Genuine Fraud, Page 2

  “Where d’you want to go?” Donovan asked eventually.

  “Anywhere in town.”

  “I’m going home, then.” His voice sounded predatory all of a sudden.

  Damn. Was she wrong to have gotten in his car? Was Donovan one of those guys who thinks a girl who wants a favor has to mess around with him?

  “Drop me a ways from where you live,” she told him sharply. “I’ll take care of myself.”

  “You don’t have to say it like that,” he said. “I’m putting myself out for you right now.”

  Imagine this: a sweet house sits on the outskirts of a town in Alabama. One night, eight-year-old Jule wakes up in the dark. Did she hear a noise?

  She isn’t sure. The house is quiet.

  She goes downstairs in a thin pink nightgown.

  On the ground floor, a spike of cold fear goes through her. The living room is trashed, books and papers everywhere. The office is even worse. File cabinets have been tipped over. The computers are gone.

  “Mama? Papa?” Little Jule runs back upstairs to look in her parents’ room.

  Their beds are empty.

  Now she is truly frightened. She slams open the bathroom. They aren’t there. She sprints outside.

  The yard is ringed with looming trees. Little Jule is halfway down the walkway when she realizes what she’s seeing there, in the circle of light created by a streetlamp.

  Mama and Papa lie in the grass, facedown. Their bodies are crumpled and limp. The blood pools black underneath them. Mama has been shot through the brain. She must have died instantly. Papa is clearly dead, but the only injuries Jule can see are on his arms. He must have bled out from his wounds. He is curled around Mama, as if he thought of only her in his last moments.

  Jule runs back into the house to call the police. The phone line is disconnected.

  She returns to the yard, wanting to say a prayer, thinking to say goodbye, at least—but her parents’ bodies have disappeared. Their killer has taken them away.

  She does not let herself cry. She sits for the rest of the night in that circle of light from the streetlamp, soaking her nightgown in thickening blood.

  For the next two weeks, Little Jule is alone in that ransacked house. She stays strong. She cooks for herself and sorts through the papers left behind, looking for clues. As she reads the documents, she pieces together lives of heroism, power, and secret identities.

  One afternoon she is in the attic, looking at old photographs, when a woman in black appears in the room.

  The woman steps forward, but Little Jule is quick. She throws a letter opener, hard and fast, but the woman catches it left-handed. Little Jule climbs a pile of boxes, grabs an overhead attic beam, and pulls herself onto it. She runs across the beam and squeezes through a high window onto the roof. Panic thuds in her chest.

  The woman takes after her. Jule leaps from the roof to the branches of a neighboring tree and breaks off a sharp stick to use as a weapon. She holds it in her mouth as she climbs down. She is sprinting into the underbrush when the woman shoots her in the ankle.

  The pain is intense. Little Jule is sure that her parents’ killer has come to finish her off—but the woman in black helps her up and tends the wound. She removes the bullet and treats the injury with antiseptic.

  As she bandages, the woman explains that she is a recruiter. She has been watching these past two weeks. Not only is Jule the child of two exceptionally skilled people, she is a remarkable intellect with a fierce survival instinct. The woman wants to train Jule and help her seek revenge. Since she is something of a long-lost aunt. She knows the secrets those parents kept from their beloved only daughter.

  Here begins a highly unusual education. Jule goes to a specialized academy housed in a renovated mansion on an ordinary street in New York City. She learns surveillance techniques, performs backflips, and masters the removal of handcuffs and straitjackets. She wears leather pants and loads her pockets with gadgets. There are lessons in foreign languages, social customs, literature, martial arts, the use of firearms, disguises, various accents, methods of forgery, and fine points of the law. The education lasts ten years. By the time it is complete, Jule has become the kind of woman it would be a great mistake to underestimate.

  That was the origin story of Jule West Williams. By the time she was living at the Playa Grande, Jule preferred it to any other story she might tell about herself.

  Donovan stopped and opened the driver’s-side door. The light came on inside the car.

  “Where are we?” Jule asked. It was dark outside.

  “San José del Cabo.”

  “This where you live?”

  “Not too close.”

  Jule was relieved, but it seemed very black out. Shouldn’t there be streetlights and businesses, lit up for the tourist crowd? “Anyone nearby?” she asked.

  “I parked in an alley so you wouldn’t be seen getting out of my car.”

  Jule crawled out. Her muscles were stiff and her face felt coated in grease. The alley was lined with garbage bins. There was light only from a couple of second-story windows. “Thanks for the ride. Pop the trunk, will you?”

  “You said a hundred dollars American when I got you to town.”

  “Of course.” Jule took her wallet from her back pocket and paid.

  “But now it’s more,” Donovan added.

  “What?”

  “Three hundred more.”

  “I thought we were friends.”

  He took a step toward her. “I make you drinks because it’s my job. I pretend to like talking to you, because that’s my job, too. You think I don’t see how you look down at me? Second-best Hulk. What kind of scotch. We’re not friends, Ms. Williams. You’re lying to me half the time, and I’m lying to you all the time.” She could smell liquor spilled on his shirt. His breath was hot in her face.

  Jule had honestly believed he liked her. They had shared jokes and he’d given her free potato chips. “Wow,” she said quietly.

  “Another three hundred,” he said.

  Was he a small-time hustler jacking a girl who was carrying a lot of American dollars? Or was he a sleazeball who thought she’d rub up against him rather than give him the extra three hundred? Could Noa have paid him off?

  Jule tucked her wallet back in her pocket. She shifted the strap so her bag went across her chest. “Donovan?” She stepped forward, close. She looked up at him with big eyes.

  Then she brought her right forearm up hard, snapped his head back, and punched him in the groin. He doubled over. Jule grabbed his slick hair and yanked his head back. She twisted him around, forcing him off balance.

  He jabbed with one elbow, slamming Jule in the chest. It hurt, but the second thrust of the elbow missed as she sidestepped, grabbed that elbow, and twisted it behind Donovan’s back. His arm was soft, repulsive. She held on tight and with her free hand snatched her money out of his greedy fingers.

  She shoved the cash into her jeans pocket and jerked Donovan’s elbow hard while she tapped his hip pockets, looking for his phone.

  Not there. Back pocket, then.

  She found it and shoved the phone down her bra for lack of anywhere else. Now he couldn’t call Noa with her location, but he still had the car keys in his left hand.

  Donovan kicked out, hitting her in the shin. Jule punched him in the side of the neck and he crumpled forward. One hard shove and Donovan hit the ground. He started to push himself up, but Jule grabbed a metal lid from one of the nearby trash cans and banged it on his head twice and he collapsed on a pile of garbage bags, bleeding from the forehead and one eye.

  Jule backed out of his reach. She still held the lid. “Drop your keys.”

  Moaning, Donovan extended his left hand and tossed them so they landed a couple of inches from his body.

  Jule grabbed the keys and popped the trunk. Then she took her rolling suitcase and sprinted down the street before Donovan could stand up.

  She slowed to a walk as soon as she hit the
main road in San José del Cabo and checked her shirt. It looked clean enough. She wiped her hand slowly and calmly over her face, in case there was anything on it—dirt, spit, or blood. She pulled a compact out of her bag and checked herself as she moved, using the mirror to look over her shoulder.

  There was no one behind her.

  She put on matte pink lipstick, snapped her compact shut, and slowed her pace even more.

  She couldn’t look like she was running from anything.

  The air was warm, and music thumped from inside the bars. Tourists milled around in front of many of them—white, black, and Mexican, all drunk and loud. Cheap vacation crowds. Jule tossed Donovan’s keys and phone in a trash can. She looked for a cab or a supercabos bus but didn’t see either.

  Okay, then.

  She needed to hide and change, in case Donovan came after her. He would pursue her if he was working for Noa. Or if he wanted revenge.

  Picture yourself, now, on film. Shadows flit across your smooth skin as you walk. There are bruises forming underneath your clothes, but your hair looks excellent. You’re armed with gadgets, thin shards of metal that perform outrageous feats of technology and assault. You carry poisons and antidotes.

  You are the center of the story. You and no one else. You’ve got that interesting origin tale, that unusual education. Now you’re ruthless, you’re brilliant, you’re practically fearless. There’s a body count behind you, because you do whatever’s required to stay alive—but it’s a day’s work, that’s all.

  You look superb in the light from the Mexican bar windows. After a fight, your cheeks are flushed. And oh, your clothes are so very flattering.

  Yes, it’s true that you are criminally violent. Brutal, even. But that’s your job and you’re uniquely qualified, so it’s sexy.

  Jule watched a shit-ton of movies. She knew that women were rarely the centers of such stories. Instead, they were eye candy, arm candy, victims, or love interests. Mostly, they existed to help the great white hetero hero on his fucking epic journey. When there was a heroine, she weighed very little, wore very little, and had had her teeth fixed.

  Jule knew she didn’t look like those women. She would never look like those women. But she was everything those heroes were, and in some ways, she was more.

  She knew that, too.

  She reached the third Cabo bar and ducked inside. It was furnished with picnic tables and had taxidermied fish on the walls. The customers were mainly Americans, getting sloshed after a day of sport fishing. Jule pushed quickly to the back, glanced over her shoulder, and went into the men’s room.

  It was empty. She ducked into a stall. Donovan would never look for her here.

  The toilet seat was wet and coated yellow. Jule dug in her suitcase until she found a black wig—a sleek bob with bangs. She put it on, wiped off her lipstick, applied a dark gloss, and powdered her nose. She buttoned a black cotton cardigan over her white T-shirt.

  A guy came in and used the urinal. Jule stood still, glad she was wearing jeans and heavy black boots. Only her feet and the bottom of her suitcase would be visible at the low edge of the stall.

  A second guy came in and used the stall next to hers. She looked at his shoes.

  It was Donovan.

  Those were his dirty white Crocs. Those were his nurselike Playa Grande trousers. Jule’s blood pounded in her ears.

  She quietly picked her suitcase up off the floor and held it so he couldn’t see it. She stayed motionless.

  Donovan flushed and Jule heard him shuffle to the sink. He ran the water.

  Another guy came in. “Could I borrow your phone?” Donovan asked in English. “Just a quick call.”

  “Someone beat you up, man?” The other guy had an American accent, Californian. “You look like you been through it.”

  “I’m fine,” said Donovan. “I just need a phone.”

  “I don’t have calls here, just texting,” the guy said. “I have to get back to my buddies.”

  “I’m not going to steal it,” said Donovan. “I just need to—”

  “I said no, okay? But I wish you well, dude.” The other guy left without using the facilities.

  Did Donovan want the phone because he had no car keys and needed a ride? Or because he wanted to call Noa?

  He breathed heavily, as if in pain. He didn’t run the water again.

  Finally, he left.

  Jule set the suitcase down. She shook her hands to get the blood moving again and stretched her arms behind her back. Still in the stall, she counted her money, both pesos and dollars. She checked her wig in her compact mirror.

  When she felt certain Donovan was gone, Jule walked out of the men’s room, confident, no big thing, and headed for the street. Outside, she pushed through the crowds of partiers to a corner and found herself in luck. A taxi pulled up. She jumped in and asked for the Grand Solmar, the resort next to Playa Grande.

  At the Grand Solmar she got a second taxi easily. She asked the new driver to take her to a cheap, locally owned place in town. He drove her to the Cabo Inn.

  It was a dive. Cheap walls, dirty paint, plastic furniture, plastic flowers on the counter. Jule checked in under a false name and paid the clerk in pesos. He didn’t ask for ID.

  Up in the room, she used the small coffeemaker to brew a cup of decaf. She put three sugars in. She sat on the edge of the bed.

  Did she need to run?

  No.

  Yes.

  No.

  Nobody knew where she was. No one on earth. That fact should have made her happy. She had wanted to disappear, after all.

  But she felt afraid.

  She wished for Paolo. Wished for Imogen.

  Wished she could undo everything that had happened.

  If only she could go back in time, Jule felt, she would be a better person. Or a different person. She would be more herself. Or maybe less herself. She didn’t know which, because she didn’t any longer know what shape her own self was, or whether there was really no Jule at all, but only a series of selves she presented for different contexts.

  Were all people like that, with no true self?

  Or was it only Jule?

  She didn’t know if she could love her own mangled, strange heart. She wanted someone else to do it for her, to see it beating behind her ribs and to say, I can see your true self. It is there, and it is rare and worthy. I love you.

  How dark and stupid it was to be mangled and strange, to be no particular shape, to have no self when life was stretching out before her. Jule had many rare talents. She worked hard and really had so damn much to offer. She knew all that.

  So why did she feel worthless at the same time?

  She wanted to call Imogen. She wished she could hear Immie’s low laugh and her run-on sentences spilling out secrets. She wished she could say to Imogen, I’m scared. And Immie would say, But you’re brave, Jule. You’re the bravest person I know.

  She wished Paolo would come and put his arms around her, telling her as he had once that she was a top-notch, excellent person.

  She wanted there to be someone who loved her unconditionally, someone who would forgive her anything. Or better, someone who knew everything already and loved her for it.

  Neither Paolo nor Immie was capable of that.

  Still, Jule remembered the feel of Paolo’s lips on hers, and the smell of Immie’s jasmine perfume.

  Wearing the black wig, Jule went downstairs to the Cabo Inn’s business office. She had thought out her strategy. The office was closed this time of night, but she tipped the desk clerk to open it for her. On the computer, she booked a flight out of San José del Cabo to Los Angeles for the next morning. She used her own name and charged it on her usual credit card, the same one she’d been using at the Playa Grande.

  Then she asked the clerk where she could buy a car for cash. He said there was a dealer who worked out of a backyard who could sell her something in the morning for American dollars. He wrote down an address, on Ortiz off Ejido,
he said.

  Noa was tracking credit cards. She had to be, or she’d never have found Jule. Now the detective would see the new charge and go to LA. Jule herself would buy a car for cash and drive toward Cancùn. From Cancùn, she’d make her way eventually to the island of Culebra in Puerto Rico, where there were loads of Americans who never showed their passports to anyone.

  She thanked the clerk for the information about the car dealer. “You’re not going to remember our conversation, are you?” she said, pushing another twenty across the counter to him.

  “I might,” he said.

  “No you won’t.” She added a fifty.

  “I never saw you,” he said.

  The sleep was bad. Even worse than usual. Dreams of drowning in warm turquoise water; dreams of abandoned cats walking across her body as she slept; dreams of strangulation by serpent. Jule woke up screaming.

  She drank water. Took a cold shower.

  Slept and woke up screaming again.

  At five a.m., she stumbled to the bathroom, splashed water on her face, and lined her eyes. Why not? She liked makeup. She had time. She layered concealer and powder, added smoky shadow, then mascara and a nearly black lipstick with a gloss over it.

  She rubbed gel into her hair and got dressed. Black jeans, boots again, and a dark T-shirt. Too warm for the Mexican heat, but practical. She packed her suitcase, drank a bottle of water, and stepped out the door.

  —

  Noa was sitting in the hallway, her back against the wall, holding a steaming cup of coffee between her hands.

  Waiting.

  END OF APRIL, 2017

  LONDON

  Seven weeks earlier, at the end of April, Jule woke up in a youth hostel on the outskirts of London. There were eight bunks to a room: thin mattresses, topped with regulation white sheets. Sleeping bags lay on top of those. Backpacks leaned against the walls. There was a faint reek of body odor and patchouli.

  She’d slept in her workout clothes. She eased out of bed, laced her shoes, and ran eight miles through the suburb, past pubs and butcher shops that were still shuttered in the early light. On return, she did planks, lunges, push-ups, and squats in the hostel common room.