shakes his head and looks at me. “Your boy’s okay though. Counts for somethin’.”
“He’s alive, if that’s what you mean.”
Horace smiles a little, and his bloodshot eyes gleam dully. “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
“I’m assuming you’ve seen him around tonight, then?”
Horace shrugs. “Went in Miss Iris’s place. Gone again now though.”
Maggie grins. “He didn’t stay long, did he Horace? Which is a shame, because usually them two put on some kind of a show for us less-fortunate types.” She nods toward the double windows on the first floor of Iris’s building—which, much like the main window on the ground floor, isn’t boarded over enough to prevent the curious from seeing clear into the room, especially if the room is lit—and elbows Horace in the ribs. “I’m afraid one of these days it’s going to put ideas into your head.”
This is a conversation I have no interest in being a part of, so I bid them good night.
“Sheriff…?”
I stop, turn, look at Maggie. “Yeah?”
“You leavin’ us?”
“What do you mean?”
“You look like a man flirtin’ with the idea of runnin’.”
“No,” I reply. “Not yet anyway.”
“Man’s got a boy to look out for,” Horace adds. “Man with responsibilities can’t rightly run away from ’em or they’ll dog him for the rest of his life. Ain’t that right, Sheriff?”
“That’s right.” I get the feeling he’s talking from experience.
“Well you tell that handsome boy of yours Maggie says hello, and that if he ever gets tired of that young gussied-up whore, he can come see
“I will.”
“Hey, and Sheriff?” Horace again.
Exasperated, I frown at him. “What is it?”
“Town’s awful lonesome this time of night, ain’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“You find yourself in need of company, or backup, you just let us know.”
This sends Maggie into renewed hysterics, but Horace isn’t laughing.
“Who’s your passenger?” Maggie asks, loud enough for Brody to be alerted. His pale face presses against the window of my truck and he smiles.
“Never you mind, Maggie.”
“Handsome,” she remarks.
“Trouble,” I call back.
I cross the street, ignoring Brody’s toothy grin. There are no lights on anywhere on Winter Street, but that doesn’t mean much. Iris’s place is the only one occupied, and it’s late.
My knuckles hurt like hell so I turn my fist to the side and thump the door like a pissed-off landlord coming for rent. It sounds like a gunshot, then the street gets awful quiet, as if I’m not the only one curious to see if I get an answer. Even Horace and Maggie have quit their banter.
Another bang on the door hard enough to send painful vibrations up my arm, and I hear soft slow footsteps descending the stairs on the other side.
A moment later, a sleepy voice filters out to me from behind the door. “Who is it?”
“Tom.”
“Sheriff Tom?”
“None other.”
“You here to arrest me, Sheriff?” I’m sure the playfulness in her voice is meant to be cute, and probably works for her customers, but it’s late, I’m tired and I’m in no mood for it. “Open the fucking door, Iris.”
“Not if you can’t be civil.”
“I don’t have time for this. Where is he?”
“Who?”
I take a deep breath, time enough to consider kicking the door off its hinges and her off her feet in the same shot. “Kyle.”
“He ain’t been here.”
“Cut the shit, Iris. I know he has, now either tell me where he went or I’ll knock this door down and you’ll spend the night behind bars.”
She laughs, as sweet a sound as any woman’s laugh, but it makes my teeth hurt. “Iris, so help me…”
“You seem awful uptight tonight, Sheriff. Tense. I’m almost afraid to open the door case you explode all over me.”
“The only thing that’s gonna…” I start to say, then decide to change tack. “Look, this is serious. Kyle’s in trouble, so you need to quit the crap and either open the door or tell me where he is.”
Her sigh is just loud enough to hear through the thick wood of the door. “Well now Sheriff, it’s all a bit fuzzy. You can’t come knockin’ up a girl and expect her to have a good head right away, can you?”
I press my head against the door, and wish, not first time tonight, today, whatever the fuck it is, that I had my gun. But then there’s the sharp snap of a lock, the door cracks open and I catch myself just in time to avoid pitching forward on top of the girl standing there with sleep in her eyes and a coy smile on her face.
“You’re no fun,” Iris says, her pout so dramatic I almost applaud. Her act might hold more water with me if I didn’t remember her back in her store-owning days, when she’d blush at the slightest of compliments and get flustered as all hell when anyone got up the nerve to ask her out. She was a decent sort and I reckon somewhere beneath the too-thick makeup and scandalous facade, she might still be, if years of lying beneath fat sweaty old men, drunks, and addled young guns hasn’t soured her on life completely.
She’s short, about five feet tall, and most of that’s legs, which are bare now beneath the hem of a man’s logging shirt. Her red hair is cut short, not long enough to touch the small slopes of her shoulders, and the shirt’s buttoned only at the middle, so when she moves her belly’s exposed, and there’s enough cleavage on show to let any man know what he’s walked himself into. A soon as I’m clear of the door, she steps close, and despite my feelings about her and the urgency that’s on me to find Kyle, there’s a lot to appreciate right there in front of me.
Her hands find my shirt and she runs her fingers over my chest, her blue eyes gazing deeply into mine, a small smile on her soft lips. “I was hopin’ you’d stop by, Sheriff.”
“Yeah, why’s that?”
“Well, why don’t you come up for a coffee and I’ll tell you all you need to know?”
She peers around me at the two hobos. I hear Maggie chuckling, then the door is shut and Iris is leading me by my hand up the dark stairs. Her skin is warm. Everything in me tells me to pull away, not to get suckered in by her games, though I’m full sure I won’t, not with the way my mind’s set, but this night/day hasn’t followed any rules but it’s own, and it’s hard to keep track of it without the mind just shutting down. So even though I’m trying hard not to look at the pale curves of Iris’s bare ass as she leads the way, I’m back to thinking of sleep, and it starts getting easier to imagine rest knowing there’s a bed right up here complete with a woman to share her heat with me.
Sand fills my eyes, approving of my train of thought, and I yawn, then immediately clear my throat and tell myself to snap out of it. I’m in danger of putting a whore over my son’s life, and though I’m guilty of a lot, I won’t be guilty of that. I withdraw my hand, and she lets me, doesn’t even look back.
“Long night, Sheriff?”
“The longest.”
We’re at the top of the stairs, and she walks ahead into a large room lit by more candles than I’ve ever seen in one place in my life, except maybe the church. They’re spread out around the floor so densely I wonder if there’s a trick to navigating it without setting your pants on fire. Not that I imagine too many folks are still wearing their pants by the time they reach this room. Iris doesn’t look the patient type, and given that her customers are lonely desperate men, I doubt they need to be asked twice.
There are mannequins in every corner of the room, sexless, naked, and tilted back so they’re all staring up
