Two Girls Down(93)

She moved slowly at first toward them, her right hand running along the bar, when she came to the taps—Yuengling, Yuengling Light, Bud, Bud Light. She made a fist and hit one after another, and down came the tired streams, one by one onto the rubber mat on the floor. It was only during a pause in their conversation that Pastor noticed the sound.

“What the fuck, girl—” he said, managing to sound offended and hostile at the same time, and then he started to run.

Vega picked up a highball glass in each hand and lobbed one at him. He caught it like she knew he would, so she fired the other one at his head. It hit him, and he screamed, probably more from the shock of it than the pain, though he went down anyway.

The other two were coming at her fast, one taller than the other, both scrawny, and Vega thought she could fight one but not two, especially if they did that thing that boys were so fond of, where one held your arms back and the other took shots.

And then there was the interest of time. So she pulled the Springfield from her holster and waved it at them casually.

“Go away,” she said.

They both stopped where they stood. The tall one’s jaw fell open like a puppet without a hand, but the short one was galvanized, high off the possibility of violence.

“I’m-a call the cops on you and your busted-ass face, bitch!” he said.

They lingered for a second, the short one rattling off imaginative threats punctuated with “cunt” and “bitch,” and didn’t seem to be wrapping it up.

“Go away!” she shouted, this time aiming the Springfield at the short one’s chest, and he finally shut up.

They both ran out, the front door flying open, letting in the cold and the light for a second.



Vega put her gun away. She jumped the bar, swung her legs around, and knocked over a few mugs. Pastor was trying to stand, still stunned, a thin line of blood trickling from his eyebrow. He was mostly moaning.

The old man on the other side of the bar had not moved, still drank his beer.

“You got something to say, Papi?” she said.

He put his mug down, pinched his upper lip to wipe the foam, and pointed at her.

“You remind me of my late wife,” he said thoughtfully.

Vega was too distracted to laugh, so she nodded. Then she looked back down at Pastor, who was sitting up with his knees bent and his head down. He asked her to turn off the taps, so she did. One by one the streams stopped, reminded her of ceiling leaks getting plugged. Then she sat on her heels next to Pastor, who thanked her before he told her everything he knew.





17

Cap sat with Jamie in Junior’s office. As she listened to him, ruddy splotches appeared on her cheeks and forehead, tears spilling loosely from her sealed eyes. She rubbed them with her fingertips.

“Jamie, we’re getting all the security video we can and canvassing the strip mall near the ballet studio,” Cap said. “Do you remember anyone who stood out? A delivery person or a salesman maybe?”

“No, it was just a strip mall, and it was just her ballet class. I don’t remember a delivery guy,” whispered Jamie, coughing. She smacked her forehead with her palm gently. “Part of me feels like I got Bailey; there’s no way I’m gonna get Kylie too, right?—that’s just too much luck.”

Cap knew he should speak, but he couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound patronizing.

“I just,” Jamie started, “I just think I could handle anything….I think I could live with just Bailey if I had to, I just, I just…” She kept braking on the “just.” No new tears were coming; her eyes were small and dry, her face wet like a stone. “I just couldn’t handle it if they cut her up. You know, her body parts. I’ve thought about this a lot. Then I’d do the overdose right. Bailey could live with my folks.”

She touched her hair dreamily, still gazing past Cap as she thought about it. Cap stood up and saw confetti in the corners of his eyes, held the edge of the table with one hand, queasy.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back,” he said.

Jamie nodded, still spacey.

Cap jogged out of the office, down one floor to the break room, fed dollars into the vending machine. Two packs of peanut M&M’s dropped to the tray, and Cap grabbed them and ran back upstairs to Jamie. She was still staring blankly ahead, resting her head on her fists, stacked on top of each other.



“Here,” said Cap, setting the candy on the desk in front of her.

She raised her head and looked at the yellow bag like it was a rock from the moon.

“Have you eaten any solid food yet?” Cap said, ripping open his own bag.

“Yeah, I had some toast and soup.”

“Try a couple,” he said. “They’ll give you a little energy.”

He tilted his head back and poured some of the candy into his mouth and started crunching. Then the syrupy sweetness of mass-produced chocolate hit him, and he accidentally made a little grunting noise.

“You really like M&M’s,” said Jamie, opening her bag with two hands.

“The cheap sugar’s the only thing that keeps me going when I’m this tired,” he said. “Might help you too.”

“Kylie doesn’t love anything like she loves sugar,” she said. “I tell people that and they’re all, duh, she’s a kid, but it’s different. I have two kids, and Bailey loves ice cream and cake and Twizzlers as much as the next, but Kylie…”