“You do not understand. Either the … people I must meet might think I was afraid of them. Or worse.”
“Worse?”
“Or they would be afraid of you,” she said.
I watched daylight break the next morning. I used to do that a lot, before. Different now. No Hudson River off in the distance. No cigarette in my hand. No … Pansy next to me. The window in my head opened. And the sky behind it was splattered with red.
I closed my eyes so hard the corners hurt. Impaled on my own truth. Wishing I’d bought some of the religion one of the foster homes had tried so viciously to beat into me. I tried to see my Pansy in some dog heaven. Lying on her sheepskin rug, gnawing on a rawhide bone, watching a boxing match on TV with me. Safe and happy. Doing her job. Loved.
But all I could see was Pansy snarling her last war cry as the bullets took her off this earth.
I breathed deep through my nose, expanding my stomach, taking the air down past my belly into my groin, holding it until it gathered the poison inside me into a little ball. Then I expelled it in a long, harsh stream, toxic yellow-green as it left. Lose the poison, keep the pain. I needed the pain the way a man who survives a bad car crash needs to feel his legs—to know they still work.
“They never killed you, sweetheart,” I promised Pansy. “You’re always with me.”
My eyes flooded. I bit my lip. But my last promise gave me the grip I needed. “And you’ll be there when we take them out, honeygirl.”
For us, from where we come from, that’s all the heaven we ever get.
You think it’s sentimental stupidity, that’s your business. But when we’re keeping our promises, don’t ever get in our way.
“What?” I answered the cellular.
“We’re breaking it off for now.” Byron’s voice. “No action last night. Can’t be in two places at once. Some of the stuff that has to be checked, it’s going to take the personal touch.”
“How’re you fixed for—?”
“Plenty left, don’t worry. My … partner doesn’t work domestic, but he thinks there may be some interest in the visitors by his people, you with me?”
“All the way. You want me to—?”
“Hang, bro. I checked with the studio. It’s a blank slate for the next week, easy.”
“All right.”
“Later.”
“May I have your clothes, please?” Gem asked me the next morning.
“What?”
“We have been here a while; it is time to do our laundry.”
“The hotel has—”
“Maids gossip,” she said, with the air of one who knew from personal experience.
“There’s no labels in my … All right, let’s go do it.”
“Do you know
“Laundry? Hell, yes. You think I don’t know how to take care of myself?”
“Do you cook?”
“Well … no.”
“And you ‘take care of’ your laundry by … what? Taking
“Yeah. Fine, I get your point. But—”
“Just put it all in the pillowcases,” she said. “I will return later.”
“Why are all your tops the same?” she asked me, later that afternoon. She was refolding all the freshly done laundry on the bed in my room.
“The same? They’re not—”
“They all have raglan sleeves. Is that a fashion preference?”
“Oh, now I see what you mean. No, miss, it’s not about fashion. If there’s no shoulder seam, your arms can move faster. Probably gets you an extra tenth of a second or so.”
“And that is important?”
“Almost never. But for when it is …”
“I understand,” she said, thoughtfully. “I must go out for a while. I will return when I can.”
Hours later, I heard the door handle click, and I stepped quickly outside to the terrace. I’d already checked—if it came down to it, I could go across the roof to one of the other suites, smash my way into the glass patio door if they’d left it locked. Tear through the suite and out its front door into the hallway. If the suite I picked was occupied, it wouldn’t slow me down much.
I stood with my back against the outer wall, twisting my neck to peer through the glass into my suite. When I saw it was Gem, alone, I pocketed my pistol and stepped back inside. She looked as fresh as when she’d left, regarding me solemnly with her hands on her hips.
“You prefer it outside?” she asked.
“Just cautious.”
“Why not put the chain on the door, then?”
