Choked Up

by Janey Mack

  “Well. Thank you.” Hank took a swallow of beer. “Although Belarus isn’t the paradise it once was.”

  Mom laughed and flashed a dead-eye warning at my brothers and Da, who knuckled under. A superficially pleasant conversation flowed through dinner.

  Until dessert.

  “Funny you should show up tonight, Bannon,” Rory said. “It’s about time we had some answers.”

  Hank said nothing.

  “The murdered man on your car.” Rory flexed his fingers into a fist. “What do you know about it?”

  “I know Maisie had the misfortune to find him,” Hank said. “And she handled it like a champ.”

  “You wouldn’t be knowin’ the vic, now, would you?” Da asked, angling for trouble, his brogue showing.

  “My car is in the police impound lot,” Hank said. “I have a meet with Detective Forman next week.” He leaned his forearms on the table and looked from Da to Rory. “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll take a look at the crime scene photos.”

  I clapped a hand over my mouth. A smile from me would be like handing a lit torch to a couple of gasoline-soaked baboons. I bent my head toward Hank and noticed a small dark stain on the side of his shirt, high up on his rib cage, under his arm.

  “They’re joking.” Mom bestowed an arctic smile on Rory and Da. “Why, it’s not even their case.”

  “I don’t mind,” Hank said.

  Something wasn’t right. The purple-blue shadows beneath Hank’s pale eyes were more than exhaustion, the slight hitch as he leaned forward . . .

  The slowly growing spot on his shirt was blood.

  “Gosh, it’s getting late.” I tossed my napkin on my plate and stood up. “Hank hasn’t been home in weeks and he’s too polite to say he’s wrecked.”

  Mom was on her feet before Hank was. “Oh baby, do you really have to go?”

  “Yeah. We do.”

  Hank checked the rearview when we hit the freeway. Ragnar’s faded blue Ford followed a couple of car lengths behind.

  I sank into the black leather seat of the Mercedes. Hank was home and, depending on what was beneath his shirt, mostly all right. He turned on the radio. Chet Baker’s bittersweet satin tenor enveloped the SUV, and the tension bled out of me like a slow tire leak.

  July McGrane’s Rules of Engagement Number Two: Let him go first.

  The single rule of my mother’s I excelled at. Because lawyers talk about nothing and cops don’t talk at all.

  When he finally spoke, Hank’s voice was hoarse. “I’m sorry to Christ that happened, Maisie.”

  “It’s not on you.”

  “Like hell it’s not.” He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. “The vic’s a stringer. One of Vi’s.”

  “Vi” was Violetta Veteratti. They had, as Hank so eloquently put it, “a history.” Her twin, Eddie, was a made guy and a mad dog. He ran Chicago’s Labor Union. Ran it exactly like Tony Lombardo did for Capone in the 1920s.

  “I don’t follow. How’d I rate a shadow?”

  “You don’t. Vi doesn’t take precautions.” Hank’s jaw went tight. “Especially not useless ones.”

  The stringer’s death, apparently proof positive of his incompetence to Hank.

  He stared straight ahead. “What did Mant do to you?”

  “Man?”

  “Jeff Mant. Former paratrooper. Drug runner. Sociopath.”

  “Seriously? My Gap tee–wearing assailant’s name is Jeff? God, that’s so . . . lame.” I really, really didn’t want to talk about it.

  Hank took a deep breath in through his nose and let it out slowly. “Maisie.”

  “He got the drop on me. Threatened me.” I rubbed my hands on my thighs. “You know.”

  “No. I don’t.” A tiny tic began to pulse at the base of his jaw.

  “He pulled my hair, held me down.” I blinked fast and kept talking. “Felt me up over my clothes . . . That was it.”

  “And he let you go?” Hank asked, eerily nonchalant.

  “Pretty much,” I hedged. “It was the middle of the day in front of the mayor’s office. Some guy came over for a closer look and Mant took off.”

  “Who?”

  “Never seen him before.” Accurate but not honest.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I got lucky. Mant was going to hurt me.” My shoulders gave a spastic jerk.

  “Not anymore. His number’s up.” Hank cracked his neck and shot me a sideways glance, mouth quirked up at the corner. “Why’d we leave the party, Angel Face?”

  “Forced interrogation is one thing. Bleeding on the dining room chair during it, is something else entirely.”

  He swore and reached across to his left side. The pads of his fingers came away red. “Couple of pulled stitches. Nothing a Band-Aid won’t fix.”

  I sat on the wide white quartz counter of the master bathroom next to a first-aid spread that would put a third world hospital to shame. I peeled the sodden red-stained gauze off and felt a little woozy. “I don’t think a Band-Aid’s gonna cut it.”

  Hank sat on a stool, left arm bent behind his head. “Don’t go soft on me now, Slim.”

  I fingered one of the intact stitches on the built-up ridge of tissue. “How many?”

  “Not bad. A dozen or so inside,” Hank said, “a half-dozen to close the outside.”

  “Actually, you have fourteen exterior stitches.” Which means how many inside? “Six of them are not just pulled apart, but ripped clear through.”

  “Any of the interiors open?”

  “No. I mean . . . I don’t think so. I can’t really tell.” I laid the fourth piece of stitch tape across the gaping oval slit on his left lat—latissimus dorsi—the thick muscle beneath his arm that gave him his perfect vee-shaped torso.

  “A good place to take a hit, if you have to.” He craned his neck to see it in the mirror. “Full mobility, no bleed out.”

  I squinched my eyes shut, trying to halt the gears of my brain from processing the injury in front of me. The oval profile of his wound told me the knife was smooth-bladed with a single cutting edge. A C-shaped black bruise had formed beneath one end of the wound. Too late. The bright bathroom lights flickered.

  Jesus Criminey. He’d been stabbed up to the hilt.

  The room started to spin. Saliva ran down the back of my throat.

  “Getting a little green, Sport Shake.” Hank laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. “How ’bout you make us a drink and let me finish up.”

  “You can’t reach.” I swallowed fast a couple times. “Just talk,” I rasped, “okay?”

  He sifted his fingers through the ends of my hair. “I was running a deep clean on a building. Below my pay grade.”

  Oh God. I adhered another piece of stitch tape across the slow-bleeding hole in his flesh. “W-why?”

  “A final test before my new assignment. The crime lord has me run it with his son, Drago. A goddamned squirrel. And raw, too.” He blew out a breath. “Kid misses a hallway, and before you can blink, we’re boxed in by four guys slinging blades, aiming to keep it on the QT. I take three and let Drago cut his teeth on one.”

  Well, that was nice of you.

  “I hit the first one fast, he’s over. I engage Number Two and Three rushes my blind side. Three’s blade glances off my vest and into me. Two’s done by then. I drop my arm and pivot. Three can’t hang on to the knife. I end Three, and argue with Drago the goddamn squirrel for the next fifteen because he can’t stand me walking around with the blade in. Kid’s practically eating his own hand to get me to pull it out.”

  I affixed the tenth and final strip of stitch tape, careful to keep breathing through my mouth. This was not what I had in mind when I asked him to talk. I crumpled up the stitch tape wrappers and opened a gauze pad.

  “First rule when taking damage?” Hank asked.

  “Keep a level head. Act quick.” I taped the gauze pad over the stitches.

  “So.” Hank stared at me in the mirror. “Why did I leave the knife in?�
�

  Trust Captain Alpha-Male to make this a teachable moment.

  “Um . . . Basic displacement theory. You’ll bleed more once you remove the blade.”

  He dropped his arm and grinned at me in the mirror. “Right. I apply pressure on either side toward the blade so it doesn’t slide out, and wait another twenty while Drago reports in and lines up a decent tailor.”

  “Gee,” I said, not knowing what I could possibly add to that.

  He lowered his forehead to mine. “Gee, you’re pretty.” His hands went to my waist, fingers spanning the small of my back.

  He nuzzled my neck and gave my throat a soft bite, a move that normally made me go softer than Arizona asphalt. But I was a mannequin, plastic and hollow.

  Hank leaned back. A shadow flickered across his pale eyes. “I’m gonna make you a drink.” He kissed me. Searing and primal and strangely different from any kiss he’d given me before. “Hell, I’ll make you two.”

  Hank had a road map of scars. Cruel, thin ones, raised and white with age. Others, dark and sunken. The most disconcerting weal was a perfect square, horrifying in its man-made shape.

  This was just one more.

  I flipped the lid of the very large, very battered red first-aid tool kit, opened the cantilever shelves inside, and started putting the supplies away. Betadine swab sticks, two unused packages of stitch tape, scissors, alcohol pads, gauze, tape. I returned an unused—thank God—sterile package labeled “suture 2-0 nylon armed with cutting needle” into a half-full twelve-count box.

  Next to the sutures were unopened syringes and several thin cartons with rubber-stopped vials visible through cellophane windows. I tipped my head to read the labels. Nalbuphine, promethazine, naloxone, morphine.

  Nothing the average joe could acquire even with a prescription. I reached back for the incongruous and unnecessary box of Band-Aids and knocked it off the counter.

  Adhesive strips rained onto the floor. I dropped to my knees and tried to pick the slick paper wrappers off the smooth limestone. My fingers were trembling. “Dammit.” I swept them into a pile, crumpled them into my fists, and stood up.

  I caught sight of myself in the mirror. My reflection stared back at me, white-faced and shaking, mouth moving silently, swearing to God.

  What he does is who he is. Being scared and worrying and weak is on me. He can take care of himself and he’s a pro and for chrissakes, it’s just one more scar.

  Of how many?

  My eyes went soft, and so did the rest of me. For the first time, I understood exactly how Da had done what he did to me. And why.

  A moment of clarity that was . . . less than pleasant.

  I put the last bits of the first-aid kit away, barely noticing that one of the Israeli Battle Dressing kits had an old bloody fingerprint on the wrapper. Oblivious even, to the 60cc Demerol vial with only 15cc left. I shut the kit and smacked the metal locks home, stinging my palms.

  I had a call to make.

  Da answered his cell on the third ring. “Maisie? What’s wrong?”

  I choked, unable to force any sound out. I laid my head down on Hank’s desk.

  “Are you there, luv?”

  I sat up and let out a choppy breath. “I get it,” I said, my voice squeezed and tight. “Why you did what you did to me. I wanted you to know that today, I understand.”

  But I don’t forgive.

  There was more. So much that needed to be said. But the words compounded like quick-dry cement. Each one harder to release than the one before.

  And he knew it.

  “I miss you.” He was silent for a moment. “More than there are stars in the sky.”

  My childhood good-night. “Sands in the desert,” I filled in my line.

  “Tears in the ocean.” He sighed. “I love you.”

  “Me, too.” I disconnected and drifted back into the bedroom, feeling like a soap bubble in a cactus patch.

  Hank was waiting with two Stolis on the rocks. He handed me one and raised his glass. “You know what’s great about you?”

  “Thrill me.”

  “You don’t fuss.” He clinked his glass against mine.

  I took a long swallow. The vodka sent an icy shiver to the back of my neck. I set my glass down with a click on the nightstand. I raised my chin. “God, you’re a cagey son of a gun.”

  He pulled me to him with a smirk. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  I bit my lip, worrying it between my teeth to stop from saying something pathetic like “Are you sure you should be doing this?” And then he was chewing it for me.

  It was smoky, serious sex. The kind that says I missed you and this is how much. It ended as always, with Hank on his back and me lying across his chest, while his fingers grazed across my bare back.

  I floated in the twilight between sleep and relaxation. Cool tears slipped down my cheeks.

  “Maisie?” he said. “Are you crying?”

  “Yeah.” I sniffled and wiped my eyes with my fingers. “Transcendent sex has that effect on me.”

  “I know,” he murmured into my hair. Chin against my temple, he fell asleep.

  Chapter 9

  Monday morning at 0500, I came out of the closet buttoning my navy blue poly-blend Parking Enforcement Agent uniform over my bra holster. Hank lay propped up against the pillows reading the Wall Street Journal on an iPad, sheet crumpled at his waist. Even at ease, the muscles of his abdomen and chest were sculpted from stone. “Call in sick.”

  His lazy order released a fleet of butterflies in my chest. I would have if I hadn’t joined the BOC. “I . . . I can’t.” I scooted back into the closet and dropped down onto the teak bench. “Does it ever bother you that I’m a meter maid?” I asked in a rush to distract him.

  “No.”

  “Really?” I started lacing my work boots.

  “Maisie, what you do doesn’t define you as much as how you do it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “If you’re happy, I’m happy. Besides,” he teased, “at least you’re not a cop.”

  He’s kidding. He’s got to be kidding. I stared at myself in the mirror. Cripes. Keep it together. I took a deep breath and stepped out of the closet.

  Hank crooked a finger at me. I trotted over and dropped a kiss on his forehead. “Can’t be late—” I turned away. His fingers snagged the waistband of my pants. He jerked me back, kissed me hard and fast, and let go.

  He picked up the tablet.

  What was that? “Um . . . The Super Bee’s in impound, and my Honda’s racking up a small fortune in the ramp . . . Can I take the G-Wagen?”

  “Won’t need it.”

  Huh?

  The doorbell rang.

  “Your ride’s here.” He looked up from the iPad, a gleam in his cement-gray eyes. “Serve ’em hell, Bluebell.”

  Ragnar, my chauffeur and shadow, informed me we’d be leaving my Honda in the lot until after work. And he was going to tail me. The entire day. And every day after until Mant’s number was up.

  “Gee,” I said. “That’ll be . . . cozy.”

  “Ever vigilant, kid. I got the heads-up on Mant. That dude is one sick fuck. You carrying?”

  “Yep.” I opened the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To stow my gear, clock in, and get my ticket gun.”

  Ragnar’s eyes narrowed.

  “Wanna check in with Hank?” I asked sweetly.

  “Hurry up.”

  I closed the door on him, jogged up to the gate, and waved at Chen in the bulletproof guardhouse. The gate raised and I loped across the barbed-wire enclosed lot. I entered the office from the rear, bypassed the break room, and pulled my ticket gun from the charger. A hot pink Post-it was affixed to the butt.

  McGrane—

  Sanchez is out sick. You’re up.

  Leticia

  Happy Monday. Crap.

  My first day of undercover work and I had to hit quota on a route I didn’t know. Ability to gath
er photographic evidence on as many tow trucks as possible? Nonexistent.

  Sanchez’s route was Ashland and Belmont. The hippie hippie shake. Vegan restaurants, head shops, hookah bars, and fetish stores. Zero parking and tie-dyed muumuu-clad bitch-’n’-moaners. Groovy.

  I spent most of the morning cruising the outskirts of the route, feeling more than a little conspicuous with Ragnar tailing me. Still, I managed to lay a decent number of tickets before getting to what had to be Sanchez’s sweet spot, because parking offenders don’t stack up in front of establishments that don’t open before ten. But they do at 11:07 a.m. I turned on to Belmont.

  Ahh, nothing like the fragrant combination of patchouli and piss.

  I tagged a couple of fish taking more than their allotted time inside The Hookah Hub. I hadn’t seen one tow truck. Not one. Not even driving by. In four hours and forty-three minutes.

  Of course, ancient Buick Skylarks and rusted-out Chevy Aeros probably weren’t real high on the Serbian shopping list. I cracked my neck, and out of sheer boredom, typed the plate of a custom-painted flesh-colored Prius parked in front of The Vinyl Frontier into my ticket gun.

  Jackpot. $734 in unpaids.

  I pulled the Interceptor up tight to the curb, out of sight of the fetish store’s display window filled with everything from rubber suits to ball gags. I popped the trunk and lugged out a thirty-five-pound, bright orange Wolverine spiked parking boot. I slid it up under the rear tire of the Prius, secured and tightened the plate over the hubcap.

  Anchored in less than forty seconds. Not nearly my best, but respectable. I glanced behind me.

  Ragnar flipped me a thumbs-up from behind the wheel. I waved and forced myself not to jog back to the Interceptor. Quota hit, the rest of the day was mine to devote to my new job. I tapped my fingers against my forehead. Lunch hour.

  Where would I go to steal an upscale car?

  I zipped up to Rise Sushi at Roscoe and Southport. The only parking was residential permit, and with Rise’s steady take-out trade, there were always expensive cars double-parked.