by Sophia Reed
"Know what you're getting in to?" he asked. He hadn't moved away from the wall his shoulders were propped against.
Not getting into, I thought. Already in the middle of. "Yeah."
"You know what it is?" He was looking me up and down, probably the way I'd sized up my driver.
"You want the buy or not?"
"All right, all right, don't get your panties in a bunch. Just saying."
"Well, don't." I almost waved the money at him, like he was a fast food worker who should shut the fuck up and get a move on with my order. That would have been foolish.
He stood with a hand in his pocket, weighing the situation. "You a cop?"
There's just something about the job that's hard to shake. Or fake. "Yeah."
He nodded like he'd known that, which he probably had. "Still are?"
I gaped at him. "What do you think?" And now I really did hold out the money.
He considered it for another minute, then sighed and took it, at the same time holding out his right hand, palm down, shaking mine very professionally. The fentanyl dropped into my hand.
A little bit of redemption for the damned.
The street was more deserted than I would have liked. The thing about being a cop is you get used to being armed. When you're not, you feel every bit as vulnerable as anyone else. Probably because you are. There are a lot more dangerous people out there than anyone wants to think about. A lot more of them are armed than should be.
The thing about being undercover is, you get used to hanging with the very people no one messes with.
I didn't have those things here. I had a dark street with fewer people on it than I thought there should be and a dealer who had a lot of battle scars. I was on foot because it's San Francisco – you don't get to park that close to wherever you're going. If I was on the badge, sure. Even out of state, there's a certain quid pro quo. But I was driving a rental, which meant leaving it in a paid parking lot with an attendant if I didn't want to end up owning it.
And probably a part of me that wouldn't admit it had figured out that if I was on foot, I just might run into someone who was holding.
I moved fast away from him. I wanted to run but like with ferocious dogs and bulls in fields, you don't turn your back and run.
Turned out, it didn't matter. I was a half block away when he decided he ought to try and do me a favor, help me get straight by taking back the drug.
That, or more likely, he decided he could have my money and whatever else I was carrying and the drug to pass off to someone else. Good night for him.
I didn't run. I didn't turn. I didn't acknowledge the footsteps coming closer though he had to know I heard him. I waited until he was directly behind me and dropped into a crouch, letting him slam into my back and go spinning off kilter.
If he'd been coming up directly behind me, he'd have gone over me. That's what I’d hoped. But he'd been coming up on my left side and when I dropped, he hit my back and shoulder and spun out of control toward the edge of the sidewalk. He collided with a parked car, his back bowing over it.
That should have hurt, but maybe he was sampling his own product. Because he shoved himself off it like it was no big deal and came at me.
I met him halfway. He had a knife and that was a damned good thing because if that's what he went for it meant he didn't have a gun. It was also a bad thing because knives are a bitch to fight against.
I raked my t-shirt over my head, wrapped it around my left arm, giving my dominant hand room to move. And even then I took the microsecond to drop the baggies into my jeans pocket.
"Come on," I said. My teeth were gritted and my blood up, the way it always gets in sparring or weapons training or any time I've been in a fight. Only this time my heart was pounding like it wanted to beat its way out of my body and I was already sweating despite the cool bay area night.
Sick. I was sick. I was minutes away from not being sick and this fucker –
He lunged at me and the knife caught the streetlight and I did not want to fucking deal. There was room between us. His rebound off of me had given me about ten feet, more than enough time to see where he was coming from.
It was a really basic attack: Hold the knife up and run at the intended victim. No wonder he had scars. Must be luck that he did have scars and not a grave marker.
I pivoted on my left foot, brought up my right boot and slammed the knife edge of my foot into his gut as he came at me.
That knocked him back, jolting him again into the parked car. This time its alarm began to bleat. Who the fuck uses those things anymore? Nobody responded to them back when the technology was new. Now people were more apt to shoot the car than call in the robber. If there was one.
When he started to get up again, making a pained noise, I kicked him again, dropping him for the third time over the trunk of the car. This time either the kick or the car knocked the wind out of him. I heard it go, an agonized grunt as the air escaped him, and then he was sucking for oxygen like a fish out of water sucks to get back into its element.
He dropped off the car, forward onto his knees and for a second it seemed like he had exploded because suddenly bits of him were flying everywhere.
Next instant I realized he'd been holding a lot of China white and it was all pattering down onto the asphalt around him.
I stared at him, mouth open, and started to laugh. His eyes, shot through with pain, glared up at me. He mouthed cunt at me and I shook my finger. "Sticks and stones."
Then I knelt and gathered up all the little baggies I could find, tucking them into my pockets. Larry the Loser kicked at me, ineffectual and weak. He hadn't gotten his breath back yet.
For another heartbeat or two I stood laughing at him. His tough guy know-it-all, know what you're getting into? Hadn't gotten him anywhere.
Seconds later I thought about all the kids in Seattle who were dying because of this shit and my own weird descent into darkness.
I didn't even remember the first dozen punches. I only later remembered the sound of someone screaming and shouting to someone else to call 9-1-1. Then I was running through the night, my breath coming almost as harsh as his had, my pockets full of fet I wouldn't dare allow anyone to find on me.
I got lost. I found my way again. I knew what streets I was on and I Google-mapped my way back to the parking lot where the rental waited. In the distance I heard sirens, cops and ambulances.
It was possible I'd killed him but I didn't think so. Old timers called it a berserker rage. Not supposed to happen in our civilized day and age.
But there's nothing civilized about the world we live in. That's just a lie we tell ourselves.
I took my loot back to the hotel where I was staying. I checked every form of communications I had and had no messages from Cole or about Cole.
I took a cold shower and doctored my hand.
I cried. I paced. I almost called my mother, my father, my probably ex-fiancé. I almost went to a church. I almost called a trauma hotline.
In the end, I stood over the baggies and didn't even contemplate taking them to the bathroom.
I shot up and all the pain and anxiety and hurt floated away on a sea of pleasure.
I slept until noon. Then I ate and went back to bed and slept until six. I got up and tried to make myself flush the rest of the baggies and cried when I couldn't.
Then I checked out of the hotel room and went looking for Cole.
10
Annie
The next week was like a waking dream. Or a waking nightmare. I woke every morning with a sick stomach, pounding headache and anxiety crawling through my veins. Wake up, get up, throw up, shoot up.
Then I went looking. I scoured the internet. I made phone calls. I called in every favor from every perp I’d ever let walk in case I needed an informant. Because they all have friends. I could cover multiple cities that way and still there was nothing.
Not quite. There were reports of Cole missing events he was supposed to be pa
rt of and sending proxies to board meetings and blowout extravaganzas alike. Wherever he was, social media and mainstream media had no idea.
When you're a billionaire, you can get away with shit like that.
Negative news didn't help me. No outlet seemed to want to figure out if he was in Southern Nevada or Timbuktu. More than once I caught myself before slamming my fist into the hotel room walls. More than once I did slam my fists into the bed, making it rock.
I didn't go back to the dungeon. I was afraid to. Afraid I'd never leave the area if I did. My life would dwindle down to drugs and sex or drugs and whatever it was because I hadn't seen any actual sex, come to think of it.
For me, I thought I'd want it. I thought that's part of what made Cole laugh behind his eyes when he told me I didn't have to sleep with him.
I wondered if he knew this about me.
The desire for sex was high and hot. The actual attempts at even self satisfaction were completely pointless. My drive was tamped down. So apparently my head wanted sex. My body just wanted China white.
After the internet searches, after the phone calls, after shooting up, I'd go for a run. Through the insane hills of San Francisco I'd run for hours, not stopping for food or water, not stopping when it felt like my heart was going to explode. I ran through hills above the bay and I ran through the city and I ran through good parts and bad. When I was ready to drop, dripping sweat and coughing, gagging as I sucked in air, I'd head to the gym and lift as heavy as I could, as many sets and reps as I could until the gym swam around me and until sometimes the manager came over and threw me out. Once he tried feeding me but I threw up and after that he just set a timer and when it went off, two guys bigger than me – bigger than The Rock, bigger than anybody – came over and escorted me to the door.
Then I'd go home and sleep and try to eat and lie on the stupid hotel room couch until the nausea won or until I needed more of the drug. At least I had plenty. But I was using more.
I told myself that by searching for Cole I was taking active steps to solve this problem but underneath I knew that was bullshit.
At night I lay dry-eyed on the couch and watched the television or searched listlessly for any signs of Cole, or lay in the bed, scratching at my arms, thin tears falling into my ears.
Until one morning I woke and ran a hand through my matted, filthy hair. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I realized I had no idea what month it was. At some point I'd called PD and been put through to a counselor. After an hour on the phone with her, she came back and said I was approved for another six weeks. PD isn't great about recognizing attachments to known dealers but Jesse's death was traumatic for me. Maybe no one was going to admit they knew I was fucking him, but reality was, deep cover is deep cover. They knew.
With another six weeks tacked on to my rapidly dwindling original four, I was good to go until –
I scrubbed my hand over my face. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know how much time I'd spent or how much time I had left on leave. I didn't know how long I'd been in the hotel, only that it was a far cry from the one I'd initially checked into.
I thought there were calls I'd missed and some I'd made. I'd talked to my father. His voice had been warm and scared at the same time.
I pulled my phone out and looked at it. Things were both better and worse than I thought. I was only three days into the additional six weeks. It was bad because I needed the structure of the job. And good, because I had time yet to pull myself together and not lose everything.
"You tell yourself that every day," I said aloud and even though it was just me talking to me, it felt like a revelation. I stood up, stumbled into the bathroom and looked into the age-spotted mirror.
Then I put my fist through it.
One pot of coffee. Most of that vomited back up. Dry toast. More dry toast. Damn, it tasted good, getting the stale taste of the coffee out of my mouth. Scrambled eggs. And then I tried the coffee again and this time it hit me like liquid orgasms.
Shower. A trip to the laundromat, wearing my dirtiest clothes. Then back to the horrible hotel room and another shower, scalding hot, and dressing in clean clothes. I threw away the dirty ones.
I packed everything into the car. From the locked drawer under the seat I pulled my gun, my shoulder holster, my badge. I was out of state, but so what? Most people just react to the badge and the gun.
I drove to the clubs, the dungeons, and I asked this time. With a cropped photo of Cole taken from the internet.
He wasn't here. I didn't think anyone was lying.
So fine. I'd drive to Vegas. First a trip to the rental agency to see if I could take the car there or needed to fly. I'd rather drive.
I needed the time to clear my head.
I ignored the fact that the little glassine envelopes were still in my luggage.
11
Cole
The call had come in while I was working out and putting Marilyn through her paces. At the end of two hours she'd gone to wash the sweat and a little bit of blood off and I had gone in the other direction to shower.
Very often when everything is over, I want nothing to do with the sub.
Annie hadn't been like that. After the first time I beat her, all I wanted was to hold her in my lap, my arms around her, let her put her head against my shoulder and cry.
Only she didn't cry. And I didn't hold her. Annie had a tremendous amount of stress and a gigantic addiction to kick. I couldn't give in to anything easy with her.
I wouldn't have checked a text message until I’d had my own shower, but a phone call always feels more urgent now that everyone does their best not to call.
"Mr. St. Martin, I'm calling from The Rack in San Francisco. The girl you're looking for came through this morning but she wasn't playing. Someone said she was in a few days ago and she did play. I'm sorry, I wasn't working that day."
I quelled the temptation to push through the personal blather and get to the point. I might miss something. But people had lives. None of them actually worked for me in the traditional sense. I just had them on retainer. Whoever this girl was that was calling, she was allowed to have a day off. She'd already brought me more information on Annie than I'd had since she left Seattle.
I listened to the message all the way through three times before deleting it. Annie had been spotted in a BDSM dungeon in San Francisco. The time the girl saw her she wasn't playing, though apparently she'd attended a gathering some time earlier and participated.
That surprised me. Annie was disconnected from her own life. She undoubtedly called it compartmentalizing or keeping everyone she loved safe.
I called it being dissociated from her own life. She wanted so much to do her job, to be strong and use whatever she had to do whatever she had to, that she put everything at arm's length.
That wasn't right. Some of it was quite upfront and personal. Hard not to be when she was fucking the gang leader. But she buried her feelings under protection, like encasing a bomb under blast blankets. She considered herself safe because nothing was going to hurt her, so when something did, she was shocked and didn't know what to do about it.
Plus, you're safe when you're dead, too.
I sent an automatic payment to the informant's bank account. Anonymous, buried under so many levels of shell companies it would never get back to me. Even if it did, so what? What billionaire wouldn't want to know that some half-disgraced cop from another state was showing his or her photo around in some definitely dodgy circles?
Marilyn was kneeling in front of the bathroom door when I headed back that way. I no longer cared about my own shower.
"Stand up."
She stood obediently, her head bowed, hands clasped in front of her. Her naked sex gleamed in the light. Her breasts were lightly stripped from the cane. I sometimes enjoy Marilyn's charms too much to work her over the way I think we both want.
"Turn around."
She turned, lowering her head even further. Her backside was black and
blue, her back stripped from floggers and crops. Critically I checked the marks, making sure I hadn't wrapped a whip when I didn't mean to, hadn't struck near kidneys or tailbone or along the hip joints.
The marks were perfect. There was blood along the edge of some of the double cane tracks again.
"I won't see you again for a month."
She turned without permission, her mouth an O of distress. I could punish her for that, tie her up and use ice on her or just tie her up and leave her. That probably hurt Marilyn more than any implement I ever used on her.
I wouldn't.
"I can't break you. You know that." My code of ethics didn't permit serious and permanent harm.
It was pretty wide open otherwise.
She dropped her head again. "Yes, sir. Thank you. May I – " she hesitated for a split second before plunging on, because I hate it when people start to speak and then second guess themselves. "May I service you before I go?"
But I had Annie in my head again and Marilyn, though standing in front of me, was already gone. "No. But you can come back in six weeks." By then, if I had Annie – because I would have Annie, I had to get her here, I had to test the remedy and the reward, not that she'd see it that way – by then there was no doubt Marilyn would only be icing on the cake.
Or a memory. Either one.
After she left, clutching her clothes, because I didn't allow her to dress on the premises, I went into the room I was preparing specifically for Annie. She was the first for whom I'd ever created an entire room.
The call had left me agitated. I'd already run for the day, already lifted, already done an hour of yoga, meditated, and already had Marilyn three times while she screamed under the riding crop. Now the anxiety was starting to fill me. I had to find Annie. For her sake.