Chapter Twenty

Tommy waited in the parking lot of Esmeralda’s apartment complex and watched her door as the sun rose behind him. He sat on his stolen bike, wearing gloves and a long-sleeve shirt though the weather was very warm, almost hot. He didn’t want to risk touching her and making her afraid of him.

Her apartment complex was ugly, built of concrete and cinderblocks, with wrecked car husks occupying a few of the parking spots. The outer walls, the dumpster, and the stop signs were all sprayed with gang tags.

Never mind the blue sky and the palm trees from the movies, Tommy thought, this city was crap. It was like Panama City Beach or some low-rent tourist trap like that, only stretched out for mile after mile and then slathered in smog.

When she stepped out of her apartment, Tommy cranked the engine of his motorcycle. The sound drew her attention, and she smiled immediately when she saw him. Then she seemed to remember herself, and the smile disappeared.

She turned away from him and walked toward the bus stop at the front of the complex.

Tommy swooped out until he was alongside her, then slowed down and walked his bike along with her, the engine grumbling beneath him.

“Hi, Esmeralda,” he said.

“You know my name.” She kept walking, kept trying to hide her smile.

“I couldn't search the whole country for you without learning your name,” he said. “Esmeralda Rios.”

“The whole country? Where did you start?”

“Forth Worth.”

“Wow.” She laughed. “That was years ago. Did you stop in Albuquerque, too?”

“Yep.”

“Arizona?”

“Flagstaff.”

“I am impressed.” She gave him a sidelong look. “And a little creeped out.”

“But you remember me,” he said.

“A little. I don't even remember your name.”

“I never told you.”

When she reached the graffiti-coated Plexiglas bus shelter, she finally turned to look him full on in the face. Tommy felt something move in his heart—but he pushed the feeling down quickly. He needed to handle his business, not stare all droopy-eyed at this gorgeous girl.

“Want a ride?” he asked.

“I like the bus.”

“My bike's a lot nicer,” he said. “Cleaner, too.”

She eyed his stolen Harley. “I doubt that.”

“More fun.”

The bus approached down Sepulveda, pausing only one intersection away to load and unload passengers.

“I don't ride with strangers,” Esmeralda said.

“My name is Tommy.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“You have beautiful eyes,” he said.

Her eyes responded to the compliment by rolling upward. “You are so original,” she said, but she was smiling again.

The bus trundled towards them.

“Do you want the ride?” Tommy asked. He could take off his glove, grab her arm and make her do anything he said. But he didn't want to do that. He wanted her to choose to come.

“I still don't know your last name.”

“It's Krueger,” he said. It was a surname he often used. His favorite, actually.

“That doesn't sound very Spanish to me.” The bus arrived, and the door folded open. Esmeralda looked at the steps inside. “My mother won't approve of it.”

“We can change it. I just made it up, anyway.”

She laughed. “You chose to be named after a movie monster?”

“I always kind of identified with him.”

“You are crazy.” The bus door folded, and the bus lurched away. “Look, you made me miss my bus. Now you must take me to work.”

“Hop on.”

Esmeralda slid into the seat behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist. He felt her fingers on his abdominal muscles, pressing him tight through his shirt, and now it was his turn to smile.

“You don't have an extra helmet,” she said.

“I'll have to fix that.” He took off his helmet and passed it back to her. “Just pull the chin strap under—”

“I know. You're not the first boy on a bike I've dated.”

“Are we dating now?”

“I didn't mean to say that. Okay, I'm ready.”

Tommy gunned the bike and they shot out into the road. He curved steeply, almost tipping over on one side, and she squealed and clamped her arms tight around him.

He straightened up the bike and drove.

The funeral home was only about ten minutes away, but when they reached it, Tommy didn't pull into the parking lot. He kept going, not stopping until the next red light.

“You missed it,” Esmeralda said.

“Take the day off,” he said. “We’ll have fun instead.”

“But I told Mr. Gonzales I would come in for a few hours.”

“Let the dead bury the dead,” Tommy said. “Isn't that what they say?”

“It’s a bad plan,” Esmeralda said. “The dead don’t work very hard.”

The light turned green, and Tommy opened up the throttle.

She never asked him to turn back.

Jenny dreamed she was Euanthe again, bringing food to her new master’s dining hall, accompanied by a few other slave girls. One girl carried a platter of roast lamb, another a skin of wine, another a loaf of bread. Euanthe herself carried a wooden platter with an assortment of olives.

The gray-eyed lady and her husband reclined on couches near the fire. Her husband had the same gray eyes that she did, as if husband and wife were somehow related.

Euanthe and the other slave girls stood near them, ready to serve food and drink on demand.

“Your plans are too bold,” the man said to his wife. “Pericles remains popular, despite all the talk we’ve spread of corruption and impiety. We have removed a few of his supporters, but the man himself remains in power. The moderates in the assembly will not turn against the leader in a time of war.”

“Pericles is weaker than he seems, Cleon,” the gray-eyed young woman said. She held out a cup for a slave girl to fill it. “People will blame him for the Spartans ransacking our countryside. This is the opportunity we’ve sought for years. We have undermined his support in the assembly, we have gathered embarrassing information on his most powerful friends, and soon we will topple him. Athens is nearly ours, whether you see it or not.”

“Athens may soon belong to King Archidamus and his barbaric Spartans,” the man called Cleon said. “And then the internal politics of Athens, whether Pericles rules or I rule, will no longer matter.” He bit into a meaty leg of lamb.

“Cleon, that is why you should lead Athens,” his wife said. “This will be our argument. Pericles is too weak, too old, too much a lover of peace. Athens needs a man with fire in his blood. A man who can make the Spartans quake in fear.” She took his hand and smiled.

Euanthe tried to wear a bored look while listening carefully to the conversation. The politician against whom these two were plotting, the man named Pericles, had been leader of democratic Athens for decades. He was Euanthe’s target, too. Her instructions were to keep herself quiet and invisible until she had an opportunity to infect him.

She knew how to make her plague contagious—the old priest Kyrillos had helped her discover this, using both sheep and convicted criminals. Pericles would die, and then Athens would follow.

The gray-eyed lady gestured to Euanthe and opened her mouth. Euanthe approached and fed her an olive, careful not to touch her lips.

The lady stared up at her, holding the olive between her teeth. Euanthe tilted her head forward, so that her hair covered her eyes, and she looked down at the floor. She knew the lady didn’t like her, and she didn’t want to draw more of the lady’s wrath.

“These olives are of poor quality.” The lady spat the olive on the floor, having never bitten into it. “Go and feed them to the swine.”

Euanthe pretended not to understood her words, so one of the Athenian slaves snapped her fingers in front of Euanthe’s face, and Euanthe followed her out of the room.

As she departed, she heard the lady say to her husband, “I do not want that slave girl touching our food again. She has an evil look about her.”