A Friend in the Dark

by C. S. Poe

  “Not that you’d know personally, of course.”

  “Nope.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Rufus ignored the jab and led Sam around a bend before cutting off the main path and following an unofficial trail that took a sudden dip down a hill. The path was overgrown on either side, and the old forest created a thick green canopy overhead. Sycamore, oaks, and hackberry, Rufus told himself. A sweat broke out under his arms, on the back of his neck, and his gut churned uncomfortably as Rufus walked deeper into his memories. He shook himself of that nervous, flip-flop feeling and focused. Yellowwood and Black Cherry were aggressive and required constant upkeep from the Department of Parks and Recreation. Plant lists from the 1800s suggested that while native species had outnumbered the invasive by over seventy percent, most of those trees were found to have been long dead and rotted by the time another survey was conducted in 2006. The invasive trees now outnumbered native, and it was a whole thing with arborists.

  A cigarette lighter briefly illuminated a man’s face just ahead, and a woman’s laugh echoed from somewhere deeper in the trees. Her voice bounced off a nearby rock face and filled the forest with a haunted chuckle.

  Stopping a few feet short to give distance to the stranger, Rufus called, “Hey, is Juliana around?”

  Branches trembled—yellowwood, Rufus thought again—and a figure emerged out of the shadows, light catching him at the waist: painfully thin, bare skin stretched tight over ribs showing under a pinstripe vest, track marks running up the inside of his arm. His face was lost in the darkness, but his voice had a saccharine layer as he cooed, “Juliana? Fuck Juliana, baby. You don’t need that old cooz. Come here. Let me get a closer look at you.”

  Rufus held a hand out toward Sam. “I need money,” he murmured.

  Sam pulled out of his stack of bills, peeled off some, and held them out with a raised eyebrow.

  Rufus snatched the offering, tucked them into his front pocket, and moved toward the skinny guy. “I’m not interested, no offense. Have you seen Juliana?”

  “What’d you got in there?” This close, Rufus could smell something like overheated electronics, or burning plastic—the smell of somebody tweaked out of his mind. “You playing pocket pool for Boy George?”

  “Ten bucks if you tell me where she is.”

  “Ten bucks? I wouldn’t spit on your dick for ten bucks. Big boy, over there, on the other hand….”

  “Pass,” Sam said in a dry voice.

  Boy George, or whoever the hell he was, rocked on his heels. “Why do you want to find that bitch so bad?”

  Rufus cracked his neck to one side and huffed. “Twenty bucks, George. I’m not asking what you’ll do with Andrew Jackson, so don’t butt into my business with Juliana.”

  “Come here. I seen you around here before?”

  “Probably not,” Rufus answered.

  Sam made a very asshole-ish noise in his throat.

  “You’re kinda pretty. You sure?” Then George held out his hand and laughed. “Oh shit, your face. I’m just messing with you; Boy George is very discreet. Lemme see Andrew.”

  Rufus pulled his hand from his pocket, the bills still clutched tight. He tugged free a twenty and waved it.

  “You got plenty there,” Boy George said. “Your big fuck boyfriend gave you plenty. Gimme a hundred, and I’ll tell you where Juliana tricks.”

  “George, I know how these games work. Twenty is enough for the information I’m after. And if this is how you talk to clients, you’d better be more careful.”

  “Who the fuck are you, coming around here, talking to me like that? I ought to tell you to fuck right off.” Only Boy George stayed right where he was, one hand massaging the inside of his elbow. “You’re a fucking asshole, that’s what you are.”

  “Forget him,” Sam said. “He wants to dick us around. We’ll find someone else.”

  Rufus nodded, but to George, he said, “Tell me where Juliana is—for twenty bucks and a thank-you from Daisy.”

  George’s hand froze on his elbow. He leaned in, sending another cloud of that burned-plastic smell swirling past Rufus, and for a moment, hints of his face were visible: too-tight skin across the skull, around the eyes, the sweat-slick hair lank over a high forehead. “Daisy, huh? Haven’t heard that name in a while. Come here again.”

  Rufus took a reluctant step forward. He held up the folded bill again. “How about it?”

  “Well, shit, Red. Isn’t that fucking something?” Then, before Rufus could react, George grabbed the bill and squirreled it away. “She works on the other side of the rock. Up this path.” He pointed vaguely to his left. “At the little gazebo.”

  “How far is it?” Rufus asked.

  “Few minutes.”

  Rufus thanked George and motioned Sam to follow as he rounded the rock face and started up the path as directed.

  “What was that all about?” Sam asked.

  “He thinks Andrew Jackson is hot.”

  “No, the part about Daisy.”

  “Boy George must like flowers.”

  They walked another pace before Sam said, “Uh-huh.”

  Rufus followed the man-made shortcut—grass stomped down and worn away from the constant use of sex workers in this area of the Ramble. Bits of leaves and twigs scraped underfoot, but those were the only whispers between him and Sam. At the top of the hill around the rock face was an official pathway, and partially concealed by the summer greenery, a wooden gazebo about a hundred feet away. Inside the gazebo was the shadow of a person—sort of. It was a decidedly odd shape, someone sitting on one of the benches, with a sort of hump in front of them.

  Rufus halted when his brain finished deconstructing the shape as actually being two people—one sitting, yes, and the other on their knees between open legs. He held his arm out to stop Sam. “We’ll have to wait.”

  “What—uh. Oh.” Sam cocked his head. “Guess grass is easier on your knees than asphalt. Or bathroom tile.”

  Rufus rubbed at the light bristle along his jaw. “I’ve never given a blow job in the grass.”

  “You have to be careful you don’t get stains.” Sam gestured at his knees. “They’re a bitch to get out.”

  Rufus had to work his mouth to keep from grinning outright. “Yeah? I’ll remember that. Next time I’m in the grass, about to get sexy—take my pants off.”

  Nothing really changed on Sam’s face, nothing Rufus could point a finger at, but suddenly his whole expression was different. Intense. Focused. And Sam made a soft noise that could have meant anything.

  Rufus stared at him for another second, two, three—hell, maybe an entire minute. He would have been happy to stare at Sam for the rest of the night while trying to imprint all of those unique, minute details of Sam’s face into his own long-term memory. The mask of nothing absolutely meant something, and Rufus thought, if he could study Sam a bit longer, he’d be able to decipher it.

  Then a small smile broke Sam’s expression. “You’re teasing me.”

  Rufus blinked. “I am?”

  The look that followed wasn’t what Rufus expected: trouble broke the stillness of Sam’s expression like a ripple on smooth waters, there and then gone. He turned to look ahead, into darkness.

  Rufus tucked away that mental snapshot of Sam, tamped down the unyielding need to grab the other man and kiss him until both were gasping for air, and turned to study the two shadows now standing in the gazebo. “Looks like they’re done.”

  No reply from Sam. The big man had his hands tucked under his arms again, and his face was a blank wall.

  Rufus started walking as the customer left the gazebo, moved onto the path, and vanished into the dark. “Juliana?” he called. “Boy George said I could find you here. Can I talk to you?”

  The voice that came back was husky, and although that could have been dismissed as the result of the most recent transaction, other clues told the rest of the story as the woman moved into the light: the shoulders, the hands, the hips. “Wh
o’s asking?”

  “My name’s Rufus. I’m a friend of Jake’s.”

  Juliana froze. Slowly, one of her hands moved to press against her leg, fingers trembling at the hem of the short skirt.

  Sam didn’t actually do anything so crass as lean forward and whisper, She’s got a knife, but the way the big man started rumbling and rustling, it was pretty close.

  “Who’s Jake?” Juliana said.

  Rufus held his hands up in an act of submission. “The cops ask for my help now and then. I keep an eye on the nasty fuckers in the city, and Jake kept an eye on me in return.” Rufus’s voice caught a little and he had to clear his throat. “Something terrible has happened to Jake.”

  Juliana had to be past forty, but she moved on kitten heels without a hint of a wobble as she scurried toward the path. “Look, I’m sorry about your friend, but I don’t know a Jake. You guys should… you should clear out of here.”

  Rufus took a shot in the dark and called out, “What about Sergeant Heckler?”

  “She’s going to run,” Sam said quietly.

  Juliana’s face blanched, and she managed two long strides before one of the heels snapped and she tumbled sideways. She came down hard on her knee, swearing, “Shit, shit, shit.” And then she scrambled up, covering her leg where road rash from the asphalt peeled it open, and faced them, limping back and away. “Stay there, ok? I don’t know Jake. I don’t know Heckler. I don’t know anybody, ok?”

  Rufus still hadn’t moved, still hadn’t lowered his hands. “Jake mentioned your name, Juliana. Now he’s dead and Heckler tried to take me out too. What’s going on? Whatever it is, we’ll help you, I promise.”

  “Tell her about bringing them in from the north,” Sam said, bending to speak the words low into Rufus’s ear.

  Rufus nodded and quickly said, “He told my friend ‘they were brought in from the north.’ What does that mean?”

  Indecision twisted Juliana’s face, but she stopped moving. “You can’t—you can’t just make me disappear. People know me. My girlfriend’s coming right now to check on me, so you just—just stay right there.”

  Her fear was palpable, so viciously relatable, that Rufus felt a very physical pang in his heart. “I’m not going to allow anyone to make you disappear. But I have to know what you’ve seen and heard.”

  “I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. You say you helped Jake?” Juliana scoffed. “Look how he ended up. You want that? I don’t. I shouldn’t have told him, shouldn’t have opened my mouth. Let this go, walk away. Christ knows I’m going to.”

  Rufus tugged his beanie off. “Juliana,” he tried once more, voice thick. “Hang on, please. Daisy didn’t say anything and look what happened to her.”

  At some level Rufus expected what happened next: the chain reaction of confusion, recognition, disbelief, sorrow, and then all of it burning out like a magnesium strip. “Oh, child,” Juliana said, which was a silly way to talk to a man in his thirties, but still hit Rufus hard, harder than he would have liked. Struggle worked its way across Juliana’s features once more, and then she nodded. “Ok. But let’s sit down. My leg is killing me, and don’t get me started about my knees.”

  Rufus took a few steps backward and pointed in the direction of a wooden bench along the edge of the path and nestled up against the tree line. He took a seat first, on the far right, allowing Juliana plenty of space.

  She perched on the end of the bench, crossing her legs at the ankle and massaging the edges of the scraped flesh. Between hisses of pain, she looked at Rufus, dark eyes buried under a mountain of foundation. “I haven’t thought about Daisy in a long time,” she said, her massage slowing. “I don’t mean anything bad, but life moves on, you know? How’d you get caught up in this mess?” Then, nodding at Sam, “And who’s this big brutal bite of a man?”

  Rufus leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees. He eyed Sam briefly before smiling and saying to Juliana, “He’s pretty cute, right? He got an e-mail from Jake, who mentioned meeting you, and now here we both are, trying to figure out who would have wanted Jake dead.”

  “He didn’t say much,” Sam added, “but he told us you gave him information. They were bringing them in from the north. What does that mean?”

  “You don’t even know? You’re swimming with the sharks, boys, and you think you’re still in the kiddie pool.” Juliana stretched, cracking her back, and said, “You said Heckler tried to kill you?”

  Rufus nodded. “What the fuck is going on in Major Cases?”

  “A cop tried to kill you, and you’re still scooting around the city? Jesus Christ, boy, get your butt on a bus. Take strong, dark, and beautiful with you. You’re walking around with a death sentence on your head.”

  “No. I’m not running without understanding why.”

  “He’s just as dumb as he looks, isn’t he?” Juliana said, glancing up at Sam.

  Rufus didn’t look back, couldn’t see the smile, but he heard it in Sam’s voice when he said, “He has his moments. But he’s right about this: we’re not leaving until we know why they killed Jake and how high this goes.”

  “Men: obstinate, ornery, and impossible, the whole lot of you.” Juliana resumed the slow massage of her leg as she spoke quietly, “Jake told you about bringing them in from the north? Those poor kids. They don’t have any idea what they’ve gotten themselves into. And then they’re here, and it’s too late. I… I wouldn’t have said anything if I hadn’t seen it myself. The look on their faces as they started to figure it out. That’s hell, pure and simple. I wouldn’t have said a single word if I hadn’t seen it myself; you can’t shake something like that.”

  Rufus shifted, angled himself more toward Juliana as she spoke. “Sex work, then? Girls? Boys? Both? How old were they?”

  “Both. Teens, mostly, although a few that might be in their twenties. Can’t understand a word they’re saying. Most of them are Asian, don’t know what countries, can’t tell the languages apart, but one time I heard Spanish and I can recognize that.”

  Rufus asked, while his brain sped to catalogue every word, every detail, “Would you be able to describe who was overseeing them? Or know how Heckler ties into this?”

  “I saw her once, and it was… it was after what happened to Jake. I think something must have gone wrong, because she was shouting, raising hell, handing everybody their asses. They’ve got a place out in Queens, this brick duplex, and that’s where they keep the kids. Upstairs, I think, so it’s harder for them to escape. I know I shouldn’t call them kids, but that’s what they look like—poor things.” She shook her head. “I just happened to be walking the block. It was late, really late, and there was the van, Maine license plates, kids coming out of it like it was a clown car. You could tell they had no idea where they were. One of the boys had a big bruise on the side of his face—I could see it from a distance, even with just the porch light. This many years walking the street, I know when something’s hinky, and that stuff, those kids getting out of the van, it was hinky as shit.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Rufus swore. He ran both hands through his hair, making it stick up. “Where in Queens?”

  “Flushing? I wrote it down for Jake. The address, I mean.”

  “Have you talked to anyone else about this?” Rufus continued. “I mean, fucking anyone. Your girlfriend? The mailman? Pet cat?”

  “I haven’t told anyone else.” Her hand moved to the waistband of her skirt, her fingers playing with the elastic. “But a guy’s been asking around about me. He got pretty close, actually. I was zipping Mr. Hoover up when I saw him waiting for me, and… and I freaked. He tried to talk me down, but—” She flashed them a smile. “I guess he wasn’t as charming as my little redheaded prince.”

  “Charming,” Sam said. “Exactly the word I would have chosen.”

  Rufus ignored Sam’s interjection. Those crackers he’d eaten at Jake’s had been hours ago, and the combination of renewed hunger and growing fear was churning stomach acid and cr
eating a nauseating flip-flop feeling in his gut. “Did you get this guy’s name?”

  “Detective Lampo,” Juliana said. “Jake’s partner, the one who needs to invest in a hair piece.”

  “You know Lampo?” Sam asked.

  Rufus glanced up at Sam, still standing all the while. “It makes sense. They were working together on whatever this shit is.”

  “Baby boy, I don’t want any deeper in this than I already am.” Her fingers twisted in the elastic again, and this time, she produced a business card from behind the waistband. “You tell him to stop bothering me. I hurt for what happened to Jake. Broke me up pretty bad. But I’ve got my own pert ass to worry about.” She seemed to hesitate, and then she worked a stub of pencil out of somewhere. She scribbled something on the card and held it out. “That’s the address I gave Jake. And don’t you come around anymore either. Daisy was a long time ago.”

  Rufus’s reach for the card fell short. Yes, Daisy had been a long time ago. But Daisy was also yesterday. And today. Daisy would be tomorrow too. And that stuck to him like a burr. Rufus didn’t say anything more to Juliana as he took the card and got to his feet. He offered it to Sam without reading the details.

  On the click-wobble-click of the broken kitten heels, Juliana moved away from them. Off in the distance, someone was singing Kylie Minogue in falsetto, and the night air moved thickly in the oaks and sycamores and hackberry. Mixed with the lingering smell of mulch and grass and honeysuckle came a chemical cloud of mango—Juliana hitting that vape as she hobbled away.

  Sam didn’t take a step, but he leaned in, the heat of his body flickering against Rufus. “What’s wrong?”

  “Hmm?” Rufus put his beanie on and looked up. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Right,” Sam said. “Nothing’s wrong. That’s great. You get all quiet, you won’t even look at her, but nothing’s wrong. Who’s Daisy?”

  After a long minute, Rufus shrugged and said simply, “She’s a Rufus thing.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN