Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose

drinking,” she said. “I have to stay here with you till I sober up.”
    “You’re going back to Lizzie’s.”
    “I want to stay.”
    “No.”
    “I just want to know what it’s like. I want to find out with you. I want to be with you. All I want is to be with you. You make me feel safe.”
    “Tina.”
    “You love me, I know you do.”
    “You’re a child, Tina.”
    “I don’t want you to think of me that way anymore. I want to be close to you. It’s all I think about.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Tina watched me closely. Her hand came up slowly and lay across my chest. Her fingernails had been painted with red polish. I could feel her trembling.
    She leaned toward me then, bringing her face up toward mine. I placed my hands on her narrow waist and moved her gently back. I smelled Southern Comfort on her breath. The bones between my hands felt underdeveloped. They were the bones of a girl, not an adult woman. I eased her backward, as gently as I could.
    “I have to go,” I said.
    “Where?”
    “You can stay here till you’re sober enough, then have Eddie take you back to Lizzie’s. Tell him to come around tomorrow morning and I’ll pay him the fare.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “Out.”
    “Please don’t leave me,” she said. “I won’t do anything. I promise.”
    “Drink some green tea. You won’t be so hung over in the morning.”
    She said nothing to that, just stared at me. I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I avoided my reflection in the broken mirror over my sink. When I came out of the bathroom, Tina wasn’t in the living room anymore. I looked toward the kitchen and she wasn’t there, either. Then I looked into my bedroom.
    She had taken off all her clothes and was standing beside my bed, staring at me, offering herself to me. I quickly turned away and left her there in my bedroom without saying a word.
    I went downstairs. It was a quiet night at the bar. I sat in a dark corner and began to drink. At times there was no one around but me and George. I kept to myself and studied my tumbler. George had gotten the hint soon enough that I wanted to be alone. Around midnight he went into the kitchen to close it up for the night. I looked up then and glanced at the mirror above the bar. I saw myself for the first time in a long time. I saw just what I expected to see. And then I saw something else, someone standing just inside the doorway to the bar, watching me with an expressionless face.
    She came over to me finally and stood next to me. We were the only people at the bar.
    She was holding her shoulders back like a cadet, her chin forward and up, like she always did, like she had done even back when we were kids. Such a proper girl, a rich man’s daughter, all etiquette and posture. It was hard to think of either of us as kids now.
    I looked for the changes in her face I had seen at the dark beach but gave up. I remembered her smiling like an old friend, and me not understanding why.
    But there was no hint of that smile now. I could only assume that things were still in play between her and her twin brother. But I was out of that. That deal was done.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have told you who I was.” Her voice was still hoarse.
    “It doesn’t matter, Marie.”
    “Drinking yourself blind again, I see.”
    I said nothing.
    She stepped closer and, despite the fact that we were alone, she whispered, “I need your help.”
    I shook my head and took a sip of my bourbon—the good stuff since George was buying. “Sorry, Marie.”
    “It’s important.”
    “I can’t help you.”
    “You don’t understand what’s going on. If you did, if you knew the truth, you wouldn’t be sitting here.”
    She was wearing jeans and a denim shirt. I tried to remember the way she looked as a girl, with those summer highlights in her hair. I could barely see in her now any trace of the child I’d once known, the first person that I can remember who showed me kindness.
    Had we loved each other back then? I wondered. Platonically, of course, but deeply nonetheless. Two lonely children brought together by violence, then torn violently apart two summers later by a man who had complete and utter control over my life.
    She leaned closer still. “You saved my life once before, Mac. If you don’t save me now, you should have just let me die back then.”
    I looked at her. I was taken aback as much by her words as her tone.
    She was dead serious.
    But I