I barely knocked when the door flew open. It took me a moment to realize it was Lisa — my Lisa. She had her long dark hair up in a messy bun, wore cutoff jean shorts and a pink T-shirt. But it was her eyes that struck me. They were big and jittery. She was scared.
“Wes!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me inside, saw the scar on my thumb. I pulled my hand away quickly. She looked to the side and back at me like she was waiting for something — or someone. Still, it felt good to be close to her again, taking in the sweet flowery smell of her perfume. I could’ve stood there for hours, but there was a hurricane coming.
“We should get going,” I said.
“What?”
“The storm.”
“Wes...”
“What happened to you?” It escaped me like a prayer. This was her life, where she lived — the nasty yellow shag carpet and the warping dark-wood paneling, the stink like burned Spam and cigarette smoke.
The Lisa Moon I’d known was tough. She dressed like Joan Jett and lived in a nice studio apartment in Palma Ceia and drove a bloodred Miata. She had it together like no one I knew. She was always in control. That had been our problem. We were two headstrong lovers with trust issues. Protecting our own feelings came first.
Now here she was, living like trailer trash — and in Gibsonton, no less.
“I don’t know where Jack is,” she said, and took a short step back. “I need to know he’s safe.”
“I’m sure he’s fine.” But I really didn’t give a damn about her knife-throwing clown.
“No. I need to know. We need to find him. He’s been gone three days. He won’t answer his phone. And now this damn hurricane. He would never just go and leave me here like this.”
“You sure about that?”
She slapped me.
Within the first couple of months of dating, I asked Lisa to move in with me. She refused. She said she liked her independence. She said she loved her little apartment with the white walls and gold crown molding. She said that if we moved in together it would ruin the magic.
By magic she meant sex. It kept us together, like a drug we had to get a fix of every few days. We often fought, but somehow we always ended up in the sack either at her place or mine. Sometimes it was rough. Sometimes it was soft. But it was always good.
Our problem was that I wanted to take care of her and she didn’t need any taking care of. When I told her she should quit the Mons and get a respectable job, flatware flew across my apartment.
“What is it about men that you need to dominate us?” she cried. “I was fine before you showed up, and I’m fine now.”
“I hate you working late nights around all those creeps.”
“That wasn’t a problem when you were hanging out there every night.”
“I was working.”
“And what do you think I do there?”
I was jealous. I worried she’d meet someone else. And she did. Jack the fucking Knife. And now here she was.
She never let me get close. I wanted all of her, body and soul, but all she ever gave was body. All I could do was wonder if it was different with Jack. She’d been with him at least eight months, living in this tin can. She looked thin, dark circles under her eyes, haggard. Maybe she was on drugs.
I raised my hand to belt her one but stopped short. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. I wasn’t going to be drawn into our usual game of love and pain. I was a new man.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a moment, her lip trembling. “I love Jack. I’m not leaving without him, Wes.”
“For all we know, he might be sitting in a cozy suite at some hotel in Orlando or Atlanta.”
“He’s not like that,” she lamented, and pointed to the door. “He walked out that door three days ago and hasn’t come back. He won’t answer his phone.”
“You go to the cops?”
“No... I—”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” She lowered her eyes. “I was scared. I didn’t want him to get in trouble.”
“An affair?”
“No!” She gave me a poisonous look. “He said he was meeting a friend. I don’t know. Some of those guys he hangs out with are bad news.”
“Drugs?”
“No, not him, but his friends. They’re lowlifes. Carnies. You can’t trust them.”
“You think they did something to him?”
She turned away. Tears escaped her eyes. “I just thought it’d be better not to involve the police. Not yet.”
“Okay,” I said, and placed my hand on her shoulder. “Take it easy.”
She shrugged my hand off and wiped her tears with the back of her wrists. “Can you help me?”
A strong feeder band from Lloyd swept in, rattling the aluminum roof of the trailer and bringing a wave of hard rain.
“We need to leave,” I said.
“Not without Jack.”
“We’re not going to find him if we stay here.”
She didn’t move.
“Fine,” I said. “Did he take anything when he left?”
“His knives.”
“What?”
“He took his set of knives.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s a set of custom Laguiole knives. They’re worth a small fortune.”
“Why would he take them?”
“I don’t know!” she cried. “We were working on an act. He was in touch with a producer, someone who’d been in Hollywood and was looking for innovative acts. Things were looking really good for us. But then he started getting these phone calls. Last week he said someone was following him.”
The racket of the rain on the roof died down.
“The man’s a con, Lisa. I swear, you fall for these guys—”
“Don’t... don’t you talk down to me. I love Jack and he loves me. Get over it, Wes. You don’t wanna help me, fine.” She grabbed her purse and shoved past me to the front door. “You should’ve just said so before you came down here.” She ran out.
I went after her. “Hold up.”
She stood by my car with her back to me. The night was suddenly dead still.
“I came all the way down here... I’ll help you look for him. But the hurricane...” I pressed the unlock button on my key. The car beeped. Lisa lowered her head and ambled to the car.
Another feeder band swept across the Fairfax. The gust dragged a plastic trash can across the dirt road to the far end of the trailer. It came to rest next to a large round target, the kind you see at the circus with straps and a star and the outline of a woman painted on it. Part of Jack’s William Tell routine.
I turned away from the rain and made my way to the car. I drove to the entrance to the trailer park and stopped. I knew we were not going to find Jack. I had to get us out of here, back to Tampa. Or at least find shelter. I had a quarter tank of gas.
I took a right toward the interstate.
“Where we going?”
“75.”
“Can’t we drive around a bit?”
“You think he’ll be walking around in this weather?”
“Let’s just take a quick drive. Ten minutes. That’s all.”
I glanced at her. She knew I would do what she asked. I took a left and we crisscrossed Gibsonton in a grid pattern through the narrow streets of this sad run-down town. The roads were deserted, shitty little houses boarded up with plywood. The feeder band passed and the night was suddenly calm again.
I kept asking myself why I’d fallen for her of all people. But I knew better. There was never any logic to love, lust, infatuation — they were all a mystery. They drove people to do crazy things. I was no exception.
Maybe I’d been lonely.
But I was lonely now — had been since the day she left. There was something about her. And when I learned she’d hooked up with Jack the knife thrower, it hit me in the gut. Bad. I knew I would never see her again if I didn’t do something. And then she called. But what she wanted was him. She was willing to risk our lives in the storm to find Jack.