Mon, Oct 31, 8:19 PM

Go home ACT like an adult I’m sorry you know I am but it’s over

Mon, Oct 31, 8:21 PM

What are you doing have you lost your mind??

Mon, Oct 31, 8:22 PM

Stop kicking my door I’m going to call the police

Mon, Oct 31, 8:23 PM

Go ahead call them I dare you

Mon, Oct 31, 8:25 PM

I will let you in if you promise to be calm

Mon, Oct 31, 8:26 PM

I promise I swear

The chief whistles. “Fuck if that’s not a theory of the case. She soured on him and dumped him. He couldn’t handle it. He stands outside the house, lurking around. He texts her, she lies about not being home, he calls her on it because he sees her through the window. He makes a scene outside, kicking the door. So she lets him inside the house. And he kills her.”

“While wearing a Grim Reaper costume,” Andy adds. “On a dark, dark night.”

“Well, he can wear whatever costume he wants,” says the chief. “He won’t get far now.”

BEFORE HALLOWEEN

September

23

Vicky

After Labor Day, I return to Christian’s office, a four o’clock appointment again. When I’m done reading his proposal, I look up at him. Still rough-shaven and handsome, same basic kind of expensive dark suit with the open collar, still that cocky look about him like someone who knows today’s going to be another “win” for him.

“Water?” I say.

“It’s the next big thing,” says Christian. “Water is becoming a scarcity. That will become truer and truer as the population growth continues to spike. Less than one-tenth of one percent of the world’s water can be used to feed and nourish seven, eight billion people.”

“Wow.”

“Exactly,” he says, pointing his pen at me. “So how do we tap into that possibility? We could invest in water-rich areas and transport the water, but that’s a nonstarter. The barriers to entry are too high.”

“The barriers . . . ?”

“It’s hard to transport water. You need pipelines, which raises all kinds of issues. They’re expensive, they’re politically unpopular, they raise property-rights issues. They disturb ecosystems. And think about it—we’re moving water away from its original source. The ripple effect on the environment—water life, plant life, coastlines—could be catastrophic.”

“So what do you do instead?”

“The way to invest in water is through food. It’s the least contentious, least controversial way to redistribute water. You don’t transport the water. You grow food in water-rich areas and transport it for sale in water-poor areas. You have any idea how much water it takes to produce even small quantities of food? It takes nearly two thousand gallons of water to ultimately produce one pound of beef off a cow. And selling food is profitable, right? So that guarantees sustainable redistribution. Meaning, industry won’t stop doing it.”

“So you’re buying up farmland.”

“Right. You see the returns we’ve already gotten. I’ve already given my investors over a three hundred percent ROI. The next five years are going to be even better. You give me twenty-one million dollars, I’ll give you a hundred million in five years. I promise you, Vicky, I will take you for the ride of your life.”

I take a breath. The ride of my life, indeed. When I was six, I had to tie a shoelace around my left shoe because the sole had come off completely and we couldn’t afford new ones. I walked with a limp that entire year, just to keep my shoe on. When I was eighteen and on my own, I started donating my plasma once a week for the money. When I was twenty, I fucked my landlord to pay the rent.

When I don’t answer, Christian says, “Or, if you’re risk averse, give me ten million and I’ll turn it into fifty. We’ll put your other ten in Asian equities. That’s going to blow sky-high, too, though not as much as water. But the diversification might give you comfort.”

By the time I was twenty-four, sex was the only way I knew how to survive. It was transactional. I was an escort living in Indianapolis. I met a woman early on who taught me that the best way to survive as a prostitute was to have some cops for clients. They’d make sure you never got arrested; they’d stand up for you if someone got rough with you. My clients were mostly married men with money who were looking for a thrill on the side. And cops. And when it wasn’t a direct trade, it was an indirect one. I learned how to make men do things for me. Expensive dinners that ended up in my bedroom or his, but for me it was about having two days of leftovers in the fridge.

The sums of money Christian is talking about, they’re as real to me as flying to Mars.

“Or,” he says, “we don’t do any of that.”

I snap out of my fog and focus on him.