Andrew Klavan - Empire of Lies

"Put your seat belt on," I told her.

She blinked some more and turned to the shoulder belt, stared at it as if she wondered what it was. After a while, she pawed at it. To hell with that. I leaned across her, pulled it out and over her, stuck it into the latch by her seat. I could smell her perfume, close to her like that. One of those fruity little-girl perfumes I'd smelled before. Christ, she was just a child. She should've been home, in her room, finishing her homework or giggling on the phone about who liked whom. I shoved the car into gear, cursing Lauren in my mind. Where the hell was she?

As I pulled the Mustang away from the curb, Serena snapped straight, trying to focus.

"No… No… I can't… I don't wanna…"

"Yeah, well…"

"No. Can't. Back there. Mom's-"

"You have to, Serena."

"…find me…"

"How'd I find you? It was easy."

"No… no…" Her chin sank toward her chest as she shook her head. "They'll… find me…"

"What?"

She started to fade again, tilting forward against the seat belt. Then I guess the world must've started spinning around on her because she sat up fast and jacked her eyes wide open.

"I just… I gotta…"

I sighed.

She went on muttering. "I… just get me some… some coffee, something…"

"You don't need any coffee. The night's over."

"No, really, listen…" She had to fight off unconsciousness again. "Just gotta get a little straight, okay, then… I'll give you head."

"You'll what?"

"You let me go, okay? I'll give you head if you let me go."

I laughed. You've got to laugh. The way people treat themselves, the shenanigans they get up to. "You're not giving me head," I said, laughing.

Serena looked at me, confused. She tried to smile and keep her eyes open at the same time. It didn't look easy. "No. Really. Just need… some coffee."

"Yeah, just take it easy, sweetheart. I'm taking you home. Then you can work it out with your mother in the morning."

"…mean it," she insisted, her head slowly tilting forward again. "…serious."

"I understand. But just forget it."

Slumped forward, she turned her face my way. Narrowed her eyes at me. "You're my mother's friend?"

She sounded surprised. Sure. Most of her mother's friends probably would've opted for the blow job. I laughed again, shaking my head. Poor little creature. God take pity on us all.

Mercifully, she passed out then, her head falling limp, her mouth hanging open. She started snoring. I drove crosstown toward the expressway.

I took her out to Astoria first, to Lauren's place. But the brick row-house was dark. Lauren wasn't home. Of course. I sat out front in the car and dialed her number again. The phone rang and rang, and then the machine picked up. I gave a curse and broke the connection. Damn her.

I glanced at the girl in the seat beside me. She sat slumped and limp and snoring, dead to life. From where I sat, I could still catch traces of her perfume. She probably had a house key in that pink purse of hers. But what then? I couldn't just leave her inside alone. And the thought of waiting around for Lauren to turn up-if she ever did-was more than I could stomach.

I took off again. Got the car back on the expressway and headed toward my mother's house. The pitted expressway pavement thumped and rattled under my tires. The late traffic streaked by on either side of me, red taillights pulling away up ahead, white headlights coming toward me in the oncoming lanes. The billboards, the grimy factories, and the bright main streets of Queens gave way to malls and gas stations and twinkling houses out amid the rolling shadow-shapes of trees on midnight lanes.

I cursed Lauren the whole way. What had she gotten me into? Something was up with this kid; something was wrong. She was scared-scared of the cops-scared of something, that was for sure. Her muttered words came back to me. Can't. Back there. Mom's. They'll find me. She didn't want to go home because if she went home, someone would find her. Maybe the cops, maybe someone else. Someone.

She was still out cold when I pulled into the driveway of my mother's house. I sighed again as I killed the engine. It was going to be hell getting her inside.

Out here, away from the city, the bracing night was full of the tang of autumn leaves. I went around to the car's passenger side and pulled the door open. I ducked inside and reached over her to release the seat belt. As I took it off her, Serena fell forward. I caught hold of her. She began muttering.

"Come on," I said.

"Why do I…?"

She protested dully as I turned her around and worked her body to the edge of the seat. Her eyelids fluttered a little and she made a confused gesture with her hand as I got hold of her. One of her shoes had already fallen off in the car. I took off the other one and tossed it in with the first. Then I got one arm under her knees and the other under her arms, hoisted her into the air, and kicked the door shut. Her head fell against my shoulder. I turned with her in my arms to survey the houses around me, dark, most of them, hunkered under their oaks and maples. I hoped that meant the neighbors were asleep. God knew what they would think if they saw me carrying this drunken teenaged girl into the house.

I carried Serena up the front steps. I had to set her on her feet there so I could unlock the door. She swayed and took hold of me. She began trying to open her eyes, trying to figure out what was happening. Her head fell forward.

"Sick," she said.

"All right. Hold on."

I managed to get her inside and hurried her down the hall to the bathroom. I got the lights on and threw the toilet seat up just in time. She fell on the bowl as if it were water in the desert. I could hear her retching violently as I went back to shut the front door.

When I returned to the bathroom, she was sprawled on her ass, her legs spread, her dress up, her pink underpants showing. She was gripping the toilet rim to keep from falling onto her back. She stared up at me with her mouth open, mascara raccooning her eyes. Then she hauled herself up to the bowl again and vomited some more. The noise was loud and unpleasantly liquid. The smell of the vomit filled the room. When she was done, she clung to the toilet with her face over the bowl, grunting. After a while, she started to cry.

The housekeeper I'd hired kept the place in good shape. There were washcloths on the wall rack and everything. I grabbed a cloth and ran some cold water on it.

Serena sat there, holding to the toilet rim. She cried like a baby-exactly the way a baby cries, with that same crumpled look of grieved incomprehension, the same wild appeal to the Great Powers: How can this be? How can this be? I got down on one knee beside her.

"All right, all right," I said.

I wiped the flecks of vomit from her lips and cheeks. There were lumps of it on the front of her sparkly pink dress, too. I scraped the washcloth over the thin fabric, feeling the motion of her little breasts underneath.

She sobbed and gasped.

"All right," I said. "Take it easy."

"I didn't…" she said and her face crumpled like a baby's face again. "I didn't know…"

"Take it easy, Serena. Shush."

When I was finished cleaning her, I tossed the washcloth up into the sink above me. I pushed her short hair back behind one ear. "Are you done?"

She shook her head. She cried. "I didn't, I swear-" Then she turned and put her head in the bowl and retched some more. It was just convulsions now. There wasn't anything left in her. I fetched the washcloth and wet it and wiped her face again. Her skin looked rougher than before and more flushed. Maybe I'd wiped off her makeup. I couldn't be sure. I don't know very much about makeup. All I know is that now she looked like a child who'd hurt herself while playing dress-up and was lying on the floor and bawling in her grown-up clothes.