Part 24 (1/2)

He sneers at her as she fastens the dress. ”What do you want?”

”An ounce.”

He stares.

He suspects! He suspects and now he'll send me out there and- ”Thirteen hundred,” he says.

She fishes the cash out of the bag. Thirteen of the cops' hundred dollar bills. He throws the baggie in her face and picks up his pipe again, flicking the lighter.

”Hey!” she says, gently ma.s.saging the bag between her fingers. ”Don't smoke that yet! Let me out of here!”

He sneers at her again, this time with a look of pure hatred, but he pulls the lighter away from the gla.s.s. She stands at the door, panting, fondling the ounce, feeling the plastic slide over the powder inside. He slowly climbs to his feet, taking the pipe with him. He undoes the combination lock and lets her out.

The detective keeps his crimson face pointed at his shoes as he takes the bag. ”Thanks,” he mutters, exhaling raggedly and shaking his head slightly. Cops run toward Iggy's place with guns and a big thing that looks like a chain saw with a grinding disc on it. It will be a bad night for Iggy.

She gulps the hot, humid air, trembling because there is no way to fill her lungs with what she really needs. The cop turns away.

She takes a step backward. The cop's stare in the opposite direction is a little too intense to be real.

You want me to go. And I will. Because you can't tell the difference between ”alive” and ”undead.”

The grinder begins shrieking inside Iggy's hallway as she takes another step back. Now Iggy will get the same kind of deal they offered her. And that will lead them to Miguel.

A drop of blood dangles on her upper lip before falling to splatter on the sidewalk. She takes another few steps backward, letting the night envelop her, and then she turns and runs.

Miguel stares at his ceiling, s.h.i.+vering.

”You can't go out like this,” she says. ”You got poisoned blood, Miguel. You can't go out. I'll go instead.”

”No!” Miguel raises a knuckle to his eyes, rubbing. ”I can go. Not you, Sara.”

”Still don't trust me. After all this time. After all the deals. You think I'm gonna step over you with your California connection?”

His breathing is too fast. He reaches for her, weakly grabbing a wrist. His hand is gray and clammy. ”I know what you want to do. But don' do it.”

She strokes his forehead. Wet and cold, like clay. His hand drops to the white plush carpet. ”Don't worry, dear,” she says. ”It's gonna be all right. I'll take care of you. But we gotta get the product. We gotta get it.” She turns, picking up his straw and doing four lines from the gla.s.s-topped chrome table next to him. ”You're almost out of product, Miguel. I'm almost out, too. We gotta get more. For both of us.”

His stare is colder than his flesh. ”I know what you want to do.”

She reaches to touch his face again. He jerks his head away. His eyes narrow. ”All right,” he says. ”Go. He gonna be in the alley behind Vida Nocturna in a white Cadillac at four-thirty. I tell him you go there to do the deal.”

”Thank you, Miguel. I'll pick it up for you tonight. You just rest.”

He s.h.i.+vers, laughs. ”Sure.”

More. Always more. It's the way our kind survives.

She s.h.i.+vers. She does a few more useless lines.