Chapter 11

The next day I went to visit my father in his run-down apartment building. Scared but determined, I clenched my fists together for strength to keep from trembling, threw my shoulders back, and knocked on his door. Jacquot looked surprised when he opened it. "Well, if it isn't the little motherfucker!" He stood straighter to show how much taller he was than me, but then the tic started on his face. The black hair on his head, eyebrows, mustache, and tuft under his lip formed a triangle of darkness that contrasted with his pale skin. "Come to see his dad. How sweet. Or are you gonna put the make on me too? Practice for what's going to happen to you in prison." His steely blue eyes lacerated me.

I was glad he was being such a pig. It helped me focus on what I needed to do to destroy him. "I came to see if we could work something out." I tried to force my shaky voice to stay steady.

"Sure. It's called two hundred grand." His tone was belligerent, but when he motioned me to follow him into the apartment, I knew he wanted to negotiate. That meant he'd let me stay long enough to do what I came for. I relaxed a bit.

He had one furnished room with a kitchenette. Sunshine filtered through the dingy windows, falling on faded wallpaper and dusty light fixtures with dead flies in the globes. Years of shuffling tenants had worn down the carpeting and the upholstery of the overstuffed chair and couch. Set into one wall were double doors where the bed folded out. Outside the windows were an iron fire escape and a neighboring building just like this one. No wonder he'd wanted to move in with us.

"No way can we get that much," I said with an adamant shake of my head. "But what I thought was ... look"—I gestured impatiently, like a busy man making a business call—"can I sit down?"

"Yeah." He gestured to the chair and took the couch. He was interested but trying not to show it. I tried to remember to keep my mouth closed when I wasn't talking to look more mature and in charge.

First we bickered back and forth about Diana's tightfisted father disowning her and how little Public Defenders make. I kept insisting two hundred thousand was impossible. "Diana's on the verge of suicide." I packed my voice full of worry. "I've never seen her like this before. She's threatening to mail the tape of your phone call to the DA—blackmail, parole violation. Then kill herself. I don't want her to do that. I really don't want her to. So here's what I'm willing to do." I looked him in the eye with as much sincerity as I could. "I'll deal for you ... and pay you that way. I'll sell the stuff—you keep all the money. I can get into all the schools. Kids are dying to buy dope. It's the big thing. You just supply me—grass and acid, speed and coke. I'll take all the risk, you take all the profit. I can pay you the two hundred thousand in a year. When we're even, you can keep supplying me, but then I'll keep what I make. You'll still make a profit. The market is huge."

Jacquot thought about it, thumb on his chin, tongue inside his lower lip making his tag of whiskers bristle. "I'd need some cash up front ... to make the buys."

"How much?" I asked.

"Twenty thousand."

"That much we could probably get."

We eyed each other like two hostile business rivals edging towards a merger.

"I can supply you," Jacquot said in his hoarse voice, "but it can't be directly. We'd need a cut out ... a drop box ... so you don't get the stuff right from me. I leave it there, you pick it up later. If you get busted, there's gotta be no way it can get traced back to me."

"I wouldn't tell 'em anything."

"The hell you wouldn't. Anybody would. The thing is to keep 'em from proving it."

"Yeah, OK." He was going for it. Now we were just working out the details.

"I'll think it over," Jacquot said.

"Good. Otherwise..." I let my voice trail off. "It's the only way to avoid something terrible ... for all of us."

He crossed his legs and assessed me coolly, running his index finger along his broken nose.

"Diana can't know about this," I went on. "She'd never go along with it. So tell her you'll settle for twenty thousand."

"For now."

He still wanted to torment her. My hatred of him flared up again, but I repressed it into a shrug of male complicity. "Have it your way. But as soon as I pay you the two hundred thou ... if you try for any more ... I'll kill you. I don't care what happens."

"Big talk." He snorted with dismissive contempt, but his eyes were full of pain. "You two are really crazy, you know that? It's the weirdest! I heard about this kind of stuff but never thought..." He gave a harsh laugh to show he was worldly. "How long you been diddling her?"

I tried to slide back into the man-talk mode. "Not long. It's a new development. How'd you figure it out?"

His smirk showed he enjoyed having his sleuth skills appreciated. "That first night when I looked at the bed ... got me to thinking. She's got no boyfriend, but there's two pillows next to one another, both with head holes in 'em, nice and cute and cuddly like. Then I see a guy's socks and underwear tossed in the corner ... jockey shorts—like young guys wear." He laughed mockingly at me. "Hey, I'm a slob too. Like father, like son." His smile turned malicious again. "So I thought it was worth doing a little sneak and peak. What clinched it was—I never saw lights on in your bedroom on the weekends, just in hers. Ha! I knew you must be sleeping with her. Then I had to get the evidence."

"That you did." I let him have his moment of glory, then stood up and said, "I need to use the john."

"Right in there." His tone was almost hospitable.

Now began the real purpose of my visit. I was hoping there'd be a window big enough to get through from the outside if I left it unlocked. But there was only a tiny vent. That meant Plan B.

I took off the top of the toilet and saw that the shut-off bulb on the float mechanism was attached by a cord. I opened my pocket knife, plunged it into the water, and frayed the cord apart with the blade to make it look like it had broken. I put the top back on and flushed the toilet, then washed my hands and knife at the sink but dried them on my jeans rather than use his mildewed towels.

"The toilet won't shut off ... just keeps running," I told Jacquot when I came out. "Might overflow."

"Goddamnit!" He glared at me and went to check it. "What'd you dump in it? All your used rubbers?"

As soon as he was out of the room, I unlocked the windows by the fire escape, then took out one of the two lids of grass I'd brought with me and shoved it out of sight under the couch.

Jacquot came out muttering about plumbing. We warily agreed to talk in a few days about our deal. As I looked at his gloomy, haggard face and thought about how we were trying to ruin each other's lives, I winced with regret. It shouldn't have to be this way. My mind wandered through a maze of might-have-beens. If he hadn't run out on us ... stayed around ... I could've had a real father, whatever that meant. We could've been a regular family ... if there was such a thing. Jacquot could've been someone I looked up to ... my buddy. I wouldn't've known what a jerk he was ... he'd just be my dad. We could've gone fishing together. He could've taught me how to shoot baskets. But then mom and I probably wouldn't be doing what we were doing ... and I'd a lot rather be doing that than shooting baskets. This was our life and I liked it. If we had to fight to keep him from destroying it, so be it. I left without shaking his hand.

Out on the street I found his Triumph and taped the other lid of grass under the cycle seat.

Next day I came back during his work hours. His bike was gone. I knocked on his door: no answer. I climbed out onto the fire escape through the hall window, circled around to his apartment, opened the window, and slid inside. If someone saw me, they might called the cops, but I thought the chances were slight. It was a poor neighborhood in the summer—people hang out on the fire escapes, since they don't have AC or balconies. And most poor people don't want anything to do with the cops.

The apartment was so small it didn't take long to find the pictures. He had a couple of telephotos of mom and me riding in the buff, but I guess he couldn't get close enough to snap our revels by the beaver dam. The photos of us playing inside were a bit blurred, probably because of the low light and slow speed, but you could tell who it was and what we were doing. The last one caught the terror on mom's face as she looked up and saw him.