“Somebody’s gotta keep him in line.”
Lou chuckled a little. “Always a thing for the bad boys,” she teased.
“What use do either of us have for boys?”
Lou smiled at me, her face glowing. “So? How did it go with Klein? Tell me, tell me.”
Jackal didn’t show, that’s how it went. “He’s rough with her,” I said. Trying to think up the best way to break the bad news.
Lou lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. But her eyes were still twinkling, so I knew it was a challenge, not a letdown. “Bor-ing. Besides, that can be fun.”
I took another sip of my drink—going down easier all the time. “Not when you’re the man who’s made a living as the kindly cardiganed grandfather of Hollywood.”
It was a thing Lou had taught me to do well: walk through the pitch ahead of time. So you’ve got pictures of me naked with some broad. What do I care? Let ’em see. You always had to have an answer. Besides recruiting and training the girls, it was the most important part of my job: crafting the pitch for maximum payout. And for Klein, I had the pitch down pat. Just no pictures. Yet.
Lou nodded her approval, drumming her nails on the bar. “It might not ruin him,” she said, thinking her way through it, “but it’ll mean he has to reinvent himself. And that could take years. He’s, what—sixty-five?” I nodded, and Lou’s nose crinkled, making the smattering of freckles across her nose dance. “I’m willing to bet he doesn’t think he’s got those years to waste. Oh, good work, my love.” I choked on my drink, and Lou went on like she hadn’t noticed: “This will set her mind at ease.”
She didn’t have to specify who.
I’d pestered Lou for years about details on the Lady Upstairs, the faceless woman who handed down our orders on the marks, and our paychecks. But there was a reason Lou was the only one who dealt with her directly. Even loaded, she was the soul of discretion. She never leaked any details, no matter how many drinks I poured her.
Jackal told me once he thought the Lady Upstairs was a retired movie star. I figured she was married to one of the old families of Los Angeles, those scions established a generation or two ago. She clearly had access to people with money. Maybe she wasn’t even a she at all. Except too many of the marks, the names funneled to Lou and me in white envelopes, were bad men—cheaters, assholes, men who never heard a no. They weren’t exclusively the men we targeted, but it was more than a passing coincidence. And I could understand why. Any woman could. I couldn’t imagine a man sharing that vendetta.
But knowing the Lady had a personal hatred for bad men with money didn’t really narrow the field.
I took a moment to wipe my chin with a tiny damp cocktail napkin. “Set her mind at ease?”
Lou stamped wet circles in the grain of the wood table with the bottom of her glass and didn’t meet my eyes. “I didn’t want to worry you. She told me— Anyway, it doesn’t matter since you’ll have the money tomorrow.” Lou grinned at me, her dimples flexing.
I gulped the drink, wishing Lou had made it a double. I’d never had much of a poker face. My mother had always been able to tell when I was fibbing or upset—she said I looked like I’d swallowed my heart, exactly that phrase. Since my time as one of the Lady’s girls, I thought I’d gotten better at hiding it, but Lou noticed. Lou always noticed. “What exactly did the Lady tell you?” I asked.
“What’s wrong? You will have the money tomorrow, won’t you?”
“By the end of the week,” I said, trying to sound confident. It didn’t convince either of us. “An equipment malfunction,” I said. I didn’t want to rat on Jackal, even as pissed as I was. “This time next week, we’ll be laughing at him.” I took another gulp of the drink and dared a glance at Lou’s face. She was staring at me like she’d didn’t understand what I was saying. I charged ahead. “I don’t know what the big deal is, one more week when it’s been three years—”
“Stop,” Lou said. The fan above her churned hot air vigorously enough that little auburn strands undulated above her head. She was staring past me, and her eyes had gone glassy and dark.
In all the scenarios I’d imagined on the drive over, I’d pictured Lou irritated—pissed, more likely—but I’d also figured we’d talk it through together. Work out a new plan.
I’d never imagined the look on her face now.
“I know it’s not ideal,” I started to say, but Lou cut me off.
“The Lady wants to retire you,” she said.
The sound that came out of me was between a cough and a laugh. “Yeah, sure,” I said. “What sort of 401(k) is she offering?”
Lou’s mouth was a tight, flat line. She reached for her purse and snapped it open. I watched her pull out everything inside—wallet, tampons, bullets and bullets of lipstick, even a piece of hard candy crushed into a thousand twinkling shards like a tiny butterscotch galaxy. Finally, she found her cigarette case and used trembling fingers to light up. It took her two tries.
She was scared, I realized. Lou was scared. I’d never seen it before.
“Come on, it can’t be that bad—”
“What do you think, Jo, the Lady sends us off with a tidy severance package when things ‘no longer work out’?” Lou gestured with her cigarette, and embers hopped onto the table where they flared and died. “Do you think girls like us get to go live quietly after this, dreaming of our wayward youth? Knowing what we know?” Lou shivered. It was infectious.
My head filled with water, like a kiddie pool inflating. A half-submerged memory, from my early days with the Lady: a woman, one of the Lady’s runners, who’d dropped items from the Lady to Lou. She’d always stopped by Jackal’s office, where she paused too long, laughing at his jokes, her mouth sticky like red vinyl, training her breasts on him like a sniper. We’d started up by then, but I wasn’t jealous. I’d never be her, I thought, not with Jackal—my favorite thing about the man was that he didn’t make me preen for his attention. But their familiarity had its own intensity, too, and I’d understood that he meant something to her—or maybe that she was trying to mean something to him. And then one day I realized I hadn’t seen her around for weeks. I’d asked Lou, and she’d shrugged me off with some half-baked answer, some don’t worry about it bullshit. I’d been dumb enough that I hadn’t.
“She’s done this before?” It was only half a question. “That woman. Jackal’s ex. The Lady dealt with her, too?”
Lou stubbed out what remained of her cigarette. She didn’t meet my eyes. Finally, she said, “Unpleasant business. Jackal understood.”