Page 60 of The Kingpin's Call Girl

I know this, but I can’t stop focusing on Luka.

I’m careening into him, and sometimes it feels like careening into pure, delicious obliteration.

Chapter Twenty-Three

EDIE

I get my Brazilian wax down on Broadway after Latin, paying with his credit card, of course. I’ve always trimmed down there, but it feels completely different to be bare. Clothes feel different against me, too, like a constant reminder of him.

Maybe he wants that.

A wave of something strange ripples through me, hot like hate but not as extreme.

I buy expensive jeans and two cute tops at Madewell and then get the most splurgy flowered dress ever from the “new arrivals” rack at Anthropologie—in two colors in case he destroys one of them—plus a necklace-and-earrings set, and a jeweled bumblebee hair ornament for Odetta. I throw in a brown velvet newsboy cap. Score!

They aren’t exactly mafia-call-girl purchases, but they are things I’d buy in normal life if I actually had money.

What’s he going to do if he doesn’t like them? Fire me?

The total is sky-high—to me, anyway. I hand over Luka’s credit card feeling like a thief.

I walk out loaded down with bags, still keenly aware of the wax job.

A few hours later, I get a text from “Brenda.”

He wants to meet in Central Park after my last class. He actually sends me a map with the route I’m supposed to walk, setting off from the building where my art history class is at four fifteen, which is ten minutes after it ends. The map takes me through crowds and has me double back twice.

It’s all so cloak and dagger.

Does he think Luka might know where I live? The idea makes me feel a little sick, but it’s more about the look on his face if he discovered I was talking to the cops than his retaliation, which is an example of misplaced priorities if ever there was one.

I remind myself what I’m doing all of this for. My sister. Our future.

I swipe out of the app with Bender’s map, pull up Zillow, and check for small two-bedroom homes near the Connecticut coastline with a hiking area as a way to get my head back on straight. I pick out a sweet, yellow one-and-a-half-story with white window shutters. Mary and I could plant flowers along the front walk. Daisies.

That afternoon, I set out according to the extreme directions. It’s a nice April afternoon—bright sun and cool, crisp air. Light jacket weather. The after-work joggers are just coming out, and moms push babies in strollers.

I walk slowly, pretending to do things on my phone, but really, I’m watching the pavement in front of my feet.

I head into Central Park, imagining daisies. And Mary getting clean. And me getting a teaching job in a quaint little school.

A ways in, I pass a man on a bench who I’m ninety percent sure is Bender wearing a ball cap and a red shirt with some kind of insignia. But I keep going like the instructions said. I get to the spot Bender marked, which turns out to be a small pool with a large metal turtle in the center. The turtle spouts water from its back, and people stand on the edges, watching the water crash down. A girl in a school uniform throws a penny.

I dig around in my backpack and find a penny to throw, but then Bender’s sidling up next to me. I hold it in my fingers, waiting for him to begin.

I suppose it’s a good place to meet. A lot of people really do stand around staring at the water, and the splashing would ruin things for somebody trying to record conversations from a distance.

I really want to ask if this is a standard-issue clandestine meeting fountain, but he wouldn’t think it’s funny.

Luka would think it’s funny. He might try to act all stern, but I already know his eyes crinkle a little when he likes something. Not to be confused with his full-on bad-guy eye narrowing.

Bender is just standing there acting like a stranger, not saying anything, so I decide to go for it. I step up onto the stone edge of the fountain, lean over the black-painted rail around the water, and throw the penny into the area with the other pennies, making a wish for my sister to be safe.

“Are youtryingto draw attention?”

“Other people are throwing pennies...”

“And don’t look at me.”