Complete Corruption (Corruption #1-3) (3 page)

“Looks and money aren’t the whole of a person.”

“Don’t pretend they don’t matter. They do. If you saw what I saw every day.”

My sister was sweet and compassionate, but she was a belligerent drunk. If I let her, she’d tell me my sadness came from material idolatry and that it was time for me to give all my money to charity and live in service to the poor. I’d often considered the possibility that she was right.

The musicians had come by and then disappeared again. The lights dimmed, and she appeared by the piano singing “Stormy Weather” as if she wanted to rip the clouds from the sky but couldn’t reach high enough. Monica Faulkner, a nobody singer in a town of somebodies, stood in front of the piano singing other people’s songs in a room built for other purposes. She moved from “Stormy Weather” to something more plaintive. My God, she was fully committed to every word, every note.

There was no halfway with that woman. I’d seen her sandwiched between my brother fingering her and fucking her, and I’d felt bad. But not today, she had control over me. She sang in the tempo of keys clacking and printers humming. There was an open place inside me, past where the professionalism cracked and the weariness fissured and the sadness throbbed. She caressed that place then jabbed it.

I missed Daniel. I missed the hardness of his body and the touch of his hands. I missed his laughter, and the way he cupped my breast in his sleep, and the weight of his arm on my shoulder, and the way he brushed his light brown hair off his face. I missed calling him to tell him where I was. I was an independent woman. I could function fine without him or anyone. But I missed him, and I missed being loved. Once he’d cheated on me, all my delight in his love drowned in bitterness. I was wistful for something dead.

“You all right?” said a male voice.

Gene had left the table to come talk to me at the bar. He was my “type”: dark blonde, straight-laced, ambitious, easy smile, confident. But he was awful. Just the most awful Hollywood douchebag.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“She’s good. The singer. ”

“Great.” I felt an absence to my right, where Deirdre had been standing.

“I think we could do something with her. Little spit and polish, shorter skirt. Use the body. Sammy’s got Geraldine Stark under contract. She’s trying to move into fashion. Could be a tight package.” He winked as if I might not get his double entendre.

“I hope it works out,” I said. “I’m off to the ladies’.”

“See you back at the table.” He picked up his glass. “Don’t be a stranger.”

Deirdre wasn’t in the bathroom. I ended up looking at the same roll of toilet paper from two weeks ago. Still one square hanging. A different roll, obviously, but the same amount. Not enough.

Just not enough.

The hall outside the bathroom led outside, where a little seating area with ashtrays was blocked off from the parking lot. I heard yelling and repeated calls of “bitch.” Though I normally avoided disagreeable behavior, I went to look.

A red Porsche Boxster was parked in the handicapped spot, and on the hood, all five-eleven, hundred-and-fifty pounds of her, Deirdre sprawled on her back. The man yelling was six inches shorter and twenty pounds lighter—if I didn’t count the weight of the petroleum in his hair products. He wore head-to-toe leather and had a voice like a car screeching to a halt.

“Get. Off. The. Porsche.” He pushed her as he yelled, but she was dead weight.

“Excuse me,” I said.

He may have heard me. I had no time to think about that; the rest happened so fast. He pulled at Deirdre’s lapels, yanking her forward. Like a baby with a bellyful of milk, she projectile vomited. It splashed on his jacket, the ground, and the car. He squealed and let her go. She rolled off the hood, puking as she went, and landed on the ground.

“Fuck!” he yelled as I tried to sit my sister up against the wheel. “Shit. God. Puke? Puke is acid! Do you know what that’s going to do to the paint? And my fucking jacket?”

“We’ll pay for the damage.”

I was too busy with Deirdre to bother looking at the creep. She was unconscious. I squeezed her cheeks and looked into her mouth to see if she was choking. She wasn’t, because she threw up right down my shirt. I leaned back and said something like
ugh,
but it was drowned out by the man in leather.

“This is a custom paint job. Fuck! Bitch, the
whole car’s
gotta be redone. And I got a thing tomorrow.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, tapping Deirdre’s cheek.

If he hadn’t been blinded by his rage and stupidity, Leather Guy probably wouldn’t have done what he did in front of me. Holding his arms so they didn’t touch the puke on his chest, he came around the car and kicked Deirdre in the hip.

“Hey!” was all I got to say.

I didn’t even have a chance to stand and challenge him before he fell back as if an airplane door had opened mid-flight. Then I heard a bang. I looked back at Deirdre, because in my panic, I thought she’d fallen or gotten hit by a car.

A voice, gentle yet sharp, said, “Does she drink like this often?” A blue-eyed man with a young face and bow lips crouched beside me. He didn’t look at me but at Deirdre. “I think she’s got alcohol poisoning.”

Another bang. I jumped. A splash of vomit landed on my cheek, and I looked up at the hood of the car. Leather’s cheek was pressed against the hood of the Porsche.

“Spin,” Bow Lips said, “take it easy, would you?”

Above him, with his arm pinning down Leather’s face, was the breathtaking man, ignoring his friend. “Tell this lady you’re sorry.”

“He should apologize to my sister, not me,” I said.

“Fuck you!” The douchebag wiggled. He got thumped against the hood for his trouble. “I ain’t saying shit.”

Spin pulled Leather up by his collar and slammed his face on the hood until he screamed.

“I’ll call 9-1-1,” said Bow Lips.

“But I—”
I thought you were this guy’s friend.
I stopped myself, realizing he was going to call about Deirdre, not the creep getting his face slammed against a car.

“Say. You’re. Sorry,” Spin said through his teeth.

Leather’s face slid to the edge of the hood, wiping puke, until I could see the blood and paint-shredding stomach acid mixing on his cheeks from my crouching position. He spit a little blood.

He was a douchebag and he’d kicked my sister, but I felt bad for him. “It’s okay, really, I—”

“Yeah, we have an emergency.” Bow Lips. Unflustered. Into the phone “Alcohol poisoning.”

Bang.

“I’m sorry!”

“Do you believe him,
Contessa
?” Beautiful. Even beating the hell out of some guy on the hood of a Porsche. “Do you think he’s sorry?”

I caught a hint of an accent in his voice. Italian? He was speaking to me, one eyebrow arched like a parabola, his face closed with resolve, impassioned with purpose, yet calm, as if he was so good at what he did he didn’t need to break a sweat.

“Yes,” I said, “I believe him.”

“I believe he regrets it,” he said. “But I don’t believe he’s remorseful.” He leaned toward me on the owner of the Porsche, who was crying through a bloody nose. “What do you think?”

I don’t know what came over me. The need to be truthful turned me and that gorgeous man into cohorts. It was intimate in a safe way, and the creep in leather needed to suffer. “No, I don’t think he is.”

His smirk lit up the night. I feared a full-on smile might put me over the edge.

“Show her you mean it,” he said in Leather’s ear but looked at me. “Get the puke off this ugly fucking car.” He wouldn’t let the guy move. “Get it off.”

“Female,” Bow Lips said, all business. “Mid thirties. Built like a brick shithouse.”

“Lick that shit up, or you’re kissing the hood again.”

Leather choked and sobbed, blood pouring from his nose. I stood up and looked at the guy who had kicked my sister. I felt something pouring off the two men locked together on the car. Heat. Energy. Something that crawled under my skin and made it tingle. And when the creep stuck his tongue out and licked the vomit off the hood, the tingle turned to a release from anxiety I hadn’t realized I carried.

“That’s right,” Spin said. “You believe him now, Contessa?”

“Yes.”

Spin yanked the man up, and I knew from the look on his face that he was going to make the guy kiss the hood again. The distance and force applied would not just break, but smash bones.

I stood. “I think you’ve made your point.”

Spin’s face, so implacable, breached into something gentler, more open, as if an understanding reached not his intelligence, but his adrenal glands. He smiled. “I thought you’d enjoy a big ending.”

“My sister will be bruised. His face is cracked open. Justice is served.”

“
Come vuoi tu,”
he said, yanking the creep back again. “Keys.” He held out his hand as Leather cried, tears streaking the mass of blood.

“No, man, don’t take my car.”

“This car?” He pulled the keys out of Leather’s pocket and hit a button. The doors unlocked, and the lights flashed. “You’re taking this low-class piece-of-shit car out of my sight.” He pushed the man inside and closed the door.

In a few seconds, the car started and screeched away.

“Ambulance coming,” Bow Lips said from behind me, his voice strained.

He had stood Deirdre up and was about to fall under her dead weight. His friend intervened and helped carry her to the smokers’ benches. From inside, I heard clapping. The singer was done. People would come out for their cigarettes soon. The breathtaking man pulled the sleeves of his jacket straight and touched his tie. Nothing was out of place.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yes. You?” He took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered me one.

I refused with a tilt of my head. I glanced at Deirdre, who leaned against Bow Lips. He’d need to be rescued.

“I’m fine. Covered in throw up, but fine,” I said.

“You didn’t get upset, seeing that. I’m impressed.” He poked out a smoke and bit the end, sliding it out of its sardine-tight box while absently fingering a silver lighter.

“Oh, I’m upset.”

He smiled as he lit up, looking at me over the flame. He snapped the lighter shut with a loud click, taking his time. I had a second to run and sit next to my sister, take a step back. But I didn’t.

“You don’t look upset,” he said. “You’re flushed. Your heart is racing. I can see it.” He stepped forward. “Your breath, you’re trying to control it. But it’s not working. If I saw you like this in a different time or place, I’d think you were ready to fuck.”

Just watching me, he let the smoke rise in a white miasma. My lungs took in more air than they ever had in such a short period of time. Foul language usually put the taste of tar and bile on my tongue, but from him, it sent a line of heat from my knees to my lower back.

“I don’t like that kind of talk.” It was out of my mouth before I realized I didn’t mean it.

“Maybe.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a white business card. “Maybe not.”

I took the card. Antonio Spinelli, Esq., and a number in 213. I glanced up to ask him what kind of lawyer made douchebags lick puke off a car, but he was already walking toward a black Maserati. Bow Lips gently leaned Deirdre against the wall.

“Thanks,” I said, pocketing the card.

“Take care of her.” He indicated that I should sit next to Deirdre before one of the many smokers exiting the club did. “She’s dangerous.”

I smiled at him and watched as he got in the passenger side and they drove away. I sat next to my sister and waited for the ambulance.

 put the card in my pocket and rode in the ambulance with Deirdre. My sister was chronically depressed, and she medicated with alcohol. We all knew the drill. She got wheeled in. People shouted. They took her vitals. A nurse gave me scrubs so I could get out of my puke-covered clothes. The V-neck top had wide sleeves and teddy bears in a cloudy sky. My dressy heels were absurd with the pink pants that were four sizes too big.

They gave Deirdre B vitamins, and once they’d determined that she hadn’t done any damage to her brain she couldn’t afford, they left me in the room with her. My stink-soaked clothes were in a plastic bag under my chair. Before, I’d call Daniel. But my new roommate and I had agreed that she’d be the person I checked in with, since checking in was what I missed most.

—I’m at the hospital with my sister. Everything ok. Won’t be home.—

The text came immediately.

—Breaking down the set in three hours. Need me to come?—

—Sure. Sequoia—

My jacket was crumpled in the plastic bag. I’d moved the lawyer’s card to the pocket of the scrubs for reasons I couldn’t articulate. It weighed forty pounds in my pocket. It had gotten warmer when the paramedics asked for my sister’s stats, her insurance, her age, how many drinks she’d had. It vibrated and buzzed as I waited for her to regain consciousness.

—Ok. Which sister?—

—Deirdre. She’s been in sri lanka. You never met her.—

—Boozy left-wing freedom fighter?—

—LOL yes—

I went out to the ER waiting room. Sequoia was a nice hospital, but the next few hours were going on the “really bad times not interesting enough to even talk about” list. The waiting room was active late at night, but slower, as if the horrors of Los Angeles took a break for a few hours. Babies fussed, and the TVs screamed joyful network news. I went to the vending machine and stared at the library of packages, unable to decide what I didn’t want the least.