and began to crush it up with a Bic lighter.
'As I was saying, you a fine piece of ass. I've noticed you for a long time. Done jacked myself off to the thought of you bouncing on the end of my dick on many an occasion. But what I was thinking was more along the lines of a business proposition.'
Iz wanted to get up and run right there. The voice in her begged her to leave. The familiar itch, like worms inching along the flesh of her arm, and her mouth salivated, literally watered, at the familiar ritual. Her body remembered the dance of preparation and the anticipation of the high to come. It was never as good as the first time she slammed a load home, but she damn sure kept trying to find a blast to ride to recreate a close approximation.
'Damn you,' she whispered.
'You say something?' Mulysa poured a bunch of the crystal into the jar and swirled the concoction. 'Anyway, what I was thinking was maybe you'd want to get back into the trade. Maybe you talk to Tristan. I heard she used to run wild for some dick back in the day. But you? You'd be my special girl. Premium rates only. Like a ghetto escort, I'm telling you.'
The worst symptom of her disease was the amnesia. The way it made her forget. She forgot her sunken-in eyes, her scaly skin, and her ancient track marks. She didn't remember the bruises, the lack of definition to her muscles, or how her skin hung slack and uneven. How some times she hunted for a vein for over ten minutes despite her diminutive frame.
Mulysa held the flame to the base of the jar until the liquid began to smoke and bubble.
Near her lowest point, she developed an abscess in her arm; the infection ran down to the bone. A mixture of white, yellow, and bloody pus seeped from the wound constantly, a cloud of stench dogged her every step. Eventually she ended up in the hospital. After they were done treating her, it left a gaping hole in her arm. They shot antibiotics into her ass and packed the wound using a long Q-Tip to stuff bandages into it. Much like the ones Mulysa had.
He dropped in the cotton then drew it up into a syringe. Pulled out and pushed, spraying the wall. Iz didn't budge at his approach. Her veins jumped up like an obedient dog called home. She watched the needle puncture her skin. There was something nearly erotic about having someone shoot you up. Blood coagulation at the head of the needles. The blood and drug mixture slammed home. Waves of pulsing warmth suffused with surreal calm. An utter vacantness to her eyes. No joy, no excitement, only need. She couldn't focus. The pattern of the floor boards dizzied her. She never hated herself as much as she did right then.
And part of her didn't care.
Didn't care about a thing.
Life was going to work out.
That certainly was the best part of the high.
Mulysa reached to unfasten her jeans. 'There's more where that came from.'
Water from the previous night's rain filled the dip in Big Momma's courtyard between the rows of condos. Garbage clogged the drain and filled the parking lot up to the ankles. Back from the service at Good Hope — Had in tow — high on the words of Pastor Winburn, she was all about joining in God's mission to be a blessing to the world. The drain distracted her. She hiked up her dress, wading through the water in her bare feet. Cleaning away the trash, unblocking the drain, she hummed Mahalia Jackson's version of 'Precious Lord, Take My Hand' and waved at Neville Sims as he rode his maintenance wagon. Had splashed about in the water while she worked.
She watched the waters recede for a few moments then turned towards her condo. Had's hand in one of her hands, her still dry shoes in the other. Her door was ajar. One of her meaty arms slammed into Had's chest harder than she intended. There had been a series of break-ins throughout the neighborhood. Mr Stern talked about more security, but still hadn't hired anyone or put up any cameras.
Her living room remained unransacked but the house had the air of violation about it. She checked out the lower level of the condo, but nothing seemed out of place. The weight of her foot on the first step as she craned up the stairwell caused the planks to squeak. She took each step slowly, gesturing for Had to stay where he was, her back to the wall as she tried to peer around corners and over ledges. Her room was fine. Last was Lady G's. Her room only slightly more disheveled than usual. But her bed was a mess. Crayons and paper scattered atop pulled-up sheets. The light stand knocked over. Her piles of clothes tumbled over. She never had any boys up in there, but it looked like she'd been dragged out. Big Momma pulled out her cell phone, punching in numbers while still surveying the scene. Straight to voicemail. She dialed a second set.
'She's gone,' Big Momma yelled into the phone.
'Who?'
'Lady G.'
'What do you mean?'
'I didn't know who else to call,' Big Momma said, not allowing her fears to overwhelm her voice. 'I didn't want to… I couldn't get a hold of King.'
'It's OK. It's OK. I'm on it.'
Lott disconnected the call.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tristan and Iz had avoided corners where action jumped off. Quietly, Tristan always feared for Iz. It wasn't too long ago she was out on the streets on her own and the urge to hustle not long buried. Tristan remembered the days at correction after Iz had become a kleptomaniac. Tristan learned to make food last. Once outside again, Iz seemed happy to not have a toilet in her bedroom and to be away from her warden's manner of discipline and control, and upright rigidity. The one thing she longed more than anything else after being released was a bath. The simple pleasures of soaking in a tub. The desire, the hunger, the insatiable need fed temporarily by drugs bubbled beneath the surface. The last couple of days, Iz had been different. Secretive. Closed off. Evasive even about the little things. Even if she didn't give them voice, Tristan knew the signs. It reminded her of the last time she had to confront Iz's need. Tristan stopped at the corner store to get smokes, gone for only an hour, only to come home to Iz.
No lament was sung alone. For every fiend there was a brother or sister, mother or father, friend or colleague who sang along with them. From money stolen from purses to stuff missing around the house to lies upon denials upon disappointments heaped up as a raucous chorus.
Tristan knew the bottom was about to fall out. She ran the gauntlet of fiends milling about the place. How they avoided her eyes. How they shuffled off without a word, cockroaches scattering in her presence only to regroup once she was gone. They knew.
When Tristan pulled back the loosely placed piece of plywood and stepped into the alcove, it was as if the spirit of their place had been violated. Part of her knew Iz had been using again. The fiend was not the only one to sound the notes of denial in the junkie's lament. A little weed she could excuse. Maybe a one-time slipup, because they were only human and that heroin was the devil.
She noticed the smell first. Her blades found their way into her hands without a thought. Tristan booted open the door. Half-dressed, Iz passed the pipe to her john. The room lit to the shade of burnt honey, Tristan made sure the light glinted from her blades that he could clearly see the feral warning in her eyes. The john dropped his pipe and ran past her without so much as a backwards glance at Iz. Her arms embraced her raised knees as Iz cowered in the corner of the room. A long T-shirt barely covered her, leaving her bare buttocks visible from underneath it. Her skin a frieze of sweat trails and dirt. Sucking on a Coke can used for a pipe. Feeling more empty than high.
'Why?' Tristan's voice cracked with a hollow ache.
'Don't know. Guess I'll never be whole.'
Tristan huddled on the floor with Iz and kissed her hands. 'It will be all right,' she promised. 'I'll make sure it will be all right.'
Colvin had nothing to prove.
Unarmed, unescorted, and without a security entourage, he wasn't one of the neighborhood boys out in the streets getting into fights in order to find out things about himself or test himself or others to see what they were
