Page 34 of Rough Hard Fierce (Chicago Underground 1-3)
My best friend in fifth grade was my neighbor two doors down, Leslie Pritchard. We didn’t like each other all that much, but absentee parenting made for strange bedfellows.
Leslie was lonely on nights her mom worked, and so she got a kitten. Leslie and I would sit around in the evenings playing with him, and as if the kitten were our campfire, he would jump in the air and flick his frizzy orange tail.
She’d toss a string, and he would leap with abandon only to come crashing down to the thin carpet in a tumble of tiny limbs. Bug—that was his name—didn’t know that cats should always land on their feet, and he remained staunchly flippant throughout his adolescent years up until he got run over by my dad’s truck. That day marked the end of my friendship with Leslie Pritchard.
The cats around my old apartment were nothing like Bug. They scattered as I climbed the steps, Bailey in one hand, a double-layer cake in the other. All I needed was a handless trombone and I could star in a Dr. Seuss book.
I slid Bailey down my leg so I could knock.
My gaze traced the lines of peeling paint on the door, maroon with white underneath and a trace of blue between them. Like the rings in a tree, marking the time. It had been two days since I’d fled Colin’s house, making empty promises about calling him and soon. I knew what I had to do, but it could be hard to leave home, even if home was a shitty apartment in the scary side of town.
Shelly opened the door.
“Hey, ladies.” Her voice was hoarse, an
d her smile didn’t quite reach her bloodshot eyes.
Shit, shit, shit. Maybe it was just the tiredness resulting from staying up late. But this was Tuesday, and she usually didn’t have a client on Monday. In fact, I left her alone most of the time on Mondays to let her sleep it off. Besides, lack of sleep wasn’t enough to affect her like this. Shelly was like a prey animal. Her problems never manifested in her appearance. If she looked like this, then things had truly gone to shit.
“Shelly?”
Her eyes slid away. She opened her mouth, to answer maybe, but then clapped a hand over it. Leaving the door open for us, she stumbled back through the hallway. The thud of the bathroom door punctuated her departure.
I found Shelly curled up on her bed on top of the covers. Bailey tried to go to her, but I distracted her with a chunk of cake that would be hell to clean up later.
I returned to the bedside. “Jesus, Shelly. Which one?”
“Things just got out of hand,” she mumbled, her eyes closed.
It had been a stupid question, because the answer didn’t matter. She could hardly go to the police. I’d been too afraid to ask the important question, but I asked it now. “How bad is it?”
“Not bad.”
I sighed. “Just tell me. I’m going to find out anyway.”
She looked so thin. When she swaggered around, dressed provocatively and with that half smile, she looked every inch the femme fatale. But lying there, she seemed almost childlike. I reached for her, my hand hovering in the air as if she might break if I touched her. Except she’d already been broken. I gingerly pulled up her shirt to reveal angry, red welts that streaked the length of her back and down under her jeans. I’d seen them before, back when Shelly had first started in the life, before she had regulars to keep her safe.
“He did this,” I said, my voice detached from my head as if I had a cold. I meant the one who liked to rough her up. I told her not to see him, and usually she didn’t take on clients like him, but there was something about him that kept her going back.
“It wasn’t him. I took on a new client.”
“Why? Why would you do that?”
She gestured toward the nightstand, and I opened the drawer. On top of the mess of beauty products and a few books was a single white envelope. A thick one.
I looked inside. Money, and lots of it.
“Shit,” came out on my exhale.
“Five thousand.” Pride colored her voice—I didn’t know whether that was a good sign or bad. Five thousand fucking dollars. That was ten times her regular nightly rate, as much money as she made in a month. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to work now for the next couple of weeks, with her back all torn up.
“But why? We agreed you wouldn’t do shit like this. Christ, Shelly. You could have been really hurt. You are really hurt.”
“It’s for the lawyer,” she said. “A retainer or some shit.”
Oh, fuck. No.
I threw the envelope into the open drawer, hundred dollar bills spilling out in a vulgar array.
