What was I doing? I dipped an eye back. The woman across the way had curled her lip, looking on in disinterest. Just a fly boy out for some cheap piece of ass at the five and dime titty club next door. The ruse seemed to have worked.
Deidra disengaged. She looked up at me with new eyes, a flushed cast to her face and a murmur in her throat. “Rusco. How long you go under for? Didn’t know you had it in you to kiss like that. Not bad for an old timer. Like it rough, eh? Never guessed you had the hots for me.” Her eyes were all a-flutter. She grabbed at my waist and curled an arm around my butt.
“Sure, baby doll. You’re everything I ever wanted.” Which wasn’t exactly untrue.
While my head was turned she knuckle-drove me in the ribs. I stifled a groan, massaging my throbbing side.
“Now we’re even.”
Yes, I could have cued her into catwoman across the way but I didn’t want to alarm her and have her running. All good, Jet Rusco. Man of casualty damages.
Call it fate, or bad timing, maybe it was both. Luck wasn’t on our side. Some punks, loitering nearby, attracted and turned on by our lingering embrace and roughhousing, stepped up to gawp. One made a point to slide too close to Marty and stamped a big boot in a puddle nearby, splashing him up to the knees in brown water as he went past. Marty looked at him with a dead stare. “Want to lick that off, punk?”
“Shouldn’t stand so close to puddles, old man. You’re on Black Manxes’ turf. We just want to say hello to the little lady. Move your lard ass.” The hood pulled a switch blade on Marty. Glinted under the neon.
“Woo hoo.” Marty pulled out his R4. “You want to sharpen your blade on this?”
The kid backed off, hands upraised.
One of his drunken friends though, thought to get cute and made as if to piss on Marty’s leg. Marty who was already in a poor mood, hoofed the douche-bag in the crotch. Things went downhill from there.
Do anything but don’t provoke Marty. He smacked the other weasel coming in for retaliation. One got his arm in a quasi head lock around Marty’s neck but he slipped out of that hold and rapped the goon in the kidney, doubling him over like a broken rake. Up came the knee. I could see that coming. Ouch.
All fun and games until someone loses an eye. We were supposed to be traveling incognito and Marty was not making it easy.
I glanced with anxiety over at catwoman. She started to get interested again, especially at the R4 Marty clutched in his palm. I could see her beady eyes narrowing and her elbow nudging bronze boy in the ribs.
“Marty,” I hissed. “Two o’clock, across market road.”
“Yeah, but the principle, Rusco, the principle. Think, these rat-asses—”
“Fuck the principle. Remember our mission. Incognito. No undue attention.”
“Tell it to these bozos, half assed pricks.”
A sudden grabass flurry of motion kicked in as they stormed us all at once, heedless of our weapons. Probably jacked up on street Myscol. I backhanded one of the punks with my R4, reluctant to open fire in the street. In the scuffle that followed the punks snatched Deidra and got the piece out of her hands before she could do anything. I heard her husky shriek as they pulled her into the alley.
“Fuck! After her!”
They were running, half carrying her down that spidery, black alley before Marty and I could catch up. Others too. Could have sworn they were joined up by bully boys like the bronze one with catwoman. One punk stayed back and shot at us with the gun he’d swiped off Deidra while the others slipped away. We crouched behind some trash bins and fired back at him. He threw the piece away soon enough and scrambled after his buddies. There were plenty of hidey holes in this scum alley. They’d escaped through one of them like rats in the sewers.
We searched under trash cans, old canvas, burlap, through broken windows. No sign of them. They’d disappeared.
I stood barefaced, chewing my lip, feeling a fool, as the drip-drip of fresh rainwater came splashing on the dirty concrete at my feet from the balconies above. Catwoman was up at the head of the alley, muttering words into her tablet. She dipped back when I lanced her a look. “Rotten bitch.” She was gone before we could catch up with her.
Marty blinked and stared and gave a wheezing sigh. “Well, guess that’s that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Easy come, easy go, Rusco. What don’t you get?”
I took a swing at him.
“Hey, slow down.” He caught my fist. “You’re wound up. Just some chick. She’ll find a profitable life in one of these disco clubs along the strip.”
I gritted my teeth, shook my head. “Not good, Marty. This is all wrong.” We walked slowly away from the market, me fretting and fuming.
Deidra’s dark fear had come to pass after all even despite my protestations to the contrary. It seemed incredible. Some protector you are, Rusco.
Easy to walk away, the cowardly way. Taking no action, I’d be complicit in signing her death warrant. What’d I owe her?
Your life maybe, Rusco? Remember the episode back at the yard?
Marty’s sense of indifference was warped. He didn’t see the big picture. But he was clear-headed enough to know we had to stick together to get through this shitstorm, so he humored me in my quest for the woman.
So we spent the next two days trying to find a mechanic and track her down. Not easy tasks, given we were a couple of wise-guys in an unfriendly town with no leads. I beat myself up, worrying about Deidra’s
