I could have spit them out. I could have tried. But at that moment I just wanted to be able to breathe again. I could worry about my fate better with lungs full of air.
Camden stayed with me, stroking the top of my head while my heartbeat slowed. He told me to breathe in and out, in through the nose and out through the mouth. He held onto my hand and never once let go. I held his hand back, needing something to hang on to.
After some time, I didn’t feel woozy. I didn’t feel tired. I was calm but I was alert. I gave him a sheepish smile.
“Those are better than Ativan,” I said. “I thought you were trying to drug me unconscious.”
“I know you were.”
I bit my lip, hard. “What are you going to do about me?”
“About you?” he looked at me curiously.
I nodded. “Fifty thousand dollars.”
He frowned and adjusted himself on the couch, leaning in closer. “Ellie. I’m not handing you over to some psychopaths for fifty thousand dollars. This doesn’t change anything.”
“Yes it does,” I said. “It changes everything. It means we have to leave…now.”
“We can’t—“
“Listen to me, Camden” I said, trying to get the urgency back into my voice. “You have no idea what we are dealing with here. These men...tell me what happened. Tell me exactly what happened.”
He rubbed at his forehead anxiously. “Okay. The doorbell rang. I went downstairs and saw these two men standing on the steps.”
“Describe them.”
“One was about 5’10”, nice grey pinstripe suit. Really shiny shoes. Beak-like nose, a scar at his jaw. Clean shaven. Thick dark hair, brown eyes. Skinny. Like a male version of Olive Oyl. The other guy was a bit shorter, maybe 5’8”, same look about him except his nose had a huge bump on it like it had been broken a few times. Tan suit. Dirtier shoes. Both were Hispanic.”
“Raul and Alex,” I breathed out. Names I thought I’d never say again.
He nodded. “That’s right. Raul and Alex. They said they were looking for a girl. I said, ‘aren’t we all?’ They laughed like assholes laugh, so I knew they were bad news. They asked to come inside and I let them. They asked me a few questions about myself, the shop, how long I’ve been in the tattoo business, et cetera. Then then brought out the picture. They said the girl had stolen her ex-boyfriend’s car and money a few years ago and they wanted it back. The car, especially, had a lot of personal value to the man. They had heard she was in Palm Valley, and considering she had a tattoo on her arm and I was a tattoo artist, they figured I might have seen her.”
“That’s bullshit,” I spat out. “They know I’m here. They’ve seen us together.”
“I don’t think they know for sure. It’s a good thing your car—his car—is parked around the street, isn’t it?” He continued, talking faster now, picking up on the immediacy of what he was saying. “And so I told them I hadn’t seen the girl in the photo, though I knew who she was. I went to high school with her. They looked at each other like I’d said something really interesting and asked if I’d come meet someone. I told them I don’t normally walk off with people I don’t know and they said he was just at a teahouse across the street. So I figured I better find out what was going on. I followed them to that little shop that sells tea and English pastries and other nasty shit and they sat me down across from a guy.”
I swallowed hard. “And what did he look like?”
“Nice looking fellow,” he said, sounding slightly annoyed, “if you like swarthy-looking Latino men. He was sitting there, cool as a cucumber. And not a false cool—a real cool. Like he owned the teashop. Like he owned the town. Like he was God or something. Sitting back like he didn’t have a care in the world, brown suit jacket, expensive white shirt unbuttoned a bit. Jeans. Shit-kicker boots. Sipping on tea.”
“His face?”
Camden wiggled his jaw back and forth. “It…was like the sun. You wanted to look at him and you didn’t want to look at him. He looked fine, you know, for a guy. Wide mouth. Square jaw. Shaggy brown hair below his chin. In some ways he looked really young. But those eyes…I couldn’t look at them for too long. It was like he was staring into my soul or something and looking for things I don’t want anyone to go looking for. I couldn’t even look long enough at them to remember what color they were.”
“They’re green,” I said absently. “A very light, yellow green.”
He exhaled and sat back. “So then you know. It was Javier.”
“What did he want?” My voice sounded so far away. Javier. Javier Bernal was in my town. Right down the street from where I was. It was a miracle I wasn’t dead. Every second I sat there talking to Camden about him, I was pushing my luck. Javier was like my personal Candyman. There was a chance every time we said his name he would appear.
“He asked me the same questions and I gave him the same answers. Raul, I think, brought up the fact that I knew you in high school. So he started asking a lot of questions about your parents.”