SK01 - Waist Deep (29 page)

54

“Kris…”
I started to say.

“Put your gun away,” she
ordered
, her voice wavering.

“No.”

“Do it,” she said, “or I’ll cut my throat.”

She was less than seven feet from me, the thin knife pressed against her throat.
I could rush her, but there’s no way I could get there before she hurt herself.

I kept my gun trained on LeMond.

“I’m not kidding,” she said, staring at me.

“I believe you,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and soothing.
“But if I put this gun down, he will kill me with it.”

“No, I won’t,” LeMond said
softly
, but without any
real
conviction.

“Sure he will,” I said to Kris.
“Because he knows I’m going to tell everyone about this operation
. No
t only will his cash disappear, but he’ll be headed for prison.
He has to kill me.”

Kris’s eyes flashed to LeMond and then back to me, looking like a rabbit caught in her own trap.

“Mexican standoff,” LeMond said, and I was reminded of
Roger
Jackson
.

I watched Kris.
She’d let up on the knife’s pressure against her neck.
I focused on the blade of the knife, watching LeMond out of my peripheral vision.
My mind was whirring, searching for options.

“Maybe we can all walk
a
way from this,” I said.

“Make everyone happy?” LeMond’s voice was filled with sarcasm.

“No,” I said.
“
N
obody
’s
leaving this situation happy.
But we can all three walk away alive.”

Neither one of them answered, so I forged on.

“Let’s start with this,” I said, meeting Kris’s eye.
“You are going home to your parents.”

She shook her head.
“No.”

“Yes,” I said.
“I didn’t come this far to let anything else happen.”

“I won’t stay,” she said.
“I
f
you take me there,
I’ll
just
run away again
or take some pills or something.
I won’t stay.”

I tipped my head toward LeMond.
“Why are you with him, Kris?
He’s just using you.
Can’t you see that?”

“I love him,” she said and shot a glance of pure adolescent idolatry at him.
“And he’s going to make me a star.
Bigger than Adrianna Apple to start, big as Audrey Hepburn before we’re through.”

“Audrey Hepburn
didn’t
—” I started to say, then stopped.
I had meant to say that she never star
r
ed in any porn movies.
But I didn’t want to push her further away.
Instead, I finished, “Audrey Hepburn
had class.”

“So does my Star,” LeMond said.
“One hundred percent.”

Kris flashed him a smile, her eyes glistening with tears.
“I love you,” she whispered.

“Do you plan on visiting him in prison?” I asked her.
“Because that’s where he’s headed, after I blow the top of
f
this operation.”

Her eyes snapped back to me at the word “prison” an
d narrowed
.
“He won’t go to prison.
That’s bullshit.”

I shook my head.
“Rape of a child. Third degree.”

“He never raped me,” she protested, her confident voice betraying a hint of a petulant whine.
“Besides,
I know the law.
We looked it up.
Gary even showed it to me.”

I raised my eyebrows and said nothing. The knife remained pressed to her throat.

“
I’m sixteen
,” she continued. “
I’m old enough to decide who to have sex with.”

“That’s true,” I said. “Except when that person has a position of trust and authority over you.”

She cast a confused look toward LeMond. “What?”

“Like a teacher,” I added.

Kris’s gaze returned to me. “You’re a liar,” she said, but her voice wavered.

“No, I’m not. That’s the law. You’re under eighteen and he’s your teacher, so it’s rape whether you gave your consent or not.”
I waited a beat, then said, “So you see, he is headed for prison. Unless we make a deal.
”

Her eyes
became
narrow and suspicious.
“What kind of deal?”

“Simple,” I said.
“You put down the knife and come with me.
I take you back home to your parents.
You stay there, finish high school and be the perfect daughter.
You want to go make skin flicks
on
the Internet when you turn
eighteen
and move out, that’s your business.
But until then,
you stay there.
”

“No,” Kris said, but LeMond piped in.
“Hear him out, baby doll.”

A twist of anger shot through my chest when he called her that, but I fought it down.
“In exchange for that, I don’t tell anyone about you and LeMond
having a relationship.
O
r about these movies you’ve been making.
None of it.
I don’t send him to prison.”

Kris chewed her lip and glanced at LeMond.

I followed her gaze.
“Same deal to you,” I said.
“You shut down the operation and I keep my mouth shut.
And you move away.
Find a different place to teach.”

“No!” Kris said.
“I don’t want him to leave.”

LeMond and I remained silent, staring at each other across the barrel of my gun.
Finally, he nodded.
“Okay.
Yeah.
It’s a deal.”

“No!” Kris cried out.
“I don’t want to—”

“It’s all right, baby doll,” LeMond said.
“I’ll let the school know where I go.
You can follow when you graduate.
We’ll be together eventually.
It’ll work out.”

“But I love you!”

“And I love you,” LeMond said, his voice smooth.
“And we’ll pick up right where we left off, once we’re free of all of society’s bullshit.
All right?”

We both looked at Kris.
She swallowed hard, her eyes flitting back and forth between our faces.
I was nodding slowly, urging her to agree.
LeMond was murmuring lovey-dovey words to her that turned my stomach, but I let him continue in order to get her to comply.

After a moment, she lowered the knife.
“Okay,” she said, looking at LeMond.
“If you think it’s what’s best.”

“I do, baby doll,” LeMond cooed.
“I do.”

“Toss the knife back into the bedroom,” I told her gently
. S
he did
it
.

“Stand by the door,
” I said
.

“What about my stuff?”

“Leave it.
Leave it all behind.”

She frowned, then pouted. F
or the first time, she actually looked like a
sixteen
year old to me.
I felt a rush of relief in my chest.
Maybe that little girl was still there, somewhere inside.
Maybe she hadn’t been completely snuffed out.

I motioned for LeMond
to stand up.
Once he was on his feet, I
limp
ed toward him.
“I don’t want you following us,” I said.

“I won’t.”

“I know.
I want you to wait in that bedroom until we’re long gone.”
I
pointed over his shoulder. W
hen he turned to look, I clobbered him with the barrel of my .45.
And damned if
it
didn’t work
just fine this time.

Kris yelped and LeMond hit the floor like a bag of pus.

“Let’s go,” I said, and took her arm.

55

“You didn’t have to hit him, did you?”

Kris had been crying silently ever since we left the apartment.

I shook my head, turning out of the parking lot and heading south.
“No, I didn’t.”

“Then why’d you do it?”

“Because I wasn’t allowed to kill him.”

Kris shot me a venomous look.
“If you hurt him again, or if you go back on your word, I will run away
. I’ll
go so far that not even the FBI will find me.
And I’ll tell my father that it was your fault.”

I believed her.
“I’ll keep my word, Kris.
You just keep yours.”

We drove in silence for a few blocks.
The early nightfall of winter had begun to shroud the city streets and the first weak glare of streetlights came on.
I drove easily, in no hurry.
It was nowhere near ten o’clock.
I had plenty of time.

“Tell me something,” I said to her, downshifting for a stop light.

“What?”

“The running away.
It was all a sham, wasn’t it?”

She looked at me as if I were retarded.
“Duh.”

“And you weren’t upset about losing the play?
The one-part production?”

“I suppose I was at the time,” she said with a shrug.
“But high school is small time.”

“What about the hooking?”

“Huh?”

“You were out on East Sprague, working for a pimp.
I saw the police report.”

She laughed.
“I was out there for two nights.”

“Why?”

“Research,” she said, in a perfectly serious tone.
“Gary says that method acting is the most persuasive.
Anyone can ooh and ahh while getting fucked, but only an actor can sell it to the audience.”

“Method acting?”

She nodded, her face serious.
“It’s the only way to become a star.”

“I talked to a pimp.
Rolo was his name.
He said—”

“He got his cut,” Kris said.
“It was all part of the research.”

I let it go.
Had Rolo lied to me?
I thought about it for a moment and realized that he really hadn’t lied.
He just hadn’t told me the whole story.
In fact, he really couldn’t have without giving up LeMond or
Jackson
.
I suppose
he was good to his word.
He sure could have saved me a lot of trouble, though.

The light turned green and I accelerated.
“Why these movies, Kris?
They’re so…crude.”

She gave a confused look.
“Porn, you mean?”

I nodded.

“It’s just sex,” she told me.
“And porn is no big deal.
Look at Adriana Apple.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Right,” she snorted.
“Whatever.”

“No,” I said.
“I really don’t.”

She glanced over at me.
Her expression
had changed from one suspecting retardation to one of disbelief.
I might as well have said that I’d never heard of Elvis.
“She’s only the biggest star this side of Jenna Jameson.
Duh.”

“I gathered that,” I said.
“But she’s a
porn
star.
Not a movie star
.
Not like Audrey Hepburn.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Do they talk about Adrianna Apple on
Entertainment Tonight
?
Is her picture in
People
Magazine?”

“I don’t know.
I don’t have a TV and I don’t read
People
.”

“Well, they do,” Kris snapped. “Adrianna Apple is on TV and in all the magazines. Because she’s a star.” She stared at me, then
shook her head in wonder.
“Jesus, w
hat planet are you
from
?”

“One where
sixteen
year olds chew bubble gum and moon over Leif Garrett, I guess.”

“He’s gross,” Kris said.
“I saw a special on him on the E! channel.
All old and bald and stuff.
He wasn’t that cute even back in
ancient times
when he was a kid, either.”

“You know what I meant,” I said.

She shrugged.
“The world changes.
Maybe you’re getting old or something.”

I fell silent, navigating the car west and then south.
Kris chewed on her thumbnail absently, then asked, “What are you going to tell my
mom
and
dad
?”

“What do you want me to tell them?”

“Nothing.”

“Then that’ll be part of the deal.”

She smiled briefly, then
went back to chewing on her thumbnail.