Page 9 of Exit Party

“The largest of the local militias,” Ari said. “You control traffic on the river.”

“Correct. We hold the territory now, and it’s been a calm few months, we’ve got the local population on our side with improved security and a school, but there’s always the possibility of incursion by rival groups. I run a surveillance operation, just keeping an eye on things.”

“Detective work, essentially?” She’d thought she was long past the point of feeling excitement about a job, but the idea was stirring.

“Well, more or less. You might think of it that way. I can’t pay you a retainer, but I’ll pay you a day rate.”

“I’m interested.”

“It’s boring, most of the time,” Eduardo said. “I don’t want to misrepresent it. It’s hanging around a given bar for hours to see if a particular man walks in, and who he talks to if he does. It’s sitting in cars with a camera. Following people, on occasion, which means blending into the scenery while they take their goddamn time eating lunch.”

“I’m still interested.”

“Why? Aside from the fact that you need a new job, obviously.”

“I’ve always been drawn to the idea of detective work,” Ari said. “Ever since I was a kid. I know that makes me sound naïve.”

“So much of the job is waiting. Waiting, following, observing. Are you patient?”

“Yes. Very.”

“Can you give me an example of your patience?”

“I served eighteen years in a federal prison and I didn’t lose my mind,” Ari said. “That is eighteen years of waiting patiently.” There was a time when she would have gone to any length to avoid revealing her prison record to a potential employer, but she felt that that world and its rules had fallen away. It wasn’t clear to her what would either win or lose the job, and therefore it was possible to say anything.

“That’s a reasonable qualification. Did some time myself once.” He extended a hand. “Eduardo Harris.”

“Ari Smith.” She came up with the surname at that moment.

He asked, “Was it a violent crime?”

“I wasn’t the one committing the violence,” Ari said.

2

A year later, in a parking lot five miles from the office, Ari was sitting in her car with a camera. She had been waiting here for forty minutes, behind a massive development that was both a mall and a village. The shops and condos were mostly hidden from the parking lot, which was framed on one side by a sheer concrete wall—the back of a department store, with loading docks located some distance away—and otherwise the view was of the kind of exurban hinterland that isn’t really anywhere or anything in particular: an overgrown meadow that was seemingly no one’s responsibility, an expressway, the building-block shapes of a housing development and a prison for juvenile offenders in the near distance. But these were the golden minutes just before sunset, and the parking lot was awash in the kind of light that lent an undeserved beauty to the scene. In the distance, the beige rectangle of the children’s prison was warm and benign.

She was taking pictures of another woman, a retail manager named Nico, who was oblivious in her own car some distance away. Nico was a very thin woman with a platinum blond buzz cut, who dressed entirely in black, wore utilitarian glasses, and never smiled. Nico’s husband was Eduardo’s cousin, and the husband was certain that Nico was having an affair. He was so certain that he’d come to the RE/MAX office, which was irritating. Eduardo had called her over, told her that he’d like her to surveil Nico for a week as a favour to his cousin. Ari preferred to avoid face-to-face meetings whenever possible, because by this point in her life she’d met too many people and found them mostly annoying.

“Ari,” the husband said, “can I call you that?” You already did, she didn’t say.

“Of course. Ari or Ms. Smith, either’s fine.” Even after a year the surname retained a sheen of unfamiliarity, which pleased her.

“Thank you,” the husband said. “I came down here today because I am taking this entire situation very seriously, and I want to do my due diligence before I make any sudden moves.” There was fear in him. He was desperately afraid of not being taken seriously.

“Anything for family,” Eduardo said.

“Due diligence is important,” Ari said, in her best professional voice. Professionalism is not revealing your distaste for humanity. “Tell me your situation.”

“Well, it’s my wife. Nico.” Nico worked at the home store, which was a place Ari had heard of but never entered. The store sold everything you could need for a home, the husband said. Small appliances, furniture, towels, bedding, odds and ends. You could pay in cash or you could barter. Sometimes there were new things, but mostly it was used. Nico was an excellent salesperson, really excellent, and they’d both liked that she had this job because the early shift got her home in time for dinner. Except that lately, just in the past few weeks, she’d taken to coming home late.

“How late?” Ari asked.

“Just late enough,” the husband said cryptically.

“So are we talking midnight, one a.m., or . . . ?”

“Oh. No. Nothing like that.” He sounded offended, like he hadn’t been the one to bring up Nico’s lateness in the first place. Nico had been coming home about an hour or two hours later than normal, almost every night, and she’d always eaten, that was the thing he found suspicious. “I’m a good cook,” he said. “I mean, a really good cook. I went to culinary school.” He wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but, well, who was she meeting for dinner? She always said she was starving after her shift—“which is actually plausible,” he said, “the woman has the metabolism of a hummingbird”—and so she’d just grabbed something, but she never wanted to have dinner with him anymore.