Authors: Olivia Connery
She looked back up at him.
"What's your name
Detective?"
"My name's Jack. Jack
Malone."
"Alright Detective Jack
Malone,” she said, trying to sound stronger than she felt, “let me be clear. I
don't know anything about anything with these girls. I'm just the bartender
here. I know how you cops work, trying to squeeze information out of innocent
people because you want them to do your job for you. Well don't waste your time
here, because I've got nothing to squeeze."
Jack took all of Margot in with
his eyes. "I seriously doubt that."
Margot exhaled sharply. Who did
this man think he was talking to her like that? She turned to walk away, but
felt him grab her wrist. She noticed that his hand was surprisingly soft, even
as he grabbed her firmly.
"Hey, okay I'm sorry. Look,
if you change your mind I want you to call me. I'm putting my card on the bar,
and my personal cell number is on the back."
He let go of her wrist, reached
into his pocket and pulled out a business card hidden under a twenty dollar
bill. He put it on the bar.
"Don't call the cops, call
me. I'm working this alone. Pop owns half the city, so don't trust anyone. If
you know anything, you'd be doing a real good thing telling me. Pop’s a bad
guy, Margot. You should be careful."
She looked back at Malone,
reassessing him. He seemed earnest in his interest in her safety. She felt her
eyes soften a little, and her heart beat a little faster. She couldn’t help
feeling flattered that he had taken a genuine interest in her well-being.
She noticed herself softening and
quickly steeled herself against any further evaluation of him. She couldn't let
herself get involved in anything more with the cops. She'd learned her lesson
the first time, more than enough of one to last her whole lifetime. She just
wanted him to leave.
"If I take your card will you
leave now?"
Jack looked at her in the eyes.
"Yeah, I will."
"Alright, then. Have a good
night Detective." She looked at him, picking up the twenty and the card.
Jack stood up from his seat,
seeming a bit reluctant.
"You too, Margot.
Goodnight."
He turned towards the door, and
looked back at her, pausing and putting on his hat before he walked out of the
bar. Margot stared after him for a moment, then looked around her and saw more
than a few pairs of eyes peering at her distrustfully. What was she doing
talking to a detective in front of all these goons?
"Good riddance," she
said loudly. "Eddie, let me buy you a drink for pissing on that guy."
She couldn't have anyone thinking
she'd ever turn on Pops. She quickly lifted her short black cocktail dress on
one side and put the business card underneath her sheer black stocking.
Margot really didn't know anything
about those girls Detective Malone had shown her. She really didn't know much
about Pop's operation at all, though it was obvious to anyone with eyes that he
was a powerful man in Gravity. But like Malone had said, she wasn't from
Gravity, wasn't part of the family. Pop liked her to tend bar because her
comparative innocence made the front end of the bar seem legit, and because he
and the boys enjoyed her physical presence.
She was, after all, an extremely
beautiful young woman. She was twenty-three, with naturally straight blonde
hair down to her shoulders. She had radiant green eyes and always seemed to
glow subtly with her youth. She was a fit yet curvy woman, having some
Columbian heritage in her bloodline on her mother's side that left her with
full hips and strong legs. She had high cheekbones that she had gotten from her
father. On him they had seemed authoritative, but on her they seemed more
elegant.
Margot wasn't very interested in
her own beauty, though. When she wasn't at work, she was alone in her small
apartment above the bar. She always dressed very simply when she wasn’t
working, usually cut-off jean shorts and a tee-shirt. She liked to keep her
hair back from her face with an old blue bandana tied over her head. All of her
clothes were splotched with paint because whenever she was home she was
painting.
She was obsessed with painting and
doodled on the coasters at work constantly. She tried not to let anyone at the
bar see her drawings. She felt that her art was the purest, most untouched part
of her. She lived inside of her creations. They were the only constant she had
ever known.
At work Margot had to dress
differently, behave differently. She had to use her looks for tips. Heels and
dresses only, on Pop’s say so. He said she looked best in black because it made
her pale skin seem like porcelain. He said heels made her more formidable. He
said with immense pleasure that she was like a broken down Mercedes - classy,
but in too much need to refuse help from anyone, even from an old dog like him.
He said men liked that in a woman. He had spanked her after saying that,
utterly confident and utterly right about her need. But despite her dependence
and implied allegiance to Pop, both he and Margot preferred Margot to know as
little about what went on at Altitude, beyond the drinking, as possible.
Margot kept serving drinks to the
end of her shift. She kept thinking about the way the girls looked in the
pictures Malone had shown her. The quiet look on their faces made her feel
lonely. She couldn't stop thinking about it. It plagued her the whole night.
She was immensely relieved when it was finally time to close shop, go upstairs
and crawl into bed. She began ushering the few remaining stragglers from the
bar promptly at four a.m., hurriedly but absentmindedly, still thinking about
everything else that happened that night.
“Come on, Eddie. It’s time to go
home.”
Eddie was next to last to go. As
Margot tried to herd him towards the door, he started pawing at her. A few more
of the guys had bought him drinks after his show of territoriality to the
detective and he'd gotten pretty drunk and even more obnoxious than usual. He
reached around Margot's waist and spun her to face him.
"Margot, you're a pal buying
me a drink tonight. Lemme kiss you, huh?"
Margot pushed at Eddie's chest.
Eddie tried to kiss her but she moved her head away from him. The left strap of
her dress fell from her shoulder leaving her dress held up precariously by
nothing more than the angle of her breast. She began to feel panicked.
"Let me go Eddie, you're
drunk!" She punched at his chest. She felt her heart fluttering faster as
his grip on her tightened.
"Hey come on, I’ll be nice if
you are," Eddie slurred at her.
Puddy appeared from the corner of
the bar, crossing the room before Eddie had the chance to try anything more.
"Knock it off Eddie,"
Puddy said, grabbing Eddie by the collar like a cat grabbing her kitten by the
scruff of its neck.
"Hey I was just trying to
thank the lady," Eddy slurred.
"Sure Eddie. Let's go, I'll
take you home." Puddy pushed him to the door and looked back at Margot.
"You okay?" Puddy liked to look out for her.
"I'm fine Puddy, thank you
for your help." Margot lifted her strap back onto her shoulder and pushed
a stray hair back behind her ear.
"I'll see you tomorrow,"
She said, trying to smile reassuringly, but she felt violated. Eddie’s lips had
grazed her neck when he tried to kiss her and they’d left a small spot wet spot
on her.
“Alright, then. Have a good one
Margey. Come on let’s go you jerk.” Puddy pushed Eddie out the door into the
warm summer air. As soon as they were out the door Margot rubbed her neck
furiously where Eddie had touched it. She felt disgusted.
Puddy and Eddie were the last of
the customers in the bar, and once they were gone Margot took a moment to
collect herself and recall what she needed to do to close. She had done most of
the closing duties during her shift and just needed to restock the empties
before she could put this whole night behind her. She looked behind the bar and
realized that, thankfully, she only needed a few bottles from the back.
Margot went through the wood
paneled door behind the bar, down the short lime-green tiled hallway that led
to Pop's office and the back storage room. As she passed Pop's office she was
surprised to hear voices coming from within it. He was still doing business. It
was unusual for him to be there so late.
Margot kept walking, turning left
to go into the back room. She thought about what Malone had said, about the
faces of those girls, about the quietness that lay on them. She grabbed a
scotch, a whiskey, and vodka out of their boxes. She started back towards the
bar.
As she came out of the storage
room into the hallway she heard shouting from Pop's office. She thought about
it for a moment, hesitating, deciding whether to stay or go. She'd walked by
his office a thousand times, and she'd always known better than to listen in.
But this time she found that she couldn't keep walking. The look on those
girl’s faces stopped her. She cautiously leaned closer to the door. She could
hear Pop yelling angrily.
"I don't care about the
detective! We are going to finish this. That girl has got information she’s
going to use against me and she can't be allowed to get away with it. Can you
imagine, a bunch of little whores blackmailing me in my own goddamned city? If
anyone finds out the Lacey fight was rigged I’ll have every dirt bag in
Grandino’s gang after me. You need to take care of this one like you did the
other three. Get it right this time. If that goddamned detective gets in the
way again, then you take care of him. Do your job!"
"Alright boss, you got
it."
Margot recognized the second voice
as belonging to a guy named Lenny. He was like Pop's shadow, always around.
Margot couldn't believe it, Malone was right. Pop was having these girls
killed.
Just then the bottle of Vodka
slipped from beneath Margot's arm and hit the floor with a sharp, echoey crash.
Margot started, and looked at the shattered bottle. Fear set in on her almost
before comprehension did. It had fallen so loudly. She knew it was too late.
Margot rushed down the hall to the
bar and put the other bottles down on it. She grabbed her purse and ran out the
door as quickly as she could. Lenny ran out of the office seconds behind her
and slipped on the spilled vodka.
“Shit!” he yelled, getting up as
quickly as he could and running out to the front of the bar. He could just make
her out as she ran across the street. Lenny sighed before going back to the
office.
"It was Margot, Pop. She must
have heard the whole thing," Lenny reported tiredly.
"Dammit to hell!" Pop
was sitting there, a short, fat man in a grandiose brown leather chair. He
flicked his cigar ashes into the ashtray irritatedly. He rather liked Margot
and hated to break something so pretty. He was reluctant to say it, but was
pressed for options. He couldn't be linked to these murders. It was too much
heat at once; it would draw too much attention. National attention.
He leaned forward in his chair.
"Fix it Lenny."
Margot was absorbed in panic as
she ran down the street. The heels she was wearing made it difficult to go very
far very fast and she knew she needed to get out of sight as quickly as she
could. Her mind raced as she tried to decide what to do.
The summer night that would
usually have seemed beautiful to Margot now seemed oppressively hot and sweat
began shimmering along Margot’s forehead and chest, coalescing into beads of
sweat that traced their way down between her breasts. She turned off into a
dark alley and stopped to lean against a brick wall, breathing heavily and
wiping the sweat from her forehead with her arm.
She took the business card out of
her stocking. She got her cell phone out of her purse and read the phone number
off the business card in the faint blue glow of the phone’s screen. She dialed
the number and took a deep breath.
The phone rang a few times with no
answer. Margot began to worry he wasn’t going to pick up. It was, after all,
close to 4:30 in the morning. If he didn’t answer Margot didn’t know what else
to do. With each ring her panic increased and she gripped the strap of her
purse more tightly.
“Please pick up, please,
please...”
Finally a muted, sleepy voice came
from the phone.
“This is Jack” the voice said
slowly.
Margot was flooded with relief but
couldn’t help notice the fear in her own voice as she spoke.
“Detective, this is Margot Kidman
from the bar. I’m...I’m in trouble and I need to meet you. I heard something. I
wasn’t supposed to hear it, and Pop knows I did, and I think he’s going to kill
me. I have nowhere to go hide and I can’t go home. Will you please meet me?”
All this came out in a few short,
rushed breaths and then Margot heard a silent pause on the other end of the
phone. After a second that felt like an eternity Jack spoke.