Poisoned Pearls

by Leah Cutter

  More snow had come earlier, but again, just a dusting. It was too cold for us to get too much snow, not enough cloud cover to warm up the city. Just a dusting that wouldn’t remain pure for very long.

  I hauled out two other loads of boxes after that, forcing myself out into the cold every time. Nothing ever jumped out at me, no body present for me to stumble over.

  I had one more cleaning task for the night. I kept Travis on, just in case. He needed to man the store for the late-night rush, just after the bars closed, everyone racing in for cigarettes and condoms. Because it was just a week or so before Christmas, there were a lot more tourists. Two people were really needed most nights. That I’d been alone the previous night had been a fluke.

  Travis was a wannabe weekend warrior. After meeting Hunter, I really understood the difference now.

  Hunter would have had Travis for breakfast, without even breaking a sweat.

  Every weekend Travis wasn’t working, he was up on his property in northern Minnesota. He talked about a bunker up there, but I would bet it was just a glorified root cellar. He went on and on about guns and calibers and shit.

  I wasn’t worried that someday I’d hear about him in the news after he’d snapped. He wasn’t that tightly wound. I figured all the porn he watched for free at the store probably helped keep him sane.

  Tomorrow, Thursday night, there would be three of us: two for the floor, and one for the peep shows. If I remembered the schedule right, it would be Travis, Amy, and, me.

  Chinaman Joe only ran the peepshows Thursday through Saturday nights. It was like burlesque in a way, more about the accouterement and the entertainment and less about the stripping.

  There were four stalls, painted stomach-acid pink, and each about as wide as a bowling alley lane. The chairs were comfortable, with waterproof cushions so they wouldn’t stain. Each booth had its own lighting, a dimmer that the customer could control, from bright stage white to single candle strength.

  Up above the pit where the customers sat were the stages for the girls. They danced behind bulletproof glass, up out of harm’s way. Chinaman Joe had paid for good soundproofing, as well as good sound equipment that the girls could turn all the way up, let the clients hear them breathe.

  I’d taken in more than one show with Natasha, my ex. She’d sit on my lap and stroke herself while the girl stripped.

  It wasn’t until far too late that I’d realized Natasha was always wanting to watch Frieda strip, that Frieda was her favorite.

  Turned out to be for good reason.

  But tonight, before the first shows tomorrow, I had to clean out the stalls. Better to do it now, when there was time, then trying to fit it in tomorrow after the store had opened.

  I put on black, industrial-strength rubber gloves, knee-high black waders, and a black rubber apron. Then I mixed my special solution of bleach and cleaner, guaranteed to take out even the toughest come stain.

  I’d learned early what kind of mess men left behind while watching the girls.

  The girls didn’t mind too much if the men tipped well. If they didn’t, the girls had a button for notifying us out front.

  Most of the girls had regulars, like all strippers did. The clients were generally well behaved, because they really couldn’t get at the girls. Sure, I’d had to ban a few for life, but mostly, people were “Minnesota Nice.”

  Chinaman Joe encouraged the girls to put on elaborate shows. That included specialty acts, like wearing cartoon character clothing, or a robot costume, or even Renaissance festival gear.

  Since we didn’t serve alcohol, they could strip down all the way. They didn’t perform sexual acts on the stage, just simulated sex acts, taking requests from their customers.

  It wasn’t something I would ever have done, not even if I had a body like Frieda’s, with her round breasts and pert nipples, flat waist and wide hips.

  It didn’t take me too long to clean out the first three stalls. I’d already gone through them after Sunday’s show, just making sure that I didn’t have any long-term stains I needed to soak off. Sometimes guys came in too drunk and ended up vomiting as well as pissing over everything.

  There was a smell, though, that permeated all of the stalls. Something sour, like someone had been eating and farting sauerkraut.

  By the time I got to the last stall, the stench had really taken on a life of its own. Should I get a mask? I decided to risk it, take a look first, then decide about the mask.

  The door to the stall seemed stuck. I had to push hard to open it up.

  Then I realized I was sliding something across the floor.

  Too late, I realized it wasn’t something.

  It was someone.

  Had a drunk homeless person snuck in and used this place as his personal pissing parlor and home for the last three days?

  My ready anger deflated, though, when I realized that no, it wasn’t some junkie.

  It was Angela.

  And she’d been dead for some time.

  Chapter Eight

  I managed to vomit only three times before I could control my stomach enough to call the cops.

  And no, I didn’t call 911. I called Sam and Ferguson, directly.

  I knew what this would look like. I was the only one with a key to the peep show booths. Sam was already convinced that I’d been involved in Kyle’s death, though she didn’t know how. I knew that she’d end up saying the same thing about Angela’s death as well, that I was involved.

  Somehow.

  Made me even less inclined to go and get fucking tested, if this was the sort of shit I’d be pulling, accusing perfectly innocent citizens of crimes they weren’t responsible for, that they weren’t involved in.

  I didn’t bother changing out of the rubber apron or waders. I figured they should see me at my worst.

  I did clean up the vomit, as that was mostly outside the booth.

  No shows tonight. Chinaman Joe was gonna be pissed.

  Fergusson showed up like a dark cloud, still wearing the same down jacket, still looking like a marshmallow. He immediately pulled me to the side, away from the crime scene, while the techs took over, setting up a portable light since the one in the booth seemed to be busted.

  Something else I was going to have to fix.

  He held up his recording pen again before he asked, “Please describe the events of the evening.”

  I told him about my night, how I had come to clean up the stalls, cleaning the first three and noticing the smell before trying to open the door of the fourth. I was honest about vomiting (okay, maybe a bit more graphic than necessary) while Ferguson’s face pinched tight in disgust.

  I also admitted to knowing Angela. I didn’t know her last name, had never learned it. That she’d crashed at my place a few times that summer. And that she’d come into the store after Kyle’s death.

  “No one noticed anything before now?” Ferguson asked.

  “No one comes back here,” I told him honestly. “Not unless the shows are running. Nothing was out of order Sunday night when I locked the place up.”

  “How did the deceased get in here, then?”

  I shrugged. “Not a clue. The doors were all locked.” I was pretty sure I’d locked them. I always did. The other three doors had been locked.

  “It doesn’t appear that the door was forced open,” Ferguson said. “Someone must have had a key.”

  “I didn’t give her one. No one had one. Except for me and Chinaman Joe.” Did Angela have a key? Had she swiped it when she’d been staying with me?

  “Chinaman Joe?” Ferguson asked, suddenly interested.

  Fuck. “Yeah. He owns the place, you know.” He was going to be so pissed about this, another death on his property.

  I had no idea what Chinaman Joe’s background actually was. He was a tall Asian man with droopy eyes and a long mustache. He always wore a funny khaki-green cap, like a homemade baseball cap. I’d seen him in a business suit a couple of times, with a nice shirt and tie,
but mostly he wore T-shirts and jeans.

  His accent had always intrigued me. He spoke heavily accented English most of the time, particularly when he was with customers who were being obnoxious. However, more than once I’d heard him on the phone with suppliers speaking without any accent at all.

  “I don’t know if I have his cell number,” I told Ferguson. There wasn’t any way I could protect Chinaman Joe. Not from the cops. Not like he really needed protecting or something.

  “We got it.” Ferguson paused and checked his notebook. “We haven’t been able to get in touch with him, actually.”

  “Sorry,” I said, shrugging. He hadn’t mentioned going out of town or anything.

  Sam came up then. “Another one?” she asked, looking grim.

  Ferguson shrugged. “Maybe. You tell me.”

  Sam squared her shoulders and stalked off for the booth.

  “What does that mean?” I asked. “Different killers?”

  Ferguson glared at me. “It’s a street drug,” he insisted.

  I didn’t bother to snort at him.

  Sam came back, looking thoughtful. “Possibly the same killer,” she said. “Lots of interference, though.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked. The TV shows always had something messing up the post-cog’s abilities. I hadn’t thought it was true.

  “Strong emotions sometimes interfere with a reading,” Sam admitted.

  I couldn’t help it. I started chuckling. “So the way to really mess up a crime scene is to have lots of sex on the location before breaking the law?”

  Now they both glared at me. “Not necessarily,” Sam said frostily.

  I shook my head. I was going to have to remember that, tell it to a few choice customers. They’d appreciate it.

  “Now what?” I asked them.

  They looked at each other. “There’s no reason to take you down to the station,” Sam said slowly.

  Ferguson made a face at that.

  “Just don’t go out of town on any trips without telling us,” Ferguson finally added.

  “I wouldn’t dream of going to Florida with my mother,” I said slowly, making sure Sam heard me.

  She at least had the good grace to look embarrassed.

  The police set up their lab, taking samples, fingerprinting me and Travis and then taking their time going through the store. More than one of them would be back when they were off-duty, I could tell.

  In the meantime, with the cops there, we weren’t likely to get many customers. I sent Travis home as soon as I could. No one was coming in. I finished all the internet orders, cleaned what I could, then ended up standing around without a lot to do.

  It was going to be a long, long night.

  ***

  Cops finally left, just before I was closing up for the night, around 2 a.m. Got a couple customers in at that point, guys looking for smokes. But our sales were way down.

  Chinaman Joe wasn’t going to be happy at all.

  Normally, I liked turning out all the lights from behind the counter, then walking through the dark, empty store. The shelves were just darker lines to avoid, the fake snow on the condom table up front glistening in the streetlight shining through the front store windows.

  Tonight, though, it felt weird walking through that darkness, as if there might be something waiting for me in one of the corners. I made myself walk slowly anyway. What were they going to attack me with, one of the big dicks that we had on the shelves? I could see the headlines now—sex-shop worker bludgeoned to death by candy cane dong.

  I had to walk by the doors to the peepshow stalls on my way out. Gave me the creeps, though I knew there wasn’t any killer still waiting there. The doors still had the yellow police tape strung across them. Luckily, Chinaman Joe had some extra-strength floral-scented air freshener that took care of most of the stench.

  Between the smell of death barely covered with chemicals and the scent of musk, I would have chosen the latter any day.

  Outside, I stopped for a moment to light a cigarette. Cold be damned. I was likely to freeze my fingers off before I finished my smoke, but I didn’t care. I needed the nicotine. I needed something, some sort of normality in my life.

  One of my old street companions used to tell me how stupid it was that I smoked. I’d heard all the arguments against it too many times to count. At that point, I really hadn’t cared if I’d lived or died.

  I wanted to live now, but I still smoked. Smoking was the one thing no one else could control about me. I had someone else dictate where I spent the majority of the hours of my day—at the shop. He also dictated what I should wear, how I should behave.

  Smoking was just mine, all mine. It was the best fuck you I had to give to the cops, to my mom, to society in general.

  It was expensive and dirty and I didn’t care. It was mine.

  The cold was also almost normal at this point. It still burned, and I walked quickly past the other closed shops in the converted warehouses. No more snow had come, and the light dusting from before just hid what few treacherous patches of ice remained. It had been cold and dry for so long, there wasn’t much left.

  I hadn’t gone more than a block before a shadow detached itself from a building across the street and started tailing me.

  Fucking cops. Should have known they’d be watching me.

  They weren’t going to get much from me, though, as I was heading straight back to my place. I wanted a really hot shower, something scalding to wash off the worst of the night, and a deep sleep and forgetting.

  Though knowing my luck, all I’d have would be nightmares about Kyle and Angela.

  I should have paid more attention to the shadow, because my heart nearly came out of my chest when it suddenly appeared beside me.

  “Cassandra,” Hunter said.

  “Jesus H. Christ, you scared me,” I told him. Fucker had come up out of nowhere. Should have known it was him, not some cop. He wore his usual fatigues, this time with a couple layers underneath, bulking him up.

  But it didn’t make him look round like Ferguson; no, Hunter still gave the impression of all muscle and killer speed. Tall and lean, though his eyes were still wild.

  “Saw the cops at your store,” Hunter said.

  “Yeah.” I told him about finding Angela’s body. I figured he’d seen dead bodies before, so I gave him some of the details, like how her head had been twisted all the way around, how she had the same type of grin that Kyle had been wearing.

  She’d had violence done to her body, though. Her neck was broken.

  But that grin—that made me think it was the same killer. Had to be. Was the same unidentified john.

  Hunter stayed silent as we walked through the quiet streets. Not many cars were out. Downtown Minneapolis wasn’t open late at night, not really, not in this section.

  And besides, it wasn’t the place where people would go to do their last-minute Christmas shopping.

  “You know, you could have prevented her death,” Hunter finally told me.

  “What the hell?” I asked him. “You, too?” Sam had given me shit as well about being present at the scene again, when I knew that was bullshit.

  Hunter shrugged. “Once you can see, you can stop such things from happening.”

  That stopped me cold. “Fuck you,” I finally said as I started walking again.

  “Cassandra—” Hunter said. He put his hand around my arm but let me shake it off.

  “No, really. Fuck you. This is not my fault. There’s some asshole out there with a hard-on for killing sex workers. He’s the shithead responsible for Kyle’s death, for Angela’s. Not me.” I had to believe that, had to keep telling myself that, though part of me was already convinced that Hunter was right. That Sam was right.

  That the fucking government was right, and I needed to get tested and trained.

  Hunter didn’t say anything, but continued to stare at me in the harsh, cold night. A cop car drove by slowly. I wondered what would happen if I suddenly sc
reamed, if the cop would help or not.

  Or if Hunter would just grab me and run again.

  “You have a talent. A gift. You can see,” Hunter told me solemnly after I started walking again.

  “No, I can’t. No talent. Remember?” I said. I wrapped my mundane nature around me like a warm cloak. I didn’t have talent. Therefore, I wasn’t responsible for anyone’s death.

  Besides, there was no guarantee that I was some kind of pre- or post-cog. Who the hell knew? Maybe I would be a telekinetic or something, able to pull down a majorly large paycheck from a chemical company who wanted me to use my ability to just nudge one molecule next to another, create new materials for them.

  Telekinetics had to see what they were doing. Maybe that was the only type of sight I needed.

  “Angela warned me, before she died. That the streets were clean, the people were good, but I needed to be careful about what I saw,” I told Hunter after a few more minutes. We were almost to my apartment block. “Sam warned me, too. So I really don’t want to expand my vision. To see, not like how you mean.”

  I already felt as though I’d seen too much, seen Angela with her tongue protruding, Kyle dead with his dick hanging out.

  But Hunter merely shook his head. “I’m sorry, Cassandra, that you don’t understand. Once you see, though, you’ll never want to go back. Not to normal sight. Not ever.”

  “Tell that to all the failed PAs,” I told Hunter. As Sam had said, the dropout rate was high, the suicide rate was rumored to be even higher.

  “You’ll see,” Hunter said, with no sense of irony.

  He escorted me to the front door of my apartment building, then stepped back. I wasn’t about to fucking invite him in. “What?” I asked. “You just going to stand guard all night?”

  Hunter gave me one of his rare smiles. “You don’t need it. You’ll be fine. All on your own.”

  With that he left, leaving me to my nightmares and my guilt.

  ***

  My normal routine in the early/late morning, whenever I returned to my place, was to clean it: to empty the stained white-marble ashtray next to my bed (that would also serve as a hefty weapon I could bash someone’s head in if necessary) as well as the pink-and-white Hello Kitty ashtray next to the stovetop in the kitchen.