“Saw Todd leave in his wheelchair at first light. Did you guys have an argument?”
Nosy, much? “No. He had a story to follow up on. Wasn’t far from here, and he wanted the fresh air.” Smooth lies, Jasmine. Smoooooth. “I’m hitting the shower and heading out soon myself.” And she’d have to, now.
“Sure. Got time for a coffee?”
“Um, not today. Where’s James?”
“Working. I’ll leave you to it, then.” Vanessa blasted Jasmine with another vid-star-worthy smile and turned to leave. Jasmine started to shut the door.
Vanessa put her hand out and stopped it from shutting. “You ever need to talk or help in any way, just knock. James and I’ll come running.”
“Thanks.” Jasmine closed the door and very quietly double-locked it. She drew the black tape Xylvar installed to cover the peep hole, then stopped. Vanessa pulled out a link and texted something, gave Jasmine’s closed door a considering look, then headed back into her unit. As Vanessa’s door swung open, Jasmine noticed the toe of a green and white pair of runners retreat.
Either James was home, or Vanessa had someone else in the apartment. Hm. Vanessa, too, was a smooth liar.
Jasmine headed for the shower. With time to herself, she’d do a little research on the Christ’s Alliance Church warehouses.
#
In the ladies’ room at the mall, Jasmine folded her old clothes and put them into the now-empty shopping bags.
Then she smoothed her hand down her new cotton spandex dress. The dress started at the neck and finished at her knee. A false demure. She’d never bought, worn, or even considered owning a dress so provocative. Skintight, it clung to her body with such devotion, she could even see the dip of her belly button and the taut muscles of her abs.
In the mirror, she made sure the enhancers and stains the beauty artist applied weren’t smudged, and her bright red bob-styled wig covered all her dark hair.
Then she pulled out a clear container, removed her brown contacts, and applied the bright green ones she bought to cover her silver and gray irises. The bright green would draw a lot of attention, which would hopefully mean her other features wouldn’t be as easily remembered. But just in case, her enhancers were applied expertly to give her face a much harder, more chiseled look than normal.
The church’s four warehouses were scattered evenly around the city. All four provided those in need with food hampers and financial assistance. Only one was used to store and distribute donated furniture. And since it would require the bigger trucks to do that, Jasmine headed there.
She parked the car two blocks away, and, using her best hip-swinging walk, she sauntered past the house where licensed sex workers plied their trade in relative legal safety, toward her destination.
No one would know she wasn’t really a sex worker. She hoped.
Built mostly of aged wood, with a red-brick façade from an earlier century, the warehouse stood next to a more modern version of itself on a quiet road. A white sign with faded red writing and an arrow pointing down a pitted gravel drive stated, “deliveries.” A black sign with white writing and an arrow pointed to the other side of the warehouse and said, “front office, food parcels, financial assistance.”
Jasmine walked down the “front office” side and entered through a glass door. Inside, a small, dingy counter stood unattended, and two doors opened off the entry.
On the old, cracked wood counter sat an antique bell. She tapped it, heard a buzz in the distance, and waited.
A door opened, and a middle-aged lady dressed in nice but casual fit jeans and a western-style check shirt came out.
She gave Jasmine a hard-eyed once-over. “I’m sorry, but I think you have the wrong address. You’re chasing two doors down.” She pronounced you’re “yar,” but still managed to sound condescending.
“Oh, hell’s bells, I know where I work.” Jasmine flicked her fake hair out of her fake-colored eyes. “I’m CeeCee. I just want to help. Got me a right Christian heart, and I hear you need volunteers to pack and distribute food parcels. I’m here to volunteer.”
The woman paled, flicked her eyes to the side, as if wondering if she should run for it.
Another woman walked out, took one look at Jasmine, and blinked. “Jesus.”
“Maxine. Language.” The first woman said.
Jasmine focused on the second woman. “Oh, honey, wasn’t him that made me look this way. I’m one of God’s creations.” The two women shared looks.
“She wants to volunteer with the food parcels.”
“Really?”
“Jus’ ’cause I’m a sex worker don’t mean I don’t have a heart. I’m licensed, and have all my health checks every month. Not many other folk can say the same. I just want to help.”
“We are short of staff.” The second lady said, and she stared at Jasmine’s eyes. “Those your real eyes?”
“Well who else’s would they be, then?” Jasmine said back, pretending not to understand the woman meant the color.
The woman bit her lip and smiled. “Go through that door.” She pointed to the one nearest to Jasmine’s left. “I’ll show you what we do, and you can decide from there if you want to volunteer. You might want to wear more comfortable, casual clothes, and flat shoes.”
“Sure. I don’t always dress for work.” Jasmine went through the door and entered a large warehouse. It was lined, so probably insulated. “This place must freeze you blue in winter.”
“Can get cold, that’s for sure. We have space heaters we bring out. The hydrogen-fueled ones, so it’s not so bad once they get going. Summer can get hot, but mostly it’s like today—comfortable.”
She followed the woman down to a large conveyor belt area and racks and racks of non-perishable food and other items. At the far side, fresh produce sat on shelves and in large, glass-fronted coolers.
“Lot of food comes here.” The place was much better stocked than she thought it would be.
“Most is donated. Some we buy from financial donations.”
The lady pointed to a high tray on wheels. “Each trolley fits four food hampers.” She pointed to the flat-pack recycled cardboard boxes. “They’re coated so we can have them returned so the boys out the back can wash them and then reuse. Each day a list is supplied to each volunteer of what we need to fill the boxes with. We also mark the boxes with a pink dot if there are female personal products in it, a blue for men.”
“What about children and babies?”
“We have separate hampers for those.” She pointed to a smaller area full of baby bottles, disposable, biodegradable diapers, jars of whitish powder, and stacks of clothes and blankets.
“It’s a good setup.”
“The Christ’s Alliance Church outreach is vast. Many large companies donate stock straight from their warehouses.”
A lady in her sixties or seventies, her hair in a long braid to her waist, and wearing a floral dress that looked loose and cool, rolled her trolley around, pulling items off the shelves and packing them into the hamper boxes. At the end, she folded the sides so they sealed the box and, arms straining, legs braced, lifted the hamper onto the conveyor belt. She walked over to the fresh produce, picked up a thick, plastic-insulated crate, and started to select items from the cooler and fresh produce shelves. At the end, she put in a large, frozen cooling brick and clipped on a lid.
Jasmine turned to the woman. “You always get the crates and bricks back?”
“We lose very few. Sometimes we have to put a call out, and our volunteers end up collecting four or five from some houses, but mostly they return them. So, what do you think?”
“Would I get to work with the people too?” Would help to see as many involved in the business as possible.
“Yes, those that come here. Then there are those who receive deliveries, but we have hamper drivers for those.”
Jasmine held out her hand. “Sounds geat. I’m CeeCee May.” The lady took Jasmine’s hand and shook it.
&
nbsp; “Welcome aboard, CeeCee. I’m Carol. Now, just check out the board on the wall, and you’ll see the blanks of where we need more volunteers. Put your name down for the hours when you can work, and when you click the red button, those times and dates will transfer to your personal link calendar.”
As she did so, a van pulled up, and two burly, lumberjack-size and -type men started to load the hampers. One had a nasty set of scratches on his face. Not the sort of scratches a human hand would make, either. The sort an animal made.
Jasmine put herself down for two three-hour stints per week. It wouldn’t matter what she wore, she would be the sex worker from now on. She’d set the scene. Unfortunately, she would still have to manage the stains and enhancers for every shift.
Outside, the sunshine beating a warm blanket over her scantily clad body, she headed for the vehicle she and Xylvar shared. Inside, she slipped off the torturous shoes, rubbing at the lines where they’d dug into her angry feet. And looked up just as the van drove down the road.
The man in the passenger seat turned to look briefly at her, the scratches on his face red and angry.
The sort not just an animal could make. The sort an Eli or Crea could make once they had turned or were in the middle of turning.
No, probably not. The man looked the hunter type. He would surely hide Crea or Eli-induced wounds. Probably went to the wrong area and ended up playing with a bear or a wildcat.
16
Chapter Sixteen
Stale beer, piss, and body odor fouled the air even before Xylvar left the sidewalk. He rolled his chair through the open double wooden doors, cast a practiced eye around the room, and soaked in the ambience of bitterness, lost hope, and despair.
“Ahhhh, home, sweet home.” At the bar, he nodded to the ancient attendant. Xylvar took out a red credit, slid it onto the bar, and eyed the scummy glass the man was trying to polish.
“Auto washer on the blink?”
“No.”
Right. “Lager, bottle, thanks.” It had been a long time since he could afford non-house brew, longer since he’d been able to pay with a red credit. He had smaller denominations, but he wanted the men holding up the other end of the bar, two of whom were members of the four unwashed, to see the red.
The lager bottle, all wet with cold, the top ready to twist off, hit the counter, and the red was replaced with two greens and several yellows. Xylvar left them on display while he drank slowly, feeling the interest, the furtive glances, and one suicidal man’s greedy snigger.
Xylvar bent and slid out his small switchblade—one so illegal the laws varied from county to county, let alone state to state, for the time you rotted in a cage for having one—into his lap. As he ran his hand up his body so his T-shirt hid it, he felt the largest knot of scars.
He shouldn’t have been surprised at Jasmine’s reaction. He was hideous, inside and out.
When he finished the brew, he put the empty on the counter and nodded. The bartender threw the bottle into the old-fashioned recycle bin, the crushing glass deafening for a few moments, then placed a fresh, dew-dappled bottle on the counter. Two yellow credits slid into the till. A bowl of mixed nuts landed beside the lager. Xylvar looked at the bowl in surprise. The rest of the bar had soy crisps of different colors and flavors. All tasted the same, of salt and stale cardboard. But the nuts were real.
Once he’d sipped slowly on the third larger and downed a few nuts, a wiry weasel of man with teeth so bucked his top lip couldn’t cover them easily, walked, slightly lopsided, into the room. He vibrated with either suppressed excitement or fear. Xylvar looked up into his eyes, and the man came to a wide-eyed stop, as if allowing Xylvar to read him.
He had them. He had them! But now he had to move them on. The money better be as good as Rick said. Those tranq darts hadn’t achieved the initial knockout he’d expected. He needed thirty stitches at the free clinic, and who knew what he’d catch from there.
Bucktoothed guy shook his head, and rolled his lip back off his teeth so the weasel affect was heightened as he scurried toward the far end of the bar.
Even Xylvar with his Eli-heightened senses couldn’t hear weasel-man’s conversation over the rumble of murmurs. Rat man did a lot of head-nodding before he slipped the larger of the two unwashed—neither of whom were the ones Xylvar fought in the men’s room weeks ago—a piece of paper. The note was so small it would easily slide into the dent of a child’s palm, as small as a standard white credit. If Xylvar hadn’t noticed it flex, he would have assumed the man had merely handed over exactly that.
Xylvar moved his chair, angling it so he looked like he was just after easier access to the bowl of nuts, but putting him where he could hear some of the murmuring.
The only problem…the rank odor of the unwashed made his nose hairs tingle.
Didn’t matter, he’d have to take these bastards down to find out what they had. All he needed to do was wait.
#
Nine at night, and still no Xylvar. Since he left at dawn, it seemed a long time to need to clear your head, sulk, or, more likely, get into serious trouble.
Jasmine paced around the small living space, then pulled out her link and sent yet another voice message and then a text to Xylvar. And like the twenty earlier messages, the deadshit ignored both. She gave the link the finger, then took a picture of it and sent it to him.
Without the FBPI resources, she couldn’t send out a scan for Xylvar’s link. But since it was Katoom clan-supplied, she bet they could, or even had a locator coded into its software. She pulled out and checked her big blaster, smiled at her freshly sharpened knives, and sent a message to Dan of from Katoom clan.
Ten minutes later, Dan simply sent back a map with a red dot on it. What in all-of-the-fates stupid moves was Xylvar up to in such a dive of a district?
Jasmine slipped on two harnesses, sliding her knives in before throwing on a lightweight coat and hurrying out to the car.
Fool was going to do something dumb or dangerous or both, she just knew it.
It took her fifteen minutes to find the street and zero in on a dive called The Blue Bar.
She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and puckered her lips in thought. Had he merely come here for a drink and to meet friends? Was she about to barge in on his personal time? Two men walked out of the bar, across the road, and past her.
The shorter one of two tapped on her windshield, made a suggestive gesture with his finger and lips as he undid a button on his fly, then started sliding his zipper down. She slipped out a knife, ran her finger along the edge and smiled as she wound the window down.
“Pull your peanut-sized dick out, and you’ll start pissing sitting down.”
His taller, older mate burst out laughing. “She must of already seen your pecker, Hank.”
Hank jumped away from the car. “Bitch.” He kicked the car and started strolling up the path. Jasmine slipped out of the car, checked the dent, plucked a throwing star from her belt, and spun it into Hank’s shoulder.
“Ow! Oh my God, the bitch stabbed me.” They started to run.
“Aww, don’t you want to play? Jerks.” The van, like all vehicles, was made of reform aluminum, so the dent would pop out overnight, but it still pissed her off the jerk thought he could kick her vehicle, try and flash his pathetic dick at her. Also pissed her off the jerk ran off with her star.
Fuck it, even if she was interrupting, Xylvar wasn’t meant to be hanging around places from his real life. Right now he should be living and breathing his Todd persona, even if the whole fiasco was a total waste of time.
She leaned back into the car and slipped a small stun gun into her pocket, the one Xylvar gave her when they first went to the Loose Moose. She put her hand on the button to close the door when a small, weedy man with long, dull brown hair hurried into the street. A beat behind him, two much bigger men followed. She slid into the driver’s seat, and closed the door as the two men slipped down a very narrow dark alley.
Th
e weedy man scurried down the street.
Ten seconds later, a man looking casually murderous wheeled out into the street.
Xylvar’s dark hair blew back from the soft breeze generated by the rapid forward motion of his chair. Jasmine, several cars up the road, slid down in her seat, ducking totally out of view while he rolled by on the opposite side of the street.
Don’t look at the van. Don’t notice the license plate.
She gave it three seconds and looked out again. Xylvar appeared to be following the weedy man. He gained on the guy until he was only a dozen feet behind. Weedy man turned, looked behind him, stumbled a step, then looked as if he decided a man in a wheelchair couldn’t do him any harm. Hands thrust into the pockets of his loose, mud-brown trousers he scurried on.
Not running, but walking three times faster than someone’s normal gait, weedy man turned into an empty allotment that once held a house. An old, white, hydro-fueled town car was obviously the man’s destination. Only a few vehicles that old were still on the road.
Weedy guy reached the car, and the door lifted just as Xylvar grabbed his shirt from behind. Jasmine got out of the car and hurried toward the men.
“Wha…wha’cha want?” the man yelled.
“Just a little information. Nothing that’s going to hurt too much.” Xylvar voice was oil-slick smooth. Straight out of the ground, black, rich and full of impurities.
Jasmine picked up her pace while remaining out of Xylvar’s sightline. She wanted to see what he wanted with the man, and how and if weedy man was related to what they were doing.
Weedy man turned, slicked back his limp brown hair behind both oversized ears. “Hey, I was just getting me a beer. No law against that.”
Xylvar seemed to barely move, but then he had the man’s hand bent back. With a soft squeal, the man dropped to his knees. Xylvar locked his fingers around the man’s throat. Jasmine slid behind a beat-up old van parked adjacent to the empty lot.
“Drop it.” The man flapped his mouth up and down like a ventriloquist’s dummy, his arm shooting up with a thin bladed knife in it. Xylvar’s hand left the man’s throat, flashed out, and the knife went flying.
Flames of Hope Page 12