Extra Dirty

by Mia Gold

  The girl’s eyes sparked with recognition and she gave Ruby a wave with crumb-dotted fingers.

  Ruby smiled. At least she was doing some good. Seeing that kid eat felt a lot more satisfying than twisting the arm of some spoiled tourist to find out about a murder.

  “You’re back sooner than expected,” Madame Lawrence said. “Want a tea?”

  “I’d love one, thanks.”

  Ruby took a seat at the little table next to the counter, sitting opposite the girl.

  “I’m Ruby. What’s your name?”

  The girl smiled, patted her ear, then her throat, letting out a soft hollow sound.

  Ruby turned to Madame Lawrence “She’s deaf?”

  “Deaf and mute. Been that way since she got a fever a couple of years ago.”

  “Does she go to school?”

  “Most kids around here don’t,” Madame Lawrence replied. “And there ain’t no school for kids like her.”

  “But they have to go to school,” Ruby said, shocked. “It’s the law.”

  “Sure. The government has lots of laws. They don’t enforce them all, though. Maybe they do where you’re from.”

  Ruby turned back to the child, feeling both sorry and powerless. The last time she had been here, Madame Lawrence said that her parents weren’t really parents at all. That, along with her disability and poverty, gave this child almost zero chance of growing up healthy and happy.

  She’d seen this before, in the gyms. The kind of gyms Ruby had trained in, sweaty basement places where powerlifters and martial arts students would go at two o’clock in the morning, were filled with loners and oddballs. As she began to get to know some of them, she found that many, far too many, came from broken homes. Drunken moms, abusive dads, stacks of unpaid bills, these young men and women sheathed themselves in protective muscle and deadly combat moves, and yet they still got hurt on the inside. There was no technique, no amount of muscle mass, that could protect them from the pain of their pasts. Working out with them, Ruby had felt almost guilty having one good parent.

  But even the denizens of those gyms had been healthy and living in a First World country. They had futures if they were strong enough to build one. This girl had nothing.

  “What’s her name?”

  The electric tea kettle whistled. Madame Lawrence switched it off and poured it into a chipped cup.

  “I’m giving you the herbal blend you liked last time.”

  “Thank you. So what’s her name?”

  Madame Lawrence set her tea on the table in front of her. “Never mind her name. It will only make it worse when she disappears down the hill.”

  The Maze. Ruby felt a chill.

  The girl held out her hands, palms toward her. Ruby smiled and put her hands out and the girl started a game of pat-a-cake.

  Ruby warmed up instantly and laughed as the girl laughed. While she had lost her voice, she still was able to giggle and laugh.

  And she had a lot to giggle about. It turned out pat-a-cake in the Bahamas was played differently than the way Ruby had learned it, and she kept missing. Patiently, the girl took her hands and moved them in the right directions. They giggled together at Ruby’s incompetence.

  I should really be teaching her some ju-jitsu moves. She’ll need them in this neighborhood.

  Stop thinking about fighting. At least give the kid the few years of innocence she’ll get to enjoy. They’ll be over soon enough.

  The crunch of breaking glass jolted her out of her thoughts. It sounded like it had come from just outside.

  Right where her rental car was parked.

  Ruby rushed out of the shop just in time to see a thin man in a hooded sweatshirt leaning in the broken passenger’s side window and reaching for something on the dashboard, most likely the radio.

  “Hey!” Ruby sprinted for him.

  The hooded man ducked out of the broken window and bolted.

  Ruby chased after him as the people hanging out on the stoops stared or cheered. She wasn’t sure who they were cheering and decided not to ask.

  She began to gain ground. The man looked thin and a bit short, no doubt underfed like so many in this neighborhood. After a few more steps she grabbed the back of his hoodie, swung him around, and slammed him against the nearest wall.

  She spun him to face her, ready to give a quick nose-breaking punch …

  … and stopped with her fist in midair.

  It was a boy, no more than fourteen, his eyes wide with terror.

  “What the hell you breaking into cars for at your age?” Ruby asked once she found the words.

  “I didn’t take nothing!”

  “You know how much windows cost?”

  Ruby yanked down the hoodie, grabbed an ear, and hauled the kid back to her car as the crowd laughed and he howled.

  Madame Lawrence stood at the door to her shop, hands on her hips, her face impassive.

  “You should know better than to drive a Lexus into this neighborhood,” she said.

  “Tell me about it,” Ruby growled.

  “I just did.”

  Ruby turned to the delinquent. “Everybody’s a comedian. So, you going to give me the money for this window?”

  “How the hell am I going to get that?” the kid asked.

  “I don’t know, a job maybe.”

  The kid snorted like she had just said the stupidest thing in the world. Looking at the neighborhood where he lived, perhaps she had.

  “That’s young Daniel you got by the ear,” Madame Lawrence said as the little girl peeked around her, mouth hanging open. “He’s the worst little punk this town ever threw up. He thinks ‘job’ is a four-letter word, the only four-letter word he won’t use.”

  Ruby glanced from the little girl to Daniel and back again. A few years ago, Daniel hadn’t been much different than the kid Ruby had taken such a shine to, although she had a hard time imagining this pimply boy being nearly as cute.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked. The cheap bravado he tried to put into the question only emphasized his nervousness.

  Ruby gave his ear a hard twist, which got a response proving that Madame Lawrence’s information about his foul mouth was correct, and dragged him to the shop.

  “He ain’t coming in here,” Madame Lawrence declared, blocking the doorway with her ample bulk.

  “Feed him on the stoop then.”

  Ruby couldn’t be sure who looked more surprised, the woman or the boy.

  “What?” they said in unison.

  “I said feed him. I already gave you some money this week.”

  “Why you doing that?” Daniel asked.

  “So I don’t knock your head off,” Ruby growled, giving his ear a final twist.

  “She for real?” Daniel asked Madame Lawrence.

  “Oh yes,” the woman said, raising her hands as if in prayer. “She’s here to save us.”

  Ruby let go of the kid’s ear, gave him a not-too-hard boot to the rear, and waved to the little girl, who giggled.

  “Make sure he gets a square meal, and if he causes you trouble, tell me where he lives next time I’m here. I’ll go and beat him to a pulp.”

  Ruby retrieved her laptop from inside and stormed to her rental car, only to find someone in it, a short Bahamian man with dreadlocks and a Bob Marley muscle shirt. He sat in the passenger’s seat playing with the brick Daniel had used to break the window.

  “Hey, girl. Why you not answering my calls?”

  Ruby groaned. It was the street thug Ruby had dubbed “Bob Marley.” He and two of his friends attacked her in the Maze. After she had beaten them down, she had forced him to show her where the secret fights were held, only to end up fighting for her life in the ring. Now he thought he was her manager.

  So did the owner of that fight club—The King.

  Both wanted her to fight again, and it didn’t look like they’d take no for an answer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Get the hell out of my car,” Ruby said.r />
  “Hey, you should thank me. I saved your radio.”

  “I saved my radio, when I caught that punk back there,” Ruby said, jabbing a finger toward Daniel.

  “Yeah, but while you were hauling him over to Madame Lawrence’s, I stopped his two friends from diving in and taking it when your back was turned.”

  Ruby, still standing next to the open door, looked around. “And where are these two teens now?”

  “Run off.”

  “Riiiight.”

  “Come on in. I cleared the glass off the seats. Where are we going?”

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Bob Marley held up a hand. “I know a good jerk chicken place run by this Jamaican guy. Best anywhere in the Bahamas. My treat.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You gotta eat. You’re in training.”

  Ruby sat in the driver’s seat and locked eyes with him. “Get out. Don’t make me kick your ass in front of all these people.”

  Bob Marley gave her a grin with surprisingly nice teeth. Ruby had always thought murderous street thugs should have bad teeth, it fit with their personalities and lifestyle, and yet his teeth were those of a fashion model. She felt tempted to remedy that.

  “Is that any way to speak to your manager?” he said without any trace of irritation.

  “You’re not my manager.”

  “Yes I am. The King has spoken.” He said this last bit like he was in some medieval costume drama. It would have been laughable if it hadn’t been life threatening.

  “Go away.”

  “You got to hear what I have to say first.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He cocked an eyebrow and chuckled. “Oh, yes you do. Drive. I’ll show you where to go.”

  Ruby’s heart sank. He seemed extra cocky today, which meant Bob Marley had some ace up his sleeve. Probably some new backing by the Maze’s lead thug.

  “The King sent you?” Ruby asked as she turned the ignition.

  “Yeah. Me and him are tight.”

  They drove off as Madame Lawrence, Daniel, and the still-nameless girl stared. At least this new situation saved Ruby from one of Madame Lawrence’s scolding lectures.

  For a minute Bob Marley remained silent, a rare treat when spending time in his company. He only spoke to give directions through the ramshackle neighborhood. Ruby glanced at him sidelong and noticed he seemed deep in thought. She didn’t think that was possible. But the way his brow furrowed and his lips moved as if speaking silently to himself, it was proving difficult. She doubted thought, deep or shallow, happened very often in that head.

  “You don’t want to fight,” he said.

  “You’re a genius. How did you figure that out?”

  “But you gotta fight. The King will bust you if you don’t.”

  “Incredible. Your insight is truly legendary.”

  “Take a right here. And I can’t be your manager if you don’t fight for The King. If I tried to set up independent fights, he’d kill me dead.”

  “Another stunning insight.”

  “So we got a problem.”

  “More like I have a problem. You can go back to your usual stabbings and housebreakings.”

  “Ha! No houses worth breaking into where I live, and if I go outside of my hood I get spotted in two seconds flat.”

  “Well, you still got the stabbings. That’s something at least.”

  “Yeah, but no one gets rich mugging people in the Maze. I want to move up in the world.”

  “Get a job.”

  The look he gave her was even worse than the one Daniel had.

  After a moment he went on.

  “No point trying to get you to fight if you don’t want to. You’re the kind of bi--, um babe, um, woman, who does what she wants and only what she wants.”

  “Another brilliant insight. I know a university professor you should meet. I think you’re his equal in IQ.”

  Bob Marley’s face lit up. “Really?”

  “No. Where’s this jerk chicken place?”

  “Up ahead. It’s that little place on the left.”

  Bob Marley pointed to a small house that looked slightly better than the others in the neighborhood. Below a sign on the front wall that said only “chicken” was a brightly colored mural showing plates of chicken, beans, and plantains. The front door was open, another rarity in a neighborhood where everything remained locked up tight.

  Ruby parked in front.

  “I don’t want to leave the car,” she said. The neighborhood didn’t look much better than the one they had left.

  With a few deft movements, Bob Marley removed the radio.

  “Hey!” Ruby objected.

  “I’ll put it back when we’re done,” he said, handing it to her. She tucked it under her arm along with the laptop bag. “Now I’ll make sure no one comes around trying to steal nothing else.”

  He got out, and his face immediately changed. It hardened, and a glint came to his eye. From his pocket he whipped out a butterfly knife and opened and closed it, making a loud rat a tat tat, rat a tat tat.

  The sound jolted Ruby back to when she had first met this thug, when she had descended into the Maze trying to track down a murderer. He and two of his friends—a giant muscle man and a whacked-out machete junky—had tried to mug her. If she hadn’t broken the leg of the muscle man and sliced up the junky, they might have taken a lot more than her money.

  She needed to remember that Bob Marley’s goofy, pleasant exterior hid the soul of a wild animal.

  A wild animal that would try to tear her apart if it didn’t get what it wanted.

  Bob Marley glared at everyone within sight—the woman with the ice cream cart across the street, the men playing checkers on a nearby stoop, the young couple just coming out of the jerk chicken place, and especially the teenage boys kicking a soccer ball around a nearby empty lot. Everyone gave him wary looks and quickly found something else to look at. The young couple veered off across the restaurant’s front lawn, clutching each other as they wove through a collection of plastic pink flamingos.

  “All right,” Bob Marley said after a minute. “Word will spread.”

  “Wish you had done that before I got my window busted,” Ruby said, getting out. Habit made her lock the doors. A moment later she realized how silly that looked.

  Bob Marley put away his knife and grinned. “I’ll take care of you, girl, watch your back. Maybe I can move in with you.”

  “Keep dreaming.”

  “Where you live, anyway?”

  “You think I’m stupid?”

  They walked up the path and into the little house with the jerk chicken sign. Briefly she thought about sweeping his legs and running back to the car. As soon as she had the thought, she dismissed it. That wouldn’t stop him from badgering her, and it would only piss him off. She might as well deal with this problem while it was in front of her.

  Inside, she saw the living room had been converted into a seating area with room enough for six tables. Five of those tables were occupied. The rich smell of spices filled the air. Ruby’s mouth watered.

  “Looks popular,” Ruby said as they sat at the only free table. Everyone watched them out of the corner of their eyes.

  They ordered from a teenage Jamaican girl who Ruby guessed was the daughter of the owner. Bob Marley flirted with her until Ruby gave him a hard kick to the shins.

  The girl walked into the back room and came out moments later with two plates heaped with food that she plunked down on their table.

  “Oh, um, I think there’s been a mistake,” Ruby said.

  “There’s no menu here,” Bob Marley said. “You get what they cook, and everything in this place is tasty and hot.”

  He said this while leering at the girl, who giggled, gave him a shy smile, and walked off, adding a little swing to her hips as she did so.

  “Yum,” Ruby’s self-styled manager said as he watched her go.

  That earned him another k
ick in the shins.

  “You’ll stop being angry when you taste this.”

  Ruby looked down at her food. At least half a chicken rested on a bed of wild rice with a side of collard greens, grilled pineapple, and sweet potatoes. Bob Marley dug in with gusto.

  While Ruby had eaten breakfast only a few hours before, this looked too good to resist. She picked up a drumstick and took a big bite.

  And immediately felt like a fire-alarm fire had broken out on her taste buds.

  She coughed, grabbed the water pitcher sitting on the center of the table, and poured herself a glass. She gulped it down as Bob Marley laughed.

  “Aw, white girl ain’t so tough on the inside.”

  “Shut up, how can you eat this?”

  “Born on the islands. Incomers like you need breaking in.”

  “Jesus,” she muttered, drinking some more water. It did taste good, though, now that the conflagration had died down to a low sizzle.

  Ruby paced herself, nibbling at the chicken while also enjoying the side dishes. Her taste buds still groaned with torture, but Ruby couldn’t stop. Bob Marley was right, this was the best jerk chicken on the islands.

  He stayed silent for a while, which was just fine by Ruby. She could hear the gears turning in his mind, though. He had thought of something and was trying to figure out the best way to sell it to her.

  It came when they had almost finished their meal.

  His face lit up in a terrible pantomime of having just had a great idea. Ruby half expected him to leap up and shout “eureka!”

  “I know! We can make them charity fights.”

  “Charity fights?”

  “Yeah. You’ve been going to Madame Lawrence’s to feed that kid and—”

  Rage flared up inside her. “Touch her and I kill you.”

  Bob Marley looked genuinely offended. “You think I’m a pervert?”

  “I can’t begin to imagine all the things you are.”

  He looked down and shook his head. “I ain’t no pervert. Sure, I do bad stuff. That’s how I gotta live. Easy for you to talk, rich white girl.”

  “I’m not rich.”