The Whisper, page 6
The whole thing was new to Jasper, but he assumed it was even better this way. He wished to know what he was capable of, and that made him do his best. Jasper got so enthusiastic that he didn’t notice as his grip on Jane’s thigh became too hard. Jane ignored the pain. She ignored everything but the pleasure that kept rolling over her in enormous waves. She lied back on the table and knocked something off the side. The sound of breaking glass got lost amid her pounding heart. She covered her face with both hands, wanting to lock out all the other feelings to concentrate on the one she felt down there.
The same thing kept crossing Jasper’s mind as he led Jane to the epic finale.
This is the highest form of disrespect Owen Arlington has ever known.
4
BETWEEN YOU AND ME
“Did you give it to her?”
Jasper choked on the cigarette smoke when he heard that question.
“What?” he asked in astonishment.
“The gift,” Glen clarified. “Did you give it to Arlington’s wife?”
“Oh.” Jasper put all the indifference he could manage into that sound.
“Oh,” Glen teased him.
“Yeah… I did.”
The break was to be over in another few minutes. Jasper took a draw on his cigarette as the sea breeze wiped the sweat off his forehead.
The docks on Whittaker Bay were not officially a restricted area, but the place was surrounded by a tall chainlink fence and most of the time was deserted. A maze of old intermodal containers obstructed the view of everything that happened behind the fence. These docks came alive once a month when a container ship marked “Marquez Furniture Group” arrived.
Arlington didn’t need to do much to keep the locals away. For one thing, this part of Acheart Port was not of much interest, comprising several decrepit wharves washed over by empty beer bottles and pieces of plastic. For another, every Acheart resident knew it as an unsafe place, the one parents told their curious kids to stay as far away from as possible unless they wanted to get in trouble.
The devil rarely showed up at Whittaker Bay himself. It was one of the few places where the horsemen took full charge, gathering everyone up at an appointed time and watching them discharge cargo.
The dealers carried the load while doing their utter best to suppress their anger as the four bastards stood aside, chatting with their Columbian partners. The cherry on top of it all was Ben Elliot reproaching them for being slow from time to time.
Out of all the boxes they had to load nine trucks with, about thirty percent contained furniture parts, and even without looking inside anyone could easily tell when they got one of them. Chairs and tables were heavy, but the boxes with cocaine were heavier, twenty packs per box, two pounds per pack.
Jasper had been dreading the delivery day like all the others, but when it finally came he didn’t care that much about three hours of unpaid, exhausting work. There were too many other things on his mind.
“How did she like it?” Glen asked.
“How did she like what?”
Glen held his head down, giving a sigh of exasperation.
“For fuck’s sake. The gift! How did she like the gift?!”
“Do you really care?”
“Just wanna know if Ben’s effort wasn’t in vain.”
“What does it have to do with him?”
“Ben was the one who spent almost an entire day looking for it all over Acheart and the next three days whining about it. Said if the bitch didn’t like it, he would strangle her with that very necklace.”
“It’s like Arlington can’t tie his shoes without somebody’s help.”
“He’s a busy man, no time to waste.”
Jasper had given Jane both gifts, Mr. Arlington’s and his own, only a couple of days ago, but that already felt like a moment from a long-forgotten film. The actor pretty much looked like Jasper, but it definitely wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. Jasper would have never dared to screw Arlington’s wife.
Technically speaking, he hadn’t even screwed her. It didn’t count unless they’d actually had sex, did it? Jasper had only given Jane what she had asked for, the feeling of being desired. He wondered for a second. If he was so reckless as to tell Glen what really had happened, would he believe him?
“It’s not a waste of time, you know,” Jasper said, “to get your wife a gift for her birthday, let alone giving it to her personally.”
“Whatever. Spoiled bitches like her never appreciate it anyway.”
“Maybe she’s an exception.”
“There are no exceptions. Don’t you know this type of women? They attach themselves to the first swinging dick in order to simplify their lives.”
“She didn’t make that kind of impression on me.”
“You don’t know her that well.”
“And you do?”
Glen didn’t answer. Jasper thought that his being overly protective of someone he didn’t know that well made him sound suspicious. He butted the cigarette and got back to work.
Jasper was home a little before midnight. He still tasted the sea salt on his lips, his cheeks red from the chilly breeze. They had done the hardest part of the work; the cocaine had reached its final destination—the secret storage at the loading dock of the Arlington Building. Tomorrow, they would only have to weight and sort it.
Jasper plopped on the couch without taking his shoes off and sank his face into the pillow. After a minute’s rest, he went to the bathroom, barely feeling the ground under his feet, turned on the water, and washed the day off himself. He didn’t even towel as he left the bathroom. A track of water drops dripping off his bare skin followed him to the bedroom, where Jasper put on a white t-shirt and a pair of baggy boxers.
After unloading the cargo, Jasper usually felt the softness of his bed more deeply than ever, but that night falling asleep turned out impossible. Desired sleep refused to come, and having run out of patience, Jasper got out of bed.
One thing, I wished for one damn thing—to move on to another day.
Jasper went to the bookshelf in the living room for a share of his regular medicine. Putting the picture of his parents face down, he picked his favorite novel for sleepless nights.
But nothing was inside.
It was the same book with the same cavity carved into the same pages, but there was nothing inside; the medicine was gone.
Jasper wound the clocks in his head back to the night he had last used it. There he was, coming home after the meeting the devil had so spontaneously arranged. There he was, having that intense conversation with Glen. There he was, enjoying the magic powder. A couple of hours of ease and carelessness, and then—blank. Jasper simply couldn’t recall where he had put the plastic bag with the rest of the cocaine.
He turned the whole room upside down, looked through every corner to absolutely no result. Jasper sat down on the couch, digging through the memories of that day more meticulously, when a sudden ring of the doorbell broke his train of thought. It was past one. Jasper hardly got any guests in the daytime, let alone night visitors. Yet, someone was there, someone determined to see him. The doorbell kept ringing continuously.
Jasper idled in the hallway before he opened the door. The smile caught his eye right away, the smile he remembered, the smile full of enthusiasm and danger.
“What are you doing here?” he greeted Jane.
“Being a pain in the ass. Isn’t it obvious?” she said.
On the day he had first met her, Jane had looked outstanding even in her home sweater, but tonight, when she was apparently prettied up for meeting him—if she had really been planning on meeting him—he made an effort not to drop his jaw open. Jane was wearing a black leather skirt that perfectly emphasized every curve of her thighs. A broad belt was tight around her slim waist, with a formal white shirt tucked in. Jane wore the same bloody red lipstick, a touch of highlighter around her eyes.
“Am I gonna stand here forever?” she demanded.
Jasper held the door open, discreetly looking over her shoulder as if somebody might be watching them.
“How do you know where I live?” Jasper said.
“Kidding? I’m the wife of Owen fucking Arlington, the most powerful man in Acheart. You really think it would be a problem for me to find out where you live?”
“Pulled a few strings, didn’t you?”
“Didn’t have to. In case you don’t know, Owen has full information on everyone who works for him, even those pushing his coke.”
“Did you ask him to tell you something about me?” His voice deepened.
“Do I look like an idiot? I checked a few things in his office while he wasn’t around.”
Jasper gave a sigh of relief.
“I thought the seventy-third floor was restricted for everyone but the dealers,” he said.
“His main office is what I mean.”
“Sounds like too much trouble.”
“It was worth it. I’m here.”
It took Jasper a moment to sense a vague smell of alcohol on her breath.
“Do you even realize how much risk you put us in by being here?” he said.
“Do you realize how rude of you it is to keep a lady standing at your fucking door?”
Jasper took a step aside, another step in the wrong direction, and all because of his inability to say no to her.
Jane looked around the hallway and then walked straight to the kitchen, ahead of Jasper. Her quick and firm steps made him feel like a guest at his own home. It did not surprise him when he found her sifting through the kitchen cupboards without his permission.
“You got nothing to drink?” she said disappointedly as she closed the last cupboard.
Jasper made sure the curtains were closed and turned to her.
“I’m not this big of a drinker,” he said.
“We’ll have to dig up my supplies then.” She put her purse on the kitchen table. “Good thing Ashley and her army of glossy lip sluts always drink their slutty umbrella cocktails and leave all the good stuff.”
She brought a glass bottle filled with a wheat-colored liquid out of her purse.
“Ashley? Another friend of yours?”
“Not mine, Maddie’s. Every once in a while, she throws a girls’ party—all diet talks and Georgia Gibbs’s music. She invites Madeleine because Madeleine fits right in. Madeleine invites me because she thinks I drink on my own too often.”
“Is that so?”
Jane took a couple of glasses from a cupboard, filled them with the whiskey, and handed one to Jasper.
“It is actually,” she said. “Tonight, I finally understood something. Being around them makes me feel more alone than drinking on my own.”
“And you came here because you thought I’d be better company?”
“Thought you could cheer me up.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Last time you didn’t disappoint me.”
She enjoyed watching him lower his eyes. Jasper took a small sip of the whiskey, failing to find a way to suppress discomfort.
“You really like it, don’t you?” he said.
“Like what?” Jane downed her glass and refilled it.
“Making everyone feel uncomfortable.”
“No. Not everyone. You.”
“I’m kinda sick of it.”
“I guess that’s the whole point.”
Jasper watched her smile for a moment and then rolled his eyes in exasperation.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “It will stay between you and me. What’s the point of feeling uncomfortable if you can no longer change anything?”
Jasper thought it through. He wanted to argue, but he knew she was right. Now that it had happened—a secret act of disrespect for Owen Arlington—all he could hope for was that it would remain secret forever.
“Do you remember,” Jasper said, “how I told you that people have all the reasons to fear your husband if they know who he really is? Well, I know who he is.”
“Remember how I told you that what happened will stay between you and me?”
“There’s one little catch. To believe that, I have to trust you.”
“And you don’t?”
“Why would I? We’re no one to each other, and quite frankly I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
“Why’d you let me in then?”
“Because you asked me.”
“You could’ve just closed the door.”
Jasper had nothing to say to that.
“Here’s the thing,” Jane continued, “I haven’t seen you in what, two days? Two days would be more than enough for me to fuck you over, but you’re still here, all intact. That should imply a certain amount of trust, shouldn’t it?”
Jasper couldn’t object. For a while, they stared at each other in silence.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“If hanging with you is not a good enough reason, then here’s another one.”
Out of her purse, she brought a small plastic bag with a bit of white powder on its bottom. Jasper waited for Jane to give him an explanation, meanwhile trying to figure out his own.
“Found it under the table in my house after you left,” Jane said. “Can you imagine my confusion? My husband’s one of the key figures in the drug trade, but he never uses drugs himself. That’s his sacred rule, and I trust him on that. Madeleine is a mother of three, and apart from an occasional bottle of wine she never allows herself to go any further. Me? I would love to get a few kicks, but I gave up this shit fifteen years ago. And then there was you. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find a single reason why it couldn’t be you.”
Suddenly, that day flashed before Jasper’s eyes, and all the gaps in his memory were filled, Glen giving him hell for being late, Cheryl Blair begging to spare her husband’s life, Mr. Arlington inviting him to his office, Jane’s birthday party and its epic ending. That was one hell of a day, and all along Jasper kept dismissing light rustles coming out of his sweatshirt’s pocket. That was where he’d put it the night before, thinking he would not forget to get it back to its secret locker. He’d fallen asleep with a sweatshirt still on, and the following events were so rushed that Jasper didn’t know that his treasure was much closer than he thought.
As he watched Jane holding the bundle of plastic, Jasper felt like a middle-schooler caught smoking by a teacher. Without a word, Jane swiftly tossed the bag into his hands, and Jasper felt the weight of the situation sink in. For a moment, he contemplated denying that the cocaine belonged to him, but the question lingered: would Jane believe him?
“Jesus, relax,” she said, letting out a slight chuckle. Jasper’s face betrayed his thoughts. “It’s not like I’ve discovered the world’s greatest mystery. You’re not surprised when you see a fast-food worker snack on fries, are you?”
“I’m…” Jasper broke off. He emptied his glass and felt like he needed more, a lot more. “I’m not an addict, you know.”
That statement seemed to amuse her.
“I know,” Jasper said. “That’s what an addict would say, right?”
“Why do you care what I think? If I told you drugs were poison and one day they would ruin your life, would you stop using them?”
“I use them, not abuse them,” Jasper reasoned.
“I’ll take it as a no.”
“You’re the one who tried to convince me the other day that drugs would be an excellent present for a birthday.”
“Not exactly what I meant. I said a present is supposed to give you pleasure, and like it or not, drugs give you a lot of pleasure. When I was about your age, it was the only thing I longed for, but I never thought about the consequences until I lost everything I had. I don’t try to educate anyone, but I want you to answer one question. Are you ready to deal with the consequences?”
Jasper hesitated, not because he was searching for an answer to her question, but because he was trying to find a way to end the argument.
“There will be no consequences,” he said at last, heading to the living room before she could respond.
Jane followed him.
“Wow, that’s impressive!” she exclaimed once she saw the tightly packed bookshelves.
She grabbed the first book in her sight, looked at the cover, and put it back. Like a child first taken to a toy store, she kept shuffling through the shelves with her shiny, wide-open eyes, oohing and wowing, picking one book after another, acting like she had landed in wonderland.
“Have you read them all?” she asked.
Jasper raised an eyebrow.
“I have,” he said. “Don’t you have your own library in your house?”
Jane got deep in thought as she put another book back in its place.
“I uh… I don’t,” she said, as if she had first realized it. “That’s kinda weird. I mean, I love reading. I have a few old books collecting dust in the attic. Sometimes I can borrow something to read from Maddie, but I’ve never had my own library.”
“Didn’t know you were so into it.”
“I studied English literature at AU, even made it through the second year.”
“No shit?” Jasper gazed at her in amazement.
“I’m starting to find that surprised tone kind of insulting.”
“No, it’s… My father used to teach literature at Acheart University.”
“What’s his name?”
“Bertie… I mean Albert… Newman.”
Jane wrinkled her forehead, sifting through the memories of her past.
“Honestly, I don’t recall that name, but I’ll tell you what. When I got kicked out of university, the entire teaching staff gave a big sigh of relief.”
“Knowing what you are today, I’m scared even to think what you were back then.”
“Your father was lucky I wasn’t one of his students.”
“For the first time, we’ve come to an agreement.”
They exchanged smiles, something they did for the first time as well.
Jane’s eyes settled on a framed picture lying face down. She held it upright to reveal a young woman holding an infant, a middle-aged man embracing her.
