Free Lay the Favorite by Beth Raymer Page B

wanted to get you, I would’ve gotten you already. I know how to pick a lock, for Christ’s sake. I
am
in the CIA.”
    For the next ten minutes, Charlie talked me out of the bathroom the way someone talks a buddy off a ledge.
    “Everything’s gonna be okay, Angel. I know what it’s like to be scared. Hell, I’ve spent most of my life bein’ scared.
Of ghosts!
If you can believe that.”
    I splashed cold water onto my face and drank from the faucet.
    “I’m gonna pay you for your time here. Throw in a lil’ extra for freakin’ ya out.”
    From the crack beneath the door, two one-hundred-dollar bills inched their way toward my stilettos.
    “I enjoy your company. You’re cheerful, I like that. I hope you’ll come back. I’m gonna watch TV. Maybe do some Tai Chi.”
    If he was having an episode, it seemed to be over. Charlie didn’t seem like a rapist killer. He was a fan of Oprah and liked nothing more than a playful push-up contest. The imagined horrors left my head and my mind quieted. I cracked the door open to find Charlie just where he said he would be. On the couch, drinking a Coors, watching the news.
    The next day was my twenty-third birthday. The weather outside was sunny and bright and I spent the day under a blanket watching a
Godfather
marathon on cable. My bones hurt. Every few hours I’d let out a deep sigh, pull the blanket to my nose, and weep. A young, suspendered Al Pacino offered only lukewarm comfort.
    My roommate came home from her job at the health-food store. She opened the front door and the yellow afternoon shot through the dark living room, exposing the dust on the coffee table and the dark circles under my eyes. She eased over to me, bringing with her the stink of a vitamin aisle and a birthday cake. She knew that I was working at Nightmoves and she often worried about mysafety. I told her stories about my job, but only the funny ones. I certainly wasn’t going to tell her about Charlie.
    “This is how you’re spending your birthday?” she said. Her latest vinegar cleanse was really working. Her skin was radiant. Peering up at her from beneath the blanket, I felt like a mole.
    “Is something wrong?” She looked scared.
    “No, no,” I said, laughing it off. “It’s just sad, you know. All the promises Michael Corleone made Kay.”
    She prepared my cake and sang me “Happy Birthday.”
    I continued to arrive at strangers’ doors with my belongings—the ones I was so embarrassed about my parents discovering at the morgue—tossed over my shoulder. The only change was my now-elevated sense of fear. Standing inside a customer’s home, surrounded by deep woods, I’d psych myself into thinking that there was another person in the house, waiting in the hall closet or behind the shower curtain. Every customer began to resemble Ted Bundy, the serial killer who had bludgeoned Florida State sorority girls to death. Dancing amid the dark walls and the family portraits inside master bedrooms, I couldn’t keep my thoughts from turning to the macabre. The wife in the photo wasn’t away on business. She was beneath the floorboards. I smiled and made small talk, vacillating as to whether or not I should make up an excuse and leave. A drink was offered and I accepted. Before I took a sip, I switched my glass with the customer’s just in case he had laced mine. The air smelled of moist soil as I walked back to my truck. The night mist cooled my face. And though my body shivered with fear, I felt the distinctive, enjoyable rush of having gotten away with something. Life, I guess.
    My blossoming death drive came to a halt after I met a customer who worked as a Webmaster. He assumed I was a high school dropout and I never told him any different. From the frame of his front door, he smoked and lectured me on the poor choices I was making in my life. By this time, I had been working at Nightmoves for over a year and all the glamour and thrills that had accompanied the first months had faded.