Carousel Court (16 page)

“Thanks for the ride.” Sean's voice is muffled and tinny through the mask. He asks Arik if he's ready.

“I'm not wearing that,” Nick says.

“They will piss their pants,” Arik says, too eager.

“Let's keep talking,” Sean steps to Nick. “Until someone comes along walking their goldendoodle.”

Arik leans against the car, rhythmically tapping the passenger-side window with his thumb, a thick silver ring making a clicking sound against the glass. Nick leans over to get Arik's attention, tells him to move when Sean motions for Arik to stop tapping the glass. A masked face presses against the smudged window and a hollow-sounding voice commands: “Now!” Nick grabs the white mask from Arik.

They're at the back door. Nick refuses to wear the mask. “These masks will get us shot,” he says to Sean, whose grunt indicates a deeper, more fundamental issue with Nick. When they peer inside, they see the house is completely dark except for glowing red and green lights from various clocks and electronic devices and alarms. Someone's obviously living here.

Sean and Arik speak in muffled tones through their masks.

Nick says, “We don't even know if this is right.”

They stare at Nick for a beat, clearly surprised that he's wearing the mask.

“You don't get it,” Sean says. “This is the house.”

“What if it's not?”

“This is the house we're doing.”

“And if it's the wrong house?”

“No such thing.”

Sean wedges the end of a crowbar through the door and frame, pops it open. Nick pulls the mask over his head, adjusts it so the slits align with his eyes. He understands something the moment the glass
door cracks open and he glimpses his reflection in the glare from moonlight, the stark white latex mask and blackness from the neck down: He's not here at all.

• •

Sean moves across the room to a small panel of lights on the wall and pushes some buttons, deactivates the alarm. It's cold inside. The air-conditioning is on and Nick can't hear well with the mask on, a steady hum in his ear. Sean and Arik move quickly. They pick up various pieces of electronic equipment: laptops, a juicer, two flat-screen televisions, a painting they struggle to remove from the wall, what looks like some kind of award, a Grammy or an Emmy. Nick doesn't know where Sean got the duffel bag, but he's filling it with cutlery and shoes and Nick finds a barstool and sits down because he's queasy, as Sean and Arik disappear upstairs and Nick stares at the flashing green light on the wall panel, watches it turn solid red.

He walks around in the dark, looking for a bathroom. A door he pulls open leads down a flight of carpeted stairs. The room he finds himself in is huge and dimly lit with orange recessed lighting. It's a game room. Pool table, air hockey, two pinball machines. There's a cotton candy machine in the far corner and vintage air travel posters in large black frames on the walls. Nick picks up the cue ball, slides it in the deep pocket of his cargo pants, finds a bathroom.

Nick hears loud voices coming from upstairs.

There's someone here. Men are yelling over each other. No one sees Nick, who stands in the stairwell doorway that leads to the great room. Sean and Arik still wear their masks, stand over a thin man, maybe thirty, in his boxer briefs, facedown on the leather sectional. His hands are bound with electrical tape. Arik stands back, waiting for instructions from Sean. In their white masks, they intimidate. Tonight is some kind of game for them. Maybe Sean will cash in, extort the man. It's clumsy and crude, seems haphazard. When Sean kicks the man twice, hard, and he falls to the floor, retching, it confirms something for Nick: The man may or may not be guilty of something, may deserve what he's getting, but they've crossed a line that he can't and won't. Nick grabs Arik by the upper arm. “I'm gone.” A pause. “Are you coming?”

Arik is watching Sean press his knee against the neck of the man on the floor.

“Go then,” Arik says.

“I'm your ride.”

“We're taking the Land Rover.”

“What Land Rover?”

“His.” He motions to the man whose neck Sean is now straddling. Sean is bellowing, “Don't pick your nose. It's not polite to pick your nose and eat it!” He's sticking the man's finger up his own nose and forcing it in his mouth.

“No worries,” Arik says, laughing along with Sean. “We're supposed to take the dude's Land Rover.”

• •

Nick tosses his mask on the passenger seat of his car, keeps the windows down, the air cooling his sweaty head and neck as he drives. He inhales deeply through cleared sinuses the faint smell of Arik's mari­juana and something vaguely floral. He sends a message to Mallory.
Will have keys for your friends tomorrow. Let's get them in the house. Call me.

He removes the cue ball from the deep front pocket of his jeans, white like the moon, and squeezes it. A text message from Mallory reads:
Awesome!! When are we going running?? Or whatever ;)
The approach to the freeway is deserted. Nick merges easily with the traffic. He grabs the latex mask off the passenger seat and slowly pulls it over his head until it's fully on again. The left lane of the freeway opens up. All blackness and bright white strips of light and wind. Nick feels a rush of adrenaline, the left lane somehow his alone. He guns it.

26

T
he elderly black couple from Torrance sits on a plastic-covered couch in a plastic-covered living room in a too-warm house on a deserted strip of asphalt in a place called Lakewood. The man, mocha-colored and bald, wears an ironed blue oxford, khakis, and clean white sneakers, and hands Nick cash: all twenties, fresh from the ATM. Nick tries very hard not to picture the couple standing at the bank machine, the husband pressing smudged steel digits with an arthritic index finger.

Nick met them last week. The man told him what they went through, about the Bank of the West representative who convinced them they should borrow against the house because real estate was safe: Values always rise. Nick wondered if it was Metzger who told them this. Nick offered to move their belongings to the new house, the rental he found for them from Boss's list in Lakewood, the neatly manicured lawn on the well-lighted street. Nick paid three of the Hondurans a hundred dollars each to help with the move.

“All that bank bullshit,” the man says. He sits back in his plastic recliner, clears his throat. “All their tricks and products.” He grabs a glossy blue folder and hands it to Nick. Inside are glossy photographs
of housing developments in Nevada. “Lake Mead,” the man says. “Swore to us it was going to explode. She warned me, of course.” He motions to his wife, who is standing now. They were pressured into borrowing two hundred thousand against the new-construction mortgage they secured with an interest-only adjustable rate.

“Not one year in the past sixty-two that housing prices didn't appreciate,” the man says to Nick, his eyes yellow and tired. “Four percent at worst. Then eleven, twelve. You're a fool not to cash in on that.”

The wife carries a cardboard box of bathroom items past them, up the stained carpeted stairs. It's the two men now.

“They were so slick,” the man says. “Too slick. I laughed at those assholes when they said, ‘Everyone wins, Alfred.' ” The man inhales sharply through his nose. “They use your name. Keep calling you by your first name to make you feel like you're in it together.”

“I hear you, Alfred,” Nick says.

Alfred shakes his head.

Nick counts out half the money that the man gave him: five hundred dollars. He places it on the glass coffee table. “This month is half price.”

The man stares at Nick.

“Painters are coming by next week to finish up. Call if you need anything.”

27

D
o you trust me?” Nick asks Phoebe.

“Of course not.”

Nick stands over her, facedown on the unmade bed, and contemplates the arch in her back. A line of little knobs pushes through her tan skin from her neck to the small of her back. He's muscular now, stronger than he's ever been. T-shirts stretch across his chest and at the shoulders where they were once loose. Phoebe is withering away.

Nick rests his hand on her spine and presses down and, as he does, wonders how much more pressure it would take for him to snap it.

“Tell me again why we can't burn it down?” she says.

“Fraud. Prison. Might kill some people.”

“Who would know?”

He kisses her lower back, moves up her spine. “Burn it down then,” he says.

“I might,” she says.

“Wake me before you do?” He slides his leg over her, pulls her underwear down. She doesn't react.

“Maybe.”

He kisses the knobs of her spine, which feel sharper than they should.

“You should call them,” she says.

“Who should I call?” he asks.

“Your employers. The reason we're out here,” she says. He stops kissing her, continues, then stops again. She doesn't seem to notice or care. “The people who are responsible for these golden days.” She exhales and lifts herself onto her elbows, staring at the pillow, stretching her face with the heels of her hands. “It's been three months.”

“What's your point?”

“Would it hurt to call them?”

“There's no job. There wasn't a job. There isn't and there won't be.”

“They gave you options.”

“We couldn't afford those options.” The PR firm offered Nick half pay for full-time hours.

“It's better than what you're doing.”

“There's no position. Let it go.” Nick is lying down now, legs extended, adjusting himself. He's sore and stiff. The buzz is long gone.

“Fuck it. I'll call.” She rolls over, nimble, catlike.

“Please do.” He offers her his phone. She considers it. “Exactly.”

She snatches it.

There's a pause. Everything is hushed except the bathroom faucet, which one of them failed to turn off completely. They stare at each other.

“You never wanted it. And I know why. You were terrified of the expectations. They chose to bring you out here, and you were going to have to perform. I mean produce. Justify their investment in you. And that scared you. They're not idiots, Nick. They could smell your fear.”

She finds the number in his contacts and holds up the phone so he can see it. “Ringing,” she says.

“It's Sunday night. No one's there.”

“Hello? Hi. Who's this?”

Phoebe stares at Nick, sticks a finger in her ear. “Hi. Yes. Sorry to bother you on Sunday. Phoebe Maguire. I am, thank you.” Nick reaches for his phone. Phoebe slaps his hand away. “So, yes, my husband. Nick Maguire, yes, from Boston. Yes, he is. Thank you for saying so.”

Nick grabs her arm and squeezes. She slaps him across the face. Her fingernails scratch his cheek. He lets go.

“He is. It is discouraging, but he's no less committed. I've never seen him quite this focused on making something happen, which is in part why I'm calling.”

Nick grabs her again and pulls too hard. She falls forward and drops the phone. Nick reaches for it. Phoebe kicks him in the abdomen, hard, grabs the phone. “Apologies,” she says, laughing. “My son. He's almost three. Quite the handful.”

She kicks Nick again, twice, this time connects with his thigh and then his chest, rushes into the Labrazel Italian marble en suite bathroom with the cast-iron claw-foot antique tub, slams and locks the door.

“It's that kind of night,” she says.

There's a long pause.

“Yes, extremely unorthodox, agreed.”

Another pause.

“You gave him an offer. We moved our lives here for that offer. You offered terms that he agreed to in good faith and moved his family, my job, our son, across the country because you, Mr. Mason, asked him to. And now
you
are working on Sunday night and
he
is not.”

Nick has his ear pressed to the door, hears it all.

“He's not. He is. He'd kill me. That's not the point. Right now. Okay, then, tomorrow.”

Nick is knocking on the door, lightly but persistently rapping his knuckles in a steady rhythm. “Not amusing!”

Her conversation continues. “Why not? No. Wrong.” Then a pause. Then her voice rises: “Fuck that.”

His knuckles are now fists, and he's pounding the door. “Enough!”

“A little. Okay, a lot. Vodka cranberries. Three. And two mimosas this morning.” She laughs. “I know. Yes. Pharma sales. Oh, fuck you. Thank you. Do the same. Sleep well, too, asshole.”

Nick is kicking the door.

“You'll break it, jackass,” she calls out.

“Open it.”

“No.”

He's rubbing his dry eyes with his knuckles, drags his hands across his forehead.

“Can I have my phone?”

“Who is
Mallory
?”

“Now, please.”

“She's hot. Young, though. Is she even eighteen?”

He gives up. He finds dental floss on the dresser, begins to floss.

“Have you been with anyone since we've been married? Tell the truth. I don't mind. I just want to know. Have you been with Mallory?”

The floss is stuck between two molars, both filled with silver. Nick is pulling it down, clumsily. He's all sunburned exhaustion and rage. “No,” he says finally.

“I don't care. I like that name: Mallory.”

“Come out if you want to talk.” The tips of his index fingers are purple from wrapping the floss too tightly. “Come out and fuck me,” he says. “Like you fucked him.” He tugs at the stuck floss and it slips, not up but down, slices his gums. In an instant he's at the bathroom door, which he kicks. “Did you call them, Phoebe? Did you seriously?”

“They're pricks.”

Nick rubs his hands back and forth over his scalp, hard and fast.