The Informers - Bret Easton Ellis [73]
“All of them,” she says.
I pull the car over to the side of the road, tires screeching, and turn the engine off. I sit there, waiting. Somehow the radio got turned on and some song is playing but I don’t know which song it is and the lighter pops up. My hand is trembling and I’m staring at her, leaning away, cigarette still in my hand. I think she asks what’s going on but I don’t even hear her and I try to compose myself and I’m about to pull out onto Ventura but then I have to stop and stare at her some more and, bored, she asks what are we doing? and I keep staring and then, very slowly, still holding the cigarette, push the lighter in, wait until it heats up, pops out, light the cigarette, blow the smoke out, looking at her still, leaning away, and then I ask very quietly, suspiciously, maybe a little confused, “Okay”—taking a deep breath—“how many Ethiopians can you fit into a Volkswagen?” I don’t breathe until I hear her answer. I watch a tumbleweed come out of nowhere and hear it graze the bumper of the Porsche.
“I told you all of them,” she says. “Are we going to your place or, like, what is this?”
I lean back, smoke some of the cigarette, ask, “How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“No. Really,” I say. “Come on. It’s just the two of us. We’re alone now. I’m not a cop. Tell the truth. You won’t get in trouble if you tell the truth.”
She thinks about it, then asks, “Will you give me a gram?”
“Half.”
She lights a joint I mistake for a cigarette and she aims the smoke out the sunroof and says, “Okay, I’m fourteen. I’m fourteen. Can you deal with it? God.” She offers me the joint.
“No way,” I say, not taking it.
She shrugs. “Yes way.” Another drag.
“No way,” I say again.
“Yes way. I’m fourteen. I was bas-mitzvahed at the Beverly Hills Hotel and it was hell and I’ll be fifteen in October,” she says, holding in smoke, then exhaling.
“How did you get into the club?”
“Fake ID.” She reaches into her purse.
“Did I actually mistake Hello Kitty for Louis Vuitton?” I murmur aloud, grabbing the purse, smelling it.
She shows me the fake ID. “Guess you did, genius.”
“How do I know it’s fake?” I ask. “How do I know you’re not just teasing me?”
“Study it real carefully. Yeah, I was born twenty years ago in 1964, uh-huh, right,” she sneers. “Duh.”
I hand it back to her. Then I start the car up again and, still looking over at her, pull onto Ventura Boulevard and start heading toward the darkness of Encino.
“All of them.” I shudder. “Whew.”
“Where’s my gram?” she asks, then, “Oh look, a sale at Robinson’s.”
I light another cigarette.
“I usually don’t smoke,” I tell her. “But you’re doing something weird to me.”
“You shouldn’t smoke.” She yawns. “Those things’ll kill you. At least that’s what my hideous mother always said.”
“Did she die from cigarettes?” I ask.
“No, her throat was slashed by some maniac,” she says. “She didn’t smoke.” Pause. “Mexicans have basically raised me.” Another pause. “Let me tell you, that is no fun.”
“Yeah?” I smile grimly. “You think cigarettes will kill me?”
She takes another drag off her joint and then it’s gone and I pull into the garage and then we’re walking into the bedroom and everything’s speeding up, where the night’s heading is becoming clearer, and she checks out the house and asks for a large vodka on the rocks. I tell her beer is in the fridge and that she can get it the fuck herself. She pulls some kind of demented hissy fit and slouches into the kitchen, muttering, “Jesus, my father has better manners.”
“You can’t be fourteen,” I’m saying. “No way.” I’m taking off my tie and jacket, kicking my loafers off.
She walks back in with a Corona in one hand, a fresh j in the other. She’s wearing too much makeup, these ugly white Guess jeans but she looks like most girls, waxy and artificial.