I stood listening to the envelope chatter in my hands, and that was how Jackal found me, pushing open the now-unlocked door. He snarled something rude at me, a word I only liked to be called behind bedroom doors, but it passed over my head. It didn’t matter. We would say and do worse to each other before our dance was over.
“Did you see her?” I asked.
“What? Who?”
“Blue nail polish.”
“Are you still drunk?” He shouldered past me to his office, the massage table long since replaced by a desk, even though his door still bore a trace of a lotus-flower sticker.
“The Lady Upstairs wears blue nail polish,” I said out loud, to no one.
* * *
Lou didn’t get to the office until noon, which surprised me: she’d had less to drink than me, and said she was going straight home. But my morning hadn’t gone to waste, at least: one call to Klein’s secretary had confirmed an opening in his schedule—for a prostate exam, which wasn’t exactly a lie—on both Thursday and Saturday afternoons. She’d promised to hold the spots in his calendar while she confirmed with him. I called the St. Leo and booked rooms for both afternoons, to be safe.
I sat at my desk, thinking about how the Lady’s blue fingernails would look wrapped around my throat, when Lou popped her head into my doorway. Her hair was dark and slightly damp, and she grinned at me, fresh and not hungover.
“Guess what!” Lou chirped.
I winced, sliding the Lady’s envelope into my desk drawer. “Good morning to you, too,” I said drily. “Or, I should say, afternoon. You’re in a good mood.”
“I’m a miracle worker,” Lou said, twirling into the seat across from me. I let out a breath I felt like I’d been holding for a month. “You’ve got until Friday.”
I bit off a tight smile in Lou’s direction. If I could convince Ellen, a Thursday afternoon rendezvous left a one-day turnaround. It was just possible. “Thank you,” I said with stiff lips. If Lou noticed I was less than thrilled, she didn’t show it.
“And,” Lou said, “I got this.” She held up another envelope, a twin of the one I’d tucked away in my desk. I jerked in my chair and tried to disguise it as a cough. “A new name,” Lou announced, her lopsided smile turning wicked. “We’re in a busy season.” She chucked the envelope onto my desk and then draped herself in the chair across from me.
As I opened it, pulling out the folded note—one single line, not even a full name, no other information: M. Carrigan—Lou asked, “Have you set the new date with Ellen?”
I danced the mouse across the pad at my desk, waking up my computer and typing in M. Carrigan, Los Angeles. “I’m expecting her any minute,” I said. “Where did you get this? Was it on your desk?”
Lou yawned, wide—goddammit, what had she been doing?—and shrugged. “Yep.”
Maybe the envelope the Lady had handed me was a test, a way to prove that even now, deadline looming, I was still loyal to her. “Lou, wait a second, let me—”
“Mitch Carrigan,” Lou went on happily. She was never as happy as at the beginning of the grift. All those possibilities still out there, all those different ways to ruin an asshole’s life.
Then it clicked.
“Carrigan? Like the city music hall Carrigans, those Carrigans? Old-money founding-fathers-of-Pasadena Carrigans, those Carrigans?”
“One and the same,” Lou said, her expression smug. “Ours. All ours. And once you’re done with Ellen”—her smile wavered—“we can work it together. Like the old days.”
“Like the old days,” I repeated. A sharp memory of a bra-clad Lou clutching my arm, fighting down giggles. Our very first case all over again—only this time, we wouldn’t leave any loose ends.
Lou came to my side of the desk so we could read the articles together on my screen. She rested her elbows on my back, sharp points that made me shiver as she shifted positions, shiatsuing my shoulder blades. “Mayoral dark horse thunders into the lead.” She read the Times headline over my shoulder. Goose bumps rose on my skin each time her elbows slipped. “Family name pays dividends for would-be mayor.” She read another, yawning again.
I shrugged her elbows off me and skated my chair backward so I could look at her. I could see each pale freckle on her nose. I could probably count them if I tried. I wanted to tell her I didn’t have time to waste on a new mark, not when I had four days to turn around Klein or else leave her and this life we’d built together before the Lady put me down like a dog shot in the street.
“Lou, I should tell you— Is that the same blouse you were wearing yesterday?”
“Hmm?” Lou had moved to the bar cart she’d bought to celebrate my first anniversary with the Lady—the same day I’d paid off twenty large on the debt—and was fixing a cocktail, humming as she did. My mouth watered, not pleasantly, and I narrowed my eyes at her back. Black, linen, sheer—I was almost positive I was right. I heard the chime of the front door—Jackal leaving. Even better. I didn’t want him to overhear what I was about to say.
“Never mind,” I said quickly. “Lou, come here and tell me if—”
Lou turned around, toasting me with a tumbler of tea-colored liquor, capsizing a maraschino cherry. “It’ll be tricky, but Mitch Carrigan, our biggest score ever—”
“Hello?”
Ellen rapped two small fingers on my office door and pushed it open, but she didn’t step inside. Her hair was pulled away from her face with a clip, which was a mistake—it wasn’t that kind of face. A small cluster of acne blossomed on her chin. She was wearing blue jeans and a tight pink sweater with embroidered pom-poms, and she looked younger than legal.
Lou’s mouth dropped open, but she recovered quicker than I did. “Hello,” she said, pulling Ellen in for a kiss on each cheek. “So nice to see you again.” Ellen stammered something back, half dazed. Lou could have that effect on people. It was why I’d had Lou meet Ellen and me for drinks at the St. Leo back at the beginning of the case: she was still the best at making the girls see past the payoff and want to be involved with what we did. Lou could sell anything.
There’s a magic Lou has, a certain kindness in her face. It’s a small miracle, finding a nice face in this city. People respond to it, even when they shouldn’t. Even when she was wearing day-old clothes and no makeup and hadn’t gotten enough sleep because God knew why.
“Ellen, a little birdie told me you’re killing this case. Jo says you’re one of the best we’ve ever had.” Lou smiled, warm and homey, and Ellen smiled back, a little uncertainly, making knots of her fingers and venturing a glance at me as Lou tugged her to my desk.