it if he did?

In the dull brass doors, she watched her and Arnold’s warped reflection. He kissed the back of her neck, those fascinating hands around her waist which she was too drunk to bother sucking in.

They stumbled out onto the fifth floor, and by the time she realized her mistake, there was nothing to be done, having instinctively turned down the north wing toward room 5212, as if she’d been up here before.

“I have another confession to make,”
Letty
said while Arnold rummaged through the
minibar
.

“What’s that?”

“I’m not a redhead.”

He glanced over the top of the open door as
Letty
tugged off her wig.

“You look upset,” she said.

He stood up, kicked the door closed with the tip of his boot, set the bottles of beer on the dresser beside the keycard
Letty
had left behind four hours ago.

Sauntered toward her in slow, measured steps, stopping less than an inch away, his belt buckle grazing her sternum.

“Are you upset?” she slurred.

He ran his fingers through her short, brown hair to the base of her neck. She thought she felt his hands tightening around her throat, her carotid artery pulsing against the pressure. Looked up. Green eyes. Suspicion. Lust. She swayed in her heels. He ran his hands down her waist, over the curve of her hips, moved his right hand into the small of her back and pulled her against him.

Music bled through from the next room, something mid-tempo and synthesized from the 80’s—Air Supply or worse.

They kept dancing after the music had stopped, a mutual drunken stagger, Arnold working them back toward the wall, where his hand fumbled for the light dimmer.

She woke in the middle of the night with a violent thirst, and even lying on a pillow it felt like someone had caved her skull in while she slept, the red digits of the alarm clock continually descending into place, like the endless motion of a barbershop pole. The bulk of a man snored beside her, his rank breath warming the back of her neck. She lay naked with a cover twisted between her legs. Couldn’t recall passing out. The events after returning to this room lay in shards of memory—slamming shots of
Absolut
out of tiny bottles. A fast, hard fuck that didn’t approach the hype. She wondered if she’d said anything to undermine the evening’s lies, and just the threat of it, considering the man whose bed she shared, broke a cold sweat across her forehead. She shut her eyes. Heard her father’s voice—all cigarette growl and whiskey-tongued—that whispered to her on nights like these, lying in the beds of strange men and the darkness spinning, or a lonely cell, cursing her back to sleep. Words that, deep in her heart, she knew were true.

Threads of light stole in around the blinds.

9:12
a.m.

A line of painful brilliance underscored the bathroom door, the shower rushing on the other side. She sat up in bed and threw back the covers and brought her palms to her temples, pressing against the vibrant ache.

Out of bed, onto her feet, listing and nauseated. Stepped into her knit cashmere dress and pulled the straps over her shoulders. Last time she’d seen that leather briefcase full of money, it was sitting on the floor beside the loveseat, but it had since been moved. She got down on her hands and knees and peered under the couch, then under the bed.

Nothing.

As she opened the closet, Arnold yelled from the shower, “
Letty
, you up?”

The briefcase leaned against the wall on the top shelf inside the closet, and she had to rise on the balls of her feet to grasp it.

“
Letty
!”

Pulled the briefcase down, walked over to the bathroom door.

“Yeah, I’m up,” she said.

“How do you feel?”

“Like death.”

She squatted down, fingering the clasps on the briefcase.

“I didn’t mention it last night,” he said, “but I’ve got this meeting to go to.”

“This morning?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Is this with the think tank?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

Her thumbs depressed two buttons. The clasps released.

“I wanted to have breakfast with you,” she said and opened the case.

“We could do dinner.”

Twenty-five thousand in cash didn’t look all that impressive—just five slim packets of
hundos
.

“You staying here tonight?” she asked, lifting one, flipping through the crisp, clean bills, breathing in the ink and the paper.

“I would,” he said, “if you wanted to get together again.”

The shower cut off. She heard the curtain whisk back. Tossed the packet into the briefcase, grabbed the manila folder, leafed through the contents: floor plan, house key, one page of typewritten notes, and a black-and-white photograph of a woman who couldn’t have been more than a year or two past thirty. The shot was candid, or trying to be, Daphne in the foreground, in startling focus, surrounded by clusters of blurry rhododendron. Her hair long, black, straight. Skin preternaturally pale. A remote and icy beauty.

Arnold was toweling off now.

“We could definitely meet for dinner tonight,”
Letty
said as she scanned the address on the page of notes: 712 Hamlet Court.

The tiny motor of an electric razor started up. She closed the briefcase. Her heels lay toppled on the carpet at the foot of the bed, and she stepped into them, slung her duffle bag onto her shoulder.

“Maybe we could grab dinner downtown,” Arnold said over the whine of his razor. “I’d like to see more of Asheville.”

“Absolutely,” she said, lifting the briefcase. “I’ll take you barhopping. I know a few good ones. We’ll hit the Westville Pub. Great beer bar.”

“Now you’re talking.”

Twelve feet to the door. To being done with all of this. Her biggest score.

She turned back the inner lock, reached down for the handle.

Arnold said something from the bathroom that she missed. Saw herself slipping out into the corridor, heard the soft click of the door shutting behind her. Felt the tension of waiting for the elevator.

Letty
turned back from the door, returned the briefcase to the closet shelf. Hardest thing she’d ever done.

She set her bag down and knocked on the bathroom door. “Can I come in,
Arnie
?”

“Yeah.”

He turned off the razor as she opened the door, frowned when he saw her. Steam rising off his shoulders. “You’re dressed.”

“I want to go back to my apartment, get a shower there.”

“You can stay here while I go to my meeting.”

“I need to let my dog out, get some papers graded. I’ll leave my number on the bedside table.”

He stepped away from the sink, embraced her, the towel damp around his waist, said, “I can’t wait to see you tonight.”

And she kissed him like she meant it.

Letty
ran through the lobby, past the front desk, out into a cool, fall morning. She forced a twenty into the bellhop’s hand, and he relinquished the car service he’d called for another guest.

“You know Hamlet Court?” she asked when the Bellhop had shut her into the backseat of the Lincoln Town Car.

The driver glanced back, a light-skinned Haitian with blue eyes. “I will find. You have street number?”

“Seven twelve.” As he punched the address into the GPS unit,
Letty
handed a hundred-dollar bill into the front seat. “I’m sorry, but I need you to speed.”