Siren Queen(16)

“All right, dear, now give me your hand.”

I shrieked when she made a small cut on my wrist with her penknife, but she wouldn’t let me draw my hand back until my blood saturated the little card with my name on it. She was stronger than she looked, and we both watched as my blood darkened the cardstock.

Mrs. Wiley finally let me go, ignoring my growl as she placed the bloodied card at the bottom of a fine porcelain teacup. She filled the cup with a whoosh of hot water, and the water tinted brown with my blood.

I didn’t feel any different when she finished it, and she didn’t look any different either, but she smacked her lips and proclaimed herself satisfied.

“Now,” she said. “I’m going to give you a name…”





VIII


My shadow paced in front of me on the sidewalk, only tottering slightly on my high heels. I looked stretched out but sharp on the pavement. I had a brief hallucination of my shadow reaching out in front of me, long and thin to wrap its fingers around the throats of the people sleeping in the houses on either side of the broad, clean street.

The streetcar was too polite to run into Jacko’s neighborhood, dropping me off almost six blocks away. I was painfully aware that if I was unlucky, the LAPD would have plenty of questions for what I was doing in West Adams Heights, for which I had no real answers, at least not ones I could tell them. Instead I walked briskly on the sidewalk, head up and spine straight. I didn’t look like I belonged there, but if I moved fast enough, I would be someone else’s problem, and that was good enough.

Jacko’s Mission Revival two-story hulked in the dark. Yellow light came from the ground-floor windows telling me that he wasn’t asleep yet, and I was relieved to see no cars in the drive except for Jacko’s own cream-colored Cadillac.

A sudden rustle from the oleander bushes that stretched out from his neighbor’s property made me hurry up the drive, and before I could lose my nerve, I rapped hard on the red door.

Jacko appeared quickly, a square tumbler full of something amber still in his hand. Out of his usual clothes and dressed in a gray sweater and slacks, he looked softer, but a thundercloud gathered over his brow as he recognized me.

“CK? What the hell are you doing here dressed like that?”

The dress I was wearing was lucky bright red, clinging to me until it fell in soft folds around my knees and tied at the collar with a small, kittenish bow. My mother recognized the woman who had dropped it off as Fighting Frank Mulligan’s mistress Donna Schafer, and since they had both died in a shootout in Santa Clarita, she probably wouldn’t be back for it.

I smiled widely, showing all my teeth and making him blink.

“Don’t I look all grown up?” I asked, spreading my arms out and doing a short spin. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider?”

I nearly sang the last word and stumbled as I did it, so close to Jacko that he had to reach over to steady me or let me fall. He left it until the last moment, but he did catch me, and when he set me on my feet, he smelled the beer that I had gargled and spat out on the corner after getting off the streetcar. The stuff made my teeth feel fuzzy, and the small trickle that found its way down my throat made me want to retch, but I smiled all the same.

“Jesus Christ, CK, your mom know you’re out like this?”

He slid an arm around me to help me in, and I slumped in his arms, soppy and silly. I pressed my flushed face against the wool of his sweater as he absently cursed my loose limbs, letting him do the work of wrestling me out of the tiled foyer and into the sunken living room beyond it. My head lolled against his chest as I giggled at nothing. Beyond my lowered eyelashes, everything was a red-and-gold blur.

With a heave, he unloaded me onto a leather couch before stepping back. I reminded myself not to pull down my skirt or slide my legs together. Instead I lay where he had left me for a moment before hauling myself to my feet. He regarded me warily like a stick of dynamite that might go off in his hand.

“How did you get all the way out here? We’re a long way from Hungarian Hill.”

“I get around, Jacko,” I said with a laugh. It was the first time I had said his name. “There are parties … that I can go to. My mother doesn’t have to know.”

I lunged forward, making him pull back in shock. He scowled when he realized that I was leaning towards the sleek radio given pride of place at the front of the room. I flipped it on with a careless finger and then spun the mother-of-pearl dial, sending the needle whizzing through stations. KRLV had just started doing late-night broadcasts a year ago, and most of the other stations followed along. I settled on something with a bright beat, trumpets and drums, and I ignored Jacko’s wince at the sudden noise.

“Come on, dance with me. No hard feelings, right?”

He blew exasperated air through his lips, but he stepped up when I offered him my hands. He was light on his feet despite being so big, and he guided me easily around the living room. There was something in his eyes that glittered, and I knew better than to think that it was worship or love. This was possession. I was giving him a taste of what the future might hold—queen’s consort, that’s a good road—and he wanted it.

I was never a very good dancer, even after lessons, and back then all I could do was watch the older girls practice with each other in the alley behind the laundry. He took me for two turns around the room before he let go, turning the radio down and shaking his head.