Page 79 of Fade Out
“Deanna Hansen was here. You sold me into slavery.”
“I wouldn’t call it slavery, that’s being overly dramatic. Indentured servitude perhaps.”
“Don’t split hairs. You had no right to do that.”
“I didn’tsayI had a right to do it. If you asked me, which you haven’t, I would say I had no choice.”
“What does that mean?”
“Why are you angry, Nick? She offered you a job and I assume you turned her down.”
“She’s not letting me turn her down.”
“And why do you think it’s any different for me? Offers that can’t be refused. That’s her business, she’s learned it well.”
I began to soften. She had Owen over a barrel, not the same barrel she had me over, but a barrel nonetheless.
“You should have told me. You should have been honest with me.”
“Would you rather be on the fast track to Joliet? Prison is rarely the better choice.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yes, well, fuck you too, darling.”
I hung up on him.
What was I going to do? I couldn’t work for Deanna. I had to find a way to get away from her. Maybe I could do what she did, maybe I could find something on her that she didn’t want—she was a criminal, a very public one, was there anything—
“You didn’t find him?” Franklin asked, pulling me back to reality.
“Find who?” Terry asked, not looking up from the TV.
“Brian,” I said, then asked Franklin, “How long has he been gone?”
“An hour and a half,” Franklin said, his voice cracking. “It’s not like him.”
“He was going to get champagne. So—what if he didn’t like what they have at Treasure Island?”
“He knows what they have there. If he didn’t want that he’d have said he was going somewhere else.”
“Why did he want champagne?” Terry asked.
“Nick’s not going to prison.”
Terry rolled his bloodshot eyes like that was ridiculous.
I said, “Maybe Brian changed his mind on the way.”
“You think he went to Jewel?” Franklin asked, doubt in his voice. And he was right. Jewel did not have a better selection. Nor did the two or three liquor stores dotting the neighborhood. And they certainly weren’t an hour and a half away. Then, he said, “We should call the police.”
“No, we shouldn’t,” I said firmly. “He’s been gone less than two hours. They won’t do anything.”
“But isn’t that what they’re there for?”
“Yes, but people disappear for short periods of time every day.”
“Brian wouldn’t.”
