From outside came terrified cries. Azhar knelt by the window on the staircase, peering over the ledge.
A boy, chained in the middle of a group of five naked youngsters wearing red lipstick, was kicked viciously in the side, dragging his manacled colleagues to the ground in a terrified tangle. A Warrior roughly lifted the boy up and set him back on his feet, straightening the line as they were tossed into the back of the van.
“Careful. No bruising,” admonished the physician. “That is for the clients to do.”
He laughed at his joke.
Five girls in white dresses and painted faces, also chained together, were dragged across the driveway. Azhar leaned forward trying to recognize Clary beneath the lipstick; the girls all wore blonde wigs.
“Have you lost someone?” Hazma asked.
Azhar muttered, rising.
“The kitchen needs mopping.”
“Then why are you standing here?” Mustafa snapped.
“Because that is your job. Not peeking at little girls.” Hazma tilted his head shrewdly. “Ah. It is the angry Spanish girl. With the big brown eyes.”
If he called her name and she wasn’t there, she would be unsafe. They would take her out of spite. And if it were Clary down there, chained like a dog, what could he do? Tuck her under his arm from the mouth of the Mufti?
“There are others.” Hazma clasped Mustafa’s shoulder. “She had no ass.”
Azhar hit Hazma in the stomach just hard enough so he bent over, gasping.
The sex trader’s van roared away, trailed by two Ford jeeps of Warriors, triumphantly firing their guns.
15
A very fat woman peered suspiciously at Puppy. There had always been fat women manning the DV community center info desk. As a kid, he used to think it was the same one, year after year, built downstairs in the back like a banned humanoid ‘bot.
He held out his Lifecard again. “Work.”
She rubbed her ear, considering him carefully, as did everyone in the center, quietly shooting pool, playing darts. She snapped her fingers, gaining full attention, and held up Puppy’s childish drawing. The sketch was passed around. She returned to her paperwork with a careless shrug.
A tall teen with long earrings and black leggings wandered over. He looked Puppy up and down with wary distaste. He made the sign of a D and V with his fingers. Puppy tugged down his lower lip in acknowledgement.
The kid narrowed his eyes, not entirely convinced but, of course, Puppy would be easy to find if he was lying, and pulled a pen out of Puppy’s pocket, scribbling down an address. He turned his palms up. The fat woman gloated as she ran Puppy’s Lifecard through the deduction machine to pay for a round of Aubrey’s Strawberry-Coated Choco Treats.
The row of tiny brick houses snuggled protectively along East 155th Street as if too small to make it on their own. He knocked just once on a bland rust-colored house. There were no doorbells in DV homes; that was rude and noisy. If someone wanted you, they would wait for you to respond. If they wanted the visitor, they’d hear.
About five minutes passed before Frecklie opened the door. His left eyebrow raised slightly, discharging caution down his face.
The immaculate house gleamed from years of scrubbing and vacuuming, showing in the faint pine-scented antiseptic odor, scuffed dining room table and chairs, and thin brown rug curling up four square against the walls; a neat garden flowered above the window ledge. Frecklie waited until Puppy ate a piece of AG apple pie from the deep white porcelain dish on the kitchen counter, searching for signs of displeasure. He beamed when Puppy held out his plate for another piece. Guest satisfied. Until that happened, there could be no conversation. Puppy would have to plow his way through the entire fridge.
Puppy accepted a cup of coffee and tapped his watch. Tomorrow. Puppy accentuated that with the forefinger snail gesture.
Frecklie nodded, but didn’t answer. Maybe he’d been wrong about this kid. Puppy tapped his lips and touched his ear. Never heard from you.
Frecklie turned up his palms and touched the top of his head. Waiting.
Puppy shrugged. For?
A very pretty slim Asian woman in her mid-thirties with thin black hair tied in a bun stood in the door with an unpleasant stare that seemed perfectly at home on her lean face. She put down the grocery bags and walked past Puppy as if he didn’t exist, jerking her thumb questioningly; Frecklie nodded, wincing. The teen opened his mouth and the woman cut him short with eyes so narrow an ant would’ve choked on the lashes.
No introductions until she was certain she wanted to meet him. She turned her back, fumbling with the buttons on her blue cloth overcoat.
“Reg okay?” Puppy asked, his shorthand a little rusty; this one would chew his elbow off if he inflected wrong.
The woman nodded grudgingly.
“I have three jobs open at the stadium,” Puppy explained. “I figure taking tickets would be best.”
Why. The woman half-raised her hands; the delicate fingers were spotted with cuts.
“Because it’s handling money. You need to be smart.”
Frecklie’s pleased smile at the trust quickly faded under his mother’s hard look. She wiggled a forefinger on both her hands.
“The other jobs are cleaning up and running the concession stand. There’s no real food and there’s no way the stadium will ever look nice, so handling tickets at the door is the winner.”
Beth waved good-bye.
“Yes. It quit.”
The woman lifted her left shoulder in a mockery of the ancient ‘bot tilt, fixed decades ago in the final models; prejudice had a long memory.
“Yes, a ‘bot job.”
Beth half squatted as if pooping.
“It’s not a crap job.” Puppy grew annoyed. “What else does he have going?”
Her veined hands tensed, pointing at her son.
“Everyone in the DV’s a brain.” He smacked his temple; Frecklie repeated the gesture and the woman rose up slightly on her toes, bouncing like a boxer.
