Todd Robinson - THUGLIT Issue One

“How can you be sure?”

I stopped, realizing that that was a trick question. That time we’d visited, I’d denied even seeing the earrings. How could I claim I knew what they looked like. “I guess I just got excited when I saw them. Like maybe your mother realized she was wrong.” I started to get dressed. I’d wanted Jake to know that I hadn’t carried anything into the bathroom with me, but now that seemed pointless.

“I’ll give them to Kady. She’ll know them better than me.”

But Kady wasn’t any more convinced than her brother when she saw them. “These look like cheap-ass imitations. Not the real thing,” she said.

They did look like fakes, truth be told. But that wasn’t my fault.

“You think they’re Mama’s?” Jake asked.

“I’d bet they’re replacements put there by someone with a guilty conscience.” Kady looked at me. I fought the urge to kick her and turned to the window. Her husband, Ry, was outside, playing with their boys. This trip wasn’t going as I expected it to at all. I needed to do something to fix that fast, before it was too late.

“We need to talk,” Jake told me on the morning of his mother’s funeral.

“What is it, baby?”

“We’ve been out in Los Angeles for five years. I’m not happy there. I don’t like the work I’m doing. I trained as an otolaryngologist, and what am I doing? I’m making starlets look like Barbie.”

“But you’re doing so well. They love you at the clinic. And every month you volunteer…”

“It’s not enough, Erica. I want to help people here. That was always my plan. I just got sidetracked.”

“Sidetracked?” I stared at him. “You have a great life. These people here, don’t you think any of them would kill to get what you have? You got out. That’s what the people here want to do.”

“It’s not like your old neighborhood, Erica. There are a lot of people happy to be living out here. I’m sick of being in the city.”

“This is just guilt talking,” I said. “Your mother died, and now you feel bad. Never mind that she was an evil person who told lies about people to try to manipulate you.”

“Erica.” He looked at me, his face serious. “That time we visited her…you didn’t accidentally take her earrings or anything like that, did you?”

“I can’t believe you’re even asking.” Now I was getting angry. “I told you then, and I can’t believe you’re making me say it again, but I swear to you, I didn’t steal her earrings, accidentally or otherwise.”

“It’s just… it’s kind of funny you found those replacements. It is a little weird.”

“I guess your whole family thinks I’m a thief and a liar.”

“Of course not, Erica. I’m sorry, I just…”

I walked out of the room. We were silent on the drive to the church; at least, I was. Jake made a few attempts at conversation, which I ignored. At the church, I sat next to him, but stared straight ahead, ignoring him. Jake was busy consoling Kady, who wore a frumpy black dress and a big black hat with a veil. The two of them stood over their mother’s casket for the longest time.

“Can’t say I miss the old bat,” Kady’s husband, Ry, whispered to me. “She was a pain in the ass. She was always fighting with somebody.”

I’d thought to pack a form-fitting black designer dress that hugged my curves. Jake was too preoccupied to notice, but it didn’t escape Ry.

Back at the house for the wake, Ry whispered, “So, Kady says you planted fake pearls at her mama’s house. She’s all steamed about it.”

“What makes you think I did something?” I smiled at him.

He grinned back. “You’re the kinda gal who’s always up to something, Erica.”

“Well, it’s never good to be boring.” We clinked glasses. Ry was drinking bourbon, while I was guzzling more wine than I’d planned. It was frustrating, knowing I was right about something and not being able to prove it.

“It must’ve been awful, living only an hour away from Mrs. Carlow,” I said.

“Lemme tell you about that.” He did, and he made me laugh, which earned some dark looks from Kady. Then Ry followed me when I went upstairs.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you staring at me,” I said. We were standing in the guest bedroom where Jake and I were staying. I looked in the mirror and unpinned my hair.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you enjoying it,” he answered.

“Do you think anyone will come up here?”

“Not if we’re quiet.”

I pounced on him. Ry was a surprisingly good kisser. I thought about Kady’s sour face and figured he must be getting practice somewhere else. He started to unzip my dress. “No,” I whispered. “Rip it off.”

“But it must’ve cost a pretty penny.”

“Rip it off,” I ordered. There was a sound like a series of pops as the fabric broke apart at the seam.

“Oh, I like this,” Ry said.

“I bet you do.” With that, I reached out and raked my nails over his face.

“What the fuck?” He pushed me away and touched his skin. I let out a bloodcurdling scream, opened the door, and ran from the room. Jake was on the stairs and I ran into his arms. Then I sobbed and sobbed.

The trip home to Los Angeles was uneventful. Jake was silent most of the time. I wore a little eye mask so that I could sleep, but occasionally I would tug at the corner to watch him. He was drinking whiskey, his jaw taut. Every so often his eyes would narrow, but mostly he just drank.

“Do you think I did the right thing?” I asked him. “By not pressing charges against Ry, I mean.”

“I think that would’ve been a mistake,” Jake answered. “Those kids don’t need their dad locked up in jail.”

“At long as he doesn’t attack some other woman,” I mused.

“He won’t do that,” Jake muttered.

That made me frown, but he didn’t say anything else and I let the matter drop. I fell asleep somewhere over the Midwest, and when I did, I dreamt I was back in Mrs. Carlow’s house.

“What are you doing in here?” she snapped at me, just as she had in real life. I was in her bedroom, standing in front of her dresser. There were framed photos there, of her dead husband and her children, and one of Mrs. Carlow herself before she was Mrs. anything.

“Nothing,” I said, brushing past her and walking down the hall, turning into the bathroom. My heart was racing as I locked the door. I opened my hand and saw the earrings in my palm. There was a beautiful black bird sitting in the open window, and I dropped the pearls into her mouth. Then magpie flew away until she was just a distant dot on the horizon, getting as far from that place as fast as she could.

NEW YORK CITY

1928

Quinn’s mouth went dry when he saw the green and white squad car in his rearview mirror. The red spotlight flashing, but no siren.

Normally, getting pulled over by the cops was a simple inconvenience. Most of them were on Archie Doyle’s payroll anyway. Just like Quinn.

But that night was different. Because the Plymouth that he was driving was stolen.

And there was a dead man in the trunk.

Dead men in trunks of stolen cars and cops don’t mix. Even cops on the take have limits on what they’ll ignore. This wasn’t Chicago; it was New York.

He thought about taking a hard right turn and flooring it; disappearing into traffic. He might’ve even gotten away. But he decided to try talking his way out of it instead. He took his foot off the gas and eased the Plymouth over toward the right side of Houston Street.

He was surprised when the squad car sped past him heading west. They hadn’t been looking to pull him over after all. They’d just wanted him to get out of their way.