“Sit down,” he told her, pointing to the nearest bed.
She did. He sat next to her.
“Can I trust you?” he asked.
“To do what?”
“To keep a confidence.”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
“It’s not going to be that easy. Last night you talked a lot about you and your father not getting along. You talked around it some, but that’s the general drift.”
She sighed heavily; the dark circles under her eyes weren’t the whole story — she seemed weary, troubled.
“It isn’t that simple,” she said.
“He’s hitting on you, isn’t he?”
She said nothing for a moment; looked at the floor. Nodded.
“Was it worse last night?”
She nodded. She shook her head. Pointed toward the bathroom. “I spent four hours locked in that goddamn toilet. He started pounding on the door. He was crying, after while...”
Jon couldn’t quite picture Cole Comfort crying.
“Was he sorry?” Jon asked.
“He said he was. He said he had... demons. He begged me to forgive him. I forgave him — but through the door. He wanted to fuck me. I know he did.”
Jon looked at her with awe. Her frankness was startling, and he wondered how, after a nightmare night hiding behind a locked bathroom door from a father who probably wanted to rape her, she could so easily go down on her knees and take a casual lover like him in her mouth.
She smiled a little, reading his mind, or anyway his eyes. She touched his leg. “I like lovin’. Daddy ain’t gonna spoil that for me. It’s not that I don’t want to have sex again — it’s just that I don’t want to have it with Daddy.”
“That’s not a bad policy.”
She looked at the orange vinyl curtains. “I’m thinking about leaving. I called my friend out in California — Ginger — she’s got a job and everything. Not hustling, either. She says she can get me on at the Taco Bell, too. It’s a better future than I got at home.”
“I think leaving is a good idea.”
“It is. I just can’t take it. This... it’s getting... I can’t take it.”
“There’s more, isn’t there? Than your daddy pawing after you.”
She seemed to almost wince. Another sigh. Another nod.
“Your father’s a thief, isn’t he?”
She looked at him sharply, pulled away. “What are you?” Her voice turned as harsh as a heavy-metal guitar solo. “Are you some fuckin’ narc or something?”
He laughed a little. Very little. “No. I’m not a narc or any kind of cop.”
“Then... what?”
“I’m another thief. I’m in on this mall heist with your father.”
She looked at him like they looked at Columbus when he said the world was round. “What? You are?”
“Yes. And if he knew I’d made contact with you, he wouldn’t like it.”
“Is that what you call it? Contact? I thought you fucked me. And, brother, he’d kill you, for that.”
“I know he would. I know he would.”
She looked at him, taking him seriously; something in his voice had brought her around.
“See, I’m not really a thief, anymore,” he said. “I used to be. When I was a kid, and wild. I was in on a couple of bank robberies, a few other things. But I went straight. Started playing with the Nodes, working on my comic books — like I told you about last night. But now, after I thought that the whole world was behind me, your father pulls me in on this fucking thing.”
“Why? How?”
“I’m going to tell you the whole story, Cindy Lou. And believe me, I’m putting my life in your hands...”
And he told her. He pulled no punches. He even told her about his part in the deaths of certain of her “kin.” Most of all he told her about Sherry. About how Sherry had been kidnaped to force Nolan and Jon to help heist the Brady Eighty mall.
She was silent throughout, listening raptly; but he couldn’t read her.
Finally he said, “I think you already know about Sherry, and the trouble she’s in. I think you were forced to stand guard on her last night, while your brother and father met with the rest of us, for our final planning session.”
She winced again. Looked at the floor.
“I don’t know what crimes in the past your father has involved you in,” he said, “but this time it’s kidnaping. You’re an accessory. You’re implicated in the mall heist, as well; you’re a conspirator.”
She looked at him, her big blue eyes wet.
“The girl’s all right,” she said. “She hasn’t been hurt or anything. Lyle hasn’t touched her.”
Thank God.
“Good. But your father wants revenge against my friend and me. I think he plans to kill Sherry, eventually. And me. And my friend.”
She thought about that. Then shook her head violently.
“No!” she said. “No, I don’t think he’d go that far. Daddy’s not a bad man, not really...”
“Jesus fuck! How did you spend last night again? Or was that somebody else who was hiding in the can from her rape-happy old man?”
“Jon... what are you asking...?”
“First, don’t betray me. At the very least, just don’t say anything to your father about us talking.”
He waited for her to nod, but she just looked at him.
He swallowed and went on. “What I want most of all is for you to tell me where they’re holding Sherry.”
“Oh, Jon...”
“Where, and under what conditions. I need to know the layout of the place, so we can get her back without anybody getting hurt. That includes Lyle, and your father.”
She was shaking her head no.
“We aren’t murderers, Cindy Lou, Nolan and me. We’re two guys who used to be crooks, who went straight, and something out of our past came back at us and whapped us alongside the head. This girl, Sherry, is innocent in this. She’s done nothing to your father to deserve any of it. She’s not, never was, a criminal. Her only crime was falling in love with the wrong guy.”
“I been there,” she said hollowly.
Tears were making tracks down her cheeks, though her face was oddly impassive.
“I think you should help me,” Jon said. “You should tell me where Sherry is, before she gets hurt. Before she gets killed. You don’t want to be an accessory to murder, do you?”
Now her Kewpie-doll lips were quivering. “Jon... please...”
“Help me. Don’t say anything to your father. And catch that bus to California — today, tonight, as soon as you can break free from him.”
“I don’t have enough money...”
“I’ll tell you what. From here I’m going down to the Greyhound station. It’s in downtown Davenport. I’m going to buy you a ticket to, where?”
“L.A.,” she said, snuffling.
“To L.A. I’ll have them hold it for you at the ticket window, in your name. How’s that?”
“I can’t do it.”
“Go to California?”
“Help you. He’s my daddy, Jon. No matter what he’s done, he’s my daddy. I can’t, I just can’t turn against him. He’s kin.”
Jon reached out and held her hand. “Look. This isn’t a matter of ‘kin.’ It’s a matter of right and wrong.”
Her mouth tightened. “You steal things. How can you say what’s right and wrong?”
“Stealing’s wrong. I don’t do it anymore. At least, I don’t want to do it anymore. Kidnaping is very wrong. Murder is as wrong as you can get.”
“Going against your family is wrong.”
“Not if they’re the Mansons. Help me. And yourself. Tell me where Sherry is — and catch that bus.”
“Jon... don’t ask me this... we hardly know each other...”
“My life’s in your hands.”
The door opened.