Free We Are Pirates: A Novel by Daniel Handler Page B

violent nonchalance— I don’t give a fuck— that she might as well have said it out loud.
    “Talk to her,” Marina said to him. “I’ll finish your suitcase.” Her robe ruffled with every step out of the kitchen. Gwen glared at everywhere. Phil Needle wished he could give her a tiny package with whatever it was inside, whatever her scowling little soul desired, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t, and since he couldn’t, would she just goddamn stop?
    “I know,” he said, and sipped the last of his coffee, “that you’re having a hard time right now.”
    Gwen replied that right now her time was fine.
    “But I know, since the time at the drugstore—”
    Gwen said that the drugstore thing was a long time ago.
    “But you’re having a hard time, am I right?”
    Gwen said that he wasn’t necessarily right all the time, okay?
    Before Gwen he knew such people. To them he said: Sleep it off. Or: Go get laid. Or: Sorry, it won’t happen again, boss. Gwen turned to him now and asked him to leave her alone. He wanted to. Instead, he took the envelope off the stack of papers he had ready for his voyage. They were in a neat stack, just the sort of stack he had hoped his assistant would put them in before he had to travel on business. He’d stacked them himself. He put the envelope down in front of his daughter and waited for her to ask what it was.
    “It’s tickets,” he said finally, to his silent kid. “Tickets to Tortuga, like you asked me for. Tonight. But Gwen—” Gwen’s wide, joyous eyes were already wary around the edges, eyeing the worm, knowing surely that there was a hook somewhere. “You know you can’t go to the Fillmore alone. There are two tickets here, one for you and one for your mother.” He put down his mug, reeling it in, the job of a parent, to steal his child’s happiness after offering it as a possibility in the first place. “I haven’t told her about it. I know you guys have been fighting, and so I want you to go together. You can either make peace with your mother or these tickets will go to waste.”
    Gwen didn’t say anything. She did not say it was not fair, or that Phil Needle was the lowest viper that had ever crawled. She just stood, making up her own mind, her face as blank as a light switch. There she was. And there was his wife, with a bonk-ruffle bonk-ruffle , wheeling his suitcase down the stairs. And out in the courtyard, a young woman, hardly more than a girl, was standing near the benches, peering around as if she’d just woken up. Were homeless people in his building? With the fees he paid?
    “I put in one more shirt,” his wife said, “if you have to stay past Sunday.”
    “There’s no way,” Phil Needle said. “The conference is over with the weekend.” The young woman was heading toward his door. Should he call the police? It was six-something in the morning.
    “I hope it goes well,” Marina said. She patted Phil Needle’s hand, but she was also looking out the window. It wasn’t until the girl started to knock that Phil Needle realized it was Levine.
    “There you are,” she said when Marina slid the door open. “I’m sorry, but I need forty dollars.”
    “What?”
    “I’m really, really sorry,” Levine said. Gwen had already retreated behind him, like she used to as a shy toddler. “I took a cab here and it’s outside waiting. I forgot my purse at home. I can’t believe it.”
    Phil Needle pointed to her purse. “That’s not a purse?”
    “That’s my clothes,” Levine said. “I packed light, just underwear, et cetera. I figured we didn’t want to check anything. I’m sorry.”
    “You’ll need ID for the airplane,” Marina said. “Phil, who is this?”
    Phil Needle felt as if a jar of marbles had just been dropped on his floor. “This is Levine,” he said, and reached for his wallet. “This is who works for me.”
    “The meter is running,” Levine said, and stepped closer to the money. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs.