Crazy Cool

by Tara Janzen

  TRAVIS stood on the street with Skeeter Bang, outside an old brick building that looked like it might once have been a garage. There were big bay doors, three of them, running down the west side of the building, a couple of big WEATHERPROOF signs stuck in the windows, some Dumpsters parked against the wall, and one very nice, rather artistic iron door opening out onto the street. There was also a big freight elevator clinging to the side of the building like a geometrically constructed spider web, and they were waiting for it to descend.

  Given the amazing cars Quinn drove, and the kind of money he seemed to have, Travis had expected the place to be a little more upscale.

  “Sorry,” she said. “There’s a faster elevator on the other side, but this one gives such a great view of the city.” She gave a little shrug. “It’s going to take a few more minutes, but really, you don’t have to wait.”

  “Actually,” he said, glancing down toward the end of the block, his attention drawn by the sound of voices. “I think I do.”

  A group of guys had crossed the street, talking loud, taking up a lot of room, and walking like they owned the squalid stretch of turf that was just a few blocks too far north to qualify as a cool part of LoDo.

  Hell. With luck the elevator would get there before the gang-bang posse, but listening to the damn thing screech and rumble didn’t give him much hope.

  “Hey, hey, Skeeter Bang-bang!” one of the guys yelled out, and Travis’s “not much hope” got downgraded to “no hope.”

  He felt her stiffen beside him, her gaze going to the end of the block. She swore under her breath, which didn’t do a damn thing for his confidence.

  He wasn’t going to mention it, but really, if she was going to have a bit of the sight, wouldn’t this have been a better thing to have gotten a heads-up on than Nikki and Kid’s escape?

  Like a swarm of wasps, the gang zoomed in on them, surrounded them, a few outriders floating on the edge, the king wasp front and center, demanding all the attention. He wasn’t the biggest, just the toughest looking, with his homeboy pants sliding off his hips, his shaved head, and enough tattoos on his arms to qualify him as a piece of art. There must have been about a dozen guys altogether. Too many to fight, too many to outrun from a dead standstill. Travis didn’t exactly see his life flash before his eyes, but his adrenaline was definitely pumping.

  “What’s shakin’, baby Bang?” the leader asked.

  In the two seconds before Skeeter answered, she did something amazing, something Travis wouldn’t have thought any fifteen-year-old could have done. It was all so subtle that if he hadn’t been fixated on her, trying to get a clue as to how freaked he should be, he would have missed the actual transformation. As it was, he saw the whole thing take place in the space of a single breath.

  Turning to face the gang leader, she straightened her spine and broadened her stance, actually putting one of her legs in front of him in a damned proprietary move that told him to stand still and shut up, she was in charge—so subtle, so smooth, so damned unexpected.

  “Hey, Gino, I heard you bet against me the other night,” she said, the accusation turning the tables on the punk, the edge in her voice downright cutting.

  Attack certainly wouldn’t have been his first choice of moves—Christ, he’d practically minored in Conflict Resolution—but she hadn’t hesitated. He noticed something poking out of one guy’s jacket pocket, and he started to wish he had a gun, not that he could actually imagine himself using it, actually blowing a hole in one of these guys.

  Kid had a gun, and Travis knew for a fact that he had blown holes in people with cold, deliberate precision. The guy was a sniper, ex-Marine. Kid had lots of guns, but he was safe with Nikki, probably heading to Boulder, which Travis wished to hell he were doing—with Skeeter Bang at his side—instead of standing in front of a dilapidated old building on a deserted street, getting ready to get the crap beat out of him—and that was probably the best-case scenario.

  These guys had guns. He could practically smell them, and there was that suspicious bulge in that one guy’s pocket.

  “You cost me, Skeeter baby. You cost me big.” The guy postured in front of her, his body language one hundred percent street cool. He had it working with the hand jive and the body dips, but there was real aggression behind all of it.

  “Get a clue, Gino, I was driving Quinn’s COPO Camaro,” Skeeter shot back. “What did you think was going to happen? That I’d let Billy Thompson take me in the quarter mile with that piece of crap Honda he’s been screwing around with for a year?”

  Hell, no. Travis didn’t even know what she was talking about, and he would have bet on her.

  “You should’ve been watching the sheets, babe. You could’ve held back. Could’ve saved yourself a whole lot of trouble,” the gang leader said, his words an undeniable threat.

  Travis watched the brim of her ball cap tilt, as if she were giving Gino a careful looking-over. When the brim leveled off again, a small “fuck you” smile curved her lips.

  “The day I throw a race is the day it’s got something a helluva lot more important than your money riding on it.”

  She was giving him a heart attack. Right here. Right now.

  Gino made a move toward her, and in the next instant, she’d pulled a switchblade out of the sheath on her skirt. The edge glinted in the light from the street lamp, looking razor sharp.

  “Don’t tempt me, Gino. You know how this all works. You fuck with me, Superman fucks with you, and you’ll never get it up again.”

  Oh, shit. Not with the knife, honey. This was a bad dream, a nightmare, and he was stuck in it with a girl.

  The standoff lasted a small eternity, with neither side showing any sign of backing off. He would have backed off. Hell, if it hadn’t been for needing to take her with him, he would have backed off like a track star. He had enough adrenaline surging through him to outdistance these guys right off the blocks.

  Just when he thought the tension was going to snap like a slap shot and all hell was going to break loose, somebody said something in the back.

  “The fuck you say,” another guy responded, his gaze going straight to Travis, which Travis didn’t find at all encouraging. Then the second guy leaned forward and said something to the kid in front of him, who also moved his attention from Skeeter to him.

  Something was happening. Travis watched the ripple of information work its way through the gang and up to Gino, with everyone seeming to back off a little, just sort of melt back toward the street.

  When Gino got the word, the change was startling. The aggression went out of him like air out of a balloon, all the body tension, all at once, leaving him loose. Loose enough to slide back a step or two without it looking like a retreat.

  “Hey, Creed,” he said, flashing a mouthful of friendly white teeth, finally deigning to acknowledge his existence. “Didn’t recognize you, man. Been a few years, hasn’t it, bro?”

  “Creed Rivera,” Travis heard someone say in the back. The kid who got the news kind of ducked, shooting Travis a quick glance, as if he expected a blow. Another guy leaned in, said something in his ear, and the two of them peeled off from the crowd and took off down the street, not getting far before they broke into a run.

  “Yeah, a while,” Travis said, wondering who Creed Rivera was and how long these guys were going to believe he was him.

  Long enough, it seemed. Gino took another step back, giving Skeeter some cryptic hand sign and a big grin.

  “Next time, baby Bang, my money’s on you.”

  “Hey, that’s great, Gino,” she replied, giving him what looked to be a genuine smile. “Really great. We’ll kick some ass, okay?”

  “Yeah, babe.”

  In seconds, the whole gang was back down the street.

  “So what was that all about?” he asked, flummoxed by the whole event.

  “Gino lost a grand at the Midnight Doubles a couple of weeks ago—and apparently, it wasn’t his grand to lose, so he’s strong-ar
ming everyone on the north side, trying to save his ass.”

  “You race cars?”

  “Only illegally, so don’t be shouting it out anywhere. Okay?”

  “Sure.” God save him. She’d pulled a knife, and he, for one, didn’t have a doubt in the world that she would have used it. He couldn’t imagine that things would have gotten better after that—quite the contrary. A shudder went through him, which made him feel foolish. She wasn’t shaking, not anywhere. She was watching Gino and his boys.

  The gang of punks disappeared around the next corner, and she turned to him then, still smiling, and put her hand on his face. She tilted her head, and her smile broadened.

  “I knew you looked like Creed. Kid didn’t mention anything, but I saw it.”

  “And who’s Creed?” He liked having her hand on him, but he hardly had time to enjoy the feeling before she removed it.

  “Creed Rivera was running these streets back when Gino boy still lived with his mother.”

  An explanation that only confused him. “I’m just guessing here, but Gino looked older than me.”

  That got him a laugh.

  “I know,” she said, still grinning. “Aren’t people funny? He’s looking right at you and backing off, because his brain is telling him you’re Creed, and the whole time his eyes are telling him no way can you be Creed. You’re younger than he is. Fascinating.”

  Fascinating—almost as fascinating as her smile. She had a beautiful smile; her lips weren’t full, just very soft looking, and she had pretty teeth, the kind a guy wanted to run his tongue over. He wished she would take off her sunglasses and her ball cap. All he could really see of her were her cheeks, and her mouth, and her nose, which was a very delicate, very cute nose, indeed. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted to see her eyes.

  “How old are you?” he asked, surprising himself with the bluntness of the question. He’d wanted to know, but he hadn’t meant to ask.

  “Probably older than you think,” she said, turning around and opening the cage door on the freight elevator.

  He hadn’t even noticed when it had arrived, which frankly amazed him, because it was loaded with one of the hottest cars he’d ever seen, a lime green Dodge Challenger with a big black racing stripe running up over the hood.

  “Which means you’re not fifteen?” he said.

  She laughed again, disbelievingly. “You thought I was fifteen?” She stepped into the elevator and gestured for him to follow.

  “Yeah.” He nodded, getting in behind her.

  “Well, you’re off by about five years. I’ll be twenty next week.”

  Thank you, God—he sent up a silent prayer of thanks, shot through with relief. She was still young by his standards—he usually went for older women, even a lot older women—but there was definitely something about her that was flipping his switches.

  She pressed a large button on the cage wall, and with a rattle and a screech, the elevator began to rise.

  She came back around the car, trailing one hand along the hood, when something caught her eye.

  “Man, oh, man, Superman,” she said, bending at the waist to peer in the driver-side window. “What kind of trouble did you drag home tonight? Cripes, will you look at this?”

  She reached in and pulled out a dress, a little red dress with the zipper undone, the whole dress, without a woman in it—which simply lit up his imagination.

  She held it up to herself, which fired up a couple more of his fantasy files.

  “So what do you think?” she asked, angling her gaze up the side of the building. “You think we’ve got a naked woman running around up there?”

  Yes. That’s exactly what he thought.

  She let out a short laugh and looked back inside the car.

  “Oh, this is going to cost him big-time. Will you look at this mess?”

  Obligingly, he bent down and looked through the open passenger-side window—and immediately got a whole lot clearer picture of what had happened with the red dress.

  Sex.

  He could smell it. Sex and chocolate, and Chinese food.

  Wow. There was a pair of red satin underpants not two feet from him, hanging off the gearshift. The matching bra was draped around the inside door handle. He saw one red high-heeled sandal and a guy’s shoe. A pair of boxer shorts had been eighty-sixed into the driver’s seat, and the back window sported a couple of cartons of Chinese food. A few more cartons had spilled, one in the backseat, and two on the floor.

  And the sex. Had he mentioned that? The car was still hot with it, really hot with it. Steamy.

  Steamy enough to turn him on. He couldn’t help it. He was afraid if he closed his eyes and breathed too deeply, he’d have an instant hard-on.

  “So what do you think?” she asked, but he didn’t think she really wanted to know. “I usually charge him a hundred bucks to detail Roxanne here, but this”—she made a short sweeping gesture—“this has got to cost more like two, two-fifty. What do you think?”

  “Two hundred and fifty dollars to clean a car?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” she said, as if he’d just agreed with her. “Two hundred and fifty. You hungry?” She reached in and grabbed one of the unspilled cartons and broke open the fresh pair of chopsticks lying on the dash.

  Wielding the chopsticks like an expert, she offered him a piece of food across the interior of the car. He couldn’t resist. He’d take anything she wanted to give him, but he did have to lean way in to get the food. So there he was, right in the middle of the aftermath of Superman’s lovemaking with the woman in the red dress, with the punk-rocker chick feeding him steamed dumplings. The whole thing was enough to make his head spin a little.

  She fed herself a dumpling and pulled out of the driver-side window to walk around the back of the car. He followed her lead, and the two of them leaned back on the trunk to finish off the food, while the old elevator groaned its way skyward.

  She was right about the view. It was spectacular, the lights of Denver spreading up into the foothills.

  “Do you want to see what’s in those cartons in the back window?”

  “Sure,” he said, though he really didn’t think it was a good idea for him to get in the car.

  Crab wontons and spring rolls—two of his favorites, well worth the effort of getting them, but it still felt slightly illicit to be eating this guy Superman’s dinner. When the elevator finally docked on the seventh floor, his whole idea about Steele Street was transformed.

  There were cars, unbelievable cars, rows of them, a million dollars’ worth of truly exquisite cars: muscle cars, sports cars, Jaguars, Porsches, hot red cars, two gull-winged cars he didn’t even know what to call. And the bank of offices built along the north wall looked expensive and modern. He could see tons of electronic equipment and elegant furnishings through the windows looking out onto the garage floor. The place was a high-tech dream.

  He had a car, a Jeep. It started when he turned the key, and it stopped when he stepped on the brake. It usually, but not always, got him where he wanted to go without too much trouble, and that was about it.

  “Hop in, and I’ll give you a ride,” she said, opening the driver-side door on the Challenger, after opening the freight cage door.

  “No, thanks. I’ll just walk.” He wasn’t getting inside that car with her. No way. Not that he thought he was in any danger of getting lucky. It was the weirdest thing, but he was getting absolutely no vibe of sexual awareness off her at all. None. Nada. And it was driving him a little crazy. Hell, he’d had gay chicks hit on him just for the cheap thrill of it—but he was getting nothing off Skeeter Bang.

  She started the Challenger, and a big grin instantly split his face. God, what a cool car. It roared and rumbled, and made the elevator shake. He could feel the power of the engine all the way from the bottoms of his feet to the top of his head. It made him wonder if maybe he just had never really given cars a chance. To have one like Roxanne would just be too cool.
r />   Roxanne. Nadine. He wondered if every car at Steele Street had a name. Somehow, he figured they did.

  She parked the car in a washing bay and walked over to meet him, where he was standing next to a navy blue GTO.

  “Corinna,” she said, running her hand over the roof of the car. “A 1967 with a Ram Air 400 and a four-speed. J.T. won her back from Hawkins a couple of years ago, but I guess . . . well, Kid will have her now.” Her voice broke a little, and when she got to the front of the car, to the grille, she lifted her hand off the sleek blue finish and offered it to him. “Thanks. It was real sweet of you to walk me home. If you want, I can give you a lift back to the gallery.”

  Sweet? And she was kicking him out?

  He took her hand, but he didn’t take the hint. “You live here?” He looked around the garage.

  “Up on the eleventh floor, across from Superman.” Without being all that subtle about it, she retrieved her hand.

  “Shouldn’t I, like, see you to your door or something? This is an awfully big place.”

  “Actually, my friend Johnny is going to be here in about a half an hour, and we’re going to give Corinna a tune-up, rotate her tires, maybe blow her out on a run to Colorado Springs, check up on a friend down there.”

  Definite brush-off, but at least the Johnny thing didn’t sound like a date. Rotating tires?

  “So your schedule is pretty packed through the middle of the night, up until dawn?”

  She at least smiled at that. “Yeah, pretty packed.”

  Well, he obviously had nothing left to lose.

  “I’d like to see you again.”

  She didn’t say anything for so long, he started to wonder if he’d accidentally spoken in a foreign language or something.

  “No,” she finally said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t think I want to do the Beauty and the Beast thing with you.”

  He’d been dumped by girls before, a number of times, but he’d never not even gotten out of the starting gate with one, and she thought he was a beast?

  Somewhere in her cold, cold heart, she must have taken a little pity on him, because when he just stood there, struggling with her flat-out rejection, she spoke up again.