Want You

by Jen Frederick

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” I heft another flour bag off the truck. The girl is definitely lighter than one of these. I’ll have to take some food home for her tonight. She’s not going to fatten up on the bread and soup in the apartment. I toss the bag to Gerry, who catches it and stacks it inside the door.

  “What was it like?” he asks.

  “What was what like?” I’m not admitting to loose-lipped Gerry I killed a cop. I might as well hang a neon sign around my neck that says arrest me and make me your prison bitch. I toss another sack to Gerry and then throw the last two onto my shoulder before hopping off the truck.

  After dropping the bags off, I turn to the two guys slurping down a plate of noodles and gravy. “Truck’s unloaded and you’re good to go.”

  I wonder what these guys do for the Big Boss. One’s got a belly that hangs at least two inches over his belt and the other is whip-thin. I don’t see muscle or enforcer in their build. Not like Beefer, who’s all muscle and neck.

  The curly-haired one with the high forehead and flat nose looks at his phone. “That was quick.”

  I shrug. No sense in wasting time. Maybe these guys just do deliveries. That can be a difficult job, especially when you’re moving illegal product. I recall the hollow sound as I traipsed across the metal floor of the truck. I open my mouth to say something and then snap it shut.

  I don’t know these guys, and they don’t know me. If I mention the false floor, they could decide I’m a liability. I save my observation for Beefer. He’s the guy who recruited me, and he’s who I report to. I give the two guys a brief nod and return to the stockroom. Gerry’s got the door propped open and a cigarette in his mouth.

  “You want to do the dry goods or the fresh ones?” I jerk a thumb toward the crates of tomatoes.

  Gerry makes a face. “Dry.”

  Of course he’d say that. Fresh stuff takes more effort and care, and Gerry’s a lazy motherfucker with a big mouth. He runs it all morning as we unpack the stock. The meat and cheeses were delivered earlier. Now, we’re dealing with dry goods and produce.

  “I was two blocks over when Mort got offed. Remember him?” Gerry says. It’s not really a question. Gerry can talk for hours without any prompting. “He was the dealer on 90th and E street. I once saw him snort his product off the back of his hand. How bad of a druggy do you gotta be that you gotta have a hit while you’re working?”

  He rips open a bag of flour and dumps it into the holding bin while I stack the tomato crates in the corner.

  “Anyway, it was pow pow pow. Three shots.” Gerry holds up his middle fingers. “I ran over and there was blood and brains and guts everywhere.”

  “Guts, too?” I say. Blood and brain, I could see. Guts, not so much. That would require a shot in the belly, and if you’re doing a headshot, what’s the point?

  “Yeah, all of it. Gore everywhere. It was like everyone who ever ate at Marjory’s barfed it all up in one place.”

  “Nice.”

  The parsley and other herbs go into the walk-in cooler. In here, Gerry’s blather is muted. I can barely make out the sounds—just that he’s talking.

  “—He was staring straight up to the sky. It was freaky, man. You ever see a dead person?”

  Last night. I make a sound in the back of my throat. It’s enough to set my co-worker off again.

  “Right. Anyway, whoever shot him was long gone, so we did a field strip. Took his belt, shoes, glasses. I sold those glasses on the street for 10 bucks. Pretty great, eh?”

  “Like you found a lottery ticket,” I say. It occurs to me that if anyone would know about where the girl came from, it’d be Gerry.

  “You hear anything about a runaway? A kid?” I ask him, helping him finish with the flour and sugar.

  His brows beetle together. “Like a new recruit for Beefer?”

  “No. Like a…street kid.”

  Gerry continues to appear puzzled. “Don’t know of anyone new. There are some funny talkers”—that’s what Gerry calls foreigners—“but they’re always in and out.”

  Is that what she is? A refugee? A foreigner? Nah, she doesn’t talk with any kind of accent. And she understands me just fine.

  “You see something?”

  I place the last of the lemons into the bin and then bend down to gather up the empty cardboard boxes. I gesture for Gerry to open the door for me.

  “Did you?” he presses.

  “I thought I saw someone the other day who I didn’t recognize, but when I went back the kid was gone.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Over on M.”

  “By the Stop and Shop?”

  “Yup,” I lie.

  “Probably some rat from the subway. There’re kids who live down there. They got the weird eyes and everything.” He shudders. “They freak me out. So you going to do wet work from now on?”

  “Does it look like it?” I ask, punching the boxes flat.

  Gerry picks up a rock and chucks it down the alley. “I guess not. If I was doing wet work, I wouldn’t be hauling trash at Marjory’s. I’d be sitting in the front of the house, eating linguini and getting prime pussy.”

  “Ger, you wouldn’t know what to do with a pussy if it came up and sat itself on your mouth.” I dust my hands off on my jeans. If Gerry has been within sniffing distance of a real live girl’s snatch, I’ll eat the boxes I just tossed into the recycler.

  He flushes “Fuck you, Monkey. Like you’ve punched that V-card. I’ve had plenty of pussy. I’m getting pussy every weekend. I have to beat the bitches off.”

  I shrug and walk away. Where Ger sticks his dick doesn’t interest me.

  I’ve been gone for three hours. The girl was sleeping when I left, but I placed a bowl of cereal on the floor with a note that there was milk in the refrigerator. I figure if she can clean herself, she can pour milk into a bowl. I was doing it at five, wasn’t I? Still, I need to get back to her.

  Keeping her safe is becoming important to me. More important than most things.

  I don’t know why, but I’m not sure the why matters.

  4

  Leka

  “Speaking of prime pussy, look who's coming our way,” Ger exclaims.

  I glance up to see Mary Shaughnessy saunter into the stockroom with a half-full pitcher of coffee in one hand and a carry out container in the other. Mary, tall and curvy, is one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen in real life. According to the other birds, all those pretty things are courtesy of Beefer’s wallet. Her nose, chest, lips and ass have all been under the needle or knife. Whatever. It looks good.

  “Hey, sweetheart, Carl wanted me to give this to you.” She flashes me a smile as she hands me the white styrofoam container. She’s also one of the few that call Beefer by his first name.

  “What is it?” Ger asks, crowding over my shoulder.

  She bends down to tap Ger on the nose. He flushes the same red shade as her lipstick. “Now, if Carl wanted you to know, he wouldn’t have put it in a box, would he?”

  Ger’s eyes fall to the ground. “Guess not.”

  “Carl needs a coffee refill. Could you do that for me?” She hands him the coffee pot.

  He dawdles for a moment, clearly not wanting to leave and miss out on whatever Mary wants to tell me without Ger hearing.

  “Ger,” I say tersely. You don’t keep Beefer waiting for anything. The last time one of us rats made him wait, Beefer beat the shit out of the kid. The kid, Loose-lipped Lou, couldn’t see straight for a week after.

  Ger gives me the stink-eye but takes the pot and skedaddles out front.

  “That was nice and commanding of you,” Mary coos. She doesn’t need to bend down to tap me on the nose. I realize I’m almost as tall as she is. Too bad. I kinda liked it when I was boob high.

  “Beefer doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” I say.

  “So true.” Her painted lips come together. “Honey, I heard you’re taking on more, ah…” She pauses as she tries to
find the right word.

  I don’t help her.

  She scrunches her nose. “Responsibilities. That’s as good of a word as any. Anyway, you’re taking on more responsibilities. You sure you want to go down this road?”

  I take a step back and cross my arms, the styrofoam cracking in my grasp. I don’t like that Mary knows I killed the cop. Is Beefer whispering shit across his pillow to her? I decide to deny it. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She places her hands on my shoulders. “You’re a sweet boy, Monkey. You could do so many other things with your life.”

  It takes effort not to flinch away. I’m not a fan of being close to others. “Like what?”

  She steps closer. The lack of space between us makes the hairs of my neck rise. She’s so close that if she takes a deep breath, the tits that are nearly pouring out of her low-cut waitress top would brush against my chest. I glance past her. If Beefer would come through the stainless steel doors separating the stockroom from the kitchen, I doubt he’d like our positions. Is Mary really so dumb she’d try something with Beefer less than fifty feet behind her? Is this some kind of fucked up test? An initiation? Kill someone for the boss and you get your willie sucked by the prettiest waitress in the hood?

  Her hand comes up to sweep my hair out of my face, reminding me that I need a haircut and have needed one for the last six, or has it been eight, months. “You could drive a taxi or do construction. There’s honest work out there.”

  For a twelve-year-old? “How old do you think I am, Mary?”

  “Old enough that you should know better than to get involved with these guys. It’s a bad business and you’re such a handsome kid. Too handsome to be here working for Carl. You stay in the game and you’ll get hard, scarred and dried up.” The last is said in a whisper as her lips brush the top of my ear. “I’d hate to see that for you.”

  That’s too much closeness for me. Stiffly, I move away. “I need to get home.” If this is a test, I’m okay with failing it.

  She tugs on the neckline of her dress. “All by yourself? I’ll see if Carl wants me to walk you home.”

  “No. I’m good. When does Beefer need me back?”

  “You know what I’m offering, right?” She reaches around and taps the top of my styrofoam box. “For a little of what you got in there, you can have some of this.” She spreads her hand across her chest and down lower.

  “When does Beefer need me back?” I repeat.

  Her mouth turns down and her eyes narrow and suddenly, she doesn’t seem as pretty as she was when she first walked in. “At seven,” she says tersely.

  “Thanks, Mary.”

  “I’m not making this offer again,” she snipes, but she says it to my back because I’m out of the door.

  I don’t look in the container until I’m at the apartment complex. I didn’t want anyone catching a glimpse of it on the street. Folks around here have been killed for a ten-dollar bill or a pair of tennis shoes. A stack of green this big could’ve sent a gang after me.

  In the quiet of the stairwell, I finally give in to my curiosity. A white envelope lies inside the container and inside the envelope, a stack of green. Despite the urge to count it, I stuff the envelope into the back of my jeans and take the rest of the stairs two at a time.

  I knock on the door so I don’t scare the girl. “It’s me,” I call out. I press an ear to the door but don’t hear a thing. When I peek inside, the apartment looks the same—empty and sterile. I make a lot of noise, again so I don’t scare her.

  I find her huddled in the closet.

  “Anyone come here while I was gone?”

  “No.”

  “Good. You hungry?”

  She shakes her head, but her stomach growls.

  I can’t help but grin. “Me, too. Let’s go get some real food.”

  She starts to rise when I hear a sound. I press my finger to my lips in a totally unnecessary move and then hustle to the door. The sound comes again, and I realize it’s a key in the door. Fuck. The realtor is here, and from the sounds of it, there are people outside.

  I run to the closet and grab everything. With the two sleeping bags, it’s almost too much for me to handle, but I manage to stuff half of one in my backpack. I can’t do much about the milk in the fridge or the pans under the sink, but I’ve got money to replace those. With a hand on her back, I urge her toward the window and the fire escape.

  “You’re going to love this place,” I hear the realtor’s voice announce. “It has two bedrooms, which, you know, is impossible to get in the city at this price.”

  I push open the window. Cool morning air blasts us. The girl climbs through, and I shove all the shit out onto the fire escape. “Up,” I mouth. She climbs up the stairs like the monkey I’m nicknamed after.

  “How long has it been for let?” a male voice asks.

  “A month, give or take,” comes the smarmy response.

  Bullshit. The place has been empty for at least three. I toss the bags up and then scramble up the stairs.

  “The window,” the girl urges.

  “Oh, fuck.” I heave off the backpack and swing down the side of the fire escape, dropping as lightly as possible. I grab the window sash and start to press it down when the realtor and his two clients enter the spare room. I drop to the bottom of the landing and roll myself flat against the side of the wall.

  “This room’s closet is small,” the woman says.

  “It’s the city. You’re not going to get big closets and two bedrooms in the city at this price,” Mike advises.

  “It’s cold in here. Are the utilities included?” the woman asks.

  “It’s covered by the maintenance fee,” he answers. “Feel free to crank it up as high as you want. Ladies—they always like to keep things hot, don’t they?”

  I don’t hear an answer, which means the clients have moved on. I glance up. The master bedroom shares the same fire escape. The open iron work of the landing digs into my shoulder. The girl is curled into a ball behind the sleeping bags. She’s good at hiding. I don’t like thinking about how she picked that skill up.

  My hiding skills are well-honed, too. Last night, I broke into the cop’s apartment and sat in his closet until he came home. He changed, shat, brushed his teeth and then climbed into bed—all without figuring out another human was sharing the same space as him.

  I plugged him while he was watching a porno. It might’ve been safer to kill him while he was sleeping, but that didn’t sit right with me. I kinda regret the decision. I’ll be seeing his wide-eyed shock in my dreams for a long time.

  It takes fucking forever for the realtor and his clients to leave. I make the girl wait out on the fire escape until the realtor gets into his car and drives away. Finally, I go retrieve her.

  Her legs are wet and she smells like urine. Poor kid.

  I carry her into the bathroom and turn on the bathtub, making sure the water is only lukewarm. “Wash up real quick. We’re going to find a new place.”

  “This not yours?” she asks quietly.

  “No. I’m squatting, but I have some money, so we’ll go and stay in a hotel tonight.”

  Her face is blank when I say that. She doesn’t know what a hotel is, but, hell, at her age, I probably didn’t either.

  I shut the door and hurry into the kitchen. The refrigerator is empty and the milk is gone. The realtor must have dumped it. He knows something is wrong, then. My instincts are right. We can’t stay here another night. The biggest problem I have is that I don’t have an ID. I can’t rent an apartment. Shit, I don’t even know if I can get a hotel room.

  I scrub my hair back. What’d Mary say? That I looked old enough? I straighten my shoulders. Okay, then. Step one. Get an ID. On the streets, you can buy anything. I just need to find a place to stash the girl until I can get the ID.

  I pack up everything, attaching the two sleeping bags to the backpack—one on top and one underneath. I tug the pack over my shoulders and knock on
the bathroom door. “You ready?”

  The door opens and she comes out, carrying the towel all carefully folded as best as her little hands could do.

  “We’re going to find someplace new.”

  She nods and walks straight to the front door. Man, the little kid’s got a lot of courage. I don’t bother to lock the apartment behind me. Mike the realtor will be back as soon as he dumps his clients.

  We take the stairs and exit out back in the alley. It’s quiet back here. Most everyone’s working. It’s a pretty nice neighborhood, all things considered, but in order for the money I made to last, we’re going to have to go to a place where it’s not so nice.

  Something brushes my hand. I look down to see that she has slipped her fingers into my palm. As I watch, my own fingers close reflexively around hers.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Helping me.”

  “You got a mom somewhere?” I should take her to her family.

  Her eyelashes flick down, but not before I see the pain in her eyes. “Not now.”

  “What do you mean? She…die?”

  She gives a fierce shake of her head and curls her fingers against my skin. “She’s not my mom anymore.” She gives me a worried look. “You’re not going to send me away, are you? I can help. You wait and see.”

  “No. I’m not sending you away, but if you want to go home”—the notion makes my stomach churn, but I bat that anxious feeling away—“I’ll help you get there.”

  “You’re my home now.” She presses her head into my arm.

  I gulp, a big rock lodging itself in my throat. Before her, I didn’t have a purpose beyond surviving. I do now.

  5

  Bitsy

  Leka doesn’t like the lady behind the desk. He’s smiling, but his leg is rigid, like the floor boards. I press a hand against his knee to let him know I don’t care if we stay here. I liked the last place. It was quiet and warm. The closet felt safe.