Playing Dirty

by C. L. Parker

  Denver wasn’t the only man in the spotlight. A lot of claps landed on my back, as well. It felt good, the respect I’d been given. Some of those men had been like fathers to me, but they knew how all of this would go down. Denver hadn’t yet chosen me, but if he did—when he did—they damn sure wanted my support to persuade him to sign with Detroit.

  Cassidy just hovered somewhere in the background, not really a part of the conversations taking place. It wasn’t that they didn’t know who she was, but the fact that she really had no part of this deal meant she represented nothing more than the woman on Denver’s arm. And I was okay with that … this time.

  The tour of Ford Field brought back a whole lot of memories of my time spent there as a teenager. This was where my career as an agent had all begun, where Monty Prather had taken an uneducated kid and turned him into a lean, mean signing machine. Ford Field had been my salvation even before then, keeping me off the streets and out of harm’s way when no one else was there to protect me. Some life-changing moments that I would never forget had happened right there.

  Like the time I witnessed a player having a scene with his wife in front of the whole team after a practice. She’d apparently gotten a call from some chick claiming to have been sleeping with him and had gotten a little psychotic over it. One thing had led to another, and before I knew what was happening, that douche bag had stormed off and left his very hysterical, very hot wife in a crumpled mess in the middle of the field. She’d embarrassed herself for the sake of love, and he’d abandoned her there like she hadn’t mattered in the least. I’d seen it one too many times with my own mother and father, and I’d offered her some comfort. There had been no way for me to predict what would result from my kind deed. I’d been a seventeen-year-old kid at the time, and she was twice my age, but she’d made me a man when she’d taken my virginity. Damn, had she ever. Eventually, I’d gotten revenge for her when my very first client took her cheating husband’s spot on the roster and with double the pay.

  I was soaring by late in the evening when we finally wrapped things up at the stadium to head over to the MGM Grand, where I’d booked our rooms. Denver’s arm was over my shoulder when we walked out, making us look every bit like a team. Cassidy was on his other arm, pouting, from what I could tell. No deals had been made yet, but I saw no reason why they wouldn’t be in the very near future. Life was fucking good.

  And then I hit a brick wall.

  It wasn’t until I got us checked in at the hotel and the front desk agent handed me the keys to the rooms I’d reserved that I realized there were only two. Two keys for two rooms. One for me, one for Denver. Which left Cassidy where? She damn sure wasn’t going to be shacking up with her boy toy. Not on my watch, and certainly not on my dime.

  Tucking the keys into my pocket, I turned to face them with a smile. “Ready?”

  Cassidy looked more than ready, as did Denver. “Hell yeah, man. I’m jet-lagged and half hungover from all the excitement today.”

  Well, that had me beaming. Denver was feeling properly worshipped, which made me start mentally arranging the furniture in my new office at Striker with the word “PARTNER” in gold on the door. Things were definitely going my way, and all the shit I’d done, all the ladders I’d climbed, all the asses I’d kissed would be worth it in the end. Finally, I’d be able to settle down and know that I’d done it. I’d accomplished something with my life.

  Not bad for a kid from Detroit who’d started out with nothing more than a sliver of hope and a silver tongue.

  Getting through the lobby to the elevators took longer than expected, thanks to a group of people shouting Denver’s name and asking him to pose for selfies or sign autographs. It wasn’t a bad thing. As long as the fans loved him, we were guaranteed a fat payday. I might have even enjoyed the dirty looks some of the women were shooting Cassidy, but eventually I managed to get the object of their affection into the elevator and behind closed doors.

  “Damn, I’ll never get used to that,” he said, and then he brushed a stray lock of hair back from Cassidy’s face. “You okay?”

  She nodded with a weak smile. “Just tired.”

  The exchange seemed a little too sweet for my liking, though it solidified the sacrifice I was willing to make to ensure that whatever was going on between them didn’t cross the line.

  Once we’d gotten to the eighth floor, I steered them down the hall, then stopped before the side-by-side rooms. I handed one key to Denver and the other to Cassidy.

  “What about you?” Cassidy asked.

  “I’m, um … I have other plans,” I told her.

  The way her brow furrowed in confusion was sort of cute. “You’re not staying here?”

  It was then that I saw an opportunity to flip the table and maybe make her little green-eyed monster come out to play. “It’s not often that I get to come back to Detroit, so when I do, there’s someone I like to visit.” I gave her a wink, really selling the line I wanted her to buy.

  “Oh. That sounds nice,” she said, and then: “I should probably get a shower. I feel so nasty from that flight.”

  Bam! There it was. Green-eyed monster was in the house. But then mine also decided to make an appearance when I started to question the tone in her voice. Did she mean she wanted to clean up so she could be with Denver after all? Or was she saying she was disgusted by what we’d done earlier? Either way, it was a well-executed stab.

  “You know, that’s an excellent idea,” I said and then turned to Denver. “Hey, buddy? Do you mind if I use your shower real quick?”

  His chuckle was mischievous, and his knowing look right on time with the bro code. “Of course, man,” he said, opening his door. “Mi casa es su casa.”

  The shower was sublime, but finding Cassidy in the hallway when I stepped out was not. She’d changed clothes, makeup and hair in place. Though she looked more relaxed in her jeans and oversized shirt, the deer-in-headlights expression was a dead giveaway that she was up to something. So was the fast pace with which she walked toward the elevator.

  “Where are you going?” I asked, following her.

  “Nowhere. I just, um …” She shrugged, attempting to act nonchalant and failing miserably. “You know, thought I’d go for a walk. Maybe check out the casino. What about you?” She pushed the down button to call the lift.

  “I told you … I have someone I need to see.”

  “Oh. Yeah. That’s right.” She shifted from foot to foot. “Well, have fun!” With a quick wave, she stepped onto the elevator like she didn’t expect me to as well. I rather enjoyed bursting her bubble.

  “Detroit really isn’t a safe place for a woman to wander around by herself at night,” I warned her when the doors closed. “You shouldn’t leave the hotel, and if you do, please make sure you stay in a crowd of people.”

  She nodded with an “Mm-hmm, sure” that wasn’t convincing.

  Turning her to face me, I finally got her attention. “I’m serious, Cassidy. We may have our differences, but I wouldn’t want to see anything happen to you, either.”

  She looked at my hand on her shoulder, and I removed it. “I’m a big girl, Shaw. I’ll be fine. You just go do whatever or whoever it is you’re going to do.”

  When she turned toward the doors with her arms crossed over her chest, I smiled victoriously. She was jealous. And I liked it.

  The doors opened, and she walked out without another word. I watched as she did so, admiring the view from behind. Damn, but she had a fantastic ass. Shaking myself from the stupor, I went in the opposite direction, toward the main exit, and stepped outside.

  “How can I help you, sir?” the doorman asked.

  “A cab, please.”

  He blew his whistle and one of the waiting cars pulled up in front, stopping to let the doorman open my door. Slipping a twenty into his hand, I nodded my thanks.

  Before I’d even gotten situated in the backseat, the driver was on it. “Where to?”

  “Seven Mile,” I an
swered, closing the door.

  “East or west?”

  “East.”

  He turned in the seat and gave me the once-over. “Dressed like that? Are you sure?”

  I didn’t need to look at myself. I knew what he was talking about. Someone dressed like me in that neighborhood was a walking target. But I had to do what I had to do. “Yes.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “It’s your funeral. The fare is going to be twenty-seven dollars, payable before I leave this curb.”

  Some things never change. This was one of those things. Cabbies got their money up front for two reasons. The first was to make sure they didn’t get stiffed. I pulled two more twenties from my wallet and stuck them through the plastic barrier that separated us. “Keep the change,” I said, knowing he deserved the hefty tip. And then he put the car into gear.

  I would’ve called an old friend if I’d had one. But I didn’t. Having friends in Detroit meant having someone to lose. It hadn’t always been that way. I’d just been forced to learn a hard lesson very early on in my life.

  One day when I was a young boy, I’d been at my only friend’s house. We’d been doing what any other kids our age would’ve been doing: playing with cars in the middle of the living room floor while his mom cooked dinner and her boyfriend watched the sports channel from the couch. There’d been no warning before the front door was kicked in and a man wearing a ski mask charged the space to use the boyfriend’s forehead for target practice. He blew the guy’s brains out right in front of us, soaking my favorite Superman T-shirt in blood and God only knew what else, and then he walked out like he hadn’t a care in the world. Chaos erupted after that. My friend’s mother wailed so loud it pierced my ears, and neighbors were soon crowding the room to gawk at the scene. No one noticed the kid who walked out like an emotionless zombie. I made it home sometime later, though I couldn’t recall the journey. And then I cleaned myself up and crawled under my bed to huddle in the corner, shaking and in shock. It wasn’t right for a child to be exposed to so much horror, and even then I knew that for as long as I lived, I’d never be able to erase the events of that day from my mind.

  I didn’t make any friends after that. It was safer that way.

  Now I was a successful man with a white-collar job, living in an upper-class neighborhood. It was easy for someone on the outside to assume that they knew what I was all about. But how could one person pass judgment on another without ever bothering to find out where they’d come from? Seven Mile Road was a place that stayed with you, no matter where you went or how long you were away, though I didn’t have to let it define me.

  The car came to a stop at the edge of hell, and the cabbie told me to get out. Even though I’d lived here for the majority of my life, I still wasn’t prepared for the sudden rush. This was the second reason cabbies were paid up front: so they didn’t have to put themselves in even more jeopardy by waiting for their money, which stood a good chance of being stripped away before it ever reached their hand. Cabdrivers never ventured beyond a certain point. If they did, they weren’t guaranteed safe passage. In fact, they were almost assured of robbery and very probably faced homicide.

  The instant I was out of the vehicle, the driver took off like a bat out of hell. Instinct kicked in then as if I’d never left this place, and I headed for the shadows.

  Cassidy

  No sooner had Shaw hopped a cab than I was hot on his trail. For whatever reason, I had to see where he was going. Or maybe it was that I had to see whom he was paying a special visit to. It was probably an old girlfriend, which sort of made me nauseated.

  If I’d been nauseated before, I had the fear of God put in me when the driver of my taxi came to an abrupt stop and ordered me out of the car, then practically burned rubber in his haste to bust a U-turn. Talk about rude! He definitely wasn’t a people person, but I couldn’t waste time contemplating the mental issues of a total stranger when I had to play catch-up with Shaw, who had a good lead, thanks to my insistence that my driver hang back a bit.

  It didn’t take me long to find him, though it was weird that he, too, was keeping to the darkness instead of walking down the middle of the sidewalk. For a second, I wondered if he was trying to sneak up on someone, but it didn’t take me long to figure out the situation.

  Holy shit, I was in the middle of a war zone. A very, very scary war zone. Only there were no heroes sporting the red, white, and blue, ready to save the day. We were on our own.

  Abandoned buildings lined both sides of the street, interspersed between gas stations and car parts stores that were in such a state of disrepair that I couldn’t tell if they were still in operation or not. The streets were virtually empty except for the occasional vehicle that either crept by at an eerie pace or sped down the street like there was an emergency. The luxury SUVs with twenty-four-inch wheels, chrome grilles, and thumping stereo systems stood out like a sore thumb in an area ravished by poverty. What would someone who could afford something like that be doing in a neighborhood such as this?

  Shaw was ducking in and out of the shadows, half-sprinting from one to the next, and I followed his lead, undetected. Though I nearly mucked that up when I tripped over a random door that had been thrown out onto an overgrown lawn. What did it say for an area when a person was safer in the shadows than in the light?

  My heart was racing, and it had nothing to do with the pace I’d been keeping. No, it was frantically trying to break out of my chest and make a run for safety, the cowardly traitor. This was the stupidest idea I’d ever had. Even if Shaw did eventually end up somewhere safe, what about me? He couldn’t know that I was following him, which meant I’d be left in this postapocalyptic universe, and maybe even end up fighting for my life in some underground thunderdome where survival was a blood sport the residents of Seven Mile saw as nothing more than entertainment.

  Black smoke and the sound of crackling wood drew my attention as we passed yet another charred home, though this one was freshly ablaze. There were no firefighters on the scene, no police officers to block off the area, and no concerned citizens standing out front wringing their hands and praying for the safety of the house’s occupants. No one cared. Not one person. By morning, it would simply add to the skeletal landscape of this part of urban America.

  I considered for a moment that perhaps we’d wandered onto the set of a horror flick, but the chances of that weren’t all that high. Though how cool would that have been? It certainly would explain the heebie-jeebies that had been dancing along my spine since the moment I’d been practically shoved out of the cab.

  A gunshot rang out in the distance and I ducked, terrified that a stray bullet might inadvertently find its way through my unprotected chest. Shaw didn’t flinch. He just kept going. Probably because it was harder to hit a moving target. Kevlar would’ve been nice, but not standing in one place to invite violence upon my personage sounded good, too. So I got with the program, picking up the pace. And I thought real hard about attracting Shaw’s attention so he could hold my hand.

  Without a doubt, my life was in danger. I’d never been more relieved than when Shaw stepped inside an apartment building. Though I seriously rethought that when I peeked through the window in the door and saw the inside. This building could have been marked for demolition. The walls and floor were filthy, the hall littered with trash and broken glass, and the piping could be seen through holes in the drywall. Only one ceiling light was actually working, and my imagination ran wild with the possibility that nefarious rapists might be lurking in the dark, waiting for the chance to get their hands on a woman like me.

  “I am so not going in there.” Another shot rang out, closer this time, and I changed my tune. “Bring it on, perverts,” I said, throwing open the door and putting my back to the wall the second I was inside.

  I barely caught sight of Shaw as he turned the corner at the top of the stairs, and I crept up, trying to stay low while also testing each step for squeaks. I’d come too far to get caug
ht now; plus, I didn’t want to alert anyone else to my presence. At the top of the stairs, I managed to slip into an obscure corner, where I waited and watched. Shaw was standing three doors down, his hand prepared to knock but seemingly suspended in air. And then, finally, he did it.

  “Who is it?” came the rough bark of a lady’s voice.

  “Shaw” was his simple response.

  The clanking of a chain lock and the loud click of a dead bolt sounded before the door was wrenched open. Light from inside the apartment spilled into the hallway, though, thankfully, not enough to expose me. The woman on the other side propped herself against the doorjamb with a cigarette in one hand. She was petite, the clothes hanging from her frame seeming to swallow her whole, and her bleached-blond hair looked dirty in its messy ponytail. Makeup was smeared under her eyes, but the rest of her face was bare, giving away the many wrinkles that pulled at her gaunt cheeks. This woman had seen a very hard life, and it didn’t look like it was ever going to get any better. I couldn’t imagine Shaw being with someone like that.

  The woman took a drag off her cigarette and blew the smoke out, not even bothering to aim it away from Shaw. She also didn’t bother to look for an ashtray before flicking the ashes onto the hallway floor. Then again, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

  She took another drag, her exhalation sending bursts of smoke out with each of her words. “I’d convinced myself I’d never lay eyes on your face again.”