Letty cut in front of a striking couple and elbowed her way to the bar. The stool to Arnold’s left sat unoccupied and she climbed onto it, let the duffle bag drop to her feet. She recognized the scent of his cologne, but she didn’t look at him. Watched the barkeep instead, his back to her, mixing what appeared to be a Long Island Iced Tea, pouring shots from four different liquor bottles at once into a pint glass filled with ice.
Arnold drank from a long-necked bottle of Coors Light, picking at the label between sips. Something about his hands fascinated Letty, and she kept staring at them out of the corner of her eye.
When after two minutes the barkeep hadn’t come over to take her drink order, she let slip an audible sigh, though in reality she sympathized. The lounge was crowded and she could tell the guy was doing the best he could.
She glanced over at Arnold, back at the bar, thinking he hadn’t noticed her predicament. Like everyone else, exclusively engaged in his own world.
So it startled her when he spoke.
“Bartender.”
And though the word hadn’t been shouted, something in its tone implied a command that ought not be ignored. Clearly the barkeep picked up on it, too, because he was standing in front of Arnold almost instantaneously, like he’d been summoned.
“Get you another Coors?”
“Why don’t you ask the lady what she wants?”
“Sorry, I didn’t know she was with you.”
“She’s not. Still deserves a drink before the icecaps melt, don’t you think?”
The barkeep emanated a distinct don’t-fuck-with-me vibe that gave Letty the feeling he’d probably killed a number in medium security. A hardness in the eyes she recognized. But those eyes deferred to the customer seated to her right, flashing toward her with a kind of disbelief, like they’d grazed something harder than themselves and come away scratched.
“What would you like?”
“Grey Goose martini, little dirty, with a free range olive.”
“You got it.”
Now or never. She turned toward Arnold who’d already turned toward her, anticipating the attention, the tips of her ears on fire again, and got her first good look at him. Forty years old, she would have guessed. Smoothshaven. Black hair, conservatively cropped. His collar just failing to hide the end of a tat, what might have been an erotic finger strangling his neck. Green eyes that exuded not so much hardness as an altogether otherworldly quality. She didn’t know if it was Arnold’s confidence or arrogance, but under different circumstances (and perhaps even these) she might have felt a strong attraction to the man.
“You’re a lifesaver,” she said.
He broke a slight smile. “Do what I can.”
She fell back on her break-in-case-of-emergency smile, the one that had disarmed a cop or two, that she’d used to talk her way out of a hotel room in Vegas.
“I’m Letty.”
“Arnie.”
She shook his hand.
“So’s Letty short for—”
“Letisha. I know, it’s awful.”
“No, I like it. Nothing you hear every day.”
The barkeep placed a martini in front of Letty, slid a fresh beer to Arnold.
“I got these,” Letty said, going for her purse.
“Get out of here.” Arnold reaching into his jacket.
“Actually,” the barkeep said, “these are on me. Sorry about the wait, guys.”
Letty raised her martini by the stem, clinked her glass against the neck of Arnie’s bottle.
“Cheers.”
“New friends.”
They drank.
“So where you from?” Arnie asked.
“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.”
Through the streets of the old, southern city, the downtown architecture catching early light—City Hall, the Vance Monument, the Basilica of St. Lawrence, where a few churchgoers straggled in for morning mass—and on the outskirts of Letty’s perception, secondary to her inner frenzy, a spectrum of Appalachian color—copper hillsides, spotless blue, the Black Mountain summits enameled with rime ice. A classic autumn day in the Swannanoa Valley.
They turned onto an oak-lined boulevard, red and gold leaves plastered to the pavement.
“We’re going into Montford?” Letty asked.
“That’s what the computer says to me.”
Hamlet Court was a secluded dead end off the B&B bustle of Montford Avenue, approximately a half mile long, and home to a dozen Victorian mansions.
The entrance to 712 stood at the end of the cul-de-sac through a brick archway just spacious enough to accommodate a single car.
“Stop the car,” Letty said.
“I take you all the way up.”
“I don’t want you to take me all the way.”
She climbed out of the car at 10:04. Hurried to the end of the street and under the archway, glancing at the name on a large, black mailbox: Rochefort.
The residence sat toward the back of the property, which sloped up across a masterfully landscaped yard shaded with maples and spruce trees, dotted with stone sculptures—fountains, birdbaths, angels—and not a leaf to be seen on the pockets of lush green grass.
An engine turned over near the house. Letty stepped off the drive and crawled into a thicket of mountain laurel as a boxy Mercedes G-Class rolled past. Through the branches and tinted glass, she glimpsed Chase at the wheel, a young boy in a booster in the backseat. The car ride over had only intensified her nausea, and as the
diesel engine faded away, she put her finger down her throat and retched in the leaves.
She felt instantly better. Weaker. Less drunk. But better.