Undercover Surrender
Prologue
January 2011
The dim light in the bar did nothing to disguise the thin coat of grime that layered every surface of the place, from the scarred counters to the plastic seat covers to the worn linoleum floors. Maggie Nosalsowksi should have gotten used to dirt long ago, but somehow she never had. It always just made her want to grab a rag and start putting a little elbow grease into it, as her ma used to say. Of course her ma had long ago kicked her out and was probably even now lighting candles in church back in Philly praying for her soul, a million miles away from this shithole in Jakarta. So Maggie never actually did pick up a rag, too late for that. But she still had the impulse, even if she never acted on it anymore.
Like a lot of her impulses.
For instance, in her younger days, she may have told the man sitting across from her in the booth to fuck off and go do his own dirty work. But she’d been backhanded too many times for giving that kind of response to resort to it these days. Since she mostly just wanted to get through her days without suffering concussions or broken bones—free to down her whiskey and wonder where she had ever gone so very wrong—she exercised a little more caution when responding to requests from the thugs who surrounded her nowadays, whether they paid her bills on a regular basis or just for an occasional few hours. Or not at all, like Bobby Vincent.
“If you don’t trust the guy, Bobby, don’t bring him on. I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“I told you, Gunny thinks he’d be a good addition to the crew. But something’s not right.”
Maggie finished her drink and poured another from the whiskey bottle on the table. She probably wasn’t too far from not bothering with the glass anymore, but she wasn’t quite there yet. After pouring herself another whiskey, she held out the bottle to Bobby. “You want a drink?”
“No.”
Bobby didn’t drink. He didn’t fuck either, not women anyway and she couldn’t care less about anything else since it didn’t make her any money.
“So what do you need me for? Am I supposed to be screwing the truth out of him? Because you might not know this, Bobby, but when a guy pays to fuck, there’s usually not a lot of conversation involved. They kind of want their money’s worth and don’t bother with the small talk.”
“I’ll pay for it.” Bobby slid a wad of bills across the table at her.
“That’ll be a first,” she muttered under her breath, picking them up and stuffing them in her purse.
“And I don’t need you to screw the truth out of him. I just want to do a little experiment.”
“What kind of experiment?”
Without answering, he said, “This guy’s an American, like you. Or at least I think he is.”
Bobby, for all his American-sounding name, had never met the G.I. who’d given it to him, or for that matter the Vietnamese girl who’d dropped him off at a Saigon orphanage and then walked out of her infant son’s life forever.
“Gunny’s convinced he’s a badass. Me, I’m not so sure. He smells…clean. So I want to put him to the test.”
Now that the bills were safely in her purse, Maggie was seeing less and less what this had to do with her. “My screwing him is going to be some kind of test? I don’t get that.”
“Just shut up so I can explain. He’s going to be here any minute. So here’s what we’re going to do. I need you to pretend we’ve had a fight or some shit and go flirt with him and I’ll come over. You stalk upstairs and then I’ll tell him I want him to teach you a little lesson.”
“I’m not getting the crap beaten out of me just so you can prove to yourself this guy’s as much of an asshole as the rest of you.”
“Shit, would you listen already? I’ve already seen him beat the crap out of somebody. Cops do that all the time. I promise, I won’t let him beat the crap out of you. I just want to see how far he’ll go. You pretend you’re pissed at me and go upstairs and then play along when I come up with him. Pretend you don’t want it. Got it? Oh good, here he is.”
Bobby nodded toward the entrance to the bar where a man was coming in.
Maggie considered herself immune to handsome men. It had been a handsome man who’d taken her in hand as an eighteen-year-old girl and so bedazzled her that she had followed him right across the globe, somewhere along the way graduating from being his lover to being his main source of income by turning tricks to being his punching bag while she was at it. Now at twenty-nine, stuck in the middle of nowhere—that handsome man long since overdosed on drugs she had paid for on her back—handsome just didn’t do anything for her anymore.
January 2011
The dim light in the bar did nothing to disguise the thin coat of grime that layered every surface of the place, from the scarred counters to the plastic seat covers to the worn linoleum floors. Maggie Nosalsowksi should have gotten used to dirt long ago, but somehow she never had. It always just made her want to grab a rag and start putting a little elbow grease into it, as her ma used to say. Of course her ma had long ago kicked her out and was probably even now lighting candles in church back in Philly praying for her soul, a million miles away from this shithole in Jakarta. So Maggie never actually did pick up a rag, too late for that. But she still had the impulse, even if she never acted on it anymore.
Like a lot of her impulses.
For instance, in her younger days, she may have told the man sitting across from her in the booth to fuck off and go do his own dirty work. But she’d been backhanded too many times for giving that kind of response to resort to it these days. Since she mostly just wanted to get through her days without suffering concussions or broken bones—free to down her whiskey and wonder where she had ever gone so very wrong—she exercised a little more caution when responding to requests from the thugs who surrounded her nowadays, whether they paid her bills on a regular basis or just for an occasional few hours. Or not at all, like Bobby Vincent.
“If you don’t trust the guy, Bobby, don’t bring him on. I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“I told you, Gunny thinks he’d be a good addition to the crew. But something’s not right.”
Maggie finished her drink and poured another from the whiskey bottle on the table. She probably wasn’t too far from not bothering with the glass anymore, but she wasn’t quite there yet. After pouring herself another whiskey, she held out the bottle to Bobby. “You want a drink?”
“No.”
Bobby didn’t drink. He didn’t fuck either, not women anyway and she couldn’t care less about anything else since it didn’t make her any money.
“So what do you need me for? Am I supposed to be screwing the truth out of him? Because you might not know this, Bobby, but when a guy pays to fuck, there’s usually not a lot of conversation involved. They kind of want their money’s worth and don’t bother with the small talk.”
“I’ll pay for it.” Bobby slid a wad of bills across the table at her.
“That’ll be a first,” she muttered under her breath, picking them up and stuffing them in her purse.
“And I don’t need you to screw the truth out of him. I just want to do a little experiment.”
“What kind of experiment?”
Without answering, he said, “This guy’s an American, like you. Or at least I think he is.”
Bobby, for all his American-sounding name, had never met the G.I. who’d given it to him, or for that matter the Vietnamese girl who’d dropped him off at a Saigon orphanage and then walked out of her infant son’s life forever.
“Gunny’s convinced he’s a badass. Me, I’m not so sure. He smells…clean. So I want to put him to the test.”
Now that the bills were safely in her purse, Maggie was seeing less and less what this had to do with her. “My screwing him is going to be some kind of test? I don’t get that.”
“Just shut up so I can explain. He’s going to be here any minute. So here’s what we’re going to do. I need you to pretend we’ve had a fight or some shit and go flirt with him and I’ll come over. You stalk upstairs and then I’ll tell him I want him to teach you a little lesson.”
“I’m not getting the crap beaten out of me just so you can prove to yourself this guy’s as much of an asshole as the rest of you.”
“Shit, would you listen already? I’ve already seen him beat the crap out of somebody. Cops do that all the time. I promise, I won’t let him beat the crap out of you. I just want to see how far he’ll go. You pretend you’re pissed at me and go upstairs and then play along when I come up with him. Pretend you don’t want it. Got it? Oh good, here he is.”
Bobby nodded toward the entrance to the bar where a man was coming in.
Maggie considered herself immune to handsome men. It had been a handsome man who’d taken her in hand as an eighteen-year-old girl and so bedazzled her that she had followed him right across the globe, somewhere along the way graduating from being his lover to being his main source of income by turning tricks to being his punching bag while she was at it. Now at twenty-nine, stuck in the middle of nowhere—that handsome man long since overdosed on drugs she had paid for on her back—handsome just didn’t do anything for her anymore.