Book of Night(27)

She passed the valets, feeling conspicuous. There were a few couples heading out. She overheard a man say to his wife, “He’s a swindler. Why doesn’t she see that?”

Charlie’s face felt hot, but she kept going until she came to the gate. There, she waited for a car to pass and darted through. Another thing she’d been able to figure out on her own.

When she made it to the car, she climbed in and slammed the door. She wished she knew how to drive. She would leave him there. Maybe she’d pick him up eventually; maybe not. What could he do, call the cops?

In that moment, she felt very young, and as though she didn’t want to have to be this grown-up yet.

When Rand came out to the car, she expected him to be mean, like he’d been inside, but instead he was jubilant.

“You were incredible!” he said as he pulled onto the road with a whoop. “What a rush, right? Seriously, you were a natural. I knew you had it.”

“Had what?” Charlie said.

“You’re like me. This is what people like us were made for. Born deceivers. Like laughing hyenas, smiles on our faces, prowling the edges of society, looking for the weak and the slow.”

And when Charlie didn’t say anything in return, he shoved her shoulder. “Oh, don’t be like that because I scolded you in there. Tensions were high! You don’t have time for the niceties when you’re on a job. We’re good, right?”

Charlie nodded, pleased to be praised, even by him. It made her feel as though everything was going to be okay. He was going to take her home and this would just be a weird thing that happened one time. She could go back to thinking of him as her mother’s friend and avoiding him.

She could convince herself that he was wrong, and that they weren’t alike.

An hour and a lot of fiddling with the radio later, they pulled up outside her apartment building.

“Here,” he said, handing her a twenty. “You earned it.”

“Thanks.” Charlie took it and got out of the car. Together they walked up to the second floor.

Charlie’s mother was putting together a puzzle with Posey on the dining room table. A box of pizza sat next to them.

“Glad you’re back,” her mother said. “It was getting late. Did you have a good time?”

Charlie had forgotten where Rand was supposed to have taken her, but she nodded.

“Well, thank him,” her mother prompted, with a long-suffering smile directed at Rand. He smiled back, two adults teaching a child responsibility.

Anything for this to be over, Charlie thought. “Thank you,” she said to Rand.

“We should do it again sometime,” he said. “Give your mother a break.”

Charlie went to the pizza box and got a slice, ignoring him.

Mom invited Rand to stay and eat something with them, but to Charlie’s relief, he declined.



* * *



A week later, she was out in the street, trying to teach herself skateboarding. She’d been falling a lot. Her knee was bleeding when Rand got out of his car.

“I’ve got another job for us, my little charlatan,” he said. “Charlatan Hall. I love it.”

Charlie shook her head, feeling numb all over.

“No?” He sounded amused. “Oh, come on. I’ll pay you better this time. And it’s not like you really have a choice.”

She stared at him, openmouthed. “You can’t say anything. I know what you did. I could tell.”

“Oh?” He held up his phone, with a picture of a ghost in the window up on the screen. “Before it would have been my word versus yours, but not now. I have proof you’re a little con artist.”

Charlie looked at the picture and her heart sank. It wasn’t entirely clear it was her, but the figure was her height. And her mother would have known she was out with Rand that day.

“But you took me there. You’re the one who lied to those people,” Charlie protested.

“Oh, she’d hate me too,” Rand said, still smiling. “But why would I care about that? Besides, you had fun. You wouldn’t be half as good at it if you didn’t.”

It would be years before she understood the technique he’d used to draw her in. The quicksand of cons, transitioning from having something small on someone to having them over a barrel. You start with blackmail. A little thing, maybe, so long as a person would put in some effort to make it go away. Maybe they’d be willing to swipe something for you, fudge some numbers, change a grade, take a little cash out of the till, whatever. But that’s when they were sunk. Because if they gave in, they were no longer just hiding whatever their initial indiscretion was, but what they’d done to cover it up. And the more they tried to dig themselves out, the deeper they sank.

There is nothing as instructive for learning how to get someone on the ropes as being put there yourself.





8

THE LIBER NOCTEM




As the gloamist spoke, Charlie froze, her back pressed against the rear ledge of the bar.

He turned his head toward Odette and the two drag performers. “Get out.”

With very little power, glooms could make a puppeted shade pick a penny up off the ground. With more, they could crush your heart by reaching down your throat. Charlie’s entire career as a con artist and a thief had been about avoiding facing one directly.