Hell To Pay

“You’re like, what, thirty? That ain’t old.”

Eve tapped ash off her smoke. “I’m twenty-nine. That’s old for World.”

“What about the one who gave Quinn your name? You know her?”

“Oh, yeah. Had to be this little white bitch, name of Stella.”

“She told him you steered girls over to Wilson.”

“I ain’t never done that. It’s what she does. Can’t sell her own ass; ain’t nobody even wants that pussy for free. Trick-ass bitch hustled your boy out of his money, bringin’ him my way. I knew straight off, he mentioned P Street, it was her. ’Cause that’s her corner, right? She gets next to those young white-girl runaways and puts them up with World. She was doin’ that shit when I was with him, and she still is, I guess. Thought she could make some quick change, givin’ up my name. That’s her, all the way.”

“Where’s Worldwide base his self?”

“Uh-uh.” Eve took a final drag off her cigarette and crushed it dead in the ashtray. “Look, I talked too much already. And I got to get myself back to work.”

“I need you, I can get up with you here, right?”

“Door’s open, long as you just wanna watch me dance. Far as this goes, though, we are done. You do come back, don’t be bringin’ your Caucasian friend with you, hear?”

“Boy’s got some anger management problems is what it is.”

“Needs to learn some manners, too.” Eve stood and straightened her outfit. “Listen, you do run into World —”

“I don’t know you no way. I never met you, and I don’t even know your name.”

Eve’s eyes softened. She looked younger then, and when she moved in and rested her hand on Strange’s shoulder, it felt good.

“Somethin’ else, too,” she said. “Don’t you even have a dream of fuckin’ with that man. This is not somethin’ you want to do.”

“I hear you, baby.”

Eve kissed him lightly on the cheek. “You smell kinda sweet for a man, y’know it?”

Strange said, “Take care of yourself, all right?”

She moved away and went through one of the doors behind the bar. Strange settled his tab and got his receipt. On his way out he stopped by the bouncer with the braided hair. He stood before him, looked him up and down, and smiled.

“Damn, boy,” said Strange, “you got some size on you, don’t you?”

“I go about two forty,” said the bouncer.

“Looks like most of it’s muscle, too. Can you move?”

“I’m quick for my size.”

“You a D.C. boy, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Played for who?”

“Came out of Ballou in ninety-two.”

“The Knights. No college?”

The bouncer spread his hands. “I ain’t had the grades.”

“Well, all that natural talent you got, you ought to be doin’ somethin’ ’stead of standing in this bar, breathing in all this smoke.”

“I heard that. But this here is what I got.”

“Listen,” said Strange, “thank you for handling that situation the way you did.”

“I don’t reach out for trouble. But I only give out one get-out-of-jail card per customer, see what I’m sayin’? You need to tell your boy, he comes back in here again, I will kick his motherfucking ass.”

Strange put a business card into the bouncer’s left hand, shook his right. “You ever need anything, the name’s Strange.”

Strange walked out, thinking on one of those golden rules his mother used to repeat, that one about the honey always gettin’ the flies. His mother, she was full of those corny old sayings. Him and his brother, when he was alive, used to joke about it with her all the time. She’d been gone awhile now, and more than anything, he missed hearing her voice. The longer he lived the more he realized, damn near everything she’d taught him, seemed like it was right.

QUINN showered at his apartment on Sligo Avenue, then walked up to town, passing the bookstore on Bonifant, stopping to check the lock on the front door before he went on his way. He drank two bottles of Bud at the Quarry House, seated next to a dwarfish regular who read paperback novels, spoke rarely, but was friendly when addressed. Quinn had gotten a taste at Rick’s and knew his evening would not be done without a couple more. These days, he almost always walked into bars by himself. He hadn’t had a girlfriend since things between him and Juana, a law student and waitress up at Rosita’s on Georgia Avenue, had fallen apart over a year ago. But he still frequented the local watering holes. He liked the atmosphere of bars, and he didn’t like to drink alone.

After his beers, Quinn walked up to Selim Avenue, trying but failing to not look in the window of Rosita’s, then crossed the pedestrian bridge spanning Georgia that led to the B&O train station alongside the Metro tracks.