Boyfriend from Hell (Saturn's Daughters) (5 page)

“Short Stuff, you got what it takes!” Cora crowed in triumph as I hobbled out in bare feet. “You got any heels?”

“I limp, remember?” I showed her the hanging shoe rack behind my bedroom door. “The only way I can wear heels is if one is higher than the other. Otherwise, I break my neck.” At five-two, I used to wear heels all the time. No longer.

“These ugly things match.” Cora held up a pair of cork-soled, wedge-heeled sandals with a fat bronze flower over the toes.

My espadrilles, the reason it had been so easy to knock me down the stairs in the fall that had broken my leg in three places. I’d been so damned proud of those consignment store treasures that day. Rioting in sandals had probably been pretty stupid. Trusting an angry police officer, even stupider. Just looking at them now returned that painful memory of iron bars, concrete stairs, and fat arms shoving.

“They’re Clarks and made for walking.” Annoyed at myself for letting a memory stop me from wearing pretty shoes, I slipped them on. “Tell me how this will get me a car.”

“It’s magic, baby.” She whistled the tune of the old song and headed for the door.

Grabbing my cell and keys and adding them to the metal-reinforced purse I slung across my chest, I stomped after Cora. It’s pretty hard to sway sexily when one leg is longer than the other.

Radiation magic, maybe, to go with the hallucinations. Fine, I wasn’t comfortable in my own home anymore anyway. Obviously, I was ready to do anything to ensure I finished my classes. I’d be accepting e-mail prizes from Nigeria next.

• • •

I was disappointed when Sam lopped off inches of my newly glorious hair. I’d rather liked the feel of all that heavy weight falling on my neck and swinging coquettishly. But I had to admit, the curly look suited my skinny face, and the highlights set off my naturally bronze coloring.

Thick, shiny brown curls softened my square jaw, making it almost look as if I had cheekbones. If hair like this was what shampoo goo got me, I wasn’t complaining. Better yet, the mirrors in the salon reflected only me, with no Max in sight.

I couldn’t afford Sam’s prices, but he assured me the first cut was free, that he’d make it up when I had to come back every two weeks. I knew I couldn’t afford to come back, but once I had wheels, I wouldn’t need to put on a show, so I didn’t worry about it.

While Cora drove us to the used-car lot, I got my head in a little better working order. “Can you track government license plates?” I finally had the sense to ask.

“Sure, those are easy if you’ve got someone on the inside, and we do. What you need?”

“I want the guy who almost killed a couple of kids yesterday, crushed all their books and computers, then drove off.” I could think about kids and justice far more easily than I could think about balls of flame.

“I heard about that. Be interesting to know which big dog is slumming in this part of town and why, but you know you can’t do nothing about it, don’t you?”

She was probably right, but I needed action to take my mind off my hallucinations. “One step at a time,” I answered. “Let’s just see who it is, if we can figure it out from a partial.”

Tina Clancy, girl detective. Worked for me.

“Give me the make and model of the car and we can narrow it down.”

“Big, black, shiny,” I replied, biting back a smile. For just a second, it almost felt normal to be bantering with a friend.

She punched my arm and veered her beat-up Mini Cooper into a used-car lot.

I wasn’t much for putting myself on display. I preferred my mousy camouflage so I could stay focused and get my work done. But Cora seemed to think I’d get a better deal if I strutted, so I did my shrimpy best. With only my rent money in my checking account and no collision insurance on the Escort, I couldn’t imagine affording more than a bicycle. Maybe I could sue Max’s estate and get his Harley.

Where did that ugly, spiteful thought come from?

“Hey, Joe, Andre says my girl here is good for a
thousand. What’ve you got for us?” Cora asked the portly, balding gentleman waddling from the glass-walled office.

Andre
said I was good for a thousand? Was he planning on docking my pay? I’d have to quit buying groceries, if so. Maybe I should give up school and find a real job. It wasn’t as if I would even be allowed to take the bar exam with my record. Would Schwartz look up my riot-inciting arrest and conclude I was violent enough to drive Max to murder? Even I was beginning to suspect me, and I didn’t have a suspicious mind.

“Ain’t nothing here for that kind of money,” Joe protested. “Tell Andre not to be such a tightwad.”

Oh, well, anything was better than thinking. “Ah, hon,” I purred, using the ubiquitous Baltimore endearment and tapping Joe’s arm as I passed by, “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

Not wanting to owe my wicked boss any more than necessary, I sucked in my gut and stepped carefully, doing my best to swing my hips as I approached a shiny red Miata convertible. Miatas are made of plastic. To be on a car lot on the slummy side of town, this pretty toy was probably held together with duct tape and baling wire. Up close, I could see that the vinyl seats
and
the windshield had cracks. I wiggled behind the steering wheel, flashing a lot of leg. “Let me see what it does, hon.” I flashed him a sparkly smile, and he perked right up.

As Joe hurried back for the key, Cora climbed in
the other side. “You’re evil, girl, you know that, don’t you?”

Yeah, I was starting to get that impression.

• • •

I waved good-bye to Cora and drove away in the red Miata, feeling a grand poorer and a whole lot of stupider. I didn’t have Max to repair the rolling junk heap. I’d probably be up to my neck in repair bills and end up with a car on blocks while owing Legrande forever.

But I needed to do something to swing my head back on straight, and it looked like being stupid was it. I breathed deeply for the first time since the “accident” and enjoyed the wind blowing my newly cut hair as I cruised home. Even the kids in my tenement wouldn’t be dumb enough to steal a plastic Miata, so I figured it was safe.

The clouds were rolling in thicker. I tied a tarp to the mirrors—the convertible top didn’t work—and shimmied back to my apartment. Shimmy was about all I could do in spandex. I needed to change into something a little more practical.

I’d been ignoring the buzzing of my cell phone all morning, figuring it was more TV news goons wanting to know how it felt to have a boyfriend go up in flames before my eyes. How did they think it felt? I refused to do tears for public entertainment.

I hadn’t noticed any van in the parking lot, but a cameraman was standing in the corridor when I stepped out of the stairwell. We startled each other.
I slammed back to the stairs, removed my sandals, jerked my skirt up my thighs, and performed my best uneven dash upward to hide on the roof. Yeah, yeah, I know, only stupid movie females run to the roof in times of danger, but there was a method to my madness. I had the keys to the roof door, and I figured the TV guy would think I’d gone down instead of up.

If I was really lucky, he hadn’t even recognized me. I hardly recognized myself. I was definitely not liking being the center of attention again. I’d learned a lot of hard lessons in Pennsylvania. Being locked in jail with my face plastered across the front page under the headline STUDENT MENACE hadn’t enhanced my impression of journalists. The provost got less press when he “resigned” a year later. I didn’t see any articles about a STUDENT HERO who saved the university’s rear end. But I was busy picking up the pieces of my life by then. Maybe I missed the story. I’d have laughed hysterically at my humor if I wasn’t trying to be quiet.

I locked the door behind me and walked barefoot on hot asphalt to the edge of the roof to see how I’d missed the van. He’d parked on a side street past the parking lot entrance, the rat fink.

Pity I couldn’t send TV vans to hell.

A tickle at the back of mind said it might be better if I didn’t think like that.

Camera Guy emerged from the front exit, looked around, then went back inside. I sauntered over to the rear of the building and watched him exit there. Poor baby. He’d just experienced the Incredible Disappearing Woman.

Just thinking about disappearing gave me the shudders after everything that had happened. Had Cora really meant it that the chemical waste pollution of the Zone had done something to the people who worked there? I should have asked what it had done to her. She’d been there longer than I had. Did it give her those skin-slashing cheekbones?

The thought was so patently ridiculous that I figured I should punch Andre for making Cora tell stories to get his way.

Except for that fact that Lady Justice was a piece of tin with personality. And buildings glowed without electricity. The magnifying glass in the sign advertising Cora’s detective agency often disappeared for days at a time and sometimes returned with photos of people inside it. The list of objects was long and strange—but I’d never noticed
people
being weirder than usual.

I tried not to think too hard. It made my head hurt. Maybe all those new hair follicles really were hacking my brain.

TV guy apparently got fed up. I watched him wander back to the van, talk to someone on his phone, and climb in. When he rolled off, I returned downstairs, grateful to Max for lifting that roof key and giving me a copy. I didn’t want to know what he normally did with roof keys, but I liked going up there to escape my life.

As I reached my floor, a tall, slump-shouldered man with wild gray hair was unlocking the door across from mine. I knew the student who lived there, but I didn’t know this stranger.

“Are you looking for Lily?” I asked, hiding the suspicion in my voice. I was learning to be wary.

He turned and studied me in a way that gave me creeps.

“Stay away from his family,”
he said ominously, before entering the apartment and shutting me out.

I blinked in shock. There was something about his dark eyes that seemed a little too familiar. . . . I hurriedly unlocked my door. Hallucinations and paranoia are a really bad mix.
Stay away from his family? Whose
family? Why? Not going there.

Once I was safely inside my apartment, I broke down and scrolled through the list of messages on my cell. Numbers without names. Newspapers. Who the devil gave these people my private number? Max’s friends, of course. Dimwits. Did they hate me, too? I was almost afraid to check Facebook. I might have to delete myself.

But Facebook was about the only way I stayed in communication with my roving mother and my fellow college friends in crime. For now, I let it alone. I had more important goals in mind.

I slapped tomato and cheese on some bread and called it lunch. I ate while changing into jeans and a tank top. I was just starting to feel almost normal, so I avoided looking in the mirror. I really didn’t want to go all
Exorcist
again.

I had no idea what the news was saying about me or Max. I didn’t want to know. With any luck, I was a twenty-four-hour wonder and by now a semi of rabid chickens had overturned and shut down the Bay
Bridge and they’d leave me alone. I had better things to do, and so should they.

I slipped on a pair of wraparound shades, checked the windows for TV crews, and hoped for the best as I aimed for the bus stop. Moist, heavy air was turning into droplets.

With my head clearing, I had a more distinct memory of what had happened to my deposit bag. I hadn’t lost it in a ball of flame or had it lifted by hospital personnel, as Andre had assumed. It had been stolen, probably by the jerk who had jostled me. I’d examined the shackle I’d dumped in my bag; it had definitely been cut. Unless someone was walking around with powerful metal cutters for fun, I was wagering they’d been waiting for me. I wanted another look at the Dumpster. Thieves always flung purses into the garbage after they’d grabbed the cash. Maybe I could save Cora’s boss his big check.

The bus ran only once an hour on Saturdays, and even then, it wasn’t crowded. The Zone was a workingman’s hangout, and most of the industrial plants were weekdays only. People partied on Saturdays, but the lights didn’t go on until after dark.

Which made me wonder if the radiation or whatever was in those buildings affected visitors as well as people who worked there, and if it got into the beer they drank or the water they sipped. Or if the chemical aroma hanging in a miasma over the area was infectious. Or if the whole thing was a fairy tale.

I’d seen plenty of evidence that the Zone affected
things,
say the naked-lady statue at Chesty’s that
blew bubbles and did the hula. It had been years since the last big chemical spill, before my time. But if the chemical stew was slowly seeping into the water and affecting people, shouldn’t government officials have been all over it?

Well, if it just meant good hair and cheekbones, probably not. Maybe if
people
instead of buildings started glowing, they’d have to do something. I hoped.

I got off in front of the boarded-up bank. A sign said it would reopen on Monday. Scorch marks stained its bricks and the sidewalk by the bus stop, and shattered glass still littered the ground. I tried not to notice or I’d hurl. I choked back nausea and crossed the street to where I’d been standing when the limo had hit the kids. I wanted to do something decent to ease my guilt, but instead, I was wondering if there was any way of hacking the bank’s computers to see who had made a transaction just before five, when the diplomatic vehicle had pulled out.

I was almost a lawyer. I knew better. Hacking was illegal, not decent, but still.

I checked the bank for security cameras, noting one over the drive-through window.

I returned my attention to the building the presumed thief had emerged from. It was a multiple-office building, closed and locked on Saturdays. I could run a cross-check on the number and get a list of names for this address, but there could easily be a dozen offices inside. And a hundred employees or more, not to mention customers.