Down Here

“But if they did that, you could just turn around and sell it to someone else?”

“If you can, sure. It doesn’t happen often. Every magazine is a different market, even when they’re competing with each other. What’s good for one isn’t always good for another.”

^“You don’t have to do that,” I said, later.

“You weren’t planning to return all the cookware without washing it?” she said, incredulous.

“No. I just meant, I could take it home, throw it in the dishwasher myself.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said, dubiously. “I mean, not everything can go in the dishwasher. It’s easy enough to wash them by hand; I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Do you want to go out somewhere. Or just . . . ?”

“How about we go for a drive?”

“To . . . where? Oh. I guess that’s the point, right?”

“Sure is.”

^“Is this still Queens?”

“Yep. That’s Flushing Bay we’re looking at. You can’t see it from here, but La Guardia’s over to the left. The Bronx is on the other side of the water.”

“I was born, what, maybe forty-five minutes from here? And I never even knew it existed.”

“It’s a nice little community,” I said. “You got everything from working stiffs to big-time gangsters, with house prices to match.”

“With those other cars around, it’s like a drive-in movie, almost.”

“People come here for the same reason they go to drive-ins, true enough.”

“Did you know that in Singapore young couples go to drive-ins because the culture frowns on public displays of affection?”

“I didn’t have a clue. You know a lot about Singapore?”

“I’m hardly an expert. But everyone in the money game knows something about Singapore.”

“Have you ever been there?”

“No. You?”

“Yeah, I was there, once.”

“What’s it like?”

“Very clean, very efficient. And very scary.”

“Scary?”

“I can’t explain it, exactly. Felt like everybody was so . . . anxious. Like something could descend on them any minute.”

“Were you there for a story?”

“No. I was on my way to Australia. But something happened with the connecting flight, and I ended up having to lay over.”

“I wonder why people would be so anxious there. It’s supposed to have a very low crime rate.”

“Maybe it was a misimpression,” I said. “I was only there for a short while. I wouldn’t ever write what I told you.”

“Why not?”

“I’m old-school,” I told her, trying to be Hauser in my mind. “I don’t like this ‘personal journalism’ stuff. Never did. What I told you, that was my own feelings, not facts. Private, not public.”

“That’s what this place feels like,” she said, snapping her cigarette out the open window and sliding in close to me.

Twenty minutes later, she moved back toward her side of the front seat. Rolled down her window, lit a cigarette.

“I never did that before,” she said.

“In a car?”

“Not just . . . in a car. Never.”

“Oh. I . . .”

“You don’t know what to say, do you, J.?” she said, a slight edge around the softness of her voice. “If you say you never would have known, it sounds like you’re calling me a liar. And if you say it was obvious I’d never done it before, you’re saying I’m not very . . . good at it, right?”

“None of that’s right, Laura. Not one word of any of it. Some people, they do things perfect the first time they try. Others, they could do it a thousand times and still . . . not do it very well.”

“I only meant—”

“But what’s really not right about what you said was the other part. It would never cross my mind that you were lying.”

“I thought reporters were supposed to be cynics,” she said, expelling smoke in a harsh jet.

“Cynicism is for adolescent poseurs. A person who’s been around the block a few times learns better.”

“What’s better?”

“Better is knowing some people are liars. I don’t mean they just told a lie, I mean they’re liars; that’s what they do. Better is knowing that even essentially truthful people lie sometimes, for different reasons. Better is knowing how to tell the difference.”

“You know when people are lying?”

“Not always,” I said, reaching over and taking her hand. “But I know when they’re not.”

We were both quiet for a while. Then she said, “I never asked you. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“I have a sister.”

“Older or younger?”

“She’s my baby sister.”

“Is that why you asked me, before, if John was protective? Because you were?”

“No. I was just trying to get a picture of the whole family dynamic.”

“But you were, weren’t you?”

“Protective? Sure.”

“You think that’s normal, don’t you?”

“I’m a reporter, not a judge.”

“J., I’m just asking you an honest question. Can’t I get an honest answer?”

“Ask me your question,” I said, watching her eyes.

“If someone tried to hurt your sister, what would you do?”

I saw pieces of Michelle’s childhood, playing on the inside of my eyelids like a movie on a screen. The kind of movie freaks sell for a lot of money. Felt the familiar suffusion of hate for all of them— from her bio-parents, who used her like a toy, to the agencies that treated a transgendered child like a circus freak, to the predatory johns who took little pieces of her in exchange for survival money, to . . . Oh, honeygirl, I wish I had been there, I said to myself. Again.

I waited a beat, still on her eyes.

“Kill them,” I said.

^“Do you have something to pick up?” Laura asked me, as I wheeled the Plymouth into the gigantic parking lot for the Pathmark supermarket in Whitestone. At just after two in the morning, the lot was almost empty.

“Nope,” I said, pulling over to the side. I put the lever into park, opened the door, and got out. I walked around to her side of the car, opened her door.

“You’re leaving the engine run—”

“Just come on,” I said, taking her hand and pulling her around the back of the car. “Get in,” I told her.

“You want me to—?”

I was already on my way back around to the passenger side. We both closed our doors at the same time.

“This isn’t like your Audi,” I said, as she wiggled around, trying to find the best driving position. “The gas