Missed Connections Read online

  The angle of the light from the street elongated his shadow. He gazed up at it as he stumbled along, as if imagining it reflected his true height. He tripped over a crack in the concrete. I quickened my pace. I couldn’t let him reach the other end of the corridor. Here was good. Here was right. Behind the bar’s dumpster, where no one from the street would notice the happenings in the shadows.

  Don’t do it, said the voice that wasn’t mine.

  “Do it,” I whispered out loud.

  I sprinted. My sneakers splashed through a puddle of foul-smelling standing water. The man turned around. The whites of his eyes flashed. He lifted his hands in defense. Too late. I was already upon him. Had already drawn the knife from my pocket. Had already plunged it into his chest. Logistically, it was more difficult than I thought it would be. The knife made it through his skin then hit a rib. I drew it out and tried again. More bone. The man fought to free himself, blood dotting his Brooks Brothers shirt, but I dragged him behind the dumpster as planned. He was drunk but mobile. He landed a wild punch to my rib cage, pushed my face away with the flat of his palm. A brief flash of panic overwhelmed me. Not again.

  I gripped his too-wide suit jacket in one hand and slammed him against the wall. Then I regripped the knife, turned it sideways, and tried a spot lower down. This time, the blade slipped in between his ribs with a satisfying wet squelch. The man spluttered. He slid down the wall. I knelt with him and tried to yank the blade free, but his body kept it suctioned in place. I planted a foot against his torso and wrenched it out. Plunged it again. Pulled it out. In. Out. And again. Blood dribbled from his mouth. I flung off my hood, put my face right up to his.

  “Do you remember me?” I said. My voice was strong, level, even, but raspy from disuse. “Do you know who I am?”

  “V-Veronica Bauer,” he sputtered, spraying blood. “You—you’re supposed to be dead.”

  “Twelve years ago, you watched as your friends raped me and my mother.” I traced the knife across his cheek, savoring the look of pure terror that made his eyes flash. “You found pleasure in it. You had a hand in her death. I wanted to ask you. Was it worth it?”

  His voice bubbled. “Was it worth what?”

  I leaned closer. Whispered. “Dying for.”

  I didn’t allow him the chance to answer. Something primal, urged by seething, unbridled rage, lifted my hand again. I drew the knife across the front of his throat. Warm blood gushed over my hands, across my face. The man gurgled and slumped over. He was a painting in red, and I held the brush. I waited—more waiting—until the rasping breaths stopped. Until the steady beat of blood from his wounds slowed and ceased. Until he was no more than a shell of a man. Maybe in death, he would achieve the height he always dreamed of. But I hoped not.

  Finally, I stood. Pocketed the knife. I was drenched head to toe. My shoes left bloody footprints in the alley. I took them off and carried them. I breathed in, then out, then in again. The air tasted good, of something satisfying and unfamiliar. Salty and free, like ocean wind.

  Justice. I tasted justice.

  Chapter Two - Sheila

  Wyatt Payne would not shut up. Not at the precinct on Fifth, or the donut shop on Fourth, or the friggin’ stop sign on Third. His lips flapped as he yammered on and on about this case or that suspect or the Captain’s wife or the probability of picking up a venereal disease from the showers at work. He talked so much that I couldn’t hear the radio over his non-stop chatter, and only when I slammed my foot against the brake pedal so abruptly that his forehead nearly hit the dashboard did he finally take a fucking breath.

  “What the hell was that for?” He combed our surroundings, but at this time of night, there weren’t many cars out on the road other than the wayward taxi. “Are you nuts?”

  “I can’t hear the radio.”

  My partner and I were the worst matchup since Sid and Nancy. We met at the police academy then continued as rookie officers for the Simone City Police Department. I couldn’t stand him. It wasn’t that he was a bad cop. He was actually a pretty good cop. I trusted him with my life. I had to trust my partner, but I didn’t have to like him. Wyatt was the epitome of every boy who harbored the dream to protect and serve. He came from a family of cops and grew up parallel to the justice system. He wore the same police officer costume for four Halloweens in a row before he grew out of it and his mom had to buy him a new one. He learned to shoot a gun when he was nine and how to cuff someone one-handed when he was eleven. And he was a pretty boy. Tall, muscled, and blond. That made him all the more annoying, but his constant attempts at romance worsened the issue.

  Wyatt leaned forward and turned up the radio volume as if the volume was the problem. We drove through Juno in an unmarked car. It wasn’t one of the cruisers painted black with the siren removed that people could spot a mile away like a narc at a high school. It was a piece of crap on the outside, painted to look like a rusty old sedan that would blend in with the other cars in the lower boroughs. The inside, though, had all the accoutrements of the average squad car. Wyatt and I had drawn the short straw for the night shift. We were on our way to our assignment. One of the clubs in Venus was having one too many issues with prostitution. Tonight, we had a bait girl waiting outside. The plan was to park outside the club and let her attract a few customers. If they offered money, we could pick them up.

  “I can’t believe they picked Marcy for this,” Wyatt said. “Have you seen Marcy? She does not look like a prostitute.”

  “What do you think a prostitute looks like, Wyatt?” I asked him. “You think women apply to be sex workers? That they have to meet a standard of beauty to sell themselves to desperate, horny men?”

  “Whoa, don’t get all feminist on me, Sheila.”

  “Someone’s got to.”

  “I meant that I can’t picture Marcy in stripper heels and a skirt,” he said. “That’s all. I wasn’t trying to say she’s not pretty or anything.”

  “Not the point.” I guided the car across the bridge that connected Juno to Venus. The clean white street lights of the wealthier borough faded in the rearview as hues of neon welcomed us to the club district. “Marcy could kick any guy’s ass in under three seconds. That’s probably why Dumas asked her to do this.”

  “I definitely would not fuck with Marcy,” Wyatt agreed.

  We cruised past the address to scope it out. A gay bar called the G-Spot took center stage. It was disco night. Remixed seventies music pumped from the club, bass rattling the windows of our car. When the bouncer opened the door to let someone in, mirror ball lights bounced off the asphalt. Half-dressed men lined up to get inside. They checked each other out free of shame, gazes loaded with competitive melodrama or potential lust.

  “I wish I could do my eyeliner that well,” I sighed as one of the men, dark black wings around his lightning blue eyes, flashed the bouncer a smile.

  “Maybe Marcy can teach you,” Wyatt suggested. “She looks like she’s got it down.”

  Marcy was easy to spot among the rest of the ladies on the curb. She had broader shoulders from years of combative training, and she was the only one not smoking. When we cruised by her, she shimmied her shoulders, shaking her chest by way of hello. I choked back a laugh as her glittery crop top shimmered in the moonlight. It was hilarious to see her out of her uniform and looking like that, but we were here for a job that I needed to focus on. Hiding behind the theatricality of the G-Spot, its entrance nestled below street level, was Penthouse Gentlemen’s Club.

  This wasn’t the first time SCPD got involved with Penthouse. The place was notorious for encouraging illicit behavior. Strip clubs weren’t illegal in Venus, but selling sex was. The owners of similar joints in Venus made a point to protect their girls from skeevy customers, but Penthouse was known for its loose rules and wealthy clientele. As long as you walked in with a wad of cash, you could do whatever you pleased with the employees. If I had the pleasure, I would’ve shut Penthouse down years ago. The problem was the club owne
rs had a mysterious way of keeping everyone quiet. The girls refused to admit they were taken advantage of and the customers refused to admit they had taken advantage. When everyone pretended the business was legitimate, the police had no evidence to suggest otherwise.

  At the end of the street, I pulled a U-turn and parked by an abandoned bar where our sketchy car and tinted windows kept passing club goers unaware of our profession. From here, we could keep an eye on Marcy and Penthouse’s entrance. If anything unsavory went down, we would see it.

  Wyatt unbuckled his seatbelt and dug around in the glovebox for a bag of Cheetos and a Diet Coke that he’d stuffed there earlier. “So I’ve always meant to ask you. Where’d the name Sheila come from?”

  “My mother.”

  “Your mother’s name is Sheila?”

  “No, my mother was a nun.”

  The plastic Cheetos bag made the squeaky, crinkly sound that chip bags do as he pried it open. “If your mother was a nun, then how do you exist?”

  “I never said she was a good nun.”

  Wyatt popped a Cheeto into his mouth and dusted orange powder from his fingers. It stained his black uniform pants. “I like your mother.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Does she like me?”

  “Wyatt, I know you’re desperate, but you can’t date my mother.”

  “That’s not why—”

  “Officer Payne? Shut up.”

  I only called him Officer Payne when my patience was running dangerously low. He got the picture. For a few minutes, I listened to the muted bass from the G-Spot, the police radio chatter, and Wyatt’s fingers going in and out of the chip bag. He popped the lid on his Diet Coke. The aluminum hissed as carbonation bubbled over and soda spilled into Wyatt’s lap.

  “Shit,” he said, shaking the droplets of processed sugar off his pants. “Can’t fucking win.”

  “You drink that thing, you’ll have to piss in an hour.”

  As Wyatt stared longingly at the can, I swept the scene. I watched the entrance to the Penthouse for a few seconds, checked on Marcy, and gave the entire street a general once-over. Then I started the process again. It was dull work. The minutes felt longer and less important. Wyatt fidgeted, bored in the first half hour.

  “So Dumas is looking to promote someone,” he said. I had to give it to him. He’d waited a good while before opening his mouth again.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Should be happening pretty soon.”

  “I know.”

  Wyatt cleared his throat, but there was nothing to clear other than soda. “You up for it?”

  “Yup.”

  “Cool, cool.” He nodded, rubbing his palms against his knees. “Me too.”

  “I figured.”

  He drummed his fingers. “Detective, huh? Think you can handle that?”

  I drew my eyes away from the bar and looked at him in the passenger seat. “Can you?”

  “Well, you know, I’ve been working toward this kind of thing my whole life,” he babbled, pretending to check on Marcy through the windshield. “Moving up through the ranks. My dad was a detective by the time he was thirty. That’s hard, you know? That’s young for a detective’s shield, but I want to follow in his footsteps, you know? And, well, you don’t really have the same background. You don’t know—”

  “I don’t know what?”

  “What it takes.”

  I continued to look at him. His eyes flickered back and forth from the club to me. I let the hint of a smile touch my lips to freak him out. “How about you let me worry about whether or not I’ve got what it takes?”

  “Sure, sure.” He cleared his throat again. “But, you know, no hard feelings.”

  I captured my lip between my teeth to prevent myself from replying, biting down hard enough to taste the bitter tang of blood. Wyatt thought he was a shoo-in for the promotion, and maybe he was, but it wouldn’t be his hard work that got him the job. It would be his connections. The thought tasted worse than blood.

  “Sure, Wyatt. No hard feelings.”

  I scanned the street again. Someone new leaned against the wall opposite the G-Spot, facing the entrance to Penthouse. The person wore a baggy hoodie, but the curve of the hips indicated it was a woman. She hardly moved. She didn’t shuffle her feet or shift her weight. She watched, surveying the scene with the same amount of concentration as me. I leaned over the steering wheel and squinted across the street, but the woman’s face was hidden by the hoodie. When a man came out of Penthouse, she perked up. He was shorter than me—which was saying something—and clearly inebriated. For a brief second, he harassed Marcy. I tensed up, my knuckles white against the steering wheel, but the man moved on. He lurched along and slipped into the dark corridor alongside the bar. The woman in the hoodie waited long enough to let him get a head start then trailed after him, her stride sober and purposeful.

  “Did you see that?” I asked Wyatt.

  “See what?”

  “That guy going into the alley,” I said. “And the woman in the hoodie.”

  Wyatt propped himself up on the center console to peer over my shoulder, his Cheeto-scented breath hot and moist against my neck. “I don’t see anything.”

  “There was a short guy, totally loaded, and this girl—”

  Without warning, Wyatt kicked open his door and jumped out of the car. “Shit! Sheila, we got one.”

  In front of Penthouse, an oily middle-aged man in a wrinkled suit was waving a stack of bills in front of Marcy and belligerently demanding her attention. The other girls scattered as Marcy pulled a pair of handcuffs from beneath her blouse—how she had room for them in there, I had no idea—and tapped them around the man’s wrists with expert ease. As Wyatt and I jogged across the street to finish the job, the men waiting in line for the G-Spot cheered.

  “Go get him, honey!”

  “Oh, he is delicious in that uniform. Work it, boo!”

  I let Wyatt take care of the perp since he was so sure that tonight was his last night as a beat cop. This way, I didn’t have to touch the rich guy with the comb over who was practically sweating booze.

  “Nice job,” I told Marcy. “You okay?”

  “Peachy.” She flashed a grin and playfully shook her hips. “Wanna take me home, Officer?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I think your cover’s blown, miss. Let’s get out of here.”

  We followed Wyatt as he led our new friend away from Penthouse and across the street. As I slipped into the driver’s seat of the car, I looked back at the alleyway. It was dark and empty. Not even the moonlight touched it.

  Chapter Three - Vee

  I made it back to my place in Minerva unnoticed. The streetlights were busted in the lower borough. All of them. When the teenagers were bored, they threw rocks. It resulted in shattered glass, broken dreams, and streets darker than the corridors of hell. The blood on my face had dried. I scratched it off in crusty flakes, rubbing the essence of that horrible man between my fingertips. The rest of it weighed down my clothes like cold, wet mud as it congealed. No one spared me a second glance. Or a first one. Minerva didn’t stare or ask questions. The borough knew what was best for itself. Keep to yourself. Mind your business. Lock your doors. If a woman walked by you drenched in blood, duck your head and pretend you didn’t see anything.

  The front door of my apartment building had iron bars on it. The building itself was smack in the middle of the Shithole, or Minerva’s business district. Everyone called it the Shithole because that’s what it was. The borough’s epicenter was a jagged circle of shops and businesses. The corner store sold bail bonds. The gas station was missing four out of five fuel dispensers. Everything was covered in a layer of soot and grime, leftover from a fire that wiped out half of the borough’s population a few years ago. Long ago, the Shithole scared me. Now I took comfort in its ability to sweep me under its rug. The rest of Simone City ignored Minerva and everyone in it. No one here existed, so neither did I.

  The list of r
esidents next to the building’s intercom system didn’t have my name on it. People who don’t exist don’t need their names on intercom systems or to use the front door. I took the back way through the Shithole. The alleys were skinnier here than in Juno, but I squeezed through. Got to my building from behind. Blood from my sweater smeared against the red brick. I wiped it off with the palm of my hand, hoped nobody would look too closely at the smudge in the morning. Nice plan, the voice taunted. Totally foolproof. I wiped it again.

  Along the side of the building, I got a leg up on a pile of trash to the top of the dumpster. Made a flying leap. Grabbed the underside of the rickety fire escape. I swung back and forth a few times, getting my bearings, then pulled myself up to the actual stairs. A pale face peeked through a window as the metal groaned and complained. I took three stairs at once, gone before the curious eyes could clock me. On the fifth floor, I pried open a window and slipped inside.

  My unit wasn’t much larger than a prison cell. It was one room, two if you considered the alcove that led to the kitchen door. The bathroom didn’t have a door either, but that was because I’d kicked it off its hinges and used it to block the other window. There was room enough for a bed and a desk, but no chair. The desk was set up at the end of the bed so I could sit on the mattress while I worked. Peeling green wallpaper lent the room a sickly tint. The ceiling was stained straw yellow from a leak in the room. Water dripped into a metal trash can below.

  I closed the window and jimmied a wooden dowel in it so that no one could open it from the outside. The table lamp was being obstinate again. I turned the switch. The bulb flickered and went out. I turned the switch again, delicately. The lamp turned on, casting stale yellow light across the squalid apartment. I dumped the foul water from the trash can into the kitchen sink. Then, piece by piece, I removed my bloodstained clothing. The shoes went first, clunking to the bottom of the can. Then the hoodie, jeans, socks, and underwear. Just in case.