Stone Rain

She recoiled.

“Hey, come on,” said Payne. “I’m just being friendly.”

Yeah, said the others. You got something against being friendly? But Miranda told them to leave her alone. She was working. Payne didn’t move away. He put his beer down and placed both of his hands on Miranda’s head, tried to turn her toward him.

“Stop it!” she said. Still in the chair, she tried to pull away, but Payne, standing next to her, was pulling her face toward the zipper of his jeans.

“How about a lollipop?” he asked.

Miranda had sworn to herself that she would never let this happen again. It was this promise to herself that allowed her to keep coming to work at the Kickstart, to share space with the men who’d assaulted her a few months earlier. It was part of the plan.

But she knew, if she was to be certain that it would never happen again, she’d have to be ready. Which was why she now always carried the gun that Eldon had taught her to use. The one she swore she’d never carry. She didn’t like guns. Too dangerous to have on you, she’d thought.

But you had to adapt.

“Come on,” Payne said, still holding on to Miranda’s head. The other two were making whooping noises. Someone said, “Me next.”

“Okay,” Miranda said. “But you have to let go of me.”

That sounded promising to Payne, and so he did. Miranda pushed back with her feet, the wheels of her computer chair sailing her over to the far end of her desk, where she’d left her purse.

Miranda reached into it, her fingers hunting for the weapon. She slipped her hand around the gun’s grip, felt the trigger under her index finger.

“What you doing?” Payne said. “You don’t need no condom for this.”

No, she thought, bringing the gun out of the purse. She didn’t.

28

I GUESS I WAS NINE YEARS OLD when my friend Jeff Conklin, who, two years later, would find a dead guy, stole two Milky Way bars.

Most days, walking home after surviving another day with our Grade 4 teacher Miss Phelm (we referred to her as Miss Phlegm, given her habit of clearing her throat every twenty seconds), we would pop into Ted’s, a small corner store. We’d buy a bottle of Coke, maybe split a package of Twinkies. Ted had an excellent variety of snack foods. Potato chips, Fritos, licorice, dozens of different candy bars.

One day, Jeff told me to go over to the shelf of Hostess cupcakes, then call over to Ted at the cash register, and ask whether I could buy just one cupcake, even though they came in packages of two.

“Why?” I asked Jeff.

“Just do it. I dare ya.”

Well, that was all I needed to hear. So Jeff hung back as I went deeper into the store to the display of mass- produced pastries, examined the offerings, and then said, “Mr. Ted?”

We didn’t know his last name, but knew it was a mistake, at our age, to call him just by his first name.

Ted, a man in his sixties, round-shouldered, wearing an old cardigan and wire-rimmed glasses, had been reading the Enquirer. He looked up, peered over the glasses in my direction, and said, “What?”

“I haven’t got enough money for a whole package of Hostess cupcakes, so like, can I buy just half a pack?”

“You outta your mind?” He went back to reading his paper.

I met Jeff back outside on the sidewalk. “That was great!” he said. “You were perfect! I almost peed my pants laughing, but I held it all in!”

“Why did you ask me to do that?”

Jeff produced a Milky Way from each jacket pocket. “Look what I got! When Ted looked over at you, I grabbed these.” He handed me one, and at first I tried not to take it, but he forced it into my hand.

“You stole these?” I asked.

“Jeez, could you say it a bit louder so Ted can hear?” Jeff said. He grabbed me by the arm and led me down the sidewalk, walking briskly. “It was so easy!”

Once Jeff felt we were a safe distance from Ted’s, he dragged me into an alley and ripped the wrapper off his Milky Way. He bit off a huge chunk, his cheek bulging out like a chipmunk’s.

“Aren’t you gonna eat yours?” he asked.

I handed my bar to him. “You eat it. I’m not hungry.” Not only did I not want to eat it, I didn’t want to hold on to it.

“Go on, eat it! I got it for you!”

“I don’t want it.” I felt short of breath and a bit nauseous. Sweaty. I thought I might throw up right there, in the alley. I was not cut out for a life of crime.

“God, you’re such a baby,” Jeff said, grabbing back the second Milky Way and stuffing it into his pocket. “Oh well, more for me.”

“You have to go back and pay for those,” I said. “You could say it was like a mistake, you picked them up and then walked out, like you forgot to pay and you remembered when you got down the street.”

I peered around the end of the alley, expecting to see Ted, accompanied by the riot squad, charging down the sidewalk. I was listening for sirens. But there was no one looking for us.

“Yeah, right,” said Jeff, trying to talk through a mouthful of Milky Way. He seemed determined to dispose of the evidence as quickly as possible. “Shoulda got a Coke too, wash it down.” I couldn’t believe Jeff had done this. I wouldn’t have thought him capable of such a thing.

I’d never had a thief for a friend before. It was a new feeling, and not an exciting one. It took more than a week of sleepless nights for me to realize that Jeff and I, his unwitting accomplice, were going to get away with this. We were not going to be caught.

I never went into Ted’s again.

This thing with Trixie, well, I’d have to say this was bigger than the Milky Way incident. I couldn’t recall anyone ever confessing to me that they’d shot, and killed, three people. I’m sure I’d have remembered something like that.

“Say something,” she said as we stood out there, alone, in the field. A light breeze blowing from the direction of the Bennet farmhouse carried the smells of chicken and the sounds of a child’s laughter.

“I’m sort of at a loss for words,” I said.

Trixie placed the palm of her right hand on my chest. “You need to know the whole story.”

“Will that make me think it’s okay that you killed three people?”

Trixie pulled her hand away. “Probably not. But I’d like to tell you anyway. All that I’ve put you through the last few days, I think you’re entitled to the truth, no matter what you think of me after hearing it.”

“Sure, then. Go ahead.”

She slipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans, turned her back to me, and took a step away. “You heard a bit, inside, from Claire, about what it was like. With Merker and the rest of them.”

“I got a taste.”

“I didn’t turn tricks for them. Some of the dancers, they hooked too. Made a lot of money that way. Guy sees you onstage, wants a piece of you real bad, he’s willing to pay. And a lot of the girls, they were happy for the extra cash. I won’t tell you I never did things I shouldn’t have. I’d be lying. Especially at first. But I was good, taking clothes off, doing the moves, and I was still a good warm-up for the business upstairs, even if I wasn’t one of the girls going up there. I was still good for getting them in the mood, you know?”

“Sure,” I said.

She turned back to face me. “But once I started giving Merker suggestions, how to make more money, worked my way into the back room and started helping with the books, I didn’t have to flash my tits anymore. But the thing