The Story Sisters

Lorry had made up the brochure. He’d done a good job. And anyway, people rarely did more than glance at the figures. They looked at the photographs of the condos in the Dominican Republic and they got all excited about getting in on the ground floor. Lorry had successfully used this scam three times. A couple of thousand dollars wasn’t going to kill anyone. The old people had seemed so hungry for company it was as if he and Elv were doing them a service, telling a few stories over coffee and cookies. For you, we’ll make an exception. For you, we have a special deal.

Lorry didn’t want Elv to do it, but she pleaded with him. She hated being a burden, never doing her share. She was using every day and that was expensive. She was going to quit as soon as she got all of the bad things out of her head, but that hadn’t happened. She remembered precisely the way the car had been flying, the way he’d locked the door and taken off his belt. She thought she was a good judge of character until she picked Mr. Ortiz. She’d grabbed a few groceries in the market, then walked up to him on line. He looked kindhearted. An easy mark. She ruefully told him she had no cash with her, could she borrow a twenty and return it to him the next day? Her mother was ill and she’d left her purse behind during a visit to her sickbed. The old man didn’t mind a pretty girl coming to his apartment, having a cup of coffee with him, bringing him pastries when she returned the twenty she’d borrowed, telling him she knew of a way for a person to double his savings if he was smart enough to answer the door when opportunity knocked. She had just made a similar investment on her mother’s behalf. She played it slow and safe, even though Lorry told her to hurry up; give someone time and they’d figure out the con. Even a fool could recognize a lie if you gave him the chance to consider his options.

On the day Mr. Ortiz signed the papers and handed over the check, the woman playing the part of his wife called down to her partner on the street. Elv was arrested as soon as she exited the building. Her natural instinct was to flee, which she tried to do, and to fight when the officer grabbed her. After that, they had her for resisting arrest, which meant no bail. She didn’t say anything, just as Lorry had instructed. She didn’t even tell them her name. Lorry didn’t know where she was for several days. He waited for hours on a bench outside the old man’s apartment, panicked when he saw Ortiz going for a walk with his cronies. When Elv didn’t show up back at the apartment, he searched Astoria, then went to the Island and drove around North Point Harbor. There were no calls to his cell phone, no messages from Elv’s family. At last he received a letter. She’d had to detox at the city jail. She’d been so sick they’d finally taken her to the infirmary. The most they would give her was Tylenol and Valium, finally doling out thorazine to make sure she didn’t have seizures. They’d gotten her name out of her, but no address. She said she’d been living on the street.

Don’t come here, she wrote. I don’t want you to see me this way.

The truth of it was, she didn’t want suspicion to fall Lorry’s way. Did she have a partner? she’d been asked when they took her down to the station. She would never lead them to Lorry. She was familiar with iron, bread, water, ropes. They couldn’t scare her. They took her clothes, her ring, her purse. She ignored everyone in the dining hall; those who called her names and those who tried to befriend her were equally invisible. She did what she’d done in Westfield. She behaved. She did as she’d done in that man’s basement. She looked for her escape. Waited till she could run.

She wanted Lorry to get out of Astoria, make himself scarce. I can do this, she wrote. I’ve done it before.

Lorry packed up the apartment. He threw away anything that could be used as evidence and anything that might tie them together. He got in his car and drove back to North Point Harbor, then parked across from the Weinsteins’ house. It was dawn and quiet. It was dead in town. He smoked several cigarettes, considered how stupid people were, including himself as perhaps the biggest idiot of them all, then did what he always did. He came up with a plan. Pete saw the car when he went out to retrieve the newspaper in the morning. He recognized it, so he tucked the paper under his arm. If it was Lorry, he wanted to break his head. If Elv was alone in the car, he wanted to lead her right to her mother, the most precious gift he could give Annie.

He walked down Nightingale Lane in his pajama pants and bathrobe. It was still dark, but the horizon was turning a clear eggshell blue. Birds had begun to call. The car had tinted windows, so he didn’t know whether or not Elv was inside. It was a piece of crap car, an Oldsmobile. It probably had a terrible safety record. It was spring, a season Pete had come to hate, just as Claire and Annie hated it. He hated the gnats and the humidity and the birds chirping all the time. He’d hated the way the trees looked so hopeful and green when he drove Annie to the cemetery to visit Meg and then, just the week before, to pick out a plot for herself. She’d been lucky enough to get the one right next to her daughter. She’d actually seemed overjoyed by her good fortune.

Pete had stuck a few spindly tomato plants in the garden this year. Annie was too weak. A real garden was out of the question, even though he’d cleared out all the weeds in the hopes she might rebound. He was carrying her up and down the stairs now. “My hero,” she’d whisper when he did this. She meant it, which made it even worse.

Pete went up to the Oldsmobile and tapped on the driver’s window. Then he took a step back into the dewy grass. Lorry opened the door, unfolded himself, got out of the car.