by Sara Reinke
She opened the door hesitantly and poked her head inside. When she saw him, her dark eyes flew wide and she rushed into the bathroom, throwing her still-smoldering cigarette behind her. “Oh my God,” she gasped, dropping to her knees. She reached for him, then drew back, her eyes growing wide all over again when she saw his shoulder. “What happened to you?”
He shook his head, the best he could manage because his teeth were gritted, his eyes closed, tears leaking down his cheeks. “Nothing,” he whispered. “It…it’s nothing.”
“Nothing, hell,” Mei exclaimed. “You’re hurt.” She reached for his fallen clothes, his coat. “Get up. There’s a free clinic over on Campbell. I’m taking you there.”
“No.” He shook his head again. “I’m all right.”
When she drew his arm across her shoulders, he jerked reflexively, gasping in a sharp, pained breath, nearly a mewl, and she frowned. “Bullshit. You’re a mess. Now shut up and come on.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Let’s take a look here.”
Dr. Elena Ruiz Delgado’s gloved fingertips were as gentle as her voice as she prodded lightly against the sutured edges of Jason’s wound, but it still felt for all the world like she jammed the business end of a razor blade into him, and he jerked.
“That hurts?” She glanced up into his face, her brow raised. When he nodded, she looked away again, returning her attention to the wound. “What got you?” she asked. “A shank?”
He shook his head. “A sword,” he murmured, his eyes closed, wincing as again she touched the line of stitches.
Again she looked at him, this time in surprise. “That’s a new one on me. Someone’s cleaned it up nicely for you. They knew what they were doing.”
Mei had brought him to the small, brightly lit clinic that occupied the first two floors of an old shotgun-style building. Judging by all of the drug admonition and HIV awareness posters tacked to the walls, the place catered to the city’s large population of homeless and runaway teens. Brochures and handouts promoting phone numbers and hotlines for those in need were prominently displayed throughout the room. Across from the paper-lined examination table upon which he now sat, Jason saw a fishbowl filled with brightly colored foil-wrapped condoms. FREE! a hand-lettered sign taped above the bowl declared. TAKE SOME!
“It’s not unusual for sutured wounds to look red around the edges like that,” Dr. Delgado said, continuing her examination, moving along to Jason’s face. Using the pad of her thumb, she held his eyelid gently open and shined a penlight at him, checking his pupillary reflex. “At least for a couple of days. I can give you some ibuprofen for the pain and inflammation.”
She tilted his head back and shined the light momentarily up his nose. He watched as she turned his arms palm-up toward her and touched the deltas of his elbows lightly, curiously.
“I don’t shoot up,” he said with a frown, pulling away from her, and she nodded in agreement.
“And you don’t sniff it up your nose either. Your septum’s healthy, not inflamed or deteriorated.” She snapped off the pen and turned, lifting his paperwork in hand, tucking the light back into her lab coat pocket. “You’re twenty-five?”
He nodded. At least, he’d been twenty-five when he’d died. Technically, he was thirty, but had answered out of reflex. Scratching it off, writing in the correct age, then trying to explain why he didn’t even know how old he was hadn’t seemed worth the time, effort or energy.
“Little old to be out running with the street kids,” Dr. Delgado remarked with a pointed glance at Mei.
“I’m not a kid,” Mei called over with a scowl.
“And I’m not running with her,” Jason added. “She found me. I can’t get rid of her.”
Dr. Delgado chuckled. “Mei’s always had a soft spot for strays.” She began to hunt through a nearby wall cabinet, then readied a small-gauge syringe. “I’m going to give you a tetanus booster. I’m also going to give you a dose of penicillin. I don’t see any signs of infection in your shoulder, but the shot should help make sure there’s nothing going on underneath the stitches. If you notice any red streaks around the wound, any kind of swelling or pus coming out of it in the next couple of days, I want you to come back in, okay?”
She walked toward him, the needle poised. “The tetanus we can do in your arm, but I’ll need you to drop your pants and roll over for this one, the penicillin.”
He blinked at her. “What?”
Dr. Delgado motioned with her forefinger, tracing circles in the air. “Don’t be shy. I’ve seen it before.” When he glanced toward Mei, Dr. Delgado laughed. “Trust me. So has she. Drop them.”
****
“There’s a men’s shelter up at Saint Stephen Martyr if you need a place to stay,” Dr. Delgado said as she stuck a needle into the meaty part of his upper buttock, making him wince. Turning to deposit the used syringe in a sharps disposal box mounted to the wall, she continued, “They’ve got hot meals there, overnight cots and showers, twenty-four-hour counseling. They’ve also got telephones.” A glance over her shoulder at him as he pulled his jeans back up. “In case you want to call anyone, at least let them know you’re okay.”
“Does that line ever work?” Mei helped herself to a handful of lollipops from an oversized plastic jar bearing a sign that read: Don’t be a DUM-DUM! Practice safe sex!
“Not with you, anyway,” Dr. Delgado replied mildly without looking at the younger woman. Without further ado, much less warning, she jabbed another needle into Jason’s bicep, the tetanus shot, making him grimace again.
“Nope,” Mei agreed affably, popping a lime green sucker into her mouth and grinning.
“You seeing any more of that guy?” Dr. Delgado asked Mei as she threw the second needle away in the sharps box.
“Who? J-Dog?” Mei frowned. “No. He’s history. Trust me. Long gone and good riddance.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” Dr. Delgado wrapped several sample packets of ibuprofen into a white paper sack and presented it to Jason. While he finished getting dressed, the doctor crossed the room to stand with Mei. Though they spoke together in quiet voices, he could still hear them.
“You sure you haven’t seen J-Dog?” Dr. Delgado asked.
“I told you, no,” Mei replied.
“What happened here?” Jason cut a glance at them and watched the older woman brush her fingers through the blond half of Mei’s hair, drawing it aside to reveal a large deep purple bruise against her otherwise pale throat, the rough approximation of what looked like a handprint.
“It’s nothing.” Mei ducked away, flipping her hair back into place and tugging at the collar of her parka. Her gaze darted to Jason and she forced a bright smile, clearly seeking rescue. “You ready?”
****
“Thanks,” Jason told Mei as they stood together outside the clinic. They were in the middle of what Jason had always known as the city’s skid row district. Across the street, a group of people waited in line outside a methadone center. Farther down was a blood plasma donation center, with big neon signs promising cash for bodily fluids. Pawn shops rubbed shoulders with check-cashing lenders. There were a couple of strip clubs and an assortment of run-down convenience stores, liquor shops and dilapidated bars.
“I appreciate you trying to help me,” he said, watching as she tried vainly to light a cigarette, flicking her lighter again and again, twisting this way and that, trying to avoid the breeze. “Here.”
He reached for the lighter, taking it from her, then cupped one hand around it, striking the wheel with the other. When a small flame popped up, she leaned over, cigarette poised in her mouth.
“Thanks,” she said. When she glanced up at him, she added, “So is it my turn now?”
“What?” He frowned, puzzled.
“You know.” She blew out a puff of smoke. “I help you, you help me. Quid quid quo and all that.”
“Quid pro quo,” he corrected.
“Whatever,” Mei said. He meant to tell h
er about his plans to go to Seattle, to use the opportunity to ditch her and be on his way. But the wind ruffled her hair back from her neck, and again he saw the bruises, like someone had tried to choke her, a hand clamped heavily enough against the side of her slender throat to leave an indelible mark.
You always have to play the hero, his bartender, Eddie, had told him once. Some pretty girl comes in here with tears in her eyes and a sob story, and off you go, riding to the rescue.
“So will you help me?” Mei looked up at him, all imploring and innocent eyes. “It’s no big thing. I just need you to go with me someplace.”
He raised a dubious brow. “Where?”
She smiled. “My office.”
****
“You work here?” Jason asked, shielding his eyes against the sun’s glare with the blade of his hand as he looked up at the building, an aging Victorian that had definitely seen better days. All the windows past the first floor had been boarded over and painted black. The ones on the ground level facing the street had been lined with bright, colorful marquee-style lights, along with neon signs for different beer brands and posters featuring semi-clad women in various provocative poses with headlines like Now Appearing Nightly! or Dancing for YOUR Enjoyment Tonite! emblazoned across them.
They’d ridden the streetcars as far north along the waterfront district as they could, then traveled another half an hour at least by foot, leaving the glossy tourist districts behind them and crossing into the city’s real waterfront, the shipping wharfs. Here, cabaret bars like this one, called Diversions, were a dime a dozen, all open twenty-four hours a day, catering to the blue-collar and illegal immigrant dock workers.
He caught sight of Mei’s photograph interspersed among several in one of the window posters. Nude except for a slinky G-string and towering silver-sequined platform heels, she squatted with her back to the camera and glanced coyly over her shoulder, offering a smile as she nibbled on her fingernail. Her face had been painted in makeup, her almond-shaped eyes made to appear even more so thanks to expertly applied eyeliner and smoky shadow hues on her lids. Her bright red lipstick stood out in sharp contrast to her pale skin, and in the picture, she hadn’t dyed her hair yet. It all remained a single ebony shade, making her almost unrecognizable to him from first glance. CHINA DOLL, the poster dubbed her.
“China Doll?” he asked, because she’d ignored his other question. Admittedly, he thought the picture was pretty hot. He hadn’t really noticed her in a sexual kind of way or paid much attention to the fact that she had a very nice, if not exceptionally well-rounded ass. But now, with it presented in full color on a glossy sheet photo paper in front of him, he’d be hard pressed not to take note.
“It pays the bills,” Mei said simply, hooking him by the arm and dragging him toward the door. Clearly she was embarrassed; her brows were furrowed, her shoulders hunched and she wouldn’t look him in the eye. “Come on.”
She led him inside, and he had to shy to a momentary halt to allow his vision to adjust from the bright glare outside to the nearly subterranean darkness inside the bar. He’d been able to hear the music from the stage area even outside the building, a low, thrumming beat that had penetrated the walls. Now inside the lobby, it was abruptly deafening, a shuddering, thunderous boom that shook the cheap wood paneling and vibrated in the floor.
“Hey, Mei.” An older, overweight woman with the kind of orange-auburn hair found only in a bottle sat inside a small booth. You must be 21 years of age to enter this establishment, a sign proclaimed in large red letters nearby. Photo I.D. required.
“Hey, Mom.” Mei leaned over the counter and filched a cigarette from the redheaded woman’s opened pack.
“You’re late,” the woman, “Mom” said as Mei fished her lighter out of her coat pocket and lit up the smoke. “By about twelve hours.”
“Some shit came up,” Mei replied with a dismissive shrug. “Hey, is Pops in? I really need to talk to him.”
“Sure. Go on back, honey,” Mom said. “But I’m warning you, he’s in one of his moods. You might be better off to just—”
“Thanks.” Mei walked past the booth, heading for a short, dark corridor. “Come on,” she called back to Jason.
The redheaded woman cut her gaze appreciatively down the length of Jason’s body, leaving him with a decidedly nasty squirmy feeling, and before she could say anything, even though she opened her mouth to begin to, he hurried after Mei.
She led him across a showroom where a bleach blond with enormous breasts bumped and ground against a brass pole, her curvaceous figure reflected from every angle by a series of mirrors that wrapped around the brightly lit stage. She wore a pair of glittery panties but shucked these in time to the music and bent over, her hair spilling onto the floor, awarding the three guys who sat silhouetted at the shadow-draped tables flanking the stage an unobstructed gynecological bird’s-eye view. The garter around her right thigh held a few dollars tucked beneath, but none of the men made any effort to add to the sum. Despite her best efforts, to Jason’s tertiary glance, most of them seemed unaffected at best and, at worst, downright bored.
“This way.” Mei caught him by the hand, pulling again. Weaving in and out among small café-sized tables, she brought him to the far side of the room, a door marked OFFICE—PRIVATE.
“Wait here for me,” Mei said, parking him at a table near the doorway. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He glanced over his shoulder as she went to the office door, knocked loudly and ducked inside, leaving the door partially open behind her. When he turned back to the stage, the blond had returned to the pole, leaping up and locking her legs around it, dangling upside down.
As the song ended, a heavy silence crashed down on the bar. One of the patrons clapped, a slow and momentary courtesy, as the girl wobbled precariously on her stilettos from one side of the stage to the other, collecting discarded parts of her costume.
“Let’s give it up one more time for Destiny,” the deejay boomed out, and even he sounded unenthused. That smattering of applause came again, ending as quickly as it started, and the girl, Destiny, tromped off stage, her bulbous breasts bouncing with every stride.
“We’re going to take a quick break again, guys, but don’t forget, we’re running a two-fer special for the next thirty minutes,” the deejay said. “Buy one drink, get another one free, or buy one lap dance, get another one free.”
When he abandoned the microphone, a shrill screech of feedback ripped through the room. Jason watched as several young women, Destiny included, wandered out of the dressing rooms and loitered at the bar behind him, smoking cigarettes and leaning together, talking and sipping from their drinks.
“Some things have been hard for me lately, but I’m trying,” he overheard Mei say from the office, her voice pleading. “Really I am. If you could just give me a small advance, three hundred dollars maybe.”
Curious, Jason glanced over his shoulder and leaned back in his chair, rocking back onto the rear legs until he could look over his shoulder and peer beyond the office door. He saw Mei standing like a remonstrated schoolgirl in front of a large desk. An older man in his late fifties or early sixties, with thinning gray hair and a paunch that protruded between the buttons of his open-collared shirt, sat facing her, a smoldering cigarette pinched between his thick fingers.
“Pops, please,” Mei said. “I just… J-Dog kicked me out last night and I’ve got no place to go. Please.”
She was frightened. Jason could sense it through the Eidolon, could feel the cold, dark shadow of it stirring inside him as he leaned forward, settling all four legs of the chair back on the floor. She was frightened of this man, frightened to be alone with him, but desperate and determined enough to do it anyway.
Pops laughed and said, “I tell you what. I like you, Mei. I like you a lot, and on account of that, I’m willing to help you out just this once.”
“You are?” Mei asked, sounding hopeful and relieved, her fear momentarily wav
ering.
“Well, sure,” Pops said. “I know how it is. And I’m sure you do too.”
He said this last with a pointed emphasis that, although bewildering to Jason, apparently wasn’t lost on Mei. Her anxiety returned instantly and in full and Jason could feel it fall over her once more like a cold, heavy shroud.
“Pops,” she began, her voice quiet, tremulous.
“Close that door and come here,” Pops said, and Jason turned around more in his seat, watching Mei do as she was told. She met his gaze for a fleeting moment through the narrow space between the door and jamb, her eyes round and unhappy, nearly ashamed. Then she cut her gaze away and shut the door. And he realized.
She’s in trouble.
He pushed his chair back and stood up. Already, his own mounting concern and alarm had flared the Eidolon, and in the dim light of the club’s interior, its movement as it spread out in thin, creeping tentacles across the carpet were nearly unnoticeable. It slid beneath the door in slender, shadow fingers, and when Pops spoke again, it was just like at Sam’s apartment—his voice within the office beyond suddenly became crystal clear to Jason. “Good. Now take off your pants.”
All at once, Jason felt a surge of rage. He’d never been able to fight back against Sitri in the Netherworlde, to protect himself from being violated. But not this time, goddamn it, he thought. Not with Mei.
“Keep your fucking hands off her.” He shoved the door open wide just as Mei had moved to push the jeans down from her hips.
“Jason,” she gasped, wide-eyed, looking stricken. From his seat behind the desk, Pops had already opened his fly all the way, exposing himself, the swollen girth of a pretty massive hard-on.
“You blind, asshole?” Pops snapped, startled at first, then angry as he shoved himself swiftly, unceremoniously back into his pants. “It says PRIVATE right there in great big letters on the door. Get out.”
