by Susan Sey
When he pulled her onto the bed, she went. But she didn’t speak. She never said a single word until she pulled her rumpled clothes back on and caught the first train out of Anacostia the next morning.
Coffee. Oh sweet baby Jesus, somebody was making coffee. Erik pulled the smell into his lungs like it was pure oxygen. Then he remembered.
He lived alone and his coffee maker was broken. Had been for months. What the hell?
He checked the bed side clock. 7:12. He scrubbed a hand over thirty-six hours of stubble and forced himself upright. He doubted a thief would hang out for a little coffee, and the only person who had a key to his apartment was his mother. He took a moment to weigh his options.
He wanted that coffee. He didn’t want to talk to his mother. He needed to tear a strip off her for trying to fix him up with Nixie, and he didn’t have time. He needed to be in Anacostia knocking on doors before Nixie attached herself to him like a pretty, long-legged barnacle. He decided it was a draw. He’d face his mother but the coffee would make it bearable.
He yanked on a pair of flannel pajama pants and ambled toward the kitchen.
“That better be the good stuff, Mom,” he said. “Because after the Nixie Leighton-Brace thing, you owe me.”
“Why do you insist on using my name like a title?” Nixie asked. “You know it drives me nuts.”
Erik froze. He laid both hands on the doorframe for support and squinted into the kitchen. “Nixie?”
“That’s better.” She was perched on one of the stools beside the counter, grinning at him. She looked impossibly clean and fresh. Rested. He wanted to sniff her, to see if she smelled like she looked.
She slid off the stool and offered him a steaming paper cup of coffee. He took a cautious sip. “How did you get in here?”
“Your mom let me in.”
“My mom.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to kill her.”
“Yeah, she mentioned that. It doesn’t bother her the way you’d think it might.”
Erik swallowed some more coffee, willed the caffeine into his bloodstream. “What are you doing here, Nixie?”
“I’m going with you.”
“Going with me where?”
“To rescue Mary Jane.” She gave him a sunny smile.
“What makes you think I’m going to rescue Mary Jane?”
“Oh please.” She rolled her eyes. “Your girlfriend was quasi-kidnapped last night, probably to patch up some gun-shot drug lord, and hasn’t answered her cell phone or home phone since. And yes, I’ve been dialing her all night. So forgive me for making assumptions on short acquaintance, but I don’t believe you’re planning to do nothing but wring your hands until she turns up again.” She folded her hands serenely in her lap. “You’re going after her and I’m going with you.”
“No.” Erik gulped down some more coffee. God, where was the caffeine?
“See? You are going after her.”
“And I have no intention of taking you with me.”
Her lips went thin and she crossed her arms over a sweater the color of ripe pumpkins. It was soft-looking and a little clingy and Erik had to force himself not to look south of her collar bones. “Why not?”
“Because you’re Nixie Leighton-Brace. That’s why. Jesus.” He scratched at his scruffy cheek and watched her try to wipe the hurt off her face. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not trying to be a jerk. It’s not my fault you’re...you.”
“It isn’t mine either. Get over it. I’m going with you.”
He crossed the room and plunked himself down on the stool next to hers. The scent of lemons mixed pleasantly with his coffee and he shook his head to clear it. She was confusing him. Confusing everything. Mary Jane was in danger and all he could think about was how soft her sweater looked. How soft she looked. He was sorely tempted to touch her just to satisfy his curiosity, and that was unacceptable.
He’d spent his childhood swimming in and out of the fishbowl his mother called a life. His test scores, his baseball stats, even his first date for God’s sake--they were all a matter of public record, thanks to the press’s insatiable appetite for details and his mother’s insatiable appetite for publicity. As a child, Erik had dreamed of privacy the way hungry kids dreamed of food, and as an adult he’d worked hard to achieve it. So what kind of bizarre, self-destructive impulse had him jonsing after a crazy-famous second-generation celebrity? It was that soft sweater and her stupid lemon soap, he thought. They were screwing with his judgment.
“Come on, Nixie. I’m not going to wander into the worst neighborhood in the country with America’s princess on my arm. It’s asking for trouble and we’ve got enough of that, don’t you think? We’re already in deep shit over last night. If Mary Jane did treat somebody without reporting it, there’s no way we’ll be able to keep it quiet. Not with you in the picture. Best case scenario, we lose what little funding we have.”
“And worst case?”
“Mary Jane loses her license. Is that what you want?”
“Mary Jane is a big girl. She knew what the risks were when she got into that car.”
“For herself. I don’t think she counted on running that decision through the meat grinder of your celebrity.” She flinched at that. He felt like he’d kicked a puppy. “God, don’t look like that. I’m not making things up to make you feel bad, Nixie. But you have to understand. At this point, you’re more liability than asset.”
Her smile faded, and those giant eyes went very serious. “You have no idea what kind of asset I can be. If I’ve done something wrong, I’ll fix it. But don’t freeze me out because of who I am. I’m working like hell to be more than just my name, Erik. Surely you of all people can understand what that’s like.”
Erik bowed his head until it nearly touched the plastic lid of his coffee cup. He’d spent so much of his own life fighting against a larger-than-life parent to forge his own path. Screwing with Nixie’s shot at forging her own just because she smelled good and distracted him suddenly seemed incredibly petty.
“Fine,” he said. “You can come. But can you dial down the Nixie Leighton-Brace factor a little? It’s bad enough that you’re coming. I don’t want anybody to recognize you.”
“Thank you, Erik.” She didn’t hug him exactly. It was more sort of squeezing herself up against his shoulder, but the feel of her body burned itself into his brain. The subtle curve of her waist against his elbow, the cool swish of her hair against his chin. It was her shampoo, he knew now, that smelled like lemons. Christ.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” she asked, her eyes shining like he’d just served her up a hunk of birthday cake instead of a grudging invitation. She wriggled like a frisky puppy and Erik smiled in spite of himself. “Let’s go get Mary Jane back from the Dog crew.”
CHAPTER NINE
The sky was a cold and unforgiving blue as Nixie and Erik crossed the bridge into Anacostia. They turned onto Kingston, passed the clinic and parked on the street outside a row of lopsided, grayish houses. The yards were stingy patches of reluctant weeds, separated by bow-legged chain link fences. The occasional window had been replaced with plywood, giving the whole street the vaguely menacing air of someone who’d lost an eye under questionable circumstances.
Nixie tried Mary Jane’s cell phone one last time. She watched the wind sweep a fistful of dirty snow into a mini-cyclone in the gutter while Mary Jane’s voicemail picked up yet again. She shook her head at Erik and flipped shut the phone. “Well?” she said. “Where do we start?”
He switched off the Jeep’s ignition. “What would you say if I asked you to stay here and guard the car against marauding bands of teenagers?”
“I’d say teenagers don’t maraud at eight a.m. on Sunday mornings. Now quit trying to get rid of me.”
“Right.” He sighed. “Let’s start with the south side of the street and work our way down to the Wash.”
“The Wash?”
“Washburn Towers. It’s on
e of the newer projects. The Dog Crew is supposed to have a serious presence there. If Mary Jane’s disappearance has anything to do with the Dog Crew, somebody on this street saw something.”
“And we’re just going to knock at their doors bright and early on a Sunday morning and ask them to tell us what it was?”
“Yep.”
Nixie looked at him doubtfully. “That’s going to piss some people off.”
“I think you’re discounting my immense personal charm.” He smiled at her, and Nixie rolled her eyes.
“I don’t know if anybody’s mentioned this before, but charm isn’t exactly your strong suit.”
His smile widened. “I haven’t been trying to charm you. You’d feel differently if I had.”
She didn’t doubt it. Still, he didn’t know that.
“Right,” she said. “Maybe you should let me do the talking.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so.” He stepped out and rounded the hood. She pushed open her own door and joined him on the curb.
“Where to?” she asked.
“We’ll start with Otto Lyndale’s place.” He waved his arm toward the nearest tip-tilted house. The fence looked a little firmer than the others.
“You know Otto?” she asked.
“Know of him is more like it,” Erik said. He strode to the center of the fence where a crooked gate hung. He rattled the gate on its hinges and waited. Nixie frowned. The yard was small but they were still a good twenty feet from the house.
“You don’t think the doorbell would be--”
She was going to say more effective but the words died in her throat when what looked like a small pony with fangs rounded the corner of the house. It streaked across the yard toward them, picking up speed as if the fence between them didn’t exist. Nixie stumbled back until her butt hit the Jeep and she sighed in deep gratitude when the fence not only withstood impact but boomeranged the thing back into the yard a good couple feet.
“Yikes. Is that a dog?”
“Yeah.” Erik took a careful step back from the fence himself. The dog scrambled to its feet, gave itself an almighty shake, then stood there blinking owlishly around the yard. Maybe looking for something that would explain the massive concussion, Nixie thought. It spotted them again and lunged at the long suffering fence, headache apparently forgotten. It barked fiercely--big, deep, sonic booms of noise accompanied by the occasional streamer of spittle.
“That dog can only eat one of us at a time,” Nixie said, watching sharp white teeth gnash against the chain links. “No offense, but if it comes down to running for it, I will be faster than you.”
“Thanks for the heads up.”
The front door of the house opened, and a man stepped out. He was as old a human being as Nixie had ever seen, bent practically half, his neck permanently craned upward like a vulture’s so he could train his one remaining eye on the world. He had a shotgun in one hand and what looked like a remote control in the other.
“Lady! Chissakes, Lady, shut it!”
Nixie blinked. “That dog’s a girl? And he calls her Lady?”
Erik waved at the man. “Hey, Otto. Have a minute?”
“Lady! Shut the hell up!”
The dog continued her frenzied barking until Otto shook his head and pointed the remote at her. Lady gave a short yip, twitched and fell over. Nixie felt the impact in the concrete under her feet. Shock collar, she thought. No wonder the dog took concussions in stride. Otto leveled the shotgun at them.
“Who the hell are you?”
Erik held up both hands in the classic we-come-in-peace position. “I’m Erik Larsen. I’m a doctor at the clinic next door.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“Our receptionist.”
Nixie gave him a respectful nod. She’d met plenty of people at gun-point in her life. The key was to look wary of the gun, but interested in the person. Definitely don’t smile. A guy with a gun is never funny. She glanced down at the dog, who’d dragged herself to a sitting position. Her eyes were a little unfocused, but her lip curled around a rumbling, death-threat of a growl. Nixie groped behind her back for the door handle of the Jeep, just in case.
“What do you want?” Otto asked. His brows were so big and bushy that from the sidewalk they looked like some kind of grey caterpillar marching across his forehead. Nixie had no reference in nature for the matching tufts of hair sprouting from either ear.
“We’re wondering if you’ve seen a friend of ours. She’s about yea big--” Erik leveled a hand around his shoulder “--blonde, blue-eyed. She works at the clinic.”
Otto considered this as he stumped down the porch steps. Lady trotted to his side, her head chest-high on the old man. Nixie wondered if it had ever occurred to the dog that she could just step over the fence whenever she felt like eating somebody.
“The lady doctor?” Otto asked. He pulled at his ear hair and sucked his teeth as he thought it over. “I seen her around here and there. Don’t say much, but she got a world class ass. Just the way I like ‘em. Quiet and curvy. You lose her?”
“I’m not sure.” Erik gave the old man a wide smile. The shotgun came back up to chest level and Nixie winced. Never smile at the gun man. Erik poked his hands back into the air.
“If you ain’t sure, what are you bothering me for?”
“I heard Tyrese asked for her, that’s all.” Erik didn’t smile this time. “You know where we might go looking for her?”
Otto studied them. “You kin of hers?”
Nixie shook her head, and Otto said, “I know you ain’t. Damn, I got eyes, don’t I? You ain’t got no ass whatsoever.”
“Hey!” Nixie said. “You have one eye, and I have a very nice ass.” At least according to Chat Magazine she did.
“Pah. Seen better curves on an ironing board,” Otto said. “Got yourself a smart-alecky mouth, though.” Nixie bit her tongue while he turned to Erik. “What about you? You related to the lady doctor?”
“No,” Erik said. “But she’s important to me.”
“Huh.” Otto cracked a wide smile. “Tyrese done stole your girl.”
Erik frowned. “He didn’t steal my girl.”
“You don’t got her. Ty does. Sound like girl-stealing to me.” He bent suddenly, whacked at his filthy trousers and started making an awful hacking noise. Nixie hesitated. If he collapsed, they’d have to go in there to help him. Lady would eat them, but Erik had probably taken some kind of doctor oath that mandated it.
Then Otto straightened and from the gleam in his eye, Nixie deduced he’d been laughing. She pressed a hand to her stomach. Geez.
“Have you seen her, Otto?” Erik looked less than amused himself.
“Nope.” Otto grinned and thumped Lady on the head. She blinked appreciatively. “You got a problem with Tyrese, you going to have to take it to him. I ain’t your snitch. Come on, Lady.”
He disappeared into the house with his assault vehicle of a dog trotting behind him.
“Nice work, Colombo.”
Erik sneered at her. “This from the woman who spent the last ten minutes with one foot in the car.”
“Somebody had to go for help if Cujo decided to eat you.”
“You’ll never know how that eases my mind.”
“No problem. And hey, word of advice? Don’t smile at the gun man.”
“What?”
“It makes them feel like you’re not taking them seriously. So next time you’re questioning the gun man, even if he cracks a joke, don’t smile. You’re going to get your caps blown off.”
“My caps?”
“Oh, sorry. Are those your real teeth?”
He glowered at her. “Yes.”
“They’re very...white.”
He stalked past her toward the next house on the block. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Nixie said again, hiding a smile.
“I had no idea you were such an expert on human nature,” Erik said. Nixie shrugged modestly. “You want to take this
next one?”
Nixie eyed the house. It was identical to Otto’s except that the fence was a little more ramshackle and the yard a little more over-grown. Garbage was heaped along the fence, and a narrow alley ran between the two yards. “No dogs?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Who lives here?”
“Mattie Getz-Strunk.”
“Mattie gets drunk?”
“No. Mattie. Getz. Strunk. Hyphenated.”
“Tell me she’s not a drinker.”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Okay. Watch and learn, doc.”
Nixie let herself into the yard and picked her way over the heaved-up front walk to the porch, Erik trailing behind. She rapped her knuckles on the stingy window in the door.
“Mattie?” she called. She was not going to call her Ms. Getz-Strunk. She gave Erik a suspicious look. He wasn’t above making that up just to pay her back for making him take her along. “Mattie? Are you at home?”
Something moved across the hallway beyond the living room. Nixie couldn’t tell what it was, only that it was approximately human sized, ambulatory and very fast.
“I think somebody’s in there.” She put her face to the window, framed it with her hands for a better look. She rapped again on the glass. “Mattie? We just have a couple questions for you.”
“Ooooh, I wouldn’t have said that.” Erik stood behind her, hands tucked into his pockets, jacket open to the biting wind. He looked perfectly comfortable in the forty degree air, his cheeks reddened, his eyes very blue. He wagged his head at her.
“Why not?” Nixie went back to the glass. “Damn, she is in there! Or somebody is.”
“Was.” Erik tipped his head toward the sound of the back door slamming.
“What?” Nixie hopped off the porch into the alley that separated the houses and headed back. “Where’s she going?”
“Jesus, Nixie, don’t--”
The door to the detached garage flew open and an El Camino rocketed into the alley. The woman at the wheel had tortured red hair that stood up and waved around her head like she was underwater. She was addict-thin and between that and the hair she looked like a lit fuse. She stomped on the accelerator and the car lurched forward, eating up the distance between Nixie and her fender with alarming speed. Nixie dove over the fence into a pile of garbage and slimy leaves that must have been rotting away since last fall. The El Camino screamed by and sailed sideways into the street on two tires, taking out Otto’s garbage can on its way.
