“Will she be all right?” Da asks, but before the other woman can answer, Kep pops open the driver’s door and slides his bulk onto the seat. An unlit cigarette hangs from his lips. Before he starts the car, he twists back to speak to Da, although he doesn’t bother to turn his head far enough to meet her eyes.
“No giving money back today, got it?”
He seems to expect a reply. “I heard you the first time.”
“And get off your ass. Don’t just sit there.”
Anger flares in the center of Da’s chest. “I made money yesterday.”
Kep throws an arm back and swipes halfheartedly at her, but she easily ducks out of reach. “Listen to me, you snotty little bitch. You make as much as I tell people you make. If you don’t want to wind up in some dirt-road whorehouse, you’ll be nice to me.”
“I’ll never work in a whorehouse.”
“You remember that when I bring a bunch of my friends by to break you in.”
“You have friends?”
The other woman puts a cautioning hand on Da’s arm. This time Kep turns all the way around to glare at her. He closes his fist and slowly brings it up into the center of her field of vision. “Women with bruises on their face make money,” he says. “If you don’t shut your mouth, you’ll find out.” For a moment Da is too furious to care whether he hits her or not, but the woman squeezes her arm, and Peep chooses that instant to begin to cry. Da lowers her gaze, and after a brief eternity, stretched out by Peep’s squalling, Kep turns away and starts the van.
He guns the engine, throwing the two women back against the seats, and then the van hits a pothole. Kep lets go of the wheel with one hand long enough to light his cigarette and say, “There must be a better way to earn a living.”
A CARPET TO muffle the echoes, maybe tack a blanket to a wall, hang something over the windows to cover them when the lights are on at night. Some soft, absorbent surfaces. The place sounds like an empty swimming pool, and that won’t do. Grab a few chairs, a table. Something to sit on, and around, while they do what they have to do.
Bare minimum.
Once the floors are clean, just fold some more blankets on them. Haul the spare pillows downstairs. If they have to sleep there, which he doesn’t think they will, it’ll only be for one night. With what he has in mind, they won’t have much time for sleep anyway.
Mrs. Song had helped for a while, running water and sloshing around in the bathroom before making her retreat, scattering excuses and tracking water behind her. As soon as the elevator doors had closed, Rafferty had gone into the bathroom for a look, but he couldn’t see that she’d accomplished much, other than getting it amazingly wet. So he’d balled up a bunch of the paper towels and scrubbed at the floor, walls, and toilet until he was certain the room wouldn’t horrify Rose. He found that the tight coil of anxiety that was wrapped around his heart seemed to ease when he was cleaning.
At least he was
Now, back in the living room, he uses the widest of the brooms to push a quickly growing ridge of dirt across the floor. He can still feel the scrape of it beneath his shoes, but the floor looks better. The air is razor-sharp with ammonia, and the windows are cleaner. A couple of hours more and the place will be almost presentable. Ugly, empty, and not home, but presentable. There’s no balcony for some reason, just a window where the sliding glass door is in their own apartment. It could be worse, he thinks, and anyway it’s just for a couple of days.
He won’t be able to stretch it any longer than that.
He feels eyes on him and turns to see Rose standing in the doorway, her shoulders high and her hands pushed deep in the pockets of her jeans. He says, “No problems?”
“Someone followed us to the school. A dark blue Lexus. Two men in the front seat. They didn’t try to stay out of sight.”
“They want us to know they’re watching.”
Rose takes in the room and nods at the clean window. “You’ve got talent.”
“Don’t get any ideas.”
She steps back, into the hallway. “I’ve been in the building three or four minutes,” she says. “We’d better go upstairs and make some noise.”
IT’S SUCH A relief for Rafferty to be back in his apartment, away from that forlorn, filthy space, that he can almost forget about the microphones.
But only almost.
“I’m worried about Miaow,” Rose says. She doesn’t look particularly worried. She looks like someone deeply focused on filing her nails, which is what she is doing.
His fingers halt above the keyboard, but just for a moment. “You mean the thing with the snake?”
“No. I think that’s past. But she’s not as happy as she usually is.”
“I’ve noticed. But whatever it is, she’ll get over it,” Rafferty says for the microphones, without taking his eyes off his laptop. He is making a list, and he pauses to come up with something fatherly. “She’s just at an awkward age.” This is his third pass at the list, and it gets longer every time. Only Item One remains the same from draft to draft: Get Rose and Miaow out of the way.
