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Hm. Point taken. Still. “Okay, well. She still lied.” I give him a little smirk. “Lying is wrong, you know.”
“That is mother of my child, mik!” His voice ticks up a few notches, but his eyes are friendly as ever. Then he laughs, a thick, cigar-y laugh. “No, even so. I was mad at first, mad at her, so I tell myself. For being deceitful woman, treacherous, nah nah nah…” He spirals a hand in the air, shrugging. “But then I think it through. She did not want to marry this man. She wanted to get away. Then she meet me, I tell her all about big plans to come to America, tell her I will bring my wife along too, should I have one.” He gives a crafty little smile. “Of course, she is thinking, if I know she belongs to another man, I will not bring her with me. So…she does not tell me.”
“So how’d you find out?”
Krye’s smile shifts. And it’s not a happy one. “When our Zusanna was born,” he says quietly. “My wife bleed very badly. Thinks it is punishment from God. So she confess, beg me for forgiveness.”
Damn. A bad feeling settles into my stomach, more than just cigar nausea. “And what’d you do?”
He settles into the armchair across from me, hands between his knees. “What you think I do, mik?” He stares me dead in the eye. “I am a man. I rant, I rave, I yell, I say—” His voice catches. “I say I will not raise the baby of a whore. And I storm out of hospital.”
I just sit. Quiet. Because even I know when to shut my trap.
“She died the next day,” he murmurs. “My beautiful Besarta.”
I don’t know what to say. I really don’t.
“Damn,” is all I can muster. Because I have to say something.
“Damn is right,” Krye says. He swipes his thumb and forefinger over his eyelids, pinching the bridge of his nose, and too late I wonder if he was tearing up. But just as quickly, he clears his throat and straightens back up. “So, like I say. These women, maybe they have their reasons. Maybe they will not lie so much if we men are not so…thick-headed.”
I shift in my seat. “Yeah.” Maybe. I dunno. A thought occurs to me. “But Zuzu is your daughter, right?”
Krye reaches over and flicks me, hard, in the head. “Of course she is mine, budalla. You see the looks of her? My twin, that girl!”
He’s got a point. Shave off twenty years—and all the chest hair—and add some pigtails and they’re basically the same person. He nods at the ashtray. “Don’t waste my Cuban, mik.”
“Sorry.” I pick up my cigar and take a puff. “Thanks.”
Krye nods and breathes in his own cloud of smoke. “Some things, they are not so simple as they seem, is all I say. And women, they know this.”
I stare at the ashtray.
“If I have job for you, I call you, okay?” he says. “Now, get out of my house.”
CHAPTER 9
TINK
Every single head in the Lagoon turns our way when we enter.
The door swings shut, cutting off the brief flash of sunlight and leaving me blinking to adjust as I step toward the bar, Zuzu right behind me. I try to ignore the fact that all the Mermaids are absolutely gawking, but it’s not easy. I’m half-surprised the DJ didn’t do a literal record scratch. Zuzu, for her part, squares her shoulders and bellies up on the stool next to me like she’s been coming here for years.
“Vodka,” she commands to no one in particular. “Neat.” She flashes a twenty between her fingers.
Ruby gets to us first, her hair in two low ponytails that curl over her shoulders and sparkle with tinsel clip-ins. “Sure thing. And…Tink?”
“Miller,” I say automatically. Ruby nods, and in the split second she steps off toward the taps I snap to my senses. “Um, actually—”
Ruby pivots, laminated eyebrows high, waiting.
“Can you…do me a mai tai?” My voice sounds higher than I want it to—not just girly, but timid.
“Can I?” Ruby scoffs in mock offense. “You got it, girlfriend.”
She turns again, to the liquor this time, and sets about fixing our drinks. Zuzu, meanwhile, swivels in her seat to take the place in, from the plastic palm leaves fanning the ceiling to the glittery starfish glued against the walls.
“So this is your club, eh?” she murmurs, throwing me a side-eye. “This is where the tough biker boys hang out?”
