wasting my time standing out. Nobody want to fuck in this weather.”
Jackie followed. “You shouldn’t be doing that,” she warned Lula. “Your old man gonna get mad.”
“Hunk,” Lula said. “I suppose I care. Dumbass prick pimp. Don’t see
“So what’s the word on Morelli?” I asked. “Anything happening?”
“Haven’t seen him,” Lula said. “Haven’t seen the van neither.”
“You hear anything about Carmen?”
“Like what?”
“Like is she around somewhere?”
Lula was wearing a halter top with a lot of boob hanging out. She rolled the cold can of beer across her chest. I figured it was wasted effort. She’d need a keg to cool off a chest that size.
“Don’t hear nothing about Carmen.”
An ugly thought flashed through my mind. “Carmen ever spend time with Ramirez?”
“Sooner or later everybody spend time with Ramirez.”
“You ever spend time with him?”
“Not me. He like to do his magic on skinny pussy.”
“Suppose he wanted to do his magic on you? Would you go with him?”
“Honey, nobody refuses Ramirez nothing.”
“I hear he abuses women.”
“Lots of men abuse women,” Jackie said. “Sometimes men get in a mood.”
“Sometimes they’re sick,” I said. “Sometimes they’re freaks. I hear Ramirez is a freak.”
Lula looked down the street to the gym, her eyes locked on the second-story windows. “Yeah,” she said softly. “He’s a freak. He scares me. I had a friend go with Ramirez, and he cut her bad.”
“Cut her? With a knife?”
“No,” she said. “With a beer bottle. Broke the neck and then used it to… you know, do the deed.”
I felt my head go light, and time stood still for a moment. “How do you know it was Ramirez?”
“People know.”
“People don’t know nothing,” Jackie said. “People shouldn’t be talking. Somebody gonna hear, and you be in for it. Be all your own fault, too, ‘cause you know better’n to go shootin’ your mouth. I’m not staying here and being party to this. Nuh unh. Not me. I’m going back to my corner. You know what’s good for you, you’ll come too.”
“I know what’s good for me I wouldn’t be standing out here at all, would I?” Lula said, moving off.
“Be careful,” I called after her.
“Big woman like me don’t gotta be careful,” she said. “I just stomp on them weird-ass motherfuckers. Nobody mess with Lula.”
I stashed the rest of the beer in the car, slid behind the wheel, and locked the doors. I started the engine and turned the air on full blast, positioning all the vents so the cold hit me in the face. “Come on, Stephanie,” I said. “Get a grip.” But I couldn’t get a grip. My heart was racing, and my throat was closed tight with grief for a woman I didn’t even know, a woman who must have suffered terribly. I wanted to get as far away from Stark Street as was humanly possible and never come back. I didn’t want to know about these things, didn’t want the terror of it creeping into my consciousness at unguarded moments. I hung onto the wheel and looked down the street at the second-floor gym and was rocked with rage and horror that Ramirez hadn’t been punished, and that he was free to mutilate and terrorize other women.
I lunged out of the car, slammed the door closed, and stalked across the street to Alpha’s office building, taking the stairs two at a time. I barreled past his secretary and threw the door to Alpha’s inner office open with enough force to make it crash against the wall.
Alpha jumped in his chair.
I leaned palms down on his desk top and got right in his face. “I got a phone call last night from your fighter. He was brutalizing some young woman, and he was trying to terrorize me with her suffering. I know all about his previous rape charges, and I know about his fondness for sexual mutilation. I don’t know how he’s managed to escape prosecution this far, but I’m here to tell you his luck has run out. Either you stop him, or else I’ll stop him. I’ll go to the police. I’ll go to the press. I’ll go to the fight commissioner.”
“Don’t do that. I’ll take care of it. I swear, I’ll take care of it. I’ll get him into counseling.”
“Today!”
“Yeah. Today. I promise, I’ll get him some help.”
I didn’t believe it for a second, but I’d said my piece, so I left in the same whirlwind of bad temper that I’d entered. I forced myself to breathe deep on the stairs and cross the street with a calmness I didn’t feel. I pulled out of the parking space and very slowly, very carefully drove away.
It was still early in the day, but I’d lost my energy for the hunt. My car headed home of its own volition, and next thing I knew I was in my parking lot. I locked up, climbed the stairs to my apartment, flopped down on the bed, and assumed my thinking position.
I woke up at three and felt better. While I was sleeping, my mind had obviously been hard at work finding secluded repositories for my latest collection of depressing thoughts. They were still with me, but they were no
