by M. C. Grant
Funny—but not in a ha-ha way—that I’ve managed to ignore the extent of my injuries until I finally feel safe.
“You heading back to the NOW offices?” asks the driver.
I think about it but slowly shake off the suggestion.
“Drop me at home, will you?” I say. “I could use a warm bath and a cuddle.”
The driver raises an eyebrow in his rearview.
“Not from you,” I add quickly. “I have a prince waiting at home.”
The driver chuckles and weaves his way through traffic.
Ten
Climbing out of the cab, I wave to King William sitting regally in the street-level front window of Mrs. Pennell’s apartment. He rewards me with a rare wink before I climb the short flight of stairs to the small lobby.
Inside, I optimistically check my mailbox for any secret Valentines that may have been stuck in the post office sorting room for the last four months or so but come up empty—less than empty, if you add in the bills.
The smell of Mr. French’s pipe tobacco (whiskey, cherry, and chocolate Cavendish) lingers in the air, and the familiar comfort of it brings an unexpected tear to my eye. The Russian has shaken me up more than I care to admit.
I climb the stairs to the second floor, feeling every jar and bump in my muscles. A yellow note is stuck to the door of my apartment. It’s in Mrs. Pennell’s impeccable handwriting, and reads simply: Please come down and see me when you get in.
I leave the note where it is, so I won’t forget, as Mrs. Pennell has become an important part of my handmade family. But just at this moment, I’m not in the mood for tea and gossip and anecdotes about King William’s adorable behavior.
I ease into the apartment and shrug off my jacket as Prince Marmalade appears at the door to my bedroom. He yawns and stretches to make sure I know that I’ve interrupted his nap before padding over to wind his way around my feet, his loud purr practically vibrating the furniture in the room.
Scooping him up in my arms, I press my forehead into his fluffy face. His purr rumbles even louder as he places a paw on either side of my face and proceeds to lick my nose.
I give a half-laugh, half-exhale.
“You realize that’s not soothing, don’t you?” I ask. “You’re not a dog and your tongue is a pumice stone.”
Prince ignores me and licks off another layer of skin.
Laughing, I carry him into the bathroom, place him on the floor, and turn on the taps to fill the tub.
Instantly, Prince leaps onto the side of the tub and strolls over to examine the gushing spout. As I undress and try not to wince, he looks over as if to ask what madness has overcome me that I would possibly want to immerse myself in water.
I drop in a purple and yellow bath bomb that I found in a going-out-of-business sale from a store I had never visited before. Its magic ingredients promise to take away stress and calm a racing mind, which makes me wonder if I’m supposed to bathe in it or smoke it.
Once the tub is full, I step in and slide down until the warm water laps at my chin. Blood pulses to my wounds, alerting me that nothing is broken or cut, just bruised and sore.
Everyone was right: it would have been smarter to stay off the Red Swan’s radar. But if it was my father who had gone missing, I would desperately want to know what happened. And I would want someone like me looking into it, too; someone who was too pig-headed and stubborn to know when she was out of her depth.
I had already made progress. Lebed slipped when he admitted his knowledge of Brown’s family, and I’m sure he figured that all it would take to get me off his back was to deliver a bit of a scare.
And though I admit it wasn’t pleasant and my body aches from fighting back, I don’t scare that easy.
In fact, all Lebed has done is piss me off and make me even more determined to get to the truth.
There’s a Father’s Day story in there that replaces the usual cuteness factor with heartbreak, pain, and loss—possibly even murder. My publisher may not be thrilled, but hopefully, in the end, neither will Lebed. Physically, I may not be intimidating, but with a pen in my hand, I can make the mighty and powerful quake.
Now I just have to make sure that I grow an extra pair of eyes in the back of my head before returning to work.
Prince’s tongue darts out and licks some bubbles off my bare knee. I open one eye to see him making a face as he scrapes the soapy foam off his tongue with his paw.
When he notices me laughing, he immediately spins around, throws his tail high in the air, and jumps from the tub’s edge to exit the room in disgust.
I close my eye again and sink under the bubbles to the warm embrace below.
There’s a quiet knock before I hear my apartment door opening and a voice call out, “Hey, Dix, you home?”
“In the bath.”
“You alone?”
I laugh. “Completely.”
The bathroom door opens wider and Kristy pops her head in.
“You okay?” she asks. “You realize you’re taking a bath at three in the afternoon.”
I sit up a little straighter. “Fine,” I say. “Just needed a stress break.”
Kristy glides over to the toilet, drops the lid, and sits. She’s wearing baggy sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt with a neck hole that was designed for a claustrophobic linebacker. If I wore the same outfit, I would look like a shipwrecked hobo, but Kristy manages to pull off the whole Flashdance, Jennifer Beals, cute-and-sexy thing. Life, truly, isn’t fair.
Kristy wrinkles her nose and sighs, which tells me that Sam has been at work all day and she’s tired of being alone.
“Busy day?” I ask.
“No, just a bit dull. Computer work mostly.”
“What are you researching?”
She wrinkles her nose in the opposite direction. “Bacon.”
“That’s an odd one. Which author wants that?”
Kristy is a freelance research assistant for fiction writers who want to get the facts straight but can’t afford the time away from meeting deadlines. She researches everything from chicken farms and chocolate factories to handguns, sex toys, and race cars. She might seem a bit of a ditz, but when you consider her crazy research skills and insatiable curiosity, she’s more like the absent-minded professor. If the
absent-minded professor were a busty, blond lesbian.
“You know that’s confidential, Dix.”
“Bacon sounds like Stephen King or Stephen Hunter, maybe Karen Slaughter or even Matt Hilton. What does he or she want to know about bacon?”
Kristy rolls her eyes, knowing that I’m throwing out names to see if any of them cause a reaction. “Unusual things that are made from or contain bacon.”
“Are there a lot?”
“You’d be surprised. I’ve already found maple bacon doughnuts, bacon salt, bacon toffee brittle, bacon lip balm, bacon chewing gum, bacon beer, bacon sex lube—even a bacon coffin. I’ve ordered samples of most of them, except the coffin, so I can describe the taste.”
“Bacon beer sounds disgusting, but bacon brittle I could go for.”
Kristy smiles. “You can help sample. The beer is from Portland and comes in a gorgeously tacky bright pink bottle.”
“Wonder if vegetarians can drink it?”
Kristy giggles. “I’ll make a note. My author will like that.”
The water is beginning to turn cold, so I ask Kristy to hand me a towel. When I reach for it, she notices the deep welts, already an ugly shade of moldy mustard with hints of cabbage and beet, on my wrists.
“Dix!” She gasps. “Is some man being rough with you?”
“It’s not what you think,” I say quickly.
“Sam will kick his ass. Who is it?”
“It’s nobody.”
“We’ll bury the sucker,” Kristy continues, her fac
e livid. “The Dixie Chicks ain’t got nothing on us. If Earl’s gotta die, we ain’t gonna pussyfoot around.”
“It’s not a boyfriend,” I interrupt, getting out of the tub with the towel wrapped around me. “It was more of a mugging.”
“You were mugged?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No.”
“Not even Frank?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I shrug. “Well, the guy kinda ended up getting the worst of it. When I left, he was unconscious on the sidewalk.”
Kristy’s jaw drops before she breaks into a smile and holds up her hand for a high five. I grip my towel with one hand and high-five her with the other.
“That’s the way to do it.” She beams. “Wait till I tell Sam. She’ll be so proud. Girl power!”
“Yeah,” I say, remembering the Russian’s hands around my throat. “Awesome.”
Eleven
I slip into clean underwear, fresh jeans, and a retro-inspired T-shirt from a Clash concert I was too young to attend but that makes me feel like I was there in spirit—and it looks cool.
When I emerge from the bedroom, Kristy uses a glass of white wine from a bottle she found in my fridge to lure me over to the couch, where Prince is already luxuriating in a personalized tummy rub and ear scratch.
“So tell me more about the mugging,” she says. “Why were you targeted?”
I start at the beginning with the classified ad and end with the Good Samaritan translating what the Russian was after.
“That’s odd,” says Kristy. “What would it matter who sent you? This gangsta boss already admits he knew the missing man’s family, even though he’s lying to you about not knowing the guy. And after all this time, nobody but the family is really gonna care what happened to him, right?”
I nod. “True.”
“It’s also strange that he called the hairdresser a whore, don’t you think? That sounds kinda angry, like personal angry.”
I think about it. “Bailey admits her past was rough. She didn’t go into details, but with her dad out of the picture—”
“And this creep asking to buy her,” Kristy injects.
Goosebumps rise on my arms. “Exactly.”
“Have you told the hairdresser what happened?” Kristy asks.
“I wanted to wait until I had something she doesn’t already know.”
“But you should warn her.”
“Warn her?”
“Yeah.” Kristy leans forward, her eyes wide. “If this Russian mob boss is so paranoid about you snooping around that he sent a thug to threaten you, what’s he gonna do to the people he thinks actually did send you?”
The blood drains from my face. “Oh shit!”
“Come on,” Kristy says, getting to her feet. “My car’s downstairs. Grab your coat.”
Scissors & Sizzle is still open for business when Kristy pulls to the curb and I hop out. Kristy doesn’t want anyone to see her in less than pristine condition, so she tells me she’ll keep the car running, as though I’m about to rob a bank and will need a quick getaway.
When I burst through the salon doors, the receptionist with the bruised eyes takes one look at me and says, “Bailey couldn’t help, huh? Shame.”
“Is she here?” I ask urgently.
“Bails?”
“Yes!” I snap.
“Whoa. Chill.” She holds up both hands in a calming motion. “We can’t work miracles, you know? Sometimes you just have to let it grow out.”
I step forward and flash my angry face. “I’m not here about the goddamn hair. Is Bailey Brown here?”
The receptionist gulps. “She’s in back.”
“Can you get her for me?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.”
She lifts the phone and talks into the mouthpiece. When she hangs up, she looks sheepish. “Bails isn’t there, but she’s probably just in the alley having a sneaky smoke.”
I point to the rear of the shop. “You have a back door?”
“Yeah, but we don’t allow customers—”
I don’t bother to let her finish before I’m running through the salon. When I burst through the rear exit, I’m not sure what I’ll find, but I prepare for the worst.
Fortunately, my imagination is more active than reality.
“Hey, Dixie,” Bailey says as she exhales a lungful of smoke from a sweetly scented cigarette. “Cloves and a little sprinkling of pot. Helps the anxiety, you know?”
“Has anyone been to see you?” I ask.
Her eyes narrow. “Just customers, why?”
I tell her about the Russian with the rotten nails.
She takes another drag on the cigarette and holds it in her lungs for a long time. I watch the tremor in her fingers and think she should’ve gone with less cloves and more weed.
“I didn’t think he knew I was back,” she says.
“Back?”
“I’ve been living in Boston for the last ten years, but I missed home, you know?” She takes a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have come back.”
“What about your sister?” I ask. “Did she leave, too?”
Bailey’s eyes ripple with moisture as she shakes her head. “Roxanne stayed here. I tried to take her with me, but … ” Her voice fades.
I think back to what Lebed said. He only actually mentioned one daughter; one whore.
“Do you know where I can find her?” I ask.
A sharp pain creases Bailey’s face as she lifts the medicinal cigarette to her lips and takes a deep pull. Her hands are shaking so badly that ash drops from its tip until it’s little more than a yellowed nib.
“I asked around when I first got back, heard she’s working a low-rent hotel on the eastside. But I haven’t had the courage to find her. She was such a pretty girl, but that life quickly goes from five-star to the sewer. I didn’t know if my heart could take it.”
“Do you know which hotel?”
“The Sandford. You know it?”
I do. By reputation. A short cab ride from the transport docks and popular with the international cadre of merchant seamen whose English vocabulary consists of two words: pussy and whiskey. It’s the kind of place where if the doorman doesn’t find any weapons on you, he hands you one.
“I’ll find her,” I say. “But you be careful. Don’t go anywhere alone.”
Bailey shrugs and wraps her arms across her bosom in a protective hug. “Nothing much left that Lebed can do to me.”
I reach out and take hold of her trembling hand. “Then do it for me. I don’t want it on my conscience if you get hurt.”
Bailey squeezes my hand and smiles. “That’s actually one of the nicest things I’ve heard in awhile.”
I squeeze back. “I’ll take that as a promise.”
Bailey smiles and lifts the cigarette stub to her lips again, but there’s nothing left to puff. “This needed more pot,” she says.
I leave her with a wink as I turn around and head back through the salon to Kristy’s waiting car.
Twelve
I make Kristy pull over at the first pay phone we see, and I hop out to make a quick call.
Pinch doesn’t answer, but I leave a brief message on his machine just to let him know where I’m heading in case he’s in the neighborhood and feels like joining me for a drink in the unfriendliest hotel bar in town.
Admittedly, it won’t be the most appealing offer he’s ever received, but I knew every patron’s comprehension of English would be instantly forgotten if I invited Frank along instead. Frank is so much a cop that even a blind drunk can tell when he walks in a room.
As we near the hotel, Kristy studies both sides of the street and says, “Lock your door.”
“We’re in a con
vertible,” I say. “A locked door isn’t going to help. If someone—”
“Stop talking, Dix!” Kristy yells.
“Sorry,” I say sheepishly.
Curious eyes follow us as we travel the last two blocks; shadowy faces appearing from doorways and behind the windows of last-stop bachelor apartments with a bird’s-eye view of the liquor stores, porno vendors, pawnshops, and moneylenders. Kristy’s electric-yellow VW Bug is a spaceship here—an alien visitor from a different world.
Every other vehicle is some shade of gray, as if this part of the city can only be seen in black and white. Even the people on the street are dressed in monochrome: black hoodies, black jeans, black boots. It reminds me of a Frank Miller comic book where the only color comes as the result of violence—an angry slash of red.
“You should head home after you drop me off,” I say.
Kristy glances over, her eyes wide with panic.
“I’ll be fine,” I add. “I can blend in; you can’t.”
“If you’re sure,” Kristy says bravely.
I nod. “The Bug belongs in a happier place.”
Kristy smiles and pats the dashboard as if stroking a pet. “She does prefer the sunny side of the street.”
Kristy pulls over outside the Sandford Hotel. “Let me know when you’re safely back home,” she says.
I put on a brave smile and open the door.
Even though I know it’s likely a waste of time, I start at the reception desk. The lobby smells of cigarettes, beer, and something fouler that was mopped up using a lot of industrial bleach; but whoever did the job missed a few spots, rubbed it into the carpet with the toe of their shoe, and hoped nobody noticed.
The disturbing part is that the hotel’s usual clientele likely wouldn’t.
The clerk behind the reception desk could be anywhere from thirty to sixty; his eyes say the latter, but the lack of wrinkles on his sallow face beg to differ. He’s tall and scarecrow lean with an unflattering haircut that reminds me of a monk, as though someone stuck a bowl on his head and simply cut off whatever dangled below the rim.