Devil With a Gun

by M. C. Grant

  I shake my head. “He’s smarter than that. Lebed will have his own doctors.”

  “You don’t know that this man works for Lebed. You told me you didn’t see his face.”

  “No, but he didn’t deny working for him, either.”

  “Did he have an accent?”

  “No. Not everyone in the organization does.”

  Frank glances in the direction of the bedroom, where young Detective Shaw and an attractive female officer with flawless Halle Berry skin are interviewing Bailey and Roxanne.

  “Why would Lebed want the sisters dead?” he asks.

  “Roxanne belongs to him. I took her away.”

  Frank dismisses the statement. “He keeps a large stable. One misplaced girl isn’t going to mean much, and he definitely doesn’t want me on his case when—and I hate to sound crude—but a flash of cash can make these girls come running back to work much easier than a threat.”

  I want to argue, to stand up for Roxanne, but I know Frank’s right. Roxanne didn’t exactly plead with me to get her out of the hotel. I look over to the bedroom and meet her gaze. She’s barely listening to the two officers as they interview her sister. Her eyes are focused on me, and they’re hurting. A pain that I’ll likely never fully comprehend is pulsing behind aqua blue jewels clouded in a crimson mist.

  I wonder if, despite her denial, she knows the gunman. What if she made a secret call while I was out? Told him where she was.

  She didn’t know I had a gun. Neither sister did.

  “What are you thinking?” Frank asks. “I can see the gears working from here.”

  “I need better locks,” I say.

  “Best locks in the world won’t keep out a determined man,” says Frank. “We have a guy on Entry Squad named Dozer who can swing a battering ram like nobody’s business. If Dozer can’t get it done, we switch over to Gently, an explosives’ expert who makes holes in walls any size and shape he wants. I saw him enter a crack house through a hole that, I swear, looked just like the Death Star.”

  “That’s not comforting,” I say.

  Frank shrugs. “It’s reality. A good deadbolt does the job ninety percent of the time. For the other ten, you need something better than a lock.” He glances over at the blue case resting on the coffee table. “Good job you opened your birthday present early.”

  “I forgot to thank you for that.”

  Frank’s lips dance and his hand stretches out to squeeze my knee. “The best thanks I can ask for is seeing you sitting here in one piece.”

  “Awww,” says Kristy as she reaches out to pat Frank’s hand. “That’s so sweet.”

  Frank’s face instantly returns to a block of unyielding granite as he retrieves his hand and stands up.

  As soon as they see their boss standing, Detective Shaw and the female officer leave the bedroom and approach.

  “Anything?” Frank asks.

  Shaw glances down at me, obviously wanting to take the conversation out of earshot.

  “It’s OK,” says Frank. “If she doesn’t hear it now, she’ll just annoy the hell out of you until you tell her later anyway.”

  Though pretending not to be listening, I smile, pleased with the compliment.

  “Neither of them saw his face,” says Shaw. “The younger one is a piece of work though. She’s fighting it, but she’s riding a snake.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask. “Riding a snake?”

  “Snakes and ladders,” injects the female detective. “Your friend is sliding into withdrawal. Judging by the track marks, I’d say heroin is her main course, but she’s also smoking a between-meal snack of either crack or crystal.”

  Her tone is factual rather than judgmental, which I appreciate. Pity she’s so attractive, as I’m already halfway to my quota.

  Dixie’s Tips #16: Super attractive friends are fine, but never have more than two at one time—otherwise your odds of being the sacrificial “ugly one” for the handsome boy’s “wingman” increase to a seriously depressing level.

  She holds out her hand. “I’m Betty. Detective Betty White.”

  “Like the actress?” I say.

  “Except younger, darker, and nowhere near as funny.”

  I grin—too late, I like her—and shake her hand.

  “How do I treat withdrawal?” I ask.

  “Two ways,” says Betty. “Cold turkey, which means tying her to a bed, taking a shitload of verbal abuse, and cleaning up puke for a week. Or take her to a clinic and get her enrolled in a methadone program.”

  “But?” I sense the unspoken words in her tone.

  Betty meets my gaze. “She thinks she’s handling it, which means she isn’t ready to admit there’s a problem. She’s injecting between her toes because she believes that if no one sees the injection points, no one can tell. I’ve known addicts who inject themselves in the corner of their eyes, nasal passages, and moist places you don’t want to think about, and they still think they don’t have a problem.”

  “So, option one,” I say.

  “Both options get them clean, but neither one keeps them that way. That’s a bigger step.”

  Frank interjects. “Are we done here?”

  Both detectives straighten up and nod.

  Frank turns to me. His face is weary and disappointed, like a father who’s found a condom wrapper in his teenage daughter’s nightstand drawer.

  “I’ll leave a uniform in the lobby until morning. Get some sleep, Dix. We’ll talk about this mess later.”

  After everyone has left, Bailey and Roxanne return to bed, while I curl into a ball on the couch.

  I resist the urge to suck my thumb and pout, though I do keep the gun case on the coffee table close at hand.

  I doubt I’ll be able to get any sleep, but I surprise myself by drifting off.

  When I open my eyes again, darkness has been replaced by morning light and Bailey is gone.

  Nineteen

  “Did she say anything?” I ask.

  Roxanne is in the armchair; a bullet wound bleeding antique white stuffing inches from her head. She’s drowning in a borrowed pair of fleece pajamas with her knees pulled up to her chin. Her bare feet are bruised, a purple-yellow cancer spreading from between her toes. Tension pulses in waves through her undernourished frame making her eyes practically bleed, and her dripping nose is that of a pouting child rather than a woman hardened in the kiln of neglect.

  She sniffs and shakes her head.

  “No note?” I press. “Nothing?”

  She glares at me, angry at the repetition.

  “OK.” I back off. “We’ll find her.”

  The glare intensifies. “You think she’s gone to him, don’t you?”

  I shrug, but there’s a reason I bet on horses and dogs rather than play poker.

  “Don’t!” She hisses. “Don’t you treat me like a child. I grew up a long time ago.”

  “I know you did.”

  “Don’t do that either.”

  “What?”

  “Act like you give a damn. I don’t need nobody to care for me.”

  “We all need someone—”

  “I don’t! So stuff your caring. You think you can—” She looks away and scrapes at her eyes, but her skin is impermeable to tears. “You think you know me? You have no fucking clue. Do-gooders like you think it’s about sex. That sucking a dick is sucking a dick, and you can just put it behind you.” She laughs, but there’s no humor in it, only pain. “Fucking, sucking, pissing, whipping … that’s the least of what

  I do.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  “And you never will. You think that pen in your hand gives you a right to dig into my life and try an’ fix things? Well, it don’t. It’s just a fucking pen.”

  “This isn’t my fault,” I say.

>   Roxanne snorts. “Then whose is it? If you hadn’t stuck your big nose in, Bailey would still be cutting hair and I would be … where I’m meant to be.”

  “And where’s that? Screwing sailors and sticking needles between your toes to pretend you’re not dead inside?”

  Roxanne blanches and tugs the pajama cuffs over her exposed feet but instantly punishes herself for the flinch by nipping her inner cheek with her teeth. It’s something I’ve noticed her do before, but I didn’t realize it was on purpose. Her inner flesh must be a transit map of repressed pain.

  “Yeah,” she snarls, her head turning away from me to focus on the front window. “Cause that’s what I am, daddy’s little junkie whore.”

  “Who calls you that?” I ask in a gentler tone.

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Lebed?”

  Her eyes fix on mine again, but their intensity is sputtering, like a fire that’s consumed most of the oxygen in a room and has nowhere left to go.

  “You can’t help yourself, can you?” she says. “Always questions.”

  “It’s the only way I know to get answers.”

  “And why do you need them?”

  “Because I want to help.”

  “Why?”

  My words stumble as I struggle with the question. “I’m not sure I—”

  “Why do you stick your nose in other people’s shit? Why write stories?”

  “I guess it’s how I make a difference,” I blurt. “I don’t want to fight in a war, I don’t want to run into a burning building when everyone else is running out or make my mark in public office, but I want to connect—to let people see what and who is behind the headlines. I still believe that reporters make a difference. Our stories open eyes, keep most politicians honest, and act as the community’s watchdog. It’s the storytellers who are tasked with not just reporting history as it’s made, but being a public voice to stand up for injustice and shine a spotlight on corruption. It’d be easier not to give a damn, but we’re made this way—too flippin’ curious.”

  “Then maybe this is how I’m made,” says Roxanne.

  “No!” Once ignited, my anger burns hot. “No woman, and especially not a child, is born to be a whore.”

  Roxanne actually smiles. It’s almost pretty.

  “I’m glad you used that word,” she says. “I hate it when people say ‘sex worker’. Makes it sound like I jerk off chickens for a living. I’m a whore, plain and simple. Give me cash and you can use my body as a fucking ashtray.”

  I blanch. “Who calls you daddy’s little whore?”

  She smiles again, but it’s thinner and sharper than before. “You guessed right, but it was a long time ago. I was Lebed’s plaything until puberty hit. Soon as my tits started showing, he threw me out of his house and onto the circuit.”

  “The circuit?” I ask.

  She hugs her knees tighter and wipes her nose on the fleece. “It starts out okay: private clients, five-star treatment, nice clothes, pedicures and manicures; a lot of threesomes, fantasy games, deflowering the sons of important men. That’s actually a word they use: deflowering. As if the horny little pricks haven’t been jerking off for years. Some of the boys were sweet, though, especially those who were too scared to tell their daddies they were gay. Others were assholes, turning their fathers’ disapproval into a cruel streak. I fell from top-tier to bottom faster than most after I stuck a letter opener through one idiot’s cock. He was threatening to cut off one of my nipples as a souvenir at the time and I panicked.”

  “What were you supposed to do?” I ask. “Let him cut you?”

  Roxanne releases her knees and lowers her feet to the floor as Prince jumps off the couch and onto the arm of her chair. With a warm, fleece-lined lap exposed, Prince steps onto her thighs and kneads a little before turning around three times and curling into a furry cinnamon roll.

  Roxanne pets the purring cat without answering my question.

  I ask another. “Is the hotel where I found you the bottom rung?”

  She shakes her head. “It might look like it, but there’s lower. Lots lower.”

  “Why haven’t you left?”

  “And go where?”

  “Your sister loves you. She’d take you in.”

  Fresh tears glisten in swollen eyes. “Until last night, I wouldn’t have believed that.”

  “And now?”

  “We need to get her back before it’s too late.”

  “You agree she went to Lebed?”

  Roxanne nods.

  “To bargain for you?”

  She nods again.

  “And what will he ask in exchange?” I ask.

  “There’s only one thing he’s interested in.”

  “What?”

  “My father.”

  “So, your father’s alive,” I say.

  “He has to be.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if he isn’t, Lebed wouldn’t give a shit about us. He’d have used us and tossed us without a second thought, but he’s always kept close watch—we’re his bait.”

  “You and your sister?” I say. “Even when Bailey was living in Boston?”

  Roxanne nods. “He’d tell me. Lebed. When he was lying beside me, making me do what he wanted, he’d tell me about my sister, where she lived, who she saw, what he would do to her if I ever tried to run away.”

  “Jesus, what a bastard.”

  Roxanne grins. “Oh yeah.”

  “Bailey thought she escaped.”

  “There is no escape. He has eyes everywhere.”

  “And why does he want your father?” I ask.

  “I tried to ask, but he would never get into specifics and always got angry if I pressed too hard. But it has something to do with that night before I was born; the night Bailey remembers when Lebed came to my parents’ apartment. He hired my father to do something, but I think Dad was supposed to die, too. Only he didn’t, and Lebed’s been looking for him ever since.”

  “Twenty years is a long time to stay in hiding. He could be anywhere. South America? The North Pole?”

  Roxanne shakes her head. “No, he stayed close.”

  “How do you know?”

  Her voice is barely a whisper. “I’ve seen him.”

  “What? Where? When?”

  “Just … glimpses. Sometimes at the hotel; sometimes in the street. He’s never talked to me, and at first I thought it was my imagination putting my father’s face on other men’s shoulders. After all, I only know him from pictures, but it’s him. I’m sure of it.”

  “Did you tell Bailey this?”

  She shakes her head and chews at her nails.

  I stand up and run fingers through my unkempt hair. “She’s got nothing to bargain with. What the hell was she thinking?”

  There’s a crack in Roxanne’s voice. “She’s trying to be a big sister again. After all these years, she still thinks she has to protect me.”

  I glance down at the blue case on the coffee table. “I need to see Lebed.”

  “Why would he see you? He holds all the cards.”

  “Not all of them,” I say.

  “No?”

  I lock eyes with Roxanne. “I still have you.”

  Twenty

  After showering and pulling on fresh clothes, I phone Stoogan at the NOW office to let him know I’m still pursuing the Father’s Day piece.

  “Care to share any details with your stressed-out, death-by-a-thousand-meetings editor?” he asks. “Just so I’m not throwing out random cover-my-reporter’s-ass, made-up-bullshit promises of content forthcoming.”

  “You’ll love it,” I say with a chuckle. “Adoring daughters searching for their missing father. Kittens and balloons.”

  “Kittens and balloons?”

  “OK. M
aybe not balloons.”

  Stoogan sighs. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “Because you’re a distrusting and cynical man?”

  “With a nose for bullshit,” he adds.

  “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

  “You’ve never steered me straight.”

  I guffaw at the same time there’s a knock on the apartment door.

  “I have to go, but keep the cover slot open. I have a lead on the missing dad to give you that squishy, feel-good ending the publisher craves.”

  “Squishy?”

  I chuckle. “That’s why you’re such a good editor, boss, you pick up on words like that.”

  Stoogan sighs heavily again and hangs up.

  Roxanne is in the shower with the door closed. No radio, no singing, just running water. I find it oddly unsettling, like sleep without dreams.

  A shower is my favorite part of the day, a time to align my mind and set the mood. Upbeat music helps get the blood flowing and replace some of the worries with fresh and positive thoughts. Bathing in silence, or alone for that matter, does nothing helpful—except get you clean.

  I answer the knock at the door to find Mrs. Pennell standing in the hallway.

  “I didn’t want to bother you last night,” she says without preamble. “With all the police and such. The nice officer downstairs filled me in and told me everybody was all right, and I’m so glad to hear that. Last time there was trouble, you had that great big knife stuck in your hand and what a mess that was.” She tuts. “But guns? Guns! What’s going on, Dixie?”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Pennell.” I squirm. “I don’t know what to say. The police are looking for the man who broke in.”

  “Why is it always your place?”

  I shrug, not wanting to get into the whole story and cause unnecessary panic. “Maybe they think a single woman is an easy target.”

  She clucks her tongue louder in disgust.

  “Well, I hope they find him and throw away the key. I’m lucky I have King William on guard, but a gun in my home! Indeed.”

  The sound of the shower clicks off.