We Know It Was You (14 page)

“You know, I think he's still hooking up with Zaire,” Virginia said. “Did you see his face earlier? He had a brown smudge on his cheek. Zaire wears a shit-ton of makeup. I think it smudges off on him when they make out.”

Benny looked at her. The quality that made Virginia an amazing gossip also had the potential to make her an
amazing detective: She paid attention. She
cared
what other people did. Which was kind of rare in a world where most people cared only about themselves.

9:00 p.m.

Virginia had seen enough movies to know how to hold a drink. That was easy: Pinch the stem, extend the arm lackadaisically, like you couldn't care less if it spilled. But of course it won't if you're holding it right. What was hard was knowing how to walk. She couldn't see what she looked like, she just had to feel it. “Flirt with them,” Benny had said, as if it were a foregone conclusion that Virginia could just be a world-class flirt on command. As if her feminine wiles were a tried-and-tested asset. Which they definitely weren't.

“
You
flirt with them.” Virginia had balked.

Benny had rolled his eyes. “Do you want to contribute or not?” he'd asked. “We use what we can use.”

“You can't just flirt with people to get what you want!”

“Yes you can, if you look like
that
.” He'd given a quick nod to her skirt, then shifted his gaze unnaturally to the ceiling. “You look great. Use it.”

Virginia stood a little straighter, hearing that. Benny was always factual; if he said she looked great, it had to be a fact.

“Just remember,
you
control the conversation. Don't let them run over you like Angie did.”

Control,
Virginia repeated to herself. She walked up to the bar.

“Anyone sitting here?” Her voice was a little too high. But she reminded herself that they didn't know what her voice was supposed to sound like, so it didn't matter.

The two men gawked at her. Virginia hopped onto a stool next to them and set down her sidecar. It was her second one. “I loved your set,” she said, trying to act like it wasn't weird that they hadn't said anything to her yet.

“Thanks . . . ,” the one with long hair said. “You one of Choi's students?”

“Ha!” Virginia said. “Maybe ten years ago I was.”

“So . . . when you were two?”

Virginia forced herself to laugh. “It's the light. It's very flattering. Even you two look pretty good.”

The drummer laughed loudly. He was shorter than the bass player, with a round face and a trad, Republican side-part haircut that either his mother gave him or was supposed to be ironic.

“I'm Lucius,” he said, waving.

“I'm Min-Jun,” said the bass player.

“I'm Virginia,” Virginia said, and then she immediately wondered if she should have chosen an alias of some kind. Oh well, too late now.

“You look like a
Virgin
ia,” Lucius replied. The other one, Min-Jun, punched him in the chest. “Ow!”

“So do y'all have a lot of groupies?” Virginia asked, opening her eyes really wide, trying to look fascinated.

“Um, no. Big no,” Min-Jun said.

“Well you do now,” Virginia said back.

Lucius and Min-Jun exchanged a look.

“Just kidding,” Virginia said, seeing that they were laughing at her.
Damn it,
she thought. She took another gulp of her sidecar, finishing it.

The bartender, an old man with an Afro, pushed three glasses across the bar. “Soju, on the house.”

“Have you ever had soju?” Min-Jun asked her.

“No,” Virginia said, happy he was talking to her. She could feel Benny watching her from across the bar, and she didn't want to disappoint him. “Do you sip it, or down it like a shot?”

“Sip it,” Min-Jun said. “Actually there are a lot of rules for drinking soju. Like, you hold the glass with two hands, like this.” He reached for Virginia's hands and gently arranged her fingers around the glass. His hands felt warm but tough, his fingers calloused from the bass strings.

“And you bow your head to your elder,” Lucius added. “How old are you again?”

“Ignore him,” Min-Jun said.

“And you never pour a glass for yourself. Everyone pours for everyone else.”

“That's nice,” she said, taking a sip. “Wow. Very . . . alchoholy.”

Min-Jun nodded. “You clearly have a refined palate.”

Virginia sipped again. Her head was starting to feel sort of cloudy. She caught Min-Jun glancing at her legs, and she
uncrossed them slowly. She leaned back and took a long look at him. Suddenly she didn't feel like she needed to talk anymore. It was as if the arrival of the soju had reorganized the power somehow. Like the moment in a game when you realize you're going to win.

“So you like jazz?” Min-Jun asked her.

“I adore jazz,” Virginia said.

“We need a new sax player.”

“Hopefully one who doesn't turn out to be a child molester,” Lucius chimed in.

“Christ, Lucius don't bring that up.”

“Well I'm devastated about Mr. Choi,” Virginia sighed. “He was such a promising talent. Did you know about his burgonine—bourgenineg”—she was having trouble pronouncing the word—“
emerging
interest in documentary filmmaking?”

The two men stared at her. Min-Jun had frozen, his soju glass halfway to his lips.

“I have the pleasoore—Jesus—
pleasure
of being in possession of his final cinematic work.”

“Whaaa . . .”

“It's very artistic. Do you want to see it?”

Neither of them moved. “Um, who
are
you?” Lucius asked carefully.

Virginia smiled brightly. “It's okay! I'm Choi's little helper.”

“You're his little helper,” Min-Jun repeated.

Virginia leaned in and poked Min-Jun's chest. “And maybe you could be my
big
helper. There's a character in the film that I don't understand. I call him Mysterious Person at the Bridge.” She tried to read Min-Jun's face, but it was expressionless. “I'd love to sell it to you. You could watch it, or maybe just throw it on a bonfire. Whatever suits you.”

“What price?” Lucius asked in a flat tone.

“I'm thinking . . . five hundred dollars.”

Lucius scoffed loudly. “I'm thinking you're a little crazy, little girl,” he said, swallowing the rest of his soju and slamming the glass down. “Whatever weird thing you're up to, please leave us out of it. Come on, Min-Jun. Let's go.”

Lucius pushed back from the bar and started walking away. Min-Jun downed the rest of his soju and followed him. But before he disappeared backstage, he turned and looked at her. His long black hair half hid his eyes, so Virginia couldn't tell what the look was saying.

The corner booth, 9:45 p.m.

“We love your little German friend! Nothing
little
about him, you know!”

Benny watched, slightly horrified, as the woman opened her jaws and smothered Gottfried's face with a long, messy kiss, her tongue extending like a wet pink tentacle to invade Gottfried's lips. The woman's friend cackled with laughter,
which made Virginia laugh, which made her sidecar (her third one) slosh on her sweater. Benny reached for a napkin and handed it to her.

He wasn't completely sure how he and Virginia had ended up in the large corner booth with Gottfried and his random middle-aged lady friends. Their names were Sabrina and Pearla, and though they were very different physically—one was lumpy and orange-skinned, the other horsey and muscular—they projected an air of being interchangeable as they traded equally unimaginative innuendos and guzzled each other's cocktails. One of them had insisted on reading Benny's palm, but was so drunk all she'd managed to say was that Benny had a “heart of mold.”

The one kissing Gottfried, Sabrina, finally came up for air, her lips making a loud smack. Gottfried looked embarrassed but thrilled. “Hubba hubba!” he exclaimed.

The women laughed hysterically. Virginia was laughing too, but she didn't seem aware of what she was laughing at. Benny wanted to take her sidecar away, but it didn't seem like his place somehow.

“I have
two
life linessss,” Virginia declared, staring unfocusedly at her palm.

“Honey, you're buzzed, with a capital
Z
,” Pearla said. Then she seized Virginia's hand. “Oh my God! You
do
have two life lines! Sabrina look here!”

But Sabrina was entranced by Gottfried's bottomless blue
eyes. “Sheesh, you kids are trouble,” she purred to him. “No wonder Patty went nutty on us!”

At the edge of the booth Benny snapped to alertness. “Were you friends with Pat?” Benny asked. “Did you know him?”

“Always the istavigator, never the ivesti-vavigated-ed,” Virginia slurred, giving Benny a weird wink.

“Oh sure,” Sabrina cooed. “We were best friends! Poor old Patty. You know what's spooky is that I saw him that very night. The last time I ever saw my Peppermint Patty.”

“Last Friday night?” Benny asked. “You saw Mr. Choi? What time?”

“I don't know, some time.”

“That was Thursdee,” Pearla said, wagging a finger. “Thirsty Thursdee.”

“It was couples' night, which is Friday.”

“No, it was two-for-one-shots night.”

“That
is
couples' night! That's why they're two for one, you drunk duck!”

Benny thumped his fingers on the table to get their attention back. “Wait, wait. Answer this: Was the band playing? Was Asian Fusion playing?” He knew Mr. Choi's band only played Monday through Thursday, so hopefully that would resolve the confusion.

“No,” Sabrina said, sounding certain. But then two seconds later she exclaimed, “YES! Yes. They played ‘Fly Me to the Moon'!”

Benny rubbed his temples. He had never felt so foolish in his life, trying to conduct an interview at a cheesy nightclub with four drunk people.
They
were the fools, he tried to convince himself, but it wasn't working. He didn't feel superior; he just felt left out. And frustrated. Nothing was adding up. Before becoming so drunk she could barely form words, Virginia had given him a full report of what had gone down at the other end of the bar. She'd dangled the tape, but neither of Choi's bandmates had gone for it. Which meant it probably wasn't either of them at the bridge. And now a crazy lady was saying she saw Mr. Choi on Friday night, or maybe it was Thursday. All this on top of the fact that his mother was picking them up at the library in twenty minutes, and if she realized Virginia and Gottfried had been drinking, she'd never let Benny leave the house again.

Virginia didn't worry him nearly as much as Gottfried. Drunkenness just seemed to make her laugh at everything, but not in the mean, coarse way she usually laughed at everything. In fact, rather than making her more belligerent, inebriation seemed to make Virginia temporarily benign and introverted. Gottfried, however, was a potential disaster. Gerard Cole had packed up his lame protest and abandoned Gottfried at the club, which made Benny responsible for him now. Benny hoped Mrs. Flax would simply mistake Gottfried's drunkenness for Europeanness, but this was a huge risk. It was a twenty-minute drive back
to the Boarders—what if Gottfried threw up or started bellowing German drinking songs? Benny both scorned and envied people like Gottfried—carefree goofballs who only survived because dependable suckers like himself were willing to take responsibility for them.

Suddenly an amber-colored drink appeared on the table. The Afroed old bartender set it down unceremoniously and said, “Compliments of the gentleman at the bar.” Then he left.

Benny squinted across the dark room. At the bar, the bass player from Asian Fusion was staring at them. Not at them—at Virginia.

Virginia reached for the glass. Benny quickly reached out and grabbed it before she could.

“Hey!”

He sniffed it. Did roofies have a smell? He didn't know.

“Gimme please,” Virginia demanded.

Benny glanced at the bar. The long-haired guy had narrowed his eyes. He was getting up from his stool.

“Come on,” Benny said, setting the drink down and scooching out of the booth. “It's time to go.”

“Nooooooo!” the old ladies moaned, each clutching one of Gottfried's arms.

Virginia stood up, wobbling. “Say alf-veeder-shane, Gottfried.” She reached over the horsey woman and yanked Gottfried by the collar of his shirt. Gottfried laughed and allowed himself to be pulled out of the booth.
The fat one trailed after them, planting glossy kisses on Gottfried's face.

Benny felt an arm curl around his waist as Virginia steadied herself against him. She was leaning on him, and Gottfried was leaning on her as Benny led them awkwardly out of the club.

“Not one more drink? For da road?” Gottfried asked, sounding sad.

Then Benny felt Virginia slipping, and he heaved her up by the arm before she could fall.

“Thanks, Dad,” she said absently.

Benny looked at her. Gottfried roared with laughter. “Shut up, Gottfried,” Benny said, not wanting to draw attention.

As they approached the public library, he saw his mother's car already parked in the lot. She was always ten minutes early. Benny dragged Virginia and Gottfried around the back so she wouldn't see them coming from the street.

“Wheeeeee!” Gottfried cried as they circled around.

“Gottfried you have to be quiet,” Benny said. “When we get to the car, neither of you say a single word.”

“What if she . . . inquires about the United Nation?” Virginia asked, obviously straining to articulate.

“You say nothing. Gottfried, are you listening? When you get in the car, what do you say?”