A Better Goodbye Read Free Page A

about?” Suki said.
    Then she stepped inside and saw for herself.
    Brooke and Contessa were on the futon, both in their robes, sheer little things that were their greatest concession to modesty. Contessa was lying on her side, looking back over her shoulder at Suki, a pillow pulled tight against her chest, the towel beneath her stained with something dark. Brooke was kneeling beside her protectively, eyes wild and desperate. Her hair was a tangled mess, and there was a mark on the left side of her face and what looked like dried blood under her nose.
    â€œThey raped us,” Brooke said.
    â€œWho?” Suki asked, barely able to get her voice above a whisper.
    â€œThat new client. I buzz him up and he’s all well dressed and everything, and before I close the door behind him, his friend comes charging in.”
    â€œNiggers,” Contessa said.
    Brooke sank back on the futon and started to cry. “They said they’d kill us. Oh, Suki, they had guns.”
    â€œWe’ve got to call the police,” Suki said. She was fishing around in her purse for her cell phone when Contessa stopped her with a derisive snort.
    â€œAnd tell ’em what, a couple ho’s got raped? Yeah, those cops’d love that. We can tell ’em the motherfuckers stole all our money, too. And you know what they gonna do, little girl? They gonna laugh and say it’s the price we pay for peddlin’ our pussies.”
    â€œAt least call Derek.”
    â€œBitch, all that motherfucker want us to do is clean up our mess and disappear.”
    Suki tried to think of what to say next. Contessa beat her to it.
    â€œJust get the fuck outta here, all right?”
    Suki looked at Brooke, hoping to find an ally but knowing that now more than ever Brooke wouldn’t stand up to Contessa. She wouldn’t even raise her head.
    â€œGoddammit, go,” Contessa said.
    Suki hurried from the apartment without so much as a goodbye, shedding her name like a second skin. By the time the elevator stopped in the underground parking garage, she was back to being Jenny Yee and nobody else. She doubted the process would be that easy for Contessa and Brooke, cursed now with their terrible secret. And she wondered, as never before, what their names really were.

2
    The Mexicans woke Nick Pafko at six straight up, the way they always did, their radio blaring music that was heavy on happy accordions and ai-yi-yi-yi ’s. They were gardeners who lived in the termite palace next door, anywhere from four to six in a one-bedroom. Nick had watched them come and go, probably back and forth across the border with as many Yankee dollars as they could squirrel away while tending the lawns of anybody with enough money to afford them. The only ones who never left were the guys who drove the two trucks, both of them in their fifties and easy to imagine respectfully taking off their ball caps when the lady of the house came out to say bugs were eating her roses. Once they figured out Nick didn’t work for La Migra, they stopped watching him out of the corners of their eyes. They’d smile or nod, sometimes offer him a beer, as though they understood he wasn’t any better off than they were. Good guys, but they couldn’t keep it down in the morning.
    Nick rolled out of bed and into the chilly March dawn. The rising sibilance on the 405 let him know that last night’s rush hour was already turning into morning drive time without a break. The trick with the traffic was to pretend it was the ocean, waves washing up on a concrete shore. He didn’t hear many people spoiling the illusion by honking, the way they did back home in Chicago. With nothing between him and the freeway except the two apartments up front, a street the city never fixed, and a half-assed wire fence, Nick took his blessings where he found them.
    Sleep had come hard last night, refusing to budge until exhaustion got the best of the voices in his head. The