Two Girls Down(48)
She slapped her hands over her eyes. She must have liked the way that felt because she did it again. Then she started hitting her face like her hands were flyswatters, first in a pitter-patter way, then harder until she knocked the heel of her hand into her nose and blood leaked from it.
Cap jumped from where he stood to stop it, but Vega was closer and quicker. She clamped her arms around Jamie from behind and pulled her to a standing position.
“Let me go!” Jamie yelled.
She thrashed and twisted against Vega, who’d pinned Jamie’s arms to her body. They were about the same height, Jamie and Vega, but Jamie’s fury was nothing next to Vega’s discipline.
“Call her mother,” said Vega to Cap.
“Lemme go, bitch,” Jamie screamed.
Cap could see into the cave of her mouth, black and bottomless, as her eyes grew to globes, and he reached for his phone.
—
She was in the bathroom vomiting when her mother arrived. Vega pressed a wet towel to the back of Jamie’s neck and heard Gail White yelling at Cap. Jamie was weak, had gone for too many hours straight on pills and beer and coffee, and now her insides were kicking up like mud off tires.
Gail burst into the bathroom, Cap behind her.
“All right, get the hell outta here,” she said to Vega.
Vega stood back. Gail pushed her out of the way and knelt behind Jamie, whose head was lolling around on the toilet seat.
“A lot of fuckin’ good you’re doing, all of you,” snapped Gail. “Just get out now, go!”
Cap and Vega backed up and left. They walked through the scraps in the living room, and then Vega saw something.
“I’m calling Em,” Cap announced, heading for the open door.
Vega stepped around DVDs like they were bombs and picked one up, examined the back of it. She stared at it and followed Cap without looking up. She heard him speak.
“Where is he…? Okay, WT is a dead end. Jamie Brandt thinks it’s from a movie….”
Vega walked behind Cap, out the door, down the complex stairs and to his car. She ran her thumb over the front of the DVD and opened the case.
“Just have him call me if he wants to talk. Or he can talk to Jamie, but she’s sick right now…like sick, vomiting….”
They got into Cap’s car. Vega reached to the backseat and brought out her laptop, set it on her thighs.
“I’m saying you have no more leads; he’s a character from a goddamn movie….”
Cap’s voice rose; he massaged the bridge of his nose. Vega slid the DVD into the laptop and turned down the sound.
“Sure. Fifteen minutes,” he said, and hung up.
He bounced his fist on the top of the wheel. “Em wants to meet at the diner. We have no reason to hide anything from him at this point. We all have shit.”
Vega pressed Fast-Forward on the movie, watched the picture jump and split.
“Yeah. Okay.”
Cap hung up and put his hands through his hair. He started the car.
“The hell are you doing?”
Vega didn’t answer him. She had stopped the fast-forward and was now watching the movie in real time. She pressed Pause.
“Is this him?” she said, pointing to an actor on the screen. “Is this Will Turner?”
“I think so,” said Cap, leaning over. “Yeah, it’s not Johnny Depp; it’s the kid.”
Cap put his seat belt on and began to pull the car out onto the road.
“What are you doing?” he said, more slowly.
She stared at the kid’s face, the movie star, at his dark eyes generously spaced apart, delicate features, smooth skin. It had been hard to tell from the DVD case, but now, watching him move and speak, it was clear. She tapped her fingernail on the screen.
“This kid looks exactly like Evan Marsh.”
——————
EM WAS WAITING FOR THEM IN THE SAME BOOTH. He tapped a quarter on the table and hopped in his seat when he saw them. Vega slid in first, her laptop under her arm, Cap next to her.
“What’s going on, Em?”
Em showed them what he was holding—not a quarter. A flash drive.
“That for us?” Vega said, opening the laptop.
“Junior released Sonny Thomas an hour ago because they got nothing on him,” said Em.
“Yeah, no shit,” said Cap, nodding to the laptop screen where the movie was frozen on the young actor’s face. “Because that is Kylie’s dream date. A fictional character in a goddamn movie.”
Em handed the flash drive to Vega, and she plugged it in. He stared at the screen.
“I don’t think I get it,” he said.
“The character’s name is Will Turner. We all thought Kylie was writing about Wilson Thomas, but instead it’s a guy who doesn’t exist.”
“Shit,” said Em. “It’s this guy? What’s his name, Rodrigo something?”
Another video screen opened, the blurry chevrons of a security camera. Retail floor, a row of computers on a counter with one user, seated, back toward the camera.
“You got the Kinko’s footage,” said Vega.
Em pulled a finger gun on her and winked.
“Give the lady a stuffed banana.”